The Summer Without You

05/7/2011

13h54

At the park. Ella being pushed on a trike by Ted’s mother. Finn sleeping in the buggy. Ted pushing Finn.

Overcast day. No shadows on the ground. Everyone in coats.

‘Does he sleep this much all the time?’ Man’s voice behind camera. Ted’s father?

‘All the time. He’s the easiest baby.’ Ted.

‘No wonder Marina’s back on her feet so quickly.’ Ted’s mother.

‘Quite literally.’ Ted.

Finn jerks suddenly, his hands flying up beside his head. Begins to cry. Ted stops the buggy and quickly rearranges the blankets, tucking Finn’s arms back down and securing the blankets firmly. ‘His startle reflex. Boys get it worse than girls, apparently.’

Begins pushing the buggy again. Finn’s cries drop to a whimper.

‘You were always doing that. You had such bad colic as a baby, it’d take forever to get you settled, and just as I’d creep back to bed – wham! You’d jolt yourself awake and I’d have to do the whole routine again. Do you remember, Edward?’

‘Do I ever,’ Ted’s father grumbled. ‘I thought we’d never sleep through the night again.’

Finn silent now, sleeping. Ella sucking her thumb as she is pushed along. Drops her (no longer) pink pig.

‘Oops. We don’t want to lose Binky.’ Ted’s mother picks it up and hands it back. ‘Oh look! Here comes Mommy!’

Ella waves excitedly, almost topples off tricycle.

Marina power-walks towards them. Navy running tights, fluoro-yellow trainers, water bottle in her hand, cheeks flushed.

‘Hi!’ Ted hooks arm around her waist, kisses her. ‘So how was that?’

Camera angle drops down to path. Brown suede loafers. Forgotten it’s on?

‘Great!’ Marina. Panting. ‘Really great.’

‘Not too much? You mustn’t overdo it.’ Ted.

‘Not at all. In fact I’m feeling strong today. I thought I might do one more lap.’ Marina.

‘Marina, it’s been three weeks. That’s too much.’ Ted.

‘Ted, I know my own body. I’ve been craving this for nine months.’ Pause. Unidentifiable movements. ‘You all enjoying the walk?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’ Ted’s father. Jocular. ‘We’ve just been feeding the ducks.’

‘I’m the park-keeper, Mommy.’ Ella.

‘Are you?’ Marina. Smile in her voice.

‘We thought we’d go to Inn on the Park for coffee. Why don’t you join us?’ Ted’s mother.

‘I may as well meet you back at the apartment. By the time I do my extra lap, you’ll be ready to go.’ Panting sound. ‘And I’ll take it easy. I promise.’ Sound of fast-moving feet, retreating.

‘She’s like Superwoman.’ Ted’s father.

‘She’s saying she wants to go back to work when Finn’s twelve weeks.’

‘Really?’ Ted’s mother.

‘Mmm.’ Ted.

Camera swings up to buggy, focuses on Finn, sleeping, for split second.

Blackness.

05/23/2011

15h37

Ella seated in a high chair, a cake of a red hot-air balloon on the table in front of her, one candle flickering. Lots of helium-filled balloons tied to the backs of the chairs. The bottom of a birthday banner just in shot.

‘Happy Birthday, Ella!’ An older female voice behind the camera. ‘How old are you today?’

Ella, in a Liberty-print needlecord dress, grins at the camera. Shouts excitedly. ‘Grandma! I’m two!’

‘Who’s two?’ incredulous voice.

‘Me!’ Ella jabs her chest with her thumb.

‘Well, did you get any presents?’

‘I got a scooter for the park.’

‘A scooter? I’ll bet you’re really good, huh?’

Ella nods. Moves to pinch some of the red icing.

‘Uh-uh, not yet. Wait for Mommy.’

Ted in the background. He comes to stand beside Ella, swaying slightly as he rubs Finn’s back. A half-filled bottle of milk in his jeans pocket. Begins pacing. ‘Where is Marina?’

‘She went to get the cake slice from the kitchen.’

Male voice off camera – Ted’s father? ‘I heard her cell go. You want me to get her?’

Ted rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Ella tries to sneak more icing.

‘Ella, sweetie, just wait one more minute.’

‘Binky’s hungry.’ Pushes bottom lip out and scowls at Ted. Folds arms across her chest.

Marina walks back in, raking her hair back, smiling. Lithe in navy trousers and ribbed silky sweater. ‘You haven’t cut the cake yet, have you?’

‘No, we were waiting for you.’ Ted. Slight pause. ‘The cake slice?’

Marina slaps her forehead. ‘Oh, yes. Right! I forgot.’

Ted frowns. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘The locksmith. He called back.’

‘The locksmith?’

‘Yes, he’s coming over now. I told him it was an emergency.’

‘What? What is?’

Marina puts her hand up to stroke Finn’s cheek. He’s sleeping on Ted’s shoulder. ‘We discussed this, Ted, remember? The kids mustn’t be getting out of their rooms in the night.’

‘Marina, what are you talking about? They’re both in cots.’

Marina smiles. Pats his arm. ‘Listen, honey, you may sleep through it, but I don’t. I hear them every night. It’s for their own safety.’ Marina frowns. ‘Oh, yes. Right. Cake slice.’

She walks out.

Ted, frowning, looks to person behind the camera. ‘What?’

Blackness.

07/15/2011

14h43

‘Turn it off, Mom.’ Ted, standing by baby Finn at changing unit. Ted holding both his ankles in one hand, lifting him up and sliding under new nappy.

‘You’ll thank me—’

Ted looks to camera. Stony stare. Cold eyes. Red-rimmed eyes.

Blackness.

04/15/2012

12h20

Beach. Ted lying down, Ella covering him in sand. He scrunches his eyes shut as sand goes flying off her yellow spade.

‘Careful, Ella! Poor Daddy.’ Older woman’s voice behind the camera.

