by B. A. Paris
‘Well, I’d like to know if we’re going somewhere hot or cold,’ Ellen says, sitting down. ‘And whether it’s a lying on the beach type of honeymoon or a sightseeing one.’
Ruby pours a coffee and puts it on the bar in front of her. ‘Exactly. He’s been asking my advice on possible destinations so maybe you’d like to drop me a discreet hint or two.’
‘The Seychelles. Mexico.’ Ellen leans over and kisses me. ‘I never thought you were the type of man to prepare a surprise honeymoon.’
‘I have hidden depths,’ I tell her.
We stay a while longer, Ruby and Ellen chatting about possible places to go on honeymoon, while I nurse my coffee, unable to let Ruby’s comments about Layla go.
‘I wasn’t checking up on you,’ Ellen says as we walk back home.
‘I know,’ I say, kissing the top of her head.
‘I was worried that you’d been away so long, that’s all. Rob said you’d been in to see him so I thought I’d see if you were in The Jackdaw.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, giving her another kiss. ‘Ruby called me in for a coffee.’
She nods at my bag. ‘So what did you buy?’
‘Steak for tonight and pâté for lunch.’
‘Perfect,’ she smiles.
TWENTY-FIVE
Layla
It was right that Ellen should find the first Russian doll. After all, it was hers, the one that had gone missing from her set when we were children. I hadn’t stolen it, as she’d thought, but when it eventually turned up a few years later, at the bottom of our old toy chest, I kept it. I’m not sure why I didn’t just give it back to her. Maybe I was worried she would say I must have stolen it after all, maybe I thought it no longer held any importance for her. But now that it was back in Ellen’s possession, I felt bereft. I hadn’t realised how much I relied on it, how often my right hand strayed to it in times of stress. Without it, I felt vulnerable, unprotected. I no longer had mine – I’d lost it in the picnic area in Fonches. So I searched the Internet for Russian dolls, in order to replace it.
I hadn’t realised there were so many different sets, comprising any number of dolls, and I flew through the images, panic-stricken that I wouldn’t find the one Ellen and I had had, because it had to be exactly the same, painted in the exact shades of yellow and red, with exactly the same face. And like a mother who recognises her child in a photo of hundreds, I found it, its little eyes staring back at me from the screen. I had to buy the full set to have it, but it didn’t matter.
I kept trying to work out how Finn must have felt when Ellen showed him the doll she’d found. Maybe he hadn’t felt anything, maybe he’d forgotten the story I’d told him. If he had, the Russian doll wouldn’t have held any significance for him. Even if he hadn’t forgotten, he might have dismissed its appearance as a coincidence. Unless he knew that Thomas had seen me. But did he? I had no way of knowing. Maybe Thomas hadn’t bothered to tell the police, maybe he had but they hadn’t bothered to tell Finn.
The thought that despite leaving my precious Russian doll outside the house, Finn still might not know I was back, itched away at me. Instead of ignoring it, I scratched at it until it became a wound. And instead of leaving it to scab over, I picked at it until it began to fester. I couldn’t let it go. If Finn didn’t know I’d been at the cottage, if nobody had told him, the Russian doll wouldn’t mean anything.
In a panic, I went back to the Internet and ordered ten more sets of Russian dolls. When they arrived, I went a bit mad, unscrewing the wooden corpses as fast as I could to get to the smallest ones, leaving dissected bodies littering the floor around me. As I cradled the ten little Russian dolls in my hands, I felt all-powerful.
Once I started leaving them for Finn to find, he wouldn’t doubt that I was back.
TWENTY-SIX
Finn
I know I should do as Ruby suggested and send Layla an email making things clear, telling her that I’ve moved on, that I’m going to marry Ellen in September. But it’s not what I want.
I take the Russian doll out of my pocket, the one from the tree stump on Pharos Hill, and stand it on my desk. Knowing I was so near to Layla is hard. If only I’d understood sooner. Now, if she doesn’t get back in contact, I’ll never find her. She must be living under a new identity because how could she have a bank account, a job, without one? And she must have a job, because how would she manage for money otherwise? Unless she isn’t alone.
