The Tube whizzed her on her way and eventually she was back at street level and on the way to her flat. Her flat was affordable, and it had been the best out of a bad bunch when she’d landed a job and had to find somewhere quickly. The listing had certainly used a bit of artistic licence, which only became apparent after she moved in. ‘Tree-lined communal areas’ sounded beautiful, but once the sun came down those areas filled with undesirable characters and she couldn’t let Isaac outside to play on his own. The flat itself had good locks on the front door and was just big enough for two, but that was where the positives ended. It came with stained carpets, windows that let in too much of the cold and damp when the seasons changed, a kitchen tap that wobbled and threatened to give up every time it was switched on, and eighties decor that was there to stay. On the plus side her landlord hadn’t hiked the rent up too much over the five years that she’d been there. He said she was a model tenant – she never missed a payment, she didn’t make noise, she looked after the place. She did, but not everyone else was as considerate. The neighbour above was loud and for some reason dragged furniture around at all hours of the day and night, while the next-door neighbour smoked – when Addie opened her windows for fresh air she very often had to close them right up again as smoke snaked her way. Then there was the man in one of the ground floor flats who yelled a lot, the sort of yelling that sent a shudder right through you. Isaac was scared of him and to be honest so was Addie, and usually gave him a wide berth.
An incoming text message eased away some of the melancholy Addie felt about working over the weekend rather than spending time with Isaac. It was a message from Maurie containing the single wordLego!and a picture of Isaac concentrating as he added another block to the boat he was building.
She replied withLove it!because she did and Isaac simply made everything better.
Almost seven years ago Addie had met a guy in a pub in central London. She’d skipped ahead of him in the queue at the bar without realising. He’d introduced himself as Jonty and said he would only be willing to accept her apology for pushing in if she agreed to go out with him. By his own description Jonty was nomadic – he wanted to travel the world, said that wherever he laid his cap was his home or some other phrase which meant he wasn’t interested in settling down. It might have been fine with Addie had she not fallen pregnant and suddenly their lives were intertwined forever.
True to his word, Jonty hadn’t stuck around for long. He’d taken off, but his parents – Isaac’s Granny Maurie and Grandad Jarrett – had remained a constant in her little boy’s life, the son she loved with every fibre of her being.
Back at her block of flats, Addie hurried past the teenagers vaping by one of the trees, and upped her pace to avoid the shouty man as he came out of the front entrance with such force she was surprised the glass part of it didn’t shatter.
At her flat – number six – she went through the familiar routine of pulling the door hard towards her so that the key would turn easier and let her inside. It was eerily quiet when Isaac wasn’t here, but she was welcomed by the photograph of her on the wall with her arms around her son, his cheeks bright red following a day at the beach during the summer, his curls wild, his eyes full of excitement.
She looked at the other framed photograph on the same wall. In the picture her parents stood with their girls – baby Addie in their mother’s arms, her older sister, Susanna, standing next to their dad, leaning against his leg as though she daren’t let go. Susanna looked like she loved their dad as much as Addie did, and this photograph always prompted Addie to wonder why her sister seemed to forget that half the time.
Addie remembered very little about her mother but lots about her dad. He’d always championed her – when she got her grade one flute, he’d let out a whoop; when she had a small part in the school play, he’d been in the front row on opening night with a look that suggested he thought she was the star of the show. Her dad was lovely – she couldn’t think of a single thing she hadn’t liked about him, and she missed him every single day. He would’ve loved Isaac too. Isaac didn’t have any grandparents on her side, what with her mother and father both gone, so it made Addie doubly glad that Maurie and Jarrett doted on him and always leapt at the chance to have their grandson to stay.
She put a glass beneath the tap in the kitchen, held her breath when the stream of water slowed, but released it when the water thankfully flowed enough to fill her glass.
She gulped it down, thirsty with the heat of the day, her eyes falling to the pile of post with the blue envelope on top.
How different would her life have been if she’d never left Anchor Island? If she hadn’t honoured the pact she’d made as an eight-year-old with her sister that they belonged in England and not on some remote island. At the time she’d felt as if she’d been torn away from everything – their home, the memories of her dad and the way he’d walked down the street with her on his shoulders on summer days as he took her to the park, her world as she knew it.
Over the years talking to Susanna, she’d pieced together the parts of her dad’s life that she couldn’t remember – his love for a family café he’d longed to keep but couldn’t, how he’d retrained and moved into the travel sector instead. And these days she wondered whether her dad had been doing what she was doing now, working in a job she didn’t really want to be in, just to keep bills paid and food on the table.
