I Saw You

by Julie Parsons

  And they walked together in step. Woman, girl and dog. Back along the pier.

  Margaret stood in the doorway and looked into the bedroom. Sally Spencer had woken up. She had propped herself up on the pillows. She still looked exhausted, but she smiled as Margaret came in. ‘Thank you so much for that. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not in the habit of falling asleep at other people’s kitchen tables.’ Her voice sounded stronger.

  ‘That’s OK.’ Margaret sat down in the rocking-chair by the window. She pushed with one foot and felt it tilt beneath her.

  ‘What a lovely chair,’ Sally said. ‘We had one like that when I was a child. I seem to remember I tipped it over backwards once.’

  ‘Me too. I was banned from it for years.’ Margaret rocked slowly and smoothly. ‘This was my parents’ bedroom when I was a child. My mother used to sit here and watch the sea.’

  ‘Has she been dead for long?’ Sally shifted her legs under the heavy quilt.

  ‘About ten years.’

  Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.

  ‘Oh, of course, I remember now,’ Sally said apologetically. ‘She died around the same time as your daughter, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Margaret said. ‘We had a funny relationship, my mother and I. I never thought we were close, but I miss her now.’ Margaret’s eyes closed as she rocked. She could smell her mother’s perfume. It had clung to everything she wore, everything she touched.

  ‘They were tough, that generation of women.’ Sally rolled over on her side and pillowed her head on her arm. ‘I don’t know if we match up to them. Loss seems to knock the stuffing out of us. They took it in their stride.’

  ‘I’m not so sure if that’s so.’ Margaret’s eyes opened and her gaze drifted towards the sea. ‘I think they just had different ways of expressing it, or not expressing it, if you know what I mean. And, anyway, look at you. I understand from what Vanessa has told me that you’ve had your fair share of loss, and you’ve survived.’

  ‘Have I?’ Sally murmured. ‘Seems like I’ve been cursed. Or, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “To lose one husband was carelessness, but to lose two” . . .’ She smiled sadly.

  ‘Vanessa told me something about how her father died. So shocking and unexpected.’ The horizon was beautiful. A luminous stripe of green, bright against the darker sea.

  ‘Unexpected, shocking, all those things. And such a beautiful day. I remember it so well.’ Her voice dropped. ‘It was hot. And when it’s hot up there in the hills, it’s very hot. The house and the lake are so sheltered. They seem to catch the warmth and cradle it.’

  So hot, everyone wearing their swimming togs. The whole family there. James’s son and his school friends. Sally’s children. Vanessa, the baby, crawling across the fine white sand of the narrow lake beach. They had been swimming in the cold water. It drained from the peat bogs all around. It was a strange dark brown. Like flat Coca-Cola, Sally thought. It made her skin look like pale amber. Now she sat in a deckchair, a glass of wine in her hand. Vanessa was changed and dry, lying in her pram, the little parasol at a jaunty angle, keeping the sun from her pale baby skin. Sally relaxed in her deckchair and closed her eyes. For the first time in years she felt safe and protected.

  ‘I’d looked after myself and the kids ever since Robbie, my first husband, died. I had a little shop and I sold costume jewellery, accessories. Nice but cheap. I made a living, just about. But life with James was very different.’

  ‘What about his first wife?’

  Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.

  ‘That was difficult. But James told me that even if she hadn’t been ill he would have left her. He didn’t love her any more. He had already got his divorce before we met. He wanted to marry me. We went to London for the weekend. We had a ball. Vanessa was conceived there.’ Sally rolled on to her back and stared at the ceiling. ‘I could never have imagined that it would end the way it did.’

  It was so quiet. She would sleep while Vanessa slept. Then she would go and speak to the housekeeper about the party that night. Dinner for ten. It was all planned and organized. James had told her. She didn’t need to worry about a thing. She just had to enjoy it.

  ‘And then suddenly there was this terrible noise. An engine revving and revving on the far side of the lake. One of Dominic’s friends, a boy called Ben, had brought his motorboat with him when he came to stay. The kids all wanted to try water-skiing. I thought at first it must be them. But it wasn’t. The boat came really close to the shore. It sprayed me with water. And there was a group of boys in it. I didn’t recognize any of them.’

