Taking the box, she left the kitchen and headed across the hallway into her open-plan living and dining room. She walked to the bay window that overlooked the street, then turned her back to it. From here, there was a good long stretch of space all the way to the French windows that led out onto the garden. Perfect.
She peeled back the lid of the box, reached inside and lifted out one of the dozen vol au vents inside. It started to crumble immediately. Even though the cold burned her fingertips, she held it for a few moments, focusing intently on a spot at the other end of the room, before lifting her arm and hurling it with all her might.
For a few heart-stopping seconds it flew through the air and then –Bam!– it hit the window, and the frozen flaky pastry exploded, shattering into what seemed like a million tiny pieces. Anna almost let out a gurgle of joyous laughter, then she picked up another vol au vent and threw it after the first.
This one didn’t disintegrate quite so dramatically, but it felt just as satisfying, especially the dull thud as the frozen filling hit the floor. That was it. She couldn’t stop after that. She had to keep going and going until the box was empty and the far end of the living room looked as if there’d been a massacre at a 1970s dinner party.
Anna dropped the empty plastic box and let it fall to the floor. She didn’t even think about getting the Hoover or a dustpan and brush as she smiled and turned to head outside. She got in her car, backed carefully out of her driveway, then pointed her car in the direction of Camber Sands and put her foot on the gas.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE ONLY SOUND was the night air whispering in the dune grass and the dull thump of a bass beat from the pub further along the bay. The water was so flat, the night air so still, that it might be a mile away. Possibly more. Anna only caught snatches of the music as the faint breeze shifted and circled around the dunes beyond her little yellow bungalow.
Only a feeble glow from a table lamp illuminated the living room as she sat at a little metal bistro set in the garden, her fingers wrapped around the stem of a wine glass. It was past midnight and there was a chill in the air, so she’d wrapped a chunky cardigan over the top of her pyjamas and had pulled a pair of socks onto her feet.
Up above, the stars glittered. Away from the light pollution of the London suburbs, they seemed to have multiplied tenfold. It was breathtaking. For the first time in years, and definitely in three years, three months and four days, Anna felt still inside. She felt quiet. It was pure bliss.
It was also odd, given the day she’d had, but there you go. Life was funny like that sometimes.
Her phone was sitting on the table in front of her. She woke it up and glanced at the time. Would he still be up?Should she even try? Her thumb hovered above the phone for a few seconds. She was going to press it anyway, so she didn’t know what she was waiting for. He was always there when she needed him.
When the call connected, she didn’t bother with pleasantries. ‘You know you said “don’t react” when it came to my mother-in-law?’
Brody answered her question with a wary, ‘Yes?’
‘I had an epic fail.’
‘Oh.’
Yes,oh.
Along withOh, my God! What did you do?andWhat were you thinking?These were the questions she’d asked herself a hundred times over since she’d left The Cinnamon Café earlier that day. But Brody remained silent, giving her time and space, as always, letting her reveal things at her own pace.
She started at the beginning, filling him in on the whole awkward afternoon, how she’d been doing so well, keeping her cool and saying nothing, and then she got to the subject of Spencer’s portrait. ‘And as I was staring at the photo, it suddenly struck me – like a baseball bat to the side of the head – what she’d done. She’d erased me, Brody! She’d wished me away.’
For months now, she had been trying to pin a label to that feeling she always got when she was with Gayle, that niggly little sensation that had always bothered her, the feeling that Gayle wanted to keep her close yet push her away at the same time, and suddenly all the pieces fell into the right place and she knew what she was dealing with.
‘She’s jealous. She resents me because Spencer can’t be all hers. Because he was mine too, and she just can’t stand it.’
‘So, youreacted.’
Anna hid her face in her hands, feeling heat flush through her body just at the memory. ‘Yes,’ she said, and the word was muffled through her fingers. ‘I definitely reacted.’
Again, Brody didn’t push. He just waited until she was ready to say more. She let her hands drop and carried on talking. ‘She lit my fuse and I went off. I spilled coffee all over myself and over her glossy eight by ten “tidied up” photo – she’ll never forgive me for that alone! – and then I stood up and told her that what she’d done wasn’t okay, that it really wasn’t okay.’ Anna chewed on the side of her bottom lip for a moment. ‘Okay, maybe “told” is downplaying it a little. I think I might have shouted it.’
‘Really? In the middle of a restaurant?’
‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! This isn’t funny!’
‘No,’ he replied, but she could still hear it in his voice. He was only just holding back a chuckle, she suspected.
‘And, of course, everyone else in the place was looking on as if I was being totally irrational – even Scott and Teresa, because they didn’t know, they didn’t realize. They recognized it was a wedding picture, but not what Gayle had done… And why would she do that, by the way?’ Anna knew she was jumping around all over the place, not finishing one thought before she started on another, but she just couldn’t get her brain to sit still. ‘Why?There were plenty of lovely pictures of him on his own, taken the very same day.’
‘Why doyouthink she did it? Do you have any ideas?’
Anna stared at the shadowy humps of the sand dunes beyond the garden. ‘Because it was perfect, that’s what she said. It was the perfect one. And Gayle is all about perfection,all about control.’ She let out yet another heavy sigh. ‘And I’m just sooverbeing controlled by her. I couldn’t do it anymore. So, when she gave me one of her looks and said I was being insensitive, I lost it.’ She winced again, remembering the shocked looks on the rest of the family’s faces.
‘She knew what she’d done, Brody. She knew what I was talking about. I could see it in her eyes. But she didn’t even have the grace to look guilty. So I told her that she was a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch and that I was glad Spencer was dead because it meant I’d never have to see her again.’
