In a Kingdom by the Sea

‘Let’s finish the bottle? It is Sunday tomorrow.’

‘Dominique?’ I ask, suddenly. ‘You wanted to go to Cornwall last year. Shall we plan a trip back together? Maybe see what the new owner has done to our house?’

‘No, Gabby.’ Dominique shakes her head. ‘The moment has gone, darling. I’m planning a trip to New York to see the girls in June.’

‘Oh. That’s wonderful,’ I say, deflated. ‘Are they both okay?’

Aimee, Dominique’s eldest, is a paediatrician and expecting her first child with her American husband. Cecile is living with a musician in Manhattan and doing a PhD in something obscure.

Their Turkish father walked out on Dominique when she produced a second girl. Despite the rackety, uncertain lifestyle Dominique used to live, the three of them are very close.

‘Are you staying with Aimee?’ I ask.

‘I’m staying with Cecile for the first week. She’s taking me on a surprise holiday. Then I am going to Aimee. I’d like to be there when she gives birth, but we’ll see. I don’t want to outstay my welcome.’

I smile. ‘I can’t believe you’re going to be a granny! Seeing the girls is just what you need after the Marathon Dress.’

Dominique puts her fork down and stares at me. ‘Actually, Gabby, I’m … I’m …’

I catch a sudden bleakness in her eyes. ‘Dom? What is it? Tell me. I know something’s worrying you …’

She hesitates. I hold my breath. Tell me. But my sister closes her eyes, sighs and changes her mind.

‘Pff! I’m getting maudlin. It’s the champagne …’ She smiles at me. ‘At least, I can promise the girls I will be a better grandmother than I was a mother. I have so many regrets for what I put them through.’

‘Look how they have both turned out. You can’t have got it all wrong. You know they love you to bits.’

‘They seem to, don’t they?’ She holds her glass up and meets my eyes. ‘Don’t let’s delve into my past and spoil our evening together. It’s been lovely, Gabby.’

The moment has passed, as it always does. ‘It has been lovely.’ We clink glasses. ‘We must try to do this more often …’

Dominique laughs and glances over my shoulder. ‘Oh! I just saw a fat little piggy fly by …’

In the morning Dominique and I are both hungover. I drive her to Gatwick to catch her plane back to Paris. As we say goodbye I realize how much weight she has lost. She was wearing a loose dress last night so it was hard to see. She looks smaller and frailer this morning, and I feel a stab of fear.

‘You’re losing weight, Dominique. Are you ill? Is that what you were trying to tell me?’

‘Pff!’ She raises her eyebrows in amusement. ‘I’m not ill. You’ve just got used to me being fat …’

‘I don’t like you being this thin …’

‘I will be fat again after I have been to America …’ She touches my cheek. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’m afraid I’ve got to the age when a hangover is not a good look …’

I hug her. ‘Have a wonderful holiday with the girls …’

Dominique holds me away from her. ‘Gabby, you have too much work and not enough play in your life at the moment. Grab some excitement for yourself while you’re young enough to enjoy it. Your husband certainly seems to …’

And with that cryptic remark she is gone, threading through the crowds.

As I drive past a sign for Paddington Station I experience the old, nostalgic pull for Cornwall. I have an irrational urge to leave everything behind and jump on the Cornish Riviera to Penzance. Except, of course, there will be no one waiting for me at the other end.

It lies, the landscape of my childhood, rooted behind my eyelids. Iridescent blue skies; foaming peacock seas against floating hills of white hawthorn; hedgerows crammed with tiny wild flowers. Silver-winged terns rising from cabbage fields with the precision of a Red Arrows acrobatic team. Vicious winds hitting the house head on, creeping through every crack. All embedded into my being; an internal map of home, waiting for me to revisit, not empty rooms, but happy ghosts before the fall.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#ulink_429ee660-93a1-5b19-b508-9d5645b9f599)

London, 2010

I wake in the night with a start. Someone is in the house. I lie motionless with my heart hammering. My mobile is in the kitchen.

I can hear someone moving about downstairs. For a second I wonder if I am in the middle of a nightmare. But the light on the landing shines in an arc through the doorway. I am awake and this is real.

Someone once told me that if you ever hear someone in your house you should stay in bed and pretend you are asleep. You’ll lose possessions but you won’t be raped. I need to be upright. I leap out of bed in one movement, open the wardrobe and take out Mike’s old cricket bat.

I stop and listen. Silence. I go to the door and look out onto the landing. I can hear someone in the kitchen. I grip the bat, and, to give myself courage, I start to yell as I run downstairs, ‘Get out! Get out of my house!’

I reach the bottom of the stairs and raise the bat. The kitchen light snaps on and Mike calls out, ‘It’s me, Gabby! It’s okay! It’s me!’

His startled face appears in the doorway and he looks even more unnerved as he sees me wielding his cricket bat. Then he begins to laugh.

I am furious. ‘What the hell are you doing creeping about in the dark? I was scared to death. Why didn’t you call out? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? You stupid, stupid, irresponsible … idiot. You should have let me know … you …’

I throw the bat on the kitchen floor and burst into tears of rage and relief.

Mike looks stricken and rushes towards me and puts his arms around me. ‘Gabby, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I sent you a text to say I would be arriving in the middle of the night and I’d try not to wake you. I should have put the lights on and called out. Come on … it’s all right … I just gave you a terrible fright …’

I can’t stop shaking and Mike runs upstairs, gets my dressing gown and folds me into it, then sits me down at the kitchen table.

‘I’m going to make you a hot chocolate.’ He opens the fridge door and takes out the milk. Finds a pan. Bewildered, I wrap my arms around myself.

‘What on earth are you doing home?’

Mike turns from the stove. ‘I was in Dubai for a meeting. At the airport I saw there was a flight straight to Heathrow. I decided to jump on it and come home for forty-eight hours instead of catching the flight back to Karachi …’

He measures the milk into the pan and gets the hot chocolate out of the cupboard. His movements are slow and deliberate. There is tenseness in his shoulders. He is conscious of me watching him as the milk heats.

‘Why?’ I ask.

Mike pours the milk into the two mugs, stirs the hot chocolate round and round and brings it to the table. ‘This will warm you up.’

He sits opposite me. ‘You know why. It’s the first time in our whole married life that you haven’t emailed or phoned me when I’ve flown away. You always want to know that I’ve arrived safely. Not this time.’

I place my hands round my mug.

‘I’m home, to say I’m sorry for being crass and selfish and for taking you for granted … as well as being a pompous arse …’

I smile despite myself.

‘I’ve been wretched, Gabby. I don’t know what got into me. I know I crossed a boundary. You’ve never given me the silent treatment before.’