Dora nods again, unable to speak; his words have affected her deeply. She thinks of all the things her father has unintentionally lost from his life: his son, his wife, his home—even she and Cassie are absent to an extent. They are all gone. And yet here he is, sitting here in his unexpected, new life, learning from his mistakes, appreciating Violet and the things he holds most dear.
She reaches out for his hand and squeezes it tightly and they sit there quietly in the lounge like that, just sitting, silently, holding on tight.
Eventually Dan reenters the room. He holds a tray of champagne flutes before him, and is laughing at something Violet has just said. He seems oblivious to the charged emotion in the room.
“Well, here we are, folks,” he announces. “Champagne for us…and sparkling water for the one ‘with child.’” He hands Dora her glass with a flourish.
Violet bustles in behind him with the open bottle of champagne. “We must have a toast. Richard, will you do the honors?”
“Of course.” Richard stands and raises his glass. He clears his throat and looks across at Dora before speaking. “To a new life…and to full lives, lived without fear.”
Violet throws him a gentle smile, and they all clink glasses and pretend not to notice Richard’s watering eyes as they sip at their drinks.
“Now there’s a lovely roast in the kitchen that needs carving,” Violet chirrups. “Which of these fine alpha males is going to do the honors? Dan?”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
“Wonderful. Why don’t you and Dora go on ahead and I’ll just tidy up in here a bit.”
They take the hint, and as they leave the room Dora turns to see Violet fussing over her father. She is adjusting his shirt collar and murmuring something intently in his ear until a mischievous smile breaks out across her father’s face. He leans in to brush Violet’s cheek with his lips, and then, seeing Dora watching them from the doorway, gives her the slightest of winks over the top of Violet’s blond curls. Dora turns from the room, a smile upon her face.
It’s a relief when the atmosphere over lunch grows lighter and more jovial. Violet sets about her combined roles of hostess and comedienne in earnest and they have soon left behind the heavy mood from earlier. Richard cracks a stream of corny jokes over dessert and Dan has them all in stitches as he reenacts an awkward meeting with a famous artist he has long admired. It seems none of them want to dwell on gloomier matters.
They leave just as it is getting dark outside. As they pull out of the driveway Dora turns to give a final wave. She sees her father and Violet standing outside the house. Richard has his arm slung around Violet’s shoulders as she gazes up into his eyes adoringly. Dora smiles and turns back to Dan, putting her hand over his on the gear stick. “You were right, you know.”
Dan nods knowingly. “I’m always right.” He pauses as he indicates left. “But what specifically was I right about this time?”
“Violet. She’s really good for Dad.”
He nods and Dora leans back into her seat and watches as a green blur of hedgerows passes outside her window. A life half lived. It resonates deeply. Since Alfie disappeared she knows they have all been guilty of living stilted half-lives, in their own different ways. Her father hasn’t given her all the answers, but it has made her understand where she needs to go next.
As the hedges turn to streetlamps and her eyes finally close, succumbing to the hypnotic haze of a hundred orange cats’ eyes speeding toward her out of the darkness, there is one face that continues to drift in and out of her consciousness.
Cassie.
It is time for her to see Cassie.
Chapter 16
Helen
Nine Years Earlier
Later, after the dust had settled, the irony would not escape Helen that her marriage had finally ended at the exact same moment the rest of the world prepared to turn the page on a shiny new chapter.
It was Millennium Eve. The whole country was in the final, frenzied preparations for the party of the century, but as Helen woke that morning she could think of nothing more pressing than boiling the kettle for a cup of tea, throwing some muesli into a bowl, and perhaps turning up the central heating a degree or two. Cassie was still an absent figure, closeted away in London, incommunicado. Dora was away for the weekend at a friend’s house. She and Richard had no plans to celebrate and she knew their evening would pass quietly with a bottle of wine and the television volume on low as they watched the loud razzle-dazzle celebrations beamed from various destinations around the globe. It was fine by her.
She padded downstairs and across the drafty hall, pulling her dressing gown around her body as she moved toward the kitchen. It was as she passed the open door to the living room that something off kilter nudged gently at the corners of her mind. She nearly didn’t stop, but a sixth sense told her brain what her eyes had failed to process. Slowly, she retraced her steps and stood at the doorway looking in.
Tobias’s painting of the gloomy seascape still hung in its usual place on the wall, housed within its gilt-edged frame. Everything was perfect—untouched—except for a series of violent slashes that had ripped the canvas apart and exposed the shocking whiteness of the wall behind it. It looked as though someone had taken a Stanley knife and set to it with a fury.
Helen felt her legs start to give way.
She moved forward and sat on an arm of the sofa, surveying the damage more closely. The remnants looked like some expensive installation piece. It wouldn’t have looked out of place hanging on the walls of a modern gallery. She could almost hear the critics gushing in extravagant hyperbole about the artist’s bold, ironic statement. Only this was no art gallery. And the only statement being made, while undeniably symbolic, was one of anger, not irony.
Richard knew.
He had discovered the affair.
