She waits on the rock, bearing the full force of the elements as Emily catches up. The rain is falling brutally hard, the wind whipping it in all directions. Jayne can’t see as far as the burial chamber, but she knows it’s close and that’s exhilarating.
Emily is bent against the wind as she picks her way along the path. She must be soaking, Jayne thinks. That’s not a waterproof coat.
She feels a little guilty about how irritated she felt with Emily earlier because Emily’s having a miserable time, which is only made worse if you hardly know the people you’re with. Jayne resents Edie powerfully for the letter. It isn’t just a horrible thingto have done, it’s verging on endangering them. Emily probably shouldn’t be out here, in these conditions, without proper kit.
Resenting Edie isn’t new for Jayne. There have been times before now when Edie has felt like the third person in her marriage.
Jayne wasn’t prepared for this when she and Mark first left the army and moved back to Bristol, his hometown. She hadn’t reckoned with the dominance of Mark’s friends in their life, with how Mark would welcome it and how she would struggle with it.
It might have been okay if Mark’s friends were all men, or if Edie was a different kind of woman, but there was something about the way Edie interacted with them all, something possessive, that rankled Jayne. That Edie was undeniably attractive, that even the most loyal men tracked her with their eyes, didn’t help.
But she didn’t complain, even when Edie began to grate on her, even when things Mark said made her suspect that he might have fallen in love with Edie while they were at school together, because she believes that the past is the past, and she also believes in loyalty. You do what you have to for the people you love.
Jayne clambers off the top of the rock and extends a hand to Emily to help her up the last, steep bit of the path. Emily grips tightly, her hand wet and slippery, her wedding ring digging into Jayne’s fingers. Once she’s up, she clings to Jayne’s arm. The wind blows Emily’s hood off her face, and within seconds rain has painted strands of hair down her forehead.
With her free hand, Emily holds up her phone and moves it from side to side, searching for reception. This is almost the highest point around, and Jayne feels hopeful, but they get nothing.
“I haven’t even got one bar,” Emily says. “The whole way up here. We should have gone down.”
Her forehead is creased in a frown beneath her wet locks. Jayne thinks Emily might be right, but she wants to keep going, just a little. She thinks Emily can cope with a few more minutes out here. Jayne feels inexorably drawn onward by the possibility thatshe might be able to glimpse the site of the burial chamber. It feels urgent that she sees it if she can. She points to higher ground.
“Come on,” she says. “Just a little farther. It’s worth a try now that we’re here.”
She keeps close to Emily this time, encouraging her. The hiking is difficult, the ground more unstable by the minute, and Emily’s drag on her arm weightier with every step until Jayne starts to regret her decision to push on, but then they come up on the brow abruptly and Jayne pulls Emily back, away from the edge.
Below them is a void. The land beneath their feet, which moments ago felt so solid, collapses into scree. There is nowhere else to go. Jayne kicks a stone as they move back. They hear it tumbling down for what seems like forever.
Emily checks her phone once more.
Over her shoulder, Jayne sees it. To the west. Not too far from here. The hillock where the chamber lies.
“Still nothing,” Emily says, and Jayne feels guilty.
“I’m sorry,” Jayne says. “We should have gone downhill in the first place. Let’s go.”
“We can still go down.” Emily looks as if she might cry, and Jayne realizes how desperate she is to speak to Paul and suddenly understands how much more frightening this must be to someone who doesn’t know them all.
“We can’t,” Jayne says. “It’s too bad out here. You’re freezing.”
Emily shakes her head. Her lips are tinged with blue.
“Let’s go back to the barn and decide there,” Jayne says but she already knows that Emily needs to warm up, that it would be an unnecessary risk to go down to the farmhouse.
When they turn the wind strikes their backs. Emily slips on the path going down, rights herself, wipes her muddy hand on her jacket, leaving it a little bloody. In places, it’s hard to see where the path lies, as if nature shifted things behind their backs, while they teetered on the edge of the brow.
The rain solidifies as they make lower ground, sheets of it pulleyed across the sky.
At the barn, Jayne heads for the door. Emily stops on the path.
“I want to keep going down.” Her skin is alabaster polished with rain. There is determination in her expression, but Jayne also sees indecision, and that Emily has begun to shake.
“Come inside for a little while, please. To dry off and warm up so you don’t get sick. We can go out again later when the rain’s eased up. There are a few hours before it gets dark. I promise I’ll go with you.”
Emily looks uncertain, still. She must really love Paul, Jayne thinks. Or there’s something I don’t know that’s giving her a real reason to worry. She feels another little sliver of doubt about her insistence that this is just a prank but knows she mustn’t let it show.
“The letter’s a hoax, I promise,” she says. “Please, come inside.”
Emily looks at Jayne, at her outstretched hand and the pleading expression on her face. She thinks of Edie, writing the letter just to spoil their weekend. And she thinks of Paul, sitting dry as a bone in his office, working hard so he can join her tomorrow.
