Chapter 14

14

A few days later, on the dot of 10:00 a.m., I hear two beeps outside my apartment. I hurry downstairs and out to the street, duck into the passenger seat of the sleek black 4x4. The harsh slam of the door jars with the lush silence inside. Nate's car purrs into motion as I wrestle off my jacket and throw it across the back seat.

"So, destination Dungeness it is," he says decisively, punching some digits into the satnav, and I watch the contours of the map swirl into life. "We should be at the coast in time for lunch."

Rain slakes the windows as the windshield wipers pound into action. He drives slowly, tailing the other cars in the rain and, as we head out across the river, the weather unexpectedly begins to lift. There is something strangely soporific about sitting here with him, watching the asphalt landscape flash past, empty office blocks and ghostly retail parks, flyovers, rows of pebbledash semis trapped on the edges of the divided highway.

"So how did your meeting with Priya go?"

"Kind of fine," I say, more as a question than a statement.

He glances across at me and we exchange a smile. "So she gave you the third degree?"

"Yep. You could say that. She suggested a change of scenery for a reason."

"Don't tell me, she thought it would be a good way to get me to open up about myself, let go a little?"

"You know her only too well."

"I know she likes to think she can read people better than they can read themselves."

"And can she?"

"She couldn't read you at all." He shakes his head. "You've probably worked out I was the one who wanted to hire you. She took some persuasion."

"She made that pretty clear in the interview."

"It wasn't really a personal thing, but she wanted someone older, preferably male," he says, throwing me a look.

"I gathered. Has she always been like that?"

"Kind of." He shrugs. "She and Eva met at college. They'd known each other for a while by the time I came along. She could be...possessive around Eva. But since she died, it's shifted." He shrugs. "Maybe it's grief; she's latching onto me to remember her. We talk about Eva a lot but sometimes, somehow—well. It's all complicated. I'm probably not explaining it very well. This is all new, talking about my life, my marriage, none of it is easy for someone like me."

"Well, we can take it slowly, don't worry," I say lightly, not wanting to frighten him off now that he's revealing a more vulnerable side.

We have exited the highway now and the narrow lanes are like lush corridors of green, a soft haze of sun filters through the clouds. Nate turns down a small lane with an expanse of horizon before us and I open my window, the saline tang of the sea drifting in. He parks on the roadside and we walk up the shingle toward the shoreline. I look up at the sky like a great glass dome and feel caught under its curves.

Sea kale, samphire and bramble bushes spread low along the ground and curl up between the rocks, giving it an edge-of-the-landscape feel. It's a wonder anything can grow at all but it does. Red poppies and yellow broom dot the shingle. I meander for a moment, enjoying the view. He strides ahead of me, past a scattering of beach houses, cubes of corrugated wood and mirrored windows. A derelict fishing boat lies stranded on the shingle near the tideline, its cabin windows smashed in.

Black telegraph poles line the path, outlined against a dust-colored sky. It's more arid desert than beach: a chunk of Arizona on the Kent coast.

Nate's figure shrinks to a black comma and, watching him from this distance, I'm aware how strange it feels being here with him in this setting, beyond the professional familiarity of his study. He turns and waits for me to catch up. Behind him the ocean is oily and muscular, shifting below the horizon. On the shoreline we stand a little apart, watch as the wind drops and a low watery sun turns the sea from dirt-brown to metallic-blue.

"When was the last time you came here?"

"A few weeks before she died." There is a stillness in the way he says it, a resigned emptiness. "In fact, the last weekend away we ever spent with each other was in a small cottage just down the coast. We meant to come back but I couldn't. I'd hurt my back quite badly, slipped disc," he says, grimacing at the memory.

"So that's where the fentanyl came from?" I say, thinking of my discovery that afternoon, the blister pack of pills in his glasses case.

"You did do your research that day, didn't you?" He looks at me wryly, smiling for the first time today. "Thank God for opioids—but don't quote me on that. Anyway, we never did come back here."

"If I'd known, I'm not sure I'd have suggested here." Though, I wondered, was this really true?

"Don't look so worried. I'm fine talking about it here. It seems different somehow." He covers his eyes from the bright sunlight, frowns into the wind. "It feels easier. At home, it's as if she's—"

"There—all around you?"

He turns to look at me.

"All the time. I mean not in a bad way, but she created that house and her studio; she's kind of everywhere. Sometimes I wonder if it would be healthier if I sold up, moved on." He bends down to pick up a stone, skims it across the waves.

"A break from the past?"

"It's not that easy, I know, but maybe I should give it a go. Somewhere different, a new start."

"Really? I can't imagine that somehow," I say, feeling a brief twinge of something I'm reluctant to define. It feels mainly like regret, that such a beautiful place will fall into a stranger's hands, that very soon it will no longer be mine to wander around; all those rooms, her studio, Eva's history still accessible to me—and still largely untapped.

He studies my expression. "It's something I've only really started thinking about recently. Maybe it's delving around in the past for this book. I can see how stuck I've got rattling around in that place. It's not as if she was that keen on it anyway."

"Wasn't she? I thought she adored it."

"She hated London by the end. She was desperate to get out. She tried to convince me that we should sell up and move here."

"Here? That doesn't seem very her at all."

He looks at me oddly, the veil returning.

"But you don't know what she was like. Not really. She was restless, impatient, completely unsentimental. She loved designing the house and the studio but once it was done, that was it. She wanted to move on."

"And did you say yes to coming down here?"

"I didn't want to, we argued about it. A lot."

"Who won?"

