by Lucy Clarke
It’s locked. I’ve checked it twice. So is the kitchen door. The windows. The wine cellar. All of it, double-checked and secure.
No one can get in.
My car is parked on a side road a mile from the house. I left it there this morning and jogged home across the bay.
No car in the drive.
Right, then.
I slip my mobile from my pocket and open Facebook, scrolling through to the draft post I’d saved yesterday. I amend the caption and press Publish.
I’m working from the library all day. I’m armed only with my laptop, a pair of headphones, and a bottle of water. Austerity measures in place. I am not allowed to leave this desk, look at my phone, or disappear for a coffee until I’ve written three thousand words. Wish me luck!
If someone is following my movements via my social media posts, then I am handing them an open invitation.
I spend the morning trying to lose myself in the lives of my characters, but every noise the house emits – the sigh of the heating turning off, a creak of timber, the vibrations of the glass panes as an aeroplane passes overhead – causes me to freeze, my head turning towards the sound.
Maybe it was ridiculous to park my car away from the house, pretending I’m working at the library. Now I’ll have to fetch it later in the day.
If I could just manage one decent night’s sleep – even four or five hours in a row unbroken – it would be like pressing a refresh button. I took a sleeping tablet last night, but it had little effect, leaving me drowsy rather than rested.
I tap my fingers on the edge of the desk, then stand. I need a break. Need to move. Get out of my own head.
I descend the stairs, the wooden floorboards watermarked and stained. The damp stench of the carpets is worsening, and I know they need to be pulled up so the floors can breathe. It feels too much to deal with. Everything feels too much.
In the kitchen, I fill the kettle. As I wait for it to boil, I stare out to sea. Lines of swell are running towards shore, the neoprene-clad bodies of surfers dotting the line-up. On the shoreline, a walker moves with languid strides.
It reminds me that I’ve not been keeping up with my sea swims. Everything is sliding away from me. I’m forgetting to do the things that make me happy, that ground me. My circle of reference is shrinking, coiling tighter, so that now it feels like it is only this house, and within it my book, my characters. Me.
When the kettle boils, I make myself a cup of tea. My gaze returns to the figure on the shoreline. I watch with detached interest as they walk towards the near end of the bay, below my house. Rather than turning and retreating the way they’ve come, the figure moves closer to the cliff line, pausing at the small wooden sign by the rocky steps that reads: Private access only.
Perhaps it is Mark. I saw his motorbike earlier, so know he hasn’t yet left for London.
The person begins climbing the rocky steps with strong, purposeful strides, gaze turned down. It is only when they reach the top and look up that I catch the angle of their face, the dark stubble on the jawline, the curve of their brow: Flynn.
My first impulse is to lift my hand, wave to him through the window. Flynn is here!
But something holds me back. I can’t help wondering why he’s chosen to park so far from the house, or why he’s used the steps rather than the front entrance to the property, or why he hasn’t been in touch to tell me he is coming.
As he moves along the side of the house, I find myself ducking behind the kitchen table, my gaze fixed on the window.
I can hear his footsteps along the path – then they stop at the kitchen door. I can just see his face pressed close to the glass, a small cloud of condensation forming.
I remain precisely still, my breath caught in my throat. He hasn’t seen me yet.
‘Does anyone other than you have a key?’ PC Steven Cart had asked.
I think now of the evening I’d returned home and found Flynn had let himself into my house. I’d heard him upstairs in my writing room. What was it he’d said about that? Something to do with looking for photos of his mother – but I hadn’t seen him with any.
My mind trips to the word LIAR carved into my desk. Flynn had dedicated hours to restoring that desk to show me how deeply he believed in me. Maybe I hurt him so very badly that he wanted to replace that message with a new one.
A flash of memory explodes. ‘You lied to me, Elle,’ Flynn had said. He’d been leaning close, his chest pressing into the edge of the restaurant table. I’d been the one to suggest meeting out so we could talk. It had seemed like a good solution at the time; being in public would keep things in check, whereas the intimacy of our flat would allow conversation to swerve into raw territory.