With the envelope in her hand, she thought about the island she’d promised to leave, but which she’d slowly begun to like. She remembered spending summer days by the water seeing what sea creatures lurked in rock pools, she had fond memories of skimming pebbles from one of the little coves, she remembered making friends, but most of all she remembered baking with Aunt Gayle and the Sweet Life Café.
When Susanna left the island to go to university on the mainland, Addie had grown closer to Aunt Gayle and she’d begun to work weekend shifts in the Sweet Life Café, a place dedicated to puddings of all kinds. At first, she’d cleaned up, swept floors, wiped down. Then she’d served customers, discussed the menu options if a customer didn’t know what to choose, and eventually she’d started to bake with her aunt, particularly after hours. They’d chat, they’d laugh, and they’d eat whatever they made. They made all sorts – fruit crumbles, thick, delicious custards, chocolate brownies, profiteroles, lemon meringue pie. And even if the recipe didn’t quite work, there was a joy in the process, and a sense of belonging Addie had found comforting.
For a while Addie felt like she’d found her place in the world, but then Aunt Gayle seemed to push her away and she began to encourage her to return to England to take up a place at university as if that was her only option. It had hurt when Addie realised that perhaps Gayle didn’t really want her around after all. And she’d never admitted to Susanna that the island, by that point, had begun to feel like home.
She sat down at the table and tore open the envelope, which most likely contained a request she and her sister go and retrieve their dad’s things from their aunt’s attic.
But what was inside couldn’t be from Aunt Gayle.
The words on the invite went blurry as her emotions took over. No matter what had gone before, no matter that she and Susanna didn’t have much of a relationship with their aunt, the news was still devastating.
Aunt Gayle was gone, and it was too late to repair anything now.
4
SUSANNA
Back home, Susanna opened the window in the lounge at the front of the house to let the fresh air filter through while the weather was still so mild. She tried not to let her imagination run riot when Alex disappeared into his study to apparently deal with some paperwork. It was possible, of course, because not only was he a dentist, he owned his practice, the practice that over the last decade had grown exponentially.
She went into the kitchen and opened another window in there. She loved this house, their home. It wasn’t far from the centre of Cambridge, and it reminded her a lot of the Rafferty home in Oxford before she and her sister had been forced to leave when their dad died. Cambridge, like Oxford, was thriving; it felt like real life here, not some back of beyond place like Anchor Island where they were miles away from the mainland.
If her marriage disintegrated, would Alex want the house? Would she fight to keep it?
She felt nauseous at the thought of what he was hiding as well as the confrontation she knew they needed to have, let alone what their future held.
She ran her hand along the mahogany mantelpiece. This home had been a labour of love. As she and Alex had put their own stamp on it with colour schemes and new fixtures and fittings, they’d kept its character. She loved the large rooms, the high ceilings, the fireplace that dominated the living room with its dual aspect windows. She opened up the rear doors on to the outside space they’d redone as a classic cottage garden with plenty of greenery at the borders, giving them privacy and a feeling of nature. There was a summerhouse in the far-left corner, a small seating area on the patio before the lawn began, and enough colour from the easy-to-maintain shrubs and flowers to feel special. They’d always wanted something that didn’t require much upkeep – their focus had been on their jobs, and still was. But perhaps that focus needed to shift if they were to save their marriage.
In the upstairs bathroom, she pinned her dark hair up into a messy bun, hair that was – for now – devoid of any grey thanks to regular touch-ups, and climbed into the shower cubicle, closing the door gently behind her because of its tendency to wobble. They really needed someone to come and look at it – she’d mentioned to Alex about redoing the entire bathroom as well as the garage door and driveway because it was getting tired and worn. But like with so many other things, they hadn’t talked about it since.
After her shower she pulled on a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt and went downstairs to prepare a couple of salads, one with buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves, the other with salty halloumi, bitter rocket and thinly curled cucumber. Alex was still in his study, and she resisted the urge to listen at the closed door to see whether he was talking to another woman. He never used to shut the door. He’d always been able to focus with comings and goings, unlike her who needed quiet and to be away from everyone when she was doing anything work-related.
Once the salads were ready, she took out a couple of wine glasses. If Alex ever emerged from his study, they could open that special bottle, although right now it would feel a lot like drowning her sorrows.
