The Most Difficult Thing. Charlotte Philby
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Chapter 5: Anna
Chapter 6: Anna
Chapter 7: Anna
Chapter 8: Anna
Chapter 9: Anna
Chapter 10: Anna
Chapter 11: Anna
Chapter 12: Anna
Chapter 13: Anna
Chapter 14: Anna
Chapter 15: Anna
Chapter 16: Maria
Chapter 17: Maria
Chapter 18: Maria
Chapter 19: Maria
Chapter 20: Maria
Chapter 21: Maria
Chapter 22: Maria
Chapter 23: Anna
Chapter 24: Anna
Part Two
Chapter 25: Anna
Chapter 26: Maria
Chapter 27: Anna
Chapter 28: Anna
Chapter 29: Anna
Chapter 30: Maria
Chapter 31: Anna
Chapter 32: Anna
Chapter 33: Maria
Chapter 34: Anna
Chapter 35: Maria
Chapter 36: Anna
Chapter 37: Anna
Chapter 38: Maria
Chapter 39: Anna
Chapter 40: Maria
Chapter 41: Anna
Chapter 42: Anna
Chapter 43: Maria
Chapter 44: Anna
Chapter 45: Maria
Chapter 46: Anna
Chapter 47: Maria
Chapter 48: Anna
Chapter 49: Maria
Chapter 50: Anna
Chapter 51: Maria
Part Three
Chapter 52: Anna
Chapter 53: Anna
Chapter 54: Maria
Chapter 55: Anna
Chapter 56: Anna
Chapter 57: Maria
Chapter 58: Anna
Chapter 59: Anna
Chapter 60: Maria
Chapter 61: Anna
Chapter 62: Anna
Chapter 63: Maria
Chapter 64: Anna
Chapter 65: Maria
Chapter 66: Anna
Chapter 67: Maria
Chapter 68: Anna
Chapter 69: Maria
Chapter 70: Maria
Chapter 71: Anna
Chapter 72: Maria
Chapter 73: Anna
Chapter 74: Maria
Chapter 75: Anna
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
I felt my abdominal muscles twinge as I lowered myself to sit. The bench by the lamp post at the foot of the bridge, just as planned.
It had been almost two months since the surgery but still the scar was so raw that I felt tearing across my abdomen if I so much as lifted one of the twins at the wrong angle. Letting my eyelids drop for a moment, I pushed the thought of the girls out of my mind.
Open the box, close the box. Just as the doctor had taught me.
They were not so much benches that lined the stretch of pavement along this part of the Thames. More slabs, like a procession of concrete coffins quietly guarding the water.
It was dusk. Winter. The terminal gloom had long set in, and with it the sort of damp cold that gnawed its way into your bones. A thin gust of wind snuck through the opening in my cardigan as I pulled the grey cashmere closer across my breasts, still swollen.
‘For God’s sake, Harry,’ I cursed him silently, my eyes rolling up towards the stone-coloured sky.
For as long as I can remember, I have always been early. It is a pathological politeness that brings with it control; no one wants to be the last person to step into a room. It was one of the things we shared, at the beginning, he and I. How many times had I arrived early to meet him, before all this had started, only to find him already lurking under an amber glow at the end of the bar?
Yet it was nearly five, and the pavement around me was virtually empty but for a steady stream of deflated tourists and office workers scuttling towards the Tube.
What was he playing at? David would be home from work by six, as had been his wont since the babies had arrived and, almost overnight, he too had been reborn, his naturally attentive, easy parental love a reminder of everything I could never be.
I had told Maria I was just going shopping for babygros. What was Harry doing? Careful not to make any sudden movements, which I had come to accept would be followed by a sharp stab of pain, I pulled my phone from my navy leather handbag, my hand trembling.
No new messages.
My fingers were a bluish-red. I had hardly left the confines of the house since the birth, two months ago, aside from those ritualistic processions along the darker recesses of Hampstead Heath, under the instruction of the nanny. The Nanny. The truth was, she was always so much more than that. Ever-competent Maria silently heaving the double buggy down the front steps, seeing me off from the shadows of the doorway.
I loved the way the air chilled my lungs. Even the buildings on Millbank, which loomed over us from the other side of Lambeth Bridge, seemed to shiver. I had forgotten how cold it got out here. How easy it is to forget.
Hoping I’d maybe missed something in the string of messages that had passed between Harry and me, I flicked my fingers across the screen. Nothing. How many times had I reread his messages? How many times had I crept across the hallway while the girls slept, my toes curling into the carpet, sliding the lock closed behind me, carefully retrieving the phone from where I kept it, stuck behind the drawer