Eleanor was the only one at the bus stop, a leaning pole on the main Broughton road, half a mile on from the vicarage turn-off. The New Year was four days old and had produced nothing but rain, churning the countryside to sludge. Eleanor stayed on the tarmac to protect her footwear – a pair of brown suede ankle boots purchased with Vincent’s Christmas cheque – hunching her shoulders inside her thin coat against the cold. The skies were leaden but sealed and smooth in a way that she hoped would last all day. Her hair, freshly washed, had looked nice enough in the mirror but could still turn into a black frizzy blanket at the first hint of drizzle. It was Pre-Raphaelite hair, Nick had remarked once, not in any overtly romantic way, just firing the comment across the table during one of their many shared meals the previous term, as a statement of fact.
A brief letter had arrived from him two days after Christmas, suggesting a date for a pub lunch and offering to pick her up from the vicarage if she gave instructions. Eleanor had written back at once to say she would take the bus and meet him at the railway station instead, because it was easier to find. Nick’s plans centred round an early January visit to a godfather who lived in Lewes. He was to spend one night there, he explained, and would have time to make a detour to visit her on the way back home to Salisbury the following day. He had added that he would be driving a black Volkswagen, a loved ancient family car with an engine so raucous she was likely to hear it long before she saw it. At the bottom of the letter there had been a small cross next to his name, the sight of which had caused a stab of hope and longing to shoot up through Eleanor’s groin and into her heart.
She had taken the letter upstairs to devour again, many times, in the privacy of her bedroom, picking the nuances out of it like meat scraps off a bone. The kiss meant there was still genuine hope, she decided, quite apart from the wonderful fact that he wanted to see her. Saying their farewells at the end of term, Nick had muttered something about getting together in the vac, but Eleanor hadn’t dared believe him. Even the gentle humour about the car had delighted her; of course Nick Wharton would drive a croaky old car. He was that sort of man – loyal to cars as he was to people – not flash. Not superficial. Which was why, for the time being, he was staying true to the girl called Tilly. A lesser person would never have shown such restraint, such integrity. In her reply, Eleanor had carefully signed off with a cross beside her own name, a bit bigger than Nick’s, but not too outrageously so. Before sealing the letter, she kissed it for real. A dozen times. Invisible kisses. Who was to say they didn’t have equal power?
With the lunch date to look forward to, the post-Christmas drear of the vicarage had dissolved round her like mist in sunshine. She stopped caring that her father’s terse enquiries about university life rarely incorporated the time to hear her answers, or that Kat, having initially greeted her like a dog starved of affection – yelping, kissing, jumping round her in the drive – had then, with almost comical speed, retreated back into her state of studied distracted indifference, as if her big sister was some dimly recalled, irksome acquaintance from a previous existence.
The prospect of seeing Nick burned inside her like a secret light. The days towards the date dragged, but in a way, Eleanor relished the anticipation. Nothing got her down during the course of them: not the murky blue walls of her bedroom, now sporting black cobwebs of mildew across the ceiling corners; not the creak of the floorboards in the small hours as Vincent did his customary pacing, muttering his lonely prayers; not even the rain-leaks landing in the new cluster of metal buckets outside her and Kat’s bathroom, loud enough to wake her every time the rain started. Love was armour against the world, that was the discovery.
Eleanor swung from the bus-stop pole to celebrate the fact, tipping her face to the stony sky. No wonder people died for it. No wonder doughty, plain little Jane Eyre had stumbled back across the wild, unforgiving moors for another chance at it with her beloved, blinded Rochester. Love was the gravity pull of one human being to another, as irrefutable as physics.
But it was one thing to read of a great truth and even more thrilling to experience it. Eleanor pirouetted out into the road. She was meeting Nick Wharton for lunch. She was meeting Nick Wharton for lunch. He could talk gibberish and she wouldn’t mind. Indeed, it would unman her, just as she had been unmanned when he had confessed, near weeping, to the existence of Tilly. She skipped another circle round the road, beating her arms to keep warm, chuckling at her own silliness and excitement.
