The first time, he’d still been himself, though. He’d cried in the night, shaken like a man with a fever. He told her he couldn’t go back, he was too afraid. The night before he was due to return, she found him by the river and dragged him home. (She should never have done that. She should have let him go then.) It had been selfish of her to stop him. Now look what she had wrought.
The second time he came home, he didn’t cry. He was silent, shuttered, barely looked at her, except slyly, side-on from under hooded lids, and never when they were in bed. He turned her over and didn’t stop even when she begged, even when she bled. He hated her then, hated her already; she didn’t see it at first, but when she told him how sad she felt about how they were treating those girls up in prison, about the conscientious objectors and all that, he slapped her face and spat at her and called her a traitorous fucking whore.
The third time he came home, he wasn’t there at all.
And she knew that he’d never come back now. There was nothing left of the man he had once been. And she couldn’t leave, she couldn’t go and fall in love with someone else, because he was all there ever was for her, and now he was gone . . . Gone, but he still sat by the fire with his boots on, and drank and drank, and looked at her as if she was the enemy, and she wished he was dead.
What sort of life is that?
Anne wished there could have been some other way. She wished she’d known the secrets that the other women knew, but Libby Seeton was long dead now and she had taken them with her. Anne knew some things, of course, most of the women from the village did. They knew which mushrooms to pick and which to leave, they were warned about the beautiful lady, belladonna, told never, ever to touch it. She knew where it grew in the woods, but she knew what it did, too, and she didn’t want him to go like that.
He was afraid all the time. She could see it, could read it on him whenever she sneaked a glance: his eyes always on the door, the way he looked out at dusk, trying to see beyond the tree line. He was afraid and he was waiting for something to come. And all the time, he was looking in the wrong place, because the enemy wasn’t out there, it had already come inside, into his home. It sat at his hearth.
She didn’t want him to feel afraid. She didn’t want him to see the shadow fall across him, so she waited until he was sleeping, sitting in his chair with his boots on, the bottle empty at his side. She was quiet and she was quick. She put the blade against the back of his neck and drove it in hard so that he barely woke, and he was gone for good.
Better that way.
There was a hell of a mess, though, of course there was, so afterwards she went to the river to wash her hands.
Sunday, 23 August
PATRICK
The dream Patrick had of his wife was always the same. It was night, and she was in the water. He left Sean on the bank and dived in, he swam and swam, but somehow as soon as he was close enough to reach out for her, she drifted farther away and he had to swim again. In the dream, the pool was wider than in real life. It wasn’t a pool, it was a lake, it was an ocean. He seemed to swim forever, and only when he was so exhausted that he was sure he’d go under himself did he eventually manage to grab hold of her, to pull her towards him. As he did, her body rotated slowly in the water, her face turned towards his, and through her broken, bloodied mouth she laughed. It was always the same, only last night, when the body rolled in the water towards him, the face was Helen’s.
He woke with a terrible fright, his heart pounding fit to burst. He sat up in bed with his palm flat against his chest, not wanting to acknowledge his own fear, or how it was mixed with a deep sense of shame. He pulled back his curtains and waited for the sky to lighten, black to grey, before going next door to Helen’s room. He entered quietly, gently lifting the stool from beside the dressing table and placing it at her bedside. He sat. Her face was turned away from him, just as it had been in the dream, and he fought the urge to put his arm on her shoulder, to shake her awake, to make sure that her mouth was not full of blood and broken teeth.
When she finally stirred, rolling over slowly, she started when she saw him, jerking her head violently backwards and banging it on the wall behind her as she did.
“Patrick! What’s wrong? Is it Sean?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then . . .”
“Did I . . . did I leave some things in your car?” he asked her. “The other day? I took some rubbish from the cottage and I meant to throw it away, but then the cat . . . I was distracted, and I believe I left it there. Did I?”
