‘A beautifully written, tense and utterly absorbing tale about a marriage that dares to be different. I loved it.’
Clare Empson, author of Him
‘A cleverly crafted and beautifully written debut.’
Ruby Speechley, author of Someone Else’s Baby
‘A powerful and thoughtful study of a modern marriage vividly brought to life in Persaud’s compelling prose.’
Amanda O’Callaghan, author of This Taste for Silence
‘Persaud’s exploration of a marriage in crisis is written in crisp, elegant prose and has an almost hypnotic quality. I loved it.’
Laura Pearson, author of Missing Pieces
‘Beautifully observed and written. A hugely enjoyable read.’
S. A. Harris, author of Haverscroft
‘Persaud navigates the complicated web of tangled human relationships with confident and elegant prose, and dialogue that sparkles. A truly captivating novel.’
Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them
‘An astute and compelling novel about passion, desire and delusion.’
Ronan Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul
THE CODES OF LOVE
Hannah Persaud
For Arv, for everything x
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Kahlil Gibran, ‘On Marriage’
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Rules of an open marriage #1: Never sleep with the same person more than once
Rules of an open marriage #2: Our arrangement is a secret between us
Rules of an open marriage #3: What’s done remains in the past
Rules of an open marriage #4: No financial agreements must be entered into with anyone else
Rules of an open marriage #5: Be realistic: individual people have different needs
Rules of an open marriage #6: We will help each other to better understand ourselves
Rules of an open marriage #7: Always be transparent about how you feel
Rules of an open marriage #8: Agree how much time we’ll spend apart
Rules of an open marriage #9: Never bring a lover into our house
Rules of an open marriage #10: Always spend quality time with each other
Rules of an open marriage #11: Don’t take each other for granted
Rules of an open marriage #12: Have no secrets from one another
Rules of an open marriage #13: Always put family first
Rules of an open marriage #14: Never treat each other like second-class partners
Rules of an open marriage #15: Remain in control
Rules of an open marriage #16: Have faith in intuition
Rules of an open marriage #17: Remember that fights are about feelings, not facts
Rules of an open marriage #18: Be willing to reassess the open arrangement
Rules of an open marriage #19: Look after each other in sickness and in health
Rules of an open marriage #20: Accept one another’s flaws
Rules of an open marriage #21: Don’t leave anyone in the dark
Rules of an open marriage #22: Never be with someone that we both know
Rules of an open marriage #23: Be loyal to one another in your hearts
Rules of an open marriage #24: Remember that love is not possession
Rules of an open marriage #25: Above all, love one another
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Rules of an open marriage #1:
Never sleep with the same person more than once
‘Ambitious,’ she is saying, ‘to wear shorts in Wales.’
The clouds hang low as rain canvases against the windscreen and Ryan struggles to keep the car steady as it is buffeted by the wind. A steady trickle of water runs down the join between door and window and drips onto his knee, pooling in between his toes. The sole of his foot slips against the rubber of his flip-flops as he accelerates.
When he’d opened the curtains of the room at their B & B this morning, sunlight slipped through a crevice in the clouds and streamed in through the window. As he watched Ada sleeping in the shaft of light, he’d taken it as a sign. He’d had a good feeling about today.
Now he’s not so sure it was sensible to make this trip out to the Cregennan Lakes. As soon as they got into the car the weather turned. Today would have been the perfect excuse to stay in bed, windows fastened. The most fleeting of decisions gather volume when inspected later, but for now the cottage is undiscovered. Hindsight is everything.
Ada’s warm skin distracts him from the road. He moves his left hand to rest upon her thigh and feels her shift into his fingers.
‘Careful,’ she says as the chassis of the car crashes against the tarmac in between the potholes. Whose idea was it to bring this ridiculous excuse of a car anyway, little more than a tin can on wheels, not even watertight? She lifts his hand from her leg and places it back on the steering wheel. ‘Later.’
