Page 37

THIRTY-SIX

On Sunday, Al takes Martha to Bangate Cove. They strap Nala into the back of the car, clip Baxter in next to her, and head toward the coast.

It’s a blowy, icy day, but the sky is blue and the sun is a glimmering white orb.

They listen to music as they drive, they chat and they make each other laugh, and Nala enjoys the ride, and it is nice, so nice, to be out of Enderford, to have a change of scenery, even if it is only an hour down the road.

Martha’s life has become so small and every time there has been the possibility of a night away, Al’s stupid job has got in the way of it, but now, finally, there are miles of tarmac and space between her and her home and her shop and the life that has been rubbing her raw for months now.

They leave the motorway and drive through a string of lively, characterful seaside resorts before they turn a corner and find themselves in a more windswept landscape: a few chalet parks and caravan sites, a boarded-up pub facing onto the road, a tatty parade of local shops opposite, a hair salon called Curls by Shirl, a pet-supplies shop, a food shop, and a Chinese takeaway called the Golden Rickshaw.

The faded sign as they enter the village says “Welcome to Bangate Cove, a Seaside Paradise,” illustrated with a picture of a red-and-white-striped sun parasol.

Martha flicks a quick look at Al and says, “Er…”

“Just wait,” he says, hitting her with a beautiful smile. “You’ll see!”

A moment later, he indicates left and they turn into a small graveled car park.

There are three other cars here. A middle-aged couple are just getting out of one with two lively brown Labradors in tow.

Martha gets out and immediately her hair is whipped around her face by the frenetic wind.

She pulls it behind her neck and tucks it into her hood.

Al unclips Nala from her car seat while Martha unclips the dog and then they walk across the car park toward the beach beyond.

It is framed by a couple of small dunes and opens up into a perfect shell-shaped cove, with firs and cedar trees dotting the low escarpments at each end.

And there, to her left, is the old pavilion that Al had told her about.

And immediately she knows he’s right. Bangate village is quite unprepossessing, but it is sandwiched between two very desirable locales and this cove is exquisite, the light here is unusually soft, the air even feels a degree or two warmer, the sun catches on the tide as it rolls in and out, the sound of it against the small stones of the beach like the hiss of champagne hitting a glass.

The couple with the two Labs throw balls for them and Baxter tugs at his lead to join in. Martha tugs him back and follows Al to the front of the pavilion.

“I love it,” says Martha.

“I knew you would. I just knew. The moment I saw it.” And there’s another one of those electric smiles—my God, he looks so beautiful when he smiles, her husband.

It sends a thrill throughout her whole body, not sexual, just joyful, a sense that she cannot believe she got lucky enough to find a man as fine as this, this man holding their perfect child in his arms, standing in front of a dilapidated beach shack that anybody else would have walked past without giving it a glance but which he knew would light up her heart, make her neurons ping with ideas and dreams and inspiration, make her feel alive again.

He is everything, this man. He is everything.

And she finds herself throwing her arms around him and squeezing him hard to her, Nala between them, the dog tangled around their legs, and she says, “I love you so much, Alistair Grey. I don’t know what I did to deserve you. I really don’t.”

They let Baxter run around while they take Nala down to the tide and let her dip her fingers into the icy water as it busies back and forth. Nala holds a pretty stone in her cold fist as they head back to the car. “Doan,” she says, looking at it. “Piddy doan.”

“Yes,” says Al. “It’s a very pretty stone.”

It’s nearly midday, and Al has promised them a lunch out. They strap themselves back into the car and Al turns left out of the car park and carries on down the coast toward Folkestone. After a few minutes, he pulls off the coastal road, up a windy lane, and parks them outside a gastropub.

“This looks nice,” says Martha.

“You go in,” says Al. “I’m just going to drop something in with an old client, just in the next village along.”

Martha’s head rocks back slightly. “What?”

He touches a card folder in the side pocket of the car. “Some paperwork I had with me—they need it back. I said I’d drop it over, since I was down this way.”

“Can’t we just drop it in on the way home?”

“No. He’s going out for lunch too. I said I’d get it to him before he goes out. I’ll only be ten, fifteen minutes. He’s literally just down the road.”

“Well, we don’t mind waiting outside in the car for you.”

“No, go and grab the table. We don’t want them giving it away. I’ll be back before you know it!”

A moment later, Martha is outside the pub with the baby and the dog, watching her husband pull away in the car.

She has a bad feeling about this. The suddenness of it, the lack of forewarning, his shooing away of misgivings.

All the actions of the preceding three minutes take her back to similar moments, moments that tended to end with her not seeing her husband for days on end.

She frowns as she sees the back of the car disappear around the corner, then sighs and heads into the pub.

Their table is by a wood burner. Martha straps Nala into a high chair, then sits and peruses the menu for a while.

She orders herself a large glass of wine and hands Nala rice cakes to eat.

The wine arrives a few minutes later and Martha checks the time.

It’s been twelve minutes since Al said he’d be ten to fifteen minutes.

She takes a sip of the wine and tries to relax, but two minutes later her sense of discomfort gets the better of her and she scrolls the screen of her phone to find the app that shows the information from the dog tracker in Al’s car.

Her heart rate picks up slightly as she waits for it to load and then she sees the little flashing blob in the center of the screen.

His car is not moving. It’s parked on a street in a village about a mile or so away called the Riviera.

The street is windy, and he is parked at the top, outside what looks like, from the map, a large house.

She clicks on Street View and sees that it is a huge stucco villa, detached, the sea view on the opposite side of the house visible through tall windows at the front and back.

It’s incredible, she thinks, using her fingertips to zoom around it.

It looks, she thinks to herself, like the home of a person who might own a restaurant or a hotel and it reassures her, somehow, that he is doing exactly what he said he was doing and has, somehow, been delayed, presumably by the person he’s gone to see.

She turns off her phone and takes another sip of wine while she peruses the menu again. She decides on seafood linguine. And waits.