The Shadow Year (34 page)

‘That’s OK.’

‘I shouldn’t have gone on like that.’

‘No,’ says William, ‘it’s OK. I’m glad you told me.’

She leans back and eyes him for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

‘For what?’

‘For listening . . . for being so kind.’

William shrugs. It is his turn to be embarrassed. He looks about the room, searching for something to distract. ‘I could help you with that,’ he says, his gaze settling on the huge piece of timber propped in the corner of the room.

‘Oh that’s OK. I can probably manage.’

‘What were you going to do with it? A coffee table? You’ll need to dry it out, then cut it to size and plane it smooth.’

She nods. ‘I wasn’t going to bother with the drying stage. A little warping or splitting will just add character, right?’ She doesn’t want to wait. She is impatient to get going, to see her changes take shape in the rest of the cottage.

‘Well OK, but let me do it for you. I’d like to.’

‘You must be so busy . . .’ she protests.

‘To be honest, it’s pretty quiet up at the farm this time of year. There are only so many fences to mend . . . you’d be doing me a favour.

She thinks for a moment and then nods. ‘OK. You’re on.’

‘Great.’ He stands and carries their empty plates to the sink. ‘Now, let me do the washing up and then I really must get back to Evelyn. She’ll be worrying.’

Lila nods.

‘But I’ll come again tomorrow, if that’s OK? I’ll start on the timber then.’

Lila smiles. ‘Thank you.’

William does the washing up while Lila stands beside him at the sink, taking the rinsed dishes from his soapy hands and drying them on a tea towel. Once or twice their fingers meet on a cup or a plate and they smile, embarrassed, but there is something else between them now too, a warm understanding that hasn’t been there before.

When they are finished, she lets him out into the night, Rosie sloping away by his side. ‘Good night,’ she calls after them, her words ringing out over the lake, watching as their outlines melt away into the darkness.

After they have gone she turns back to the cottage and eyes the echoing front room. The kitchen may be an improvement but there is still so much to do. She feels an impatience to keep going.
Don’t let it fester
. That’s what William had suggested about her relationship with Tom but it applies to the cottage too.
Sometimes the real fight is what comes after the event, when you face what you are left with . . . how you live with that. That’s the real battle
. His words make sense on so many levels. Everything has been so cloudy. She’s felt as though she’s been sleepwalking these past few months. She doesn’t want to be in that fog any more. She wants to see and think and
feel
things clearly and suddenly she knows there is something else she must do.

She runs upstairs and grabs the bottle of pills from her washbag and by the light of a torch she tiptoes out to the earth closet, unscrews the lid and, before she can change her mind, tips the whole lot into the darkness below. There, she thinks, staring down into the black pit, it’s done. There is no way she will
ever
get them back now.

William, true to his word, arrives the next day with his tools and turns the huge branch of wood into a beautiful, smooth, misshapen plank, perfect for what Lila has planned. The following afternoon he is back again, this time hauling a trailer behind his Land Rover. ‘They were just going to waste up at my place.’ He hovers in front of a dusty mahogany bed frame and double mattress with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. ‘I’ve had them in the barn for a while. I know it’s not the most beautiful bed but it’s comfortable and it will be a damn sight better than that camp bed you’ve been sleeping on.’ He’s wrong. It’s a beautiful bed. Lila can tell from the quality of the wood and craftsmanship that it is an antique. ‘We’ll have to carry the frame and the slats across the meadow and down the bank but I think we can probably manage between us, don’t you?’ She is about to protest at his generosity when he holds up a hand. ‘Please, they’re just cluttering up my place. Take them.’

‘But—’

‘Please.’

She eyes him for a moment, thinking of the narrow camp bed back in the cottage. ‘OK,’ she relents, ‘thank you.’

They carry the frame into the cottage first then return for the mattress, which proves to be rather unwieldy and so heavy Lila has to keep putting her half down for a rest and it’s not until late afternoon as the light disappears over the hills that they finally get it inside the cottage. ‘Now for the final push,’ she says, eyeing the stairs. ‘Do you think we can manage?’

‘Come on,’ says William, ‘I’ll take the top half.’

