by Susan Lewis
‘No! Don’t you dare speak to anyone. I’d rather be on my own anyway.’
Not ready to give up yet, Sabrina said, ‘Isn’t there someone else you can invite? You have so many friends, and it would show Georgie and Catrina’s mothers that not everyone is as stupidly misguided as they are. Do they think being the victim of rape is catching, or something?’
‘Will you just leave it?’ Annabelle growled angrily. ‘I told you, I couldn’t care less about them.’
‘Maybe not, but I find it utterly unacceptable…’
‘This isn’t about you.’
‘No, of course not, but I’m thinking of you, and how nice it would be for you to have some company tonight while Robert and I go to the Willoughbys.’
Annabelle looked up at her, a mix of resentment and pleading filling her eyes. ‘Do you have to go out?’ she asked, her tone suggesting she already knew the answer.
Sabrina sighed gently. ‘Darling, you know I’d stay with you if I could, but Helen Willoughby’s gone to a lot of trouble to…’
Annabelle turned over. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said into her pillow.
Sabrina sat looking at the back of her head, feeling exasperated and guilty and horribly torn. ‘It’s too short notice to let them down now,’ she said. She wouldn’t remind her that one of the minor royals whose book club she was hoping to join was going to be at the dinner, because she didn’t imagine it would go down too well right now.
‘You’d have to if you were sick,’ Annabelle pointed out.
‘But I’m not.’
‘You could always pretend.’
‘That would be dishonest, and as we’re already having an issue with that particular…’
‘Oh fuck off,’ Annabelle snarled. ‘I don’t know why you’re acting like you care when we both know you don’t. No, don’t touch me. Just go. I don’t want you in here any more.’
‘I’m not leaving you like this,’ Sabrina argued. ‘You’re not being reasonable, and it’s just plain silly to suggest I don’t care when you know very well that no one means more to me than you.’
Annabelle spun over on to her back. ‘You’re such a liar!’ she cried. ‘The only person who matters to you is you. And what about all those times you pretended to be ill after Craig packed you up? You didn’t mind about letting everyone down then, did you? You just lay in bed all day …’
‘What are you talking about?’ Sabrina cut in, aghast. She’d had no idea that Annabelle knew about Craig, and for it to be coming out like this now…
‘As soon as I knew about your affair,’ Annabelle spat, ‘all sorts of things started falling into place, like the rows you and Robert used to have, the way you wouldn’t eat and kept moping about the place, crying and saying you’d rather be dead. Did you ever stop to think how that made me feel? You told me nothing mattered any more and there was nothing to live for. So that’s how much I matter to you. I’m not even worth living for. Everyone kept saying you were in a depression, but really you were all screwed up over him, so don’t you dare try saying you’re not a liar, because I know you are.’
‘Annabelle, listen…’
‘No!’ Annabelle raged. ‘Let go of me, I’m not interested in anything you have to say,’ and tearing herself free she leapt up from the bed and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Dizzied by shock and guilt Sabrina continued to sit where she was, not sure what to do next. She couldn’t just walk away, but nor, unprepared as she was, could she explain anything to Annabelle. In any case, Annabelle was in no mood to listen. She turned round as Robert came into the room and her heart contracted.
‘Did… Did you hear any of that?’ she stammered.
‘Enough,’ he answered.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘leave her for now. I’ll try to have a chat with her later.’
Lifting her head to look at him, she felt her emotions swelling and roiling inside her. He’d always had a way with Annabelle, so yes, it was best to leave it to him. ‘I don’t deserve you,’ she said, going to him.
‘No,’ he answered, turning from her kiss, ‘I don’t think you do.’
She looked at him uncertainly, but he only stood aside for her to pass, and once she was out on the landing he closed Annabelle’s door and started back down the stairs.
‘Robert,’ she said.
‘Not now,’ he replied.
She watched him until he’d disappeared from view, feeling disoriented and afraid and angry with herself for not knowing what to do. Everything was going horribly wrong. Her life seemed to have so many cracks running through it that it might disintegrate at any moment. Somehow she had to hold it together. She needed Robert to understand that none of this was her fault. She hadn’t made that boy attack Annabelle, nor had she meant any of the things she’d said to Annabelle after her break-up with Craig. She hadn’t been in her right mind then. Robert knew that, so surely he couldn’t blame her for what was happening now.
