The Codes of Love

by Hannah Persaud

  In the end they sleep, Ada in bed and him by the fire. The next morning they say goodbye. He looks at the sign they’ve restored that now hangs on the gate. Cyfannedd Fach – small inhabited. She’ll sign the deeds over to him, she says. Her way of an apology. He won’t be coming here again, he tells her. ‘You never know,’ she replies. She packs her bag and carries it to the car. She looks out at the forest and she is crying.

  ‘I really love it here,’ she says.

  After she’s left, he packs and locks up the cottage carefully. Leaves a note for the caretaker.

  In the car he drives quickly, and with each gate he feels a tightening twist in his chest. With every mile the knot gets larger. He turns the radio up, drowning out the images of the cottage and the feel of it against his hand as he touched the walls for the last time. He wants the pain to swallow him. He knows that he will not go back to the cottage, that the forest will grow between its stones and the wind will sweep between the sheets; the rain will wash away their taste of one another. It was never theirs to take in the first place.

  Rules of an open marriage #20:

  Accept one another’s flaws

  London, July 2016

  When Emily leaves the house, she is smiling. The property she’s seeing in Dorset later is her favourite, on paper at least. She throws her bag in the passenger seat and pulls out onto the road, her smile vanishing as she sees Leo loitering by the postbox. When was the last time she walked carefree down her own street? What does he want from her? The deal is done, concluded. He glances up at her and she pretends she hasn’t seen him. He’s giving her the creeps. Ryan’s away again, his ‘mother’s’ trip. He left two days ago. As if he would visit his mother for anything longer than a coffee – he hates the characterless care home and its soulless spaces, returning each time sullen and quiet. She turns the stereo on and presses play on the Desert Island Discs that she has downloaded just for this trip.

  Three hours later she parks her car on the side of the road, a foot from the edge of the cliff. It’s good to get away from London. As she climbs out of the car, a handful of stones drop off the edge and bounce down the cliff towards the sea. Consulting her handwritten instructions, she locks the car and sets off on foot. One hundred metres down the road she turns right down a narrow footpath overgrown with blackberry bushes. They arch over her head and she is plunged into darkness in spite of the clear skies. She checks her instructions again. Past an iron gate on the right and a twisted old oak tree on the left. The cabin should be just on the left. She looks to the left but sees nothing but bushes rising to twice her height. She walks further but the path soon peters out to a patch of grass, dropping sharply to the cliffs again. The sea is still and shimmering. It must be here: there’s nowhere else it could be. She walks slower back up the path, squinting into the blackness of the bushes.

  ‘Mrs Bradshaw?’ She spins around, disoriented. There’s a face poking through the hedge.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘It looks impenetrable but it’s really not. The trick is to look for the red ribbon.’ Leaning in, she sees it, more like a string, faded and wind-torn. ‘Just push against the growth and it’ll swing open. It’s an ingenious design of the owner. The ultimate privacy. He grew the hedge onto a hinge. You’d never know it was there.’

  She pushes it and true to his word, it swings open, a hobbit hole of an entrance that she has to bend to enter.

  ‘I’m Richard,’ he says, shaking her hand. She brushes leaves out of her hair and offers her hand.

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘As you can see, it’s an acquired taste.’ She follows him up a narrow path flanked by piles of driftwood. ‘He’s quite a collector. Brought it all from the shore. He’s too old now for the access and is moving into a care home. It’s heartbreaking really.’

  He’s already opened up the cabin and he leads Emily into a narrow hall. It’s dark, with no source of light as far as she can see. She stands for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust.

  ‘So here you have the first bedroom …’ He turns left and she is in a room entirely panelled in wood. ‘Sorry, electricity’s out.’

  There is a tiny window at the back. It’s laced with mould and mildew and when she tries to open it the handle jams. Richard clears his throat. ‘A bit of TLC is needed, for sure. But the window faces the sea. It could be stunning.’ The room has a single bed and a chest of drawers. At a push she could squeeze in a double bed with storage above it.