A horn blasted and Eleanor hopped onto the safety of the boggy verge, her heart pumping. A sports car tore past, spattering her thin coat and adding to the mud now gluing itself to the edges of her precious suede boots. Eleanor stared down at the mess and then laughed loudly, scaring off a magpie which had landed to peck at a crushed snail in the middle of the road.
Her confidence didn’t falter until she actually saw the little black Beetle, parked neatly in the grid of white lines outside the station entrance. Having virtually run all the way from the bus stop, Eleanor came to a halt, the joints of her knees suddenly feeling too loose to rely on. But then the driver’s door swung open and Nick emerged, in stone-washed jeans and a dark blue duffel coat, his hair longer and thicker, his face pale but smiling. He came to greet her, kissing her lightly – easily – on the cheek, smelling of the stuff he liked to use that she didn’t know the name of.
‘How was the godfather?’
‘Great. Plied me with whisky. Told me funny stories.’ Nick held the passenger door open for her before settling himself back behind the wheel. ‘He’s got this brilliant dog, too – Dougal, an Irish wolfhound – we took it on a couple of long walks along the coast, one yesterday and another this morning… bloody early. He’s ex-army, unbelievably hearty. I’ve been up for hours. I’m starving. Have you thought where to go? I’m afraid I don’t know these parts at all. Got lost several times getting here. Hope you had a good Christmas, by the way.’
He was nervous, Eleanor realised, liking him all the more on account of it. ‘If you turn left out of the station, there’s a pub called The Green Man a couple of miles away which does decent food.’ She tried to sound casual, as if the option had occurred to her on the spot rather than being agonised over for days. She had even consulted Kat on the subject, braving the jeering glint in her sister’s eye both at the revelation of the lunch and so overt an acknowledgement of her superior local knowledge. ‘Wow. I see what you mean about the noise,’ Eleanor remarked as they set off, having to raise her voice over the throaty racket of the Volkswagen.
‘Careful. No insults.’ Nick patted the dashboard protectively. ‘She’s called Harriet and she’s very temperamental. Responds only to compliments. She once belonged to my Mum but is now for me and my sister to use when we’re home.’
‘In Salisbury.’
‘Yes, sunny Salisbury.’
‘And what’s your sister do?’ She wasn’t sure he had mentioned a sister before.
‘Medicine – what else?’ He pulled a face. ‘She’s six years older than me and much more committed. Went to Cambridge, then Tommy’s. Wants to get to the top, and I can tell you she will do just that. Neurology is her thing, which pleases the old man, of course.’
‘Shouldn’t that have taken the pressure off you then?’ ventured Eleanor. ‘About being a medic, I mean?’
Nick laughed with the trace of bitterness that always seemed to edge into any discussion about his chosen career, no matter whom it was with. ‘You do not know my dad. And anyway, I am going to be a good doctor, remember – we agreed.’
‘Yes, we agreed,’ Eleanor murmured, happy not only at his easy recall of their conversation the previous term but at the word ‘we’ tripping so effortlessly off his tongue. ‘Anyway,’ she rushed on breathlessly, wanting to say something she had been saving up. ‘Who says you have to be one thing? I mean, Keats was also a doctor, wasn’t he?’ This was a fact gleaned from her recent holiday reading, preparation for the following term’s studies. ‘He wrote in one of his letters that a poet was a physician for the soul… or something like that…’ She let the sentence hang, having forgotten to whom the letter had been written and why.
Nick was looking doubtful. ‘I don’t really know any Keats. Or much poetry for that matter. Apart from T. S. Eliot, I don’t mind him.’
‘Right… no, of course… I only meant… that is, I only mentioned it as an example of someone being medical and literary. Like you.’ Eleanor glared at the brown fields sliding past the window, cursing her ineptitude, but Nick was smiling and nodding.
