The Retreat(11)

‘Oh, sorry.’

She shook off my apology. ‘Anyway, I was slightly stoned. But not enough to hallucinate that sandwich. And I hadn’t eaten it and forgotten, if that’s what you’re thinking. My tummy was still rumbling.’

‘Hmm.’ I tried not to sound too sceptical. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I made another sandwich.’

I laughed, but Karen wasn’t smiling.

‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Could it have been a ghost?’

‘I’ve never heard of a ghost stealing someone’s supper.’

‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘Perhaps the cat took it,’ I said. ‘He might have dragged it off your plate and under a cupboard.’

Or maybe, I thought, you got stoned, ate it yourself, then forgot.

‘That bloody cat,’ she said, then laughed.

I left Karen staring at her laptop and explored the cottage. There was a tiny kitchen, with nothing but a kettle and basic tea-making facilities, a small living room and a toilet. Stairs led up to the second floor, but a chain had been strung across the staircase, barring entry.

There wasn’t much else to see, and I really needed to get on with some work, so I left the cottage. I waved goodbye to Karen but she didn’t see. She was frowning with concentration. Probably thinking about her missing sandwich.



‘How’s everything going so far?’ Julia asked later that afternoon when I popped down to the kitchen to make a coffee. She was leaning against the Aga for warmth, Chesney the cat on the worktop beside her. I was about to repeat Karen’s story about the cat and the sandwich when I realised Julia might not appreciate her guests smoking weed in their rooms. If she wouldn’t allow alcohol, drugs were almost certainly a no-no, medicinal purposes or not.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I thought it was going well yesterday but now I’m not so certain. I’m trying not to think about the sand running out of the hourglass.’

‘I’m sure you’ll get there.’

She tucked a long strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear. Since finding out about Lily, I had been struggling not to look at her with obvious sympathy. She gave off a strong vibe of wanting to be left alone, but I wasn’t in a hurry to return to the silence of my room – and, well, I liked Julia. I barely knew anything about her – save what I’d learned from the Internet – but I wanted to know more.

‘I was going to make myself a coffee,’ I said. ‘Would you like one?’

‘I don’t drink coffee. I’m one of those boring people who only drinks herbal tea.’ She nodded at a long line of boxes on the side, chamomile and rooibos and lemon verbena. In fact, she had a mug on the go now.

No alcohol or caffeine. Had she always been clean-living, or was it a recent change?

‘What do you think of the retreat so far?’ she asked.

‘I like it. Though it feels strange being back here. I’m wondering if my Welsh accent will return.’

She smiled. ‘Like I said before, I’m going to start organising talks, getting in a resident writer, having discussion groups, when things get going properly,’ she said.

‘Good idea. Not that I’m into being critiqued by other writers. It’s bad enough reading my reviews on Amazon.’ The kettle whistled and I lifted it from the hotplate. ‘I’ve been wondering, what made you open a writers’ retreat?’

‘Money.’

‘Always a good reason.’

‘The best. I just . . . well, I thought about setting up a bed and breakfast, but then a friend who works in publishing suggested doing this. She said there was a lot of demand for it and I’d meet lots of interesting people.’

‘You have friends in publishing?’

‘I used to be an illustrator. Children’s books. Have you heard of Jackdaw Books? I did a lot of stuff for them.’

I stood with my back to her, stirring milk into my coffee. ‘Used to be? What made you stop?’

I was hoping she would mention her husband and daughter but she didn’t reply. When I turned around she met my eye and said, ‘I looked you up.’

‘Oh. Really?’

‘Yeah. You didn’t tell me you were a bestseller. I read it’s being made into a movie.’

I adopted my modest face. ‘Hopefully. It’s stuck in development hell.’

I paused. It would be easy to carry on the charade and pretend I didn’t know about her history. I knew that bringing it up might cause her pain. But I also wanted to be honest. I wasn’t going to get a better chance than this.

‘I have a confession,’ I said.

‘Oh?’

‘I know . . . I know what happened to you. To your husband and daughter.’

She had been lifting her mug to her lips. Her hand froze and she placed the mug on the counter. It rattled against the Formica. I immediately wished I’d kept quiet.

‘Is that why you came here?’

‘No, of course not. I only found out yester—’

‘You like writing about missing children, don’t you? Are you researching a sequel? Are you going to write about how my daughter was eaten by a fucking monster?’

She glared at me, then abruptly left the room. I stood there, the cat blinking at me accusingly, stunned by how quickly she’d gone from calm to furious, as if I’d flipped a switch.