BITCH.
It could mean anyone, it could be any kid raging because he’d caught his girlfriend out. And for a moment the house looked like a crooked ugly lightning rod out on the marsh, hatred narrowing and finding its way like electricity to the battered boarded front door. She lurched away from the porch, her legs jelly – after the run – round to the other side of the house and the tongue and groove door she knew she’d find in the wall. The door that led into the yard: paint peeling, it hung skewed from a broken hinge.
She closed it behind her and the wind died, her ears buzzed in the respite. It smelled of old rotted things, low-level stink: ancient dustbins, stale air, blocked sewage. With her back to the rough flaking door she surveyed the yard.
It was here he’d kissed her. Her first real kiss. The windsurfer, his chin rough with golden stubble, his crinkled smile, his smell of sweat and cigarettes. She had seen him on the water, had seen him on a ladder in overalls, painting someone’s house, and then one night outside the pub he’d talked to her, standing close, asked her where she lived. Older than her: Esme still with her centre parting, her starter bra. And her best friend Gina wanting to know all about it, rough and jeering.
The yard was smaller than she remembered. To her right was the shed for bins and junk, a piece of wall, the back door, and the hidden place. Their place. A niche created between the crude flat-roofed kitchen extension, the original rear of the house and the yard wall, a space big enough to accommodate a child, or two if squeezed together and giggling in a game of hide and seek. And more tempting still, the single brick, low down, the first in a row above the stone base, that had been loose from the start and that within weeks Joe had begun to dig at with a kitchen knife. A space behind not big enough for more than a note or a penny or possibly a pocket knife, a shard of something. She squatted now: the brick was in its place.
Alison thought of the police here, searching. She didn’t know where they’d looked, what they’d been looking for – perhaps it had all been clear-cut to them from the beginning. Had it been to her? She remembered the emergency services operator’s voice even now, asking her, Is he still there? The killer, the man who might kill her too. And she’d known then, that’s Dad. The long gun between his hands.
Her adult fingers weren’t so much bigger than Esme’s aged ten: she worked them either side of the loose brick and it shifted with a scrape and was out.
Alison felt in the space with her hand, and had to bend lower to see, pushing her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. There was nothing there.
What had she expected? She squatted on her heels, leaned her back a moment against the wall and something crunched under her feet, snagging her attention. She peered down between her trainers.
A curved wire, a single tiny teardrop-shaped piece of transparent plastic attached to it, where she’d have expected two. She frowned, and put her hand to the dust and rubble, sifting it with her forefinger. After thirteen years? No.
Shifting position, Alison was on her bare knees now, heedless of broken glass. She passed her hand across the rubble, searching intently. Knowing what she was after. Not his, not necessarily his. She felt a sob in her throat at the thought that, after all this time she would know it when she saw it. If she saw it. There.
The metal was bent, snapped off, but the tiny logo was intact. The arm of a pair of glasses, long ground in the dust. She stood, it fell from her hand. In the rehabilitation unit his eyes had leaked tears, sightless. No one had thought to help him see. No one had thought to look for them.
Her father’s glasses.
She saw his face, pressed sideways into the dark-soaked hall rug. She blundered, blinded, back through the rickety yard door and gasped for air.
Out on the marsh the wind flattened the samphire and as she gazed back towards the peaked line of sail-lofts something caught her eye, halfway to the foreground. Upright as a totem in the early sun someone stood on the mud, turned her way.
She was being watched.
Chapter Ten
When the middle-aged couple appeared in the doorway of the sun room Alison’s first feeling was of relief. Theirs had been the only table laid for breakfast, near the French windows that opened onto the rickety veranda and a stretch of rough grass. As she watched, a man in white decorator’s overalls with a rough mop of hair walked past outside carrying a bucket of tools.
With only one table to serve the waitress had hovered incessantly, urging foods on them: bacon, kippers. ‘From the next village, nearly,’ the girl had urged them in accented English. ‘Artisan smokehouse.’ Alison wondered if it had been this girl Jan had been shouting at in the kitchen this morning – perhaps they had a fridge full of food and no guests. She and Paul must be the only ones to have turned up so early for the wedding, and she wondered now why she’d agreed to it, why he had wanted it.
