In the living room, Hector is talking about the snowfall last winter, telling the story again of how we were snowed in all over Christmas. Kylan is laughing along with him. I remember how keen he was to return to college as soon as the festivities were over: the snow frustrated his journey. He had to stay in the house for days, playing chess with his father and watching the fire burn away. He was irritable, forever checking the weather forecast. I suppose he must have forgotten.
‘My parents have invited Kylan to stay for Christmas this year,’ Katya says, glancing at Kylan. She glows in the light from the fireplace, her hair a shimmering mass of white gold. I clench my fists at my side. As she smiles, it is the other girl I see, smiling up at Kylan, talking to Hector. She is here, in this room, and I am the only one who can see her.
When I look around, I realize I’m in the centre of a silence. All of the faces in the circle are looking at me, waiting for my reaction to something, but I can’t think what it was. I try to smile.
‘Mum?’ Kylan says.
I turn to him. ‘Yes, darling?’
The line appears on his forehead again. ‘I just asked you what we’re going to eat.’
‘I’ve made your favourite,’ I say.
‘Meatballs?’ Katya says.
I stare at her, standing where the girl was. She flicks her blonde hair out of her eyes, blinks at me. ‘No,’ I say, my teeth gritted together, ‘that’s not Kylan’s favourite. It’s halibut stew.’
Kylan looks at the fire. ‘I guess it depends what mood I’m in,’ he says.
Hector laughs. It’s loud, in the small room. ‘Well handled, my boy,’ he says, winking at Katya and making her blush.
‘Did you just say you were spending Christmas with Katya’s family?’ I ask Kylan.
‘We haven’t decided yet,’ he says.
‘What about your father and me?’ I say.
‘They’ve only just invited us, so we haven’t had a chance to think about it yet,’ Kylan says.
‘It’s fine if you want to go there this year,’ Hector says. ‘We’ll only be having the usual quiet Christmas.’
I think of the roast turkey and all the trimmings that take me days of preparation. Easy for him to say it will be quiet. I imagine Christmas dinner with Hector and his mother and I want to beg Kylan to come back.
Katya leans forward to pick up her glass and that’s when I see it, on her left hand, a small square diamond on a silver band. Before I know what I’m doing, I have reached across and her hand is in mine.
‘Where did you get this?’ I ask.
Katya pauses. ‘Kylan gave it to me.’
There is a long, long silence.
‘Is this—’ I say, looking at Kylan.
‘I’ve asked Katya to marry me,’ he says. ‘That’s what we wanted to tell you.’
The old look of concern is on his face again. I can feel her looking at me, all of them looking. My eyes begin to itch; my throat aches.
I hug him, pressing my face into his shoulder. ‘That’s such wonderful news,’ I say, into his ear. ‘I’m so happy for you.’
I pull back. I can see Katya is hiding a secret smile, of genuine happiness.
‘Mum,’ Kylan says, ‘are you all right?’
The tears are beginning to spot my shirt. ‘It’s just such wonderful news, darling.’
I feel the tears begin to come faster.
‘Let’s get some champagne,’ Hector says, and we leave the room together.
When we cross the threshold into the kitchen, I stop, feeling his hands on my shoulders. He turns me around and without looking up I bury my face in his chest. I feel him pull the door to behind us as I sob into him, and he puts his arms around me, holding me.
‘He’ll still come back, Marta,’ he says. ‘He just won’t be living here any more.’
I look up at his calm blue eyes. ‘But I miss him,’ I say.
Hector strokes my hair. ‘It had to happen eventually,’ he says. ‘We don’t want him here for ever.’
I put my head back against his chest. I do.
‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ I say softly.
Hector looks away, and I know then that Kylan had already told him. I imagine the phone conversation, Hector sitting behind the desk of his study, dishing out advice as if he is the expert on how to find a good wife.
‘You knew?’ I ask.
He rubs my back with his hand. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ Hector says, his voice soft, ‘but he wasn’t sure then. He asked me not to.’
I push him away.
‘He shouldn’t have asked her at all if he wasn’t sure,’ I say. I pull out a chair and drag it over to the oven so that I can reach the wine rack above it. My heels sink as I lift myself up, denting the plastic covering. Unbalanced, I stand on the chair. I grasp the wall, feeling Hector watching me. He doesn’t try to stop me.
Managing to grab a bottle of champagne, I tumble backwards, finding myself bundled in Hector’s grasp.
‘Marta, will you please be careful,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’
I extricate myself from him, putting the champagne bottle down onto the side, and walking out of the room. He can sort out the drinks.
*
I stop in the hallway, shutting my eyes and listening to the murmured rumblings of Kylan’s voice through the closed door ahead. Pressing my head against the coolness of the paint, I try to steady myself. I’m not ready to go in there yet.
The voices have stopped. There is something on the other side of the door. I can smell the air coming from under it. Images begin to swim. A metal frame. One thin mattress: a neatly made bed. The creaking of springs.
The bedclothes are smooth and white and clean, and she is underneath them, tightly tucked in. She’s wearing a pair of clean white pyjamas with small pink hearts all over them, brand new. They are not hers: too small, a child’s size, tight across her chest, too short at the ankles.
There is a buzzing in the room like an insect caught, coming from the electric strip light which runs across the grey concrete ceiling, flickering slightly. A whirring too, ongoing, coming from a fan like the one in our bathroom, to keep the room from steaming up.
The room is square, with thick concrete walls. Against the opposite wall is a low white table, the paint bloated as if it has been outside in the rain. There is probably room to lie down lengthways between the bed and the table, but only just. There is a chair next to the bed, and in the corner there’s a toilet without a lid, plumbed into the wall. Everything is nailed to the floor.
In the ceiling, there is a square metal door, with a sturdy looking padlock hanging from it.
A man is sitting on the edge of the bed, turned away from me. He sits and stares at her as she lies sleeping. I watch her eyes begin to open, slowly, as if it’s painful. She tries to lift her head, to sit up, but she brings a hand up to her face, shuts her eyes tightly, and falls back again.
‘Look at me,’ he says. His voice is calm, and she begins to raise her eyes to his.
My eyes meet Kylan’s. ‘Mum, look at me,’ he says. ‘Are you all right?’ He speaks softly.
I blink. ‘I’m fine, darling,’ I say.
He stares at me.
‘Shall we go in?’ I say.
He stands there for a moment. Behind him, I can see Matilda sitting in one of the armchairs; Katya on the sofa. Katya quickly looks away from me as I take in the room, but Matilda stares for longer than feels comfortable. I wipe under my eyes again. Kylan steps aside and I walk past him, taking a seat in Hector’s armchair. I sit quietly, feeling my legs judder against the ground, trying to ignore my pressing headache. I want to see the room again, but the image is gone now and I can’t bring it back.
There is a long, still silence: all that can be heard is the sound of wet wood cracking in the fireplace, and the agonizing tick of the clock over the mantelpiece. Matilda is staring at the blank television screen, her mouth a tight line.
Kylan reaches his arm along the cream sofa and Katya slides into the space he has made. Their movements are automatic, natural, as if sitting like that, their bodies touching, is the way they have always been. I wait for the conversation to pick up again. Katya puts her hand on Kylan’s knee. He covers her hand with his, squeezing her fingers. I feel myself breathe in, and then I am at the living-room door, halfway up the stairs. It’s too hard to be in that room any longer. The cold shifting thing in my stomach has been replaced by something sharp, as if something jagged has lodged itself deep in my flesh, too far in to get at.