I cry out, without meaning to, the sharp sound ringing across the water. But Luc has me, hard in his grip, his fingers so tight on my upper arm it hurts.
‘You’re all right,’ he’s saying urgently. ‘You’re all right.’
I’m nodding, gasping, trying not to hurt Freya as I regain my balance and try to steady my breathing. A dog in the far distance let out a volley of barks at my scream, but now it falls silent. Was it Shadow?
‘I’m sorry,’ I say shakily. ‘It’s the boards – they’re so slippy.’
‘It’s OK,’ he says, and his fingers loosen on my arm, but don’t quite let go. ‘You’re all right.’
I nod, and we edge across the last few boards, his grip on my arm firm, but no longer tight enough to hurt.
At the far side I find I’m panting, my heart thumping absurdly in my chest. Amazingly Freya is sleeping steadily.
‘Th-thank you,’ I manage, and my voice is trembling in spite of myself, in spite of the fact I’m on firm ground and safe. ‘Thank you, Luc, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.’
What would I have done? I imagine myself trying to guide the rocking pram across that slippery, treacherous bridge, the wheels sloshing in a foot of water – or sitting down in the cold drizzle to wait for Kate to return from wherever she’s gone. Resentment flares again. How could she just disappear like that without so much as a text?
‘Do you know where the candles are?’ Luc asks, and I shake my head. He clicks his tongue, but whether in disgust or disapproval or what, I can’t tell, and pushes past me into the dark cavern of the Mill. I follow him, standing uncertainly in the middle of the floor. The hem of my sundress is damp and clinging to my legs, and I know I’m probably making a muddy puddle on the floor, and I realise, too, with a sense of chagrin, that my shoes are on the other side of the bridge. Well, never mind. The tide can’t possibly get any higher, not without the Mill actually floating away. I’ll collect them tomorrow when it subsides.
I’m shivering too, the cold breeze from the open doorway chilling the wet cloth against my legs, but Luc is busy searching through cupboards, and I hear the rasp of a match, smell paraffin, and see a flare in the darkness by the sink. Luc is standing there, an oil lamp in his hand, adjusting the wick so that the flame burns bright and clear in the little chimney. When it’s steady, he slips a frosted-glass globe over it, and suddenly the flickering, uncertain light is diffused into a golden glow.
He shuts the door, and we look at each other in the lamplight. The little circle of light is somehow more intimate even than darkness, holding us close in its narrow circle, and we stand just inches apart, suddenly unsure of each other. In the softly piercing light, I can see a vein in Luc’s throat is pulsing as quickly as my own heart is beating, and a kind of shiver runs through me. He is so hard to read, so impassive – but now I know that’s just a surface, that beneath he is as shaken as me, and suddenly I can’t bear to meet his eyes any more, and I have to drop my own gaze, afraid of what he might find there.
He clears his throat, the sound unbearably loud in the quiet house, and we speak at the same time.
‘Well, I should –’
‘It’s probably –’
We stop, laugh nervously.
‘You first,’ I say.
He shakes his head.
‘No, what were you about to say?’
‘Oh – nothing. I was just …’ I nod down at Freya. ‘You know. This one. I should probably put her to bed.’
‘Where’s she sleeping?’
‘In –’ I stop, swallow. ‘In your old room.’
He looks up at that, but I’m not sure if it’s surprise, or shock, or what. It must be so strange for him – seeing Kate reallocate his childhood home, and I’m struck again by the unfairness of what happened.
‘Oh. I see.’ The light dips and wavers as if the hand holding the lamp shook a little, but it might have been a draught. ‘Well, I’ll take the lamp up for you – you can’t manage a light and a baby up those stairs.’ He nods at the rickety wooden staircase, spiralling upwards in the corner of the room. ‘If someone dropped a candle in here the whole place would be in flames in minutes.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, and he turns without another word and begins to climb, me following his retreating back, and the circle of light that is disappearing into the rafters.
At the door to his old room he stops, and I hear a sound like a caught breath, but when I draw level with him, his face is almost blank, and he is just staring at the room – at the bed that used to be his, now strewn with my clothes, and the cradle at the foot with Freya’s comforter and stuffed elephant. I feel my face burn at my part in all this – at my bags spread out across his floor, at my bottles and lotions on his old desk.
‘Luc, I’m so sorry,’ I say, suddenly desperate.
‘Sorry for what?’ he asks, his voice as impassive as his face, but I can see that vein in his throat, and he shakes his head, puts the lamp down on the bedside table and then turns without a word and disappears into the darkness.
When Freya is settled, I take up the lamp and head cautiously back down the stairs, picking my way in the pool of golden light, which throws more shadows than it dispels.
I was more than half expecting him to be gone, but when I get to the foot of the stairs, I see a shape rise from the sofa, and when I hold the lamp high, it’s him.
I put the lamp on the little table beside the sofa, and without a word, as if this is something we’ve agreed, he takes my face between his hands and kisses me, and this time I don’t say anything – I don’t protest, I don’t push him away – I only kiss him back, running my fingers up beneath his shirt, feeling the smoothness of his skin, and the ridges of bone and muscle and scar and the heat of his mouth.
Outside, on the bridge, when Luc kissed me, I felt like I was betraying Owen, even though I didn’t kiss him back, but here – here, I don’t feel any guilt at all. This time, this moment, melds seamlessly into all the days and nights and hours I spent back then longing for Luc to kiss me, to touch me – a time before I ever met Owen, before I had Freya, before the drawings and Ambrose’s overdose – before any of this.
I could marshal my resentments with Owen, ticking them off on my fingers – the false accusations, the lack of trust, and the crowning insult – that emailed list of Luc’s criminal convictions as though that of all things would be the one thing that would prevent me from fucking a man I have wanted – and yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it now – a man I have wanted since I was fifteen, and perhaps still do.
But I don’t. I don’t try to justify what I’m doing. I just let go of the present, let the current tug it from my fingers, and I let myself sink down, down into the past, like a body falling into deep water, and I feel myself drowning, the waters closing over my head as I sink, and I don’t even care.
We fall backwards onto the sofa, our limbs entangled, and I help Luc pull his T-shirt over his head. There is an urgent need in the pit of my stomach to feel his skin against mine – a need that outstrips my self-consciousness about my stretch marks and the blue-white slackness of skin that was once tanned and taut.
I know I should be trying to make myself stop, but the truth is, I feel no guilt at all. Nothing else matters, as he begins to undo my dress, one button after another.
My fingers are at Luc’s belt, when he stops suddenly and pulls away. My heart stills. My face feels stiff with shame as I sit up, ready to gather my dress around myself and begin the awkward justifications – no, you’re right, it’s fine, I don’t know what I was thinking.
It’s only when he goes to the front door and shoots the bolt, that I understand, and a kind of dizzying heat washes over me – a real-isation that this is it, that we are really going to do this.
When he turns back to me, he smiles, a smile that transforms his serious face into the fifteen-year-old I once knew, and my heart seems to rise up inside me, making it hard to breathe – but the pain – the pain that has been there since I found those drawings on the mat, since Owen’s angry accusations, since all of this began – that pain is gone.