  And James running down from the house. Shouting at Marina. Telling her to start the outboard.

  ‘I stood up. I shouted at him to stop. I said I’d call the guards. But he didn’t pay any attention. I saw Marina fiddling with the engine cord. And James pushing her out of the way. And then they began to move out from the beach. James in the stern, holding on to the tiller, Marina sitting in the bow.’

  Across the lake. The motorboat now in the distance at the far end where a little stream ran down over the rapids into the bog. Sally got up and waded into the water, shading her eyes against the sun. She could see that the motorboat had turned. It was heading straight for the dinghy. At the last moment it changed direction but she could see the wash, the dinghy rocking violently from side to side. Now it was circling the dinghy, slowing, slowing, then speeding up again and again the wash swamping the small boat. Swamping it, so it rocked from side to side, drifting now. And Sally could see that James was standing up in the dinghy. She could see he was trying to start the engine. He was bent over it, and the motorboat was back. Going so fast she thought they would collide. And she screamed and cried out.

  ‘Dominic, Tom – help! Where are you?’ Screaming so loudly that Vanessa woke up, began to shriek. Sally turned away from the lake to pick her up. And when she looked back the motorboat was gone, to the far end of the lake, almost out of sight.

  ‘And the dinghy? What about the dinghy?’

  Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.

  ‘Well, the dinghy seemed OK. I couldn’t really see. So I put Vanessa back in her pram and started to run to the house. I was calling for the housekeeper. Karen O’Reilly was her name, a very nice woman, and when I told her what had happened, she said that Kevin, her husband, who looked after the grounds and the deer, had seen some boys down in the woods by the lake and told her they must have taken the boat from its mooring. She said she was sure everything was all right. So I gave Vanessa to her and I went back to the water.’

  And then she saw the dinghy. It was moving slowly, so slowly. She waved and shouted, but there was no response. Just the slow, stately movement of the boat through the water. And then she realized why there was no response. Because the only occupant of the boat was rowing it. She could see the back of the figure, bending and straightening over the oars. Bending and straightening and the oars dipping, then lifting, the sun glinting off the drops of water that fell from the wooden blades. She waited and watched and then she saw. It was her daughter who was rowing. Her daughter’s slight dark-haired figure, sitting in the centre of the boat, her hands grasping the oars, and the sun glistening on the drops as they were thrown back again. And as she got nearer, she turned and shouted: ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’

  ‘But what could I do? I was on my own. And then I heard a shout and the men came running from the house. Kevin, and some of the men who worked for him. There was one called Peadar and another whose name I didn’t know. And Kevin stripped off, waded into the water and swam out to the boat. And I saw him pulling himself up over the stern, then leaning down. He seemed to be pulling something up and out of the water. It was heavy because the boat was rocking from side to side. I could see, but I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to see that it was James.’

  Rock, rock, rock, roc
k. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.

  ‘And Marina was rowing again. And Kevin was crouching in the boat. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but he was bent over, his head bobbing up and down. And afterwards I realized he was giving James mouth-to-mouth. Trying to save him.’

  The boat came slowly to the jetty. She could see the body lying on its wooden slats. A rope was looped around James’s chest. Tied on to the seat in the stern. The men undid it and dragged James’s body out on to the jetty. And Kevin tried again. Tried to blow life back into him. They stood and stared at him. And Sally stared too. She couldn’t believe he was dead. He looked fine, just soaking wet. She wanted to shout at him, ‘Get up! Stop pretending! You’re frightening me.’ She wanted to prod him with her toe, take hold of his hands and pull him upright. But she didn’t. She knelt beside him and laid her head on his chest. Why wasn’t his heart beating? Every night when she went to sleep she put her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, slow, strong and steady. But not now. Now there was no deep, resonant vibration. Nothing but his cold wet shirt against her chest.

