Praise for The Storm

‘Amanda Jennings is a writer on the ascendant and The Storm is her best novel yet. This twisty, malevolent and gripping story is virtually impossible to put down’

Lisa Jewell

‘Beautifully written, chilling and absorbing’

Adele Parks

‘Amanda Jennings is a fantastic storyteller and she’s at her very best here: warm-hearted, darkly atmospheric, and wholly addictive’

Lucy Atkins

‘Suspenseful, beautifully written, and utterly compelling’

Alice Feeney

‘A brilliant book. Gripping, intelligent, and beautifully written’

Cass Green

‘Vivid and evocative, the beautifully drawn characters and Cornish setting will linger in your mind long after you’ve turned the final page’

Lucy Dawson

‘The Storm is both beautifully crafted and chilling. A compelling tale you won’t want to put down’

Colette McBeth

‘A claustrophobic, brooding, atmospheric novel. No one writes complicated, conflicted characters like Amanda Jennings’

Tammy Cohen

‘A chilling, atmospheric and addictive tale’

Roz Watkins

‘I was blown away by its brilliance. I loved it!’

Michelle Davies

AMANDA JENNINGS lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, three daughters, and a menagerie of animals. She studied History of Art at Cambridge and before writing her first book, was a researcher at the BBC. With a deep fascination for the far-reaching effects of trauma, her books focus on the different ways people find to cope with loss, as well as the moral struggles her protagonists face. When she isn’t writing she can usually be found walking the dog. Her favourite place to be is up a mountain or beside the sea.

Also by Amanda Jennings

The Cliff House

In Her Wake

The Judas Scar

Sworn Secret

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Amanda Jennings 2020

Amanda Jennings asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008248932

Version 2020-07-06

Note to Readers

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 Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008287061

To Chris. My one and only.

Ever has it been that love knows not its own

depth until the hour of separation.

KAHLIL GIBRAN

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter One: Hannah

Chapter Two: Hannah

Chapter Three: Hannah

Chapter Four: Nathan

Chapter Five: Hannah

Chapter Six: Nathan

Chapter Seven: Hannah

Chapter Eight: Cam, 1998

Chapter Nine: Hannah

Chapter Ten: Hannah

Chapter Eleven: Hannah

Chapter Twelve: Hannah

Chapter Thirteen: Hannah

Chapter Fourteen: Hannah

Chapter Fifteen: Hannah

Chapter Sixteen: Cam, 1998

Chapter Seventeen: Hannah

Chapter Eighteen: Hannah

Chapter Nineteen: Hannah

Chapter Twenty: Nathan

Chapter Twenty-One: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Two: Cam, 1998

Chapter Twenty-Three: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Four: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Five: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Six: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Hannah

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hannah

Chapter Thirty: Cam, 1998

Chapter Thirty-One: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Two: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Three: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Four: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Five: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Six: Cam, 1998

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Hannah

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Cam, 1998

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Hannah, 1998

Chapter Forty: Hannah

Chapter Forty-One: Hannah, 1998

Chapter Forty-Two: Cam, 1998

Chapter Forty-Three: Hannah, 1998

Chapter Forty-Four: Cam, 1998

Chapter Forty-Five: Nathan

Chapter Forty-Six: Hannah

Chapter Forty-Seven: Hannah

Chapter Forty-Eight: Hannah

Chapter Forty-Nine: Cam

Chapter Fifty: Hannah

Chapter Fifty-One: Nathan

Acknowledgements

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

The chill December wind blows in gusts, turning drizzle to slivers of glass and scoring the sea with angry white slashes. A boat emerges through the dawn mist like a ghostly galleon. The man at the helm is still and rigid. He cuts the engine and the small vessel drifts into dock. He moves to the side of the boat and bends for a coiled rope, which he throws over a bollard with ease. He pulls the rope tight and secures it at the cleat. His movements are sure, his features set in sombre concentration. The man reaches down and takes hold of the boat’s hose and, grim-faced, he washes the deck down. All the surfaces and edges and crevices. He takes great care.

He climbs out of the boat and begins to walk up the jetty. But he stops halfway and his head and shoulders slump forward like a marionette with snapped strings. For a few moments he is motionless, spent, his arms hanging limp at his sides, but then he rallies, straightens his back, forces himself along the gangway past the discarded fishing nets and stacked crates patched with algae and salt stains. Each step is heavy with the air of a condemned man approaching the gallows.

He thinks the port is deserted. He thinks he’s alone with only the waking seagulls and the echo of his laboured footsteps for company. But he’s wrong.

He isn’t alone.

There is somebody watching.

Chapter One
Hannah

In the early days, when memories of that night ambushed me at every opportunity, routine was my lifeline. Routine gave me a set of stepping stones over the quicksand. It got me through my days without thinking. Thinking wasn’t good for me. Thinking was where the madness lay.

These days, fifteen years on, I rely less on routine. I’ve let go of the smaller things. I no longer wear navy on a Monday, for example, or pull my hair – twisted clockwise, using seven pins – into a tight bun on a Thursday. The bigger jobs, the weekly chores, still have their set days, more, I think, because I find it comforting rather than necessary. Today is a Tuesday, so after I’ve walked the dog, I’ll catch the 10.07 bus into Penzance to meet Vicky, spend an hour with her, shop for what I need that day, then catch the 14.13 home, and make our supper. I cook from scratch every day. On a Tuesday I make something with lamb. For ease, I rotate three of Nathan’s favourites: shepherd’s pie, Lancashire hotpot, moussaka.

Today it’s shepherd’s pie.

‘Come on then,’ I say to the dog.

Cass enjoys routine as much as I do and has been waiting at the back door, her eyes bolted to me, since Alex left for school. When I lift her lead from the hook she jumps up and spins excited circles around me. I swear this dog smiles proper smiles. Her face breaks in two, white teeth on show, eyes crinkled with joyful anticipation.

‘Silly dog,’ I whisper, as she bounds out of the back door and along the gravel path which folds around the house. When she gets to the gate she stops and glances back at me, jogging on the spot with impatience.

Cass is a tricoloured collie-cross from the animal rescue in Truro. She has odd eyes, one brown, the other – a wall eye – the colour of glacier ice, the pale blue accentuated by the pirate’s patch of black fur which surrounds it. When we aren’t walking, she spends her time curled up in her basket in the kitchen or stretched out on the front doorstep, paws neatly crossed, watching the world with her dewy mismatched eyes. Nathan took some convincing. I begged for years. A home isn’t a home without a dog, I’d said. Thankfully he was swayed by the ‘a large country house needs a dog’ argument I pushed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that before Cass arrived to keep me company, the never-ending hours spent in this suffocating place were torture. Nathan has never taken to her, but she’s clever and keeps herself inconspicuous when he’s around.

The gate clicks shut behind us and I breathe in deeply, relishing, as I do every day, the immediate sense of freedom. I loathe the house. Disquiet ferments in its shadows and the air inside is heavy as if each molecule is formed from lead. To the outside world Trevose House is impressive, huge and undeniably beautiful, a grand building which passersby take note of. I watch them sometimes, from the window on the first floor landing, concealed from sight behind the musty damask curtains. Walkers on the lane who slow down to take a better look, occasionally stop and lean casually over the wall to point out features and nod with appreciation. Some take photographs on their phone. Perhaps for Instagram. Hashtag housegoals. Sometimes, if I’m outside, hanging the laundry or pinning back raspberry canes, they might catch sight of me and blush, ashamed of their snooping, hastily informing me how lovely my home is as if this will excuse their intrusion. A curt nod and no attempt to engage invariably sends them scurrying away and I become no more than an easily dismissed entry etched into the diary of their day, the dour owner of that beautiful house we walked past.

Trevose House, near New Mill, with iron gates which close with a clang and lock with a large key more at home on the belt of a gaoler. Two stone pillars stand guard either side. The granite walls are studded with a line of sash windows and three wide steps lead up to a grand doorway beside which the date of construction – 1753 – is carved into the seal-grey stone. The house was the principal dwelling on land profitably run by the Cardew family for generations. That was, until Nathan’s father got involved. Charles Cardew was a poker-loving drunk who, between inheriting the estate in his mid-thirties and killing himself at fifty-two, sold most of it off in chunks to pay gambling debts. Three hundred acres or so, four farm workers’ cottages, and a number of characterful barns which, as Nathan often tells me bitterly, could have been converted into lucrative holiday rentals.

Nathan has no fond memories of his father and rarely mentions him with anything other than contempt in his voice. According to my mother, Charles was a drog-polat – a rascal – with a twinkle in his eye. He spent most of his time in the pubs of Penzance and Newlyn, buying drinks for the locals and losing his money to anybody willing to sit down and play cards with him. He shot himself in the face in the study at Trevose House on Nathan’s thirteenth birthday. Nathan and his sister, Kerensa, who was seventeen, found him. It turned out the debts he’d run up were far worse than he’d let on and, after she’d replaced the carpet in the study, it fell to Nathan’s mother to clear up the financial mess he’d left behind. Sylvia Cardew had, in her own words, no time for fools, gluttons, the idle or weak, and slowly but surely she managed to sort out the chaos. Kerensa ran away from home soon after Charles killed himself and – if sotto voce local rumours were to be believed – died from a heroin overdose in a squalid bedsit in Hastings eight months later. Though Nathan doesn’t talk about his sister, there’s a photograph of her in a silver frame on his desk, taken when she was about fifteen or sixteen. She sits in the garden of Trevose, holding a blade of grass, smiling at something, or someone, unseen beyond the camera. Her hair is plaited into a loose braid and she’s dressed in a long flowery skirt and muslin shirt. Bare feet. A silver ring on her middle toe. She wears no make-up and her face is dusted with freckles, her eyes shining with joyful abandon. I think I would have liked her.

Sylvia Cardew didn’t stay in Cornwall. She once told me, lips pursed, nose wrinkled as if smelling something vile, that she’d never got on with the county – too parochial, too backward – but I’m certain it was scandal and snide whispers that drove her away. Whatever the reason, the curtains at Trevose House were drawn and the furniture sheeted, and she and Nathan, aged fifteen, moved to a mews house with neat window boxes in Kensington. When Nathan and I married, she bequeathed him their holiday home as a wedding gift. It was riddled with ghosts she wanted nothing more to do with, so instead gave them to me.

‘Live in it. Sell it. Burn it to the godforsaken ground for all I care.’

My mother-in-law is the type of woman who chills the air when she enters a room. God knows what it must have been like having her as a mother. Thankfully she refuses to see me. On our first meeting, over tea served from a paper-thin china teapot decorated with gold patterning, she smiled and said lightly, ‘I would have expected Nathan to choose someone quite different. More bookish. Brighter. With a degree in a modern language, perhaps, or the history of art. Still,’ she went on, sipping her tea, ‘one can never know what happens behind a closed bedroom door. I am sure you are excellent at what you do. It’s just a shame my son wasn’t more careful. Shotgun weddings lack class.’

On the rare occasions Nathan needs to see her, he makes the journey to London alone, but never stays more than an hour or two. Serves her right. She’s a stuck-up cow. The only thing I wish is she’d taken her husband’s ghost with her. He’s there wherever I go in the house. As I walk from room to room I can feel him watching me, his face blown apart, an unidentifiable mush leering at me from every corner. I pleaded with Nathan to sell up, but he wouldn’t hear of it. What man wants to live in the house where his father committed suicide?

It’s not all bad. The inside of the house might give me the shivers but I adore the garden. The plot is enclosed by a drystone wall that plays host to an array of colourful flowers between May and October. Beyond the boundary we’re surrounded by farmland and in the summer months, when the cows are on the pasture, I lean on the wall and watch them, content and languid as they graze, flicking their tails at the flies which irritate their gentle eyes. The air hangs with their scent, but occasionally, if I’m lucky, an onshore breeze will bring up the smell of the sea and with it the heady memories of my childhood.

There’s a substantial lawn which takes over two hours to mow. I do it on a Friday because Nathan likes it nice for the weekend. Huge flowerbeds brim over with rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas and agapanthus, and in the far corner is a regimented vegetable patch, put in by Nathan and covered over with netting to keep off the birds. He restored the Victorian greenhouse a number of years ago and now spends his time nurturing his tomatoes and cucumbers, red peppers and courgettes, protecting them from thieving rodents and brushing their skins clean of greenfly and dust. He digs powdered ox blood into the compost and repots the delicate seedlings, handling each one as if made of glass.

Mum and Dad made their first trip to the house soon after we arrived back from our honeymoon in the Dordogne. Mum had dressed Dad in a tie I didn’t know he owned which he apparently kept for funerals and the like. The two of them sat on the edge of the sofa, hands clasped in their laps, spines starched rigid, shifting in their seats like fidgeting children in church. Mum cleared her throat constantly, which made me want to scream, whilst Dad tapped out some sort of SOS in Morse code with his freshly polished shoe, knowing full well the funeral tie was fooling nobody. Despite their discomfort a mantle of pride hung over them both. At one point Mum lost control and a beaming smile erupted on her face as she nudged Dad’s knee and exclaimed in her broad Cornish accent, ‘Oh, Harry, can you believe it? Our melder, lady of the manor!’