"I'm sure she did, in the end, but I forget the exact details," he says, vaguely. "I forget a lot these days. But maybe that's for the best. What a curse to remember everything."

"Well, try not to forget too much." My hand closes around the recorder in my pocket. "We've got work to do."

"Okay, come on then." He turns abruptly toward the headland. "I'm ready for the full inquisition, but not on an empty stomach."

The Metropole is a faded movie star of a hotel that clings to the headland, staring dreamily out to sea. Rumor has it that a Hollywood gossip columnist fell in love with this part of the coast in the '30s, commissioning an architect to design it; a relic of American Art Deco washed up on a bleak English shore.

We sit in the curvilinear dining room, complete with wraparound glass-and-mirror ball. I find myself loving the element of faded glamour to it all. As a milky light sparkles off the sea through the blistered Crittall windows, I can half imagine Fred and Ginger tap-dancing their way across the chipped parquet floor. I glance out the window and notice the tide edging its way up the shoreline, consuming the shingle as if we're out at sea.

"So," he says, after our drinks arrive. "I think I owe you an explanation."

"Really?" I say as he pours us each a glass of wine.

"Yes. For being a bit touchy when you were commenting on my notes. And for not being straight with you about a lot of things. I know it can't be easy for you...putting up with me and now Priya." He tapers off. "It's going to be different."

"Good." I take out my recorder, placing it between us. The waitress arrives with our food. My tagliatelle, swimming in a pool of buttery cream, seems absurdly oversized and I realize I've lost my appetite.

"Wait." His hand reaches across the table for the recorder at the same time as I do, his fingers grazing mine. He presses Pause, moves it to the edge of the table.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to... Come on, let's eat first."

"Anything to postpone the pain?"

Nate smiles, picking up his fork. "So what about you?"

"Er, what about me?"

He pushes his plate a little to one side, leans forward. "Come on. Regale me with a few details about the fascinating life of Anna, ruthless journalist-turned-legendary ghostwriter."

I say nothing and he tilts his head, expectant.

"C'mon. You never give anything away: who you live with, even how you spend your time outside work. You can't blame me for wondering?"

I sigh, put down my fork. "I thought you were desperate for lunch, no questions on an empty stomach?"

"I meant your questions, not mine." He smiles, picking up his wineglass and ignoring his unfinished chicken. "Besides, I'm easily distracted, you should know that by now."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. There's not much to say, really." My voice sounds hollow.

"I get it. You need to be neutral, unknowable, a blank canvas. I respect that...but I haven't forgotten our first interview for the book, how you couldn't escape the conversation quickly enough when I tried to analyze you."

"I'm the interviewer. What sort of ghostwriter would I be if I started telling you everything about my awful childhood or my boring job."

"And why was it so awful?"

"Stop it."

"You see, there you go again. That hostile glare you throw out when I'm onto something."

"Something like that," I say. My fingertips grip my thigh, nails jab a little deeper, the shot of pain quickening my resolve. I catch the waitress's eye and ask for a black coffee.

"You know, I once did a peer-reviewed paper on the neuroscience of what we choose not to tell others, how our brain chemistry suffers when we hang on too long to our secrets, even the ones we deem most trivial. Which, I suspect by your behavior, yours are not. It's in the Annual Review of Neuroscience . You should look it up sometime."

"Oh, I'll definitely do that."

"Anna, it's not good for you. The stress of holding on to stuff completely rewires our minds, pushes our amygdala into overdrive, not to mention—"

"Rubbish," I say, more emphatically than I intended. "My amygdala is just fine."

"Okay. But would it hurt to open up a little?" he says. "How about you tell me something about yourself, and in exchange, I'll tell you something too?"

"The price I'll pay for getting back to work?" I quip.

"Sure." He smiles and I think briefly of my life beyond Algos House, a world that I can never truly share with anyone. Sometimes I picture my past, as a spiky fortress that I am forced to guard, forever wary. I have built my walls high, manning my borders and patrolling them well, and for good reason. Sometimes I yearn for the lightness that sharing would bring, that others take for granted; intimacy, connection. But I don't have that luxury. Disclosure can only ever be a game to me, and maybe Nate knows this too.

"Sure, why not? Ask me something."

He inclines his head, quizzical. "So who's the guy who keeps texting you all the time?"

I open my mouth in surprise.

"We sit next to each other every day. I'm not that unobservant."

"Fair enough. Well, he's my brother. Tony. He travels a lot and when he's back, he wants to see me. Hence the texting."

"Ah, Tony . Tony Tate?"

"That's his official name on his passport and stuff. But he prefers using his father's surname, Thorpe... He's my half brother."

He looks up from his plate. "Half brother," he repeats quietly, absorbing this for a moment, as if trying the word out for size.

"Anything the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. I used to think he can't be a very nice boyfriend, judging by your reaction when he texted. You always looked...upset."

I manage a small laugh. "It's not so bad. I'm all Tony's got, really, in terms of family. He makes things difficult, I'll admit, especially financially. I'm helping him out a bit right now. To be honest, I'll be relieved when he goes away again."

"I kind of got the impression things weren't easy, whoever it was."

"I don't know, are things ever easy with family?"

"Quite. Thanks for sharing, Anna," he says and I smile, relieved that I got away relatively lightly. Is it purely coincidence that my professional life has been spent chasing other people's secrets while I'm always on the run from my own? In the end, you only come back to the beginning.

But no more. It's time for the real work to begin.

"Quid pro quo," I fire back. "Your turn now. That's the deal."