IRINA

The one time she’d left her mother, the one time she hadn’t told her where she was headed and this happened. She felt a deep sense of shame creep over her, the contents of her stomach bubbling in panic as they headed back up the clifftop railway in silence. Everything that had felt so magical and exciting that morning seemed to have dulled and slowed. The railway seemed to dither, the water taking forever to fill up so that Irina was tapping her foot and looking up the cliff as if it might be quicker to climb it herself.

‘Hey,’ Andrew said, holding her elbow and steering her over to the metal terrace, ‘it’s going to be OK, we’ll get there by tonight.’

She noted the ‘it’s’ not the ‘she’, and the fact that he couldn’t reassure her made her feel even worse. She had the same sense of overwhelming hopelessness as she’d had all those years ago, standing looking at the house, the horrific realization sinking in. She felt her breathing quicken, the start of a panic attack. She couldn’t feel the air going in, her head lighter as she gasped at the air; it wasn’t going into her lungs, it wasn’t helping. Andrew’s voice melted into the background and the colours around her seemed to fade as if there was a dial someone had turned down. Her legs wobbled and her head just screamed that she needed more air. She had left her alone, and this had happened.

Andrew steered her over to a seat in the carriage, the other passengers no doubt looking on as she was instructed to put her head between her knees. She felt his hand circling her back, closed her eyes. They left the carriage with her leaning on him, her face red, her eyes blinded by the sudden colours. They walked slowly to the B & B, Andrew looking down at her, speaking to her in a steady, low voice, one hand hovering over her shoulder. She wanted his hand on her, reassuring, she wanted to feel his touch. That thought made her feel worse. So you’re thinking about a man while your mother lies in a hospital two hundred miles away. She deserved this; she realized then that she’d been waiting for this day. That it felt somehow inevitable that she would be left alone, not have a chance to even say goodbye, to say all the things she needed to say.

She couldn’t stop herself thinking back to that day all those years ago, the scenes she’d replayed over and over in her mind since. She and her mother in the cake shop, loading the enormous cake into the car, singing together as they drove back to their house. They never sang in the car after that.

She would be entering another hospital, recalled the last time she’d done that. She remembered the ambulance, sitting in the back of it as they’d tended to her face, her mother wringing her hands in the doorway, looking inside at Irina, back at the house behind. Her asking after Joshua again and again, her mother crying, being lowered to the floor as her legs collapsed beneath her. Her asking after her dad; it was his birthday, she told them. A fireman bending to talk to her mother; he’d taken his yellow helmet off when he was speaking, he didn’t have a lot of hair. Irina remembered feeling that he’d know where Joshua was, expected him to appear in the sliding door of the ambulance, fascinated by it, wanting them to press the siren so the lights flashed and the noises came on. He never appeared in the doorway of the ambulance and they had taken her to hospital, her face covered in dressings, the pain starting to tear at her; they gave her injections and then everything went dark.

The journey back seemed to pass in a fug of old memories, panic, questions, faces. Andrew played Radio 2. Every now and again his hand left the gear stick, wavered inches from her leg before returning; she had seen it as if it were not attached to him, as if they were two other people in a car going somewhere else, somewhere lovely.

He dropped her straight at the hospital, pulling up and putting the handbrake on, cranking it urgently. It had been a five-hour journey, her neck was sore, her backside numb from sitting frozen in the passenger seat.

‘Shall I come in? I’d like to,’ he said, leaning across as she stepped out of the car.

She looked back at him, wanting to direct her anger somewhere, wanting to get rid of the hurt she was feeling. If they hadn’t gone to Devon… He’d been so adamant they should go, she’d been swept along, and look how it had ended. She had left without a thought for anything else.

She blustered a response. ‘No, I don’t think…’

‘I’ll drop your bag in and—’

‘No, don’t. I’ll get it now,’ she said, moving to the boot to fetch it. She returned with it slung over her shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered, trying not to look at him, as if they’d had a row. This was how they’d always left things. Him trying to talk about it all, her batting him away. She slammed the door harder than she meant to. His face, tinged with hurt, was the last thing she saw before she turned to walk up the steps to the hospital, through the sliding doors into reception, relatives and friends waiting in plastic bucket seats, charts and signs indicating where people should go. As the doors closed behind her, she looked back outside, but his car had already gone.