‘Hey, Clio, do you know that guy?’ I asked, as casually as I could. We were thirty yards away and the couple now appeared to be arguing.

  She sat up in the bottom of the boat a little too quickly. ‘Whoa, I’m seeing stars.’ She lay back down again. ‘Who?’ she asked, staring at the sky.

  ‘Up ahead,’ I said, pointing.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, still lying down.

  I watched, transfixed, as the student brushed the woman off, leaving her alone on the bridge.

  ‘Try again? Slowly?’ I said to Clio. ‘The red-haired guy on the bank.’

  She pulled herself up and turned for a second, before reclining again. ‘Aldous – can you believe it?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s called Aldous. That’s his name.’

  ‘As in the novelist? You know him?’

  ‘I had a drink with him once. At the ADC Bar, I think.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last term. Crazy name, cute guy.’

  I looked again at Aldous as he disappeared into the modern complex of Queens’ College buildings on the far side of the Cam. What did he know about Louis that I didn’t? And why couldn’t he tell me?

  We glided under the bridge, where the woman was now leaning over the side. Her head was turned away, but it was obvious that she was crying.

  ‘Does he know Louis?’ I asked, wondering what had passed between the two students.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘And I don’t care. Why?’

  ‘He told me to be wary of Louis. At the after-show the other night.’

  At first, Clio didn’t seem interested, but then she shielded her eyes and lifted her head a little. ‘What did he say?’

  Even though the encounter was stuck in my head, I didn’t want to repeat Aldous’s words when I knew nothing about his reason for saying them, so I downplayed the warning. ‘Just told me to stay away from him, that’s all.’

  ‘Sounds like good advice,’ she said. ‘Louis is un abruti, as we say in France. A fool.’

  16

  May 1998

  I realised it was going to take almost two hours to reach Grantchester, and that I would never have a better opportunity to talk to Clio on my own, get to know her better. But we were drunk and she was soon asleep in the bottom of the punt. To be honest, I can’t recall much about the early part of the journey either. I was still shocked by my reaction to the sound of the student falling into the water, my inability to tell Clio what had happened in Newlyn. I know we passed the Newnham Riverbank Club and an elderly woman swimming naked, and Skaters’ Meadow, with its solitary 1920s lamppost from back when the whole area used to freeze over in winter. Beyond that, I can’t remember.

  When Clio finally stirred, I wanted to ask more about her parents, particularly her father, but I’d sensed a reluctance earlier and so I tried a different approach: shameless flattery.

  ‘Was it your dad then who taught you how to act so well?’ I asked.

  She smiled. Sleep still hung heavy on her eyes.

  ‘He could hold an audience’s attention, I’ll give him that,’ she said. ‘The critics loved him. We used to go and watch him on stage in Paris, when I was younger. At Le Théâtre du Châtelet.’

  ‘Were you close?’

  ‘Close?’ She looked up at me, one hand shielding the sun from her eyes. ‘I worshipped him – until I realised he didn’t just act on stage. He pretended to love my mother for twenty years.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. He wasn’t. He put her through hell.’

  Her words shocked me. ‘Why? What did he do?’

  She didn’t answer. Not immediately. Instead, she turned away, watched the world drift past.

  ‘He was jealous, couldn’t bear to see his wife love someone other than him. Their child. He was used to being the centre of attention.’

  ‘But he never… made life hell for you?’

  She shook her head, tears coming. ‘He adored me. That was the irony. It was OK for him to love me but not for my mother.’

  We floated on through the idyllic countryside, passed the occasional punt travelling in the opposite direction. I sensed she wanted to tell me more but it was up to her now. I’d pried too much already.

  ‘Do you know what he did to her once?’ she eventually said, her voice quiet with reflection. ‘When he came back from a long tour?’

  I shook my head, fearing what she might say.

