by Dani Atkins
I slid onto one of the high chrome stools, my offer to help politely but firmly declined, as Liam busied himself with the omelettes. As he cooked, I looked around the well-appointed kitchen, which wouldn’t have been out of place in a Beautiful Homes magazine feature. There was every conceivable piece of equipment you could possibly want outside of a professional kitchen, including an impressive magnetic board with every size of kitchen knife you’d need from filleting a fish to disembowelling an intruder.
‘It’s a great kitchen, for someone who only cooks eggs.’
‘Anna was the real cook,’ Liam said, telling me something I’d already guessed. He gestured towards the cockpit-like row of dials on the range. ‘I still don’t know what half of those actually do.’ His smile was self-deprecating as he nodded towards the microwave sitting on the worktop. ‘That one I can use, though.’
I laughed, feeling a thread drawing me inexorably towards him, as the confession slipped from my tongue. ‘I still have Tim’s baby grand piano in my lounge, despite the fact that it takes up half the floor space. I dust it every week, and get it tuned twice a year.’
‘You don’t play?’ Liam guessed.
‘Not a note. Not even “Chopsticks” – and practically everyone in the world knows how to do that one.’
Liam’s smile was wry and understanding. He lived in the same world as I did, and for the longest time I’d really thought I was its only inhabitant. It felt kind of strange to discover that I wasn’t.
We chatted amiably over the omelettes, which were surprisingly good. I got the impression Liam was deliberately trying to steer our conversation away from the events of that morning, but like a sore tooth, I kept going back to them, even though it hurt to do so.
‘How long do you think it will be before we hear back from their lawyer?’ I asked, neatly lining up my cutlery to the twelve o’clock position on my plate. I’d been even hungrier than I’d realised, and despite the size of the omelette I’d cleared my plate of every last scrap.
‘It’s impossible to say.’
‘But if you had to guess,’ I pressed.
Liam shook his head, refusing to be drawn. ‘I think the longer they take to get back to Edward, the better the chances are that they’ll decide not to go to court.’ He took our dirty plates and loaded them into the dishwasher, shaking his head regretfully at the small dog who was staring up at him hopefully. She’d been hovering beneath my stool throughout our meal. Clearly, I looked like someone who was likely to be clumsy with her food.
‘As hard as I’m sure it will be, the best advice I can give you is to put all of this to the back of your mind for now. Let the lawyers do what you’re paying them an extortionate amount of money to do.’
I spluttered slightly on my mouthful of water. ‘You’re not wrong there.’
Liam grinned and inside me something shifted slightly, like gears in movement. The line between acquaintance and friend had been crossed, and I don’t really think either of us had seen that coming so quickly.
The breakfast bar was positioned directly beneath a huge overhead skylight, which at night would probably make you feel as though you were dining under the stars, but on a hot summer’s day like today, the effect was more like eating inside a Turkish sauna. I tried, unsuccessfully, to smother a yawn.
‘Why don’t you go and sit down in the lounge while I make us some coffee,’ Liam suggested. ‘It’s more comfortable in there and about twenty degrees cooler.’
‘I should help you clear up,’ I protested, swallowing back another yawn. My sleepless night was finally catching up on me and my eyes felt so heavy it was all I could do to keep them open as I did as Liam had suggested and moved to the lounge. It was really rather sweet to see Sally get a little arthritically to her feet, and then trot alongside me, as though just half an hour earlier she hadn’t seriously been contemplating how to rip my throat out.
‘You’ve made yourself a friend,’ observed Liam, watching the tiny dog falling into step beside me. From his tone, I could tell it didn’t happen very often.
‘I have,’ I said, my eyes going to his without any conscious thought. I felt the heat of a blush warming my cheeks, which I hoped he hadn’t noticed. ‘I really have.’
*
There was a baby in my arms, and that in itself felt strange and unfamiliar. The infant’s head was resting in the curve of my arm; its weight was heavy as it lay across my stomach. Was I in a delivery room somewhere? I didn’t think so, particularly as I appeared to still be fully clothed. But dreams don’t always bother with the i-dotting and t-crossing details of reality. It was a good dream, and I could feel Tim beside me, even though his face was obscured by shadows.