  ‘Second bedroom,’ he says, opening a door on the right. It’s smaller than the first. No furniture in here aside from a desk in front of a window. Emily peers through the smoky layers of grime upon the glass. ‘He’s an artist, you see. Or was, before his eyesight went.’ ‘And here’s the lounge. Or, rather, the rest of the house. I know not everyone’s into open-plan living but …’

  Emily stumbles on the third step. Play it cool when house hunting, Ryan always said. She can see the outline of her future self here, imprinted against the view of the sea.

  ‘People are put off by the dirt and access,’ Richard says apologetically, attempting to wipe a mark from the window ineffectively. ‘Usually a place in this location would be snapped up quicker than hot cakes.’ Emily walks the circumference of the open-plan living space that’s the size of her kitchen. She wonders if Adeline will visit.

  ‘It’s chain-free so you could move quickly if you wanted,’ Richard says. ‘Reckon he’d take a lower offer too. He needs the money for the care home.’

  The tour takes five minutes.

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as I get back,’ she says. Richard has given up his sales pitch and is staring out of the window mesmerised.

  ‘I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea,’ he says, ‘But there’s something about this place …’

  ‘I get that,’ she says, ‘I’m going to explore a bit.’ Pushing herself back through the bramble hedge, she follows the cliff path down to the sea. The tide is out and there’s no one around. A cormorant basks on a rock.

  It’s mid-afternoon by the time she gets home and there’s a bunch of red roses on her doorstep. The boys are at friends’ houses and she’s glad they’re not here. It’s the third day in a row that flowers have been left there. She cuts them into tiny pieces and tosses them in the bin. She calls Richard.

  ‘I’ll take it.’ Within an hour he’s checked with the vendor and they’ve agreed a price. With a cash purchase she could be in within four weeks. All the weekends she will have there stretch out before her. She can’t shake the images from her head. Long scrambling climbs, skinny-dips first thing in the morning. She always wanted a dog. Even in winter she’ll swim. She’ll build a deck out from the house and sit there in the summer. In the winter too, with a heater. The doorbell rings. It’s her sister.

  ‘Sarah?’ She never turns up unannounced. ‘Is everything okay?’ Sarah walks into the kitchen and throws herself in a chair. She looks dishevelled and hot.

  ‘Matthew’s asked me to marry him.’

  ‘What? That’s great, isn’t it?’ Emily says. Sarah fixes her with the long stare that she’s perfected since their youth.

  ‘You know how I feel about marriage. But I’m worried that if I say no he’ll leave. I wanted your advice.’ Emily almost laughs out loud. ‘You and Ryan are happy, right?’

  ‘Wine?’ Emily goes to the fridge.

  ‘I mean, you seem like you’ve got it sorted. And if you can do it, surely I can too?’ Emily pours two large glasses.

  ‘Cheers.’ Emily clinks her glass against Sarah’s. ‘Congratulations.’ Sarah paces the kitchen, then dumps her handbag on the table and starts going through it, crumpling up receipts. ‘Why do you keep so many?’ Emily comments.

  ‘I’m an inveterate hoarder of useless things,’ Sarah says, opening the bin. Emily thinks of Matthew and is inclined to agree.

  ‘Why are you cutting up roses?’ Sarah asks, pulling a handful of stems out. Emily blushes. ‘Emily? Have you got an admirer? Or did you
and Ryan have a fight?’ Emily presses her fingers against the edge of the table hard. She’s deliberately kept Sarah away from the details of her marriage. She means well, but she’s an intolerable gossip, even if she is her sister.

  ‘It’s just someone with a crush,’ she says dismissively. How she wishes it were Adeline, but this flamboyant display of romance doesn’t bear her mark.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ Sarah says, her tone wheedling.

  ‘He’s a little obsessed,’ Emily mutters. Why does she feel like she’s being told off? She takes a deep breath. ‘I made a mistake, a while ago. Got too close to a student. He complained, formally I mean. It got nasty. But it’s all sorted, apart from …’

  ‘Apart from what?’ Sarah says.

