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I closed my laptop. My writing stint was clearly over.

‘Let me go and ring the agency. I’ll let you know what they say,’ I reassured Dad.

Over the years, I’d made it my mission to make him feel better about life, but sometimes I couldn’t quite work outwhat it was he thought I could do about it all. I’d even asked him directly on more than one occasion: What could we do to make things easier for you? Is there anything you’d like to do? To see? To read? But when he was in one of his low moods, nothing helped, which didn’t stop me feeling the need to keep trying.

While I was looking for the number for the care service, my phone pinged in my hand, making me jump. It was my sister, now. What did she want?

I can’t stand this anymore. Please can you contact that solicitor for me, you’re better at explaining it all?

This was nothing new. Kate and her husband fell out quite badly at least once a week. Apparently Richard never helped around the house because he said he was out at work all day and why should he? And he hogged the remote control and never let her watchLove Island. And he left her to do all the running around after the kids. I felt bad for my niece and nephew, having to live in the marital equivalent of a war zone, and I thought briefly of Theo and wondered if they would grow up with similar memories of living in a tension-filled house. I really hoped not, and all I could do was keep encouraging Kate to leave. I hated to see her unhappy like this and Richard wasn’t a bad person, but they were clearly bad together.

Can it wait until I get back? All a bit intense on the retreat. Got to write a book asap.

Within seconds she messaged back.

OK, but please do it soon, I’m dying here!

She’d been threatening to leave Richard for the last three years, so I was pretty sure it could wait another ten days?

I’ll look into it in the morning. Oh, and please can you go and see Dad? The carer’s not turned up – I’m ringing them now. But he needs to eat!!

After a certain amount of grumbling and back and forth she made it clear that she did not possibly have time to go and see Dad but that she would pop in tomorrow if she could.

You have to go. You can’t let him starve!I typed out, beyond annoyed now. Was it really that difficult for her to walk the twenty minutes to Dad’s and make him beans on toast?

After what felt like ages – she’d probably gone and made a cup of tea or something on purpose to stall for time and make herself look important – she replied.

Sorry, Scar, I really can’t. Ask Zach. Promise I’ll go round first thing in the morning.

I clutched the phone in my hand in disbelief, trying to calm the swirl of stress, and feeling overwhelmed about not having enough hours in the day to do everything everyone expected of me. And then I pulled myself together and made some calls.

Having sorted out a carer for that evening, which Dad moaned about because they probably wouldn’t get to him until late, he said, and he was hungry, I went back to my work, reading through the ideas I’d sketched out. Something sparked an idea for a character and I had the sudden urge to knock on Theo’s door and tell him. I put my ear to the communal door, my fist poised to rap softly on it, but then I realised it was all quiet on the other side now. He was probably asleep, given it was gone eleven, or reading in bed like anybody might do while on a retreat in the South of France. Anyway, we’d just agreed to give each other space, and me barging into his room – great character development idea or not – was not sticking to the rules. And rules felt important for us. Because bad things happened if we didn’t keep to them, I had actual evidence of that.

Chapter Eight

I woke up feeling a little groggy the following morning after sitting up late to think about the book. Rather than going down to breakfast and having to make actual conversation with anyone, I skulked into the restaurant, grabbed a black coffee and a croissant and went back up to my room. Out on the balcony, the metal chair not yet warmed by the sun, was ice-cold on the backs of my legs. It really was a glorious view, all lush green mountains dotted with houses and the glittering turquoise pool and giant firs and pines that surged out of the earth like flames. I could smell the flowers in the garden even from this height and I breathed in their scent and the fresh mountain air that I hoped would clear my head enough to get through another day of hideous couples retreat activities. I wondered how we were supposed to navigate this next bit: how to go from typing a few notes on a screen to beginning to write a fully formed book together. It had been fine last time – we’d run everything past each other, had had brainstorming sessions (usually in the pub) and had shown each other our work at every single stage. It felt different now. We were supposed to be professionals. Theo had high expectations of himself and others, and what if I didn’t live up to them? I’d become more confident about my writing skills as time went on, but the stuff withThe Mother-in-Lawhad really rocked me and if my sales were so bad, perhaps I wasn’t actually capable of writing a very goodnovel anymore. PerhapsLittle Boy Lostwas a never-to-be repeated fluke. Or perhaps Theo had carried me and maybe that was what he thought, too, which was why he’d taken the lead on the publicity. I wondered whether this would be a lesson in humility, whether I was going to have to accept that Theo was the stronger writer. I convinced myself that even if that was the case, I should be able to contribute something useful, surely.

By nine o’clock I was dressed in black gym leggings and a white vest and was picking my way across the garden, stalling because, honestly, the last thing I felt like doing was a couples yoga session. Melissa had put a note under my door last night with instructions about when and where to meet, and I could only assume the other retreat participants had received the same invitation. And there had been no way to complain or to say that no, I didn’t want to do that, and if I didn’t rock up Melissa would only make a scene and come and look for me. So here I was, the most inflexible woman on earth, heading off to an ominous-sounding yoga class with ‘couples’ in the title.

For once I was one of the first to arrive, after Renee and Justin, who were wearing matching varsity tracksuits and looking as sceptical as I was. I went to join them, feeling that they could be my reluctant allies for this particular task.

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m crap at yoga,’ I whispered to them.

‘Oh, me, too,’ admitted Renee. ‘I can’t even touch my toes.’

Harmony and Paul glided across the grass as though they were professional yogis (was that even a word?) and in the time it took for me to saygood morningto them both and yank up my leggings because the elastic was going at the waist, they’d pulled two mats from the pile under the olivetree and were sitting cross-legged on them with their eyes closed. Could you get any more pretentious, I thought, and then as I caught sight of Melissa wafting up the pathway tinkling a tiny brass bell, it was confirmed that you absolutely could. Before I could stop her, she came closer and shook it loudly in my ear. I winced. What on earth was this supposed to achieve?

‘This will be good for you, Scarlett,’ she purred, shaking it next to the other ear. ‘You look very tense.’

The bell wasn’t helping, I wanted to say.

I spotted Claire and Rob making their way over to join the group and widened my eyes at Claire, alluding to the fact that I needed urgent help. She marched straight over.

‘What is couples yoga?’ I hissed to her.

‘Fuck knows,’ she said. ‘But I can tell you one thing, I won’t be very good at it and neither will Rob. He’s as stiff as a board.’

And then the two of us snickered, which was childish but we were probably both nervous and so had reverted to acting like teenage girls on heat. There was also a streak of horror as I realised that maybe the class would have some sort of sexual element to it. What was it that Sting and his wife did? Tantric sex? Was that something to do with yoga? Surely Melissa wouldn’t subject us to anything like that. In any case, Theo wasn’t even here, although he’d better make an appearance soon because if he left me to suffer the humiliation of doing the class on my own, I’d kill him.