‘Is this Noah?’ he asked softly, his voice awed.
I opened my mouth to reply, but another voice from somewhere unseen jumped in before I could speak.
‘It’s Edward.’
I shook my head. No, that wasn’t the name I would choose for our child. But the mystery voice was insistent. ‘Beth. It’s Edward. Wake up.’
The dream played tug of war with my consciousness for several moments before finally disintegrating. The ‘baby’ in my arms wriggled and licked my nose, her tail beating out a tattoo on the settee cushions.
‘Sally, get down,’ Liam commanded, laying one hand on my shoulder and gently shaking me all the way awake. In his other hand was a slim rose-coloured device, my mobile phone, which I now remembered leaving on the breakfast bar when I’d moved into the lounge.
I blinked stupidly up at him and reached for my phone, which had now fallen silent. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked, rubbing my eyes roughly in an attempt to get them to focus on the screen. Even my voice sounded weird, as though someone had crept in and stuffed my mouth with cotton wool balls while I slept.
‘Just over an hour,’ Liam said, sounding apologetic. ‘You looked so exhausted I didn’t have the heart to wake you.’
The embarrassment of falling asleep in someone else’s home barely even registered as I wriggled myself upright. Sally shot me a disappointed look before jumping off my lap and settling instead by my feet. Finally, my eyes were capable of deciphering the words on the phone’s screen.
‘Three missed calls,’ I read, my voice flat and fearful. ‘All of them from Edward.’
‘I saw,’ said Liam, and although he tried to hide it, I heard the thread of concern in his voice. ‘I’m sorry. I was upstairs and only heard it ringing a minute ago.’
‘Why do you think he’s calling? It’s too soon, isn’t it? You said the longer it took for their lawyer to get back to us, the better.’
‘You have to remember that I frequently don’t know what the hell I’m talking about,’ Liam declared, a fact that I simply didn’t believe for a second, even if it did make my lips spasm briefly in a semblance of a smile.
‘I should call him back,’ I said, looking up at Liam as though willing him to tell me to do no such thing. Instead, he just nodded solemnly. This was bad. This was very, very, bad. I could feel it with a sick kind of presentiment that in normal circumstances I simply wouldn’t believe in.
My tongue still felt abnormally thick, as though it fully intended to sabotage my phone call by sticking to the roof of my mouth and silencing me. I noticed a cup on the table beside me, which hadn’t been there when I’d fallen asleep, and I reached for it now, taking a huge swallow even though the coffee was unpleasantly cold.
Liam pulled a face. ‘I’ll make you a fresh one,’ he offered, ‘and give you some privacy to talk.’
He reached out for the cup, but my hand shot out to stop him, even before I knew it was going to do it. At some point he’d rolled the sleeves of the black shirt up to his elbows, so my hand rested on the warm skin of his forearm, instead of on fabric. His lower arms were more muscular than Tim’s had been, although minus the covering of soft dark hair that I remembered so well on my husband’s body.
‘Stay. Please,’ I asked, my voice not quite steady. ‘I
could do with the moral support. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.’
I liked the way Liam didn’t tell me I was letting my imagination run away with me, or that I was overreacting, or even just being stupid. He simply nodded and sat down on the settee beside me, so close that his hip bone was brushing against mine. I pressed the screen to return Edward Patterson’s call, while Liam leant forward and absently scratched the top of Sally’s head, right between her ears. It’s safe to say she was the only one in the room who didn’t look worried.
Edward was more succinct and sharp-shooting than he’d been in any of our previous conversations. There was no hint of the Santa bonhomie in his tone as he got straight to the point. ‘It’s not good news I’m afraid, Beth. Frankie Burrows has rejected our proposed outline for shared contact, on behalf of her clients. In addition, they’ve also closed the door to all further negotiations. They’ve decided they want to take their chances in front of a judge. It’s a decision I feel sure they will end up regretting.’
