A lone seagull was wheeling around in the cloudless sky, swooping and diving gracefully like an accomplished pilot at an air show. Natalia Dangerfield squinted up at it idly, lazing in the baking sun and thinking of not very much. The heat was blissfully mind-numbing.
Natalia was fair-skinned and had to be careful about the sun, but had faith in factor 30 and stretched back luxuriously, lifting her arms over her head to the solid wood frame of the lounger. That was the thing about a villa like this: the sunbeds were good and sturdy with smart navy mattresses and no plastic in sight. It was a crazy rent, but her mother and stepfather, William, were paying – and they had gone home a few days early to be out of the way. Hugo had soon relaxed about piggybacking off his in-laws on their annual Algarve holiday.
It had worked out fine too, with masses of family the first week, grandparents on hand, and no major rows to speak of, which was rare. Nattie’s mother and William loved to fight; it was a game to them, instinctive and fun, however hard that was for anyone in earshot to believe.
Hugo was still in the pool with Lily, their four-year-old daughter. He’d been patiently walking the widths with his hand under her tummy for ages, calling out instructions, doing his fatherly best. ‘Frog’s legs, Lily, it propels you forward, and don’t forget the arms, no doggy-paddle now!’ He was convinced she was almost there and could do without armbands, but Nattie wasn’t having that. They’d taken a lot of choosing, those armbands, while she expired in a pricy little beachside store, jiggling Tubsy on her hip, trying to stop him pulling kiddies’ sunhats off a stand, until the pink-kite armbands won out over the ones with yellow butterflies.
The pool was a good size, even by Quinta do Lago standards, with royal azure tiles that turned the water an astonishing reflected blue. A wiry young guy in a sweaty khaki singlet had appeared a few times to set a mini-Henry-the-Hoover-style pool-cleaner going that putt-putted around being a menace, with its long snaking hose ambushing any peaceful swim. His shorts doubled up as an oil rag when he cut the grass and his jet-black hair hung in clumps over his eyes. It was a job to wring a smile out of him. Was it resentment at the scale of the properties he tended? Some in Quinta do Lago were simply vast.
Nattie liked the garden, the Maritime pines that screened the next-door properties and the nasturtiums climbing the wooden fencing, prettily filling in gaps. She could smell the lavender and she enjoyed the sexy red hibiscus bushes that lifted dull corners, and the oleander in well-aged terracotta pots. The villa’s owners, she decided, must be frequent visitors.
The novel that she planned to review lay face down on the spiky grass and she eyed a large black ant scurrying across its splayed covers. With tomorrow the last full day of the holiday she sensed the beginning of the wind-up, her mind on work. Nattie edited the book pages of a monthly magazine called Girl Talk, and her Out of Office message hadn’t been entirely effective at keeping emails at bay. Her PA had been in touch. Nattie had wanted to interview a young Pakistani debut writer, Sadia Umar, for the magazine, and the publishers had called to say that was fine, but it had to take place on Nattie’s first day back at work.
It was good news in one sense. Sadia Umar had written a powerful novel, and she’d be interesting to talk to, but just seeing her name in the PA’s email had darkened Nattie’s mood. She felt unnerved. Names spoke. They marked people out. They caused preconceptions, prejudice, erected barriers, even caused wars. Sadia’s name was a small raincloud in a clear sky, a cloud heavy with past reminders and bringing treacherous thoughts.
Her own name, if she allowed it to, could be just as unsettling. Not Nattie; she liked that, she was only ever Natalia on official forms and the screen at the doctor’s surgery. It was her married name, Dangerfield, that in low guilty moments caused her secret distress.
It had nothing to do with presumptions about background and lifestyle, it was the memories that could surface simply by hearing herself called by her married name. At home in London, busy and preoccupied, the anguish of the past stayed buried, but in moments of uncluttered thinking time it could rise from the depths like a drowned body. Nattie had never known what had happened to the man she loved. She couldn’t let go; there’d been no closure and even seven years on she still ached and pined, wondering and fearing the worst. She held on to the love, it lived in her body, she kept it deep in her heart, but not knowing meant not being able to grieve, that was the cruelty of it; hanging on to fading hope.
