When the water is colder than I can bear, I step out and dry myself. The steam has already run away and I’m shocked when I see my own reflection in the bathroom mirror; red fingerprints are clearly visible around my white neck. The bruises I have on the inside are less recent, but just as easy to see if you know how to look.
I open the bathroom door and hear that Paul is downstairs. Then I smell the fire and it almost makes me gag. I tread carefully over a carpet of lies, trying not to disturb them. Once I’m in the bedroom I pull on a polo-neck jumper and some comfy jogging bottoms before rushing downstairs to the front room.
‘There you are,’ says Paul. ‘Drink?’
‘Is it safe?’
‘The drink?’
‘The fire. Doesn’t it need to be swept before we use it?’
‘It’s fine, I thought it would be cosy, given it’s Christmas Eve.’
The room is lit by the Christmas tree and the flames. He’s trying to do a nice thing, but he’s got it so wrong. I don’t need to say anything, he reads the thoughts on my face.
‘Shit, I’m sorry, it probably makes you think of . . . I’m sorry, I’m an idiot.’
‘No, it’s fine, it’ll just take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’
He takes the bottle of red that Edward had opened and tops up the wine glasses. I don’t want to touch them or drink it but I make myself play along. There is so much to say and yet I’m struggling to find any words willing to come out.
‘Here’s to you and the new book, congratulations,’ I manage, clinking my glass with his.
‘Here’s to us,’ he says and kisses me on the cheek. I take a tiny sip and watch as he swallows half his glass. We sit in silence for a while, just staring at the flames. Funny how the same thing can have a different meaning for different people. I wish he knew about the baby. He’ll think it’s some kind of miracle. I suppose in a way it is. I can’t tell him tonight now, too much has happened today. I want to create a memory that isn’t torn before it’s made. I reach for Paul’s hand at the same time as he reaches for his laptop.
‘So, Laura emailed her initial thoughts for the tour. It’s going to be amazing. New York, London, obviously, Paris, Berlin. Thank God it’s just the two of us, we’d never be able to go if we were tied down.’
My fantasy future pops like a child’s bubble in the wind, cautiously floating along one minute, then obliterated the next. My words retreat and I offer a smile instead. Paul closes the laptop and puts it on the table, taking another sip of his drink. I stare at the flames dancing in the fireplace. They look wild and disobedient and make me want to run from the room.
‘So do you still keep a diary now?’ he asks.
‘What? No.’
He reaches down the side of the sofa, a mischievous smile creeping across his face. ‘Maybe we should read a little bit, just for fun?’
I see the diary in his hands, the familiar swirl of 1992 on its cover, and I turn cold despite the heat. ‘You said you’d put them back.’
He mistakes my tone for playful, he thinks this is a game. ‘Just one entry, go on.’
‘I said, no.’ My voice is louder than I meant it to be and I realise I’m standing. His face changes and he holds the diary out for me to take. I snatch it like a child and hold it to my chest before sitting back down. Paul is staring straight at me but I can’t look away from the fire, I’m scared of what might happen if I do.
‘Why did you keep them if they upset you so much?’ he asks.
I’ve spoiled the evening now and I hate myself for it. I ruin everything. My face feels hot and the flames look bigger to me somehow, as though it’s only a matter of time before they reach out and burn what I’ve got left.
‘I didn’t. I found them in the attic at Mum and Dad’s when I was clearing the house out last year.’ Paul puts his empty glass down on the coffee table, next to the one I’ve barely touched. I close my eyes so I can’t see the flames, but I can still hear their screams.
‘I thought we didn’t have any secrets?’ he says.
‘We don’t. They’re not my secrets. The diaries belong to Claire.’
Now
New Year’s Eve, 2016
My sister wasn’t always my sister, she used to be my best friend. She always called me Taylor back then, almost everyone called me by my surname because that’s what I preferred. Amber always sounded like second best to me, like a traffic light. Red, Amber, Green. Red for stop, green for go, but Amber meant very little at all, it was insignificant, just like me. I was convinced my name was the reason the kids at school didn’t like me, they didn’t call me Amber, they called me other names instead. It drove my parents mad at first, they tried to convince me that Amber was a precious stone, but I knew I wasn’t precious. I wouldn’t respond to anything other than Taylor for weeks, so in the end they called me that too. Things only changed when I got married. Taylor got rubbed out, replaced by Reynolds. They started calling me Amber again after that and it felt like I was someone new.
I remember my mum getting off the phone and telling me I’d been invited to stay at Claire’s house one last time before she moved. I didn’t want to go, I was cross that she was leaving, but Mum said I should, said it was the right thing to do. She was wrong. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and I’ve been paying for it ever since.
Claire’s mum got us a pizza for our dinner that night, she wasn’t much of a cook. I can still remember Claire screaming at her that I didn’t like pineapple, she was terrifying when she got like that, out of control. I never spoke to my parents the way she did and always found it odd how they just let her get away with so much. Her dad wasn’t around very often, he liked to gamble away what little money they had and was always losing jobs as well as bets. Her mum had a bit of a drinking problem and always seemed so sad and tired as though life had defeated her. She gave up on Claire as well as life in the end and it made me realise that people who do nothing are just as dangerous as those who do.
Claire wasn’t popular at school back then, she was an angry child, angry at the world and almost everyone in it. They’d moved a lot and she got herself into trouble at nearly all of the schools she attended. She was very clever. Too clever. It was like she was weary of most people as soon as she met them, as though she could instantly see who and what they were and was perpetually disappointed. She preferred reading stories to real life, so that some of her best friends were in the pages of books. I was her only real friend. She got jealous if I even spoke about anyone else, so I learned not to.