She tried to call Billy but there was no reply. She still had her key to the house and so decided to go to Grove Terrace anyway. She took the short cut through the housing estate to get there, past the dull grey garage doors and outdoor gym, its lime-green equipment grim and abandoned on this bleak December day. The trees were completely bare now; the dead leaves cleared away.
On the main road, she passed the strange little dolls’ house shop, the Overground station and the entrance to the Lido, the convenience shops and newsagents with their grubby doorways, tacky signs and dirty window panes. The Afghan shop, where the proprietor would give the girls lollipops because they danced to his raga music, had closed down, the metal shutters graffiti-strewn and rusting. Everything seemed run-down and unclean in a way she had never noticed before. She wondered if she would ever walk this way again.
The lock on Inês’s navy blue front door was stiffer than ever, making Sarah feel like an intruder. She had no right to be here any more. It was bitterly cold inside, and echoed to the sound of her heeled boots on the wooden floorboards. She understood at once that the house had lost its soul, now that Inês was gone.
She went from room to room, picking up the items she had come for, the precious keepsakes. She stood in front of Inês’s chair, with the purple velvet cover of roses and peonies, and ran her finger over the pile of the fabric, first the right way and then the wrong way. She imagined that she could still see the imprint of Inês’s tiny, delicate frame upon it.
She went to Inês’s dark bedroom, where the bed was neatly made and the curtains closed. The tightly folded square of paper was still there, on the bedside table, and Sarah added it to her collection. She stood by the window, lifting the edge of the ancient damask curtain to let in some light, feeling the icy cold seeping through the glass panes of the tall, elegant sashes.
There was a movement at the far end of the garden, and she saw that it was Billy.
Her feet clattered on the staircase as she took the wooden treads two at a time, and ran outside. Reaching the lawn, she slowed down and called out so as not to startle him.
“Billy! Billy, it’s Sarah.”
“‘Lo, Sarah.” Billy grinned at her, and waved, even though she was right next to him by now.
“Hi.” Sarah smiled back at him. He must be lonely without Inês; he’d never known the house empty before. She suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say to him.
“Hi,” she repeated. “Um, I…I’m sorry for your loss.” She looked around and nodded her head back towards the house. “Congratulations on the house. Are you going to move in?”
Billy looked blank. Sarah grimaced. Maybe he didn’t know it was his, or didn’t understand what she was asking. She wished she hadn’t mentioned it.
But Billy seemed agitated, his eyes darting to and fro. He reached out his arm to Sarah and said, “Come.”
Sarah followed him through the garden, so beautifully tended by him through so many years. They arrived at the door to the garage, and he gestured her inside. The smell of wood shavings and paint, of dust and soil, assailed her as she crossed the threshold. She looked around and saw fruit, apples and pears from Inês’s trees, stored neatly in a tall stack of wooden trays. It was clear that it was something that Billy had made himself for Inês, and Sarah felt her throat tighten and moisture gather in her eyes. She quickly turned her head away and walked further on into the deep room. There were bags of compost and perlite, stacks of yellowing newspapers and piles of plastic plant pots lined up along the walls, and gleaming, well-looked after garden tools hanging from hooks above.
In the middle of the garage was a large table where Billy did his potting up, and which doubled as a woodwork bench at which he whittled and painted the winter days away. It was covered in stuff, rusty keys, off-cuts of wood, paintbrushes, jam jars of cloudy liquids, and an incongruous pile of horseshoes. She wondered where on earth they had come from.
She noticed, with a start of surprise, a can of Burnt Sienna paint she had given Billy years ago. She had bought it intending to paint the kitchen of their first flat with it, to remind her of the heat and light of Portugal. But Hugo had insisted it would make the place harder to sell, and she had put it away in a cupboard until they moved to their house and she decided to get rid of it for good. She saw now that Billy had opened it, and that inside it gleamed, rich and jewel-like, its colour still sun-bright. Billy had painted some of his wooden spinning tops with it; they were tilted on their sides and resting in rows. So it was not too old and dried up to have a use, even after all this time.