Ella looks up. Hair in pigtails. Pink heart-shaped sunglasses on, red gingham swimsuit with frilled skirt. Chubby legs. ‘Daddy my pwisoner.’

‘I’ll never get out of here,’ he groans, making face to suggest effort. No movement. ‘It’s no good. I’m trapped here forever.’

Ella squeals delightedly.

Camera swings to show Finn sitting with a rubber ring round his waist. A floppy blue sunhat on his head, wearing a swim nappy. Hitting an upturned bucket with a small spade.

‘Right. Well, if Daddy’s well and truly stuck in there, I guess there’s no one to stop us going and getting an ice cream, is there, Ella?’ Woman’s voice.

‘Ice cweam!’ Ella shrieks, jumping up.

‘Ice cream? Who – said – ice cream?’ Ted. Putting on a deep voice. ‘Nobody eats the Sand Monster’s ice cream.’

‘Da Sand Monsder!’ Ella shrieks again, jumping up and down as Ted begins to wriggle side to side, cracks appearing in the sand ‘tomb’.

‘Quick, Ella, run! Run!’ Older woman’s voice.

Ella scampers down towards the shore. Ted breaks through sand and stands up, still covered. Beats his chest like King Kong, raises his arms out with a roar. Grins at camera. Starts chasing Ella down the beach.

Ella screams, half frightened, half delighted.

Ted scoops her up in his arm and runs with her into the waves.

Camera swings back to Finn, still beating the bucket. Oblivious. ‘You know, Finn, I’m not sure boys ever really do grow up.’

Finn looks to camera. Tips his head. Smiles. Continues beating the bucket.

Blackness.

‘I wish you’d stop looking at me like that. It’s just a job,’ Ro muttered, packing her camera into the protective soft case.

Hump, assuming his usual position of arms behind his head and ankles crossed on his desk, shook his head. ‘Nup. It really isn’t.’

‘Are you prepared to forgo my last month’s rent?’ she said stroppily, wondering where she’d put the tripod.

‘In which case, I have no option but to do this shoot, so enough with the pointed stares.’ She ducked under the counter, rifling through the cardboard boxes that she’d kept from when her equipment was air-freighted over.

Hump, taking in her pursed lips, changed tack. ‘Isn’t it weird when you see them? I mean, you know their lives pretty much inside out now. You’ve spent, like, hundreds of hours studying them. Doesn’t it feel weird that there’s so much imbalance?’

‘It’s a job, Hump. They’re not my friends. Do you expect to share your life story with the people you take to the beach?’

‘Yeah, but it’s different. You’ve seen all their most private moments. It’s like you’ve shared them with them.’

Ro shot him a look but didn’t reply. The fact was, Hump couldn’t have been further from the truth. The more she saw about the Connors, the less she understood. Where was Marina? What had made the marriage fail? What hadn’t the camera shown?

‘You’ve worked so hard on getting it finished. You were almost as bad as Greg and Bobbi. Honestly, if I’d known I was signing up a group of workaholics . . .’

‘What, you’d have chosen a girl in a string bikini from the foam pool?’ Her hands closed round the telescopic tripod.

Hump chortled and she shot him an amused look. ‘It just seems odd that you’re suddenly so desperate to finish it and be done with him.’

Ro sighed. He wouldn’t let it go. All week she’d been putting up with this. This was the downside of brothers. Maybe it hadn’t been so bad being an only child after all. ‘I needed to get those films edited and done because they’ve been hanging over me almost all summer. At least now the stills are pretty easy to sort, and once I’ve done this shoot –’ she rubbed her hands together ‘– I can finally get my invoice in to him and get paid.’

Ro straightened up. ‘Why? Is there some flipping dress code to adhere to before you can set foot on it?’

‘Hump!’ she shrieked, picking up her elastic-band ball and lobbing it at him. Perfect hit.

Melodie appeared at the doorway, her arms resting high up on the doorframe. ‘And what is going on in here?’ she smiled. ‘They can hear you two all the way in Bridgehampton.’

‘My housemate has discovered his death wish,’ Ro laughed, as Hump threw the ball back and she caught it with one hand. She put it next to her monitor and did a quick visual sweep of the various lenses and batteries before closing up her camera bag.

‘Where are you off to now?’ Hump asked, as she put the strap over her body and looked for the padlock key for her bike.

‘Home – to get away from you. Bobbi’ll be back soon and I’d like to spend some time with her given that I’ll be working tomorrow.’

‘Urgh!’ she cried, throwing her hands in the air. She stopped in front of Melodie. ‘He is maddening.’

‘I know.’ Melodie nodded sympathetically. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him. It must be like living with an ape.’

‘Hey!’ Hump shouted as the two women joined ranks. He jumped up from his chair and ran round the desk, but Ro was already leaping over the steps and racing across the grassy square towards her bike. ‘Sorry, Melodie!’ she laughed. ‘He’s all yours!’

It was just before 9.30 a.m. when she heard the car pull up outside the next morning. Ro ran to the window and crouched low at the sill, still only in her bra and knickers. Ted was pulling up the handbrake on a metallic pale blue vintage Mercedes convertible. Ro didn’t know the vintage, but she recognized the gull wings as being iconic, and therefore expensive.

‘Hey!’ Ted waved, spotting her at the window and flashing a brilliant-white smile that lifestyle-matched the car.

‘I know. Sorry. The kids were so excited.’ He tipped his head back towards Ella and Finn, both in their car seats in the back.

‘Hi!’ she called – knowing she had to win their trust quickly if she was going to get the pictures she needed – instinctively standing up to wave at them and realizing only too late that the movement clearly flashed her bra to anyone on the street. How excellent. She pressed herself back down low again, her cheeks against the wood. ‘I’ll, uh . . . I’ll just be a minute!’ she shouted, hoping they could hear, and backing away from the window on her hands and knees.

