CHAPTER 3
The walk back home takes Kate across fields and up a sloping valley, the sun just beginning to rise and washing the hills in shades of apricot and candyfloss. She walks alone, except for the birds flying above her. If she were back in London, there would likely besomeoneabout. Cleaners and construction workers heading off to work, a doctor finishing a night shift, a group of friends stumbling back from a night out that might have once been Kate and her mates, heels swapped for flats that had been stashed in their bags all night. Not that she has beenoutout in a very long time. She’s not even sure that people wear heels on a night out anymore.
At the very least if she were in London and not this village in rural Somerset, she would encounter a ballsy fox blocking her path and engaging her in a staring contest. But she hasn’t seen a fox once since moving back to the countryside where she grew up, unless you counted roadkill.
By the time she reaches the edge of the village, there are a couple of dog walkers and early-morning joggers out and about, but the windows of the few shops and the one café are still dark. She passes over the bridge decorated with hanging baskets overflowing with flowers, alongside the riverside pub, the doors currently shut, and by the old red telephone box which has been repurposed as a lending library, the tiny space absolutely stuffed full of books.
As she approaches the Old Post Office, her trainers crunching on the gravel driveway, her chest tightens. She still can’t quite believe that the little Bath stone cottage with the red front door and the rose clinging to the porch is hers. It couldn’t be further from the South London flat she lived in up until a few months ago. Sometimes when she steps inside, she still feels as though she is walking into someone else’s life.
The sound of screaming hits her as soon as she opens the front door, nearly tripping over a basket of dirty washing that is overspilling in the hallway. There are a couple of bin bags waiting to be taken out too that she has to push to one side with her foot, her head vibrating with the noise that fills the small cottage. The relaxation of earlier is quickly replaced by a tension that spreads through her whole body.
‘Kate? Is that you?’ comes a frantic voice from the living room, accompanied by an even louder wail.
Kate steadies herself for a second before following the noise into the room, where she finds her husband pacing back and forth, their three-month-old daughter clutched to his shoulder, her face flushed red with rage.
‘Oh, thank God!’ Jay says, his broad shoulders visibly relaxing as he looks up at her with dark-rimmed eyes.
Without saying anything, Kate reaches for their daughter and sits down on the sofa, pushing a pile of muslins and toys out of the way. The living room is painted a pale sage green, chosen from searching ‘Farrow and Ball but cheaper’ when they first moved. She had such a vision for the decoration of this cottage, relishing having a whole house to decorate rather than a tiny basement apartment. The browning banana skin on the windowsill and piles of nappies weren’t exactly part of her imaginings, and yet she’s very quickly become so used to the mess that she hardly notices it.
‘Where have you been? I was so worried about you.’
Kate lifts her top and unclips her bra in a practised motion. The cries have grown even louder, her daughter’s face scrunched up in fury.
‘I just needed a bit of fresh air, I went for a quick walk.’
For a moment, she focuses her entire attention on getting her daughter to latch, her breasts throbbing as she manoeuvres her into position. Her heart rate rises as her daughter opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish, face a shade of beetroot. But eventually they both find the right spot and the cries stop, replaced instead with soft snuffles. Kate sinks deeper into the sofa, her whole body rushed with emotion as it is every time she nurses.
‘I tried calling you, but you hadn’t even taken your phone with you.’
Kate’s mind flashes back to the moment earlier when she swung her legs out of bed and leant down for her clothes, Jaysleeping beside her and their daughter just settled after yet another feed. It had been another long night. Jay doesn’t usually stir for the night feeds, managing somehow to sleep through the cries that wake Kate in a second. She usually doesn’t bother waking him. There doesn’t seem much point, especially when she is the only one of them with breasts. Usually, she tries to drift off again between feeds, but at 4 a.m. she often finds herself cruelly wide awake.
This morning, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, no matter how exhausted she felt. The bedroom was hot and oppressive and she’d felt desperate for cool air on her skin and wide sky above her. She had reached instinctively for her phone but at the last minute changed her mind, leaving it plugged in to its charger next to the lamp.
‘I’m sorry, I forgot it,’ she fibs.
‘You could have left a note or something. It really scared me when I woke up and you were gone.’ Jay sits down heavily beside her on the sofa, running his hand through his messy strawberry blond hair streaked with flecks of grey. It strikes her how much he has aged in just the last couple of months and wonders for a moment what she must look like herself. She has taken to avoiding mirrors.
‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’
His expression softens now and he wraps an arm around her shoulder. ‘Is everything all right?’
Kate shifts her daughter in her arms. Her suckling has slowed and Kate wonders whether to switch her onto the other breast, but she seems content, so she continues to hold her in position, trying not to wince on the few occasions whena hard gum presses down too firmly on her sensitive skin. ‘Everything’s fine, Jay. I just needed a little bit of air.’
He looks at her closely, a shadow passing across his face, the way it has over the past few months when he’s asked her a version of the same question – are you OK? – and she has answered the same way.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Kate repeats. She glances down at her daughter’s long eyelashes that flutter as she feeds, her expression growing soft and content as she slips into a milk-drunk stupor. ‘Look at her, isn’t she gorgeous?’
Jay’s expression melts, as she knew it would, his eyes growing misty as he stares down at his daughter.
‘She’s perfect,’ he says.
Kate nods in agreement, too lost in thought to reply. Her body might be here with her little family, but however much she tries to stay in the moment, her mind wanders back down to the river and to the feeling of sitting with her feet in the water, totally alone.
CHAPTER 4
Phoebe tries her best to focus on what Maude is saying. Something about the resurrection. She gesticulates enthusiastically, as though she is standing at a lectern in front of a large crowd, even though it’s just the two of them in Maude’s tiny kitchen.
‘I am the resurrection and the life and …’
