by T. M. Logan
Izzy sighed and spoke up. ‘It’s not the chicken, Jennifer. It’s the St Chinian. Two empty bottles of wine down there with them in the gorge, and Jake had the lion’s share, apparently.’
Jennifer scowled up at her. ‘We don’t know that for sure, do we?’ More quietly, she said, ‘Have you been taking your medication, Jakey?’
He gave a another non-committal grunt.
‘Oh, you poor boy,’ Jennifer said, rubbing his back. ‘You poor, poor boy.’
I went to check on Ethan, lying a few yards away. He was stretched out on the coarse grass, flat on his back, eyes open to the night sky. I knelt down next to him.
‘Are you OK, Ethan? Your dad’s gone for some water. Do you want to be sick?’
He turned his head, looking at me coolly.
‘M’all right.’
‘You sure?’
‘Just going to have a little sleep.’
‘How much did you have?’
‘Only a bit. Maybe half a bottle.’
‘Really?’
‘Jake had a lot more than me.’ He blinked slowly. ‘The wine.’
‘He’s brought most of it back up again, apparently.’
‘Hmm.’ He snorted, looking back up at the canopy of stars overhead. ‘He was on a mission.’
‘Looks like you both were.’ I thought back to my teenage years, booze smuggled out of my parents’ house to drink in the park; laughing at anything, everything, laughing until it hurt, until tears came. Jake and Ethan didn’t look like they’d been laughing. ‘What was the mission?’
A long, slow blink. Then another. He mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
I leaned closer. ‘What, Ethan?’
He closed his eyes. ‘What’s that word again? That Bastille song?’
He wasn’t making sense.
‘What song, Ethan?’
The word came out slowly, one syllable at a time.
‘Oblivion.’
I looked across to Jake, motionless on the grass. Mission accomplished, it seemed to me. Whatever Jennifer had said to him about the incident earlier today – with Daniel being left on his own in the villa – I guessed that Jake had had an extreme reaction to being told off. Or maybe it was something to do with the water polo incident.
‘Just stay here, your dad’ll be back in a minute.’
Ethan gave the slightest of nods. ‘No hurry.’
I headed back up the hill, where Jennifer, Izzy, Russ and Sean now made a semi-circle of concerned adults around the stricken Jake, lying on his side in the recovery position.
‘I don’t think Ethan’s as bad as . . .’ I indicated his older brother. ‘Nothing a good sleep and a couple of paracetamol won’t sort out.’
No one spoke. I was suddenly aware of a strange, charged atmosphere, a weird tension between the two women.
Jennifer nodded at me and gave a tight smile before returning her attention to Izzy.
‘It just seems to have taken an awfully long time for you to get back here, that’s all I’m saying.’
The note of accusation in her voice was unmistakeable.
Izzy put her hands on her hips, frowned.
‘A simple “thank you” would suffice, you know.’
‘Thank you,’ Jennifer said grudgingly. ‘But what were you doing all that time?’
‘What are you suggesting? What do you think we were doing?’ Izzy said. ‘We were walking back up from the gorge, the three of us. I tried calling to let you know but the phone signal kept dropping out.’
‘It’s not a half-hour walk, though.’
‘Have you seen the state of him? He’s absolutely plastered. And every time we stopped for him to be sick, he wanted to have a chat.’
Jennifer looked up sharply. ‘A chat? With you?’
‘Yes. With me.’
‘About what?’
‘All kinds of stuff. Drunken stream of consciousness, mostly.’
‘Lots of garbage, most likely.’
‘Some.’
‘Probably best ignored.’
Izzy gave her a strange look – something like pity, or concern, or disappointment – just for a second. And then it was gone.
‘Probably,’ she said.
Sean put his hand on Izzy’s arm. ‘The most important thing is, Izzy found them and we’ve got them back now, right? That’s the main thing. How about we get these boys inside now?’
Seeing Sean touch her so casually, so easily, I felt a sharp pang of jealousy. Did it even make sense that I was jealous, when this was my own husband? Did anything make sense any more? Maybe not jealousy then. Maybe anger. How quick you are to defend her, to be on her side, to touch her skin. Even in front of me. Even when I’m standing right here next to you both. How can you be so brazen about it, so obvious? How did you think I wouldn’t find out, sooner or later?
Alistair reappeared, with two pint glasses full of water.
‘Here we go,’ he said breezily, handing the glasses to Jennifer. ‘Now, who’s going to help me carry the patient indoors?’
Russ held a hand up, lighting another cigarette.
‘Not me, pal, I’ve only just got past shitty nappies. I don’t do puke-stained teenagers, not yet.’
Alistair turned to my husband, as if nothing untoward had happened between them this evening.
‘Sean? Could you lend a hand?’
Sean glared at him, the anger still etched on his face.
‘Aye,’ he grunted. ‘Come on, then.’
With each of the men taking an arm, they propped Jake gently on his feet and began walking him back to the villa.
