‘Simon wasn’t interested in your mum,’ said Gina, contemptuous, squinting round a cigarette. She lit up.
‘She was in the kitchen in heels then. And later. The night she died, heels and her best skirt.’ She frowned, remembering the glasses on the draining board. ‘She … she might have been drinking with someone. I told you.’
Gina blew the smoke out. ‘She might have been interested in him, all right.’ She gave Alison a hard look. ‘He can lay it on when he wants to, or back then he could, anyway.’
‘Are you jealous?’ said Alison. ‘After all this time?’
But Gina didn’t rise to it, she just laid her hand on the table, the smoke drifting up in the blue air.
‘She wasn’t his type,’ she said flatly, and as Alison watched she gave a little nod in May’s direction. Not needing more encouragement the girl skipped towards them between the tables. Gina raised the arm with the cigarette and May was under it.
‘Morgan Carter says she saw my dad fighting with the man whose baby died,’ she said. ‘Do you remember that?’
‘Your dad was an arsehole, welcome to the club,’ said Gina. Under her arm May squirmed, looking up at whoever was standing in the pub’s back door.
Alison turned to see.
‘Hello, Esme,’ said Danny Watts.
* * *
The night Joshua Watts dies. November.
They’re sitting by the fire when the telephone rings. Dad’s been fidgety all evening after the second hospital visit, looking up from his paper to the bottles on the sideboard every five minutes, and Esme knows he’s making the same calculation each time, the half-inch of cooking brandy, the old vermouth, the Campari there was nothing to mix with. In and out of the kitchen, cups of tea he leaves to go cold. The twins are on the rug playing Monopoly as the fire smoulders, the logs are wet as usual and Dad just pokes it distractedly; it collapses white into ash.
In the hall the phone rings and the girls jump up from Monopoly and run to answer it, squabbling. Letty gets there first, frowning into the receiver, her face falling, holding it up through the doorway to someone else, to Dad, to Esme, back to Dad.
‘It’s Joe,’ she says. ‘He sounds funny.’
Dad takes it from her, his face set. ‘All right,’ he says into the receiver, Letty skirting round him back into the room. ‘How much have you had? All right. All right. Where are you then? Mum’ll come for you.’
That’s when Esme knows Dad’s got a stash somewhere else. He won’t get in the car if he’s had a drink. In and out of the kitchen; it must be in there, in the back of a cupboard, under the sink, somewhere Mum won’t find it. He’s been in the yard.
Dad comes back into the room, talking to himself. Esme is on her knees with the girls tidying the Monopoly. They don’t look up.
Chapter Twenty-four
She stood on the edge of the water with them. Esme. It was on the tip of her tongue to say to him, It’s Alison now, but she just looked up into his face and nodded.
‘Hello, Danny.’ They stood shoulder to shoulder on the pub’s back step looking down on her, not boys anymore, close-up. Men. Nearly thirty: life was taking them. ‘Hello, Martin.’
Gina had jumped up and drained her pint at one go, May still nestled in her armpit. She nodded warily to the brothers, all three, it seemed to Alison, careful not to start anything – and she was gone, tugging the girl after her.
The two men stared at Alison; she couldn’t see if they were friendly or hostile. She tolerated it. She felt something circle the three of them, binding. They had violence in common, they had the dead, who refused to go away. She pulled off her scarf.
‘You cut your hair,’ said Danny. She shrugged, standing up. They walked to the water’s edge, Alison in the lead, wanting to get away from the anoraked couple.
They flanked her in silence. Then Martin spoke, and it took her a moment to realise he was answering the question she’d asked Gina. ‘Frank Marshall had a go at your dad because he’d done some work in the house before the fire,’ he said. ‘Was that what you wanted to know? He thought he’d put a nail through some wiring. But Frank must have known it was his own fault all along. He topped himself, after all.’ His voice was rough – she didn’t know if he was trying to comfort her.
Danny made a sound, raising his shoulders, shoving his hands down in his pockets. ‘Why did you come back?’ he said.
‘I had to,’ Alison said, because the wedding seemed meaningless now, the resistance she’d put up. How could she have ever thought she could stay away? Live out a whole life without coming back? Whatever happened, she’d had to come.
