Secrets of the Tides (2 page)

‘I’ll wash up,’ she offers.

‘Just a minute, I got you these,’ he says, holding out two brown capsules in the palm of his hand.

‘What are they?’ she asks, prodding them with suspicion. ‘They look like horse tranquillizers.’

‘Vitamins. Mrs Singh at the corner shop says you should start taking them.’ He beams up at her and Dora takes them from his outstretched hand, placing them next to her empty bowl.

‘Thanks,’ she says, wondering how many people he has already blabbed the news to. They really do need to talk, she realises. Not now though, not when he’s so happy about his work. It can wait.

She wakes later that night to the sound of rain drumming on the roof above their bed and Dan scuttling around the room in a panic.

‘Do you need a hand?’ she asks, propping herself up on one elbow in the darkness.

‘No, stay there where it’s warm. I’m fine.’ She hears him trip over a saucepan and the sound of water splashing across the floor. ‘Effing useless roof.’

She smiles in the darkness and listens as he artfully rearranges the carefully cultivated collection of bowls and pans until the sound of water dripping on tin begins to mingle with the noise of the rain outside.

‘It will be summer soon,’ she tries cheerfully.

‘Hmmm . . .’ is all he says, which worries her. He is usually the optimistic one. The agent that showed them around the crumbling old factory had proudly declared the space a ‘New York-style loft apartment’ but they had all known it was marketing flannel. Really they were standing in the dingy and dilapidated top floor of an old East End factory. It had potential, and could provide Dan with the work space he needed to create his intricate bronze sculptures, but it was still a long way away from the beautiful, contemporary, open plan area Dora had mentally transformed it into when they had first looked around. The reality was harder to live with, and ever since they had bought the old place it has been Dan who has jollied her through her worries about rotten floorboards, leaky plumbing and holes in the roof.

‘Come back to bed. We’ll deal with it in the morning,’ she tries.

‘We’ve been saying that for six months.’

‘I know. But we will, OK?’

Dan gives up and dives under the covers, rubbing his cold feet against hers until she yelps. ‘Sorry, you’re just so lovely and warm.’

She turns her back on him and nestles into the reassuring curve of his body. They are two proverbial spoons. His arms slide around her waist and his hands, rough and strong, come to rest on her stomach. She can feel his breath slow against her neck and realises he is already drifting off. She envies him his ability to fall asleep so easily: the sleep of the innocent. She hasn’t been able to sleep like that for a very long time and now that she is awake, her mind is suddenly buzzing.

First she is reliving the Sunrise Cereals pitch at work; she remembers her part in the performance. She had thought it went well, but now, lying there in the darkness, listening to the rain, she starts to wonder. She knows if she starts to stew on it she will be awake for hours so instead she tries to concentrate on relaxing her toes. Isn’t that what those self-help books say to do when you can’t sleep? Start at your toes and work your way up your legs, relaxing each part of your body in turn. By the time you get to your nose you’re guaranteed to be asleep. She’s sure she’s heard that somewhere.

But she has only reached her knees, which prove very difficult to focus on, let alone relax, when Dora feels a cold, creeping panic trickling up from her guts. It’s been the same thing the last few nights; a chilling grip on her insides and the sudden, overwhelming sensation of the breath being squeezed from her body, as if something heavy is lying on top of her, crushing her into the mattress. Dora’s heart begins to thud wildly in her ribcage.

‘Dan?’ she says into the darkness.

There is no answer but the drumming of the rain and the loud beat of her heart.

‘Dan, are you awake?’ She nudges him.

‘Mmmmm . . .’ he groans. ‘No.’

‘We need to talk.’ She can’t bear to lie there alone a second longer.

Dan’s arms tighten around her waist. ‘Go to sleep. We’ll sort the roof in the morning.’

‘It’s not the roof I want to talk about.’ She swallows down the acid taste in her mouth. ‘It’s the . . . the baby.’

She can feel his arms stiffen slightly and his breath pause momentarily against her neck. ‘What about the baby?’ he murmurs.

‘I think we need to talk about it.’

