I listen to the phone ringing downstairs, shrill and loud, begging to be answered. Then my father’s sombre muffled voice, an agreement of some sort. I hear him coming up the stairs, the wood creaking under his weight. He knocks on my door, opens it without waiting for a response.
‘I have to go to work, Chloe. Something very important has come up with one of my patients.’
I don’t answer, don’t know what to say. I focus on the edge of the pillow, the floral lace trim. A few minutes later I hear the front door closing, and for the first time in days I am alone.
I go downstairs and find the letter from Treadstone’s lawyer propped up on the bare mantelpiece, the weak fire still simmering behind the guard. I stare at the debris of my father’s anger, swept into a pile at the side. I crouch, search around for my wedding ring, but I can’t find it amongst the broken china and wilting flowers. I grab a coat and step outside.
The fog is liquid as I walk through the back garden, ever changing, as if the land is breathing. Several times I have to stop, uncertain where I am going as I head up the path towards the river. I’ve left the light on in the kitchen as a guide for my return, but as I look back now, I’m not convinced I can still see it.
Then coming towards me I see Ben. He has a spade in one hand, a bag of something that looks heavy in the other. I tell myself to turn back, to hide until he is past. The idea that it could have been him last night won’t leave me, but he has seen me.
‘Chloe,’ he says, holding up the hand with the spade. ‘Wait there.’ He hurries towards me, his breath fogging white on white. ‘Is everything all right?’
I wrap my coat around me, hug my arms in close. ‘Yes, why?’
‘Your father?’ He sets the bag down, a dull thud on the ground. ‘I heard him earlier. He sounded angry.’
I shake my head, adjust my woolly hat. ‘No,’ I say, feeling embarrassed. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Are you sure?’ he repeats, taking a step closer. ‘If he hurt you, then—’
‘I said it was nothing,’ I tell him again, averting my gaze. He moves closer to me and I back away. ‘Ben, what do you want? I get the impression you have something you either want to say or ask. What is it?’
He is quiet then, seems less confident than only a moment ago. I keep thinking about what Jess said, about him trying to kiss me. The stables are just a short distance away. What is he thinking? About us, there, his lips against mine? Is that really how it happened?
‘Chloe, at some point, I’d really like us to talk. I want things to go back to how they used to be.’
‘What do you mean, how they used to be?’ He’s wrestling with some mental rumination, can’t quite decide, it seems, on whether or not he should say what’s on his mind. Whatever it is, it troubles him. Troubles him enough to approach me at night? ‘Was it you in the graveyard last night?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was it you who tried to speak with me?’
He shakes his head, flabbergasted almost by what I say. ‘I’ve been trying to speak to you for days, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I do really need you, Chloe. Everything’s gone to shit without you.’
I recoil. Needs me? I barely even know him. But then again, I barely know anybody, least of all myself. What was it exactly that we used to share that he seems intent to rekindle?
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, beginning to move, picking up the pace into a run. ‘I have to go.’
‘Chloe, wait,’ he calls after me, but I just keep running, scared to face whatever truth from my old life he might want to revisit.
I push on, past the paddock, and the stable block full of horses. After several minutes of walking blind, I reach the clearing in the woods where the trees thin out and the riverbank slopes gently down, submitting to the edge of the fast-flowing water, the only break in the perimeter fence.
I stand there for a while, watching as the current rushes along in front of me, submerged reeds floating like silk scarves on a breeze. The river is wide at this point, chopped in two by a weir. I was expecting to see the bridge that led to the old mill, but all that’s left are the remnants, dangling rotting and green in the water. The rest of the wood is black, charred like the old logs from a fire. I get as close as I dare to the fast-flowing water for a proper inspection, concluding that it is no longer passable from this point.
I decide to follow the river, certain that there must be another point where I can cross somewhere further upstream. But as I move through the forest, memories begin to surface, stirred into existence by my shady surroundings. It’s the moisture on my skin, the way my hair is sticking to my face, bothering at my eyes. I recall the night of the crash, can almost feel the smack of the branches in my face, the sharp edges of broken wood tearing at my skin as I pushed my way through. And the feeling I get is the same as this morning when I woke from the dream to the sensation of cold air and the taste of rain. That night is coming back to me, just like my father said it would. My dreams are not just dreams, but memories of the life I used to live. Of the night I lost my son.
A little further along, knitted into the greenish brown of the undergrowth, I find a dilapidated stile that forms the start of a public footpath. I climb over, picking my way through heavy growth and overhanging branches. The rush of the river slows, narrows like a diseased artery, just as somehow I knew it would. I tread carefully, picking my way across the stepping stones, my left foot slipping into the cold water as I fail to balance on the slimy surface of the rocks. I haul myself to the other side. It’s less than a minute before I see the mill coming into view.
My eyes scan the crumbling walls, the old wheel, its green bottom half just breaking the surface of the water. It’s in a state of disrepair so great that I am sure one false move could bring the whole thing tumbling down like a deck of cards. The smell of damp wood and algae greets me. Water runs down the walls, pours through a hole in the roof. The upper floors are disintegrating, giving a clear view through to the sky. Rotten boards are scattered at my feet in angry, disorganised piles. Plants grow out from gaps in the walls, and light shoots through like a maze of brilliant lasers.
I tread carefully, gripping the dusty surfaces of the huge metal gears as I pull myself along, and after some effort I arrive on the other side of the room, where the vertical shaft disappears above. Drips of ice-cold water strike my face as I look up towards the hole in the roof. It’s dark and difficult to see, but slowly my eyes adjust to the low level of light ebbing through the canopy of trees. And there, right alongside the vertical shaft, is the thing that a distant memory told me I would find.
One corner of the floor is lined with old flour sacks, the faded imprint of Willow’s Mill a nod to the previous function of this broken-down place. A dirty floral sheet is laid over them; a sheet that the old me took from my parents’ home and brought to this place. The edges are tinged green with mould, the years of damp leaving watermarks across the rest of it. Despite how it looks, I duck beneath a thick wooden beam to take a seat, shuffle about to make a well for my body. And as I sit, I remember how this place used to feel to me, how I used to come here with Andrew. I remember him when he was no more than a boy, when he was my escape from the life I lived with my parents.
This was the place I ran to when I needed somewhere to hide. It is enclosed on two sides by external brick walls from which sections of mortar are now missing. The other two sides are bordered by giant wooden beams, creating an open box no bigger than a small double bed. On one of the beams sits an old knife and fork set that I stole from home, and next to that a blue plastic beaker. An old Pony Club badge clings to a splinter in the wood. An unopened carton of juice, the sheathed straw loose because the glue has dried up. I pick it up and turn it over, the expiry date from over ten years before. I place it back on the beam, alongside a faded unopened packet of crisps. The objects are a testament to my time here, just like the carving of my name in the wood of one of the beams. Chloe Alice Daniels. And alongside that I see two sets of initials, bound by a crudely shaped heart. CD and AJ.
When I was young, I used to send messages to Andrew to join me here. I was only fifteen when we met, but I can recall sitting here in the cold and damp, the security I used to feel when I nestled against him, my head resting on his shoulder. It was an escape from the shouting and crying and fighting at home. It was always so simple with him. Back then at least.
But now I know that I left him, a decision that resulted in his death. I have his blood on my hands, the taste of it in my throat.