I look up at her. Duck my head. Put my fingertips to my eye sockets. Henry whimpers and I crouch down and hug him, whispering to him: ‘Good boy, good boy.’
I take a deep breath.
I stare back. But not at her eyes. A large diamond sits on her engagement finger snuggled up to a wedding band; her husband, I know, is French. They will stay in the Alpilles; live a life of fresh bread and bike rides.
My own engagement ring is gone now: removed as soon as I was back in England.
‘I found out I’m pregnant this week.’ She smiles.
My eyes shoot up. ‘Wow. Congratulations.’
‘Romilly, it’s the second time that’s happened to me. The first time, the baby was Marc’s.’
I stare at her.
‘I had an abortion,’ Ella tells me as she sits, in the way women often say those words, dipping their voices low. ‘I was only twenty-three. It was too early. Nothing had begun in my life yet.’
I wince, imagining Marc’s reaction. ‘I needn’t ask how Marc dealt with that,’ I say quietly.
She bites her lovely pink lip.
‘Not kindly,’ I add. ‘Not with understanding.’
A little red lipstick has stayed on her tooth.
‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘I imagine far from it.’
She has her head now bent low, hands to her stomach.
‘Was it worse than unkind?’
In my kitchen, the kitchen of a stranger really, Ella’s shoulders begin to shake.
‘I nearly died,’ she says, barely audible. ‘It had always been emotional before then, threats, putting me down, making me feel stupid. But I’ve got no doubt. If someone else hadn’t turned up, he would have gone through with it. I wouldn’t be having this baby. Wouldn’t have got married. I would be dead.’
I go to her. How can I not?
She is me. I am her. He’s made us each other.
A few minutes later, as I squeeze our teabags against the side of our cups, one, two, I sit down with her at my tiny kitchen table.
‘When you got in touch it was traumatic for me. I had PTSD and talking about it again, reliving it … it started happening again, flashbacks, nightmares. I just couldn’t.’
I nod. Think about the dream I woke from at 3 a.m. this morning. My pyjamas drenched in sweat. ‘I get that. I’m sorry I put you through it.’
She shakes her head, angry. ‘No. It’s not good enough. Just to ignore it and leave someone else to live it too. That’s not good enough. I should have been honest with you, not shut down on you at the lake. You needed help. I got protective of my life. Of being happy. Safe.’
We drink our tea. Silent. Happy. Safe. The basics. God, they are wonderful.
‘How did he do it?’
‘He tried to drown me,’ she says. ‘Quiet spot in the Lake District; we were on holiday. It was only someone else turning up, a pack of kids screaming, that saved me.’
‘What happened, then?’ she says eventually. She nods at Summer in the Moses basket. ‘How did you end up in France without …?’
She takes a large gulp of tea.
I sigh.
‘Summer. Her name is Summer,’ I tell her. ‘I only tried to leave him. Not my baby.’
And the whole thing unspools, once again.
‘It seems crazy now, but I was desperate I suppose,’ I say. ‘I needed something to give.’
Under the table, I look down at our feet, platform trainers versus slippers. Slippers that feel stretched actually, I think as I look down. Bloody Steffie and her giant feet.
Ella looks back at me.
When she looks up again, I take in a smudge of liner, a curl of the lashes.
Meanwhile she sees a mum, in her flannel pyjamas, dots of nail varnish on her fingers that are hanging on for dear life, two months old. She sees eyes so heavy she can’t imagine how that happens. She sees a state, perhaps, that she will never allow herself to be in.
A murderer? Ha. I had been so scared it would be what people thought that I believed I had to lie to the French police about where I had been. Very handy, hey, that my phone was left behind. I could put myself out of their picture.
We make eye contact again, Ella and I, sitting at my kitchen table now with our tea, and remain that way. My breathing slows.
Henry wanders back out to us, having exhausted the leftovers.
‘I can’t believe he’s dead,’ Ella whispers.
She wipes her eyelids so her heavy kohl smudges across her face, cheeks.
‘You’ve taken your ring off,’ she says.
I glance at my left hand. ‘You mean your ring?’
A beat. Ella nods.