  ‘He can be a bit clingy. That’s why I cut them up.’

  ‘You should report him,’ Sarah says. ‘That’s not right. Most assaults happen from people you know.’

  ‘I don’t want to report him,’ Emily says, ‘He’s not a bad person.’ Sarah looks at her, waiting for her to say something else. She crosses her arms.

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ Emily replies. ‘But I confided in him and he took it to mean something more.’ Sarah’s expression says it all.

  ‘Does Ryan know?’ Emily shakes her head. ‘Then you should tell him.’

  ‘He’s not around much at the moment.’ Sarah finally sits down beside her. She puts an arm around her shoulder. ‘You know you can talk to me, right?’ Sarah says. Emily nods. ‘Why don’t you come and stay with us for a bit, just until he’s lost interest?’

  Emily thinks of Leo and his determined persistence. The same determination that it takes to complete a novel. A stubborn, iron-hard constitution that doggedly pursues an outcome, no matter what. It wouldn’t be so bad to have some time away, a break from this house.

  ‘It’s fine – we’re fine,’ she says to Sarah, ‘but thanks.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Sarah asks, picking up the details of the cabin by the sea.

  ‘I’m buying it,’ Emily says. Sarah raises her eyebrows.

  ‘You know you can tell me anything, right?’ Emily nods and looks out of the window. ‘Anyway,’ Sarah says. ‘What do you think about Matthew’s proposal?’

  ‘I think you should run a mile,’ Emily says. The truth feels like peeling off a scab.

  The next morning Emily has three lectures. She struggles to inject enthusiasm into her voice.

  ‘Make sure that you don’t switch narrative perspectives within your writing: choose a viewpoint and stick to it,’ she tells her first-year students. She pauses, watching their heads bend down as they scribble notes.

  ‘Why, Miss?’ asks a boy in the front.

  ‘Because you need the reader to buy into your main character, to align themselves with their views. You need them to trust in what they’re being told.’

  A hand goes up towards the back. ‘Why can’t you have an omniscient narrator? Third person limited or first person are too restrictive: they only tell one side of the story.’ The voice comes from the very back of the lecture theatre, where the room slopes into darkness. She can just make out the outline of a dark hoodie, but she’d know the voice anywhere.

  ‘If it was good enough for Eliot, why aren’t we being taught to experiment with different forms of narrative?’ Emily’s struggling to follow the questions and sweat is trickling down her back. ‘You have read Middlemarch, haven’t you, Miss?’ Cocky shit.

  ‘This is a first-year lecture and Eliot was an experienced writer. Of course we should all aim for her standard one day, but we need to start somewhere …’ Her voice peters off as she loses momentum.

  ‘But we all know there’s more than one side to every story, don’t we, Miss.’ This time the students in the front rows turn towards the back, craning their heads. Emily walks to the table where her briefcase is and takes a sip of water. Say something. Anything.

  ‘It’s hard to pull off the omniscient narrative viewpoint,’ she says, swallowing hard. ‘The majority of books that get published now are either first or third person limited. With first-year students we focus on these two points of view. In the second year we encourage experimenting with form.’ She stands straight and projects her voice towards the back of the room. ‘As a student who has already graduated, you’ll be aware of this.’

  Leo stands and swings his rucksack over his back. He makes his way down from the back and when he reaches the front of the room he pauses. Up close she can see bags under his eyes and stubble lining his jaw.

  ‘Sorry for interrupting your class,’ he says, shrugging. Turning to the other students he nods at Emily. ‘She does know what she’s talking about. My book’s coming out next year.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Emily says, ‘congratulations.’ He tilts his head. She waits.

  ‘See you around,’ he says, and winks at her before sauntering out of the room, letting the door slam loudly behind him.