They half push, half pull it up the first few stairs and have just managed to wedge it firmly between the wall and the banister – William stuck at the top with Lila further down near the bottom – when a voice calls from the doorway. ‘Lila, are you here?’

She peers down between the balustrades and sees Tom standing at the open door, an overnight bag on his shoulder and a huge bunch of white freesias in his hands. ‘Tom!’ she exclaims. ‘What are you doing here?’

He moves across the room, the flowers held out before him in offering. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day,’ he says, eyeing the mattress on the stairs. ‘Christ, you’re not moving that by yourself, are you? Here,’ he says, slinging his bag onto the floor and placing the flowers on the stone mantelpiece, ‘let me help you.’

‘It’s OK,’ calls William from the top landing, ‘I’ve got the other end.’

Tom takes a step backwards then cranes to peer up the stairs. ‘Oh, hello, William, isn’t it? Sorry, I didn’t see you up there.’ He shoots Lila a look.

Lila feels her cheeks flush pink. ‘What are you
doing
here?’ she asks, sounding more defensive than she’d intended.

‘I thought I’d surprise you.’ Tom hovers at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Do you want a hand?’

‘Yes,’ says Lila. ‘My end could do with a shove.’

Tom shrugs off his coat and then moves to the stairs, and between the three of them they manoeuvre the mattress up into the bedroom where the wooden frame has already been assembled. Tom eyes the bed carefully and then turns back to Lila, one eyebrow raised, before the three of them lift the mattress and position it onto the base.

‘Well,’ says William, brushing his hands off, ‘I’d best get going. Leave you two in peace.’

Lila can feel hostility radiating off Tom where he stands beside her. ‘OK, mate.’

‘Thank you, so much,’ scrabbles Lila. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘No trouble. Like I said, it really was just cluttering up my place.’

He gathers his coat, whistles for Rosie and then he is gone.

Tom waits a beat then turns to her. ‘A bed?’ he asks, incredulous. ‘He’s given you a bed?’

‘What?’

Tom shakes his head. ‘I have to hand it to the guy: that’s a pretty slick move if ever I saw one . . . and on Valentine’s Day, too.’

‘Tom,’ says Lila, blushing with embarrassment, ‘it’s not like that. He’s a friend. He brought it all the way up here in his trailer. It’s incredibly kind.’

‘Hmmm . . .’ says Tom.

‘What?’

‘You might think it’s the platonic gesture of a friend, Lila, but he’s a man. A lonely old man. He wants to get in your pants.’

‘He does not. Anyway, he’s not
that
old.’

Tom shakes his head. ‘I don’t like it, Lila. Why is it every time I come here there he is, hanging around you, making himself useful? I can guarantee he’s got an ulterior motive.’

Lila sniffs. She wants to argue. She wants to tell Tom that not everyone has sex on the brain, but there is a part of her that doesn’t want to even mention sex at that moment, not with the vast double bed standing between them like the proverbial elephant in the room.

Tom seems to soften slightly. ‘Don’t I get a hello then?’

‘Sorry.’ She moves around the bed frame towards him. ‘Hello.’

He wraps his arms around her and for just a moment she forces herself to stop thinking and to just enjoy the sensation of being encircled in his arms. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes. How long are you staying for?’

‘Just a night or two. I was lucky to escape. The Stratford site is keeping us flat out at the moment.’

She looks up and sees him properly then. His olive skin. His clear brown eyes. The two-day-old stubble on his chin. She reaches out and gently traces the jagged silver scar across his cheek. He lets her fingers caress the mark and travel down the side of his face before he reaches up and catches her hand, pulls her into a kiss. As their lips meet she feels the twist of something warm inside, something she hasn’t felt in a long time, and she leans into him. It’s a relief to know she still wants him – but she is scared too.

As if reading her thoughts, he pulls back. ‘Come on then,’ he says, ‘you’d better show me what you’ve been up to. Prove to me this isn’t all just a lovely holiday up here.’

She nods, grateful he isn’t rushing her, and leads him by the hand down the creaking staircase.

At bedtime, they cover the mattress with old blankets and lie side by side in their sleeping bags, staring up at the ceiling.

‘It’s quiet here, isn’t it?’ Tom comments.

‘Yes.’

‘Cold too.’

