In a Cottage, In a Wood Read online

  Neve stares at her for a moment before replying. ‘Neve … Neve Carey. Um, what’s yours?’

  ‘Isabelle,’ says the woman in barely a whisper, and then, with more force, ‘Neve, will you do something for me?’

  She pictures herself getting on the night bus with this strange wraithlike creature and both of them rocking up at Lou’s. Clearing her throat, she has to work hard not to sound sulky.

  ‘Uh, yes, I guess,’ she says. ‘But it depends on what it is.’

  Isabelle opens the clutch bag and produces a small brown envelope. ‘I want you to take this.’

  Neve hesitates and eyes it suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a gift. For being kind to me.’

  Neve takes a step back and holds up her palms. ‘Look, I’ve done nothing. I just don’t want you freezing to death on my conscience. I’m not that kind, trust me. I’m actually a bit of a cow. Ask anyone.’

  ‘You are kind,’ says Isabelle quietly. ‘I can sense it. Will you take this, just to humour me? Say you will. Say it.’

  Neve stares back at the woman, discomfited by her intense, strange manner.

  A passing car washes them with its headlights. For a moment Isabelle looks cadaverous, her eyes sunk in deep pockets of shadow.

  ‘It’s important,’ she says fiercely. ‘Please.’

  Neve is so unnerved now that all she can do is thrust out her hand and take the envelope.

  Isabelle’s shoulders droop and she seems to shrink in on herself.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says quietly. ‘Thank you so much.’

  She fumbles inside the bag and, after producing a mobile phone, turns away and whispers something quietly into it. The she returns the phone to the bag and looks at Neve. Her eyes are gleaming now, as if she is close to tears.

  ‘You should go,’ she says thickly. ‘I’ll be fine here.’

  It’s tempting.

  Neve sighs heavily.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s get the fuck off this freezing cold bridge. Where do you need to get to? I can—’

  ‘No.’ The sharp retort makes her gasp. ‘I’m sorry. But you need to go now. Leave me here. You shouldn’t be—’

  She seems to bite the end of her sentence off and, for the first time, Neve sees that she is terrified in a way Neve has never witnessed before in real life.

  Neve crosses her arms.

  ‘No way,’ she says. ‘I’m not leaving you here. It’s bloody cold and—’

  She yelps as Isabelle lunges, kissing her quickly on each cheek with cold, dry lips. Her grip is surprisingly strong. Neve feels a flash of fear as Isabelle’s lips brush her ear.

  ‘I’m sorry. Please forgive me. And keep it, if you can bear to.’

  Then she turns to face the water and, in one neat movement, climbs over the side of the railing and jumps into the river.

  3

  Neve sits in the back of the police car now, wrapped in a silver thermal blanket as blue light smears rhythmically across the windows. The hiss and crackle of the radio begins to fade as icy rain pounds onto the roof of the vehicle.

  The RNLI had arrived first, confusing her with their jaunty logo because she thought they were people who rescued you at sea. They came with astonishing speed after she made the call. Later she would learn that one of their emergency stations was situated close to Waterloo Bridge.

  They arrived before the police. Neve’s phone had died before she could finish the conversation with the operator so for ten surreal minutes before the police car had arrived, she’d stood on the bridge alone, looking down at the boat as it turned slow circles in the blackness below, its spotlight swishing back and forth. She half thought about hurrying away and leaving them to it. But it seemed desperately sad that this stranger should have no one apart from the emergency services rooting for her to be found.

  So instead she kept up the vigil, staring into the depths below. Her heart had jolted when she saw something white swell and roll in the water, then she realized it was a large plastic bottle. The sensation of relief, that she wouldn’t have to jump in and attempt a rescue, had almost buckled her at the knees.

  Later, she would understand that no one would expect her – someone with only average swimming ability – to try and rescue a drowning woman from the Thames in winter. But guilt periodically comes in a bright, sharp jab under her ribs. This at least is a sensation she recognizes.

  When the police arrived she’d told them what happened in jerky, shocked sentences. They’d gently encouraged her to start again from the beginning and tell them the whole story.