‘Take your time!’ Ted called back. She could hear laughter in his voice, even twenty feet up.

Her bag was already packed with her equipment, and she’d washed her hair last night – not for the reasons Hump had teased but in order not to be rushing this morning. She stepped into the white shorts and navy T-shirt she’d bought on sale in one of the boutiques off the backstreets in town and turned a circle in the room, wondering if there was anything else she was missing. Like her sanity.

She stepped out of the house two minutes later, her camera bag on her shoulder, her plimsolled feet making no sound on the path.

‘Hi,’ she said, slightly clipped, wanting to establish a clear tone that this was work, business – not some jolly day trip.

She slid into the passenger seat, turning round immediately to make eye contact with the children. ‘Hi,’ she smiled. ‘You must be Ella and Finn.’

‘And these fellows here,’ she said, in a slightly lower voice, her eyes on the grubby, too-loved pink and blue toys. ‘They must be Binky and Boo.’

‘How did you know that?’ Ella asked in a forthright voice that seemed should belong to a child older than four.

‘Oh, they’re famous where I live,’ she said, knowing her foreign accent would be discernible even to children as young as them. ‘Where I come from, everybody knows Binky and Boo.’

‘Because they’re the most loved toys in the world – everybody knows that. And I live a really, really long way away from here.’

Wonder filled their faces as they each held their toys to their noses and inhaled, closing their eyes at the familiar, comforting smell.

Ro turned to face the front, to find Ted sitting beside her, the ignition still off, an expression on his face that she couldn’t interpret. She looked at the keys hanging idle. ‘Ready when you are,’ she shrugged.

‘Yes. Right,’ he said, jumping into action and starting the car. It made a lovely sound and Ro turned to look at the cottage as they pulled away.

Hump was standing on the drive, holding his kayak paddle in one hand, wearing his brown and pink leaf Hawaiian baggies, yellow flip-flops and a bemused grin. Ro stuck her tongue out at him as she passed.

They were in Sag Harbor within half an hour, everyone enjoying the feeling of the breeze and sunshine against their skin as the Mercedes glided gracefully along the streets, the grey, ice-blue and charcoal clapboarded houses becoming more densely packed together as they approached the town centre.

They passed the old movie house, which had the name of the latest film spelled out in retro red letters, cruised past the smartly clipped hedges of the American Hotel and pulled up in the car park opposite a small marina.

‘Can you carry Finn for me and hold Ella’s hand while I get the bags out?’ Ted asked, pulling on the handbrake as she’d seen him do earlier.

Ro unclipped the kids from their seats, hoisting Finn onto her hip and taking Ella’s hand with a wink. They were already allies, it seemed, Ella repeatedly trying to catch her eye in the mirror on the way over. Ro smiled down at her as they walked, her usual reserve banished. Going through the home videos was proving useful here – it was like a crash course in understanding the two children; she had studied them like a student and already she knew their histories, not just their names. But if she had mugged up on their pasts, she knew nothing about their present.

‘Oh dear, where should we go?’ she asked, looking at the rows and rows of jetties, all with dozens of moored boats.

‘Lead on, Ella,’ Ted called behind them. Ro turned and saw him struggling with the bags, grinning away.

Ella led the way down one of the boardwalks. Ro could see the water through the gaps, and she looked from side to side at the mix of boats. Most of them were small-use fishers, along with one or two smarter cruisers for buzzing in the bays.

Ella stopped at a medium-sized sailing boat with a wooden cabin and a cheery yellow hull. What was it with yellow over here? she wondered, as Ted caught them up, bags stuffed under his arms, and one particularly heavy one hanging round his neck.

‘Here, let me help,’ she said, reaching up and unhooking it, making very sure she didn’t brush against him.

‘Do you sail?’ he asked, rifling in his red and navy sailing jacket for a set of keys, his eyes on her all the while.

‘Oh, I think we will count that,’ Ted smiled, crouching down to pull the boat in with the ropes, before springing on board himself. ‘Given that otherwise my crew has a combined age of seven.’

Ro couldn’t help but laugh, passing him the bags one by one, and he passed her back the lifejackets. She put them on the children, while Ted put the engine blowers on and disappeared below deck to run through his checks.

There was a breeze and she shivered, wishing she’d thought to pack a jumper. She had become quickly accustomed to always feeling warm and never needing a cover-up.

‘Do you like sailing?’ she asked Ella, who was sucking her thumb and watching her as she fiddled with getting the straps between Finn’s wriggly legs. Finn was more interested in trying to watch the ducks swimming between the boats.

‘Are you?’ Ro asked, eyes wide. ‘Well, then you’d better keep me straight on this, OK? I don’t have a clue about boats. I hardly know which end is the front and which end is the back.’

Ro looked in astonishment at Finn, who was pointing up at her lest she should be in any doubt he was talking to her.

‘Oh, it was! It really was,’ she nodded, hands on hips, noticing that Ted had stopped halfway up the steps. She kept her eyes away from his. It was in no one’s interest to dredge up that particular incident again.

He jumped up the steps and handed her a navy jumper. ‘For you. You may need it when we get further out. It won’t be a great fit, I’m afraid. It’s one of mine, but it’s all that’s on here.’

‘Oh. Thanks,’ she murmured, the tumble of cashmere sitting like a cloud in her hands. She couldn’t possibly put this on; after the sentimentality of wearing Matt’s clothes for the first month here, how could she possibly just shrug on another man’s clothes as though it would mean nothing?

She draped it casually over one shoulder as Ted hauled on the ropes again, pulling the boat in towards the jetty. He reached out his arms for her to pass Finn and then Ella, holding out his hand for her to grasp as she jumped on last.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured, steadying herself and keeping her eyes safely down, determined not to acknowledge the tingle that came with his touch.

