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About the Author

Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her first solo novel, Things We Knew Were True, was published by Penguin in 2003 and received rave reviews. This is her second novel.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Solace

Praise for Things We Knew Were True

‘A quietly impressive novel that isn’t afraid to take on big themes of life,
love and the inescapable influences of families’ Guardian

‘A skilfully observed book about grief, sibling relations and first love’
Company

‘A thoughtful tale of love, sibling rivalry and family secrets’ Vogue

‘Such beguiling candour and clarity … poignant and all too true to life’
Helen Dunmore

‘In Nicci Gerrard’s novel Things We Knew Were True, the past is not a
sunshine destination, but a treacherous place freighted with emotional
danger and damage … [It] describes the way time erodes even the most
precious of memories’ Observer

‘This tale about middle-aged angst is quietly compelling’ Daily Mirror

‘Poignant and true to life’ Daily Express

Dedication

To Edgar, Anna, Hadley and Molly

One

When did it all start? She would never know for sure, although later she would trace it, like a finger on a map following the broad river back to the invisible thread of its beginnings, to one evening in early winter. Outside, she remembered it as cold, dark, full of damp, gusty wind; the rattle of dustbin lids, the hiss of cars through puddles, the rustle of bushes, the creak of bending trees. Inside it was warm and the puddles of brightness cast by the lamps and the candles made the room seem like a deep cave in the secret heart of London. She dwelt on what might have happened until she could no longer distinguish between what she knew and what she had imagined. She illuminated the shadowy corners, poured into mysterious silences the suggestive murmur of their voices, allowed herself to picture them together: a moment when the match was struck, its cool flame licking at the dry tinder, and nobody had any idea of the conflagration to come. And if they had known, would they have stopped it? Blown out the flame, left it at that: a moment of possibility, something they would remember later, if they thought about it at all, with a rueful sense of life’s precariousness.

And what about her? If Irene herself could have turned the hidden destruction of that evening back on its oiled hinge, closed it off with a neat click, would she have done so? Would she?

Everyone left late, one by one or in pairs. Irene watched them leaning over Adrian where he lay back on the sagging sofa and patting his shoulder, hugging him, kissing him and telling him it had been a treat, he’d been fabulous, brilliant. It was the start of great things, they said, not really believing it because he’d only appeared twice and the second time was as a dead body in the corner of the tv screen, his legs shockingly white and hairy. Irene saw the way he’d smiled up at them a bit drunkenly, not really believing it either but loose with alcohol and hope, watching the way Sarah’s shirt was stretched tight over her pregnant stomach so that he could make out the shape of her belly button; breathing in Greg’s nicotine-and-aftershave smell and the astringent subtlety of Mona’s perfume.

Everyone else looked sloppy and relaxed, blurred in the firelight, worn round the edges with drink and weariness, but Irene felt vigilant and alert, made up of hard edges and precise angles. As if it were happening to her, she knew the way Adrian was feeling now. A faint, insistent headache pulsed above his left eye. Tomorrow, he would be dry-mouthed and nauseous and sour with anticlimax. He would snap at the children, cut himself shaving, stare more anxiously than ever at his hung-over face in the mirror. Now he smiled some more, feeling the skin stretch around his mouth, poured himself another glass of wine and swallowed it down in rapid gulps, ignoring Irene’s anxious glance, shook Gary’s hand, kissed the corner of Lisa’s mouth, told everyone they didn’t have to go just yet. They should stay a bit longer. He didn’t want the evening to end and it to be tomorrow, the chilly pewter light of morning.

Then a child cried in the distance, a sobbing call for ‘Mummy! Mu-ummeee!’ Irene at once stood up, turning her back on the sprawled remainder of guests, and made her way upstairs, along the balding carpet of the corridor, into the bathroom where Clem knelt on the cold tiles, leaning over the toilet bowl and whimpering in the half-darkness. Irene crouched down and put her cool hand on her daughter’s clammy forehead, murmuring soothingly. ‘Poppet,’ she said. ‘Little love.’ She heard doors open and close, voices calling goodbye. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Everything will be all right.’ She knew she was talking to herself as well as to her daughter. She didn’t really want to go back downstairs, not just yet.

So she could only imagine what happened next, picturing the scene until she almost felt that she had been there herself after all, spying from the shadows. At last just Frankie was left, sitting at the table still covered in the debris of the evening, her legs slightly apart so that Adrian could see the softness of her thighs. Her shirt was flimsy, and when she leant forward, he glimpsed the swell of her breasts. For a moment, she looked timeless to him, composed like a work of art: the medieval blue of her shirt and the creaminess of her strong bare forearms, while behind her the candles picked out the clutter of the table, the tarnished gleam of cutlery, the floppy orange curls of satsuma skin, the white plates on which bright paper napkins lay crumpled among the remainders of the meal. She picked up her wine glass and drank its last dregs. He could see the muscles of her throat working, and the red smudge her mouth left on her glass’s rim. One shoe was half off. Her hair had come loose and a dark blonde strand lay across her cheek. She smiled at him. He could hear Irene’s footsteps clipping busily across the bare boards of one of the rooms upstairs; a door slammed; a child’s cough was loud then splintered into silence.

