Sorrel had seen Blake picking Jenna up in the dyke and soon after, Frankie and Danny had announced that since the rain had stopped, they would go into Wroxham and see what the estate agents there had to offer.
Their sudden departure, along with Jenna’s, had seemed to be carried out with indecent haste, as though the three of them couldn’t get away fast enough. But perhaps she couldn’t blame them after the scene she had caused in the kitchen. She hadn’t intended to say what she had, but once provoked there had been no going back. Years of anger and resentment had spilled out of her and she hadn’t cared one iota about the consequences. And it had felt so good to see the look of abject horror on Alastair’s face.
She had no idea where Simon was, but Valentina was still in the kitchen with Nikolai and Irina.
From her position at the top of the stairs, standing back so she couldn’t been seen, Sorrel could hear Alastair down in the hall charming the couple viewing the house into buying it. He was labouring the point that it had been the most idyllic of homes, but after the tragic loss of his wife, it was time for him to start afresh somewhere new. It seemed an unnecessary amount of information to impart to strangers, but she supposed it was a mark of his keenness to escape his old life.
He could run, thought Sorrel, as she turned to go and check on her daughter, but he would never be able to forget. Just as she would never forget, or forgive him for the way he’d treated her. For the way he had used her.
Observing Rachel sleeping on her side like a contented baby, something the poor girl had never actually been – sleep had been anathema to her until she was nearly three years old – Sorrel’s heart contracted with love for her daughter. And guilty regret that she had not been able to protect Rachel when she’d most needed protection.
It was a fact that mothers are wired to feel guilty about anything and everything to do with their children, even when it’s not their fault, but until now, Sorrel had never felt such a crucifying sense of blame for failing her child. Why hadn’t she predicted the trouble Rachel was going to get herself into? Why had it been Danny who had had a feeling that something might happen? How could she have slept when her daughter was drowning?
She pressed her hands to her mouth to try and stifle the involuntary cry that escaped her lips. Her darling daughter, always the one to get herself into a scrape, whether it was tumbling down the stairs when she was little, or flooding the bathroom as a teenager when she’d left the taps running, or falling in love at the drop of a hat. Poor hapless Rachel, searching for that elusive great love of her life.
With a weary sigh, she sat down heavily on Jenna’s bed and, suddenly consumed with tiredness, she lay back on top of the duvet. She was mentally exhausted, and not just with worry for Rachel. She was tired of all the lies and the pretence. And the guilt.
It began with a drink in a bar during a skiing holiday in Meribel. She had been there with her parents, her brother, his then girlfriend and her mother’s sister and her family who owned a chalet in the resort. On this particular evening they had been at a typical Alpine bar where loud music was playing and the après ski was in full swing. It had been Sorrel’s twentieth birthday and her parents had organised a cake, complete with candles, which they’d presented to her amidst the chaos of the packed bar. The place had erupted with a spontaneous and rowdy rendition of Happy Birthday and when she blew out the candles, she noticed a trio of men at the bar watching her. But it was the attractive man in the middle of the trio, with his stylish blue and white ski jacket that really caught her eye, that and the way he was so obviously sizing her up.
A knife was produced for her to cut the cake, plates passed around, more champagne poured and all the while the man in the blue and white jacket continued to watch. Emboldened, and very much liking the look of him, Sorrel took three plates of cake over to the bar. ‘You look hungry,’ she said, making it obvious which of them she was addressing. The other two laughed. The darker-haired man of the group said, ‘Take no notice, he always looks like that.’
‘And it’s not food that makes him hungry,’ the other remarked with a guffaw of laughter.
‘Ignore them,’ the object of her interest said. ‘I’ve never met them before in my life.’
‘If only that were true,’ said the one who’d laughed.
‘Thank you for the cake,’ the attractive man said. ‘Can I buy you a drink? A birthday drink for the birthday girl?’
‘Maybe later,’ she said, turning to go, confident that he would make the effort to look out for her, if not later tonight, then tomorrow.
The following evening she and her brother and two cousins found themselves a table in the crowded bar, and sure enough within ten minutes, the trio from the previous evening made their appearance. There was no attempt from the attractive man to pretend their meeting had happened by chance: there was no pretence on her part either. Back then, deception had never been a part of her make up; she was honest and direct, bluntly so at times.
They spent several afternoons skiing together, and when it was time to return home to England and get back to college, Sorrel was in no doubt, given that he had asked for her telephone number, that she would hear from Alastair again. He rang her two days later and they met for dinner in London where they were both studying – she was reading English at King’s College and he was an economics student atUCL. They spent the night together, just as Sorrel had known they would. He was not her first, just as she was certainly not his first.
For several months there wasn’t a day when they didn’t see each other, and Sorrel grew convinced that this was the man she would marry. She loved everything about him, his pitch-perfect manners, his strong athletic body which he put to good use, both in bed and out, running every morning and regularly playing squash. She admired his ambition to be the best at whatever he applied himself to. But her feelings of admiration very quickly turned to love, an all-consuming love that roused in her a passion she hadn’t believed herself capable of feeling. No boyfriend had ever made her feel the way he did, as though she were walking on air, her every sense keenly alive to the astonishing beauty of the day. When apart from Alastair she longed for him, counting the hours until she would see him again. He made her world sing and those around her noticed the dramatic change in her, teasing her that she was high on love.
But then completely out of the blue, he dropped her for a girl with hideously dyed hair who went around in overalls and ugly workman’s boots. Sorrel couldn’t believe it and to her shame she begged Alastair to reconsider. ‘I thought you loved me as much as I loved you,’ she said. ‘I thought we were perfect together.’
He’d shaken his head and said he’d never actually loved her, and that it was best just to accept things and part on good terms.
‘Best for you, no doubt,’ she’d cried, choking back tears of humiliation.
‘Don’t be like that. It was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?’
His casual indifference was hard to take. Being dumped was a new experience for her – never before had she been so ruthlessly discarded; it was always the other way round, she was the one who called the shots. Her final words to him were to say she hoped his new girlfriend made his life a living hell, and that one day he would realise the mistake he’d made and regret it.
The name of Alastair’s new girlfriend was Orla Malone and it turned out that from that day on she had the upper hand when it came to Alastair’s emotions. As for Sorrel’s emotions, she now knew the misery of having fallen headlong in love only then to have her heart broken. She vowed never again to allow herself to feel that depth of passion, or to feel so vulnerable again.
It was some months later that their paths crossed at a ball in Nottingham where Sorrel’s brother was coming to the end of his first year of studying law. Between girlfriends, Rafe invited Sorrel to go with him, and no sooner had they arrived when she saw Alastair propping up the bar, along with his two friends she’d met in Meribel. There was no sign of a girl hanging off his arm and with a flash of spite she hoped he’d had a taste of his own medicine. More likely he had simply dumped her just as he had Sorrel, and was here to find a replacement.
She was helping herself to a plate of food from the buffet when she was tapped on the shoulder. She turned around expecting to see her brother back from the bar, but found herself being smiled at by one of Alastair’s friends. It was Simon.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ she said guardedly.
‘I was sorry to hear that things didn’t work out between you and Alastair.’ He smiled. ‘Well, if I’m honest, I’m not sorry at all; he can be a bit of a bugger when it comes to the girls. You’d be better off with somebody like me, solid, reliable, and very loyal.’
