Читать книгу Under an Amber Sky: A Gripping Emotional Page Turner You Won’t Be Able to Put Down - Rose Alexander - Страница 13

Chapter 3

Watching Tomasz play in the sand, building rudimentary approximations of castles, running to the sea and clumsily filling his bucket then slopping most of the water out on the way back, Sophie envied him his childhood innocence, his unsullied experience of nothing but love and happiness. She wished she could step backwards into her own carefree past.

Pulling her phone out of her bag, she forced herself to confront her new worst fear: the consequence of Matt’s untimely and tragic death that she had so far ignored. Keeping a careful eye on the little boy whilst Anna snoozed – she was up so early every morning with him – Sophie opened the email on her phone and read it, properly read it, for the first time.

It was from the solicitor, laying out the details of her finances. Despite a generous death-in-service payment from Matt’s employers, her expenses, mainly comprising their enormous mortgage payments, were far beyond what she could possibly maintain on her teacher’s salary. Everything had been built on the fat pay packet of Matt’s job as a lawyer. They had taken out life insurance when they first bought the flat but had let it lapse; they were both young, fit, and healthy, neither had ever smoked, they exercised regularly, ate well, drank little – why waste the money?

Sophie had preferred to spend it on doing up the flat rather than hand it over to some multinational corporation that would most likely never have to pay out. Home was a sanctuary to Sophie, the place where her world was centred, just as Matt had been the person around whom it had revolved. Now, that home to which she had devoted so much of her time, love, and energy, to which she would return after a tough day in the classroom only to take up a brush and spend a few hours painting a wall or tiling a floor, that home would have to go. She had to face the reality that she couldn’t possibly afford to keep it.

She would soon have nothing left at all to show for her fifteen-year relationship and ten-year marriage, not even a roof over her head.

***

That evening, once Tomasz was in bed and fast asleep, Sophie apprised Anna of the facts of her financial situation. Anna, to whom melodrama and histrionics were unknown, merely shrugged. ‘It’s a flat, bricks and mortar only. You can let it go.’ It was clear that Anna felt differently about what constituted a home. ‘There are plenty of places you could live,’ she went on, and reached out to pat Sophie’s hand. Sophie started to withdraw it but then didn’t. Anna’s patting was comforting. Necessary.

‘I’m sorry for everything that’s happened,’ continued Anna. ‘But you know what. That place will always be you and Matt; it will always remind you of him and you’ll never be able to …’

‘Don’t say move on,’ interjected Sophie, hurriedly. ‘Please, whatever you do, don’t say move on.’ So many people had mentioned ‘moving on’ in the weeks since Matt’s death. She knew she would never move on. She didn’t want to.

‘OK, start again, then. Begin afresh. Whatever you like. But it will be for the best, in the long run.’

The concept of this was incomprehensible. It was completely unimaginable to Sophie that she could ever make a nice, new life for herself. Pain gripped her, squeezing her heart so tight she let out an anguished, pitiful cry. She clasped her arms around her chest and let her head fall forward, her forehead resting on the warm, rough wood of the table, its grains pressing against her skin like branding irons.

Anna leapt up and crouched beside her. ‘Sophie? Are you OK? Are you ill?’

It was a long time before Sophie could answer. When she did, she could not even look up, just shook her head back and forth against that ridged table, imagining that the external abrasions created would match those cutting into her heart. Tears were pouring down her face.

‘I’m not OK. I’ll never be OK again.’

This was the thing about loss, about grief. After the first few weeks of nonstop crying, of feeling that she couldn’t breathe, of being gripped by an iron band of pain that tightened hourly around her heart, Sophie had thought it couldn’t get any worse. But now it was worse because she might be all right for a few minutes or a few hours and then suddenly, out of nowhere and with no warning, she would be seized anew by an unimaginable panic, a terror that winded her and threatened to destroy her. It was the fact that she didn’t know when it would happen and couldn’t stop it when it did that made it so frightening.

Anna patted her shoulder, unconvincingly. They sat in silence for a long moment. Then Anna was patting her again. But Sophie didn’t care. She needed human contact, needed Anna right now as much as she had ever needed Matt. Without her, she might completely fall apart.