She smiles and turns up the music, singing along tunelessly. They could have brought the Audi, or the Range Rover, the Range Rover the obvious choice for a trip like this, but she’d insisted on this car she’d learned to drive in twenty years ago. Emotional about so little, she surprises him with these nods to sentiment.
‘We must be nearly there.’ He slows to peer through the water sluicing down the windows. ‘We’ve been driving for at least an hour.’
‘I’ll check,’ she says, reaching for her phone. ‘It said twenty minutes from Dolgellau this morning.’ Opening the window, she extends her arm out, phone to the sky. ‘Crap. No reception.’
‘Great,’ he sighs and pulls over to the side of the road, startling a buzzard that is picking at a carcass.
‘Isn’t this what we wanted?’ She leans over and kisses his cheek. ‘A break from everything, total focus on ourselves?’ Despite his frustration at the road and the gnawing hunger in his stomach, the car is fogging up and it’s exciting being lost among the mountains. They are playing at being free. When she slides his chair backwards and straddles him he worries briefly about being spotted by passing cars; then she becomes everything.
Eyes bright and face flushed, she manoeuvres herself back into her chair and rolls the window down. The cold air slaps them in their faces.
‘So.’ She turns to him.
‘So.’ He turns the collar of his inadequate sweater up and runs his hand through his hair. ‘You looked gorgeous the other night at the members’ club, by the way,’ he says. ‘I love that dress. Wear it again for me some time?’
‘Sure,’ she laughs and kisses him on the lips. It’s incongruous, her laugh that is so much lower than her voice.
‘I can’t believe you’re not bored of me yet,’ she says.
‘Never.’ He leans over and cups her face in his palms, the gear stick intruding awkwardly between them.
Two hours later they’ve abandoned their search for the lakes and devoured the remainder of the packed lunch prepared for them at their B & B. His legs are numb and covered in mud from scrambling up steep paths, emerging finally and triumphantly through the cloud cover at the summit of Penygader. For miles around all they can see is a white bed of cloud below them, the sky a clear perfect blue above. It’s magical but something feels wrong.
‘Who would have thought we’d find this, here?’ She gestures to the sun, squinting. She throws herself down on the ground, stretching her legs out. ‘It’s glorious,’ she says, closing her eyes. ‘The best sun is unexpected.’
It was chance that led them up here – the OS map is sodden and torn, their phones left in the car f
or safety from the rain. The path wound its way ever upwards, slippery in the mist. Bare feet would have been more suitable than flip-flops, each smooth rock a slip hazard for his flimsy rubber soles. In a landscape punctuated only by heathers and bilberry, they could have been the only people alive. But she’d remembered something from a brochure she’d read about this mountain, and finding it just metres from where they’d abandoned their journey, it had seemed foolish to not seize the opportunity, with the small wooden sign indicating that Cadair Idris was just ahead.
The light’s fading.
‘We should go down,’ he says, bending and grasping her hand, pulling her to her feet. She stands beside him and rests her chin on his shoulder, face tilted towards the patchwork sky, her eyes mirroring the blue.
‘I wish we could stay,’ she says, nuzzling her face into his neck. In the fog and dewy mist that’s turning fast to sleet, he understands her longing for anonymity, a cloak of a kind.
Going down is quicker, more sliding then walking. The rain is coming faster, great pear-shaped drops that land heavily on his bare legs. She smiles and opens her mouth wide, sticking out her tongue so that she can catch them. ‘Here,’ she pulls closer to his face and brushes her tongue against his parted lips, ‘for you.’ A fork confuses him; he remembers telling himself to always head left but now he can’t be sure. He pauses for a moment to think, but Ada rushes ahead.
‘It’s this way, I’m sure,’ she says, walking ahead of him, her frame silhouetted against a murky tide of cloud. She hums a tune he doesn’t recognise and stray notes travel back to him, fragmented. He rushes to keep up; she’s fit and fearless, confident. But half an hour in and an unrecognisable moonscape confronts them; he’s put too much faith in her. He considers the risks that they have taken by coming up here, and imagines them requiring rescue by helicopter or worse. He thinks of the bollocking he would give the boys if they got themselves into a similar predicament, but the reality is they probably wouldn’t after all the years they spent doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. It’s not the first time in recent weeks where he’s felt foolishly reckless.
