We wait for the buzz of the pedestrian crossing and then fight our way through the crowds of shoppers leaving the Sainsbury’s Local. Seeing the place triggers a memory of picking up bread and milk, painkillers if and when Andrew had a rough night. Yes, I remember that. We edge into the mouth of a narrow side street, ripe with the smell of meatball sandwiches coming from a nearby deli. People rush along around us as we negotiate the uneven surface of the road, the tarmac formed like a dirty patchwork quilt. The paintwork on the surrounding buildings is dry and flaking, colours faded. In places whole chunks of plaster have come away from the walls, exposing the bricks beneath.
We arrive at the front door to a depressing little building. It’s narrow and old, a typical Brighton townhouse, Georgian in style, and a replica of the others nearby. It’s positioned alongside a back-street bar called West End Nights. A crack runs up one side of the wall. I look up at the dark, inky window above, and then down at the lawyer’s letter in my hand. I realise that I know this broken-down house in desperate need of attention. But time, it seems, has put a degree of space between me and it. It’s like seeing an old friend and not being able to quite believe just how much they’ve changed, or falling out of love and seeing all those flaws you have long since denied. Did I really live here in this dingy, dismal place? I look at Guy for reassurance, and he reaches down, takes my hand. I know I did, but this isn’t what I remember when I think of my home now. I recall a place that had neat flowerpots with rainbow colours planted by the window, and lights inside which made it seem warm and inviting. It was small but we were close to the sea, and because of Andrew’s unstable employment and my decision to work for a charity this was the best we could afford. Still it was a nice home. I made it a nice home, and I liked living here. But this place feels alien to me now.
No garden exists to pretty up the front; instead there’s just a small path that merges with the road, bordered by a set of double yellow lines. Two vehicles are parked with their hazard lights flashing, making the road near impassable for other cars. A hanging basket at the side of the front door contains the remains of a dead clematis plant, chopping back and forth as it is taken by the wind. A gull circles above us, swoops in close, then soars over the rooftops as it heads back out to sea.
Guy braces himself against the wall, hands in his pockets. His hair blows about in wayward tufts, tousled and curly in the moist salt air. I knock on the door. Wait. No footsteps, no light. I knock again, hear nothing. Nobody is home.
‘Maybe we should come back later,’ I suggest.
But Guy tucks himself in close to the door, then lets a screwdriver slip from his sleeve. He checks once over his shoulder before fiddling the flat end into position alongside the lock. I hear a car door closing and turn to see one of the parked cars pulling away. When I look back, the front door to my house is gaping wide open.
‘You broke in?’ I ask as I peer into the dark corridor beyond.
Guy smiles, standing back. ‘It’s your home, remember?’
I step over a few splinters of wood and into the narrow corridor. The door is loose but still functional, so Guy closes it behind us. I move along the shadowy tunnel, the smell of something rotten getting up my nose. Everything about the atmosphere is stale. It’s harder to be back here than I thought, and I can feel my breathing quickening. I hear Guy flicking a switch behind me, but we remain in the dark. It’s as if the place has been tarnished, marked in some way by the things that have happened. It has become a mausoleum of my life, a testament to everything I have lost.
‘I think the electricity is off,’ he says, heading towards the kitchen, which connects via a peninsula of cupboards to the lounge. He opens the door of the fridge and pulls out a mouldy loaf. The scent of sour milk fills the air. ‘Definitely off,’ he says as he drops the bread into a nearby bin, wafting the air with his hand. It must have been there for the best part of three months.
I am standing with one hand on the back of the tartan sofa, feeling the texture underneath. I must have sat here thousands of times. Yet nothing feels like mine. But when I look down, see one of the scatter cushions lost to the floor, I remember Andrew sleeping here. I used to wake up to find him passed out in this very spot, the image so stark in my mind. The thought that I might never see him again is enough to make me feel sick.
Guy picks up the phone, listens to the receiver. ‘Still connected.’ He comes up behind me, making me jump as he touches my arm. ‘Are you all right? What is it?’
‘This place smells,’ I tell him, unable to admit to the surfacing memories, the odours of blood and vomit, the messes I had to clear up. He smoothes his hands across my shoulders and down my arms in a protective way. For a moment I can feel him behind me, the heat of him, before he moves to open a side window for some air.
I walk to the rear of the house and turn the key in the back door, opening it wide into a small yard. The wind rushes in through the open space, bringing with it a handful of leaves and an old McDonald’s wrapper. But the fresh air carries with it more than rubbish; there is also the smell of the sea. I recall that day I took the decision to leave, sitting with Joshua, staring at the waves. I realise now that neither in life nor death did I ever manage to protect him. I close the door again, turn the key in the lock.
‘There’s nobody here,’ I tell Guy.
