He talks to me as he drives, he says, ‘You’re a butterfly hurtling into my windscreen, I am swerving off-road,’ ‘I’m going to make you better like I did before, do you remember, do you remember?’ He calls me ‘Lolly’ now without asking, without discussion. Lauren is gone. Soon, his voice fuses with the other sounds of the motorway – the swoop of traffic, a low horn, a siren. I don’t know where we’re going but the further we travel, the less it matters.
At service stations, he asks if I want to stretch my legs, eat something. I don’t reply. He returns with treats, things he’d never eat, as if I’m a small animal he is tempting out of a hole – a bag of jelly babies, a bar of chocolate, fries. Untouched, they grow stale and hard against the car’s leather interiors. At the next stop, he drops them in the bin.
In his car, I dream of Millie. She is having a tantrum at the bus stop, thrashing her head from side to side, smashing her heels against the pavement, the air ringing with the pitch of her screams. I try to wrap my arms round her, a desperate attempt at comfort, but she sinks her teeth into my skin, ‘No! Not you! Daddy, I want Daddy!’ I grasp the bite mark on my arm, blinking back tears, I take my eyes off her for no more than a second but it is a second too long; when I look up, she’s gone. A bus is pullingaway, window after window goes past and then I see her at the back, hands plastered against the glass. Her mouth is moving, she is saying something to me but I can’t make out what, I am running, my mind white with panic and then the doctor whispers, ‘We need to go,’ because I am losing the baby. I jolt awake, a shout in my throat. Daniel says, ‘It’s going to be all right, you’re going to be all right,’and I try to stop trembling, try not to fall asleep but I am so tired.
54
Loft
Now
The first thing I see is the sea, an iridescent turquoise so luminous I have to shield my eyes while they adjust to the light. Across the water is a shingle beach, backed by a forest of pines. It is the view from a set of French doors and then other things come into focus – a plush grey carpet, a carved wood dresser. Over my waist is a striped yellow throw. I touch the fabric beneath me – crisp, white cotton. I’m in a hotel.
‘You’re awake.’ He sets down the journal he’s reading, crouches beside me. He strokes my hair, a gesture that is both familiar and transgressive – his powerful fingers, the dark hair below his knuckles. Kit’s hands are different, the hair so gold, it’s imperceptible except by texture, by touch. A tear trickles down my cheek. Daniel wipes it away. ‘You’re okay. You’re safe.’
‘How did I get here?’ My throat is so dry.
‘You were asleep when we arrived. I carried you in.’
The image makes me wince. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘You were exhausted.’ He pours me a glass of water.
I gulp it down.
‘Now, for some food, you need to keep up your strength, darling. There’s not much around, pretty limited take-out options here. Or I can whip something up for you? A healthy breakfast, maybe? A salad?’
I cast around for a kitchenette, but don’t see one.
‘You can have whatever you want. I picked up a few things when you were asleep and the owners left us a welcome hamper with granola and fruit. You should see the kitchen now, it’s absolutely huge, there’s a utility room, a wine cellar, the whole place looks nothing like it looked before, it’s been completely remodelled.’
I stare at him blankly.
‘You don’t recognise it?’
The way he says it sounds a faint alarm; there’s a pulse of excitement I don’t understand and then, the pieces click together. Pines. Shingle. Sea. ‘It isn’t the sea,’ Alex once told me. ‘It’s an estuary.’
No.
It can’t be.
‘The cottage went through a couple of owners until someone finally pulled it down and built this, they still call it a “cottage” but it has six bedrooms, it sleeps twelve . . .’ He tells me about the underfloor heating, the wood burner, he doesn’t seem to notice the dawning terror, because I can see it now, the same view, the light on the water, I am exactly where the master bedroom used to be, and then I remember how I flung open the window here when I had morning sickness, the pink cross, the clinic, ‘We need to go.’ A sound comes from me, keening and low.
‘Lolly? Lolly?’
I am shaking my head, it doesn’t feel like mine at all, it is a rag doll shaken in the jaws of a dog.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t be here!’ I stand up, but my will is too ferocious for my body, which buckles under me.
He holds my arm. ‘You’re okay, you’re okay. Look at me.’
I tear my eyes away from the French windows. Focus on the perfect circle of his pupil.
‘It’s me, it’s me, you’re with me now, I’ll look after you.’
‘I don’t want to be here,’ I repeat, only now, in his grasp, I am just whispering.