The Safe Place, page 10
I kiss my daughter’s petal-soft lips and smell her milky breath, and I feel a surge of joy so deep, so powerful, that it threatens to burst the walls of my inadequate heart.
My own body hasn’t felt closeness like this for a long time. I’m sure my mother held me like this once, but I don’t recall. I remember holding her, though. I remember cradling her head and stroking her hair—but that doesn’t count because it was right at the end and it didn’t feel nice at all. My arms kept slipping because of all the blood.
No, this is love as I’ve never known it. I am now complete. I am whole.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SCOTT
THE MAN sitting next to Scott was a talker.
It was hit or miss in these places. You either managed to sit quietly with your thoughts and sink a scotch or five in peace, or you wound up next to the kind of misery that loved company. Most of the time these guys were harmless; they didn’t want you to say anything, they just wanted to talk, and if you could tune out and let the words fade into the background, then everyone was happy. But this particular man seemed intent on extracting a conversation if it killed him.
Scott felt vaguely sorry for him: judging from the misogynistic drivel pouring out of his mouth, his wife had just left him, or he’d found her screwing his brother—something like that. But he was unshaven, unkempt, and about eight bourbons deep, all of which spelled the kind of trouble Scott could do without. So he decided to say little, drink a lot, and then make a swift exit.
With the first two objectives firmly under his belt, he was about to put the third into action when the man pointed up at the TV above the bar. “Isn’t that the most depressing shit you’ve ever heard?” he said.
Scott couldn’t imagine that it was, but he lifted his head anyway. There was a news story on, something about a corpse found in a forest. The images were of a muddy riverbank, a taped-off crime scene, and a white van.
“Hey, barman. Turn that up?” the man called. He turned to Scott. “That’s gotta be the fucking worst, am I right?”
The volume increased. Words tumbled from a reporter’s mouth. Tragedy. Community. Dead. Buried. Woods.
“I said, am I right?” the man persevered.
“You’re right,” Scott said, watching the screen. “What happened?”
“Some backpacker. Missing for weeks. They just found her.”
A photograph flashed up of a young woman. Big grin, sandy hair, brown eyes. She was standing on a paved driveway and holding a basketball.
“Imagine getting that call.” The man bowed his head and, to Scott’s horror, began to cry. His big shoulders shook, and wet sounds came out of his mouth.
Scott turned back to the TV screen. The young woman returned his stare.
“Just puts shit into perspective, you know?” said the man through his tears.
Scott watched him from the corner of his eye. Then he dropped a few notes onto the bar and slid off his stool, heading for the daylight.
* * *
Outside, he pulled his phone from his pocket.
Nina answered on the seventh ring. “Not a good time, Scott.”
“Should I call back?” There was a faint crackle of static, but otherwise the line was clear. She must be inside somewhere.
“No, it’s okay. Can’t be long, though. Dinnertime.”
In the background, Scott heard kitchen sounds: a gush of running water and the clank of pans. “How are things going?” he asked.
“Fine.”
There was a long pause. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him, but when had she ever? “Is there a problem?”
“No.”
He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s been a while between visits.”
“Five weeks.”
Scott was aware how long it had been. He’d meant to go. He’d booked flights every weekend but always canceled them at the last minute. He’d called countless times, but that was never enough. “Listen,” he said, his throat tight. “I just wanted to say that … well, I saw something on the news.”
The sound of running water stopped. Scott pictured his wife by the sink, soap suds dripping off her hands. Her hair was probably falling in front of her face, as usual. If he was there with her, he would brush it away and tuck it behind her ear.
“What did you see?”
Dead. Buried. Woods. “It’s not important. It just made me think. I could make some changes to my schedule. Spend a bit more time with you. Potentially a week in France every month.”
Nina sighed heavily. “Right. Okay.”
There was a long pause. Scott tipped his head back and looked up at the gray sky. “So, any issues this week?”
“No, not at all. Everything’s going quite well.”
Scott’s mood lifted a little. “That’s great. And Aurelia?”
Another pause. “A little better. Out of bed and in the garden every day this week.”
Scott hesitated. “Every day? Is that a good idea?”
Nina’s silence was loaded.
“Okay, fine. Sorry.” Scott knew that when it came to Aurelia, it was better not to push.
The water started up again. “I have to go.” Nina’s voice was muffled. He guessed she had tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder to free up both her hands.
“Okay. I’ll leave you to it.”
“See you soon.”
He really should let her go. “Nina?”
There was a faint crackle of static. “Yes?”
“I’ll come next weekend. I promise.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
I love you, he almost said, but the line was already dead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EMILY
EMILY OPENED her eyes. All around her, shards of light blinked and shifted, and tiny bubbles tickled her skin as they rose toward the surface. Stretching her limbs out like a starfish, she allowed her body to rise with them until she bobbed quietly back into the early evening air.
The clouds were turning pink as she climbed out of the pool and crossed to the outdoor shower, where the smell of shampoo mixed with the seaweedy breeze. Beyond the pool, the ocean spread its own shade of blue and melted into the sky.
