She sat like that, completely still, for a minute. Then she looked behind her. 'Be quiet!' she yelled. 'Everyone, be quiet!'
And it was then she heard it: the distant sound of frantic barking. 'Thierry!' she cried. 'Where are Byron's dogs? Get his dogs!'
Briefly his face lit up. As the bemused onlookers watched, Thierry raced round the lake to Byron's car and let out Meg and Elsie. They flew across the lawn, heading straight for the far end of the house.
'Quiet! No one make a sound!' Isabel called, and there was silence, a stillness more portentous than the crash that had preceded it. Kitty, held by Henry, stifled her sobs, as Isabel threw herself down beside the dogs and shouted again: 'Byron!' she cried out, and her voice was imperious, terrible, strange even to herself. 'Byron!'
The silence seemed to last a thousand years, long enough for Isabel's heart to become still with fear, acute enough for her to hear the chatter of her daughter's teeth. Even the birds were quiet, the whisper of the pines absent. In a tiny corner of the countryside, time contracted, and stood still.
And then, as the noise of the siren broke into the far distance, the dogs barked again, at first whimpering, and then with growing hysteria, their paws scraping at a heap of fallen timber, they heard it.
His shout.
Her name.
The sweetest music Isabel had ever heard.
He had got off lightly, all things considered, the paramedics said. A suspected collarbone fracture, a gash in his leg and severe bruising. They would keep him in hospital overnight, check that there were no internal injuries. As he lay on the stretcher, in the midst of the paramedics' discussions, the abrupt hiss and halt of the police radios, Laura McCarthy had watched the Delancey boy walk up to him. Wordlessly, unnoticed by the adults around him, he had laid his head on Byron's hand, his own resting on the man's blanketed torso. Byron had lifted his head at the unexpected weight, and then, blinking, reached out a battered hand to touch the boy's cheek. 'It's okay, Thierry,' he said, so quietly that Laura almost didn't hear him. 'I'm still here.'
It was then, as he was loaded into the ambulance, that she had stepped forward. She reached into her handbag and pulled out the letter, placing it in Byron's bandaged fingers. 'I'm not sure what this is worth now, but you might as well have it,' she said briskly, then turned away before he could say anything.
'Laura?' Matt said. Heavily bandaged and flanked by policemen, a blanket round his shoulders, he was like a child, helpless, vulnerable. There's nothing left of him, she thought. He's been demolished, like the house.
In the end, it was so simple. She turned to Nicholas and lifted a hand to his cheek, feeling his skin under her fingertips, the hidden strength of his jawbone. A good man. A man who had rebuilt himself. 'I'm so sorry,' she said softly. Then she took her stunned husband's arm and walked with him to the police car.
Twenty-five
They had spent the first night in Byron's hospital room. Thierry didn't want to leave him, and there was nowhere else for them to go. The nurses, hearing what had happened, had given them a small side-ward to themselves, and while Kitty and Thierry climbed into the two spare beds there and slept, their faces shadowed from the day's events, Isabel sat between them, and tried not to think of what might have been.
Around her, she listened to the timeless sounds of a hospital at night - soft shoes squeaking on linoleum floors, murmured conversations, a sporadic beeping that heralded a cry for help. In the hours when she drifted off, a wrenching, crashing noise echoed through her dreams, with her daughter's thin wail and Thierry's bemused 'Mum?' forcing her into jumpy wakefulness.
Six months ago, when she was still looking for signs, she would have said Laurent had saved them, that somehow he had protected them. But now, staring at the man in the bed opposite, she knew that was not so. There was no reason, no sense in anything. You were lucky or you were not. You died or you did not.
Dawn broke shortly before five, a cold blue light behind the pale grey blinds, slowly illuminating the darkened room. She stretched, feeling the ache of tension in her neck and shoulders. Then, sure that her children were asleep, she went to the chair beside Byron's bed, and sat down. In sleep, he had lost his watchfulness. His expression had softened and his skin bore simply the weathering of his work. No trace of doubt, anger or wariness remained.
