Cover

About the Author

While working as a GP, Jane Shemilt completed a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing at Bristol University and went on to study for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa, gaining both with distinction. Her first novel, Daughter, was selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 2014.

Jane and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol.

By the same author

Daughter

The Drowning Lesson

How Far We Fall

Dedication

To my husband, Steven Gill, and
our beloved children: Martha, Mary,
Henry, Tommy and Johny

Part One

THE TRUTH

It was surprising how quickly things took off in the end, like a bonfire, one of those big ones the children loved so much. Some nights I hear that sound of crackling again, like a bomb ticking down. I wait for the roar and see the flames; the scent of scorching fills the air. I can feel that searing heat.

The children danced round fires all summer, lit up and yelling like wild things. We left them to it, watching from a distance, watching each other more. We were kindling ourselves those long hot months, parched and waiting, though we didn’t know that till far too late.

I used to think truth was a simple thing. That there could only be one truth, single and essential – like light, say, or water. Now I know it comes in layers, some more transparent than others. If you look carefully – and we didn’t – you can see through the top layer to the darkness beneath. I’m thinking of ice on the surface of deep water.

Eve told the truth: she told the police she loved her children and that her marriage to Eric was happy. That was true, the top layer of her truth. She didn’t tell them that she hadn’t watched her children carefully, she didn’t tell them about the affair. She didn’t say how upset Sorrel had been or that she hadn’t listened to her properly, but I don’t think she was hiding that on purpose; she hadn’t seen the truth either though it was staring her in the face.

And Melissa – designer, wife, mother, hiding under that perfect exterior, we didn’t look deeper, not until later, and by then the damage was done.

The children, well; it never occurred to them to tell us the truth. But then it probably never occurred to them they were lying. They were simply surviving. We were all skating on ice, thin ice. No one was looking at the depths beneath, which was pretty stupid, considering what happened.

The day it started began the same for all of us, with blood and sunshine, with hope, with no idea at all.

1. May

Eve