‘—I’ll leave first thing tomorrow – I’ll catch the 8 a.m. train if you’re really worried, but there is no way that I’m in danger from Kate. I’m just not. I’ve known her for seventeen years, Luc, and I can’t believe it. I trust her.’
‘I’ve known her for longer than that,’ Luc says, so quietly that I can hardly hear him beneath Freya’s choking wails. ‘And I don’t.’
Freya’s cries are too loud for me to ignore now, and I pull my wrist gently out of his grip.
‘Goodnight, Luc.’
‘Goodnight, Isa,’ he says. He watches as I retreat up the stairs with the oil lamp, leaving him in darkness. Upstairs, I pick up Freya, feeling her hot little body convulsing with angry sobs, and in the silence that follows I hear the click of the door latch, and the sound of Luc’s footsteps on gravel as he disappears into the night.
I DON’T SLEEP that night. I lie awake, words and phrases chasing around my head. Pictures Kate said she had destroyed. Lies she has told. Owen’s face as I left. Luc’s face as he walked towards me in the soft lamplight.
I try to piece it all together – the inconsistencies and the heartbreak – but it makes no sense. And through the whole thing, like maypole dancers, weave the ghosts of the girls we used to be, their faces flashing as they loop over and under, weaving truth with lies and suspicion with memory.
Towards dawn one phrase comes into my head, as clear as if someone whispered it into my ear.
It is Luc, saying I should have chosen you.
And I wonder again … what did he mean?
It’s six thirty when Freya wakes, and we lie there, she feeding at my breast, me considering what I should do. Part of me knows I should go home to London, try to mend bridges with Owen. The longer I leave it, the harder it’s going to be to salvage what’s left of our relationship.
But I can’t face the thought, and as I lie there, watching Freya’s contented face, her eyes squeezed shut against the morning light, I try to work out why. It’s not because of what happened with Luc, or not just because of that. It’s not even because I’m angry with Owen, for I’m not any more. What happened last night has somehow lanced my fury, made me face the ways I’ve been betraying him all these years.
It’s because anything I say now will just be more lies. I can’t tell him the truth, not now, and not just because of the risk to his career and the betrayal of the others. But to do that would be to admit to him what I’ve already admitted to myself – that our relationship was built on the lies I’ve been telling myself for the past seventeen years.
I need time. Time to work out what to do, how I feel about him. How I feel about myself.
But where do I go, while I figure this out? I have friends – plenty of them – but none where I could turn up with my baby and my bags and no end for my stay in sight.
Fatima would say yes in a heartbeat, I know she would. But I can’t do that to her, in her crowded, chaotic house. For a week, maybe. Not longer.
And Thea’s rented studio flat is out of the question.
My other friends are married, with babies of their own. Their spare rooms – if they have any – are needed for grandparents and au pairs and live-in nannies.
My brother, Will? But he lives in Manchester, and he has his own wife and twin boys, in a two-bedroom flat.
No. There is only one place I could go, if it’s not home.
My mobile phone is beside me on the pillow, and I pick it up, and scroll through the numbers until my finger hovers over his contact. Dad.
He has room, God knows. In his six-bedroom place up near Aviemore, where he lives alone. I remember what Will said last time he came back from visiting. ‘He’s lonely, Isa. He’d love for you and Owen to come and stay.’
But somehow there has never been time. It’s too far for a weekend – the train journey alone is nine hours. And before I had Freya there was always something – work, annual leave, DIY on the flat. And then later, getting ready for the baby, and then after Freya was born, the logistics of travelling with a newborn … or a baby … or soon a toddler.
He came down to meet Freya when she was born, of course. But I realise, with a pang that hurts my heart, I have not been up to see him for nearly … six years? Can that be right? It seems impossible, but I think it must be. And then only because a friend was getting married in Inverness, and it seemed rude not to call in when we were so near.
It’s not him, that’s what I want him to understand. I love him – I always have done. But his grief, the gaping hole left after my mother died – it’s too close to my own. Seeing his grief, year after year, it only magnifies my own. My mother was the glue that held us together. Now, without her, there are only people in pain, unable to heal each other.
But he would say yes. And more than yes, I think. He – alone of everyone – would be glad.
It’s gone seven when I finally dress, pick up Freya and go down to the kitchen. Through the tall windows overlooking the Reach, I can see the tide is low – almost as low as it will go. The Reach is just a deep runnel in the centre of the channel, the wide banks exposed, the sand clicking and sucking as it dries and all the little creatures – the clams and oysters and lugworms – retreat and shore up until the tide turns.
Kate is still in bed – or at least she hasn’t yet come down – and I can’t help a shudder of relief when I realise Freya and I are alone. As I touch the coffee pot – checking for any vestigial warmth – I find myself looking up to the turn of the stair, where I saw her face last night, ghost-white in the darkness. I’m not sure I will ever forget it – the sight of her standing there, watching us. What was her expression? Anger? Horror? Something else?
I run my hands through my hair – try to attribute a motive I can understand to her actions. Kate neither likes nor trusts Luc – and it’s plain now that that feeling is mutual. But why stand there in the dark like that? Why not call out, stop me from making whatever mistake she thought I was committing?
Why stand there in the shadows like she had something to hide?
One thing is plain, I can’t stay here – not after last night. Not just because of Luc’s warnings, but because the trust between me and Kate is gone. Whether I destroyed it with my actions last night, or whether it was Kate and her lies, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that part of the bedrock of my life has cracked and broken, and I feel the foundations I’ve built my adult self on shifting and creaking. I no longer know what to believe. I no longer know what to say if I’m questioned by police. The narrative I thought I knew has been ripped and broken – and there is nothing to take its place except doubt and mistrust.