‘Yes,’ she says again.

‘Not too bad, is it, this mattress?’

‘So you’re not cross with William now?’ she asks, unable to resist a dig.

‘I still think he’s got an ulterior motive.’

Lila doesn’t say anything and the silence between them deepens.

‘We should huddle together for warmth,’ he suggests finally, a smile in his voice. ‘You know, like penguins.’

She waits a beat. ‘We should,’ she agrees.

Tom seems surprised by her answer. He doesn’t move, and so to prove that she means it, Lila unzips her sleeping bag. Finally Tom follows suit and they move together and spread both sleeping bags over them. Tom pulls her close and wraps his arms around her waist. She nestles into the warm curve of him. As she lies there she remembers that hot flame from earlier. His arms tighten slightly. She can feel the tiniest movement of his fingers on her ribcage, stroking the skin beneath her T-shirt. Slowly, she turns, her lips finding his in the dark. His hands move up under her top, across the curve of her breasts then trace a line to her hipbone. She sighs into his open mouth, inhales his breath.

‘I want you,’ he says.

She answers him with her lips. His hands move down to the tie on her pyjama bottoms and fumble with the bow until she reaches down, impatient with desire, and pushes them off herself. He does the same and then they are warm and naked and moving together in the darkness, the pattern of their tangled bodies suddenly as familiar as her own skin. There is no talking. No thinking. Just skin on skin and hot breath and the steady beating of their hearts.

In her dream she is back in London, upstairs in their bedroom, sunshine falling through the window, clothes discarded across the bed. She is rushing, impatient and frustrated; she knows she is going to be late. First the black top. Then the pink. The dream jumps and suddenly it isn’t impatience she feels any more but anger. It pumps through her body like hot acid. Her fists are clenched. Fight or flight? She turns on her heel and races down the landing, towards the stairs, towards her escape.

Another jump and she is nearing the top step. A new detail emerges: far below the front door comes into view, white light pouring through its frosted glass panel. Then something else: footsteps, echoing down the landing behind her.
Lila!
The shout is distorted, an audio soundtrack played at the wrong speed. She is at the top of the stairs when she feels them: hands upon her, grabbing, pulling, tripping her up . . .

She teeters there for a moment, frozen in time, her heart rising sickeningly into her mouth. She reaches out for the banister but there is nothing to grab but empty space and then she is tumbling over the ledge.

Down, down, down she goes, plunging into the abyss with nothing to save her but the cold, hard reality of impact.

In the darkness she jolts awake. Beside her she can feel Tom’s still, warm weight upon the mattress. She remembers where she is and the thudding beat of her heart gradually slows. She swallows and tries to breathe.

It was so real.

It was so real
.

Lila knows then. She knows that she wasn’t alone in the house when she fell.

Someone was there with her. There had been an argument. She had run. They had reached out for her, their hands at her back and she had gone tumbling down the stairs. The thought makes her heart rattle against her ribcage. She shivers and turns her head to seek out Tom in the pitch-black. All she can see is the hump of his back turned away from her, the slope of his broad shoulders, rising and falling with his slow breathing. She studies him for a moment, then slides out of bed. It’s freezing, but she knows she can’t lie there a moment longer.

Downstairs in the kitchen, huddled in a blanket, she sits at the table and tries to remember. Someone was with her, in her home on the morning she fell, she’s sure of it. But who? She thinks and thinks but all that will come to her are the words Tom spoke to her up on the moors last November:
Sometimes it feels as though you’re blaming me
.

His words had seemed odd, even then, but now, as she scrutinises the new fragments of her dream, she wonders if they have a more sinister meaning. Had he been there with her? Had they argued? Could Tom have had a hand in her fall? Could his words be the sign of a guilty conscience?

She shakes her head. It seems impossible. Tom wouldn’t have left her like that at the bottom of the stairs, unconscious and bleeding, would he?

But the dream had felt
so real
. And there isn’t anyone else it could have been. It was her mother who had seen her through the letter box and called the ambulance. No one else could have been there with her
inside
the house besides Tom . . . Tom, who won’t talk about the fall . . . Tom who can barely bring himself to utter their daughter’s name . . . and who wonders if Lila is
blaming
him for something.