Intrusion: A Novel

by Mary McCluskey

  Kat found the outlet for the phone, pushing a lamp and a photo frame out of the way to reach it. The old silver frame with the picture of Chris at his junior high school graduation had tipped onto its side. She straightened it, studied it. Chris wore a white shirt and a serious expression. It was a formal school picture. Why had she brought this one? Instead of one of him laughing? She had grabbed this photograph from the hall table instead of choosing a better one from upstairs on the dresser. Shows what kind of glazed fog I was in when I packed, she thought. I must have been in some kind of fugue state.

  When the phone was plugged in, and she had checked the dial tone, Kat sat on the bed and took a deep breath. It was midmorning in Los Angeles. If Sarah was right, and Scott was in a meeting, she could leave a voice mail, ask him to call her back. She hesitated, holding tight to the phone. Their conversations had been so angry lately, or polite and false. What could she say to him that was true? I love you. I’ve always loved you. But it’s not enough.

  She rested against the wall, uncertain. In that time on the clifftop, she had made a decision: she would not be returning to California. But what words could she use to tell him that?

  Sighing, she replaced the phone. Later. She would call him just before bed. From the kitchen, she could hear the sound of a wine bottle clinking against glass. Sarah, too impatient to wait, was pouring herself a drink. Kat ran a bath and climbed into it, adding more hot water and ducking down so that she was entirely submerged. The air in the bathroom felt cold. Sarah’s voice was now audible in the other room, talking to someone Kat assumed was the formidable Mrs. Evans. Kat slid down under the water. She would wait until Helen’s former housekeeper left. She could easily visualize the pinched face, the pursed mouth. No. She had no interest in seeing that woman again. A few minutes later, Sarah knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Dinner is served, madam,” she called. “And quite delicious it looks, too.”

  Sarah was enjoying herself, Kat realized, as she sat up in the bath and reached for a towel. Her voice sounded as young, as lively, as it had all those years ago.

  “Be right there,” Kat called.

  Sarah had set the table. The coq au vin steamed in a large casserole in the center; there was crusty bread, country butter, and Sarah’s wine. Sarah looked up, appeared to scan Kat’s face as if searching for something.

  “You didn’t reach Scott?” she asked.

  “Didn’t try. I’ll call him later,” Kat said. “Well, this looks good.”

  “Doesn’t it, though? You’ll excuse me, Kat, if I should pitch forward into it. I’m so tired. Jet-lagged beyond belief. After this, I may just lumber off to bed.”

  “Lumber away. Fine with me.”

  “So,” said Sarah, helping herself to the casserole, “where else did you go, besides the clifftop?”

  “Oh, walking about. A little hike.”

  “Where? Tell me.”

  “Into the village. It hasn’t changed much.”

  “Nothing changes here.”

  “The pub looks closed. It’s for sale?”

  “Yes. Somebody will buy it and convert it, most likely. Pubs are closing all over England.”

  “Mostly, I walked along the cliff path,” Kat said.

  “You saw the place where Joanna leapt into eternity?”

  “Was it there? On the path to Wystandean?”

  “Yes. The bit that juts out.”

  Kat longed to ask the question but faltered, unsure.

  “Why did she do it?” Sarah said.

  Caught out, Kat nodded.

  “A boy, of course,” said Sarah with a small, strange smile. “He got another girl pregnant.”

  Kat thought back to the Brighton clinic. Could the pregnant girl have been Sarah? The boy involved had never been named, not by Sarah or Helen, and described to Kat as just a village boy Sarah had met when she visited her aunt. There had been no mention, then, of a young girl’s suicide.

  Sarah regarded her steadily, a challenging look.

  “That’s very sad,” Kat said.

  “Yes.”

  Sarah, lifting the wine bottle to refill their glasses, said nothing more.

  “This is delicious,” Kat said, after a while. “Mrs. Evans hasn’t lost her touch.”

  “She was happy to cook something interesting. She calls her employer ‘that pie and pint man,’” Sarah said.

