by Megan Tayte
37: DONE
‘Scarlett!’
Not Sienna. Luke.
I opened my eyes dreamily, saw him framed in the doorway and went to smile at him. But then I registered his white face, his open mouth, his wide eyes. I flung myself upright and took in the scene.
Me, in bed. But not alone. Beside me, under the quilt and sitting up lazily now, Jude.
Tousle-haired.
Pink-cheeked.
Bare-chested.
‘What the HELL!’
It was as if Luke was reading my mind. But there was no time to process, only to say quickly, desperately: ‘Luke, it’s not what you think...’
‘Spare me your lies,’ he spat at me, and he backed away, out of sight.
I flung off the covers and launched myself out of the bed. ‘No, wait…’
But he was thundering across the landing, and by the time I got out there he was already halfway down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
‘Wait!’ I shouted, running now. ‘Please!’
‘Leave me alone!’ he hollered, jumping the last few steps.
I raced down after him, lost my footing and fell backwards. The crash made him turn, and his hands came up reflexively, reaching for me, as I slid down the carpet runner on my backside. I hit the hallway floor hard and he took a step towards me and opened his mouth, but then movement at the top of the stairs caught his eye.
‘Scarlett, are you all right?’ called Jude.
Ignoring him, I said, ‘Luke, please, you have to listen –’
But his face had hardened into an expression I’d never seen on him before. ‘There’s nothing to say,’ he growled. ‘We’re done.’
And with that, he turned on his heel, tore open the front door and slammed it shut behind him. I scrambled up to stand, to go after him, and made it as far as the door. Arms held me back. I struggled, fighting to reach for the latch, saying ‘No, no!’ over and over. Then a voice in my ear commanded, ‘Let him go, Scarlett. It’s for the best.’
I froze.
In the sudden silence in the hallway the noise from outside was loud. An engine revving, tyres crunching, an exhaust rattling. Loud, and then quieter, and then... gone.
Jude’s hold on me loosened and then he released me. I turned slowly to face him.
‘You. You did this. You meant to do this.’
‘Yes. I heard his van outside. I got into bed with you.’ When I said nothing, just stared, he added, ‘I had to do something, Scarlett. He was holding you back. Don’t you see? It’s better this way. A clean break. Like ripping off a plaster. A little pain now, and then it’s all in the past. He can move on. You can move on.’
‘You. Did. This.’
I took a step towards him. He didn’t move. He didn’t back away. He should have.
I lost it: hitting out at him with fisted hands and screaming, ‘You bastard! You conniving, twisted, controlling bastard! What gave you the right! How dare you!’
He took it from me, holding his hands up to ward off blows, but otherwise standing silently as I railed against him. Then, abruptly, I was done – done with him. I lunged away to the stairs and flew up them. In my bedroom the covers were still thrown back on the bed we’d shared. I hauled them off the bed and threw them across the room. Then I pulled down a holdall from the top of the wardrobe and began chucking things into it.
‘Scarlett?’ He stood in the doorway. ‘What are you –’
‘I’m getting the HELL away from you, Jude.’
‘No, you can’t! That’s not what I meant.’
I opened a drawer and grabbed a handful of socks and hurled them at the bag. ‘I know exactly what you meant, Jude. You meant to break our damn hearts so you could have me for yourself now, now, now.’
‘No – yes – but it was the right…’
I dropped the sock in my hand and squared up to him. ‘IT WASN’T YOUR CHOICE TO MAKE! My life! My boyfriend! My goddam choice!’
I went back to throwing stuff in the bag – hairbrush, deodorant, anything that came to hand.
‘But you weren’t choosing,’ said Jude. ‘You were sitting about feeling sorry for yourself, dragging it out, hurting him, hurting you. And in the meantime, your life is in danger at every turn!’
I threw a bottle of perfume at him. He ducked and it hit the wall behind him.
‘I HAD DECIDED!’ I roared. ‘I was going to go with you, Jude. Willingly.’
‘Well, that’s…’
‘I was. But then you came along and tried to force me. To force me! What gives you the right to play God with my life? You condemn the Fallen so easily for that, but you’re just as bad! Just as capable of lying and manipulating and doing wrong. Why would I choose you? I may as well just track Daniel down and get him to Claim me. Him, you – what’s the bloody difference?’
My words hit home. Blew all the certainty and self-righteousness out of him so that he slumped against the doorframe. I was glad. I wanted to hurt him.
Swinging the bag onto my shoulder, I pushed past him and rushed along the landing and down the stairs – holding on this time. In the hallway I grabbed my handbag and the car keys.
Jude was on his way down the stairs. ‘Scarlett, please.’
I flung open the front door and strode to the car. Once inside, I threw the bags onto the passenger seat and then fumbled to do up my seatbelt. It clicked, and I moved quickly to put the key in the ignition. And shrieked when I looked through the windscreen. Jude was standing at the end of the bonnet.
My fist hit the central-locking control, and then the driver’s window switch. ‘Get out of the way,’ I warned him.
‘You can’t drive – you’re not well – where will you go?’
I started the engine and pressed my foot down on the accelerator so that the engine revved aggressively.
