Outside, on the bridge, when Luc kissed me, I felt like I was betraying Owen, even though I didn’t kiss him back, but here – here, I don’t feel any guilt at all. This time, this moment, melds seamlessly into all the days and nights and hours I spent back then longing for Luc to kiss me, to touch me – a time before I ever met Owen, before I had Freya, before the drawings and Ambrose’s overdose – before any of this.
I could marshal my resentments with Owen, ticking them off on my fingers – the false accusations, the lack of trust, and the crowning insult – that emailed list of Luc’s criminal convictions as though that of all things would be the one thing that would prevent me from fucking a man I have wanted – and yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it now – a man I have wanted since I was fifteen, and perhaps still do.
But I don’t. I don’t try to justify what I’m doing. I just let go of the present, let the current tug it from my fingers, and I let myself sink down, down into the past, like a body falling into deep water, and I feel myself drowning, the waters closing over my head as I sink, and I don’t even care.
We fall backwards onto the sofa, our limbs entangled, and I help Luc pull his T-shirt over his head. There is an urgent need in the pit of my stomach to feel his skin against mine – a need that outstrips my self-consciousness about my stretch marks and the blue-white slackness of skin that was once tanned and taut.
I know I should be trying to make myself stop, but the truth is, I feel no guilt at all. Nothing else matters, as he begins to undo my dress, one button after another.
My fingers are at Luc’s belt, when he stops suddenly and pulls away. My heart stills. My face feels stiff with shame as I sit up, ready to gather my dress around myself and begin the awkward justifications – no, you’re right, it’s fine, I don’t know what I was thinking.
It’s only when he goes to the front door and shoots the bolt, that I understand, and a kind of dizzying heat washes over me – a realisation that this is it, that we are really going to do this.
When he turns back to me, he smiles, a smile that transforms his serious face into the fifteen-year-old I once knew, and my heart seems to rise up inside me, making it hard to breathe – but the pain – the pain that has been there since I found those drawings on the mat, since Owen’s angry accusations, since all of this began – that pain is gone.
The soft, saggy sofa sighs as Luc climbs onto it, and I lie back and he takes me in his arms, and I feel his weight against me. My lips are on his throat, feeling the tenderness of the skin between my teeth, and tasting the salt of his sweat … and then suddenly I freeze.
For there, in the shadows at the top of the staircase, something is moving. A figure in the darkness.
Luc stops, raises himself up on his arms, feeling the sudden tense stillness of my muscles.
‘Isa? Are you OK?’
I can’t speak. My eyes are fixed on the dark space at the top of the stairs. Something – someone – is up there.
Pictures flash through my head. A gutted sheep. A bloodstained note. An envelope full of drawings from the past …
Luc turns, looks over his shoulder in the direction of my gaze.
The draught of his movement makes the lamp gutter and flare, and for a moment, just the briefest of moments, the flame illuminates the face of the person standing in the darkness, silently watching.
It is Kate.
I make a sound – not a scream, but something close to it, and Kate turns and disappears into the silent upper floors.
Luc is scrabbling his T-shirt back over his head, buttoning his jeans, leaving his belt trailing in his haste. He takes the stairs two at a time, but Kate is too quick for him. She is already halfway up the second flight and I hear the attic door slam and a key turn in a lock, and then Luc hammering at the door.
‘Kate. Kate! Let me in!’
No answer.
I begin to re-button my dress with shaking fingers and then scramble to my feet.
Luc’s feet sound on the stairs, his step slow, and his face, when he comes back into the circle of lamplight, is grim.
‘Shit.’
‘She was there?’ I whisper. ‘All the time? Why didn’t she come when we called?’
‘Fuck knows.’ He puts his hands over his face, as if he can grind away the sight of Kate standing there, her face blank and still.
‘How long was she standing there?’
‘I don’t know.’
My cheeks burn.
We sit, side by side on the sofa for a long, silent time. Luc’s face is impassive. I don’t know what my expression is like, but my thoughts are a confused jumble of emotion and suspicion and despair. What was she doing up there, spying on us like that?
I remember the moment the lamp flared, and her face – like a white mask in the darkness, eyes wide, mouth compressed as though she was trying not to cry out. It was the face of a stranger. What has happened to my friend, the woman I thought I knew?
‘I should go,’ Luc says at last, but although he gets to his feet, he doesn’t move towards the door. He just stands there, looking at me, his dark brows knitted in a frown, and the shadows beneath his wide cheekbones giving his face a gaunt, haunted look.
There is a noise from upstairs, a whimper from Freya, and I stand up, irresolute, but Luc speaks before I can.
‘Don’t stay here, Isa. It’s not safe.’
‘What?’ I stop at that, not trying to hide my shock. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This place –’ He waves a hand at the Mill, taking in the water outside, the dead light sockets, the rickety stairs. ‘But not just that – I –’
He stops, scrubs his free hand into his eyes, and then takes a deep breath.
‘I don’t want to leave you alone with her.’
‘Luc, she’s your sister.’
‘She’s not my sister, and I know you think she’s your friend, but Isa, you – you can’t trust her.’
He’s lowered his voice to a whisper, even though it’s impossible that Kate should hear us – three floors up, and behind a locked door.
I shake my head, refusing to believe it. Whatever Kate has done, whatever strain she’s under right now, she is my friend. She has been my friend for almost twenty years. I won’t – can’t – listen to Luc.
‘I don’t expect you to believe me.’ He’s speaking hurriedly now. Freya’s wail from above gets louder, and I glance at the stairs, wanting to go to her, but Luc is still holding my wrist, his grip gentle but firm. ‘But just – just please be careful, and listen, like I said, I think you should leave the Mill.’
‘I’ll leave tomorrow,’ I say it with a heaviness, thinking of Owen and what’s waiting for me back in London, but Luc shakes his head.
‘Now. Tonight.’
‘Luc, I can’t. There’s no train until the morning.’
‘Then come back to my flat. Stay the night. I’ll sleep on the sofa,’ he adds hurriedly, ‘if that’s what you want. But I don’t like to think of you here, alone.’
I’m not alone, I think. I have Kate. But I know that’s not what he means.
Freya wails again, and I make up my mind.
‘I’m not leaving tonight, Luc. I’m not dragging Freya and my luggage halfway across the marsh in the middle of the night—’
‘So get a cab –’ he cuts in, but I’m still talking, ignoring his protests.