6

They both stood in the backyard, bundled up against the chill as Susanna fed the fire. She caught herself casting sidelong glances at the other woman, mentally checking off all the things a lifetime of denial gave her cause to find distasteful. Aside from Dave, they had precious little in common. Felicity lived in London, in a cottage near Camden Town, and spent her days working as a freelance journalist. It was generic fluff that she produced; interviews with B-list celebrities, beauty product reviews and articles like How to Please Your Man in Bed. She was aware of her own journalistic shortcomings and admitted to using what she referred to as her ‘feminine wiles’ to get ahead, to get a better interview from her subjects.

“Is that what you did with Dave while we were married?” Susanna asked. “Use your feminine wiles?”

“At first I suppose,” Felicity said. She hadn’t stopped glancing behind her since she’d arrived. She looked out of place standing ankle deep in leaves in a grey backyard. “But then we went out and I realised how much I liked him. I didn’t realise he was married then. Really I didn’t. And I genuinely liked him.” She smiled. “He was sweet. He was attentive. He didn’t just want to go to bed with me.”

“He did,” Susanna said. “He was just being patient. Some men can wait until after dinner before they get their leg over.”

Felicity glanced at her sadly then looked away. It made Susanna feel unkind finally. It served no real purpose being angry with this woman. What was done was done. Dave was dead and that was that.

“I didn’t realise that he’d react the way he did to the drugs,” Felicity said. “He seemed so po-faced about it and I’d gotten so blasé about coke that it felt like a challenge. And it was just a bit of fun. It made the sex better.”

“What happened to him?” Susanna said. “After the LSD and the mandrake?”

Felicity kicked at the leaves, pushed her hands into her hair and paced around the fire. “He had a bad experience on the acid. If you go into it with a bad mental state, then your mind will find a way to fuck with you. And it did. He got obsessed with what he’d seen while he was tripping and then he got something into his head about the mandrake and the folklore.”

“And then he lost interest in you.” Susanna felt uncharitable saying it, but she said it anyway.

“Oh, he never really had any interest in me anyway,” Felicity said. “He was always at a remove. He said he hadn’t dealt with all of that business five years ago properly. He talked about you quite often. He had regrets about how he’d treated you. I do too, for what it’s worth. He mentioned the name Millie a lot.”

Susanna nodded. She tossed the last of the wood on the fire. “He never told you the first time around? Why he was with you and not me? Why everything was fucked up in our lives?”

“No,” Felicity said. “He never did.”

Susanna sighed.

“The last time I turned up here, the place was lit up,” Felicity said. “All of the lights on. He was locked in his study. He was absolutely bloody terrified. He said he’d made something. He wasn’t certain that it was a mistake at that point. But it was. It wasn’t what he wanted.”

“What did he think he wanted?” Susanna said. Her voice had grown shrill.

“He told me he’d wanted to control the aspect of his life that he hadn’t been able to control. He thought that he could rectify the past somehow. But when he decided he couldn’t, and that he didn’t want what it was, he couldn’t be rid of it. It was just one more mistake. It didn’t go away. It couldn’t.”

“So what is it?” Susanna asked.

Felicity stopped and stared at the disturbed earth. “Tell me who Millie was first.”