Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
And here was Adrian, taken many years ago, before they’d had children. Irene examined the picture, which was curled up at its edges. He was sitting in a chair, in a garden that she could no longer remember, and there was a glass of water in front of him. His hair was quite long and thicker and fairer than it was now. On his face, which was thin and smooth with youth, there was the trace of a smile, as if he was sharing a secret. She touched his face with a finger, very gently. Had it been at her that he was looking with such intimate sweetness? It must have been, or why would she have kept the photograph all this time, tucked into a compartment in her wallet. It must have been, too, because although she did not recognize the garden or remember the occasion, she felt the moment was lodged in her memory like a gift. Cherish precious things: the sunlight and the joy; the tiny smile passing between them. They had known each other then. What journey had taken him from that garden and that smile to the fleshy stranger lying in Frankie’s bed, his naked torso, his furtive, defiant expression as he looked up at her, his serpent laugh?
Irene stared at the picture of Adrian for several minutes. Here was the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago. He was just a boy, really, all untested hopefulness and buoyant, reckless plans that he poured in her lap, laid at her feet. She stared at the smile that told her he had loved her. Yes, he had loved her. She felt the single, delicate syllable in her parched mouth: love. For months, years perhaps, they had lived on a demolition site: machines coming silently over the hill with blades already whirring; things they had built together ripped, shattered, torn splintering down; a great iron ball swinging through dreams that flew apart noiselessly; memories falling in a rubble, trampled carelessly underfoot, buried in waste, and a gritty wind blowing across the disintegrating landscape. But behind it there was this simple, restful image, of a young man in a garden smiling with love.