Can’t swim. Fear flooded my veins as I raised my arm to wave. When I opened my mouth to yell, the inflatable tipped, flipping me into the water.
The shock of the icy plunge snatched my breath as the water greedily sucked me down, filling my mouth, my nose, my lungs, salt water stinging my eyes.
I blinked and choked, limbs thrashing as I was tossed to the surface, fighting for air, hands reaching for the sky. Wordlessly screaming, Help me, help me, no breath to push the words out. Water closing over my head, pain blooming in my throat, spreading down and down. I was solid, a statue, sinking, sinking, eyes wide open, nothing but churning water and fire in my—
I shot upright with a choking gasp, one arm groping the air, the feeling of burning lava in my lungs as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
It took a moment for the images to disperse and my eyes to adjust to the familiar sight of my bedroom. Pale sunlight filtered through the curtains, slanting across the clotted-cream walls, bouncing off the edge of the mirror. I focused on the mattress beneath me, the feel of the cotton sheet I was grasping, the garden-scented air drifting through the open window.
Gradually, my pulse slowed.
Outside, the street was waking up. A dog barked – probably Baxter in the garden next door, let out for his morning snuffle around the hedges – and a burst of classical music, quickly muffled by the slam of a car door. Lewis, across the road, on his way to work as Head of IT for a local pharmaceutical company.
Pushing strands of damp hair from my forehead, I glanced at the digital glow of my ancient bedside clock: 7 a.m.
Vic had already left for the hospital; nothing but a hollow in the pillow beside me to indicate he’d been there. I pictured him moving quietly, not wanting to wake me after my restless night. I wished he’d brought me some coffee and kissed me before he left, like Matt used to do, before he headed downstairs to work on his latest web-design project.
Shaking off the memory, I lay back down, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes as I relived the dream. It wasn’t even a dream; more like recreating what had actually happened, but a heightened version, without the fun bits of that day; eating sand-gritted sandwiches on the stretch of sand at Perran Cove in Cornwall; Dad whacking his thumb with the mallet while putting up the windbreak; exploring the long, winding caves there with Jamie while Dad did a crossword in his newspaper, and Mum read her book, her shoulders turning pink in the sun.
If I thought back – which I tried not to do often – I had to force myself to remember that the beginning of our holiday in nearby Penzance, with its bustling streets and shops and busy harbour, had been idyllic; sun-drenched days, exploring smugglers’ tunnels, eating fish and chips, burying each other in sand, and staying up late for a bonfire party on Porthen Beach the night before the accident.
‘If only we hadn’t gone to Perran Cove,’ Mum had sobbed afterwards. Jamie and I had been promised a trip there and pestered from the moment we woke. ‘We should have had a lie-in and stayed near the cottage.’
She and Dad blamed themselves, citing the bottle of wine they’d shared the previous night for giving them fuzzy heads, meaning they hadn’t noticed more quickly what was happening, and when they did, for not being able to reach me. More importantly, they’d blamed themselves for not teaching me to swim. My fear of water had asserted itself early on. It had been easier not to force me back to the local swimming pool for lessons, but Dad had planned to teach me during that holiday.
‘I don’t understand why you went in,’ he’d wept – the first time I’d ever seen him cry. ‘I should have stopped you. What was I thinking?’
I didn’t understand it either, except I’d wanted to try out my new inflatable, and maybe there was something about the place that lulled me into a false sense of security – or Jamie’s promise that there were starfish in the sea and that the water wasn’t deep.
Since having Hayley, I understood more deeply the anguish they must have gone through. Despite being told that the wind had sprung up so quickly there’d been no warning, and that the lifeguard who should have been patrolling the coves had gone for a break, my parents felt they’d failed for not keeping me safe.
‘The sight of that man, staggering out of the water with you in his arms will never leave me. We thought you were dead,’ Mum cried at the hospital. He wasn’t the man who’d saved me. The man who swam out and grabbed me and kept my head above water until help arrived – whose face I couldn’t recall – had been washed away the moment I left his arms. Presumably too tired to battle the surging sea, he’d simply vanished. No one knew until the holidaymaker who deposited me at my parents’ feet admitted he wasn’t the hero of the hour, just the person who’d happened to be out surfing and brought me back to shore. My rescuer’s body had washed up along the coast a few days later and wasn’t identified for a week.
