Emily glances at her. Ruth’s a mess. She’s been guzzling the booze. And what has she got to be so sorry for herself over? Nothing, so far as Emily can see. Absolutely nothing. Paul always says that Ruth and Toby have had a charmed life. That they’ve beenshuffling around in slippers like an old married couple since they first met, finding easy friendships with their peers, Toby taking shelter in institutional life, Ruth glowing with the prestige of being a doctor, of having it all.
“They don’t know what it’s like to live,” he says. “You’ve lived so much harder than they have.” Paul’s pride in what Emily has overcome is intense. Her mother’s drinking is not a source of shame to him, the role of her mother’s boyfriends in facilitating her alcoholism is not something Emily should ever castigate herself for being unable to prevent. “You were a child, babe,” he insists. “A teenager. What could you have done? It’s a fucking marvel you kept her alive that long.”
The pride Paul feels in my resilience sometimes feels so hot it could burn, Emily thinks. “IwishI’d been there to protect you,” he repeats. “Iwishyou’d never had to see any of it.”
He talks about the violence he would have done to her mum’s boyfriends, holding back words sometimes as if he’s afraid of going too far; he talks about how he would have got them out of Emily and her mother’s life. He speaks as if he’s convinced that he’s a hero and the look in his eyes when he says those things is the look of an animal. A wolf. It almost scares her, how much he wants to shield her from the world. Sometimes, she half expects him to say he would have cured her mother’s cancer, too.
If he has a fault, it’s this. A savior delusion. She loves him for it, acknowledges that he rescued her from a dark place, but she pushes back, always, on this kind of talk when it goes too far. Interrupting him, if necessary, and raising her voice. She loves him but she’s not his possession. If they fight, it’s over this. He was her savior, yes, but she had begun to save herself when they met. She is not to be underestimated.
Her eyes pass over Ruth dismissively. Emily feels betrayed by Jayne’s refusal to walk to the farmhouse and she has an urge to cut back.
“Let’s say,” she says, “that the letter isn’t a hoax, and Edie has harmed one of our husbands. Who do you think it would be?”
Ruth feels cold to the core.
“I’m not going to speculate about that,” Jayne says. “It’s horrible.”
“Really? You haven’t given it any thought at all?” The disbelief in Emily’s voice holds the satisfaction of information withheld until the right moment, the scorch of imminent triumph.
“Because I think it’s obvious it would be Mark.”
“When’s your mum coming back?” Jemma asks. She sounds bored. She’s lying on her stomach on the bed, scrolling her phone. Bursts of sound fill the room.
Jemma looks amazing, Imogen thinks. Her clothes. Hair. Jealousy tears a little rip inside her. No wonder Jemma’s become such a popular girl in sixth form. She’s transformed herself and Imogen feels as if she’s been left behind. What if Matt’s there tonight but he fancies Jemma more than Imogen? It’s happened before with boys and is why Imogen isn’t going to tell Jemma that she likes him. She doesn’t trust Jemma not to try to get him for herself.
“Tomorrow.” Imogen has an impulse to copy Jemma, to lie on the bed just the same way as her friend. She looks around for her own phone, pats her pockets. She must have left it somewhere. The bathroom, maybe.
She sighs. The thought of going to look for the phone, even across the landing, is off-putting because he might be hovering anywhere in the house, overattentive, asking questions. It’s not that she doesn’t love him in a way. She’s fond of him because he’s always been like an uncle to her, and she’s grateful to him for springing her from camp, or, rather, for falling for her story about the self-harm.
She wasn’t going to pull the self-harm cry for help thing again.She really did cut herself once. She didn’t know how else to let out the pain of missing her dad, but Edie was so devastated when Imogen told her that she felt horribly guilty afterward. The next time, Imogen didn’t actually do it, but she told her mum she had because she didn’t know how else to get Edie’s attention. Imogen felt awful about it, but it worked. Edie snapped out of a terrible, dark funk and began to talk to Imogen again, to care for her.
Imogen really shouldn’t have done it to get herself out of camp. The problem was, she couldn’t think of a better excuse for leaving. She knew he was one of her emergency contacts and that he would fall for it like a charm. And he did. She was just lucky he hadn’t already gone away for the weekend.
I am fond of him, she thinks, though the thought doesn’t make her smile because she kind of feels like she’s having to persuade herself that she likes him. It’s an effort.
It’s because she finds him hard work. She’s noticed it so much more since her dad died, how people who don’t really know her think it’s okay to like to act like they do. Sometimes she feels like she might scream or start to shudder from loneliness when they try to talk to her familiarly.
No one can replace her dad. All she wants is to be left alone to hold on to her memories of Rob and keep them safe for herself and her mum to share. Her grief is intense and private.
“Where is your mum, anyway?” Jemma is typing on her phone.
“At a spa retreat in the middle of Wales. The kind where they make you hand your phone in. She’s having some ‘me time.’” Imogen makes air quotes around “me time” to make a joke of it, even though it hurts. She would have loved to go to the mountains with Edie, to curl up in a room with a view, to breathe, to be near her mum. But she couldn’t admit it to Edie. It would have felt babyish. Imogen felt obliged to pretend that she was happy to be at camp when she knew it would be a horrible reminder of her dad. And it was.
“Sounds selfish.” Jemma puts her phone down and rolls over to prop herself up facing Imogen. Her nose is scrunched in disapproval. Piggy face, Imogen thinks, and looks away, reveling in how ugly the expression makes Jemma look, even if only temporarily, then regretting the thought. Imogen doesn’t like that she might have inherited her mum’s bitchy streak.
“Super selfish.” Jemma doubles down, wanting a reaction from Imogen.
“Yep,” Imogen agrees softly because Jemma’s right in a way, and it hurts, but Imogen won’t slag her mum off to Jemma. Life’s difficult for Edie right now. She’s gone somewhere in her head where Imogen can’t reach her again, and Imogen is so sick with worry she thinks it might choke her sometimes.
Everything hurts so much since your dad died, I know, Edie said to her a few days ago, right before she left. But he’d want us to be strong. Can you do that for me?
Imogen nodded though she didn’t know how to be strong. And she had the idea that something else was bothering Edie, something big. It was like Edie’s grief had been put on hold because of a larger preoccupation, but Imogen struggled to put her finger on what it was, and it felt impossible to ask. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. She’s too desperate to be mothered right now and ashamed of it because she’s nearly an adult.
Everybody tells her over and over that time will heal, and she hopes they’re right, though it’s hard to imagine. Imogen has developed a hatred of time. For its refusal to move any faster, or slower, than it wants to. For its inability to be rewound so her dad never went swimming that day.
“We should get out of here,” Jemma says. “The party starts at eight.”
“I don’t know how to leave without a row.” This is a problem she wasn’t anticipating. He’s normally much more chilled out thanthis. She’s not sure what’s got into him. Imogen has never done anything to upset her parents’ friends.