It was Irene who had insisted on inviting friends round to watch him in the film, which the production company had sent them on video weeks ago but which tonight was live on tv, Adrian’s name appearing near the end of the credits, in smaller faster letters than those of the main parts. The TV Times called the film ‘pointless’, and privately Adrian agreed, but Irene had said they should mark the occasion nevertheless. She had asked fifteen people they knew well and a few of them had invited extras, so it ended up with twenty-two of them altogether in the small sitting room, with the table pushed back against the wall and chairs and cushions arranged around the tv screen. Irene made little crescents of puff pastry stuffed with tomato and cheese that split open in the oven and disgorged their contents, blistering darkly over the pan. She bought slabs of Cheshire with vinegary pickles, crusty baguettes that she warmed in the oven; bags of satsumas with pocked and pouchy skins and deep-filled mince pies with lattice tops, and got a crate of beer and a case of Chilean red wine, on special offer, from the off-licence. She searched out their chipped plates and assortment of glasses and tumblers to set upon the table, along with paper napkins left over from Sasha’s birthday party, and candles that she pressed firmly into their glass holders. And then their friends had arrived, bringing sparkling wine, popping corks at the ceiling, getting drunk enough not to notice or to care how paltry the film really was. Irene had intended it as a gesture of confidence, but it had at the same time something elegiac about it. Maybe this was the start of a new era, as their friends insisted as they raised their glasses in a hearty toast, or perhaps it was simply the undramatic coda to a career that had never taken off.

Now Irene was upstairs and only Frankie was here, her elbow splayed on the table and smiling at him, while behind her a candle flickered down, casting shadows. She stood up, swayed slightly, giggled.

‘I should go,’ she said. ‘Look at the time. I’ll be hopeless in the morning.’

‘Don’t leave,’ he said. ‘Once you’ve gone there’s no one left and it’ll all be over and what will I do with myself then? Stay. Keep me company. Have another drink.’

‘No, really. I never meant to stay so late.’

‘It’s not late. It’s only –’ He stared at his watch face, squinting. The numbers swam.

‘I’ll call a cab, if that’s OK. The underground will be closing down, and anyway I don’t want to walk through Hackney at this time of night.’

‘Go ahead then.’ He gestured to the phone. ‘I can’t move.’

She punched in the numbers, gave the address, sat down by the side of the sofa, cross-legged so her skirt rode up. He looked away, looked back again.

‘Ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Less. Tell Irene thanks.’

‘She’ll probably be down again in a minute – but Clemmie’s got this sickness bug …’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Pour me some more wine.’

‘You’re sure?’ she asked, but she poured him a full glass, taking a sip herself before she handed it over. There was a red smear on the rim of the glass and he raised his head and put his lips where hers had been, took an awkward gulp, feeling his muscles untying, his thoughts unbolting, all his words fraying, coming undone.

He had never looked at Frankie properly before – his wife’s oldest friend’s younger sister who’d been on the outer edges of his life for more than twelve years. He could see from here that she wore no bra and her breasts were full and soft; that there were muscles in her calves and she had long ear lobes from which hung a bright jangle of metal. There was a tiny white scar in her thick eyebrows and the parting in her hair was slightly crooked. Her make-up had smudged a bit; she looked soft, blurred, full of secrets.

‘I think I’m a bit drunk,’ he said. If he closed his eyes now, the room would tip and he would be adrift. He kept his eyes open and took another sip.

Frankie laid her hand, very gently, on his upper thigh. ‘It’s your night,’ she said. He looked at it for a moment, the slim fingers against his leg, the pearly nails. From upstairs came the sound of a door shutting softly. Adrian set down his wine glass and, without looking at Frankie, he put his hand on her blonde, warm head. He imagined Irene upstairs, listening outside the bedroom to make sure everything was fine the way she did every single night, her head slightly cocked and a tight, expectant expression on her face, and he tightened his fingers in the tangle of hair, tugging Frankie towards him. She uncoiled her legs and knelt up, leaning over him on the sofa where he lay. He smelt the wine on her breath. He brushed a thumb against her nipple, swollen under the thin material of her shirt, and she gave a little murmur. Her hair brushed his face. Her lips parted, very slightly.

‘Jesus, I want to fuck you,’ he said, not moving.

They heard the footsteps on the staircase and Frankie sank back onto the floor beside him. She re-crossed her legs and pushed her hair behind her ears.

‘Sorry,’ said Irene, entering the room, her arms full of sheets. She’d put on a thick towelling robe, belted round the waist and rolled up at the sleeves, and washed her face. Her hair was brushed back from her thin face and she smelt of lavender soap and moisturizing cream and, faintly, vomit. ‘Clemmie was sick. I had to wash her and change the sheets.’

‘I should have helped you,’ said Adrian. ‘Sorry. You should have called.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Frankie. ‘Can I do anything?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Irene looked at the two of them sitting so close together. Her husband’s face was flushed. ‘Do you want more coffee?’

‘I’m on my way. My cab should have been here ages ago.’