‘Right now?’

‘Yes.’

Dan raises himself up on one elbow in the dark and looks at her. ‘What’s up?’

She takes a deep breath and tries to control her trembling limbs. ‘It’s like we’re just drifting along, out of control, letting life wash over us. I think we should decide whether we actually want this or not. It’s such a huge responsibility, having a baby. What I mean is, how can we even think about raising a child when we don’t even have a dry place to live?’ Dora can hear the hysterical edge in her voice.

Dan is quiet for a moment. ‘We’ll get the flat sorted. Don’t worry. These new commissions will help the cash flow. Now it’s spring we can get the roof fixed, and then we’ll do the damp in the kitchen and the bathroom. Then it’s just the cosmetic stuff.’ He stifles a yawn. ‘We always knew this place was going to be a long-term project. I thought you were up for it?’

‘I was, I mean, I
am
,’ she corrects. ‘This isn’t about the flat. Not really. I mean, it is, but it’s more than that.’ She swallows. ‘Don’t you ever wonder if you’re ready to be a parent?’

Silence fills the room.

‘I’m not sure’, she continues in a small voice, ‘if I want to be a mother. It’s such a responsibility. We wouldn’t be a couple any more. We’d be . . . a family.’

Dan sighs. ‘I’m sure every new parent feels this way, Dora. It’s perfectly natural. I know it wasn’t planned,’ he gives another yawn, ‘but it’s exciting, don’t you think? A family.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘That sounds good to me.’

Dora shifts slightly in his arms, turning to stare at the emptiness above their heads. Things for Dan are always so simple. He sees things in black and white. That’s what she loves about him. But her life isn’t black and white. It’s shades of grey, like a storm-cloud oil painting hanging above a fireplace. How could a man like Dan, a man with nothing but lightness in his heart and an optimistic view of the world understand what she feels?

‘Dora, is this about your family? About . . . well, you know?’

She nods in the darkness but cannot speak.

‘I know it was terrible. I know, from the little you’ve talked about, that you still live with it. Believe me, Dora, I want to understand, I really do.’

She lies very still.

‘But this is a chance for you to move on, don’t you see?’ She can feel his grip tighten around her waist and his hands stroke her stomach with gentle, reassuring movements. ‘It’s a new life . . . a new start . . . us and our baby. We’ll be our very own family. Don’t you want that?’

Dora doesn’t know what to say. Of course she wants a life with Dan. She loves him and their life together in London. He is her rock. And yet, at the same time, she is utterly paralysed. Years have passed and she still feels like the same girl she was all those years ago. Nothing has changed, not really. How can she even consider the enormous responsibility of motherhood . . . of being responsible for another human being when she has proved so catastrophically irresponsible in the past? And how can she contemplate starting a family of her own when the one she grew up in – the one she adored and thought would be there for her for ever – has been torn apart so completely? The truth is that she doesn’t believe she deserves a family of her own. She doesn’t deserve a fresh start with Dan. She doesn’t deserve happiness. But how can she tell him that?

‘Go to sleep,’ Dan murmurs into her neck. ‘Everything always seems worse at night. We’ll talk tomorrow.’ His grip loosens on her slightly and she can tell that she is losing him to sleep again. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning,’ he whispers.

‘Night,’ she says, before turning in his arms to gaze into the blackness of the bedroom. Dan is wrong. She knows she won’t feel better in the morning. She has spent the last ten years willing each morning to be better . . . to feel better. And each morning she awakens to the sickening knowledge that she is to blame for the disintegration of her family. She feels, sometimes, as though they’ve all abandoned her, as though she’s been cut loose and left to drift through life on her own. But then she remembers that it is her fault they have been scattered like the floating debris from a shipwreck. She feels the guilt of it like a deep, throbbing pain.