I knew nothing about it at the time because my parents had done a good job of hiding what really happened. It was bad enough that I could barely look at a bath full of water without crying, never mind go near the sea again, and my drowning nightmares were so debilitating, I had to be medicated in order to sleep for a while. They hadn’t wanted the man’s death on my mind, on top of everything else, so had dealt with it privately.
I lay in bed for a while with a hand on my belly, drawing in deep breaths, trying to stay in the moment. What would Vic have made of me waking in a sweaty panic? I normally slept well, barely stirring once my head hit the pillow. Matt was the one who’d had to cope with the resurgence of the nightmare in the months after Hayley was born, when I was sleep-deprived and hormones were playing havoc with my emotions.
In the warm light of day, my fears from the night before were embarrassing. Had I really thought that Vic could have deleted the messages? Thank God I hadn’t asked him, just to be sure. He’d encountered enough obstacles since meeting me, from Hayley announcing, ‘You’re not my daddy,’ when I introduced them, to being ignored by Matt and threatened with having his legs broken if he hurt me by Grandpa Buckley. He’d be horrified if he even suspected what had gone through my mind.
Already tense, I reached for my phone and switched it on, exhaling when I saw that the only new message I’d had was from Vic. See you later, Sleeping Beauty. Try to have a good day and DON’T WORRY xx
Maybe I’d dreamed up the messages. It wasn’t lost on me that I was approaching the anniversary of my drowning day (Why do you have to call it that? Matt used to say.) In previous years, I’d noticed a subconscious response to the date, a vague feeling of doom, mind bouncing off flashes of memory: the feel of water trailing through my fingers; waking up in hospital and seeing Mum’s tear-ravaged face; Jamie, pale with pink-rimmed eyes, bringing me ice-cream because you didn’t get to have one; and my grandmother with a crumpled handkerchief pressed to her mouth, her normally immaculate hair askew after driving for five hours to check that I was OK.
Then I remembered the pulse of shock I’d felt when I read the texts and knew I hadn’t conjured them up. And even if they had nothing to do with what happened that day in Cornwall, someone had wished me dead.
There was a voicemail from Mum. We had a lovely time yesterday, such a nice thing for Vic to do and wasn’t Hayley adorable? Your dad’s taken the morning off and we’re going to the garden centre. See you soon. Hope your head’s not hurting too much! XX
The subtext was Please let us know you’re OK, and I automatically obliged.
All good, thanks again for coming. Lovely to see you all. My head’s fine and Hayley says hello! I added a few smiley faces for reassurance, then worried it wasn’t enough and typed: Going to do some Pilates before breakfast! X That would please her as it meant I was ‘looking after myself’ and ‘being normal’.
On impulse, I decided to make it true. It might do me good to stretch away some of the tension that had settled across my back. I had a few minutes before Hayley got up and was sure I could remember some of the moves that Jude had shown me a while back after qualifying as an instructor.
I crossed to the window, squashing an urge to rush around the house, checking for booby traps. Nothing could happen this early in the day while I was at home with my daughter. Or maybe it was the perfect time. Annoyed that my train of thought was already derailing, I pulled open the curtains.
A flash of jewel-bright colour caught my eye from the pavement. Recognition tugged as a figure moved out of sight. Obscured by the broad trunk of an oak tree, I couldn’t make out who it was. Were they hiding?
I strained to see, heart drumming against my ribs, but the sound of childish laughter floating up the stairs made me whip around. Hayley was a deep sleeper. She rarely ventured out of bed before me, let alone downstairs on her own.
I grabbed my robe off the end of the bed, pulling it on as I darted onto the landing. I paused to check her room where sunshine was poking round the edges of her curtains. Her duvet was a heap in the middle of her bed, the stuffed crocodile she cuddled at night discarded on the floor, next to her dressing gown.
‘You are silly!’ I heard her say.
A man’s voice replied as I flew downstairs, gripping the banister to stop myself falling, fear ripping through me when I saw the front door was ajar.
‘Hayley!’ I cried, trying to keep the panic from my voice, wondering how I hadn’t heard the doorbell. ‘I’ve told you before to come and get me if someone comes to the house.’