She became aware of Billy shuffling around right at the back of the garage, and realised that he wanted her to follow him there. The faint, watery December light filtered thinly through the small dust-covered window high up where the wall met the ceiling, but was strong enough for Sarah to see that this corner was immaculate. A smooth, white painted worktop housed a shiny Apple computer, and right next to it was one of the latest generation laptops. All sorts of other equipment was stacked up neatly against the back wall, and microphones and cables were arranged in trays on shelves above.
Sarah gazed in amazement at the set-up, which looked so professional and she had to admit, too complicated for someone like Billy. This was the hub of his recording empire, and as she looked on, she saw that he was fumbling around in one of the trays. He turned round, triumphantly waving a silver memory stick at Sarah.
“From Inês. For Sarah. Forgot.”
Sarah was bewildered, shook her head in confusion. But Billy was deftly flicking the switches on the power points and starting up the computers, which whirred into action, purring gently, the lights on a myriad dials flashing in the gloom. He plugged the memory stick into the laptop, and made a few hurried clicks with the wireless mouse. For a moment, it seemed very, very quiet in the garage at the bottom of the garden. And then the air was filled with sound, the sound of Inês’s gentle, fragile voice, wavering in the cold, powdery light as if coming from another world.
“Hello Sarah.” The voice was faint, hesitant. Mumbling followed that sounded like, “Is this right?” And then again, “Hello Sarah,” stronger this time. Sarah felt as if all her blood were draining out of her. To hear that beloved voice once more, with its perfect, RP English, when she had thought that it had gone forever.
“It seems late in life to try recording myself but my hands are so bad now I cannot write more than a few words. I received your postcard from Amarante yesterday, and I know that a reply is something that you need more than anything you’ve ever asked of me.”
Sarah’s lungs tightened and she felt giddy and light-headed. She realised that she had momentarily stopped breathing.
“So I asked Billy to help me.”
There was another pause, accompanied by noises in the background that might have been Billy turning knobs and adjusting levels. And then Inês again, even clearer now.
“Sarah, I have been so troubled by you recently. I know that you are dealing with some deeply difficult issues and struggling to resolve them. That is why I wanted you to know my story. Why I gave you my journal and my baby book.”
Sarah pulled out a stool from under the worktop and sat down. She became aware that Billy was also listening intently and wondered what Inês was going to say, and if it mattered if he heard, forgetting in her state of shock that he must already have heard it before, when the recording was made.
“I think you have already worked out my message to you, what I wanted you to come to understand. It is that we cannot resurrect the past. Sometimes, we have to let go. You cannot go back to your youth and do it all again, and do it differently, and even if you did, you would still face problems and difficulties. They would just be different ones. I built the same fantasies around Edmund that you have around Scott. But it was not reality and it was only when I came to terms with that that I was able to live, and love, again.
“I could have told you this but you wouldn’t have heard. You had to come to the realisat
ion by yourself.”
There was a pause in the recording, the only sound that of Inês’s shallow, difficult breathing.
Sarah could not help but remember Scott musing that the point of the journal might be the journey as well as the destination. Ironic that his perspicacity had foretold the end of their relationship.
“The tiradors always leave a little of the bark on the tree, something in reserve. And then, after each harvesting, each stripping back to its essence, the bark grows stronger, better, more resilient than before. Always remember that, Sarah. Because this is how it will be for you. Be patient and be still. Be like the mighty cork oak and draw on your inner reserves to regenerate yourself and your life. Leave behind ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. Don’t poison the present with regret for the past. Remember that the future is yours to shape.
“I love you. Goodbye now. Adeus.”
A long time after the recording had finished and the machines had ceased to whirr, Sarah felt Billy gently tap her on the shoulder.
“Here, Sarah. For you.” He handed her the shiny, brand new memory stick. “Inês.”
She took it from him and closed her hand around it, so tightly that she could feel it bruising her palms, as if she were squeezing out the essence of Inês, trying to take inside herself Inês’s strength and love. Inês had tried to help. She had understood. How could she ever have doubted that?
Sarah got up to go and Billy gestured to the back door, the tall, padlocked gate that led straight out into the mews behind. She looked around her doubtfully, then down at the plastic bag on the floor by the stool that contained the precious things she had come for. She was too weary to explain to Billy about its contents and decided to say nothing. She was sure he wouldn’t mind. There was no need to go back into the house.
