Christmas was cancelled. New Year’s Eve passed without celebration or acknowledgment.

  On New Year’s Day, we sat in silence at the breakfast table, picking at cold toast, sipping tea. Jude was still staying because there was nobody else who could have him at short notice. The boys were due back at school in a few days.

  My job that morning was collecting litter from the garden. It was incredible how far some of the party revellers had ventured, wandering through the darkness into the grounds dropping cigarette butts and bottles. I hunched inside my coat, hands in my pockets, tramping in slow circles, searching the damp grass.

  The boys had hardly spoken to us since the party, their faces closed against the rest of the world, and it seemed to me that they’d made a pact, had retreated into a mutual determination to endure, to get through the next few days before they could escape to school. Or perhaps they’d decided to go to the kibbutz earlier? To run away and not wait until the end of term. I could tell they were being careful not to touch each other, not to look at each other with lustful eyes in public. But I knew how they kissed behind closed doors.

  Alice kept asking me what was wrong. ‘You’re being particularly weird. Has anything happened?’

  ‘Daddy hates us, and everything is awful,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘But we’re going to run away,’ Alice whispered. ‘It isn’t long till we have our freedom.’

  I couldn’t tell her that I’d never go anywhere with Henry and Jude. They were dead to me. I wanted to confess what I knew. But the words burnt my mouth. It wasn’t possible to say such things aloud. Not even to her. A sudden breeze picked up, rustling the last of the skeleton leaves clinging to the beech trees. I stood up straight and looked across the grounds towards the distant peaks of the fells where flat grey clouds bandaged the horizon. A soft mizzle misted my eyelashes, catching in my hair and leaving a dew on the nap of my coat. A whispering of the deluge to come.

  ‘Cecily.’ I turned at the sound of my name. Henry was walking towards me, his footsteps marking the grass. I fought the urge to run, curling my fingers into fists, standing my ground. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. ‘Alice said she was worried about you.’

  I managed a shrug. It made my tummy feel funny to stand close to him, as if I’d eaten too much cream or sugar, a queasy fizzing distaste.

  He looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. And at first, I thought that he was apologising for what he’d done with Jude. ‘It was my idea to have the party,’ he went on. ‘It was always a risk that we’d be found out. I suppose Jude and I were so excited by our plan to escape – the party wasn’t just a celebration, as Jude said, it was a fuck-you gesture to our father, and to the whole rotten lot of them… I don’t know… priests and landowners and the filthy rich.’ He grimaced. ‘Everyone who keeps the establishment lie going.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘But it was wrong to drag you and Alice into it. Especially you. You never wanted it.’ He blinked. ‘I told Daddy it wasn’t your idea, that you were never involved in the preparations or anything.’

  My heart pulsed with relief. But I remembered the silver dress. My stupid romantic expectations. Jude and Henry kissing on the roof. And it felt as though Henry was laughing at me. He blinked again.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I lied. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘That’s decent of you, Cecily.’ He gave a ghostly smile. ‘Jude is sorry, too.’

  I stared at my feet. My throat tightened. ‘I’d better get on.’

  ‘Jude and I – we want to try and do some good in the world,’ he blurted out. ‘And I can’t do that if I’m trapped here.’ He paused, and I sensed him looking at me, but refused to meet his gaze. ‘I hope you’ll understand one day, Cecily,’ he finished, quietly.

  His hand rested lightly on my shoulder before I heard him moving away. The ache of an absence hung where he’d been. His footprints were already fading from the wet grass. But where his fingers had pressed, it was as if his touch had penetrated my clothes and scalded me. How dare he pretend that he was being fair and kind! How dare he apologise to me for the stupid party! I put a bitten stub of fingernail in my mouth and scraped at the swollen skin around it with my teeth. ‘Damn,’ I said aloud. ‘Damn you, Henry.’ My words shook the spangled beauty of the garden like the death of a small bird.

  I bent to the task of finding rubbish again, moving across the lawn, numb fingers grasping an empty plastic lighter, crumpling a beer can inside my fist. Under the canopy of the yew tree, the earth was dry and bare. As I left its shelter, the mizzle had turned to needles of hard rain. It was only as I stood with water lashing my eyes, that I realised that my brother had called me by my name. My proper name.

