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That’s what I’ve created for you, Lucy. Do you see? I’ve removed it from the theatre and made it real. Not a single tragic event but a sequence of them, each more devastating than the last.
I’ll change you from the hurtful creature you were. I’ll purify you, make you beautiful.
And, once it’s over, I’ll disappear a free man, just as cleansed for the experience.
I can sense my heartbeat slowing. I can feel my breathing start to settle. This takes a different shape now. But it isn’t over. This is a tragedy written entirely for your benefit.
Katharsis. Purification through suffering.
Time for the second act.
SIXTEEN
1
A police officer helps Lucy Locke downstairs. She can’t process what just happened. Can’t make sense of what she just saw: Daniel, thrashing to get free, a look in his eyes she’s never seen; the consultant, plunging a needle into him; the detective, pinning him to the bed.
As Lucy arrives back in the emergency department, she hears her name being called. Across the floor, she sees faces she recognizes: Noemie, Tommo, Bee. Her relief is so great that she nearly collapses.
Noemie reaches her first, sweeping her into an embrace. ‘Luce. Oh my God, Lucy.’
‘Ribs,’ she croaks. ‘Think they’re broken.’
Noemie releases her, steps back. ‘Hon, you’rebarefoot. And you’refreezing. Has anyone seen you? Have you been examined?’
‘Not yet, I—’
‘Notyet?’ Noemie swings towards the police officer. ‘You know we’ve been sat out herethree hours, right? Andnot a single person to tell us what’s going on?’ When he begins to respond, she dismisses him. ‘Forget it, we’ll sort this ourselves. Tommo, hunt down some blankets. Bee, sit with her while I get some answers. Medieval, that’s what this is. Chrissakes.’
Bee drapes her jacket around Lucy’s shoulders and leads her to a seat. Lucy’s so overcome she starts crying. ‘I didn’t find them,’ she says. ‘I don’t know where they are.’
‘Dude. Listen to me. We’re here, OK? It’s messed up, but we’re here and we love you. We’re going to get you through this. You’ve a whole team now.’
‘I don’t know who I just saw. Daniel was … He …’
‘You saw Daniel?’
‘I don’t … He was like astranger.’
Noemie returns with the registrar. Tommo comes back with some blankets.
Events speed up after that. Lucy’s taken to radiology for chest X-rays. Afterwards, a doctor confirms two broken ribs. Fresh clothes are found, painkillers prescribed. Soon she’s on the back seat of Tommo’s car, sandwiched between Noemie and Bee.
Rain hammers the roof. Scenes from a war zone roll past the windows. Lucy sees downed trees, flooded streets, blown-out shopfronts and pavements strewn with glass. But it’s not just the devastation that has rendered the landscape unrecognizable. This is a world that has taken her children and replaced her husband with an imposter. It resembles nothing of the place she knew.
Snig lies quarter-folded in her lap. Lucy smooths it obsessively, pressing out every wrinkle. She rests her head on Noemie’s shoulder, closing her eyes tight. And then she’s not in the car at all. She’s at home, up on Mortis Point,and it’s the night of Billie’s eighteenth, when everything started to change.
2
Four weeks. Different world. Different life.
Barely a month since Christmas and the house is resplendent once more. Everywhere, tealights in glass holders cast golden reflections. Perfume laces the air, mingling with the scents of winter wreaths and fresh-cut flowers. In the living room, where ivory church candles flicker inside hurricane lamps, a huge fire burns.
Outside, the clouds have parted to reveal a rash of platinum stars. Frost sparkles on the back lawn. Later, if the clear skies hold, everyone on the peninsula will be treated to a supermoon total eclipse.
Only when they started sending invites did Lucy realize just how many people Billie knows. Only when the acceptances flooded in did she realize just how much the girl is loved: friends are coming from Billie’s old school, her college in Redlecker, her youth theatre group, people she’s met through part-time jobs in Skentel, through clubs or societies from years back and via her various volunteer networks: environmental charities, animal sanctuaries and even the regular Penleith Beach clean-up group.
But Lucy doesn’t stop there. Invites go out to all her own friends and Daniel’s, to the Drift Net’s regulars, the artists who’ve exhibited and the musicians who’ve played there, to those in Skentel’s business community, to its lifeboat volunteers and fishing crews. Daniel invites the staffof Locke-Povey Marine and many of its long-term customers. By the time they’re finished, it seems like half the town is coming.