Extract: Always on My Mind by Carys Green

Prologue

She needed to stop thinking.

Her mind. It had to be empty. Still.

Silent.

It was dark within the walk- in wardrobe. The only movement the gentle rocking as Anna shifted back and forth, knees bunched up tight to her chest.

Don’t think.

She wanted to listen out for a creak. The thud of a footstep. Anything. But each time she stilled her breath enough to focus, her thoughts began to betray her.

Jack and Jill.

Anna felt the heat of a tear streak down her cheek, tasted its salty death on her lips.

Went up the hill.

She just needed to wait. Wait and not think. She could do that, couldn’t she? Her thoughts were hers alone to control.

Only—

To fetch a pail of water.

There was movement just beyond the wardrobe. Was someone in the bedroom?

Jack fell down.

She rocked back and forth. Back and forth.

Rain whispered against the windows but Anna couldn’t hear it, barely any sounds reached her within the wardrobe, her chosen prison. Pressed suits and elegant tea dresses hung just inches above her. Carrying the scent of him. Of her.

And broke his crown.

Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but she had to hide somewhere. Hide and gather her thoughts. Smother them. Another noise. This one closer. Anna clenched the breath within her chest, refused to release it, ceased rocking.

And Jill came tumbling after.

TWO MONTHS

EARLIER

Anna was late. As usual. She was rushing through the city as twilight crept in, leather satchel smacking against her hip. She shouldn’t have stayed so long in the little art shop off Dormer Street. She’d intended to spend only ten minutes there, maybe twenty. But a whole hour had passed before she had returned to the whispered hum of electric engines and stepped over puddles again. It was too easy to chat with Marcus, the owner, who had endless stories about his life in Italy before he came to London. It was too easy to get lost among the shelves of oil paints. Horsehair brushes. Anna loved the waxy smell, the way the world seemed to still when she was in there. But all too quickly, as the bell above the door jingled behind her, the spell was broken. The sounds of the city came screaming back to her. Like a serpent at the door, always waiting. The hustle. The grind. Anna feared there was no way to truly escape it.

Elijah will be pissed.

She pictured him at home, tracking her progress on his phone, annoyance levels rising. She wondered if he was cracking his knuckles as minutes slipped by, listening to the pop, jaw clenching.

He hates it when I’m late.

As she hurried for her train, she considered tucking into a shop and firing off a quick text to her husband. A chance to explain herself. Elijah was as precise as he was handsome. Punctual, reliable, envied by others, it was like being married to a Rolex watch.

There’s no time.

Better she catches the earlier maglev train than sacrifice a few moments to send a message that would only serve to cement her tardiness. She knew Elijah was finishing early that afternoon, that he was probably already in their kitchen, chopping tomatoes as he leaned against the polished marble surfaces, some pasta boiling on the hob. Elijah’s attention to detail made him a good cook. ‘I’m more of a “shove it all together and hope for the best” kind of girl,’ she’d told him when they first started dating back in the Student Union of the University of Manchester. Anna winced at how that felt like a lifetime ago.

Was his phone on the countertop, alerting him to her progress? Was he asking the AI within their home to confirm his wife’s location? She knew signal could be sketchy in the depths of the city as she flitted between hotspots. Elijah was always telling her to keep her data on, all the time. But Anna refused.

‘It drains the battery.’

‘That’s not the point. I like to know where you are.’

A double-decker bus sped past her, buffeting her away from the kerb. An advert for a new film was playing on its side, a woman twisting through a meadow, smiling beneath a golden sun. Anna kept walking, clutching her bag more tightly to her side. She tried to calm the hem of her skirt which had flown up, ran her fingers through her dark fringe, hoping to tame it. Already she could feel the throng of people around her, all heading for the same destination.

Why did I stay in the city so long?

She knew why. As soon as Marcus asked how her latest piece was going, her inner timekeeper switched off. Anna no longer cared. There were some things where her passion was so great, it could swallow everything else whole. Her art was one such thing.

‘Going well.’ She smiled kindly to the ageing man behind the till point as she picked up a palate of watercolours, cheeks aching from the effort of lying.

‘From Spain,’ came Marcus’s silky voice, ‘best there is. Would be perfect for you.’

‘Mmm.’ Anna turned them over to assess the digital price tag, which winked red at her. Fifty pounds. Ouch. More than she should be spending on supplies, especially considering she hadn’t sold a single piece in three months. At first, she’d had a steady assortment of customers for her work, but it had dwindled. Not that she wanted to admit as much to Marcus. Besides, Elijah wouldn’t mind the splurge; it was their anniversary, after all.

‘When can I see the new piece?’ Marcus asked as he rang up her order. ‘I keep waiting for you to have a proper exhibition. I would be first in line.’

‘Thank you.’ Anna gave a courteous smile, hoping the despair she felt at the word ‘exhibition’ didn’t show in her eyes. How she’d love one. A chance to feel admired, validated. But as Elijah had told her so frequently, ‘Lofty ambitions rarely come true, only sometimes.’

They did come true. Sometimes. That’s what Anna clung to.

She remembered the first time she’d shown her work to Helen. Back before all the kindness between them had eroded away.

‘Your work reminds me of a painting I saw in Venice,’ Marcus began wistfully. ‘Though that had a bear in, I think. Or perhaps a lion. Still, it was quirky. Fun.’ In the store it had begun, Marcus’s reliable trip down memory lane. Anna was more than willing to go with him if it meant forgetting about her lack of sales, or showcases. For a moment she got to join him in the sun and it was glorious. But it couldn’t last.