I remember being dazed and confused, as if waking from an operation, anaesthesia clogging my veins. Where the hell was I? How on earth had I got there? Stop it, I wanted to shriek at them. Stop being so impressed. You’ve nothing to be impressed by. It was as if I were no longer their daughter, but had emerged altered from a cocoon, an unrecognisable stranger sitting opposite them.

A few weeks later I’d mentioned this to Mum. Her smile, warm and kind, made my heart ache. ‘That’s normal, melder.’ Her voice was silky with love. ‘You are a different person now. You’re Mrs Nathan Cardew.’ Then she glanced at my stomach, which had begun to swell against the cotton of my skirt refusing to stay concealed any longer. ‘And you’ve got the babi to think about now.’

After our walk, I change quickly, drag a brush through my hair, and kiss Cass before walking briskly down to wait for the bus. The bus stop is no more sophisticated than a laminated timetable nailed to a telegraph pole, riddled with woodworm, on the overgrown verge. It’s about a quarter of a mile from the house. I always leave plenty of time to walk down and, as usual, am ten minutes early. I lean back against the telegraph pole and tip my face into the warmth of the sun. For a moment I allow my mind to drift to where it’s desperate to be.

With you.

We are on the beach at Godrevy. The sky is the colour of cornflowers, the wind cold and fresh, the mid-October sunshine is bright. Your hand is warm and holds mine tightly as if you’re worried I might blow away. I’m talking too much. About everything and nothing. Suddenly self-conscious, I stop myself and look up at you.

You smile. Carry on, you say.

I’m not boring you?

Boring me? You laugh and it sounds like music. How could you ever bore me?

It’s low tide. The beach is deserted but for a man sweeping a metal detector like a metronome over the ribbed sand. I can smell the mussel-cloaked rocks. The sea. Drying seaweed. You unpack the picnic you made. Thin squares of electric pink ham on sliced white, spread with margarine.

Mum would call you a criminal for not using butter.

Your sheepish smile melts my heart. Your body is hard and muscular. Not an ounce of fat. The feel of it excites me as I lean against you.

I’m sorry, you say.

It’s delicious, I whisper. Best sandwich I ever tasted.

We talk. Drink Fosters. Smoke roll-ups and kiss. We don’t notice the tide coming in until the sea skims our toes. We’re trapped. We laugh. Jump up. Hold hands and wade through the icy water to reach the path. I stumble, giddy from the lager and kissing, and you catch my elbow.

Saved you, you say.

I miss you.

I had no idea how important these moments would become. At the time it was just a picnic on the beach. With a boy I was falling in love with. Something fun to do at the weekend. We had no idea how fleeting our happiness would be. We took love for granted. We imagined we’d always be free. But now the memory of that picnic on Godrevy is a scrap of precious fabric I cling to like a child with their blanket, comforting and safe, ragged with overuse. I remember the heat of him. I can taste the cigarettes on his breath. As I let his lips linger on mine, my pulse quickens. I recall the smell of him. The feel of his skin against mine. The sound of his voice as he whispered in my ear.

It only takes a moment for grief to take over. My stomach pitches with loss and the image of him dissolves, leaving the space where he was desolate and empty. Regret seeps into every nook of me.

If only I could replay that night. Do things differently. Alter our course.

If only.

I hear the bus wending its way along the lane and push myself off the telegraph pole. It draws to a halt and the door opens with a hydraulic sigh. The driver, who’s been driving this route for years, greets me like a friend. I count my fare out. I no longer apologise for the coppers. He waits patiently as I drop them into the dish and thanks me when I’m done.

I don’t know his name and the only words we’ve exchanged are the occasional comment on the weather and a ‘Happy Christmas’ or ‘Happy New Year’ when seasonally appropriate. I always sit close enough to watch his face in the rearview mirror. He wears his happiness like a medal of honour. Right there, on show, unashamedly proud of it. He is one of those people who whistles a tune. Sometimes he’ll spontaneously smile and when he does, it makes me glow as I imagine he’s recalling something funny or touching. Perhaps he’s thinking of his wife and children clamouring around him when he gets home from shuttling backwards and forwards between Land’s End and Penzance. I imagine he has a simple life. An allotment. A comfortable, threadbare armchair he’ll never throw out. I find imagining this man in a life of contentment comforting. My Tuesday bus journey is something I look forward to. On the rare Tuesdays when there’s an unknown at the wheel, I can become inexplicably agitated, as if my world has tipped and I’m sliding towards the edge.

Like I said, routine helps.

Chapter Two
Hannah

‘Please. God. Tell me you’re joking.’

Vicky and I are sitting opposite each other at one of the six tables in the café we meet at every week. It’s on a back street in Penzance. The walls are light blue, in need of a touch-up, and there are paintings of birds and huge Cornish skies done by local artists. When it’s warm enough, the door is wedged open and the small space floods with natural light, sea air and the cry of gulls. It’s cheap and basic, the type of place Nathan wouldn’t be seen dead in. Which is, of course, why we meet here.

Vicky shakes her head in disbelief. ‘But why?’

Her blonde hair is tied back in a scruffy bun, and even without a scrap of make-up and four-year-old twins who never sleep, she is as pretty as she always was. Her skin is smooth, religiously moisturised, and the lines around her hazel eyes so delicate it’s as if they’ve been painted on with the finest of brushes.

The waitress places our pot of tea on the table, with a slice of coffee cake for Vicky, and toast and jam for me.

‘Guess that means you won’t be coming along to cheer for him?’ I lift the lid of the teapot to see if it’s brewed enough then pour two cups.

‘No, I bloody won’t. I mean… really? An award? Why would the council give a lawyer an award?’

‘I told you. Citizen of the Year.’

She groans and mutters something under her breath.

Vicky makes no effort to hide her dislike of my husband. When I told her Cam and I were finished and I was with Nathan she was having none of it. We’d known each other since nursery. Our mums were friends and we played together for happy hours while they gossiped and drank tea. From primary school through secondary school we were inseparable. We went to our first gig together, got drunk together, smoked our first cigarette together – stealthily swiped from her mother’s pack of Benson & Hedges – and went to as many parties as we could, invited and uninvited. Vicky knows me better than anybody else and there was no way she would ever believe I’d fallen head over heels for Nathan Cardew in only a matter of days. All she did was shake her head.

‘No,’ she’d said, refusing to believe it. ‘No. There’s something you’re not telling me.’

She also wouldn’t accept Cam had just upped and gone in the night without even a goodbye. Her interrogations were exhausting. I’d struggled to keep strong, because all I really wanted to do was curl myself into her arms and tell her the truth. All of it. Every last, filthy detail.

Would things have turned out better if I had? Could she have helped me? Sitting in front of her now, I have yet another overwhelming urge to confide in her. But I can’t risk it. The fallout would be devastating. I’ve kept the truth buried for long enough. I’m not going to unearth it now.

When I found out I was pregnant things got even harder.

‘You have to tell Cam. He’ll come back. Of course he will!’

This was when the real lies began.

‘Don’t you see?’ I said, sobbing into my hands. ‘I did tell him. That’s why he left. He wants nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with the baby. He’s moved on and says he’s never coming back to Cornwall. He told me he never loved me. I didn’t tell you because I was scared. Of the baby. Being pregnant. I hoped it would… go away. But… it didn’t.’

Lies, lies, lies.

Lying to Vicky made me feel sick. But though the idea of the baby was terrifying, it finally gave me the perfect excuse for Cam’s sudden disappearance. I dropped my head, unable to meet her eyes.

‘Bastard,’ she breathed. ‘The fucking bastard.’

I didn’t correct her.

‘Does Nathan know?’

I nodded. ‘He wants to get married.’

‘And he’ll accept Cam’s baby? Just like that?’

I glanced at her but didn’t reply.

‘No. Surely no?’ Judgement and shock in her whispered words. ‘Hannah, you can’t…’

Then I straightened my shoulders and took a bolstering breath. ‘Women have done it since forever.’

‘But it’s not—’

‘I don’t want to have a baby on my own,’ I said resolutely, stumbling unwittingly into the truth. ‘What kind of life is that for either of us? I owe my child more than a bedsit and benefits. Nathan can give us a decent life.’

Her disapproval physically hurt.

I took her hand in mine as tears spilled down my cheeks. ‘Please don’t tell anybody. Please, Vicky. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want my baby to grow up without a father.’

She went with it reluctantly, but when Nathan started to push my friends and family away, when he began to isolate me, her dislike of him grew into hatred, almost as strong as the hatred she has for Cam, the man who, as far as she is aware, abandoned her pregnant friend without a backward glance.

I unwrap one of the small packets of butter and spread some thinly on one of the triangles of toast.

‘What does Citizen of the Year even mean?’

‘He does a lot for the community. You know that. Apparently it was the first time in eighteen years that a nominee was universally voted through.’

She scoffs. ‘And, what? You have to go and stand at his side and play the dutiful wife?’ She breaks off a piece of cake and puts it in her mouth.

‘Of course. I want to be there.’ My attention is caught by a group of girls on the street outside, fourteen or so, dressed in school uniform, skirts rolled up to mid-thigh, giggling and pointing at something on one of their phones, the case decorated in pink diamante which catches the sunlight, fingernails painted in colours I’m certain their head teacher would disapprove of, eye make-up heavy, lips shiny with cheap pink gloss. Bunking off. These are the kids for whom school is a dull inconvenience and life outside its gates so much more enticing. Nostalgia prods at me like an annoying child. I tear my eyes off them and look back at Vicky. ‘Apparently, some VIP from the council is going to do a speech.’

Another groan. ‘Don’t tell me they’re giving him a bloody trophy.’

‘A brass plaque in the town hall.’ We exchange wry smiles and she laughs with another shake of her head.

The waitress clears our empty plates and asks if we’d like anything else. She’s a striking girl with dreadlocks tied back in a floral scarf, a nose ring, and a puffy-eyed tiredness from partying. She reminds me of myself at the same age, smiling through a hangover whilst dropping pasties into bags for sunburnt tourists and beer money.

‘How’s your mum?’ Vicky asks then.

I smile. ‘She’s OK. Sleeps a lot but seems fine.’

‘And Alex?’

I press my finger on to some toast crumbs on the wipe-clean tablecloth and brush them on to my plate.

‘He’s fine. He’s—’ I stop myself.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

I take a breath. ‘He’s growing up, that’s all. Getting argumentative.’ I hesitate. ‘With Nathan.’

‘Good for him.’ She lowers her eyes, perhaps aware that her comment could be taken as a criticism of me for not standing up for myself.

‘It’s nothing serious.’ I continue picking up the scattered crumbs with my finger. ‘Teenage stuff. He won’t be the first boy in the world to have a tricky relationship with his dad. It’s normal, isn’t it?’

It surprises me how much the deterioration of Nathan and Alex’s relationship still upsets me. It wasn’t always the same. When Alex was younger Nathan was a good father, engaged and interested most of the time, albeit uptight and unaffectionate. But when Alex was around seven or eight he seemed to draw away from us. He became colder, more distant, as if somebody had flicked a switch off inside him. His temper was short. He was impatient and moody, too quick with caustic asides. It was around this time he had his first affair. Maybe he just got bored of us.

Vicky notices my anxiety and takes my hand. ‘Yes, of course it’s normal. God, do you remember the fights I had with my parents? I was convinced I was adopted.’

I smile.

‘He’s a good boy,’ she says then. ‘He reminds me of you when you were that age.’

Her words unleash snippets of memory from back then. The biting cold and crashing waves. The fear that grabbed hold of me. The dawning realisation that everything was altered.

‘Change of subject.’ Vicky’s voice wrenches me back. ‘Did you talk to him about our night away?’

Her face splits with sudden excitement and my insides cave a little as I recall Nathan’s stony face and the definitive way he said no. There was no question mark, no room for debate, no way he’d let me go. Vicky was a bad influence. A flirt. Common. She’d poison me against him. The more I begged, the more rigid he became. What about Alex? he’d asked, his voice edged with glass. And the dog? You can’t just walk out on them. You have responsibilities, Hannah. Responsibilities.

I give Vicky what I hope is a sheepish smile. ‘Not yet.’ Another lie. ‘But I will. Promise. We’ll get the award ceremony out of the way, then I’ll ask him.’

‘You’ll ask him?’ Her eyes close in an indignant blink. ‘Hannah. He can’t stop you, you know? You’re not a kid. Don’t ask him. Tell him. I mean, for God’s sake, what’s his problem?’

‘He worries I won’t come back. After last time—’

She rolls her eyes. ‘That was years ago. And you’re not the first woman to get postnatal depression and flip out. He’s punished you enough, for God’s sake.’ She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling. ‘Jesus,’ she whispers. ‘He’s such a bloody child.’

