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or
cat only
(on pouches of rabbit meat). All the photographs on the fridge have stickers with names attached. His Alzheimer’s has become her round-the-clock project.
    Lucinda didn’t know you were pregnant, of course, and before being consumed by your father’s latest exploits she was only able to latch on to that part of our conversation.
Whathappened? Is she okay? Why didn’t she call me?
She was unable to grasp the real reason I was ringing. I tried to ask if she might know where you’ve gone, but she kept asking if you were all right.
    ‘I can’t leave Ted,’ she said, ‘otherwise I’d be over there straight away. Can I speak to her? Is she well enough to talk, poor girl?’
    I didn’t want to worry her. ‘She can’t come to the phone just now…’
    ‘I understand. Keep her nice and warm. Plenty of fluids.’ There was a violent crash in the background. ‘Ted…?’ A scuffle followed. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, ‘He’s got into the cellar…’
    Our closest neighbour is Ralph, about twenty metres away, but I’ve already spoken to him. He’s deaf and doddery and didn’t really grasp what I was asking about. Nevertheless, he invited me in for tea, but I told him I was in a rush and handed him the bottle of milk on the doorstep that looked like it’d been there for several days. After that, I tried Lorraine, your old pal from University, then I had high hopes for about twenty seconds when I suddenly remembered your new friend in the village, Jackie, the osteopath. She said maybe there was a problem with your phone, but the end result was that not one person has seen or heard from you.
    Are you hiding because you lied to me? Because you know the baby belongs to someone else?
    No – there must be some other explanation. You have never been someone to storm off – not from me, at any rate. Always the opposite, in fact. You seek me out whenever there’s something bothering you; you pester me and make me sit and listen. It’s what I love about you – your openness, your willingness to lay yourself bare and be seen.
    Concern and doubts roll at me like waves every few minutes; one moment, I think you’ve been involved in some terrible accident, the next that you’ve deliberately taken off. They hit me,one after the other – brimming with the unthinkable. Fear about your wellbeing seizes me and I ring the local hospital, The Queen Elizabeth in Cosham again, just in case. Maybe you crashed the car somewhere off the beaten track and have been lying unconscious at the wheel all night. Perhaps another passing motorist has finally found you. There is only one obvious way to get to the village shop from our cottage, but perhaps in your distraction, you went the wrong way – and that’s why I didn’t find you.
    You’re not at the hospital. I ask the receptionist to check twice. I ring St Luke’s hospital in Portsmouth, over five miles away. Same story.
    I take Frank out into the woods, but my mind isn’t on it. It passes in a blur and I’m back in the kitchen. I make myself the kind of strong tea you make for me – it’s barely drinkable, but it brings me closer to you. I pour it into your mug. It’s as if I’m drinking
your
tea with you.
    I drag myself around from room to room. I can relate to your father now, see exactly what it must be like, losing the order of things, forgetting how to live. I keep seeing your washed-out, bewildered face when you told me you didn’t know there was a baby and that you were so sorry. The potential for utter euphoria shot down before it could even register, because the baby had already left your body. You kept opening and closing your eyes as if you thought you were in a dream. I slam down the mug of tea, spilling it all over next week’s
Radio Times
and realise that I’m the one to blame. I’ve been so caught up in my own diagnosis and doubts about being the father – I haven’t reached out enough to share your pain. I’m so sorry, Dee. It’s all