She forced her mind back to the present, determined to banish the shadows. The sun felt sublime, although she’d have to stir herself soon. Tubsy still needed his afternoon nap, yet it didn’t do to let him sleep on. He was fifteen months old and had just taken his first faltering steps. His grandmother had clapped him madly and Tubsy, clapping himself too, with his chubby cheeky grin, had promptly fallen backwards onto his well-padded bottom with a look of comic surprise.
‘Hey, how’re you doing?’ Hugo splashed a few drops of water her way. ‘I thought you were coming in? Aren’t you burnt to a frazzle out there? Lily’s been doing brilliantly, really swimming now.’
‘Clever girl!’ Nattie called, smiling and sitting up straighter, exaggerating the shivers as Hugo splashed her some more.
‘We’re just getting out so you’ve missed your chance to see the progress. I think the armbands aren’t helping,’ he added annoyingly. ‘They’re just in the way.’
‘Can’t I have one try without them, Daddy? Just one?’
‘Sorry, Lily, it’s time to get out. High time.’
‘Shall I come and take over?’ Nattie suggested half-heartedly.
Hugo shook his head and blew her a kiss. ‘Don’t you move a muscle. You look like an ad for Algarve holiday villas, lounging there in that white bikini, one knee raised. I’m enjoying you.’ He lifted Lily out of the water and swung himself up onto the ledge. ‘Chuck me that towel, though, can you, darling?’
‘Lily, love, you’ve got goosies, you’ve been in that long,’ Nattie said, throwing over the bulky orange beach towel that they needn’t have brought; the villa was well stocked. ‘You must dry yourself really well.’
Hugo squatted and gave Lily a good rub, wrapping the towel round her shoulders. ‘Maybe we’ll try without them tomorrow, honeybun,’ he said vaguely. Then he rose from his haunches and stood staring down, his mind elsewhere.
His swimmers had slipped below the cleft and were suctioned wetly against him. He had neat, tight buttocks, straight legs with a good covering of male fair hair. Nattie gazed at him admiringly. You couldn’t ignore Hugo’s body. Girls stared after him on the beach; chic women eyed him up in his faded old shorts, pushing the baby buggy around the resort. He never noticed. If she teased him about it he’d look embarrassed and say painfully that he never looked further than her – and not even in a hamming-it-up way, just being dreadfully hammy.
Hugo had no self-awareness. He was in public relations and as unlike his smoothly assured colleagues as a monk from a megastar. He was a real one-off, humble, kind, understated in all but his masculinity.
Nattie sighed, her thoughts turning wistfully to afternoon siestas. She’d soon be back juggling mothering, nursery-school runs and meetings at work; the months up to Christmas were always such a hectic time. No siestas with Lily to entertain.
She sighed again and realised, feeling slightly caught out, that Hugo had turned and was studying her.
‘I’ll go and do that bit of shopping now,’ he said, ‘and we need more wine, we’re right out.’
‘Don’t go too mad, it’s only two more nights. The list’s on the kitchen table.’
‘Can’t I come with you, Daddy?’ Lily stumbled over the towel, going to hang on to his hand. ‘I’m a good little shopper. You said!’ She was tiny beside him in her Peppa Pig cossie, still shivering.
‘But none of those gobstoppers or you won’t eat your tea.’ Nattie swung down her legs and felt for her flip-flops. ‘Come on, let’s get you dressed.’
‘You stay right there.’ Hugo leaned over to give her a kiss. ‘I’m on the case.’
‘Yes, you stay right there, Mummy,’ Lily parroted. ‘I can dress myself perfectly well.’ She was getting far too precocious for her own good.
‘Prekoshus means advanced for my years,’ she’d informed them. ‘Granny said.’
‘No, it means getting a bit above yourself,’ Hugo had told her with a firm look.
Lily had even come home from school one day saying she wanted to be a ‘pallyotogist’ when she grew up. ‘And find lots of dinosaurs’ bones!’
‘Off we go then, Lily love,’ Hugo said, ‘and as quiet as dormice indoors, remember. Thomas is still asleep.’
