Man Of Few Words

Chapter 72

I finally got around to calling Harriet. She acted all surprised to hear from me. Her enthusiasm sounded forced and laced with an underlying tension, but she was trying. She doesn't want me to feel any shitter than I already do.

She'd heard about Inge. That news had travelled predictably fast. She asked a lot of questions about it that I didn't really have answers for and said "Aah!" and "Aaw!" a lot.

Hesitantly, I brought up the idea of a family day out. This time her surprise was 100% real. Clearly Mum hadn't told her about that idea, perhaps not really believing I meant it. Assuming that is the reason why not, she has a point. I'm not sure I mean it either. But there I was all the same opening a discussion about it with Harriet.

Once she got over her initial confusion and bewilderment, she grasped hold of the suggestion with a busybodyish determination. She evidently had a tablet to hand, and immediately started thinking and planning aloud,

"Let's see..." she mused, "What's near you?"

I started to tell her that I didn't really know, but she was already in the zone.

"Climbing... I don't think so. What's that? That's just for kids, so no. Park. Bit boring..."

Then she mumbled something unintelligible followed by,

"What about... David, did you know there's a nature reserve in your neighbourhood? The kids would love that. It looks like it's only small. We can go for a little walk. Looks like there's a café..."

"No, I did not know that. Um..."

My instincts were frantically looking for reasons to object, but couldn't find any. It really did sound ideal. Not what I'd had mind, but if I'd thought about it I would have been forced to admit that I'd actually had absolutely nothing in mind anyway.

"Okay," I said.

There was a pause.

"So, you want to do that?" Harriet clarified. "You want to visit your local nature reserve with me and Mum and Dad and Mat and Hugo and Clara? You're sure?"

Something suddenly occurred to me.

"How pregnant are you?" I asked with unnecessary urgency.

"I'm due in October. Why?"

My mind grasped desperately to deduce how pregnant that made her, but couldn't get a firm grip on anything.

"When are you coming?"

"Well," she was starting to sound irritated, "We haven't discussed that yet. Look, take a day to think about this. Give me an email address and I'll send you over the links I'm looking at. I won't mention it to Mum yet. Just take your time."

"I think you have my email address."

"It's a great idea though, David. Thank you for thinking of it."

I got her to check on the tablet, and she did indeed have a current email address for me. Then I asked if I could briefly talk to Mat. He also sounded surprised when she handed him the phone. I just thanked him for helping me out the other day. I'm sure I must have said thank you at the time, but I wanted to thank him again. I guess all that sincerity is rubbing off on me.