Chapter 12
12
FIVE DAYS BEFORE HE LEFT ME
I’m disorientated when I wake. Everything feels wrong and right at the same time. Birds are singing outside. The bed feels different. My thoughts are twisting and dancing: my wedding dress, the necklace, James, Kit, snow.
I will never leave you.
My eyes flash open; the room swims into focus.
Kit.
He’s alive; he’s here. I’m still here. I can save him.
I reach for my phone. Today’s date: Sunday 20th March.
So this is it. I’m actually going to spend another day in the past. I have another day to find out the truth.
I’m on my side; he’s facing me. I devour the feeling of him next to me, the warmth of his body, the smell of him, the freckles on his right cheek that, if I were to join them up, would make a tick. I used to say it was like my own personal check mark. Here he is. He’s the right answer; he’s the one for me. I shuffle forward. Kit’s fast asleep and yet his arm reaches for me, hooking over my waist. It fits perfectly in the narrow curve, his finger resting gently on my hip bone. I’m naked beneath the sheets. I must have taken off my clothes in the night. We never used to wear pyjamas; we had an insatiable need to be skin to skin.
My eyes follow the line of his shoulders, freckled, tanned, toned, the shape of the top of his arm just visible above the duvet; the light hairs along them, so much lighter than James’s.
James.
Did he lie? I want to push thoughts of him away but they persist, pushing against an invisible barrier, because even though the necklace being in his pocket points towards him knowing Kit is alive, the thought feels wrong. It goes against everything I know about the man I’m about to marry. James has always been so solid, so straight, so safe. But maybe I’m just resisting the truth and James has known this whole time. I want to resist the truth, I realise.
I trace the curve of Kit’s eyebrow, run my finger gently down the length of his nose. His cheekbones are sharp, his face much more defined and angular than his brother’s.
Kit’s waking, his mouth curving into a smile, body shifting towards me. It would be so easy to let my body react, for my leg to wrap around him, to feel the weight of him on top of me. But this isn’t my life. My real life is me and James. Kit leans forward, eyes opening, glassy and clear; long eyelashes, paler than James’s; familiar crinkles at the edges.
A rush of love, of longing. Could I let myself have him? How many times have I thought about his touch? How many times have I wished to have him back for just one day? But that was before I fell in love with James.
‘Hey,’ he says, his voice husky, softened by sleep.
‘Hey.’ He runs his hand up over my ribs slowly, a well-practised move, his thumb running over the curve of my breast. My breath catches in my throat.
It would be so easy .
But I can’t betray James.
I place my hand on top of his; stopping it going any further. I can’t sleep with Kit, but I can get to know him again. I can help him; I can save him.
‘Let’s go somewhere.’
I move his hand away, bringing it to my mouth, kissing his knuckles. He yawns and pulls our hands to his chest. ‘Where do you want to go?’
The answer comes easily. ‘Pembrokeshire, the coastal hike you like?’
If I take him there today, maybe he’ll go somewhere else on Friday? And if he still goes, and I can see which way he walks, maybe it will mean I can find him, stop him leaving. I lean forwards.
‘I was planning to go on Friday.’
My heart is knocking hard against my ribs. So he is planning to go, but is he planning to come back?
‘Let’s go today instead?’
‘Today?’
‘Yeah. I feel like a good walk. Grab some fish and chips?’
A slow smile passes his face. ‘You really want to go?’
‘Yeah, I mean, why not?’
‘Well I’ve got work to do for one thing.’ His words catch on a yawn.
‘It’s Sunday; you shouldn’t be working.’
‘But—’
‘I’ll drive. You can work on your laptop.’
There must be something in my voice that lets him know how important this is to me.
‘I mean… I suppose we could. Sure.’
I sag with relief and lean over him, kissing his head, his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, before pulling back and grinning. He smiles, throwing back the duvet. I watch his body moving away from me. He steps into his boxers, grabs his phone, his fingers already tapping away.