I stopped dead in the living room doorway. Hayley turned, eyes bright with laughter. ‘It’s Daddy,’ she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘Matt!’ He was sitting on the sofa, as though he’d never left. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Daddy’s going to take me to school!’ Hayley was in her Frozen nightdress, hopping about with excitement. ‘I’ve had my flakes.’ She pointed to a pair of empty bowls on the coffee table, and I remembered how Matt had always loved cereal, usually Rice Krispies in a lake of milk.
‘You don’t normally get your own breakfast.’ I tightened the belt on my robe, trying to give the illusion of being in control.
‘Daddy helped because I was so hungry and you were sleepy,’ she said, pushing her hair off her face. ‘Daddy’s going to give me a piggy-back because my legs might get tired from walking.’
‘School’s only five minutes away.’
‘But my legs are only little.’
‘Well, you’d better go and get dressed and brush your teeth, sweetie.’ I kept my tone light. ‘I need to have a chat with Daddy.’
When she’d run upstairs, whistling – Dad was teaching her how – I turned to Matt, fighting back memories of all the times he’d sat on the sofa in the home we’d bought together and planned to raise our child in. ‘You can’t turn up without letting me know,’ I said, aware he had every right to, considering it was his house too. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘I miss her,’ he said simply. ‘Mornings are the hardest.’
I took in his bright blue eyes, and the flop of blond hair and darker stubble that made him look like a rock star. I tried to harden my heart.
‘You chose to go,’ I reminded him, wrapping my arms around my waist. ‘And you can see her whenever you like – just call me first.’
‘It’s not the same.’ He thrust his hair back – the same movement that had caught my eye seven years ago, on a night out with Emma at a pub in the city. She’d been in Thailand for weeks, and was on one of her flying visits home. Matt was there with a couple of friends, watching the terrible band that were playing, and when he caught my eye and grinned, as though we were co-conspirators, I’d felt a rollercoaster swoop inside.
Later, after Emma had taken it upon herself to tell him ‘my friend fancies you’ as though we were teenagers and not going on twenty-six, we’d huddled with drinks at a table by a roaring fire, exchanging stories, and I discovered he was a couple of years older, worked for a web design company in the city centre, but was hoping to leave to go freelance, and played guitar for fun in his spare time.
‘Probably as badly as the band just did, but it’s a way of blowing off steam,’ he’d said. When he smiled, something released inside me, relaxing its hold. After a couple of relationships I couldn’t commit to, not wanting to put responsibility for my happiness in someone else’s hands, I dared to believe Matt Turner was the reason my life had been saved, because we were destined to be together. We even loved the same music, and although the band’s cover of Coldplay’s ‘Paradise’ that night had been awful, the song had become ‘ours’.
For the first time since returning to Oxford, I’d dared to look forward to a shared life, a shining future. I should have known it was too good to be true.
‘I came to visit you too,’ he said now, taking in my bed hair, robe and bare legs, reminding me how much more he’d seen over the years. ‘Nice birthday?’
‘Lovely, thank you.’ I could never get my tone quite right, the easy way we used to chat a distant memory. ‘Vic threw a party.’
‘Hayley told me.’ Only a tightening around his eyes gave away his true feelings. I knew he felt betrayed that I’d met someone else, even though he’d been the one to walk away. ‘Did you like your present?’
‘I love it.’ I held out my arm, self-consciously, to show him I was wearing the bracelet. ‘Thank you for helping her choose it.’
‘My pleasure.’ His voice was dry as his gaze held mine.
I looked away first, scanning the room, wishing I’d tidied up before going to bed. Seeing the surfaces cluttered with plates and glasses, the remains of my cake uncovered in the middle of the table, a fly buzzing over the crumbs, reminded me why I hadn’t, and the headache from last night threated to return.
‘What’s that?’ For the first time, I noticed a colourful box by Matt’s feet, which as usual were stuffed into biker-style boots, despite the warm weather outside.
Bending, he picked it up, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘Not the sort of thing I’d imagine you ordering.’
I tried to catch a breath as he held it out.
On the side of the box was an image of a girl in a swimming pool, floating in sparkling water on a blue and white inflatable.
So, the wheels are in motion now. I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be doing something after all this time.