‘How’s your dad?’ It was Danny, looking at her from under dark brows. The question almost felled her.
‘He’s a vegetable,’ she said, unable to use a kinder word. ‘I’ve only seen him once. Since … since.’ Martin nodded; Danny looked away. Of course, she thought, they knew, that picture in the paper. Alison sensed that they felt sorry for her, and the feeling brought something up, dangerously close to the surface. She could break down, after all this time, in front of these boys who knew her whole story, she could ask for help. Forgiveness.
‘How’s your mother?’ she said, polite. ‘I saw her in the church.’ She hesitated. ‘She knew Stephen Bray, didn’t she? The old man that died.’
‘She never got over it,’ said Martin bluntly, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the old man. ‘Looking after the old bastard was a distraction. She got obsessed, fussing over him. She never got over Joshua.’ And they hadn’t got over it either. Were they married, attached, had they even left the village, since? She had only seen them together.
‘Did they ever find it?’ said Alison, and they both turned to look at her, a pincer movement. She blundered on. ‘Find the car? The driver, the hit-and-run?’ A quick shake of Martin’s head that meant, shut up. Danny turned to look back out to sea.
‘No,’ he said.
And then they were all looking out towards the horizon because all at once it looked as though the big dark sails were on top of each other off the spit beyond the power station and somewhere out there a horn blared. A smaller motor boat bobbed in the mouth of the estuary, a tiny figure holding up a flag off the bow.
‘Warning,’ said Danny, and the brothers exchanged a look across her.
‘You know who that’ll be,’ said Martin. ‘Likes cutting it close.’
‘Who?’ said Alison. They stood either side of her like guards.
‘It’s the Lady Maud,’ said Martin, and with the name that day came back, the heavy skies, the hot humid air and the brown water. The small crowd on the quay, the letters etched blue along the big boat’s bow as it came on, the sunburned figure on his board tipping and going under. Down under the brown water.
‘Isn’t that…’ she said. ‘Isn’t that the one…’ They turned, waiting for her. ‘The one that ran Simon Chatwin down?’
‘Bob Argent,’ said Martin grimly. ‘The Lady Maud’s master is Bob Argent. God, remember that? Chatwin must have needed his head examining.’ Alison stared from Martin’s face out to sea where the sails had disentangled, the big shapes moving slowly apart, regrouping like pack animals.
‘It wasn’t an accident?’ she said.
Danny laughed shortly. ‘Bob Argent does nothing by mistake,’ he said. ‘He wanted to teach the bloke a lesson. Chatwin went after the wrong girl that time.’
The last of the magic ebbed from that kiss in the backyard. ‘What d’you mean?’ she said, but it was obvious.
‘He’d been after Bob’s daughter,’ said Danny, and his voice was cold.
‘And if he’d died?’ She remembered Bob Argent’s face now, unruffled at the commotion on the quay, people rushing to the edge to look down. A tall lean man, the polished gleam of a high forehead, his hand resting on the wheel.
Martin Watts shrugged. ‘Who’d have cried over Simon Chatwin?’ he said, dismissive. ‘I suppose Bob’d have had to answer some questions. But the police are so fuckin
g dumb round here.’
He turned away so she couldn’t see his face but there was a ragged edge to his voice. She pictured Sarah Rutherford sitting at a table with these two, getting nowhere. Stonewalled.
‘Are you staying?’ said Danny, his eyes on his brother’s back. Martin’s hands were in his pockets and he was looking at the pub.
‘Me?’ said Alison. His gaze shifted to her and for a second something like a smile was there – then it was gone.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Staying for the prizes, in the pub. Tonight.’
Alison nodded yes, uncertain, but in that moment only wanting to comply, and watched as he felt in his pockets. He brought out a pen. He took her hand, turned it, and before she could be surprised he wrote a number on her palm. She felt calluses on his fingers, hard skin. He raised his eyes to check on Martin’s back again.