She thought of how he had run without hesitation to where he had thought Thierry might be in danger. She thought of his easy, confident smile when he had returned to the house the previous day. His gaze had been so direct, so full of something she suspected even he couldn't hide. And Isabel saw a future, perhaps for the first time since Laurent had died. She saw her son smiling, heard his voice ring out. She saw her daughter, freed again from premature adulthood. She saw, if not happiness, then another chance at it.
He had felt as she had, she was sure. This isn't impulsive, she told herself. This is the most considered thing I've ever done. Slowly, she lowered her head and dropped a kiss on his lips - which were unexpectedly soft, tasting of hospitals, disinfectant, industrial soap and, underneath, something of the forest.
'Byron,' she whispered, and kissed him again, letting his bruised hands find her, letting herself be held against him as he woke, murmuring her name. She let herself sink against him and the tears came, of gratitude that he was there, that once again she might be held, loved and wanted. She was glad that Laurent no longer stood, spectral, between them, that she heard no echoes of reproach or guilt. He was no longer there, as he had been with Matt.
It was Byron. Only Byron.
You could choose to be happy or you could not.
And when, some time later, she raised her head to look at him, she was shocked to find his expression troubled. 'Are you hurting?' she said, letting her finger run down the side of his forehead, revelling in the luxury of touch.
He did not reply. A bruise at his temple had deepened overnight to a rainbow of livid colour.
'I can get you some painkillers.' She tried to remember where the nurse had put them.
'I'm sorry,' he said quietly.
'Sorry?'
He shook his head.
She drew back. 'Sorry for what?'
'I can't do this. I'm sorry.'
There was a long, heavy pause.
'I don't understand.' She sat back on the bed.
It was some moments before he spoke, his voice low and halting. Outside the door a phone rang, urgent and unheard.
'It's not going to work.'
I know what I just felt, she wanted to say. I know what you just felt. But those words echoed Matt's protestations. 'This is silly.' She tried to smile. 'Can't we just . . . see what happens?'
'You could really do that? Just dive in and hope for the best?' He made it sound like carelessness.
'That's not what I meant.'
'Isabel, we're too different. You know we are.'
She stared at him, at the obstinate line of his mouth, at the way he wouldn't meet her eye. And she lowered her voice. 'You know, don't you?'
'Know what?'
The children were still sleeping.
'About Matt.'
He winced, as she had feared he might.
'I knew it. All this is just an excuse. Well, I'll tell you about Matt. It was the night of the powercut and I was drunk and I was lonely and I was the lowest I had been since Laurent died, and if I'm absolutely truthful, some tiny, stupid part of me thought it was something I wanted.'
'You don't have to tell me--'
Her voice was fierce. 'Yes, I do. Because it happened and it was a huge mistake. And not a day has gone by when I haven't regretted it. But what I did then has nothing to do with how I feel about you.'
'I don't need to hear--'
'Yes, you do. Because it's not how I am. I am not careless with my feelings.'
'I didn't--'
'You know something? Before that, I'd never slept with anyone but Laurent! I was thirty-six and I'd only ever slept with one man . . . I used to laugh
at myself. Matt--'
'It's nothing to do with Matt!' His voice exploded into the little room. Kitty stirred restlessly, and Byron lowered his voice. 'I know he came to you that night. I was there, remember? But I never judged you. I have never judged you. Matt and all the business with the house, it just disguised the truth.'
'The truth?'
He gave a deep sigh. 'That it wouldn't work.'
'How can you say that? How do you know?'
'Isabel . . .'
'Why won't you even try?'
'I have nothing to offer you. No home. No security.'
'That stuff doesn't matter to me.'
'Because you have it. It's easy to say when you have it.'
He refused to meet her eye.
She waited.
'I don't want you to look at me in a year's time and feel . . . differently. Because of what I don't have.'
They sat in silence for some minutes. Finally Isabel said, 'You know what happened out there yesterday, Byron? The most terrifying thing I've ever seen. You and Thierry could both have died.' She brought her face close to his. 'But you didn't. Everyone lived. Everyone lived. And one thing I know, one thing I've learned this last year, is that you should take any chance you have to be happy.'
