The Good Girl (22 page)

‘Then I’ll follow you.’

And he had.

There was a long period after the affair when she couldn’t remember who Harry was or how their relationship used to be. Then gradually memories of the
good times seeped back. She remembered going to stay with her parents after her last set of exams at the Institute of Education and opening the front door late one Saturday night to find Harry standing there, blown almost sideways by a vicious east wind.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ailsa shouted.

‘I was on my way to Russia,’ he had joked. Because she lived on the edge of the world. There was nowhere else to go once you reached Salthouse. Harry explained he couldn’t stand to be without her. He presented her with a book about the history of the marshes with pages of particular interest marked with Post-it notes. The next day she had told him that her old boyfriend swam in the sea all year round, and Harry valiantly stripped off and plunged beneath the slate-grey surface. His legs were blue when he came out, and when she told him she was joking about the ex-boyfriend, he lifted her across his shoulder and threw her into the sea fully clothed.

She thought about all this on the way home on the train. It was almost midnight by the time she got back from the station. She parked the car outside the front gate so that she wouldn’t wake up Adam, who was sleeping in Ben’s room at the front of the house. Then she almost sabotaged her plan by slamming the passenger door. ‘Sorry, car,’ she whispered. When no bedroom light came on, Ailsa took a moment to stare up at the night sky. Unlike London, it was alive with stars. She searched for Polaris and found it straight away. Somehow, since
Georgia’s death the North Star and her mother had become entwined.
Most dependable guide
, thought Ailsa.

She looked up at the star and explained to her mother that she had thought she wanted to meet Harry’s student to tell her about the pain she had inflicted on all of them. She had imagined shouting at her about how Harry had had to leave his job and uproot his entire family to Norfolk. She reluctantly confessed that perhaps she wanted to frighten her a little. But as soon as she saw the girl with her boyfriend she realized that her new life was the one she wanted to be living and that the past no longer had a hold over her.

She spotted twinkling Sirius and looked for lights moving across the sky because Ben had announced earlier that week that the International Space Station would pass over Norfolk this month. ‘How do you know this stuff?’ Harry had asked him. ‘Nasa website,’ he replied coolly. She would go up to Ben’s bedroom and plant a kiss on his hot little cheek. The idea filled her with joy. She had managed to keep her family together and it was beginning to feel like an achievement.

Her neck ached. She rotated it a couple of times and breathed in deeply. She was pleased to be home. There was an unfamiliar smell in the air, not the sweet rot of damp leaves but something more medicinal. Ailsa sniffed the air like a dog, reminded of hunting games that she used to play with Rachel when they were children. She remembered an Indian headdress that Adam had found at an auction and how they used to fight over
who was going to wear it. Rachel nearly always won. She was the free-spirited Indian; Ailsa was inevitably the law-enforcing cowboy. Rachel was wrong. Their childhood wasn’t all Heartbreak Hotel.

She walked past the house, past the huge sitting-room window – inside, Lucifer was eating leftovers from plates that hadn’t made it to the dishwasher – and past the washing line. She glanced up at Romy’s bedroom and saw the curtains were open and the light was on.

Ailsa continued deep into the back garden, ignoring the fact that water from the sodden lawn was soaking through her shoes. A trail of smoke led towards the wood at the end of the Fairports’ garden. Ailsa climbed through the hole in the fence and the smell finally came to her: it was eucalyptus. She followed the newly laid path into the wood from the garden until she reached the sweat lodge. Smoke billowed out of a chimney in the middle of the construction. The white plastic dome glowed orange like a spaceship. Although she didn’t want to admit it, the lodge looked quite inviting. There was music coming from inside. Nothing recognizable. Hippy shit, Harry would call it. Chanting rather than singing. Dolphins blowing pan pipes. She wished Harry were with her so that they could laugh together. That was something they used to be good at.

She reached the outside of the sweat lodge, tentatively lifted the plastic flap and went inside. It was so warm that it hurt her lungs to breathe. Apart from candles placed in a semicircle on a ledge around the edge
there was no light, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The ceiling by the door was so low that she had to stoop to stop her head from rubbing against the plastic. Ailsa continued forward. Antlers and buffalo hides hung on the wall. At the centre was a brick-lined hearth dug into the ground where red-hot stones burned. Three figures lay on their backs on a wooden platform circling the stones. Their eyes were closed against the heat. They were all holding bottles of beer. One of them was Harry, wearing nothing more than boxer shorts. He lay next to Wolf and Loveday. The eucalyptus smell was now so strong that Ailsa’s eyes were watering. It was unbelievably hot.