  The rain came down harder, making puddles on the lawn. I went back inside, the rubbish bag dangling from my frozen hand. The house was different – the atmosphere strained and tense, ringing with electricity, as if the storm outside was about to crack open the walls and go raging through the rooms.

  ‘Cilly.’ Alice’s pale face appeared out of the dark corridor. She beckoned with urgent, frightened motions. My heart thumped a tattoo as I shrugged off my wet coat, pushing back my dripping hair.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ Alice whispered. ‘Daddy called Henry into his study. And now… Now he’s in the hole.’

  ‘Where’s Jude?’

  ‘Daddy locked him in one of the attic rooms.’

  I put my hand over my chest, steadied myself, and took a breath. ‘What did they do?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Daddy’s in his study on the phone to somebody. He’s angry. Even more than he was on the night of the party – even angrier than he was about his wine.’ Alice’s gaze wavered, water spilling from her eyes. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘I have a bad feeling.’ She shook her head. ‘Mummy said we should stay out of the way. We’re not allowed to communicate with the boys. She wouldn’t explain anything. She’s gone to her room.’

  Alice groped for my fingers and squeezed, but I couldn’t return the pressure.

  The rest of the day slipped into the grainy blur of a slow-motion film. The Italian clock spoke into the hush, its mechanical noise marking the hours. Daddy shut himself in his study. An atmosphere seeped under his door, a thick miasma of fury, a reek of desolation. The two Labs waited on the floor outside for him, ears down, whimpering softly.

  ‘Cecily?’ Daddy’s voice rang out through the silent house. ‘Come in here, now.’

  Fear galloped through me. I looked at Alice helplessly, and she shook her head, whispering, ‘Have you done anything to make him angry?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Don’t let him see that you’re scared,’ she said. ‘Be brave.’

  A fire roared in the grate behind him. Above that, the painting of hell. The devils turned to me, alert and interested. He sat behind his desk, his craggy face impassive. In front of him was my diary. I stared at it. ‘This,’ he said, putting one finger on the cover, ‘is filth. Disgusting filth.’

  My feelings for Jude were there, spilled out in privacy over its pages, all my deepest yearnings. My skin flushed hot. The floor shifted under my feet. The devils were laughing. I remembered that I’d also written what I saw on the roof. I’d written what I saw Henry and Jude doing. It was the only space that had felt safe enough, the one place I could spell out their sin.

  ‘Is it true?’ His voice was tight. ‘What you wrote about your brother and Jude?’

  I nodded. He looked at me as if I was the one who’d committed the sin, and then he picked up the diary between his finger and thumb like a dead rat. He went over to the fire and tossed it in. The flames rushed to explore this new object, licking around it, snuffling inside, loving the crisp thin paper, the cardboard covers. My words crackled and burnt.

  ‘You are never to write a diary again, do you understand?’ Daddy said. I bent my head. ‘You have a sewer for a mind.’

  As Henry was already in the hole, Daddy locked me in the game larder. I was grateful that there were no venison carcasses, but a pheasant and three rabbits hung from the smaller hooks, bloodied mouths gaping. I huddled on the icy, slate floor, avoiding looking at the glassy eyes above me. It was dim and cold in the small space. I shivered, wanting the cavalier or the monk to come; they were stronger, braver people than me. It was the child who came instead, tugging at my hair and crying for her mother, and I held her close, needing her living warmth, tasting her tears. When Daddy let me out, I had no idea how long I’d been locked in, but my legs were stiff and numb, and I had to crawl over the slate floor onto the grass outside. I crouched below him, squinting into the sudden daylight. ‘Get up,’ he told me. ‘We will pray together.’ He watched me struggle onto my feet. ‘We must pray for your soul.’

  I followed him across the yard into the kitchen, past the scullery, the butler’s pantry and boot room, through the green baize door, down the steps to the chapel. I glanced at my grubby skirt and tried to brush away the dirt, the stink of death.

