by Clare Boyd
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Bend like a banana,’ he said to Isla. ‘And tip yourself in.’
Isla flew like a fruit bat and landed flat on her stomach.
‘At the club,’ he replied casually, slipping into the water. He held two plastic floats on the surface, leaving a space in the middle. ‘Dive in between these.’
She stepped off the side, jumping in instead, coming to the surface. ‘I can’t.’ She was kicking her legs to stay afloat, her little face barely out of the water, her purple goggles tight around her head.
‘Yes you can,’ he said. ‘Come on. Again.’
‘My tummy hurts,’ she said.
‘Like this,’ Hugo said smugly, diving in again with even less finesse than before.
‘That was rubbish!’ Isla screamed at him.
‘Come on, sweetheart, you mustn’t give up,’ Lucas said.
Isla’s chin wobbled as she held her arms above her head. Again she belly-flopped. Elizabeth imagined her purple goggles filling up with salty tears. She blinked and blinked, as though clearing her daughter’s tears away for her. But as her sight cleared, she saw Lucas holding his large hand over Isla’s little head, dunking her under. Her legs and arms flailed and Elizabeth’s mind was wiped by a white flash of horror.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screeched, running, flying into the water, yanking his hand off Isla, who squirmed to the surface. ‘Are you fucking insane?’
‘Just having a bit of fun,’ Lucas said. ‘Weren’t we, Isla?’
‘Yes, Daddy!’ She coughed up some water.
‘A little party trick I picked up at school.’
Elizabeth lifted Isla onto the side and yelled in her face, as though she were the one who had tried to drown herself, ‘Grab a towel and go inside now!’
Isla began to whimper, but she did as she was told.
Before Elizabeth could gather herself, she sensed that the pool was quieter and the water stiller. Hugo.
She swivelled around and saw only Lucas’s head above the surface. A sickening panic surged through her, and she screamed Hugo’s name, bobbing under to look for him, choking on chlorine.
‘He’s swimming a length underwater,’ Lucas said. His eyes were bluer than the water. She realised she had drowned in them many years ago; dead.
A murky shape moved towards the shallow end, and seconds later, Hugo popped up. ‘I did it!’ he gasped.
‘Well done, son,’ Lucas said.
‘Get out of the pool!’ Elizabeth screamed, swimming towards Hugo before Lucas could get to him. ‘Get out!’
‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’
Lucas said, ‘You’re scaring him.’
She thought fast. ‘There was lightning,’ she told Hugo. ‘It’s dangerous to be in the water. It conducts electricity, remember?’
Hugo scrambled out onto the side and stared down at his parents, chin dripping. He frowned up at the white sky, then down at them again. ‘You have to get out too, Mummy. And Daddy!’
Elizabeth waded up the steps. ‘Don’t worry, I’m getting out now. Here’s your towel and your glasses; off you go, into the house, please. It was a silly idea of Mummy’s to swim today.’
As soon as Hugo had scampered through the gate, Lucas shot out of the pool and blocked Elizabeth’s path. Holding her by the upper arms, he said, ‘Don’t go.’
She twisted her face as far away from him as possible, from the smell of his sweet breath and his unfamiliar aftershave.
‘You understand what that deal means to me. You can’t forget that. You mustn’t forget. Not now, not when we’re so close.’ He continued urgently, as though their lives depended on the information he was imparting. ‘Agata and Piotr can’t leave. You know that and they know it.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her lips together, wishing she could close her ears. If she looked at him and spoke her mind, she would say the wrong thing and put her children in danger. She nodded instead, waiting for her rage to subside.
‘Nobody believed I would be able to pull this deal off with Walt Seacart. The Walt Seacart. I’ve been a laughing stock in the City,’ he said. ‘All those pricks with their trust funds are so fucking superior. Working there was like being back at Winslow House. None of them had any faith in me.’
Through her fear, she wasn’t sure whether he was actually kissing her closed lips and eyelids, her ear lobes where the diamonds he’d given her were pinned, or whether she was imagining a time when he had, when he’d loved her, before their money had changed them.