I have a vivid recollection of the stillness of the dark, deserted platform. The way I stood there, staring up at the train timetable. No trains. Too late. My head all over the place. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing there and no idea where I was going. All I could think about was getting away. Then the next thing I knew he was in front of me, eyes burning with seething anger, hands reaching to rip my baby away from me. Words coming in a torrent. Terrifying words. Telling me if I did anything like that again he’d sue for custody. I’d lose my son forever.

Later, when Alex was asleep in his Moses basket, Nathan came into the bedroom, laid his head on my stomach, and sobbed.

‘You have no idea how much you scared me,’ he whispered. ‘You endangered our son. I can’t trust you with him while you’re so unstable.’

The next day he took my bank card and passport.

‘He’s over protective,’ I say to Vicky.

‘Over protective? You mean nuts. Honestly, Han, I don’t know how you put up with him.’

My cheeks flush with warmth as I stare fixedly down at my knotting fingers.

She sighs and when she next speaks her tone has softened. ‘It’s just one night.’

I nod and force a feeble smile. ‘I’ll talk to him.’ I look out of the window and see two seagulls. One is young – new feathers pushing through his brown down – and holds a crust of bread in his beak. The other is older and is intent on stealing the crust. The two birds hop about on the pavement, fluttering and spinning around each other as if dancing and, for a few moments, I’m mesmerised.

‘I just want you there with me, that’s all.’

One night away, the two of us, to celebrate her fortieth birthday. It’s a present from Phil. When he phoned to tell me, I protested. Told him I couldn’t possibly accept such a gift. He insisted. I was part of the present. There was no way Nathan would allow me to have a night away and he certainly wouldn’t let another man pay for me, so I told Phil he should take Vicky and the two of them could have a relaxing night away from the twins. But he said it was already decided. Vicky missed me, he said. This would be the best birthday present she could wish for. And before I could stop the words coming out of my mouth I’d said yes. The thought of it was thrilling. Eventually I’ll have to make my excuses. Phil will end up taking my place. But I can’t face telling her yet.

‘I can’t wait,’ I say with a smile.

‘Booze, fags, no kids, no husbands. It’ll be like the old days.’

The old days.

Before that night. Before the horror of it all. Back to a time so far removed from now I wonder if it was ever even real. Who was that young woman? I remember her vaguely, like one might remember a character in a childhood book, carefree, surrounded by lightness and laughter. Popular and confident. Filled up with joy like an over-inflated balloon, shifting from party to party, pub to beach, living in the moment, working the week with the weekend in sight. Then in the blink of an eye she was gone. The lightness turned dark. The laughter became no more than a distant echo. That young woman, a version of me, trapped in the past like a stranded time traveller.

A new version of me was born that night but not completed. Then, as I followed Nathan numbly into St John’s Hall registry, the transformation continued. My husband took over my deconstruction. One by one he took aim at my friends – unworthy, boring, ill-educated, uncultured – until gradually they were weeded out. I should have fought it but I didn’t. What was the point? It was only a matter of time before they tired of the anaesthetised husk of the girl they once knew. What kind of friend could I be? I was broken. So I let him tell me I needed a fresh start. That it was better to cut ties with my old life. That I deserved more. He spoke with such authority as he pointed out their flaws and failings, I’d find myself agreeing with him. Why was I so dreadful at choosing friends? How had I gravitated to such people? Was it any wonder everything had gone so horribly wrong? It would be convenient to blame my isolation on Nathan but I am complicit. I let this happen. I walked into this life, into this version of me, willingly, and have nobody to blame but myself.

Thank God Vicky was too strong for us. Nathan detested her from the first moment he met her in the pub that night. She was everything he loathed: dressed wrong, loud, uncouth. In the early years of our marriage, we used to meet up as a four, Nathan and I with Vicky and Phil. After an evening out, he would spend hours criticising her, pointing out how crass she was, how opinionated, how her voice cut through him like nails down a blackboard. It was exhausting listening to him go on and on and on. I couldn’t bear it so Vicky and I began to meet in secret. Once a week, on a Tuesday, at this tiny café in Penzance. It’s clandestine and rebellious and for an hour each week I feel free. Like those girls bunking off school. Like I felt in the old days.

I check the clock on the wall.

‘I should get to the shops.’

‘Yes. And I,’ she says with purpose, ‘must get back to make two World Book Day costumes for tomorrow morning. Any idea what I can make with some bin bags, a newspaper and about half an hour?’

She takes her bag off the back of the chair and reaches in for her purse and a packet of Marlboro Lights. She tucks a ten-pound note under the salt cellar and puts the cigarettes on the table in front of me. Visiting time is over.

‘See you next week and, in the meantime, enjoy being the proud wife of the award-winning citizen.’

I drop the cigarettes into my bag and we give each other a hug. ‘Thank you,’ I say.’

Outside I notice the young gull has lost his crust of bread and is huddling, rather sorrowfully, in the doorway of the shop next door.

Chapter Three
Hannah

Even after all these years, the effort of keeping the bad stuff at bay can overwhelm me, and when it gets too much I’ll retreat for a short while to the built-in cupboard in our bedroom. It’s a habit, and I should stop it, but the small dark space feels safe, as if I could hide there forever and nobody would find me. Vicky mentioning the old days brought it all crashing down around me. I’m taken by a sudden panic. I leave the shopping bags and run upstairs. My breath is coming in shorts gasps. I wrench open the cupboard door, slide the clothes along the rail and crawl in, careful not to catch myself on the exposed carpet gripper, left when we removed the old carpet to reveal the floorboards. I pull the door closed until only a blade of light slices the darkness. There’s a vague scent of long-since removed mothballs. The washing powder I use. A hint of dampness in the floorboards.

The recollections come at me in toxic flashes like fragments of a hateful photograph torn into pieces.

The burn of vodka on the back of my throat.

Cam’s simmering anger. The incomprehension in Nathan’s eyes. Vicky’s laugh.

A shot of sambuca lit with a green plastic lighter. The heat on my hand as I extinguish the flame. Swill the glass. Breathe in hot fumes. Drink. Drink.

Drink.

Don’t blister your mouth!

Who said that?

Another shot. A new song on the jukebox. Blur. ‘Girls and Boys’. Vicky dancing, eyes closed, hands above her head.

Where are you?

So many people. Faces blurred. Names forgotten. Pushing through their sweating bodies. The sting of freezing drizzle. Empty streets.

Where are you?

Footsteps.

Muffled voices. Distant music from the pub. Disembodied laughter.

Then come his eyes. Staring. Their shocked glassiness burrowing through the softest parts of me. The unspoken words.

Everything is changed now.

I see him in the water. His hair sways in the quiet like seaweed. Skin ashen. Mouth stretched wide in a frozen cry…

Nausea spirals through me and I shake my head to dislodge the image, but it holds firm. I hit my hand against the floor and a sharp pain shoots up my arm. The nails on the gripper have torn into my skin. I stifle a cry and lift my hand to my mouth. The taste of blood creeps over my tongue.

In the bathroom I hold my finger beneath the tap until the blood stops streaking the water. I turn the tap off then dry the cut and take a plaster from the cabinet. I apply it too tightly and my finger throbs angrily beneath. Back in the bedroom, I close the cupboard door, straighten the bedcovers and plump the pillows, and scour the room for anything out of place. The air is hot and stuffy up here. I’d love to throw up the sash windows but they are sealed shut with decades of repainting.

Downstairs I set about making our supper. Our kitchen is straight from the pages of a farmhouse-style feature in an interiors magazine, with worn flagstones, a leather armchair with a tartan wool blanket draped over it. A collection of copper pans in different sizes hang over the oak baker’s table. They get a polish every other week. On a Wednesday. Nathan likes things to look beautiful. He likes me to look beautiful. He tells me I’m beautiful often.

‘You,’ he says, fixing his gaze on me, ‘are a beautiful thing.’

He enjoys it when other men notice me. If he catches sight of a man giving me a second look, his chest puffs out, and he takes hold of my hand. I own her, his body language says. She is mine. He particularly likes it if the man looking is someone he views as beneath him. Like the Spanish beach attendant on holiday who appeared like an obedient dog to the click of my husband’s fingers. When his gaze lingered on my breasts, a scornful smile grazed Nathan’s face.

‘An umbrella for my wife.’

‘Of course. This will be ten euro, señor.’

‘For an umbrella? Ha! You lot are bold as brass.’

The man gave a curt nod and smiled as he slipped Nathan’s money into the pocket of his snow-white shorts. I watched him twisting the stake of the parasol into the sand and imagined – for one moment – he was driving it into my husband’s head, straight through his eye, rotating it one way then the next until Nathan stopped moving and his blood ran in rivulets into the sand.

When the man finished putting up the parasol, I thanked him.

He smiled. ‘De nada, bella señora.’

The kitchen is the type of quiet that hums. I listen hard for footsteps or the sound of the study door creaking open. The unrest which seeps out of Nathan’s study taints everything. Sometimes I wish his father would get on with appearing. I’m sick of him threatening to. Though if he did I’d be screwed. I could scream as loud as my lungs would let me in this house and nobody would hear. I miss neighbours. My mother used to chat to ours over the wall in the back yard. A pot of wooden pegs on the brick wall, a basket of washing waiting to go out on the retractable line which spanned the sunlit concrete space. I fondly remember the peals of laughter and exclamations and snippets of gossip which would drift in through the open doors and windows. I think it’s the deadened silence in this house that gets to me the most.

Cass raises her head as I retrieve a copper pan from the hook. I heat some olive oil and soften chopped onions, carrots, a stick of celery, before turning up the heat and browning some lamb mince. I add tomato puree, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and some beef stock. While it’s simmering, I make the mashed potatoes. I take my time. It needs to be free from even the tiniest lump. I transfer the mince into the Le Creuset dish Nathan gave me for our first anniversary and spoon on an even layer of mash. I bend down so I’m at eye level with the dish and then methodically run a fork over the surface to etch perfect parallel lines into the fluffy potato. My eyes water with concentration.

I place the pie on the side, ready to go into the oven, then I set the table

Three places.

I imagine they are for me, Alex and you, Cam. I know, it’s a silly, girlish fantasy, but I don’t care. It warms me from the inside. I imagine you will come in through the back door, tall and rugged, and smelling of fish and engine oil and cigarettes. I’ll raise my fingers to the back of your head and weave them into your gypsy black curls that brush your collar. Your lips are rough against mine when we kiss. Your hands chilled from the winter air.

It’s always cold when I remember you.

I put out three glasses and three plates, the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in front of the plate at the head of the table, then I consult the clock. This is a game I play. I like to set the final item – the salt cellar – as the clock strikes five. Today I’m a little early so I hover above the table, hand poised, eyes fixed on the face of the clock. When the minute hand hits the twelve, I set the salt cellar down and step away. I cast a triumphant smile at Cass, but she remains unimpressed and sighs heavily, whilst making herself more comfortable in her basket.

Alex plays football on a Tuesday night and won’t be home until half past seven, and Nathan arrives home at six. I have one hour until he walks in. I climb the stairs slowly, my limbs feel heavy and stiff. In our bathroom, I close the door and run a bath. There’s a twinge in my lower back when I bend to put the plug in. Age has crept up on me, inched its way into my bones and fibres, thinned my hair, and stolen the rosy hue from my skin. I turn the taps on: the hot on full and a trickle from the cold. I undress and climb in whilst it’s still running. The heat stings, but I force myself to lie back, inhaling against the burn as I submerge my body to the chin. I take the flannel and rub soap vigorously on to it then scrub every inch of my body, face, back of my neck, between my legs, around my breasts and throat. I rinse and scrub again. Soon my skin is tingling and pink. I rub soap on to my legs and shave from ankle to knee, under my arms and along my bikini line. When I’m done I place the razor back in the pot on the side of the bath and climb out and dry myself thoroughly.

At my dressing table, which is antique and ugly, with dark wood, carved detailing, and an array of tiny drawers with faceted glass knobs, I slowly remove my hairpins and drop them one by one into a shallow china dish. I unwind my bun and brush from root to tip in long sweeping strokes. My hair hangs to the middle of my back. It’s been this way since forever. I often fantasise about hacking it off, cutting away chunks of it until it’s short and boyish. Nathan would be devastated and the thought of his reaction gives me a thrill.

I apply concealer to the dark circles beneath my eyes and a blemish on my jawline. Then foundation, a lick of brown mascara, and a hint of soft pink blusher. Nothing too much. Nothing unnatural. I dress in his favourite cashmere sweater, the colour of sea-glass, and my mid-length taupe skirt. Navy ballet pumps. No tights. The string of pearls he gave me for Christmas three years ago. The last thing I do is position the black velvet Alice band he likes then smooth my hands over my hair to tame the flyaway strands. As I do, I hear the front door open and close. Perfect timing. I congratulate myself.

I wait, hands clasped in front of me, facing the bedroom door. I picture him placing his bag down, hanging up his coat, dropping his car keys into the bowl on the hall table. I listen as his footsteps move through to the kitchen. The tap goes on. I see him filling a glass and drinking. I hear the glass on the drainer as he upends it after rinsing. There is quiet as he dries his hands on the freshly washed tea towel I hung over the edge of the sink less than six hours ago.