  ‘And I sat up. I shouted at Marina. She was still in the boat. She was white in the face and shaking. But I shouted at her, “What happened to him? How did this happen to him?” And she started to cry and she said, “I’m sorry, Mummy, I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.’

  They stood on the small wooden jetty, looking at James’s body. And someone went back to the house to phone for an ambulance.

  And Kevin said, ‘Where are the others? Do they know?’

  And Sally couldn’t speak. She just shook her head.

  And Kevin said, ‘I know where they are. They’ll be in the woods. Where they always go. I’ll get them.’

  ‘And will you tell them?’ she asked.

  And he nodded and put his arm around her and she smelt the smell of a man’s sweat. And she knew it would be a long time before she would smell it again.

  The old bed creaked as she sat up. She pushed the quilt away from her small, slight body.

  ‘I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should phone Vanessa, tell her we must go home. It’s getting late.’

  ‘No.’ Margaret stopped rocking. ‘Don’t go. Stay and have dinner with me. I’ve spoken to Vanessa. She’s been for a walk on the pier and I’ve asked her to go to the shops. She sounds fine. For the first time in ages I’m going to cook a proper meal.’

  ‘Are you sure? I feel we’ve imposed on you enough.’

  ‘No, really. It would give me great pleasure.’ Margaret stood up, and heard the trill of a ringtone.

  ‘Oh, sorry, that’s mine.’ Sally reached for her bag. She pulled out the phone and waved it apologetically in Margaret’s direction. ‘Just a minute.’ She held it to her ear. ‘Oh, hi, Michael, how are you?’ She listened. ‘Actually I’m not at home. Is it very important? . . . OK, well, could we make it tomorrow? I haven’t been feeling too well and I’m having dinner with a friend tonight . . . Yeah, fine, tomorrow morning then. Say elevenish? . . . Lovely. And thanks, Michael. Thanks very much.’

  She put her phone away.

  ‘That’s my policeman. Or, rather, my just-retired policeman. I don’t know what to make of him, really. And I don’t think he knows what to make of me. I think he thinks I’m just an hysterical mother.’ She smiled. ‘He’s probably right.’ She straightened the quilt. ‘I feel so much better after that. Not just the sleep but being able to talk to you. You know the way it is. People get impatient with tragedy. It’s fine when it’s fresh and new but when it begins to go stale, well . . . You can’t blame them, I suppose.’

  ‘You can’t blame them. But you can hate them. Even if it does you no good.’ Margaret opened the bedroom door. ‘Now, I have a very nice bottle of New Zealand white wine cooling in the fridge. I propose a glass or two. How does that sound?’

  It was late by the time Sally and Vanessa left. They had eaten well. Steak and salad, with mashed potato. They had drunk the wine. They had talked, and Sally had even laughed. And when Vanessa had gone upstairs to watch Margaret’s old black-and-white television, Sally had talked about the court case that had taken away her marriage.

  ‘It was the first of its kind. An English divorce had never been tested in an Irish court before.’ Sally finished her glass of wine and Margaret refilled it.

  ‘I take it his wife challenged its legality,’ Margaret said.

  Sally nodded. ‘Yes, and it wasn’t difficult to do. You know that divorce was illegal here until 1996 so the only way to get one was under English law. A lot of people did it. But there was a requirement that the husband be domiciled in England. There were a number of solicitors who would – how should I put it? – facilitate the acquiring of an English address. James was pretty casual about the whole thing. So it wasn’t difficult for Helena to prove that he had actually been domiciled in Ireland.’

  Margaret got up and opened the kitchen door. She beckoned Sally outside. They settled themselves on the deckchairs.

  ‘But had she agreed to the divorce? She knew what was going on, I presume.’ Margaret lay back and looked up at the stars.

  ‘Yes. They had joint custody of Dominic. That was all Helena wanted – so James said. But once he was gone she was determined to punish me. I didn’t care about it for myself, but I cared that the legitimacy of James’s relationship with Vanessa was challenged.’ Sally sipped her wine. ‘And, of course, there was the problem of his will.’

  ‘His will?’

