‘So we just leave the real world behind?’ Kat asks.
Simon throws his arms wide. ‘What if this is the real world?’
Kat feels the beginnings of a smile pull at the corners of her mouth.
‘And what if some farmer or park ranger takes offence at us squatting here and turfs us out?’ asks Carla. ‘What if some little old lady appears out of the blue and asks for her cottage back?’
Simon shrugs. ‘What have we lost? You’ve still got the rest of your lives to conform.’ He sits up straight and eyes each of them in turn. ‘We could try it for twelve months and see what happens? Think of it like an experiment. One year. I think we could manage that.’
Kat glances around at the others and sees them all staring at Simon with rapt attention. She knows how dangerously persuasive he can be when he gets in this mood and wonders where it comes from – this confidence, this swagger. Perhaps it’s something innate, something in his genetic make-up; or perhaps it’s taught at those expensive public schools? Maybe that’s why wealthy families fork out astronomical fees each term – for classes in how to dazzle and persuade, how to unswervingly believe in yourself? Where it comes from she’s not sure, but what she is sure of is that when Simon fixes you in his sights with a plan or an argument, he can be both formidable and almost impossible to resist.
‘What do you say?’ he continues. ‘Twelve months out of an entire lifetime . . . it’s nothing; and at least we’d have had fun trying.’ He sits back on his heels and looks at them all, his eyes glowing black again in the faltering light, the faintest stain of strawberry juice on his lips. She swallows and drags her gaze away.
Finally, when no one says anything, he sighs and turns towards the still waters of the lake. ‘Oh forget it. You’re probably all right. I’m being an idiot. Of course it’s time for us to move on. We can’t stay together like this for ever.’
Silence falls over them. Kat thinks about what he’s suggesting; the five of them living in close quarters in a remote, tumbledown cottage, creating something from nothing, making a home together right here in the fresh air and the sunshine, beside this beautiful, shimmering lake. She thinks about having the time to read books and write – the time to think – the time to enjoy her friends’ company; and then she thinks about the alternative.
Things aren’t as straightforward for her as the rest of them. She has no parents to fall back on, no job assurances or promises of help in the family firm. The only person she has in the whole world is her sister, and Freya is busy now with her own life. But this place – this idea – would change everything. Compared to any of her other ideas for the future this place feels strangely solid and real and it comes with one shining promise she hasn’t dared to imagine up until now: Simon, for another twelve months.
As she considers his argument she feels excitement spark like a warm ember in her belly. She takes a breath. ‘I know I’ll probably regret this . . .’ she sighs, ‘but I’ll do it.’ She says it so quietly she’s not sure anyone will hear – but Simon is already spinning towards her, a smile breaking over his face.
‘Kat,’ he says. It’s just one word, but the approval in his voice makes the smouldering ember flare to a white-hot flame. ‘I knew you’d get it.’
She nods and tries to hide her smile.
‘Anyone else?’ he asks, looking around at the group.
Ben groans. ‘Oh you . . . with your persuasive tongue and your honeyed words. You know my dad will kill me, don’t you?’
Simon just shrugs.
‘And there’s not even any electricity. I mean, I don’t think I’ll survive without my record player and my vinyl. I might waste away.’
Simon just continues to stare at him.
‘But I suppose the job could wait a while, while we explore this hare-brained scheme of yours.’ He looks up at Carla and she tilts her head slightly. ‘Twelve months, you say?’
Simon nods.
‘Oh go on then,’ says Ben, ‘you’ve twisted my arm. I’m in.’
‘Me too,’ says Carla.
Kat smirks. They all know that when it comes to Ben and Carla, where one goes, the other follows.
‘Great. So that just leaves you, Mac . . . you’ve been very quiet over there. What do you think?’
They wait. Mac sits with his knees pulled up to his chest, staring down at his dusty trainers.
‘Come on, Mac, we wouldn’t be able to do it without our country boy,’ cajoles Ben, putting on a terrible northern accent.