‘They’ll all be in,’ he said, straightening. ‘Even Bob Argent comes to the prizes. If you’re interested.’ He let her hand go. ‘His daughter’s training to be a doctor, I heard.’ Alison searched his face for the smile, wanting to see it again, but he was impassive. She thought of him pinning Joshua’s arms back as he went for Joe and she had lain in the dunes in the warm dark and covered her ears. She held her palm up to her face, adjusted her glasses to look at the number. ‘If you need anything,’ he said, and stepped across her to go.
She touched him quickly as he went and he turned immediately. She pulled her hand back. ‘I’m not Esme anymore,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper. ‘You can’t call me that.’ His eyes met hers and then he was gone, but she’d seen it, a sad smile that said, perhaps this is where you belong, after all.
* * *
There was nowhere to hide out on the marsh. Every human figure on the flat grey landscape stood out. There might, Alison supposed, watching another family group further out, walking along the dyke towards the crooked house, be safety in numbers, but she was on her own.
The scarf, it occurred to her too late, served in this situation as the opposite of a disguise. By now to everyone in the village she must be the girl in the scarf, but then there’d always been more to it than hiding. She put both hands up to the silk, she pulled a corner across to search it for that smell, she breathed in. There was nothing left of her mother in it, it smelled of a stranger.
She had arrived back at Simon Chatwin’s boat, only this time she was alone.
The afternoon was wearing on: it was almost four o’clock now. The sun was halfway to the horizon, the low yellow light was warm but the wind kept up steadily, the big boats getting closer in. The buoy that marked the last leg bobbed in the glitter of waves, waiting for them.
Simon Chatwin had picked the wrong girl. Her mother hadn’t been his type – but there she’d been, waiting for him in heels, not once but twice. Did Dad catch them?
Alison looked at the boat’s filthy sides and cluttered deck. She focused on the flimsy chipboard that served to secure the cabin and, wondering briefly what had happened to the original doors, she looked from left to right before stepping across, from the soft treacherous mud to the slimed shambles of a deck. She crouched, edged crabwise. He would be working at the hotel, she told herself.
She jumped as her phone rang in her pocket. On her hand as she took it out she saw the number Danny had written.
It was Paul. ‘Where have you got to this time?’ His voice was even, reasonable, but he was angry. Something in his tone made it hard for her to catch her breath.
‘You’re back already?’ she said, shifting so she was propped against Simon Chatwin’s cabin top. She drew her knees up to her chin, hoping to make herself invisible. ‘How was the golf?’
‘Morgan said you left hours ago,’ he said levelly.
‘Don’t you think sometimes Morgan’s not very nice?’ Alison said, before she could stop herself. She heard an intake of breath and went on quickly, ‘I’m trying to clear my head.’
‘Where are you?’ he said, and as she held her breath, not answering, she heard his patience slip. A click: he’d gone.
Hurry. She looked across the marsh back inland. She saw the family on the sea wall, couples hand in hand on the hard, a man with binoculars standing on the end of the quay looking out to sea.
She edged around to the rear of the cabin, set her shoulder to the chipboard and suddenly, before she was ready, she was down there, in the dark. Inside.
The only other boat she’d been below in had been Stephen Bray’s, and more than once its smell had come back to her, paraffin and wood and raw alcohol, an oily clash with the sweet bad-egg whiff of the mud. This was different. She raised a forearm to her face, breathing through the cloth of her shirt. A stale, crusted combination of stagnant water, soiled clothes. Unwashed sheets. Something else. Something worse.
How had Esme imagined this boat, in the days, weeks after Simon Chatwin had kissed her? Standing in the pub’s backyard and looking across the mud, wondering what excuse she might make to walk out here, to step onto the deck, to knock at the cabin top. Rehearsing. Hello. A knot formed in her gut, Esme at thirteen, stepping down into the dark. Into this.
Alison took the arm away from her face, looking around for light. Something swung beside the hatch and she took hold of it: an electric lantern. She felt around its base, found a switch and it brightened slowly, to a dull glare. She looked around. A wide bunk with tangled sheets, grey and sheeny in the flat light. A crusted sink opposite, mugs with mould puffed inside them, a grillpan tilted on a filthy hob, full of grease.