‘What if you get sick and I can’t get to you in time?’ yelled Jude.
‘I don’t care.’
‘You’ll die.’
‘I DON’T CARE!’
‘But you have to care! You have to come with me.’
‘I don’t have to do anything, Jude, and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere with someone I can’t trust. Now get out of my way – I’m warning you.’ I dropped the handbrake and he skittered backwards as I let the car hop forward a little.
‘Please. I can’t protect you like this.’
‘Then don’t!’
He started speaking again, imploring me, but I thrust my hand onto the horn. We stared each other out until, finally, his shoulders sagged and he stood aside. As I gunned it out of the driveway I took one final look in my rearview mirror at the friend who had betrayed me. But all I saw was an empty drive leading to an empty cottage.
38: ON MY WAY
I’d barely driven half a mile before clamouring memories rendered the country lane an unnavigable blur. I pulled over by the gate to a field and laid my head on the steering wheel and closed my eyes and let them come:
Luke standing at the stove, stirring a pan of soup, intent on his task.
Luke in the cove, chasing me, catching me, tickling me without mercy.
Luke smoothing hair from my face, eyes locked on mine, full of love.
Luke dancing like a loony in a flash mob, fearless, joyous.
Luke under the covers, kissing me, touching me, hungrily, eagerly.
Luke shuddering with tears on his roof terrace, sharing his deepest, darkest pain.
Luke in a black suit and tie, swaying with me on a dancefloor.
Luke humming our song.
Luke holding me in the folly.
Luke, Luke, Luke.
It was over. I had lost him. It was over.
But for it to end like this – all those memories sullied by a cruel trick. No last night together. No final, sweet kiss. No goodbye to treasure. Everything shattered in a single moment.
I loved him. I couldn’t leave him. I had to go to him, tell him the truth.
I loved him. I had to leave him. I ha
d to run from him, hide the truth.
Pounding the steering wheel, I screamed until my voice gave out. Then I slumped back in the seat and stared out, over the gate, across the field, to the dark sea writhing beyond.
I stayed there for a long time, until the sea swallowed the sun and the land was plunged into choking darkness. I had the sense I should be moving, going somewhere – away from here. So I started the engine, switched on the lights and drove robotically down the lane.
Minutes later I found myself in Luke’s street. I parked just down from his house and switched off the engine. From here, just the top of the house was visible above a broad tree – the roof terrace, lit with solar lights, where we’d watched the sun set in each other’s arms, where he’d given me the necklace hanging now around my neck, where he’d told me a hundred times in the last few weeks that he loved me.
Get out, my heart told me. Go to him. Make it right.
Drive away, my head instructed. Let him go.
My phone rang in my handbag. I fished it out. Cara’s name flashed on the display. I hesitated for a moment, then pressed ‘answer’.
‘Is it true?’ she demanded. ‘You’re messing about behind my brother’s back? With that Jude?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I said desperately.
‘Say “no”. Say it’s not true.’
‘I – Cara...’
‘Say it!’
I closed my eyes. ‘I can’t,’ I whispered.
She hung up.
I looked at the house once more. I ached for them both, in there, hurting, thinking the worst of me, hating me. They were right to, though – I had deceived them. Every day, in one way or another, since I’d come to the cove. I wasn’t the person I pretended to be. I may not have been an adulterer, but I was plenty else. I wasn’t decent; I wasn’t good. And they deserved so much better. Which was why I couldn’t get out of the car now and march up to the house and lay down another web of lies to explain away a half-naked Jude in my bed. There was nothing right about that.
My text message alert bleeped. Cara.
If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave this village right now and you won’t ever, EVER, come back.
I’m sorry, I typed back. I can’t explain, but there’s a reason for everything, and I
I couldn’t send that. I hit the backspace key and tried again.
Please tell him I’m sorry, and I love him, and I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt...
No. I blanked the screen.
On my way, I typed finally. And then, because I couldn’t bear not to say it: I’m sorry.
She replied within the minute: No more than we are for ever meeting you.
The off switch obliterated the words on the screen. I started the engine. And after a last, harrowing look at the house, I drove away, through the streets, through the lanes – away from Luke, away from Cara, away from the cottage on the cliff, away from the ocean, away from the cove, away from everything I loved but would never see again.
I drove slowly at first with all the care of a nervous learner driver, mindful that I was in no fit state to be behind a wheel. But then, once I was on the motorway, with miles of black tarmac snaking ahead and barely a car in sight, I found my foot weighing down a little more on the accelerator, and then a little more, until the night blurred around me. I watched the hand on the speedometer surge up with a kind of detached interest. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety.
At ninety-five the Mini was a rough ride – screaming engine, juddering suspension and a steering wheel shuddering beneath my hands so violently that I had to hold on tight to keep control.
And then a thought came to me:
Why bother? Why don’t you
just
let
go
*
I rest my hands in my lap.
The wheel jerks.
The car flies across the empty lanes.
The headlights pierce the darkness.
Trees ahead. Silver sentries, swaying in the wind.
Bumping, veering.
Branches outspread: welcome, Scarlett.
