Forcing myself to keep walking, I round the corner and approach Jenny’s house. It’s set back from the road, in a nice-looking row of buildings that face the water. I remember when she and Rick bought it, just over a year ago; they posted a picture on Instagram of their faces pressed together, keys dangling in her diamond-ringed hand.
I’ll never post a picture like that. I’ve got nobody to post one with.
Jenny’s got little window boxes neatly laden with summer flowers, the leaves wilting a bit in the heat. As I approach the front door, I reach out and push my finger into the soil in the box nearest to me; it is dry beneath my skin. Perhaps I’ll remind her to water them. She shouldn’t take things for granted that way.
‘Caro!’
I’ve barely knocked when the door is swinging open, and Jenny is engulfing me, her arms tight around my torso, her perfume sweet in my face. She kisses me on the cheek, then takes hold of both of my shoulders, stands back as though appraising me. What does she think when she looks at me, I wonder; does she find me wanting? Not enough?
‘Come in, come in,’ she says, letting go of me and gesturing inside the house. She’s wearing a long cream cardigan and turned up jeans, effortlessly mumsy. I’ve known Jenny since university, but the woman in front of me is almost unrecognisable from the girl I used to share halls with in Leeds, the girl who’d go out in a tiny dress with a WKD in each hand and too-high heels on her feet. No, that Jenny has well and truly vanished.
‘Wine? Tea? Gin? What can I get you? Eve’s sleeping, thank God.’
Eve.
‘Wine please,’ I say, forcing myself not to check my phone for the fiftieth time since this morning. Callum hasn’t replied to my how are you? even though the cruel blue ticks on WhatsApp make it obvious that he’s read it. I follow Jenny into the house, my eyes taking in the shiny silver-framed pictures on the walls, the photos of baby Eve in various outfits – swaddled in blankets Eve, wrapped up for snow day Eve, Halloween Eve, her tiny face poking out of a pumpkin costume. My heart seems to close in on itself, like a tightening fist.
‘Caroline, hey.’ My heart sinks as I hear Rick’s voice, and then he’s in front of me, smiling widely and bending to kiss me on both cheeks. The French way. France. Callum’s holiday. No.
I push the thoughts away and accept the large glass of wine Jenny is holding out to me, my fingers gripping it tightly. It’s not that I don’t like Rick, exactly, it’s more that together with Jenny, the pair of them represent everything I haven’t got. Everything I am a million miles away from having, because of how stupid I was.
‘I’m so glad Eve nodded off before you came!’ says Jenny, her back to me, bustling around with the fridge. ‘Really, it’s a miracle. It’s been so hard to get her down recently, hasn’t it, Rick darling? The terrible twos, starting early. Just our luck!’ She laughs, the sound high and tinkling, and I feel the words stab into me like tiny poisoned arrows. You don’t know how lucky you are.
‘Have a seat, Caro,’ Rick says, and I sit down on one of their high, fashionable stools. They had a breakfast bar installed just before Christmas, part of their house renovation. It must have cost them a fortune.
‘I’ve got fresh pasta,’ Jenny tells me, and I smile at her.
‘Sounds great.’
The wine tastes weirdly sweet, too warm in the August air.
‘So how are you, Caro?’ Rick asks, smiling at me. His teeth are very white; perfectly so. ‘What’s been going on? How’s the illustration game?’
I smile back, forcing myself to try to stay in the moment, not to think about Callum.
‘It’s great,’ I say, ‘really great, actually. Lots of work coming in. I’m doing a children’s book right now.’
‘Ah, well, send it our way when it’s done! We want to get Eve reading as early as possible, don’t we, Jen?’ He glances over at her, rubbing his hands together as though the idea of starting a child reading early is his own version of reinventing the wheel.
‘We certainly do!’ she says, coming to sit down next to me at the table, a glass of wine in her hand, smaller than mine. Sensible Jenny. Her rings glisten under the lights. I remember the day she and Rick got engaged; she posted a picture on Facebook of her hand, fingers splayed, diamonds glittering. Thank God I’d had my nails done, the caption said. Thank God indeed, I thought sourly.
‘And, so, tell us!’ Jenny leans closer to me. I almost want to laugh, it’s so quick. They’ve managed to get any interest in my work out of the way in under a minute. Now onto the good stuff. My love life. The bit we’ve all been waiting for. I take another gulp of wine, feel it slide easily down my throat.
‘How’s the dating going?’
Jenny’s put a little bowl of olives out on the table between us, and I watch as Rick pops one into his mouth – green and fat. His teeth close around it, like those of a wolf.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘I haven’t really done too much lately, I—’
‘Oh, Caroline!’ Jenny gives a mock-sigh, throwing both her skinny little arms up into the air. ‘You promised, this year, this was the summer you were really going to give it a go. Didn’t you!’ She nudges her husband. ‘Didn’t she, Rick! You were there. You remember.’
‘You did indeed,’ he says, grinning at me, reaching for another plump olive.
Underneath the table, I dig my nails into my thigh with my free hand, feel them make an indent into my skin. I hope it makes a bruise.
Chapter Three
France
12th August: One day before the arrest
Siobhan
I wake up early on our first morning in France, my mouth a little dry from the red wine with my sister and Callum on the terrace last night. Emma didn’t appear from the basement and so we left her to it in the end, stayed outside drinking under the stars until the early hours. I went to bed first, with the intention of having some time alone to think, plan out my next steps, but by the time Callum came up I must have been already unconscious, knocked out by the wine, because I didn’t hear him slide into bed next to me. Didn’t hear anything at all, in fact.
Beside me, Callum is asleep, the covers flung off him, his mouth very slightly open. He is so familiar to me now, after fifteen years of marriage, and another year of dating before that. Emma was born in the January of the year we married, out of wedlock, as Maria likes to tease. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t got pregnant, if we hadn’t rushed into the wedding, but thoughts like that are useless now. What’s done is done. Or is it? For a while now, I’ve been thinking of a way out, but it’s easier said than done.
I watch the rise and fall of Callum’s breath, the easy way he lies, both arms above his head. There’s something childlike about it, childlike and carefree. I sleep curled up, like a foetus on guard against the world. I’m a light sleeper, usually, but Callum sleeps like the dead. Sometimes he will fling out a limb, crush me with it accidentally. Occasionally, he will sleep in the spare room at home, if he’s been working late in his studio, and on those nights I spread myself out, starfish style, feel a splash of guilt at how much I enjoy it. I allow myself to imagine what it might be like to live like that all of the time. To be single like my sister.