  Now here she is, in the strange aftermath and she can’t stop shivering. Every now and then a particularly strong shudder jerks through her, which makes her clench her jaw. It’s unnerving. She read somewhere that shock can be dangerous in some physiological way she doesn’t really understand and wonders whether she ought to ask for something from the ambulance crew.

  She looks out the window and sees through the condensation and raindrops that one of the RNLI men is talking to the policewoman. It’s the small, Northern one with tight curly hair and an efficient air about her. The policewoman nods and then glances at the car. Neve draws back, as though caught doing something wrong.

  The door of the police car opens, but it is the young black officer who pokes his head in and peers at her.

  ‘You alright, love?’ he says gently. He has pretty eyes, thickly lashed, and a cold that clogs his voice and makes him fumble for a tissue. He honks into it and regards her.

  Neve nods.

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘we have been informed by the rescue crew that the tide is very strong tonight and the weather is taking a turn for the worse. They’ve made the decision that they aren’t going to continue the search.’ He pauses. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  His formal words are countered by the kindness in his face.

  ‘I think so,’ she says in a small voice. ‘There’s no hope. Will she just … stay down there?’

  He makes a face.

  ‘Probably not,’ he continues, ‘but it can take a little while for, uh, people to wash up at this stretch of the Thames.’ He pauses. ‘Was she a friend of yours, the woman who jumped in?’

  Neve swallows, picturing the moment again.

  The shocking speed of it all. Cold, dry lips on her cheek and clawed hands gripping her shoulders. The bright flash of the dress as she tipped herself up and over into the black water.

  ‘I was just walking past,’ she says. ‘I don’t know her at all. I was just … going home and there she was. I started talking to her. And then she …’ she swallows. ‘She just did it. Right in front of me.’

  The policeman makes an indeterminate sound of sympathy, his head to the side.

  It’s only now Neve remembers the envelope, realizing she must have dropped it on the pavement in the shock of the moment. ‘Look, she gave me something,’ she says. ‘An envelope? There was something really strange about it. I only took it to stop her being weird.’ She swallows again, feels a tremble judder through her and then she laughs, loud and inappropriately. ‘But it didn’t work, did it!’

  The policeman nods. ‘We’ve got that, also her phone and bag. In a bit we’ll get a written statement and then get you home. Bit of a rough night. You’ll feel better tomorrow.’

  Neve nods gratefully, her eyes brimming.

  4

  It’s almost six a.m. when the police car pulls up in front of Lou and Steve’s building on a leafy street in Kentish Town. It’s still dark outside. Several windows are lit. A handful of people are quietly closing front doors, slinging bags over shoulders and jamming in earbuds, walking, hunched with fatigue, down the road to the tube.

  Neve thanks the two police officers, noticing the lingering look from the attractive black one. As she closes the car door she realizes gratefully that she is so late home her sister will almost certainly be up, tending to her eleven-month-old baby, Maisie.

  The car pulls awa
y and Neve makes her way carefully down the slippery steps that lead to the kitchen.

  Lou and Steve live on the bottom two floors of the tall Victorian building and she is hoping she can alert Lou’s attention through the window rather than ringing the bell and waking the entire household.

  But she realizes with a sinking heart that all the lights are off in the kitchen. It would be typical if Maisie had chosen to sleep through for the first time ever, on this of all nights.

  Then she sees her sister, swaddled in the long baggy cardigan she wears as a dressing gown at the sink, Maisie on her shoulder, as upright and alert as a meerkat. The baby sees her aunt and waves sweetly, opening and closing her fingers over her fist.

  Neve returns the wave with a weak smile. Lou turns and Neve sees rather than hears her shocked yelp. Lou disappears back through the kitchen door and a few moments later the front door a level up is noisily unbolted and opened.

  Lou stands in the entrance and peers out at her sister as she climbs the steps. Her face is puffy and Neve can see right away that she has had a bad night. Lou’s eyes look small and pink, like a rabbit’s. She has patches of dry skin on her cheeks, which are flushed, as though she is the one teething and not Maisie.