He murmured, ‘After next week, nobody will be able to dismiss me. You understand that, don’t you? I know you understand that.’
She remained silent and rigid in his embrace until she finally trusted herself to speak.
‘I’ll call Jude now and get the painting fixed,’ she said.
He squeezed his arms tightly around her and exhaled over her shoulder. ‘I’ll always love you, you know that, don’t you?’ he said, but she detected sympathy in his voice.
* * *
Jude heaved the warehouse doors open to reveal his studio. Streams of sunlight poured in and turned to dust as they bounced off the encrusted jam jars and paint pots and rags, and the flotsam of household goods: dismembered chair legs, stacks of bathroom tiles, an iron bath, a pile of old clothes. Parked in the middle of the space – it was too big to call a room – in a clearing that seemed temporary rather than stage-like, was his easel.
‘You need a cleaner,’ Elizabeth said.
Settling down on a chair that looked like it might stain her trousers, she looked around for a place to put her handbag. There was nowhere. She kept it on her lap. She sneezed.
He laughed, at her comment, she hoped, then clicked on the kettle and peered into a mug, wiping the inside with his fingers.
‘I feel more relaxed in mess,’ he said.
The clutter was solid, ingrained, part of the fabric of her brother’s working life, as though he had made peace with the chaos of his thoughts, made friends with the uglier, pre-loved facets of his own being. Each strange item, some unidentifiable, looked like it might serve some kind of purpose to him at some point, collected randomly, like treasure found in the gutter. She imagined that it all somehow contributed to the beauty of his work.
He only made one cup of tea, for her. As soon as he had poured the milk, he picked his way to the clearing and pulled the damaged painting onto his easel.
‘Can it be fixed?’ she asked, holding her breath.
She noticed a familiar photograph Blu Tacked to the wall near the kettle, tucked in between other photographs and various postcards. It was of the two of them lying on a pebbled beach, sheltered by a stripy windbreak, fully clothed in coats and wellies and sunglasses, pretending to sunbathe as the late April wind howled around them. His black hair was wild, obscuring his laughing face, and her blonde curls whipped around her head. It had been her birthday and she had been happy. On that beach, chilly and wishing for sunshine, she hadn’t realised how lucky she had been and how soon her fortunes would change. That same summer, she had met Lucas.
‘Hmm,’ he said, running his fingers across the back of the hole. ‘The glass left nicks in the canvas. Makes it a bit tricky.’
‘Oh God,’ she said. Without meaning to, she let go of her handbag. It slid off her lap and onto the floor, scattering its contents at her feet. She stepped over them and joined Jude. ‘Have I made everything worse?’
‘Don’t despair. It’s in exactly the right part of the painting. When are Lucas’s people collecting them?’
‘He wants them back at Copper Lodge by Wednesday latest. The Seacarts are coming that evening.’
‘Should be okay.’
‘They’ll not notice, will they?’
‘No. Not when I’m done with it.’
‘They made such a fuss about the damage before.’
‘Lucas was right to come clean about that. They’ll trust you now.’
‘All this for nothing,’ she said. Her stomach seized up and her shoulders rounded over the cramping pain.
‘Are you okay?’ Jude said, noticing her flinch. ‘Sit down.’
He stood to let her sit on his stool. Her toes were a few inches off the floor and the seat swivelled. He put a hand on each of her thighs, steadying her.
‘You can’t give up now.’
‘He always wins.’
‘Not if you let him. Not if you leave him,’ he said.
Elizabeth indulged in the fantasy. ‘How would I leave him?’ she asked.
‘There are lawyers you can go to.’
None expensive enough to win against Lucas, she thought.
‘You’d get custody and a good settlement,’ he continued.
I’m an unfit mother, she thought.
‘You could rent a lovely flat, around here maybe. Find yourself a job. Get the kids into the local school. Make some friends. Go to Beigel Bake every day.’
He would find us, she thought.
He wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘It could be a good life, Elizabeth. A better life,’ he concluded.
Smoke and mirrors, she thought.
‘You know you can do this.’
