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R ose left Simon in the studio and walked out into the hot city streets. She had agreed to the film being shown and the rest was up to Simon. He would be spending the morning talking Sue round to a new project and the afternoon with Andrew.

‘We’re trying to develop some retrovirus medication.

It might not eradicate it from your system, but it could control it and enable you to live a normal life,’ Andrew had told them, ‘even maybe not even have to go off grid at full moon. With your cells, taken right at the start, we’re in with a chance. ’

‘Nice to be of help.’

‘You’re a bloody annoying guinea-pig.’

‘How will Sky’s DNA help?’ Rose had asked.

‘If you remember, one bullet went through the werewolf and the other went through Simon and after passing through him, struck Sky. We think that may be why her ability to shift at will has been affected. Something of the werewolf virus has got into her system but doesn’t affect it in the same way. Maybe finding out why will help.’

Now, in the sun, Rose raised her head. The buildings were like an embrace, protecting her from nature. She could feel little breeze, just the heat from walls and traffic and people.

She had a little time to kill before her flight.

The city friends had all said they were too busy.

It was no real surprise. She’d made little contact with them since David died and it was hardly as if they lived in each other’s pockets before that.

On the other hand, they had made no effort to bridge the gap themselves; treating grief like an infectious disease, repulsed by the nose running, wild eyes of unpredictable tears, waiting for her to get over it.

Perhaps if one of them had been free, she’d have told them what she thought.

Perhaps it was just as well they weren’t.

Rose felt the city settle round her like an old coat she hadn’t worn for a while.

She had forgotten its rather peculiar smell, the scratchy bits. It didn’t seem to quite fit anymore. It didn’t seem like she been away for six weeks but rather six years. The sky seemed too small and the noises too random. She hailed a cab and asked to be taken to their old home.

They parked in the leafy street for a few moments while Rose observed the new curtains, the different ornaments on the windowsills, the child’s bike chucked down on the paving stones outside the front door step.

It was how it should be. A family growing up towards the future instead of half a family mummifying in the past.

‘Let’s go,’ she said to the driver. ‘Can you take me back to the city centre now please.’

The driver glanced at her in the rear view mirror as if to say she must have money to burn but did as she asked.

She went to find a café and sat outside in the sun with the business people and the smokers and the couples and the tourists.

Weird how people have doppelg?ngers all over the place.

Some of the strangers reminded her of Kirkglen.

The metal of the chair and table was hot.

She sipped an iced coffee and looked at the pigeons fluttering about looking for crumbs and up to the leaves of the standard trees.

Maybe at night urban foxes roamed, their country ancestry long forgotten.

Hardly anyone knew who she was and they cared less. Even the people who knew didn’t care enough to meet up with her. So here it was: everything she’d been missing.

There were the museums and galleries and theatres.

There were shops where she bought some new clothes and shoes and arranged for them to be delivered back to the bungalow.

It wasn’t so far, she could visit whenever she pleased.

She decided to walk to the station. On the way, a man bumped into her rucksack and knocked it from her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, then recognised her. ‘Rose! How are you?’

It took her a moment to respond. He was the leader of the orchestra she had sometimes played for. They hadn’t met for five years or more. He was losing his hair and going grey. She wondered how much older she looked now too.

‘Who are you playing for now?’ he asked. ‘We lost touch. When you got married, you… I’m sorry, how crass. I can’t believe I forgot. I was so sorry to hear about your husband. How are you doing?’

How was she doing? How can you answer that in a few words with five minutes before your train goes.

‘Some days are better than others,’ she said. ‘I stopped playing seriously after I left the orchestra, but I’ve sort of joined this band. It’s hard to explain… ’

‘Anytime you want to come back, Rose, I could find work for you. I wondered if you’d gone off to compose. I always thought you had it in you, just needed to find the right time or the right inspiration.’

‘Thanks, I’ll remember.’

He gave her his mobile number and she rushed on. The train would take her to the airport and the airport would take her to David’s parents and David’s grave. Am I doing this because of Rob or because of me? she thought, or because of David’s parents or to get away from Kirkglen and Simon and Sky?

Anonymous, she travelled south.

David’s parents were kind.

Rose hugged Maggie as if by doing so their grief might merge and dissipate or as if for those moments of silence, they could hold each other upright against it.

But grief is an island. What she felt and what Maggie felt were two different things.

