‘Sasha,’ said Kim, in a tiny voice.
‘We need to phone,’ I said. ‘Nine-nine-nine.’
Then I blinked. Had he moved? Or was it just the way the waves surged and eddied, lifting him and dropping him again? I squinted harder. No, he wasn’t moving. He looked stiff.
‘Do you think it’s another trick?’ Kim said. ‘It’s another trick. It’s not big enough to be Sasha’s body.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so. I think it’s a dummy. And I haven’t got my phone anyway. Let’s wait till it’s beached and then walk out and make sure. Or I will. You don’t need to.’
As if she’d needed permission, Kim sank down onto the sand and the tufts of rough grass, her feet crumpled under her.
‘Don’t sit like that,’ I said. ‘If your feet are cold anyway, you’ll get pins and needles.’
‘How long will it take?’ she asked. ‘For the tide to go out?’
‘Minutes,’ I said. ‘Not long at all. Here, hutch up and let’s keep warm.’
She shuffled towards me and I put my arm round her, even though reaching out made me colder than ever and her body was so chilled that no comfort came back from touching her.
‘So,’ I said. ‘What brought you down to the beach?’
‘I woke up,’ Kim said. ‘I was sure someone was shaking me but there was no one there. Felt like death on a stick and I wanted some fresh air. Then I remembered the lobster pot, and decided to go and get it.’
‘In your dressing-gown?’
‘It’s going to sound stupid,’ she said. ‘But I thought, What’s the point of a private beach if you don’t go down there in your jammies?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Right.’ I could feel myself nodding and Kim started nodding too.
‘And there was a note on my pillow,’ she said, ‘saying, “Come to the beach.” So there was that.’
For some reason, this struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard and I laughed until my voice gave out, then I laughed silently. Sometime in the middle of it, Kim started laughing too, rocking and snuffling, trying to catch her breath and choking herself, then laughing even harder at the noises she was making.
Trying to get a proper deep breath before I fainted, I turned away to face down the beach again and managed to stop. I sighed a couple of times and cleared my throat. Bubbles of laughter were still inside me somewhere but tears were closer because down at the tideline the water was starting to look thin over the stones underneath. The dummy, or seal, or bundle of clothes or whatever it was, was barely moving.
‘I’m not saying this to be rude,’ Kim said, ‘but I wish to God I’d never thought of Galloway, never clicked the link to the Home From Home website, never booked this weekend and never seen this godforsaken beach until the day I died. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ I said. ‘Under the circumstances. But you know you didn’t click a link by chance. There’s no way you wandered onto our website, Kim. You do know that, don’t you? You do know Sasha engineered this?’
‘It felt like chance,’ she said. ‘My book group was reading Eat Pray Love and one of the questions was “Where’s your next dream destination?” And I said I had this anniversary coming up and not a clue what to do. And we all chatted a bit and then boom. Galloway.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘No one should have to read Eat Pray Love.’ But the laughter was gone. There wasn’t so much as a chuckle from either of us.
‘Right, then,’ said Kim. A wave came up and fell back and didn’t touch the black shape at all. It was just a sodden lump on the sparkling stones. I took Kim’s hand, pulled her up and started walking.
The sand was only a strip along the top of the beach, then the pebbles began, little ones first, then big cobbles uncomfortable to walk on, then smaller ones again and finally sharp grit stretching all the way to far beyond the low-tide line. It’s the fluke that keeps Knockbreak Bay quiet. If there was sand underfoot all the way, we’d have a car park and crowds.
‘Is it?’ Kim said, when we were halfway. She was holding on to me to keep her balance on the stones. Her slippers were soaked through now, slapping heavily with every step, and I hated myself for thinking that they’d be trashed and we’d have to bin them. We had budgeted for getting a few wears out of every pair when we went for top-of-the-range instead of the cheap ones.
‘It’s hard to say,’ I said. ‘It’s not a seal.’ I was looking at the head end – a sodden mop of black. It could be human hair, but it could be any kind of wet fabric. Maybe the whole thing was a roll of cloth. The middle could be a dinner jacket, or it could be a bin bag or a big coughed-up clump of seaweed and twine. Except that there was a band of white where the rope was tied round. It wasn’t pure white. It was pink where the rough fibres had chafed. It was actually, I could see, as we kept on slipping and slapping over the stones, it was actually red in a line right under the rope, rubbed bloody.