  ‘He told her to fetch a good bottle of wine from the cellar in the outbuildings. Said it was her choice – it was the least he could do after being away for so long. “Ma chérie, you choose tonight – anything you like.” He had a lot of special bottles and my mother… she liked her wine in those days. I had gone to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I must have been ten at the time. My mother has a very beautiful voice – it used to soothe me at night when she was talking to friends on the phone – but I was worried that I hadn’t heard it for a while. I went downstairs and she wasn’t there. My father had passed out in front of the TV. He was overweight and drank too much – his doctor was always warning him. I didn’t try to wake him – he had a terrible temper – so I looked around the house, searching everywhere for my mother. And that’s when I heard the noise. A distant thumping sound. I went to the outbuildings and eventually managed to lift the cellar door. My mother had been locked down there for hours.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ I stopped punting, let the pole trail in the water as I took in what she’d just told me.

  ‘She suffers from claustrophobia and thought she was going to spend the whole night in there. She was in a terrible state, her whole body shaking.’ Clio bit her lip. ‘Even worse, she tried to make excuses for him. Said it had been an accident, that he was tired after weeks of touring, must have fallen asleep. She was trying to protect me – from the horror of my own father.’

  Her tears were flowing freely now and I slipped the pole into the punt and moved down to be beside her.

  ‘Why didn’t she leave him?’ I asked, cradling her in my arms. ‘Report him to the police?’

  She didn’t reply. I tried to comfort her, stroked her hair, held her close, but it took a long while for her sobs to subside.

  ‘She was sent to the cellar quite often after that to “choose a good bottle of wine”. I hated the look she used to give as she walked past me – a mix of terror and maternal reassurance. Later I found out that he had threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave him,’ she said, resting her head on my shoulder. ‘She was frightened of him. We both were. It was a mercy when he died.’

  Half an hour later, we finally reached Grantchester. Clio had stayed beside me in the punt, leaning against my legs as I’d pushed our way along the Cam. Once we’d moored up on a secluded stretch of riverbank, we lay side by side in the late-afternoon sunshine and watched the shimmering willow trees, their branches hanging down like curtains over enticing pools of dark, slow-flowing water. A warm zephyr had swung round to the west. We had changed too. There was a new intimacy between us, after what she’d confided in me about her parents’ relationship.

  I hooked one leg over hers as we looked out over the meadow. It was here that Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke used to skinny-dip before retreating to the shade of the Orchard Tea Garden. Today, our only company was a herd of cows in the distance, and an occasional cyclist on the footpath on the far side of the meadow, taking a more direct route into town than the meandering river. There must have been others enjoying the Cam – passing kayakers, punters, swimmers – but we were blissfully unaware of them.

  I asked her if she wanted to swim. She turned to smile at me with such seduction in her eyes that I assumed she knew all about the history of the place. It wasn’t just Woolf and her neo-pagan set who liked to swim naked there. Lord Byron used to take a dip a little further upstream. But then her smile faded. We lay in silence, our bodies slowing to the rhythm of the river. A flash of blue as a kingfisher darted downstream. The startled alarm of a moorhen.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, our heads close as we watched white clouds scud across the big Fenland sky.

  ‘That’s it’s so sad, about your father.’

  ‘Forget about him.’

  ‘I’m also thinking that Louis might be watching us,’ I said. The footpath would be an obvious place for him to film us from. I rolled over to check but couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘He’s not,’ Clio said. ‘I told him I’d never let him film me again if he followed us.’

  ‘And he does what you say?’

  ‘Always.’

  A small part of me was disappointed. I wasn’t so bothered if he was filming us, perched in the boughs of a nearby willow with a zoom lens. The footage would be empirical evidence that today actually happened, in case I wake up tomorrow and it feels like a dream. I have to admit that I’d begun to feel oddly emboldened by the thought of being filmed. It wasn’t the same sort of transformation that I experienced on stage, but I definitely seemed to be more confident and articulate than my usual jabbering self.

  ‘You are thinking something else, I can feel it,’ she said, her voice quiet now.

