‘I’ll give her one of those cartons of follow-on milk. And maybe –’ he chucks her under the chin – ‘maybe we’ll go wild and have some mashed broccoli, won’t we, funny face? What do you say?’
I don’t want to. The idea of spending the day at a spa with all this in my head – it’s, it’s obscene somehow. I need to be moving, doing, pushing away the what-ifs and the fears.
I open my mouth … but I can’t find anything to say. Except …
‘OK.’
As I wave goodbye, there is a sickness in my stomach at the prospect of being left with nothing to think about but Salten and what happened there. And yet, somehow, it doesn’t work out like that. For the Tube journey I am tense, gritting my teeth, feeling the tension headache building at the base of my skull and in my temples. But when I arrive at the salon, I give myself over to the practised hands of the spa therapist, and somehow all the obsessive thoughts are pummelled out of me, and for the next two hours I think of nothing but the ache in my muscles, the tightness at the back of my neck and between my shoulders that she is pressing away.
‘You’re very tense,’ she murmurs in a low voice. ‘There’s a lot of knots at the top of your spine. Are you carrying a lot of stress at work?’
I shake my head blearily, but I don’t speak. My mouth is open. I feel the cool slack wetness of drool against the spa towel, but I am so tired, I can’t find it in myself to care.
Part of me never wants to leave here. But I must go back. To Kate, Fatima and Thea. To Owen. To Freya.
I emerge from the spa blinking and dazed some four or five hours later with my hair light around my neck where it has been cut, and my muscles loose and warm, and I feel a little drunk – drunk with possession of my own body again. I am me. Nothing is weighing me down. Even my handbag feels light, for I left at home the Marni tote I’ve used since having Freya – a big capable thing with space for nappies and wipes and a change of top – and decanted my purse and keys into the bag I used before she was born. It’s a tiny thing, not much bigger than a large envelope, and covered with impractical decorative zips that would be a magnet to an inquisitive baby. It feels like the old me, even though it’s only big enough for my purse, phone, keys and lip balm.
As I walk home from the Tube, I feel overwhelmed with a rush of love for Owen and Freya. I feel like I’ve been away for a hundred years, over an impossible distance.
It will be OK. I am suddenly sure of that. It will be OK. What we did was stupid and irresponsible, but it wasn’t murder or anything close to it, and the police will realise that, if it ever gets that far.
As I climb the stairs to the flat I cock my head, listening for Freya’s cry … but everything is silent. Are they out?
I slip my keys into the door, quietly, in case Freya is asleep – and call out their names, softly. No answer. The kitchen is empty, filled with summer sunshine, and I put on a coffee and then take it upstairs to drink it.
Except … I don’t.
Instead I stop dead in the living-room doorway, as if something has hit me, and I cannot breathe.
Owen is sitting on the sofa, his head in his hands, and in front of him, sitting on the coffee table, are two objects, laid out like exhibits at a trial. The first is the packet of cigarettes from my bag, my tote, the one I left behind.
And the second is the envelope – postmarked Salten.
I stand there, my heart hammering, unable to speak, as he holds up the drawing in his hand – the drawing of me.
‘Do you want to explain this?’
I swallow. My mouth is dry, and my throat feels again as if there is something lodged in it, something painful I cannot swallow away.
‘I could say the same thing,’ I manage. ‘What were you doing spying on me? Going through my bag?’
‘How dare you.’ He says it softly, so as not to wake Freya, but his voice is shaking with anger. ‘How dare you. You left your fucking bag here, and Freya went through it. She was chewing on these –’ he throws the packet of cigarettes down at my feet, spilling the contents – ‘when I found her. How could you lie to me?’
‘I –’ I begin, and then stop. What can I say? My throat hurts with the effort of not speaking the truth.
‘As for this …’ He holds out the drawing of me, his hands trembling. ‘I can’t even … Isa, are you having an affair?’
‘What? No!’ It’s jerked out of me before I have time to think. ‘Of course not! That drawing, it’s not – it’s not me!’
I know as soon as it’s out of my mouth that that was a stupid thing to say. It is me – it’s self-evidently me. Ambrose is too good an artist for me to be able to deny that. But it’s not me now, is what I meant. It’s not my body – my soft, post-pregnancy body. It’s me as I was, as I used to be.
But the look on Owen’s face tells me what I’ve done.
‘I mean –’ I struggle. ‘It is me, it was me, but it’s not –’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he breaks in, his voice anguished, and then he turns away from me as though he can’t bear to look at me, walks to the window. ‘I rang Jo, Isa. She said there was no bloody meet-up yesterday. It’s that man, isn’t it, Kate’s brother, the one who sent you roses?’
‘Luc? No, how can you ask that?’
‘Then who? It’s from Salten, I saw the postmark. Is that what you were doing down there with Kate, meeting him?’
‘He didn’t draw these!’ I shout back.
‘Then who?’ Owen cries, turning back to me. His face is contorted with anger and distress, his skin blotchy, his mouth square like a child trying not to cry. ‘Who did?’
I hesitate – just long enough for him to make a noise of disgust, and then he rips the drawing in half with one shocking gesture, tearing through my face, my body, ripping apart my breasts, my legs, and he throws the two halves at my feet and turns as if to go.
‘Owen, don’t,’ I manage. ‘It wasn’t Luc. It was –’
But there I stop. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t say it was Ambrose without everything unravelling. What can I tell him? There is only one thing I can say.
‘It was – it was Kate,’ I say at last. ‘Kate drew them. A long time ago.’
He comes up to me, very close, and takes my chin, staring into my eyes, holding my gaze as if he’s trying to look inside me, into my soul. I try to brazen it out, to stare back at him, hold his gaze fearlessly – but I can’t. My eyes shift and falter and I have to look away from that naked pain and anger.
His face twists as he drops his hand.
‘Liar,’ he says, and then he turns to go.
‘Owen, no –’ I move between him and the door.
‘Get off me.’ He pushes roughly past, heads for the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’
‘None of your business. Pub. Michael’s. I don’t know. Just –’ But he can’t speak now, he’s close to crying I think, his face contorted with the effort of keeping his despair reined in.
‘Owen!’ I cry after him as he reaches the front door, and for a moment he stops, his hand on the lock, waiting for me to speak, but then there’s a sound from above, a rising wail. We’ve woken Freya.