Helen gripped at the arm of the sofa, suddenly weak at the thought of the confrontation that lay ahead. It had been more than two years since the affair ended. Two years since Alfie’s funeral when they’d lowered an empty coffin into the ground and said farewell to their son. She’d expected the guilt to fade with time, but she still woke every morning unable to forgive herself for her failings as a wife and mother, unable to look at herself in the mirror with anything other than disgust and self-hatred reflected back in her eyes.
She sat for a moment longer, surveying the damage to the painting, reluctant to move. But as she sat, and as the storm of emotion began to settle in her mind, she was surprised to find that among the guilt and fear lay the glimmer of something sweeter, the nub of something that she could only call relief. She was about to be exposed; her sordid secrets were about to come tumbling out, and once they were out there, spoken and made real, she wouldn’t have to lie or hide again. Whatever the outcome, it was time to face it, all of it, head-on.
God knows she’d thought about confessing to Richard plenty of times over the last two years. The words had sat on the tip of her tongue for days after Alfie’s funeral, burning like salt in an ulcer until she had nearly screamed out in agony. But whatever her own private pain, she knew she couldn’t burden Richard with more heartache. It would have been the most selfish act of all.
She had ended the affair immediately after Alfie’s disappearance, and while it might have allowed her some peace on a personal level to confess her sins to Richard, she knew it would be nothing short of barbaric to inflict yet more pain on a man already drowning in his grief. She had never been able to shake that fear since. Any time she had contemplated revealing her betrayal to her husband, she was racked by suspicions that it would prove to be her most selfish act of all. For by easing her own conscience and seeking his forgiveness, wouldn’t she merely transfer the weight of her adultery onto her husband? It would be his load to bear—to digest, process, and live with in whatever form he felt able. And if she were honest, she wasn’t sure he could take much more.
It was a strange, twilight time immediately after the funeral. Broken fragm
ents of memories resurfaced. She remembered the leathery smell of the car that had driven them back to the house after the service, and the damp handkerchief she had clutched between her fingers all afternoon, which only later she had realized was embroidered with Alfred Tide’s initials, the same as those of her missing son. Back at the house Richard had slumped in a corner of the kitchen gazing out the window at the gardens, a glass of whiskey cradled in his hand. David Chamberlain, his business partner, had shuffled around and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and repeated how sorry he was “for their loss” until Helen felt like screaming and throwing him and his wife out of the house. Bill and Betty, who had both been so active in assisting the local search parties, had also returned with them. Betty made tea and laid out plates of biscuits while Bill sat at the kitchen table with Cassie and Dora, the three of them reminiscing on happier times. They’d remembered the previous summer when Alfie had gone out to “help” Bill dig the flower beds. Bill had the girls in giggles as they remembered Alfie putting a big, fat wriggling worm to his lips with an innocent smile. “Mmmm…,” he had said, “pageti.” The three of them had snickered until the realization that Alfie would no longer be confusing worms for spaghetti had dawned on them all. Their giggles had trailed off into tearful silence, and not long after Bill and Betty had made their excuses and left.
That had just left Violet, who had bustled around the kitchen in her tight black dress and too-bright lipstick making cups of tea and beans on toast. None of them had had an appetite but at least it had been a diversion of some sorts from the profound and somewhat intimidating business of grieving.
“You’re an angel,” Helen had sighed wearily up at Violet as she poured herself another glass of wine. “Thank you for coming.”
“Rubbish,” Violet had said. “You lot need a little TLC right now. And here I am. It’s not as if I’ve got anything better to do…”
She remembered Richard had cleared his throat. “If you’ll all excuse me…I think…I’d quite like to…” His face was pale and he stumbled over his words. “I think I need to have a little lie-down.”
“Of course.” Violet patted him on the arm. “You go, dear. I’ll look after the girls here.”
Helen exchanged a worried glance with Violet. “He’s just tired,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “It’s been a long day.” It had been, though it was only three in the afternoon.
Not long after Richard had left the kitchen the telephone had rung. Helen rushed at it, reaching the receiver seconds before Cassie. “Hello?”
“Can you talk?” It was Tobias. They hadn’t spoken for a couple of days.
“Yes. Hold on one moment please.” Her voice was all polite efficiency. She turned to the others. “It’s a friend from work. Do you mind?”
Violet nodded. “Come on, girls, let’s go and see what we can find on the telly. Maybe an old movie or something?” Cassie and Dora had trooped out of the kitchen, reluctantly trailing Violet and her swaying hips, leaving Helen to her call.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here. How are you, my darling? I’ve been thinking of you all day. Was it dreadful?”
“Yes. Unbearable.” She closed her eyes. “They said we might feel a little better once we’d held the service, but to be honest I think I feel worse. The house just seems so empty without him. I keep expecting him to burst through the door any moment, demanding his tea or asking me to find some toy or other.”
“My poor love. I would have come to the church but I didn’t think it appropriate somehow.”
“No,” agreed Helen.
“When can I see you? I’m dying to hold you, to put my arms around you and make it all better.”
Helen breathed quietly down the phone for a moment. “Tobias, there is no making it better. My son is dead. He’s gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I meant how can I make you feel a little better?”