Then his footsteps on the stairs.

Across the landing.

The door opens and I smile. ‘Hello, darling. How was your day?’

He kisses my cheek and walks into the room, undoing the knot of his tie. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Glad to be home though. You look lovely; a sight for sore eyes.’

Nathan has become better looking with age. He has a full head of dark hair speckled with only a handful of fine grey strands. His skin is clear and even and any wrinkles he has are delicate creases rather than deep furrows. His teeth are straight and, although he’d deny it, were whitened by a London dentist a few years ago. He is slim and attractive in a traditionally English way, with good posture, confidence incubated by his private education, and sharply tailored clothes. He has always dressed well. It was one of the first things I noticed when I met him, how clean he appeared, how crisp his shirt was, how neatly trimmed his nails were, and, of course, how soft his hands were compared to the weather-beaten skin I was familiar with. People describe him as handsome now. It’s not something we would have called him back then. In the old days. Back then he had an awkward manner and no swagger. Back then, in the old days, we liked boys with a swagger.

I unzip my skirt and step out of it, remove my sweater and lay it over the arm of the chair. I slip my Alice band off and rest it on the bedside table then unhook my bra and take my underwear off while he drapes his tie over the chair and unbuttons his collar. When I’m naked he lies me back on the bed. The sheets are soft and fresh, changed yesterday, a Monday job. He kisses me from head to toe. His lips linger softly, softly, and make my skin crawl. He moves between my legs. My thighs. My waist. His hand strokes rhythmically. I breathe slowly and focus on relaxing my body. I used to try and think of Cam, but it wasn’t enough to make it anywhere near enjoyable. I am one of those women for whom sex is a chore not a pleasure. But I’m good at pretending. I’ve had years of practice. I detach myself. Go through the motions. Arch my back. Ease my hips upwards. Moan. But not too loudly. Don’t want to be off-putting. He responds to my noises with greater urgency. I twitch and twist. Scrunch my fingers into his hair. Clench and unclench the muscles in my stomach and around my pelvis as I fake a climax.

Nathan moves away from me and smiles, drunk on the false knowledge he pleased me.

‘Thank you. That was lovely. I’ve been desperate for you to come home all day.’ As I recite my lines I stare at the shaft of evening light that strikes through the ceiling.

He smiles and leans over to kiss my forehead, before manoeuvring himself to sitting on the edge of the bed. He circles his arm and grips his shoulder, wincing slightly as he manipulates the joint. I get out of bed and dress in the green sweater and taupe skirt then sit back down at my dressing table. I reposition the Alice band then lick my finger and wipe beneath my eyelid to remove a smudge of mascara.

‘Supper at seven?’ he asks as he stands behind me and rests a hand on my shoulder.

‘Yes.’ I pat his hand and smile. ‘Shepherd’s pie tonight.’

‘Delicious.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘I love your shepherd’s pie.’

Chapter Four
Nathan

I knew from that first moment that you were the one. My sister was right: when you know, you know.

I was back in Cornwall. At Trevose. A holiday of sorts before I left for Paris. The noise and squabbling politics of the law firm were getting on top of me. Until you’ve worked in an environment like that you cannot understand how irritating other people are. My colleagues were vacuous and lacked discipline. They were inexplicably convinced of their own self-worth when all they really wanted to do was spend money on cocaine and strip clubs. I needed some space. Needed to escape London and breathe in some unpolluted air. So there I was, in the kitchen I grew up in, and out of the blue I was hit with an overwhelming urge for a crab sandwich. I recalled Newlyn had both a fishmonger and a bakery, and given it was only a short drive away, that’s where I headed. I’m not a godly man but, to this day, I believe a greater power was in charge of me, making decisions, leading me to you.

I parked near the Tolcarne Inn and walked down Creeping Lane towards the harbour with a vague recollection of where the bakery was. It was exactly where I remembered. Pleased with myself, I pushed open the door and the bell jingled lightly. As I walked in, you looked up and smiled. It was in that instant I knew.

It makes me cringe to recall how I stood there, mute, my mind blank, a shameful pink blush inching up from my collar to cover my cheeks. You were exquisite, long hair plaited loosely, blemish-free skin which glowed, a neat pixie nose, petite but well proportioned. You reminded me of a sun-kissed china doll.

‘Hi,’ you said.

One word. Like a note of music.

Hi.

Was I supposed to reply? Say hi? Or hello or good morning? I opened my mouth, but my tongue was tangled in humiliating knots.

‘What can I get for you?’

A smile that sent shivers through me. I had to speak but still there was nothing. If I wasn’t rooted to the spot I’d have turned and bolted. I prepared myself for laughter or a disdainful sneer, but instead your brow creased with gentle concern.

‘Are you OK?’

The gentleness in your voice relaxed me. ‘Bread,’ I managed to say. ‘A loaf of bread. Please.’

Another smile. ‘Lovely. White or brown? Or we’ve got a nice one with seeds in?’

You hovered your hand, sheathed in blue, near the rows of loaves neatly lined up in red plastic trays. You glanced back at me, over your shoulder, waiting for my reply.

‘It’s for a sandwich. Crab.’

What an idiotic thing to say. Again I expected ridicule. Again I was wrong.

‘Oh, delicious! You’ll definitely be wanting wholemeal then.’ You dropped a loaf into a paper bag and gifted me another smile. ‘Wholemeal makes the best crab sandwiches. Slice the bread thick, spread both slices with a little mayo and some butter – not marg – pile on the crab meat, white and brown, then give it a squeeze of lemon and a bit of salt and pepper. Oh, it’s making my mouth water just thinking about it! Are you going next door for the crab? You should. They sell the best in Cornwall. Fresh and sweet.’

The words fell out of your mouth like a waterfall. When you handed me the loaf our fingers brushed.

Did you do that on purpose?

‘God, I tell you what, I love a crab sandwich.’

Then you smiled again.

My fingers fumbled hopelessly when it was time to pay and, stupidly, I managed to drop a handful of coins which scattered on the floor like pieces of a broken vase. I swore under my breath. My ineptitude was embarrassing. As I hastily tried to pick up the money, I was aware of you coming out from behind the counter, bending to help, your delicate fingers closing around the copper coins. I stared at your hands. Tanned skin. Softened with moisturiser. Slender fingers, nails free of tarty polish, natural, healthy and clean, filed into even arcs, a half-moon of white at their base.

You held out the coins you’d gathered and for a split second our gazes locked.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Butter fingers.’

‘Don’t be silly! Honestly, I’m the clumsiest person you’ll ever meet.’

And that was you, Hannah. Sweet and kind, wholesome, teetering along the fine line between girl and woman.

When you know, you know.

I sat on the low wall opposite the bakery and watched you through the window as you worked. It was a beautiful afternoon, mid-September, still warm – an Indian summer – and you were mesmerising. When it finally came to closing, you untied your apron and hung it up, put on your jacket and waved at someone unseen out back. You pushed the door open. Without your apron I could see you wore white cut-off shorts and a shapeless checked shirt, one made for men, I think, and a denim jacket that was a size too big. I imagined taking you shopping for expensive, well-cut clothes in the boutiques in Chelsea. The thought of spoiling you excited me.

My heart hammered as I called out. You turned and squinted through the early evening sunshine as you took a second or two to place me. Then you raised your hand and waved enthusiastically. I waved back and couldn’t help laughing. All the years I’d been searching for someone and you were right here, a few miles from Trevose all along.

‘Enjoy your sandwich!’

‘Thank you!’

Every fibre of my being screamed at me to follow you. But I had to be patient. Women are easily put off. I had to take my time. As I watched you walk away it physically hurt.

I would stay in Cornwall for another week. It meant a call to work. I explained I’d developed a bad case of shingles and asked them to delay my flight to Paris. They weren’t happy, but what else could I do? Shingles is nasty.

Over the days that followed I indulged a newfound appetite for iced buns. Every day I made the drive to Newlyn and wandered into the bakery, nonchalant, playing it cool.

‘Iced bun?’ you asked with a knowing smile.

‘They’re the best I’ve ever tasted and I know my iced buns!’

‘I’ll tell my dad. It’s his own recipe. I’d give it to you, but then I’d have to kill you, so…’ You shrugged and it was such a charming gesture I laughed.

‘I’ll have to do without for a while.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m a lawyer. I have to go to Paris, to head office. I’ll be there for a while, I think. A few months at least. They need me to sort some things out for them. I should be flattered, I suppose.’

The stint in Paris was actually part of my training, but the small white lie was worth it to see your expression change to one of awe. ‘Wow, you must be clever.’

I lowered my gaze to affect humility.

‘I didn’t even do A levels. I love reading though, and quite enjoyed history and English, but school was wasted on me. I was too naughty.’

‘I don’t believe that for a second.’

You laughed. ‘Well, not naughty, as such. But I was definitely lazy when it came to doing my homework and stuff.’ You shrugged. ‘Guess that’s why I’m here in my dad’s bakery and not a hotshot lawyer off to France.’

The bell above the door rang and another customer walked in. I wished I could tell her to go away, to come back later and let us finish talking, but of course I couldn’t.

‘I’ll be back in England for Christmas though.’

‘I’ll have your iced bun ready and waiting.’ You winked at me and turned to the lady. ‘What can I get for you?’

As I reached for the door handle, something stopped me. My sister’s words.

When you know, you know.

‘Will you have dinner with me?’

You looked surprised, shocked even, and an immediate panic took hold of me.

‘It’s, well, I don’t have many friends down here, and I’ve been at home alone for a few weeks. Climbing the walls. And I’ve enjoyed our daily chats.’

You hesitated.

‘But if you can’t think of anything worse, I understand.’

The woman in the shop glanced at her watch and huffed quietly. ‘Look, can you serve me first then sort this out? I’m in a hurry to pick up my daughter from nursery. They get cross if we’re late.’

‘Yes,’ you said to her, before turning back to me. ‘Can you—’

‘Just dinner. That’s all.’

Then you smiled. ‘Yes. Sure. Dinner. It sounds lovely.’

I took you to the most expensive restaurant in Cornwall. The chef had trained at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. You hadn’t heard of it, which was disappointing as I’d hoped you’d be impressed, but then again your lack of sophistication was beguiling. I’d be Professor Higgins to your Eliza. I’d show you the museums of London and Amsterdam, the canals of Venice and the Statue of Liberty. I imagined us wandering through the narrow backstreets of Rome, eating in romantic trattorias, and making wishes at the Trevi Fountain. My pulse quickened.

Chez Laurent wasn’t what I’d expected. It was, if I’m brutally honest, pretentious. You ordered the fish, do you remember? It came with three cubes of something we decided was probably swede. The fillet of John Dory was the size of a deck of cards and undercooked. My heart sank as you examined the translucent grey flesh with the tip of your knife. I tried not to notice you scrape away the orange balls of salmon roe over its surface whilst eyeing the puree of mushroom warily.

‘It’s nice here,’ you whispered. ‘But it’s posh, isn’t it? I don’t think I fit in.’

‘You don’t,’ I said. ‘You are far too beautiful.’

You blushed and lowered your gaze.

‘I’m sorry about your food.’

‘It was lovely. I’ve never got on with mushrooms and I wasn’t sure if the orange stuff was for eating. The fish was tasty though.’

You were so desperate to make me happy. I’d have married you then and there, no word of a lie.

Dessert was more successful, pots of chocolate mousse scattered with flakes of edible gold and cherries dipped in white chocolate. You ate half the mousse and I had another surge of warmth towards you. You’re right. A woman should care about her figure.

Coffee came with sweets arranged on a white saucer.

‘They’re called petits fours.’

You repeated the words under your breath as you reached for a sphere of sugar-dusted apricot jelly and nibbled the edge.

Emboldened by wine I rested my hand on yours. It was electric.

‘I’d love to see you again.’

‘What about Paris?’

‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

‘You must have loads of girls you like up in London. I bet you have to fight them off with a stick.’

I toyed with the idea of making someone up to make you jealous. A colleague in the law firm. Emily or Arabella. But playing games wasn’t called for.

‘The girl I like is right here.’ I was pleased with this comment; it came out smoothly. ‘Can we have dinner again?’

‘You should come to The Packhorse with me and my friends when you get back. Meet some other people.’

I drove you back to your tiny cottage on the outskirts of Newlyn and walked you to your door. The air had chilled and there was the distant sound of a fishing trawler coming into port. A movement from an upstairs window caught my eye. I glanced up to see your mother watching us. The curtain fell back immediately. I smiled at you and you thanked me for dinner.

I thought you might kiss me. But, of course, you weren’t that type of girl.

When you know, you know.

Chapter Five
Hannah

The kitchen is silent but for the ticking clock and my own shallow breathing. I check the time again. Seven minutes to eight. Nathan sits at the table, unmoving, fists loosely balled and resting either side of his empty plate. He watches the clock like a hawk on a field mouse.

I check the shepherd’s pie again. The potato is turning from golden to overdone. I take it out of the oven, rest it on the side, and prod the crispy potato with a fork for no reason other than to appear busy.

