‘I said if you want to be noticed you must do something bigger than that,’ she shouted.

‘But what?’

Corinne’s eyes wide, the river rushing behind her. ‘You must make it big. Something they won’t ever forget.’

31

That night Mark couldn’t sleep. They had all gone to bed early, each of them retreating to the separate corners of the house to nurse their bitter feelings, the sour taste of yesterday’s argument lingering in the stillness of the air. Outside, a sliver of moon hung in the cloudless sky. The temperature had plummeted, the mildness of autumn ceding to the first promise of winter. Beside him, Abi slept, one hand flung over her head, a trace of a frown lingering in her expression like some remnant of fury. His wife seldom lost her temper, but when she did, she could be ferocious, scathing, like she had been last night. Even when she was in the right, he still found it hard to like her in those moments, let alone love her.

He spent a long time looking at her as she slept and he lay awake, thinking back over their conversation at the Devil’s Glen. More and more lately, he was unsettled by the disconcerting thought that they had made a mistake. Their marriage, their life together. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it, how objectively he tried to look on the matter, it always came back to the feeling that there was something about them that did not click together as it should – a warp in the wood, a snag in the weave.

After a while, he gave up on sleep, quietly rising from the bed and moving to the door. There were no sounds from the other rooms as he stepped silently down the stairs. On the hall table was the printout of Corinne’s flight. The sight of it gave him a heavy heart; he felt disappointed by the manner in which her stay with them was ending. Despite everything, he still liked her. But it was settled. On Monday morning, she would go to school with Beth for the last time, say her goodbyes, and then they would drop her at the airport. He doubted they would ever see her again.

In the kitchen, he fixed himself a vodka with ice, then carried it through into his studio where he found Corinne in her T-shirt on the floor, her feet tucked up underneath her, one hand delicately lining up a match to affix to the sculpture that had grown since her arrival, the distinctive towers of Notre Dame’s west façade almost finished now. She looked up, startled and shy, then explained:

‘I thought I could get it done before I leave. Surprise you. But that was stupid of me. Even if I work on it all day tomorrow, there is too much to do.’