The Men in her Life

some friends, and feel the pull of déjà vu.
    ‘Holly sitted there,’ Tom told her, pointing at a smooth rock beside a pool.
    ‘Did she?’
    She wondered whether it was the same rock that she had sat on to feed Ella that golden day long ago, but she thought not.
    ‘Is Holly on holiday?’ Tom asked.
    He thought it was what you said when people you liked were no longer there.
    ‘I expect so,’ Clare told him.
    ‘With Daddy?’
    Chance, or had he sensed their attraction to one another?
    ‘No, not with Daddy, with a nice man called Simon.’
    ‘Simon,’ Tom repeated.
    The letter had arrived that morning, almost as if Holly had known it was her last opportunity to contact her. Clare did not know what to do with it. The hook of the offer to Ella of the London flat made it impossible to do nothing. She couldn’t decide whether Holly was being manipulative, or whether it was simply a generous thought that had occurred to her as she wrote, and which she had spontaneously jotted down at the end. Whatever, it was an offer that Ella would find difficult to turn down.
    Their lives seemed inextricably linked. But they had always been. It would be ridiculous now to pretend that she did not have a sister, when for so many years she had pretended she had one without knowing it was true.
    ‘Shall we go and have some tea at Amelia’s?’ Clare asked Tom.
    ‘Treacle tart?’ he negotiated before giving his consent.
    ‘Treacle tart,’ Clare agreed, smiling.

    ‘We’ll miss you,’ Amelia said.
    ‘Yes,’ Clare replied, unable to bring herself to lie even for the sake of politeness. She would not miss Penderric, not for a long time anyway.
    ‘Is Ella all right out there? We’ve all been thinking of her because of Louise Woodward. I couldn’t help wondering how you would feel if that was happening to Ella.’
    ‘She’s fine,’ Clare said, adding in case she had sounded rude, ‘thanks.’
    ‘We’re going to MERICA in a BIG CAR!’ Tom informed Amelia.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Well, we’re going in a plane, actually,’ Clare smiled, but inside she wished that Tom had not revealed their plans. She wanted to box up her past and leave it in Penderric. Even though she would not be there to hear it, she knew there would be speculation about what exactly she was up to. Was Ella in trouble in the States? Had Clare met an American man? How could she afford such a holiday when she and Joss had always complained about having no money?
    ‘We will miss your treacle tart,’ Clare told Amelia truthfully as she pressed the last crumbs onto the pad of her thumb and licked it.
    Amelia smiled gratefully. She wasn’t so bad, Clare thought. She was just another lonely woman married to another selfish man. She gossiped because there was nothing else to do. Perhaps they should have been better friends. But it was too late now.
    ‘We’ll miss your jam. And Tom’s smile...’ Amelia said.
    Neither of them bothered to suggest that they keep in touch.

    The furniture would be sold with the house. The one decent piece was the brass bedstead that Joss had restored in the early days of their marriage, but she did not want that to follow her to her new life. All she wanted to take with her were the children’s things, their books and favourite toys, and the bagful of little dresses she had made each summer for Ella which she unearthed from the back of the cupboard under the stairs and found she could not throw away. Each garment produced more memories than any photograph could. Images of Ella growing up ran through her mind like frames on a video as she folded the little smocks and shifts and party dresses carefully into one of the boxes the storage company had provided.
    The things she wanted filled a dozen boxes that would be driven to Philippa’s house. The rest was going into storage. Tom stood in the little front garden wearing his yellow hard hat and watching the men move their stuff out. In an hour, all evidence of their life there had been transferred into the back of a truck. Clare picked up the little boy so that he could wave it all the way down the street.
    She looked at her watch. She had timed it almost perfectly. The cab would be there in fifteen minutes. They went back inside. Two cases and her African shoulder-bag stood in the middle of the kitchen floor.
    ‘Where’s all the boxes gone?’ Tom asked surprised.
    ‘Into that big truck. You saw them.’
    Their possessions had already become just boxes to him and his