‘You know, I think this has improved with the extra time in the oven.’ My tone is designed to appease Nathan’s mood. ‘He won’t be long. He probably missed the bus or—’

My sentence is interrupted by footsteps on the gravel path outside. Moments later, Alex pushes through the kitchen door and relief floods me. He dumps his kit bag on the floor and kicks off his football boots. His face is smeared with dirt and teenage indifference, and his white shorts are covered in a camouflage of stains from the football pitch. He bends down to ruffle the dog’s neck and whispers into her fur, and she responds with a vigorous beating of her tail on the flagstones.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ He appears anything but apologetic as he walks to the sink and turns on the tap to wash his hands.

‘And why are you?’ Nathan is glowering, staring at the wall in front of him, mouth moving in silent, tight-lipped mutters.

‘Why am I what?’

Nathan turns his head slowly to look at him. ‘Late.’

My stomach twists in anticipation of the inevitable argument and when Alex shrugs I have to bite my tongue to stop from interfering. From experience I know this doesn’t make the situation any easier.

Alex dries his hands and throws the tea towel on to the worktop. Nathan glances at the discarded cloth and visibly bristles, his lips pursing tightly.

‘Well?’

Alex rolls his eyes theatrically. ‘Rob offered me a lift but his mum was late. I was about to catch the bus, then she showed up, so I hung about because I thought going with her would be quicker than the bus, but it wasn’t because she got chatting to the other mums and we didn’t leave for ages.’

‘And you didn’t think to call?’ Nathan’s words are laced with caustic irritation.

‘I kept thinking she was nearly done.’ Alex gives a dismissive shrug. ‘Turns out they had a lot to catch up on.’

I stare at him and will him to apologise. He doesn’t need to do this. All he has to do is say sorry and sit down for supper.

‘What’s the point of having that bloody phone if you can’t use it properly?’

Alex heads towards the door.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

Alex gestures upstairs. ‘Shower.’

‘Sit down and let’s eat.’

‘You waited?’ Alex’s forehead wrinkles with confusion but it’s an act. He knows full well Nathan would have insisted on waiting. He’s baiting him. ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Nathan says, spitting the words out like sharpened tacks, ‘this family eats together like civilised human beings.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Let’s just eat, shall we?’ Alex looks at me and I hold his gaze for a moment. ‘While it’s hot, love.’

Nathan reaches for the bottle of red. He pours two glasses. Alex slouches on his chair, legs kicked out in front of him, fingers toying with a fork. If it wasn’t for the leaden tension, their matching cartoon scowls might make me laugh. I make two or three attempts at starting a conversation, but the sullen silence from my son and one-word snaps from my husband ensure that very soon the only noise which accompanies our meal is the scrape of cutlery and the relentless ticking clock.

When he’s finished, Nathan leans back in his chair and wipes his mouth, leaving a greasy smear of orange on his napkin. He drains the last of his wine then taps his finger on the table. ‘I don’t think you’ve given me the receipts yet?’

Nathan smiles and my insides solidify as heat spreads to my cheeks.

‘Sorry. I meant to put them on your desk but got sidetracked in the kitchen.’

‘Can I have them?’

‘My purse is upstairs.’

‘No problem. Alex and I will clear while you fetch it.’ The lightness in his voice thinly masks an anger which hasn’t faded at all. ‘Now, if possible?’

My hands have grown clammy. I force a smile at him and imagine – as I often do – what it would be like to lean forward, close to his face, and tell him where he can stick his fucking receipts.

But I don’t.

Instead I nod and leave the table. Cass follows on my heel, her claws lightly tapping the stone floor, and waits at the bottom of the stairs as I go up to our bedroom. I lift my handbag from the chair in the corner and rummage for my purse. Humiliation burns my skin. It shouldn’t. I should be used to this by now, but it’s always hard when he does it in front of Alex. The pity on my son’s face sharpens the shame.

‘Here you go,’ I say brightly, as I walk back into the kitchen and hold out the receipts, one from the supermarket, the other from a cash machine.

Nathan puts down his wine glass and takes the receipts. My heart starts to flutter. I notice that though the table has been cleared of plates, its surface is scattered with crumbs of food. I walk to the sink and run a cloth beneath the tap, wring it out, and return to the table.

‘The cash?’

‘Sorry?’ I lift a glass and wipe beneath it, moving the cloth in steady, rhythmic circles.

‘The withdrawal? Why did you need the cash?’

I place the glass back on the table. ‘I forgot something at the supermarket, but the queues were horrific. I was worried I’d miss the bus, so rather than go back, I took some money out at the garage cashpoint and bought what I’d forgotten at the Co-op.’ The words run out of me in a nervous torrent.

‘What did you forget?’

I glance at Alex. He is staring intently at his hands, which are clasped on the table in front of him, as his mouth moves silently.

‘Sanitary towels.’

Nathan nods and puts the receipts down. ‘Why didn’t you pay for them with a card?’

‘It was only three pounds ninety and they have a minimum spend in the Co-op – five pounds – and, well, we didn’t need anything else because I’d just done the shopping at the supermarket.’

This seems to satisfy Nathan. I pick up the wine glasses and bottle and walk back towards the sink.

‘And the receipt for the sanitary towels?’

My face reignites. I turn to face him, wrinkling my brow as I gesture at the receipts. ‘You’ve got it.’

Nathan holds up the pieces of paper, one in each hand, as if doing semaphore with tiny white flags. ‘Only two. The supermarket shop and the cash withdrawal.’

I feign confusion as I open my purse and make a show of looking for it despite knowing it doesn’t exist. ‘That’s odd,’ I say. ‘It’s not here. Are you sure you haven’t got it?’

He tips his head to one side and smiles as if I’ve said something amusing. ‘Yes, Hannah. I’m sure.’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘Get the towels.’

‘Sorry?’

Alex swears quietly.

Nathan glares at him whilst talking to me. ‘Hannah, please could you get the sanitary towels you bought today?’

‘Do you have to do this?’ Alex’s words catch in his throat.

‘I’ve told you before, Alex.’ Nathan’s voice has turned calm and flat like a patch of mirrored sea in the eye of a storm. ‘It’s important to take care of the finances, watch the pennies as well as the pounds, keep a careful record of what’s coming in and what’s going out.’

He’ll mention his father any moment now. Nathan’s nothing if not predictable.

‘I know what it’s like to live with someone irresponsible—’

Ah, yes, here it is. Right on schedule.

‘—and I’ve seen the devastation that goes with it. Believe you me, if you’d seen a person you love with a ruddy great hole where their face should be because they couldn’t manage money, you’d understand.’

‘I just… I just think you should take Mum’s word for it. Why would she lie?’

My son’s words make me ache. I want to run to him and hold him tightly. I want to tell him not to worry, that I’m fine, and don’t need protecting.

‘Alex,’ I say. ‘This is how it works for us. I look after the house, you and Cass, and your father works and takes care of the money.’

‘But it’s only sanitary towels, Mum.’ The pleading in his whispered voice breaks my heart.

‘You know what, Alex?’ Nathan’s anger is building as Alex taking my side so overtly stokes the flames. ‘I am the one earning all the money. I am the one paying all the bills. I am the one who buys your football kit, pays for school trips, puts food on your plate. When your mother gets a job, she can take care of her own money or chuck it about like confetti, but while I’m the one bringing it in, I’ll be the one keeping track of it.’

It’s all I can do to stop myself bursting into hysterical laughter. A job? Ha! No CV. No references. No car. I’m not far off forty with four crappy GCSEs, an unfinished NVQ from Cambourne Tech, and fifteen years out of the workplace. The chances of me getting a job are next to nothing.

‘Now, Hannah,’ he says, addressing me again. ‘Fetch the damn towels.’

Upstairs, in my bathroom, I retrieve the two unopened packets of sanitary towels from the cabinet. Then I undo the small zipped pocket inside of my handbag and fish out the change. I lied to Nathan, of course. I bought the sanitary towels from the pound store. One pound for each pack. In the Co-op they are one pound ninety-five. The exact same brand. A saving for many people, for me it’s a strategy. I’m not as bad with money as Nathan thinks I am. I buy brands in the pound store and pretend they’re from supermarkets or corner shops. I buy things and show him the receipt, then return them, buy the same thing from the pound shop, and pocket the change. I keep pennies I find down the sofa or in the car. I lose receipts. I play dumb. With the one pound ninety I’d saved today – plus ten pence from my pitiful stash – I bought a replacement lighter for me and a cartridge for the plug-in air freshener in Mum’s room at the care home. I tore up the receipt and put it in the bin beside the bus stop. Just in case.

‘Here.’ I place the towels and a tower of coins on the table in front of him. ‘And six pounds ten in change.’

He regards the sanitary towels for a moment or two then nods before reaching for the coins and closing his fist around them. Then he looks at me and smiles.

‘Thank you for supper, Hannah.’

As he heads out of the kitchen, I let out a sigh. But it’s premature.

‘Why do you treat her like this?’ My son’s voice is flat and level, as if he’s just asked Nathan what his favourite colour is. Both Nathan and I open our mouths to speak but he continues. ‘You don’t let her do anything.’

Again Nathan tries to speak but Alex talks over him.

‘She does everything for us. For you. And you treat her like a prisoner.’

‘Stop.’ Nathan slams his hand down hard on the table. Cass slinks out of her bed and crawls beneath the chair where she curls up tightly. ‘What are you talking about? A prisoner?’

‘Yes. A prisoner.’

‘Jesus. You’re delusional. A prisoner? Are the doors bolted? Is she chained up? Do I feed her watered-down gruel?’

I reach for Alex’s hand, but he yanks it out of my grip and approaches Nathan. ‘Why won’t you let her go away with Vicky?’

‘It’s not like that—’

But Alex doesn’t let me finish. ‘I heard you asking him, Mum.’ Alex doesn’t lift his stare off Nathan. ‘I heard him say no. He used me as an excuse. He said you can’t leave me. But that’s not true. You can leave me. I’m fifteen and he’s an adult. We’d be fine. You do everything for us and you should be able to have a night away to celebrate your best friend’s birthday.’ Alex shakes his head and makes a soft scoffing noise. ‘I mean, what do you think she’s going to do? Run away?’

I swallow and shift uncomfortably. That is exactly what Nathan is worried about. It’s why he keeps my passport locked in a safe in his study and why I don’t have a bank account in my name. It’s why he goes through each receipt with a fine-tooth comb because without money – without a driving licence, without proof of address, with a mobile phone registered to him and not me – I can’t go anywhere.

Nathan takes a moment or two to absorb what Alex has said. I can see every part of his body tensing. I step between them. ‘Don’t rise,’ I say. ‘He’s a teenager. He doesn’t understand, that’s all.’

Nathan sweeps me aside and steps closer to Alex.

The two of them mirror each other, frozen in time, holding each other’s gaze. Alex’s body is rigid, muscles quivering. ‘Fuck you.’ He turns on his heel and strides out of the kitchen towards the stairs.

‘Don’t you dare walk away from me!’

His feet thunder on the stairs as he runs up them.

‘Come back now!’

Alex’s bedroom door closes with a bang that makes the walls shudder.

When I touch Nathan’s arm, he pulls sharply away and storms out of the kitchen. A few moments later his study door slams, mimicking Alex, and I picture Charles Cardew’s bloodied body jerking awake with shock.

I open the dishwasher and proceed to rinse each plate before stacking it. When the kitchen is cleaned down, I crouch beside Cass, who has resettled in her basket, and play my fingers through her silky fur.

This house is a prison.

Alex is right about that. But it wasn’t Nathan who imprisoned me. It was me. I walked into it willingly. This house – this life – is nothing more than a prison of my own making.

Chapter Six
Nathan

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, don’t they? Well, that was certainly the case when I was away from you. You grew like a cancer inside me, taking over every part of me, corrupting and altering each cell in my body. It was agony being so far away from you. I missed my daily visit to the bakery. Missed sitting in my car on the street outside your house and catching glimpses of you through the windows.

There was a cork board behind my computer in the Paris office and the first thing I did when I arrived was pin up a photograph of you. It was the one I took as you arrived at work one morning. You looked so beautiful with that serious, faraway expression that I decided not to shout a hello. I’d leave you to your thoughts and I’m glad I did. The photograph is perfection. Your hair taken by the wind across your eyes. Your hand reaching up to sweep it away. You lips parted just a fraction. When Jean-Paul asked who you were, I told him you were my girlfriend. He nodded with Gallic enthusiasm, gave me a crass thumbs-up, and said you were sexy. The man was an irritating oafish type, thick both in body and mind, but all the same, his reaction made my chest explode with love and, I’ll be honest, desire for you. It wasn’t long before I told him I was going to ask you to marry me. What I’d said was lost in translation, and he clapped me on the back and insisted we celebrate our forthcoming wedding with cigars and cognac. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had the wrong end of the stick and we weren’t yet engaged. If truth be told, I enjoyed the misunderstanding.

