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‘I’ll probably be back next week.’
‘No you won’t,’ Sophie said certainly. ‘You looked different when you left here, Is. Determined. And just as I was getting used to stealing your clothes again.’ Sophie was trying for upbeat. ‘Come back. Please? I’ll bunk with Ella, you can have the big room. We can come up with a brilliant plan – a bucket list! Everything you want to do with your life. I’ll help you, however I can, which probably won’t be much, granted. You’re the smart one, but I got the bigger boobs so it’s fine. Just . . . come home, Isobel. Please?’
She hovered next to the stable door, trying to catch another bar of signal. The sun was dying over the edge of the neighbouring woodland. These sessions are to help you make your way out of the woods, Isobel. Therapy speak. But it had been Sophie who’d led her through at the time, not Jenny and her analogies. If there had been any hint of a silver lining to the nightmare, Sophie had been it. They’d had a lifetime of lukewarm sisterhood, but then the blip, as their dad called it, had brought them together. The constant stream of unrelenting spite, the horrendous trail of filth and hate, it had somehow flowed out to something good right down at the core of them, forging their sisterhood into a solid, iron-like thing. They’d become a team Isobel could trust in, a message Sophie still hammered home at every given opportunity. And it was tempting. Despite everything Isobel knew now, Sophie’s suggestion to go home and pretend was just so achingly tempting.
‘I can’t.’
‘But what if you dip again, Is? You’re so many miles away from us.’
‘I’m not that far.’
‘Have you taken anything there with you?’
‘No.’
‘Not even for emergencies?’
‘No. That’s what phones are for. I’ll be fine.’
‘I have a bad feeling about this.’
‘You have a bad feeling about changing brands of shampoo, Soph. I can’t just pop a pill every time I struggle with something. I need a better mechanism than that.’
‘But . . .’
‘Sophie, relax. Really, it’s quite pleasant having a bit of thinking time. It’s kind of lovely here actually. There’s a sea view and everything. I walked down into the harbour this morning, had breakfast. It was good.’
‘So . . . does it feel like you’re kind of on holiday, sort of?’
Isobel’s eyes followed a darting movement outside, a squirrel skittering up into the branches. Perhaps she should’ve found somewhere less treed. She wouldn’t tell Sophie about the woodland just yet. She would keep that one in her pocket for now. Sophie’s brain already worked overtime thanks to natural sisterly concern and too much Most Evil on Discovery HD. Knowing there was woodland next to the cottage would freak her out entirely. It had been Isobel’s first thought when she’d seen the cottage ad. What would Sophie think? They both believed in big bad wolves.
Isobel held her cup of tea to her chest and breathed this new and foreign air. ‘I guess it does. It’s weird how quickly you get used to staying somewhere new.’ It was the staying alone bit that felt alien, not the waking up beneath gnarled timber beams or the super-soft mattress or the different brands of cleaning products left for her in the cupboard under the sink. She made a mental note to restock the cottage’s provisions before she left, whenever that would be.
‘I don’t want you to get used to it. Spend a few more days down there in Freaksville if you have to, read some books, eat some seaside shit . . . and come home?’
‘Everyone’s been fairly normal so far, Soph. No webbed feet or anything.’ Which wouldn’t have been that odd really, given the whole town’s thirst for watersports.
‘Who have you met? Where have you been? Male or female?’ There was a lilt of agitation to Sophie’s tone.
‘Sophie, relax. Just the old chap who owns this place, and a local coffee shop owner. She seemed quite nice, friendly.’ Isobel felt for the woman in Coast. The spat she’d witnessed hadn’t involved Isobel but her anxiety levels had still spiked. An actual real-life verbal altercation. Where people gesticulated and threw insults face-to-face, not hidden behind a computer keyboard. Or a username. A stupid username, like DEEP_DRILLERZ.
‘Did you just say coffee shop?’
‘Sophie, it’s fine—’
‘You promised you’d keep me in the loop!’
‘I am keeping you in the loop.’
‘No you aren’t. You went there. You went straight to Coast without telling me!’
‘Actually I walked past three times first. What a wimp, huh?’
