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by Penny Parkes

  Say what you like about Kate, she knew exactly which buttons to press to make Anna feel guilty.

  ‘You can’t just rush off to yet another house that isn’t even home. I never know where you are. Nobody does.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether you’re actually even writing a novel. Nobody serious about getting published would have been quite so blasé about Sarah’s interest. She’s a big deal, you know. I mean, I know she looks so quietly sweet, but she has a core of literary steel. Like a ninja.’ Kate wobbled slightly as her questionable ninja hand skills challenged her already precarious balance.

  ‘What are you doing, Pod?’ Kate asked. ‘If I promise not to judge, will you tell me?’

  Anna nodded. ‘Just as soon as I know, you’ll be the first person I tell.’

  Kate narrowed her gaze. ‘So there isn’t a plan? It’s all a bit aimless?’ Kate looked utterly confused. She was a planner, a goal-setter, a woman of many lists. That anyone could be so cavalier about their future clearly was beyond her comprehension. ‘But. But, why?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘You should see the houses I get to live in, though, Kate. They’re the stuff of dreams. Whole rooms full of books, vast kitchens, sitting rooms fresh from an Austen novel. Modern homes with sweeps of granite and glass one week and Georgian townhouses the next. Every single one is unique and every single one is a home like nothing I could ever dream of. I get to live there, Kate.’ Her voice had taken on the slightly softer, supplicating tone that came so naturally when she wanted to persuade someone that she was right, but Kate was having none of it.

  ‘But they’re other people’s homes, darling. Not yours. You’re just passing through. It’s not your life. It’s not even your furniture, or your books, or sodding bedsheets. It’s smoke and mirrors, Pod, and it’s stopping you finding your own path.’

  ‘Maybe this is my path,’ Anna said loudly. ‘Did you ever stop to think of that? Maybe I have no frame of reference for how I want my life to be.’ She glanced back into the marquee, at the smiling faces of Kate’s family and friends celebrating together. ‘Maybe the idea of putting down roots feels like an anchor to me, dragging me down, unless I keep moving.’

  She stopped, biting off her next words before she could say any more, reveal any more. ‘Katie-Kate, I am just fine bumbling around. I’m being paid to live in luxury houses and see how the other half live. It is not a bad choice. It’s just not your choice.’ She nodded towards the marquee where Duncan was now standing outlined in the swagged doorway. ‘I am over the moon, utterly delighted, thrilled for you and Duncan. You are a gorgeous couple and I wish you every happiness in the world. Watching you take your vows meant the world to me, so please don’t read anything into me leaving other than that I’m very tired and very sober and I have zero desire to be fondled by the rugby team on the dance floor.’ She smiled. ‘And we both know that’s where this evening is heading.’

  Kate stepped forward and hugged her tightly. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all bridezilla on you there. I think this tiara is literally killing my brain cells the longer I wear it.’ She smiled. ‘I just worry about you. I guess I just don’t understand how you can be so incredibly self-sufficient, and despite all my bloody credentials and qualifications, I still need all this to validate my choices.’

  ‘I know, right? I mean, who knew that you, my fiercely feminist friend, still needed doves and a string quartet to affirm your love?’ Anna swept one hand dramatically back against her forehead in a swoon and in moments they were both laughing together like drains.

  ‘I love you, Anna Wilson, you know that, right?’ Kate waved her hand in the air. ‘And one little band of gold and a few words in church won’t change that. But listen, promise me – don’t be an island, okay?’

  Anna slipped back behind the wheel as Kate returned to Duncan. How could she ever explain that independence wasn’t a choice for her, it was a necessity? She had only herself to turn to and only herself to please.

  As she drove through the dark Oxfordshire lanes towards the manor house, the absolute silence of the night in contrast to the bubbling, exuberant crowd she had left behind was not as comforting as she had hoped.

  For a fleeting moment, Anna could only wish she had the fortitude to turn around, the irony not escaping her that honesty and vulnerability required a lot more strength than keeping her friends at arm’s length; almost as though she’d been doing it for so long that her metaphorical elbow was locked into place. Bending was no longer an option.

