through it. Love me through it. Of course I didn’t tell her everything, I’ve never told anyone everything. I haven’t seen her for months but I know what she would advise us to do right now. ‘Francesca says—’
‘No offence, Leah,’ Carly says. ‘But we’re indoors and you’re wearing gloves. I love you but you’re the least sorted of us all.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you, either of you,’ Marie says. ‘I thought it might help. Really. Not just sharing what happened but talking about how we’ve felt, I suppose, since.’
‘We can do that without an audience,’ I say.
‘I guess,’ Marie says. ‘It’s just that with an interviewer present I thought we’d all be more… in control of our feelings, I suppose.’
‘Feelings. Everyone’s obsessed with feelings,’ Carly says. ‘I was coming out of Tesco’s last week when a journalist showed me a picture of the grave and asked me how I felt about it now. I told them I felt nothing. Nothing. I wish now I’d told them I felt glad.’
I tell Carly that I was shown the same photo too. The cemetery where one of our abductors was laid to rest. His plot a tangle of weeds. Unkept and unloved. No flowers, no sense that anyone ever visits. They probably don’t. I don’t say that, unlike her, I felt something when I saw it. In fact, I felt everything: sadness, remorse, anger, regret and relief. I had felt relief that he, at least, couldn’t hurt anyone again. But he hadn’t acted alone.
Our rare openness of a few moments ago vanishes. The air chills and I know we are all thinking the same thing.
‘He’s due out of prison again next year.’ Carly doesn’t speak his name. None of us do. I’ve tried but the letters twist and tangle and form a ball in my throat.
Him.
The air chills.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’ Carly lifts her mug and gulps coffee that must be cold. ‘Tell us how Archie got on with his first swimming lesson, Leah.’
‘Oh God.’ My cheeks colour thinking about it. ‘The instructor sat the kids down before they even got wet and asked them the things people worry about when they go swimming so he could set their minds at rest. One little girl said she worries she’ll swallow some water. Another that the pool would be too deep and she wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom. Archie said… no. Archie shouted, “My mummy worries about wearing a costume because her bum is wobbly and her legs look like orange peel.” Honestly…’ I shove Carly. ‘Shut up. It wasn’t funny. Everyone stared at me.’
‘Ooh, did the instructor want to see your bum as proof? Was he hot?’ Marie waggles her eyebrows.
‘I thought you had a new man, Marie,’ Carly teases her.
‘It’s early days. It’s complicated.’
‘Actually, the instructor wasn’t bad,’ I say.
‘Don’t let George hear that!’ Carly laughs. ‘You’ll ruin your perfect marriage.’
‘Nothing’s perfect,’ Marie says and the atmosphere that felt lighter moments before feels heavy once again.
Nothing is perfect. My marriage the least of all.
I start when I check the time on my phone. It’s almost time to collect Archie. An email alert tells me my parcel has been delivered. I jump to my feet.
‘I have to go, George will be…’ home to discover my secrets. I finish my sentence in my head. Really, he’s the last person I want to see after last night but I can hardly avoid him.
‘George will be what?’ asks Marie.
‘I just have to go, that’s all.’ My tone is sharper than intended, but then fear has the ability to harden; a soft stomach filled with knots, a tightening of the chest, muscles tense and solid.
The set of a jaw.
A clenching of the fist.
Chapter Seven
Carly
Then
Carly’s fist would often dangle a toy above Bruno the boxer’s head, until he’d hurl himself at her in a bid to reach it, his body slamming into hers, surprisingly heavy and solid. That’s the way her body felt now as she gathered her energy to jump again.
Heavy.
Solid.
As though her blood had been removed and replaced with stone. She was so tired it was almost impossible to move but she had made it outside. She had to keep going.
She was almost at the corner of the building. Strands of her blonde hair worked free from her scrunchie, trailed in front of her eyes. With the tape covering her mouth, she couldn’t huff it away. She wished again her hands were free.
Voices.
Louder now.
Carly took two quick jumps and stopped, shielded by