Sophie made an exasperated sound. ‘You’re not a wimp, Isobel. Definitely not that. You’re just a bit . . . mental.’
Sophie had no idea. ‘Jenny thinks mental isn’t constructive terminology, Soph.’
‘She thought this little holiday idea of yours was legit, so let’s not kid ourselves that Jenny’s with the programme.’ A silence stretched between them. Across the yard the owner of the cottages loaded his wolf-dog into his battered Land Rover. ‘So you’ve met the owner of Coast. Fine. What about the old chap? The landlord?’
‘Arthur? He lives in the smallholding, sort of next door. The two cottages share the track, he lives in the bigger one with his massive dog. You should see it, Soph.’ The dog both scared and reassured Isobel. Anyone coming up that hill was announced by deep warning barks. Anyone who walked through the wrong boundary fence when they got up here was probably going to lose a leg. It wasn’t young kids and dogs Arthur didn’t want, it was a lawsuit.
‘So is he an “old chap” as in silver-fox? Or dentures-nextto-the-bed?’
‘Because I’m here to pull, Soph?’
‘I was only asking.’
Isobel rolled her eyes. Sophie, always the sucker for a good-looker. Start batting those eyelashes at the nice, decent boys for a change, Sophie Hedley, instead of all the slick-looking wild ones, their mum had yelled up the stairs many, many times. You won’t bring half the trouble back to this house!
‘Well?’
‘Somewhere between the two, I guess? He has grey bristles, wears a neckerchief and shouts a lot.’
‘Who to? The dog?’
‘I’m not sure, maybe. “Danny Boy”, he calls. I haven’t seen anyone else up here though. Maybe it is to the dog? Or to himself. Maybe he’s a touch—’
‘Mental too?’
‘Here’s hoping. It would be nice to be the normal one again.’
‘You are normal.’
‘Inconspicuous, then.’ Another silence. ‘I like him. He’s old-fashioned. Chops his own logs, mends his own gate . . . slowly . . . bit like dad.’ Arthur probably fed his dog the old-fashioned diet of postmen, too.
‘Good he’s just next door then.’ Sophie exhaled, long and slow. ‘So how was it in the café? Were you okay in there by yourself?’
That first trip into Coast had been a bit of a non-experience other than the eruption about the breast-feeding mother. Isobel had known roughly what to expect though before even setting foot inside the door. She’d done her homework and Googled it. To death. It was the people who’d thrown her. A steady stream of normal, everyday people enjoying the warm drinks and atmosphere. Not a monster in sight.
Isobel sighed. ‘Yeah, of course. All good, all good.’
‘So what did you do in there? I have a picture in my head of you sitting behind a newspaper, two eyeholes cut out of it.’ Sophie waited for a laugh.
‘Nothing really. Ordered a few pots of tea, a really good flapjack and just . . . thought about everything. About what I’m aiming for. One step at a time, like Jenny said.’
Name-dropping her therapist was a poorly veiled attempt to pretend any of this was a good idea. Jenny didn’t matter, only Sophie mattered. Sophie being on board was integral. This was all about them, Isobel and Sophie, sisters with their secrets.
‘And have they changed any? Those things you’re aiming for?’
Isobel let a strand of text run through her mind like the credits of a disturbing film. Clear as reading it onscreen again, his words crisp and sharp and penetrative.
Filthy little bitch. Dirty, filthy little bitch. Didn’t think of the consequences did you, bitch?
Consequences. Now there was a word. Isobel swallowed. ‘You think I’m on a wild goose chase, don’t you?’
Sophie hesitated. ‘No. I think you’re on a journey, Isobel. I’m just not sure it’ll lead you anywhere you really want to go.’
6 (#ulink_e2f7f63b-0081-5347-b906-27d24bb240d8)
‘Then she says, “I have a right to use my breasts! My daughter has a right to be fed!”’
Cleo stopped for air. It was exhausting sounding like Lorna. Sarah seized her chance to speak. ‘This is the same Lorna we’re talking about here, isn’t it? Pretty head scarves, porcelain skin? Lovely but hyper son in Max’s class?’