Now she must take Inês’s words of love and wisdom and make them her mantra. If Inês could do it, with everything she had been through, then so could Sarah. She would imbue herself with Inês’s forgiveness as she had previously sought inspiration from her courage and resilience. She loved Hugo and she loved her children and together, the four of them, they would start again and far from destroying them, everything that had happened, her affair, would be behind them and would make them stronger because more aware and more understanding of the care that relationships need if they are to thrive. She would no longer live in the past but in the present and the future.
She turned to Billy to say goodbye. “I’ll see you when we get back from our holiday,” she said as he unlocked the gate and stood by it, silent and solemn, watching her leave.
The heels of the boots that had made such a racket in the empty house now slipped awkwardly into the gaps between the cobbles that paved the mews. Sarah turned onto the main road and made as if to cross it, just as a pick-up truck came hurtling around the corner at breakneck speed, causing her to step back in fright. The trailer was full of estate agents’ signs that rattled up and down as it made its way along the street. Arriving at the corner by the junction, Sarah resisted the temptation to look back one last time at Inês’s house. Billy’s house.
Where now an Askew & Walter’s ‘For Sale’ board leant at a slight angle against the iron railings.
Epilogue
The hotel in the Seychelles was out of this world. Sarah had never been anywhere like it. The immaculate terraces, infinity pool and manicured gardens where sunbirds hovered in the still heat were like a fairytale. The girls were delighted with the kids’ club, spending long days swimming, shouting and singing in the fresh air, growing longer hair, nails and limbs by the day.
Sarah lay on a lounger and watched the silent waiters move gracefully amongst the guests, always unobtrusive but seeming to instinctively know exactly when she wanted a snack or a young coconut to drink. Hugo had thought of everything; booked massages and boat trips but left plenty of time for her to read a novel or do nothing at all. Sarah recalled how, on past holidays, he had hated her to read and sulked every time he saw her go near her book. Those times were well and truly gone; he had even brought a book or two for himself.
One day, the two of them walked along the beach, amazed to be so free, relieved temporarily of children, emails, deadlines, worry. They sat on a rock under a palm tree bent by the wind, like a couple in a movie, the bleached sand underfoot and the blue ocean stretching to the horizon before them. The waves washed in and out, and then one swelled deeper and further than all the others, depositing in its wake a shoal of translucent jellyfish, which it left stranded and melting under the sun.
“Sarah, I just want to say again how much I love you.” Hugo gripped her hands and held them tight. “I know I said it in the hospital – but maybe I need to say it again, to make up for all the times I should have said it in the past and didn’t. You know that you and the girls are everything to me, you’re my life.”
Sarah thought about all that had gone on over the last six months; the lies she had told, how she had betrayed Hugo, and by extension the children, and even Inês. Inês had known all along, and she had said nothing. Never for one moment had she sat in judgement or told her what to do. Instead, she had given Sarah the tools to heal herself.
She looked at her husband and said, “Thank you, Hugo.” She watched the white horses ripple and shine as wave after wave rolled to the shoreline, then turned her head away from the plight of the beached jellyfish. “I confess I lost my way a bit. I forgot what was important, and what I needed to focus on. I think we both did. But it’s over, it’s all in the past. Us and the girls, our family – we’re the future now.”
“Yes.” Hugo looked as if he was about to cry. “And I’d give all three of you the world if I could.”
Sarah jumped off the rock, landing with a thud on the powdery sand. She held her arms out wide and spun around, so that the sleeves of her kaftan filled with wind like the sails of the pirogues far out at sea.
“They’d probably both settle for a new bicycle for Christmas!” she laughed, gesturing for Hugo, the man she now knew for certain she loved, for better for worse, who was also laughing, to join her. “As for me – well, I’ve got everything I want.”
They turned to walk back up the beach to the hotel, hand in hand.
Behind them a wave surged in, gathering up the dead and dying jellyfish and carrying them back into the blue depths, leaving only fresh, sparkling sand behind.
Copyright
Carina UK
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.carinauk.com
First published in Great Britain by Carina UK in 2016
Copyright © Kate Ashley 2016
Kate Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © July 2016
ISBN: 978-0-00-820687-1
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