Helena did not speak for the entire journey to their new home. For the most part, she was pretending to be asleep, her legs tucked beneath her in the back seat of the car, blanking out her equally silent parents. She was daydreaming about Matthew�s hands on her body, the new sensations she had discovered during the night on the island, and so she did not notice the steady increase in the number of buildings, and their proximity to the road. There were no lakes or mountains here, and it hit her suddenly that they really weren�t going back.

I was overwhelmed by this feeling that something so incredibly important had happened to me; so significant, but so unfinished. Even before I started the new school, I felt different. And then, from the moment they heard my northern accent -

Which you�ve lost.

Survival. Part of my protective coating. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of their food was still on their plates, but the wine bottle was empty, and Matthew looked similarly drained, of all the memories he had never articulated.

Helena shook her head as if to clear it. It was the boat, she said slowly. We leapt apart when we heard the door go, so sudden and guilty, and you kicked over a pile of oars, which knocked the winch. Thank goodness it was the fibreglass boat, and it didn�t have far to fall. One of the wooden ones might have killed you.

I shrieked, and Sally, who had walked in on us, slapped me, which on reflection was a bit unnecessary� I wasn�t hysterical, I was just frightened� We moved the boat, and you were lying so still that in my panic I thought you were dead. She sent me for Doctor Roydhouse, and I ran all the way into the village, to his house, so I was a wreck when I got there, could barely speak� Read the rest of this entry »

Something all men have to learn, sooner or later, is not to take their woman for granted. I never realised that it would hurt so much to lose you, because I never thought that I would. You were always there, you always had been; I can�t remember the time before we were friends. It was just like having a little sister, but it was so much more, because we didn�t fight with each other, and we didn�t have any friends who were more important than each other, and protecting you from school bullies and bossing you around made me feel like a man, even when I was eleven and you were nine.

I�m sorry I was so miserable with you the other day, up at the house; I was angry with myself for being unable to resist coming to see you. And with you, for having been here for days without trying to see me. It seems incredible that you don�t remember the same things as me. With Kate around, it�s been impossible to forget you.

I know for certain that if you had left a year earlier, I would have got over it. I would only have missed the you that I had known, and not the person you would have grown up to be; and I wouldn�t have regretted the way my world would have been so different if you had stayed. Not many people find themselves, a lifetime later, face to face with the path they might have taken.

You were my shadow and my pet and my playmate, for how many years, seven? I was married to Emma for nearly twice that long, and of course I could never, ever mention your name to her, but� well, that�s not this story. I�m sorry if I ramble on a bit, but I�ve never said any of this to anyone before, and as you can probably tell, I�ve thought about it a lot.

I don�t know why you were always such a soft target for the bullies. I remember once you taking my detention with me, because you didn�t want to go home on the bus on your own. It didn�t do you any favours, having me to hide behind, because you just got it worse when I wasn�t there, never learned to stand up for yourself. They were jealous. I told you that, but you never believed me. It must have been so hard for you when you left, maybe that�s why you�ve forgotten; you just don�t want to remember. Or you�ve been to so many new places, seen things, met people, and weren�t stuck with the same landscape every single day of your life, places that constantly remind me of you. Your horizons are so broad now, that I must be nothing but a dot, if I feature at all. Read the rest of this entry »

The barometer in the hall had an I told you so look on its old glass face, and the needle made no response when Helena tapped at it. The snow had escalated into a blizzard, and appeared to be here to stay. She dragged the sofa into the bay window so that she could watch it, and settled down with a pot of tea and a book. After a while, she had to go and get blankets, because the uncovered glass of the windowpane seemed to pull the cold air into the room.

She did not mind being holed up, safe in her nest, with the storm going on around her, even though there were moments when the wind screeched down the chimney, splattering the carpet with wet soot. When it got dark, which was early, she moved back to the hearth and closed the shutters.

In the night, the cold woke her up, and forced her back downstairs to make a bed by the fire. She tucked her pyjamas into her boots and pulled on a coat over her jumper and dressing gown, and went outside to get some coal. There wasn�t very much left, which concerned her somewhat; the coalman might not be able to get up the drive, if it was deeply snowed over. Read the rest of this entry »

In the south there was a dense fog, and the motorways were clogged with cautious drivers, peering into the mist and steering by the lights of the car in front. As Helena drove away from Bradford and into the Yorkshire Dales, the fog lifted into the sky, and hung there like tattered curtains, grey with centuries-old dust. Her CDs were frequently interrupted by severe weather warnings, exhorting people not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary.

She considered it absolutely necessary to travel, and had been following motorway signs for The North as if they were her personal guides and guardians. Read the rest of this entry »