Every hour that passed, you crept further under my skin and into my veins. There I was, in the most romantic city in the world, its very streets cobbled with love, but I was without you. Finally, I mustered the courage to telephone you. Your mother called you down in her coarse Cornish accent.

‘A young man on the phone for you, melder!’

Your feet clattered down the stairs at nineteen to the dozen and the excitement in your voice as you thanked her and grabbed the phone made my stomach flip. I should have called you sooner. How stupid of me to be so nervous.

When I said your name you fell quiet. So sweetly shy. You asked about France and work and if I was having a good time.

‘It’s hard work,’ I said. ‘Long hours. And, well, I miss you.’

‘I bet Paris is amazing though.’

We only talked for a few minutes. Your mother needed help in the kitchen. I said I’d call again.

‘OK,’ you said.

‘I’ll be back in a few weeks. When I’m back,’ I hesitated, ‘can we go out to dinner again?’

‘I’m not sure,’ you said. ‘It was so expensive last time. Don’t spend your money on me.’

That made me smile. You didn’t care for frittering away money. You weren’t extravagant. Not like some of the girls I came across in London and Paris, girls who were after anything they could get their over-manicured hands on.

‘Let’s see, shall we? When I’m back we can make a plan.’

‘I should go,’ you said.

‘Oh, Hannah.’ I was unable to contain myself. ‘You’re all I think about.’

You didn’t reply.

I kicked myself. I’d come on too strong. Idiot. I needed to take more care.

Females are, I thought as I put the phone down, too easy to startle.

Chapter Seven
Hannah

Steam fills the shower cubicle and, as I step in, I inhale the wet heat. I wash and dry perfunctorily – it’s my second clean of the day, after all – and dry myself briskly, listening for Nathan’s footsteps on the stairs.

‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ I call when the bedroom door closes.

I take the black silk camisole from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and slip it over my head. The fabric caresses my skin and my stomach turns over. I brush my hair through with my fingers and spray perfume on my neck and wrists. Before I open the door, I take five deep breaths.

He waits beside the bed and watches me as I walk towards him.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask.

‘I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to look at you.’

I walk closer to him and press my lips against the curve of his neck. His hand falls to my waist and runs down the silk to my hip, then behind to cup my buttock.

‘My turn,’ he rasps.

This is a play and I am a character in the play. I know my part to perfection. I’m well rehearsed. I never miss a beat or a cue. I know how to kiss him and stroke the back of his head with the tip of my nails. I know how to bite my bottom lip and look at him through lowered lashes as I undress him. I lie him down and beg him to enter me. As he does, I affect pleasure. He kisses me on the mouth and neck, runs his fingers through my hair, groans and grinds. I take myself away and allow my mind to drift. Today I am on the cliffs at Porthcurno. Cass is up ahead of me searching the yellow fireworks of gorse for rabbits. A breeze caresses my skin like a cold hand. Kittiwakes and choughs cry mournfully. The air carries the scent of salt. The sea is dark grey-green with diamonds scattered over its surface. A boat glints in the winter sunlight. You are on the boat. You are sewing nets. Your shirt is off. Your tanned skin is shining with a film of fresh sweat. There’s a small tape recorder beside you. I focus hard. What music are you playing? Ahh. I hear it. ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries. I smile. I’d forgotten how much you love The Cranberries…

Nathan doesn’t last long and, as he pulls himself out of me, I’m catapulted back into the room.

My final Tuesday job complete.

He lies on my chest, heavy, as if made of stone. I stare at the ceiling and notice a spiderweb. How did I miss it? No problem. I’ll get rid of it when I dust again next week. I force my hand to stroke his shoulder.

He kisses me. ‘I love you.’

This might be the one glimmer of truth in our house of lies. I know he loves me. Or at least he believes he does. In spite of the other women and the money and lack of trust, I often catch him staring at me with the same dewy-eyed wonder he’d had when we first met. Nathan enjoys the machinations of romance. When we first met he would send me long letters, sometimes up to five or six pages, filled with earnest proclamations of love. Did he truly feel those things he wrote? Was he really so consumed by love for me? Or was it a display, an attempt at seduction, fabricated words that he hoped would lure me? I don’t know. But I do believe he somehow convinced himself that what we had – what we still have – is genuine. Even now, he likes to surprise me with romantic gifts – a scented candle, some bath salts, a cashmere scarf – for no reason. The look of smug pleasure on his face when he does is something to behold.

I’m sure it’s no coincidence that his need for love and affection stems from a childhood defined by loneliness, tragedy, and neglect. It sounds plausible enough. I mean, if your father blows his face off while you’re waiting to open your birthday presents, you’re bound to have issues, aren’t you? Ever since he was a boy, as he’s told me many times, a wife and children was all he wanted. He wanted the opportunity to lavish them with the stability he’d been denied. Nathan had faith in the family unit. Still does. He was devastated when I didn’t fall pregnant again. He blamed me of course. Called me a failure. Threw in accusations of mental illness and poor mothering for good measure.

I switch off the bedside light and he turns away from me and settles himself on his pillow.

‘Hannah?’ His voice is hazy and quiet, caught in that place between wakefulness and sleep.

‘Yes?’

‘Vicky’s birthday.’

I don’t reply.

‘You can go.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t make me regret it.’

Tears prickle in the darkness. I should feel happiness. Excitement. But what I feel is dread. As if this is a test which I’ve already failed.

It isn’t long before his snoring fills the room. I’ve considered leaving him. Of course I have. Just like I did all those years ago with my infant son clutched to my chest. I imagine waiting until Nathan leaves for work before hurriedly throwing clothes into a bag. I imagine telling Alex he isn’t going to school. Telling him to be quick. Then walking away. It was the threat of losing Alex to Nathan which kept me here back then. But now he’s nearly sixteen, the power of that threat is fading, yet I’m still trapped. Because what the hell would I do? Where would I go? I’ve no passport or bank account or savings. All I have is a few pilfered pennies in a sock in the back of my underwear drawer. Alex and I would be on the streets, another couple of nameless, faceless people to be ignored by passersby.

How could I do that to my son?

I ease out of bed and put my dressing gown on. I’m careful to open the door quietly. I walk down to Alex’s room. He’s still up. The shadow of him moves through the strip of light beneath the door. Is he old enough to hear the truth? To know why I’m here and why I stay? The lies gnaw inside me. I want to purge myself of them and the only way to do that is to smother them with truth.

I knock lightly. There’s a sound of rustling. Papers? A book?

‘Hang on.’

The drawer of his desk opens and closes. His feet pad to the door. He opens it a crack and peers out. His face is flushed and he chews at the corner of his mouth, tense and on edge.

‘What is it?’ He can’t seem to look at me. ‘Everything OK?’ His words are woven with concern.

‘I’m fine.’ I expect him to open the door to let me in, but he doesn’t. ‘Alex…’ My voice trails.

‘Yes?’

As always something stops me unleashing the truth. I can’t risk it. How can I explain what happened that night? No, it’s not fair, not right, to unburden on a child.

‘Mum?’

‘I need you to know,’ I say instead, ‘that I’m not a victim here. I know it looks that way, but I’m not. I chose to marry your father.’

Alex’s mouth twitches, opens and closes, as if he is trying to speak but thinking better of it.

‘What?’ My hand rests on his arm.

‘I need to know.’ Alex hesitates. ‘Does he… Does he hit you?’

I’m taken aback by the question which seems to come out of the blue but is obviously something he’s been grappling with. ‘Hit me? No! No, of course not.’

Alex blanches and a wave of sympathy rolls through me.

‘No,’ I say, more softly this time. ‘He doesn’t hit me. He never would.’

I can tell by the fleeting look which crosses his face that, like my mother and Vicky, he doesn’t believe me. It’s the truth though. Nathan has never hit me and he’s never threatened to. It’s not that I don’t think he’s capable of it. Because I’m sure he is. After all, anybody is capable of violence.

‘And what if he hit me?’

‘He wouldn’t.’

Alex scoffs.

‘Listen to me, Alex. He would never hurt you.’

‘But what if he did?’ As the belligerence and rebellion abandon him, he appears childlike and vulnerable again.

‘If he hurt you?’

Alex nods.

I lift my hand to stroke his cheek. ‘Then I’d fucking kill him,’ I say softly.

Later, when I’m sure Nathan is deeply asleep I go downstairs, careful to avoid the treads which creak like old bones, and retrieve my cigarettes from behind the washing powder in the utility room. I open the back door and Cass trots out in front of me.

It’s a beautiful night. Still and warm. The moon is full and bathes the fields in milky light. I climb the stone stile and follow the footpath over the grass and up to the brow of the hill and the neat copse of trees which stand like a group of sentinels. The ground beneath the trees is trodden up by the cows who use it to shelter from heavy rain or blazing sunshine. There’s a log at the base of one of the trees and this is where I smoke, hidden in the copse, crouching on a rotting log with my cigarette cupped in my hand like a convict to shield it from the unlikely appearance of Nathan. Vicky gives me a pack every other week. I usually smoke one a day and spread the remaining six over the two weeks, smoking a second back to back when I need it the most. For the minutes it takes to smoke them I am the closest I ever get to feeling like the old me. The me I was before that night. In the copse I am free. The air is light and the space feels expansive. It’s an act of rebellion, a secret I keep from Nathan which empowers me.

Beneath the log I keep hidden a battered metal tin, inside which are some gardening gloves, a woollen hat, a packet of mints, and some lavender spray. When I’ve tucked my hair into the hat and lit the cigarette, I slip on the gloves then draw the smoke into my lungs. Though I try to focus on the sounds around me, a distant owl, the clicks and scrapes of insects, it’s impossible to block the sound of the accusatory whispers from the leaves above.

It’s your fault, they whisper.

It’s your fault. You deserve it all.

‘I know I do,’ I whisper back.

I take one last drag then tread the cigarette end into the earth, and reach for the lavender spray.

Chapter Eight
Cam, 1998

The unrelenting storms had kept most of Newlyn’s fishing fleet in dock. One or two of the larger trawlers had managed to get out for a day or two here and there, but the smaller boats had been tied up for weeks. The mood in The Packhorse was sour. The men had given up searching for a crack of blue sky in the ashen grey or a glimpse of the horizon through driving sheets of rain. The storms seemed never-ending, as if the colossal waves would batter the coastline until the land was washed away.

The port was deserted, its familiar bustle replaced by wind-whipped piers and iron chains creaking as they swayed. Tarpaulins flapped like angry tethered birds and nets lay abandoned in heaps on the boats, their loose ends tanning the decks. Beyond the harbour, monstrous waves crashed against the concrete walls sending explosions of spray fifty feet into the air.

The fishermen had grown irascible with inactivity and empty wallets. Three of the crew of The Annamae sat at a corner table beneath the dartboard. The table was littered with empty crisp packets, sodden beer mats, and an overflowing ashtray. Davy Garnett was turning his glass in quarter revolutions, a cigarette held loosely between his lips, watching the surface of his beer waver. When it stilled he turned it again. Cam sat with half an eye on the clock above the bar. Each maddening minute passed like an hour. Geren sat between them, muttering and fidgeting, tapping his feet and drumming his fingers manically like he used to do in detention, a cigarette wedged between his knuckles.

‘Fuck this,’ he said suddenly and jabbed his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I’ve got eight fucking quid left. Eight.’ He crossed his arms and kicked out at the table leg. ‘Fuck sitting here like a bunch of cunts.’

Davy didn’t look up from his glass but sniggered softly. He was medium height but strong; sinewy rather than muscular. His dark hair was shaved, grade two, a hangover from his days in the army. Cam knew he kept it that way because it made him look hard. He had an earring, a small gold hoop, which he’d got after Geren pierced his ear with a fishing hook on a twelve-hour bender. At twenty-three he was two years younger than Cam. Their dads had been best friends who’d fished together for over twenty years until Cam’s dad drowned when their trawler went down. Cam wouldn’t have had much to do with Davy Garnett if circumstance hadn’t intervened, but when Cam’s mother met an insurance salesman from Leeds who promised her a three-bed new-build with a neat garden and no late night calls from the lifeguard, she turned her back on Cornwall, and with it her sixteen-year-old son who wasn’t welcome in Leeds. Martin and his wife Sheila had taken Cam in and he found himself sharing a room with Davy who, it turned out, wasn’t particularly happy about the arrangement. The boys had sparred, which was unsurprising. Davy couldn’t help but be jealous. Cam was gentle and helped around the house, didn’t expect anything, and tried his best not to get on the wrong sides of Martin and Sheila who, it seemed to Davy, gave him special treatment. Davy on the other hand was prone to mood swings and never seemed content, always wanting more. More friends, more popularity, more attention. He left home at seventeen in a pique of rage when Martin asked if he wanted a job on the trawler.

‘Fuck that,’ he’d said, shortly before packing his bags. ‘I’m not wasting my life on fish.’

He joined the army, but returned two and a half years later. It was obvious there’d been some sort of dismissal. He wouldn’t talk about it, certainly not with Cam, and if Martin and Sheila knew what happened they didn’t let on. A few weeks after he got back, Martin persuaded Slim to give Davy a chance on The Annamae.

