The Codes of Love

by Hannah Persaud

  ‘Hotel, yes, the park, no. I think I’d remember. Once is all I’ve got. The closest I’ve come to heaven.’ He looks at her strangely and she remembers Adeline – Oh honey, I told you not to go with him – her hand on her knee, reassuring her. Reassuring her or something else? Until that moment in the bar with Adeline, she’d had no memory of what happened that night after the pub. She would never have slept with him to keep him quiet if she hadn’t already done it once. Her decision to do so pivoted on it. It was easy to believe Adeline. Simple for her to fill in the missing hours. Emily should never have got so wasted. But why would Adeline have lied? Emily looks up again and can smell Leo’s aftershave.

  ‘Adeline told me that we - that you – that night in Dulwich Park, we—’

  ‘Ada is a manipulative bitch,’ he says.

  ‘But I wouldn’t have—’

  ‘You don’t know the half of what she’s capable of,’ he says.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Emily asks.

  ‘Who do you think your husband has been having an affair with?’ Leo asks. Emily looks at him blankly. ‘Come on, who? You’re smart. I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The very same woman you’ve been practising your cunnilingus with. It was quite a turn-on watching. In different circumstances – well.’ Emily throws up again and then sits down on the floor. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Makes no difference.’

  ‘Can you go now?’ she says. Leo walks over to Emily and puts out his hand. She takes it and lets him pull her up.

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asks, and he sounds like he means it. She runs through the past few months in her head. All the times that Ryan was away. Where was Adeline? ‘On second thoughts perhaps you’d better not read my book, you might find it distressing.’ He picks it up off the floor and tucks it back into his jacket. He starts to walk away and then pauses. ‘You must have really loved her.’ He smiles. ‘At last you’re experiencing some of the pain you caused me. That’s something. The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. I won’t bother you again.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ she says.

  ‘I’m the only truthful one of the lot of you. If you don’t believe me, then go to the cottage in Wales.’ He scribbles on a piece of paper and passes it to her. ‘Pretty sure you’ll find her there. It’s as untameable as she is. Also, I told Ryan that she’s headed there and where she goes, he goes, so …’ He holds his hands up in the air. ‘You’ll thank me later.’

  Ryan is packing his bag when Emily calls him.

  ‘Emily?’ She’s talking so fast that he struggles to understand her. ‘Look, you need to go slower. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Did you know?’ she’s asking. Her fear crackles down the line.

  ‘Know what?’ he says. He presses the handset against his ear. ‘Please, slow down. Did I know what?’ He switches the phone to his other hand. ‘What about Ada?’ She’s crying too much for him to make out what she’s saying. ‘Who’s with you? Where are you? She did what? Of course it’s not true.’ Then, ‘No, don’t.’

  He imagines her driving to Wales, knuckles white against the wheel. The phone cuts out and he places it on the table. He walks into the lounge and closes the blinds, adjusts the picture beside the door. Captive by Louise Pallister. Emily insisted on it dominating the room despite the fact that it unnerved him. Sketched in charcoal and chalk onto untrimmed paper, it’s huge. Ryan saw a powerful bird tethered. It depressed him. But Emily felt it was full of hope. He looks at it again and he sees it poised and ready for flight. Shit shit shit. How much of Emily is unknown, and Ada too? He zips up his bag and runs to his car.

  Emily goes to the sink and pours a glass of water. She puts her hands on the kitchen counter and leans her weight against them, willing them to stop shaking. She looks at the address that Leo has given her. It will take her five hours, at least, to get there. She shouldn’t drive in this state. It seems unbelievable that only this morning she was in Dulwich with Tom. She wishes she’d stayed there and not come back to the cabin. She goes into the bathroom and brushes her teeth, then into the bedroom where she woke yesterday with Adeline, entwined. She’s never felt so alive, so free. What if it was all a game for Adeline? The whole thing a web of manipulation designed to expose Ryan and Emily’s marriage for the wreck that it is? The slightest wind and it collapsed at the foundations. She pictures Ryan and Adeline together. How often she has loved them separately. Why would Adeline have told her that she slept with Leo in the park? So much could have been avoided if she’d told the truth. She scoops the clothes that scatter the floor into a bag and turns the key in the lock behind her.

