‘Was it any good? Is it really as violent as everyone says?’
‘Yeah, it has some pretty horrific scenes,’ Will said. ‘For example, that song is playing when a character called Mr Blonde tortures a policeman he’s holding hostage. He dances along to the radio while he cuts the man’s ear off with a razor.’
‘That sounds horrible!’ Emily exclaimed and Will laughed again. Then he grabbed Emily round the waist and continued to sing Stuck in the middle of a ewe.
Their laughter and Will’s singing stopped at once when his father erupted into the barn. The reason for Mr Huxtable’s foul mood was unclear, but Will was immediately ordered to check on another ewe and Emily was sent home.
~
Will finished reminiscing. ‘Do you think there’s any chance of you coming home soon?’ he asked now.
‘I don’t know,’ Emily said. ‘I think at some point I can come home and be monitored there for a few months – follow-up, they call it. In the meantime, I’m getting treatment here, so I don’t know whether they’ll let me out early or not. I’m here for two years at most, so I may be allowed out after twelve months. You’ll have gone to university by the time I get home anyway.’
‘I think you might be going away, too,’ Will said.
‘What do you mean?’
Will hesitated a little before answering. ‘Your house is on the market. Didn’t your mum tell you?’
‘No. She said the stables had burnt down one night. Is that why she’s selling? I expect the house and grounds are way too big for her to manage alone anyway.’
‘I knew about the fire. My mum was the one who called the fire brigade. But your mum told me today that she’s selling because she needs the money to pay for Amanda’s studies.’
Amanda wanted to read psychiatry and hoped to get in to Oxford.
‘Oh.’ All this was news to Emily. ‘It’s probably just as well she’s leaving the Old Manor House. Too many bad memories in that place. It will be good to go somewhere else.’
‘I can’t wait to get away from home,’ Will said. ‘It’s…stifling. We’ll keep in touch though, OK?’
‘Definitely,’ Emily said.
Will had turned towards her and his knee was touching hers. She saw him glance down again and wondered if he was looking at her bandaged wrist or at her stomach. She used both hands to try and flatten down her tummy. Both the GP at the Centre and her psychiatrist had told her that it was barely showing, though, even after six months. No one had noticed – not even Emily herself. Not really. She’d had stomach pains and nausea and had been feeling very tired, but she’d put that down to stress and her medication.
The doctor had prescribed blood tests, but the results had come as a complete shock to everyone. Dr Irvine, who had continued to treat Emily after the trial, said that Emily was understandably in a state of denial about her condition.
Will didn’t know, did he? Her mother certainly wouldn’t have told him. According to Amanda, she’d scarcely spoken a word at all since she’d found out the previous week. Amanda didn’t talk to Will, and she wouldn’t have told a soul, anyway. He couldn’t know.
‘Are you left-handed?’ Will asked.
‘Yes,’ Emily said.
So it was her arm he’d been scrutinising.
‘Did you do that to yourself?’ Will gently folded back the cuff of Emily’s jumper to reveal the bandage.
‘No, of course not.’ Emily’s voice didn’t sound at all convincing, even to her own ears. ‘It can get a bit rough in here at times, you know.’
‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘Yes, all right.’ Will could be quite frank and Emily wondered what he was going to say.
‘That night, you were lying in bed holding a razor blade. Why?’
‘How did you know that?’ Emily was taken aback by the question.
‘It was in the North Devon Journal.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Emily was silent for a while. ‘Well, you know why, Will. You may even be the only one who knows.’
‘You were going to cut off his ear?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Emily replied noncommittally. ‘Did they print that in the article, too?’
‘No. No, of course not. It was only a short news story. In fact, the reporter didn’t even print your name.’
Emily turned to face Will. She had tears in her eyes. She never talked about that night, but she had a sudden urge to tell Will everything.
‘So, did you change your mind? You decided to shoot him instead?’
‘Something like that, I suppose. I wasn’t really thinking clearly.’
‘And you shot him with his own gun?’
‘Mmmm.’ There was a short silence during which both Emily and Will were lost in their thoughts.
‘What gun? Not with his clay pigeon shotgun, surely? You couldn’t have… Wasn’t your father…? How did you—?’
‘There’s a lot I don’t remember about that night.’
She’d used the same answer several times when she was being interrogated by the police a few months ago. That put an end to their conversation. Emily told Will nothing about that night after all.
Suddenly, her tummy tightened painfully. Maybe it was hunger. She’d deliberately made herself sick after lunch. But Emily wondered if it could be a contraction, even though that only made six months.
‘I think you should go now,’ she said to Will. She resolved not to reply to his letters from now on.
~
Oxford, September 2014
Amanda’s face turns red. ‘He told you he’d had an affair? The bastard!’
Emily is touched by her sister’s reaction. Even now, Amanda is protective towards her. Always the big sister. Pippa looks suitably impressed at Amanda’s term of abuse.
They’re sitting around the table in the window of The Grapes. The pub is conveniently situated a stone’s throw away from both The New Theatre and the hall where Amanda and Pippa have been rehearsing that evening with their Amateur Dramatic Society. They are both regulars here.
‘Hi, am I interrupting?’ A tall, smartly dressed man in his thirties with a rotund face beams at the group. It takes Emily a few seconds to place him.
‘No, not at all,’ says Pippa, in a tone that implies the exact opposite. ‘Have a seat. Matt, this is Richard. Emily, you’ve met Richard, haven’t you? He’s performing as Tim in this year’s play.’
‘Oh, I forgot to ask what the play was this year,’ says Emily, as Richard sets his pint down on the table, wriggles out of his waterproof coat and then sits on a stool next to Pippa. He fixes his eyes on Amanda. Emily smiles tightly at Richard, remembering the day he turned up on her doorstep. It was a long time ago now, she tells herself, and that incident is best forgotten. Best to move on.
‘It’s The Sugar Syndrome by Lucy Prebble,’ Pippa says.
‘I don’t know why the director chose that one. It’s not very recent, and there are only really four parts,’ Amanda says. Emily hears the whine in her sister’s voice.
Emily examines Richard. He hasn't stopped