Cleo nodded into the phone, resuming her Lorna impersonation full-fury. ‘ “First I’m harassed by that battleaxe” – that was when Lorna turned her baguette on me, Sarah – “and now YOU are discriminating against me too! Against my baby! You, Cleo Roberts . . . a mother!”’
Lorna had launched into an impressive tirade about ‘women like Cleo’, busy types too self-centred to fully appreciate the nutritional needs of their own babies, cheeky mare! But it had been hard enough for Cleo to hear all that guff; she wasn’t about to inflict it on Sarah too. Sarah’s battle with the boob had been worse than Cleo’s after Patrick ditched Sarah and the boys. She’d tormented herself over the whole horrendous thing, of course. Poor girl.
‘Do you know what she said then, Sar? “You’re supposed to support other women, not knock us down when we’re vulnerable!’’ ’
Sarah was about to play devil’s advocate, Cleo could smell it. Sarah always so annoyingly fair-handed, Cleo a raving madwoman by comparison.
‘Maybe she was feeling just a bit vulnerable? Gosh, I remember what I was like after Max was born. I don’t think I stopped crying for the first six months. I was a snotty, tired, milky mess. Poor Will. Stuck with a mum like that.’
‘Vulnerable? Lorna? Ha! I could see the whites of her eyes, Sarah. I braced myself for a sandwich-related injury. I’d have been splashed all over that hideous Fallenbay Dartboard page . . . BAGUETTE RAGE! Local businesswoman floored by fake brie! And anyway, your situation was unique. You had every reason to cry for six months, and more. Awful man.’
‘I think it’s Fallenbay Pinboard.’
‘I know. But it’s more like a dartboard. Who even takes part in those awful anonymous Facebook pages? Complaining about the street lighting, ripping the high school to shreds, negative, negative, negative. People are hideous. No wonder kids misbehave online, the parents are just as antisocial.’ Sam wandered into the kitchen, silently prodding at the leftovers. Max began yelling in Sarah’s background, something about a bloody finger. ‘The brie’s not fake, by the way.’
‘I have to go, Cle. Max’s trying to pull another tooth out, the tyrant. Sebastian Brightman has told him baby teeth are for babies. Seb only wants to be friends with boys who are growing their big teeth.’
‘Sounds like something Olivia Brightman’s offspring would say. Anyway, ew. I hate blood. Makes my buttocks go funny. I’ll leave you to it. Catch you in the week. Oh! And tell the school crazies not to boycott me, would you?’
‘Like they’d listen to me, Cle. A lowly teacher. See you.’
Cleo put the phone down. Sam was still foraging. Leave him long enough and the dishes wouldn’t need scraping at all. This was how their paths crossed now, Cleo at some mundane task, Sam quietly rooting nearby. They were like a night-vision segment on Countryfile. Two nocturnal creatures fumbling around the same hidden camera, occupying the same insignificant part of the ecosystem independently of one another. Except when they were fighting. Or feeding.
Sam popped something into his mouth and flicked on the kitchen TV. ‘Good quiche, Cle.’ She caught herself observing him like a farm vet again, looking for evidence of the middle-aged spread certain to sneak up on him while he wasn’t looking and cut short his life like his poor father’s. Builders had terrible diets. It was all bacon baps and flasks of syrupy tea. Ploughmen . . . apparently they knew how to eat.
Sam burst briefly to life. ‘That clipped the wicket!’
‘The microwave blew up today,’ Cleo said idly. I did tell you.
Sam made a non-committal noise and propped himself over the back of one of the dining chairs, reverently checking the scores he’d missed. His neck was sunburnt. Was he working outside again now? He’d been tiling en-suites the last time they’d spoken about his job. Sam had been working on the Compass Point development site, the latest target of the Hornbeam school mothers and their petitions. Juliette had soon rallied the troops when she realised her super-home would have to share the coastline.
Cleo began aggressively scraping plates. ‘I’ve been told to expect a boycott by the school mothers.’ Juliette’s PFA members hunted together in a well-orchestrated pack. You’ll be sorry, Cleo! Lorna had warned. Cleo already felt a bit sorry and she hadn’t actually done anything wrong. ‘All thanks to a silly misunderstanding about a breast.’ Sam wasn’t listening. ‘About a nipple, Sam . . . a great big nipple.’
