Emily Barr - The Sleeper

When the second heavy gate has clanged shut behind us, Sam takes my hand. I like the way it feels. In spite of everything, we fit together in the same way we always have. We will be, I suddenly know, all right. He is pining away at home, not just for me, because that would be pathetic in a man who is approaching forty, but for the family life that should have been going on around him. We have never spoken of it, but I know that imaginary scenes from that life-that-never-was ambush him at every turn. I picture him at home in the evening, probably eating a bowl of cereal for pudding, with the television on. From the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of a serious four-year-old, the child we would have had if it had worked out the way we blithely assumed it was going to, before it didn’t. There is a baby asleep downstairs in the smallest bedroom, and the two- and four-year-olds share the bigger one.

Instead, he is all alone. We haven’t spoken about adoption lately, but I know he is thinking about it. For the moment, I want to avoid the topic.

‘Shall we order a pizza?’ I am using my brightest voice to mask the fact that I am desperate for hangover food. Sam is standing in the conservatory, which juts out from the side of the house and, depending on my mood, makes me feel either that I am hanging over an abyss, or that I am suspended magically over the whole world. He is staring out over the docks and the water, to the mansions across the estuary, the curve of the town around the water of the mouth of the Fal.

He does not reply. I go to stand next to him. He puts an arm around my shoulders without looking round.

‘We can’t have Domino’s,’ he says, and as I watch he seems to pull himself together, to drag his focus back from wherever it was and on to me. ‘This is your only evening. Earlier we were going to the cinema. Which do you want to do? I could cook for us. Or we could go back out and do something.’

We both look back at the view. It is raining in Penryn, down the river. The clouds that partially obscure it are the dark grey that signifies a downpour. In the foreground, the masts and the buildings that cluster round the harbour are lit by bright sunlight. The lighting makes it look like a dazzling Renaissance artwork. For a second I am in an Old Master painting, in the National Gallery, a figure in the foreground to make the background look more focused.

‘Let’s stay in and be dry,’ I say, knowing that this is what he wants to hear.

He grins at that. ‘Good call. I’ll throw some food together. You can chat to me while I do it. Then we could have a game of Scrabble.’

I want to laugh at that. It sounds the epitome of dull, but I love Scrabble and always have.

‘That sounds like a perfect evening,’ I tell him, and now, at last, I mean it.

chapter seven

‘Lara! Apparently you were phenomenally impressive.’ Jeremy smiles at me. ‘Thank you. You see? This is why we had to poach you back from deepest darkest Devon.’

‘Cornwall,’ I say quietly. He ignores me, shaking his head and smiling to himself.

‘You know, Lara. There’s no way we’re going to let you go after six months.’

I leave work feeling happy. This, I think, is where I belong. This is what I’m good at. I love doing a job that stretches me. I stayed up for most of the night preparing for that, and it is appreciated. Jeremy is the one who agreed to have me back for this project, and the fact that he is so pleased with what I am doing makes me glow. The best thing is that I know he is right to be pleased. I went to a meeting to talk about our development and stood up in a room full of people who despise the concept of ‘luxury flats’ and talked them all around. We have now lost a significant degree of local opposition.

I even feel good about Olivia. I am going to tell her, I vow. Tonight we are going to be busy. Tomorrow I will tell her that I’m going to leave and find my own place to live.

I am heading straight to the restaurant. There is no need to change, but I nip into the work loos before I go, pull the hairpins out of my hair and shake it loose. It is shorter like this than people think it is, reaching only just below my shoulders. For a second, I try out a fringe, like a child experimenting. I pull a strand of hair above my forehead, and let its ends hang down. It looks horrible.

When my hair is brushed and shiny, I pin it back up. This chignon thing has become my default style. Anything else looks odd now. I started doing it when I started work, in my twenties, because it made me feel like a grown-up, and I never really stopped. Twisting my hair into place and sticking six pins in it is second nature. It got a lot more casual when I wasn’t working; but now it is back in its full professional glory. It is crucial for me to look impeccable at work; and I enjoy that more than I could ever admit to anyone.

My work shoes are my best ones, red and high, and I am excellent at walking in them. The rest of my outfit is as boring as it usually is, but my shoes are always special. I have two red pairs now, plus a black pair and some yellow ones. People look twice at my feet, and I like that. I worked hard to learn how to walk on tiptoes, and it is a skill I treasure. Sam thinks it is ridiculous, and he is, doubtless, right. All the same, it pleases me.

I redo my eye make-up and put on lipstick, throwing the piece of tissue paper with smudged dark red kisses on it into the bin. As I’m on my own, I do a quick check of my purse: I always have cash, just in case, and my stash of it is safe and growing. I tell myself I will never need an emergency fund; but all the same, it makes me feel secure. I never tell anyone about it, because I know it would sound crazy.

I have known for years that I am in danger. You don’t get to do what I did and walk away unscathed. He is out of prison, and one day he will come to track me down; because I was the only one who got away.

I wish I could tell Sam, or Guy, or someone. It’s too late to mention my past to Sam, and he would never believe it if I tried. I can’t tell anyone else if I haven’t told my husband. I am stuck.

When I am in London, I imagine eyes following me in a way I have never done in Cornwall. I tell myself, again, not to be paranoid. There are enough problems in my real life, without my adding imaginary ones.

Dad is taking us to Pizza Express, again. Of all the restaurants in London, that is his favourite. He has taken us to Pizza Express on every possible occasion, ever since we were small, and he did it on my first week in this job: I spent an evening being bright and cheerful while Olivia, I later discovered, live-tweeted the entire evening with variations on ‘yawn’ and ‘zzz’, hashtagged with the word #family.

We used to complain about dad’s restaurant myopia, quietly, just Olivia and me. Moaning about having to go to Pizza Express all the time gave us some of our few moments of sibling bonding.

‘Can’t we go for a curry?’ Olivia would mutter.

‘But they don’t do dough balls at the curry house!’ I would whisper back, feeling wicked and transgressive.

‘I know! And he’d never get his American Hot. He’d get … other hot food instead. More interesting hot food.’

‘That would not do at all.’

It soon degenerated into sniping, but those conversations give me some of my happiest childhood memories. I tried to do it again with Olivia this morning.

‘Pizza Express, hey?’ I said, looking at her speculatively. ‘We haven’t been there for several weeks.’

She shrugged. ‘If he’s paying, I’m there.’

The shutters were down. The shutters have not risen, even a chink, not once.

I get there first. The young waitress smiles, ticks our booking off on her chart and leads me to a table by the window. I sit and look out at Charlotte Street, wondering how much a little flat in this part of London, Fitzrovia, would set me back. More money than I could possibly afford, for certain. I try to imagine myself telling Sam that I’m spending (and I have to pluck the figure from thin air) fifteen hundred pounds a month, plus council tax and bills, on renting a studio in central London. That is not a conversation I would be able to initiate.