She swallowed and nodded, her eyes black, the pupils squeezing the irises to pale-brown slivers. “Yes, I . . . From the cottage? You took those things from the cottage?” She frowned, as if she was trying to figure something out.
“Yes. From the cottage. What did you do with them? What did you do with the bag?”
She sat up. “I threw it away,” she said. “It was rubbish, wasn’t it? It looked like rubbish.”
“Yes. Just rubbish.”
Her eyes darted away and then returned to his. “Dad, do you think it had started up again?” She sighed. “Him and her. Do you think?”
Patrick leaned forward and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “Well, I’m not sure. Maybe. I think maybe it had. But it’s over now, isn’t it?” He tried to get to his feet, but he found that his legs were weak and he had to haul himself up with one hand on the bedside table. He could feel her watching him and he felt ashamed. “Would you like some tea?” he asked her.
“I’ll make it,” she said, pushing back the covers.
“No, no. Stay where you are. I’ll do it.” At the door, he turned back to her. “You got rid of it? That rubbish?” he said again. Helen nodded. Slowly, his limbs wooden and his chest tight, he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He filled the kettle and sat at the table, his heart heavy in his chest. He had never known Helen to lie to him before, but he’d been fairly certain, back there, that she had.
Perhaps he should have been angry with her, but mostly he was angry with Sean, because it was his mistake that had led them here. Helen shouldn’t even be in this house! She should be at home, in her husband’s bed. And he should not have been placed in this position, the ignominious position of cleaning up his son’s mess. The indelicate position of sleeping in the room next door to his daughter-in-law. The skin on his forearm itched beneath his bandage and he scratched at it absent-mindedly.
And yet, if he was honest, and he always tried to be, who was he to criticize his son? He remembered what it was to be a young man, rendered helpless by biology. He had chosen badly for himself and he still felt the shame of it. He chose a beauty, a weak, selfish beauty, a woman who lacked self-control in almost every regard. An insatiable woman. She had set herself on a self-destructive path and the only thing that surprised him now, when he thought about it, was that it took as long as it did. Patrick knew what Lauren had never understood—just how many times she had come perilously close to losing her life.
He heard footfalls on the stairs and turned. Helen stood in the doorway, still in her pyjamas, her feet bare.
“Dad? Are you all right?” He got to his feet, prepared to make the tea, but she put her hand on his shoulder. “Sit down. I’ll do it.”
He’d chosen badly once, but not the second time. Because Helen, the daughter of a colleague, quiet and plain and hardworking, was his choice. He saw at once that she would be steady and loving and faithful. Sean had to be persuaded. He had fallen in love with a woman he’d met as a trainee, but Patrick knew that wouldn’t last, and when it went on longer than it should have, he put an end to it. Now he watched Helen and knew that he had chosen well for his son: Helen was straightforward, modest, intelligent—wholly uninterested in the kind of celebrity trivia and gossip that seemed to consume most women. She didn’t waste time with television or novels; she worked hard an
d didn’t complain. She was easy company, quick to smile.
“Here you go.” She was smiling at him now as she handed him his tea. “Oh”—she inhaled sharply through her teeth—“that doesn’t look good.” She was looking at his arm, where he’d scratched it and torn away the bandage. The skin underneath was red and swollen, the wound dark. She fetched warm water, soap, antiseptic, fresh bandages. She cleaned the wound and bound his arm again, and when she was finished he leaned forward and kissed her mouth.
“Dad,” she said, and pushed him gently away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” And the shame returned, overwhelming now, and the anger, too.
Women brought him low. Lauren first and then Jeannie, and on and on. But not Helen. Surely not Helen? And yet she’d lied to him that morning. He’d seen it in her face, her candid face, unused to deception, and he’d shuddered. He thought again of the dream, Lauren turning in the water, history repeating itself, only the women getting worse.
NICKIE
Jeannie said it was about time someone did something about all this.
