Then, as if it had occurred to him that it wouldn’t quite do to shake hands with his own child – as if she were the next of kin of one of his deceased patients – he bent down awkwardly and kissed her on both cheeks. His lips were dry, she remembered.
‘Bien. Alors, au revoir, ma petite,’ he said. Then he got into the car and started the engine. Without looking back, he reversed away over the rutted driveway and set off for the road, his relief seeming almost to propel the car forwards on its own. And she’d been sick, right there and then, on the ground.
Then she saw herself later that same day, sitting on the clifftop with Granny. It had been a beautiful sunny day, the sky a very deep blue, like only the sky at the edge of sea could be. Along with the soup and sandwiches, Granny had produced a Tupperware box of homemade Scotch eggs. Louisa had had to ask what a Scotch egg was, and her grandmother had hooted with laughter.
‘What? You’ve never had a Scotch egg before?’ Louisa had stared down at the ground in mortification. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m sure your father’s never allowed anything as commonplace as a Scotch egg to cross ’is fine French table. Oh, come on now, don’t pout. You’ll spoil your pretty face.’
‘It isn’t nice to make fun of people.’
To her surprise, her grandmother grew serious and nodded gravely. ‘No, I don’t suppose it is, and I apologise. Sensitive little thing, aren’t you? Underneath that tough hide. But I’m not making fun of you, see? Don’t take things to heart so.’
‘And I’m not pretty.’
‘Not conventionally so, maybe not,’ her grandmother had agreed with an honesty that made Louisa look up. ‘Not like your mum was. But you’ve got something of your own. You’ll grow into it, I dare say.’ She smiled. ‘And I can see you didn’t inherit your mum’s easy nature either, did you? Bit of an old head on young shoulders you are, I reckon. Did you really play that trick on your dad’s new squeeze, like he said? Make her walk in that wet cement?’
Louisa nodded.
Her grandmother shook her head and laughed. ‘You’re a caution all right. That’s what my grandmother always used to say to me. Said it was my red hair; reckoned it made me fresh. Yours is a much prettier red than mine ever was, but it’s still red right enough. We’d better stick together, I think, you and me, don’t you? Eat up now. And come and sit by me against this rock where you can see the view. When you look out at that big old sea it makes all your problems seem much smaller. You see if I’m right or not.’
Louisa ate and gazed at the cloudless sky, a jet way overhead scoring it into two perfect halves, and then out across the sea. After a little while she saw that her grandmother was telling the truth. And she’d felt, in that small moment, the first glint of hope that maybe everything in her life might not be completely awful forever and ever after all.
Later that night, she’d crawled into bed with Granny, who’d automatically seemed to know that nothing she could say would help and had simply stroked her back while she cried her heart out, as the little tortoiseshell cat quietly and vigorously licked her new kittens in a cardboard box in the corner, and purred and purred.
Oh Granny, Louisa thought now, listening to Marisa grind her teeth. Wherever would I be without you? Poor Granny, who’d burst into tears the day Louisa’s letter of acceptance for medical school had come. Who’d always tried her best, time and again, to persuade Louisa to give the kids at school a chance – told her that Joshua Duncan seemed like a nice boy, that she ought to take him up on one of his party or cinema invitations, that it was normal for a girl her age to have a boyfriend. It was Granny who’d persuaded her to go to the party in Eastbourne that night. The party where Joshua had spiked her drink, stripped half her clothes off, taken a photograph of her on his mobile phone, then posted it on the internet. Afterwards, Granny had told Louisa she’d never forgive herself as long as she lived.
What Louisa had never told Granny, what she’d never told anyone, was that as well as spiking her drink and taking the half-naked picture of her, Joshua had also sexually assaulted her – that she’d woken up on some bare mattress in a dark room, in pain, his fingers inside her, his jeans around his knees, his erection jabbing into her hip, preparing to do something even worse to her. Somehow she’d managed to find the presence of mind to knee him hard in the groin and run away.
The early morning light was filtering through the giant oak tree on the lawn outside now, projecting swaying silhouettes of its branches onto the wall of her room. Louisa lay staring at them. These memories had always been her most painful ones. And yet… And yet now she could think of them. Not entirely without pain, of course, but without them consuming her, as they’d always done before. And it was because of Robert, she realised. He’d changed everything. Being with him made it all less significant. And it made it a hundred years distant. When she was with him, it was almost as if those memories belonged to someone else.
But if his sight was truly coming back, what then? Oh God, what then? Part of her wanted nothing more than for him to be able to see again. But another part, the selfish part that loved him desperately, lived in dread. What would happen if and when he discovered the truth about her? Just how long did she have?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Coldbrook Hall, September 1916
There was no mistaking it: the improvement, even since first thing that morning was marked. A few days ago, Robert had started to experience a much greater sensation of depth and colour, then yesterday he’d awoken to find that he could make out the window in his room and the sun coming up on the other side, beyond the terrace. Then this morning, he’d woken early, before the sun had even properly risen, and been able to see the morning sky, pink-tinged and washed with purple-grey clouds.
As he’d looked around his room in awe, the blooming light had seemed to sanctify his ordinary possessions – his ewer and basin, his shaving things, the water jug – and make them holy, like the simple objects and tools in Millais’ Christ in the House of his Parents. He’d gone to the window and looked out, and had been able to see the sun’s rays begin to feel their way out from behind the horizon and spread themselves across the Sussex fields. It was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen, as if the Creator himself had prepared this landscape and placed it before him, and him alone, so that he could see that the world, despite everything, was still beautiful and good. He had found himself crying – and filled with happiness and anticipation. Not only because his blindness was lifting. No, because at last he would see her. She was the one who had done this. She had brought him back to life.
Now he was with the ophthalmologist, having his sight tested. ‘And once more, Mr Lovett, if you please,’ the doctor instructed.
‘T, O, Z,’ Robert read.