The Sleeper by Emily Barr Read Free Book Online Page A

exactly as it had been to start with. It has a jetty which, on a sunny day, has sailing boats moored to it while the sailors call in for lunch, where children catch crabs and throw them into plastic buckets.
    The Ferryboat, meanwhile, is situated on the Helford Estuary, in Frenchman’s Creek country, with a river beach, flat water, and boats moored for as far as you can see, while the eponymous ferryboat takes people back and forth across the water. Both of them are havens of tranquillity: they are places where nothing bad can happen. These are illusory, peaceful worlds, populated exclusively by people with money and security. Last time we went to the Ferryboat, I looked around at the families of upmarket beachgoers, at their healthy children expertly peeling prawns and drinking organic lemonade, and I tried to tell myself that everyone has sadnesses, that some of the adults would be hideously miserable in their marriages, that people would be having affairs and drinking too much and addicted to gambling, that lives would be on the verge of falling apart, families breaking up, businesses going bankrupt.
    I convinced myself in the end, mainly by looking at Sam and me through the same eyes. To outsiders we must have looked perfect: a couple in their thirties having lunch together at a waterside pub. No one would have known, from the front we presented, that our third round of IVF had just failed, that we were trying to accept that we would never have a child of our own, that we were many thousands of pounds in debt, and that one of us was far more at peace with the idea of childlessness than the other.
    Then, when I looked around, I caught the desperation at the corners of people’s eyes, their misery, the fake smiles they showed to one another. I saw people trying to text under the table, surreptitiously, but being foiled by the fact that there was no reception. It made me want to cry, and I wished I had kept the cynicism shut away.
    ‘That would be lovely,’ I say. ‘Whichever you like. That’s something to look forward to.’
    ‘How’s it been with Olivia?’ he asks, and I love the fact that he is the only person in the world, apart, perhaps, from Leon, who genuinely cares about this. ‘Is she giving you a hard time?’
    I force a laugh. ‘Oh, nothing I can’t handle. We’ll get through it by avoiding each other. Yeah. The sisterly reconciliation I was hoping for. That’s not going to happen. She’s gone out tonight with a nice stringy man who was kind to me. It’s fine.’
    ‘Don’t take any of her crap, OK?’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘I love you, Lara. That’s all that matters, really, isn’t it? Everything else is detail.’
    ‘Yes. It is.’
    I put the phone down. Then I have a shower, because I know that if I went to lounge in the bath I would use too much water, and Olivia would come home and find me there and complain. I tip the rest of the glass of wine down the sink, wash up carefully, then shut myself in my tiny room and sleep fitfully, jumping awake as soon as my sister’s key turns in the lock, listening to her crashing around the place. I smell the toast she makes and wish I could get up and join her.
    She sobs, a sudden, ugly sound that she tries to stifle. I hear her ragged breathing. She is trying to keep it quiet. I check my clock: it is three in the morning. I don’t want to listen. I want to go back to sleep, but I am transfixed. Olivia is crying, harder and harder. It is wrenching, heartbreaking.
    She would hate it if I went to her, so I don’t. I lie in bed, and I listen to her crying, and pretend to be asleep.

chapter five
    October
    Friday night at Paddington station is the only time I am genuinely and uncomplicatedly happy. I look forward to it all through the week, and when I step off the train at Truro I start looking forward to the journey back on Sunday. That truth makes me wince as I push through the crowds. It should not be this way, but it is.
    The station is different on a