We laugh. There is a genuine, happy family atmosphere, full of camaraderie and love. Perhaps I’m not so bad after all.

Camilla is arrested at dawn.

An anonymous tip-off. Apparently.

Forty-Two

So much makes sense now. Nina tried desperately to cling to the respectability of normality, hide behind society’s cruelly deceptive structures. Foundations can be ripped away. Marriage, mortgages, children. No matter how much she clung to the rules, she couldn’t shake off her guilt.

Strangely (or not?), Stuart and I get along well at times. When he’s a caring dad, when he and I have to make joint decisions for the benefit of our family, I can mentally push away the downsides. We ebb and flow, a perpetual work in progress involving endless compromises. Just like a real marriage, I guess.

Despite my own deliberate yet subtle targeting of Stuart, and his of me, I really can’t see how it could’ve worked out any other way. Did Nina deliberately plant the idea in his head? Mine, too? We’ll never know, and I’m surprisingly all right with that. Perhaps it was her way of protecting her children. On some level, I can now understand. I do honestly believe that Nina would approve of most of my actions.

I may have taken over Nina’s life, but in doing so, I’ve fulfilled my main promise to her: to protect her family. Because there was one thing that Nina knew she could rely on: my loyalty, however misplaced. Yet she was right to trust me, at the time.

Nina wanted Stuart to concentrate solely on the children for as long as possible.

Stuart means well, but if he makes noises about selling, Marie, move in! Make a mess to put off any potential buyers, get the kids on board, they’ll love it!

I smile at the memory.

I’ve had to make up my own version of what really happened on that fateful boat trip. I like and choose to believe that Camilla probably made a bitchy comment about me and it awoke some kind of buried loyalty in Charlie, which is then what motivated him to turn on her while they were on the boat. Nina knew how guilty I felt about Charlie and how I held my drunken jealousy (however provoked) partly responsible for the path that ultimately led to his death. I’d told him that he wasn’t good enough for me or whatever I could think of in my rage that would hurt him as much as possible. Nina heard every vicious word, knew how shameful my last words to him had made me feel, yet she never gave me even a hint that I wasn’t to blame for what happened. In her blind confidence of me in the end, Nina overlooked the fact that everyone has a breaking point.

Yet, still my feelings toward her ebb and flow. Affection, resentment, love, hate. But, right now, strangely, I miss her more than ever.

Four months later...

I retrace Nina’s footsteps for one of the last ever times. Winter cold clings to my coat as I walk round the garden with my camera, the strap slung around my neck. Goldie is sniffing and exploring. Jack is asleep in his buggy. I take photos of him, of Goldie, of the grounds. I snap the final pictures, memories for the children.