Nadine’s wrists were unscarred that summer in Monsheelagh. Two years later, when they met again, he saw what she had done to herself. Her skin was still rippled but the healing had begun, she said. She told him about the slow erosion of self-confidence. The turning inwards towards self-hatred. She had been bullied, she said, shame written large on her face. How painful it must be to sink a blade into one’s flesh, not once but many times, he had thought. He had been bullied for a while when he was twelve but he fought the boy responsible, bleeding his nose and closing one of his eyes. His own injuries were worse, a broken rib and a gash on his forehead where the boy struck him with a stone. They were both suspended for a week. The bullying never occurred again. Physical action was a male response. Girls, it seemed, suffered internally and created toxic wounds that never healed.

Her scars had disappeared or, perhaps, he had simply stopped noticing them. She never named the girl who had bullied her but it was obvious that Karin was responsible. He remembered what she had said the last time they were together. She made my life hell. But she wasn’t responsible for how I dealt with it. That was something I did all by myself.

‘I don’t know what motivates you.’ He was unable to take his eyes from the plum-coloured stain on the rim of Karin’s glass. ‘Is your crazy jealousy reserved just for me and Nadine or did you give the same treatment to the other unfortunate guys who walked out on you?’

‘No one has ever walked out on me,’ she replied. ‘No one. As for jealousy… crazy or otherwise. Check the mote in your own eye. What do you think Nadine was doing when she was shacked up in Alaska with the boat guy?’

‘If you don’t stop – ’

‘Don’t… don’t!’ Her sharp exclamation attracted attention and two women sitting at a nearby table glanced curiously across at them. ‘Let me tell you about don’t. You don’t accuse me of being possessive when you’ve wanted to possess me from the first time we met. You don’t take from me as you’ve done then shrug me aside like a piece of discarded junk.’

‘We took from each other.’

‘No.’ Her expression hardened. ‘You took. I gave.’

‘I never asked – ’

‘You never had to. I knew what you wanted and I gave willingly.’

‘What were you, Karin?’ he demanded. ‘A sacrifice?’

‘I knew your mind, Jake. The violence within.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘I loved you and so I was willing to indulge your rape fantasies. Who did you want to hurt when we were together? Was it your wife who walked out on you? Your dominatrix mother? Did you want to rip that body stocking from your sluttish daughter? Which of them were you thinking about when you fucked me?’

‘Stop.’ Buffeted by her fury he was filled with a sudden urge to put his hands on her throat, to squeeze until her demanding eyes dulled and closed. ‘I refuse to continue this conversation.’

‘You started this conversation but I intend to finish it.’ She arched her head back and exposed her throat. The air was heavy with her scent. A miasma, cloying his nostrils. ‘Go on, do it. I’m inside your mind, Jake. I know you better than you know yourself.’

She was mad, he realised. Not in the sense that he had always imagined madness to be, irrational, erratic, violent, dazed, helpless. This was something different, something controlled and hidden behind a thin veneer of normality.

‘You’re right, Karin,’ he replied. ‘That’s exactly what I want to do. But, unlike you, I have the self-control to walk away and accept when a relationship like ours is over.’

‘It’s over when I say so.’ She swayed towards him and marked his cheek with the same glossy smear that stained the glass. ‘We’ve said things we’ll both regret when we’re apart. But we’ll forgive each other in time… like all lovers do.’ She rubbed the lipstick stain on her finger then licked it. The flick of her tongue, the glisten of saliva, those hot, sultry nights.

‘We’re not lovers,’ he said. ‘We never were. Whatever we had between us is finished. Don’t come near me or my family again.’

Nothing moved in her face, no twitch or pout, even her eyelashes seemed suspended. She opened her handbag and removed her mobile phone.

‘Remember the texts,’ she said. ‘New York calling. You promised to love me forever.’ She held the phone in front of her. The selfie was taken before he realised what she was doing. She snapped her handbag closed and stood up. ‘You should never have broken your promise.’

Men turned their heads to watch as her high heels clicked against the marble tiles, an arch of blue visible on the heel and sole of her shoe A Louboutin design, Nadine told him when he asked about that flash of red. He had laughed over what he had seen as a design absurdity but now, as Karin flaunted her signature colour, bile rose in his throat and soured his mouth.

Chapter 47

Nadine

Thanks to Stuart, I’m a woman with means. Ali and the twins can once again concentrate full time on their careers and Brian, my self-sufficient son… perhaps a new kiln. Our outstanding bank debts can be settled. Freedom, which I so avidly pursued, is mine at last. I can turn in any direction I like and walk towards a new future. But the shadows will come with me. No amount of money can cast a light on them. The only way they can be vanquished is to lose my memory and begin again… shriven.

The configuration of shipping containers – painted in bright, gaudy colours and erected on a once-disused London dockland site – look as if they could topple into the Thames on a high wind. But they are solidly balanced on supports with walkways, balconies, glass-fronted entrances and portholes cut into the steel that serve as windows.

Aurora is working in her angel shop. A week has passed since our meeting in the café but she’s not surprised to see me. One of the advantages of being a psychic, I guess. She’s a carver of angels, fluttery little creatures with serene expressions and translucent wings. All their accoutrements – blessings, pendants, chimes, crystals, incense and whatever it takes to make the days bearable – adorn the shelves but the angels are her own creation. Her hands are large and red-rough yet dexterous when it comes to making delicate things. She locks the shop and introduces me to her neighbours. One woman runs a fashion design studio, another makes hats, there’s a bearded poet, a sculpture and a silversmith. Most of them have a second container where they live. Before I leave I’ve arranged to rented one for my studio and a second one for my home.

I return to Aurora’s angel shop to tell her we’ll be neighbours. Before I realise what she’s about to do she takes both my hands in hers. Heat runs along my arms when she touches my wrists with her broad fingers.

‘Your mother is still a very strong presence,’ she says. ‘She asks me to tell you that the blade is blunt. You’ve healed.’

The blade is blunt… a clever guess. But Aurora’s awareness is unsettling. She makes me think of things I’d rather ignore. I imagine Karin on the stairs of Sea Aster, climbing higher into the attic, touching our possessions, rummaging in bags and boxes, building a picture of the lives we discarded when we moved to Sea Aster. What else has she done? Jake hesitated when I asked and fobbed me off. He’s not telling me the full truth. Do I want to know it? This is my chance to move on. To rebuild the house of cards that collapsed so savagely around us. My scars barely mar the surface of my skin but they are still capable of cutting open the artery of memory.

Karin Moylan always knew how to cut deep. The gift she gave me for my sixteenth birthday was wrapped in silver foil and emblazoned with red love hearts. A square box sitting on my desk with a tag attached. Impossible to miss when I entered the classroom. To a kool babe on her 16th birthday. XXXX Annonimus Admiror was written on the gift tag. The writing was unfamiliar, blocky misspelled letters. I looked across at Alan O’Neill. He’d told Jenny he liked me, had asked her to act as our go-between. His spelling was notorious. Could he have laid it on my desk? An open declaration of intent?