They agreed it would be best if she sat on the bench behind the captain’s wheel, with Finn on her lap and Ella to her right so she could hold on to the side and ‘be the lookout’ for flying fish. They motored gently out of the marina, Ted handling the boat with refined ease, looking back intermittently to check they were all OK. When they were in open water, he cut the engine and moved over to wind power, unravelling the mainsail and jib, and letting them fill and billow, propelling the boat in leisurely tacks across the Sound.

For the second time that morning, Ro tipped her head back and enjoyed the feeling of sun and wind on her skin, vowing to take up sailing the second she got home. Quite where, in the London suburbs, she wasn’t sure, but somewhere. Definitely.

As Ted had predicted, the wind whipped up as they moved further from land, knitting her hair and making her skin goosebump. Several times Ted turned, a quizzical look crossing his face as he saw the jumper lying on the bench beside her. Only after her skin started to take on a blue tint did she reluctantly admit defeat and slip the jumper on, holding her breath as it slid over her head.

‘Are you wearing sunscreen?’ she asked Ella after a while, aware of the heat behind the breeze.

‘Can I put this on them?’ she called out to Ted, who turned to find her holding up a small tube of Nivea sun lotion. She always carried some in her bag. ‘It’s for sensitive skin.’

The mention of Julianne’s name was like a bucket of cold water and she fiddled with the cap, unable to understand its shock value. She knew he was divorced; she knew he was with Julianne. She had spoken to the woman herself just days ago. And – and more than anything else – she was with Matt. And he was a client. And she didn’t trust him. Not a word. Not until she discovered why he was really inveigling his way into Florence’s life.

She rubbed the cream into the children’s podgy pink limbs, smiling as they tipped up their faces for her, all snub noses and rosebud mouths and baby hair sticking to their cheeks. Afterwards, she watched the white sails of the other boats flickering like tissues in the distance, letting Finn fiddle with her bracelets – cheap leather things she’d picked up at the till in Waldbaum’s – as Ella pointed out a pod of dolphins off starboard, Ro more excited than any of them to see them out in the wild. They played ‘I Spy’ and ‘What Am I?’, told their best jokes and tried to guess everyone’s ages. (Ella guessed that she was fifty-four, which was depressing; although she fared better than Ted, whom she guessed at sixty-seven, and who turned out to be thirty-four.)

Ro spent the passage looking left, right, behind and up – anywhere other than directly ahead, determined not to notice the way Ted turned the huge wheel so easily, the way his hair looked as the wind rippled it back off his face, how his back narrowed as his jacket flapped against him. Nope, she didn’t see any of it.

They rounded a point where, according to Ella, ‘the Injuns used to live’ and entered a vast but narrowing inlet with various points, bays and coves. Houses became visible through the trees, a smattering of people on the sparse beaches. There were a few boats moored at small private jetties, masts down, engines cut.

Ted got busy, rolling up the sails again, cutting their speed and switching back to engine power for the final stretch, so that they drew alongside a short ramshackle jetty, almost inch perfect with no bumping at all.

Ro stayed seated with the kids as he jumped off and secured the mooring ropes, Ro’s gaze determinedly out to sea, and then on the water as he held her hand to help her out.

Ella led the charge again now that they were on dry land, her little feet pounding heavily on the wooden slatted planks that had weathered grey long ago. To the right of the jetty was a tiny sandy cove that sloped gently into shallow waters and was fringed with tall birch trees that flanked a wood.

Ro reached for the camera round her neck, automatically positioning herself to take photos of the children as they ran onto the little beach, crouching over something – a crab, Ro thought she heard Ella say – their hands on their short thighs, their heads touching.

‘Is it OK—’ she began, turning to find Ted immediately behind her, carrying the bags again.

‘Yes.’ He was so close, his head tipped down like he was studying her, and as their eyes locked, she felt a gasp of air pulled from her and knew that somewhere, somehow – even though every part of her screamed, ‘No’ – they had crossed a line, a line she had tried to deny but that was as real and invisible as the breeze in the trees. There was a charge between them that made the air crackle and her blood rush. She’d been determined not to acknowledge it – it seemed almost wilfully perverse to admit to an attraction when there was so much about him that repelled her – but for hers and Matt’s sake, she had to now. Hump had been right. This spark, chemistry, whatever it was, was bigger, badder, stronger than even the terrible suspicions she carried in her head about him. And her head wasn’t winning this fight; every moment she spent with him, she felt like she was hurtling inevitably downhill on a luge. She had to get these shots done and go and never turn back.

‘So how do you want to do this?’ she asked. ‘As in, do you have anything particular in mind, or are you happy just for me to observe and gently direct?’ Her words came out in a rush. A panic.

His eyes scanned her face slowly, too slowly, so that it felt almost like a touch. ‘I’m going to let you lead.’

She swallowed, nodding briskly. ‘OK, then. Well, I’ll let them just play and I’ll take my opportunities where I can.’

In spite of various such moments, the day passed quickly. Ted built a small log fire on the beach, cooking up sausages and heating baked beans in the tin, as Ro scampered, lunged and crawled around the children as they played. More often than not, she got drawn into the games too – unable to pass up on making a tunnel for the hermit crab to make its way back to the ocean and pretending to be a donkey for Finn to ride on her back. She even showed them her big foot, Ella waggling her own pudgy toes next to her, which were barely a third of the size of Ro’s. Sporadically she would sit on the sand, scrolling back through the images, her head tilted to one side as she examined the mix of images – close-ups, atmospheric shots, details like sandy toes or a blonde tendril against the blue sky, panoramas of the siblings . . . It was all going well, but then how could it not? They were beautiful children.

She liked the setting here. The cove was tiny, but it was more characterful than the enormous, broad, uniformly white-sand ocean beaches of Long Island’s South Fork. Even the water had that dappled green, lapping lake quality, instead of the anonymous thundering navy-blue surf that had travelled hundreds of thousands of miles to crash upon the shore.