‘Oh, God,’ Kim said. ‘It’s not a dummy.’ She started to run. I let go of her and let her surge ahead. When I reached her she was standing with her feet spread wide, trying to balance as she bent over and peered at it.
He lay on his front, his face hidden in the sludge of tiny pebbles and pieces of shell. His hands were white and spongy-looking, lying by his sides.
‘He’s not wearing his wedding ring,’ Kim whispered. ‘Oh, my God, Donna, it’s not Sasha, is it? It’s not him!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said. I thought over all of them, all the men in their black dinner jackets. Buck Leslie, with his salt-and-pepper hair, Ramsay and Paul Buchanan, both fair. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘Turn him over! Turn him over!’
Peach with her highlights. Rosalie— I gasped. Surely this body was far too heavy to be Rosalie’s. Those hands were too square to be Rosalie’s.
I reached down and grabbed the jacket, feeling the squelch as the seawater ran out of the sopping cloth. I tugged until the body was balanced on its other shoulder and then pushed it flat again.
Jennifer’s face, bloated and blue, stared up at us out of milky eyes. Her mouth was stretched wide and stuffed with a stone.
‘Jen,’ Kim whispered, staggering back, away from the sight of it.
My lips felt numb and dry, like they might stick to my teeth if I tried to talk.
‘Push her back over,’ said Kim. ‘We shouldn’t have moved her before the police see her but I won’t tell if you don’t tell. Push her back over, Donna. And let’s go.’
* * *
Some of the weight was for real. My trousers were wet and my Crocs were full of sand sludge. But that didn’t explain how hard it was to drag myself back across that beach and up the path to The Breakers’ garden gate. At one point, I went down onto my hands and knees and crawled, grabbing the tree roots to pull myself onwards. Kim was ahead of me, walking like a zombie. She tripped once but didn’t put her hands out, just let herself go over on her ankle.
It was almost fully light now. A dull grey day without shadows, without a breath of wind. There was no sign of life at the house. No lights on. All the curtains were drawn shut, except for the gap I had poked at the window of Jennifer and Peach’s room.
‘I’m so cold,’ Kim said, crossing the lawn. ‘I’m just so cold. Would it be okay, do you think, to have a shower before we start phoning and telling people? To warm up?’
I was shaking so hard my teeth hurt every time they clacked against each other. ‘No, of course not,’ I said. I knew it was wrong, although I couldn’t say why.
‘I’ll go and tell Sasha,’ said Kim. ‘Wake him up and then he can phone. I’m just so bloody cold.’
‘Do you think he’s in your room?’ I said. ‘Did he come back?’
Kim stopped walking and stared at me. ‘I forgot he left last night. Did he come back?’ She hit herself on the temple with her knuckles. ‘My head’s not right.’ Then she looked past me at the sleeping face of the house, gaunt in the grey dawn. ‘His car’s gone.’
; I turned. The navy-blue Range Rover was missing.
‘Why is no one awake?’ Kim said.
‘It’s not even six o’clock yet,’ I told her, as we slipped back in at the drawing-room window and I looked at the mantel clock. I turned my head as we squelched across the room. I couldn’t bear to see the pile of presents, shoved onto the floor, or the bare cushion pad. I didn’t understand how I could still care so much about a rabbit when I had seen a dead woman. Maybe it was from horror on top of horror and all of them worse for all the others.
‘Can I get a towel?’ Kim said, when we were in the hall. ‘I need a clean one.’
‘Through here,’ I said, opening the door to the back and swerving left to the long bank of cupboards, unlatching the one where the bath sheets and hand towels were stored. I handed a pair to Kim and took a pair for myself.
‘Why did she do it?’ Kim said. ‘She must have done it, right? She brought us all here, played all those nasty pranks and then did that? But why?’
I shook my head, couldn’t think of a single thing to say. None of this was real.
‘Phone the police,’ I said, then stumbled into the bathroom as she trailed up the stairs.
