‘I can’t believe you’re throwing that away,’ Millie had proclaimed one morning, not long after joining the editorial team as my assistant, when a photo of David and me at a book launch surfaced in the diary pages of the Evening Standard under the caption ‘One of London’s youngest power couples, TradeSmart heir David Witherall and his wife, editor and fashion icon, Anna.’
I had shaken my head dismissively, ignoring my assistant as she pulled the paper out of the waste-bin, flattening it out with the palm of her hand, which was left smeared in ink. The truth was it pained me that, despite having the more hard-won career of the pair, I was still referred to as David’s wife.
From then on, Millie had appointed herself personal keeper of the growing paparazzi archives that relentlessly charted what was often cited as one of Britain’s most profitable marriages.
‘I’ll be leaving in a minute, Millie.’
‘OK, no problem.’
‘Millie?’
I call her name too quickly. She stops and turns, a question flashing in her eyes.
I smile, shaking my head as if I have just remembered the answer.
‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing.’
Rain drives against the side of the plane as the wheels skim the runway at Skiathos. My stomach tensed, I prepare for the inevitable lurch, the tightly controlled skid towards my final destination.
Looking down the length of the plane, I am one of fewer than twenty passengers gathering their bags, arms stretched above their heads, the overhead lockers springing open. The insistent beep of phones like hostages calling out to each other across the seats.
Feeling my own phone vibrate in my pocket, I take a breath, bracing myself for a message from David. A photo of the girls, reminding me of what I am missing. It would have been simpler if I could have dropped the phone in the drain at the end of our street, along with the house keys I had not quite been able to let slip through the bars. Eking it out like this, prolonging the process, makes everything harder, but I cannot risk raising the alarm too soon. I need to be able to text David and tell him I have arrived in Thessaloniki, as I have promised to do. Otherwise he will know something is wrong; he will worry, as will the girls. This is what I tell myself.
The image of my daughters huddled around their father’s phone, listening to my voice on the answerphone message – ‘Sorry I’m not available at the moment’ – telling them what they already know, makes my body lurch.
Stella will be the first to walk away, of course, distracted by something more interesting, more immediate. Rose, though, the natural worrier, the over-thinker; I picture her chewing the skin around her nails, her fine blonde hair falling across her face.
Taking a moment to steel myself, I pull the handset out of my pocket. One message, Unknown Number:
David tells me you are coming to town soon. If you send me your ferry details, I’ll meet you at the port. Best wishes, Jorgos
Pushing back the lump rising in my throat, I draw a long breath. It is fine. No one is expecting me for a few days. As far as they are concerned I am heading straight to Thessaloniki and will be staying there until Wednesday.
I let the words ring around the inside of my head, rolling from one side to the other until I start to believe them.
Jorgos won’t be around until the afternoon I am expected to arrive, in a few days’ time, and Athena, I have gauged from conversations with Clive, only works alternate weekends this time of year, when the house is rarely used.
For a moment, I think of Maria and an unexplained sadness washes over me as I picture those dark, solemn eyes. What will she think of me when she knows what I have done? I blink the thought away.
I have until tomorrow to ditch my old phone. Once I have been to the house and have what I need, and have returned on the ferry to Skiathos.
Gripping the handset, I picture letting the phone slip from my fingers at the railings of the ferry, before catching my onward flight. The temptation to keep it, to hold onto the memories it contains – the photos, the videos of the girls – is overwhelming but I cannot risk anyone tracking me down. I feel a bubble of air expanding in my gut, imagining my daughters’ faces plummeting into the depths of the sea.
The second phone, the one from Harry, is still safely stashed in the inside pocket of the small wheeled suitcase I have positioned on the seat beside me, my fingers curled around the extendable handle. Indenting my nails against the leather strap, I wait for the cabin crew to announce it is time to deplane.
The mood on the aircraft has grown impatient as the passengers wait to be told they can leave. I hear limbs cracking around me as my fellow travellers stretch out their arms, limbering up for the journey ahead. In contrast, I hold my body very still, but for the fingers on my right hand, which strum silently against the handle of my bag.
What is taking so long? My eyes move quickly across the seats. At the front of the plane the flight attendants are leaning in towards one another; one holds a hand over his mouth and then there is a crackle from the intercom.
‘OK, passengers, please leave the aircraft and remember to take all your belongings with you … Thank you so much for flying with us and we wish you a safe onward journey.’
Never before have the words held so much meaning. Holding my bag tightly to my chest, I keep my eyes down as we shuffle, single file, off the plane.
CHAPTER 60
Maria
I had not planned to come to the house at all that night, but a feeling lodged somewhere in my chest made me come looking.
The top of the mountain was black as I approached, the squeal of the brake on my push-bike the only sound as I slowed to a halt. The gate moved easily when I pressed it, giving way to the gravel drive I still remembered perfectly.