‘Oh, I see. Well, thanks very much in that case. I shall bear it in mind. And, by the way, for what my opinion’s worth, you are a seriously bright girl and should never let any of those pompous idiots at Oxford allow you to think otherwise.’
Eleanor kept her eyes on the window so he couldn’t see the flush of happiness his words caused.
The Green Man was jammed, both round the bar and in the main dining area, where a shooting party, decked in plus-fours and cartridge belts, was in rowdy form, occupying several tables, laden with plates of food and open wine bottles.
Nick fought his way through the throng to buy two gin and tonics while Eleanor made a beeline for a tiny bench-table next to the fireplace, where several sturdy logs blazed. They bundled their coats at their feet and ordered off the chalkboard of specials, Nick opting for roast beef and Eleanor following suit, though her stomach was too knotted to care.
The bench seat soon grew hot. ‘Can’t exactly ‘turn down’ an open fire, can you?’ Nick joked after a few minutes, peeling off his jumper, a close-fitting bright blue one that Eleanor guessed had been a Christmas present, and managing in the process to give her a glimpse of a dark neat arrow of hair down the centre of his stomach. She looked quickly away. Her own black woollen dress, so apt a choice in the morning chill of her draughty bedroom and an excellent match with the suede boots, had become a slow-cooker. Every inch of her felt as if it was being steadily roasted. ‘Hey, this is good, isn’t it?’ Nick rubbed his hands gleefully.
‘Have you told Tilly?’ she blurted. ‘About today?’ She prayed he would say no. No would mean he harboured feelings that warranted stealth. No would nurture her few tender tendrils of hope.
‘No,’ he confessed, but then quickly ruined the moment by adding, ‘she finds it hard enough, with me being away at university, making new friends.’ He shot Eleanor a pained, rueful look from under the light brown mop of his hair.
‘Yes, yes of course.’ Eleanor chewed her cheeks. ‘I hope you didn’t mind my asking—’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s good to talk… to be open.’
Although awkward, the exchange seemed to clear the air and they chatted more easily when their lunch arrived, Nick doing his usual job of concentrated demolishment of the entire contents of his plate, while Eleanor picked at the slabs of meat and vegetable mounds with a fork, still too tense and hot to muster a genuine appetite. He offered up more tales of the hearty godfather and his dog, while she managed to make him laugh with a couple of anecdotes about her spell at home, including Vincent’s dire, endless Christmas-morning sermon, delivered against a mounting cacophony of mutinous children, and the terrible meal served by Kat to which they had returned afterwards. Left in charge of cooking at her own request, her sister had jettisoned their small supermarket turkey in favour of two packets of fish fingers, mashed potato and mountains of frozen peas and sweetcorn. Vincent, surveying the table, had ignored the flashing defiance in his youngest daughter’s eyes and merely fetched the ketchup, before tucking his napkin deep into the rim of his dog collar and pronouncing the longest grace either of them had ever heard, in Latin.
‘God, my family is so conventional,’ moaned Nick when he had finished laughing. ‘Brussel sprouts, stilton and toasts to the Queen. Yours sounds much more fun.’
‘Believe me, it isn’t,’ Eleanor said stiffly.
‘Not that I’m saying…’ He broke off, looking stricken. ‘I mean, from what you told me… not having your mum around and so on… that must make it hard.’
‘It did. It does. Sometimes. Not always. The thing is…’ Eleanor fought with her paper napkin, tearing it into shreds. She always wanted him to concentrate on her but then found the glare of his attention overwhelming. ‘At home we never talk about anything,’ she admitted dully, ‘not a single thing.’
He laughed. ‘Mine neither. All we ever discuss is bloody doctoring.’