Even David’s parents were bereaved in different ways from each other.

It is impossible to share, impossible to explain.

If you appear to cope, people don’t ask; if you don’t appear to cope, they avoid you.

Either way, it’s lonely, wondering if one day, it will hurt less, yet every now and then, being ambushed by grief.

Even as she looked at all the family photographs and David’s childhood belongings in the house, Rose was aware of a flutter of betrayal.

She wondered how Rob was, whether his visit was going well.

How did he get on with his in-laws? Did they blame him somehow?

She recognised that some of her interest was longing.

Did she long for Rob particularly or just someone?

She was still young, it was normal to desire. She felt like a traitor, thinking about another man in the presence of her dead husband’s parents.

It’s not love, it’s friendship she thought and then she admitted to herself that it was also desire. She looked into the eyes of David in his graduation photograph and tried to read his thoughts. Would he be angry, saddened?

How would Maggie feel if she moved on? For her, there could never be another child and there was not even a grandchild.

And it’s against the rule of nature for a child to die before its parent, an abuse of that nurturing that protects him through pregnancy and childhood to pass him onto adulthood unscathed.

It was a different grief. David’s father stood with quiet, moist eyes saying nothing.

Would David have looked like him one day?

Would the child that never was have had those kind, gentle eyes?

‘Everything I said came out wrong on the phone,’ said his mother. ‘We do miss you, we really do. We just wish it was different and now you’ve moved even further away.’

They went to David’s resting place together, stood hand in hand over it.

The weather had been hot and dry in the north but here in the south, it was grey and a fine drizzle sparkled in their hair.

After a while, Maggie walked away and left Rose to look at the neat plaque with its simple words, his ashes underneath.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she whispered. ‘You’re not here. I’m angry because you should be. But I’m not as angry as I was.’

She sat cross legged on the damp grass and ran her fingers over his name. Her thoughts tumbled over themselves in a messy swirl.

‘How could you leave me, David? We had such plans. Well I had plans. I think you did too. I left it too late didn’t I? You never wanted us to live in that house, but you were waiting for me to realise I needed to go and just when I realised, you went and got shot.

‘I can’t see my mum and dad’s faces anymore. Soon I won’t be able to see yours.

‘I was waiting for you to come home and hold me again, make love to me, make a baby perhaps and you never came home. You’re not here anymore. People say you’re in my heart but my heart can’t hold me, can’t make love to me.

‘There’s this man… Rob. He thinks I’m mad or maybe even worse than that.

‘Simon’s dying, David. You died saving him but he’s dying anyway. It was a waste. You should have stayed alive. I don’t know if Andrew can save him. Rob doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

‘Then there’s Sky. Why didn’t you tell me the truth about her? Did you think I wouldn’t believe you? That’s a stupid question, of course I wouldn’t have believed you. But then you weren’t the sort to tease.

‘Perhaps I’d have believed you if you’d explained properly. But how could you have explained? I’ve seen the film and I don’t believe it. If I tell Rob will he believe me?

‘He’s a friend, David. That’s all. Just a friend. You needn’t worry. He understands about music. No one ever understood. And he’s kind. He understands about you too.

‘I didn’t realise I didn’t have any friends till we moved away. I only had you. And Simon. And you know what Simon’s like.’

She traced his name over and over and then sat still, her thoughts whirring and no longer making sense.

She could see David if she closed her eyes: his brown skin and dark, dark eyes.

He was laughing at her in her mind, going along with what she said but laughing anyway.

She imagined him throwing their child up in the air, the way her father had done with her.

She wanted to cry but there were no tears today. Not today.

‘If I were dead and you were alive, would I mind if you found someone else attractive?’

She was suddenly conscious of how wet she was from the sodden grass and stood up. She joined Maggie who was standing at a distance. They held hands and walked away from the grave.

‘I’ve made a curry for dinner,’ said Maggie.

‘That’s lovely,’ said Rose. ‘Thank you. Especially as I hardly gave you any notice.’

‘I wish you were staying longer.’

‘Next time, I will, I promise. It was a bit of a whim, sorry.’

‘How’s that brother of yours? On the mend I hope?’

‘I hope so too,’ said Rose. ‘I hope so too.’

She turned once more to look at David’s marker, grey in the wet grass under gun metal skies.

I need a friend, she told him in her mind. I haven’t got you anymore. I need a friend.