‘Thirty-one years, Catrin, since we sat next to each other on that dusty bus to a Cretan gorge.’ And he realized how hard he’d been holding on to his prompt cards, and felt the cramp in the fingers of his left hand, attempting to discreetly stretch them out, but failing, and making it worse. ‘And look at us now,’ he continued, choked with tears, ‘my beautiful wife … I love you as much today as I did back then, you—’

And he stopped. Too overcome to go on. He knew what he wanted to say, but the words just wouldn’t come out – his mouth just wouldn’t work.

People around him started laughing, cheering, banging their glasses with spoons, egging him on to finish the speech. He looked down at the prompt cards, and watched as they fell slowly like big square petals from his hand on to the table before him. And he saw the smiles on the faces of his parents turn into something else – was it terror? And he looked at Catrin, shaking her head, her mouth open, saying something, but he couldn’t hear what because of this hissing, this incessant hissing in his ears, and Romy, who’d been holding her heart-shaped balloon, started crying and panicked and in panicking let go of the thread by which the balloon was held. And he watched as it floated slowly, up and up and up, a big lilac heart, set free, flying heavenwards and out of everyone’s reach.

And then all was white.

And then all was nothing.

And on the night he celebrated thirty years of marriage to the only woman he’d ever loved, Solomon Blythe’s heart beat for the very last time.

49

Lana

Huw Kelly’s apple tree stood proudly in the centre of his lawn, branches outstretched, fruit beginning to ripen in the midsummer sun.

Lana had cried so much this past week her voice was hoarse and her filler-filled cheeks were red and dry. Christ, she must look a right mess. Lighting up another cigarette, she inhaled. And remembered.

The hours they’d spent in this garden.

If she looked hard enough she could almost see the ghosts of their younger selves, playing tag, singing songs, discussing boys. Her heart was heavy with sorrow. It ached.

A week had passed since he’d died. And although they’d all pretended to be grown-ups, pretended to know what to do, none of them really did. They were all engulfed in this haze of raw grief.

She’d cancelled her next cruise and extended her stay at the little B&B around the corner. Her parents were long gone from Coed Celyn now, having emigrated to Majorca ten years previously. She hardly ever saw them any more, and this added to her acutely felt sense of rootlessness. How she longed right now for some security. An anchor. A hub. A home. Because now, more than ever, her disconnection was being shown up in stark relief.

Sol was dead. Her dear old friend was dead.