The Invitation

by A. M. Castle

  Vicky feels my eyes on her. ‘OK, Gita?’ she says with an ingratiating smile. I can’t be as angry with her as I want to be, about Tom long ago, when I know that her son might already be dead. So I’m not going to ask her how she could have done it to me. I can see the explanation, her excuse. It’s right there in her hand, as usual. But still, she remained silent, all these years. And what about poor Raf himself? If he’s still alive, how will he and Tasha ever get over all this? God, I hate secrets. How has everyone else managed to suppress so much, all these years? Communication, that’s the key to making things work in life. And how can you communicate successfully, if you’re hiding things? From other people, and from yourself?

  But Vicky has finally sensed something, through her fug of booze. Something about my reticence, the way I’m not attacking her as I could. And perhaps even the fact that Raf isn’t back yet. Her eyebrows shoot up. ‘Raf?’ she says. Funny the way we still understand each other, even after all this. Even when we don’t really want to. Suddenly she’s on her feet and at the door.

  ‘Tom said we should all stay here …’ I say to her back. She whips round and smiles crookedly.

  ‘We both know what Tom can do, at this point,’ she says, and she slams the door behind her.

  Chapter 51

  Vicky

  Mount Tregowan, 1st November

  Don’t think about a drink. Don’t, don’t. Even though it might sharpen things up. The first one often does. But then the second blurs everything. I know that, I do. I do. I’m not going to. I have to keep focused.

  Where the hell is Raf? When exactly did he leave this room? The way he edged out … He did give me that tiny hug, though. That warms my heart. Did he set off immediately, to swim to the mainland? Or did he wait? Does he know enough about the tides? Was the water calm enough?

  There are too many questions, and I can’t answer any of them. I should have gone down, to the pier. To see him off. To make sure everything was OK. But he didn’t want me there, my lad. Christ, what sort of mother am I?

  He’s been avoiding me all weekend, especially since it came out about him and Tasha, and me and Tom. I understand how dreadful it was for him. For them both. But it might not even be true. That’s the thing.

  Yes, there’s a chance that Tom is his father. Bob and I did carry merrily on after Raf’s birth, ‘trying for a brother or sister’, as people coyly put it. And nothing happened at all. But, while that’s odd, it’s not proof positive. Raf could still be Bob’s. He and Tasha could be freaking out for no reason.

  Admittedly, I’d be the same. Much has changed in the past twenty years, but incest is still a taboo. If I’d been open right from the start, then, well, it would never have happened. But if Raf had said a word to me about Tasha, I would have told him. I never saw any sign of interest between them. But then, I wasn’t looking. Why would I? I suppose I always hoped they got on. But, with Raf treating me like a leper, I haven’t had the chance to see more.

  And Gita. Oh God. I know I should have said. I know I’ve let the years rush by, blurring my stupid mistake, hoping it was all forgotten. But you can’t bury a six-foot man, as Raf now is. One night, that’s all it was, and not even that. It was ten minutes of madness. Less. I was drunk, of course, and Tom was predatory. Those were the days when he really put it about.

  He was the best-looking boy on campus, by far. And he knew it, every second of every day. He was a peacock, bursting with testosterone. We were all drab and desperate, by comparison. I loathed him, outwardly. But inside I was as wet and willing as the rest. And I suppose at some horrible level I enjoyed getting one over on Gita, perfect Gita, with her stratospheric grades, her kindness, her beauty and her charmed life already rolling out in front of her. It was just a tumble, a fumble. I didn’t want anything more from him. And very soon I wanted a lot less. Then I took up with Bob and, even though we argued about what day of the week it was and which way was up, right from the start, I held on to him for grim death and said nothing.

  Rachel had to be the one to walk in on us. When she burst through the door, to dump someone’s coat on the rail, I had my back to her. Well, I was astride Tom, on the floor, trying to avoid carpet burns from the cheap nylon pile in that drab little room right next to the fancy college dining hall. I whipped my head round for a second and saw her, and then, I sometimes think, I saw his face change, become even more avid, as we screwed away. Did he know she was there? Even pant out her name? I just can’t remember. But he could have. Easily. She threw the coats, I know that, because they clipped me round the shoulder, and she disappeared in her absurd Halloween cloak, a version of the one she wore last night. Tom came in one last expansive thrust. The timing didn’t escape me. I assumed she was yet another scalp he’d quite like.