Once alone in her own room she began pacing up and down, trying to think what to do about Annabelle, but it was as though Annabelle’s accusations had opened a flood-gate, because her mind, her heart, her whole body was filling up with Craig and how much they’d meant to one another. To those on the outside the way she’d gone to pieces at the end of their affair might have seemed too dramatic, an overreaction, even a monstrous self-indulgence, but if they’d understood how intense it was, how desperate they’d always been to see one another, how they’d never been able to get enough of one another and then to be torn apart the way they were…
‘Sabrina, it’s me,’ he said quietly. ‘I have to see you.’
‘Of course,’ she murmured. Two weeks had gone by since Alicia had found them together, and a week since he’d told her it was over, but the only good it had done was to make their mutual need burn hotter than ever. ‘When?’
‘Tonight. I won’t be able to stay long. Can you meet me at the motorway service station?’
‘The same one we met at before?’
‘Yes. It’s driving me crazy not seeing you.’
‘It’s the same for me. I think about you every minute of the day and night. When Robert touches me I have to pretend it’s you. It’s the only way I can bear it.’
‘Don’t tell me about him. I want you all to myself.’
‘That’s how I want you. We should be together, always.’
‘Yes.’
‘We can make it happen.’
There was a pause. ‘Be there tonight,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t wear anything under your coat.’
Their reunion that night had been fiercer and more tender than ever before. Passing cars had filled theirs with light, illuminating the insatiable demands they made on each other. She hadn’t cared who saw them, she wanted the world to bear witness to how wildly and passionately she loved him.
They’d gone on meeting after that night, knowing it was pointless trying to stay apart. But then Alicia had started snooping around Craig’s mobile phone and credit-card statements, and it hadn’t taken her long to come up with the truth.
When he’d called to tell her for the second time that it was over she’d begged him to see her, but he wouldn’t. He’d known what would happen if he did, they’d never be able to let each other go, and because he couldn’t risk it, he made himself say goodbye on the phone. She’d felt certain he wouldn’t be able to go through with it, that like the last time he’d soon be on the phone to her again, but as the days passed and he hadn’t rung or texted, or taken any of her calls, the awful truth of how impossible it was going to be to continue without him had started to dawn.
Somehow Annabelle must be made to understand that what had happened during those terrible dark months after Alicia had stolen Craig back had been a desperate, agonised fight for survival. Without Craig her life had lost all direction and meaning, nothing seemed worthwhile, all that mattered was getting back what was rightfully hers. W
hich wasn’t to say Annabelle hadn’t mattered too, it was simply that, at the time, Sabrina had been incapable of showing it.
‘Mum!’ Darcie yelled, waving from an open window as the train pulled into Castle Cary station. ‘I’m here.’
Laughing as the door was flung open and Darcie leapt on to the platform, Alicia ran to scoop her into her arms. ‘Hello darling,’ she cried, squeezing her tight, then holding her back to get a good look at her. ‘Wow, what a tan,’ she declared, cupping Darcie’s lively young face between her hands, ‘and your hair’s so blonde,’ she added, bouncing the wayward clusters of silky white curls. ‘You look gorgeous.’
‘I do my best,’ Darcie chirped. ‘Where’s Nat?’
‘He’s in Bristol for a few days.’
‘What? You mean he’s not here to greet me? That really sucks. Wait till I see him, I’ll really…Oh my God, quick, we have to get my luggage.’
Verity’s father was already hefting a large suitcase and a flower-power holdall down to them, while Verity struggled to burst past for a final hug.
Minutes later the doors were slammed shut, and as the train started to chug out of the station Alicia and Darcie stood, arm in arm, waving Verity and her family goodbye.
‘No tears?’ Alicia asked, glancing down at Darcie.
‘No, I’m cool. We did all that last night.’