  The A40 was slow but the M40 is clearer and Ryan drives fast, each mile pulling him closer. He tries to focus on the road. Ada and Emily? Rain hurls itself against the windscreen and his wipers struggle to keep up. He’d been hoping that he and Emily could work things out. That something might be salvaged. He would never have done anything with Ada had Emily loved him more than plenty. Had he been enough. It broke him. A truck cuts in front of him and he brakes sharply, feeling the car aquaplane. He eases his foot off the accelerator and drops his speed to seventy miles an hour.

  The car is knocked around by the wind and Emily’s struggling to stay in her lane. Not much traffic, though. At this time of night most people are tucked up inside. The rain is incessant and relentless, slamming against the windows. Everything is cause and effect. She searches for logic in Adeline’s lie about Leo. The questions coagulate and pound inside her skull. Reaching for her handbag, she feels inside it for her phone.

  She’s forgotten to turn off her high beams and as she swings around a corner too fast she sees a truck approaching from the other direction. She grips the steering wheel and wrenches it hard left, but the road spins out from under her wheels. She is aware of the sound of screeching brakes and the horrified face of the truck driver illuminated by her high beams, his expression picked out in gruesome detail. Somewhere someone is screaming and perhaps it’s her. She’s slamming her foot down on the brake as hard as she can.

  He forgot the key, he forgot the key, fuck. No, it’ll be there where he left it in the key safe. She liked the magic of arriving with nothing. Thank fuck for fantasies. Ryan gets stuck behind a tractor and slows to a crawl, time ticking between his hands and the steering wheel. Finally the tractor turns in towards the mountains that flash with lightning. He winds his window down and thunder cracks against his eardrums. Snap, crackle and pop, Tom’s favourite cereal when he was a child. Snap, crackle went the fire in the cottage, pop went his ankle. Into the woods went Red Riding Hood. Pull yourself together, he tells himself, forcing himself out of the car to open the nine gates as the wind grabs the door from his fingers. Gate five, four, then three. This time he leaves them all open. All the gates he has closed so carefully and where has it got him? As if nine gates could protect him. Each time he pulls away he sees the gates swinging wildly in his rear-view mirror. The world doesn’t collapse. Two gates, then one. He drives slower, wary of the rain-washed road and his slippery brakes. Turning the bend, he sees the stone wall and the roof of the cottage. Smoke. He thinks of Ada and her claims about a fire. Of sensing things in the forest. She loves this place; she wouldn’t destroy it. Would she? He can’t be sure. He leaps from his car and has to jump back in to secure the handbrake. He runs up the path, pushing aside tumbled bracken, and tugs on the door.

  Emily pulls over onto the hard shoulder and cries into her hands. That was too close; another second it would have all been over. She shouldn’t have driven here, shouldn’t have come. She thinks of Sam in Durham and Tom at Ella’s. She thinks of their last interaction. Her longing to hold them close is so strong that it’s painful. So many chances to fix things and she’s blown it. Now everything is lost. When she’s stopped sobbing she starts up the car again and pulls out onto the road cautiously. It’
s all been for nothing.

  Ada sits beside the fire, smoke billowing out into the room. Ryan’s eyes water and he marches to the window, throwing it open.

  ‘Ada?’ She looks up.

  ‘I was always crap at lighting fires,’ she says. Ryan bends down and opens up the grate, adjusts the vents, then sits down and reaches for the whisky. He forces himself to keep his voice calm. ‘At any point during your seduction of my wife did you consider that it was a bad idea?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ she says.

  ‘Not even when taking us into account?’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad idea, it’s the best thing that’s happened to me. I love her,’ Ada says. Ryan feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

  ‘What a kick you must have got out of stringing us both along.’

  ‘It wasn’t on purpose.’

  ‘Yeah, happens to me all the time, one minute I’m in a relationship and the next I’m falling into bed with someone else.’

