The letters seem to pick up their legs and march words across the page.
How the hell have I missed this? How did I take the website at face value? I’ve been burying my head in the sand since I got pregnant, that’s the problem. This has nothing to do with Cornwall, nor even with Beth as far as I can see, so what can it have to do with me? Profound but futile relief wells up inside me; what I need now is to understand.
‘Christ,’ I say.
‘Let me in?’ She’s almost begging.
I think about what it was like in my burning flat, how the flames grated me from the inside. I think about how Kit’s scarred hand feels in mine even now. ‘Beth, how can you even ask that? How could I ever let you into my home again?’
She clicks her tongue, then mutters something under her breath, of which I only catch the last two words: ‘that again.’ Her hand peels away, leaving a faint print of grease and sweat, and she bobs down from the window. ‘I knew this would happen. Ok, I tell you what,’ she says. There’s the sound of rooting through a bag. ‘That old pub at the end of the road, the Salisbury, I’ll wait for you there. I’ve been here since the crack of dawn, I might as well stay another hour.’
‘What do you mean, crack of dawn?’
Has she been waiting outside all day? Was she here for the eclipse? Was she watching me during the eclipse; did she follow me out to Duckett’s Common? Was she here when the girls were here?
‘I really can’t tell you everything here,’ she says. ‘Look, I’ve got some stuff for you to read. I came prepared for this.’
There’s the rustle of paper, then a white A4 envelope pokes through the letterbox, unsealed and stuffed to the point of stiffness. There’s no name on the front.
‘It’s half seven now. Promise me you’ll read this. I’ll stay in that pub till half eight, you’ll need a while to get your head around it. I’ll tell you everything then. OK? I’ll answer any questions you have. All right?’
‘Ok,’ I say, because what choice do I have? There is so much I need to know, about Beth and the past and what the hell all this Jamie business has to do with me now. Beth puts her hand back on the glass, soft as a caress. I wonder if she knows how little pressure it would take to break through it. ‘Laura. I want to help you. Please don’t act like I’m trying to do you harm.’
The puff of black hair disappears through the coloured glass, and she is gone. I’m left alone, in my house, which is covered in dark purple juice, as am I. It’s up the walls, all over the floor tiles and in my hair, and the sweet berry smell is already starting to cloy. I ought to clear it up but the clock on my phone tells me that it’s already 7.31 and there’s a fat stack of paper stuffed into this envelope. With an inelegant thud, I sit back on the bottom step; the envelope trembles in my hand and it’s an effort to slide the contents out smoothly.
The clock jumps to 7.32.
Chapter 46
LAURA
20 March 2015
When my phone rings out and Mac’s picture fills the screen, the surprise is electric, even though I begged him to call. My saviour of only a few minutes before is now an interruption I can’t afford.
‘Laura, what the fuck? Are you in hospital?’ Mac sounds just like Kit when he’s panicked, the drawl all gone, and I can only just hear him over a background of clattering and voices.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Babies are fine . . .’ There is a loud bang in the background and someone shouts Bollocks! ‘What was that?’
‘Burst pipe in the shop,’ he says. ‘Basement’s knee-deep in water. I’ve been down here trying to sort it all out, that’s why my phone was out of range. All the stock’s damaged. The clear-up’s going to take me through the night.’ He pauses, finally catching up with the conversation. ‘But if the babies are all right, what’s up, why’d you ring?’ His voice falls off a cliff. ‘Shit, it’s not Kit, is it?’
The irony makes me want to howl with wild laughter, that all the time I’ve been worried about Kit, he’s been safe in his floating fortress.
‘He’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, it was a false alarm,’ I won’t tell him it was anxiety because he will only fob me off with Ling and I need as many people as possible on standby for me.
‘I’ll keep my phone upstairs.’ The drawl is back but there’s the brittleness too now of forced patience. ‘I should hear it if it rings. And I’ll keep checking it.’
It’s a relief to get him off the phone. It’s 7.40. Beth will be in the Salisbury now, a glass of wine or coffee on the go.
The topmost page, a loose two-sided letter, must be the thing I heard her stuffing into the envelope. I flick quickly through the rest – photocopies and internet print-outs – before going back to the start.
Dear Laura
I’m writing this at my kitchen table before I come down to London. If you’re reading this, it means that for whatever reason we haven’t been able to have a proper conversation. Maybe I haven’t found your house. Maybe I have found it but you don’t want to talk. I’d wanted to go through all of this side-by-side, talking you through what it all means. But a letter through the door is better than nothing. What matters is that you get the information. It’s been eating away at me for weeks.
I know that hearing from me out of the blue like this will shake you up. Trust me, dragging up our history is not exactly my idea of fun either. I thought the whole Jamie thing was dead and buried years ago, and I don’t appreciate that all this time later it’s coming back to bite us again. But there you go.