Twice The Speed of Dark. Lulu Allison

without deliberation, that the time for his release was due. It had been easy to think that shame would keep him away. It had been easy to hope.

      She has been fending off messages and calls from Michael, from Sophie, from other friends. If only she were somewhere with no phone contact. If only she did not have to deal with it all. She listens to their messages impatiently, not liking to worry them. But it is impossible to talk about. What is there to say? They would begin their careful herding, their Anna-management. She knows it is love that orchestrates their actions; she knows herself how hopelessly far she could fall and understands her friends wishing to stop her falling again. But there he is. It takes more than common sense and self-preservation to know such a thing and understand how to live with it. He will live his life. And she is meant to believe that he has paid.

      Dark thoughts chatter and scratch. Revenge is too grand a term. But retaliation, the lashing of violence sent back to its sire… Stop. She reaches, in spite of her frustration with the strategy, for the whisky bottle. The whisky soothes. She finds a calmer wish, for absence, not death. Yes, if she were in another place, she could at least guarantee she would not see him. She should just leave. She thinks briefly in terms of opportunity, of dreams from long ago – a move to mountains, a long slow drive down the northwest coast of America starting with an old friend in Seattle, a sabbatical in Barcelona. Plans that included a young Michael, a young Anna. Plans that depended, she sees quickly, on lapsed opportunities. And she doesn’t want to plan a grand trip or a relocation; she just wants to be somewhere else. A holiday will do – it will provide a quick fix and a way out of the stultifying, stressful drag of the last few days. If she leaves in a couple of weeks, she can avoid Christmas too. She leaves the whisky unpoured and makes tea before settling with purpose at the kitchen table.