  Chapter 6

  Oxford, 2019

  Oxford at night was a masterpiece of light and shadows. As the engine idled at the T-junction, Anna couldn’t help but pause, taking in the spires and towers that punctuated the skyline even from a distance. She adored the town, loved her friends – though even she would acknowledge that they might not actually know this, based on her remote behaviour since they had all moved out of their shared student house.

  And, like the skyline in front of her, Anna herself was a mass of contradictions – old and new competing for space, for breathing room.

  She pushed the silken, billowing fabric of her dress aside to reach the handbrake, grateful that Kate had given her the push she so clearly needed to step up today, yet somewhat unnerved by the feeling that she was on the cusp of tumbling down the rabbit hole again. She had dived into their life as students here together with such naivety, allowing herself to feel a part of something without holding back, without measure, for the very first time.

  She glanced up as the lights changed and swung the wheel to the left on autopilot, instinctively returning to the Cowley Road.

  She couldn’t have been the only one who had wished it would last for ever – who had reeled at the exhortations to ‘keep in touch’ even as her housemates’ taxis and trains whisked them away to pastures new?

  She pulled up to the kerb outside number forty-four and sighed, assailed by memories of happier times. Proximity had always been the only measure of commitment that counted for Anna – those who mattered stayed, or so she firmly believed.

  Seeing everyone tonight, seeing how the bonds of friendship had ebbed and grown, morphing with their changing lives, she felt a shiver of regret. She had done what she always did when she was unsure – she’d pulled back, pulled away, a self-imposed boundary drawn harsh in the landscape of their friendships. It wasn’t that she begrudged them leaving, but that she doubted their relationships could survive the change.

  ‘You should have more faith,’ Kate had told her over and over, refusing to be fobbed off, refusing to be sidelined, pos-sibly knowing more than most how the dismantling of their household, their temporary family, might make Anna feel.

  Well then, thought Anna, her mind flickering back to the bride and groom and the affectionate, laughing speeches, to the effusive greetings and welcome she herself had received, maybe it wasn’t too late? She glanced down at the passenger seat, at the bridal bouquet she had caught despite every evasive measure she could think of. Almost as though Kate had been aiming it directly at her.

  Perhaps she would go back for the brunch tomorrow – the morning after the night before? Perhaps she would dip a toe in the water, and maybe, just maybe have a proper conversation with Sarah about how publishing actually worked.

  Maybe that alone would be enough of a push to get her back on track: her dreams of being a published author neglected for far too long. Even if all those dreams tended to focus on the image of holding her novel in her hand, seeing it in the window of a bookshop, seeing her name in print. That goal had always been crystal clear – but as to the contents of those three hundred pages? Anna would be the first to admit that she had given that important detail embarrassingly little attention of late.

  Twenty minutes later, the gravel made a satisfying crunch as she pulled the Mini to a halt outside Gravesend Manor. A chill breeze lifted the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck as she stepped out into the darkness, kicking herself for not leaving a light switch
ed on to come home to, wondering whether it would really have been so awful to relax with a glass of wine and stay over rather than returning to this daunting Victorian pile alone.

  She pushed open the front door, shoes in one hand and the hem of her dress hooked over her arm to avoid tripping over the acres of fabric. Angus and Betty hustled towards her excitedly, their bottoms wiggling as their tails wagged in effusive greeting. Dropping her shoes, she crouched down to fuss them, as they clambered all over her for attention and affection. ‘Oh you are gorgeous. Are you pleased to see me, are you?’

  ‘Well, I know I am.’

  Anna fell back onto her bottom with a thud, even as the dogs took it to be part of the game and scrambled onto her legs, snuffling happily. She didn’t need to glance at her watch to know it was long past midnight, or at the key in the door to know she’d locked up. There was no way on God’s earth that Andrew Fraser should be standing in the kitchen doorway, tie unravelled, hair dishevelled, and a half-empty glass of wine in his hand.