Eventually, though, the children began to flag, worn out from a day of playing in the sun and wind, delighted by their new friend who ‘spoke funny’ and got sand in her swimsuit and had weird tan lines and kept secrets from Daddy. The sun had dropped behind the trees and the first cool of the evening was outstripping the tide.

‘I think maybe we’ve had the best out of them,’ Ro said, as Finn burst into tears because Ella was using his hat as a bucket and filling it with sand.

Finn ran into his father’s arms, jubilant to be saved from himself. Ella walked calmly over to Ro, her arm outstretched, confident that Ro, her ally, would take her hand.

Ro smiled, touched by the compliment, marvelling at how tiny Ella’s hand felt in hers.

‘Uh . . . the boat’s this way,’ she said, pointing towards the conspicuously yellow boat that was moored not fifteen feet away as Ted and Finn walked in the opposite direction into the trees.

‘So it is.’ Ted grinned, amused by her pointing out the obvious. ‘But they don’t want to bathe in there, trust me. It gets way too hot in that cabin.’

‘So where are we going, then?’ Nerves were beginning to rise in her like flames.

‘To our house in the woods,’ Ella said, looking up at her as they stepped over broken branches and a deep leaf layer even this late in the summer. ‘I get to sleep in a cupboard. And the bath is orange.’

Panic joined the cocktail of hormones rushing through her: they had a house here? They were bathing the children here? She remembered the bags. Too many . . .

She closed her eyes and inadvertently squeezed Ella’s hand for comfort. Ella squeezed back. She opened her eyes and looked down to find Ella gazing up at her. ‘Are you feeling sad?’

Ro smiled as they walked through the trees to a clearing where a tiny wooden cabin stood with shutters that had hearts notched out in the middle and a perfectly crooked metal stove pipe poking through the roof.

‘Not technically,’ Ted smiled, Finn in his arms, watching her reaction. ‘Although it’s been promised to us – we spend so much time here. Do you like it?’

‘It’s absolutely darling,’ she murmured, her spare hand wandering up to her camera again. ‘May I?’

‘Of course,’ he said, taking Ella by the hand too now and walking her with him up to the cabin.

Ro began to click as the little family walked away from her in the early evening light, Ella turning back with big eyes to check she was coming too, Finn’s head resting on Ted’s shoulder, his thumb in, his eyes already closed and Boo hanging down his father’s back.

For once, she didn’t need to check the playback screen to confirm the moment. The image was timeless, nostalgic, bucolic – their little family, happy, tired, peaceful . . . But it was bittersweet too, the family incomplete and lopsided. Broken, even. Where was Marina? Why wasn’t she here? What had gone so catastrophically wrong between her and Ted that she was away from her own family? Had she gone back to work after twelve weeks? Was that it? Had she chosen the big career over them? Had she found someone else too? First?

Ro followed after them, instinct telling her she shouldn’t follow them into the gladed shadows. But the sun was setting and the day was done. And what other choice did she have?

She opened the cabin door to find the children already stripped down and running around all but naked, Ted lighting a pre-stacked stove, a pan already filled with milk. In another room, she could hear water running.

The room was reasonably sized, dark (on account of the shutters being closed) and sparsely furnished. To her left, a long Aztec-patterned sofa was positioned with its back to her, and a round table with chairs was set to its right at the back of the cottage, the stove on the right near a small hall and seemingly the only source of heat.

‘Come see my bed. It was my mommy’s when she was little,’ Ella cried, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into a tiny room, just a box room at the end of the short, stubby corridor. There was only a fitted wardrobe and a cot in there. Nothing else.

Ella ran to the far wall and opened the stable-style wooden wardrobe doors. Sure enough, halfway up was a bed atop fitted drawers whose handles doubled as footholds. Ella demonstrated how the bed worked by scampering up and climbing in, pulling the sheets up to her chin and closing her eyes, pretending to sleep. Ro burst out laughing, immediately capturing it all on film.

At the touch, Ella opened one eye and stared at her, her childish eyes filled with a deep aching sorrow that didn’t belong anywhere near a four-year-old. They brimmed with tears that began sliding down her velvet cheeks.

Tears immediately sprang to Ro’s eyes. ‘Oh, of course you do, darling,’ Ro whispered back, feeling her heart break at the sight of this small child’s despair, a rush of anger pulsing through her that she was the one who suffered. ‘It’s only normal to have these feelings.’ She brushed her hand gently down Ella’s hair, smoothing it away from the tear tracks that plastered it to her cheeks.

Ella’s eyes moved suddenly from Ro’s face to something behind her. Ro turned and saw Ted standing beside them, his own face stricken – a look she had seen before. She instinctively stepped back and he reached down, lifting Ella from the bed and wrapping her in his arms.

Ro discreetly left the room, hearing Ella’s sobs grow faster and Ted murmuring to her softly, trying to paper over the fatal crack at the heart of this family.

Out in the hallway, she saw Finn running about, ready for his bath, and she carried him into the copper bath, pushing a small wooden boat for him that looked like it was supposed to be for ornamental use only, her cheek resting on the warm roll-top as he chattered away to her in a half-language she could just about keep up with. The soft hum of voices on the other side of the wall told her Ted and Ella were talking, or reading a story at least, and after twenty minutes or so, she took him out and dressed him in the fresh pyjamas that had been laid out on the floor.

She was pouring the warmed milk from the pan into his beaker when Ted walked back in, looking depleted and harrowed. Finn staggered over to him, overtired now and crying for his milk. Ted sighed wearily, shooting her an apologetic look as he lifted Finn and carried him down to the bedroom too.

Ro watched them disappear, feeling just short of hysterical herself. The cabin was quiet now and growing dark. There didn’t appear to be electricity, so she couldn’t turn the lights on, and after a few moments of standing forlornly in someone else’s sitting room, she stepped outside and sat down on the steps.