Alicia smiled, and feeling profoundly thankful that the monstrosity of a suitcase had four wheels of its own so that they didn’t have to try to carry it up the stairs and over the footbridge, she began steering it along the platform towards the exit. ‘So you had a good time?’ she said, as Darcie gamely shouldered the holdall.
‘Fantastic. I mean, there were the odd blips, you know, when I felt homesick, or Verity got on my nerves, but on the whole it was the best.’ She turned her pretty face up to her mother. ‘I really missed you, if that’s what you want to know, so I hope you missed me too.’
‘Oh, I think I managed to once in a while,’ Alicia teased.
Darcie laughed and nudged her. Then her face fell as Alicia stopped next to the old Renault. ‘I’d forgotten we had that now,’ she said dismally. ‘Don’t you feel embarrassed being seen in it?’
‘No, and if you do, you can always walk,’ Alicia told her, not liking her snobbery.
Darcie slanted her a look, and as her smile made a mischievous return she grabbed her mother in a bruising embrace. ‘I am so glad you’re my mum,’ she said, as Alicia opened the boot, ‘you should hear the way Verity’s goes on and on. If you were like that I’d leave home.’
‘If I was like that I probably would too,’ Alicia quipped.
Laughing delightedly, Darcie dumped her holdall, helped crane the suitcase in after it, then skipped round to the driver’s side. ‘Oops, got to get used to being back,’ she chuckled, realising her mistake. ‘Actually, this car’s not so bad really, is it? It’ll probably be great for when you take your stuff to the foundry. Have you done any work since you’ve been here? How’s the studio coming on? Is the shop open yet? You have to tell me everything. I’m so out of touch.’
Waiting for her to buckle up on the passenger side, Alicia started the engine and at the end of the parking area turned right towards home. ‘Rachel’s invited us over this evening,’ she said. ‘Una’s dying to see you.’
‘Oh, fab, because I’m dying to see her too, and little Todd, he’s so cute, but I’m still really ticked about Nat. Fancy him not being here for my homecoming. He said he would, and I haven’t even spoken to him since Monday. Why did he have to go up to Bristol?’
‘He’s helping Jolyon prepare some cases. It’s good experience and I think the change of scenery is doing him good.’
‘But he’s hardly been here three weeks. Is it really that bad?’
Rolling her eyes, Alicia said, ‘It’s not bad at all. You’ll like it once you get used to it.’ How easily the words were tripping off her tongue, while the dread of reality was lurking in the background, ready to swoop like an avenging ghoul.
‘I don’t suppose I’ve got any choice, have I. Still, at least I’ll have all my own stuff around me. Is my computer set up yet?’
‘Nat did it last week. And your TV, and the DVD.’
‘He’s the best. I’m really glad he didn’t go to Italy with Summer. We should all be together now, shouldn’t we?’
Smiling at how conveniently she’d glossed over her month in France, Alicia said, ‘We should, and there’s still plenty to do around the house and in the shop if we’re all going to pull together.’
‘No problem. I’m definitely up for that. It’s never going to be the same without Dad,’ she said, suddenly glum, ‘but I still want him to be proud of us, you know, just in case he’s looking down, and I really think he is, don’t you?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ Alicia said, partly because it was what Darcie wanted to hear, and partly because she wanted to believe it too. ‘I need to call into the village shop on the way through to pick up some milk and a card for Todd’s birthday tomorrow. Would you like to choose it?’
‘Sure, why not? Have you got him a present?’
‘Yes, it’s all wrapped ready to take with us tonight.’
Twenty minutes later, still listening to Darcie chattering on about her French adventure, Alicia pulled up outside Mrs Neeve’s shop and kept her fingers crossed, as she always did in the high street now, that she wouldn’t run into Sabrina – or any of the neighbours whose loyalty had been bought, at least to her mind, by one of Sabrina’s charitable acts.
‘Hello,’ she said, walking in to find Mrs Neeve behind the counter, as usual, and another neighbour, Sally Hopkins, leaning against the customer side. As both women looked round Alicia felt her smile starting to fade. Neither one of them was attempting to say hello back.
