‘ARE YOU SURE you don’t want a lift?’
Fatima stands by the door, her case in one hand and her sunglasses in the other. I shake my head, swallow the tea I am drinking.
‘No, it’s fine. I need to change Freya and pack, and I don’t want to hold you up.’
It’s a quarter to seven in the morning. I am curled on the sofa in a patch of morning sun playing with Freya, pretending to pinch off her nose and then put it back on. She bats at my hands, trying to catch at them with her little scratchy-soft nails, her eyes screwed up against the brightness of the sun reflecting off the Reach. Now I hold her hands gently, trying to stop her grabbing at my tea as I put it back on the floor.
‘You go, honestly.’
Thea and Kate are still asleep, but Fatima is itching to get away, back to Ali and the kids, I can see it. At last she nods, reluctantly, pushes the arms of her sunglasses beneath her hijab and feels in her pocket for her car keys.
‘How will you get to the station?’ she asks.
‘Taxi, maybe. I don’t know. I’ll sort it out with Kate.’
‘OK,’ Fatima says. She weighs the keys in her hand. ‘Say goodbye to them for me, and listen, please, try to get Kate to come, OK? I talked to her about it yesterday and she didn’t –’
‘She didn’t what?’
The voice comes from the floor above. Shadow gives a glad little whine and heaves himself up from his place in a puddle of sunshine by the window. Fatima and I look up to see Kate coming down the stairs in a sun-bleached cotton robe that was once navy blue, but now has only the faintest wash of colour in it. She is rubbing her eyes and trying not to yawn.
‘Going already?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Fatima says. ‘I’ve got to get back – I need to be at the surgery by noon, and Ali can’t pick up the kids tonight. But listen, Kate, I was just telling Isa – please, won’t you reconsider, come and stay for a few days? We’ve got the room.’
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Kate says flatly, but I can tell that her resolve isn’t quite as firm as she’s making out. She gets out the coffee maker from underneath the sink, a little tremor in her hands as she fills it up at the tap and pours in coffee. ‘What would I do with Shadow?’
‘You could bring him,’ Fatima says unconvincingly, but Kate is already shaking her head.
‘I know how Ali feels about dogs. Anyway, isn’t Sam allergic or something?’
‘There are dog sitters, aren’t there?’ Fatima pleads, but without conviction. We both know that Shadow is a reason, but not the reason. Kate will not leave, it’s as simple as that.
There’s a silence, broken only by the bubble of the moka on the stovetop, and Kate says nothing.
‘It’s not safe,’ Fatima says at last. ‘Isa – tell her. It’s not just the electrics – what about Luc – bloodstained notes and dead sheep, for goodness’ sake.’
‘We don’t know it was him,’ Kate says, her voice very low, but she’s not looking at either of us.
‘You should be reporting him to the police,’ Fatima says angrily, but we all know, without Kate having to say it, that’s never going to happen.
‘I give up,’ Fatima says at last. ‘I’ve said my piece. Kate – my spare room is always open to you, don’t forget that.’ She comes across, kisses us both. ‘Say goodbye to Thea for me,’ she says as she bends over me, her cheek warm against mine. Her perfume is heady in my nostrils as she whispers in my ear, ‘Please, Isa, try to change her mind. Maybe she’ll listen to you.’
Then she straightens up, picks up her bag, and a few minutes later we hear the sound of music and the roar of a car engine, and at last she is bumping away, up the sun-baked track towards Salten, and the silence washes back into the Mill.
‘Well,’ Kate says. She looks at me over the top of her coffee, raises one eyebrow, inviting me to sympathise with her in the face of Fatima’s paranoia, but I can’t do it. I don’t really believe that Luc would hurt Kate, or any of us for that matter, but I don’t think that Kate should stay here. Her nerves are stretched too thin, and sometimes I have the impression that she is very close to breaking point, closer than she realises, perhaps.