  “She doesn’t like him?”

  “Despises him. Refuses to stay overnight at the big house, drives home every night to a tiny bedsit. Says it would not be at all appropriate to live in with a man like that.” Sarah laughed. “Well, you know what a snob she is—”

  “I certainly do,” Kat said, remembering her fear, whenever she visited Lansdowne, of the housekeeper’s thin-lipped hostility.

  “She says he’s in trade. Lowest of the low in her book. Actually, he’s a trader in the city and makes an absolute mint. Sam knew him, was able to negotiate her contract as part of the deal to buy the land. I promised Helen I’d look after her.”

  “Why didn’t you employ her yourself?”

  “God no. Can you imagine? It would be like living under a cloud of constant disapproval. Besides, she wouldn’t want to live outside the UK. Her roots are here in Sussex. Family members have been in service in this area for decades. To the best families, she says. Her grandmother was employed at Goodwood House.”

  “Ah. That explains her attitude to me. Working class riffraff. Doesn’t know her place.”

  “We have our standards,” Sarah said in a perfect imitation of Mrs. Evans’s voice. She smiled, shaking her head. “Not just you, Caitlin. Oh no. She hated Sam, too, though in truth he felt the same. When I asked him if he would employ her, he said he would rather hire an ax murderer and take his chances.”

  Kat smiled.

  “No persuading him, then.”

  “No persuading Sam into anything. Well, perhaps when we were first married . . . But later, no. When we learned that I couldn’t have children, I rather lost any leverage with Sam.”

  Kat looked up at this, surprised, and caught a glimpse of Sarah’s expression: stiff, eyes cold, as if a shadow had crossed her face. At once, Sarah blinked, brightened, and it was gone.

  “Come on, eat up,” she said. “There’s a delicious lemon tart for dessert.”

  After dinner, Kat cleared away the dishes while Sarah had a bath, then settled in front of the fire with the Margaret Atwood novel she had taken from the shelves. Sarah emerged from the bathroom after a while, her hair wet, hanging down her back. The gardenia scent of her shampoo and body lotion filled the room. She wore an emerald-green dressing gown of a thick embossed silk and had a peach towel draped around her shoulders. With the rich colors and her dark hair, she looked exotic and young.

  “Let the hair dry thoroughly before bed,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s double pneumonia, as every Englishwoman knows.”

  Kat smiled.

  “What are you reading?” Sarah asked.

  “Atwood again. Cat’s Eye.”

  “Oh yes. Great book. Robber Bride is here somewhere. Let me see if I can find it.”

  Sarah found the book easily and took the other chair. It was quiet, the wind had dropped, the room felt cozy and warm. Sarah pulled over a footstool and put her feet up.

  “This is so nice, isn’t it, Kat?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Kat, hoping that Sarah would not want to talk, that they could both read peacefully, the only sounds the crackling fire and the distant beat of the waves.

  “Like old times,” said Sarah in an odd voice. “The happiest days of my life.”

  Kat looked up, alert.

  “With your husband?” she asked. “You were here, like this?”

  “Sam? Oh no. Not at all. He hated Sussex. I’ve told you what my life with Sam was like.”

  “So when? When were the happiest days of your life?”

  “You know when.”

  Kat stared, puzzled. Sarah’s eyes glimmered,
strangely bright in the firelight.

  “I realized a while ago,” said Sarah. “That I was truly happy once. Just once. For quite a short time. Those times in our flat, or here in the cottage, or up at Lansdowne with Helen.”

  “It was fun,” Kat said slowly. “But I’m sure you’ve had happier—”

  “No,” Sarah said. “No. I haven’t.”

  Kat felt the first stirrings of unease. She put down her book.

  “Really?”

  “Really. Lansdowne was the first place I felt safe. And later, when we had our little flat, I was happy. But I destroyed it all, didn’t I? With Sven. Destroyed everything.”

  Kat shook her head, uncomfortable.

  “Years ago, Sarah. Forgotten.”