A platoon of empty bottles stood on a makeshift table behind them. They were in the midst of one of those aimless conversations fuelled by too much wine and too little sleep in which no one can remember what the last person said.

‘You can recover from the truth … Change is a great pain in the arse … If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter … If we are our brains, where does that leave free will?’ It reminded Ailsa of the kind of stoned conversation that she used to have when she was a student.

‘Hi,’ she said, feeling like an intruder.

The three of them lazily lifted their heads and squinted at Ailsa. Harry made no attempt to get up.

‘Hey,’ he said. Harry never said
hey
.

‘Hey,’ said Ailsa pointedly.

‘Hey, hey,’ said Harry. He giggled, which made Wolf
and Loveday giggle. He was stoned, realized Ailsa. They all were. It was so unlikely that it almost made sense. As far as she knew Harry hadn’t even inhaled at university.

‘Weren’t you meant to stay with Rachel?’ Harry asked, which made it sound as though he had been caught out.

‘I decided to come home. I wanted to be here more than I wanted to be in London.’

‘Cool,’ said Loveday. ‘We’re christening the sweat lodge. So far so good. You might want to take off your jacket.’

‘I’m being healed and cleansed,’ said Harry, attempting to placate her with irony. ‘Can you tell?’

‘How was work?’ Ailsa asked him. It sounded more pointed than she intended. He sat up. Now she was closer, Ailsa could see his face was bright red. There was a small pool of sweat in the pouch beneath each eye and in the creases in his stomach. His body was so shiny it looked as though he had been wrapped in cling film. She touched her face. It was already coated in a fine film of sweat.

‘I’ve finished a draft on the chapter about how teenagers process reward stimuli differently,’ he explained.

‘You’re going to have to sex that up if you want the book to be a best-seller, Harry,’ said Loveday in a throaty whisper. She was wearing a bikini top and a pair of patched denim shorts. Wolf was stroking the inside of her arm. A rivulet of sweat snaked down between her breasts, highlighting puckered skin that had been prematurely aged by years in the sun.

‘Adolescent
brains have a more intense reaction to new experiences that makes them want more of the same thing,’ said Harry, speaking so slowly that Ailsa found herself mouthing the words.

‘Better,’ said Loveday. ‘But still not convincing. Come and sit down, Ailsa.’

Wolf offered her a beer. Ailsa moved towards them and sat down, her back leaning uncomfortably against the table.

‘But what can you do about it, Harry? How can you stop teenagers fucking up?’ asked Loveday.

What about adults?
thought Ailsa. But she could no longer summon any anger. Something had shifted inside her. She felt a loosening of the constraints that had bound her over the past twelve months since Harry’s fall from grace, and a sense of tranquillity that no amount of yoga stretches, self-help books and the occasional diazepam had managed to induce. She tried to view the feeling with suspicion, in case it proved ephemeral. But somehow seeing the girl had made Ailsa realize that Harry’s infidelity had everything to do with him and very little to do with her, no matter how awful it had made her feel. She felt a sense of elation at her liberation.

‘I only pose questions; I don’t have answers,’ said Harry, bowing his head slightly as though he were some kind of guru. ‘It’s not a self-help book.’

‘We should get Harry to speak at one of our retreats,’ said Loveday, moving onto her side so her back was to Wolf. ‘What do you think, Harry?’

‘I’d
like that,’ said Harry.

No, you wouldn’t
, thought Ailsa;
it would drive you crazy. All those repetitive old dope smokers with their messed-up neurons backfiring.

‘What retreats?’ asked Ailsa.

‘We’re going to be running week-long intensive live-in programmes. Offer a wraparound service – yoga, meditation, couples therapy – all culminating in a four-hour session in the sweat lodge at the end.’

‘You have got to be kidding,’ said Ailsa.

‘It’s ambitious, I know,’ said Loveday. ‘But we have a lot of experience in this area.’

