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‘Isaac, we’re here!’ Isobel yanked on the handbrake, wincing at the squeal of protest from her rusty old car. Thank God they’d made it – at one point in the two-hour journey from Brighton to London, she’d been afraid they’d break down on the busy motorway. Parked up among the gleaming black Mercedes, BMWs and hulking Land Rovers, her ancient Ford Fiesta looked like it was crashing a very posh party. She swallowed, thinking that was exactly how she felt right now, returning to the home she’d last seen as a teen. She may have grown up here, but she didn’t belong.
She couldn’t, not after what had happened.
‘Isaac?’ She turned, her heart squeezing as she took in her sleeping teenaged son stretched out on the back seat. His long legs were jammed against the door in what looked like a supremely uncomfortable position, but his face had the same peaceful, knowing expression he’d worn from the very first day she’d held him in her arms, all alone in the silent hospital room. But she wasn’t alone, she’d reminded herself as she’d stared down at her baby. They had each other, and she’d do anything to encircle him in love; to keep him safe and protected.
Isaac yawned, then shoved his fingers into his eyes and rubbed furiously. Isobel cringed. Despite telling him off for years, he still did that when he was nervous or excited. And— She squinted at his fingers. Was he wearing black nail varnish? Her mother would love that. She’d probably hand Isaac the nail-varnish remover at the door and ask him to remove it before entering the premises.
Isobel shook her head, unable to stop a smile when she remembered how one day, she’d tried out a scarlet lip gloss all the girls at school were wearing. She’d thought she’d scrubbed it off, but her mother had recoiled, saying she looked like she belonged on the street, not the daughter of the headmistress of England’s most prestigious school. Far from being offended, Isobel had spent the next ten minutes furiously trying to erase any trace of it. She’d snuck into her mum’s room to sample her pale pink lipstick, then dashed up to Boots to buy the same shade. Her heart twisted as she realised that she still wore that shade, and pain shot through her of all she’d had to leave behind… and of how the past had clung to her, tormenting her with both longing and horror, despite her attempts to shake it off.
Now, fifteen years later, she was back in the heart of that longing and horror. And whatever her mum’s reaction to Isaac’s nail varnish, it would be nothing compared to a long-lost daughter and an unknown grandson turning up at the door.
‘Sorry, Mum.’ Isaac lowered his hands, then peered out the window. His eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath his heavy dark fringe. ‘This is where you grew up?’
Isobel took a deep breath and forced herself to follow his gaze, staring out at the pristine white facades of the houses lining Burlington Square. The square looked exactly the same as when she’d left. In the late-October sun, the large plane trees glowed russet and gold. The black cast-iron fence lined the square’s private garden like a soldier defending its turf. Front gardens were pruned to within an inch of their lives, with stubborn roses defying the change of seasons – just like the women inside, who seemed perfectly ageless. It was the very image Isobel had dreamed of for years after leaving, but in her dreams, the glossy beauty had been blackened with fear and panic, as if someone had doused even her happy memories in darkness.
She jerked as her eyes caught Burlington Square School, swallowing up one whole side of the street. It was the square, so much that locals and students called it just that: the Square. Her great-grandfather had founded it, and it had risen in prominence to become one of the best private schools in the country. It was everything to her mother, and it had been everything to her too. Isobel had planned to take over as the head when her mum retired. But then… The dark windows yawned towards her, and Isobel yanked her gaze back inside the car, breathing hard.
‘Christ, Mum. Look at this place. Why did you ever leave? It’s miles better than our dump back in Brighton.’ Isaac blew his fringe away from his eyes, and she turned towards him, trying to calm her racing pulse.
‘I just…’ She paused, unable to conjure up any thought in the shadow of the Square. ‘I had to get out.’ That was true anyway. She couldn’t be the same girl any longer. She couldn’t be a part of this world, unless she wanted it to be destroyed – unless she wanted everything her mother held dear to be destroyed.
She had to be dead to everyone and everything in it.
And so, she’d become a different person: not a promising student from an affluent family with a brilliant future, but a young runaway with nothing. She’d built a new life, closing off everything to do with who she’d been before. Because if she let herself think for one minute of the mother she’d loved with all her heart – if she let herself remember the terror and shame that had propelled her from here – she would have drowned. And while there had been many times over the years that memories tried to pull her under, Isaac had been her light when the darkness threatened.
Could she stay afloat now? Could she keep the pain and fear at bay, now that she’d returned to the place she’d tried for so long to forget? The questions seeped into her mind, and she forced back the rising unease.
‘I still don’t understand why you never let me visit. Honestly, I thought all our relatives were dead or something, and that’s why it was just us.’ Isaac grabbed the camera that was constantly by his side. ‘I’m going to take some photos.’ He got out of the car before she could respond, his long slender form dressed all in black silhouetted against the white houses.
She watched as he snapped away, his words ringing in her ears as surprise and disappointment needled inside. What did he mean, ‘just us?’ She’d never thought of the two of them that way, and she hadn’t realised that he did. He’d never asked about family… which she supposed was a little odd, but she was more than happy to accept.
She climbed from the car, trying to ignore the trembling in her legs. ‘Come on,’ she said to Isaac. ‘Let’s introduce you to your grandmother.’ Grandmother. The word sounded strange in her mouth, and though she had tried to say it normally, her voice was tight and tense. Because in a way, Isaac was right. They didn’t have any relatives. The woman she was today wasn’t a daughter; a sister. The woman she was now had no family – no one besides her son.
But her past and present were about to collide. She was about to come face to face with the mother she’d adored… the mother she’d had to walk away from. What would her mum think when she opened the door? Would she let them in, or would she turn them away? Would she see the stranger Isobel was now, or would she embrace the daughter she’d thought was gone forever? Even if that daughter was gone forever, Isobel prayed it was the latter because they really did have nowhere else to go. She’d never have come here if they had.
She grabbed the carrier bags with their things from the boot and took Isaac’s arm, unsure whether she was steadying herself or him. They climbed the steps together to the glossy blue door with the polished brass handle, and a memory flashed through her mind of the final click of the lock when she’d left all those years ago.
Isobel breathed in and pressed the bell.