Is he messaging her?
He throws a smile at me over his shoulder. ‘I’ll make us some breakfast then we’ll head off?’
There is nothing suspicious, nothing that would lead me to otherwise believe that he’s doing anything other than commenting on social media, perhaps quickly replying to an email.
I reach for my pyjamas from the floor and open the curtains. I look out of the window. Spring has come to put winter back in its place. The sun is high, admonishing the snow with a wag of a finger: you shouldn’t be here; it’s not your time.
I’m going to change the future. I’m going to see where he walks. I’ll watch everything he does and get the answers I need. I’m going to save him.
Then I’ll need to choose.
But I push that thought to the back of my mind.
I sing along to the radio as we travel. It’s so easy to fall back into the familiar. As much as Kit loved the thrill of being outside, he took his work seriously. He was never far away from his phone, his laptop. It comes with the territory of being self-employed. I’ve checked his phone this morning. I hate that I’m snooping around but if I’m going to save him or stop him, then I have to be thorough.
There are no more messages from Rebecca. No more answers or questions.
‘And in other news,’ the DJ on the radio begins, ‘the rumours of Man City midfielder Jack Byrne joining Blackburn Rovers on loan for the season are sounding more and more of a certainty.’
‘Huh,’ Kit says, turning up the sound. ‘Interesting. The whole dynamic of their defence will be different. They’ll be in for a good season.’
Kit has always loved sports. As a young child and into his teens, Kit was always on various teams: football, rugby, cricket. When he left for university, he was on a football scholarship, but after a leg injury and operation, he deferred. He doesn’t talk about it much, but James told me it was as if the bottom of his world fell out.
He returns his attention to the laptop as I grip the wheel, rolling down the window a touch as we get closer to the coast, the familiar smell of the sea flowing in. I slip the car into a lower gear as we head upwards. Lush green hills surround us, cliffs reaching upwards. The sea soon comes into view: blue, green, vibrant.
The skyline is the same as I remember, only this time the sun is shining. This time, he’s here with me. I’m in the car that next week will be abandoned. The roads are so familiar. How many times did James and I return here? Ten? Twenty? I try to reconcile these memories of James, with a man who might have known Kit is alive. The idea pulls at me. I know he had the necklace, but does that really mean he knew Kit was alive? My thoughts twist and turn with the roads.
We drive past a lay-by that we’d had to pull into a few weeks after he disappeared. I’d been driving, but the tears wouldn’t stop. James had told me to pull over. I hadn’t realised I was crying. He’d gotten out of the car and swapped sides with me. I’d sat in the passenger seat, numb. I remember he’d leant over and pulled the seat belt over me, locking it into place. I barely remember the journey home. I have a vague memory of James walking me back to Mum’s, a cup of tea being pressed into my hands; how broken he had looked as he closed the door behind him. The memory is so dark, like the whole day was shrouded. My memories of that time are always devoid of colour, of emotion, just a sense of emptiness, of being hollow. I didn’t drive for three years after that.
The lay-by flashes by, the sun dazzling. Kit’s voice is singing along to ‘Have a Nice Day’ by the Stereophonics on the radio. I look up at him, surrounded by sunlight. This is not a man who is about to fake his own death. This is a man high on life, filled with optimism.
I turn my head. The red backpack is sitting on the back seat. The backpack that I last saw damaged by the sea, ripped, torn, his belongings still inside. I push the thought away, my foot pressing onto the brake, shifting gears and slowing down. I indicate right, ready to turn into the car park where this car was left stranded.
He glances up, his eyes glazed from staring at the screen. ‘Don’t park here.’ I turn to him, questioning. ‘There’s a better one down the road, free. This one gets busy and charges.’
So why did you use this one, Kit?
‘Oh, I thought we used this one the last time we came?’ I ask, all nonchalance.
‘Did we? Huh.’ He shrugs his shoulders, closes down his laptop and begins scrolling through his phone.
