It was all she ever asked of him. People assume it was his money that she married Paul for, but what she really wanted was all of him, nothing hidden.
Jayne appears in the doorway. “Ruth’s being sick,” she says.
“Have you seen this?” Emily shows her the photograph.
Jayne glances at it. “Sure. Why?”
Emily covers her face with her hands.
“Emily?” Jayne asks. “What’s wrong?”
In the darkness behind her fingers, Emily breathes in, then out, deeply. Liar, she thinks but it’s impossible to accept. Perhaps there is more to this. Perhaps he lied for a good reason. But maybe not. There’s only one way to find out. She has to phone Paul. She needs to hear his voice and his explanation. Staying here a moment longer is not an option. It’s a torment.
She gets up. “I’m going down to the farmhouse,” she says.
Jayne shakes her head. “No. You can’t. It’s too late. It’s about to be properly dark.”
She gestures to the oven clock which displays the time: 19:35.
But Emily doesn’t care. She pushes past Jayne and as she does, she senses that Jayne is holding herself strangely tightly as if she has an urge to grab Emily, to keep her here in the barn and she thinks, Just you try. She feels ready to fight, tooth and nail. To claw and to run.
In the hall, as she pulls on her jacket and boots, Jayne tells her all the reasons she shouldn’t do this and each one sinks in and frightens her, increasing the rate of her already rapid heartbeat, but she’s resolved. She didn’t get where she is today by being a coward.
If Jayne gets any closer, Emily thinks, I might slap her.
She opens the door, and the wind buffets her, causing her to stumble, but she feels as if the weather is challenging her to meet it and she steps out, hauling the door shut behind her, drowning out the sound of Jayne calling her name.
Emily runs.
Imogen watches as I spoon two teaspoons of hot chocolate powder into a mug and add an extra teaspoon of cocoa powder, the finest on offer in my local supermarket. I bought it just for her. A can of whipped cream and a bag of mini marshmallows also stand at the ready. Since she was little, my tried and tested way of cheering her up is to make her my very special deluxe hot chocolate. It never fails.
She’s hardly spoken for the past half hour, just sat at the kitchen island and stared listlessly out the window.
“The cocoa . . .” I say, and I leave the words out there, waiting for her to finish my sentence, the way she used to.
But she doesn’t. She just looks at me with dull eyes, her elbow propped on the kitchen surface, her head resting heavy on it. I’ve helped her look everywhere for her phone, well, almosteverywhere, and she’s depressed that we can’t find it. It’s understandable. I’d be lost without mine.
“The cocoa stops it being too sweet,” I say, completing the sentence myself because I know I shouldn’t expect too much. Especially as she doesn’t yet know who I am, to her. But she’s going to cheer up when she tastes this, she always does.
“Remember I used to settle for microwaving the milk?” I say. “Well, I don’t do that anymore, because I have a new gadget! Ta da!”
I hold up my milk frothing tool.
“That’s cool,” she says but her voice sounds flat.
I pour milk into a pan and watch it closely for bubbles. It’s easy to get distracted and let it boil over.
“This is an all-new technique,” I say. “Please admire how I’ve refined it and reinvented the perfect hot chocolate for you. When the milk is hot enough you pour a little on the chocolate powder and mix them together like so, do you see?”
I whisk the mixture vigorously and keep doing it for what feels like an inordinately long time until she drags her eyes back to look.
“You want to do this until all the powder has dissolved and there are no lumps.”
She’s staring out the window again. Obviously, it’s disappointing that she’s not more engaged, but this is the perfect moment to take two little green tablets from my pocket, drop them into the chocolate mixture, and give it a final stir.
“Here comes the magic,” I say. I froth the remaining milk in a metal jug I purchased just for the purpose. It’s a lovely thing to do, to make something for someone and to take care over it. The milk foams and balloons to perfection. I’ve been dreaming of this scenario for such a long time. Imogen and I. Together.
“Cream?” I ask, the can in the air, ready to squirt. I’m thinking, lots of marshmallows, an obscene number, piled on top of a tower of cream. Decadent. Fun. To show her how I feel about her. That I’ll look after her. That I know what she likes.