  ‘I think that I’m falling in love with you,’ I said, and I leant over to kiss her, eyes closed, heart skipping.

  Clio kissed me back, opening her soft lips to let me in, and I felt her body begin to stir, pressing against mine. If the world had ended in that moment, I’d have died happy. It was what student life was meant to be about. The sun beat down on the meadow and our heads spun with champagne and vodka as we started to explore each other’s bodies.

  And then Clio stopped.

  ‘We mustn’t do this,’ she whispered, lying back on the riverbank. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked, propping myself up on one elbow.

  ‘I’m not good for you.’

  ‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  I rested a hand on her stomach.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said, putting her hand on mine.

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘I should never have invited you to lunch.’

  ‘So why did you?’

  ‘To warn you.’

  I sat up properly now and gazed down at her. ‘About what?’

  She turned her head away. My heart started to race again.

  ‘About Louis?’ I asked, thinking of the student at the bar. Aldous.

  She turned to look up at me, her limpid eyes burning into mine. A lone tear rolled down her cheek.

  ‘About me. It’s better you stay away, steer clear.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can.’

  I bent down to kiss her again, but this time her lips were unresponsive. I pulled back.

  ‘Please don’t come to Louis’ party tomorrow night,’ she said, still staring up at the sky.

  ‘Why not?’ Did she know that I’d been invited?

  ‘Because bad things always happen at his parties.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  She shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘Why are you going then?’ I asked.

  ‘Why? Because I am a bad person.’

  ‘I don’t believe you are. Not for a second.’

  It was a long while before she answered. ‘I’m not the person you think I am, Adam. Believe me.’ She paused. ‘I’ve done some terrible things in my life. Today we’ve had fun. You are kind and I have behaved myself. But I’m not a good human being. I’m not always kind to others. You want to settle down one day, have a big family, lots of kids. I am restless, always will be. And I never, ever want to be a mother.’

  ‘That’s so sad,’ I said. I knew that not all women wanted to have children, of course, but I was biased. I also sensed that she wasn’t being entirely honest with me about her reasons.

  ‘Why’s it sad?’ she asked, sitting up now. Her voice was more animated as she picked at blades of grass. ‘It suits me. You have a plan for your life, to become a doctor. Mine is to experience this world in every way that’s ever been invented, to wring every sensation out of it, even if it kills me. I want to travel, not stay in one place. Or stay with one man, or with one woman or with one family.’ She studied the blade of grass in her hand, let it fall. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve misled you. But I saw something in your eyes, the way you looked at me just now, and I wanted to warn you. I tried to stay strong today, but I am weak and you are…’ – she reached up and stroked the side of my face with the back of her fingers – ‘… you are one of the good guys. Too good for me.’

  More tears started to roll down her cheeks. I held her in my arms and she hugged me until the sobbing subsided. I didn’t know what to think or do. My shoulder was damp with her tears. I kept on saying to her that it was OK, that I understood, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand at all.

  17

  ‘We need to talk,’ Adam says, removing Clio’s hand from his chest and walking over to the kitchen island. He tops up his glass, hoping to draw strength from somewhere, and turns to face Clio, glad of the physical space that’s opened up between them. Her hand had felt soft and enticing.

  ‘With Tania?’

  ‘Not with Tania, no,’ he says, suddenly irritated by Clio and her reappearance in his life.

  The rain intensifies outside, hammering down on the glass roof of the kitchen extension.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. Can I smoke in here?’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘It’s raining outside.’

  ‘I had noticed. Can you stand in the front porch?’

  But Clio has already opened the back door and is lighting up.

  His sudden irritation with her makes it easier to switch the focus of their conversation to what he wants to talk about. He takes a deep breath.

  ‘When Freddie went missing today…’ He stops. It’s not as easy as he thought. He’s about to cross a line, effectively accuse Clio of kidnapping their son.

  ‘It must have been very worrying for you both,’ she says, exhaling smoke into the rainy night air.