She heard Thierry murmur on the bed behind her, but she didn't care. 'You kept us going,' she said. 'Thierry, the children . . . You gave them something back.' She was close to tears. 'Something they needed. Something I needed. Don't do this, Byron. Don't push me away. Nothing else matters.'
His jaw tightened. 'Isabel . . . I'm a realist. I can't change the way things are,' he said, into the space away from her. 'This is for the best. Believe me.'
She waited for him to say something else. But nothing came. Finally she stood up, reeling a little, perhaps from lack of sleep, perhaps because shock had made her giddy. 'That really is it? After all this? After everything we've been through? You're going to judge me for owning a house?'
He shook his head. And then he shifted painfully on to his side, closing his eyes against her.
The Cousins had offered the rooms above the shop. Friends and neighbours had stepped forward too, but it was only here that they could stay together. Isabel did not want to be anywhere near the Spanish House but, perversely, she did not want to be far from it either. The insurance documents were still inside it, as were all her other important papers.
Asad had handed her the flat keys. 'Stay as long as you need,' he had said. 'It's basic, but at least you'll have food and drink. We've cleared out most of the stock and we've borrowed camp beds, so if you don't mind it being a little cramped you will have somewhere to sleep, and a bathroom.'
Isabel had sat down heavily on the sofa bed, Kitty and Thierry huddled next to her, and laughed, a strange, hiccupping laugh. A bathroom. They finally had a bathroom. Thierry had looked up at her expectantly, as if she could make it all right. She caught herself teetering and pulled herself together, smiling. That was her job.
They had left the hospital that morning with nothing, no overnight bags, no wallet, just a violin. It didn't matter, she had told Asad. 'It's all just stuff, right? And we're the family who can live off weeds and rabbits.' She kept her voice bright.
'You may find you're not as empty-handed as you thought,' Henry said. As the news had spread, the villagers had arrived in a trickle throughout the day, bringing things they thought might help - toothbrushes, saucepans, blankets. He pointed to the bags and boxes in a corner. 'We've had a look. There's enough to keep you going until the insurance comes through.'
Isabel had assumed it was the Cousins' stock. Now she could see that they were household items, clean, some new, all carefully packed and brought over for them.
'But they don't even know us,' Kitty had said, picking up a soft checked blanket.
'You know, I do believe village life gets a bum rap sometimes,' said Henry. 'There are good people here, even if you don't always see them. Generous people. They are not all like . . .'
Kitty picked up a bag and brought it to the sofa. She began to pick through it, holding up items as she discovered them. Some were so thoughtful that Isabel suspected she might cry again: a little vanity case with makeup and hand lotion, a variety pack of breakfast cereal, to appeal to all tastes, Tupperware boxes of food. A sponge cake. There were neat piles of laundered clothes, apparently chosen to fit each of them. Thierry held up a skateboarding T-shirt with unexpected pleasure. There were cards offering phone numbers, help, sympathy.
'The police have got your handbag with your purse,' Asad said, 'and your keys - to the car,' he added hastily.
'Then I guess we're well off, after all,' said Isabel. 'We've got each other, right? All the rest of it is stuff. Just stuff.'
When she burst into tears, Asad had laid a hand on her shoulder and muttered something about delayed shock. He had plugged in the kettle, and told the children to find biscuits. She let them fuss around her. Isabel, her face buried in her hands, could not tell him she was crying not for the loss of her belongings, but because a man she had only just realised she loved did not love her enough to be with her.
The car was in the clearing, parked a little haphazardly. It had been hurriedly left beside the lake some thirty-six hours earlier by a man on his way to a birthday party. He had left it unlocked in his haste to join the gathering on the lawn.
He threw his bag on to the passenger seat. A neighbour had left a number under his windscreen wiper, offering help, and he removed the paper carefully, taken aback by the gesture. He had just collected his dogs from a farmer who had minded them for him, and now he stood beside the Land Rover, watching them race round the lake, gratified by this return to their habitual routine.