‘I… I see,’ I said. Despite Edward’s confidence, I could already feel defeat coursing through me, pushing out the earlier traces of misplaced hope that I’d stupidly allowed to creep in. After I’d explained to them about Tim, after Izzy had let me keep the photograph of Noah, I’d dared to let myself believe we could find a way to work things out. It felt doubly cruel to have those fledgling dreams stamped out.
‘We always knew this was a possibility,’ continued Edward calmly. ‘I truly believe this won’t change the eventual outcome; it just means it might take us a little longer to get there.’ I don’t remember hanging up the phone, or even saying goodbye. It’s quite possible that I did neither. My phone was back in Liam’s hands once more, and he carefully set it down on the table.
‘This doesn’t mean you’ve lost,’ Liam said with a quiet confidence he probably shouldn’t be owning. The truth of the matter was that no one knew how a court was going to rule in this case, because no judge had ever had to make this kind of decision before. Not ever. A battle could have been avoided today – but instead Izzy and Pete had chosen to declare war.
24
Izzy
The dream came back that night.
‘Noah! Noah! Noah!’ I screamed myself awake, the way I’d done countless times before. Only these days Pete wasn’t there beside me to gather me in his arms and soothe the nightmare away. Although to be fair, he wasn’t far away.
I was still lost in the world my subconscious had conjured up when the bedroom door burst open and Pete stood within its frame, silhouetted by the light from the hall. His eyes took it all in: the sweat-drenched bed sheets tangled around me, the hair plastered to my forehead, and the heaving of my chest, as I once again lived through the most terrifying experience of my life. He had no need to ask what was wrong. He already knew.
As if the words ‘separation’ and ‘divorce’ had never entered our vocabulary, Pete climbed onto the bed and drew me against him. I went willingly, burying my face into the familiar terrain of his bare chest.
He spoke into my hair, crooning the words like the refrain of an old song ‘Shh… shh… It’s just a bad dream. Everything’s all right. You’re fine now.’
I struggled against the circle of steel his arms provided, tilting my face up towards his in the dim light. ‘I couldn’t get him into the car. Everyone had gone home. There was no one to help us. I couldn’t save him.’
‘But that’s not what happened, Izzy,’ Pete reasoned, a fact I knew perfectly well as Noah was currently sleeping peacefully in the adjacent room. ‘There were still people in the farm shop. One of them called an ambulance. It got there in minutes.’
Gradually, nightmare and reality began to separate, parting like clouds to reveal the truth. Pete’s voice was calm and measured, talking me down from the ledge the way it always did. ‘We were lucky, the paramedics were carrying an EpiPen in the ambulance. They gave him the dose right there on the ground of the car park,’ Pete continued, as if he’d been there himself, which of course hadn’t been the case. There was only one parent to blame for what had happened to Noah that day – me.
‘By the time you phoned me from the ambulance, Noah was already improving and breathing more easily. Remember?’
I nodded, although within me there still lived a dark parallel world where there’d been no paramedics; no life-saving dose of epinephrine; no ambulance journey to the hospital where Pete was already speeding to meet us in A &E.
He passed me the tissue box from the cabinet on what used to be his side of the bed. Our limbs were twisted together like pipe-cleaner figurines: his thigh slotted between both of mine, his right arm still firmly circled around me, holding me close enough to wake up a million old memories from hibernation. I flushed in the darkness, thankful he couldn’t see. My heart was still racing far too quickly, but that was surely the residual effect of the nightmare, and had nothing to do with my almost-ex-husband’s nearness.
‘Why don’t I make you a cup of tea? That always used to help.’
Not as much as having you hold me. For a dreadful moment, I nearly said those words out loud. ‘Tea would be good,’ I murmured instead. The curious feeling of abandonment as he eased himself away from me was hard to ignore.
