Even though he wouldn’t be able to hear her, Cassie holds her breath. She promised they’d finally talk today – that she’d listen to what Jack has to say without shouting at him, or slamming the door – but she wants the morning to steady herself first.
Maisie paddles her legs in her basket, lost already in a dream. Cassie lifts herself out of bed and pulls on her jeans and a grey cashmere jumper Charlotte gave her, saying it was too small for her. She uses a hairband to pull her hair into a messy bun. She’s decided to grow it long again, like she had it before she met Jack, and she glances down at the little dog and wonders whether Maisie’s dreaming about running towards something or whether the little dog dreams of running away.
The shed smells different now that November has arrived; the summer stuffiness has been replaced by the sorrowful, earthy smell of damp leaves. Cassie puts Maisie on the floor and offers her a cushion so she can carry on sleeping, but Maisie stands rigid in the middle of the shed, back slightly raised, her tail stiff and unwagging, her eyebrows plump with confusion.
Cassie flicks the two floor lights in the shed and turns the blow heater on, just for a few minutes.
‘Go on, Maisie,’ Cassie says, looking at the cushion, before finally the little dog, nails clicking against the wood chip floor – the dog equivalent of walking on tiptoes – moves slowly over to her temporary bed.
Cassie blows into her hands as she sits on the swivel chair – Mike’s old office chair – and looks at the thirty-odd canvases that fill the room like a colourful crowd. Two days ago she pulled them out of the attic where Jack stored them and arranged them in the shed. They’re all her mum’s work, an assortment of different-sized canvases, and they all feature Cassie in some way. Cassie standing tiny next to a London bus; Cassie about five years old in a ballet tutu; a still life of Cassie’s crumpled Doc Martens, titled, ‘Cas’s boots’. About half of them feature a figure in a dun-coloured coat, looking at Cassie. She used to think he looked sinister, but now she can see her mum painted him with love, a single black line for his gently smiling mouth. Maybe at some point April tried to tell Cassie who he was, but Cassie probably just skipped away, consumed by her own life. There were so many things she’d never know.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She looks at it. It’s another message from Nicky. A familiar hollow feeling, like grief, settles over her, before she shakes it away and deletes Nicky’s message without looking at it and turns her phone off. She knows it’ll be just like the emails and the voicemails, begging Cassie to speak to her, to let her explain. Cassie only replied once requesting Nicky delete her number, not contact her again, but she doesn’t even respect Cassie enough to do that.
She’ll go into town next week to change her number, and she should set herself up a new email too; the first few steps towards the new Cassie, even though she doesn’t know herself yet who that person might be.
She stands and lifts her own easel into the middle of the space; she sketched in pencil some of the outlines yesterday on the large white canvas. She’ll paint what she sees before her, a little homage to her mum’s work, to their life together, and a preparation for the new life she’ll share with her tiny secret.
Maisie starts to gently snore. Cassie moves quickly as she prepares her paints; she doesn’t want to think too much. After smearing the tip in a violent red, she picks up her paintbrush and starts to paint great slicing cuts across the canvas.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been painting for when Maisie lifts her head towards the door and a soft, brief knock follows.
‘Cas?’
Cassie rests her paintbrush. The door starts to open slowly and she says, ‘Give me a sec.’ She stands quickly, and the feet of the easel judder as she slides it against the floor so it faces away from the door. It feels too intimate now for Jack to see what she’s painting.
He’s nudged the door open a few inches and a cafetière of Guinness-black coffee floats around the door.
‘I thought you might like one of these.’
She pulls the door open. Jack, in his dark-blue bathrobe, lowers his arm holding the coffee. She blinks at him, aware suddenly that her eyes still feel pillowy, her face swollen from another sleepless night. She pulls her hair out of its little bun, and nods. He’s slightly more bristled than normal – he reminds her of someone but she can’t quite think who – but apart from the stubble, he looks just the same, as though the last three weeks haven’t happened at all. He hands her a mug, half full with warmed (not hot!) milk, just the way she likes it. They don’t say anything as she holds the mug and he pours her coffee.
‘Thanks,’ she says then.
‘How’s it going in here?’ he asks. He glances over her shoulder; she used to love showing him her work.
‘Yeah, fine, fine.’
He nods, and his eyes dart back to her, his head dropping a little, like a wilting flower.
‘Cas, I was hoping we could talk this morning if that’s OK with you?’
She winces. She wishes she could turn off Jack and his pleas for forgiveness, cut him out of her life, just like she has with Nicky. She knows the chat she’s promised him will fix the mood for the whole day, that it’ll be almost impossible for her to get her head back into this sweet numb space.
‘Give me a couple of hours?’
He nods and takes a step back, and says, ‘OK, shall we say ten then?’
She nods, vaguely, ‘OK, ten.’ She pulls her foot away, so the door shuts in his face before he can turn away from her.
At 10.15 a.m. she opens the shed door. Fallen autumnal leaves stick to her boots as she walks across the wet lawn towards the kitchen. Maisie, more awake now, jogs behind her.
Jack’s already sitting at the kitchen table when she enters, the Sunday papers before him. His eyes flicker up to the clock on the kitchen wall, and she notices with a small flash of satisfaction that he’s sucking his cheeks and his neck looks tense. He’s nervous. Good.
She hasn’t had any breakfast, and it’s starting to make her feel queasy, so she opens the fridge and finds a Tupperware from Charlotte. She puts a chocolate muffin on a side plate. Jack folds away the papers and she sits down opposite him.
‘OK,’ she says, picking at the muffin with her thumb and forefinger. ‘Ready.’ She looks up at him, and he tries to smile at her, to soften her, but she looks back down at her muffin. She’ll cry if she smiles back and she doesn’t want to be the one to cry again.
He breathes out.
‘Cas, we have to talk about this. This can’t go on.’
She nods, tries to blink the saltiness from her eyes, and looks up at him.
‘OK, how do you propose we do that?’
‘I want to tell you everything from my side again, and then I want you to figure out if you can forgive me.’