The House Swap(37)

‘That’s what I thought.’ He puts a hand underneath my chin, moving my face up to look into his. ‘I thought maybe we could drive down to the coast today, if you don’t mind an idea from leftfield. It looks really nice out. I looked it up, and we could be in Brighton or somewhere like that in an hour, maybe ninety minutes. What do you say?’

‘I say yes.’ The idea of getting outside the M25 fills me with unexpected relief. Maybe this is what I need. A chance to be somewhere with no memories attached – clear my head, get some sea air. Putting my arms around Francis’s neck, I straighten up to give him a hug. ‘Just give me ten minutes,’ I say, ‘and I’ll be down, OK?’

‘You got it.’ Francis quits while he’s ahead, disappearing from the room swiftly, humming a jauntily triumphant tune as he goes back downstairs.

Guilt twists inside me as I watch him go. I shouldn’t even be replying to these messages. In the mirror, I stare myself out. I have my own life. You’re not part of it. And that’s what you wanted. The words are forming themselves silently on my lips, my reflection mouthing them earnestly back at me.

Suddenly, my phone beeps and jars on the table next to me, making me start. It’s a text from a number I don’t recognize and, for a second, my heart leaps into my mouth before I read it. Hi Caroline. Hope you don’t mind me texting you, but I was a bit worried about you yesterday. Maybe you’d like to come over to mine for a coffee or something? Amber x.

Frowning, I try to work out how she could have got my number. I’m not even sure I’ve ever told her my last name. I think my details are still listed on the website I set up a couple of years ago, when I was thinking about going freelance, and I seem to remember mentioning that brief career dalliance in the course of our chat in the café, but still, it would have taken some pretty rigorous searching to turn that up. I picture Amber hunched over the keyboard in concentration, trying various clutches of search terms, the light from the screen illuminating her face. It’s very easy to imagine her this way, and once again I’m conscious that her interest in me seems a little more than normal.

I lay the phone aside. I won’t reply just yet. I’m not sure I want to see her and, besides, the less I let the past trickle out into the world, the more I can suppress it. It’s a rule I’ve lived by for years now. If something is alive only in my head, then it’s barely real at all.

It’s twenty degrees by the time we arrive in Brighton and, for a mid-week afternoon, the seafront is busy, small crowds of locals and holidaymakers lured out by the promise of some early sun. We wander along the promenade and back again for ages with no real plan, content to be aimless until something catches our eye. As I had hoped, the clarity of the sea air soothes me. I feel drained but somehow pure, limbs faintly aching, as if I’ve burnt out the last stretches of a long illness.

Francis nudges me, indicating some girls in their early twenties striding along the seafront in cut-off shorts and bikini tops. ‘Bit optimistic. It’s not exactly roasting yet, is it?’

As we draw closer, I see they are all wearing glitter on their faces, and that the tallest and most scantily clad of the group has a satin sash looped around her body. ‘Hen do,’ I murmur. The girls are laughing uproariously, swigging from bottles of alcopop and flashing their eyes challengingly at anyone who meanders into their path. ‘Got to get into the spirit.’

‘Yours wasn’t quite like that, was it?’ Francis comments as they pass.

I struggle to remember. Eight years ago. A relatively sober and restrained affair in a central London bar and restaurant with a dozen friends, followed by a few hastily organized activities. ‘Things were different then,’ I say, but whether I mean they were different when it came to social norms, to expectations, or to me, I’m not sure.

‘I remember you being pretty pissed when you came back, mind you,’ Francis says. ‘Didn’t you fall over the coat stand?’ He carries on talking, reminiscing, but I’m still watching the girls as they come towards us and his voice fades away.

I’m looking at one of the more subdued members of the group, wandering along towards the rear. Her hair is long and dark, blown behind her shoulders in the light breeze, and she’s wearing a chiffon scarf draped around her neck. There’s something in the way she looks, something in the way she’s walking, that makes me shiver. It hits me – the start of that black cloud descending, the weight of memories that are too dangerous to be faced pressing down on me.

I turn to Francis and grab his hand. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s walk out on to the pier,’ and I hold on to him tightly as I steer us away from the hen party and towards the horizon’s blaze of white light.

I won’t think about this. I can’t. The words echo in my head with every step I take and, with each repetition, I feel these thoughts being driven out. I ride it out until it’s over.

‘We could do it again,’ Francis says after a while, when we are wandering towards the arcades. I look at him blankly. ‘Not the hen night,’ he clarifies. ‘You know. Renew our vows or whatever.’ His tone is light, as if he hasn’t really thought about what he is saying.

I can’t work out if it’s a joke or not. Renewing vows is something I connect with couples in their twilight years, casting around for some entertainment to give them focus and purpose – or with those eager to pull the wool over their own eyes, convince themselves that their love is still worth celebrating, despite the mess they’ve made of their lives.