Unsettled, I take out my mobile and open my emails. I scan them quickly and see that one has come in from Rudolph Hill. Taking a breath, I open it.
Do you believe that it’s me now?
Yes, I reply quickly.
I went to the cottage
I found your letter, Finn
You told me to come and find you
I have no idea what to respond. I should ask her where she is, if she’s alright, if she needs help. But now that she’s mentioned the letter, I’m wary of continuing the conversation, worried where it might lead. So I wait, hoping she’ll send another email. But she doesn’t.
Feeling restless I take the three Russian dolls that I found from my drawer and stand them alongside the one from the tree stump. Quadruplets. Ruby’s right, I think, scooping them up and putting them away again. This isn’t the work of someone who is sound of mind. I should phone Tony, ask his advice. But not yet, not until I know what Layla wants.
It’s hard to get down to work but despite having one eye out for an email coming in, I manage to cast an eye over some new Requests For Proposal. Ellen comes to get me for lunch and we listen to some jazz while we eat the pâté I bought earlier, Peggy at our feet. Is that why I fell in love with Ellen, I wonder, because she loves the things that I love – dogs, jazz, cooking? Because she’s a better match for me than Layla was?
‘I can’t believe how high our water bill is,’ Ellen is saying.
‘It’s the price we have to pay for a beautiful garden,’ I say, aware that my phone has just beeped, a sign that an email has come in. But I’m not going to look at it here, in front of Ellen, in case it’s from Layla.
‘Dessert?’ Ellen asks. ‘I’ve poached some apricots from the garden.’
‘Lovely.’
I rush through the apricots and with a quick kiss to Ellen, head out to my office.
The email is from Layla. I open it quickly.
AND NOW I HAVE
TWENTY-SEVEN
Layla
The trouble was, I couldn’t see inside Finn’s head. Despite the two Russian dolls that I’d left for him to find – one on the wall outside the house, another on his car – despite letting Ellen catch a glimpse of me in Cheltenham, which personally, I thought was a stroke of genius – maybe he was still refusing to believe I was back. Perhaps he didn’t want to believe it. He was going to marry Ellen and no amount of Russian dolls was going to change that. Anyway, didn’t she deserve him after all the sacrifices she’d made?
So I tried to let go. And I might have managed to if I hadn’t returned to the cottage, this time to go inside to take a keepsake of our time together there. The keys to the cottage were the only thing I’d had with me the night I’d disappeared, because they were in the pocket of my jeans, the jeans I’d been wearing the day we left St Mary’s.
I chose to arrive at lunchtime when there was less chance of being seen by Thomas. Like the previous time, I passed unnoticed out of the station. My steps quickened as I walked towards the cottage and as I approached, the past dug its claws in deeper, dragging me back to before, so that when I arrived at the gate, I fully expected Finn to fling open the blue front door, worried that I’d taken so long to come back from my walk to the village. When he didn’t, I thought he must be in the garden, so I let myself in. Lost in the past, I was surprised to find the key hard to turn in the lock, the door difficult to open, as if something was holding it shut. Maybe Finn had put a bag of rubbish there, to take out to the bin later.
I pushed the door harder, shoving whatever
was behind it out of the way, and stepped into the hall. And the past, having had its fun with me, tossed me right back into the present. Disorientated, I stared at the mail piled up behind the door, yellow with age, trying to understand, because it seemed so at odds with the flowers in the garden. Even if Finn only came by once a month to keep the cottage up to scratch, surely there shouldn’t be this much mail?