He returned much sooner than I was expecting, catching me unawares. I’d used his absence to change out of my unpleasantly damp sleepwear and had pulled on a clean pair of briefs and was about to slip on a fresh strappy vest. My arms were raised above my head, as though I was surrendering, when Pete returned with the tea. I knew he’d seen me naked. The full-length bedroom mirror caught the moment when he jerked to a halt, even though it was too dark to read the expression in his eyes. He gave a small sound; it was impossible to tell if it was an indrawn breath or an expression of dismay.
‘I’ve made some toast too,’ he said, his voice strangely gruff as he laid the tray down on the mattress. ‘You need to eat more, Iz. You’ve lost too much weight.’ I wanted to ask if he meant in general, or whether his comment was a result of what he’d just seen.
‘Will you… Will you stay with me? Just for a little while. Until it fades away.’
He needed no further explanation. He knew how the nightmare worked; he understood how it liked to bury its fingers deep into my subconscious, making it almost impossible to get back to sleep. I read the indecision on his face and saw the precise moment when he shut down the voice in his head warning him this was a line he really shouldn’t be crossing. ‘Sure. I’ll stay until you fall asleep.’
I ate the toast, not because I wanted it, but because the approval in his eyes was worth sleeping in a bed filled with crumbs. ‘That’s better,’ he said encouragingly. ‘You need to get some of your old curves back.’
I wanted to ask why. What did it matter if my jeans hung loosely on my hips, or if every one of my bras was now just a little too big? A sudden unwanted comparison flashed through my head of Maya’s voluptuous cleavage versus my own practically non-existent one. I reached for another piece of toast.
With my mug drained, I settled back against the pillows. In the old days, this would be when he’d hold me tightly against him, our legs and arms twisted and tangled together like vines. Obviously, that would be far too weird now, but he did settle back against the headboard, lying on top of the covers. I inched a little closer, and he looped one arm around my shoulders.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered into the darkness. He didn’t ask if I was referring to the tea, the toast; to chasing away the nightmare; or to never once blaming me for endangering our child’s life. He never would; that was my job – and I was very good at it.
I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, the warm familiar smell of him filling my lungs with each inhalation. Hours later, as the first rays of light began to filter through the bedroom curtains, I reached out for him – but he was gone. The sheets were cold, so he’d left some time ago. There was a small Pete-shaped dent in the pillow where his head had lain, and I buried my face
into it and confided to the duck down and feathers how much I still loved my husband.
25
Beth
‘What’s it supposed to be?’ Natalie asked, screwing up her eyes and taking a step backwards to get a different viewpoint. A series of small popping sounds filled the shop, like short rounds of gunfire, as she stepped on the many yards of bubble wrap that were now pooled around our feet.
‘I don’t think it’s necessarily meant to be anything. It’s abstract.’
Natalie frowned, and shook her head as though faced with a tough algebraic equation rather than a piece of art. ‘I like my paintings to look like something, you know?’
‘Well, it reminds me of a field of poppies,’ I pronounced, repeating what I’d said to Liam when I’d first seen this particular oversized canvas, hanging on the wall of his lounge.
‘That one is absolutely amazing. It’s so vibrant and eye-catching,’ I had declared.
Liam’s face had transformed into an expression that was an amalgam of pride, appreciation and love. ‘Yeah, I’ve always really liked that one.’
He glanced around the room, where every wall held at least one of his late wife’s creations, and looked almost nervous, as though the paintings were listening to him. ‘Well, I like them all, of course.’
He surrounded himself with them, I had quickly realised within seconds of being welcomed into his home. He surrounded himself with her. The paintings were in the hallway, the lounge, and followed a pathway up the staircase to the upper floor. And of course I already knew about the ones that decorated the walls of his office.
‘If Anna walked in here right now, she’d be really shocked,’ Liam declared.
I think we all would be, I had thought, but wisely hadn’t gone for the easy quip.
‘She had a rule about only ever putting up one of her paintings at a time. She was modest – almost shy – about showing anyone her work. Even though I told her they were amazing, I think she always believed I was irrationally biased.’