The conversation shifted again. They began discussing future job prospects for their children.

‘There’s big potential in depilation,’ said Loveday. ‘All these chemicals that mimic hormones will make us way hairier.’

‘Not if they imitate oestrogen,’ pointed out Harry.

Wolf ran through current trends. Payday lending, obesity, diabetes, nail bars. There was no point in going to university, he said. The Western spirit was sick and needed healing. That was where the money was. He was wondering if he should retrain as a shaman.

‘Actually things were far worse in the early twentieth century,’ pointed out Ailsa. ‘People forget a third of children didn’t make it to adolescence in the pre-antibiotic era. There were millions of men with post-traumatic stress from the wars. What about the Holocaust? And Stalin? And rickets?’

‘By
the way, I’ve completed your natal report,’ said Loveday, putting her hand on Ailsa’s knee, who gave Loveday a look of utter incomprehension.

She pointed at a bunch of papers on the table. On the front was a large circle with three smaller circles inside. Ailsa vaguely recognized the symbols of the zodiac on the outer edge of the biggest circle.

‘Your astrological chart. Remember you gave me all the details about what date and time you were born a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Ailsa vaguely.

‘It must have taken ages to compile,’ said Harry, gently nudging Ailsa’s calf with the tip of his toe.

‘Thanks very much,’ said Ailsa.

‘Shall I go through it with you now? Just the headlines? It’s one of the most interesting readings I’ve done in ages.’

‘I’ve had a really long day,’ said Ailsa. ‘My head is about to explode. Maybe over the weekend?’

Loveday looked disappointed.

‘We’re dying to hear what it says,’ said Harry. Ailsa looked at Harry and was gratified to see that he winked at her. She glanced at the contents list: chart patterns, important features, angular planets, sun, moon rising, other aspects.

‘Looks very comprehensive,’ said Ailsa, putting it down beside her. Loveday picked it up again.

‘You have the planetary pattern type called the funnel shape. It’s the first time I’ve come across it,’ said Loveday. Ailsa didn’t respond.

‘What
does that mean?’ asked Harry politely.

‘Ailsa has a serious and conscientious personality and is very practical with a talent for working with the public. She’s a good manager and has a strong drive to achieve success. She can be fearful of taking risks and her achievements come from hard work.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ said Harry. Loveday took this as licence to continue. ‘Sun in Libra, that’s interesting. The sun is the second house, ruler of the rising sign. You seek harmony, you support both sides in a dispute and you may have a hard time making a decision, but Pluto in Leo means there is potential for sudden bursts of anger due to repressed emotions exploding.’

‘Also very true,’ said Harry. He showed Loveday a scar on his calf. ‘She’s like an animal when she’s pushed.’

‘That’s all very interesting, Loveday, but I think I might absorb it better after a good night’s sleep,’ said Ailsa.

‘That’s the sun in Libra speaking,’ said Loveday. ‘Let me read you the part on the sun in square with Chiron.’

‘I’m quite tired too,’ said Harry, pulling himself upright. ‘I need to be back at my desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘Chiron is the wounded healer; it represents loss which leads to empathy. It’s a powerful connection with your sun. You have experienced pain and frustration, perhaps through your relationship with your father.’

‘It’s the same for me,’ said Wolf as if to demonstrate
his empathy. ‘I longed to be close to my father, but the more I tried, the more he pushed me away. He feared intimacy.’ He put his hand on Ailsa’s shoulder.

‘Well, that’s not a problem with my father, because he’s sleeping like a baby in Ben’s bedroom, less than a hundred metres away,’ said Ailsa.

Harry stumbled towards the door. Ailsa put her arm out to steady him.

‘I know exactly what’s going on,’ he slurred. ‘My brain is producing anandamide.’

‘
Ananda
is Sanskrit for bliss,’ said Loveday. ‘Isn’t that a beautiful coincidence?’

‘It’s the science that’s beautiful,’ said Harry. ‘The proteins that transmit the anandamide message to the brain receptors are located in the striatum, which accounts for the blissful feeling; the cerebellum, which is why I’m stumbling; and the hippocampus, hence the fact I can’t remember the beginning of this sentence.’

‘Come on, Harry. Time for home,’ said Ailsa, admiring his shoulders as he struggled to put his T-shirt back on.