Nattie watched them pick their way over the spongy, spiky grass. Thomas was Tubsy to everyone in the family, but not Hugo. He was a pompous old stick, she thought fondly, a proper old conformist now. It was nothing short of a miracle. Solid, successful, a loving father, as settled as can be . . . Wasn’t he?
The past reared up again. It was a quagmire; it kept her trapped, stuck fast, the memories were inescapable. Was Hugo really free of his demons? Could he ever slip back? It was in her power to see that he didn’t, but there was always the hopeless ache of longing . . . And Hugo knew.
They’d met when Nattie was sixteen, at a party given by one of her friends with older brothers. Hugo had been nineteen – a shy, respectable young man, just off to university. He’d had a safe country childhood, his father an Oxford architect, his mother also working in the firm. Nattie’s mother, Victoria, had been all for Hugo. She’d thought him charming and good-looking, just right for her daughter, a young man from a similar background whom she could trust.
Hugo never pushed himself forward and he’d been sensitive to Nattie’s teenage troubles. She’d had a bad experience and hardly said a word to him the next time they’d met, too withdrawn even to look at him.
A boy from school had forced sex on her. She hadn’t let her mother report it or take any action, feeling she’d brought it on herself, but it had left her disillusioned and on her guard. Hugo had kept his distance and gradually earned her trust with his gentleness and understanding. She’d known he cared. Nattie smiled to herself. He’d always been constant, never lost faith – and to think of all they’d been through . . .
In those early days their relationship had been easy and uncomplicated. Her envious friends had said how well suited they were. That was until Shelby Tait, with his jet-black hair and electric-blue eyes, had come along. Shelby was a sexy, glamorous, no-good shit, impossible to resist. He had been at Durham, Nattie’s university – not at the same time, he was three years older and had dropped out after a year – but his silky charm and numerous conquests had ensured he’d had many invitations back onto campus.
He’d spotted her at a college disco and swooped like a hawk, predatory and deadly. She’d been easy prey. She’d known he was bad news, but had ditched Hugo for him all the same. Nattie could remember her mother’s sorrowful brown eyes, unspoken acknowledgement that any relationship a parent encouraged was bound to be doomed.
Shelby had sucked up to Hugo, got the measure of him and seized on his insecurities. He’d been into dealing and had started to supply Hugo, just a bit of weed at first before slyly tempting him to try more toxic highs. Nattie had been far too distracted by his insidious appeal to see what was happening. Shelby had hooked in Hugo and walked away with his girl.
No sound from the baby monitor and Hugo was still around anyway. Nattie felt free to have a swim. She did a few fast lengths, feeling a bit guilty. It was time to go in. Tubsy could work himself up into a lather so quickly.
She climbed out of the pool and allowed herself a few more minutes, stretching out again while the sun dried her fast. Tubsy was always crotchety after sleeping too long, but she was lost to the many thoughts in her head . . . and the memories were powerful.
The break-up with Shelby – never much of a thing anyway, red roses and dinners, excuses and no-shows – came after she’d fallen in love elsewhere. Shelby’s jealousy had been pernicious, but she’d been too much in love to care. She clung to the love even now, despite all the dramas, loss and heartache, marrying Hugo in her despair . . .
Images of Hugo of seven years ago swam into her mind. Vivid images – she shivered in the heat of the sun. She could still see the syringes and used crack-pipes, sometimes improvised out of broken glass and tin foil, the evidence there in his flat, undisposed of. She would find him on his knees at times, scrabbling round for any miserable speck of crack, any fragment to rekindle the shadow of a high, a desperate attempt at recycling. She’d seen him wash out a used pipe, trying to set light to the rinse liquid for a pathetic last gasp.
Nattie had sometimes arrived only minutes after his crack experience, which he once described as like a golden light shooting up into his brain, his heart, coursing through every vein in his body. It was an orgasm on the moon, he’d said, indescribable joy. That was before the plummeting down, the paranoid panic, which she’d witnessed too often at first hand. She remembered Hugo whimpering, showing the whites of his petrified eyes, swearing he could hear voices, feel cats’ claws, and that the devil people were coming to take him away.
