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  “Jess, are you all right?” Adam calls down, racing down after me. “What happened?”

  He puts his hand on my back, and I look up sharply. His inky brown eyes are a few inches from mine, filled with concern. “I just fell, that’s all. It’s nothing. No broken bones,” I insist, quickly stepping away, as the lingering heat from his palm makes my skin tingle.

  Chapter 33

  We take a walk along the grassy riverbank afterwards, heading out of the village into the endless countryside beyond, where birds swoop and dive above our heads, and the sun beats down on our shoulders. Adam and William stride ahead, my son’s lanky legs skipping to keep up with his father’s. Eventually, we reach a pool where the water stills, dragonflies dance on the surface and lily pads glisten in the bright light. A cyclist passes us along the pebbly path as an impossibly glamorous young couple sits picnicking on the hill.

  We skim stones, long enough for William to master three or four hops and Adam to pretend to sulk when his repeatedly plop into the water and immediately sink under the surface.

  Afterwards, he buys us lunch in a busy café in Beynac-et-Cazenac. We sit under a lipstick red canopy surrounded by diners devouring salads decorated with jewel-colored tomatoes, gooey Cabécou goat cheeses and strawberries with mimosa ice cream.

  “I see everyone’s giving the gizzards a miss,” I point out to Adam.

  “They’ll regret it. What do you want to drink?”

  “It’s okay, I’ll order.” I turn to the waitress, determined my pronunciation will be perfect. “L’eau, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Pardon?” she replies.

  “L’eau, s’il vous plaît.” She looks at Adam and pulls a bemused expression as William sniggers.

  “I said, je voudrais some l’ . . . Coca-Cola.”

  “Ah oui!”

  Adam orders the rest, as I sit back reluctantly, grumpily. Then the three of us linger under the soft shade as a brilliant blue sky stretches above us and the ancient village buzzes, as it has done for centuries before.

  “What do you think of my team?” Adam asks.

  “Lovely,” I say. “Very professional. I particularly like Ben.”

  “Our in-house heartthrob? He’s great, isn’t he? He seems very keen on Natasha.”

  “She seems interested in that antiques dealer guy, Josh, I’m afraid.”

  I glance at my guidebook, and when I look up again Adam is pulling out a pack of cigarette papers and some tobacco. I glare at him. When that fails to work, I give him a gentle kick under the table.

  “Oww!” Then he realizes what’s wrong. “Oh yeah, sorry. Still, William’s a big boy, Jess. I’m sure he’s sensible enough to know that some grown-ups do this without being sucked in by it himself.”

  “Do what you want,” I say tartly. Adam hesitates before twisting the end of his cigarette and lighting it. He takes a long draw.

  “Never, ever do that,” I tell William firmly. “It will kill you. And before it does that, you’ll have lungs like two shriveled-up kidney beans and a mouth like an ashtray.”

  “This is true.” Adam shrugs. “Ashtray gob, that’s me.” He takes another puff.

  “Why do you do it then?” William asks.

  Adam lowers his cigarette. “I’m hooked. But it’s not big, and it’s not clever. That much is true.”

  “But . . . can’t you try to stop? I don’t want you to die.”

  Adam seems to hold his breath. He reaches over to the ashtray to stub the cigarette out silently, as a waitress arrives with our food.

  William takes a bite of his croque monsieur. “I’m glad I was born in the twenty-first century,” he says randomly. “That castle was brilliant, but I wouldn’t like to have lived there.”

  “Me neither,” I say. “Imagine having no flushing toilets or central heating or—”

  “Or iPads,” William finishes.

  “Believe it or not, there were no iPads when your dad and I were your age.”

  “I know,” he says. “And the televisions were in black and white and—”

  “How old do you think we are?” I cough.

  He giggles. “Anyway, you always said you had everything you ever wanted when you were a little girl.”

  “That’s true,” I reply.

  He thinks for a minute. “What were your mum and dad like, Dad?”

