A Double Life by Berry Flynn

Author:Berry, Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

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• • •

When I came home, Mum was in the sitting room. I dropped onto the sofa next to her, and she said, “How was it?”

“Good. They went to bed at eight and I watched The Thirty-Nine Steps.”

“I haven’t seen that in years. Did you like it?”

I nodded, shifting against her. “Rebecca Fennell has really nice jumpers.”

Mum laughed. “I bet she does.”

I wanted to tell her the rest. They were cashmere, I wanted to try them on, does that mean I’m greedy, does that mean I’m like him, do I remind you of him?

Mum patted my arm. She said, “I’m going to bed. Will you remember to turn off the Christmas lights?”

“Yes.”

“You forgot last night.”

“I won’t.”

I tried to read more about my father online, but couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking someone was in the house. I’d already gone downstairs twice to check the lock on the front door.

I was at the window, looking out at the row of streetlamps in the fog, when the idea came to me. I created an account on the forum, opened a new thread, and wrote, “Does anyone know where Faye and the children live now?”

I waited for replies for another hour, then tried to sleep.

• • •

The next morning, I ate breakfast at the kitchen table with Robbie, who was drawing up very precise plans for a gingerbread house, and Mum, who was reading the newspaper. I looked at her face and neck and arms. She didn’t seem to have any scars from where he’d hit her. I’d read that during the attack he reached his hand down her throat. I wanted to ask if that had healed too, or if it still hurt sometimes.

“Can you take Finn out?” she asked. I walked him down the high street, past the striped awning of the East Neuk Hotel, where Nell and I worked as chambermaids in the summer, and around to the harbor. On the quay, some tourists were taking pictures of the lobstermen, which the lobstermen pretended not to notice.

I sat on one of the benches. White spray broke over the harbor walls, and I looked across the gray, heaving sea towards Denmark. There was a gale coming towards us. No one was supposed to drive tonight, and all the stores were closing early.

A couple walked past me and into Reilly Shellfish, and came out a few minutes later with plastic bags of ice and mussels. At sea, the rigging on the fog buoy clinked. I loved the sound, especially at night, when you couldn’t see the buoy itself.

I pulled my boots onto the bench and wrapped my arms around my legs. Waves knocked against the hulls of the fishing boats, and a few pieces of driftwood floated on the water. We’d collect it from the beach after the gale. Mum liked to burn driftwood in the fire, she said it smelled better.

I don’t want to leave, I thought, but if someone on the forum knows that we live here, I’ll have to tell Mum, and we might have to move.

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