  Then, when I dismounted, he immediately sloped off, was reunited with Gita, and the rest is history. I drank enough to blot the world out, let alone him, my crushing sense of guilt and even Rachel’s looming face. Jane upstaged me in the bad behaviour stakes, getting her stomach pumped. I’d almost forgotten it, or at least pushed it right to the back of my mind, by the time I realised I was pregnant. Bob and I had just become an official thing, boyfriend and girlfriend, just like Tom and Gita. It wasn’t easy, being pregnant and finishing my finals. I had Raf right after leaving uni. How could I have said anything at that point?

  I need to talk to Gita about it, I really do. But what can I say, after all these years? I can’t even pretend it was nothing. Raf is the proof that it was a seismic event. Except, he actually might not be. He could still be Bob’s son, he could. It’s a shred of hope that I cling to.

  Anyway, it’s more important that I reconnect with Raf than have it out with her. Gita has waited twenty years to hear the story, she can last a few hours more. But I need to be near Raf. I know he went ages ago, but if I wait down by the pier, I might see him coming back. Hopefully with the cavalry we need right now.

  Downstairs, out in the hall, I rummage through the rack by the door, trying to find a jacket that will do. I throw on the first that looks as though it will fit. One of the staff comes out of the kitchen, but backs away when she sees me. They’re avoiding us now. Well, we’re all avoiding each other.

  I fling open the door, and the wind rips my breath away. I thought the turmoil in my head was bad, but this is nuts, like being put through a washing machine spin cycle. I’m pinned for a moment on the threshold, watching the clouds being yanked across the leaden sky like grey rags on strings. The air is heavy with a seaweed tang. I want this wildness to purge all my regrets. But I know even this isn’t scourge enough. So I plunge on, and go to where the paths start. The one that traces the island’s curves, and the one that cuts straight down to the sea.

  Which one will Raf have taken? The meandering trail, or the fastest route? I don’t hesitate, going straight downhill towards the reckless sea. Though I am so far away from it, up here, it seems suddenly as though it’s lurching up to meet me. I grip the handrail with all my might, and wait for the dizziness to pass off. For a second, I feel as though I might plummet right from the top of the mountain, to those cold grey depths. No, it will not take me. Life will not get the better of me, let alone the sea. For a second, I pat the pockets of the jacket. If it were mine, there’d be a hip flask somewhere. A quick nip of cleansing vodka would put fire in my veins. But thank God, it’s not my coat, and that reflex has to go unfulfilled. My body wants it badly but I tell myself no. I lift my head up again to the scudding clouds, make a resolution, and then start my descent.

  I’m going to wait for Raf. I’m going to sit there until he comes. I’m finally going to come clean, explain everything. Make him see that, all along, I’ve only tried to do what’s best for him.

  The thought chugs through my mind, pushing out visions of drink. It sustains me down and down the steps, slick as they are with the spray from the sea and the endless spatters of rain. A few times I nearly slip, but my rictus grip on the railing – itself unpleasantly slim
y – saves me from tripping and falling. It takes me ten minutes to get down to the foot of the hill, with the weather worsening at every step.

  By the time I’ve reached ground level, I’m out of breath and it’s raining in deadly earnest, chilling me to the bone. The skies are suddenly going a deeper shade of charcoal, while the waves crash over onto this rocky promontory I’m standing on. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

  Worst of all, there is no sign of Raf. Well, what was I expecting, I ask myself, as I pace this way and that. I walk round the island as far as I can, coming to the pier Roderick mentioned. I suppose this is where Jane arrived on Friday night, when she missed the causeway. She always was a bit dozy, in her own little world. I suppose even at uni she was dreaming about mice in tutus. I love Jane, but thank God I didn’t have to read that stuff to Raf; he was straight Captain Underpants all the way. Give me a fart joke over a prancing rodent any day.