Eleanor smiled, knowing he was trying to be kind. The thing she really wanted to say was jumping inside her head. She needed Nick to know it so that he understood her – more of her than the rest of the world did. ‘But the trouble is,’ she pressed on slowly, ‘with us, there has been some stuff… big stuff that really needed saying. And now it’s too late.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘About my mother.’
‘Ah, yes—’
‘She drank, you see.’
Nick had been nodding sympathetically, but he stopped, staring at her in surprise.
Eleanor hesitated, still hating what she had to say, but a part of her also now managing to savour the intensity of the moment, the trust that had brought it into being. ‘She had what is commonly known as a “drinking problem”. Kat and I were too young to realise. It was only after the accident, picking up on the gossip, stuff about the alcohol levels in her blood, whether she had meant to walk in front of the train or not – jolly things like that.’
She tried to smile, but her jaw seemed to have locked. She felt Nick’s hand close round her fingers, sealing them, keeping them safe, it felt like.
‘The point is,’ she pressed on, ‘at the time I would have liked to know more… to understand… more. I waited, but Dad never said a word, not to me or Kat, or anyone. Not one word. He just buried himself in God instead. He still does.’ The heat of Nick’s hand was different from the hotness of the room, dry and warm, like balm. Eleanor could feel it filling her up, making her strong. ‘But don’t think I miss her that much or anything, because I don’t. I mean, I don’t even try to. It was a long time ago and remembering gets you nowhere.’ She shrugged. ‘All I know is that getting away to university has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And Kat will get away too,’ she added with some urgency, ‘if she can just pass a few exams, the idiot.’
Eleanor found herself laughing suddenly, dizzy with relief and incredulity at her own candour. She had never told anyone about the drinking thing, not even Megan. Kat knew, of course, but then Kat was as bad as her father when it came to discussing things.
‘Sorry. None of this was on my list of entertaining conversation for the day.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ He had released her hand and was sitting back in his chair, regarding her solemnly. ‘Friends should be able to tell each other anything. Entertainment doesn’t come into it.’
Eleanor wished she could stretch the moment out, but already the rest of the room was bursting back into focus. Someone in the shooting group had started thumping the table in time to the downing of a drink. It was with a twist of dismay that she caught Nick sneaking a look at his watch.
‘We could have coffee at home,’ she suggested desperately. ‘It would be quieter. Both Dad and Kat are out.’
Nick flexed his eyebrows in a show of mischievous anticipation that made Eleanor’s hopes bounce. But then uncertainty gusted in, taking the lovely look of mischief with it. ‘Tempting, but I’d better not. I’ll drop you wherever you would like first though, of course.’
‘The bus stop would be fine, thanks,’ she said quickly, her courage shrinking.
Once in the car, he fell into a silence that Eleanor found hard to read. He was fighting with himself, she decided, casting glances at the rigidity of his high cheekbones and the fix of his dark blue eyes on the windscreen. He wanted to spend more time with her but felt guilty, and that was understandable. In profile, the length of his eyelashes was astonishing; it made her want to reach out and run the tips of her fingers along them.
But then a hitchhiker came into view, a strikingly attired hitchhiker, clad in high-heeled thigh-high gold boots and the stiff edges of what looked like a pink tutu poking out between the folds of a bright purple cape. She was hopping for warmth, hugging herself with one arm, thumbing madly with the other.
‘Blimey, look at that.’ Nick slowed right down, gawping.
‘That,’ said Eleanor, in a tone of affectionate exasperation, ‘is my little sister.’
Nick shot her a look of disbelief and burst out laughing. ‘Well, had we better pick her up in that case?’
‘Yes, I suppose we had.’
‘And I can drop you both home if you like.’
In spite of being consigned to the back seat, Kat wedged herself as far forwards as she could between them, draping her gold-coated lower legs round the gearbox as she chattered, lighting and relighting her damp roll-ups off the Volkswagen’s temperamental cigarette lighter, and at one stage grabbing each of their hands to study their lifelines – palmistry being a skill she had learnt that very day, she claimed gleefully.
