‘Oh, Devon is lovely,’ she said wistfully. ‘I once had a holiday there, a really good holiday…’ She broke off, and Brody guessed she was thinking about her husband. He waited, not minding, wondering if the recollection made her happy or sad. Holidays were simultaneously the best and the worst memories, he’d found, packed as they were with new places and new experiences, which made them richer and more colourful than everyday life.
Anna sighed again, and when she spoke it was clear she’d pulled the plug on whatever mental slideshow she’d been watching. ‘I’m not a country girl,’ she said ruefully. ‘I can only just tell one end of a cow from the other. I live in—’
‘Don’t tell me!’
‘Oh…’ She sounded puzzled. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m a stranger, really. Would you tell a random stranger where you lived?’ He realized he’d be worried about her if she did.
‘Well, no… But—’
‘I’m thinking about your safety. I could be a deranged, axe-murdering stalker and you’d never know.’
Anna laughed again. This time it was deeper, more from her belly. He was starting to find that sound a little addictive.
‘Are you?’ she asked, trying to sound serious – and failing.
‘No,’ Brody replied, trying not to smile, because he had a valid point to make. He also failed miserably. ‘But I would say that, wouldn’t I? Especially if I was a deranged, axe-murdering stalker.’
‘Brody, you seem to forget who keeps phoning whom out of the blue. If anything,I’mthe one to worry about.’
There was that.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I live in London. In the suburbs. With almost nine million people in this city, I don’t think it’s too perilous for me to reveal that.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘But maybe we should consider that, technically, wearestrangers. We’ve only talked a handful of times. Just for now, maybe we should stick to the basics: general locations, first names only.’
Anna was silent for a moment. ‘Okay. I suppose that’s sensible.’
He was telling himself he was suggesting all this secrecy, this anonymity, to protect Anna, but was that the whole truth? Wasn’t there a little bit of him that was eager to protect himself as well? If she didn’t know exactly where he lived, she could only ever exist at the end of the phone line, and that was a very safe distance indeed. Had his need for isolation become that complete?
‘Anyway,’ Anna said, with the tone of someone switching tack, ‘about the vol au vents. I suppose I ought to explain…’ And she launched into a story about her husband’s family that had him wincing and smiling in equal measure.
When she’d finished her tale, he sighed and said, ‘You know what your problem is?’
‘Please, do enlighten me,’ she said in a smooth tone that only just hid her sarcasm.
‘You let your mother-in-law have all the power.’
Anna’s voice shifted up an octave. ‘What?No, I don’t! I don’t let her have anything. She stole it. Shehijackedit!’
‘Nope,’ Brody said, still smiling. ‘You gave it to her. And you’re still giving it to her, every time you interact with her.’
‘No, I’m not!’ He almost expected steam to wisp out of his phone as she fumed for a few silent seconds, but then she added, ‘Am I…?’
‘I think you might be.’
‘How?’ she almost wailed.
He took a sip of his whisky and thought about the best way to put it. ‘When something big happens, something devastating, you can’t process anything else because of the shock of it – your brain just goes into shutdown, only doing what’s absolutely necessary to keep you functioning.’
Anna made a noise of recognition. ‘That sounds about right.’
‘So you just react to everything that’s happening around you. No planning, no proactive choices, just reacting. And it’s easy to get stuck in that loop.’ He should know. He’d spent a few years in that place. ‘If you want to take back control, you need to stop reacting. To her.’
‘Well, that’s very easy to say, but how do I actually do that?’
Brody’s mouth twisted. ‘Damned if I know. She’s your mother-in-law. You’ll have to work that one out on your own, just like I had to with mine.’
