Page 88 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘Don’t say it.’

‘Catering Lowin’s birthday party.’

‘I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY IT!’

Polly caught Marisa doing her breathing exercises one night, and instead of being scornful – which Marisa, for some reason, had thought people would be – was incredibly interested and insisted they sat down with a cup of tea and try them together. Poor Polly lasted precisely fifteen seconds before dozing off so quickly she almost toppled off her chair. Marisa thought she had never needed Alexei so much; he needed to come and play something rousing in front of the kitchen. And just as soon as the thought of him stopped making her blush bright red, she was absolutely going to send him that note.

Chapter Fifty-four

Marisa would have told Polly what she was doing, but Polly would have got overexcited – being an old married lady meant she loved to hear about other people’s love lives. And she wouldn’t have told Nonna because Nonna of course would have implied that what she was doing was very sluttish and she shouldn’t be chasing a man who hadn’t even come to visit her since she’d been over which was, frankly, not a bad point.

And she couldn’t have told anyone how much mental energy she was expending on the whole thing because it was embarrassing, kind of how she was at fourteen, mooning over Ishmael Mehta in her chemistry class who had the most directional haircut in the entire school, with a Nike swoosh shaved into his skull.

So she kept it to herself. And worked on it very slowly, and carefully, the paper upside down, sitting out on the sunny afternoons – and occasionally dozing off, if it was quiet or there was someone good in, like young Edin, the talented boy, who kept getting better and better, and she could happily sit listening to that, feeling relaxed as he played.

Until finally it was done, and she took a deep breath and put it an envelope and, once more – and, ridiculously, equally nervous this time as last time, although for completely different reasons – picked a time when he was very busy with the twins, hammering away on either side of the keyboard at a deafening volume as ever, and slipped it under his door.

Of course this was a mistake with five-year-olds in the room, on a par with leaving an unattended box of strawberry tarts. Marisa didn’t know a lot of five-year-olds. The music next door stuttered to a halt.

‘There is POST! There is POST! POST CAME!’

There was a scramble of little footsteps.

‘We will get your post!’

Marisa was for once pleased she had somewhere else to go that wasn’t home. She set off down the hill at a brisk rate to avoid answering questions. Huckle, who was sitting across the street looking at his online banking on his phone for the first time in months without wanting to cry, glanced up and smiled.

‘Hey, can I get my wife back any time soon?’

She smiled at him.

‘Soon as we run out of pizza you can.’

He rolled his eyes then came down to join her.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Thanks. We really owe you for what you did.’

Marisa blinked. That was exactly how she felt about them.

‘Are you kidding? I really needed a job.’

It had never occurred to her that she had helped them. She hadn’t thought anything was going wrong at all with Polly; had thought, apart from a little bad luck in the storm, Polly had the most enviable life she could imagine. A bakery, a lovely husband, two beautiful children, a bird . . . well, she wasn’t particularly desperate for a bird but even so. Polly seemed so sorted. It made her heart lift to hear praise.

‘And . . .’

She had been about to go further but didn’t. She didn’t want to say that Polly had saved her in a deeper way, that she, and hernonnaand Anita and, yes, Alexei too . . . that these people had built her a key, piece by piece, to unlock her prison door.

‘Well. It’s just cool,’ she managed eventually.

Huckle beamed. He was a sunny soul.

‘There we are,’ he said. ‘The universe had a plan.’

‘I don’t think the universe ever has a plan,’ said Marisa.

‘Ssh,’ said Huckle. ‘The universe will hear you andtotallymess up the plan.’ He glanced back. ‘Okay, let me go get those monsters. They’re meant to be extra talented but I have to say, I’m not hearing it.’

‘Oh, I do,’ said Marisa quickly, not wanting him to suspect what she had done. ‘It’s really obvious when you live next door.’

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