  ‘I really liked her. Did from the moment I met her.’

  ‘Did you not consider it a conflict of interest – me, her?’

  ‘It was unfair,’ she says. He wasn’t expecting contrition. ‘Does she know?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies. She mutters something under her breath and he catches a name: Leo.

  ‘I owed you both more,’ Ada says. She sweeps her hair to the side and a lock falls across her face. She tucks it behind her ear. Up close her eyes are glassy.

  ‘Why didn’t you end things with me sooner?’ he asks.

  ‘This place got under my skin,’ she says. He remembers the comments from the girl in the shop, and the neighbour.

  ‘Did you come here without me?’ he asks. ‘Alone?’ She nods. He drinks from the whisky bottle and it burns his throat. He gags and drinks again.

  Everything is black with no street lighting. Emily focuses on staying on the narrow road. She sees sheep gathered along the grass verges, illuminated by her headlights. She drives through one open gate, then another.

  ‘You have cost me everything,’ Ryan says.

  ‘That wasn’t part of the plan,’ she says.

  ‘Plan? PLAN?’ He is shouting now.

  ‘You always wanted more than I could give,’ she says. ‘Don’t you get it?’ She leans forward. ‘Everything breaks when you capture it. Everything.’

  ‘Apart from when you fall in love, apparently,’ he says.

  ‘You can’t blame me for everything,’ she says. ‘You were involved in the decision-making too.’ She reaches for his hand. ‘What we had was special for a while,’ she says.

  ‘It was built on air and lies. It’s make-believe,’ he says. Her truth has wings. He shrugs her hand off and stands up.

  ‘Why did you come, now?’ Ada says.

  ‘Leo called me and told me you were on your way. Emily rang too. She wanted to know if I knew. I couldn’t believe it. I needed to hear from you what the fuck you were thinking. Emily, of all people …’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Ada says. He walks out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him and makes his way up to the ridge, pin drops of water lashing his eyes.

  Emily peers into the trees and sees a glimmer of light through the boughs. This must be the turning. She drives down the road and in through the final gate, pulling the car up beside Adeline’s and Ryan’s. The cottage could be from a fairy tale with its golden-lit windows and smoke curling from the chimney. She stands for a moment, taking it in. She hears the wind in the trees and the roar of the sea in the distance. She places her hand on the door handle, then pauses. She could turn and get back in her car, drive back home and sort her life out. Get a divorce. She could give Tom some stability and stop the rollercoaster she’s put him on. Or she could give things a go with Ryan. They could be stronger. Life can repair. Dinner parties and date nights and an inevitable return to before. It’s hard to break a pattern. She stumbles forward as the door is opened from the inside by Adeline.

  ‘Of all the people you could have picked,’ Emily says. ‘Where’s Ryan?’

  ‘He went up to the ridge. Please, sit,’ Adeline says. Emily remains standing.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Emily asks. Adeline sits beside her, pressing her hands together, leaving imprints of fingernails in her skin.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘You should have ended it with Ryan.’

  ‘We had this cottage by the time I realised how I felt. I tried to stay away from you but I failed. I ended it with Ryan two days ago. I couldn’t tell you, because, well, then you’d know about us.’

  ‘Did it not occur to you that I’d find out anyway, if we were to have any kind of future?’ Emily says. Adeline flushes.

  ‘I couldn’t see that far ahead. I’m not used to planning,’ Adeline replies. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. All I knew was that I had to be with you.’

  ‘Why even start something with Ryan if you were interested in me?’

  ‘I didn’t know if you were open to this, to me,’ Adeline says. ‘I was hedging my bets. It’s a bad habit I have.’

  ‘Why the hell did you tell me that I’d slept with Leo in the park? It was the whole reason I …’

  ‘The whole reason you what?’ Adeline says, moving closer and putting her hand on Emily’s arm.

  ‘The whole reason I slept with him again,’ Emily says. Adeline looks at her in horror.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘After you told me what I’d done, I slept with him, to put an end to things. Don’t you dare look at me with judgement.’ Emily takes a step back and slaps Adeline hard across the cheek. Adeline puts her hands to her eyes and wipes the back of her hand across them. She takes a deep breath.

