Bitter Sweet, page 32
Had I seen it in time I would have gone to see him. That’s what I told myself then and I will tell myself that every day for the rest of my life. That I would have shown him the mercy he needed in his last days. I didn’t have to test that theory—he was dead and gone; there was no one to see. I closed my laptop and put it away. It was only early in the afternoon, but I decided to go and pick up my daughter from nursery.
She was surprised and delighted to see me. She was as scruffy, sticky and generally grubby as she always was after a day at nursery, her strawberry-blonde hair teased from its ponytail and clips, and sticking up at all angles around her sweet face. Her hair was red, like my mum’s, which I loved. I took her backpack and her warm little hand in mine, and we went to a nearby café for cake, as a treat. She told me all about her adventures that day, what they had read, played with, eaten. Oh, to be five, I thought. Then, suddenly, I will protect you. You will never go through what I went through.
As I watched her carefully lick the icing off a cupcake, I was hit by a wave of sadness.
“Are you OK, Mummy?” She was so small, but so sensitive that she often noticed the tiniest shifts in her adults. You could get nothing past her, so we were always as honest as we could be.
“Someone I used to know has died. I’m a bit sad about that, but I’m OK.”
“Like Socks?”
Socks was a little cat that we had lost to the road a few months before.
“Yes, like Socks.”
“Well, he’s in a better place now, so we don’t have to worry about him. With the blackbirds. With Socks.”
I smiled at her and wiped at a tear forming in the corner of my eye before it fell. It would be the only tear ever I gave to Richard’s death.
“Of course. You are right.”
* * *
—
After I’d fed her and bathed her and tucked her in that night, I poured myself a glass of white wine, not something that I did that often, and found a packet of cigarettes that had been left behind by a colleague of my husband’s from the university after a party the previous summer. I went out into the garden and lit one. The taste was familiar, but I didn’t enjoy it as I used to. I’d rebuilt myself very slowly after my breakdown that awful winter, and in doing so I’d let go of a lot of habits that were so destructive. I started to look after myself, to eat properly and to drink much, much less. Quitting smoking had taken longer.
The garden, which I cared for in any small moment I had that wasn’t consumed by motherhood or work, looked finally like it was coming together after years of us owning it, or it owning us. Hydrangea bloomed pink and blue, and the scent of star jasmine mixed with honeysuckle in the warm night air. I walked around the little garden, snipping the dead heads from the roses and cosmos as I went, tending these plants as I did with whatever care and attention I had left in me by the evening. I had never imagined this life for myself. A house, a husband, a daughter, a career. Under Matthew’s guidance I had become a literary agent. When he retired a few years ago, he handed over the reins to Ridgebrook & Co. to me and another colleague, and, between us, we were making a real success of it. I had never even thought I’d make it to thirty, yet here I was. Well. Happy. Alive. And now, maybe, just maybe, I was finally free.
I reached back for any memories of my time with Richard that I could find. Although they were just out of reach, my mind unpracticed now in thinking of him, I did remember something of how it had felt to be with him. Remembering was bitter, and it was sweet. And it was something in between. I tried to remember his face, his voice, his hands, his body, but the details weren’t there. I thought back to that afternoon in France, to the first time that he told me he loved me. I thought of him in his panama hat, his arm heavy on my shoulder in the pink evening. Him next to me, real and warm. But it was like looking at an image reflected in rippling water; he was just out of focus, shifting as I tried to look closely at each part of him. All I could see was that old black-and-white photograph of him from his book jackets. I could still see that clear as day.
I thought instead of my mum. How she would have loved her granddaughter, who bore her name—Elizabeth. I could remember all the details of her. The lines on her neck, the shape of her fingernails, the softness of her belly, the white threads in the red of her hair. When I heard the front door click, the catch turned by my husband’s key, I put my cigarette out and went inside, back to my life, to the quiet domesticity in which I had found happiness, far from where I was ever looking for it.
Acknowledgments
Enormous thanks to my agent, Juliet Mushens. You are the most patient person on the planet (along with Charlotte, and I guess my husband) and I couldn’t have hoped for a better human to have in my corner. Thanks also to Kiya, Alba, Catriona, Emma and Liza and all at Mushens Entertainment.