I thought you might have spotted me outside the house earlier. Even if you had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Easily explained.
Those neighbours across the road – Lewis and Jude, with the annoying kid who’s always sucking his thumb – are nosy, at least she is. She had a good poke around upstairs yesterday. I bet you didn’t know that. Just like you don’t know how this is going to end. Not yet. Like I said, I’m patient.
I can wait a bit longer.
Chapter 6
‘Did you see who put it there?’ I stared at Matt, recalling the blur of movement I’d seen from the bedroom window; a figure, darting behind the tree.
Matt shook his head. ‘It was there when I got here.’ He tilted the box to look for an address, but I knew there wouldn’t be one. ‘It’s great that you’re doing this, Beth.’
‘Doing what?’ My voice sounded strange, but Matt didn’t seem to notice.
‘Making an effort with Hayley at the pool.’ Realising I wasn’t going to take the box, he quickly put it down again. ‘Is it for you, so you can get in the water with her?’ His wary smile said he knew it was a risky question.
‘I think you know the answer to that.’ My legs felt rubbery, but instinct warned me to behave naturally. Matt was no doubt on the lookout for signs of overprotectiveness, that I wasn’t doing a good enough job of being a parent. ‘I can just about watch while someone’s in the pool with her, but can’t see myself ever joining in.’
When I’d told Matt about my fear of drowning, he reacted the same way most people did, by offering to teach me to swim, as though it was the physical act of moving my arms and legs through water that was the issue. It wasn’t until we went on holiday for the first time, and he tried to get me into the hotel pool, that he understood the full extent of my aversion.
We’d talked about it when Hayley was born, and although he’d have been happy to teach her to swim on his own, I’d made myself go and watch, standing ankle-deep in the toddler pool, my eyes never shifting from her. We’d done that ever since – our Saturday morning ritual. Only now, we took Hayley separately on alternate Saturdays, and when it was my turn, Marianne or Mum came along.
‘Here, I got you this.’
Blinking to clear an image of a hooded figure sneaking up to the house with the boxed inflatable, I saw Matt was holding out a brown-paper package. ‘What is it?’
‘Call it a belated birthday present.’
I let out a shaky breath. ‘Matt, you shouldn’t have.’
‘I know.’ He waggled the package so I had no choice but to take it as Hayley reappeared, dressed in her school uniform, her hair flyaway with static.
‘Open it, Mummy,’ she ordered.
I arranged my face to look pleasantly surprised, but frowned when I pulled out a boxed collection of my favourite Winsor and Newton oil paints.
‘I thought they might inspire you,’ Matt said.
Pushing aside that he’d been thinking about me at all, I stared at the row of tubes with their familiar griffin logo, ringed with colours that sounded like poetry – Indian Yellow, Scarlet Lake, Mars Violet – and imagined how they would feel as I squeezed out a curl of colour. I cleared my throat around the tears that had built up. ‘I don’t need inspiring,’ I said stiffly. ‘I still paint.’
‘I don’t mean those watercolours for the café and gallery—’
‘They sell really well.’
‘I know, and they’re great, but … they’re not you, Beth.’
My eyes moved past a series of framed sketches I’d drawn of Hayley as a baby and the hand-made plate with the imprint of her newborn feet, to a large canvas hanging above the fireplace: a swirl of turbulent waves, swelling and tumbling beneath a cloudless sky, foam patterns gliding across the surface.
‘For someone so scared of the sea, you do a brilliant job of painting it,’ Matt had said, when I’d shown him the canvases stacked in my studio at my parents’ house. ‘I was expecting portraits or, I don’t know, flowers or abstracts, not this.’
He wasn’t the only one puzzled by my obsession with painting the thing that had almost killed me, but committing the images that roamed my mind to canvas was my way of controlling my fear. My favourite was an enormous wave, rearing like a dragon from the seabed against a blackened sky that Mum found terrifying.
‘I don’t like it,’ she’d said when I showed her, a hand flying to her throat. ‘I don’t like to think of that being in your head.’
It had taken a while to reassure her that painting the ocean was healing for me. It was what had drawn me to becoming an art therapist after I finished my degree. I wasn’t interested in being a struggling artist. I wanted to help people and make a living, and these days it was my watercolours that helped pay the bills.