  ‘You need to go home, Andrew,’ she said firmly, trying to swallow the quiver in her voice that would betray the sudden sense of foreboding that winded her with its intensity.

  ‘Home? Home? Are you taking the piss?’ Andrew said, not moving, only his eyes raking over her legs. ‘If this place is anyone’s home, Anna my love, it’s mine.’

  He was across the hall in six large strides, suddenly towering over her. He gave a short, abrupt whistle and the two dogs instantly stilled, sitting at his heels and leaving Anna free to stand up. He held out his hand – an aid that was only necessary because he was standing so incredibly close to her.

  Nevertheless, Anna scrambled to her feet without his help. There was no way she was going to buy into whatever story Andrew Fraser was running in his mind. The flash of angry disappointment in his eyes told its own tale.

  ‘Come and have a drink with me, Anna. Since you’re living in my house for free, it’s really the very least you can do.’ He clasped her upper arm tightly and propelled her towards the kitchen, giving her no choice. The resentment was bubbling away beneath the surface of his every word and Anna’s tired brain struggled to compute – was he implying that she owed him rent? In whatever form that might take?

  She pulled her arm away, noticing the angry red welt that had mottled her skin and feeling her own temper fraying in response.

  ‘You know they wanted to charge me rent to live at home? My own parents! Said that I was an adult and should contribute to the “cost of living” if I never planned to leave.’ For a man in his thirties, Andrew sounded remarkably like a petulant child denied chocolate cake for breakfast. ‘Well, I showed them. If I’m going to pay rent,’ he spat, ‘I’m not going to do it to live at home with Ma and Pa, am I?’

  Anna flinched. It was presumably better not to say that she assumed that very outcome was exactly his parents’ intention. She saw all too many spoiled, entitled ‘adults’, stunted in their maturity by never having to lift a finger, work a day, have a plan – still sulkily inhabiting their childhood mansion rather than trade it for the lowly bedsit they could probably afford from their own earning potential.

  Spoiled. Not just overindulged, but spoiled like rotten fruit, their youthful potential dimmed by a lack of necessity and drive.

  Anna herself found it particularly hard to stomach; even more so when the man-child in question was staring at her with such a cocktail of longing and loathing.

  She stepped back, making sure that one of the Frasers’ sturdy kitchen chairs was between them. ‘This is probably a conversation we could have during the day,’ she said. ‘Let’s catch up tomorrow.’

  Never engage; never justify – lessons from the fostered years would never leave her. Be pleasant, be polite, beyond reproach – unless of course there was no choice.

  She silently pleaded with Andrew Fraser to keep his cool and his options open. He was maybe two steps away from some seriously poor decisions – as though letting himself into his parents’ house in the middle of the night, drunk, to accost the house-sitter wasn’t bad enough.

  He pulled the chair between them aside, making Anna’s heart thud into her throat, before planting his backside down, thighs spread. He tilted his head back, appraising her through heavy lids, weighted down by alcohol and frustration.

  Her gaze flashed to the open front door, to the discarded shoes and clutch bag where her mobile phone remained stubbornly, inexorably, out of reach.

  ‘And are you enjoying your time as Lady of the Manor?’ he asked switching pace, almost pleasant, were the question not coming hot on the heels of his obvious distaste for the arrangement. ‘Is it fun trying on other people’s lives for size?’

  Just rude then; not stupid.

  ‘What makes someone who looks like you’ – his eyes travelled over her again intrusively – ‘want to live like that? Why isn’t there a Mr Anna and lots of baby Annas and a white picket fence, I wonder?’

  He reached forward and caught her wrist, reflexes fast and smooth for a man his size, despite the flush of wine to his cheeks. His abrupt lunge made the dogs flinch, as though they had been on the receiving end of those reflexes more than once.