  ‘God, look at you,’ she says. ‘Is this you just coming home? I thought you were in bed. Oh … Neve? What on earth is it?’

  Neve doesn’t have any more tears but is suddenly overcome with the need for human comfort. She stumbles towards her sister, longing to hide her face in the woollen softness of her ample shoulder. To be held like a child and told everything will be okay.

  ‘I can’t really …’ says Lou with a sharp laugh, ‘Maisie, stop wriggling!’ The little girl pushes against her aunty with hands and feet and revs like a car in protest. All three of them awkwardly clash against each other.

  Cheeks flushed, Neve walks off into the kitchen.

  She should know better, she thinks. They’ve never exactly been huggers, her and Louise.

  She goes to the kettle and can feel it has only recently boiled. She opens the neatly labelled jar of coffee and taps some roughly into a mug that says, ‘WORLD’S NICEST MUMMY’, knowing it will annoy Lou that she is using this cup and that she isn’t bothering with a spoon.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ says Lou from the doorway. ‘Has something happened?’

  Sloshing water from the kettle into the cup, Neve then fumbles in the drawer for a spoon and adds two spoons of sugar before lifting it to her lips and chugging the bitter, lukewarm coffee down. Lou and Steve don’t believe in proper coffee.

  ‘Honestly, Neve,’ Lou continues in a low, tolerant voice, ‘Lottie is getting to an age when she’s going to start asking questions about why her aunty has stayed out all night. You can’t just come in looking like something the cat dragged in when you are in a family home. Don’t you think that it’s time you—’

  ‘I watched a woman commit suicide tonight. Right in front of me.’

  Lou’s eyes widen and she slaps her free hand across her mouth.

  ‘Oh God, no. Where? On the tube?’

  Maisie grizzles. She buries her face into her mother’s shoulder, squidging her legs up and rounding her back.

  Lou swings from side to side. She is always moving to some maternal metronome inside her, even when she isn’t holding a child. She shushes and pats the baby’s back, her eyes pinned to Neve’s face.

  ‘Where? What happened?’

  Neve goes to fill the kettle again and Lou bustles over.

  ‘Here, let me get that. You sit down and tell me everything. You look awful. Are you warm enough?’ Lou is finally in her comfort zone. Looking after people’s physical needs is what she does best.

  Neve does as she’s told, sitting, and shakes her head to indicate that no, she isn’t warm enough. She can’t envisage ever being warm again, in fact. Lou leaves the room and comes back with a travel blanket from the sofa. Neve wraps it around her neck and shoulders, trying to ignore the vaguely sickly smell emanating from it, thanks to various small, dirty hands.

  As Lou makes her another coffee she begins to tell her about what happened, starting with walking across the bridge.

  ‘Wait,’ Lou interrupts her straight away, a deep frown on her face. ‘Was this after your work thing? Have you been at a police station all night?’

  Neve sighs. She’s tempted to lie then she thinks, why should I?

  ‘I’d been back to someone’s house,’ she says, as a compromise. The hotel really does sound so sleazy. Despite their decidedly agnostic upbringing, Lou has turned a bit Christian since meeting church-goer Steve.

  She looks her sister directly in the eye as she says this and Lou looks down at the baby’s head and pats her back gently.

  ‘Okay,’ she says patiently. ‘Go on …’

  Neve tells her the rest of the story in a series of terse sentences.

  ‘What a thing,’ says Lou in wonder. ‘What a terrible thing.’

  They sit in silence.

  It is only as Neve is slipping gratefully into her chilly bed and fighting off the returning shivers that she remembers she didn’t tell her sister about the strange exchange with the envelope.

  I wonder what was in it, she thinks as scrambled images race across her mind. Finally, as she begins to warm up for the first time since she left Whatsisname’s hotel room, she tips into sleep.

  5

  Neve doesn’t have any difficulty in recalling what happened when she wakes. There’s no moment of mental filing from night to day. It’s right there at the forefront of her mind.