‘Humph?’ he grunted, eyes fixed on the TV.
‘Lorna was sitting in the café window with both bangers out, Sam.’
Finally, a flicker of interest. ‘Fair play!’
Cleo smiled. Bangers was Sam’s favourite boob word. Quite possibly because it doubled up for sausages, another of his favourite things.
Sam yelled at the TV.‘Fair play, my man, fair play! One hundred-and-eight not out.’
Cleo scowled. Heathen. She wrung out the dishcloth and imagined Jonathan pouring Sarah a lovely glass of wine, listening attentively while she reflected on their day together at the marine dinosaur thingy.
‘There’ll be no end of nipples on the loose if we start hosting private functions like they do at the French place in town. Parties always get a bit rowdy; a bit of drunken debauchery might be just what the till needs.’
‘We?’ Sam laughed. ‘Coast is your party, Cleo. Always has been. I would be up for a bit of debauchery though, love. Shout up anytime.’
She ignored him. ‘Coast would be our party if you got involved. Convert the stores for me. Customers could watch the sunset over the ocean if we knocked through.’
‘I offered to help out at weekends, Cleo. You weren’t interested.’
‘Yes, but that was behind the counter. You’re a builder, Sam! Come builder this extension so we can expand . . .’
‘I’m not talking shop now,’ Sam said firmly. ‘I’ve been at it all day.’
Cleo scowled at the array of kitchen appliances awaiting her next move. ‘Evie Roberts, get down here and load this dishwasher or I’m confiscating that bloody iPhone!’
Sam jumped. ‘Bit louder, eh, Cleo?’ He ran dry, cracked hands back and forth through his hair. A cloud of plaster dust rose into the air above him. Cleo had fallen in love with that hair once. Kevin Costner hair. Before Sam’s had started to thin and hers started sprouting in new places.
‘Go and have a cuppa, Cleo, I’ll do it.’
‘No, no, you’ve been on site all day, Sam, you just said so yourself. On a bank holiday. This is supposed to be a perk of having teenagers, remember? Them occasionally helping with the menial tasks.’
There was a dribble of balsamic down Sam’s work fleece. More plaster dust clinging to the side of his eyebrow. He was such a child.
‘Evie’s been loading dishwashers all day, Cle. Let the kid have five minutes, hey? It’s her bank holiday too.’
‘She has not! I’ve been emptying the bloody dishwasher, thanks very much. Evie likes to look pretty and collect tips while I deal with exploding microwaves and hysterical mothers.’ Thoughts of Lorna made her stomach twist again. She’d never known such an awful bunch of parents, not in all the time the twins were at Hornbeam. Mothers used to be civil back then. All in it together. Cleo blamed the arrival of social media. ‘Monsters, they are,’ she hissed over the sink. ‘Momsters. I don’t know how Sarah can bear dealing with them on a daily basis.’
‘No one likes their job all the time, Cleo. I know I damn well don’t.’ He looked out onto the garden, the muscles in his cheek tensed.
‘Evie!’ Cleo barked. ‘Evie should like her job, Sam, she gets paid enough for doing bugger all.’ Cleo always sounded like a difficult teenager when bickering with Sam about their difficult teenager.
‘She’s fifteen.’
‘Yes, thank you, Sam. I was there, I do remember it vividly. Lots of screaming, lots of babies. Not so many husbands to hand.’
‘For crying out loud, Cle, let it go. Why do women have to drag stuff out? I was working, not dribbling over a barmaid somewhere. At least I’m still here. I bet Sarah doesn’t think I’m such a useless git.’
Cleo ignored him again. It had all worked out for Sarah in the end. Her prince charming rode in and trampled down any bumpy ground left by Patrick Harrison, the selfish shit. Cleo eased off thoughts of Sarah’s ex-husband and felt herself involuntarily forgiving Sam for that trail of balsamic dressing down his front. ‘Evie! I’m not yelling for you all night, you know.’
‘Sounds like you’re yelling for her all night, darling.’ Sam kissed her on the forehead. Cleo was sure he only did that nowadays just to piss her off.