‘I haven’t used oils for ages,’ I said, unable to resist pulling out a tube and cradling it in my palm. ‘I gave mine away.’
‘I know.’
‘Daddy, that’s a silly present,’ Hayley piped up. ‘Vic got Mummy a necklace.’
‘Hayley!’
Matt’s gaze touched my chest as if wondering where it was and I guessed he was picturing it in my grandmother’s jewellery box in the bedroom, nestled alongside my wedding ring, which I’d taken off when people started assuming I was Vic’s wife. Not that I slept in our bedroom anymore. I’d moved into the back room after Matt left; the one where he used to play his guitar when he was supposed to be working.
‘I’m sure it’s a pretty necklace,’ he said.
I turned away, trying to stem a flush, wishing I didn’t have a reaction to Matt that I couldn’t seem to control. ‘The paints are nice too,’ I said to Hayley, who’d dropped to her knees on the floor and was reaching for the box by Matt’s feet.
‘What’s this, Mummy?’
‘Leave it.’ I sprang forward so fast I knocked the table and sent a glass to the floor. ‘It’s not ours.’
‘Mu-uum!’
‘It’s nearly time for school.’ I picked up the glass, not daring to look at Matt. ‘You haven’t got your lunch.’
‘Can Daddy make it?’ She jumped to her feet, the box forgotten, and I was grateful for her butterfly mind.
‘Come on then, or we’ll be late,’ Matt said. ‘Don’t forget I’m picking you up today and taking you to dance class.’ He got to his feet and headed to the kitchen, giving me a quizzical look as he passed.
I smiled, trying not to imagine how Vic would feel to see Matt opening the fridge while Hayley pulled a banana from the fruit bowl, the pair of them chatting while I watched with a curious ache in my heart. No worse than Matt must feel, knowing Vic had made himself at home in the house we’d shared, that we’d decorated together; the house where our daughter was conceived, where family and friends had visited, where Matt set fire to his apron while barbecuing sausages in the garden, lit fireworks on bonfire night, and built a snowman with Hayley a couple of winters ago – the house where Vic stayed more often than he returned to his own place near the hospital where he worked.
Seeing the look on Matt’s face, the day he noticed the space on the bookshelf where our wedding photo had been – I’d put it away, mindful that Vic might not want to see our smiling, happy faces beaming out from the steps of the register office – still made me feel terrible. I needed to talk to Matt about putting the house on the market, but today wasn’t the day.
‘You’re going back there then.’
Startled back to the moment, I followed his gaze, to the printout on the worktop. Every cell in my body seemed to freeze. How could I have forgotten my trip next week with Vic? The trip to Perran Cove.
Maybe that was why I’d had the nightmare again.
Taking a deep breath, I moved across to the kettle. ‘I know you wanted us to go there, Matt, but it never felt right until now.’
‘Vic’s idea, I suppose.’
‘Actually, yes.’ I flicked the tap too hard, splashing water on my robe. ‘It seemed like a good time to go, with you and Hayley in France next week.’
I’d known when we split up there’d be no more family get-togethers, but the thought of Matt taking Hayley to visit his parents without me was hard to stomach.
When Vic had suggested we go away too, and cautiously suggested Perran Cove, I’d said yes without really thinking. I wondered now, whether I’d known subconsciously Matt would be hurt that I was taking this step without him.
‘It’ll be good if I can get to the point of taking Hayley to the seaside without risking a meltdown.’ I looked through the window, to see her in the back garden peering through the hedge for Baxter. ‘If I can face the sea there, I can probably face it anywhere.’
‘Better learn to swim first.’
‘Maybe that will come next.’
‘Well, I hope it works.’ I looked at Matt to see whether he was being sarcastic, but his face was deadly serious. ‘I only ever wanted you to not be scared,’ he said. ‘And to stop feeling bloody guilty all the time.’
‘Matt.’
He heard the warning – don’t go there – and held up his hands.
Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last.
I thought about telling Matt about the texts. That I hadn’t been scared, until yesterday. But if he thought I was in danger he might decide not to bring Hayley back.
‘For what it’s worth, I think it’ll be good for you both.’ I thought for a moment he meant Vic and me, but of course he was referring to Hayley. ‘Maybe you can take that inflatable with you,’ he said.