With the children already in bed, it was now abundantly clear the family was sleeping here tonight. But what about her? The cabin was tiny, with only two bedrooms, and she didn’t think for one minute Ted would be stupid – or ungallant – enough to assume they’d share. There must be a ferry back to Sag Harbor. But when and where?

She was rifling through her bag for cash – $6.47 in loose change so far – when Ted came out to join her, a bottle of red and two glasses in his hands.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s an ongoing process. Ella is starting to notice that other little girls have mothers, and that hers has gone.’

‘Of course. Anyone would. And she’s only four.’ Not to mention she’s got a glamazon like Julianne as stepmother-in-waiting to contend with, she thought to herself.

‘Actually,’ she said, standing up quickly before he could sit down. ‘I’d better start heading back to catch the ferry.’

Ted looked alarmed and checked his watch. ‘But the last one’s already gone,’ he said, frowning as the misunderstanding became clear. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you realized we were staying for the weekend. It’s a bit too far for a day trip with young kids.’

‘Uh, no, I-I’ve never been here before, so . . .’ she said quietly, wondering what the hell to do now. An overnight stay? Was he kidding?

‘Oh.’ He placed the bottle and glasses on the deck between them. ‘The children are sleeping or I’d sail us all back—’

‘It’s fine. There must be a B&B or something where I can stay, though, right?’

‘Well, I imagine so, but . . .’ He put his hands in his pockets, looking at her with his usual still demeanour. ‘Listen, Ro, everything’s set up here. I assumed you were staying, so I’ve given you the bedroom. I’m more than happy on the couch.’

‘Honestly, I’ve slept on the couch before.’ He gave a rueful smile, but she didn’t find it charming that he should make light of the problems in his failed marriage, especially when the effects of it had clearly been so devastating to his daughter.

‘No, I mean . . . I haven’t packed or—’ She wrapped her arms around her. It was cool in the dusk now and she wished she still had his jumper to put on, but it was packed in the bags in the house somewhere, probably the kids’ room.

‘I’ve got a spare T-shirt and toiletries you can use.’ He took in her closed body language and evasive eye contact. ‘Listen, we’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. It really isn’t a big deal. And we’d all like you to stay.’

She swallowed hard, looking around at the woods surrounding the cabin. She had no idea where the nearest road was – if there even was one – or where the ferry point was, much less finding somewhere else to sleep for the night. She had to face it – she was pretty much stranded. ‘Well, thank you,’ she said reluctantly, ‘but I’ll take the couch.’

‘No, there’s no question of it.’ His tone was firm and it felt ridiculous to argue. And without saying another word, he pulled off the jumper he was wearing and held it out to her. ‘I don’t feel the cold either.’

She smiled, feeling embarrassed and grateful all at once. ‘Thanks . . . again.’

‘So then . . .’ He picked up the bottle and unpeeled the foil, as she pulled the jumper on. It was still warm from his heat, as fresh with his scent as though he’d bathed in it and instinctively her eyes closed as it covered her.

‘Thanks.’ She sat back down on the steps, resting her elbows on her knees as she curled herself into a small ball.

He joined her, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his elbows. They were quiet for a beat.

She glanced across at him. ‘Excellent,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘I think I’ve got some really great material. Although, it would be hard to take a duff shot of either of them. They’re such gorgeous children.’

‘Well, they’re smitten with you. They’ll be asking if we can file adoption papers for you all the way back to the city tomorrow.’ His tone was light, but she kept her gaze on the trees regardless.

‘For now.’ He looked past his toes. ‘It’s not a long-term prospect, though. Manhattan’s no place to bring up kids.’

He looked baffled, then remembered she had seen all their private videos and was intimately acquainted with their home life. ‘Yes. I suppose we . . . Oh God, you saw the clip with the pug,’ he groaned.

He took a deep gulp of his wine. ‘I’m going to drink faster if all my greatest hits are going to be dredged up tonight.’

Dredged. The word had become fixed in her mind with the first video she’d seen of the Connors – her first glimpse of Marina, so beautiful and witty and driven, the two of them on the cusp of change, only hours away from becoming a family . . . She fell silent.

Ted was quiet too, though she sensed their not talking didn’t bother him. She sensed his eyes on her again too, and she stared determinedly at her own feet. It was all she could do.

‘So do you have to stay in New York for your job?’ she mumbled, aware of how pedestrian her conversation seemed. Her social skills weren’t as polished as his – or Julianne’s, or Erin’s, or Marina’s no doubt.

‘Not necessarily. I’m a finance director at an investment bank. I guess I could work anywhere – Zurich, Paris, Singapore, London.’

They lapsed into another small silence that felt big, and Ro felt her heart begin to hammer from the strain of trying to hit an easy note. There was no one to defer to, no one who could interrupt, no Hump or Florence or Melodie for her to hide behind like a little girl behind her mother’s skirts. There wasn’t even a soundtrack of traffic or surf to sink back into, only the resounding silence that pulsed around them like a heat haze, pointing out that they were here and they were alone.

‘You know, it’s strange to think you probably know so much about us – me . . . and yet I know practically nothing about you. It hardly seems fair.’

‘It is a bit weird, I guess. But I’ve had clients say that to me before,’ she said quickly, hoping he’d pick up on her reinforcement of their professional status and take the point. ‘So you’re not alone.’

He recrossed his ankles, angling his body very slightly towards her. ‘For example, I bet none of your other clients has asked you who Matt is.’

The mention of Matt’s name had the same effect on her as Julianne’s earlier – shocking, like a slap – and she recoiled. ‘Matt?’

‘You were calling for him the day you were attacked.’ Images from that afternoon – how he’d picked her up from the floor, stroked her hand as she drifted to sleep – flashed through her mind like memory cards.

He waited a moment, before laughing shortly. ‘You’re determined not to tell me, aren’t you?’

She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She didn’t think this conversation – or where it might be heading – was funny.