I click off the indicator and continue down the road, the apparition of this car sitting in the middle of the car park fading away.
‘This one,’ he says, his focus back on the phone, his eyes narrowed in concentration. I pull into a small car park filled with potholes and two skips in the corner, but it faces the sea.
We get out, and Kit opens the back door, pulling out his backpack and hitching it on his back as I walk to the edge and look out over the horizon. The cliff face falls beneath us. The sea is calm, the sun catching a ride on the waves, green hills surrounding the coastline.
In the weeks and months that follow, I will be back here. The sea will be hungry, angry, tossing and throwing my emotions around like a game of catch. But today, it is my friend; today it hasn’t grabbed Kit’s body and pulled it beneath. It hasn’t crashed him against the rocks; it isn’t hindering the life rescue boats with high waves and strong currents.
He drops my backpack to the ground, standing behind me, arms wrapped around my body, his chin on my shoulder. His hair is fluttering in the wind, tickling the side of my neck.
‘I’ve always loved this view,’ he says.
‘It’s beautiful.’
He laughs and I realise he’s looking at me. I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the heat rising inside – the way a compliment from Kit always made me feel. Like I’m the only person in the world that he can see.
Why did you go?
‘Let’s get moving.’ He lifts my backpack onto my shoulders, adjusts the straps and takes my hand. ‘I thought we’d take the St David’s walk? It’s about three hours all in?’
‘Sure, is that…’ I clear my throat. ‘Is that where you planned to go on Friday?’ I hold my breath.
‘Yeah. It’s a nice length and there’s a good descent down to the caves if you fancy it?’
Of course there would be abseiling; of course there would be caves. This is life with Kit. A hike is never just a hike.
‘Lead on, Macduff.’
I say the words, but they come with a puncture wound. The air feels like its escaping my lungs. I said that to Mum just a few days ago as I was about to marry James .
I feel the push and pull between my love of Kit and being with him and the loss of not being with James.
‘You OK?’ he asks as we start walking. I’m lost in my thoughts, as I follow him, the path narrowing. He’s humming, happy, his footing secure and determined. My eyes are drawn to his backpack, and I think of the pockets that had been torn, the contents saturated: his waterproof trousers, his wallet, his water bottle. All of the things he would need to survive. Even his round tin of travel sweets was in there. The tin had been dented, the contents still inside, the boiled sweets powdered with icing sugar. Kit never went anywhere without them. He’d told me that his mum used to buy them from the petrol station when they were young, told him they’d stop his travel sickness. It was a lie, of course, but Kit always bought the same ones. I’d asked James about them. He said Kit didn’t get travel sick, but they were Kit’s special sweets. James could make do with a bag of humbugs. He’s told me this with indifference, as if this fact alone described his mother’s feelings for them both.
The path widens, and Kit takes my hand in his again. His thoughts are somewhere else. The path we are following is popular. We pass dog walkers; we pass joggers. I have walked this route before – not with Kit but with James in the weeks that passed after he left.
‘Not that way,’ Kit says. I stop in my tracks. He winks and takes my hand. Ahead of us is a tall cliff face, a dead end.
‘That’s a dead end,’ I say looking at the cliff face rising up above us. At the top the greenery is folding over the edge like icing dripping off a cake.
‘Oh ye of little faith,’ he says grinning. He leads me towards the cliff face, crouches down and lies on his stomach. There is a small break between the rocks, a triangle of light about the size of a toddler. He takes off his backpack and shoves it through the small gap.
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’
He lies on his stomach, and begins shuffling forwards.
‘I can’t fit through there!’
‘Of course you can!’ he throws over his shoulder, his eyes alight, adrenaline already making him spark. ‘You’re half my size. It’ll be worth it, I promise. Do you trust me?’
Do I? After everything I know about him now? No, no I don’t, but the 2016 version of me trusts him with my life.
‘Yes,’ I say, the lie swallowed by the wind picking up around us.