‘Come on, keep going.’ She grabs his hand. She seems unaware of the hazards of their situation and what earlier felt liberating now seems naïve.
‘Wait.’ He stops and pulls out the sodden Ordnance Survey map. Lowering himself onto his knees, he shields it with his torso. It’s little more than papier-mâché now, but their only hope. In between the contours, half rubbed out, he makes out the letters P E N Y. The compass has fared better against the storm and he angles it to the map. ‘We came the wrong way,’ he says quietly. It’s not her fault; he didn’t disagree with her choices. He regrets his willingness to be led. He wrings the map out in his hands and feels it twist into pieces. He walks to her side and places an arm around her waist, although the action costs him precious body heat.
‘We’ll be fine, back up and fork right, there’s still some light.’ It’s not long, though, before that fades, replaced by inky darkness. No lights in the distance, no telltale signs of life. He focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, though his feet burn with the pain of the cold and his big toe aches from where he cut it on a rock. He grits his teeth and grasps her icy hand. As long as they are descending they will reach the bottom, he reasons. Her chipper mood is replaced with a sombre silence. No phones, no food, no blankets. They’ve outdone themselves this time. The ground levels out, and he’s promising himself that he won’t let himself be swept up by her impulses again, that in future he’ll be more responsible, when a lone torchlight approaches them. They stop walking and stand still, waiting, listening to the footsteps that crunch against the stones that have replaced the mossy grasses. She pulls her hand away from his.
‘Hello?’ The voice sounds fractured, distorted by the Welsh elongation of the vowels. Conversation is inevitable. Ryan starts walking again, faster, and the shape of a man and a dog emerge. The stranger is illuminated from the forehead down, the bridge of the nose exaggerated against the storm of his eyebrows and beard.
‘We may be lost – can you help us?’ Ryan’s voice sounds feeble to his ears; they are foolish foreigners wandering in unannounced and unprepared and the may rings false.
‘Where are you headed?’ asks the man. The sheepdog comes into full view, wet fur and head down, tail curled between its legs.
‘Dol Idris car park,’ answers Ada.
‘You’re miles away, it’s round the other side. From the top it’s less than an hour, but from here, two hours at least. You must have walked in the wrong direction. My name’s Huw, and you are?’
‘I’m Susan and this is Ben.’ Her decision to lie seems odd when this man is only helping them. It’s not as if they know anybody here.
Ryan clears his throat, deliberating between pride and survival. He’d like to insist that they are fine and not lost at all, but their circumstances betray them. Huw speaks again.
‘You can come with me, if you want to. The road’s blocked to Dolgellau, flooded, but I can take you as far as Penmaenpool.’
‘That’s very kind, Huw, thank you. As you can see we’re completely unprepared,’ Ada says, stepping towards him. In the torchlight she sweeps her arm towards Ryan.
In the back of the car the stench of wet dog is overwhelming. Ryan shuffles his feet around, trying to find a flat resting place; welly boots and rubber mats brush against his bare skin. His toes are numb and he wonders how long it takes for hypothermia to set in. Beside him Ada is talking too loudly and he wants to ask her to be quiet. It’s been a long time since he was in the back of a car; he’d forgotten how nauseating the bends are from this vantage, how bumpy the roads.
‘You down for long?’ Huw asks from the front. ‘Brave to come out in shorts,’ he says. A guffaw erupts from his beard.
‘I told him,’ Ada says, ‘but he wouldn’t listen. He’s stubborn like that.’
‘City boy, I guess,’ Huw says. Another bubble of laughter bursts from the front.