‘You just won’t let me know what I’m up against.’ His voice was quiet, but he could have hollered, such was the fright he gave her.

‘Matt’s my boyfriend,’ she said quickly, knowing that would close the conversation down.

His eyes covered her face, though she wouldn’t look at him. She just wouldn’t. ‘Is it serious?’ he asked.

‘Exceptionally.’ She nodded earnestly, making him laugh. And her too. Exceptionally?

‘Oh. Well . . .’ His eyes stayed on her. ‘So then I guess that answers my other question about you and Hump. Whenever I see you together, you’re always laughing and . . . well, he seems to take every opportunity he can to touch you.’

Jealous? He was jealous of Hump? Her heart accelerated at the realization. She looked away, her fingers playing with the stem of the glass. She couldn’t stay here. ‘He’s my friend. Nothing more.’

She took a deep glug of wine. Maybe she could swim back. It would certainly be safer.

‘What about you and Julianne?’ she blurted out, as surprised as he was by her question. ‘Is that serious?’

She smiled, taking the tease on the chin, using it to hide the relief that his words unlocked. ‘Oh.’

He shifted position suddenly. ‘So then . . . where the hell is he? Why is he never around?’ He sounded exasperated, his light tone of moments earlier gone now.

‘He’s travelling for six months in Asia. Back in September. That’s when I return home.’

Another minute passed, both of them locked in their thoughts, the late summer breeze rippling over them in the dying day.

‘So you’re in a serious relationship, about to get engaged and leaving for home in a few weeks,’ he murmured, his eyes on the pale stretch of water that could be glimpsed through the trees. ‘I think I preferred it when I knew nothing about you.’

He was aiming for levity, but the subtext – that he cared about her, that he wanted her . . . She put her glass down on the deck. They couldn’t keep the conversation neutral after this. It was beginning to come out; he was making them acknowledge what couldn’t be – and shouldn’t ever be – recognized. One of them had to do the decent thing and go, while they still could.

‘No, I think sleep’s what my body’s calling for right now.’ Lie. Lie. Lie. It was not calling for that.

‘Really?’ He sounded disappointed, but she kept her eyes well away from his, as usual. ‘OK, well, let me show you to your room.’

‘It’s fine, really. You stay here and enjoy the sunset. I’m sure I’ll find it. How hard can it be, right?’ she joked, looking at the tiny cabin.

‘Still, I’ll turn the lights on for you. They’re oil-fired, so there’s a knack to them.’

Dammit. He curled up his long legs and stood up beside her. For just a moment she felt his nearness, the hairs on her arms standing on end as though trying to reach out to him, but she kept on staring into the bottom of her wine glass until he moved away.

They wandered inside, Ted opening the door onto a small room, maybe only twice the size of the box room, with a double bed in the middle dressed with old lace sheets and painted wooden pegs for hanging up clothes all the way round the walls.

‘It’s so lovely,’ she said quietly, sure she could hear the sound of her own heart pounding and trying to stand as far away from him as she could in the small room.

He walked round to light the wall lamps, and as he came back towards her, she could have sworn the walls were moving inwards, making the small space smaller, pushing them together . . .

And then she remembered something suddenly – the perfect diversion! ‘I’ve got something for you,’ she said, rifling in her camera bag, almost weeping with relief that she had pulled all those crazy hours working over the past week.

‘It’s your film,’ she said, handing over a DVD, scrawled with ‘CONNORS’ in black marker pen. ‘I finished editing it this week. I thought maybe you’d like to look it over sometime and just check it’s what you were after before . . . well, before I get the shoot printed up. Because then we’re pretty much done, so . . .’

‘Oh.’ He took it from her, almost warily, swallowing as he held it in his hands. ‘I’ll get you something to wear,’ he murmured finally, the atmosphere between them different now, as she’d predicted it would be after bringing Marina into the room with them.

‘Thanks.’ She waited. There was just ‘goodnight’ to get through and she’d be home and dry. She took the camera off her neck and kneaded her muscles, which were tired from supporting its weight all day long. She put it on the bedside cabinet, then for good measure decided it would be safer in the drawer – a habit from childhood ever since she’d once knocked her water glass in her sleep and ruined the Kodak she’d bought with her pocket money. She slid open the drawer.

A small oval-framed photograph – sepia-tinted – was lying in there. It was of a young woman and, judging by the clothes she was wearing, had been taken at least forty years ago. The paper had begun to crack with age, but even with the slight overexposure, Ro knew instantly who it was.

‘Here you are,’ Ted said, coming back in with a folded T-shirt and a still-boxed toothbrush. ‘I always keep a spare in the bag in case the—’

‘Why . . . ?’ Ro’s eyes scanned the room, but it gave away nothing. ‘Is this Florence’s house?’

‘Oh, I bet she did!’ Ro crossed her arms across her chest. She remembered his confidence earlier: It’s been promised to us.

Ted looked at her, seemingly confused, and for the first time in the course of the day, she felt the distance between them grow, not contract.

‘Well, she doesn’t refuse anything you suggest, does she? You’ve got her twisted round your little finger. Is this all part of the plan? You want to get your hands on this as well as Grey Mists?’

‘I’m talking about you trying to swindle Florence out of her estate,’ she said, the words bursting out of her with a force that came from transposing one high emotion into another. She watched the new expression bloom in his eyes and felt the distance between them grow further still. ‘I know all about it. I figured it out – you, always there at just the right moment to “help out”, play the good Samaritan in her times of distress.’

‘No? Was it just supposed to be coincidence that you happened to be at the Golden Pear seconds after the attack, or that you just happened to be at the house when she turned on the shower?’ she asked, her voice dripping with a sarcasm that took no account of the horror on his face. ‘And then you use the threat of something happening to her grandchildren to finally force her to sell? What kind of person does that? Who draws children into something like that? You’re a father! Where’s your sense of decency? Of compassion? Does money really matter that much to you?’

