by Sanjida Kay
ONE YEAR LATER
Also by Sanjida Kay
Bone by Bone
The Stolen Child
My Mother’s Secret
Published in Great Britain in 2019 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Sanjida Kay, 2019
The moral right of Sanjida Kay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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.
Atlantic Books Ltd considers the quotes included within this text to be covered by the Fair Dealing definition under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and as subsequently amended. For more information, please contact Atlantic Books Ltd.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 255 5
Export trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 879 3
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 256 2
Printed in Great Britain.
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To my family
–Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear…
I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
PROLOGUE
He stands on the edge of the cliff and stares at the drop below. It’s early, around 5 a.m., and he’s only had two hours’ sleep. He blinks, rubs his eyes. The wind, skimmed straight from the sea, is cold, and he can taste the salt on his tongue. There’s a pale-blue line where the ocean meets the sky: the first sign of the approaching dawn. He has a torch in his pocket, but it’s of little use, faced with the dark expanse of beach below him. He shifts slightly and feels the earth give way beneath one foot.
He doesn’t have long.
The tide is almost fully in, and the man who’d phoned him had said she was at one end of the beach. The caller was drunk; he said he was on his way home from the festival, although that in itself was suspicious, because no one lives at this end of the island, save for the Donati family and the people staying in the holiday house below their farm. The man was slurring his words – fear, combined with the alcohol, making him barely comprehensible. He didn’t say which end of the beach. Martelli had driven here as fast as he could, radioing for the ambulance from the car. He offers a silent prayer: that she is above the tideline, that he can find her in time, that she’s still alive.
The clouds shift; the line of light over the water turns to buttermilk, and he thinks he can see her. Could be rocks or flotsam. Or a body. If it is the English girl, she’s lying stretched out on the sand below the headland, where this spit of land joins il cavalluccio marino.
He clicks the torch on and starts down the cliff path. It’s treacherous in daylight, never mind at night: narrow, twisting and steep, stones breaking through the soil. He slips, thinks he’s going to lose his footing. He can’t see how far it is to the bottom. He slides, collapses back against the side of the cliff, grabbing handfuls of vegetation to stop himself from falling the rest of the way. Loose grit and pebbles slide from beneath his boots, and he can smell the sweet, sharp scent of thyme and wild marjoram where he’s crushed the plants in his fists. It’s momentarily comforting: his grandma puts them in her rigatoni campagnolo. But then his torch hits a rock on the shore and the bulb smashes. He’s in darkness, his breath ragged in his throat. He pushes himself half-upright and scrambles the rest of the way down. His ankle throbs where he’s grazed it. The paramedics are not going to be able to carry her up here on a stretcher, he thinks, and the tide is approaching so fast, he’s not sure if they’ll make it round the headland, either.
If she’s still alive.
He runs across the sand, through crisp, dried seaweed and a ragged line of plastic bottles, Coke cans scoured clean, baling twine and polystyrene chips. The tourists can’t reach this beach, so no one clears away the rubbish. She’s on her side, one arm flung out, her legs at a disjointed angle. Has she fallen from the cliff? The rocks surrounding her are sharp as needles, erupting through the sand like prehistoric teeth. The foam-tipped edge of a wave creeps across the toes of her right foot. She’s missing one sandal. Her white summer dress is rucked up, exposing her thighs, revealing part of one breast. He throws himself onto his knees next to her. Her dark hair is wet and covers her face, so he can’t see what she looks like – if she is the missing girl. But he can see the blood: an uneven pool staining the sand, spreading out from the back of her head.
Where the hell is the ambulance?
His radio crackles, but there’s no word from the paramedics. He gently touches her with the tips of his fingers, and she’s cold, so cold.
Mio Dio.
He’s never seen a dead body before and his stomach clenches into a tight fist. Briefly he brushes the crucifix hidden under his shirt and then slides his hand beneath her hair, feeling for a pulse.
PART I
JULY, BRISTOL
1
AMY
It’s as if the day has gone into reverse. Amy puts on lipstick and feels like she’s getting ready for work instead of a night out with her husband. There’s something hard and smooth in the pit of her stomach; it’s the shape of an avocado stone, but larger, heavier. She can’t remember the last time she and Matt went out. Before, probably. Most things happened before. She scrutinizes herself. She’s thirty-six, but she looks ten years older; there are hollows beneath her cheeks, and her face has concertinaed into those folds that athletes get when their body fat drops. She’s never been thin before. She always wanted to be slimmer, but now that she is, she hates it. Misery skinniness might look good in photos, but it’s unattractive in real life. Matt winces sometimes when they try and make love, as if he might break her or she’ll pierce him with a hipbone. She tries a smile. It’s what the self-help books say: Smile and then you’ll really start feeling happy! She covers the place where her dress gapes across her chest with a scarf and tucks the lipstick into the pocket of her handbag.
