I don’t know why, but as I read it my world seemed to collapse. Grief exploded in my chest like a grenade. I had been feeling calm – not happy, not

even resigned, but calm – and that serenity vanished, as if vaporized. Beneath it I was raw.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, handing the bundle back to Ben. ‘I can’t. Not now.’

He hugged me. I felt nausea rise in my throat, but swallowed it down. He told me not to worry, told me I would be fine, reminded me that he was

here for me, that he always would be. I clung to him, and we sat there, rocking together. I felt numb, totally removed from the room in which we sat. I

watched him get me a glass of water, watched as he closed the box of photographs. I was sobbing. I could see that he was upset too, yet already his

expression seemed tinged with something else. Resignation, it could have been, or acceptance, but not shock.

With a shudder I realized that he has done all this before. His grief is not new. It has had the time to bed down within him, to become part of his

foundations, rather than something that rocks them.

It is only my grief that is fresh, every day.

I made an excuse. I came upstairs, to the bedroom. Back to the wardrobe. I wrote on.

These snatched moments. Kneeling in front of the wardrobe or leaning on the bed. Writing. I am feverish. It floods out of me, almost without thought.

Pages and pages. I am here again now, while Ben thinks I am resting. I cannot stop. I want to write down everything.

I wonder if this is what it was like when I wrote my novel, this pouring on to the page. Or had that been slower, more considered? I wish I could

remember.

After I went downstairs I made us both a cup of tea. As I stirred in the milk I thought of how many times I must have made meals for Adam, puréeing

vegetables, mixing juice. I took the tea back through to Ben. ‘Was I a good mother?’ I said, handing it to him.

‘Christine—’

‘I have to know,’ I said. ‘I mean, how did I cope? With a child? He must have been very little when I—’

‘—had your accident?’ he interrupted. ‘He was two. You were a wonderful mother, though. Until then. Afterwards, well—’

He stopped talking, letting the rest of the sentence disappear, and turned away. I wondered what it was he was leaving unsaid, what he’d thought

better of telling me.

I knew enough to fill in some of the blanks. I might not be able to remember that time, but I can imagine it. I can see myself being reminded every

day that I was married and a mother, being told that my husband and son were coming to visit me. I can imagine myself greeting them both every day as if

I had never seen them before, slightly frostily, perhaps, or simply bewildered. I can see the pain we must have been in. All of us.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

‘You couldn’t look after yourself. You were too ill for me to look after you at home. You couldn’t be left alone, even for a few minutes. You would

forget what you were doing. You used to wander off. I was worried you might run yourself a bath and leave the water running, or try and cook yourself some

food and forget you’d started it. It was too much for me. So I stayed at home and looked after Adam. My mother helped. But every evening we would come

and see you, and—’

I took his hand.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just find it hard, thinking of that time.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. How about my mother, though? Did she help? Did she enjoy being a grandmother?’ He nodded, and looked about to

speak. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ I said.

He squeezed my hand. ‘She died a few years ago. I’m sorry.’

I had been right. I felt my mind begin to close down, as if it couldn’t process any more grief, any more of this scrambled past, but I knew I would

wake up tomorrow and remember none of this.

What could I write in my journal that would get me through tomorrow, the next day, the one after that?

An image floated in front of me. A woman, with red hair. Adam in the army. A name came, unbidden. What will Claire think?

And there it was. The name of my friend. Claire.

‘And Claire?’ I said. ‘My friend Claire. Is she still alive?’

‘Claire?’ said Ben. He looked puzzled for a long moment, and then his face changed. ‘You remember Claire?’

He seemed surprised. I reminded myself that – according to my journal at least – it had been a few days since I had told him I had remembered her

at the party on the roof.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We were friends. What happened to her?’

Ben looked at me, sadly, and for a moment I froze. He spoke slowly, but his news was not as bad as I feared. ‘She moved away,’ he said. ‘Years

ago. Must be nearly twenty years, I think. Just a few years after we got married, in fact.’

‘Where to?’

‘New Zealand.’

‘Are we in touch?’

‘You were for a while, but no. Not any more.’