He didn’t answer. Ro thought he looked too shocked to reply, but she wasn’t going to fall for his denials. She had resisted the charm offensive; this she could handle with ease.

‘She might be taken in by you, but I’m not. I’m going to the police and to hell with proof. They can investigate you and find out what I already know, because I’ve seen the other side of you, remember? You put on the charm to keep people off the scent – and you’re bloody good at it, I’ll give you that – but I’ve seen your temper and how it makes you behave to people you think have crossed you—’

‘Just stop right there!’ he said sharply, grabbing her by the wrists, the same anger in his eyes that she had seen once before, that day on the beach. A moment passed as he saw the truth of what she really thought about him for the first time and an expression of something closing down crossed his features. He looked down and saw he was holding her and he let go – almost violently – shaking with anger. When he spoke, she almost had to strain to hear.

‘I was at the cafe that day because I had arranged to meet Florence there for lunch; and I was at the house because I was dropping off the children for her; and the reason I cared about what happened to her grandchildren is because they are my children!’

‘Your . . . ?’ Ro echoed, as she suddenly felt a niggle that had lodged in the back of her mind wrest free like an air bubble and rise to the surface. Mine heart . . . Mommy’s bed . . .

‘She’s their grandmother! And she will always be their grandmother. That doesn’t stop just because her daughter’s dead!’

‘Marina’s . . . ?’ Ro felt like she’d been double-punched, a quick one-two manoeuvre, the blood pooling to her feet as shock after shock assailed her. ‘But she never—’

‘What? Talked about it? No! Because she can’t! She can’t make sense of it. None of us can.’ His voice broke and he turned away, his head dropped, his shoulders pinched up to his ears.

He turned back to her, his eyes cold. ‘You’ve clearly thought a lot of things about me.’

‘She killed herself. Five weeks after Finn was born. Puerperal psychosis, it’s called, a severe form of postnatal depression. Walked out in front of a truck.’

Ro’s hands slapped across her mouth, tears streaming instantly down her cheeks at the true, unthinkable horror of what had really happened to his family, so much worse than she could ever have imagined. The despair in Ella’s eyes mirrored in the husband’s now standing before her.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she wept, her voice cracked and hoarse. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I thought—’

‘Save it.’ He stared back at her with a contempt she found devastating. ‘I’m really not interested in what you think. Not anymore . . . I want you out of here first thing.’

And he walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him – so as not to wake the kids.

Ro clutched the pillow, burrowing her face in it as another sob hiccupped through her. How could she have been so wrong? How could she have thrown those conspiracies and slanders at him when he’d already been through so much?

She had been in bed for hours now and she wasn’t even close to sleeping. She had lain on top of the sheets, listening to him moving about in the living room, too ashamed to try to apologize, to try to explain that she’d had Florence’s best interests at heart, to let him know that she’d thrown all those words at him wanting to push him away, terrified by the feelings he aroused in her. Even when she’d thought the very, very worst of him, she’d still wanted him. It had been easier to believe the worst in him than confront the worst in her.

She pushed the T-shirt back up to her face, smelling it, smelling him, a scent she remembered from that first day on the beach when he’d held her in the ocean and she’d twisted into him, trying to protect her camera – something in her, then, had known, had understood the chemistry and told her to keep back, keep away from him, keep pushing back. Don’t let him close. Don’t let him in. He’s dangerous and to be seen as such . . .

She sat up suddenly, something else dislodging in her mind from that first day on the beach. The photos. She scrunched her eyes shut . . . The children – they’d been throwing something in the water. What was it? What was it?

Her thoughts slowed down, clarity shining on her like a sunbeam. She had arrived at the end of May. Finn had been born on 18 April. Five weeks earlier.

Oh no. No. It had been the third anniversary of Marina’s death and . . . and she’d just casually photographed them, ‘a pretty scene’, intruded in the most private of all ceremonies.

She threw off the covers. She had to tell him. Before she left for the last time, she had to tell him how sorry she was, that she understood now, everything. He was the man she’d feared most after all, the man she’d seen in the home videos and in her dreams and in her subconscious when she’d tried to find Matt. He was the man she’d hoped he wouldn’t be – because then she’d risk everything.

He would freeze her out, she already knew that, but she had to say the words anyway. Because she had to live with this night – the things she’d said and what they’d have done.

She opened the door, peering out into the small, dark hall. The children’s door was shut. Holding her breath, she tiptoed through to the main room. It was dark, but she could hear voices, see a dim glow coming from the other side of the sofa.

She advanced slowly, scared even to breathe, trying to find the words to put this right when she knew there were none. It was done.

A portable DVD player was sitting on a small stool; Ro saw the footage of Marina breastfeeding Ella, knew it would splice into the segment with her with the cabbage leaf and her joke about gratitude to goulash . . . She looked at Marina moving, laughing – so beautiful, so witty, so independent. A woman Ro could never hope to be. How could she be gone?

Ted was lying on his side, his body rigid, one hand pinched over his face as he paused the footage with the other, unable to keep watching. Hesitantly, she took a step closer, a floorboard creaking beneath her weight, and he sat upright in a sudden, fierce movement, his face turned up to hers. Before she could stop herself, though words wouldn’t come, her hand was on his cheek, trying to wipe away the tears that had fallen tonight and so many others before. His eyes took her in – her regret, her sadness, her longing, her here in his T-shirt – and in the next moment, he had pulled her down to him, his mouth on hers finally. Finally.

She gasped for air, for a moment’s clarity, pushing herself up so that she straddled him. Their eyes locked and she knew this was it – the final moment, the one before no return, the one she had been both dreading and waiting for since her first ten minutes here. And then she pulled his T-shirt over her head and tipped her head back, groaning as she felt his mouth on her breasts. She closed her eyes, knowing she was walking off the cliff, but she let go anyway . . . and realized she could fly.

Chapter Thirty