Paul accepted the kippers, and toast, and coffee, good-humoured although she knew by now that he wouldn’t like the coffee, he was particular. Queasy, Alison asked for toast and tea.
‘Really?’ he said, as the waitress finally left. ‘I’d have thought you’d be starving.’
‘I only went a couple of miles,’ she said, forcing herself to smile, deprecatingly. ‘Terrible. I’m not fit at all.’
It was his first overt reference to Alison’s expedition since she’d got back. It had been almost eight when, breathless, she’d slipped back into the dim room. The bed was empty and the shower drumming loudly the other side of the bathroom door. She’d stripped everything off in a panic and gone in there with him quickly, reaching for him in the steam, under the fierce jets of the hotel shower. He let her take hold of him: she had the feeling he was playing along, amused, that he knew she was trying to distract them both from something, and that he grew hard as part of a game of his own. Only at the end did he move, raising his own hands to her upper arms and holding her in his grip, and only then did she feel herself rise to the bait, instantly impatient.
She couldn’t find her own glasses for some time after they came out, but was grateful for the blurred world, as if it made her less visible as she groped and searched through the bedcovers. Paul had found them in the end, straightening to pick them off the floor. ‘You were in a hurry,’ he observed mildly, and she tilted her head back to smile up at him, afraid.
At first she had thought, looking at the fragment of metal and plastic, that there would be an explanation. Carried out to the yard on a policeman’s boot. Caught in her own clothing as she stepped around her father’s body. Her reflexes buzzed a warning, but her brain tried to rationalise. Only this wasn’t normal, there was nothing rational about holding a weapon to a child’s head, seeing your own child torn open, blood and guts and splintered bone.
His glasses. Always by her father’s bed, as hers had been since she’d turned sixteen. It occurred to her only now that that little tic of mortality, or dread, that sounded every morning as she turned to reach for her glasses was not just the fear of helplessness without them, it was because the action set some obscure clockwork of memory going, unacknowledged. It made her think of him, her father picking his latest pair off the side table and setting them on his nose, his face rumpled from sleep, his thinning hair tufted, owlish.
Had he had a spare pair? One or two, old pairs stashed in drawers. A pair in the workshop, hanging from a red string. She also remembered him out for a run with his glasses on – never contact lenses because like hers his eyes couldn’t tolerate them. It must have been early on, he had long since stopped anything so worthy at the end, when work had dried up and he’d have had the time to run but drank instead. A branch had knocked his glasses off and he hadn’t been able to find them, he’d got home in a blur and almost weeping with helplessness. They had gone out on their bikes, she and Joe retracing his steps, and found them for him. He’d hugged them with a teary fierceness that worried even Joe, disentangling himself.
But the question was … Her thoughts fractured. His face side-on in blood on t
he rug. She willed herself to concentrate. Had his glasses been there, or near, smashed or fallen or kicked aside, had they been there, anywhere? Had the force of the gunshot sent them to a corner of the hall, twisted and shattered?
But she didn’t know. She couldn’t remember.
The police would know. Alison felt a slow burn of anxiety, somewhere at the centre of her chest. But would they? Had anyone even said, He wears glasses? She bent over her plate and, head down, she saw Paul’s long fingers delicate on the knife and fork, meticulously lifting the bones out of the coppery fish.
Facing the doorway, Alison saw the couple first. A tall man, broad-shouldered in a pale-coloured jacket, freckled and tanned, a good head of sandy hair mostly turned to grey. The woman beside him wore a flowered silk dress, delicate, pretty, girlish but no longer a girl. His wife, not his daughter. Her hair curled up on her shoulders and her eyes, even from where Alison sat, were big and dark blue, with spidery lashes. She looked nervy.