She could still recall the sense of hopelessness, letting herself into his Hammersmith flat; still smell the sweet sickly stench, the mould in his fridge, the unwashed sheets; still see the empty bottles, ruined designer jackets and jeans. She’d felt revulsion and had to resist a burning urge to back right out of the door.
Once when his parents were coming to London, she’d cleaned up his flat in a frenzy and stayed till the last minute, determined to get him through. Showers helped to distract him. His body was so raw, Hugo said, that the water had felt like the Victoria Falls raining down, while the force and sensation helped to blot out his mind. Nattie had given him a Valium and urged him to tell his parents that he had a stomach bug and was feeling below par.
Had his parents known? Hugo thought not, but Nattie suspected they’d had some idea. Unless perhaps, she wondered, that to imagine their son a crack-heroin addict had been a step too far. Nattie had been anxious to keep Hugo’s condition dark for reasons of her own, not least because her mother had been Home Secretary at the time and the press would have had a field day.
She had lived through it all, the detox, the rehab, pleading, begging him to find the will. It was only when helping Hugo to get clean that she realised the depth of his feelings for her and in her heart she felt a deep sense of responsibility.
He’d hung on to his job with the prestigious public relations firm, Tyler Consulting, by his fingernails, the grace of God and the chairman. It had been an immense relief to Hugo, never having to tell his parents that he’d lost his job.
He had been junior in the firm, expendable, and the moment had come when his haggard looks, lateness and unexplained absences could be tolerated no longer. Other guys were coke-heads, but they handled it. His line manager’s ultimatum had been curt. ‘Shape up or you’re out.’
Would Hugo have made it through without the enormous generosity of the chairman of the firm, Brady Tyler?
Hugo had told Nattie every word of that pivotal meeting. Brady, who must have seen it all before, had obviously a soft spot for him. He still did. It was Hugo’s extraordinary good luck that his chairman had been prepared to give him a second chance. Brady had told him, after a meeting that was clearly seared on Hugo’s mind for life, to take a six-month paid sabbatical, sort it, and report back for work.
Clients appreciated his reticence, Brady had told Nattie at one of the client events that were now part of her life. They liked Hugo’s self-effacing temperament, his reliability and quiet intelligence.
When she’d relayed that back to Hugo he’d guffawed, but at the time of the meeting he’d been on his knees. ‘What I owe Brady, Nattie! I mean, he was just a-mazing, a fucking saint no less. Anyone else would have kicked me out on my arse, all the way down from the seventh-floor window. But Christ, what an interrogation. Brady had looked so remote behind that vast glass desk of his – it’s like some Tate Modern sculpture, three great cubes, grey, black and white – and the office is all glass and white leather. He’d started on about how only I could do it, how I had to want to be helped and prove I had it in me.
‘He even talked about you,’ Hugo confessed, looking sheepish, ‘he prodded that deep. He droned on and on about putting his faith in me . . . God, it was hard. I was screaming for a hit.’
‘But you did it,’ she said. ‘Brady’s faith wasn’t misplaced.’
Nattie leaned over the cot – provided by the rental agency – whose acid-drop yellow hideousness caused her to wonder; the pink and blue dancing teddies covered both bases at least. Tubsy was stirring, grizzling, drawing up his knees, raising his bottom high into the air; his buttery curls were damp and plastered close to his head. ‘Time to wake up, little love,’ she murmured.
He was heavy with sleep as she lifted him out, lighter when cuddled, hot and sweaty, smelling of cot bedding, his baby self and a very wet nappy. Her heart swelled. Was any woman luckier? Two beautiful children and a husband – who could turn heads – who truly loved her. A job she enjoyed, cool, fun friends, Hugo’s friends too. She had a good home, a full life, so much to be grateful for . . .
‘My precious little Tubs,’ she whispered, settling him on the changing mat.
He was wide-awake now, saying, ‘Dad, dad, dad . . .’ with a smiley grin.
‘Mum, mum, mum,’ she said, smiling too, ‘and Dad, dad, dad. Daddy and Lily will be back soon, we’d better go down and make tea.’