  These thoughts keep me distracted until I come right up to the little boat shed. Like everything else here, apart from the Tregowans themselves, it shows signs of having been recently tarted up by Rachel. It’s all painted in Farrow and Ball, and has a brand-new padlock keeping it shut. I peer in through the window. It’s so dark. But the torch on my phone reveals the disappointing truth – just a few piles of rope. I go over to the boat, upturned on the pier. This must be the one they were talking about earlier. Sure enough, there’s a hole knocked right through the bottom, the wood all jagged. No sign of what was used to do the damage. Thrown into the sea, no doubt. And right by the side of the boat, hidden from sight until now, I suddenly see a pile of sodden clothes.

  My heart stops in my chest. Oh Christ. Goose bumps start right at my knees, then sweep my body. I feel my hair standing away from the nape of my neck. I’m shivering even in this too-hot, oversized jacket.

  That’s Raf’s sweater. He was wearing it when I last saw him. In fact, I bought it for him for Christmas, last year. When I saw he’d actually brought it here, I thought we had a real chance of a reconciliation, of some sort. Since then I’ve been waiting for my moment. The right time.

  How stupid I’ve been. Any of the minutes we spent together on this island would have done. Because one thing is now clear. These are Raf’s jeans, his socks, his shoes. His watch. God, oh God, oh God, his phone. I fall to my knees, and gather everything – his precious belongings – to my chest. I bury my face in them, the sopping-wet denim, the mushy drenched fleece which, even though it still smells faintly of my lad, gives me no succour. I look out and into the evil sea. A gull flies right past my face, screaming at me, and for once I want to scream right back.

  I tell myself it means nothing. He would have had to take his kit off, to get into his wetsuit, to go across. He couldn’t take his phone, could he? One drop of water and you have to cocoon the blasted thing in dry rice and hope and pray the battery will survive. He had to leave this stuff behind. He’s a fit young lad. He’s reached the mainland by now. No, definitely. For sure. He’s getting help; he’s talking to the police. He’s explaining everything that’s happened here. That will take some time.

  He’s not dead, he’s not dead. But it doesn’t matter how often I chant it to myself, or scan the horizon for any sign: a swimmer, a boat, anything at all. Deep in my heart I know. The sea has taken him. My little lad is gone. Into this water, away from this world. Away from me.

  And it’s my fault. Because I never told him about his father. Well, even now I hedge. Who his father might be. I had twenty whole years to sort that one out. But instead I dodged it, drank it away, avoided the question in Bob’s eyes, kept my distance from Tom, held Gita at arm’s length. God, it would have been so much easier to stick one of Raf’s hairs in an envelope, get it tested and face the truth for once. But I’ve been a coward. Such a coward.

  And, worse than anything, I brought him to this island, where Rachel has forced everything into the light.

  My face is wet, but whether with tears, seawater or the rain pelting down, I don’t know and I don’t care.

  Rachel, Rachel, thank God you’re dead, I shout to the sky.

  Because if you weren’t, I’d fucking kill you right now.

  Chapter 52

  Jane

  Mount Tregowan, 1st November

  It’s been an hour, more or less, since Vicky trailed back to the house. She was a changed woman, a drowned rat. That Louise Brooks bob, so severe, was plastered to her face. It immediately made her look more vulnerable, less of a bulldozer. It was as though all the bluster had beaten out of her, by the winds and rain. And her discovery.

  I feel for her. I do. She must be beside herself, worrying about Raf. He’s been gone ages, now. No one wants to say anything, but it must be too long, surely? And he is a lovely boy. I suspected Tasha might be keen on him, on our first night here. Not that it was surprising. Same generation, same level of gorgeousness.

  And, now that I know, of course I see the resemblance. To Tom. Their eyes have the same spacing, they have very similar chins and they share a certain stance that, in Tom, is bulletproof arrogance and in Raf is endearing braggadocio. I wonder where the dividing line falls? Maybe at the point where you start to go round impregnating people you shouldn’t be messing with.

