Jessie storms into the garden, ignoring Will calling her back, the family idyll she simply can’t create shattering behind her, Mandy triumphant. The cold is like a slap around the face. Coatless, she keeps walking. Unidentifiable things splatter under her boots. She’s unsure where she’s going until she gets there, the padlocked gate of the pool, the slab of oily black beyond, the absence of light. As she did that first morning at Applecote, she feels its pull, the refuge of that enclosed still place where the past feels parceled tight. She climbs over the gate. Her boots land on the slippery paving with a smack. Above, a frantic rush of wings in the dark. Then, nothing.
She bloody well gives up. She’s done. She lets the cold coil around her. Tears slip down her cheeks. She listens to the dispassionate silence, the movements of tiny creatures, the scrape of crossed branches in the wind, the adjustment of beechnuts under the slight weight of a hidden paw. And she suddenly knows she’s not alone on this freezing winter night, that there is something else out there by the pool in the darkness, just as there was that August day. She waits for it. She wills it forward. And it comes, not at all other, soft, female, rushing through her like a band of warmth: the spirit of all the women who have ever lived at Applecote, daughters, mothers, sisters, voices long dead, strong Applecote women who never gave up. A moment later, it is gone, cold again. But Jessie is no longer crying. And the first snowflakes start to fall, sprinkled over her upturned face like frozen white freckles.
“Will,” Jessie whispers in wonder the next morning. She stands beside the bedroom window, her breath misting the frost-laced glass.
“Hey?” Will mumbles sleepily, turning his head on the pillow. She sees the memory of the argument the night before move behind his half-open eyes like a cloud. They went to bed barely talking.
“It snowed properly in the night. You’ve got to see.”
“Snow?” Romy’s eyes spring open and she crawls out of the nook of Will’s armpit. Jessie doesn’t remember Romy coming into their bed in the night. “Snow!”
Will stands behind Jessie. He wraps his arms around her; the physical relief of his touch is overpowering. She remembers how much she loves him like this, dozy, unshowered, the edges between their bodies still blurry from tangling in sleep. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He holds her a little tighter. She presses her body into his. They stand there for a while, bruised and tender, Romy burrowing between them. “I want to take you out to lunch,” he breathes into Jessie’s ear.
“Lunch?” It is the last thing she imagined he’d say. “I’d love that,” she whispers back, feeling something inside lighten.
“Just you and me. Can you even remember the last time we went out alone together? I can’t.”
“Like on a date?” She laughs, the idea faintly ridiculous.
“Why is that funny?” he asks, looking slightly hurt.
“It’s not funny. It’s lovely, Will.” She plays with Romy’s hair where it’s matted into lamb’s-tail curls at the back. She wonders what she will wear. “I’ll find a babysitter.”
Will doesn’t miss a beat. “We have one in the house, don’t we?”
Jessie’s hand freezes on Romy’s head. She feels her marriage teeter once more. Last night’s tensions resurface. She knows Will is simply asking for her trust. Implicit in his question, however gently posed, is that without trust, this cannot work.
“Jessie?” he asks softly when she doesn’t answer.
Jessie forces herself not to check her cell phone until they’ve ordered dessert. It’s not like Bella would call her anyway. She wiggles inside the silky cocoon of the fitted parrot-print dress she finally settled upon, a dress she hasn’t worn since leaving London and that now feels both insubstantial and restrictive, as if it might belong to someone else. Outside the pub’s dimpled windows, snow whirls down in flurries. Jessie wonders where the girls are, what they are doing, if Bella is being kind. Then her mind skitters to the narrow darkening lanes that lie between this thatched country pub and the house containing their girls. She imagines the car getting stuck, the wheels spinning on black ice. Their cell phones running out of power.
“They’ll be snuggled in front of the telly,” Will says, reading the skit of her thoughts. He reaches one hand down to the roaring log fire, spreads his fingers to the scorch of seasoned wood and burning pinecones. “And Joe’s working this afternoon, isn’t he? They’re not completely alone down there.”
“I guess.” Joe’s presence doesn’t do much to reassure.
“And I’ve just texted Bella. So you can enjoy your chocolate tart. Please will you enjoy your chocolate tart?”
They share it, like they used to, spoons clinking. Jessie smiles and nods as Will tells her about his long week in London, a truck drivers’ strike in France. But it’s surprisingly hard to disentangle her thoughts from Applecote, a little bit of her still inside its stone walls: she wonders if Bella’s answered Will’s text yet, if it wouldn’t look too stressy to ask.
“Jessie, did you hear what I said?” Will’s eyes are alive with firelight. His hands spread on the table, leaning back in his chair, he’s grinning at her, boyishly, anticipating a reaction.
She winces. “Sorry. Tell me, tell me again.”
“We’ve had an offer for the whole company, not just a stake. They want the whole ugly beast. Can you believe it?”
Jessie’s mouth opens. “Finally! Why didn’t you say earlier?”
He sips his pint, shrugs maddeningly. “It’s no big deal.”
“Hello! It’s amazing.”
“It’s a very, very cheeky offer.” He frowns into his glass. “We can’t accept it. Jackson won’t accept it.”
“Jackson? Jackson’s gone surfing, Will.” She leans forward, her heart starting to patter. She can see a new life, the life they were meant to live here. It’s within their grasp again. “We don’t need to be rich, we really don’t. We just want you back. The girls and me, we want to see you. That’s all that matters.”
He takes her left hand, worrying her wedding band with his thumb. “It’s not that simple. We get one shot at it. And we’ve given it everything, Jessie, for so long. For us to sell it so short now . . .”
“Right,” Jessie says flatly, unable to hide her disappointment.
“One day, I promise,” Will says softly. “Don’t give up on me.”
“As if,” she says. But the atmosphere has sobered. They are silent for a moment. “Maybe we should phone Bella, just to check she’s all right?”
He nods, probably to appease her, and presses the phone to his ear. Jessie can hear it ring, then go to voice mail.
She leans forward, the dress digging into her waist. The fire is too hot. The journey home too long. “Will . . .”
“Bella probably can’t hear her phone, that’s all,” Will says quickly. He drains his coffee, stands up. “Shall we shoot?”
Jessie already has her fake fur jacket around her shoulders.
“Girls, we’re home!” Will calls cheerfully as they open the door, stepping into the hall. No one answers. But they can hear the television. On the sofa, nestled next to a half-eaten packet of crisps, Bella’s phone, Will’s number flashing up as a missed call. But they phoned over half an hour ago—the car made such slow progress through the snow—and Bella checks her phone every thirty seconds. “Something’s wrong, Will,” says Jessie.