I push the pram roughly, bashing the front against the door frame with a jolt that makes Freya wake with a startled cry, but I don’t stop. I shove us both through, the door closing behind us with a jangling in my ears. And I storm up the street, putting as much distance as I can between us and that shop, until village buildings are just distant shapes, far off through the heat-hazed summer air, before I pick up my crying baby and hold her to my chest.
‘It’s OK,’ I hear myself muttering shakily in her ear, holding her to my shoulder with one hand, as I steer the pram jerkily along the dusty road back to the Mill. ‘It’s OK, the nasty man didn’t hurt us, did he? What do they say, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? There, there, sweetheart. Oh, there, there, Freya. Don’t cry, honey. Please don’t cry.’
But she won’t be comforted. She cries and cries, the wailing siren of an inconsolable child, woken with a shock from contented sleep. And it’s only when the drops fall onto the top of Freya’s head that I notice I am crying myself, and I don’t even know why. Is it shock? Or anger? Or just relief that we are out of there?
‘There, there,’ I repeat, senselessly, in time with my feet on the pavement, and I no longer know if I’m talking to Freya or myself. ‘It’s going to be OK. I promise. It’s all going to be OK.’
But even as I’m saying the words, and breathing in the scent of her soft, sweaty hair, the smell of warm, cared-for baby, Mary’s words come back to me, ringing in my ears like an accusation.
Little liar.
Rule Three
Don’t Get Caught
LITTLE LIAR.
Little liar.
The words sound in time with my footsteps on the pavement as I half walk, half jog out of Salten, their pitch rising with Freya’s siren cries.
At last, maybe half a mile outside the village, I can’t take it any more – my back is on fire with carrying her, and her cries drill into my head like nails. Little liar. Little liar.
I stop by the dusty side of the road, put the brake on the pram and sit on a log, where I unclip my nursing bra and put Freya to my breast. She gives a glad little shriek and throws up her chubby hands, but before she latches on, she pauses for a moment, looking up at me with her bright blue eyes, and she smiles, and her expression is so very clearly Honestly! I knew you’d get the hint eventually that I can’t help but smile back, though my back is sore, and my throat hurts from swallowing down my rage and fear at Luc.
Little liar.
The words come floating back through the years to me, and as Freya feeds, I shut my eyes, remembering. Remembering how it started.
It was January, bleak and cold, and I was just back from a miserable holiday with my father and brother – unspoken words over hard, dry turkey, and presents that my mother hadn’t chosen, with her name written in my father’s handwriting.
Thea and I came down together from London, but we missed the train we were supposed to catch, and consequently the connection with the school minibus at the station. I stood under the waiting-room canopy, sheltering from the cold wind, smoking a cigarette while Thea rang the school office to find out what we should do.
‘They’ll be here at five thirty,’ Thea reported back, as she hung up, and we both looked up at the big clock hanging over the platform. ‘It’s barely even four. Bollocks.’
‘We could walk?’ I said doubtfully. Thea shook her head, shivering as the wind cut across the platform.
‘Not with cases.’
As we were waiting, trying to decide what to do, another train came in, this one the local stopping train from Hampton’s Lee, carrying all the schoolkids who went to Hampton Grammar. I looked, automatically, for Luc, but he wasn’t there. He was either staying late for some extracurricular thing, or skiving. Both were more than possible.
Mark Wren was though, shambling down the platform in his habitual hunch, his bowed head displaying the painful-looking acne on the back of his neck.
‘Hey,’ Thea said, as he went past. ‘Hey, you, Mark, isn’t it? How are you getting into Salten? Do you get a lift?’
He shook his head.
‘Bus. Drops the Salten kids off at pub and carries on to Riding.’
Thea and I looked at each other.
‘Does it stop at the bridge?’ Thea asked. Mark shook his head.
‘Not normal, like. But the driver might do it if you asked.’
Thea raised an eyebrow and I nodded. It would save us a couple of miles, at least, and we could walk the rest of the way.
We piled onto the bus. I stayed by the cases in the luggage rack, but Thea followed Mark Wren down the aisle to where he sat, his bag clutched across his lap like a shield, his Adam’s apple nervously bobbing in his throat. She winked at me as she passed.
‘Kate’s next weekend?’ Thea said, as she passed my chair in the common room that evening, on her way to prep. I nodded, and she winked, reminding me of the encounter on the bus. Lola Ronaldo switched channels with the remote, and rolled her eyes.
‘Kate’s again? Why on earth do you lot spend so much time over there? Me and Jess Hamilton are going into Hampton’s Lee to watch a film. We’re going to have supper at the Fat Fryer, but Fatima said she couldn’t come cos she was going to Kate’s with you. Why are you mouldering away in boring old Salten every weekend? Got your eye on someone?’
My cheeks flushed, thinking of Kate’s brother, remembering the last time we had swum at the Mill. It had been an unseasonably hot autumn day, the evening sun like flames upon the water, reflecting from the windows of the Mill until the whole place seemed ablaze. We had lolled about all afternoon, soaking up the last sunshine of the year, until at last Kate had stripped off on a dare from Thea, and swum naked in the Reach. I don’t know where Luc was when Kate jumped in, but he appeared as she was swimming back from the centre of the channel.
‘Forgotten something?’ He held up her bikini, a mocking smile on his lips. Kate let out a screech that sent gulls wheeling and flapping up from the waves, making the red-gold waters dance.
‘You bastard! Give that back!’
But Luc only shook his head, and as she swam towards him, he began pelting her with pieces of seaweed from the flotsam washed up against the Mill. Kate retaliated with splashes of water, and then, as she drew close enough, she grabbed for his ankle, hooking his leg out from underneath him, wrestling him into the water so that they both plunged deep, deep into the bay, arms and legs locked, only the rising bubbles showing their path.
A moment later, Kate shot to the surface and struck out for the jetty, and when she scrambled out I saw that she was holding Luc’s swimming shorts, crowing with triumph while he trod water further out, swearing and laughing and threatening every kind of revenge.
I had tried not to look, tried to read my book, listen to Fatima gossiping with Thea, concentrate on anything else but Luc’s naked body shimmering through the water, but somehow my gaze had kept straying back to him, gold and brown and lithe in the fractured blaze of autumn sun, and the picture rose up in front of me now, making me feel a strange emotion, something between shame and longing.