‘He went to Luke’s hut for drinks – but didn’t stay over. And I checked with Caz, and she says he didn’t stay with her either. I’ve no idea where he is.’
‘Not like him.’
‘I know.’
I don’t mention the fight between Jacob and myself, yet. Instead I say, ‘I think he and Caz may have been arguing.’
‘Ah,’ Nick says, as if this explains everything. ‘He’ll be letting off steam. Licking his wounds. He’ll be back when he’s hungry.’
I want, so much, to believe that’s true. Yet I think about Jacob’s mouth twisting with anger as he faced me, and the way the hut shook as he slammed the door on his way out.
From my pocket, I pull out Caz’s seahorse earrings. Up close they look a little tacky; the curves are blackening, and one of the butterfly clasps is gold and must have been mixed with another piece of jewellery. I wonder whether Caz will even look for them.
If I had my ears pierced, I would try them on. As I hold them up to the light, I picture Jacob walking in – seeing me with them. I can’t begin to imagine how I’d explain it. The buzz that hummed through me is already quietening. In its place, I feel the steady rise of shame. I cross the hut and stuff the earrings into a cotton bag at the back of one of our drawers, trying not to think about the other items in there.
I move to the food cupboard and take out three baking potatoes, choosing the smaller one for myself. I scrub them, pierce the skins, then dust them with salt, before placing them in the small gas oven. I’ve made chilli for dinner, as I know it’s a favourite with Nick and Jacob, and I can only hope that the three of us will be sitting together to eat.
I pick up my wine glass and move to the doorway. It’s a warm evening with little wind. All along the sandbank, children have been put to bed and parents take chairs and drinks on to the beach, sitting together in groups as the yawning shadows of huts stretch down to the water. Our dear friends, Joe and Binks, who have owned the tired green hut on the other side of Isla’s for over thirty years, huddle around a barbecue, the food long cooked, driftwood keeping the fire stoked for warmth. They look subdued this evening, perhaps missing their much-adored grandchildren who returned home yesterday after spending the week with them. Lorrain, who is new to the sandbank, sits between Joe and Binks, leaning close to the flames to light the cigarette pressed between her lips. She calls them her ‘summer treats’, buying just one pack and making them last the season.
The sight of the red ember glowing in the dusk makes me yearn for a cigarette, too. I haven’t smoked properly in years – not since I fell pregnant with Jacob. Occasionally I share the odd cigarette with Isla, pressing it to my lips like a delicious secret. If Nick’s with us, he’ll make a show of protesting, but in truth, I think he likes the nod to our youth. That’s one of the special things about old friends – you never quite let go of the memory of who you used to be.
What was I like at Jacob’s age? It’s so easy to forget who I was at seventeen as the years keep stacking, one on top of the other; the girl who wore silver platforms and drew flicks of liquid eyeliner at the edges of her eyes getting compressed beneath the weight of the past. I know that at Jacob’s age I wasn’t close to my mother, that’s for certain. It was Isla who I spent every free moment with.
A memory swims back to me … an evening when we were seventeen and cycled into town with fake IDs stuffed into our handbags. We’d fluttered our way into a club and danced for hours in a bar built into a disused church. Discs span. Our bodies curved to a beat that thundered from two speakers, our dresses stuck to the small of our backs.
Isla had slipped her hand into the tiny single pocket on the front of her dress, then uncurled her fingers in front of me, eyes glinting. I peered at her palm, then looked up at her smiling.
We put gold tablets on the end of our tongues and swallowed.
The rhythm sped up. My pulse flickered in my throat.
A boy danced with his knee through mine – and I tipped back my head and laughed. Isla jumped into the air with the music, long hair catching in a flash of light. A strobe played over us, distilling our movements into a hundred frames.
Later, much later, we tumbled out on to the street, hearts thumping, minds buzzing. We squeezed through the doorway of a kebab shop together, watching meat spin in a blizzard of overhead lights. We ate on the pavement, glittering heels kicked off, grease and mayonnaise dampening our lips. We stuffed wrappers in a bin and walked with our arms linked, hips knocking, to where our bikes were chained together.
Heels were thrown in baskets and we carved through the night on our bikes, the wind behind us, tanned legs pedalling fast circles. I raced to the top of a hill, standing up on the pedals, feeling my dress billowing around the tops of my thighs. At the brow, breathing hard, Isla and I were shoulder to shoulder.
I turned.
She looked at me. Grinned.
Before us the dark road unfurled. We leant forward, gave a dozen hard pedals, and then the momentum caught us. We felt the pull of the wheels as they began to roll. We went hurtling down, wind whipping our hair back from our faces. No bike lights, no helmets, bare skin inches away from the rough scrape of tarmac. Isla lay across the handlebars, legs outstretched behind her, screaming a single high note. I kicked out my legs so they sailed like wings away from the pedals.
The stars rained down as we glided.
Together we felt free. Invincible. Brave.
I was young once, I want to tell Jacob. I haven’t always been this person you see now.
I love you. I’m sorry. It was the wrong decision. Those are some of the other things I need to say.
Forgive me.
‘No Jacob yet?’ Nick asks the moment he walks in.
I shake my head.
Nick moves towards me and I know he’ll press a quick kiss on my cheek. I can’t remember when we stopped kissing each other on the mouth – but I realize that I miss it. As he bends towards me, I turn my face into him so his kiss lands on my lips. We bump chins, like uncertain teenagers, and Nick raises his eyebrows slightly.
I catch the smell of his fading aftershave, and a hint of air freshener from his car. He is forty-three in autumn and I think he looks good on it; he still has a thick head of lightbrown hair, and the lines on his face trace a pattern of smiles rather than frowns. He goes to the fridge and pulls out a beer, then sinks down on to the sofa.
I pour another glass of wine for myself, but remain standing. ‘How did the pitch go?’ I ask, although all I really want to talk about is Jacob.
‘Okay. I think. God, I don’t know. It’s so hard to say. We were there all day. But they’re seeing three more agencies. It’ll come down to figures in the end, I suppose.’
‘Three more?’ Nick had thought it was just his agency, and a London firm.
He shrugs, surprisingly relaxed about it. Since he heard about the pitch, he’s been working flat out. He’s grinding his teeth again in his sleep. I haven’t mentioned it; I know he sees it as a weakness – a sign that he can’t handle the stress.
‘When will you hear?’
‘Friday.’
I take another sip of wine, then direct the conversation to Jacob. ‘I’m surprised there’s still been no word from our boy.’
‘What did Luke say?’
‘Just that Jacob was at the party until about eleven, and then he and Caz walked along the beach – had an argument, I’m gauging – and then she left him and went to her hut alone.’ I tell Nick about the remarks I overheard at Luke’s hut about Caz’s drinking.
‘Sounds like the two