It was four years to the day since Artemis’ death and I had spotted him that afternoon, at the foot of the tree, beside his mother’s grave. At fourteen, David’s face had filled out since the previous summer. A faint line of hair cast a shadow across the tightly held line of his mouth as he pressed a stick against the hard knoll of dirt, seeing how much pressure it would take before it snapped.
Not wanting to intrude, or perhaps not knowing what to say, I had left without saying hello, abandoning the bunch of wildflowers I had picked to lay on his mother’s grave on the step of the church.
It was hours later that I built up the courage to go to the house.
‘David?’
There was a light from somewhere inside as I approached. I knew his father was not home. I had seen Jorgos’ car outside one of the restaurants in the port an hour or so earlier, and looked in to see Clive and a group of faces I did not recognise laughing at a large table.
‘David, where are you?’
Even though the house was quiet, I could sense movement from somewhere deep inside.
Quickening my pace as I walked through the hallway to the stairs, I called his name again, and heard mine mirrored back at me from one of the rooms towards the far end of the house.
‘What are you doing?’
When I peered around the door I realised it was a study.
‘Maria?’
There was a wild look in David’s face that I did not recognise. When I looked more closely, I saw he had been crying. From the over-extended movement of his limbs, the way his vowels curled on his tongue, it was clear he was drunk too, or high, or something else that my inexperienced twelve-year-old self could not quite compute.
Hesitating, I moved around the desk towards where he was sitting on a swivel chair. When I looked down, I saw he was holding a gun.
‘What’s that?’
They were the only words I could summon.
‘This?’
He held it up, spinning it precariously between his fingers.
‘What are you doing, David? For God’s sake, put it down! Are you crazy?’
‘Crazy!’
He laughed, as if I had hit on an idea.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. They said my mum was cra
zy, do you know that?’
He laid the gun on his father’s desk but kept his hand on it, beckoning to his lap with the other hand, my name playing on his lips.
I stayed where I was, my feet stapled to the floor.
‘Maria … You know I’ve always loved you, don’t you? My mother, she loved you too.’
‘I loved your mother very much,’ I said, keeping my eye on the pistol on the desk.
‘What about my father?’
I looked up at him.
‘Not so much?’
He nodded, as if considering something important.
‘Me neither.’
‘I’m so sorry about your mother, David.’
I did not know what else to say.
He nodded, closing his eyes suddenly, tensing his jaw, tears rolling down his face again.
‘Do you think she …?’ His grip on the gun relaxed and I took a step towards him as his eyes flicked open. ‘Why would you hang yourself, though?’
I stopped before moving towards him again, desperate to offer some comfort but unsure how.
He held out his hand to stop me, as if he had something important to say.
‘I don’t mean why would you kill yourself, I mean why hang yourself, specifically?’
He stopped, his mouth gaping open as if paralysed by his own revelation.
‘That’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it?’
Picking up the gun, he seemed to test the weight of it in his hand.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘It’s my dad’s.’ He shrugged. ‘Keeps it in the safe behind that false cupboard there …’
My eyes followed his towards a tall door by the window, fractionally open.
‘David, please put it down.’ My knees were trembling and I placed my hand on the table. ‘Please, you’re scaring me.’
But it was as if he could not hear.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking. If it were me I’d use a gun.’
He held it up, the barrel dipping slightly in the uncertainty of his grip.
‘Please, David.’
‘I wonder, though, what would my dad say? If I did it. Because he’s not too bothered about my mum. Do you know how many times I’ve seen him cry over his wife? Over how her body was swinging from the bannisters outside my bedroom. Why did she have to do it there? Do you think she wanted me to find her? Do you think she hated me?’
His whole chest started to shake then and it was only when I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks that I realised I was crying too.
‘He’s saying she was mad. I mean, to do that to yourself, you would have to be mad, wouldn’t you? I think you would. That’s what my dad thinks. What about you? Do you think she was mad, Maria?’
‘David, please …’
I went to take the gun from the desk but he seized it and held it against his temple.
‘It would only take a second, wouldn’t it? If I did it like this. Much less painful, surely.’
I could see his hands were trembling from the movement of the metal against his cheek.
‘Would he cry? Do you think? Would he cry for me?’
At that moment there was a sweep of headlights across the drive, and David’s eyes, suddenly aware, followed the line of light towards the window.
‘Shit.’
It was as if he had emerged from a hallucination and he looked at me, suddenly confused by what I was doing there.
With the sound of David’s voice calling after me, I turned and ran down the stairs, tearing past the car, back through the gate, Clive’s eyes following me from the driveway into the night.
CHAPTER 61
Anna
The rain is easing off as I step off the boat and onto the quay, where a group of drunk teenagers who have fashioned themselves macs from bin bags are drinking shots in one of the bars along the front, next to the bus stop.
Lifting my suitcase so as to spare it the puddles that have formed in the potholes, I keep my head down as I head towards the car rental office a couple of roads behind the main street.
‘Kalispera.’ I nod as I enter the hum of the too-bright room, a fan pushing stale air to and fro. A squat man looks up from the small screen on his desk by way of welcome.