  Adam lowers his knife and fork. “They were a bit different from your grandma and granddad.” And he isn’t joking.

  Chapter 34

  I know I had a father who drank too much, but I still grew up feeling protected and loved and never anything less than happy. Adam did not have that luxury, something I only fully discovered about five months after we’d been together.

  He’d already told me that he’d never known his father and that his mum had died in a car accident when he was nine. Beyond that, the details were sketchy, and I didn’t push the issue because of the way his face shadowed with sadness when the subject was raised.

  It was his aunt Julie who filled in the gaps, after she’d invited us to Sunday lunch once. Julie wasn’t really his aunt. She was a distant older cousin who’d been close to his mother, Lisa, before she died and who’d taken Adam in afterwards, despite having three children of her own—Mike and Daniel, who were twelve-year-old twins, and Stephanie, a year younger than Adam.

  Aunt Julie was one of those women whose age was difficult to pinpoint. When I met her, she must’ve been in her early fifties, and although the lines on her face should’ve made her look older, she had an exuberance about her, a positivity that made her eyes shine.

  “It feels quiet these days now you and Steph have moved out,” she told Adam as she brought a humongous dish of roast potatoes to the table, where he was carving a hot, glistening chicken. Her terraced house in Leeds was small, but the fact that she was an assiduous housekeeper shone from the polished ornaments on the mantelpiece and the overpowering smell of forest pine that rose from the downstairs loo when it was flushed. “Do you remember what it was like when you first moved in, Adam? You, Mike and Danny all in the one bedroom. Absolute chaos.”

  Adam looked up. “But you made me feel at home.”

  She visibly melted. “Aw, thanks, love.”

  Afterwards, Adam went for a pint with Danny in the pub over the road while I hung back to help clear up, despite her protestations.

  “So what was Adam’s mum like?” I asked. “He hardly ever talks about her.”

  She dipped her hands in a bowl of steaming hot water and glanced up. “Lisa was . . . hopeless and lovely all at the same time. She had terrible taste in men and was as mad as a bag of snakes. But she really was beautiful—inside and out.”

  Lisa had only been seventeen when she had Adam and, reading between the lines, had been a loving but dysfunctional mother. They were often hungry and cold, and Adam always wore coats with other kids’ names sewn into the neckline. She was constantly not just letting him bunk off school, but actively encouraging it, just so they could go to the park to play, or snuggle up on the sofa and watch TV.

  “When he was about six, she bought this camper van,” Julie continued. “You should’ve seen the thing. It was a rust bucket. God knows where she got it. She picked him up from school one day with nothing but a map, some tins of food and a few clothes—and off they went on a bloody road trip around Britain. They were gone for four months, having the time of their lives,” she laughed.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Did nobody wonder why he wasn’t in school?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? A woman and her six-year-old son gallivanting halfway across Britain like Thelma and Louise. But no. They only came home when the van’s suspension went and she couldn’t afford to get it fixed.”

  I’d seen a handful of photos of Lisa, so I knew she had the same arresting looks as Adam: high cheekbones and a straight nose, Cu
pid’s bow lips and dark, sleepy eyes.

  “She tried her best to be a good mum,” Julie said, and not for the first time. Then she told me about Warren, an insurance salesman Lisa had met about a year after their road trip.

  “Lisa looked up to him. He was a professional man with a good job. At first, he treated her like a princess. She’d go on about how he cooked for her, brought her presents and couldn’t keep his hands off her. But then he turned nasty.”

  “Violent?”

  Julie nodded. “I could tell something was going on, but she was determined not to talk about it. Then Adam broke his arm, and they came up with some story about him climbing a tree . . . I knew it was rubbish. I told her I was going to go to the police, but she begged me not to. To be fair, Warren at least never touched Adam after that. She bore the brunt of it instead.”