At the last second, I throw up my hands.
Agony
Blood
Flames
Black
White
Gone.
*
No!
My hands gripped the wheel as if it were a lifebelt in a stormy ocean. My foot hit the brake. The car skidded, screeched, snaked to the hard shoulder. Stopped.
I yanked on the handbrake. Sat back, gasping for air.
You didn’t do it, I told myself. You didn’t – you didn’t let go of that wheel for a single second.
But if I had...
Jude returning to Cerulea, tortured, guilty.
Sienna living out her days abandoned to evil.
Mother breaking apart, inhumanly alone.
Luke wishing he’d never saved me to begin with.
Bile erupted from my stomach, hot and burning. I undid my seatbelt and threw the door open and lurched out of the car. Then, on my knees in the dirt, I vomited all over the roots of the trees that had not, after all, killed me.
Afterwards, when there was nothing left inside to purge, I got back in the car and wiped my face with tissues and swilled some bottled water around my mouth. Then I checked the mirrors and pulled back out onto the road. I drove slowly, carefully, to the only refuge open to me now.
It was gone midnight by the time I weaved up the long, gravel drive, but still, when Hollythwaite came into view, I saw old, mullioned windows lit with the soft glow of lamplight. I circled the wide lawn in front of the main doors, and parked right in front of the steps. A face appeared at a window – the front sitting room. It disappeared and I took a moment to take some deep breaths and steel myself.
‘Calm, centred, in control,’ I muttered. ‘Mask on. Smile wide. There’s no drama. You just fancied a visit.’
The front doors swung open, and I opened the car door and used it to haul myself out.
‘Scarlett! Darling! What a wonderful surprise!’
She hurried down the steps, arms spread wide, to greet me. I let go of the door and managed two faltering steps before the look on her face – so happy – severed all the flimsy threads that had been holding my heart together. With a single word, ‘Mum’, I fell into her arms and finally, finally, I let the tears come.
39: SINGING IN THE RAIN
When I stirred the next morning a niggling feeling superseded my first conscious thought. Something was wrong. Something had happened.
A clock was ticking nearby. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa, I thought groggily; the grandfather clock downstairs was the only timepiece in the cottage. But the tick was off, somehow – lighter, more musical. And then, in the brief gap between two ticks, I remembered, I remembered all of it, and my eyes flew open to see not the living room of the cottage but the bedroom of my childhood.
I lay still, waiting for the tears to come. But my eyes remained dry. I lifted my head a little, tested it for dizziness or pain. But though it was heavy, it was clear.
I’d slept, I realised. I’d expected a long, lonely night haunted by the memory of Luke’s white face in my bedroom doorway and a pair of tiger eyes watching me. But bright light was leaking around the thick velvet curtains at the windows and the hands on the mantelpiece clock were at eleven o’clock.
A pill, I remembered – Mum had given me a pill to take. After she’d sat me down in the living room and coaxed the basics from me: that Luke and I had rowed, and broken up. After she’d handed me tissue after tissue while I cried it all out. After she’d led me up to the bedroom and helped me into pyjamas and tucked me under the covers. But before I’d started to drift away, and then panicked, begging her not to let me go, and she’d lain down beside me and stroked my hair and promised to keep me safe.
And I had felt safe with her. That she would be there for me. That was a new feeling – all these years, she’d been the one in p
ain, and I’d been the one comforting her. I’d expected that at the door. Probing, chastising, ramping up the drama. But there had been none of the usual madness. She was quiet, compassionate. Sensible.
On the way here, there’d been nothing but gloom inside me. God, there’d even been those seconds when I’d imagined
Agony
Blood
Flames
Black
White
Gone.
But now, there was a glimmer of light, enough to make me want to get out of bed and get dressed and hurry downstairs to meet its source: my mother.
I found her in the kitchen, sitting at the oversized pine table engrossed in papers laid about before her. She looked up at the sound of my footsteps and smiled warmly.
‘Morning, darling. How are you today?’
‘Calmer,’ I said, sitting opposite her. Our housekeeper, Marnie, brought over a coffee, and I thanked her.
‘The staff are back?’ I asked Mum. Last time I’d been here, right after Father had left, she’d sent them all away.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But not for long.’
She gestured at the papers on the table, and I looked down to see they were estate agent marketing sheets for houses.
‘I’m thinking a cottage in the country someplace. On a hill with a view. Little privet hedges. A wishing well.’
‘You’re moving?’
‘Selling up,’ she declared proudly. ‘Moving up. Moving on.’ Then her face fell: ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry – I never thought. This is your home. Do you mind?’
I grimaced. ‘This old mausoleum? Not in the slightest.’
‘I never realised – you don’t like it here?’
‘Hate it. It’s cold. It’s bleak. It’s way too big.’
‘And too ostentatious by a mile,’ she added. ‘It’s Hugo all over.’
‘So, you’re getting rid.’
‘I’m getting rid. Hey, do you have to get back? Or will you stay a while? Maybe you can look at some places with me. I mean, if you want. I understand if –’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I can stay.’
‘Good. Good! For how long?’
