if they ever had to break it to them that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be living together any more.
‘Isla?’ Sav whispered it gently as he tiptoed into the bedroom and Isla recognized the low throaty, unvoiced question.
At first, when Casey had died, their love life had been put on hold. They had clung to each other through the long dark nights more out of fear than intimacy, guilt impinging on guilt whenever passion had taken over, as if somehow it had been wrong to feel pleasure, to indulge each other. But as their marriage had dissolved around them as the communication gates had slammed firmly closed, still, surprisingly perhaps, the passion had remained, the huge sexual attraction that had sparked on contact all those years ago still burning brightly, the one shining light in their marriage apart from the twins. It was the only time Sav let his guard down, the sweet, sweet release of their lovemaking almost addictive in its nature, everything else temporarily cast aside as passion took over.
But not tonight.
Yes, she was going to give her marriage all she had, but the physical side of it wasn’t the issue. The physical side of it was the only bit that didn’t need rescuing.
‘Isla.’ He said it again, and when she didn’t answer, Sav moved into the en suite and she lay there staring at his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, watching as Sav quietly undressed then leant over the sink to brush his teeth, the vivid raised scar on his back so red and angry it was easy to make out even from this distance.
How she longed to touch it, longed to run gentle fingers over it, to ask him how much it hurt, wincing as she imagined the gnarled metal from the car wreckage stabbing into his beautiful back, the intricate operation to remove it.
Closing her eyes as the light flicked off, she concentrated on keeping her breathing even, willed her hammering heart to slow down as he came across the room and pulled the sheet back, felt the indentation of the mattress as he climbed in. She waited for him to roll over, to turn his back to her, only he didn’t. This time a strong arm reached out in the darkness, his body spooning in beside her, his face burying itself in her hair and inhaling the unfamiliar citrus scent of the hairdresser’s shampoo. She could feel his arousal nudging into the backs of her thighs, his hand dusting over the curve of her bottom. She could feel the stirring of her own arousal somewhere deep inside, her body responding just as it always did, her nipples jutting to attention at the mere suggestion of his touch. And it hurt, physically hurt, not to respond, to lie there feigning sleep when every nerve, every pore screamed for his touch, when her mind begged for the balmy oblivion only Sav could bring. But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t make love to him given where she’d been today.
Couldn’t pretend any more, even for a little while, that everything was OK.
‘YOU look nice, Mum!’ Luke, as blond and as sunny-natured as his mother had once been, smiled up from the table as Isla poured milk over his cereal, lisping the words through the huge gap where his four front teeth used to be.
‘It’s my new uniform,’ Isla answered, glancing down at the navy trousers and pale pink polo top, a far cry from the starched white dress that had been the order of the day seven years ago, the same white dress she’d worn on her occasional casual shift to keep her nursing registration up to date. And even though Luke was completely and utterly biased and thought that his mother, no matter how she looked, was absolutely gorgeous, this morning Isla half agreed with him.
She felt nice.
OK, the blonde silk curtain hadn’t survived her evening run and two showers, but she’d piled it high in a ponytail on her head, added a dash of rouge to her pale cheeks and, given it was her first day, had gone the whole hog and put on mascara and a slick of pale lipstick. The image that had greeted her when she’d stared in the mirror had for once been pleasing.
She looked thirty.
OK, most thirty-year-olds didn’t want to look thirty, but for Isla it was as if she’d knocked off a decade in one hit. The agony of the past months had left their mark. Her natural good looks seemed to have faded into the shadowy greys of grief—not that it had even entered her head as appearances were way down on her list of priorities when it was an effort just to breathe, a physical effort to prepare the twins’ lunches, to paint on a smile when she got up in the morning, the endless hours between four and seven when her grief was put on hold to give the twins the mother they needed. But finally, after all this time, despite the agony of her personal life the proverbial silver lining was if not shining through then glowing on the edges occasionally. The odd spontaneous laugh at something on television, even managing to listen without drifting off when her friend Louise banged on about the war against cellulite. Tiny milestones perhaps, but to Isla they were monumental—and now she was wearing make-up.
‘What do you think, Harry?’
Harry didn’t answer, his dark hair sticking up at all angles. He merely scowled into his cereal and carried on eating, a mini-version of his father in both looks and personality, though fortunately at this young age he was a lot easier to read than the larger version.
‘I’m only going to be working three days a week, Harry,’ Isla said, picking up her coffee cup and taking five minutes she really didn’t have this morning to sit down at the breakfast table. ‘Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays—and even on those days I’ll be finished in plenty of time to pick you up from school.’
‘But you’re not going to take us to school,’ Harry pointed out, managing somehow to load a simple statement with a hefty dose of guilt. Another wave of panic seemed to rush in. If even this small change to his routine was causing his little world to rock, what would it be like if—?
Not now!
Forcibly Isla pushed that thought out of her mind. There was enough to be dealt with this morning, without dwelling on the bigger picture.
‘But Daddy will take you!’ Isla responded in a falsely cheerful voice. ‘Won’t that be fun?’
‘Not if he has to go to work as well,’ Harry said accusingly. ‘Then we’ll have to go to Louise’s.’
‘You like going to Louise’s,’ Isla said, feeling as if her face might crack, and realizing suddenly that the words Daddy and Mummy were no longer in the twins’ vocabulary, another sign if she’d needed one that they were growing up fast.
‘I like going to Louise’s after school,’ Harry said with such a dry edge to his voice that Isla half expected Sav to look up from the cereal bowl. ‘I want you to take me.’
‘Harry, I can’t,’ Isla said firmly. ‘Because I have to work.’
‘Why?’
A perfect mum would have answered the eternal question, Isla thought, closing her eyes in exasperation. A perfect mum would have taken yet another five minutes out of an already rushed morning and come up with some impromptu speech about the merits of a work ethic, that even though they didn’t need the money, sick people still needed nurses and that even though Mummy loved him very much, Mummy had a brain that wasn’t quite stretched enough practising her serve at the local tennis club.
Only this perfect mum seemed to have hung up her apron strings, Isla thought darkly. How could she begin to explain to Harry the real truth? Not just about his parents’ marriage, but the long, lonely days rattling