“Emily,” a voice called. “Dinner’s ready!”
She squeezed the water from her hair. “Coming!”
* * *
“Sebastien has settled in well, don’t you think?” said Nina.
“I do,” Emily said, nodding as she bent down to pick up a few stray cups and saucers from the driveway, the forgotten remnants of an impromptu tea party. “He seems very happy.”
They were returning from the sheds after tucking the animals in for the night; Aurelia usually liked to help but it had been a long day and, despite a great deal of protesting, Nina had insisted on an early bedtime. The chickens were all in their coop, the rabbits in their hutch, and the goats in their shed, the door firmly locked and bolted several times. (While they looked docile enough, the goats were secret prison-breaking masterminds. Emily had no idea how they did it, but after a few ridiculous Keystone Cop chases around the property, she’d decided that no security measures were too drastic.)
Sebastien the pony, the latest addition to the ever-expanding farmyard, had arrived just days before, and he appeared to like his new house very much—as well he should. Yves had built all the animal shelters, and he’d done a particularly good job with the new stable. The addition to Emily’s jobs list of mucking out horse poo was not a welcome one, but she’d managed quite well today, and Sebastien really was gorgeous. She’d never been much of an animal lover before, but Nina was converting her.
Emily waved her hand back and forth in front of her face as they walked, trying to generate a breeze. The day had been sticky and soupy, and the evening brought little relief. The charcuterie, bread, and salad they’d eaten for dinner sat uncomfortably in her gut, as if the air had followed it down and sat on it.
They parted ways at the family house, Nina disappearing inside to fetch a chilled bottle of something while Emily headed around the side to the back patio. As per their emerging routine, they would fill their glasses, curl up in the hanging chairs, and watch the night roll in.
“So,” said Nina, stepping out through the patio doors, an ice bucket in her hands. “How are you doing? Have you had a gutful of the isolation yet?”
Emily resisted a smile. Soft though it was, Nina’s Australian accent still caught her by surprise, the lazy drawl so at odds with her delicate looks. “No, the opposite,” she said. “It’s weird, I thought I’d find it hard, but it’s actually been good to get away from everything.”
“You don’t miss Facebook?”
“God, no.”
“Me neither. The lack of privacy scares me. In fact, I’d prefer not to have any photos of the estate on social media, if that’s not too much to ask? As I’m sure Scott explained, discretion is really important to us.”
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t post anything anyway. I’ve never been a fan of social media. Too overwhelming.” That wasn’t strictly true. Emily would have gladly devoted more time and energy to her accounts if she’d thought she could make anything of them, but she never had anything to show or say, and the bursting profiles of her successful drama-school mates were too much to bear.
That being said, the total loss of connectivity hadn’t been easy at first. Querencia was a communications dead zone. She’d checked her phone reflexively in those first few days, frustrated by the lack of reception. She’d even wandered through the gate and out into the woods several times to see if that might help, but it never did. And then on her first drive out to the nearest market she discovered that, in order to pick up any mobile service whatsoever, she would have to drive a good thirty or forty minutes inland, and even then she might only get one bar, maybe two. There was Wi-Fi, apparently, and Nina had given her the code, but for some reason her phone couldn’t find the network. Nina had said she’d get Yves to have a look but hadn’t mentioned it again, and amid all the work and the food and the wine, Emily kept forgetting to remind her.
After a while, the urgency faded away. Within just a few days, Emily had felt different. Happier. Less anxious. And after a few weeks, she was barely thinking about her phone at all. She knew she could probably ask to use Nina’s computer (there’d have to be one in the family house, or how would Nina manage Aurelia’s homeschooling?), but the lines had been clearly drawn—that’s your house; this is mine—and that was fine by Emily. She decided that the summer would be a much-needed digital detox. There was no one she wanted to communicate with, anyway.
“What about your family?” Nina asked, as if reading Emily’s thoughts. “Your friends? Aren’t you missing home?”
Pressing the cool wineglass glass to her cheek, Emily wrinkled her nose.
Nina laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“No,” Emily said, thinking of Hoxley’s narrow roads, dreary high street, and soggy playing field. “It’s just … small. Boring. Your average country village.”
“Sounds rather idyllic to me.”
“Ugh.” Emily scoffed. “Try living there.” Growing up, the inertia had been paralyzing. The world had loomed, huge and exciting, but her parents never wanted to go anywhere or do anything new.
“Well,” said Nina. “I’m glad you’re not homesick. But life here can be pretty small and boring, too.” She looked out across the grounds. “I hope you’d tell me if you’re finding it too difficult.”
“Oh, no.” Emily leaned back, resting her head against a cushion. “I could never be bored here. It’s so beautiful. And there’s always something to do.” She thought of the countless boxes of books she’d discovered in one room (“for the library,” Nina had explained) and the movie projector she’d found in another.
“You’re not wrong there,” said Nina. “Speaking of which, we should get started on those bathrooms tomorrow.”
