Page 62 of Friend of the Family

‘David . . .’ began Amy. She was aware that she was slurring even that one word, but he was far too furious to notice.

‘You think I’m having an affair with the nanny? Are you insane?’

‘That slut’s underwear was in our room!’ she hissed.

‘And instead of confronting me about it, you go sneaking about in the dark, looking through her knicker drawer? What kind of fucked-up logic is that?’

‘I was looking for the pendant.’

‘What pendant?’

‘The one you bought . . .’ She turned away. ‘Oh forget it.’

‘No, Amy, I won’t forget it. Can’t you see how this looks? You’ve accused your best friend’s daughter – half my bloody age, I might add – of sleeping with me, and based on what? A random bra and some imagined jewellery.’

‘I found the receipt for the fucking pendant, David!’

‘Yeah? So where is this pendant?’

Amy suddenly realised she had no idea.

‘If you don’t believe me, there’s no point talking.’

‘I don’t need to believe you, Amy, because I happen to know that none of this is true. I’m not having an affair, I’ve never cheated on you with Josie or anyone else, and I never bought any jewellery. None of that happened.’

Amy couldn’t help the tears coming. She wanted to stay angry, but it had turned to despair. ‘It did,’ she moaned. ‘It did happen. I know it did.’

‘No, Amy, it didn’t.’ He held her arms, his expression softening. ‘Look, I know you’ve been struggling with work, and now you’ve put yourself under even more pressure with this application, but you have to see that it’s all in your head.’

‘NO!’ she screamed, wrenching herself from his grip, and then she was running, running through the gardens, running, running across stones, bare feet running. She ran into the darkness and didn’t look back.

Chapter 18

It was cold. Amy would never have believed after that sweltering evening under the pergola that the temperature could drop so dramatically. She pulled the towel tighter around her shoulders and tried not to shiver. Vaguely she remembered reading that alcohol made you colder – or was it dehydrated? She didn’t know. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t know anything any more.

‘I won’t cry,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I won’t bloody cry.’

She’d done far too much of that already. After tearing herself away from David, Amy had run and run into the darkness, blindly stumbling over potholes, whipped by tree branches, finally turning her ankle and falling to the ground. She had just lain there on the cold grass, listening to David and the others call her name and quietly weeping in frustration and shame. When they had all given up and gone back into the house, she had hobbled over to the pool house, closing the doors and sinking back into the darkest corner, pulling her knees up so her feet were off the cool tiles. And there she had sat, turning everything over and over in her head until it felt like a furnace, pulsing and ready to melt.

What had she seen? What did she really know? What was real and what was imagined? Here in the icy dark, nothing had any substance; everything seemed possible. The world itself seemed intangible and out of reach, as if Amy, in her pool-house ship, were floating away from the lights of the harbour, far out to sea.

She stopped and held her breath as she heard a noise. Footsteps? She frowned, listening. Was someone, or something, outside by the pool? A rat? A fox? A wild boar? She knew they were out here in the countryside, tusks and yellow eyes gleaming.

She gasped and shrank back as the door opened.

‘Amy?’

She kept silent, hoping that the dark figure would shrug and leave, but instead there was the blinding flash of a torch lighting up the interior.

‘There you are,’ said Peter, stepping inside and closing the door. ‘I was worried.’

Amy blinked and rubbed, trying to scrub the dazzling orbs of white from her eyes.

‘Peter, I—’ she began, but he clucked his tongue.

‘I know, I know, you want to be left alone. Fair enough. Just wanted to check you were still alive.’

Amy snorted. ‘I thought you were a wild boar.’