“Easy for you to say,” Nickie retorted. “And you’ve changed your tune, haven’t you? Used to be that I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, for my own protection. Now you’re telling me to throw caution to the wind?” Jeannie was silent on that point. “Well, in any case, I’ve tried. You know I’ve tried. I’ve been pointing in the right direction. I left the sister a message, didn’t I? Not my fault if no one listens to me. Oh, too subtle, am I? Too subtle! You want me to go around shooting my mouth off? Look where talking got you!” They’d been arguing about it all night. “It isn’t my fault! You can’t say it’s my fault. I never meant to get Nel Abbott into any trouble. I told her what I knew, that’s all. Like you’d been telling me to. I can’t win with you, I really can’t. I don’t know why I even bother.”
Jeannie was getting on her nerves. She just would not shut up. And the worst of it—well, not the worst of it, the worst of it was getting no bloody sleep at all, but the second worst of it was that she was probably right. Nickie had known it all along, from that first morning, sitting at her window, when she felt it. Another one. Another swimmer. She’d thought it then; she’d even thought about talking to Sean Townsend. But she’d done well to hold her tongue there: she’d seen how he reacted when she mentioned his mother, that snarl of anger, the kindly mask slipping. He was his father’s son, after all.
“So who, then? Who, old girl? Who am I supposed to talk to? Not the policewoman. Don’t even suggest it. They’re all the same! She’ll go straight to her boss, won’t she?” Not the policewoman, so who? Nel’s sister? Nothing about the sister inspired Nickie with confidence. The girl, though, she was different. She’s just a child, Jeannie said, but Nickie replied, “So what? She’s got more get-up-and-go in her little finger than half the people in this town.”
Yes, she would talk to the girl. She just wasn’t sure what she was going to say yet.
Nickie still had Nel’s pages. The ones they’d worked on together. She could show the girl that. They were typed, not handwritten, but surely Lena would recognize her mother’s words, her tone? Of course, they didn’t spell things out the way Nickie had thought they ought to. It was part of the reason they’d fallen out. Artistic differences. Nel had gone off in a huff and said that if Nickie couldn’t tell the truth, then they were wasting their time, but really what did she know about the truth? They were all just telling stories.
Are you still here? Jeannie asked. I thought you were going to talk to the girl, and Nickie replied, “All right. Keep your hair on. I will. I’ll do it later. I’ll do it when I’m ready.”
Sometimes she wished Jeannie would shut up and sometimes she wished more than anything that she was here, in the room, sitting by the window with her, watching. They should have grown old together, getting on each other’s nerves properly, instead of bickering over the airwaves like they had to now.
Nickie wished that when she pictured Jeannie, she didn’t see her the way she was the last time she came to this flat. It had been just a couple of days before Jeannie had left Beckford for good, and she was pale with shock and shaking with fear. She had come to tell Nickie that Patrick Townsend had been to see her. He’d told her that if she kept on talking like she had been, if she kept on asking questions, if she continued to try to ruin his reputation, he would see to it that she was hurt. “Not by me,” he said, “I wouldn’t bloody touch you. I’ll get someone else to do the dirty work. And not just the one fella either. I’ll make sure there’s a few, and that each of them takes his turn. You know I know people, don’t you, Jean? You don’t doubt that I know people who would do things like that, do you, girl?”
Jeannie had stood right there in that room and made Nickie promise, made her swear she’d leave it alone. “There isn’t anything we can do now. I should never have said anything to you.”
“But . . . the boy,” Nickie said. “What about the boy?”
Jeannie wiped the tears from her eyes. “I know. I know. It makes me sick to think of it, but we’ll just have to leave him there. You have to be quiet, say nothing. Because Patrick will do for me, Nicks, and he’ll do for you, too. He’s not messing around.”
Jeannie left a couple of days later; she never came back.
JULES
Tell me honestly. Wasn’t there some part of you that liked it?
