The House Swap(80)

He stares hard at me, unmoved. ‘What is he doing here, Caro?’ he asks, then stops, shakes his head roughly. ‘No,’ he says. ‘What are we doing here? That’s what I really want to know. Is this some kind of sick game? Coming for a little holiday across the road from your lover? Sneaking out for a quick shag whenever my back’s turned? Is this the sort of thing that turns you on?’

‘Of course not,’ I stammer. Heat is flooding my body, making my head spin. ‘He’s not my lover, not any more. And I promise you, I didn’t arrange this. I had no idea he lived here, I—’

‘Interesting,’ interrupts Francis scornfully. His tone is harsh but contained. I would rather he were shouting expletives at me, losing control, but that isn’t his style. ‘So the fact that when I pop out for a minute to put out the bins I bump into him is just an amazing coincidence. Of all the houses we could possibly have stayed in across the entire country, we just happen to rock up a mere ten metres or so from his. Extraordinary. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe in fate, doesn’t it? Like it’s written in the stars that—’

‘Please, stop.’ I take a deep breath, preparing to speak, but the enormity of it – of ploughing back into the past and spilling out the ugly truth of that night at Silver Birches to him, and everything that has come from it and led us here – overwhelms me, and I close my eyes.

When I open them, I see that his expression has changed. He isn’t sneering or contemptuous any more. His face is twisted with worry and confusion, not knowing whether to be hurt or angry or something else entirely, and there’s a vulnerability to it that is painful to see. ‘I don’t understand any part of this, Caro,’ he says. His voice is still angry, but quieter; he’s trying to give me space to talk.

I force myself to look at him steadily. Although I know I will have to give him what he wants eventually, I don’t think I can do it right now. I can’t tell him the truth when he’s already on the edge, when his world has been so savagely rocked.

‘I don’t understand it either,’ I say, and I don’t blink.

He looks back at me for a long moment, trying to read my expression. ‘Then it’s him,’ he says simply. ‘He’s engineered it in some way.’

I shake my head. ‘No.’

Francis gives a quick exhalation of frustration. ‘I don’t see any other explanation.’

‘No,’ I say again. ‘It makes no sense. He doesn’t want me here. You saw him just now – he didn’t want to speak to me. He just turned around and left.’ A stab of hurt, lightning fast but unmistakeable. I push it away, but something of it must show on my face, because his own expression twists with sudden pain.

‘Do you still love him?’ he asks.

I’ve half expected it, and I realize that, for days now, I’ve been silently asking myself the same thing; turning over our memories, prodding them to test the sharpness of the hurt, letting them suck me back in. The denial I know I should give rises fast to my lips, but I hold it back. He’s right – he deserves this honesty, even if I’m not sure I have the answer to give.

After a long while I say, ‘I still miss him. I’m not sure I can tell the difference.’ I pause, thinking. Francis is listening intently. ‘I don’t know him any more,’ I say. ‘But there’s something I can’t seem to let go.’

It can’t be what he wants to hear, but Francis doesn’t seem angry. If anything, the look in his eyes is one of pity. Somehow, I’ve drawn closer to him, and my hands are reaching out for his and my fingers are locking around his own. I press my face into his chest, listening to the quick thump of his heartbeat against my forehead. ‘I still love you,’ I whisper, but I’m not sure he hears. ‘You know that, right?’

After a few moments, he pulls away. ‘Well, that’s the thing about you, Caroline,’ he says lightly. ‘It’s never easy to tell when you’re lying.’

I bite my lip but have the sense to stay silent. He glances at the oven, and I realize that the pasta sauce he was cooking on the hob is smoking, reduced to a sticky, volcanic mass. Francis reaches out and turns it off. He passes a hand over his forehead, gives a sigh.

‘I can’t handle trying to make sense of this any more tonight,’ he says. ‘I’m going to bed. I need to lie down.’

I think about the packing I have started, the desperate need I felt earlier to get back; about Sandra prowling through our home. I already know that I can’t force him to make the journey to Leeds tonight, not after everything that’s happened. ‘OK,’ I say quietly, swallowing down my discomfort. One more night. Already, I’m counting down the hours. ‘I’ll come up soon.’

He nods, then moves towards the door.

The night passes slowly, punctuated by drifts of light, uneasy sleep. I lie watching the shifting shadows outside the window, the gradual strengthening of light through the curtains.

In this quiet space, it’s as if nothing has happened. You, Francis, Amber … they’ve all receded and there’s nothing left in my head but the pictures I’ve been blocking out for years and which are finally breaking through my defences. Whenever I lose my grip on consciousness for even a few seconds, the girl is there – walking softly through the room, threaded through the thin line between reality and dreams. Her long, dark hair blowing out behind her, her green scarf slung over her shoulder. It replays again and again, this procession, and the split second which I have never been sure if I have imagined or not: the wide-eyed moment of connection as she spins round in the instant before we collide and everything explodes in a burst of splintered glass. And the impact wakes me, jolts me brutally up and out of this strange space of memory into the dark bedroom, until the next time. Over and over again.