Flynn had come straight from a job, wearing steel-toed boots and a T-shirt that was ripped at the collar. I knew he’d have had time to return to our flat, shower, put on fresh clothes, but I also understood that he was making a point. He was showing me, See, I’m not the one who’s changed.
I had been in New York for five nights on a book tour, signing hundreds of copies of my novel in brightly lit stores, while at home my marriage was crumbling. On the return flight, I wrote a list of the things I could talk to my husband about. I’d tell him that I found a doughnut shop that sold a different flavoured doughnut for each state; that my US publicist was also married to a tree surgeon and – Get this – his name is Woody! I’d tell him the builders had been in touch, and they’d be clearing out tools by the end of the month. I’d gently enquire whether he’d had a chance to look for any work nearer to Cornwall.
But when I’d reached that part of the conversation, Flynn had pushed his plate aside, looked down at his clasped hands and said, ‘I’m not sure.’
‘About what?’
‘I don’t think that’s what I want. Cornwall.’
‘Excuse me?’
My tone was wrong. The question came out haughtily, a teacher pulling up a pupil. I saw the shift in Flynn’s features, the way his head snapped up, a darkening in his eyes.
‘That’s not what I want,’ he reasserted. ‘The big house. The fancy kitchen. The bloody king-sized bed. When was any of that ever what we wanted?’
I blinked, staggered by his sudden outburst. I’d been working tirelessly on the house, pushing aside my writing so I could make decisions about lighting and tiles and heating systems.
‘Then you should have said.’
‘When? I don’t see you. You’ve been in New York. And before that it was Frankfurt. Then back and forth to Cornwall—’
‘—to check on the house. To make it ready for us.’ The jet-lag combined with wine was lending a surreal edge to the conversation, as if I were watching it at a distance.
‘It has five bedrooms, Elle,’ he said looking up at me, pupils dark, retracting.
The restaurant setting was useless; I knew where the conversation was headed. The same destination that underlined every interaction.
‘I thought we’d live in a jumbled little house full of kids and chaos,’ Flynn said.
My hand slammed against the table. ‘I made a mistake!’
‘It’s not about the abortion. It’s never been about that. It’s that you could lie to me with … with such ease.’ He leaned close, the table rocking. ‘You lied, Elle. Over and over and over.’
Now I hear the clod of Flynn’s boots as he moves along the stone pathway.
Does he resent me so deeply that he wants to unpick the life I’m making here? Cause me to leave the house? I know he’d benefit in the divorce settlement if I sell the house. In the end, does it come down to money?
There is a loud rapping at the front door. Three thuds of the knocker: one slow, two fast. Flynn’s knock.
I remain very still.
Flynn doesn’t know I’ve had the locks recently changed. I wait for the sound of a key, the rasp of metal.
After a minute, he knocks again.
When I don’t answer, I hear his retreating footsteps. The movement o
f him along the side path. This time, he doesn’t pause at the kitchen door, he simply returns the way he came, climbing down the stone steps towards the bay.
He is leaving.
I move out from behind the table and cross to the kitchen window. I watch as he reaches the beach, his hands pushing deep into his pockets, his shoulders rounded against the cold.
It is just Flynn. My Flynn. He’s come to see me – and I’ve hidden from him.
I hurry down the rocky steps. ‘Flynn! Wait!’ I call once my feet reach the sand.
He turns, his face lit with surprise. ‘Elle! You were in. I knocked … but …’
‘No car?’
‘I parked at the other end of the bay. Wanted the walk. Needed to get my head straight, work out how best to tell you I was a complete idiot at Mum’s funeral.’ He grins sheepishly.
‘So did you?’
‘Not really, but how about we walk for a bit while I figure it out?’