“I don’t know that you can.” She paused as her words sank in. It was the first time she’d admitted to herself, but she found the thought of being with him repellent now.
“You could let me try?” he asked plaintively. “I miss you.”
“It’s not a good time. I need to be with my family.”
Tobias was silent for a moment. “You know, I need you too, Helen.”
Helen shook her head. “No, I need to be here, with Richard.”
There was a heavy silence at the other end of the phone. “What are you saying?”
She sighed. She felt so tired. Too tired for this conversation.
“I don’t know. I have to get my head together. I never should have come to meet you that day. It was a mistake…a terrible mistake.” Her voice had risen to a strange, hysterical pitch. “Do you know how guilty I feel? I’m tormented by the fact that we were there, together, when Alfie went missing. Can you imagine what it’s like to know that it’s your fault your son is dead? I feel so alone.” She let out a strangled sob of anguish.
“Darling, you’re not alone. I’m here for you. Why don’t we meet? We can talk about it. You’ll feel better, I promise. Remember how good I can make you feel?”
Her stomach churned at his words. “No, Tobias,” she said. “I can’t do this right now. My family needs me.”
“So I don’t matter? Is that it?” There was an unattractive whine to his voice. Helen wondered how she could have never seen this childish, egocentric side to him before. She thought of their many stolen moments together, in hotel rooms and in the back of his car, snatched moments of sex and lust, wrapped up in the heat and excitement of the forbidden, and felt her stomach heave again. Swept up in the romance of their affair, she had failed to see what a terrible, pathetic cliché it all was. She had played the misunderstood wife to a T, she’d painted Richard as the neglectful, distracted husband to perfection, and Tobias had admirably filled the role of the illicit suitor. She wanted to shake herself. How had she ended up here? How had she put everything she cared about on the line, for this? All those years with Richard, spent building a life and a family, and she’d risked it all for what? A meaningless fling.
An image of Richard standing outside the church suddenly came to her. He’d stood there, his face pale and taut with grief, his eyes gazing out across the horizon, one arm wrapped around each of their daughters as they leaned in to the comfort of his body. Dora’s face had been buried in his jacket and Richard’s lips had been moving slowly, offering words of comfort to the girls, even though Helen could practically feel the anguish radiating from his core. Her good, strong husband. How foolish she had been.
“Right now I’m afraid you don’t,” she replied. Suddenly she saw things more clearly than she had in a long, long while. She had already lost her son. She couldn’t risk losing her daughters, or her husband too. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound callous, but I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again. My family is most important right now.”
“If it’s time and space that you need…”
“No. It’s not.”
Tobias fell silent at the other end of the phone. When he next spoke there was an edge to his voice. “Well, this is a turn-up for the books…After weeks of Tobias, I want you, Tobias, I need you, you just want to call it a day?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
“So that’s it? It’s over, just like that?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
They were both silent for a moment. She could hear him breathing at the other end of the phone and realized she felt absolutely nothing. Her infatuation with him had simply dissipated into thin air.
He spoke next. “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to say then…”
“No.”
He paused again. “Good-bye, Helen.”
“Good-bye,” she said.
There was another pause, as if he was waiting for her to change her mind, but Helen remained silent and when the click of the receiver came she felt nothing but relief.
She sat there for a minute or two listening to the shrill bleeping of the disconnect tone and let the familiar sounds of her home settle in around her.
Over the coming days she collapsed at intermittent and unexpected moments. She’d feel okay, almost normal sometimes, but then the sight of something would send waves of unbearable sadness bearing down upon her. It could be anything: a stray toy retrieved from under the sofa cushions, the pencil marks on the kitchen wall where they had charted Alfie’s height, or an old half-eaten box of raisins found at the bottom of her handbag. They were small things but they had the power to knock the wind out of her lungs and send her running to the bathroom where she would collapse and ride out the pain with great heaving sobs. Or sometimes she would take herself up to Alfie’s bedroom, close the door, and lie upon the coolness of his bed, letting the last, precious scent of him invade her nostrils and her tears stain his pillow.
Richard, on the other hand, collapsed completely. Up until the moment they had lowered the little empty coffin into the ground, Richard had had a purpose. He had spent every waking hour searching for Alfie. Then, when hope had faded and the police had called off the hunt, he had transferred his energy into the funeral arrangements. But once they’d held the service and the little empty coffin had been sent to its earthy tomb, Richard had fallen apart.
He stayed in bed for a week after the funeral. No amount of coaxing or cajoling from either Helen or the girls could rouse him. He just lay there, in the semidarkness of the bedroom with his face turned to the wall, mourning his son. She had wanted to reach out to him, had been desperate to hold him, for him to hold her, to feel the reassuring solidity of his body against hers, but instead she had just sat quietly at the end of the bed, making do with just being there with him. She would sit in the shadows and listen to the steady rise and fall of his breath, waiting for him to speak, wondering if she should tell him the truth about where she had been that day. But he hadn’t spoken, and neither had she.
The House of Tides Page 29