He sits down on the windowsill and folds his arms across his chest. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he says, his voice soft. ‘But it doesn’t look to me like anybody has been living here for a while now. I don’t think we are going to find Andrew here.’
But if he isn’t living here, where the hell is he?
I climb the stairs and Guy follows. I find some of my clothes in my old bedroom and a bottle of perfume on the dresser. I spray a little on my wrist. It’s the scent of my old life, the old me. It’s an unwelcome reminder of just how far removed I am from the life I used to live. I rub my wrist against my trouser leg to get rid of the smell. I search the cupboards but find nothing that might have once belonged to Andrew.
I move towards a second bedroom, brushing my fingers across the panel of the door where two ragged holes have been drilled into the wood. I see a name plate in my mind, something that used to hang here: Joshua’s Room in carved rainbow lettering. Somebody has since taken it away. I can feel Guy behind me, willing me on as I push the door open.
An acidic sickness rises to my throat as I look around the room. I swallow over and over as I step inside, but the lump will not go down. Instead it chokes me as I gaze at the blue bed, the chipped paintwork, the mattress stripped of sheets. To the side of the bed I see a small cupboard, the same peeling blue paintwork. Nothing on the top. Limp curtains frame the window, the elephant pattern tired and dated. I look up at the only picture on the wall: alphabet building blocks spelling out his name: JOSHUA. I edge away from it, against the bed. A tear breaks free from my eye. I don’t know if I’m crying for Joshua and the life he lost, or me and the life that was taken from me. It might very well be both.
Guy draws the curtains wide, pushes open the window as far as it will go. A cold draught whips through, snatches up the material. Over that I can hear the chug of a bus and the chatter of shoppers in the street below.
‘This was his room,’ I say. I pull open a drawer, find it empty. ‘But his stuff is all gone.’ Who has been here and taken his things? My parents? Andrew?
Guy remains by the window, his hands twitching at his sides. For a moment he appears unsure, as if he doesn’t know whether to approach me. He brings one hand up to his head, rubs at his brow, and then—as if it’s a last-minute decision, to try to do the right thing—he comes towards me and wraps his arms around me.
The feeling of his body against mine is so good, so strong and solid. I find comfort in the warmth of his touch and the rhythm of his chest as he breathes. Because here on the edge of my old life, I have never felt the loss of myself more keenly. The loss of my son. And at that moment Guy’s touch and presence might be the only thing that keeps me from breaking. It feels like Andrew in the old mill all over again, the only thing capable of saving me from the pain of what my life has become.
‘Maybe your parents cleared the house while you were in hospital.’
He brushes a tear from my cheek, and as I look up, his hand still on my skin, our eyes meet. For a second he stares at me, our faces only an inch apart. I can feel his hesitant fingers on my back. There’s something in this moment, expectation and possibility. I freeze, unsure what I want. Even what I need.
Then his grip tightens against me, his instincts taking over. He pushes me back against the cupboard, his movements slow but certain. His hands move up into my hair and I can feel the weight of his body against mine. He kisses my lips, slowly at first, then more urgently. I feel his stubble graze against my skin, the sensation rippling through my body as he presses up against me.
It has been so long since somebody held me like this, craved me in this way. Even Andrew at the end didn’t want me like this. At least I don’t think so. I kiss him back, feel the closeness, the connection of skin against skin. I fumble at his clothes, kiss his neck with desire. His body fits together with mine as he hoists me up onto the chest of drawers. My scarred right leg is painful and hot, his actions almost forceful. But then as he pulls on my hair to tilt my head back I feel something return to me, a sensation I have felt before, the tingle on my scalp as a hand moves through my thick, unruly hair. Something familiar, a situation just like this. And that’s when a vision of Ben comes to me, leaning in to kiss me in the stables of my parents’ house. Just like Jess told me. When was that? I draw back abruptly. This man is not my husband.
‘I can’t do this,’ I say, pulling away. ‘It’s not right.’ I have an urge to stop, not to cheat. It surpasses my desire to be close to Guy. But is this even cheating? Am I still married? Does it count even if I am?
He steps away from me, straightens his clothes. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here. It’s my fault.’ He adjusts himself, uncomfortable, still aroused despite my resistance. ‘It’s not your fault, Chloe, it’s just…’ He pauses; looks towards the door. ‘Shh,’ he says, his voice no louder than a whisper, his finger to his lips. ‘Did you hear that?’
At first I can’t hear anything, at least nothing other than the people outside, the ever-present seagulls. We wait in silence for a moment longer, and then I hear knocking on the front door, followed by a voice. Somebody is calling my name.
Guy moves first, quick footsteps as he fiddles his shirt back into his trousers. I straighten my hair as best I can, check the damp dressing on my head is still in place. Then I follow him as he descends the first few steps. The voice calls out again.
‘Chloe, is that you?’ It’s a man’s voice. ‘Chloe, have you come home?’