‘Cam!’ Geren kicked the table leg again. ‘Did you hear me? I’m sick of us sitting here like useless cunts.’

‘I heard.’

‘Well?’

Cam smiled. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I want you to say,’ Geren said pointedly, ‘fuck this too.’

‘Fine.’ Cam reached for his drink. ‘Fuck this too.’

Geren muttered and kicked the table a third time, hard enough to cause the glasses to rattle against each other as they wobbled.

Cam drained what was left in his glass and looked at his friend. ‘You know you’re being a dick, right?’ Cam put the empty glass back on the table. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be home with Gemma?’

‘She sent me here. Told me to get out of the house because I was irritating the shit out of her.’

‘Really? I find that hard to believe.’

‘Yup. Her exact words.’ Geren groaned with frustration. ‘I need to get out there. The baby’s coming in March. Have you seen how much their crap costs?’

Cam laughed. ‘I imagine you’ll be waist-deep in it for free, mate.’

He glanced at the clock again. It had hardly changed. Three thirty-four. He was meeting her at five and time had never moved so slowly. His head was full of her, her laugh, the softness of her hair, her perfume mixed with the smell of warm bread which hung on her after work, the way she looked at him when he spoke, as if burrowing right into him to make a nest. As he thought about her, his body twitched involuntarily. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. She consumed every part of him. It unnerved him.

‘Jesus fuck, Cam. What’s with the clock?’

Cam reached for his pouch of tobacco from the detritus on the table.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Geren stifled a laugh. ‘Don’t tell me. It’s your bird, isn’t it? You’re waiting to get your end away!’

‘Piss off.’

Geren laughed. ‘Pool?’ He gestured at the table which had just come free.

Cam checked the time again – an hour to go – and nodded.

‘I reckon you don’t give a shit if we don’t get out to sea.’ Geren bent for the triangle and started to fill it with balls from the pockets. ‘I mean, who’d work when you’ve got a new bit of skirt to lift?’

Davy sniggered.

Cam took hold of a cue and chalked the end. ‘And when was the last time you got laid, Davy Garnett?’

Geren laughed.

Davy shot Cam a glare. ‘Fuck you,’ he said. ‘Your bird isn’t all that.’

Cam raised his eyebrows and smiled. ‘As if a girl like her would ever look at a little git like you.’

‘You reckon? I heard she’ll drop her knickers for any bastard.’

‘Whatever,’ Cam said under his breath. He turned his back on him and placed the cue ball on the worn-through spot on the faded baize. Davy could be a proper dickhead when he wanted to be, but Cam didn’t give a shit what he thought, and had learnt to ignore his bleating years ago.

‘Sounding a bit jealous there, Davy lad.’ Geren lit a cigarette and squinted as the smoke rose. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. You won’t be a virgin forever.’

Davy turned puce. ‘I’m not a—’

But his protestations were drowned out by laughter from Geren, Cam, and a number of men nearby. Davy slouched back on his chair, face cloudy, arms folded like a sulky child.

Cam signalled for his friend to play first.

Geren took a drag on his cigarette and placed it on the ashtray before bending and looking down the cue to line up his shot. He drew his arm back and played his shot. ‘Anyway, this little bird only has eyes for our Cameron Stewart. True love for sure.’ He tilted his head and winked at Cam in a rare moment of warmth.

Geren could be a dick – he wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea – but he was the best friend Cam had. When Cam’s dad drowned, Geren had been there in a way nobody else had and Cam would never forget that. Beneath the bullshit he was loyal and honest, and the best fishermen Cam knew, a natural who lived and breathed for the sea and had no fear of it. Unlike Cam, he fished because he loved it. Cam had never thought to do anything else. Like most of those from local families, fishing was in Cam’s blood so he never questioned it. He always knew he’d be a fisherman like the generations before him. The Stewarts originated from Scotland. It was Cam’s great-grandfather who brought them to Cornwall, when he’d returned from the war-ravaged battlefields of France and found the fishing industry in Peterhead in decline. The Cornish were desperate for crew to keep up with a thriving pilchard industry, so he packed his bags and headed south, found a spot on a boat, met a girl from Penzance, and stayed.

‘Did you know she used to go out with that Cardew prick?’ Geren struck the cue ball hard to send the others ricocheting off in all directions, sinking two balls. He grinned.

‘Who told you that?’ Cam was taken aback by the violent jealousy which stabbed him in the gut.

‘Her mate. Vicky, isn’t it? She was telling Gem all about it. How he took Hannah for a meal at this poncy place up near Truro. Said it cost over a hundred quid.’ He shook his head. ‘A hundred fucking quid? I said to Gem, don’t you get any fucking ideas, girl. Jesus, that guy’s always been a little prick.’ Geren walked around the table, assessing his options, and puffing on his cigarette.

Nathan Cardew had been at primary school with them, same year, before his parents decided mixing with the likes of Geren and Cam wasn’t good enough for their precious boy. He had a tough time because of his habit of telling tales. Cam never understood why kids like Nathan made life so hard for themselves. Who wants to be a grass? Why choose to give the name of the boy who’d drawn cocks on the toilet walls rather than just keep your mouth shut? Was it worth the grief? But Cam didn’t care then and he didn’t care now. Geren was right, he was a prick. Cam should ignore him, but the thought of him with Hannah was enough to drive him insane. He needed to get out and fish. Needed money to take her out, somewhere nice, somewhere the waiters wore ties and lit candles and called them sir and madam when they brought out their steaks.

Geren potted the black and celebrated his win by giving Cam a dead arm. There was too much pent-up energy there. He needed a vent. Geren lived for the moment and was single-minded in his hunt for adrenalin, whether that was at sea or driving his bike too fast, filling his body with drugs and drink, or squaring up for a scat at the slightest provocation. At school he’d been in and out of the headmaster’s office for anything and everything, from smoking on the roof to swearing in class to drawing cocks on the toilet walls. Geren was finally expelled a few months before CSEs and left with an insolent shrug and a fist through a window. Predictable unpredictability ran through Geren like a vein of quartz.

They played another game of pool and at ten to five Cam finally said his goodbyes amid a barrage of good-natured jeering. He smothered a grin and nodded, before zipping his jacket and thrusting his hands into his pockets and pushing out of the door.

The rain had stopped but the wind still whipped the streets as he walked down towards the bakery. He thought of his father and the night he died. Weather like this. Stormy and dark. What must it have been like for him out there? He’d been in the engine room below deck when the trawler capsized. No way out. Martin had been on deck and was thrown into the sea and had somehow managed to claw his way onto the exposed hull where he’d lain in the pitch black, exhausted and shivering, listening to Scotty calling for help and banging on the metal which separated them. Martin once told him, after too many drinks, how the sound of his father’s desperate banging would haunt him for the rest of his life. There wasn’t a man or woman in Newlyn who hadn’t lost a loved one to the sea. And all for a bit of haddock? It was a mug’s game, but then again, what else was he good for?

Cam arrived at the bakery and pressed his nose against the window. He was a few minutes early. With previous girlfriends he would never have wanted to appear too keen, but with Hannah he no longer cared. He wanted her to know how serious he was. He wanted her to know that he’d never been keener on, or more serious about, anything before in his life. He had developed a ravenous appetite for her. The more of her he consumed, the less full he felt. Sometimes he wanted to swallow her whole so she’d be there inside him forever.

Despite the biting chill a warmth spread through his body from the pit of his stomach as he looked in on the brightly lit shop and watched her stacking empty crates and chattering nineteen to the dozen to someone unseen out back. He thought about the softness of her and the feel of her breath on the skin of his neck. He tapped on the glass. She looked up and beamed at him. Then she turned and leaned through the door which led through to the back of the shop, saying goodbye, Cam presumed, to her dad. She smiled at Cam again, then lifted her apron over her head, hung it up and buttoned her coat. She burst out of the shop and jumped into his arms, kissing him over and over as if she might never stop.

‘I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,’ she said between kisses, her breath smelling faintly of mint.

Her joy enveloped him and his whole body stirred. ‘I’ve missed you too.’

They walked down to the harbour hand in hand and she told him all about her day. Every now and then she’d skip as she walked, her fingers stroking his, looking up at him with that smile of hers, something akin to wonder in her eyes. Hannah was made of goodness. She was uncontaminated, as if nothing bad had ever happened to her and this stroke of good fortune had rendered her pure, and her pureness was a salve which made him stronger.

They walked down the jetty to where his boat was docked. The boat was where they went when they wanted to be alone to kiss and talk and enjoy each other’s company away from the Garnetts. He’d bought it a few years ago, when he was drunk, for a hundred pounds from a guy in the pub who was drunker. It took him eighteen months to get it seaworthy, and there was still much to do – a repaint, a cracked window to replace, some brand new seat covers would be nice – and he loved it. The boat was his own space to retreat to when he needed to be alone. Or when he needed to be with Hannah.

He’d been down that morning and hosed the deck down, washing the dirt and fish bits out of the scuppers and making it all as clean as he could. He’d put some beers in the cool box, and grabbed a couple of blankets and a sleeping bag, and packed them all in the chest on board.

When they reached the boat, he climbed on and held out his hand.

‘Be careful,’ he said, ‘the rain’s made it slippery.’

They kissed as soon as they were both on board. Sheltering in the tiny wheelhouse and leaning back against its flimsy wall.

‘You know,’ she whispered into his ear, ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. All day. I was wrapping saffron buns earlier and all I could think about was sex!’

‘When you were wrapping saffron buns?’ He bent to kiss the curve of her neck.

She tilted her head to let him. ‘It’s true! And once I’d thought it I couldn’t unthink it. So basically I’ve been thinking about sex all day. Literally. Didn’t matter what I was doing, I was thinking about sex.’ She drew back and looked at him seriously for a moment. ‘Is that what they mean when they say men think about it twenty-four seven? Like you actually do? I never really believed them.’

He laughed. ‘Who’s them?’

‘You know. Them. People who say things.’ She shook her head. ‘Honestly, though, it must be knackering for you all. Poor sods. I had to have a sit down with an emergency doughnut at two just to get through the afternoon.’

‘It is exactly that,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Knackering.’

‘And to think we let you operate heavy machinery and fly planes.’

Her attention was grabbed by something behind him. She reached over his shoulder, the soft skin of her upper arm brushing his cheek. He turned his head to kiss it.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I keep looking at this and wondering what it is.’

He looked at what had caught her eye and saw she was holding the screw top jar that he kept on a small shelf to the side of the wheel. It was filled with clear liquid in which opaque crystals hung suspended in a gently shifting amorphous mass.

‘It’s a storm glass. My dad gave it to me.’

‘What’s it for?’

‘It predicts the weather.’

She stared at it, tipping it upside down and watching the crystals tumble like snowflakes.

‘It’s got a mix of different chemicals in it, ethanol and others I don’t know. Some guy a hundred years ago made them for the fishing folk who kept being lost in storms they didn’t know were coming. There was a fancy one, made of wood and brass, in the pub until about ten years ago when someone nicked it. My dad made this one when I was lad. It’s old but I keep it with me because it reminds me of him.’

‘Does it work?’

He smiled. ‘I don’t think so. If it’s clear it means it’ll be fine, if the crystals hang in threads there’ll be a gale. These,’ he said, gesturing at the jar, ‘all clumped together like that, mean a storm’s coming. But they don’t ever change that much, if I’m honest. Seems there’s always been a storm coming, right from when he gave it to me.’

Hannah placed the storm glass back on the ledge.

‘They were like that the night my dad drowned.’ Cam thought about that night. Recalled sitting on his bed staring at the crystals thick in the jar, the wind and rain lashing against his bedroom window, his stomach turning over and over as he thought of his dad out at sea.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘That must have been awful.’

He shrugged. ‘Fishermen drown.’

She stood up on tiptoes and kissed him, wrapping her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulling him to her. He felt tears on her cheeks and drew back and saw silver tracks glinting in the harbour light.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing can happen to you, OK? You have to stay safe. Promise me.’

He gently dried her tears then kissed her again, but this time harder, as if it was the most important thing he would ever do. His father, the storm glass, the biting cold, the lads going stir-crazy in the pub, all of it was forgotten. She took hold of his hand and placed it on her breast. He moaned and leant close until their faces were only millimetres apart, their breathing in time, her breath hot and sweet on his skin.

‘We’re going to freeze,’ she whispered.

He grinned and walked over to the back of the boat where he lifted the lid on the built-in chest. He pulled out two life jackets and passed them to her. ‘Pillows,’ he said, as he grabbed the blanket and tarpaulin, two cans of lager, and a heavy musty-smelling sleeping bag.

The air hummed with distant sounds of people arriving at the pub after work, and as he spread out the tarpaulin on the deck and laid the blanket on top, she unzipped the sleeping bag.

‘We’re going to die of actual hypothermia,’ she said, as she shimmied out of her jeans and slipped beneath the sleeping bag. ‘We should have got together in the summer.’

