Free The Venus Trap by Louise Voss

that Megan had a DVD box set of when she was three or four. Balamory is in reality Tobermory on the island of Mull, and we’d had a lovely week there about three years ago. In my dream we were back in our hotel, rain hammering on the windows and a grey sea boiling outside as Richard and I played Scrabble in the lounge, a room so grim and unwelcoming—gas fire, the sort of sofas you have to sit bolt upright in—that we christened it Suicide Lounge. Richard said there was nothing for it but to steal the Scrabble, play it in our room, and then take it home with us. They didn’t deserve it, he said.
    ‘But how will we take it without anyone noticing?’ I asked, in my dream. I’ve never stolen anything in my life—too worried about getting caught.
    Richard had grinned evilly. ‘Tile by tile,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Like in The Great Escape . Into the turn-ups when no-one’s looking, then back to the room where we . . .’ He mimed shaking the tiles out of his trouser legs and Miss Hoolie, a character from Balamory , called the police to have us arrested. I shouted, ‘Good, yes! Call 999—I’ve been kidnapped!’ Richard morphed into Claudio, and I woke up in a cold sweat.
    The Scrabble in the lounge part of the dream had been true—Megan had mentioned it the other day, the last day before she left for her holiday, so it must have been on my mind. She had climbed into my bed—as usual, half an hour before she was allowed to—and said without preamble, ‘Do you remember that time in Balamory when Daddy wanted us to steal the Scrabble?’
    I hadn’t remembered, but as soon as she said it, I did. My eyes immediately flooded with tears and I had to discreetly wipe them on the duvet cover while Megan played with the cat, wiggling her feet under the covers for him to pounce on. Just before the Scrabble incident we’d been out for a long, alcoholic lunch to escape the rain. Not that we even particularly cared that it was raining—our shared bi-annual holidays were sacrosanct to us both, a chance for uninterrupted family time, Richard banned from switching on his phone more than once a day so that work couldn’t intrude. Sunshine would just have been an added bonus. Megan, aged four, had sat happily colouring and chatting to her felt-tips, while Richard and I polished off two bottles of wine and freshly caught sea bass.
    I haven’t thought about that for years, the holiday or the Scrabble . We used to play loads of Scrabble on holiday, and I can’t see a Scrabble board now without imagining the accompaniment of a backdrop of sea and a chilled glass of wine.
    There is so much I’ve forgotten about our lives together—I genuinely cannot understand how that could have happened. It’s as if some evil scientist has wiped my brain clean of all our shared jokes, stories, anecdotes, rituals. It was only three years ago, for heaven’s sake.
    I’d forgotten them all, when the remembering would have saved us.
    I’d forgotten how we both knew all the words to Cool for Cats and Sultans of Swing , and would bellow them, loudly and tunelessly, whenever either song came on the car radio, like that scene in Wayne’s World where they’re all head-banging to Bohemian Rhapsody , even though we were both in junior school when those songs first came out.
    I’d forgotten how frequently we used to sing together, back in the old days. Neither of us can sing very well, but when we first became a couple, we used to lie in bed singing David Essex songs in Mockney accents, giggling and hamming: ‘ ’Old me close, don’ let me go, no-oh naw !’ Our mums had loved David Essex and one of the things we had in common was that we’d both grown up with his music in the background of our lives.
    The bed was one of those tiny little doubles with a slightly rusty iron frame and a saggy mattress, which the vicar at Richard’s mum’s church had given us free of charge. Glad to get rid of it, probably . That was in the