A stack of magazines sat beside the bed – at the sight of them she moved abruptly. She waded through clutter on the floor, kicked something and a gust of rubbish smell rose up. She felt the creeping horror of this man kissing her. She had to stop, her heart pounded, it did not slow. Dirty magazines. She leaned across the bed, her bare knee in the greasy sheets, she smelled but did not see a chemical toilet.
The magazines were old, dog-eared. Alison had no experience beyond a glance up at a petrol station’s top shelf but she knew there were worse things than this, worse than tits and spread legs. The torn pages, the curled-up corners, the signs of use were what tightened the knot inside her, but somewhere in there too, alongside the distaste, there was a spark of relief. Could have been worse, a small voice repeated in her head, only then something stopped it, stopped her too, where she knelt on his filthy bed, magazine in hand. She listened.
All around her, something was happening. Small creaks, a distinct shifting, something familiar about the sensation from long ago. She held very still with the stink in her nostrils. The creaks escalated, the boat groaned and bobbed and suddenly Alison was weightless, light-headed. She shoved the magazine back where it had lain, reverse-crawled off the bed into whatever was on the cabin floor, wading back to the busted chipboard and – no longer caring who she might find on the deck waiting for her – through it, gasping, into the air.
Around her the tide was right up, lapping across the path. The boat had come afloat, that was all, the physical memory of it happening in Bray’s boat was what she’d felt below in the dark and now came the visual, which swelled in her throat and burned behind her eyes. Esme bracing her feet in panic as Stephen Bray’s liqueur glasses chinked and trembled, and her father laughing and taking hold of her hand to steady her.
That other night. Dad might have been as frightened as me that night, the thought came to her, astounding. She had lain crouched behind the door waiting for the next boom, until it never came. Downstairs her father had struggled with someone, with something. Her father had seen what she’d seen. Joe with his face half gone. The bloodied, weighted sleeping bag that held another man’s exterminated young. And Mum, face down, the mole on her calf, the high-heeled shoe skittered from her hand. I’d do anything for her. Had he stared, as she had stared? She raised her head and looked across the marsh.
Out along the winding path the figure of a man was coming her way, hunched into the wind, not looking up. Alison scrabbled around the deck ou
t of his line of sight and splashed heedless into the water, her heart pounding. It was warm. Her sandals slid under her in the mud and as she crouched to take them off she knew he was coming, he was coming for her. Still bent, she shuffled as far as she could get from the boat before straightening – she knew already that she would have to pass him. She risked a glance up, searching for the white shape of a van parked along the quay, outside the pub, but could see nothing. The man moved slowly, hands in pockets, she ducked her head.
Danny Watts had been trying to tell her something about Simon Chatwin. Head down, watching her own bare feet pick their way through the rising water, she told herself, Trust no one. If Danny wants you to think a certain way, ask yourself why. She reached the main path. Her head still lowered, she turned towards the mainland and she could feel him, up ahead.
Ask yourself why. Danny and Martin. If she closed her eyes and thought of the brothers they were blacker than the dark in her head, more void, they were weighed down with something terrible. Still grieving their brother, after fourteen years?
In her ears the wind blustered, under her feet the path led her back and she knew there was something she had to do. Think, sort, rearrange: had there been a moment when things changed, when they turned? That late summer afternoon when Simon Chatwin tipped on his board in front of them all, and the big boat slid quietly over him. What must it have been like down there, sucked under the great hull in the dark? One thing for certain, when he came up he wasn’t golden any-more, he was jittery, he was afraid. Or was it in the days after the house fire, when the smell of smoke hung in pockets across the village and fights broke out in the pub’s backyard? Mum crying over the paper. The father had killed himself, but Gina said the dead child’s mother was still here.
Or when Alison stood waiting for the school bus the wet winter morning after Joshua Watts had been found, the small group of them standing there stunned into silence, the warm promise of evenings on Power Station Beach suddenly gone forever. They’d never found the driver who killed Joshua Watts and not for the first time that fact caught her, stopped her. A filament grew, between two nights joined by violence. Was the connection real, or was it in her head?
The Crooked House Page 17