‘Yes, come on, Mac,’ says Kat, ‘you’re the one who brought us here. It wouldn’t feel right staying on without you.’
Mac looks at each of them in turn, peering at them through the shaggy curtain of his hair. He slaps at a midge on his arm then runs his hand across the pink stubble rash on his chin. ‘You’re all drunk,’ he says.
The rest of them just stare at him, fixing him in their gaze.
‘And it will be bloody hard work,’ he adds.
Still no one says anything. A wood pigeon calls from high up in the trees.
‘Christ,’ he says at last, breaking into a crooked smile, ‘it’s not as if I can leave you lot by yourselves, can I? You wouldn’t last five minutes alone out here.’ He gives a small nod. ‘I’m in.’
‘Good man,’ says Simon, reaching over and slapping him on the shoulder.
They seal the pact by clinking their beer bottles and drinking a toast and then, as the sun slowly begins to dip below the hills, they turn their thoughts towards the journey home, shaking out the rug and their towels and packing away the cool bag. Mac leads the way towards the dark copse of trees, the rest of them trailing at a distance, but Kat hangs back for a moment, standing at the water’s edge, reluctant to tear herself away. The light is almost gone now, the lake a deep pool of ink in the murky twilight. They’ve agreed to return in a week, when they have packed up their house, secured a few essentials and waved goodbye to their student home, but now that the time has come to return to the city she finds she can’t bear to go.
She hears the crunch of footsteps behind her, but she doesn’t turn, not even when a second shadow joins hers at the edge of the lake, merging and stretching out over the dark mass of water, not even as a warm arm snakes around her shoulders. Hazy with sunshine and beer, she allows herself the luxury of leaning into the solid curve of Simon’s body, resting her head on his shoulder.
‘Don’t want to leave, huh?’
‘No,’ she admits.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a few days.’ She nods and wonders if she is imagining the light, dancing motion of his fingertips on her bare skin. ‘Twelve months,’ he murmurs. ‘No bullshit . . . just honest, hard work and the rewards that will come with it.’
For some reason, Simon’s words remind her of the plant growing around the abandoned cottage, those green, papery discs shimmering in the faintest summer breeze. ‘We must be mad,’ she murmurs, but she feels it too; there is the promise of something good and real here, a life of simplicity and solitude. A life with Simon and her friends, removed from the distractions of the outside world. A life of honesty.
Simon stifles a yawn. ‘Come on,’ he says, spinning her round by the shoulders to face the grassy slope ahead, ‘the others will be waiting.’
She nods and allows him to lead her by the hand through the lengthening shadows, all the way back to the car.
3
LILA
August
In the end it takes them three weeks to find both the time and energy to head up to the mysterious plot of land bequeathed to Lila, and when they do eventually drive out of London, any romantic ideas either of them may have privately entertained about a carefree summer road trip are quickly laid to rest. ‘It’s just as well we packed our coats,’ says Tom, his jaw clenched and his knuckles white on the steering wheel as rain splatters loudly onto the windscreen.
‘Yes,’ agrees Lila, staring out at the distorted red smudges of brake lights ahead. ‘Not exactly the day th
ey promised, is it?’ Another gust of wind hits the car and suddenly the wipers don’t seem to move fast enough.
‘Perhaps we should have waited. According to your map it’s going to be quite a trek, some of it on foot. It’s not going to be much fun in this weather.’
Your map. She can already feel Tom washing his hands of the day. ‘You didn’t have to come, you know.’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ He hesitates, trying to choose his words carefully. ‘What I meant is . . .’ He gives up. ‘Look, I want to be here with you, OK?’
She nods and feels his glance in her direction but she still can’t bring herself to look at him. She is worried that if she does the floodgates might open, that he might start talking about the terrible thing that hangs between them, the thing neither of them have discussed since the day she was released from the hospital. And she’s not sure she can bear that, not today. The effect of the pills she swallowed with her breakfast is already waning.
