The heart-thumping feeling became even more dramatic. Was he getting enough oxygen? He wasn’t sure he was getting enough oxygen. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Come on,’ he said out loud. ‘Enough of this. Write a bloody sentence!’
He began to write again. Or, at least, that was what he’d intended to do, but it seemed his subconscious had other plans. His pen began to sketch a man. He was standing alone, and as Brody let his imagination take over, the landscape around him began to form. There were mountains behind him, stark and jagged, and at his feet was the edge of a gaping chasm. The man was looking into the gash in the earth, Brody realized. He’d been looking into it for so long he’d forgotten he could do anything else.
The anger in Brody’s chest began to swell and his pen moved faster and faster, filling in the outlines, bringing shadows and darkness to the scene. He kept going until the fire inside him dwindled, and when he looked again, he discovered the man had gone.
Logic told him that he was still there on the page, that he’d just covered the figure in dark ink during his shading frenzy, but in his mind he knew differently. He knew exactly where the man was.
The man was at the bottom of the chasm.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE SUN BEAT down on Anna’s shoulders as she slid a small case into the boot of her car, smiling to herself. Tomorrow would have been Spencer’s thirty-fifth birthday, and this evening she’d be installed in a bungalow in Camber Sands for two whole nights. Their bungalow. She was almost disappointed it had been renovated by the new owners. The details on the website she’d booked through cited features like a tumble dryer, Wi-Fi and a log burner. She doubted that this time the electricity would cut out or that the plumbing would creak. Still, it would be a chance to remember Spencer in her own way, free from any interference, and it looked like the weather was going to be glorious. She couldn’t have planned it better.
Just one more hurdle to get through before that was possible: the special Barry Sunday lunch Gayle had planned. Anna was still reeling from the news that Teresa and Scott had been going to lunch with her in-laws fortnightly, as if nothing had changed, but she wasn’t going to think about that today. She wasn’t even going to mention it, because she was dreaming of warm night breezes, cool water lapping at her bare toes, and silky sand rumpled and creased by an outgoing tide.
One lunch was all she had to get through and at least it was at The Cinnamon Café instead of at Gayle and Richard’s.
This is just the prologue, she told herself as she pulled into the restaurant’s car park and found a space next to Scott and Teresa’s car.The main event is later. Let everything slide off you for the next hour or two, the way Teresa does, and then you’ll be on your way.
To be honest, the change of location was a breath of fresh air. Anna hadn’t realized how stale it had all been getting at Gayle and Richard’s Sunday after Sunday, how stuck in a rut they’d become. When she greeted her in-laws, they were led to a circular table – no possibility of them taking their usual seats – and the excellent, innovative Indian cuisine they ordered seemed to put them all into a good mood, even Gayle, and if that hadn’t done the trick, she could always have cooed over her new grandson, who was sleeping soundly in his pram next to the table.
When coffee was served, Anna began counting the seconds until she could walk out of the restaurant door. All she could think about was the overnight case sitting inside the boot of her car, which was probably why she missed Gayle putting a large, gold-embossed folder on the table, until she coughed to get everyone’s attention.
‘I decided to get a little gift for you all to mark what would have been Spencer’s birthday – something special.’ Gayle patted the folder, then opened it and passed large cards to both Scott and Anna.
Anna recognized the thick white card and gold scrolling as the sort of thing professional photographers used for protecting prints and enlargements. Had Gayle got them all a photo of Spencer?Goodness. That was actually very thoughtful of her. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said with real warmth as she opened the card to reveal the picture. She could take this with her to Camber Sands this afternoon and stand it on the mantelpiece.
Gayle seemed very pleased with the praise and puffed up a little. ‘The man I got to do it even used his computer to do some tidying up. It was so clever! Richard and I have had one blown up to go in the living room, with a lovely frame.’
Anna looked down at her gift and felt stupidly proud when she realized Gayle had chosen a solo shot of Spencer from their wedding album. However, as she continued to study the picture on the table in front of her, a cold feeling crept into her stomach. She knew every photograph in her wedding album intimately, so of course she recognized this particular shot. But there was something different, something off.
Little Spencer started to stir, and Teresa stood and picked him up, rocking him, while she and Gayle began a discussion about whether the two brothers had looked more like each other when they were younger or as they’d grown older. Anna cocked her head to one side, squinting slightly. What was it that wasn’t quite right…? Was there something missing? It was like trying to thread a needle without her reading glasses on.
And then it hit her.
It was her.
Shewas the thing that was missing from the photograph.
She jumped to her feet, spilling milky coffee not only all down her cream blouse but also over her dead husband’s smiling face.
This hadn’t been a solo portrait of Spencer on their wedding day,one taken by his best man before the service. It had been one of her and Spencer togetherafterthe ceremony. Look, there was the proof: a couple of pastel flakes of confetti still resting on his shoulder.
‘Tidying up,’ Gayle had said.Photoshoppingis what she’d meant.
She’d had Anna airbrushed out of the picture.
ANNA SLAMMED HER front door behind her and marched up the stairs. She wasn’t heading to Camber Sands. Not yet, anyway. There were a couple of things she needed to do first after that horrendous bloody lunch.
She walked into her bedroom, stripped off her coffee-stained blouse and threw it on the floor, then went to the wardrobe. Not hers but Spencer’s. She opened the door and slid the first shirt her fingers found off its hanger. It was the one she’d bought him a few summers ago, white collarless linen. She pulled it on over her bra, then turned and headed back downstairs.
This was all Gayle’s fault! That woman had spoiled everything. Yet again.
And there was no way Anna was going to another Sunday lunch, not in the history of this universe. Which was just as well, seeing as she probably wasn’t welcome at Gayle and Richard’s anymore, anyway.
She was about to head out back to her car, where her suitcase waited for her, but as she strode across the hall, she turned on her heel and changed direction, making a beeline for the kitchen.She opened the freezer and crouched down so she could pull out the bottom drawer, where all the items past their best-before dates and crusty with frost ended up. Her fingers closed around a medium-sized Tupperware box and she pulled it out. The contents rustled and rattled slightly. The sound both infuriated and thrilled her.
She stood up and looked around. No, this wasn’t the right place.