  ‘I had no idea,’ she says, and her voice is paper-thin.

  ‘So why did you tell me I slept with him in the park?’ Emily repeats, steeling herself against Adeline’s tears. One step closer and she could hold her. She knows what it would feel like.

  ‘Because I kissed you and you were horrified,’ Adeline says finally. ‘After you came out of the lake you were freezing. Leo warmed you up and I came to help. He went to find your shoes and you were lying in my arms and you looked so beautiful, so vulnerable … I couldn’t help myself. I kissed you on the lips and you looked at me in horror. I thought I’d blown it. I was mortified.’ Emily thinks back to that evening and the excitement she’d felt before they met, the thrill of the unknown, of what Adeline might become. Would she really have resisted Adeline’s kiss?

  ‘I told you you’d slept with Leo as it seemed plausible. He was clearly in love with you and I could sense the chemistry between you. You were wasted. I was jealous. I’m so sorry. If I had known what my lie would lead to …’ She steps towards Emily cautiously and Emily lets herself be pulled into her arms. Adeline rests her forehead against Emily’s. ‘I love you,’ Adeline says, brushing her lips against Emily’s. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone. No more lies, I promise. Forgive me?’ Emily breathes in the soft scent of oranges and citrus. She pulls away.

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ Emily replies.

  Ryan catches something moving swiftly out of the corner of his eye. A deer or a fox perhaps. In a space between the trees there is something lighter and he thinks it might be someone watching. As he peers into the darkness he sees that it is a boulder. Immovable and solid as the mountains that dwarf them. Ryan is soaked to the bone by the time he gets back to the cottage. He pours himself a whisky. He looks between Emily and Ada and without a word being said he knows. He shakes his head and goes upstairs.

  They are leaving.

  ‘What about your car?’ Adeline says.

  ‘I’ll collect it later,’ Emily replies. As Adeline drives, Emily stares out of the window into darkness, watching trails of raindrops as they streak down the glass. Adeline moves her hand onto Emily’s thigh.

  ‘We’ll be all right, you’ll see,’ Adeline says. Emily doesn’t reply.

  Ryan comes downstairs and the cottage is empty. One car is go
ne. He throws a log on the fire and leaves the door of the stove open. He cups his hands to warm them. Upstairs the shutter bangs. The wind is howling up a storm. Perhaps tomorrow the sky will be clear and cleansed of demons. There are so many things to fix. Outside there is the crash of a tree falling. He lies down on the rug in front of the fire and lets the sounds of the forest wash over him. Somewhere an owl calls. His skin warms in the glow from the embers.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not exist at all without my incredible agent Laura Macdougall. Thank you Laura for believing in me. You are an engineer of dreams and I’m incredibly lucky to have you in my corner. Huge thanks to Kate and Sarah Beal at Muswell Press for being willing to take a punt on me and for making my dream of becoming an author of a published novel a reality.

  Thanks James Woolf for being the best writing buddy. Your integrity is inspiring. To my brilliant writer friends; Stephanie Hutton, Katherine Slee, Sarah Edghill, Chloe Turner, Andrew Leach, Astra Bloom, Laura Pearson, Laura Church, Jennifer Saxton and Janice Leagra along with many others, I love your words and am grateful for your support. Thanks Georgina Clarke for always making me laugh and I look forward to our island. I have been touched and humbled by the brilliant authors who agreed to read an early proof of my book and who provided endorsement quotes. The writing community is the best and I hope that I can pass on the generosity that you have shown me, to other writers going forward.

  I wouldn’t be writing this at all without the support of my wonderful friends, in particular Shirley Featherstone who shared this journey from the start and who has been there to toast the highs as well as to mop up the lows. I am blessed to have you. Thanks to Samantha Hyde for your wisdom on our walks and for never acting bored, and to Amanda Carroll for your faith in me. It’s hard to remember life before writing, but before I’d ever written a word of fiction my dear friend Tammy was insisting that I should write books. Now there’s belief. LUAAF Tams.