  ‘So tell me, Anna Wilson.’ He tugged hard until she fell against him and she stiffened briefly in protest, but the muscle memory was already there. Her gaze was blank, vacant almost, as though she had already left the proverbial building. She didn’t tug her arm away, make a sudden lurch for her phone – God knows screaming would make no difference. She just felt the fight leave her body and blinked at him hollow-eyed.

  He grunted his disapproval. Clearly one of those men for whom the verbal riposte was part of the fun. Did he want to see her fear? Hear her beg for him to let go?

  Anna allowed her arm to soften in his grasp, her expression carefully neutral. He didn’t need to know that she was mentally cataloguing the contents of her overnight bag upstairs, assessing its necessity.

  Simply walking away was often the better part of valour and certainly a tried and tested method.

  He ran his slightly sweaty hand over her bare shoulder, snagging at the fabric of the spaghetti straps as he did so, his pupils dilating. ‘So, Anna. Is this just part of the service then, keeping the family happy?’ he leered.

  She removed his hand and dropped it with disdain. ‘I think we both know the answer to that, Andrew.’ She paused. ‘There’s a window for you leave now, without any repercussions or hard feelings.’

  She stepped back, but his hand shot out and caught her again. ‘I’m fairly sure the night’s not over yet, Anna. And as for repercussions – who are they going to believe?’

  Anna’s stomach lurched; a part of her had still been hoping that she was over-reacting, slipping into past patterns, that she was no more vulnerable here than at any other time since reaching the magical marker of her eighteenth birthday. The difference being that now, she had no need to keep the peace.

  ‘Whatever you’re considering is a very bad idea, Andrew. Your mum and dad trusted me to look after their house and their dogs. That’s all. Don’t read anything more into it, okay?’

  Man-child that he was, Andrew didn’t even seem to know what to do. Faced with an easy choice, he seemed determined to make life difficult. ‘You can’t leave and I don’t intend to,’ he said, standing up and towering over her. ‘I think you just need a little persuasion.’

  An acidic burn hit the back of Anna’s throat as she considered her options. Fighting back against a man his size would not end well for her.

  ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ she said, peeling his fingers from her wrist and walking decisively towards the machine. All the while the tattoo in her head was running: calm, slow, steady, calm, slow, steady… She clocked her handbag, still listing sideways on the hall floor, car keys and shoes beside it. Six or seven paces for Andrew; ten or twelve for her. ‘Do you want a cup too?’

  He frowned, caught off guard, clearly expecting a more dramatic reaction to his latent threat
s. A slow smile spread across his face as the thought occurred to him. ‘I knew we were on the same page, lovely Anna. Must be lonely, moving around all the time?’

  Anna pressed the button on the coffee grinder hard, watching with satisfaction as the beans were reduced to fine powder.

  Lesson 101 for all baristas – if you think chilli in your eye is painful, have you ever experienced finely ground espresso beans? It’s a mistake you’ll only make once.

  She turned to him, trying to soothe her racing heart and the cloying sensation of déjà vu. She breathed out to calm herself and forced a smile onto her face even as she unscrewed the lid.

  Chapter 7

  Oxford, 2019

  Pulling into a lay-by before she joined the dual carriageway, Anna’s hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold the steering wheel. She pushed open the car door and heaved violently onto the concrete, her eyes watering. Cool and calm could only take you so far and then the adrenaline had to carry you forward, as she knew only too well.

  She wiped her mouth on the silk of her skirt, already ruined by coffee grounds and blood. Her blood, she realised, from the throbbing pain in her eyebrow where Andrew’s flailing elbow had caught her and split the skin. Still, it was a small price to pay.

  She closed the car door and pushed down the tiny plastic knob, the satisfying crunch as the central locking engaged giving her a disproportionate amount of security. She picked up her phone and breathed out slowly, even as the sour adrenaline burned from her system, to be replaced by a hiccupping relief.

  Who could she call?

  Where could she actually go at two in the morning, looking like this?

  She hesitated before clicking on the pitifully small menu of her ‘favourite’ contacts. Emily. It could only really be Emily.