‘What?’
‘Have you been away?’
‘I don’t really need to. It’s like being on holiday all the time.’
‘I suppose it is. How’s the house?’
‘In a state of chaos. I’m renovating.’
‘I’d love to . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Never mind.’
‘How’s work?’
‘The usual. Stressful. It’s fucking murder effectively working for someone else. I hate it. Tossers. Still, I have to tell myself that soon it won’t be my problem.’
‘And the new apartment?’
‘Not the same.’
She looked at him, surprised.
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. ‘It’s fine. Somewhere to live. I’m thinking . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t know. I might buy somewhere abroad. In the sun.’
‘France?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not France. Maybe Barbados. Anyway, how are you? We couldn’t really talk before. Have you met people? Made friends?’ He smiled and Sara was irritated that there was a trace of condescension in his voice.
She looked at him defiantly. ‘I have. Quite a few, actually.’
‘That’s good. I’m glad you’re not lonely. Although, of course, there’s Lottie . . .’
‘Honestly, everything’s fine. I am OK, happy. Look, Matt, there’s something . . . the reason why I wanted to see you.’
‘Oh?’ He looked guarded. ‘What’s up? Have you a problem? Is it money? I told, you, Sara . . .’
‘It isn’t me,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’
‘What? What on earth can it be to do with me?’ He sat back, smiling.
‘I don’t quite know how to say this.’ The café, which had been full of chatter, suddenly seemed very quiet and Sara looked about her nervously. She lowered her voice. ‘It’s just . . . I was told something very worrying . . .’
‘What on earth can this be?’
‘Look, this is really hard. The only way I can deal with it is to just come right out and say it. Look, Matt, I heard from someone that you’re taking . . .’
Matt cut in sharply. ‘Why on earth are you looking so serious? What the hell are you trying to say?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I heard you were taking cocaine.’
‘WHAT?’ He seemed almost to explode, rocking back in his chair. She knew immediately from the expression on his face that it was true.
‘Who the hell told you that?’ He was genuinely stunned. ‘And, to be honest, even if it were true, what has it got to do with you? Putting it politely, you’re not my mother, Sara. You don’t have the right to tell me how to live my life.’
‘Does it matter who told me?’
‘It was Emily,’ he said.
‘No it wasn’t,’ Sara said quickly. ‘Anyway, that’s not important.’
‘I fail to see,’ he said, breathing slowly as if he was trying to keep his temper. ‘What this has to do with you or why you feel it is your responsibility to even mention anything so . . . ridiculous.’
‘Don’t you think that I should know? Especially when it affects my children?’
‘How does it affect your children?’
‘Well, Emily was living with you for a while. She might have seen you . . .’
‘Do you honestly think I would let my daughter see me taking cocaine? Look, Sara,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘I’m a big boy now, honestly. Hands up, I might have taken it once or twice. But it’s hardly ever – just the odd line with friends, it’s no big deal.’
Oh, Matt, Sara thought, you are lying. You are lying again, and I don’t want to be here, now, with you, listening to this. I don’t want this responsibility, but who else is there to tell you that what you are doing is crazy?
‘I can’t believe this,’ he said, running his hand through his hair. ‘Do you really think I would be so stupid as to let it get out of control?’
Sara noticed his confidence seemed to be ebbing away as his hand was shaking. ‘I would hate to think so, Matt. But I don’t know how well I do know you, now.’
‘I promise you, Sara, it’s fine. It’s nothing. I don’t have to justify myself to you, anyway. Christ.’
‘How long have you been taking it? When you were still with me? Something else I didn’t know?’
He stiffened in his seat, stared at her, and then looked away. ‘Only occasionally,’ he said dismissively, the nervous tic beating under his eye. ‘When I was away on business. Sometimes late at night, when you were asleep. Hard as it is for you to get your head around this, I am always under a lot of stress, especially when the sale of the company was going through. It was fucking murder, they wanted blood. It helped, Sara. You wouldn’t understand.’
Don’t dismiss me, Sara thought. You think we lived on different levels, don’t you?
‘You’re a fool, Matt,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you would do something so reckless. In your position. At your age.’
He glanced impatiently at his watch. ‘I have to get back to work. Was this the only reason you wanted to meet me? To tell me off? To make me promise not to do anything naughty?’
Sara felt her temper rising. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so childish. Matt! This isn’t “naughty”. This could kill you. Try to think of someone other than yourself! The girls are worried sick.’ The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
‘The girls? So it was Emily who told you.’ His face seemed to close down on itself. ‘I see. Thank you.’
‘Don’t you dare mention this to her! She loves you, Matt. Lottie loves you. Don’t you care what they think? Is your life . . . now . . . more important than that?’
‘And you? What about you? Do you care?’
She stared at him. Oh, you bloody man, she thought. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’
‘I thought you’d written me off.’
‘I cannot write off twenty-six years, twenty-seven, since we met,’ she said wearily. ‘No matter how hard I try.’
‘Sara –’, he reached out urgently across the table to try to grab her hand. Sara pulled it quickly away and bent down to pick up her handbag.