  Jane brought out lunch and supper and left them on the silver heating platters in the dining room. Only Daddy ate anything, none of us had any appetite. We heard him entering the dining room, then moving back to the study. The dogs followed him hopefully, then settled again outside his closed door with heavy sighs. Jane’s eyes were red as she collected Daddy’s dirty plate and the leftover food. She moved along corridors with her usual heavy tread, trailing greasy smells, but she wouldn’t let us into her kitchen. ‘Not today,’ she said, shutting her door too.

  Early next morning, I heard tyres on the drive and called Alice. We hurried to the first-floor landing window and stared out an unfamiliar, smart black car parked below. Jude appeared out of the house in his coat, bags in his hands. Daddy strode ahead of him to open the back door of the car and waited with folded arms. I couldn’t see the driver. He, or she, didn’t appear. Jude moved like a broken puppet. He stumbled as he walked to the car, his feet dragging through the gravel, broad shoulders slumped, head down. Tousled blond curls fell into his eyes. He glanced up just once before he got into the back seat, and his desperate gaze slid past our faces, as if we were part of the house and invisible to him. He was looking for Henry, I thought. But Henry was still in the hole. He’d been there for nearly twenty-four hours. The longest any of us had spent in it.

  Later, after the car disappeared around the bend in the drive, I heard Daddy going up to the top floor, steps creaking under his weight. It must mean that Henry was going to be released. Henry, who’d been crushed into the tiny space, unable to move, hardly able to breathe with no food or water. Probably his legs wouldn’t be able to support him, I thought. His muscles would cramp and shake and refuse to unbend from the positions they’d been forced to keep. He would blink and wince in the light. He would be hungry and thirsty. He might even have soiled himself. He must be sorry now, for what he’d done with Jude. I prayed with all my heart for him to be saved.

  22

  ALICE

  I remember that Cecily kept a diary when she was child, but after that Christmas, I don’t think she wrote one again – at least, she mentioned that she’d given them up in one of her letters. When I asked why, she told me they were childish, that she’d outgrown them.

  I could do with one of her diaries now, and I’d feel no guilt at reading it. Then I might have a clue what she’s doing, an insight into what’s going on in her head. I knew her marriage was a lie, but the whole of this safe little domestic set-up is a sham. I’ve never felt so utterly cut-off from her.

  But while I’m stuck here, playing the role of mum, I’m not going to watch Bea struggle without trying to help her.

  I’m already in Cecily’s workout clothes when Bea gets home from school. ‘Want to do some yoga with me?’ I suggest.

  She looks at me as if I’m mad.

  ‘Oh, go on.’ I put my hands on my hips. ‘It’ll be more fun if we do it together.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you did yoga? Isn’t that some weird hippy thing?’

  ‘No.’ I laugh. ‘It’s a good way of getting fit and, I don’t know, being more in touch with your body and mind. Thought I’d give it a go.’

  Her expression has softened from refusal to doubt, but she’s glancing towards the kitchen, her after-school habit of eating sandwiches and chocolate biscuits hard to break.

  ‘You can leave anytime you want…’ I try to make my voice cajoling but light.

  ‘Oh, alright then,’ she shrugs, ‘just for five minutes. But if you laugh, I’m going.’

  I hold up my hands. ‘I’m not going to be laughing at anything. Not when I’m breathing with my mouth closed and trying to remember what comes next.’

  I’ve found an old exercise mat in the understairs cupboard, and I lay this over the pine boards in the sitting room for her – I’ll have to make do with the floor. I’ll make it a short session, I think. Start with some gentle movements that will allow her to feel her body, mobilise her joints, get the blood flowing, nothing that’s too difficult.

  We’ve been practising for twenty minutes, and she hasn’t given up in frustration or boredom. She’s following my voice guides and movements, giggling sometimes when she gets it wrong or overbalances. We’re doing a sequence of sun salutations, and I’ve raised my arms above my head in high mountain, when a flicker of movement outside the bay window catches my attention. I turn my head, startled by the outline of a person, a dazzle of evening light behind them. I bite my tongue in shock, blink and refocus. There’s nobody there, just the play of brilliance and shadow against glass. It gave me a fright, and my heart hasn’t caught up with my head, my body jittery with adrenaline. I don’t want Bea to notice, so I draw in deep breaths and move into the next part of the flow, bending forwards over my legs, ‘Keep your knees a little bent,’ I say, ‘just let your head hang heavy.’