Quickly Alison understood they weren’t guests – something about the way they stood, they had a purpose. Then the man raised a hand in greeting. ‘Paul,’ he said heartily, and Paul laid down his knife and fork.
‘Dr Carter.’ He stood, putting a hand out to Alison. ‘This is my … my … my girlfriend. Alison, this is Dr Carter.’ The man clapped him on his shoulder and Paul cleared his throat. ‘Morgan’s father.’
‘Father of the bride,’ said Carter, with a theatrical grimace. ‘For my sins.’
‘Darling,’ the woman admonished, nervously. He looked at her in irritation then turned to Alison. ‘Roger,’ he said with a stiff little bow. ‘And this is my wife, Lucy,’ and he put his hand back on Paul’s shoulder, proprietorial.
Morgan took after her father, then, thought Alison. Not just their sandy blond vigour, either, it was a sort of steamroller quality, a greedy energy. The word was probably arrogance.
‘You look lovely, Lucy,’ said Paul with conscious gallantry and Lucy Carter pinked, her eyelashes turned starrier as she gazed at him. ‘When do they arrive?’ he said gently. ‘Morgan and ah … ah…’
‘You’d better remember his name, at least,’ said Carter, bluff, ‘if you’re to be best man. He’ll be staying here until the wedding too. He’s called Christian.’
Paul began to remonstrate but Carter stopped him. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve done your homework, Paul, I’m only joking. And you were the natural choice.’ Alison must have been looking confused because he turned to her then. ‘Christian’s South African, the old friend he’d marked out couldn’t make it over, and Paul – well, Paul stepped in.’
So Paul barely even knew the groom. Alison didn’t know what to make of that fact but it made her uneasy, it seemed like a deception. She found herself dreading the speeches. Carter had turned back to Paul. ‘Of course if it had been up to me to find her a husband … well.’ He darted a glance at Paul from under sandy eyebrows. ‘Water under the bridge, I suppose.’
‘They’re arriving tonight?’ said Paul.
‘Yes. The happy couple,’ said Roger Carter, looking around the room. ‘Come for a drink, we’re having drinks, aren’t we?’ Lucy Carter brightened.
‘Yes, do come, Paul,’ she said. ‘Sixish? I mean, it won’t be anything glamorous.’ Her husband snorted.
Alison sat back down carefully and Roger Carter glanced down at her, put out. ‘Darling,’ whispered his wife.
‘What?’ said Carter, frowning at the kipper congealing on the table. ‘Oh. Well, I suppose you must get on with your breakfasts. I only came to tell you the rehearsal’s at four tomorrow. Of course there’ll be another run-through, last minute, next day, bloody endless. Anyway, St Peter’s on the Wall, you remember how to get there?’ He had Paul’s hands between his, now, as he glanced at Alison. ‘You too, ah…’
‘Alison,’ said his wife.
‘You’re very welcome too, Alison,’ said Roger Carter, and bowed again. She saw that his hair, which had looked so thick, was thinning on top. ‘So glad you could come at all, short notice I know. Although the rehearsal will be a chore, don’t feel … anyway…’ He dropped Paul’s hands, at last, pulled out his chair for him. ‘Eat up,’ he said. ‘Six o’clock, remember.’
And they were gone, leaving dust motes and Lucy Carter’s scent drifting in their wake and the waitress bobbing futilely in the doorway.
‘Well,’ said Paul, prodding his cold kipper.
‘Well,’ said Alison, knowing she shouldn’t. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Chapter Eleven
The gears grated as Alison put the little car into reverse, but when she looked up at him Paul wasn’t even wincing. He leaned down and smiled through the window. ‘Have fun,’ he said. ‘See you later. Whenever.’
As she turned to check there was nothing behind her he put a hand to her cheek. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. He meant Morgan. His hand stayed. ‘I’ve waited a long time for you, you know,’ he said softly. She searched his face and he smiled wearily. ‘I do want to make you happy, you see. It’ll be fine.’