Across the water police tape was strung between what had been the front and rear of the house, flapping in the breeze, an unhappy echo of the scattered bunting that lay bedraggled on the grass. The journey to the party, sitting on the lawn in the sunshine, listening to the music - it all felt as if it had taken place several lifetimes ago. He found it hard to comprehend how the house, the lives contained within it, could have been so unutterably altered in a matter of seconds. He was also conscious that in some way the collapse had not threatened him, as everyone seemed to assume, but saved him.
From himself.
A great weariness settled upon him and Byron felt daunted by the long drive back to Frank's place. His sister, Jan, who had arrived at the hospital at lunchtime, had pressed him to stay with her and Jason. 'You look awful,' she had said. 'You need looking after.' But Byron did not want to be around people. He did not want to be in someone else's home, to rub up against the casual happiness of their life together. 'I'm going to head back to Brancaster,' he said.
'You,' she said, 'are your own worst enemy sometimes.'
Byron walked slowly towards the ruined house, wanting to take a last look at it before he left. Twenty-four hours he had lived legitimately in it. He could barely remember feeling as light as he had waking up in that room. But he couldn't have stayed. And in refusing to see that she was fooling herself.
Byron stopped at the easternmost point of the house and picked up a small white jug, its handle snapped off. So many things were buried under here. The remnants of Isabel's family life, now consigned to the earth, perhaps to some distant landfill site. He held the little jug, picturing it in the kitchen, and tried to dispel the image of her face. She had looked as devastated as she had when the house had come down. But he had nothing to offer her. To have her and lose her, to watch her affection turn to irritation when another job fell through or he could not put enough money on the table, to see her wariness every time she heard some piece of old gossip in the village, to have her passion ebb away would be infinitely more painful than if he had never had it at all.
He would be alone with his dogs. It was easier that way.
Meg and Elsie probably needed feeding, and his wages were in Brancaster. He reached into his pocket, hoping for loose change with which he could buy
dog food, and came up with a folded piece of paper. A duplicated letter. He tried to remember where it had come from, and had a vague recollection of Laura McCarthy thrusting it at him just before he left in the ambulance.
His P45, he thought. Boy, the McCarthys could pick their moments. He unfolded it, glanced at the printed words, then stood very still. He read the lines, the witness signatures, the scrawled note to Laura McCarthy in Pottisworth's own hand. He reread them, unsure whether that really was his name printed there. He wondered if it was a joke, then remembered her expression as she had handed it to him, grim, yet strangely relieved. He thought back to Pottisworth, muttering about the McCarthys, their greed, their presumption. 'They can't wait to get their hands on this place,' he would gripe. 'Their sort always thinks they're entitled.' Byron had paid him hardly any attention. Pottisworth had never shown him the slightest affection, the merest hint of favouritism. But why would he? This will wasn't about giving something to him, it was about thwarting the McCarthys. It was a final, gleeful test of Laura: the old man had given her both copies so she could, if she wanted, destroy the evidence. It was a final two fingers to Matt.
All this time, he mused, as the truth spread warmth in him, I have been apologising for trespassing on land that was mine, squatting in my own boiler room. All this time I have owned it. The absurdity made him laugh, and his dogs' ears pricked. The idea of him owning anything of that size made his head spin. Him, Byron, master of it all.
And then he remembered Isabel. She would lose everything. Not just the house but its contents. Her savings. Everything she owned had gone into those walls. His gain would be her loss.
Byron sat on a fallen timber and held the paper. He stared across the lake from his vantage-point. A man who was not empty-handed, after all.
She had walked the last hundred yards through the trees and now stood, some distance before the lane emerged into the clearing, staring at the house, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She had left Kitty and Thierry in the flat with the Cousins, supposedly to get some provisions. But instead of heading towards the bank or the supermarket, she had found herself taking the turn by the piggery and driving down the rutted lane to the sign that still warned her belatedly: 'Cave!'