‘Don’t do this,’ she said, sitting up. ‘Please. It will affect you, Matt, no matter how much you think you have it under control. Think of the girls. They need you. What kind of example are you giving them? What kind of a father are you being?’
At these words Matt seemed to suddenly slump in his seat. Then he looked up at her, his eyes full of tears.
Reacting instinctively, she reached out to put her hand over his. He bent down, until his face was almost touching her fingers and she could feel his tears wet against her skin.
‘Ssh, darling,’ she said, as if to a child. ‘It’s OK.’
For a moment he let his cheek rest against her hand. Then he sat up and stared at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all he said.
Chapter Twenty-five
She had to walk quickly to keep up with him, and by the time they reached the cliff above the bay, she was breathing hard. She wished she hadn’t put a jumper over her swimming costume instead of a T-shirt, as she was beginning to sweat. But the sky had looked grey when they set off, as if it might rain. The weather had been changeable like this all week, since Sara had returned from London.
At the top of the path, they paused together for a minute, looking down at the sea. The beach below was deserted – few people walked this far along the headland, because there was another bay much nearer to the car park, and the path down to this beach was very steep. But Sara loved this cove, the rocks forming a perfect half-circle, sheltered from the sea breezes. A yacht sailed past, far below them, its white sail curving in the wind.
‘Can you sail?’ she asked idly, admiring the way it glided so smoothly through the water, perfectly silhouetted against the pale grey horizon. He put his arm around her, and she leant her head against his shoulder.
‘I crewed on a boat i
n Australia, but I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just blagged it. Probably pulled all the wrong ropes.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve never learnt to sail. There is so much I haven’t done.’
‘It’s never too late. Why don’t we take off, Mrs Atkinson? Let’s travel round the world. I’ll teach you to surf and sail, and you can teach me . . .’
‘What can I teach you?’ She smiled, looking up at him.
‘I can think of lots of things, if only you would let me.’
‘Stop it.’
‘I love you.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘How can you, you foolish boy?’
‘Because you’re beautiful.’ He moved around to stand directly in front of her, shielding her from the wind, drawing her close to him. Reaching down, he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Sara allowed herself to lean into him, resting her face against his chest for a moment. He felt so warm, so safe. Glancing up, she watched the wind lift his hair, mesmerized by the way it moved. This is like living within a dream, she thought. A dream in which I allow myself to fall in love with a beautiful young man, a dream in which he does not leave and I will be left alone once more. I can control . . . this, whatever it is, she thought. These two weeks are nothing more than a window in my life, as if I have stepped outside of reality, and when Lottie returns my life will go back to normal, and no one will ever know that I let this man hold me and, yes, kiss me, once. He can tell me he loves me and that if I do not let him make love to me he will go mad, because I know he means it now, but tomorrow he would change his mind and I would mean nothing.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking,’ she said carefully, ‘that this is like living in a dream.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it cannot be real.’
‘Don’t say that.’ He held her, close and warm, as the breeze blew around their bodies and the moment was held in time.
He lay with his head in her lap, as she read her novel, holding it high above his face. His eyes were closed. Around them lay the remains of the picnic, the crusty end of a baguette, a slice of blue cheese half-eaten in its cling-film wrapper, several slices of tomato lying on top of a crumpled white paper bag. There was less than an inch of wine left in the bottle, which stood a few feet away from them in a narrow stream running down to the sea. Hector lay, panting and covered in sand, close to them, his eyes on the remains of the baguette.
Before their picnic they had swum. The sea was still freezing, despite the weeks of hot sun on the sea. Plunging underwater, Sara let her eyes drift to the grey, stony bottom and watched the dark patches of seaweed waving in the current, as if in the wind. Beneath her a fish seemed to hang, glimmering pale green in the murky light, its body undulating, trembling fins outstretched.
Afterwards they flung themselves down onto towels and dozed, before Sara woke crusted with salt and chilly.
Now she sat reading, as he slept. The world felt far away and for a second she looked up from her book, savouring the moment of perfect peace. She realized the sun, barely visible through the cloud, was much lower in the sky and the light was beginning to fade. She put her book down, and Hector lifted his head, enquiringly. Sara moved her legs restlessly, and Ricky’s eyes opened.
‘Sorry,’ she said, looking down at him. ‘I’ve got pins and needles. And it’s getting late.’
‘Sure,’ he said sleepily, lifting his head. Slowly, he turned on to his side and rested on one elbow. ‘God, man, I was fast asleep. What time is it?’
‘After six, I would guess. I’m not sure.’
She reached forward, and began to massage her legs. ‘We ought to go,’ she added.
‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you working tonight?’
‘Nope,’ he said, running a hand lazily through his still-damp hair. ‘Can I stay with you?’ He rolled over on to his stomach. ‘I promise not to try . . . anything.’ He grinned up at her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said dryly. ‘I feel I can just about resist you.’
‘Such a hard woman.’ He flopped over on to his back. ‘I wish I could stay here for ever.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because I need to do something with my life.’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘I’m thirty-one. I can’t stay a waiter for ever.’