And when the bell rang at the front door a few moments later Frankie pulled on her thick coat, wrapped a velvet scarf round her neck, gathered up her bag, kissed Irene goodbye on both cheeks, gripping her by her thin shoulders, and then laid one hand on the top of Adrian’s thick, hot head in casual farewell.

‘See you,’ he said amiably as she left, although it was all he could do not to groan out loud, so flooded by lust and guilt that he couldn’t tell the difference between them.

Two

‘I think that went well,’ said Irene. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Great. Thanks. You went to a lot of trouble for me.’

‘Oh well.’ She looked down at him. ‘It was the least I could do.’

‘Thanks,’ he repeated. He looked into her candid grey eyes, with the little crow’s feet, and then at her wide mouth, the faint brackets around it.

‘Are you OK down there?’ she said.

‘Sure. Just a bit tired. Irene?’

‘Mmm.’

‘We should go away together sometime, like we used to. Before.’

‘Bed,’ she said, thinking of overdrafts, schedules, childcare, homesickness.

‘I mean it. A sunny place in February, just you and me. The kids would be all right now. It’s been so long. We could …’

‘Come on,’ she said and held out a hand. He took it, noticing that her nails were bitten to the quick and her wedding ring was loose on her finger.

‘What about the mess?’

‘Leave it. We can do it tomorrow.’

He watched her as she took off her towelling robe and hung it on the hook on the door. She was pale, with freckles on her shoulders, a mole on her hip, and prominent rib bones. She used to be slim and quick – like a flame, he’d said to her once, bowled over with love; like a wild flower – but now she was thin. He could see the sinews in her arms, and the way that her skin was slightly loose. He tried not to compare her to that other golden body, half glimpsed like a ripe fruit among the camouflaging leaves, and when Irene lay down beside him in the bed they’d shared for over a decade, he put his arms around her and held her spooned against him, feeling her vertebrae sharp as a zip against his chest.

‘I still smell of sick.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

He put a hand on her flat stomach, between the sharp angles of her pelvis. She held herself carefully, neither rejecting nor inviting him.

‘I love you,’ he said into her hair. His head was swimming; breathing deeply made him feel faintly queasy. ‘You know that I love you, don’t you?’

‘Mmm. Me you too.’

He moved his hand lower. ‘Irene?’

‘Mmm?’ She kept absolutely still. Her eyes were wide open and she gazed into the darkness.

‘Never mind. Sleep well.’

A soft mutter came from her and he rolled onto his back, putting his arm over his eyes, feeling the walls rush towards him.

Irene stared out at the bedroom. She always left the door slightly ajar so that she could hear the children during the night, and a fuzzy yellow blade of light from the landing lay along the carpet. She waited until she heard Adrian’s breath deepen and then she got out of bed, pulled on her towelling robe, and went into the room that Clemmie and Agnes shared, their two low beds separated by a narrow gap that in their games was sometimes a river, sometimes a raging fire, sometimes an abyss that they would heroically leap across, though Agnes often missed, crashing onto the wooden floor with screams of frustration and woe. Clemmie lay with her head on a towel and a bucket beside her. She had hectic red cheeks and, when Irene laid a hand across it, a clammy forehead. The skin on her back was burning hot. A thick, sour smell hung round her.

Irene knew she wouldn’t sleep now, although during the film a few hours ago she had been struck by waves of weariness, so she’d had to strain her eyes wide open and sit up straighter on her cushion, taking small nips at the glass of wine she’d made last the entire evening; nowadays, she never had more than one glass of wine with her meal, and even that she would often leave barely touched. She looked in on Sasha, then padded downstairs to the kitchen where plates were stacked up in the sink, and the table was covered with smeary glasses, empty beer bottles, balled-up paper napkins, torn-off hunks of bread.

She put Clemmie’s sheets on to wash and then snapped on rubber gloves, emptied the sink of plates, and filled it with hot soapy water. She worked methodically, washing first the cutlery, then the glasses, finally the plates and bowls. She emptied the ashtrays and swilled out wine and beer bottles before putting them in the box for recycling, threw cushions back onto chairs, vacuumed the carpet, poking the nozzle into dusty corners, sucking up crumbs and dust and coloured beads that rattled down the throat of the old machine. Although her eyes were sore with tiredness she was far from sleep now, and there was a satisfaction in returning the room to its normal condition, putting things in their exact place and knowing that in the morning it would look as if nothing had happened the evening before.

It was three o’clock in the morning. She imagined all the other people who must be awake right now, making love, swallowing pills, writing poems, sobbing into their pillows, nursing newborn babies to their cracked nipples, staring at the curtains and waiting for a strip of grey dawn to appear. In the cupboard there were several boxes of teas: lemon and ginger, lemon verbena, blackcurrant, mint, camomile, something called ‘tranquillity tea’ which smelt dusty, like hay or old geraniums. She dropped a bag of lemon verbena into a mug and poured boiling water over it, draped the washed sheets over the radiator, then sat on the sofa in the dark living room, her legs curled up under her, cupping the mug in her chapped hands, sipping very slowly at the infusion while the fragrant steam rose into her face. Rain blew in gusts against the window and she shivered and tightened the belt on her gown.

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