60
Daniel
Daniel couldn’t get off to sleep. He’d tried all the things his dad suggested – counting backwards from a thousand, making his Christmas list, imagining the motorway journey to Grandad’s house in Reading – but none of them worked. There had been too much noise, for one thing. Voices that sounded like they were laughing or having one of those really loud and long and boring conversations that grown-ups seemed to do a lot when they drank wine. Then there had been the shouting.
He swung his legs out of bed, took something from his bedside drawer and padded across to the door, the tiled floor cool against the soles of his bare feet.
The corridor was dark, just the little nightlight glowing near the stairs. He walked across and two doors along, hoping that her door would be open a little bit. But it was shut. He stopped and listened, pressing his ear to the smooth wood. Nothing.
Please don’t be locked.
When he was small he would sometimes do this when he had a bad dream, when Mum and Dad weren’t in bed yet. He would creep across the landing and climb into his sister’s bed, and she would make up silly stories that made him forget the bad dream so he would be able to go back to sleep again. He always woke up in his own bed again the next morning, which was kind of a bit like magic. She hadn’t done it for a long time though, not since she started getting tall. That was when she’d started locking her bedroom door. He wasn’t even allowed in her bedroom at home any more – it made her go properly mad. But they weren’t at home, so maybe she wouldn’t mind.
He pushed down on her door handle and it opened with a soft click.
Daniel stood in the doorway, one hand behind his back. It was quieter on this side of the villa, away from the swimming pool. The room was dark, the only light from the soft glow of a phone screen.
‘Lucy?’ he whispered.
There was no reply. As his eyes began to adjust to the light, he made out the line of her back, turned to him as she lay in the big double bed. She was glued to her phone. As usual.
‘Lucy?’ he said again.
She shifted slightly, so he could see the left side of her face illuminated by the phone’s pale glow.
‘What?’ she said sharply.
‘Are you asleep?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘I couldn’t sleep with the grown-ups all shouting downstairs.’
‘What do you want, Daniel?’
He started towards her bed.
‘It’s a surprise.’
‘Did I say you could come into my room?’
He stopped.
‘I’ve got something for you. Wanted to give it to you earlier but you were . . . a bit busy.’
She sighed.
‘What?’
He came over to stand by her bed.
‘I’m sorry about doing the film of you the other day, with Dad’s camera. I didn’t mean for you to be so upset.’ He brought his hand out from behind his back with a flourish, holding out a bag of strawberry bonbons. ‘I got you these. To apologise.’
‘Oh.’
He stood there, holding out the bag for what seemed like a long time before she reached up a hand and took it from him. He smiled and put his hands in the pockets of his pyjama trousers, feeling glad that he had made the effort, even if it had cost him half of his holiday pocket money.
A funny thing happened then.
Very softly, very quietly, his big sister started to cry.
Daniel frowned in the dark. That wasn’t what he had meant to happen; she was supposed to be happy.
‘Don’t you like them?’ he said. ‘I thought you liked those ones. They’ve always been your favourites.’
She studied the bag as if she’d never seen one before.
‘I do,’ she said quietly, a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘They are.’
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, regarding his sister with worried eyes. In a small voice, he said finally: ‘Why are you crying, Luce? What happened?’
She wiped her eyes angrily on the bed sheet.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I don’t like it when you cry.’
‘Me neither.’ She sniffed. ‘Thank you for the sweets, though.’
‘Your hair is wet.’
‘From the pool.’
Daniel pointed to spots of blood on the bedsheets by her side.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’
Lucy stiffened and tucked the sheet around her, one arm across her stomach. ‘Just a few scratches.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, just scraped myself on the side of the pool,’ she said quickly. ‘When I was getting out.’
‘Does it hurt?’
She shook her head quickly. ‘Not really.’
‘Are you going to open your sweets, then?’
She smiled. Just a tiny bit. ‘Do you want one, little bro?’
He smiled back. He liked it when she called him that.
‘I’ve cleaned my teeth already.’
She shook her head. ‘Seriously?’
‘You should have some, though, so you’re not sad any more.’
She took one from the packet and put it in her mouth. ‘When you’re a bit older, you’ll wish for the days when all you had to worry about was eating sweets after you’ve cleaned your teeth.’
‘Hmm,’ Daniel said, willing to take her word for it. ‘So what do you worry about?’
‘Bad stuff happening. Bad things that can’t be put right again.’ She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
He popped one of the sweets into his mouth.
‘Nothing else bad is going to happen. Mum said.’
‘What if it already did?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A bad thing already did happen.’
‘When?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘You can tell me, you know. I won’t tell Mum.’
She smiled. ‘Yes you will, you’re such a goody-goody.’
‘Not.’
‘Are.’
For a moment, Daniel thought she was going to tell him. But instead she just handed him another sweet.
‘Tell me, then,’ he said.
She shook her head but said nothing.
‘Is it about your exams?’
‘Something happened and I sort of feel like it was my fault. Like I wanted it to happen.’
They chewed in silence for a moment.
‘Did you want it to happen?’ Daniel said.
‘No. Not at all.’
