Hannah flung herself out of the house, striding down the lane as if she knew where she was going. She didn’t, but just needed to get as far away as possible from the tears and recriminations.
The late afternoon sun hit her exposed shoulders, tingling against the unprotected skin. Right now, it wasn’t unpleasant, but she knew it would soon start to itch and burn.
She walked briskly, breathless in the heat, knowing that the faster she went, the less chance she had to think about what she was leaving behind. But the tears kept pooling in the corners of her eyes and as soon as she brushed them away, more took their place. Pretty soon they were blurring her vision and dripping down her cheeks, turning the hedgerows on either side into smears of green.
When she came to the end of the lane she turned left, towards St Julian de Vigny. After a mile or so she came to another small crossroads and continued on. It seemed so much further on foot than it had in the car.
The scene played out in her mind, over and over again, like a film reel on repeat. The misery on Lizzie’s face, the anger on Marcus’s. Hannah had briefly felt a strange sense of power, while she stood shouting at some of the people she loved the most; it was cathartic, a momentous release of energy. So many things that had been unsaid for such a long time, were finally getting an airing. But the feeling hadn’t lasted. Even while she screamed at Marcus, she’d felt her stomach twisting, her guts dropping away. Now there was just overwhelming shame and disbelief. Her disgust at herself was so strong she almost felt physically sick. What the hell had she been thinking?
She had left Lizzie sitting by the pool, with Suzy on another lounger a few feet away, their backs turned to each other, the distance between them immense. Marcus had disappeared into the house and Nick and Alice were sitting on chairs on the patio. They hadn’t looked up as she went past.
When she got to St Julien de Vigny, she walked through the town and out the other side, turning down a narrow, overgrown lane beyond it. She passed farms and little hamlets, some so small there wasn’t even a sign telling passers-by what they were called. Possibly no one had ever got round to giving them a name.
Hannah wasn’t wearing a watch, so had no idea how long she’d been walking. The sun was only just dipping towards the horizon so it was probably no more than an hour. But her legs were aching and the blood was pounding through her head, stabbing at the back of her eyes.
She kept thinking about Jimmy. What had happened to him? He must have slipped away while they were all standing screaming at each other. They should never have got so carried away in front of him. He’d watched his family turn in on itself, hurling personal insults and accusations, his parents angrier at each other than he’d ever seen them, virtually spewing hatred. Hannah couldn’t believe she hadn’t even gone to make sure he was all right. She was an appalling mother; a selfish, thoughtless, terrible mother.
As the row played over and over in her head, she kept wondering whether there had been a point when she could have stopped, pulled back from what was happening. There had been several. As she stood ranting at Marcus, then at Nick, she had known she could and should back down. Why had she ploughed on and on?
It was all unforgiveable.
In some ways it felt like that woman who’d been standing screaming at the people she loved, was a stranger. Hannah knew she could be intolerant and short-tempered, but back there she’d been wild. Her behaviour had been out of control, manic. Over the last few months, well-meaning friends had sympathised – firstly over the death of her mother, then over Nick’s accident – and told her how well she was coping, despite how stressful she must be finding it all. She’d shrugged it off. ‘I’m fine. I’m not stressed! Life just sometimes throws you a curve ball.’
But she’d been lying. She’d been desperate to show the outside world how well she was coping, but the stress had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced before and, even as she put on a magnificent public show of holding everything together, deep inside, something felt like it was about to break.
She’d frequently had palpitations, she felt short of breath, her hands shook and her head sometimes ached so badly it was like someone was stabbing at her temples with a knife. For many months now, she had felt as if she was balancing on a high ledge, and it was taking every last little bit of self-restraint and exertion to stop herself toppling over the edge and falling down, down, down, into goodness knows what. Then finally, this afternoon, she had stepped off that ledge.
She was walking more slowly now, exhausted by the heat and the effort. Up ahead on the right was a large house, set back from the road, its stonework repointed and shutters repainted, the drive full of shiny rental cars. The sound of holidaying families wafted around from the back garden: the screams and splashes of children in a swimming pool, the laughter of adults enjoying an early evening drink, relaxing after another day of companionable holiday lethargy.