He lay beside her and pulled up the sleeping bag so everything was covered but their heads. ‘If I die of hypothermia tonight, I’ll die a happy man.’

They kissed, losing themselves in it, bodies warm where they touched. Cam concentrated on every detail, committing it all to memory, stored with perfect clarity so it would be there like an easily accessible photograph for the lonely hours back at sea. He wanted it all, the sweat, his bristling body, the sound of the waves, the smell of musty sleeping bag mixed with the unique smell of her – pungent body spray, her shampoo, a hint of the bakery – which tunnelled into him.

‘My a’th kar,’ she said softly, her voice breaking into his thoughts.

‘What?’

‘You don’t speak Cornish?’

He laughed. ‘Do you?’

‘A few words. Mum taught me.’

‘Say what you said again.’

‘My a’th kar.’

‘What does it mean?’

She smiled. ‘I love you.’

The words shot through him like an electric shock and he stiffened.

She flushed pink and began to chew on her lower lip. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘No, no. It’s…’ His chest had tightened so much he couldn’t breathe. ‘God. I mean… Really? You feel that?’

‘Yes. Of course. But if it’s going to mean you won’t have sex with me I can unsay it.’

‘No. Don’t unsay it,’ he whispered. ‘I love you too. I do, Hannah. I mean it. I love you so much.’

Then she kissed him. He slipped his hand beneath her sweater and stroked her skin which was peppered with goosebumps. She lifted his sweater and pressed her warm lips against his aching body. He groaned softly.

His desire was momentarily interrupted by the dread in his stomach.

He swore.

‘What?’

He swore again. ‘Fuck. Fuck. I haven’t got a condom. I meant to go to the chemist but I forgot. Jesus. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh.’ Her voice was thick with disappointment. ‘So we can’t do it?’

He hit the deck of the boat with his fist.

‘Let’s do it anyway. Just…’ She hesitated. ‘Come out. Before you… you know.’

He didn’t reply for a moment or two. They couldn’t. It wasn’t worth the risk. But then her hand went to his crotch and she stroked him gently as she ran the tip of her tongue over his lips.

‘Yes,’ he rasped. ‘Yes. OK.’

Chapter Nine
Hannah

I’d woken early, so slipped out to walk Cass while Nathan and Alex were still sleeping. On my return I can hear them shouting at each other from across the fields. I glance at my watch. It’s not even seven-thirty and yet here they are, already at each other’s throats. There’s a crash and I swear under my breath as I break into a half-jog and cross the lawn to the back door. When I walk in they glance at me briefly before returning their attention to each other. Nathan’s mouth is set in a tight, thin-lipped grimace. Alex is red-faced, nose flaring, chest heaving up and down. I scan the kitchen for what might have caused the crashing noise, but can’t see anything out of place.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask when neither offers any explanation for their fight.

Nathan’s face contorts into a grotesque snarl. He is about to speak but Alex blurts his words out first.

‘He wants to take my phone.’

Jesus. Really? This is about a phone? I purse my lips and take a breath in an effort to conceal my exasperation, which will only infuriate Nathan and make Alex more defensive, and certainly won’t help de-escalate the argument.

Nathan’s fist clenches. ‘For God’s sake! I’m not taking his phone. He—’

‘You are though! You just said it.’

‘This is ludicrous. I didn’t say I was going to take it; I said I didn’t want to see him on it at the awards ceremony this evening. And then he exploded and now here we are. If he’d been reasonable to start with then we wouldn’t have got to this. He completely overreacted, and was incredibly rude and aggressive, and he has to understand there are consequences. Now he loses his phone and that’s his own lookout.’ Nathan stares hard at Alex with unveiled challenge. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell your mother I walked up to you and tried to confiscate your phone just like that?’

Alex’s brow furrows as he retraces the steps of their argument. His confusion is familiar. It’s impossible to argue with Nathan who is as slippery as wet soap and will twist and manipulate every word uttered, then add questions, an incredulous tone, wrap it all up in lawyer-speak, and blind you with a rewritten version of what you clearly remember, leaving you speechless with self-doubt.

‘That’s not true,’ Alex tries, ‘you said I wasn’t allowed to take it tonight and I asked why, and then the next thing you said was you’d confiscate it. I said no and you said I couldn’t have it back.’

‘That’s not how it went, Alex. You know that full well. As if I would take your phone because you asked for simple clarification. You’ve not only misremembered but I find it hurtful you’d think I would do something like that. You spoke to me rudely and without respect. You didn’t look me in the eye. You snapped. You showed absolutely no interest in what is, I’ll be honest, a very important evening for me. But all that’s irrelevant now. The fact you’ve got so worked up, that you’ve managed to get yourself into this hysterical state, supersedes the original grievance. You’ve proven how addicted you are to that damn contraption and, well, I’m afraid I can’t trust you not to look at it tonight. The last thing I want is my son at the town hall, in front of the mayor no less, glued to a screen like a dysfunctional zombie.’

Alex’s mouth moves silently as his fists open and close at his sides like a pair of beating hearts.

I step towards Nathan. ‘I’m sure Alex wouldn’t have looked at his phone during the—’

Nathan interrupts me with a scornful snort.

Alex juts his chin forward, eyes narrowing to slits beneath his heavy brow. ‘It’s my phone.’

‘You paid for it, did you? And it’s you who pays for the monthly line rental?’

Alex hesitates and glances at me, but all I can do is lower my gaze.

‘It was a birthday present,’ he says quietly, his voice wavering.

‘You know, I think—’

‘Be quiet, Hannah. This has nothing to do with you. I told you we shouldn’t get him a phone and I was right. A whole generation of children are unable to have conversations or look people in the eye. They have no attention span, no opinion that isn’t force-fed to them. I can’t risk him sitting in the corner staring at his phone at the ceremony. How would that look? How would that reflect on me?’ He reminds me of a politician giving a stirring address at a rally, with neat, disorienting soundbites, an assertive thumb, and bulldozing arrogance. ‘I want him to be a young man we are proud of. Not just another entitled, disengaged snowflake who believes life owes him everything on a polished silver platter.’

‘Nathan, please. Stop now,’ I say wearily. ‘Alex needs to get to school.’

‘Stop now? You have a problem – Hannah – with how I’m parenting him? You think I don’t have the right to discipline him in my own home? Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?’

There’s something buried in his words. An accusation. I straighten myself and face him, about to speak, about to placate him, but he silences me with a raised hand like a policeman directing traffic, then holds his other hand out towards Alex. ‘Give it to me.’

‘No!’

‘Give me your phone or I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’

‘Alex,’ I say calmly. ‘Give him the phone. You can have it back tonight.’

‘He’ll have it—’

‘He’ll have it back tonight, Nathan.’

Alex’s hand twitches. He looks from me to Nathan and back at me. I give him a nod of encouragement and a small, almost undetectable, smile. He hesitates, then looking as if he might kill both of us, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and thrusts it into Nathan’s outstretched hand.

Nathan smiles with undisguised triumph. ‘Thank you. Now get yourself to—’

‘I hate you.’

I watch in horror as Nathan is possessed by a scorching anger which distorts his features and turns him ugly.

‘What did you say?’

‘You heard.’

‘You hate me?’ breathes Nathan. ‘For what? For providing you with a beautiful home? Food? Money for things you want? Giving you a phone and paying the bill each month? You hate me for caring what you do with your life?’

‘Please. Both of you. Enough.’ Though my voice is firm, I can’t disguise its tremor. I walk to Alex and rest my hand on his arm, and as I do I’m filled with self-loathing. I should be taking his side, defending him, but I know from years of experience there’s no point. You cannot win against Nathan. He’s too good. Too well practised. So instead of standing up for my son, I tell him to apologise.

‘What? Why? He’s—’

‘You need to say sorry.’ I drill my words into him. ‘You cannot speak to your father like that.’

‘But—’

‘Now!’

The sudden shout makes Alex flinch and I immediately regret it. I can’t remember the last time I raised my voice to him. The shock on his face is clear but fleeting, as he rapidly regathers himself and turns back to Nathan.

They stare at each other for a moment or two, tomcats sizing each other up, both wound tight and waiting to see who’ll pounce first. But then Alex appears to relax. His fists unclench. He gives a half-smile and shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to apologise.’

He picks up his school bag and slings it over his shoulder before reaching for the kitchen door. I say his name, but he ignores me. Then the door closes behind him and he’s gone.

I move to follow him, but Nathan grabs me. His fingers dig into my arm.

‘Leave him. You said he needs to get to school. Well, he can get himself to school this morning.’

‘He doesn’t have bus money.’

Nathan smiles. ‘Then he’ll have to walk, won’t he?’

Tears threaten and I breathe deeply to stem them.

‘I have to say, that wasn’t the start to the day I needed. Maybe if you’d been here when he woke up this morning, rather than out having a jolly walk, he might not have lost his temper like that.’ Nathan tugs on the cuffs of his shirt, puts his suit jacket on, and brushes himself down. ‘He’s been difficult for a while, but his behaviour is definitely getting worse. Do you have any idea what’s got into him?’

The look he gives me is loaded, a knowing glint, something he’s withholding. It’s a trap.

I have no idea what’s wrong – if anything – with Alex and don’t answer.

‘So? Do you? Any clue at all?’

Nathan is staring at me, waiting for me to speak, but I know better. Anything I say will be taken as ammunition, perhaps not for now, but certainly at some stage.

‘Nothing to say? Nothing at all?’

I shake my head and his face slowly assumes a smile. He leans forward to kiss my cheek.

‘We need to be ready to leave at six tonight. I’ve laid your clothes out. Why don’t you wear your hair loose?’

The outfit is laid out on the bed as if a woman was lying there, fully dressed, and combusted to nothing, leaving only the clothes. He has chosen my navy skirt, patterned with tiny white birds, a white blouse with three buttons on each cuff and a scalloped collar. A pair of navy patent leather court shoes rest neatly on the floor beneath the skirt, obediently waiting side by side. He has even put out a matching set of underwear, white with a delicate lace trim, finishing off the Sunday school teacher look he’s gone for, virginal and pure, buttoned-up. But the instruction – not a question – to keep my hair down means he wants a touch of sexiness. He wants his wife to look chaste but desirable, the perfect woman for a man of Nathan Cardew’s standing. I stare at the outfit and fantasise about leaving it there, laid out on the bed, and going to the town hall in jeans and a sweater, hair in a scruffy ponytail, wellington boots, and getting so drunk on cheap wine my speech slurs and my make-up runs down my face in grubby black smears.

To the casual observer it might seem that allowing him to choose my clothes is a pitiful relinquishing of my identity. Honestly though? It doesn’t bother me. I’ve no interest in clothes and it’s a battle I have no intention of fighting. Nathan cares about aesthetics, as he calls it. He likes expensive watches and sharp suits and shoes with genuine leather soles. I don’t give a toss. I grew up in a chaotic, untidy house, filled with laughter, dog hair, and clutter on every available surface. I wore things we could afford, hand-me-downs, coats and skirts from charity shops. Mum always said what mattered was people, not things. Nathan would disagree. He has disdain for most people but loves beautiful things. Most of the gifts he gives me for my birthdays or Christmas – a piece of art, a first edition book, or an ornament, maybe – are actually bought for himself. He gave me a painting a few years ago. He said it was expensive. It depicts a hunting scene, a group of men in caps and tweed, faithful beagles at their feet, gathered around the bloodied body of a stag, its dead eyes open, tongue lolling. After a lot of holding it up here and there around the house, going through the motions of deciding on the perfect spot for it, he told me it looked best in his study. I agreed. It’s an awful painting and I’m glad I don’t have to look at it, glad it hangs in his study with the photograph of his dead sister and the ghost of his drog-polat father.

Not caring is another form of self-protection as well, like the small rebellions I use to claw back some control. These seemingly insignificant acts are my oxygen. Like, every Sunday, while I cook the roast dinner and Nathan reads in the sitting room, I pour a large glass of the red wine he’s decanted to breathe. It might be a St Emilion or a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, something expensive, bought with care and deliberation from the by appointment only wine merchant in Padstow with whom he’s on first name terms. Then I top up the decanter with cheap cooking wine and tip the glass of expensive stuff into the gravy pan. Later, when we’re sitting at the table, I’ll watch him ceremoniously pouring the wine from the decanter, smelling it, rolling it around the glass, sipping it then announcing how delicious it is. Sometimes I buy reduced economy lamb mince as well as the butcher’s best he likes. I’ll use the cheap stuff for the shepherd’s pie and cook the good stuff for Cass. It means juggling the receipts or paying for the cheap mince with coins I’ve squirrelled away, but I’m an expert at that. Then of course there’s the smoking. God, he hates smokers. It’s absurd how angry he becomes when people smoke near him, huffing and puffing as if he was a twenty a day smoker himself. When we got married one of the first things he said was and you won’t be smoking anymore? The question mark was a red herring. It wasn’t a question. It was another instruction. Part of our marriage contract. I picture his reaction if he found out about the packet of Marlboro Lights hidden in the utility room in a tin behind the washing powder and smile.

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