Chapter Three

Bam! Bam! “I’ll be back in forty.”

Whazzat? I sit up, startled and disorientated. Who’s that American shouting in my dream, bashing on my door? Mmmh, right, I remember. Four is to seventy-four as Lis is to Liz. I hear Lucas—I suppose—bounding down the stairs and the resounding crash of a front door slamming in a house with hardly any furniture. I guess that means I’m on duty. I look at my phone to check the time. Six a.m. On a Sunday.

However rudely, I have—glory be—woken in heaven. I fell asleep last night in this giant double bed with the inside shutter-things open because I couldn’t find any curtains and was too pooped to wrestle with the hooks and hinges once I’d pinched my finger on the first attempt. Now, tempted by the bright, golden light streaming into the room, I get out of bed and go to the window.

Oh.

The drippy mist’s gone, and the sun’s coming up over the sea. The sky is pink and gold, and the sea is silver. It’s possibly the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I open the window to the fresh, cool, salt air and the sound of surf on rocks and that first-day-of-holiday sensation fills me with such excitement I break out in goose bumps. A deep breath brings a warm rush of memories—rock pooling with my grandparents at Belcroute Bay, on Jersey, in the Channel Islands.

But holiday it isn’t. I wallow for a moment, turn away from the window, and go next door to Alice’s room, still in darkness. She’s fast asleep on her tummy, legs and arms splayed, toys and books all over the bed. I walk away quietly. Better shower and get dressed before she wakes up. When does she wake up? I wonder if there’s a child-rearing book somewhere in the house? Something tells me there isn’t.

Half an hour later—showered, hair washed, dressed—I’m finishing my unpacking when a movement in the doorway catches my eye. It’s Alice in her blue pyjamas, carrying a storybook.

“Good morning, Alice,” I say, in my best, bright voice. “What’s that you’ve got?”

She holds out the book. “Story?”

Is it story time? I thought bedtime was story time. I read in bed at night, but then again I read on the train, at the bus stop, in the bath and everywhere in between, so I reckon six-thirty in the morning is as good a time as any for a body to read.

“Okay.” I take the book. Alice climbs on the bed I’ve just made, pulls back the duvet, bringing the cushions with her, tosses them about into a crooked pile against the headboard, wriggles under the bedding and tells me to get in.

I do, and it occurs that I haven’t been in bed, fully clothed at six-thirty in the morning, since my student days. Alice, shy, kneels next to me, a skinny little knee poking through a hole in her pants.

“What’s this?” I put a fingertip on her kneecap.

“Broken,” she says, mournfully, stroking the frayed fabric.

“Shall we mend it?”

She nods, smiling, eyes huge and bright and happy, and pushes the book toward me.

It’s Winnie the Witch, and I adore Winnie. I could be her, no problem. She’s got a fabulous house and hair not dissimilar to mine. She’s so together it’s not fair. Magic helps, of course. We read the story about how she offends Wilbur—her black cat—by making him rainbow-coloured because she keeps tripping over him in her black house and falling down the stairs. Alice absorbs the story like it’s the first time she’s heard it, but I can see it’s a well-read, well-loved book, falling apart at the binding.

“Shall we fix this too?” I run my fingers up and down the battered spine, after we’ve read the book three times.

“And pyjamas.” She smiles at me, puts her arms around my neck and hugs. “More story?”

“Have you got another one? Another Winnie book?”

She jumps off the bed and runs out of the room. I wait, staring through the window at the blue sky, listening to the sound of the sea.

I could do with a little magic in my life.

Alice’s back with an armful of books, dropping one on the floor with every step. She climbs into bed, dumps the remainder on my lap and we read, showing each other Winnie’s hat, her stripy stockings, her pointy toes, her curly eyelashes and Wilbur’s whiskers, which Alice calls “whispers.”

“Must fetch friends,” she says, when we have read every book. She scrambles out of bed and runs to her room.

I get up and look through the window. There’s a solitary runner on the distant shore, coming closer. Lucas. He’s leaving today, enjoying the last of beautiful Maine before he holes up—I imagine a narrow, steel-walled cabin in a rig like a storm-tossed lobster trap bobbing on the vicious ocean, with no landscape to love, incarcerated between dark, hostile skies and spitting seas. How can he leave this? How can he leave Alice? Why?

He disappears behind the low headland to the east of the house. Is that the location of forbidden cove? Does he spend time there, reflecting on the tragedy that changed his and Alice’s lives forever? No, not today, because he’s popped up on the lawn—or whatever you call the shaggy half acre or so of wild and weedy grass between the house and the sea. He’s in good shape, is Lucas Dalton. I force my imagination into neutral. My mind blank, I merely witness the fitness until he disappears from sight, pulling back from the window as he approaches the big porch along the front of the house. I wouldn’t want him to see me.