  Sarah reached for her wine, drank deeply from it, then circled around to lift the fresh bottle from the dining table. She opened it quickly, refilled her glass.

  “I thought you would forgive me, Kat. I really did.”

  Her voice was soft, more regretful than accusatory, but she spoke fast now, as if the words might damage her mouth, as if the buried regrets must be spat out at speed.

  “But you couldn’t, could you? You cut me off. Everyone hated me. I was so hurt. After all I’d shared with you. You knew me, Caitlin. Like you were my family. I’d never had that before. Isn’t that what families do? Share history? Share experiences. Forgive. It was painful. And I had forgiven you, remember.”

  “Forgiven me?” Kat asked. “For what?”

  “For telling Aunt Helen I was pregnant. I know it was you.”

  Silence in the warm cottage. Kat looked away, biting at her lip.

  “Helen told you?”

  “No. Mrs. Evans told me. I blamed that awful solicitor at first.”

  Kat recalled then, a snapshot bleached by light, the young girl she had known, shaking under the duvets after the clinic visit, her skin the color of alabaster. For those seconds, Kat’s uneasiness was replaced by pity.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Sarah shrugged.

  “You weren’t to know the consequences of that botched surgery, were you? None of us knew.”

  “No. Even so.”

  “Never mind. I forgave you. Forgave both of you. I thought you and Helen were the only people who cared about me. Nobody had before. And later we had our flat and university and a life and I was happy. Imagine? I was actually happy.”

  She paused, studied Kat, eyes intent. Kat, made even more uncomfortable by this scrutiny, frowned, waiting.

  “What is it?” she asked at last.

  “I know what you plan to do, Kat,” Sarah said. “I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “I saw how you looked, up there on the clifftop. I know you have pills with you. I just want to say that I understand.”

  Chilled, Kat shook her head.

  “Sarah, I really don’t want to talk about—”

  Sarah tossed her hair over one shoulder and began to rub at the ends of it with the peach towel, her eyes never moving from Kat’s face.

  “You needn’t be alone, you know. I won’t intervene. If you’re at all nervous, I can—”

  “Stop,” Kat said, getting to her feet. “Please.”

  She moved so abruptly that she banged into the table and the wineglasses shook. She straightened them without looking at Sarah and walked to the window, aware of Sarah’s eyes on her back. She looked out into the night. It was dark out there; the shadowy trees swayed in the wind, and she could see the ocean, a black swirling cauldron.

  She swallowed hard; her throat hurt. The sea remained black, rough, fathomless, a possibility that still beckoned.

  “It was quite clear to me that evening at Malibu,” Sarah said softly. “You were so very unhappy. And who can blame you? So much to bear these last few months. The loss of a child, the disappointment over the adoption. Scott’s terrible neglect and indifference. Too much.”

  Kat stepped back from the window, moved away from the black nightscape of seething water and swaying trees. She turned into the room, studied the beautiful face of the woman she had known since adolescence and who now regarded her with an expression of gentle sympathy.

  “I don’t have to leave, you know,” Sarah said. “If you’d prefer that I stay.”

  A warning bell sounded in Kat’s head. There was something smug and strange in Sarah’s voice. A kind of triumph. As if she had won. As if she had achieved something.

  “Stay here?”

  “Yes. Stay with you. I can walk with you to the cliff path. Or, if you decide to take the pills, I can wait with you here until it’s over.”

  Kat felt as if an icy breeze touched the surface of her skin.

  “Sarah, honestly—”

  “Or not,” Sarah said quickly. “If you don’t want that, I can make sure that Mrs. Evans finds you. She’s very capable. She’ll know what to do. Whom to notify. Nobody will know I was here.”

  Kat turned back to the window, unable to look at Sarah.

  “I really don’t want to discuss—” she began.

  But Sarah wasn’t listening.