It rained heavily overnight, but this morning the landscape looks scrubbed clean, the sky a bright, crisp blue. Everywhere is teeming with moisture, steam lifting from the glimmering sand, rising beyond the dunes, the long fingers of grass catching the golden winter light. The temperature has dropped and there is a clarity to the air and I catch the saltine notes of wet rock, the aerated ozone of sea spray, the chalk scent of damp sand.
I feed my hands deep into the pockets of my coat, my feet falling into an easy rhythm with Flynn’s.
‘How have you been? I’m guessing Rea’s left.’
‘She flew home a few days ago. We managed to sort out the house while she was here. It goes on the market next week.’
‘That soon?’ I say, surprised. ‘Was it hard going through your mum’s things?’
He looks out over the water. ‘The hardest thing was stepping inside, knowing she wasn’t there. Would never be there.’
I nod.
‘We’ve stored a lot,’ Flynn says. ‘Reminded me of all those boxes of your mother’s that we shunted up to our flat.’
‘Flynn,’ I say, turning to him. ‘I just want you to know – I truly am sorry that I wasn’t there for your mum’s funeral—’
‘Don’t. Please. It’ll make me feel even worse. It’s me who needs to apologise. Those things I said,’ he pulls a woollen hat from his head, running his fingers through his hair and then resettling the hat into place, ‘they were inexcusable.’
We walk in silence for some time. A sentence from my novel comes to me, then a paragraph – and I want to hold them in my thoughts, examine them – but I also want to let them pass, so I don’t absent myself from this moment.
Flynn breaks from the line we are following, bending to inspect something on the sand. I see the knot of fishing line, the bright flecks of a jig, the rusted snag of a hook. He gathers the knotted tackle, tucking it into his pocket to dispose of later.
In that wordless gesture – one he’s made hundreds of times over as he removes bottles, plastic bags, food containers from any beach we visit – I see him for the man he is.
Mellow waves fold onto the shore, and everything around us becomes visceral, sharpened. I can hear the rub of fabric between Flynn’s arm and his side, the cinder-crunch of the sand beneath my boots, the suck of retreating waves as they roll pebbles and shells, the fizz and burst of white-water.
Moving through this sharpened beauty, I am acutely aware that something has gone very wrong. My life is meant to be full of the things that are surrounding me right now: Flynn, the sea, writing – but not like this. Not at all like this. The needle has slipped from the record and the wrong song is playing. But no one else in the room has noticed. Everyone continues to dance, and I am standing here in the centre, waiting for someone, anyone, to realise that my smile isn’t real.
‘Elle?’ He has turned, is watching me, his head angled to one side.
There are tears on my face.
‘What is it, Elle?’
Ahead of us, a crow struts across the damp sand, its black beak jutting forward as it caws. I catch sight of my house at the edge of my vision. I am suddenly struck by the size of it, the scale. It looks obscenely pristine on this rugged, natural cliff top. A stamp of wealth, of desire, of ownership. I feel as if I’m wearing new lenses, everything coming into sharper focus. It’s not spacious, but empty. All those unused rooms for the people missing from my life.
‘I’m not sure I’m where I’m meant to be.’
He looks at me for a long moment. ‘You know something that I’ve always admired about you, Elle? The way you turned your hand to all of those crappy part-time jobs we both did in our twenties.’
I laugh at the swerve of conversation, the randomness of the compliment. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You did them uncomplainingly – chambermaid, till-worker, receptionist, barmaid – but you never loved any of them. When you started that creative writing night class, it was different. You came home one evening with a notebook – and you said you didn’t want to watch a film, instead you wanted to write. It was like a fire had been lit. You’d found what it was that you were meant to be doing.’
Flynn has always encouraged me, believed in me. Don’t call it a dream, call it a plan, he used to say.