Nick should be here soon, she thinks. He’s late, but then he always is. She goes to check on the children. Theo is sitting up in bed, reading.
‘How fast can light travel?’ he asks, without looking up. Although he’s only eight years old, it feels as if he’s been obsessed with space his entire life.
‘Oh, I know this one! Seven times round the Earth in one second.’
The upbeat voice she tries to use with the children sounds fake and brittle, even to her.
‘How many stars are there in space?’
‘As many as the grains of sand in the sea.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Wrong.’
‘Okay then. Seventy thousand million million million.’
‘Seventy sextillion, you mean,’ he says, but there’s a grudging note in his voice.
She peeks into Lotte’s room. There are pink-and-purple unicorns spiralling across the ceiling from a night-light. Lotte, two years younger than Theo, has been in bed for longer and is already snoring softly. Amy touches her forehead with the back of her hand. She feels hot, so she pushes the bedcovers down a little and worries whether it was sensible to let her wear a long nightie. She switches the night-light off, remembering, as she always does, that it isn’t Lotte’s.
Ruby-May’s bedroom is opposite. Amy stands in the doorway. The room isn’t quite dark: the curtains are open slightly and a street light shines through. She can see the curve of Ruby-May’s new bed. Her youngest daughter was delighted that she didn’t have to sleep in a cot any more and she was now officially a big girl. Amy resists the urge to draw the curtains fully closed, but she can’t help going in and sitting at the end of the bed. It’s so low down, her knees are almost level with her chin. She picks up Ruby-May’s doll, Pearl, and sets it on her lap. Its hard, plastic hands poke into her ribs. On the shelf opposite is Ruby-May’s Beatrix Potter collection; it was Amy’s, when she was little. Lined up in front of the books is a set of Beanie Boos, with large eyes that glitter in the muted light. There’s a thin bottle of gin tucked behind The Tale of Peter Rabbit, but she resists that urge too. She listens for her daughter’s breathing, as she does every night, and then stretches her hand across the Peppa Pig duvet cover.
Ruby-May slept tucked in a tight curl, like a fern frond before it unrolls.
She touches the spot where Ruby-May’s toes would have been.
She can’t imagine anything more soulless than a child’s empty bed at night.
Matt used to make her leave their daughter’s room, but he’s given up. On her or on himself, she’s not sure. Sometimes she still spends the night here, but every trace of Ruby-May’s smell has gone. She glances at her watch and tells herself that she needs to make an effort. We’re going out, for the first time in over a year. She forces herself to get up, to put the doll down, to hold back her tears. But instead of going to her husband, she slides Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle forward and, with one finger, hooks out the bottle. It’s a cheap one from Aldi and, over the artificial juniper, she can smell the sharpness of neat alcohol. She takes a sip and then another, and feels the warmth bloom across the back of her throat: a line, like a burn, running down her chest. One more and then she replaces the bottle and smooths the pillow. Her skin is so dry, her knuckles catch on the cotton.
In one month, it’ll be a year. A year since their youngest daughter died. Ruby-May, the brightest jewel, her gorgeous girl. She’d always wanted Ruby-May to have her surname and not her husband’s – Ruby-May Flowers sounds so much more romantic than Ruby Jenkins. She can’t even bring herself to imagine the anniversary. It falls on the day before what would have been Ruby-May’s fourth birthday.
I can’t be here. I can’t do this any more.
The books all say that time heals. But nothing can cauterize her pain.
Matt doesn’t look up when she walks into the sitting room. He’s hunched over his laptop, catching up on work emails. Once, he’d have told her how nice she looked. She doesn’t look nice any more, though, she thinks. Maybe it’s not something he even considers any longer.
‘No sign of him?’ she asks, although it’s obvious Nick hasn’t turned up.
‘No. Have you called him?’
She’s already sent him one text and now she sends another, still trying for cheery and not as if she’s blaming him.
‘Just ring him,’ says Matt. ‘I’ve already had to pay a late fee to Uber.’
She goes into the kitchen where the signal’s better and stands by the window into the garden. Nick’s mobile goes straight to voicemail.
‘Nick, I hope you’re okay? We’re ready! The reservation is… well, it’s now. Can you give me a call, let me know you’re on your way?’
She phones the restaurant and puts the reservation back by half an hour. She checks there are still Ubers in their area. Matt could always drive, if there aren’t any when Nick finally turns up. She opens one of the drawers in the kitchen and takes a mint out from the packet hidden under the box of bag clips and bottle openers.
She stands in the sitting-room doorway and watches her husband. His hair has gone silver around the edges and there’s the beginning of a bald patch on his crown. She can’t be bothered any more. It’s all so pointless. She’s about to say they should just stay in, when Matt gets out his phone. He goes over to the window.
‘Nick, mate. Where the hell are you? Get your arse over here.’
