The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,89

away, on Laura Dixon. I wondered if she missed Ralph. If she thought she still loved him. I remembered the sad shadow she’d become.

I was glad she had a sister. A kind sister, by the sound of it. She’d paid enough now, for what she’d done. I hoped she’d heal.

We ate. Anna and Clara sat cross-legged on the grass, spilling crumbs, giggling together.

Bea said, ‘I’m glad you came here. Not Bristol.’ Then, to Clara, ‘Don’t just eat chips. Have some sandwich too.’

I shrugged, avoiding her eye. ‘I’m glad too. This place popped up at the last minute. Cheaper too.’

Bea gave me a narrow look. ‘I thought we’d lost you altogether, for a while. That reminds me – why did you change your mobile number?’

I bit into a chip. ‘Oh, I lost the old phone. I’ve just got a cheap pay-as-you-go now.’

Bea reached for another sandwich. ‘Well, anyway, it’s great to see you. Don’t ever run out on us again, will you?’

‘I won’t.’ I looked at the girls. Anna was feeding Clara a chip, pretending she was a dog. ‘I promise.’

That evening, Anna and I snuggled in her bed while I read to her. When I put the book down, she wrapped her arms around me.

I said, ‘It was fun seeing Clara and her mum, wasn’t it?’

Anna squeezed me. ‘Best. Day. Ever.’

I kissed her hair, breathed in her clean, soapy smell.

‘We do all right together, you and me. Don’t you think?’

She twisted round to kiss me, square on the lips.

‘Mummy,’ she said. ‘Pretend I’m a baby fox and you’ve just found me and I can talk?’

She scrunched into a ball, pretending to have a fox snout and paws. I tickled her for a bit behind her long foxy ears, stroked her imaginary fur, until she was ready to go to sleep.

‘I love you, little fox.’

‘I love you too, Mummy.’

Downstairs, I made myself a cup of tea and curled in an armchair, looking out at the lazy curve of the valley. The nights were drawing in. The leaves, already orange and gold, were dying. The bare branches wrote a stark scribble across the darkening sky.

I tried to imagine winter here. Teachers at school said the village was sometimes snowed in for days, even weeks. Classes had to stop. Shops closed. The only moving vehicles were tractors. Just the thought of it made me shiver.

I’d been grateful to see Bea. She reminded me who I was. I was not a pretend Mrs Mack. I was Mrs Wilson again and I really was a widow now. Once enough time had passed, I’d be able to start the process of applying through the courts for my missing husband to be declared dead. Eventually, I’d have a lot of money coming to me.

And, if we wanted it, Anna and I, our old life still waited for us, down in the south. A year away, Bea had called it. Maybe that’s what this was. A year out of time, to rest and recover and find ourselves again.

There were days I woke up, here in the barn, and, still half-asleep, time played tricks on me. I’d think that I was lying in our old bedroom, in the house we bought together. That if I stretched out my hand, Ralph would be there, sleeping quietly beside me. Later, I might potter downstairs and start to make breakfast, hearing the sudden explosion of Ralph’s shower in the bathroom, before he came down, battered school bag in hand, sweeping the mess of floppy hair from his eyes.

Then I’d hear the sharp, bright songs of the birds in the copse behind the barn and the distant lowing of cows and I’d blink and open my eyes and find myself here, without him. With Anna.

I finished my tea and sat quietly, looking through the picture windows at the darkness and seeing my own reflection imposed on it, a ghostly outline of myself floating in the glass. The silence pressed down on me. Intense and eerie. The valley was veiled in black.

A sudden noise. A stick cracked. I jumped.

Something was there. Blood roared in my ears as I strained to listen.

Another noise. A barely audible scraping against the wall. A fox, maybe, on the prowl? Or a person, creeping round the side of the barn towards the door.

I set down my mug, as stealthily as I could, and crept the length of the ground floor, every nerve taut. The only lights I had on inside were the bright ones illuminating the kitchen. I didn’t