I laugh. “I was seventeen. I was with a man who excited me, who adored me. I’d got away from my parents, away from the house where everything, everything, reminded me of my dead brother. I didn’t need it to endure or sustain. I just needed it for right then.”

“So what happened?”

It seems as though the room gets darker then. Here we are, at the thing I never say.

“I got pregnant.”

He nods, waiting for me to go on. Part of me wants him to stop me, to ask more questions, but he doesn’t, he just waits. It gets darker still.

“It was too late when I realized to . . . to get rid of it. Of her. It’s what I would have done, had I not been so stupid, so oblivious. The truth is that she wasn’t wanted, by either of us.”

Kamal gets to his feet, goes to the kitchen and comes back with a sheet of kitchen roll for me to wipe my eyes. He hands it to me and sits down. It’s a while before I go on. Kamal sits, just as he used to in our sessions, his eyes on mine, his hands folded in his lap, patient, immobile. It must take the most incredible self-control, that stillness, that passivity; it must be exhausting.

My legs are trembling, my knee jerking as though on a puppeteer’s string. I get to my feet to stop it. I walk to the kitchen door and back again, scratching the palms of my hands.

“We were both so stupid,” I tell him. “We didn’t really even acknowledge what was happening, we just carried on. I didn’t go to see a doctor, I didn’t eat the right things or take supplements, I didn’t do any of the things you’re supposed to. We just carried on living our lives. We didn’t even acknowledge that anything had changed. I got fatter and slower and more tired, we both got irritable and fought all the time, but nothing really changed until she came.”

He lets me cry. While I do so, he moves to the chair nearest mine and sits down at my side so that his knees are almost touching my thigh. He leans forward. He doesn’t touch me, but our bodies are close, I can smell his scent, clean in this dirty room, sharp and astringent.

My voice is a whisper, it doesn’t feel right to say these words out loud. “I had her at home,” I say. “It was stupid, but I had this thing about hospitals at the time, because the last time I’d been in one was when Ben was killed. Plus I hadn’t been for any of the scans. I’d been smoking, drinking a bit, I couldn’t face the lectures. I couldn’t face any of it. I think . . . right up until the end, it just didn’t seem like it was real, like it was actually going to happen.

“Mac had this friend who was a nurse, or who’d done some nursing training or something. She came round, and it was OK. It wasn’t so bad. I mean, it was horrible, of course, painful and frightening, but . . . then there she was. She was very small. I don’t remember exactly what her weight was. That’s terrible, isn’t it?” Kamal doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t move. “She was lovely. She had dark eyes and blond hair. She didn’t cry a lot, she slept well, right from the very beginning. She was good. She was a good girl.” I have to stop there for a moment. “I expected everything to be so hard, but it wasn’t.”

It’s darker still, I’m sure of it, but I look up and Kamal is there, his eyes on mine, his expression soft. He’s listening. He wants me to tell him. My mouth is dry, so I take another sip of wine. It hurts to swallow. “We called her Elizabeth. Libby.” It feels so strange, saying her name out loud after such a long time. “Libby,” I say again, enjoying the feel of her name in my mouth. I want to say it over and over. Kamal reaches out at last and takes my hand in his, his thumb against my wrist, on my pulse.

“One day we had a fight, Mac and I. I don’t remember what it was about. We did that every now and again—little arguments that blew up into big ones, nothing physical, nothing bad like that, but we’d scream at each other and I’d threaten to leave, or he’d just walk out and I wouldn’t see him for a couple of days.

“It was the first time it had happened since she was born—the first time he’d just gone off and left me. She was just a few months old. The roof was leaking. I remember that: the sound of water dripping into buckets in the kitchen. It was freezing cold, the wind driving off the sea; it had been raining for days. I lit a fire in the living room, but it kept going out. I was so tired. I was drinking just to warm up, but it wasn’t working, so I decided to get into the bath. I took Libby in with me, put her on my chest, her head just under my chin.”

The room gets darker and darker until I’m there again, lying in the water, her body pressing against mine, a candle flickering just behind my head. I can hear it guttering, smell the wax, feel the chill of the air around my neck and shoulders. I’m heavy, my body sinking into the warmth. I’m exhausted. And then suddenly the candle is out and I’m cold. Really cold, my teeth chattering in my head, my whole body shaking. The house feels like it’s shaking, too, the wind screaming, tearing at the slates on the roof.

“I fell asleep,” I say, and then I can’t say any more, because I can feel her again, no longer on my chest, her body wedged between my arm and the edge of the tub, her face in the water. We were both so cold.

For a moment, neither of us move. I can hardly bear to look at him, but when I do, he doesn’t recoil from me. He doesn’t say a word. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him, my face against his chest. I breathe him in and I wait to feel different, to feel lighter, to feel better or worse now that there is another living soul who knows. I feel relieved, I think, because I know from his reaction that I have done the right thing. He isn’t angry with me, he doesn’t think I’m a monster. I am safe here, completely safe with him.

I don’t know how long I stay there in his arms, but when I come back to myself, my phone is ringing. I don’t answer it, but a moment later it beeps to alert me that there’s a text. It’s from Scott. Where are you? And seconds after that, the phone starts ringing again. This time it’s Tara. Disentangling myself from Kamal’s embrace, I answer.

“Megan, I don’t know what you’re up to, but you need to call Scott. He’s rung here four times. I told him you’d nipped out to the offie to get some wine, but I don’t think he believed me. He says you’re not picking up your phone.” She sounds pissed off, and I know I should appease her, but I don’t have the energy.

“OK,” I say. “Thanks. I’ll ring him now.”

“Megan—” she says, but I end the call before I can hear another word.

It’s after ten. I’ve been here for more than two hours. I turn off my phone and turn to face Kamal.

“I don’t want to go home,” I say.

He nods, but he doesn’t invite me to stay. Instead he says, “You can come back, if you like. Another time.”

I step forward, closing the gap between our bodies, stand on tiptoe and kiss his lips. He doesn’t pull away from me.

RACHEL

•   •   •

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2013

MORNING

I dreamed last night that I was in the woods, walking by myself. It was dusk, or dawn, I’m not quite sure, but there was someone else there with me. I couldn’t see them, I just knew they were there, gaining on me. I didn’t want to be seen, I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t, my limbs were too heavy, and when I tried to cry out I made no sound at all.

When I wake, white light slips through the slats on the blind. The rain is finally gone, its work done. The room is warm; it smells terrible, rank and sour—I’ve barely left it since Thursday. Outside, I can hear the vacuum purr and whine. Cathy is cleaning. She’ll be going out later; when she does I can venture out. I’m not sure what I will do, I can’t seem to right myself. One more day of drinking, perhaps, and then I’ll get myself straight tomorrow.