“Who are you waiting for?”

I jump. Turning, I see Alice, arms full of teddies, bunnies and a knitted sea horse with stuffing oozing out of a hole in his tail.

“Get in bed,” she says. “We not finished.”

I obey. Seconds later Lucas strides past my wide-open bedroom door, head back, downing a carton of juice as he goes.

“Daddy,” Alice says, without looking up, arranging her toys around the bed.

We turn our attention back to Winnie and are halfway through a repeat routine when Lucas roars, “Alice?” I look up at the doorway. He sounds terribly close, and cross.

With a little shriek, Alice dives under the duvet. A moment’s silence. I’m not sure what to do.

“Lis?” he calls.

Smothered giggle way down in my bed.

He lowers his voice to a menacing rumble. “Lis, are you hiding from me?”

She flings back the bedding. “Yes, Daddy! I hiding in Lara bed!”

Oh.

“Well then, I’ll just have to come and look for you.” He steps through the door.

Wow. Showered, not very big towel around his waist, he comes into the room, stands at the end of my bed, raises his eyebrows at the squirming lump under the duvet, puts his hands on his hips, and says, “Hmmm. I wonder where Alice is? Could she be under the bed?” He bends to look. “Nope.” He turns to face the window. “Behind the shutters? Nope.” He winks at me. Oh my eyes, he looks naughty. His hair, wet, is up in dark spikes, his frankly mind-blowing shoulders speckled with drops of water. “I think,” he goes on, “I think Lis is in Lara’s suitcase.”

Squeal from deep in the bed.

He rushes across the room, rattles my suitcase. “Hmmmm,” he says slowly. “Not there. Hmmmm. Lara, do you know where Lis could be? She has to get dressed real quick.”

I shrug. “I actually haven’t seen Alice for a while.” I pull the duvet up to my chin, fists clenched.

“I don’t believe you.” He grins, his eyes gleaming like a hungry wolf’s. “What’s that in your bed?” The towel slips. He grabs it, folds it around his waist and tucks the end back in.

The bedding heaves as Alice rolls herself into a tight ball. She’s laughing now, barely able to catch her breath.

“Um, I think it’s a…a little mouse,” I say, my heart beating in my throat.

“A little mouse! If there’s a little mouse in your bed, I’m going to have to catch it because I’m very, very hungry.”

“Nooooooo, Daddy!”

Lucas lunges. We are doomed.

“Waaaah!” he roars, throwing back the bottom of the duvet, exposing the both of us—lucky I got dressed. “Waaaah!” He grabs Alice’s kicking feet and drags her off the bed, toys flying everywhere. “Oooh, yumyumyum,” he growls. “What tasty bit shall I eat first?”

Shrieking with laughter, Alice can’t fight Lucas’s strength. “Help me, Laraaaa, help meeee!”

I abandon her, and reverse up the pillows piled against the headboard. There’s a kind of exquisite terror. Also, I’m very ticklish and Lucas is tickling Alice, making me laugh. I can feel it everywhere.

“Help,” she shrieks.

“I can’t!” I wouldn’t know how. My knees are under my chin, clamped to my body with both arms.

“Come on, Lis,” Lucas says. “I’ll eat you in the bedroom while we get dressed.” He picks her up, slings her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and lets her slide down his back. He carries her out of the room, by the feet, upside down. She’s giggling so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t wet herself. I grit my teeth as her head swings wildly, missing the doorframe by a half a hair’s breadth.

And oops, there goes the towel. Clearly, Lucas dives in warm waters for a large part of the year. There’s no white bum revealing the size of his swimming trunks. He’s nicely tanned, all over.

They go off, down the passage. “Do it to Lara, Daddy! Do it to Lara! Eat Lara too,” Alice begs.

“Not now, sweetheart. I’ll eat her later.”

“Why? Why?”

“Because I won’t have room for breakfast if I eat both of you now.”

Their voices fade, Alice laughs again, delighted at something her daddy has said. I slide off the pillows and stretch out on my ruined bed. For a moment I lie on my back, hands behind my head and listen to the thump of my heart, my mouth curving in a smile. I’m glad I didn’t flounce out last night. This will be way more fun than looking after an older person, no offence. Lucas is, well, nice—let’s leave it at that for now. Alice is adorable and her cuteness will more than make up for what I’m missing by not being a companion to an intellectual grand old dame of Maine. There’s potential for great happiness in this house. It’s everywhere, in spite of the shadows, waiting for the right moment to come out.

I hope.