It is a late September Saturday, and I am sitting in the sun on the garden bench for perhaps the last time. Even if the sun were to come out again, it will soon stop reaching this corner of the garden.
I’m meant to be making lunch for everyone, for what also may be the last time – the middle one is about to go off to university. It will be at least another year before we’re all together again on a surprisingly nice autumn day, before I find myself sitting in the sun when I should be cooking. Who knows if I’ll even be here in a year?
The oldest one’s girlfriend comes into the garden to smoke a cigarette, and to ask me why I am staring into space. I tell her.
“What do you mean, you won’t be here?” she says.
“Because the eventual plan is to sell this house and buy somewhere in the country,” I say. “Probably not next year, but maybe the year after.” She looks at me, and exhales smoke.
“You’re renting,” she says.
“Renting what?” I say.
“You’re going to rent this house out, and then rent somewhere in the country,” she says. “You’re not selling.”
“When did this come in?” I say.
“You weren’t here,” she says. “But if you do that you can downsize and still keep your options open. That’s the plan.”
“That’s not my plan,” I say. “My plan is to sit on this bench for ever.” Actually the bench is hard, and my back hurts. I go inside to make the last lunch.
My wife comes into the kitchen while I’m stirring a pot.
“I hear we’re renting,” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“How did I miss this?” I say. My wife tells me the oldest one persuaded her of the logic of the arrangement.
“That way,” she says, “we can always come back if moving to the country turns out to be a terrible idea.”
I’m not sure how I feel about this. The rental plan makes more sense than selling, and will therefore be more difficult to thwart. But I’m pleased my wife is at least acknowledging the possibility that moving to the country is a terrible idea. I can work with that.
The middle one comes in and stares over my shoulder into the pot. “When’s it ready?” he says, perhaps for the last time.
“Soon,” I say.
“What’s it supposed to be?” he says.
The next day I find myself sitting next to my wife on a packed train heading north. The middle one and all his worldly possessions are in a different carriage. My wife is in the middle of telling me how this error came to pass.
“I had to rebuy our tickets at the last minute,” she says, “because I’d accidentally booked them going in the wrong direction. I wasn’t going to tell you, in case I’d got dementia.”
I can barely follow her explanation. I look out the window at the passing countryside, and imagine the two of us living out there, alone, slowly losing our minds.
“I had a crack at a refund,” she says. “But they weren’t having it. So the whole thing is costing a fortune.”
I don’t say anything. Without the middle one here, it feels as if I am the one going to university. I think of him in coach D, alone with his thoughts and a huge suitcase, facing one of life’s sharp bends. I am quietly terrified on his behalf. And then on my behalf.
My wife’s phone pings in her bag. She fishes it out and shows me the screen. It’s a text from the middle one: “Ticket invalid,” it says.