  A woman talked to me and then she jumped off the bridge.

  Isabelle. Her name was Isabelle.

  She cracks her sore eyes open and gazes up at the white meringue swirl of the ceiling rose above her.

  From downstairs she hears the squawks and shrieks of CBeebies, Maisie’s low-level grizzling and the rumble of Steve’s voice.

  The thought of being with them all makes her groan and turn her face into the pillow.

  Steve has never actually said he doesn’t want her there. Neither has Lou.

  But she sees the looks that slide between them when she’s forgotten to wash up, or left a glass and plate on the patio. Her toiletries had been a growing skyline on the bathroom shelf and every morning she sees that they have been tidied and grouped together. Steve practically follows her around with a dustpan and brush.

  It’s not like she’s deliberately taking the piss. She really is grateful that they’re putting her up like this. It’s just that mess seems to follow her. She can enter a room and within minutes has laid her keys in one place, her handbag somewhere else and where did she put her phone again?

  Steve doesn’t drink much, doesn’t smoke and doesn’t even swear. He runs, he cycles, he plays five-a-side football with people from the large insurance company where he works. He has two comfortably off parents and likes to think of himself as a hands-on dad to his daughters.

  He is almost completely lacking in a sense of humour.

  Unfortunately, people like Steve bring out the worst in Neve. The little pursed crease at the corner of his mouth as she sloshes more red wine into a glass, or says, ‘Fuck me, it’s cold,’ only eggs her on.

  She’d passed him on the way back from the shower early the other morning, dressed in only a towel. He’d kept his eyes so averted it had given her a wicked urge to drop the towel just to see what would happen. He’d probably have spontaneously combusted, like that picture of the sad stockinged leg in a pile of ash she’d seen in her dad’s old Unexplained part-work magazine as a little girl.

  Steve’s prudishness has got worse since an evening a couple of weeks before. They’d all got unexpectedly drunk together. Steve only had a couple of beers but had loosened up enough that Neve found herself quite liking him.

  But she’d made a smutty joke while helping him load the dishwasher after Lou had stumbled off to bed and he’d reacted as though he’d been bitten by a snake. Neve can’t even
really remember what she’d said now. Somehow, his brain had interpreted this as her coming on to him in some way and ever since he’d avoided eye contact.

  He clearly thought she was some sort of mad sex fiend now who would jump on him, were it not for the restraints of him being married to her older sister.

  It was all so tedious.

  Neve gets out of bed feeling like an old woman and wraps herself in her dressing gown before heading to the bathroom. Thank God it’s Saturday, although these days, the pleasures of the weekend are tempered by being a) more or less homeless and b) miserably single.

  When she goes into the kitchen she sees Steve at the sink, carefully cutting sandwiches into fingers. He has already been for a run; she can tell by the ruddy glow of his cheeks. He will no doubt have a long cycle later, just at the time the girls are needing their tea. Neve has noticed this, that he manages to live exactly like he had before kids, yet gets praised for the little he does with them.

  ‘Morning,’ she says and goes to fill the kettle.

  ‘Lou told me what happened,’ says Steve, without preamble. ‘That sounds a bit grim.’

  She’s about to reply when a high fluting voice floats through from the adjoining sitting room.

  ‘What’s grim, Daddy?’

  Lottie appears below them. She peers up, scrutinizing them. Neve loves her four-year-old niece but somehow always feels as though she has been assessed and found to be wanting in some way. Maybe it’s a genetic thing.

  She has black hair like her mother, but it bounces and jiggles around her head in spirals. Her eyes are very pale blue, like Steve’s, and her small snub nose is dusted with dark freckles.

  Steve reaches over and chucks her under the chin.

  ‘Never you mind, Miss Lotts. Are you ready to go to the Heath?’

  But Lottie is not to be deterred so easily.

  ‘Did something happen to Aunty Neve?’ she says. Neve and Steve exchange glances.

  ‘Why would you say that?’ says Steve.

  The little girl hoicks her cuddly lamb higher under her armpit and regards them both seriously.