Behind Ryan’s head the hot breath of the sheepdog tickles his ear. Its gravelly tongue brushes his neck. Only with Ada could he find himself in this situation, careening down tiny rock-strewn roads in the darkness. He tunes out their conversation.
She places a hand upon his knee and he pushes it away; this act of familiarity feels inappropriate in a stranger’s car. The car slows and the headlights illuminate a river ahead, flowing at right angles to their road. Huw tuts loudly and shakes his head.
‘There’s no getting across here, not unless you want to swim it.’ He turns now. ‘You’d be okay, in your shorts …’ – an impish grin – ‘but you young lady, well, you’d catch your death of cold.’
She smiles to show her dimples. How simply she transforms herself at will; it’s hard to reconcile her sweetness now with her urgent determination of earlier, sinewed arms hoisting him into position beneath her, the strong grip of her hands against his wrists.
Huw turns the car around and they head back in the direction they’ve come from. There’s no option, he informs them, but to seek shelter in Abergwynant and retrieve their car in the morning, if the rain abates, that is. He can drop them at a hotel that can probably put them up for the night if they’d like. They would, they agree. Ryan thinks of his warm clothes and the large en-suite bathroom at their B & B.
Above the entrance to the hotel a tin sign swings in the wind. Ridge View Hotel, it informs him, though there’s no view tonight. A single bare light bulb hangs inside the porch, illuminating the cobwebs above.
‘Thank you, you saved us.’ Ada leans over and kisses Huw on the cheek. Muttering thanks, Ryan forces himself to stroke the dog’s head as he clambers out of the back seat.
‘There’s only one room left,’ the receptionist informs them from behind the wooden desk at the bottom of the stairs. Ryan pulls out his wallet. She fiddles with her roll-up with one hand while tapping the keyboard with another. He saw the car park on the way in, empty except for an upended wheelie bin.
‘Yep – you’re lucky, there was a cancellation.’ Luck is a subjective thing, Ryan considers as she leads them upstairs. The threadbare carpets shrink back from tobacco-stained walls. The building is larger than it looks – there must be twenty rooms at least. They do not pass another person or hear any sound of other guests. At the end of the hallway on the left there is a doorway; curled pencil-sharpenings of red paint fall as he turns the key.
‘You from England?’ the receptionist asks.
‘For our sins,’ he replies.
‘Shout if you need anything,’ she says, disappearing back down the hallway.
He sits on a bed and peels off his flip-flops, rubbing his toes between his hands. The bedroom is cold and there’s mildew on the window frames. A single radiator on the far wall gurgles, emitting a feeble attempt at heat that can only be felt by touching it. The twin beds are separated by a dressing table with chairs on either side. The floorboards between them are freezing and littered with protruding screws. He opens a door.
‘Shit.’
‘What?’ She looks up from the armchair where she is emptying her pockets.
‘Where’s the shower?’
‘She said it’s down the hallway.’
‘You’re kidding …’
‘It’s not the Ritz, you know.’ She walks over to him and hugs him from behind. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? At least we’re here together.’ Usually he appreciates her optimism.
‘How long does it take for hypothermia to set in?’ His teeth are chattering.
‘You’re such a hypochondriac.’ She laughs and throws him a threadbare towel.
The lights in the hallway have gone off and he can’t find the switch to turn them back on. He reaches for his phone torch, remembering too late that it is in the car miles away. The communal bathroom’s redeeming feature is that it smells of chlorine, permeating through the holes in the ceiling; he grits his teeth as the lukewarm shower burns his feet. By the time he returns to the room she has dragged the two beds together and the dressing table and chairs are pushed against the far wall. She lies with her back to the door. He turns the lights out and slides in between the covers, wrapping his arms around her. She pushes back against him. He was craving sleep but his body takes over. She has this way of persuading him without a word being said. The beds rock against the thin walls as he moves inside her.. Afterwards he holds her against him, their bodies moulded into one. He breathes in the faint smell of her sweat and closes his eyes.
The Codes of Love Page 1
