‘It doesn’t matter what it is.’
‘I can go out, buy something—’
‘—Daniel?’ I reach out. Spread my fingers over the base of his throat, evoke my museum seduction, the press of my index finger against his pulse, my thumb on the jut of his clavicle. Any opposition loosens in him. He is quiet. Pliant. ‘I want us to celebrate now. You and me. The next chapter of our rare, astonishing lives.’
He blinks. This is the illusion of candlelight. In soft glow, in flickering flames, the fine lines around my eyes are almost invisible, the bulge of my post-partum stomach is in shadow. When he speaks, he’s hoarse with emotion. ‘You’re right. Let me get a bottle.’
He stands up.
I follow. Stop at the edge of the wine cellar built into the floor.
Beneath the round glass door, the spiral stairs are dark with shadow but then, he flicks on two switches. LED lights illuminate the shelves. The door lifts up. It takes three seconds for it to open, three seconds for it to shut, I checked earlier this afternoon. He steps in, shuddering at the sudden drop in temperature, goes down the swirl of steps, past empty shelves, all the way to the bottom, where I have relocated all the bottles. He slides out a red, examines the label. ‘I wish I’d known you were making a special dinner, I would have bought something, that would have been better than any of this.’
I press the switch.
One. Two. Three.
63
Cellar
Now
He stares at me from below, not quite understanding what’s just happened. ‘Stop playing, Lolly, it’s cold down here.’
I drag a dining chair to the edge of the glass, sit down. He blinks at me. There is a beautiful handful of seconds when he searches for a catch that will release him, his fingers flutter over every surface because surely, there’s a safety switch in the unlikely event you get stuck in the cellar.
There’s no safety switch. I’ve checked.
Realisation settles over him, wings coming to rest. I wonder if he sees the irony of this, he who’s imprisoned so many things. He holds out his hands in surrender, as if I’m playing a prank, all right, all right, you got me. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks.
‘We need to talk.’
‘I’m happy to talk to you, always, I just don’t see why it has to be in here.’
‘You will.’
‘Darling.’ He circles the cellar while he stares up at me. He reminds me of a panther I saw in London Zoo that paced back and forth, measuring the dimensions of its captivity. It couldn’t quite believe it had been caged. ‘Open this door. You’re not well. You’re not yourself.’
‘I’m the best I’ve been in a long time.’ I stretch my arms over my head, feel the barest of twinges. All that pain almost gone.
‘Look, is this about the Blues?’ He rubs his forehead. ‘Because I was up all night thinking about what you said and I wanted to tell you . . .’ he makes an expansive gesture, ‘you’re right, Lolly, you’re right, I’m not the man I should be. But I want to be better, you make me want to be better.’ It’s a clumsy lie – five minutes ago, he was ecstatic that he’d persuaded me to hunt the Blues, and I wonder if all his lies have been this transparent, if I’ve just been too blind to see them. ‘That conversation we had yesterday, onlyyoucould have had that with me. Who else would have worked it out? I need you, you’re only person who can hold me accountable, I need that, I need—’
‘—I followed you today.’
That silences him. His lips part but nothing comes out.
‘Who is she?’
‘I don’t, I don’t think—’ His hands cover his face, he is processing the bomb I’ve just detonated, the rubble in us both. ‘I’m not sure that would be helpful to go into.’
‘I think it would be very helpful.’
He pinches the bridge of his nose. A migraine. He hasn’t had one since we’ve been in Cornwall because I’ve never challenged him and then I realise his migraines are just symptoms of his lies, mental screams before his mind twists every depraved thing into something acceptable. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Let me guess. She’s interested in butterflies. She doesn’t know anyone else who is. You’re helping her. Teaching her. Nothing to do with the fact that she’s achild.’
‘I – I –’ His hands open, shut, grasp an empty shelf, and I see suddenly, the old man he’ll become – stuttering, frightened, confused. He shuts his eyes. ‘Nothing happened.’