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‘How would you feel about a fresh start?’ Rob suddenly asks, swinging round to face me. He grabs my hands. ‘Somewhere totally new?’
I want to tell him that it sounds perfect – all four of us walking out of our lives, leaving everything behind as if we’d evaporated. ‘You mean move house?’
He nods. ‘Maybe even overseas. It’d be an adventure.’
‘On top of everything else, you think that’s a good idea? What about my business? The girls’ schools? Belle will want to finish her A levels when…when she’s seen sense about Jack. We can’t just up and leave.’ Wherever I go, I know I’ll always have the shadow of Darren trailing me.
‘I owe people money, Han. A lot of money.’
‘But…I don’t understand. That’s not how your business works. You don’t have risks. They pay for your advice, and you invest and—’
‘It’s the best I can do to explain it. There’s stuff I haven’t told you, and stuff you don’t need to know. This weekend away…it wasn’t entirely what you thought.’
I get up off the bed and walk to the window. I remember when the estate agent showed me around the house all those years ago. It was the view across the little green square that sold it to me. Mums with toddlers were having picnics, older people walking arm in arm around the perimeter railings, dog walkers striding in formation across the diagonal paths that cut the grassed area into four slices. ‘It’s perfect,’ I’d said. By then, everything was in order. The money was clean and safe, and business was going well. Buying number twenty-eight Granville Gardens marked the end of my struggles and the beginnings of a new life that I’d dreamt of for so long. I’d got Belle, I’d got Rob, and I didn’t know it then, but a few years later, Amber would come along. All perfect.
‘What do you mean? Whatwasthe trip for, then?’ It’s never occurred to me that Rob has his own secrets, that everything isn’t as transparent and squeaky clean as he’s always made out. I’ve become so used to living a lie that I simply haven’t noticed anyone else’s.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HANNAH – NOW
It’s the smell of freshly cut grass that gets me. It’s not the sweet scent itself, rather the cloying stink of petrol fumes mixed up with it that takes me back to my childhood, lying on my bed with the window open as the neighbour ran their mower over their neatly manicured lawn. I’d stare out of the window and marvel at their garden, forcing my eyes not to settle on the overgrown, rubbish-strewn mess that sat behind our house. How I wished I lived next door.
As we walk, Rob’s hand slips into mine and, for a moment, I feel safe and secure, as if whatever happens, we’ll always have each other – a team to protect our family. We cross the quiet road outside our house and head around the green area, where a young couple sit on a tartan blanket with a bottle of Prosecco open between them. The girl is in a floral playsuit and the lad is dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. They’re gazing at each other as they laugh.
‘He looks as though he’s about to propose,’ I say, nudging Rob as I glance in their direction.
‘Christ, don’t,’ he says as we’re both reminded of Belle and Jack’s engagement. ‘You don’t think they’ll really get married, do you?’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ I reply, knowing that it’s not our daughter Darren wants. She’s a weapon to get at me. Though how do I tell Rob that if I don’t comply about the money then Darren will tell everyone, including the police, what I did and, yes, a wedding will happen? As we round the corner, I look back over my shoulder at our home – nestled tall and slim in the terrace of similar three-storey town houses. I notice Natalia closing the front blinds as she settles down for the evening with four girls in her care.
‘They’ll be fine,’ Rob says, knowing what I’m thinking.
‘I just needed to get out, get some air.’ We amble along the residential street leading off our square and on to the main road towards Clifton centre. Trendy cafés and boutiques are dotted along each side of the road, along with the butcher where I buy our meat, the greengrocer, the Asian supermarket that stocks so many of the colourful spices and ingredients that line our cupboards. Having arrived in Bristol by pure accident, I can’t imagine leaving the area, starting again somewhere new. It’s home now.
‘You know, when I left London,’ I tell Rob, ‘I literally got the first train out of the station. I didn’t care where it was going, but I needed a fresh start.’ It feels like the right time to be telling him this, now that he knows I once lived there. I’m treading a fine line, I realise, but lying to him feels so wrong too. By grazing the truth, I’m hoping it’ll make me feel an ounce more genuine.
‘Want to know something?’ he asks, squeezing my hand. ‘I pretty much did the same when I finally left too. Having studied here in Bristol, I’d decided to come back, though I didn’t know what I’d do once I got here. I can’t claim that my university years were all happy – in fact, it was a lonely time for me – but when I went back to my parents in London for the holidays, and then again after my degree, I knew I had to get out. It was even more lonely there. I guess I felt…aconnectionto this place.’
Hannah can’t imagine him not having a plan. Everything in Rob’s life has been so precise and deliberate, everything forecast and stress-tested.
‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ I say, laughing and giving his hand a squeeze.
‘I had no idea what I really wanted in life back then. Dad had always wanted me to study law at LSE and Mum never disagreed with him. She went along with everything he said. Dad envisaged me working alongside him in his practice, taking over the family firm one day. He had it all mapped out. His only son, you know. I don’t think he ever imagined me moving from Highgate out of London. The junior banking job I got back there wasn’t what he had in mind for me, though he eventually accepted it when…when I finally did all right for myself.’
‘Thing is, I can totally see you doing that, working in law, sorting out people’s problems.’
Rob laughs, the first time in a while. ‘Truth was, I didn’t particularly want to work in banking or finance either. When I returned to Bristol, I stayed in a B & B, relying on savings. Then I saw the job for a bank clerk advertised and, without much forethought, I applied for it. It was the only type of work I’d had experience in. A steady income allowed me to rent that room in the houseshare with the guys. Remember that?’
I smile at the memory – how they all made a fuss of Belle the first time we visited Rob there a few weeks after we’d met. One of them, Milo, a gay guy from Italy, said that we flooded the place with sunshine in a house smouldering with testosterone. I remember his words exactly, his face lighting up whenever I brought Belle. All I did was clean up from time to time, bring some plants, cook a few meals. And I’d wanted to do it. Our escape from London was still raw in my mind, and pottering around their house was a pleasure rather than a chore. Belle and I were living in the bedsit at the time. And besides, I was falling for Rob in a way I’d never thought possible. And him for me. Forus. Those early, heady days of our relationship were some of the happiest times of my life.
‘After that…after you and I met…’ He hesitates as we walk in single file around a group of people chatting outside a pub on the corner. When we join hands again, he continues. ‘Well, I kind of got…used to working at the bank, I suppose. They promoted me quickly and it didn’t seem possible to leave, especially not after we got serious.’
Hannah likes the idea of him being committed to supporting them – though her business was doing well when they met. But something in his tone indicates that’s not quite what he means. ‘Entrenched?’
‘Do you ever look back and wonder how much of your past affects the present? Like, one simple thing you did or said took you on a whole new path in life? What if you hadn’t been cruel to someone, or hadn’t acted a certain way, mistaken someone’s meaning, or hadn’t done something that was so out of character it influenced every decision you made from then on?’
Every single day, I want to tell him. As he skirts around his own issues, he has no idea that he’s treading heavily on mine.