Exultant at the slight extension to Nick’s visit, Eleanor gladly went along with the show, feeling a little proud of Kat’s strangeness – seeing afresh what a cute oddball mix her younger sister was, all sweetness and faux sophistication, a funky kid playing at being a grown-up.
When they got home, Kat continued with the charade, insisting Nick come in for a cup of tea and shooing them both into the sitting room like some fussing middle-aged hostess. She puffed up the old brown sofa cushions and commanded them to do nothing but relax, before tottering off to clatter round the kitchen.
Nick and Eleanor exchanged bemused looks, talking quietly, until she made a re-entrance carrying a big old tray they never used, laden with every possible accoutrement for a formal tea that the vicarage’s jumbled crockery cupboards could provide – including not just a teapot, cups, saucers, teaspoons and the old green jug for milk, but a proper sugar bowl with tongs and a silver dish Eleanor had never seen before, piled high with triangles of toast visibly oozing butter and jam.
Eleanor absorbed the sight in amazement, unable to suppress the hope that instead of being some new, perverse tributary of Kat’s contrariness, a bigger conciliatory avenue in her little sister’s attitude towards her might be opening up. She tried to catch Kat’s eye, wanting her to confirm it, but Kat was too busy concentrating on ‘playing mother’, as she merrily put it, asking for exact instructions from Nick about milk and sugar as she poured and stirred.
‘So, was it a fancy-dress party you’d been to?’ Nick enquired politely, once tea and toast had been distributed.
It occurred to Eleanor in the same instant that, as well as being kind, there was an endearing innocence to him, an uncertainty; demonstrating that, for all the good looks and ability, Nick Wharton was a man still very much feeling his way along the course of his life rather than taking command of it. The thought made her long to take hold of his hand as he had hers in the pub, let him know that her support of whatever he chose to do with his life would be unconditional. She let her gaze settle fondly on her sister instead, curious as to how she would respond to the enquiry. Kat’s clothes, she knew, had nothing whatsoever to do with fancy dress. Her sister made and wore peculiar things that somehow looked tremendous. It was what she did.
Kat was lying on the floor on the hearth rug, her mouth full of toast. ‘What, because of this lot, you mean?’ She tweaked the gauzy skirts of the tutu and lifted one gold-booted leg onto the table next to the tray, showing off badly laddered white tights that managed to highlight the slim sinewy curves of her thighs. ‘It was a sort of party, I suppose. If you can count four people as a party. Then they all got on my wick and I needed to get home. And I didn’t have any money. And luckily you found me.’
‘Do you know when Dad’s getting back? He told me last night that he would be out for most of the day.’ Eleanor threw a glance at Nick who was looking disconcerted.
Kat rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘He’s not out, he’s asleep.’ She pulled a face.
‘Dad is a bit of an insomniac,’ Eleanor explained, ‘so he gets very tired.’ Inwardly she fought down dismay that Vincent should have changed his plans, jeopardising the pleasures of the afternoon by threatening the necessity of awkward introductions.
Kat posted a last wedge of toast into her mouth, licking each of her fingers before wiping them in exaggerated swipes on her tights. ‘Oh, and if he comes down, would you mind not mentioning my smoking, Nick? Not that you would. But please don’t. He’s got a bit of a thing about it. So boring.’ She rolled her eyes in such a blatant further attempt to appear grown up that it was all Eleanor could do not to laugh out loud.
‘No, of course I won’t,’ Nick assured her kindly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Your secret is safe with me.’
‘Who has secrets?’ boomed Vincent, appearing in the doorway behind them, making them all jump. ‘Ah, we have guest, I see.’ He strode into the room, his craggy face flexed into the expression of winning interest that he always could manage for people he did not know.
Nick and Eleanor both stood up. ‘Dad – this is Nick.’ Eleanor did her best to sound unflustered. ‘Nick Wharton. A friend from—’
‘Ellie’s friend from university,’ Kat chipped in, pronouncing it yooooniversity as if it was something hilarious.
