style="font-size:15px;"> The chair’s wheeled feet creak and groan as I drag it over the concreted yard and pull at the barn door. It’s the first time I’ve been inside since I came back. Mum hated this building. I did too.
I brace myself as the barn door swings open, but the row of steel cages still makes me catch my breath. Dad’s decision to allow the local hunt to house some of their dogs here caused the biggest argument I can ever remember my parents having. Mum, an out-and-out city girl who’d met Dad at a wedding, was horrified at the idea.
‘Fox hunting!’ she screamed as I perched at the top of the stairs in my pyjamas. ‘I’m not supporting fox hunting.’
‘No one’s saying you have to support it. You’re not going to be shoved onto a horse and made to blow a bloody horn. We’ll just be looking after the dogs. Geoffrey needs somewhere to keep them for a little—’
‘I don’t want animal rights protesters throwing paint at our car and shouting and blowing whistles outside our house. We’ve got a thirteen-year-old daughter, Steve. What if they set fire to our house like they did to Geoff’s barn?’
‘That’s not going to happen, and anyway, there’s no proof that they burned—’
‘Of course it was them. It was the same people who threw red paint all over William’s haulage trucks last year. If it was some random arsonist, why wait until the dogs were on a hunt?’
‘Oh, for god’s sake. No one’s going to burn the barn down or hurt Louise. Anyway, it’s just for a few months, until Geoff’s barn is rebuilt. You were the one who said we need to make more of an effort to be part of the community and it’s not like we’re doing anything with it.’
‘It’s our barn. We don’t have to—’
‘Whose barn is it?’
The cold silence that followed made me shiver.
‘I knew you’d do this,’ my mother said tightly. ‘Lay down the law when it suits you.’
‘I did buy the house, Maggie.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
I’d long stopped asking my parents why they weren’t married. They both claimed that they didn’t need a piece of paper and an expensive wedding to prove how much they loved each other, but I’d once heard my mum confess to a friend that she was sad she’d never got to have her big day.
When Mum and Dad split up, she told him that he should sell the house so she could buy somewhere for me and her to live. Dad said he wasn’t going anywhere and if she was that worried about me living somewhere nice she should leave me behind. Mum said she’d rather bring me up in a hovel.
The sound of their argument was still ringing in my ears as I trudged down the stone steps that led to the dojo and opened the door. Mike was sorting the pads and gloves in the corner of the room. He took one look at me and asked what was wrong. The concern in his voice made me burst into tears. My parents were splitting up. It was the end of my world.
He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed the top of my arm. His palm wasn’t touching the soft material of my gi for more than a couple of seconds but the warmth of his touch remained—
A violent shiver courses through me. The sun has disappeared and the sky is thick with heavy, black rain clouds so, mustering all the energy I have left, I drag the armchair into the barn. The cages are even bigger and more imposing than I remember. They’re tall enough for a man to stand up in and almost as wide, with huge great padlocks hanging from the doors. They look like somewhere to house prisoners of war, not animals. The musky, yeasty smell of dogs is long gone but the air is rich with the sour, musty scent of sawdust, hay and ammonia.
When I reach the other side of the barn, I abandon the armchair, push open the door and peer outside. Rain is bouncing off the tarmac and puddling in the cracks. The field at the end of the yard is already flooded where it dips down into the lake. Much more of this rain and the roads will flood too. I’d be cut off from the world and no one other than my solicitor and a handful of friends in London know that I’m here.
A loud, angry, insistent sound cuts through the soft pattering of the rain.
It’s a car horn.
Mike is here.
I spot the white transit van through the gap between the house and the garage as I run across the lawn. The van windows are misty with condensation and the windscreen wipers are sweeping back and forth. My hair is stuck to my cheeks, my hoody is clinging to my back and my trainers are caked in mud. I slow my pace as I reach the house and duck under the eaves, out of sight of the van. My chest is tight and I’ve got pins and needles in both of my arms. I have never, ever felt more scared in my life. Why did I think this was a good idea? I’ve got no mobile signal, no neighbours and no way of calling for help. Mike never threatened me, but I know how dangerous he can be. If anything happened to me, it would be days before anyone sounded the alarm. But why would he turn on me? When the police arrested him, he was still in love with me. I didn’t testify against him. And he has no idea that I’m the one who reported him to the police for kissing Chloe.
The horn sounds again, making me jump. There’s no way Mike could have seen me. I could just stay here, out of sight, until he gives up and drives away. I don’t have to do this.
But what about Chloe? a small voice whispers at the back of my brain. Mike will continue to abuse her. If she’s not already broken, she soon will be. Could you live with that, knowing you could have stopped it?
I tried. I rang the police. I visited her parents. I spoke to her. Even if I do talk to Mike there’s no guarantee anything I say will make a difference.
You wanted to do this. You wanted to confront him, to make him face up to what he did to you. You wanted him to know how much his ‘love’ fucked up your life. That’s why you moved up here, Lou. To exorcise your demons. If you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life screwing up relationships with decent men like Ben. Just get it over and done with.
I step back into the rain, through the gap between the house and garage, and walk up to the van. The driver side window opens slowly. An elbow appears, swiftly followed by a face.
‘Milly Dawson?’
‘Mike.’
I brace myself, waiting for his eyebrows to raise and his jaw to drop. He didn’t react on the phone when I gave him my address but he had to recognise the house as he drove up the track. And he has to know who I am.
But there’s no spark of recognition in his eyes as they flit over my face.
It’s the strangest sensation, staring into the eyes of the man I once loved and feared in equal measure. It’s him and yet it’s not him. His face, once so familiar, has been stolen by a much older man. There’s a sagginess to his jawline that wasn’t there before and a hollowing beneath his