  “It’s absurd, isn’t it?” she said. “How my life is littered with suicides? Do you think I exude some kind of pheromone? A chemical that makes people reach for the razor, or the liquid morphine, hurl themselves off cliffs? Well, who knows. People hurt themselves, don’t they? Sweet Joanna, smashed onto the rocks like a broken Barbie. Foolish, drunken Sven, tumbling down the stairs, talking the entire time.”

  It took a moment for the words to register fully with Kat.

  “You were there, then, when Sven fell?”

  “Hardly matters now, Kat, does it? My concern, right now, is you.”

  Shaken, Kat said nothing. Her breath seemed to be caught in her throat. The atmosphere in the cottage was so heavy and oppressive, as if the air had been cut off, as if the oxygen were slowly vanishing from the room. She wanted to get away. But she did not want a confrontation. She moved from the window, her head down, avoiding Sarah’s eyes.

  “I’m tired, Sarah,” she said. “I think I’ll just go to bed.”

  “So early? Okay. Fine. But listen, I’ll be here, you know, if you need me tonight.”

  Once in the bedroom, Kat closed the door carefully. Her hands were trembling as, silently, she tugged the suitcase onto the bed. She opened it slowly, holding her breath. She could be packed in minutes, could leave in the early hours when Sarah was asleep. She lifted the items from the bedside table, placed them gingerly in the case. The closet door creaked as she opened it, and she stood rigidly still, listening, before reaching inside it, taking out one item at a time so that the hangers did not clash together.

  She had placed some of the sweaters into the case when she heard a click behind her. Sarah stood in the doorway, her face stiff.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something.”

  “The pills? They’re in the pocket. Inside.”

  Kat, trying to hide the tremor in her hands, pushed the suitcase away and reached for her nightgown, as if preparing for bed.

  “It’s okay. I’m just going to bed.”

  “Of course. It’s only that—well, you looked so distressed.”

  She leaned against the doorjamb, studied Kat carefully, eyes narrow.

  “You’re not packing, are you, Caitlin?” she asked finally.

  When Kat did not reply, she moved closer.

  “You were meant to stay here,” Sarah said, her voice rising. “Isolated. Alone. Like I was.”

  Meant to stay.

  A moment of stunned disbelief, and then, like a window thrown open, a blast of icy air, Kat saw clearly and understood. Sarah had destroyed many lives since she gained access to her husband’s funds and companies. She was not finished yet.

  Kat gripped the sides of the suitcase to steady herself and turned to look at Sarah, a slow fear growing in her gut.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  Sarah
laughed. A startling sound in the claustrophobic bedroom. Her amusement seemed real, the laugh unforced.

  “Oh, I can easily answer that. Since the morning I saw your picture.”

  “My—?”

  “In the newspaper. It was quite a shock. I’d just met the lawyers, been given full access to Sam’s funds. I was exhilarated that day. I walked around my Ojai house. I imagined the renovation. I imagined the scores I could settle. Then, I took a little break. Coffee and the newspaper. And there you were. A photograph of Scott receiving some lawyer’s award. A charity function. You were wearing black, too. So odd, don’t you think, both of us wearing black that day?”

  “And I became one of your scores to settle?” Kat asked, trying to keep her voice level.

  “Not at first. No. You looked so sad. That young gangster was there on the podium with Scott, and you were seated behind them, next to James. You looked so small. So alone and lost. Just as you looked when I first saw you at St. Theresa’s. I researched you, of course. Learned all about Scott and the death of your son. I have people who can find out everything.”

  Kat recalled the expensive flowers at the grave. Sarah. Of course. And that’s how she knew about Chloe, she thought. She knew about her even before I did.

  “It was so easy to arrange a meeting,” Sarah continued. “I was looking forward to it, actually. I thought I could forgive you.”

  She paused to study Kat’s stricken face.

  “Thought I could,” she repeated slowly.

  “But—?”

  “There you were in that glitzy Palm Springs ballroom and not lost at all. Not alone. Your handsome husband at your side. Your rottweiler sister there, too. And everyone saying, What a devoted couple. So loving. So very close. I’d already been damned for ruining the love of your life. You can see how the irony of it was hard to resist.”