Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

T he layby was empty except for an overflowing bin and a discarded McDonalds bag on the ground. Kiera’s heart sank as she brought her car to a stop. Clodagh’s words echoed in her ears. She pulled up the hand brake, undid her seat belt and gently brought her head to rest on the steering wheel.

She asked herself so many questions in the next twenty seconds, none of which had particularly reassuring or comforting answers. She’d been a fool. She knew she’d made a mistake. She thought back to the day she’d left the house she’d shared with Chrissie. She remembered the emptiness she had felt, the sense that everything she’d ever done was ruined. Her mind turned to her flat, which was now a warm and cosy home, to Lou and Clodagh and her other friends who had been there for her this last year. Then she recalled Seymour’s touch on her skin and the way she had come alive again after so long. She could feel tears beginning to form.

She was jerked out of her pity party by a sudden, insistent tappin g on her window. She glanced to the side and saw a face she’d once known. It was thinner than she remembered it being; sadder, too; paler. Unable to speak for a moment, she paused. This wasn’t the Chrissie she remembered. The face looked at her uneasily, eyebrows furrowed. The once glossy long hair was dull and lank. Kiera’s hands were frozen on the steering wheel. Chrissie’s eyes looked desperate, and she tore her gaze from Kiera’s to look frantically around. The fear on her face pushed Kiera into action. She wound down her window. “Get in,” she said.

Chrissie climbed immediately into the passenger seat, clasping a grubby linen shopping back to her, locking the door the minute it was closed. “Please, we need to go now,” she said, her voice laced with panic.

Waves of terror rolled off Chrissie, infecting Kiera, who now found herself looking around. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see. She started the car and moved rapidly off in the direction of the motorway. Back to civilisation.

“What do you need?” asked Kiera, not looking at Chrissie, or the dark grey bags beneath her eyes. “Hospital? Food? What?”

“I need to get away,” said Chrissie. “No hospital. Just get me away.” Her voice was quiet and urgent. Kiera put her foot down and hoped there were no police patrolling.

As Kiera drove, she tried to remember the rosy-cheeked bride she had promised her life to all those years ago. This was not the same woman. And yet it was.

“What happened, Chrissie?” Kiera’s voice was soft. Chrissie opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. She frowned, and her eyes began to fill with tears. Kiera looked over at her, and then back at the road. “It’s ok. You don’t need to talk. Let’s just get you home. ”

It was at that moment that Kiera realised she didn’t know what she meant by ‘home’. Their old house was rented out to other people. Chrissie seemed to have burned her bridges with everyone else in Kings Heath. Was she going to take her to her one-bedroom flat? At that point, even more questions began to appear, spiralling around each other, and the silence in the car became overwhelming. Kiera turned on the radio. It was a lunchtime current affairs show, with people ringing in and regaling listeners with their views on the day’s news. She allowed herself to be distracted by the mundane hum.

They didn’t stop all the way back to Birmingham, and Kiera realised she was dehydrated. She suspected Chrissie was, too. It hadn’t been until they were about twenty miles from the flat that Kiera forced herself to acknowledge it really was the only place she could take her ex-wife, for now. Kiera winced as they drove past Seymour’s café. A momentary flood of desire and fear ran through her.