Free Hold My Hand by Serena Mackesy Page A

and run that bath.”
    “Of course I will.” No point in telling her just how grim things are looking right now. It’ll be better in a couple of days.
    “Pour yourself a nice big drink and take it in there with you. I guarantee you’ll get off to sleep in no time, however cold it is.”
    “Okay,” she says.
    “I’ll call you tomorrow. At least we know your phone works down there, eh?”
    “It’s not Siberia,” says Bridget. “It's only Cornwall.”
    A buffet of wind slaps into the side of the building, rattles the casements. There's no way she's going back out across that yard tonight to find Yasmin's wellies buried somewhere in the boot of the car.
    “Sleep well,” says Carol.
    “Thanks. You too.”
    “That bloody car alarm’s going off again,” she says. “I doubt it. Just be grateful you’re where you are. Honestly, Bridge. It won’t be long before I’m envying you.”
    In the middle of nowhere. With a wind that sounds like someone’s scrabbling to get in through the roof. Oh, God, have I made a terrible mistake?
    “Night night,” says Carol.
    “Night,” she replies. Hangs up and sits, elbows on the tiny kitchen table and face in hands, while she allows a couple of fat self-pitying tears to roll over her fingers. She can’t cry in front of Yasmin: has made a pact with herself that she will try not to. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to, most minutes of most days. How did I end up so lonely? I was pretty, once, and popular, and now I’m the kind of person nobody notices when I walk by in the street. I don’t even get noticed by builders any more: they fall quiet as I pass.
    Not surprising, she thinks. The self-pity emanating from you would be enough to put anyone in their right mind off. Amazing, though. How short a time it takes. Ten years ago I would have dreaded passing building sites because of the attention I attracted. Now I feel the same way for exactly the opposite reason. Life with Kieran was the drip, drip, drip of water on stone: you never notice the effects by watching them, but a decade of it was enough to wear my confident veneer through to the dull grey clay beneath. He was like a vampire: sucking my self-esteem out to replenish his own.
    She feels, in the cabin-like kitchen, like a sailor lost at sea. It’s warm enough in here, for she’s turned the oven on full whack and left the door open, but she knows that stepping out into the corridor will be a different matter. The wind, stepping up a gear, howls against the walls like a wild animal. She’s always been a city child: lived with her mum and dad in Peckham until she was grown up, would probably have gone back there if she'd had the option. She’s never been alone somewhere where the orange glow of streetlights and the occasional sound of passing footsteps couldn't give at least the illusion that someone was at hand. Out here, miles from anywhere… anything could happen and no-one would know.
    Abruptly, she pushes her chair back. That’s the tiredness talking, like Carol said. You’re not to go down this road. You’re still healthy, your daughter is beautiful and bright and loving and life is going to get better. It has to. Tomorrow we’ll buy double-thick duvets and a couple of fan heaters and hot water bottles, and I’ll get the kettle and the clothes and the TV from the car and we can start to make a little home here, at last. But tonight you must sleep.
    Something clatters out in the yard, makes her jump. Don’t be silly, she thinks. There’s a wind. It’s probably a branch or something, blown loose and bowling down the hill. And now there’s rain rattling off the window like gravel thrown by a teenage lover. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s not followed you. He will have been at the office when you left. It’s just nature, and you’re in the middle of it.
    She considers for a moment leaving the oven on overnight; turns it, reluctantly, off. No point in testing the fuse box; it obviously