I noticed the wet floor first, strange as that sounds. A puddle of water in the middle of the vinyl floor of the staff shower room. After that, it was the smell. The smell of the sea: saltwater and weed. Only then did I look up and see the sagging shape hanging there. Black hair, black clothes, white spongy hands and the seawater still dripping from the wet black socks. For one nightmare moment I thought it was Jennifer again. Then I walked round the shape and looked up into Sasha’s face, his skin black, his tongue black, his eyes black and bulging, his gaping mouth filled with a huge black stone.
Chapter 15
1991
It feels like three o’clock in the morning but Mum and Dad are still watching the telly. I send Lynsey upstairs and put my head round the living-room door.
‘Hiya!’
‘There she is!’ Dad says. ‘Did you have a good time?’
‘We went swimming!’ I say. ‘We’re freezing!’
‘Swimming in what?’ Mum’s on her feet and headed my way. They’ve had a four-pack of beers with their curry. All of it’s still sitting on the coffee-table in front of them: smeared plates and ring pulls. I would have said it was a right old mess before I saw the state of the kitchen at the party.
‘In the bay,’ I say. ‘Where else?’
‘You know what I mean, you cheeky besom,’ says Mum. ‘If you’ve been skinny-dipping and showing me up!’
‘We borrowed cozzies. But we didn’t have towels. Brrrrr! Lynsey’s in the shower and I’ll jump in after her.’
‘Well, give me the costumes and I’ll rinse them through,’ Mum says. ‘You can take them back fresh in the morning.’
‘Stop fussing,’ says Dad. ‘You’re missing the film.’
‘Mum, we left them on the beach.’
‘You what? They lent you their good swimming costumes and you left them lying damp on the beach at your backs. Didn’t I tell you not to show me up?’
‘I’ll go back and get them if you want.’ I’m kidding but, to my amazement, my mum nods.
‘And take some towels in case they need them.’
Dad rolls his eyes at me and I try to smile at him. She hasn’t got a clue. She really thinks the drawling drunk man that threw his cigar into the verge and that drip of a woman who doesn’t care if her kids get salmonella would be shocked if a cozzie got left on a beach. And now I’m going to have to go back with a load of my mum’s towels. Like I’m the maid instead of her.
I stamp upstairs to the bathroom and barge in without knocking. Lynsey’s standing under the hot water with her head back and her eyes closed. Her cheeks are puffed out as far as they’ll go and her lips are pinched shut.
‘Puke if you need to puke,’ I tell her. ‘It’ll go down the drain.’
She shakes her head and beckons me over, miming at me to cup my hands.
‘It really works, Carmen,’ she says, once she’s spat it into my hand and I’ve mimed swallowing. ‘I feel fine now.’
‘Good. I said we’ve been swimming but that’s all. Okay?’
‘I just want to have a cup of hot juice and go to bed.’
So I gather the best of the towels, five new ones Mum got at the street market in Carlisle when she went to meet her sister for a shopping day. She wouldn’t want the Mowbrays seeing the towels we use for the beach. I know that.
I peel off my wet jeans, in my bedroom, ignoring the sting of them on my cold skin, then drag my top off. I kick it under the bed. If Mum finds it and washes it, it’ll hang in my wardrobe until the moths eat it. I won’t be wearing it again. The feel of pulling on a soft dry T-shirt and a pair of old stretched-out leggings nearly makes me cry with relief. I put my old rubbers on, ignoring the way my nails catch on the inside of the toe bits. I don’t care if I chip the polish now.
‘I won’t be long,’ I say at the living-room door. Then I’m out in the night again.
They might not even still be on the beach, I tell myself, jogging along the lane towards the boat-gate. If their parents read them the Riot Act they might all be back at the house, mopping up spilled booze and doing dishes. But I hear them before I’m halfway there and I see the glow of the bonfire and the pinprick light of cigarettes as soon as I’m round the lane end and onto the sand.
It’s so dark outside the ring of firelight, though, that they can’t see me. I creep a little closer, drop down behind a wedge of rock and rest my chin on my hands, listening. I hear the popping sound of someone taking a bottle away from their lips. They’re still drinking.
‘… pretty narrow squeak,’ Jennifer’s saying. ‘If I hadn’t got you all up and got you down here to the beach in time, we’d have been for it. I thought Anna and Oliver were going to bust a gut as it was.’