  After another ten minutes, I wind the session down. I’m thrilled that she’s stuck with it, and it’s a struggle not to grin in triumph. We lie on the floor in corpse pose. ‘This is the best bit.’ She sighs.

  I roll onto my elbows. ‘Wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  She sits up, hugging her long T-shirt around her waist, folding her arms across her chest. ‘It was alright,’ she says. Her skin is flushed and rosy; she looks pretty.

  ‘Great.’ I smile. ‘Maybe we can do it again, sometime.’

  I’m not going to push her into it. Better if she asks me. As I roll up the mat, I glance at the window again. Any intruder would have had to walk around the privet hedge to gaze into the house. It seems an unlikely thing to do. I must have imagined it.

  The kitchen is full of acrid fumes. The smoke alarm is shrieking. ‘Shit,’ I yell, rushing past Gabriel as he gets home. I open the oven door. Charcoal clouds fill the air as a blast of heat burns my face, stinging my eyes. I flap a tea towel ineffectually and unlock the back door, throwing it open. I set the blackened food in the middle of the table. Who’s smug now? Cecily’s voice says.

  Gabriel looks at the burnt meal in surprise, and I’m about to apologise when the doorbell rings. ‘Good timing,’ he mutters, rolling his eyes.

  The bell sounds again. ‘I’ll go,’ he says, leaving the room.

  I hear a female voice and for a heart-stopping second, I think it’s Cecily. But then Gabriel’s lower tone comes in, and from his calmness, I know that it isn’t her. I stare at the charcoaled dish in the centre of the table, wondering if any part of it is edible, and knowing it’s not. Carcinogenic, I think. Bea comes in, coughing at the smoke. ‘What’s going on?’ She stops when she sees the ruined vegetable lasagne and laughs.

  There are footsteps, and he reappears with the woman who accosted me in the Co-op. She’s dressed in snakeskin patterned leggings, a pink sweatshirt and matching leg warmers. Her eyes are heavy with make-up below plucked brows. Her fuchsia pink lips widen into a knowing smile when she sees me.

  ‘There you are,’ she exclaims. ‘I was worried about you, Cecily.’

  I stare at her, and glance at Gabriel, hoping for guidance. He supplies it. ‘Rebecca was wondering why you haven’t been at your exercise class.’ He winks at me.

  ‘You’ve missed two of my step classes,’ she says. ‘And you’re usually so dedicated.’

  ‘I’ve just… been… busy,’ I offer, pushing my hair behind my ear.

  ‘Ah, yes…’ she gives me a meaningful look. ‘Busy,’ she repeats slowly, wagging a finger at me. ‘I know how you’re keeping yourself busy, Cecily. And it’s not good for your health,’ she says. ‘Naughty girl.’ I go cold at her implication. Has she seen Cecily drinking at night, again? Worse, has she seen her with another man? The smell of Rebecca’s sugary sweet perfume overwhelms the stink of burning and prickles my nose. She puts a proprietorial hand on Gabriel’s arm, her nails a glossy purple that matches her jumper. ‘You don’t want your gorgeous wife to let herself go, do you?’ she smiles. She wrinkles her forehead at me. ‘You have to work at it, hon, especially as we’re not getting any younger.’

  ‘Mum’s doing yoga,’ Bea volunteers.

  ‘Yoga!’ Rebecca exclaims. ‘That won’t be burning any calories!’

  I force a smile.

  ‘Good of you to call in, Rebecca, but…’ Gabriel glances meaningfully at the laid table.

  She gives the burnt lasagne a dubious look and pats his arm again. ‘I can take a hint!’ She flicks blonde wisps, gives a quick head toss. ‘Darling,’ she says to me, with no warmth. ‘Don’t be a stranger.’ She glances at Gabriel through lowered lashes. ‘It would be good to see more of both of you. Why don’t you come to dinner soon? I’ll be in touch,’ she says, looking at me again. ‘Ciao. Enjoy!’ She waves a manicured hand, and turns. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  We don’t move, waiting for the sound of her heels to disappear, the front door to shut. And then we look at each other and burst out laughing. ‘We’ll be going to dinner over my dead body,’ Gabriel says.