‘She’s right, Kate,’ I say. Kate rolls her eyes and takes another sip, but I push her, picking at the issue like Thea picking at the skin around her nails, until it bleeds. ‘And she’s right about the stuff with the sheep too – that was a pretty sick stunt.’
Kate doesn’t respond, just stares down into her coffee.
‘It … it was Luc, wasn’t it?’ I say at last.
‘I don’t know,’ Kate says heavily. She puts the cup down and pushes her hands through her hair. ‘I was telling the truth when I said that. Yes, he’s angry, but he – he’s not the only person around here with a grudge against me.’
‘What?’ This is the first I’ve heard of this, and I can’t hide my shock. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The girls at school aren’t the only people who spread rumours, Isa. Dad had a lot of friends. I … don’t.’
‘You mean … the people in the village?’
‘Yes,’ she says, and Rick’s words in the taxi come back to me, you done well to stick it out here with the gossips.
‘What do they say?’ I ask, my throat suddenly dry. Kate shrugs.
‘What do you think? I’ve heard it all, I can tell you. Pretty ugly stuff, some if it.’
‘Like what?’ I don’t want to know, but the question comes out in spite of myself.
‘Like what? Well, let me see. The least worst is probably that Dad fell back into his old ways and ran off with a junkie from Paris.’
‘That’s the nicest one? Bloody hell – what’s the worst?’
It’s a rhetorical question, I wasn’t expecting Kate to answer, but she gives a bitter little laugh.
‘Hard to say … but I’d probably go for the version where Dad’s sexually abusing me, and Luc killed him for it.’
‘What?’ I can’t find any more words, and so I just say it again, chokingly. ‘What?’
‘Yup,’ Kate says shortly. She drains the last of her coffee and puts the cup on the draining board. ‘Plus everything in between. And they wonder why I don’t go down the Salten Arms on a Saturday night, like Dad did. It’s amazing what old men will come out and ask, when they’ve drunk enough.’
‘You’re kidding me – they really asked you if that was true?’
‘That one, they didn’t ask. They stated. It’s well known, apparently.’ Her face twists. ‘Dad was fucking me, and the rest of you too, sometimes, depending who you ask.’
‘Jesus, Kate, no! Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘Tell you what? That years on people round here still use your names as a kind of salacious cautionary tale? That opinion is divided between the idea that I’m a murderer, or that my father is still at large, too ashamed to come back and face what he did to me and my friends? For some reason I didn’t fancy mentioning any of that.’
‘But – but, can’t you set them straight? Deny it?’
‘Deny what, though, that’s the problem.’ Her face is full of weary despair. ‘Dad disappeared, and I waited four weeks before reporting that to the police. That part is true, and it’s no wonder rumours started. It’s the grain of truth that makes them plausible.’
‘There is no truth in those disgusting lies,’ I say fiercely. ‘None. None that matters, anyway. Kate, please, please come back to London with me. Fatima’s right, you can’t stay here.’
‘I have to stay,’ Kate says. She stands and walks out to the jetty. The tide is low, the muddy banks of the Reach sighing and crackling as they bask in the sun. ‘Now more than ever. Because if I run now, they’ll know I’ve got something to hide.’
On my lap, Freya snatches for the empty cup, and crows with delight as I let her catch it, still warm from the dregs of the tea. But I am completely silent as I stare down at her. Because I can’t think of an argument against that.
It takes so long to get everything packed and Freya changed, and then fed again, and then changed again, that by the time I’m almost ready to go Thea is awake and stumbling along the corridor from her room on the ground floor, half dressed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
‘Did I miss Fati?’
‘You did,’ Kate says laconically. She pushes the coffee pot towards Thea. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ Thea drains the dregs of the pot. She is wearing jeans and a skimpy spaghetti-string top that shows, very clearly, that she’s not wearing a bra underneath. It also shows her thinness, and her scars, white and faded, and I find myself looking away.
‘I need to get back to London today too,’ she says, oblivious to my discomfort as she runs the cup under the tap and plonks it on the draining board. ‘Can I get a lift to the station with you, Isa?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘But I need to leave soon. Is that OK?’