They swung gently on their hanging chairs, sipping their wine and discussing paintbrushes, cornices, and skirting boards before settling into a comfortable silence. Overhead, thick purple clouds were gathering, slowly obliterating the stars. Bats swooped among the trees as the last of the light left the sky, and somewhere in the distance, a fork of lightning tripped down to earth.
Emily counted four Mississippis before she heard the soft boom of thunder; according to schoolyard science, the storm was less than a mile away. Sighing happily, she studied the horizon, waiting for more flashes of lightning. So this is what perfection feels like, she thought.
And then a long, terrified howl cut through the evening air, so loud and so disorientating that it took Emily a few seconds to react.
“Oh my fucking god, what is that?” she yelled, sitting bolt upright.
Beside her, Nina leaped to her feet, spilling wine over her dress.
The scream got louder. It was horrific, jagged and raw and full of pain. Suddenly it broke off, leaving an empty silence that had Emily’s ears ringing.
“What the…?”
Then it was back, with increased ferocity. It was coming from the house. A slideshow of horrific scenarios ran through her head: someone had broken in and Aurelia was being butchered; she’d fallen down the stairs and broken her back; she’d been bitten by a snake.
“Goddamn these bloody storms,” Nina said with a tut, apparently not sharing Emily’s concerns. She set down her wineglass and hurried toward the house. She opened one of the patio doors and disappeared inside, reappearing again almost instantly with a tea towel pressed to her dripping-wet dress. “It’s okay,” she called from the doorway, straining to be heard over the noise. “It’s just a night terror. She’s had them for years.”
“Night terror?”
“One of the many reasons I’m glad we don’t have neighbors. They’ve been much better lately, but we still get the odd doozy, usually during a thunderstorm. She hates the noise.”
Somehow, the screeching seemed to intensify, and Nina flinched. She dropped the tea towel on the floor and flashed Emily a nervous smile. “Don’t worry, she’s fine. It sounds a lot worse than it is. Sorry, I’d better go and…” She gestured in the general direction of the clamor and dashed off. A second later she was back, sticking her head through the doorway. “Don’t worry about the glasses and stuff, I’ll get them later.” Then she was gone again.
Emily stood with her hand pressed to her chest. A few minutes later the cries died down, and a lullaby floated gently through an open window.
* * *
Emily walked back to the guesthouse as the first few raindrops began to fall, her heart still hammering against her ribs.
That scream … She’d never heard anything like it, and yet it was oddly familiar. She could physically feel the sound in her own throat, scraping her vocal cords raw. She put it down to empathy. She’d been a somewhat difficult child herself—the temperamental owner, as Juliet liked to remind her, of a “right set of lungs”—and although the term “night terror” was never used, she’d definitely had a few bad dreams. She had vague memories of waking in the night drenched in sweat with her parents’ arms wrapped around her.
The thought of her parents sent a stab of guilt into her gut. The last few weeks at Querencia had been like living in a parallel universe; nothing else existed, nothing mattered except sunshine and good food and great wine and whether or not the pool chemicals were correctly balanced. And Nina had turned out to be such enjoyable company that Emily hadn’t once called home.
She pushed her toes through the sand as she walked, enjoying the splash of rain on her skin. So much had changed in almost a month. Strange to think that she’d very nearly jumped ship on her first day—but that had been her own fault. She could see that now. She hadn’t realized the extent to which the Proem office gossip had clouded her judgment, nor to which her meeting with Scott had affected her.
Scott. A little shiver ran around the rim of her pelvis, like an ice-cold spoon stirring a hot cup of tea. Wincing, she remembered how much she’d drunk when they had lunch that day. He must have thought she was an idiot. Hypnotized by his Colgate smile and nice suit, she’d stared and giggled and flipped her hair too much. And despite telling herself over and over again that she was not to confuse the situation, the situation had most definitely been confused.
Thankfully, though, nothing inappropriate had happened. When they left the restaurant, Scott had walked her to the Tube, where they shook hands in an ironic, flirty kind of way, and for a second Emily had felt a weird kind of instability, a shift in the atmosphere. But then they both said goodbye and walked away in opposite directions. (Her thoughts on the journey home, however, had been very inappropriate—and during the days that followed, they had transmuted into an almost full-blown obsession, so that by the time she climbed on board his private jet she was wondering whether their first romantic getaway would be in the Maldives or Bora Bora.)
Regardless, she’d turned up at Querencia feeling sly. But now she could see how silly she’d been; there was nothing between her and Scott, and she wouldn’t want there to be. She was no home-wrecker. And despite having initially searched for faults in Nina, willing there to be some justification for her resentment, she’d found none. Nina was absolutely lovely. Well, okay, she had her moments, but she had a lot to cope with, stuck out here on her own with a sick child and no friends or family on hand. Overall, she was funny, thoughtful, engaging, sincere, and wholly undeserving of all that malicious office gossip. In fact, Emily couldn’t have been more wrong about Scott and his wife not being suited. They were on the exact same level: the very highest one, where only the very best-looking, most charismatic people could go.