As Dan begins to snore gently, Dora closes her eyes. She wants sleep to claim her too, but she knows it is a long way off. Instead, she lets her mind wander down the pathways of her past. Slowly, it drifts down a wide, tree-lined drive. She can almost hear the wind rushing through the tall sycamores and smell the salt carried on the breeze. She rounds a corner and there it is, a rambling old farmhouse standing high upon the Dorset cliffs, its whitewashed walls gleaming like a beacon in the sunshine. As she draws closer she sees the tangle of ivy creeping up its exterior, curling around the eaves of the grey slate roof. She drifts closer still and sees the solid oak front door, bleached with weather and age. In her mind’s eye she pushes on the door, the smooth wood familiar under her fingers, and enters a hallway, cool and dark and haunted with the footsteps of a generation of Tides. She walks past an open door, ignoring the elegant dark-haired woman bent over a desk of books and papers. She turns away from the sound of giggles echoing down the creaking staircase and passes a handsome, fair-haired man seated in the drawing room peering at the newspaper spread across his lap. She ignores the lure of the house, instead making for the conservatory where the scent of roses and lilac wafts enticingly through the open doors. Drifting through, she wanders down the sprawling lawn towards the siren’s song of the sea, crashing far away onto the cliffs below.

As she reaches a twisted old cherry tree down in the orchard she turns and studies the house, gazing up at the wide sash windows. She stares at them, searching for answers deep within their shadows, but the glass is blackened by the glare of the sun.

Clifftops. The house she once called home.

Dan shifts and sighs in his sleep and as Dora moves her hands onto her still-flat belly and contemplates her future, she suddenly understands. She cannot hide any longer. She must return to Clifftops. She must return to face her past.

HELEN

Sixteen Years Earlier

Helen stood in the hallway and surveyed the ever-growing pile of suitcases, bags, shoes and coats. It would be just fine by her if someone decided to cancel Easter. The packing was bad enough. There were the piles of washing to sort through, a fridge to clear, the airing cupboard to dig around in for long-lost beach towels, and then the challenge of squashing everything into the groaning boot of the car. Add to that the fact that Richard was still sitting in the study on a last-minute work phone call while the girls drifted about the house in aimless slow motion and it was enough to make Helen want to scream at someone, long and loud.

She entered the kitchen to empty the bin and found Dora, sitting at the kitchen table, gazing dreamily into the garden over her bowl of cereal.

‘You’re not
still
eating those cornflakes are you?’ she asked, as she wrestled with the overflowing bin bag.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Well hurry up,’ she said, finally freeing the bag from its holder and tying it off. ‘I need to get the dishwasher on.’

Dora nodded and raised a token spoonful of cereal to her lips. Satisfied, Helen left the room and went to find Cassie. She’d assumed she was upstairs packing but when she finally came upon her, she found her eldest daughter sprawled across her bed, half dressed and reading a paperback while she sucked lazily on the ends of her hair. It was the final straw.

‘I thought I told you we had to be on the road by ten?’ Helen yelled. ‘We’re going to get stuck in traffic.’ She looked around at Cassie’s messy room in exasperation. ‘And didn’t I ask you to tidy this up last night? You haven’t even
started
to pack!’

‘Relax, Mum. It’ll take me five minutes. I really don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just a week at Grandma and Granddad’s. You and Dad are acting like we’re going on some polar expedition!’

Sarcasm, that was new. Helen saw Cassie’s eyes flick back to the book in her hands and had to resist the urge to fly across the room and hurl it out of the bedroom window. Instead she took a deep breath and counted to three. At eleven years old Cassie was a bright girl and she already knew how to push her buttons.

‘Well, I’m not going to ask you again,’ Helen warned as she left the room. It was a weak parting shot, but she couldn’t think of anything better to threaten her with; they couldn’t exactly leave her behind, attractive as the thought was.

She closed the door on Cassie and retreated down the corridor to her own bedroom. A battered old suitcase lay open on the bed. She still needed to decide whether to pack a dress or another pair of trousers. Trousers would be more practical, but she knew her mother-in-law expected them all to make an effort on Easter Sunday. Helen eyed a green silk dress hanging in the wardrobe, then a pair of black cords, before caving in and placing the dress on top of the growing pile of clothes. She could at least
attempt
to keep the peace with Daphne this year.