‘Yup, I’ve hardly got any luggage. I can be packed in ten minutes.’
‘I’ll call a cab,’ I say. ‘What’s Rick’s number, Kate?’
‘It’s on the dresser.’ She points to a pile of dog-eared business cards in a dusty butter dish, and I rummage through until I find one that reads ‘Rick’s Rides’ and dial the number.
Rick answers at once, and agrees to meet us at the Mill in twenty minutes, with a borrowed car seat for Freya.
‘Twenty minutes,’ I say to Thea, who is sitting at the table sipping her coffee. ‘OK?’
‘Yup,’ she nods. ‘I’m basically done. I just need to actually shove my stuff in a bag – it won’t take a minute.’
‘I’m going to walk Shadow,’ Kate says, without warning, and I look up, surprised.
‘Now?’
‘But you’ll miss us going!’ Thea says. There is a touch of indignation in her voice.
Kate shrugs.
‘I was never good with goodbyes, you know that.’ She stands, and so does Thea. I follow suit after a moment’s struggle with Freya’s weight, and we stand uncertainly, the motes of sun-dappled dust swirling around us like a kind of small tornado.
‘Come here,’ Kate says at last, and she pulls me into a hug that is so fierce that I lose my breath for a moment, and have to pull back to shift Freya to one side, where she won’t be crushed.
‘Kate, please come,’ I say, knowing it’s hopeless, but she’s already shaking her head before I’ve finished the words.
‘No, no, I can’t, please stop asking me, Isa.’
‘I can’t stand to go and leave you –’
‘So don’t,’ she says laughing, but there’s a kind of sadness in her eyes that I can’t bear to see. ‘Don’t go. Stay.’
‘I can’t stay,’ I say. And I smile, even as I feel my heart cracking a little. ‘You know I can’t. I have to get back to Owen.’
‘Oh God,’ she says as she hugs me again, pulling Thea in too, our foreheads pressed together. ‘God, I’ve loved having you all here so much. Whatever happens –’
‘What?’ Thea straightens, her face alarmed. ‘What kind of talk is that? You sound like you’re preparing –’
‘I’m not,’ Kate says. She swipes at her eyes, laughs a little in spite of herself. ‘I promise. It was just a figure of speech. But I just – I can’t believe how long it’s been. Doesn’t it feel right, when we’re all here together? Doesn’t it feel like yesterday?’
And it does.
‘We’ll be back,’ I say. I touch her cheek, where a tear is gathered in her lashes. ‘I promise. Right, Thea? We won’t leave it so long this time, I swear.’
It’s a platitude, a phrase I’ve said a thousand times at a thousand partings, and without always meaning it. This time, I mean it with all my heart, but it’s only when I see Thea hesitate that the realisation hits home – we may be back here sooner than we want, and under very different circumstances if things go awry, and I feel the smile stiffen on my face.
‘Right,’ Thea says at last.
Before we can say anything else, Shadow gives a series of short barks, and our heads turn to the shore windows to see Rick’s taxi bouncing over the stones.
‘Oh crap, he’s early,’ Thea says, and she bolts up the corridor to her room, grabbing up belongings as she goes.
‘OK,’ Kate says. ‘I’m going to take Shadow and get out of your way while you pack up.’ She clips on Shadow’s lead, opens the shore doorway, and strides out towards the little gangway over the shore. ‘Be safe, lovelies.’
It is only afterwards, when we are in Rick’s car, bouncing along the track towards the main road, and Kate and Shadow are just specks against the green of the marsh, that I realise what a sad, strange thing it was for her to say. Be safe.
Sad, because it shouldn’t be something you have to wish for – it shouldn’t be in doubt.
And strange, because out of all of us, it should have been us saying that to her.
I look out of the window, as the car jolts over the rutted flints, towards the receding shape of her and Shadow, their six feet eating up the miles of marsh, moving fearlessly between the ever-changing ditches and sloughs, and I think, be safe, Kate. Please, be safe.