ABIGAIL

She hadn’t been sure where she was headed until she found herself climbing the path again, winding round corners, pushing herself on so that her chest felt tight, her breathing heavy, constricted, the rain falling between the canopy of leaves above her, bouncing off the puddles on the ground, droplets dancing in the air, clinging to her face, her hands, resting on her lips, in her hair.

She had moved through Lynmouth without stopping, not able to face the cottage in the middle of the two rivers, needing time to think without their faces confusing her. She would have to leave and she couldn’t have anything stopping her. Richard’s face, his gentle kiss, swam into view, replaced now by another face, a hand gripping her shoulder, breath full of whiskey and ugly words. She swiped at her eyes, realized she was crying.

When she approached the abandoned cottage, she startled a rook. It dropped the twig it had been carrying and swept off to her left, landing a safe distance away in the branches of a tree, eyeing her warily. Ducking into the house, she stepped down onto the cobbled floor, dust collecting around the skirting boards and in the corners, lining the cracks in the walls, which bulged inwards so it seemed the house was sinking in on itself. The air was thick with the scent of neglect; she heard something rustling in the corner, turned to see a yellowing newspaper laid out on the floor for a job that had probably never been started. Through the windows, smeared and dotted with watermarks, the outside seemed distorted, the sea and gardens, trees and bushes merging into a single wash of green and blue, the colours duller in this space. What had he seen here?

She rested her hands on the edges of the butler’s sink, the ceramic cool under her hands, and closed her eyes. She pictured the windows in front of her scrubbed and cleaned, a herb pot stuffed with basil, rosemary, thyme, the smell wafting round the room, a loaf cooking in the range. The light from the kitchen throwing long rectangles of yellow onto the manicured lawn beyond, the border clipped and cut back to reveal the view to the sea, a silvery strip of calm.

Perhaps it was possible. She imagined herself then with a purpose. She would be rolling out pastry on a scrubbed pine table, Richard would be bringing in logs from outside. They would have children, rushing around by the range; she would lean down to brush flour from the little one’s face and kiss him or her on the top of his head, before she, yes she, raced off again.

They would eat in the garden in the summer, looking out across the tops of the trees to the thin line of sea beyond. There would be insects chirruping intermittently and her head would be light with the cider they had made in kegs, syrupy and delicious, that clung to their lips as they kissed.

Larry wasn’t there in her imaginings and her sister wasn’t in a hospital. Connie would visit, she’d be relaxed, and they would sit on a blanket at the bottom of the garden and watch as their daughters played together. They would do their hair in long plaits and talk about their mum, and about the dreams they’d had before the war had ruined everything. They would walk back up to the house arm in arm, Abigail’s head resting briefly on her shoulder; she would smell of honeysuckle and wine and they would giggle and sing along as Richard played music on a turntable, a lively tune that would make them kick up their legs and twist around the pine table, bringing beads of sweat to their brows, sounding out across the moors behind them, and the whole house would throb with their laughter.

Standing there now, her eyes open again, she returned to the present, to the walls streaked with damp and the pockmarked wooden beams above her head. Preparing to go, she walked across the stone floor and pushed at the door, felt it give, swing out, the path now slick with heavier rain, large lumps of cloud, fat and full, hovering over the house. And yet, if she turned and half-closed her eyes, there they were in the kitchen, dancing round the table, their mouths open, the light giving them a warm glow, teeth flashing, alive and laughing.