It was Anna who suggested the trip. She’d come back from the parent forum too stunned to talk. Eddy didn’t know what the hell had happened until Blake showed him the video of Abi. He’d felt like punching the air watching her. As soon as it finished, he watched it again. Blake standing, his arm over his dad’s shoulders, grinning by his side.
‘What about Lily, is she …?’ Eddy asked his son, worrying about the repercussions, but Blake’s smile only got wider at the mention of her name.
‘She’s … yeah, well, she’s amazing,’ he said. Eddy got the impression that wasn’t the first time he’d used that adjective to describe his new girlfriend.
‘You really like her, don’t you?’
He looked away then, shy but still smiling. ‘Yeah, Dad, even more now.’
Lily’s refusal to be shamed had completely deflated the few bullies who taunted her online and at school. Her dignity made them seem ridiculous, isolated, sad.
Blake still wasn’t able to forgive Anna. He was still angry, still walked out of the room as soon as she appeared and would only talk to her if absolutely necessary. Normally this kind of thing would make Anna crazy with anger but mostly she just seemed fearful. She’d become paranoid that whoever had burnt Eva’s house down was now planning some kind of retribution against them. She dreamt of bricks flying through their window, her sons’ blood spilling through gaps in the floorboards. Eddy, who was sleeping in the spare room now, tried his best to keep her calm, would go upstairs and try to help her go back to sleep after a nightmare. But it was hard, almost impossible, when she was getting messages from disguised numbers telling her how dangerous and how fucking stupid she was. Eddy was still on enough community WhatsApp groups to know that Vita and Lotte had effectively absolved themselves of any wrongdoing, Lotte claiming and pointing out – as she’d said publicly in both a BBC interview and at the parents’ forum – that she’d always only had Abi’s best interests at heart. Vita’s defence had been harder, meaner. She’d said at the forum she’d merely been relaying Anna’s theory, that she was just the spokesperson and not the ringleader – she wasn’t, after all, the person who had started the witch-hunt, announcing what Seb had done on live radio. Vita didn’t say Anna’s name because she didn’t have to. Everyone was just relieved to have someone new to blame.
This morning Eddy had suggested to Blake in the kitchen that he take the day off school; he’d wanted to see if he could broker some kind of peace between Anna and Blake before Anna went away. Blake shook his head at Eddy’s hopeful suggestion. Instead, he looked directly at Anna, his gaze full of scorn. ‘No, Dad. I need to go to school. I want Uncle Seb to know he has my full support. Ethan and me – we made a poster.’
He went out of the back door, leaving it open so a few leaves from the sycamore tree in the garden blew into the kitchen, Anna staring, unseeing, after him.
Now Anna sits meekly on his side of the bed that has for the last few nights been only Anna’s bed, and Eddy holds up two pairs of woollen socks. ‘Which one?’ he asks. She points to a red pair and Eddy throws them into the open suitcase. They don’t have long.
‘Do you think he’ll come home to say goodbye?’ she asks, picking at the skin around her thumb.
‘I hope so, love, I really do.’
But Blake has already messaged Eddy telling him he’s going to one of his football teammates’ houses after school. That Eddy shouldn’t expect him home until much later. Eddy didn’t know how to reply, so he’s just left it for now. Anna nods, head bowed; she knows he isn’t coming.
‘I wonder how long you’ll call me that,’ Anna says, lifting her head to look at Eddy, who is now counting out pairs of her pants.
‘Call you what?’
‘Love.’
Eddy stops counting.
‘You don’t have to answer. I suppose there’s going to be a load of stuff we can’t answer for a while at least.’
He drops all the pants on top of the red socks in the suitcase. Suddenly it feels perverse, packing her up like this, like she’s been fired from all their lives and is gathering her paltry belongings into the sad cardboard box of the immediately dismissed.
He sits next to her. Puts his hand on her forearm to pull her poor ragged thumb out of her teeth.
‘Come on, Anna. We said we wouldn’t talk about what’s going to happen between us just yet; you need a rest, a break from here, from everyone. You’ll be feeling so much better in a few days and then, when you’re home, we can make a plan.’
‘We don’t have to separate, do we, Eddy?’
She strokes his head, twiddling his curls around her fingers in the way he likes, but he gently takes her fingers out of his hair and says, hating the words but feeling the truth of them in his whole body, ‘Yes, Anna, sweetheart. Yes, we do.’
She starts crying again then, but softer and sadder this time.
He leaves Anna in the kitchen, writing notes for Blake and Albie. He fetches her headphones and a snack for her long train ride before carrying the case downstairs. She starts telling him what food they have, the meals he could defrost for the boys, as he rushes her out of the front door, remembering to grab her rain mac at the last minute.
Even though the train station is only a few minutes’ walk from home, they drive, Anna sitting low in the passenger seat like she’s trying to smuggle herself out of town.
Eddy spots some of Blake’s friends walking along in a group after school, Lily among them, laughing. One of them recognizes Eddy and points his finger as they drive by, his mouth an exaggerated ‘O’ of excitement as the others turn to stare in their direction.
They pull into the station car park; Eddy’s about to find a spot but Anna points towards the front of the station and says, ‘Just drop me off here, Ed.’
‘No, I’ll …’
‘Please, Ed, just go,’ she says softly.
Eddy winces; his stomach slips. ‘You sure you’re going to be OK?’
Anna shrugs her shoulders and her face looks like it’s about to break, but she manages to keep her voice steady as she says, ‘I’m a big girl, Ed. I’ll be fine.’
‘You’ll call when you get there?’
She nods and they hear an announcement for her train to London where she’ll need to change to head up north. Anna reaches for the car door handle, but Eddy stops her, drawing her into a hug. It’s uncomfortable, awkward – they both have to twist – though it’s not as bad as the moment when usually they’d kiss on the lips but now they just look at each other, blank and clumsy. Who knew one of their last times together as a couple could be charged with so much regret, the opposite of all that hope Eddy remembers from their first joyous dates so many years ago?
Eddy feels something rise in his throat and he leaps out of the car to retrieve Anna’s suitcase, tries to swallow the feeling back down. When he hands her the case they kiss on the cheek; her skin is salty and he squeezes her hand, like they were just good friends, really, all along. Her train is already pulling into the station as she walks away.
Eddy parks around the corner from school and waits for as long as he can for most of the parents and kids to evaporate before jogging towards the school gates. He’s nearly there, arms crossed and head down, when he collides with someone who is also walking quickly. The woman is smaller than Eddy, holding a little girl’s hand, and Eddy automatically holds his own hands out, palms open to show her he didn’t mean it.
‘God, sorry! Sorry!’ Eddy repeats as the woman glances at the girl to make sure she’s OK first, and that’s when Eddy recognizes her. She’s wearing a beanie over her short hair and an oversized raincoat, but Abi makes no effort to hide her face from him. Instead, when she looks up, right into him, she’s neither smiling nor shying away. She looks weary but clear. The words – the automatic apologies for not looking where he was going – freeze in Eddy’s throat. He breathes out and so does she and the little girl says, ‘Who’s that?’