  ‘We got married in London. I got pregnant immediately. We discussed James’s will. He was going to change it so I would inherit the house in Dublin, Dominic would get the Lake House and the estate in Wicklow. And there would be provision made for Helena. James recognized that she would never be able to work again, never be able to look after herself. She was mentally ill. She’d had very bad post-natal depression and she’d never recovered from it. She was in hospital most of the time.’

  ‘And were you happy with that? The provisions of the will?’ It was another beautiful night. Warm, still, the air filled with the scent of honeysuckle.

  ‘It was OK with me. I had no feelings of ill-will towards Helena. Mostly I felt pity for her. She wasn’t right.’ She tapped her skull. ‘They’d had a baby after Dominic, a little girl who died when she was a few months old.’

  ‘A cot death?’

  ‘Well, it seemed as if it was. But James told me that the psychiatrist who looked after Helena thought she might have . . . well, I don’t know, really, but she might have . . .’

  ‘Done something to the child?’

  ‘James didn’t believe it. He was horrified that anyone would think she was capable of such a thing. He told me that the psychiatrist had some theory that Helena was trying to protect the baby, trying to find a way to let her go to Heaven without having to suffer through her life. A way of bypassing the pain of the world. Something like that. But James didn’t go along with it. He reckoned the doctor was trying to be too clever.’ She lifted her glass. Margaret reached over and refilled it. She remembered a case from her days as a psychiatrist in New Zealand. A young woman who stabbed her two small daughters. She had wanted to die, but she couldn’t bear the thought that they would be left motherless. Her own mother had died when she was three. She didn’t want her daughters to suffer as she had suffered. A neighbour heard the children screaming and tried to intervene. By the time he had broken down the door, the little girls were dead. And their mother had retreated into a catatonic state. Margaret could still see the police photographs of the bedroom. Blood everywhere. And the girls’ bodies huddled in a corner. She shook her head to get rid of the images.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sally sat up on her deckchair and half turned towards her.

  ‘Yes.’ Margaret smiled. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She sipped some wine. ‘So your marriage and the will, what happened about it?’

  ‘Well, as I was saying, Helena went to court. She won the case so my marriage to
James was declared bigamous. And because he had never changed his will, Helena inherited virtually everything. But what really hurt was that Vanessa was not considered to be James’s legitimate child. However, in 1988 around the time James died, the law was changed so that children born outside marriage were entitled to inherit. So I went to court on her behalf and I managed to extract maintenance from the estate. Enough to keep her clothed and fed and pay her school fees. Enough to send her to university. And as well as that the court decided she should inherit some of James’s property. There’s a small cottage in Wicklow, a pretty little place, and she’ll get that with a parcel of land, twenty acres I think it is, on her eighteenth birthday. In a couple of weeks’ time.’ Sally took a deep swallow of wine. ‘But, of course, it’s much more difficult now, since Marina died there. In that place. I’m not sure I want Vanessa to have any part of it. Not now.’

  Margaret stretched her arms above her head. ‘Does she have any contact with James’s son?’ she asked.

  Sally shook her head. ‘He doesn’t want to know. We haven’t seen him for years. There was a lot of bitterness, anger. Which was why it was so strange when Marina went to the party at his house. She and Dominic, well, their relationship was fraught, to say the least.’

  ‘And you? What did you think of him?’

  ‘Me? Well, if I’m honest I thought he was a spoiled, arrogant brat. He made it very plain that he didn’t like me. But that was OK. I could understand that. He was very loyal to his mother, devoted to her. I remember how he’d spend time with her, and when he came back to us again, he’d look like her. He’d have mannerisms, ways of speaking, that were different. Actually,’ she looked away, ‘I felt sorry for Dominic that time, and it didn’t make it any easier for me. As far as he was concerned, I had usurped Helena’s place. But I didn’t understand why he was so cruel and nasty to Marina and Tom. They were my children, not James’s. They didn’t want to be his children. They would never have taken Dominic’s place or his love. And neither would I. James loved his son.’ She drained her glass. ‘Now. Time to go home.’ She got to her feet and held out her hand.