As Hannah went past, the sounds faded behind her, the buoyant good spirits of strangers leaving her intolerably lonely.
The lane widened slightly and she came to a junction, on the other side of which were the outskirts of another town. The road leading into it was guarded by a sentinel of plane trees, arcing up into the sky. The sun had now almost set and she suddenly realised how dark it had become: orange and purple shadows lying across the fields that stretched out on either side.
This was madness – she didn’t even know where she was, let alone how far she’d walked. She turned around, panic bubbling up in her chest, and began to run back the way she’d come. The fields on either side didn’t look as beautiful now darkness was falling; instead of wide open, hazy vistas there were gloomy patches and the black outlines of unidentifiable shapes.
She didn’t run for long: she was too unfit to keep it up and the flip-flops on her feet kept sliding off. She staggered to a halt, bending over to catch her breath, before starting up again, this time at a fast walk, ignoring her aching calves. She went past the big holiday house again; now she could see lights on at the back, shining onto the pool, the sound of music playing.
A car came along the lane behind her and slowed as it went past. It had a British numberplate and the occupants stared out of the side windows with suspicion at the middle-aged woman who was hobbling down darkening lanes on her own, not wearing proper shoes or carrying a torch. As soon as it had accelerated away, she wished she’d flagged it down and begged for a lift back to St Julien de Vigny.
Oh, Nick. She so badly wanted him beside her now.
The soles of her feet were blistered, each step agony. The straps of the plastic flip-flips were now cutting painfully into the sides of her toes, and when she stopped and reached down, she realised her skin was covered in blood. She kicked off the flip-flops angrily, picking them up and walking on, barefoot. Bloody things; why hadn’t she worn something she could walk in? That would have involved forethought though. This idiotic hike through unfamiliar countryside at night hadn’t happened as the result of clear-headed planning. It had been a spur of the moment reaction, prompted by misery and anger. Now there was remorse too. She deserved blisters; she deserved to feel the stabbing pain of stones digging into the arches of her feet as she hobbled on.
She started to cry again, flinging the flip-flops over the hedge into a field, and hearing a scuffle as they landed close enough to terrify a small animal nearby. Up ahead she could see the outskirts of St Julien de Vigny, houses silhouetted against the darkening sky, a street lamp throwing an orange blanket of light onto the ground beneath it. Thank God. There were more cars now, and other people. She passed some teenagers sitting on a wall to the left, and up ahead was a bar, its occupants spilling out onto the pavement.
The town smelt of summer; of hot, airless days and heady, scented evenings. It was beautiful and calm, a pleasure to pass through, a joy to stay in. Yet, tainted now. There was obviously the body; an unexplained death in an isolated swimming pool. It was no surprise this was the main topic of conversation in every bar and café: entertainment of the highest order for residents and tourists alike.
But it wasn’t just the body that had ruined this holiday. She had ruined it.
Hannah stopped walking. She was in the market square at the centre of the town, its impressive fountain surrounded by cobbles that fed out and away down side streets and alleys.
Why had this lovely place been such a catalyst? She collapsed onto the low wall around the fountain as a pair of cats shrieked at each other, hissing before flashing past and disappearing into the shadows on the other side of the square.
On the night they arrived, Hannah remembered how furious she’d been, listening to Marcus as they sat around the patio table: his flippant toast to Jean and the way he’d speculated about her motives for gathering them there. He’d had a point; they’d all wondered what she’d been hoping to achieve by throwing them together on this holiday. But she and Lizzie had decided there was no great mystery about it; their mother just wanted to impart a little peace, love and understanding from beyond the grave. She knew her daughters – always chalk and cheese – weren’t close, but she must have hoped that spending some time together would bring them closer, help them learn more about each other’s lives. Jean certainly wouldn’t have anticipated the emotional fallout that had ensued and her motive had been admirable. It wasn’t her fault this holiday had gone so badly wrong.