  But Adam’s young eyes continued to witness things that nobody should. “He turned into a different kid for a while. He’d always been loving and cheeky, full of fun. But he went so quiet. It was awful. I still can’t understand why she didn’t tell Warren to get lost. There was no excuse. I mean, you would, wouldn’t you—with a little kid around?”

  “Perhaps she was frightened of him.”

  “I’m sure she was.”

  Lisa died in a car accident when she was walking to school to pick up Adam. A witness said that she’d appeared to be daydreaming and stepped out from nowhere, slamming onto the bonnet of a 4x4.

  “Lisa was in hospital, fighting for three weeks. Then her time came. Adam was sleeping on a camp bed upstairs here at the time. Overnight, the poor mite was motherless and homeless.”

  “So you took him in.”

  “Well, there was no way I was going to let him go into a home, although I had to fight for that. I’ve never regretted it once. He was an absolute joy to have around. I’m so proud of him, of everything he’s done with himself.”

  Adam did well at school and earned a clutch of decent GCSEs, before moving to Edinburgh to go to college.

  “He just never stopped working,” she said. “He’d wash dishes in a café during term time and gave up his summers to do jobs for a building firm in the Isles of Scilly.”

  I realized then that, by the time I’d met Adam, he’d lived half a dozen lifetimes.

  “He barely talks about any of this,” I said. “Apart from their trip with the camper van. I’ve heard him mention that a couple of times.”

  She didn’t look surprised. “I think that’s when Adam was probably at his happiest. When Lisa picked him up from school, sat him in the passenger seat of that daft thing and off they clattered on their mad adventure.” She smiled at me. “I knew then somehow it’d be the first of a lifetime full of them for Adam.”

  Chapter 35

  I’ve spoken to Dad a few times since I’ve been here, but trying to make a video call so I can see Mum too has been difficult. I’d have more luck reaching the International Space Station than getting enough Wi-Fi to keep a Skype connection for longer than ten seconds.

  But on Friday, I get a text from Dad asking if I’m free to talk. There’s something about the way he phrases it that makes the back of my neck prickle with panic—and it leaves me wanting to do more than simply phone and listen to his reassurances that they’re both “fine.” I want to see my mum with my own eyes.

  I leave William and Natasha by the pool and head into the château, where I find Simone on the front desk.

  “Hello, Jess.” She’s polite, bordering on curt.

  “Hi, Simone. I wondered if Adam was in the office?”

  Her pinched smile wavers. “He is. Would you like to speak to him?”

  “It’s not him I’m after actually. I was hoping to Skype my dad, and Adam told me I could use the office, where I’d get a better broadband connection.”

  “Oh. Follow me then.”

  She leads me to the back of the hall and knocks on the heavy oak door, before pushing it open. Adam is at his computer, hammering at the keyboard.

  “Jess’s here.” She sounds as though she’s announcing the arrival of the nit nurse. He looks up.

  “I wondered if I could take you up on your offer to Skype my dad here?”

  “Of course, no problem. Everything all right?”

  I glance at Simone. She takes the hint and backs out of the room. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Dad texted to see if I could talk and . . . well, I just want to make sure Mum’s okay really.”

  He brushes his hand through his hair and starts clearing away papers. “Let me give you the password.” He grabs a Post-it note and scrawls on it, before standing and handing it to me.

  “I’ll get out of your way. I can send these emails in another room.”

  He picks up his laptop, stopping as we’re shoulder to shoulder. Then he turns and briefly rubs my arm. It’s a gesture of support, but it still makes me stiffen and leaves an odd kind of discomfort rippling under my skin.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Give my love to your mum and dad, won’t you?” he adds, slipping out of the room.

  In the days before everything turned to shit, Adam got on well with my parents, particularly Dad. They were never short of something to talk about, be it soccer, or politics or how to replumb a washing machine (there was an inordinate amount of DIY talk, as I recall).