  The heat of the underground spills onto the streets and she walks, not paying attention to where she is going. Her heels are not designed for speed walking and quickly her feet are blistered. She buys a pair of flip-flops and dumps the heels in a bin. She peels off her jacket. She’d like to strip off and plunge into cold water. She pauses to take stock of where she is, and seeing a bar, steps inside, grateful for its dark interior.

  ‘A pint of water and a large gin and tonic please,’ she says to the man behind the bar.

  ‘That kind of day, hey?’ he replies, putting them in front of her.

  ‘That kind of year,’ she says, downing the water. ‘God, it’s hot out there.’

  ‘It’s going to be an Indian summer,’ he says.

  ‘Good to know.’ She swallows the gin and tonic and puts the glass down on the counter harder than she intends to. ‘Another for the road?’

  ‘This one’s on me,’ he says, filling the glass up to the brim. ‘I hate to see a damsel in distress.’ She drinks this one slower, watching the barman flit from tap to fridge expertly. Customers served, he returns to her and leans his elbows on the counter. ‘You can tell me.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t want to ruin your good mood.’

  ‘It would take a lot to do that,’ he says, ‘I’m celebrating my divorce papers coming through.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Emily says, ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘Don’t be – like I said, I’m celebrating. Start of a new life and all that. So, what’s your story?’ She groans.

  ‘No really, I can’t …’ She stops. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Leo, outside on the street. In spite of the heat she feels goosebumps spreading up her arms.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the barman says, following her line of sight. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ He must have followed her haphazard route across London. It never occurred to her to look back. Perhaps she should go to the police after all. Emily twists on her bar stool so that her back faces the door.

  ‘Just someone I wasn’t expecting to see.’ He could be coming in at this very moment, sidling up to the bar. Her skin crawls with the things that they have done. She pushes her empty glass towards across the counter.

  ‘Thank you, you’ve been kind. I should go.’

  ‘The pleasure’s mine,’ he says, and she stands to leave, ready to take her chances. She drops a note onto the counter.

  ‘Keep the change.’ Outside the heat has intensified and the alcohol spins to her head. Hailing a taxi, she winds down the window and scans the overcrowded pavements, checks her phone. Three missed calls from Leo.

  She tells the boys about the cabin by the sea that evening. Sam’s excited he’ll have a holiday pad for his university holidays. Tom accepts the news as if she’s updating him on what they’re having for dinner, but as day slips into evening she feels better. Leo will lose interest. Adeline will be back in London soon. She can’t wait to take her to the cabin. The boys disappear to their rooms and she’s thinking about
watching something escapist on TV when there’s a knock at the door. She opens it, ensuring the latch is on. There’s no one there. On the doorstep there is an envelope. Scanning the driveway, she bends down and picks it up. She opens it tentatively. It’s a lock of her hair entwined with Leo’s. He must have cut it while she was sleeping beside him all those months ago. The sight of it makes her feel sick. Anybody could have found it. This has got to stop.

  She calls Sarah.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about your offer and I think we should come and stay for a while.’ The boys are done with college for the summer. They’ll complain about the estate, but it’ll be good for them. She throws away the envelope and closes all the blinds, giving up on the idea of TV. She goes to bed.

  In the morning she knocks on the boys’ doors.

  ‘Tom, Sam.’ Tom doesn’t respond.

  ‘Tom?’ She tries the handle of his door and to her surprise it turns. Usually he locks it. She pushes the door open and peers in. His room is tidy for once, the bed made and the surfaces clear. She opens the blinds. He is not there. The last time she saw him was at dinner yesterday. He’d seemed okay then, as good as he ever seems. She rubs her eyes and squeezes them shut. As if she needed this right now. Perhaps he heard her on the phone to Sarah. He’d hate the idea of staying there for a while, not least because it’s further away from Ella, who, unlike all his past girlfriends, seems set to stay for a while.

  ‘Sam, do you know where Tom is?’ Sam emerges from the shower wrapped in a towel.

  ‘He isn’t in his room?’ he says. She shakes her head.

  ‘Maybe he went somewhere early this morning?’ They both know how unlikely this is. Tom has never left early for anything.