The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson

needed. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said, holding onto her mug, my mug’s twin, with both hands. ‘I’m not surprised, it’s a gorgeous painting.’
    ‘Did you do it?’
    ‘Me? No! I told the artist the story and this is what she came up with.’
    ‘Is the story a well-known one, because I don’t think I’ve heard it?’
    Her face relaxed into her customary smile. ‘No, not many people have heard it,’ she said dreamily, her fluid body moving almost weightlessly as she crossed the room and sat on the uncomfortable-looking sofa nearest the window and pulled her feet up underneath her. She was barefoot, and comfortable considering how austere her surroundings. Her eyes never left the painting, which she was regarding with a sense of wonder, contemplation and adoration. ‘It’s something I heard years ago that really spoke to me.’
    ‘Is that you in the picture?’ I asked her.
    ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Can’t believe you noticed, you’re the first person to do so. I knew the artist so I posed for her.’
    ‘It really is a beautiful painting,’ I replied. I almost said that it was made all the more striking by having her in it, but that would be inappropriate given who she was. ‘Look, sorry to bother you, but can I use your phone to call Scott?’
    ‘Of course, of course.’ She held out her phone to me, but didn’t release it straight away to my grasp. ‘I’m glad you got locked out,’ she said, ‘because it’s given me a chance to meet you. Scott talks about you a bit but it’s good to meet you properly.’
    ‘I’m glad I got to meet you, too,’ I replied, ‘although I wouldn’t say I was happy at all about being locked out.’
    ‘You’re not at all what I expected.’
    ‘That’s a good thing?’ I replied.
    Her nod was enthusiastic and genuine. ‘Oh, that’s a really, really good thing.’
    Mirabelle is sitting on the stairs when I open the front door. She is still in her coat, her phone is in her hand and she does not look like she has stepped into the house, gone upstairs, or even moved the whole time I have been away.
    As I shut the door as quietly as possible, she stands, raising herself to her full height so she towers over me. She is statuesque, her demeanour always easy and open.
    We stare at each other across the gap of the corridor like two animals thrown into a cage and forced to fight their way out. I examine her again, seeing her clearly now when I didn’t really notice before: her stance is closed and defensive, her mouth a black-brown line of silence, her light-coloured eyes warily watching my every move.
    My eyes look past her upstairs, straining to catch even the tiniest sound that tells me they’re safe and she hasn’t harmed them.
    ‘I haven’t done anything to them,’ she says. ‘I didn’t move from here. And they haven’t stirred since you left.’
    When I was tearing home, the terror and desperation to get her away from our children spurring me on, I hadn’t thought of what I was going to say to her. I suppose a part of me thought I’d be ripping her away from the girls’ bedside, where she would be, what – standing over them, pillow in hand – then fighting her, not talking to her. It all seems ludicrous now, seeing that she has simply sat waiting for me to return.
    I saw Mirabelle yesterday. Yesterday. She was on her way to the shops, dressed in her midnight-blue tracksuit, white and silver trainers on her feet, her hair wound up in a bun, sunglasses on her face. I’d been struck by the oddness of her walking on the other side of the street to our house, almost as if she was trying to avoidwhat actually happened – me popping out to bring in the recycling bins and seeing her.
    She seemed to see me but instead of coming over to have a chat, she’d hurried along the road, her pace increasing. I’d called to her, asking why she wasn’t in work, and she’d turned, grinned at me, but did not stop. Instead, a point at her bare wrist