‘Sophie, listen carefully.’ Anna was speaking slowly and louder than was necessary, as if Sophie’s grief had induced deafness. ‘When we get back to England, I’ll help you clear up the flat and get it on the market. It’ll be snapped up in no time. You know how hard it is to find property like that in your area. You’ve made it so beautiful; everyone’ll want to buy it.’

Sophie pictured her home, the designer wallpaper that adorned one wall of the sitting room, the copy of the Eames armchair, the stylish vintage Ercol dining table and chairs she’d bought for a song on eBay. Anna was right. What did any of it matter, now?

‘And you know what? This is the first time you’ve cried for days. You are getting better, slowly.’ Anna looked around and gestured towards the bay far below their balcony, black and still in the night-time, and at the encompassing mountains, dark shapes under the star-studded sky. ‘I think this place is good for you.’

Sophie lifted her eyes to look at the view, the lights that sparkled across the water. Closer still, the muffled noises of those in the apartments and houses around them were oddly comforting.

‘You’re never going to be homeless; you can afford something nice, somewhere.’ Anna took a swig of wine. ‘In fact, as I suggested earlier, you could buy the place we saw today. Say goodbye to grey skies and hello to blue ones,’ she continued smoothly, her tone even. ‘You know I believe in fate and I’d say that it was written in the stars that we would happen across that beautiful house, complete with estate agent ready and waiting. It’s meant to be. Your destiny.’

Sophie snorted in ridicule. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I do,’ replied Anna.

***

That night, Sophie sat up in bed, unable to sleep. For the first time since Matt died, despite the denials she had made to Anna, she had felt the stirrings of interest in something that day. She wandered out of her bedroom, into the sitting room, and slid open the balcony door. Stepping outside, the heat hit her like a wall. In the distance, the lights of Kotor’s ancient ramparts glowed, a necklace of golden amber. After the earthquake in 1979, the local craftsmen had rebuilt the entire town by hand, stone by stone, painstakingly reassembling it just as it had been for centuries before, but better, stronger, more able to withstand future tremors. Maybe it was possible to put things back together. To remake them.

Sophie took a deep breath. The air was fresh, despite the treacly heat. Above her, constellations of stars bedazzled the clear sky, eclipsing the crescent moon with their radiance. She realized that she didn’t want to go back to London. She wanted to stay here, where it was hot and bright and still, where she felt she could breathe again, and be calm and serene despite Matt’s passing. The stars were telling her so, just as Anna had decreed.

***

The next day, Sophie made an offer on the house that was accepted. Two days after that, she, Anna, Mileva, and Jovanka gathered at the notary’s office to sign the contract. Sophie could hardly believe the speed and efficiency of the property-buying process in Montenegro. Everything was organized in an instant. The notary demanded a court translator and one was brought from his office above a shoe shop in the old town, a tall, attractive man called Darko who sported coal-black curls like Sir Lancelot in the ballad of the Lady of Shalott, and a small beard that would not have looked out of place in Shoreditch.

Next, the notary deemed it necessary to have a psychiatrist present to vouch that Mileva was in full possession of her faculties and was not being coerced into making the sale. As these additions were asked for, Sophie squirmed at the sight of poor Jovanka’s face getting paler and paler, despite the soaring temperatures, as she saw her sale, and its commission, potentially fade away. But all was well and one Dr Simovic joined the assemblage already seated around the capacious board table.

Whilst it was all being arranged, Sophie listened to Mileva explaining to Anna her joy at the prospect of her fresh start in the Croatian retirement village. The idea of having a new life at ninety-four struck Sophie as a delightful and wondrous one. She was pretty sure Dr Simovic wouldn’t find any of this old lady’s marbles missing.

Finally, everything declared in order, the notary called all parties to attention. She was an Amazonian woman in a black leather jacket, skin-tight trousers, and high-heeled boots, who had a handshake that Sophie was sure could crush bones with ease. Terrified, she sheltered behind Anna’s capable and indomitable presence and watched silently as she slid closer and closer to doing something absolutely insane and complete unplanned. Two hours later, the contract was signed. Sophie stood outside the office in the full glare of the midday sun, reeling from the heat and shock.

She had a derelict three-hundred-year-old stone house in the Bay of Kotor and two months to find the money to pay for it.