‘Uh, I’ll help myself to some milk,’ Alicia said, pointing to the fridge. ‘Darcie’s looking for a birthday card. She’s just come back from France, haven’t you darling?’
‘There’s no more milk,’ Mrs Neeve said as Alicia started to open the fridge.
‘But it’s right …’ Realising what was happening, Alicia let go of the door, and putting an arm round Darcie she steered her back on to the street.
‘What was all that about?’ Darcie said in a loud whisper. ‘There was loads of milk, you could see it.’
‘I know.’
‘So why didn’t you say something?’
Not sure whether she was more offended by the two women inside, or relieved to have had it pointed out so soon that Darcie needed to be told what was happening before hearing it from someone else, Alicia said, ‘Come on, get in the car, I’ll take you home.’
She waited until Darcie had been upstairs to inspect her room, and check her email, then sitting her down at the kitchen table with a glass of juice and some biscuits she said, ‘There’s something I have to tell you, darling, which isn’t …’ As Darcie’s face drained she broke off quickly, realising her mistake. She’d sounded too gloomy, making Darcie think the worst.
‘It’s Nat, isn’t it?’ Darcie said, rising to her feet. ‘Oh my God…’
‘Ssh, no, I promise, Nat’s fine,’ Alicia insisted. ‘We can speak to him on the phone if you like and he’ll tell you himself.’
‘So what is it?’ Darcie said, looking horribly anxious and close to tears.
‘Sit down again,’ Alicia said, pulling out a chair for herself. ‘It does concern Nat, but not in the way you’re thinking.’
With wide eyes fixed on her mother, Darcie sank back down again.
‘Something happened at the rave last Saturday,’ Alicia continued, feeling slightly stunned that it was only a week ago, when it felt like a lifetime. ‘I’m not sure what exactly, but I do know that things got out of hand and Annabelle ended up accusing Nat … Well, she’s accused him of raping her.’
Darcie’s jaw dropped.
‘Of course it isn’t true,’ Alicia went on hurriedly, ‘but the police have become involved and
now they’re intending to prosecute Nat for something he didn’t do.’
Darcie began shaking her head vehemently. ‘No, they can’t,’ she declared hotly. ‘He’d never do anything like that. They’ve got it wrong. You have to stop them, Mum. If Dad was here, he would…’
‘Oliver and Jolyon are taking care of it,’ Alicia told her, grabbing her hands. ‘It’s partly why Nat’s with Jolyon now…’
‘But she’s lying,’ Darcie cried. ‘Why are they listening to her? Can’t Uncle Robert make her stop?’
‘I’m sure he’s trying, but…’
‘I’m going round there,’ Darcie said, shooting to her feet. ‘I’m going to…’
‘No, darling,’ Alicia said, pulling her into her arms. ‘You can’t go over there, none of us can.’
‘But you have to do something,’ Darcie insisted. ‘You can’t just let her get away with it.’
‘For the moment there’s nothing we can do,’ Alicia explained, ‘apart from put our trust in Oliver and Jolyon. If we go near Annabelle, or her mother, we’ll make it worse for Nat, and that’s not what we want, is it?’
‘No, but …’ Her eyes suddenly widened. ‘Oh my God, that’s what was going on in the shop, isn’t it? Mrs Neeve wouldn’t let you have any milk because she thinks Nat did it. You have to tell her she’s wrong, Mum. Nat would never hurt anyone and she’s got no right to make judgements like that. The law says he’s innocent till proved guilty, so she should mind her own business.’
‘Maybe, but people always have opinions, we can’t stop that, and…Oh darling, don’t cry. It’ll be all right,’ Alicia soothed, holding her close.
‘We didn’t want to come here in the first place,’ Darcie wept, ‘and now they’re doing this to Nat… It’s not fair, Mum.’ She turned her face up to Alicia’s. ‘Can’t we go back to London? Please. They won’t be able to get to him there.’
‘Ssh,’ Alicia murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and stroking her hair.
‘Annabelle is such a cow,’ Darcie said fiercely. ‘She won’t get away with it. She won’t. And shall I tell you why? Because I won’t let her.’