‘Why don’t you go back to architecture? I know you’d be fantastic.’
‘I don’t have the confidence.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
He reached out beside him, letting a trail of damp sand trickle through his fingers.
‘I’m not sure I do. I’ve been a failure so long I don’t think I know how to be a success. I’m happy with drifting, because that way no one has any expectations of me and I can’t let anyone down.’
‘Like your parents?’
‘Yeah. Like them.’ He stared up at the sky. ‘Marry me,’ he said.
‘What?’ Sara stared at him, astonished.
‘You heard me.’ He put his hands behind his head. ‘Marry me. I could work then, if I had you beside me, telling me sensible things.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Sara laughed. ‘Come on. We must go home or we’ll be trapped by the tide. It’s coming in.’
Half a mile from the cottage, he stopped in front of her, looking down at the little house below them. The sky was a deep, unearthly pink, the sinking sun casting long surreal shadows. He put down the rucksack, and turned to her. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ he said. ‘And now is the right time.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘Don’t be so mysterious. You’re worrying me.’
‘The reason I came here,’ he said, slowly. ‘The reason I stayed . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Charlotte was my mother.’
Chapter Twenty-six
She sat watching him as he slept, safe in Lottie’s bed. His eyelashes flickered as he dreamt, the dark curling hair creating feathery shadows on his cheeks. If you were my child I could never leave you, Sara thought.
‘That one word,’ he had said as they sat together in the garden late into the night, as the sky turned a dark midnight blue, shot through with the vivid colours of the sunset. ‘Dad. But there was this really weird kind of comfort in it, you know,’ he said, gazing into his wine glass. ‘Because I really wanted to believe that if she’d been alive, she would have come to find me. I knew they could never have been my parents, even before they told me I was adopted. All my life I had this thing inside me, this restless thing, telling me I had to leave and look for someone. When I was a kid, I used to stare out of the window at night, fantasizing about sneaking out into the dark, opening the front door and just running, running down the road towards . . . I had no idea what. I just knew that I wasn’t loved, not really loved. I saw my friends with their mothers and it just killed me. My mother never hugged me, barely touched me. She used to look at me as if she was kind of scared of me. Of course they were a lot older, I don’t know why they even wanted a child. Maybe it was to save their marriage – they didn’t seem to like each other’s company, so I failed at that, too. And then when I found out I was adopted, everything fell into place. These people were strangers, there was nothing connecting us beyond a sense of duty. Out there was my real mother, and all I had to do was find her. My life became a kind of quest. Crazy, huh? I used to look for her all the time, in the street, in restaurants, anywhere there were people, crowds. I followed a woman once, who had dark hair like mine. I stalked her for hours. I was only nine. But once I got close enough, I could see she did not look like me. You wouldn’t know . . .’
He sighed, draining his glass. ‘It’s like you’re half a person, half of you is a total mystery. You invent so many kinds of things, you fantasize that your mum is the most perfect woman in the world, and if only you could find her, she’d put her arms around you and you would be safe and happy for ever. Not an outsider anymore but part of a family.’ He sh
rugged, looking at Sara, his face a mask of sadness. ‘And then when I did find her, she was dead. She’d been dead all my life. All the time I’d spent looking for her, there was nothing to find. Just bones in the ground.’ He shut his eyes tight. ‘And I killed her.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Sara said quickly, reaching out to put her hand over his. ‘How could it have been your fault? You must not think that.’ If anything, she thought to herself, it was the agony of having to give you up which killed her. But she did not say anything.
‘If she hadn’t got pregnant with me, she would never have killed herself, would she? It’s the violence of her death which has haunted me since I found out the truth. I dream that I’m falling. They say that if you ever hit the ground in your dreams you will die in real life, but I do, Sara, I hit the rocks and my body breaks, and the pain is real. When I first came here, I used to stand on the cliff, just beneath the cottage, and imagine. I tried to picture myself letting go, falling forward into the air. There was such an extraordinary kind of beauty to that feeling, as if it was what I should do. I tried to put myself into her mind, to imagine how she felt, giving up her child and feeling she had nothing left. But she did. She had me. She had that baby lying in his cot and none of this needed to have happened. Ever since I have lived here I wake hearing her screaming as she fell, screaming for me.’
He paused, and Sara tightened her grip on his hand. ‘Maybe it’s weird that I stayed here, but it’s as if this is the only home I’ve ever had. The nearest I have to a family, a home, is to be close to the place where my mother died.’
‘Is that why you say you love me?’
‘What?’
‘Because I could be her?’
He laughed. ‘That’s kind of crazy,’ he said.
‘I don’t mean I could be your mother, obviously, I just mean . . . I just mean that I maybe represent a kind of security to you.’
‘So marry me.’
She smiled at him. ‘Now that really would be weird,’ she said.
He smiled back at her. ‘I cannot tell you how much peace unloading all of this has brought me,’ he said. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I know this sounds insane, but I feel as if I have come home.’
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