I feel very lucky to have Charlotte Mursell at Orion as my editor. Thank you, Charlotte, for believing in this book and giving it such life. You have made me a better writer, and I am so grateful to you for your kindness, tenacity and care. Thanks to everyone at Orion who has worked so hard to bring this book into the world—what a team! To Carina Bryan, Sandra Taylor, Sam Eades, Jess Hart, Charlotte Abrams Simpson, Suzanne Clarke.
Thanks to Caroline Weishuhn for starting this journey with me at Penguin Random House US, and to Hilary Teeman for continuing it. Thanks to Cindy Berman, Elizabeth Eno, Jennifer Hershey, Kim Hovey, Emily Isayeff, Kathleen Quinlan, Emma Thomasch, Kara Welsh and Katie Zilberman. Thanks also to Becca Rodriguez at Grandview LA, Jenny Bent at The Bent Agency, Monika Boese and Tabea Horst at Ullstein, Federica Gracefa, Leo Teti, Crina Draghici, Ana Babovic, Tatyana Fedorenko and to all of the international agents, publishers and their teams, to the cover designers and the translators and booksellers that have given their time and energy and expertise to this book all over the world.
A. J. Finn and S. J. Watson were among the first to read Bitter Sweet and I am eternally grateful to them for giving me the push I needed, as I am to all of the wonderful writers that have offered support and advice. A very special thanks to my friend David Headley, and to Emily Glenister, at the wonderful bookshop Goldsboro Books in London.
There are elements to this story that I had some help on; Dr. Helgi Jonasson and Miss Vinita Nair at St. Mary’s Hospital spent time with me talking about the incredible work they do with women, and Helgi was instrumental in getting the detail right on the page. To the women that I met at St. Mary’s, if you are reading this, thank you—it was a privilege to speak with you. Dr. Mark Salter was very generous with his time and energy ensuring that the mental health elements of the story are accurate. Thank you for this, and indeed for everything.
Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel kindly gave me permission to use lyrics from his extraordinary song “In the Airplane over the Sea.” Thanks to both Jeff and to Brian McPherson for arranging this.
Thank you to Bubba, Tómas and Dagný for inviting us to stay at the remarkable house Andahvilft in Bíldudalur, West Iceland, where this book began. Thanks to Kerry Ryan at Write Like a Grrrl (this is a great place to start if you want to write) and to Jon Harley, whose teaching at Angmering I have never forgotten.
Thanks to my beloved friends: To Amy Carolin, whose friendship, guidance and belief in me has shaped everything I have ever done and will ever do. To Chloe Healy, who was the very first person to read this book and whose encouragement, love and loyalty have persisted for more than a decade. To Gill Heeley and James Mackay, Richard Bravery and Katrina Mason (what a holiday), Christa and Biff Bloom-Burrows, Suzy Aspley, Suzanne Azzopardi, Rachael Clark, Jack Cregan, Laura “Curly” Davidson, Teague Emery, David Fennel, Rhi Griffiths, Tom Harris, David Harrison, Rebecca Ikin, Philip Jones, Bethan Moore, Birta Diljá Ögmundardóttir, Miriam Robinson, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Óli Þórhallsson, Jillian Taylor, Pétur Valsson, Liz Vater, Nuala Watts, Annabel Wilson and Erin Young. Thanks also to Sam and Billy Beech. To Lin and Tim Brown. To Marianna, Mark, Sinead and all of our adored Emery family. To Edi. To the Street family. To Alex College, and the Chevallots. To Christine.
To my parents-in-law, Jennifer and John Bentham, and to Laura and Dan Aston.
To my dad, Christopher Robin, my brother Toby and to Marta.
To my late mum, Diana Williams (1943–2003), who never got to read this, but is very much alive in the pages of the book.
Thank you to all of the Ophelias and Eddys and Ceciles I have met over the years working in publishing—you know who you are.
Greatest thanks, though, to Chris Bentham and to Astrid Snow.
About the Author
Hattie Williams began pursuing a music career in her teens and toured Europe extensively, making three studio albums and working as a composer before finding her way to book publishing (quite by accident). She spent the next twelve years working with some of the biggest authors in the world and is the former producer of the Iceland Noir Literary Festival, which takes place in Reykjavík every November. Williams continues to feed her creativity through her writing from her home in East London, where she lives with her partner and daughter.
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Hattie Williams, Bitter Sweet