‘I’m trying, Lila,’ he says. ‘I really am.’
‘I know.’ She looks out at the traffic and twists the thin gold band of her wedding ring around her finger, considers reaching across to touch him, a small gesture of reconciliation. She wants to reassure him that she is trying too, that she still loves him; but the words stick in her throat and her hands remain folded in her lap, her face fixed upon the road ahead.
The first time she’d ever seen Tom was at a bus stop in Crouch End. He’d been leaning against the shelter, a battered leather satchel at his feet, his suit jacket flapping in the wind and a dog-eared paperback in his hands. She’d watched his eyes skimming quickly across its pages. Never trust a man who doesn’t read books: it was a piece of advice once offered by her father – long-forgotten for she couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old at the time – but standing there on the pavement, watching this unknown man with his slightly furrowed brow and his scuffed shoes, her father’s words had come drifting back to her.
She’d watched him for a while, noting how his lips moved occasionally as his eyes traced the words on the page and when the bus had eventually arrived she’d sat at the very back and distracted herself with the shifting scenes outside the window, only once or twice allowing herself to search for a glimpse of him: the crease in his shirt collar . . . the curve of his jaw . . . that sticking-up tuft of hair on his crown that she imagined hardly ever lay flat.
The reader, as he had been labelled in her head, wasn’t there the next morning, or the next, but on the fourth day he was back, leaning in the same position against the bus shelter, this time with a different book in his hands. As the bus arrived, Lila had followed him up the aisle and slid into the empty seat beside him, glancing down at the book lying in his lap. He’d smiled a crooked smile and held the cover up for her to see. ‘Busted, sorry,’ she’d apologised, flushing pink.
‘No, I’m the same . . . always like to know what other people are reading.’
‘Is it any good?’ she’d asked, nodding her head in the direction of the hefty paperback with its shouty, gold-embossed title.
‘It’s OK. I borrowed it from a friend. To be honest,’ he’d said, ‘it’s not really my thing, but I hate not finishing a book once I’ve started it.’
‘Me too,’ she’d agreed. ‘That’s why I never bothered with War and Peace.’
‘Or Moby Dick.’
‘Or Anna Karenina.’
They’d smiled at one another and by the time the bus had crawled through rush hour and reached Holborn they’d broken all of London’s unspoken public transport rules and swapped names and phone numbers.
He was a design engineer, specialising in bridges. He’d told her all about it in the pub two nights later. His work took him all over the country but he was in London for a few more weeks, staying with friends in Crouch End while he inspected several constructions and drew up plans for a new design out near Stratford. ‘It’s all part of the plans to regenerate the area.’
She’d nodded and tried to decide if it sounded really interesting or really boring.
‘It’s not all hard hats and clipboards,’ he’d said, as if reading her mind. ‘The inspection stuff is OK, but what I really love is the design work. A bridge should never be boring, just a means of getting from A to B; it should be as appealing as the buildings surrounding it, as dynamic as the landscape it’s a part of.’
She’d nodded, but she’d only been half listening, her attention caught by the intensity of his brown eyes as he spoke about his work and the jagged white scar across his right cheek that disappeared into a laughter line when he smiled. She’d reached out to touch it with the tip of her finger.
‘My younger brother,’ he’d said smiling, ‘shot me with a pellet gun when I was eight. Siblings eh?’
She’d smiled. ‘I’m an only child.’
‘Well there you go, a lucky escape. I bet you carry a few less scars?’
Lila had shrugged. She knew she probably bore her own scars, in her own way. ‘I always wanted brothers and sisters,’ she’d confessed. ‘It can be lonely being an only child.’
He’d eyed her over his pint glass. ‘So what do you do, Lila?’
She’d told him that she was a designer too, of sorts. ‘Interiors, property renovation. I work for corporate clients, you know, upgrading office spaces, usually creative industries, media types.’ She said it with an affected drawl and they’d shared a grin. ‘But I take on the occasional private client too; sometimes a house or a flat.’