  ‘Where exactly did you find him?’

  ‘Near where we met.’ She turns to look at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Did he say anything to you about a puppy? Freddie?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’ She nods at the drawings on the pinboard. ‘Looks like he wants one.’

  Perhaps Adam has got this wrong. But then, out of the mouth of babes… He doesn’t know what to think. Freddie can also tell lies, as he knows only too well.

  ‘Freddie said something about you showing him a puppy,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, I remember now. When I found him, he was crying. There was a family nearby with a puppy, so I tried to distract him by taking him over to meet it.’

  Odd that she hadn’t mentioned the encounter when he’d first asked. But it might just be true.

  ‘You should get one. Why not?’ she adds.

  Because they can barely cope with the mess of two children, that’s why. A crapping dog might tip them over the edge. And he knows who’ll end up walking it. Before he can reply more politely, his phone rings. It’s Tania.

  ‘Who’s my old friend from university, then?’ she asks.

  ‘What?’

  Tania’s voice is tense, laden with sarcasm. ‘Lynda just texted me. Said you were in a bit of a state but that I wasn’t to worry as you’d told her you were just “letting in an old friend of mine from university”.’

  Adam signals to Clio that he won’t be a moment and walks into the sitting room, closing the door behind him.

  ‘It’s Clio,’ he says, looking at a photo of Tania and a baby Freddie on the mantelpiece. It was taken a couple of weeks after he was born. Tania appears tired but happy. The honeymoon period. Friends and family offering to help, delivering meals. Grandparents dropping by. It didn’t happen with Tilly. Everyone thinks you can cope on your own with the second child.

  ‘Clio?’ Tania says.

  ‘Who came today. Found Freddie in the park. Apparently.’

  ‘I know who bloody Clio is. I just don’t remember going to university with her. And what the fuck’s she doing in our house?’

  Adam winces, his embarrassment only marginally softened by the champagne. Hadn’t Tania liked Clio a few hours earlier, suggested they should hang out with her? ‘She just turned up.’

  ‘Just turned up?’ He knows how it must sound. ‘Presumably because you’d sent her a text message asking if she wanted to come round for a drink. At our house. Women don’t just turn up on your doorstep, Adam, however much you’d like to think they do.’

  That was unfair. This one did. ‘She arrived here before I’d had a chance to text her. It was just after you and I had spoken.’

  ‘You don’t have to lie to me, Adam.’

  ‘I’m not lying. I’m telling you how it is.’ He paces around the sitting room, running a hand through his hair as he glances out of the window onto the wet London street. ‘She rang the doorbell seconds after you called – having rung two other bells in the street first. Including Lynda’s.’

  ‘Are you pissed?’ Her voice is quieter now, a tone of genuine surprise. ‘Just how stupid do you think I am?’

  He can drink beer all night, but he’s always had a light head when it comes to champagne.

  ‘I’m not pissed. I’ve had two glasses.’

  ‘Glasses? Of what?’

  He closes his eyes. There’s no point in lying. ‘Champagne.’

  She punches out a short, dry laugh. ‘Well, enjoy your fucking champagne with Clio while I look after the kids, who are both still awake and crying, by the way, and don’t expect me to return to London any time soon. Get her out of our home, Adam.’

  ‘Tania, it’s not—’

  But the line has already gone dead.

  18

  May 1998

  The punt back to Cambridge was a tiring, joyless affair. It was as if all colour had been drained from the day and with it any sense of fun. The blue sky had turned to pewter, the green of the trees seemed less vibrant, and the water felt ice cold as it dripped off the punting pole onto my bare feet. Even the birds had stopped their singing. It had taken us almost two hours to reach Grantchester. The return journey was quicker, but it still felt long and my arms were aching by the time we slid under Fen Causeway on the western edges of the city. Clio spent the entire trip asleep in the bottom of the punt, but this time she was on her side, knees tucked up in the foetal position, her body tense when before it had been relaxed.