But who would I be? she thought.
‘The Elizabeth I grew up with is in there somewhere. She’s the one you have to find, underneath all his bullshit indoctrination,’ he said, answering her thoughts.
In a small voice, she asked him, ‘What if she’s gone?’
‘If she’s gone, why were you putting everything on the line to help Agata and Piotr?’
As she sat there feeling like one of the pre-loved curiosities that surrounded them, she tested how it might feel to let go of Lucas and the armour of their wealth. Even thinking of it was frightening, as though a balloon had slipped out of her hands and was up and away into the blue sky. There was a pinch of loss and self-recrimination for letting it go, but also a weightlessness in her soul, a freeing of a tie she had been clinging to for reasons she was no longer sure of. A glimmer of her old self re-emerged, bringing her back down to earth gently but assuredly, as though a bird had the balloon’s string in its beak and was pulling it down to safety.
In the studio, the sound of bristles dabbing on canvas was a perfect substitute for absolute silence, for clear thinking. London’s traffic and bustle seemed far away. Surrey even further. But as her brother worked with energy and precision, with a concentration and skill she both admired and felt alienated by, fear crept back into her heart, bigger and more frightening than ever. How could she even contemplate the life that Jude had so flippantly put forward for her? How could she explain to him the risks involved in pursuing that simple existence of independence and normality?
Assuming Lucas would let her go without a fight – which was a far-fetched concept on an optimistic day – they would share custody, which was utterly petrifying. The scene in the pool played out again. If she was not there to keep him happy, to stabilise his moods, to catch the emotional fallout of a bad day at work, the next in the firing line would be Isla and Hugo. They would be vulnerable to his obsessive routines, his paranoia, his pathological self-centredness. And when he wasn’t there, when he was at work, to whom would he entrust them? She wouldn’t sleep at night while a stranger, someone she hadn’t vetted, was in charge of them, while he was in charge. Finally, she could not guarantee that he would hand them back at the end of his weekend, or week, or whatever the courts had carved out for them. They would be his playthings and he would bash them around like a toddler with a favourite cuddly toy, one minute clutching it for dear life, the next ripping its head off. She would fret every minute of every day that they were in his so-called care.
Any freedom she gained would be rendered meaningless when – not if – he decided he wanted payback for her decision to divorce him.
For now, she knew they were safe across town, sitting next to their grandmother in the darkened auditorium of the cinema, where their faces would be turned up to the screen, lit by the moving pictures, ringlets dangling in Isla’s popcorn, cartoons flickering across Hugo’s spectacles, below which his mouth would be open in concentration, just like his Uncle Jude now. Miles away, in west London, she knew Lucas was in meetings with his lawyers and Walt’s advisers, fine-tuning clauses, with his mind fully switched off from his family. Agata would be at home, preparing supper for the children and dinner for her and Lucas later. Piotr would have made progress on the pool house, and their move into the guest barn would be one day closer. Gordon and Heather would be tending the garden, ensuring Copper Lodge was tamed and beautiful. A working team.
This state of equilibrium for Lucas would function if Elizabeth continued as his wife, the delegated main carer to their children and the gatekeeper to Copper Lodge. As it stood, everything was in its rightful place, just how he had designed it. If she interrupted his plan, changed an iota of their family life, he would become volatile once again. He had too much to lose. For Lucas, it was all or nothing. As he had proved in the pool two days before, which she couldn’t think about without a wrench of terror that obscured and mutated the actual memory. Sometimes she implanted Isla’s laughter and a game between them, sometimes her crying and their fight; sometimes she saw Isla dead.
Leaving Lucas was inconceivable.
Thirty-Three
Agata and I were sitting side by side on the wooden platform that would become the floor of the pool house. I had poured her a cup of black coffee from my flask. The vibrations from Piotr’s hammer went up my spine and into my teeth. The sharpness of it kept me alert, readying me for Lucas’s inevitable approach.
‘Mum and Dad told me everything,’ I said.
Agata took a small sip from her cup, without replying.
‘Agata, I’m so sorry. I had no idea what was going on.’