Unwilling to accept what my eyes and nose were telling me – the stench of neglect was everywhere – I reached out and pushed open the kitchen door. A shower of dust fell from it and as I stood on the threshold looking in, it was hard to make sense of what I was seeing. Inch-thick dust covered every available surface and cobwebs hung from the beamed ceiling in shrouds. It eventually sunk in. Finn hadn’t been looking after the cottage, waiting for my return. How could I have ever thought that he would? He hadn’t been hoping that I would come back. I could stop leaving little Russian dolls for him to find. I wasn’t going to get the past back, I wasn’t going to be able to come out of the darkness and into the light. I was going to have to spend the rest of my life in subterfuge, hiding my true self away from the world.
Devastated, my eyes swept around the kitchen. Something caught my eye; a slightly raised rectangular shape on the table, something there under the dust. As if in a trance, I walked over and picked it up, exposing the brown wood surface of the table beneath. It was a letter, the envelope covered in the dust of a thousand years. I studied it for a moment, wondering why it wasn’t lying in the hall with the rest of the mail. I ran my finger across the front of it, dislodging the powdery film, and saw that the envelope had been handwritten, not typed, the ink so faded I could barely make out what it said. I held it up to the light streaming in through the window. There was just one word – Layla.
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the letter Finn had left for me, because I recognised his handwriting. Eventually, the terrible shaking that had taken hold of me when I first saw my name on the envelope drove me to put it into my bag, terrified that the letter, fragile with age, would disintegrate in my hands before I’d had a chance to read it. What did it say, this letter that Finn had left me all those years ago? Was it a letter of warning, never to go near him again, to not seek him out, in the event that I did turn up? Or was it a letter of a different kind?
Aware of time passing, I left the cottage quickly, pulling the door closed behind me, then locking it, glad there was no sign of Thomas. As I hurried towards the station, I slipped my hand into my pocket and closed my fingers around the little Russian doll, one of the new ones, trying to calm my racing heart. When I arrived, I walked to the end of the platform, where there was less chance of somebody trying to strike up a conversation with me. Not only was I incapable of talking, I didn’t want a friendly local asking me why I’d come to St Mary’s, or a tourist telling me where I should go to next. But the family of four I walked past were too wrapped up in themselves to take any notice of me, as were the young couple sitting on the only bench, his arm around her shoulders, reminding me painfully of how Finn and I used to be.
Eventually, the train came in. The end carriage was mercifully empty and I chose a seat at the back, where I was less likely to be disturbed at subsequent stations. And then, as carefully as my trembling fingers would allow, I unsealed the envelope and gently pulled out the sheets of paper. My heart was in my mouth as I unfolded the pages, and as I did, something slid out and onto my lap. Looking down, I found myself staring at a ring.
I picked it up. It was gold, with a solitary diamond, like an engagement ring. My breath caught in my chest. I felt dizzy, sick. My vision blurred, and fearing I was going to pass out, I forced air into my lungs. The breath that escaped was huge. It shook the whole of my body so violently that the letter slid to the floor. Scared that the ring would too, and that I would never find it, I tried to slide it onto my finger. It was too big for my ring finger so I jammed it onto the middle one. It fitted perfectly. And then I stooped down, rescued the letter from the floor and unfolded it.
The words danced before my eyes. It was a while before I could focus on them and as I read, my whole world, the one I had created for myself, came crashing down around me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Finn
Since the email from Layla yesterday, I haven’t been able to relax, which is why I’m out for a run. It was the capital letters that did it. They creeped me out. I’d felt threatened, which is stupid, I know. And now I keep wondering what will happen if Layla suddenly appears on the doorstep.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she did. Sometimes I go as far as imagining it – hearing the ring of the doorbell, going into the hall, opening the door, seeing her standing there. But I can’t imagine giving her a hug, ushering into the hall, then into the kitchen where Ellen is waiting. What I can imagine is taking her in my arms and never letting her go. Or taking her by the hand and leading her far, far away from everyone and everything. That’s what makes me afraid.
I arrive at the fence that borders the back of our garden and jump over it onto the lawn. I stand for a moment breathing heavily, stretching my calf muscles, then take out my mobile to check my emails. There’s nothing from Layla, probably because I haven’t replied to her last message, the one where she said she’d found me. I feel I owe her a reply, even if it’s only to tell her to stay away from me, from us, from Ellen and me. But that seems a bit harsh considering we’re her family. So I reply I’m glad you have.