  You’d have thought Vicky would have mentioned something, in all this time. I thought we were such good friends. But you don’t really know people until something like this happens. And I suppose I can’t talk. I didn’t confide in her, either.

  But I did see what flashed between the two of them, Tom and Vicky, when she burst back into the room where we’ve been sitting all this time. It’s like some interminable dentist’s waiting room, for all its book-lined luxury, for all its views onto Rachel’s glorious bloody island and her sea.

  One glance was enough. Her terror for her boy, Tom’s immediate reassuring expression, as steadying as an arm around her, as though he’d said the words aloud, don’t worry, he’ll be fine. If Raf hadn’t been their son, then that lightning transmission could not have taken place. I don’t know if I was the only one who saw, or whether my own, still more troubled connection with Tom means I am super-sensitive to the nuances. I looked away. It was too painful to gaze on.

  People think I don’t know the pain of losing a child. But they’re wrong. I know it better than almost anyone. That first baby, Tom’s, scraped out of me so long ago. And then all Geoff’s attempts. Each one of those was as worthy of love and remembrance as anyone else’s child. They didn’t have the chance to live and breathe, to move and make a difference in the world, but they were, each one of them, my little bundles of potential, all the more precious because they were denied their chance.

  I wish I could say that my grief rises up and helps me distract Vicky from her fears. But it remains locked within me. People don’t see that I am a mother too, if only of the dead. They have never given me leave to mourn. The few times I admitted to having a miscarriage, people would say, ‘Oh, you can try again.’ But the child I’d lost wasn’t just a sudoku puzzle that didn’t come out right. It was a soul, a piece of my heart. So now I cannot help others. My sorrow is locked in me, like a tear that trembles on an eyelash but will not fall.

  Geoff comes over to me, where I stand pretending to look out of the window on the worsening weather. God, this grimmest of weekends just had to be accompanied by the worst storm in living memory. I try my hardest not to flinch away when his hand comes down on me, as I know it will. I ought to be glad, that he’s giving me this sign of reconciliation, of forgiveness. But instead something in me shrivels away from him.

  Geoff, of all people, understands the depths of my misery, plunging further than the fathoms now pressing on Rachel’s stupid causeway, and stretching beyond Finistère on the French coast opposite us. It wasn’t for nothing that the Romans called it the ‘end of the world’.

  I don’t want Geoff’s sympathy and forgiveness anymore. It’s just another burden on my shoulders, like his pudgy hand. God, I shouldn’t sa
y that about him, but at times like this I can’t deal with his compassion. I feel the need to be punished, the way I know I deserve. Especially when, in the still watches of this sleepless night, I finally decided to clear the slate completely. I whispered my confession to Geoff – that the baby I had aborted was Tom’s. I don’t know how he can have come round so quickly.

  I should be grateful to my husband, for his forbearance now, and for all he’s done in the past. Not least his many attempts to impregnate this diminishingly attractive body, when all along I’ve known it was futile. Whatever those doctors did with their little metal sticks long ago, whichever bits of Tom clung inside me and had to be scraped away, they took the spark of life with them, in a torrent that leaked through pad after pad, for months. I’ve always known it was hopeless every time since then, that not one of my children would live long enough to see the light of day.

  If I’d only left Tom’s seed to grow, the harvest would have been a child as healthy and strong as Raf was, or as beautiful as Tasha, Nessie or Ruby. A child to be proud of, a child to love. Instead Geoff and I are … where we are. ‘The products of conception,’ say the textbooks. Margaret Atwood, in The Handmaid’s Tale, was more realistic. Unbabies. Shredders. That’s what our nursery was filled with, before we painted it over.

  Geoff presses his hand down harder and tries to turn me towards him. I concede and bury my head in his sweater. My eyes are dry and his arms are a prison, but at least it gives me time to think.

  And, finally, to feel. I start praying for Raf, though to whom I’m not sure. I hope he makes it. Surely he will? That strong young man should be able to battle through even seas like these. But, like the rest of us, he’s been put in mortal danger.