Something was playing around at the back of Hannah’s mind: an issue she needed to follow up. It was something Marcus had said. Yet again, she ran through their earlier slanging match beside the pool, but it was all too intense and raw. The cruel words they had yelled at each other became jumbled, and she couldn’t remember the specific sentence she was after. She could see his outraged face in front of her, hear her own voice screaming.
It was Jean, though; definitely something about Jean.
What was it he’d said?
She started walking again, passing through the streets as quickly as she could, ignoring the curiosity of passers-by, the glances cast at her bare feet. By the time she got back to their lane it was dark, the moon just picking out the shapes of the hedgerows rising on either side.
She must apologise to them all: to her husband for being unsupportive and cruel; to her sister for upsetting her so much; to the children for causing such a scene. To Marcus as well – although that would be more difficult. She didn’t feel as guilty about Marcus. How could she apologise for the fact that she couldn’t stand him? But she was missing the point; she had ruined this holiday and he deserved an apology as much as everyone else.
But, as she walked up the gravel drive, she saw the lights were out, and when she went round the back and pushed open the French doors, the kitchen was empty. Upstairs, Lizzie and Marcus’s bedroom door was firmly closed, and peering through the girls’ door she saw they were asleep, their backs turned to each other in their single beds.
Stepping into her own room she was surprised to find it empty. Where was Nick? For a moment she wondered if he’d left, gone home without her. Maybe he’d packed up and called a taxi to take him to the airport. But when she tiptoed into the bedroom at the far end of the corridor, she found him in with Jimmy, a dark lump under the bedclothes beside the little boy, whose arms were thrown out to either side in sleep. She sensed Nick was still awake but he didn’t reply when she whispered his name.
Her head was pounding and she needed water. She went downstairs again and stood at the kitchen sink, letting the tap run until the water was chilled, then filling a glass and drinking it greedily.
She noticed a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Marcus standing by the open French doors. He was holding an empty wine glass and looked tired.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked.
‘Just walking.’
‘We were worried about you. When it started to get dark, Nick and I drove around to see if we could find you.’ His eyes fell to her feet. ‘God, are you all right? You’re covered in blood.’
She looked down and saw the streaks of scarlet mixed with dust and dirt. ‘It’s just blisters. I got them from my flip-flops. It looks worse than it is. My own stupid fault.’
He came into the kitchen and pulled the French doors shut behind him. ‘Well, so long as you’re okay. Everyone has gone to bed, I’m afraid, we were all exhausted after what happened earlier.’
It suddenly came to her, the words he’d said. ‘Marcus, what did you mean about Derek?’
He turned to face her. ‘What about him?’
‘You said Mum didn’t want me to know something about him. You said she was worried I’d blame her.’
He sighed and ran one hand through his hair, moving towards the table. ‘We don’t need to do this, Hannah. Let’s just leave it, shall we? I said some things I shouldn’t have earlier; so did you. I think we’ve done enough damage.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ she persisted. ‘There was something she’d done that I didn’t know about.’
He stared at her in silence.
‘How come she told you, but not me? Does Lizzie know? Is it a secret the two of you have known about, but kept from me? If there’s anything that…’
‘All right.’ He slumped onto the bench. ‘Enough! I’ll tell you. God, you’re like a dog with a bone. I’m sorry, Hannah, I shouldn’t have said anything about this. In my defence, you made me so angry earlier that I didn’t think about what I was saying – I was just yelling back at you and coming out with whatever came into my head.’
‘And…?’
‘It was about when Derek left.’
Hannah sat down on the bench opposite him. She could feel her heart thrusting forwards against her ribs.
‘It wasn’t his choice to go,’ said Marcus, looking down at his hands, clasped together on the table. ‘Jean found out he was having an affair, and she kicked him out. He said he’d finish it – in fact he did end it, straight away. But Jean told him to leave anyway. Apparently, he begged her to change her mind over the next few months. Time after time. He was devastated about the harm he’d done, the fact that he might lose his two girls. But she refused to take him back. She told him she’d stop him having any contact with you or Lizzie.’