My words sounded pathetic. By giving Lucas the location of the paintings, I had prolonged their suffering, and we both knew that my apology couldn’t begin to cure it. I went on to explain how I had fallen for Lucas’s lies about Elizabeth’s poor mental state, and tried to convey the full force of my regret. Then I attempted to exonerate my parents from blame. ‘When they met you at the soup kitchen, they really believed Lucas could help you.’
‘I understand,’ she replied, putting her finger in the way of a procession of ants at our feet. They were carrying crumbs of food many times bigger than their bodies. Instead of going over Agata’s finger, they rerouted around it.
‘Another cup?’ I asked tentatively.
She nodded.
We sipped our drinks and stared at the water in the pool. It was so still, it looked solid, like a block of glass. For the first time ever, I had no desire whatsoever to dive in. Earlier, I had caught a brief glimpse through the hedge of the Huxley family in there together, dive-bombing and splashing each other and laughing as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
I glanced across at Agata. I guessed this was what broken looked like: beyond anger or hope, she knew it would be a waste of energy to exercise a protest or shout me down. She was resigned to her fate, and perhaps Elizabeth was too. After this last effort to hold the paintings hostage – ruined by me – it seemed she had lost her appetite for a fight, just as my parents had become jaded and afraid.
I wondered if I would become as resigned as they were. I supposed I was already heading there. Since my arrival here this morning – a capitulation in itself – I had worked conscientiously, pruning the hydrangeas and mowing the lawn, as I had promised my mother I would. The threat of seeing Lucas loomed large, but he had not sought me out. He would not know that my parents had accused him of holding them and Agata and Piotr in debt bondage, and of coercing Agata into having sex with him. Following my text yesterday, which remained unanswered, he would assume I was still on his side. He wouldn’t know I had been restless throughout the night, thinking of ways to get my parents out of their domestic servitude and to express my disgust.
I shuddered at the t
hought of the Rolex, guessing Agata had been his latest little stress-buster.
* * *
As I worked, I imagined Lucas visibly deformed by what I had heard, but of course when I eventually saw him coming towards me, the sun backlighting his tall frame, he possessed the same physical presence as before. His eyes were blue and his hair was golden and his smile was white. The history between us had spanned over half my life. His influence ran deep. The recent negative information was so new it was barely embedded. On first sight of him, gut instinct told me that my parents’ accusations had been absurd.
The conflict of emotions fought inside me, thrashing and ducking and reeling and screaming, close to bursting out of my head in one thick, angry, confused sentence. I held it in and wiped my soiled hands on my jeans, down my thighs, as though pushing the fury off my lap. Channelling Agata’s dignity, I looked up, straight into his eyes, momentarily caving in, then hardening again, steeling myself for his usual compliments and flattery and kisses.
‘I want you to read this,’ he said in a flat, businesslike tone, shoving something at me.
It was a blue file with the flap opened, showing a stack of paperwork. On the top was a letter with an NHS hospital header.
‘I know your parents have got to you, just as Elizabeth has got to them, but I wanted you to see this. I didn’t want to have to share it, for Elizabeth’s sake, but I have to now.’
My fingers resumed their task of tugging small weeds from the soil, intent on keeping up my barriers. ‘It won’t change anything.’
‘Read it for yourself. It’s all here in black and white.’
‘So if I read it, I’d see that Elizabeth is as screwed up as you are. Do you think that makes any difference to Agata and Piotr?’
‘Didn’t your parents tell you where they would end up again if I let them go? They’re so fucking naïve! They have no idea what they could face. I’ve been on to human rights lawyers and they say their work documents aren’t worth the paper they’re written on and their passports are fakes. They’ve seen cases like theirs over and over and it never ends well. The trafficking gangs are ruthless criminals who’ll catch up with them here or back in Poland. But Piotr is stubborn. He refuses to believe me. And Elizabeth thinks I’m lying and that the lawyers are lying and she’s convinced Agata of it. She’s so damn paranoid she doesn’t realise I’m just trying to protect them. That’s all.’