Another Life: Escape to Cornwall with this gripping, emotional, page-turning read. Sara MacDonald

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      Zoë stood by the car, also watching him. Josh was giving her a lift back to Bristol. He walked back towards them.

      ‘Get in,’ he said to Zoë. ‘I’m just going inside to make sure I haven’t left anything.’

      Nell and Gabby smiled at each other and Charlie raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Seeing Josh off always took ages.

      ‘Drive carefully,’ Nell said when he came back out.

      ‘Yes, Granny,’ Josh said grinning, and Nell clipped him over the ear.

      He hugged Nell and Gabby, then he and Charlie did their usual slightly self-conscious hand-slapping and ‘Wahoo’ at each other before Josh bent and got into his car, which had been a present from Nell.

      Gabby leant in at his window. ‘’Bye, Zoë. Josh, have a good week. Ring me.’

      ‘I will. Good luck with your figurehead.’

      They watched the car bounce down the track until it was out of sight, then Charlie went off to get the cows in and Nell and Gabby went inside to tackle the remains of Sunday lunch. Watching Charlie’s shoulders, Gabby felt a stab of pity. Every time Josh came home she knew Charlie secretly hoped he would announce he had done the wrong thing. If they had had another son it would have made all the difference.

      Neither she nor Nell talked much as they worked. They both hated the aftermath of Josh leaving and the hole he left for an hour or two until their lives slid back into a rhythm without him. Nell would go and nap while pretending to read the Sunday papers. Gabby would walk Shadow until it was dark, following the progress of Josh’s car in her mind until it was time to make sure he had got back safely.

      ‘I miss going over the Tamar Bridge,’ Josh said. ‘It used to feel more like coming home and leaving again.’ Like a definite marker as the wide river swirled underneath, full of boats and the small ferries chugging from one side to the other. A marker between home and the rest of the world.

      Occasionally he got called a Cornish pasty by an instructor who wanted to annoy him. Josh did not rise. He did not have to prove anything. He was glad he had gone home this weekend, but it made returning worse. It felt like going back to school. He would never admit to his parents that he was afraid of failing the next fitness test, of being back-coursed, of not being up to it.

      He practised press-ups in the gym until he was purple in the face and sodden with sweat, but he knew if he could not increase the strength in his arms he would fail the assault course, and he was furious at this physical weakness when he had lifted bales since he was twelve.

      ‘You’ve forgotten the traffic jams. You’ve forgotten how long it took to get in and out of Cornwall. It’s bad enough as it is,’ Zoë said.

      ‘What? Oh … No, I haven’t forgotten. All the same, Cornwall will be one long dual carriageway lined with housing estates and supermarkets in ten years’ time.’

      ‘You sound like my dad.’

      Josh laughed. ‘So, how’s the teaching going, then?’

      ‘OK. I like Bristol. The house I share is in a really nice area. I can walk to school.’

      ‘Got a boyfriend?’

      Zoë hesitated, hope flaring for a second. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said lightly. Then, ‘Have you? Got a girlfriend, I mean.’

      Josh glanced at her. ‘No time at the moment. I’m at a sort of premature middle-aged crisis. I can only think about one thing at a time, which is staying fit and not pulling a muscle or doing my back in, or breaking a leg or a knee going from yomping …’

      ‘Yeah, well, you must be a barrel of laughs! Do you have girls on your course?’ she asked suddenly.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Are they like men, you know butch and lesbosses?’

      Josh suddenly felt thoroughly irritated with her. ‘For heaven’s sake, Zoë! They are no different to any other bloody women. Pretty, plain, fat and thin. Stupid remark.’

      Stung, Zoë was silent. It was unlike Josh to snap.

      After a moment, he said, ‘Sorry.’

      He knew why he was annoyed. He knew her too well. She had made the remark in the hope he would agree, thus reassuring her he wasn’t interested in anybody on the same course. He just wished she could find a bloke and they could go back to being mates.

       Then you shouldn’t have bloody well slept with her, should you?

      Josh groaned inwardly. He wished he could take that evening back. He had been pretty pissed, and she was so up for it, it had seemed almost insulting to walk. It had felt like incest, like fucking your sister. He was too familiar with the geography of her body; there was nothing to discover, no surprises in limbs he had known from childhood. It had all felt wrong, like the biggest mistake he had ever made. But not for Zoë, it seemed. He didn’t have the courage to say, I don’t fancy you. You are a perfectly attractive girl, but there is no chemistry. I have never felt like that about you and I never will.

      They had both been too drunk to use anything and Josh had spent a month in a cold sweat every time he thought about the possible consequences. He had been lucky. It was too near home. His parents were obviously OK, but he hadn’t needed to be a brain surgeon to work out Gabby must have been pregnant when his parents married.

      Gabby and Charlie were suited. He and Zoë were definitely not. When he picked a girl it was not going to be one he had gone to kindergarten with.

      He saw he had really upset her. She was staring out of her side window biting her lip, trying not to let him see she felt like crying. He turned the radio on low in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

      ‘How are your parents?’

      Zoë blew her nose. ‘Bloody awful. They seem worse since Andrew and I left home. Every time we go back they argue and contradict each other and vie for our attention. They are far worse than any of my infants. Andy and I don’t know why they don’t just separate. Now that we’ve left home they have absolutely nothing in common.’

      Josh grinned. ‘Except arguing. Perhaps that’s what keeps them going.’

      ‘Andy reckons he was on the way and they had to get married. Awful, really, the way people mess up their …’ She stopped and flushed red. ‘God! Listen to me … One drink too many and it can happen to anyone …’

      Josh took a deep breath. Get it over with.

      ‘Zo, what I most regret about that is we are not mates any more.’

      Zoë looked startled. ‘Of course we are! Whatever makes you think that? We still ring each other. I tell you nearly everything.’

      ‘It feels different. As if you want more. I love you, Zoë, but not in that way.’

      Zoë was silent, then decided on truth. ‘I suppose it is different. It’s like it never happened, or was so unimportant to you that it wasn’t worth mentioning, let alone repeating. If it had been СКАЧАТЬ