  Mum loved him too, though that was before the stunt he pulled on the day her grandson was born, and my subsequent confession about how strained things had been in the run-up. He got a couple of firsthand experiences of the dragon lady she could turn into after that.

  I turn on my iPad and watch it pick up the Wi-Fi, before typing in the password. I glance around the room as I’m waiting for it to connect. It’s the only part of the building where there isn’t a hint of styling, just plain white walls, uninspiring office furniture and a dreary set of curtains on the high stone window.

  This is a typical example of Adam’s filing system, with stacks of papers piling up and an overflowing bin. I wouldn’t say there’s no order here whatsoever, but it’s just enough to get him by, with one wall dominated by key hooks and a half-open filing cabinet, a precarious pile of tattered manila folders on top.

  I click on the Skype icon, and as it starts twirling, my eyes are drawn to the corkboard in front of me, the one dotted with printed pictures, the kind most people haven’t bothered with since the invention of Instagram.

  The two or three of his mum must be the only ones that exist. Most are of William, as a baby, then a toddler and his first day at school, when he stood outside our front door, dimple cheeked and grinning through pearly milk teeth. I recognize lots of them as images I’d send to Adam every six months or so, making sure he couldn’t forget about our existence entirely.

  There are also a few selfies of him with William, a surprising number considering how little time they’ve actually spent in each other’s company in the last ten years. In one of them, William looks about seven, and they’re standing in the queue for the pirate ship at Alton Towers. In another, they’re eating oversize ice creams in a pizza restaurant. Then there’s one on Formby Beach, William hysterical as he buries Adam in the sand.

  To look at the collection of images, you’d think that they’d been inseparable over the years. But really, these are a handful of occasions, a drop in the ocean—all a sharp contrast to the days I’m used to, the ones involving homework, piano practice, ferrying him to Scouts and shrieking the words, “SHOES!” and “TEETH!” as we try to get out of the house on time each morning.

  Still, there’s something reassuring about the photos, a sliver of a reminder that, although Adam is essentially clueless about the minutiae of parenthood, the potential is there, whether he realizes it or not.

  I reach up and touch the photo of William in his uniform, accidentally dislodging the pin as three of the pictures tumble to the floor. I pick them up and
put them back, when I spot a faded image concealed behind the others.

  It’s of Adam and me, in New York.

  The trip was about a week after we’d graduated from Edinburgh, and we’d been planning it for ages, to stay with Steph—Aunt Julie’s youngest—who’d won an apprenticeship to work as a chef for some smart new hotel on the Upper East Side. The flat she shared with a fellow trainee, a Bulgarian guy called Boyan, was so small that the only way to enter the bathroom was by turning sideways and breathing in.

  But it was an unforgettable holiday. We took a boat to Ellis Island, explored Central Park, stood at the top of the Empire State Building as night fell, watching the city sparkle into life. The morning that picture was taken, we’d woken stupidly early, still jet-lagged and disorientated from the flight two days before. But this being the days before parenthood, all we had to worry about was ourselves, so we spent hours in that spare room while Steph was at work, sun streaming through the blinds as we stayed under the sheets, exploring every inch of each other.

  He always said that was his favorite photo of us—a postsex snap of him, me and our mammoth breakfasts at a cool little place in the Meatpacking District. He said he had everything he’d ever wanted in life on that day. I asked if he was referring to me or the crispy bacon.

  “Hello?” Dad’s voice shatters my train of thought, and I look up to find him in the entrance hall of Willow Bank Lodge, looking like a man in need of a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter 36

  “Everything’s fine,” Dad tells me, which I’ve come to discover is what he’d say if he were on the Titanic surrounded by violinists. “We just had a bit of a fright this morning.”

  My heartbeat doubles in speed. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no need to panic, but we’ve been to hospital today. It was a precaution, and we’re back now. The point is she’s okay.”

  Heat gathers around my neck as half a dozen questions flood my brain. “What happened? Why have you been to hospital? Where is she now?”