Perhaps their row had softened him up. Not that it had been a row, by most people’s standards – the waitress certainly hadn’t seemed to notice but perhaps she’d been too anxious about the abandoned kippers. ‘So sorry,’ she’d said. ‘I bring you something else? Is all included, breakfast. There is no charge?’
It felt like a row to Alison because they’d never had one before: it consisted mostly of silence but it was like being at a crossroads, and the wrong path would lead to catastrophe. She had to think really very hard before saying the next thing.
Paul had laid down his knife and fork and set his hands flat on the table either side of his plate. He hadn’t drunk his coffee, as she had predicted.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Really?’
She made herself smile. ‘You know what I’m talking about, though, don’t you?’ she said. Beyond Paul the sunlight dazzled through the big windows; she saw the decorator lighting a cigarette on the veranda, cupping his hand around the flame. The gesture stirred something in her memory.
‘Morgan? You knew,’ he said. She looked at him then. ‘You always knew. Come on.’ He leaned his arm back over the chair and examined her thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t you?’
Had she always known? She was pretty sure they’d never had a conversation about Morgan Carter and what she meant – or had meant – to Paul, even if on the one occasion she’d met her, turning her back and tumbling blond hair on Alison to talk to Paul, there’d been something palpable between them. But he seemed quite unruffled at the breakfast table, no trace of guilt.
‘And now I’m just looking for a fight?’ she said.
Paul shrugged, smiled. ‘Well, I surrender,’ he said. ‘We went out for quite a long time, quite a long time ago. I met her parents. We broke up. End of story.’
‘Perhaps I did know,’ Alison said slowly, as something surfaced uneasily. She just wanted to get away from it now, she had no interest in being the girlfriend jealous of his exes. Except it occurred to her that looking upset might buy her some more time to herself. ‘I just didn’t think … Oh, never mind.’ There were so many other questions she might ask: Did you live together? Why did it end? Did you love her? She discarded them all. ‘So you know this place already?’
‘Over three, four years – I came up here a lot,’ said Paul, readily. But he was watching her closely. Don’t lose it, Alison told herself. ‘Weekends. Once upon a time,’ he continued. ‘I was part of the family, you know how that goes.’ She almost shook her head. No, I don’t. ‘Christmases, even,’ he said, and his face softened. ‘It’s quite different in the winter.’
It shook her and she felt herself stiffen, working to hold her composure. She thought of her father kneeling to light the fire on dank November evenings when it grew dark on the marsh long before tea, the sun setting as they walked from the bus stop after school. The hit-and-run that killed Joe’s friend had been in November, she recalled then, a hushed announcement befor
e the Remembrance Day assembly, a warning about taking care walking home in the dark.
Paul went on. ‘I remember a Christmas Eve service. The church was freezing.’
Alison’s family hadn’t been attenders of religious services. She imagined the little party from The Laurels, the Carters like royalty setting out for the tiny church. Village royalty – although she couldn’t remember or visualise the house, The Laurels itself. Perhaps it was a big new-build somewhere on the other side, the Carters looked like the type. The waitress was back, taking away their plates, making small sounds of apology and disappointment over what they’d left. Alison waited, trying to think of how to put it to him. I want to be alone.
But Paul headed her off, on his feet before the waitress had even turned away from the table. Alison followed him up the wide carpeted staircase, along the little panelled corridor that smelled of wax polish. She sat on the bed, which had been made, saw the fresh towels on the rail through the bathroom door. She tried to imagine a life where the two of them got up and went to bed every day together, where sex wasn’t much more than a ripple in the day, and failed. Paul was at the small writing table in the corner, clicking open the briefcase he’d brought with him. In her pocket her mobile rang and she got it out.
‘Work,’ she said to Paul, as he turned to her with a look of mild inquiry. It was Rosa, immediately launching into some halting questions about the terms of an author’s contract, the disbursement of funds from a foreign deal, something Alison barely had anything to do with but she answered as best she could. Then Rosa blurted, ‘How’s the weather? They say it’s set to be nice over there. You could do with a holiday. I hope you’re OK.’ All in a rush.
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