I try not to think of my sister's reaction, however, when she found out about us.
Will's phone rings now with a work call and he goes outside to take it, moving beyond Eva and the busy picnic tables of the garden until he is out of sight.
Dad waves at someone over my shoulder and I look around and see Penny, Dad's cleaner appear at our table with a surly looking man in a navy polo shirt that matches hers.
'Hiya,' she says brightly. The deep lines around her eyes crease.
'Hello again,' I say.
She turns to my father. 'Are we still on for that dinner on Thursday, Tony?'
'Eh?' It's clear Dad has forgotten. 'Oh, of course, Penny. Wouldn't miss it for the world. We'll have a few more around the table than usual though. Will you be joining us too, David?'
The stringy man beside Penny shakes his head, unsmiling. 'Can't. Penny is sending me out on a job that night.'
'Oh, can't you do it another time?'
David shrugs. 'No. It's an office, has to be done out of hours.'
'Another time, perhaps.'
I accidentally catch David's eye before he drifts over to a table around the other side of the bar. Penny says her goodbyes with a large toothy smile and follows.
'I didn't realise you and Penny knew each other so well,' I say, taking a sip of my drink. I don't know what is bothering me. Mum and Dad have been divorced for years. My father could have been well-and-truly remarried by now if he had wanted to. I suppose I always thought he was holding out for Mum to go back to him. But she never has.
Dad shrugs, turning his pint around on the coaster unnecessarily. 'Penny's good company. She's smart too, Hannah. She runs her own cleaning business. You would like her if you got to know her a bit, and you'll get a chance on Thursday.'
'Does David usually join you?'
'Eh? No, not really. Penny dragged him along once, but he looked like he couldn't get away quick enough, poor lad. He isn't very sociable. I guess Penny inherited all the chatty genes.'
'Inherited? Are they related?'
'David is Penny's brother.'
'Oh.' I think of David's wild dark hair and Penny's dry, blonde bob. 'They don't look much alike.'
Dad shrugs and looks out the window. 'Looks like Eva has made a friend.'
I look out the window too and see Eva's bench now occupies two other girls who look about her age. From this distance, I can make out awkward introductory chatting.
I imagine through the glass the three girls are feigning a dislike of school and slagging off their parents with an accompaniment of hair flicking and casual shrugs. I know Eva isn't really like that. She struggles to fit in. Will says I don't give her enough freedom.
I've only ever tried to keep her safe.
'Maybe it's time we left, Dad. 'I don't want Eva to get too attached and wander off somewhere with those girls, whoever they are.'
Now that I look at them again, I see they are probably at least a year or two older than my daughter. Possibly even in the next year up in school. That can mean a whole different league at that sort of age.
'Eh? I haven't even finished my drink, yet. And where has Will got to? What's the rush?'
'I just don't like Eva talking to strangers, that's all.'
'Oh, don't worry, Hannah. Those are the Hart twins. They are all right. It's their parents that live in the converted village hall I showed you earlier.'
'Hmm.' Now it is my turn to fiddle with my coaster, flattening the peeling edge with my fingernail.
'Hannah, you worry too much. You always have done. I play a good game of golf with Rodger Hart now and then. They are a good family.'
My father has always been very well respected by the other villagers, so I know what it means to come from a good family here. Dad seems to think it means something like you are surrounded by some sort of invisible cocoon. It seems to come with the expectation that your children will always be safe in the community, looked after by the others.
I suppose I absorbed that mentality when I was little. For a while, I even believed it.
That is why it came as such a shock when I learned it wasn't true.
Harm was able to reach out and snatch me anyway.
10
Saturday 17th July 1993
I've kept the promise to myself and not played with anything remotely childish since Will handed me a little kids toy as a present. I haven't thrown it in the back of my closet with my other things though. I keep it in the drawer of my bedside cabinet and look at it when I need cheering up.
There is something about the fact that Will thought of me enough to buy me a gift that causes an unfamiliar something to stir in my stomach; it isn't an unpleasant feeling either.
My stomach twists again and I get another jolt when I think that I will be seeing Will later.
He and April invited me to the cinema to see Jurassic Park. It actually seemed to be Will's idea that I should accompany the pair. April didn't seem so keen on the thought.
'She'll be too scared,' she said with a dismissive scoff. 'I think we'll be OK if we went on our own, though. Don't you think, Will?'
Somehow though Will managed to talk her into it. I just hope it isn't as scary as April made out. I don't want to look like a chicken in front of either of them.
I'm lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and letting my thoughts of Will wander, pondering sitting beside him in the dark when my bedroom door is pushed wide open.
It makes me jump and I sit bolt upright, as though my treacherous thoughts have given me away.
April sweeps over the threshold and drops herself down on the bed next to me. I get a hit of Mum's best perfume as she places a cluster of pearlescent fabric on my lap.
'What's this?'
April laughs and looks at me as though I'm mad. 'Pick it up and have a look. We designed it together, remember? Have you forgotten your own drawing?'
Puzzled and clueless, I pick up the fabric, shiny and sheer beneath my fingers. It is a miniature dress, just large enough to fit snugly upon a Barbie doll.
Then I remember. April and I had spent a rainy afternoon looking through Mum's magazines and scrawling in notebooks made-up designs for our dream wedding dresses.
'I've been working on it for ages,' April says proudly. 'After school mostly. Obviously, it has taken me longer than I thought because I have a boyfriend now. But I got it finished this morning.'
I turn the dress over in my hands. I had no idea April was working on this in secret. Ivory satin fabric is twisted in elegant bunches around the skirt and pearly buttons have been sewn carefully on the bodice, alongside stick-on jewels.
It is clear April has gone to a lot of effort in all the details. She tilts her face at me enquiringly. 'Well? Do you like it? Hannah, say something, for crying out loud!'
I think of how hard I've tried these past few weeks to be grown-up, how I've moved all my toys, including my dolls into the toy cupboard. Hidden and out of sight.
'It's – it's beautiful April,' I say, forcing a smile. 'I love it.'
She frowns at me and I notice how she already has her makeup done immaculately for our cinema outing later.
'Are you sure?' she says. 'I thought you would be more excited. Are you going to put it on one of your dolls, then? Where are they all anyway? I haven't seen them for ages …'