Nick shook hands with Vincent across the back of the sofa. ‘You are most welcome, young man.’ He clasped both his hands round Nick’s. ‘Most welcome. Do you study with Eleanor?’
‘At the same college, yes, but not the same subject. I’m reading medicine—’
‘Splendid, splendid,’ Vincent interjected, breaking off to glower at Kat, who was still lying flat on her back, one gold-booted foot propped on the table. ‘Sit up properly, child, can’t you?’
‘Sorry, Daddy.’ She swung into a kneeling position with exaggerated speed, prim as a nun. ‘Tea, Daddy?’ She puckered her lips and set about pouring him a cup, holding the spout of the pot at such a great height that tea spattered everywhere. The saucer she handed to him contained a moat of brown liquid.
Vincent took it calmly, tipping the moat into the cup and reaching to the tray for a lump of sugar, using his fingers rather than the tongs. ‘Hardly attire for visitors, my dear,’ he said tersely, turning his back on her.
‘I don’t like the way you dress either,’ she retorted.
‘Kat – don’t.’
Kat turned on her sister. ‘Don’t what? Speak?’ She flashed a smile at Nick. ‘Sorry, Nick, we are good at pretending to be nice, but we aren’t really. Don’t be fooled by any of us.’ She snatched another triangle of toast and stalked out of the room.
Five minutes later, she reappeared as if nothing had happened, her expression serene and wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that gripped the straight lines of her narrow hips before flaring to wide skirts round the base of another pair of very high-heeled shoes, red ones this time, with toes as sharp as pencil-points. She had brushed her hair as flat as it ever went, compressing it into two fat silky plaits that bounced on her shoulders. In her arms she was clutching an old Cluedo box, dusty from the cellar by the look of it. ‘I thought we could play a board game. Daddy would you like to play a bawd game?’
Vincent had been talking to Nick about the ordeal of medical training, with such fluency, such charm that, while glad, Eleanor had experienced a rising anger. Her father was nice. He was normal. And yet she was never on the receiving end of such treats. Kat riled him, but she did the opposite. She tried to be cooperative and nice. Why was that still not enough? To be noticed. Shown some affection. Was that really so much to ask?
‘Not me, I fear, I have work to attend to,’ Vincent replied hastily. He cast an apologetic grimace at the Cluedo box, though it was perfectly clear he was going through the motions.
‘And I too must be on my way.’ Nick stood up.
But Kat stepped forwards in the same instant, tapping him on the chest with a corner of the box so that he promptly sat back down again. ‘We are going to play a game,’ she commanded. ‘Then you must stay for supper. We are going to eat sausages. We have heaps of them. And mash. Daddy would like it, wouldn’t you?’ she called after Vincent’s retreating back. ‘Another man at the supper table. And Nick can stay the night, if he wants, can’t he? In the yellow room. Ellie and I will do the sheets.’
There was a grunt of acquiescence from the corridor and then the sound of retreating footsteps.
Eleanor looked at Nick, her heart racing. It would have been impossible for her to ask him to stay, but coming from Kat it seemed all right… impudent, but all right. For a moment she wondered if she had ever loved her sister more.
Nick was shaking his head, laughing helplessly. ‘Thanks, but no, I couldn’t possibly stay. I’ll play one game and then I really must be on my way.’
But he hadn’t played one game, he had played at least ten: A Cluedo marathon, undertaken in a pedestrian manner until dinner and then rather more riotously afterwards, once Vincent had retreated upstairs and Kat had mixed a syrupy concoction of the limited contents of the drinks cupboard to serve as forfeits for every wrong guess, of which there were many. Nick’s caving in to the invitation to stay overnight had occurred suddenly and easily, aided by another bout of pleading from Kat and perhaps by the smell of frying sausages which she said she would see to while he made up his mind. He asked for permission to use the hall phone and made a couple of calls, first to what sounded like a parent and then to someone who had to be Tilly, Eleanor decided, hovering in the open door of the kitchen to hear what she could of the conversations: …bad news… Harriet has thrown a wobbly… yes, conked out on me… university friend… port in a storm… see what the garage says tomorrow… a real pain… let you know tomorrow… yes, me too.
