The Lake Louise Sharland (each kindness read aloud txt) 📖

chocolate on the shore. I would watch him swim on and on, never seeming to tire. My beloved dolphin boy.

I make my way into the living room. Adam is standing by the mantelpiece, his back towards me. I perch myself on the edge of the settee and wait.

‘What day is it?’ he asks, not turning.

‘Pardon?’

‘What day is it?’

I hesitate, conscious that any response that I give might not be the right one. ‘Thursday?’

I’m flooded with a sudden, terrible realisation. ‘Oh God. I was supposed to be home for tea tonight, wasn’t I?’

Adam turns. ‘Yes. You were.’

‘I’m sorry, honey – with Grace here and all the running back and forth, I just lost track of the time.’

‘I called your mobile; the house.’ He points towards the telephone with its blinking answerphone light. ‘Why didn’t you answer?’

There’s no point in trying to lie my way out of this. I think of Grace’s advice last night when she was texting Adam on my behalf. The trick is to keep it simple. The more you say, the more you give away.

I try to keep my voice light. ‘It’s been a bit of a day.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘When I couldn’t reach you, I got worried.’

‘I was—’

‘Fine, I know.’

‘I just needed a little space.’

‘Well, I called Grace.’

‘You what?’

‘I called your sister.’

My mind races as I try to imagine what Grace may have told him, but I stop myself from asking. ‘Look, I’m sorry I worried you. It just slipped my mind that I was supposed to be home tonight. I really am sorry.’

‘Grace said you drove to Falmouth?’

There’s a sudden sick feeling in my stomach.

‘It was just to sort out a bit of admin about Michael’s memorial scholarship. Nothing serious.’

‘But driving all that way with everything that’s going on?’

Adam has always been good at getting to the heart of the matter.

‘I just needed a change of scenery.’

‘You were supposed to come home.’

A look of worry is etched into his handsome features and I feel overwhelmed by remorse.

‘I’m so sorry. I really should have come. It’s just that I never know quite what to expect when I get to the hospital, and with Grace here, well … to be perfectly honest this week has just flown by.’ I give a hopeful smile. ‘But you’re here now. Why don’t I make us a cup of tea and you can tell me about your week?’

Adam is silent for a long while, his eyes searching mine. ‘You look tired.’

I nod, and then the tears come. I feel a sob rising in my chest, the desire to scream and thrash about like some tragic heroine, a Dido at the pyre, but that would only worry him more.

‘I said this would be too much for you.’

I really must close down this conversation. The last thing I want is for Adam to try and force me to come home. ‘It’s hard, Adam, I won’t deny that; but it’s also my duty.’

‘To her?’

He’s fallen very nicely into my line of thinking. I keep my voice soft so that he doesn’t think this is a confrontation. ‘It’s not really that different to when your father was ill.’

I’ve hit home with that one, but I don’t feel pleasure, only relief. Adam sighs deeply and his expression softens.

‘I suppose you’re right.’

He moves closer and then his arms are around me. I can feel the warmth of him; I can smell the woody scent of his aftershave. His arms tighten. I feel his hands loosen the belt on my robe, slip around my waist and then down to cup my buttocks. He pulls me towards him and slips his fingers between my thighs. Grabbing my wet hair, he pulls my head back and begins kissing my neck, working his way down to my breasts. I feel odd, distant, as if this scene is being reflected through a broken mirror, fractured and distorted. My robe is thrown off and I find myself being pushed back onto the settee. I hear a zip and the thump of his jeans hitting the floor. Suddenly Adam is inside me. Forcing his way inside me. I run my fingers across his back, gripping the taut muscles above his shoulder blades. I feel him buck and thrust harder. I close my eyes, willing it to be over. The warmth of his body, the salty taste of his skin should be comforting, pleasurable. Could this at last be a way to free my restless mind? Instead I feel soiled; polluted.

Adam grunts, rolls off me, and lays on the settee panting. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and slips his jeans back on. I pull my robe tightly around me and double knot the belt. He clears his throat.

‘How about that cup of tea?’

12

We sit on the Queen Anne chairs sipping our tea and not speaking. Adam, still with a post-coital flush, looks troubled. I wait.

‘When I spoke to Grace earlier …’ he says, finally, ‘along with telling me about Falmouth, she said you found something?’

‘Something?’

‘Of Michael’s – she said you found something of Michael’s. A notebook?’ My eyelids flicker. My heart pumps fiercely in my chest. Has Grace betrayed me? How could she betray me? I struggle to contain my feelings. How could my sister give up my secret? A secret that was mine alone to tell?

‘What notebook?’

‘Oh, come on, Kate. Stop playing it so coy.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Grace said you had found a notebook of some sort … no, not a notebook. A diary. Michael’s diary.’

He sounds dismissive, patronising. I know what he’s thinking. What kind of teenage boy keeps a diary? I feel as if I’m balancing on a tightrope and any wrong move could send me hurtling into the pitch-black depths below. As a child I had been afraid of the dark – that unseen space beyond my bed. I had so desperately wanted to be like Grace, striding headstrong and fearless into the unknown. I did try, once.

I was fifteen and Michael’s father, Ryan, had offered