The moped has a holdall on the back, just big enough to accommodate my luggage, the man points out, barely lifting his arm.
‘And I can drop the keys through the postbox in the morning if no one is in the office?’ I ask for the second time. The Skiathos to Belgrade flight leaves at 2 p.m. tomorrow, which means I must be on the first boat out of here in the morning.
The man nods in a way that says no problem, although ordinarily, I understand, this would be a big problem, knowing all too well one is expected to leave a driving licence, if not a passport, as collateral. But it is amazing what special service paying three times the ordinary amount, for less than half a day’s use of a clapped-out moped in the quieter time of year, can buy you.
I feel in my purse for the driving licence that was delivered a month or so earlier, in my new name. The one with which I will drive from Serbia, where I will stay overnight before heading to Spain for the start of my new life.
The strangled roar of the bike’s engine gasps and finally falls into silence as I reach the top of the hill, where a path veers left from the road, rolling discreetly towards the house. As I pull the key from the ignition, the beam of light from above the front wheel dissolves into a wash of black.
Lifting my leg over the seat, I dismount. Taking a moment to check my suitcase is still securely fastened onto the back, I push the bike along the path, the familiar gravel gently stabbing at the soles of my feet.
The house is in darkness, as David said it would be, its long white lines silhouetted under the hollow glow of the moon.
Jorgos is not expected back until the following afternoon, though David had offered to ask him to return to the island early when I told him of my plan to cover the fair in person.
‘So, what, you only need to be in Thessaloniki on the Wednesday and the Saturday?’ he had asked, the first time I had raised the itinerary for the trip, a month or so previously.
‘Those are the only days when the two curators are available, annoyingly. I’m arriving on the Monday so I can have a look around then, get some background. I think they’re expecting me to write a daily blog for the website, but to be honest I’m not that bothered about hanging around for the fair. I’m sure an intern or someone can pull together a daily schedule. I’ve got so much other work to be getting on with, and if I don’t get that done I’ll have no time to be with you and the girls the following week …’
Had my voice faltered?
‘Why don’t you take the ferry to my father’s house, after your first interview on the Wednesday? That way you can work from there, in peace, for a couple of days before you head back to Thessaloniki on the Saturday, and then fly straight home from there.’
I had turned my back to him, facing the kettle, flipping the switch, reaching for the tea bags. Everything as it should be.
‘OK, maybe. Thanks. I mean it would be more comfortable … if Clive wouldn’t mind?’
Did my voice slip, then?
‘Why would he mind? You’re family, and he isn’t using it, so …’
We hadn’t talked of it again until the morning I left, but I knew by then he would have sorted it out. That was David. No sooner had he made a promise than it had been rendered unbreakable.
Pushing the moped along the gravel, the heat of the engine against my calf, I force back my tears. Despite the tension that has silently grown like bindweed between us, despite everything, he has never let me down.
In that sense, we are not so different, he and I. We have just made different promises; our commitments are not aligned. But that is good, in the end. If there is anything that can be said for David, it is that he loves those girls and he will protect them fiercely from the inevitable fallout. Collateral damage, that is what the Americans call it in
war. At least they do when it is their own men who are the ones spraying bullets.
Propping up the moped in the empty driveway, I head towards the house, feeling in my handbag for the key David has entrusted to me. The sharp leather of my passport holder catches against my skin as the wheels of my suitcase drum steadily across the gravel.
I expect some resistance as I push the key in the lock, some small reminder that I should not be here. But the door gives way easily, too easily perhaps, to the familiar shapes of the kitchen.
Despite the obvious absence of life in the house, I move cautiously, my eyes trained on the shadows pinned to the wall. Slipping off my shoes, I feel the familiar coolness of the tiles against my feet, my fingers hovering over the light switch before pulling back.
There is something comforting about the darkness, a cave in which I can shelter from myself. Moving towards the island in the centre of the kitchen, I feel along the side of the unit for the handle, feeling the rattle of the bottles as I pull open the drawer, drawing out a bottle of Clive’s favourite single malt.
As I lift the glass to my lips, I savour the gentle burn of the liquid against the back of my throat. It is impossible to drink without thinking of Clive; how impressed he had been by my taste for whisky, taking pleasure in showing me the nuances of the flavours in the selection of bottles he kept stocked in each of his houses, like a kindred spirit.
‘Does your father drink whisky?’
‘No,’ I had answered. I did not add that he had his own methods for self-destruction.
Taking a final sip of the drink before refilling my glass, I move through to the sofa overlooking the pool.
I love this house, the way the moon trembles across the water like an open mouth, ready to swallow. The times I have sat here with David while the girls tottered around the terrace, their arm-bands biting into their skin, dance on the surface of my memory. Stella, bombing into the deep end.
‘Mummy, watch!’ I can see my daughter last summer, a toddler desperate to be a big girl, squeezing her legs together, hurtling herself off the stone edge, the slap of her arm-bands hitting the water.
The Most Difficult Thing Page 29