Hannah, unmoved by her husband’s despair, gave him a look of such cold, hard contempt, it would have made a monster recoil.
‘I always knew this would happen,’ Mac said quietly. ‘I knew you’d leave me in the end. I’ve tried so fucking hard. I thought if I loved you enough, you’d eventually fall in love withme. But it didn’t work, did it?’
He gazed at her, pleading, but she turned her face away.
‘I was never good enough for you,’ he added, with a crack in his voice. ‘Not like all your other men…’
A howl, like a wild animal’s, filled the air, chilling Edie to her bones. It was a frightening, primeval sound that seemed to come not from him, but from someone or something else, way back when, at the very dawn of time.
Hannah’s glare set Edie’s nerves jangling.
‘I could never love you,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘Look at you! You’re so weak. Even the slightest sound makes you jump.’
Picking up her fork, she took a step towards her husband and he cringed, like a beaten dog, staring up at her with frightened eyes.
‘Don’t hit me.’
Hannah laughed. ‘See! You’re scared of your own shadow.’
Watching in silent horror, Edie felt as if cloudy films, like cataracts, were being removed from both her eyes. All of a sudden, she had twenty-twenty vision, and the light was almost blinding.
In a flash, she was certain she could see the truth. It was as if she’d been struck by lightning and nothing would ever be the same again.
‘Mac?’ she said, scarcely recognising her own voice, which had become surprisingly strong and steady. ‘Did you throw that mirror in your bedroom the other night – or was it Hannah?’
He swallowed and his eyes darted this way and that. He was in a quandary; she could imagine the cogs in his brain working overtime to figure out the right response.
‘It was her, wasn’t it?’ Edie gently pressed.
She was aware of Hannah, who’d sat down again, shifting noisily, scraping her chair on the paving stones beneath.
‘You’re wrong!’ she hissed, but Edie remained fixed on Mac; she was willing him to open up, to allow light to enter the darkness, possibly for the first time.
‘Mac?’ she repeated.
He licked his lips. He’d stopped crying but his hands were trembling and his body shook, like a building in an earthquake.
At last, he opened his mouth and the word that came out was so quiet, she could barely hear it. But she knew, without a shadow of doubt, from the shape his lips had made, what that word was.
‘Yes.’
‘Enough!’
They all turned to look at Hannah, who was standing again, clutching onto the back of her chair for support.
‘I’m not listening to this. It’s a lie. He’s a liar.’
She stooped down to pick up her bag from the ground and began to stagger towards the villa. Once or twice, she stumbled, but no one ran to help. They couldn’t seem to move.
Once she’d gone, Edie, feeling sick as hell yet emboldened, too, straightened up and spoke again.
‘It’s not the first time she’s hurt, or tried to hurt you, is it?’
Slowly and reluctantly, Mac shook his head.
Edie glanced at Ralph, whose jaw was clenched and his face had turned white with anger.
‘Those cuts and bruises I’ve seen on you – were they her, too?’ he asked urgently, and Mac nodded.
