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� Helena�s memory was unrolling for her like a film, the colours over-exposed by the summer sun, and the dialogue muffled by the years of successfully forgetting about it all. Now she could hear the diesel rattle of the doctor�s car, feel the sticky leather of the seat beneath her thighs. He pulled up at the boatyard and pushed past her into the shed, where Matthew had still not come round. Helena heard him mutter to Sally that there was nothing broken, but that he would need to get him to Casualty.
He and Sally lifted you into the back of the car, and that was the last time I saw you. She sent me home, but I couldn�t bear to go indoors or face mum and dad. I hid in the gardens of the Hall for as long as I dared, trying to calm down and sort myself out. I didn�t know how I could speak to anyone, when I felt so new and strange inside, but at the same time so frightened and worried about you. I didn�t go in until I got cold, and wanted food� I think we need some more wine.
The waiter had taken away their plates, and the two of them were left discreetly alone in their dimly-lighted corner of the dining room. In other circumstances, Helena might have found been able to discern some romance in the setting, but now she could not tell if the compelling urge she felt to reach out and touch Matthew�s hand was just an echo of her younger self, or the inevitable result of sharing a bottle of wine with a man, in the cosy warmth of the hotel, with a snowstorm swirling outside. She pushed the urge away forcibly. If you were so much in love with me, Matthew, how on earth did you suddenly find yourself with a wife and child? It can�t have happened that long after I left.
Leaning back in his chair, Matthew did not answer. He rubbed at his neck as though he might be able to release the tension that wrapped his body. Re-living the past in order to refresh Helena�s memory was not releasing him from it, certainly; it was only revealing further complications and difficulties that were bound to invade his delicately balanced world. He reached for his wineglass. I don�t think you have finished filling in the part where you abandon me with such ease that you don�t even bother to check that I�m still alive, he said. And never wrote to me, so I could never find out where you were.
I did write, Helena said, frowning, remembering. I wrote so much. I filled hundreds of pages with longing for you. I never posted any of it, though. The more I wrote, the more hopeless it seemed. It was made very clear to me that we wouldn�t be coming back, and that I was too young to understand why. I did know you were still alive, though.
I was in so much trouble when I went home. At first I thought they must know what we�d done, because mum looked grey and stricken, and dad yelled at me to know where I�d been all this time. Then they yelled at each other for a bit, which I refused to stay and listen to again. I�d heard it all so many times, and they really didn�t need an audience.
Helena had her foot on the bottom step, intending to escape to her room and come back later in search of something to eat, after her dad had blustered himself out, and her mum was at the stage of sniffing noisily in the kitchen.
Get back here, Will Sumner growled. There�s something we need to talk to you about.
Helena turned slowly and bravely cast a slightly insolent look at her father. What?
She had blown her chance of having the news broken to her gently, if it could ever be gentle to learn at a day�s notice that they were moving hundreds of miles south, with no plans to return. She sat down on the stairs, shaking her head, refusing to believe. Mum, why?
She realised that the grim look on her mother�s face was not a reaction to any new horror that Helena might have caused, but a new determination, which gave her no hope at all of appeal. Because your father and I can no longer live together in this village. We need a fresh start, if we�re going to have any hope of keeping this family together.
But� tomorrow? How can we be going tomorrow? Why haven�t you told me before?
We didn�t want to spoil your summer holiday, love. We�ve been waiting for the new house to be ready. We would have told you yesterday, but you camped out last night and I didn�t see you.
Helena stood up. I�m not going, she announced. I can�t leave… my, my friends� you can�t make me. She was finding it very hard to control her breathing, and she could feel her cheeks burning red.
Don�t be silly, love. Most of your stuff is packed. Do you want me to come and help with the rest? Her mother took a step towards the staircase.
No! I�m not going! Helena turned and ran up the stairs to her room, slamming the door and sliding the brass bolt across. She fell face down on her old metal bed and felt real, frightening hysteria welling up inside her, taking over her body so that she panicked and screamed, slamming her fists into the mattress. She felt herself divide in two, a part detaching from the rest, watching coolly as the remaining part of her howled wordlessly, observed her heart beating painfully inside the body that sobbed on the bed for hours.
Much later, her mother tapped at the door, waking Helena from a foggy doze; and wheedled her way into the room with a sandwich and a glass of milk. She had obviously made up her mind to speak to her daughter as an adult, and was now wearing a hopeful woman-to-woman expression. She sat beside Helena on the bed, and they leaned against the wall, each unable to meet the other�s eye. I�m sorry you�re so upset, she began, braving the sardonic glance that Helena shot her. It�s reached the stage where we had to take action, you see. Your father� I told him that I was going to leave, with you, if he didn�t want to come with me.
Why would you do that? Helena asked sullenly, ignoring the years of shouting and slamming doors that she had witnessed.
Lily Sumner tried again. Your father� he has been having an affair. He�
Helena remembered that stilted sentence for the rest of her life, but at the time it sounded just like a line from a bad novel, too pathetically weak to express the whole story behind it, and the consequences that she was only just starting to realise.
He has had lots of affairs, in fact. I think. They talk about it in the village. They talk about me, and I just can�t� She started to cry again, twisting her fingers as though that would help her pull herself together.
There was a long period of quiet, during which Helena wished her mother would go away, so that she could try to climb out of her window and walk round the lake to Matthew�s house, and find out if he was alright. So why don�t you leave him? she asked eventually, to break the discomfiting silence.
One day, you�ll understand what it means to love someone. Just be thankful that you�re still too young, Lily said.
Helena sighed with heavy exasperation. There was an accident at the boat landing today, she said quietly. Matthew had to go to hospital.
What happened? her mother was not at all interested.
The new boat fell off the winch and hit him. Mum, please don�t make me go away without knowing if he�s alright? She sold her co-operation much too cheaply, because she recognised that her choices were severely limited. The detached part of herself still railed against her weak inability to fight such a malevolent fate, but without Matthew, she did not know how to start fighting. And that was the beginning of being without Matthew.