Daniel pulled at a loose thread on his pyjama top. ‘I thought it would be really nice being at the holiday house but it’s like everything’s going wrong, isn’t it? I wish we could go home tomorrow. Do you want to go home?’
She looked down. ‘No. I’d rather be here.’
‘Do you think Mummy and Daddy are going to get a divorce?’
Lucy stopped chewing. ‘What?’
‘A divorce. Like Ant, from Ant and Dec.’
‘No. What makes you say that?’
‘They’re being really weird with each other. They’re not going to get divorced, are they? Isaac in my class, his parents are divorced, and he says it’s all OK, but I can tell he’s sad about it.’
Lucy was silent for a moment, her face lit from below by the glow of the phone’s screen.
‘You shouldn’t worry about stuff like that, little bro. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
Daniel stood up and took a few steps towards the door but then stopped, turning back to his sister.
‘Please don’t tell Mum and Dad what I said about them having a divorce.’
‘OK. As long as you don’t tell them I was upset.’
‘Deal.’
She put the bag of sweets on her bedside table and lay back down on the pillow. ‘And thanks for the present.’
‘I’m glad you liked them.’ He smiled in the dark. ‘Night, then.’
‘Night, Daniel.’
He pulled the door closed and crept back across the corridor to his own bed, pulling the covers up to his neck and tucking his body into the sheet the way he always did, so no spiders or bugs could crawl underneath in the night. The noise from the grown-ups outside by the pool seemed to have died down, and all he could hear through his open window was the chirping of crickets, a wall of sound in the night outside with no edges, no beginning, no end.
Across the corridor in her own room, Lucy lay awake. Phone in one hand, the little blade in the other.
One month earlier
Her mum’s banging on the bedroom door.
‘We’re going to be late.’
‘I don’t care,’ she shouts through her tears. ‘I’m not going.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course you’re going. Everyone is going to be there.’
‘Leave me alone!’
She doesn’t want to go to the stupid garden party anyway. She doesn’t want to do anything. Doesn’t want to leave the house, or leave her room, or even get out of bed. Not now. Not ever. Not after what he’s done.
She closes her eyes and pulls her knees up under her chin, the pain in her chest like a black hole swallowing every thought. How could she have been such an idiot? How could she have got him so wrong? How could he be such a bastard? Why did he do it? What had she done to deserve it?
She’d never felt that way about anyone before. She had done everything for him, allowed herself to imagine a future with him. And he’d just discarded her as if she was nothing, as if she didn’t matter. He had dumped her in the worst possible way.
She buries her face in the duvet.
Her mum is knocking on the door again.
THURSDAY
61
I woke with a ball of dread lodged deep in my stomach, in anticipation of what I had to do. I had put it off for more than a day now and the dramas of last night had shifted my attention elsewhere, but there was no avoiding it. No getting around it.
I left Sean still asleep in our bed, showering and dressing quickly as I mentally ticked off what I had found out in the last few days. Izzy had admitted she was seeing someone who was already married, but had refused to tell me his name. She’d admitted he came from Limerick, just like Sean. She had already tried to throw me off the scent by insisting that Sean would never betray my trust.
Most damning of all, Izzy was the one who had appeared when I sent the message to CoralGirl from Sean’s phone. I had set the trap and she had walked right into it. She had come when summoned.
But what about the other evidence? His lingering embrace on the beach with Rowan, his wedding ring in her drawer, Russ’s insistence that she was having an affair? Sean had denied point-blank that anything was going on with her – he had looked me straight in the eye and sworn it, and he’d never been a good liar. It was one of the things I loved about him.
Had loved about him, I thought, with an ache deep in my chest.
Then there was Jennifer and Sean being caught together unawares in Daniel’s video, her weird reaction when their hands brushed at lunch, their early morning ‘walk’ to the village together, supposedly delayed by a visit to the weekly market – the market that took place on a different day.
It was all circumstantial. And all of it paled by comparison to seeing Izzy walk into that clearing by the gorge: a stone-cold piece of evidence that could not be disputed or misinterpreted.
It was time to get this over with, right away, this morning, before I could spend too long thinking about it. Before I could change my mind or lose my nerve again.
The truth was, I had wronged them all. Each of them in different ways.
I had fallen in love with Jennifer’s boyfriend at university.
I had helped bring Izzy’s fiancé to the place where he met his death.
I had passed on the malicious accusation that destroyed Rowan’s first marriage.
What kind of friend was I? Perhaps I deserved everything that was coming my way.
Lucy was on my mind, too. I wanted to talk to her again about what had happened in the pool last night, but she was still fast asleep, her room dark thanks to the blackout curtains. There was no sound at Daniel’s door, either. In fact, the whole villa was unnaturally quiet and empty as I made my way down to the kitchen to make coffee; there were no voices, no clatter of crockery from the dining area, no flip-flops on the polished tile floor. Daniel wasn’t in the lounge, where I’d usually found him at this time of the morning – perhaps he’d finally started sleeping in at last. Two days before we were due to go home, but better late than never.