‘That sounds like fun.’ He’d smiled at her and a crackle of static had hung in the air between them.
They barely knew one another but as he’d walked her home much later, their bodies swaying drunkenly, he’d pushed her against the shuttered side of a newsagent and kissed her in the strobing light of a faulty street lamp, neither of them caring who saw. They’d only stopped when the sky had exploded around them with sudden flashes of colour and noise. ‘What the—’ he’d said, looking up at the impressive fireworks display illuminating the night sky, a bank of grey smoke drifting high above them and carrying with it an acrid, sulphur smell.
She’d pulled him close again. ‘Bonfire Night,’ she’d said, her lips against his.
‘Aha,’ he’d grinned, ‘no chance I can convince you I just arranged that little display then, for our first date?’
She remembered how her stomach had flipped at his use of the word ‘first’, the subtle implication that there might be a second, perhaps even a third? She’d leaned in to test him and when they’d finally pulled apart again, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to invite him back to her place.
They drive north for several hours, stopping once at a grotty service station to refuel and ask for directions, then navigate their way through an urban sprawl before breaking out into open countryside. Cultivated farmland slowly gives way to a more unruly landscape and they find themselves driving through tangled woods and across open, shrubby moors. Eventually, they pull up onto the verge of a remote country lane, the car’s hazard lights flashing urgently as they stare up a steep, unmarked track.
‘It’s got to be up there,’ says Lila, turning back to the map in her hands. ‘It’s the only place it can be. We’ve driven up and down this lane three times now.’
Tom shakes his head. ‘I don’t like it, Lila. It looks really narrow and muddy. After all that rain . . . what if the car gets bogged?’ He checks his phone. ‘I don’t even have mobile reception here.’
‘So we’re just going to turn around and go home?’
Tom doesn’t answer.
‘Come on,’ she says, surprised to find herself being the encouraging one, ‘we’ve got boots and coats. We’ll survive. It’s the Peak District, not Outer Mongolia.’ She regards him with a sideways glance; he has definitely grown more cautious in recent weeks.
He must feel her studying him because without turning, he pulls a silly face at the windscreen that makes her smile in spite of herself. ‘Come on,’ sh
e says again, a little more softly, ‘we’ve come all this way; let’s not give up now.’
‘OK,’ he sighs, flicking off the hazard lights and swinging the car up the overgrown track, ‘but I’m warning you, it’s you that’s going to dig us out if we get stuck.’
‘Deal,’ she says and feels her grin creep across her face like a strange aberration. When was the last time she smiled?
In the early days, their relationship had been full of spontaneity and passion, born out of the intensity that a long-distance love affair can carry. Tom’s job had meant a fair bit of back and forth; he’d travelled to visit her in London whenever he could but when a project kept him in one place for a time, Lila would jump on trains or planes for illicit weekends in whichever city his work had taken him to. She’d loved the excitement of it all, the anonymous hotel rooms, the big white beds, the fluffy bathrobes and room service. It was a romantic way to start a relationship and the physicality of them – their ease with each other, the uncomplicated way they reached for one another, touched one another – seemed to form the very foundation of all that they shared.
Unlike other men she’d dated, Tom was a man who seemed consummately comfortable in his own skin. He communicated with his hands – and with his body; his fingers grazing the back of her neck, a hand resting lightly on her hip, an arm slung around her shoulders as they walked down the street. Whenever she thought of him in those early days it was always in a physical way – the curve of his bicep, the hollow of his collarbone, the early-morning stubble on his jaw – and it always evoked a tingle of lust.
They’d been together just over eighteen months when he proposed with an antique diamond ring in an intimate underground wine bar tucked down a one-way street off the Strand. She hadn’t had to think about it; she’d shrieked her ‘yes’ and leapt into his arms and six months later they were married before friends and family at a small register office, the reception held afterwards in a flapping white marquee at the bottom of her parents’ sprawling Buckinghamshire garden.
The Shadow Year Page 5
