And the child had let out such a yell! Such a joyful whoop as she clattered down the stairs; skipping all the way down the dunes and collapsing, panting, on the sand before the broad sweep of the bay. They had the whole beach to themselves. Lorna found a piece of driftwood and dragged it along the damp shoreline, drawing hearts, flowers and smiley faces. Later they hiked up on the cliffs, the wind whipping their hair back from reddened cheeks.
‘Lorna, look! A horse!’ And down below, a child was confidently astride a pony, led by an intrepid-looking mother in wellies. ‘Would you like to do that one day? Horse riding?’
Lorna blinked. ‘I could do that?’
‘Of course!’ Claire laughed. ‘Anyone can do that!’
The child shook her head in wonderment, and giggled. ‘Me, on a horse!’
‘You can, you know!’
‘If you come with me?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘I can do anything if you’re with me.’ Lorna squeezed Claire’s hand. ‘Anything at all.’
They went to the beach every day, and collected shells: whelks, cowries and periwinkles – ‘Turn them over gently to make sure there’s not a little creature still living in them, Lorna’ – and the girl would peer carefully into the cavity, blow into it gently, and report back, ‘Nothing here, Mum!’
It was that peculiar dead time between Christmas and New Year and the weather was bright, crisp, the light amber-tinged and clear. The sun shone on Lorna’s hair, turning the mousey tresses gold, putting colour in her cheeks.
‘Mum! I found SEAWEED!’
And Claire hurried over to exclaim, to examine. ‘I really should get a book about all the things we can find on the beach – there’s so much I don’t know.’
‘That’d be great! Can we get one soon? Books are better than TV.’
And Claire’s heart swelled.
They cooked together. Claire taught the girl how to separate eggs, rub butter into flour, roll pastry, and they sang songs together, campfire songs Claire remembered from her Brownie days – ‘Oh, you’ll never get to heaven . . .’
‘Oh you’ll never get to heaven!’ Lorna repeated.
‘. . . In a biscuit tin . . .’
‘In a biscuit tin!’
‘. . . ’Cause a biscuit tin’s . . .’
‘’Cause a biscuit tin’s!’
‘. . . Got biscuits in!’
‘GOT BISCUITS IN!!’
And at night, Claire would creep into the girl’s room to gaze at the pale face on the clean, white pillow. Sometimes she thought she could see clouds of nightmares scudding across the girl’s brow, then she would hold her hand and whisper, ‘You’re safe. You’re safe with me, my darling’, and the nightmares would go away, the girl sleeping easy once more.
She called the school and left a short voicemail saying that she wasn’t coming back, she was still sick. She’d resign properly, make it all official later. Later on, when things were more settled. And she didn’t check the news. And she tried not to imagine Pete rounding the corner, and charging down the pretty path to the cottage, finding them, bringing violence, chaos. She tried not to think at all.
It was the happiest time of her life.
* * *
One morning during that first week, Claire woke later than usual. It was ten a.m. by her wristwatch when she hurried downstairs. Music bounced around the low-ceilinged kitchen.
Lorna was dancing barefoot. She waved a piece of buttered toast around her head, executed a clumsy bump and grind, saw Claire, and fumbled for the volume.
‘No, no, you carry on! You’re a very good dancer!’ Claire smiled.
Lorna smiled too, blushing, and gave a little curtsey. ‘I made toast.’
‘So I see! Any for me?’
‘Of course! Look.’ She pointed at a tea tray with toast, a mug of orange juice and an empty salt cellar with a plastic daisy stuck in it. ‘I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.’
‘Oh, how lovely!’
‘You can eat it here though.’
‘Lovely!’ Claire sat down and nibbled at the toast. Lorna stared at her from underneath her fringe. ‘It’s lovely toast. Really lovely.’ A piece fell onto her lap, butter side down. ‘Oops, a bit crumbly.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What?’
‘It’s too crumbly.’
‘No! Toast is supposed to be crumbly! It’s fine.’ Lorna looked down and said something under her breath. ‘What’s that Lorna?’
‘I said,’ the girl’s voice was a little too loud, ‘I wish I’d brought you breakfast in bed. Because that was my plan. And now it’s all ruined.’
‘But it’s a lovely breakfast, Lorna, really!’
‘Everything’s lovely,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But everything isn’t.’ Her stubby fingers kneaded her forearms, leaving little red half-moons impressed on the flesh. ‘It isn’t really.’
‘Sweetheart? What’s wrong?’ Claire took the girl’s hands, and smoothed the gouges on her arms.
‘Everything’s nice, and then something always happens to make it not nice again.’ She had started to cry now, in big, ugly hitches of breath, her face dead white except for two hectic spots of livid colour high on her cheeks.
‘Nothing’s happened, poppet!’ Claire pulled her close, stroked her back to calm her. ‘Everything’s just as lovely as it always was.’ Lorna mumbled something. ‘What was that sweetheart?’
‘I just wish everything was always nice and quiet and no dogs and safe,’ she snuffled.
‘Look, look, no dogs here!’ Claire cast a humorous arm around the room. ‘No dog! Can you see a dog here? Behind the sink? In the cupboards, snaffling all your biscuits?’
Lorna giggled a little, wiped her eyes. ‘No. No dog.’
‘You’re safe, my love, I promise you.’ Claire hesitated, and then plunged on. ‘Were you always frightened? Of dogs I mean?’
‘Oh no! No. I always liked dogs. I love all the animals.’ Her eyes widened, she stopped crying. ‘Carl. He was the one afraid. He was afraid of everything. And getting into trouble at school. You know.’ She was scornful now. ‘Pete, he was the one who got the dogs, he brought them with him. And Carl got to play with them all the time. ALL the time.’ She spoke dreamily, but her eyes were hard. ‘Mum said it was good for him.’
‘When did Pete move in, Lorna?’
‘I dunno. I was a Christmas Cracker, I think. Yeah. It was then.’
‘And . . .’ Claire kept her voice low, tried to tread delicately. ‘When he moved in, was he nice to you? At first?’