All The Little Things
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
London
Rachel
Vivian
London
Rachel
Vivian
London
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
London
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
London
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
London
Vivian
Rachel
Vivian
Rachel
Rachel
Six Months Later
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
For Josie, always my first reader.
Prologue
I watched my daughter die.
The days leading up to her death are seared into my memory like one of those old clicking reels of film, snapshot images flickering behind my eyelids. There, Vivian, looking up at me. There, Alex, wild-eyed and frantic.
I’d made the mistake of trusting the wrong person, again.
Never trust anyone.
Never trust yourself.
Rachel
On the night I first saw Alex the air was so hot it was almost fetid. It choked my throat and groped at me with damp fingers, slipping under my hair and arms, wrapping my legs, making my skin prickle and itch. I was late for my class.
By the time I got to the village hall most of my sign-ups had arrived: the usual suspects, a motley bunch, probably just there for the company and free biscuits. Geoff was already present, resplendent in his greying towelling robe. He always liked to strut around whipping up his crowd of admirers. Not that there was much to admire exactly, except perhaps his bravado.
He clambered onto the stage and dropped his robe with a flourish, lying back on the chaise. I noticed he had a new varicose vein on his leg, a violent burst of bulbous purple, hot against the milky white of his skin. I filed the observation away for later; the contrast of colour, for use in a painting, maybe. I did not care to look further up to where he was arranging himself to his liking.
A new name had appeared on the list I had pinned up on the village noticeboard in the hall for that week’s class. Alex. I had entertained the thought that he might be a woman, as most of my class were female, but something about the firm and determined cursive told me the hand was male. Whoever it was, they were late, and would have to take the last easel, which was directly in the line of sight of Geoff’s now spreadeagled legs.
The room settled into a hive of subdued activity. Drinks made, biscuits crunched, gossip caught up on. The hissing sound of scratching charcoal moving across parchment. I made my first round, saying nothing, merely observing how shapes were being pulled together, the creamy paper taking the gift of shade, throwing light against dark. I will never tire of watching people create.
Mrs Baxter had positioned herself away from Geoff’s business end and was sketching the great bulk of his shoulders, shading the gingery hair that covered them with sharp strokes, making them bristle in a porcine manner. Poor Geoff was an easy target for her tendency to veer into caricature. She caught my attention and nodded towards the other end of the hall. ‘Not what that one expected, I’ll bet.’ Following her gaze, I saw that the last easel had been occupied by a teenage boy who had slipped in while I wasn’t watching. ‘Do you think he was hoping for some nubile young goddess, throwing her clothes off with abandon?’
‘Probably,’ I answered with a grin, trying not to laugh. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’ I usually asked sniggering young people to leave, but there was a gravitas about him that gave me pause.
He seemed to be made entirely of angles, sharp and new. His shoulders looked as though they were broadening in front of me, a child-man. Dark slashes of eyebrows were heavy over startling eyes that glinted like sea glass. I knew they must be extraordinary if even a hint of their colour shocked me from the small distance between us. His hand skimmed back and forth on the paper with a deftness that spoke of talent. He had a precision and stillness about him that should not belong to the young.
His eyes flicked between Geoff and the sketch in front of him, and there was no embarrassment on his face. I imagined I could hear somehow the particular sound that the heel of his hand was making as it scuffed the paper above all the others in the room, and I thought that it might smudge his drawing and bother him, this boy who moved so succinctly.
As I moved closer I could see that his face was rescued from its hard lines by his mouth, which was full, although he pressed it flat now and then with concentration. Suddenly, the very tip of his tongue peeked through, and then sharp white teeth bit down on the edge of his lip. I didn’t like the feeling that the flash of pink and those white teeth produced in me. There was something disconcerting about him. He reminded me of someone. It put me on edge so I turned away to talk to Mrs Hayward, who was struggling with perspective, as usual.
At the end of the class the dark-haired boy left as silently as he arrived. I readied the easels for the caretaker to store when he came in to lock up. No one worried that something might be stolen: a somewhat complacent mentality in a village where nothing bad ever happened.
The last easel was Alex’s. He’d left his sketch. It was exceptional. Clever strokes had built up from feather-light shimmers to a crushing, nearly tearing force, giving Geoff an almost majestic appearance. He could have been Zeus, reigning from Olympus, strong limbed and fierce of face. And yet, here was Geoff, in his essence. Portly, no shame, jolly. How had he done this? I could never have captured him like this, not in an hour. Not ever, perhaps.
This boy was special.
I took the sketch and rolled it up carefully. Closing the door to the hall behind me, it was a thirty-second walk to the Goose and Lavender. As ever, Steve, the landlord, saw me come in and pointed to the table by the door, joining me there with a bottle of wine in an ice bucket, and