I don’t want to bump into Ellen so I decide to delay my shower and go to my office instead. I log on to my computer and sit there, waiting. A few minutes later, an email comes in.
Have you told Ellen I’m alive?
Truth or lie? Because I’m on uncharted territory, I go for the truth.
No, not yet.
Why not?
Because I want to know where you’ve been for all these years first.
I shouldn’t have come back
What do you mean?
You’re going to marry Ellen
My fingers pick out letters of their own accord so it’s only when I’m about to press send that I realise what I’ve written. Snatching my hands away, I push my chair back abruptly, putting distance between me and the keyboard. I take a moment, then reach down with one finger and press the delete button until the three little words – No, I’m not – disappear. I need to reply something, but what? Something benign.
How are you? Are you OK?
Maybe we should meet
I feel a prickle of something like danger. Or maybe it’s excitement.
When?
I’ll let you know
I stare at the screen in frustration. Maybe it’s the fact that she suggested we meet but suddenly I miss her, I miss the Layla I knew twelve years ago. I miss the way we were together. It’s so different from the way I am with Ellen. With Layla, there were highs and lows, with Ellen, everything is constant. There are no ups and downs. We never argue – but we don’t laugh either, not like I laughed with Layla. I tell myself it’s because we’re older but I know that it isn’t. Ellen is more – I search for the word and when I realise I was going to use boring, I quickly substitute it for serious, ashamed at myself. I’ll be alright once I’ve seen Layla, I tell myself. When I see her, I’ll explain that I’m now with Ellen, that it’s Ellen I love, and everything will be alright.
Another email comes in. I open it, thinking she’s going to tell me when we can meet.
I’M WEARING YOUR RING, FINN
TWENTY-NINE
Layla
The words went round and round in my head and the train picked them up, taunting me with them as it trundled along – there’d been no need to run that night, there’d been no need to run. If I hadn’t disappeared, it would have been alright. But I’d thought he was going to kill me.
I should never have told him that I’d slept with someone else. But he knew something was wrong and he kept trying to find out why I’d been so quiet since my return from Lon
don. At first he thought I was homesick, or missing Ellen, and the mention of Ellen had made me cry, because of course I was missing her. But it compounded the guilt I felt, because Ellen would have been horrified at what I’d done. If she’d met someone like Finn, she would never have betrayed him, she would have loved him and cherished him and thanked God every waking moment that she’d found a good, kind and decent man, as different as possible from our father in every single way. At least that’s what I’d thought, until I saw a side of him I hadn’t known existed.
I knew that he’d had a fight with Harry, that he’d beaten Harry quite badly, but I had no idea how explosive his temper could actually be until that night. It all happened so fast. One minute I was sitting next to him in the car at Fonches, a little scared at what I’d just told him but proud that I’d been honest with him, the next I thought I was about to die. I didn’t recognise the man who dragged me out of the car and shook me until my teeth rattled. The look in his eyes as he yelled he would never forgive me, and my inability to reach him, to break through his rage, was terrifying. I didn’t see him, I saw my father, and when he drew back his arm and I saw his clenched fist, I felt myself being dragged into some dark and sinister place. Maybe I passed out through sheer terror because the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground next to the car. There was no sign of Finn, and I was so convinced he was going to kill me that I thought he’d gone to look for a weapon – a branch from a tree, a discarded iron bar – to finish me off with. And so I ran.
I know the reason for his anger now. I know what happened with Siobhan, his girlfriend in Ireland, he explained it in his letter. I also know that he would have forgiven me for what I did. The desolation I felt was terrible. If I hadn’t run away, we would be together. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get past the fact that the last twelve years had been for nothing. NOTHING!!! Scared that the despair I felt would take me back to where I’d been before, I tried to rein it in. I took deep breaths, told myself that everything would be alright. But how could it be when Finn was with Ellen now?
