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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

Jack’s right about the nightmares. A while after midnight, Evan shouts in his sleep, but Jack’s so tired, he doesn’t hear him.

But Claire hears. Pulling on her dressing gown and slipping on the fluffy rabbit slippers Evan gave her for Christmas, she makes her way to his room, and as Jack has advised her, opens the door as quietly as she can.

The books Evan had in his Christmas stocking are on the bedside table, and one has a bookmark in it about halfway through. But instead of the book he’s currently reading, she hunts to the bottom of the stack, for a ragged old copy of Winnie the Pooh, and by the light seeping through the doorway, she finds the page she wants.

Evan is troubled and restless in his sleep, but Claire sits at his bedside and begins quietly to read.

‘I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,’ said Pooh.

‘There there,’ said Piglet. ‘I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do.’

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SIX

3 January

In the mirror, there’s no trace of the vital, fit, good-looking man Jack used to be. Instead, he’s been replaced by someone barely recognisable, an old man with flabby biceps in a baggy vest. He’s lost weight in his face, and there are blue bags under his eyes which make him look as if he hasn’t slept in months. And he hasn’t slept in months, not the long hours of deep slumber he used to fall into the moment the light was out, with Dora beside him in the best place in the world, his own bed in his own house. Sleep these days is erratic, demanding his surrender at odds hours of the day so he has no choice, wherever he is, but to find a place to make himself comfortable and close his eyes. Yet when he most feels the need for it – in the lonely night with the place beside him empty – sleep is elusive and refuses to take him, so what used to be the world’s best place is nothing more now than a reminder of all his world is lacking.

Wetting his face, he rubs shaving cream into the short stubble on his jaw. He makes the first swathe with the razor, then rinses the soap and whiskers from the razor in the basin and makes a second cut.