Chapters (67)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
‘You mean, if I hadn’t left you Livi wouldn’t have hanged herself.’
She flinched at the raw words.
‘Who knows anything about that? I doubt if we’ll ever know. But you have two more children.’
It was his turn to draw back sharply from words and their meaning but he said nothing.
‘What are they like? Do they look like you? Do they have different personalities? Identical twins do, I’ve heard that.’
‘They’re not identical.’
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t want to know about them, Greta, not really. Why would you?’
‘There has to be something from the wreckage, hasn’t there? And it would be them. Your two sons. None of this is their fault.’
He turned to look at her and she saw the bruises under his eyes, and the deadness within them, saw utter weariness.
‘You love them. You have to love them, Jeff.’
‘Will you make that tea?’
‘Will you?’ He looked round as if he had never been inside this kitchen before. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’
She made tea and served it in total silence, put the casserole in the oven, and then sat down again, though not next to him now but across the table.
‘Can I stay here '
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t go back. I can’t live there any longer. I love them because it’s visceral, isn’t it, but I don’t like them, I don’t like being around them, they cry and cry, they scream, I don’t remember Livi screaming, do you? One sets the other off, and it can go on for an hour, two hours. I have to take them out in the car, or walk them in the pram, to get some quiet. The house is upside down with stuff . . . I don’t remember Livi having so much stuff, do you?’
‘Stop saying that. All babies have stuff. They themselves don’t take up much space but everything they need does, it takes over the house.’
‘It’s a mess. I’m not much good. I tidy up but it’s like the tide, so I’ve given up. It was a lovely house, it . . . I spent a fortune on getting it . . .’
‘How she wanted it.’
He sighed. ‘I can’t go back there.’
‘Do you love her?’
‘I don’t know.’
Greta snorted. ‘All right, did you? You must have thought you did. Or was it only sex? Come on, we can have this conversation now, we never did, we just shouted a lot and then you left, but this is a conversation we’ve started at last, so let’s go on.’
‘What do you expect me to say? If you want me to feel guilty, don’t worry.’