I woke with your voice in my head. It was midafternoon. I can’t sleep at night, this house rocks like a boat and the sound of the water is deafening. In the day, it’s not so bad somehow. At any rate, I must have fallen asleep because I woke with your voice in my head, asking:
Wasn’t there some part of you that liked it? Liked or enjoyed? Or was it wanted? I can’t remember now. I only remember taking my hand from yours and raising it to hit you, and the look on your face, uncomprehending.
I dragged myself across the hall to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I was too exhausted to undress, so I just sat there while the room got steamier and steamier. Then I turned off the water and went to the sink and splashed my face. When I looked up I saw, appearing in the condensation, two letters traced on the surface of the mirror, an L and an S. I got such a fright that I cried out.
I heard Lena’s door open and then she was pounding on the bathroom door. “What? What’s happening? Julia?”
I opened the door to her, furious. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “What are you trying to do to me?” I pointed back at the mirror.
“What?” She looked annoyed. “What?”
“You know very well, Lena. I don’t know what you think you’re trying to do, but—”
She turned her back on me and started to walk away. “Christ, you’re such a freak.”
I stood there staring at the letters for a while. I wasn’t imagining things, they were definitely there: LS. It was the sort of thing you used to do all the time: leave me ghostly messages on the mirror or draw tiny pentagrams in red nail polish on the back of my door. You left things to scare me. You loved to freak me out and you must have told her that. You must have, and now she was doing it, too.
Why LS? Why Libby Seeton? Why fixate on her? Libby was an innocent, a young woman dragged to the water by men who hated women, who heaped blame on them for things that they themselves had done. But Lena thought you went there of your own volition, so why Libby? Why LS?
Wrapped in a towel, I padded across the hallway and into your bedroom. It seemed undisturbed, but there was a smell in the air, something sweet—not your perfume, another. Something cloying, heavy with the scent of overblown roses. The drawer next to your bed was closed, and when I pulled it open, everything was as it had been, with one exception. The lighter, the one on which you’d had Libby’s initials engraved, was gone. Someone had been in the room. Someone had taken it.
I went back to the bathroom and splashed my face again and rubbed the letters fr
om the mirror, and as I did, I saw you standing behind me, that exact same look on your face, uncomprehending. I whirled around and Lena raised her hands as though in self-defence. “Jesus, Julia, chill. What is going on with you?”
I shook my head. “I just . . . I just . . .”
“You just what?” She rolled her eyes.
“I need some air.”
• • •
BUT ON THE FRONT STEP I almost cried out again, because there were women—two of them—at the gate, dressed in black and bent over, entangled in some way. One of them looked up at me. It was Louise Whittaker, the mother of the girl who had died. She dragged herself away from the other woman, speaking angrily as she did.
“Leave me! Leave me alone! Don’t you come near me!”
The other one waved a hand at her—or at me, I couldn’t be sure. Then she turned and slowly hobbled off along the lane.
“Bloody nutcase,” Louise spat as she approached the house. “She’s a menace, that Sage woman. Don’t engage with her, I’m telling you. Don’t let her through your door. She’s a liar and a con artist, all she wants is money.” She paused to catch her breath, frowning at me. “Well. You look about as awful as I feel.” I opened my mouth and shut it again. “Is your niece at home?”
I showed her into the house. “I’ll just get her for you,” I said, but Louise was already at the foot of the staircase, calling Lena’s name. Then she went into the kitchen and sat down at the table to wait.
After a moment, Lena appeared. Her typical expression, that combination of haughtiness and boredom so reminiscent of you, was gone. She greeted Louise meekly, although I’m not even sure if Louise noticed because her eye was trained elsewhere, on the river outside or some place beyond.
Lena sat down at the table, raising her hands to wind her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. She lifted her chin slightly, as though she were preparing herself for something, an interview. An interrogation. I may as well have been invisible for all the attention they paid me, but I remained in the room. I stood by the counter, not relaxed but on the balls of my feet, in case I needed to intervene.