Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- 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
- THE BEGINNING
By absences – the blanks that appeared on the walls where pictures used to hang; the rattling cavern of his wardrobe – and by things he’d left behind: it took months before they weren’t turning up like stones in tilled soil, almost stopping her in her tracks. The books with his name on the front, the balled socks under the sofa, the ancient walking boots at the back of the wardrobe, the pocket notebooks with lists scribbled at the front; the school cup he’d won when he was eleven; a long scrolled school photograph and she saw his face at once, sitting in the second row to the left with that carefree, confident smile; his gardening gloves that he’d bought but never used. She came across a pink folder full of letters and, unable to resist, took the top one out. It was from her, and had been written just after they’d met. She put it down hastily, as if it were a bomb that would go off in her face. She closed the folder and put it at the back of the drawer. Don’t go there.
She saw that, month by month, Adrian changed, time falling away from him, memories dropping like scales. His hair grew longer, his smell was different, his clothes were new – gradually, as the weeks and months went by, Irene ceased to recognize anything he was wearing and after a while she realized he was using unfamiliar expressions as well. It was as if she was watching him shed his old self and bit by bit turn into a person that she no longer knew.
And always in her mind was the memory of herself in Frankie’s bedroom – her wild, ludicrous despair and Adrian’s snigger of contempt.
‘I am never going to be that woman again,’ she said, standing in front of the mirror in the ladies’ cloakroom, fixing a look of cool neutrality on her face before marching straight-backed and brittle as bone into the room where Adrian waited with his solicitor. ‘Never again.’
Sometimes at night, Sasha would get out of bed. Irene would hear a thumping sound, and go to collect her daughter as she galloped round the house, rushing from room to room and banging doors. Her eyes would be wide open but she wasn’t awake. Irene would lead her by the hand to the bathroom to use the lavatory. Then she would steer her back to her bed, tuck her in and sit beside her, stroking her head softly until Sasha’s bright, puzzled eyes closed and her limbs relaxed.