BooksBarbecue
Back One Year Later
Chapters (49)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. PART I
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. PART II
  8. 5
  9. 6
  10. 7
  11. 8
  12. 9
  13. 10
  14. 11
  15. 12
  16. 13
  17. 14
  18. 15
  19. 16
  20. 17
  21. 18
  22. 19
  23. 20
  24. 21
  25. 22
  26. 23
  27. 24
  28. 25
  29. 26
  30. 27
  31. 28
  32. 29
  33. 30
  34. 31
  35. 32
  36. 33
  37. 34
  38. PART III
  39. 35
  40. 36
  41. 37
  42. 38
  43. 39
  44. PART IV
  45. 40
  46. 41
  47. EPILOGUEAMY
  48. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  49. BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

I wonder if it’s possible that someone else is lying to me about what really happened that day, almost a year ago.

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO, SOMERSET

15

NICK

I waited for a bit, because sometimes she came to get me and sometimes she didn’t. She disliked being pinned down, or being made to let go of the moment.

When you’re painting, she said, it’s like chasing a butterfly, you have to follow it wherever it takes you.

She’d traced a dreamy line in the air and I knew what she meant: the speckled brown butterflies we found on the bridleways near our house alighted on a flower for a fleeting instant, before spiralling into the sky or darting over one of the pines, their flight a crazy zigzag before they disappeared towards the heath. But I didn’t understand how pursuing butterflies was like painting, and why that meant she couldn’t pick me up from school.

It was a long walk home, although it was shorter if you cut across the fields. I was twelve years old. It was May, or maybe June. I frightened the cows and got home smelling of horse manure and fresh mud. I thought she might look up and smile and tell me the butterfly had landed on her fingertip, before giving me an ice-cold glass of milk and a chocolate-chip cookie. But I’m mixing her up with someone else’s mother. I poured myself some orange juice and ate one of the last apples from the previous year, wrapped in newsprint, the skin waxy and puckered.

I didn’t disturb her – she didn’t like that – but eventually, maybe a couple of hours later, I went upstairs and peeked in the doorway of her studio. She wasn’t there. It was strangely tidy: her paints had gone. A bee buzzed around, banging against the windows until I let it out. I looked in all the other rooms, but they seemed exactly the same as they had been that morning. The crusts from my plate of toast, left over from breakfast, were still on the kitchen table. I ate them absent-mindedly and wandered round the garden, hoping to come across her trying to capture the elusive dart of a dragonfly or the exact shade of the shadows as the evening drew in. There was no sign of her. I ate most of a packet of stale digestives, some Cheddar that had gone hard and cracked and half a bar of cooking chocolate. I was watching TV, up way past my bedtime, and feeling distinctly weird, hungry and sick, all at the same time, when Dad arrived.

He whistled as he walked up the path through the velvet darkness, his keys clinking in his palm, his breath sweet with brandy when he leaned over the sofa to tousle my hair.

‘Where’s your mum?’ he said.