The Most Difficult Thing - Charlotte Philby

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of David’s father’s houses. This one is cushioned by lavender fields, the smell clinging to the air. The gravel crunched underfoot as we made our way from the cool air of the Mercedes towards the chateau, through a web of heat. My father-in-law was waiting under the arch of the doorway.

      I watched him, my skin prickling as he swaggered out to meet us, the underarms of his crisp white shirt drenched in sweat. ‘My dear Anna!’

      ‘Clive.’ Had his name stumbled on my lips?

      The panama tipped forward on his head, jarring against my cheek as he leaned in to kiss me.

      ‘Two times, darling, we like to play native around here …’ His voice was booming. ‘And where are my girls? Oh, let me have a good look at them.’

      Clive blew an ostentatious kiss to Maria, and I worked hard to repress my jealousy at the thread that ran between them, the years their families had been connected in a way that would somehow always trump what David and I had. Maria, carrying one of my girls in the car seat, moving so comfortably alongside my husband, our other daughter asleep in his arms.

      Clive took his son by the wrist, and as if reading my need for inclusion, said, ‘Well, I’m glad to see they still have their mother’s looks …’

      Steadily, I let myself picture my daughters. Stella, all cheekbones and arch features, strident from the inside out. Her fall to earth padded by the arrival of her sister, a minute earlier.

      Stella would be fine. Stella was always fine, always the one to take the best from a situation, and make it hers. But Rose. My eyes prickled.

      There was something about Rose that demanded you take care of her, from that first day at the hospital. Even when it was Stella who had needed me. Even though it was Stella who had been the one to give everyone the fright, it was Rose whose cries, when they came, small and unsure, unnerved me. Everything about her was milder, from the delicate features to the way she hung back, always letting her sister wade in ahead, gung-ho. The truth is, I see more than just my own face in Rose, and that is what scares me most.

      ‘Can I interest you in any duty free?’ The flight attendant flashes a fuchsia smile, beside the trolley.

      I am grateful for the interruption.

      ‘Thank you, I’ll take a packet of Marlboro.’

      My fingers are shaking as I hand my card to the outstretched hand before me. Taking the cigarettes, I feel the weight of them in my hands.

      SMOKING SERIOUSLY HARMS YOU AND THOSE AROUND YOU.

      The warning on the cigarette carton goads me. Toxic. Just like you. I hesitate. Not me, I remind myself. This is not my doing.

      I imagine Clive, the outline of his face filling my mind as a jet of stale air seeps through the vents above my head, the thought of him powering me on. A few moments later, I lean my head back, allowing my thoughts, once more, to drift to the girls. It is like that story Maria used to read to them when they couldn’t sleep.

       We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it … We’ve got to go through it.

      I think of the three of them, she and the girls, perched on their bed along the hallway from mine. Sometimes, in those early days when I could still hardly bear to look at my daughters, I would lower myself into the nook of the doorway, listening to her sing or read to them. Closing my eyes, I would imagine their little faces staring up at me instead of her, their tiny fingers resting on mine.

      ‘Anything else?’ The flight attendant’s eyes are fixed on me. Briefly, I imagine myself lurching forward to grab her by the starched collar of her shirt, my voice curdling in my throat as I scream so close to the woman’s face that she can smell the fear on my breath. I can almost hear the words I might say: Turn back, I’ve left my children and I don’t know whether they’re safe.

      But my voice, when it comes, is clipped and courteous, the strains of Queen’s English I’ve assimilated over years of working under Clarissa providing the perfect camouflage for the cracks in my confidence.

      ‘That’s all, thank you.’

      As she turns, I feel tears prick behind the folds of my eyelids, and this time I let them come.

      Closing my eyes, I picture the girls seated next to me on this very flight as they have been so many times before. Their ears immediately clamped shut with padded headphones. The sound of cartoons seeping out from the side. David, as ever, oblivious to the sound.

      I feel my throat close. Letting the tears roll, I turn my face to the window of the plane, giving myself a minute before I wipe my cheeks with the sleeves of my shirt, pushing my back straight upright and forcing the tears to stop.

      Open the box, place the thought into the box. Close the box. Just in time.

      I open my eyes again just as the roar of the engines kicks in.

      ‘Madam, would you mind putting your seat forward for landing?’

      I manage a congenial smile, and swallow.

      ‘Of course.’

       CHAPTER 3

       Anna

       Then

      The newspaper office at South Quay stood at the end of an otherwise barren street, set back from the road, not so much insalubrious as unloved.

      ‘You look smart.’ Meg winked at me after a moment as we made our way up the front steps, a piece of gum rolling lazily against her tongue.

      She was being kind but still I felt my cheeks flush, cursing the cheap suit-jacket and shirt I had hastily bought the moment she told me about the internship she had secured us, picking it out in the shopping centre in Guildford, only to discover on the first day that no one at the paper wore suits to the office apart from the news editors and the receptionists.

      It had been both baffling and also completely believable when Meg announced, within six months of leaving university, that she had secured us both a placement at a national newspaper. That was the kind of power she had in those days, the kind that meant she could do anything and it should never surprise you.

      She had met one of the editors at the members’ club she had been working at since moving to London; she shrugged when I pressed her on how she had got me a placement too.

      ‘But he hasn’t even met me …’ I countered reluctantly, trying to balance my gratitude with the sense that something was not right.

      ‘I sent him your CV.’

      ‘You don’t have my CV.’

      ‘And?’ She grinned, lifting her chin as she pulled on her cigarette, and I left the matter there, knowing how easy it was to write a fraudulent résumé. Knowing how willing people were to believe.

      The wind snapped at our heels as we crossed the bridge, Meg leaning into me, the warmth of her body soothing my nerves. How I envied the ease with which she moved; how comfortable she was in her own skin, her nylon mini-skirt hitched around skinny thighs, thick black tights, DMs.

      Noting my expression, she snatched my arm and squeezed it against her own. ‘I’m serious! You look hot. You’re like Maggie Gyllenhaal in that film David made us all watch in Freshers’ Week, but less slutty, obviously.’

      We had still been practically strangers then, the three of us, wedged awkwardly together on cushions in the hallway of our shared house, watching Secretary on David’s laptop, busying our fingers with a bowl of nachos. Unaware of the roots that were taking hold, blind then to how tightly they would bind us together.

      Feeling my cheeks flush, I changed the subject as we made our way through stiff automatic doors.

      ‘Have

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