‘I knew you’d get published. I never saw any other outcome. You wanted it. You were driven. You had talent.’ He pauses, drawing in a long breath. ‘But then when it happened, it wasn’t how I imagined. I suppose I’d thought of writers as mostly being underpaid yet filled with this passion about what they’re doing. I could see how that would work for us. That we could travel. Work anywhere. That I could pick up the slack if there were stretches while you were between books. But then … you got that deal, all those foreign contracts started rolling in – and Jesus Christ, Elle. The money! It was crazy. Neither of us could have predicted it. Then there were the book tours, the press conferences, the photo shoots – and part of me was just bursting with pride, wanting to tell everyone – Look what Elle’s done! But at the same time, I felt this distance opening between us.’
I had felt it too, a void of my own making.
Because of what I’d done.
‘And then … and then I found out about the abortion …’ he shakes his head, and I feel everything in me tighten. ‘When I realised that we’d had a chance to be a family – but I’d never known about it – I guess I felt like you didn’t want that life I’d envisaged for us. That this new one, with the big house on the cliff, the writing room with a view, was what you had been wanting all along. And I suppose I didn’t know how I could fit into that any more.’ He swallows. ‘I blamed you for it. Held you responsible. Because I could see the Elle I knew, changing. And I couldn’t keep up.’
He looks up, his gaze set on the cliff top. ‘Maybe this is where you are meant to be. But maybe I’m not the person you are meant to be here with.’
Previously
I zip up my holdall, swing it over my shoulder. Time is up.
I open your front door, then pause.
Soon, you’ll return to England, to Cornwall, to this house.
As you step inside, I wonder whether there will be a beat of time where you feel like it is you who is trespassing?
I think of you alone in this house. Just you and the silence. You and the knowledge of what you’ve done. Does it come to you in the dark hours of the night, the weight pressing down on your chest until you’re forced to push back the covers, stand, pace the room?
Perhaps it’ll be tonight, or another evening as the light grows dim and your senses prick alert, that you’ll start to wonder about me.
I close the door behind me, and stuff your keys back through the letterbox, hearing the clatter of metal against wood as they hit the floor.
I’m out of your house. Now it’s time to get in your head.
25
Elle
In the comfortless dark of two a.m., I am still awake.
Three a.m. Awake.
My thoughts loop around Flynn. Flynn
. Flynn.
There is so much I want to tell him.
So much I can’t.
Trapped in the silence of my own secret.
Five a.m. Awake.
I’m slipping deeper and deeper into the sleepless abyss of insomnia.
Six a.m. Seven a.m.
Awake.
I do not sleep.
*
To go to bed – but to not wake, because there was no sleep to wake from – is so disconcerting that I feel as if the ground is tilting, the walls are too close, my chest too tight.
Caffeine, a shower, fresh air – my hat trick of defensives – does nothing. So I am here, in the library again with my laptop. Staring at the screen.
It takes time, an hour, maybe two, but eventually I slip into my narrative. Classical music plays through my headphones as I write. My fingertips swim over the keyboard and I daren’t take my eyes from the screen. The library blurs around me; I don’t notice the shelves filled with books, the faint beeps of the copier machine, the slow press of feet against the carpeted floor as a gaze drifts over me, my laptop.
All I can do is write.
Meeting this deadline has become everything. It is my way through.
Once I get this story on the page, it will be out of my head.
I need to make things right.
I can almost see the ending of my novel at the edges of my vision – but if I try to look too closely, the idea floats away. I need to wait. I understand that at this point in my story, I can’t prescribe each turn and swerve of the plot; I must trust in my characters, let them lead me there.
I unwind my scarf, warm now. I’ve written three thousand words this morning. I don’t know how. If I can stay focused, keep up the pace … it is possible, just possible, that I’ll make my deadline.
I stand, stretch, feeling the knot of tension between my shoulder blades.
I move away from my desk for a moment, get the blood circulating.
Across the room, Laura is serving customers at the main desk, and Maeve is stacking books onto a trolley. I regret not saying hello when I arrived earlier. When the customers have thinned, I’ll go over, ask how they both are.