‘What did the little bitch tell them?’ That’s Sasha.
‘Don’t be so horrible,’ says Rosalie. ‘And pass the wine. I need more wine. I need to pickle my brain till it’s like tonight never happened.’
‘She said I was in Anna’s bed and Rosie was crying and Peach was paralytic. No reason for it. She just opened her mouth and dropped us all in it.’
‘And what about the other little bitch?’ said Sasha. ‘What did she say?’
‘She told them the truth,’ says Jennifer. ‘She came down to the beach to go swimming, but her period started.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ says Ramsay. ‘I’m still feeling sick from the cocktails. Shut up about periods!’
‘I mix a pretty good Monthly Mary,’ says Sasha. ‘The trick is to get it lumpy.’
‘Shut up!’ That’s more than Ramsay now.
‘Chopped plum tomatoes.’ Sasha hoots with laughter, then adds, ‘but I’m making myself feel sick, actually.’
‘Hold on, though,’ Buck says. He’s slurring his words. ‘When did she go swimming? Jellifer, you told me she went home.’
‘To shut you up,’ Jennifer says.
‘Yeah, Sasha,’ says Ramsay. ‘You said you were taking her home. I told her sister that.’
‘She asked to go to the beach instead,’ Sasha says. ‘I passed out. I was a bit worried about her when I woke up. But if you saw her in the lane, Jelly, all’s well.’
‘Speaking of passing out,’ says Paul. ‘Peach? Oh, Pe-each! Calling Miss Schna-apps.’
‘Morag!’ That’s Buck. ‘She’s out for the count this time. I’ll take her back to the house.’
‘Aren’t Anna and Oliver going to wonder why Morag went swimming in her nightie?’ Sasha says.
‘You’re welcome!’ says Jennifer. ‘That was my quick thinking. If we hadn’t chucked her in the sea to get the sick off her we wouldn’t be able to blame the sisters for the mess in that room.’
‘As long as they don’t make trouble,’ Buck says.
‘They won’t,’ Jennifer says. ‘They wouldn’t dare. It’s our word against—’
‘Not the kids!’ Buck says. ‘I mean, as long as Anna and Oliver don’t try to get them to pay for the cleaning or something.’
‘Same deal,’ says Jennifer. ‘Their word against ours.’
‘Evil genius,’ says Buck, but at least he sounds unhappy about it. He pulls Morag to her feet. She groans but, with his arm round her, he manages to drag her off.
I know I’ve got to keep quiet. I can’t let a peep out. But inside – absolutely silently – I’m boiling over. They’re going to blame me for that pile of peach puke, are they? Me, who was all set to go out the back and hose my mess away.
‘And what’s wrong with your face, Ro-Ro?’ Sasha says, when the others have gone. ‘It’s my birthday and you’re sitting there like it’s a wake.’
‘Leave her alone,’ says Paul.
‘Ooo-ooooh,’ Sasha says. ‘Paul and Rosalie, up a tree!’
‘Shut up, you chimp,’ Paul says. ‘Honestly, Sasha, why are you such an arse? Come on, Rosalie. Let’s go.’
‘I know you don’t need a spare leg, but I’ll come with you,’ Ramsay says.
‘Playing gooseberry again, eh?’ says Sasha.
‘Now, now, children,’ Jennifer puts in.
But Rosalie holds a hand out to both brothers and the three of them go off together.
‘Well, happy fucking birthday to me,’ Sasha says, when it’s just him and Jennifer. ‘Some party this was.’
‘We need to put tonight behind us,’ Jennifer says. ‘The kid’s not going to open her mouth. She’s scared of her mum getting angry. So as long as we don’t say anything, everything’ll be fine.’
‘Why shouldn’t it be? What’s the problem?’
‘For God’s sake, Sasha! Gormless as Anna and Oliver are, when they sober up they’re going to smell a rat. So here’s what we need to do. Visualize the party. Imagine—’
‘Oh, not this crap!’
‘Take the whole party and put it in a box. Lock the box. And throw the key out into the sea, where it sinks to the ocean floor and is lost for ever.’
‘That’s not an ocean. That’s the Solway.’
Go to My Grave Page 18