So a man of integrity could lie. But did that matter if the lying was for you?
Shivering under the bedclothes in the blue-black murk of her bedroom some eight hours later, her head still spinning from Kat’s fiendish cocktails, the question leapt out at Eleanor again. The good and bad of it felt knotted together. Wrong turns in life had to be taken, she reasoned, before the right ones could be found. All that mattered was that Nick Wharton lay, warm and breathing, at the end of the passageway, sheathed between the sheets that she and Kat, giggling and unsteady, had tugged round the thin divan bed mattress in the small yellow room where Mrs Owens had once liked to do her ironing. Nick had watched them, arms akimbo, from the doorway, feigning impatience between fighting yawns and then chivvied them out, saying they were useless domestic slaves and he would finish the task alone. Eleanor had dared to cast a look back as they scurried along the corridor, but seen only the closing door.
The divan bed would barely encase his long body, she reflected now, and the room itself was an apology of a space, more of a cupboard than a bedroom. Mrs Owens had long since decamped to retirement in the West country and the ironing pile, such as it was, lived in a plastic basket behind the door in the downstairs cloak room. Vincent managed the occasional shirt and Kat didn’t bother. The sheets on Nick’s bed, like all washed linen in the house, were dry and dimpled, having been bundled upstairs in the brutalised state in which they had emerged from the tumble dryer.
Eleanor’s brain hummed. The jug mix had been fierce: gin, whisky, sherry. Her father, perhaps not surprisingly, wasn’t a big drinker, usually sticking – as he had that night – to beer. She had sipped her own forfeits for fear of choking, glad that her term at university meant she didn’t feel a complete fool. Kat, on the other hand, had swigged hers without much apparent effect. Her head was hard, she had boasted to both her and Nick, and her stomach like iron. At one stage, she had rolled onto her back to demonstrate the point, slapping the bare white flatness where her stomach met the waistband of her jeans.
Eleanor pushed off the bedclothes and sat up. Nick was a few yards away, that was the overwhelming thing. She could feel her nipples harden in the cold, pushing against her T-shirt nightie. Thirty seconds, that was all it would take to get to the yellow room door. Possibly twenty. If she walked fast. Some things in life were about courage. About… Eleanor snapped her brain shut and spun herself upright, grabbing her dressing gown off her chair.
Once in the corridor, she froze nonetheless, hugging herself, listening. Vincent’s three beers meant there was a better chance of him sleeping instead of pacing. Sometimes he snored. Eleanor strained her ears, hearing nothing above the usual creaks of the vicarage. She set off along the corridor, finding it sufficiently hard to walk straight for her to realise that she was still quite drunk.
The brass handle of the yellow room door was cold under her fingers. She turned it slowly, making no sound. Inside, the first thing she noticed was the moon, a mother-of-pearl button in the middle of the windowpane. He hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains, which were flimsy anyway, scraps of yellow that Mrs Owens had strung up one afternoon, not worth bothering with. A silvery light illuminated the shape of Nick beneath the bedclothes. He was lying on his side, one arm up under the pillow, the other round what Eleanor at first took to be a bunch of bedding. It was only as she took a step closer that she saw it was her sister, tucked so closely against him that it was hard to tell them apart. Bare necks, bare shoulders, bare arms, threaded tight as twine.
Eleanor backed away, groping behind her for the open door. There was no sensation within her other than the desire to leave. She had nearly made it into the passageway when Kat’s eyes sprang open. Her sister turned her head slowly, peering out at Eleanor from the nest of bedding. Then she smiled.