She joins him on the window seat. It’s like a microclimate: cooler than everywhere else in the house. The sun is setting and there’s a pink streak over Bristol’s skyline. The room is scattered with bits of plastic – Lego and Octonaut figures, Sylvanian Families animals and a Playmobil zoo – which don’t quite obscure the fallen glasses and dirty cereal bowls. She should tidy it up, but her bones feel weary.
‘Shall we…’
‘Yeah,’ he says.
He goes into the kitchen and she can hear him banging cupboards, turning on the oven. He filled the freezer with readymeals and packets of frozen vegetables when she lost the will to cook. He comes back with two glasses, a bottle of wine and a pack of tortilla chips.
When he switches on the TV, her sister’s face fills the screen. Bethany’s talking animatedly, her dark, glossy hair swinging. She’s wearing navy nail varnish and skinny black leather jeans with a sheer blouse. You can see her bra when she leans forward and the studio lights shine through the fabric.
‘Must have been her last one,’ says Matt, turning up the volume.
Amy feels, as she does every time she sees her sister, a kind of cringing embarrassment: not because her sister is terrible – she isn’t, she’s good at what she does – but at the thought of being on live television, of having to say the right thing without stuttering, whilst somebody else is talking in your ear at the same time as you’re trying to listen to a studio guest and make intelligent and witty conversation or read the autocue. She would hate it – the scrutiny, and the effort it takes to look like that: not a chip in her polish, not an eyebrow hair out of place. Bethany once showed Amy her Twitter feed after a show, and it was a deluge of comments about what she was wearing, how she looked and what the male viewers would like to do to her. Amy had been horrified, but Bethany had just shrugged.
‘You should see my Facebook messages. Anyway, it means they’re watching,’ she’d said.
And now, of course, what she feels for her sister has become more complicated.
The doorbell rings and Matt pads through the hall in his socks to let Nick in.
‘Nick Flowers, you’re an hour late.’
‘I’m sorry, mate. I was in the studio and lost track of time.’
‘And you had your phone turned off?’
‘Had it on silent. You know what Tamsyn’s like.’ He comes into the sitting room, shucking his coat onto the sofa, and hugs her. His stubble grazes her cheek. ‘I’m really, really sorry, Ams. You can still go. I can stay as late as you like.’
She can’t remember the last time he was here. She doesn’t want to try. Was it really almost a year ago? He’s met them in cafes, and taken the children to the park. But he hasn’t been in their house for more than a few minutes. She guesses it’s because he can’t bring himself to walk past Ruby-May’s bedroom, which she’s left almost exactly as it was, one year ago.
‘Matt’s put something in the oven.’
‘Lasagne,’ says Matt. ‘Do you want some, now you’re here?’
‘Guys, I feel terrible – making you miss.…’ He catches sight of Bethany. ‘That’s The Show, right?’
‘It’s an old one. We had it on catch-up,’ Amy says. ‘Did she ever t
ell you why she left and came back to Bristol?’
Nick sits on the sofa, and Matt hands him a glass of Merlot and tops up hers. Nick shifts uncomfortably. He must have been in touch with Bethany.
‘You know what Bethany’s like. She probably changed her mind about working on it. Or fell out with someone.’
‘That’s more like it,’ says Matt, going into the kitchen. ‘She never got on with that new girl, did she?’ He hesitates and she knows he wants to say The brown one, but Sara knocked that kind of thing out of him. ‘The one with the Scottish accent,’ he says after a beat. ‘Tiffany MacGregor or something.’
He reappears a couple of minutes later with a tray; plates of gloopy slices of lasagne and peas; another bottle of red.
‘Thanks, Matt,’ says Nick, passing a plate to Amy.
‘How’s work?’ Matt asks.
‘Same. Tamsyn breaks my balls on the days she wants me in the studio, but then I can go for a week without any work.’
‘You should set up on your own. Take control of your life.’ Matt shovels in a sloppy forkful of pasta. ‘Do an MBA or a course on entrepreneurship. Can even do them online now.’
Her brother doesn’t even bother responding to this. Once he’d have given Matt a playful punch and told him he’d got into photography because he wanted to be an artist – not a suit, like him.
She eats listlessly, hardly tasting the food, and after she’s had a couple of bites, her stomach starts to convulse, as it always does at this point. Bethany is talking about holidays: apparently Croatia is the new destination; she raises her carefully groomed eyebrows archly. When was this filmed? May? It’ll be the summer holidays in a week and Amy hasn’t thought about where they’ll go or what they’ll do with the children, once they’re off school. She sets her plate aside. Nick glances at her and frowns, but doesn’t say anything.
Bethany’s voice – low, husky, as if she’s secretly smiling – tells them of Croatia’s exotic azure waters and rocky coastline, but how you can still buy English classics – beer and chips – on the seafront. The camera (they must have hired a drone) zooms over the cliffs and across vineyards and lines of dark, conical trees.