‘What did you say to Saffron exactly?’ he asked.
Allegra smiled through her tears. ‘Only the truth, darling.’ She tapped his chest, then her own, with an index finger. ‘You, and me. You’d do anything for me. We’re meant for each other.’
‘Wrong and wrong. I lied to you. In the letters I wrote while I was inside, here, on the pier. I’ve dreamed of revenge, seeing you suffer.’
‘You could never lie to me,’ she whispered.
‘I have.’
‘I’ve suffered.’ She fluttered her eyelashes and he resisted the temptation to laugh.
‘I don’t love you. It’s easy to lie when there’s no love, isn’t it?’
Ignoring his pointed remark, she continued, ‘You don’t mean that. You’ll always love me. You can’t escape me. I see it in your eyes.’ Her voice rose higher and higher. She reached for him again.
This time, he didn’t step back. He leant forward, holding her gaze, hands gripped about her wrists, holding her at bay. ‘I hate you.’
‘You don’t mean that. You’ve not learned how to forgive me yet, that’s all.’
‘Strike that. I feel nothing for you. Not a thing.’
Allegra’s eyes darkened. ‘You’ll tire of her. She won’t keep you for long.’
‘I love her.’
‘You need me.’ A shriek more than a sentence. Her arms began to thrash.
‘No, I don’t. I never did.’ He released his grip and pushed her, without force, away.
‘You can’t do this!’ she screamed.
‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? That someone – a man, me – can refuse to bend to your will, resist your charms.’ He drew speech marks in the air on charms, aping one of her many irritating habits. The implication behind the gesture wasn’t lost on her. ‘You’re so spoilt, so self-centred, so blind to the realities of love, to what it actually is, that you honestly thought you could do what you did to me and that I’d still love you. Incredible. Almost unbelievable. But I know you, and I believe that you could. You are so blind, and you have a lot to learn, if you even can. I’m not sure that you’re capable of true love.’ There was no cruelty in Joe’s tone, which remained even, rational.
Allegra began to shake. Her mouth opened, as if to form words, but nothing came forth. She was quite, quite, shell-shocked.
‘Now I want you to leave. I’ve wasted too much energy on you already.’
She slapped him, hard, across the face.
He didn’t feel a thing. ‘I’m done with you. Go,’ he said.
It was as if the slap took the last remnants of her strength, her self-delusion, and she crumpled, crying properly now, honestly, heaving, grasping-for-air sobs, which shook her entire body. Snot poured from her nose, saliva from her mouth.
Perhaps prison has taught her something after all.
‘You’ll never be done with me,’ she said.
You cannot touch me. Not now. Not ever.
He laughed. ‘Oh, but I am. You are dead to me.’
She turned back. ‘I’ll ruin you,’ she sobbed.
‘Do your worst,’ he said, knowing she couldn’t. He followed at a distance as she stumbled back to her car, snivelling, and watched as she climbed in, to make sure she left. For good.
In the Land Rover, Joe rested his head on the steering wheel. He was certain Allegra would not contact him again. But that was the least of his problems: he might never win Saffron’s trust; she might despise him for what he’d done, for keeping the truth from her. It might be all over. She might never believe that he’d intended to come clean, but he couldn’t carry on without trying.
His body ached, a dull pain far inside him chipped away at his soul. He took a deep breath, turned the engine back on, and headed down in the direction of the manse. The brightness of the day had passed and a mist hovered in the dusky air. It was still and quiet, like a graveyard.
Be quick, be strong, go and find Saffron.
There were no lights on at the front of the manse, but Joe felt certain Rain was at home and Saffron with her. Where else could they be? He hammered on the door, over and over, unrelenting. No reply.
He crouched on his haunches, lifted up the letterbox, and hollered into the hallway. ‘Saffronnnnn! Saffronnnnn!’
No reply.
He lurched down the path at the side of the house like a madman and launched himself at the gate. Scrabbling about on the smooth wood, he failed to gain purchase and slipped down. He stepped back up the path and ran at the gate, throwing himself up it like a soldier on an assault course. Result. He clambered over, ignoring a splinter of wood which sliced into his thumb pad like an arrowhead. Light spilled on the lawn, a shadow fluttered. Someone was home, or was it the tree rustling in the breeze?
He rapped on the back door. No answer. He clenched his fist and banged. Nothing. He pushed through a dense bed of hollyhocks, gladioli, and shrubs to the window and pressed his face against the glass. Rain stood in the kitchen, hands clenched in front at her waist, like a statue, staring at him, eyes wide, shocked or terrified, or both. Palms flat against the glass, he cried out, ‘Let me see her. Talk to her. Please. For the love of God let me explain.’
Kindness surfaced in Rain’s startled eyes. She edged towards the glass, and Joe thought he’d done enough. But she stopped, quite suddenly, raised a hand to her mouth, and shook her head. ‘Go home, Joe. Go home,’ she said. She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Joe lay on the grass and stared at the darkening sky. Clouds like cathedrals loomed, it might rain. A bird swooped overhead and then another creature darted from the eaves, faster and smaller. A bat. There was a bat roosting in the manse, maybe more. He watched the pipistrelle dive and swoop, hunting. Devouring insects, fattening itself ready for the winter. Survival. It was all about survival. Then came another and another.
He considered waiting, there on the lawn, till dawn. He would be there when she rose, came downstairs to make her morning coffee, instant not real. No, it would be too spooky, too weird, too criminal. He was trespassing.
Getting over the gate was even harder the second time. His mind still tore from one idea to the next and back again, ad infinitum.
Back in the street, he determined on his first idea: Go to Eifion’s. By now, he too would know what had happened. Explain to Eifion, if he could, and ask for his advice, his support, if Eifion was prepared to give it. Joe had no idea if he would. Joe checked his watch. It wasn’t too late. He increased his pace; the sooner he got there the better.
Chapter Thirty-two
Joe had never been inside Eifion’s house. He only knew where it was because he’d dropped him off one time after work. The house wasn’t all Eifion’s; he rented a flat on the first floor, he’d said. A three-storey Victorian affair, the house had been carved up sometime in the late 1980s. Cheaply done, it was a ‘right state’, Eifion had said as an excuse for not inviting Joe in for a cuppa.
Joe studied the intercom to the right of the double door. The name plates were empty, bar the middle bell. Illegible lettering bled onto a scrap of yellowed paper. Joe recalled Eifion complaining about the couple above who’d stripped their floorboards, ‘strictly against the terms of the tenancy, I’ll have you know,’ and then proceeded to practise some form of Irish dancing up there at all times of the day and night. The middle bell must be Eifion’s. Joe pressed it, hard, and held his breath.
‘Hellooo,’ came Eifion’s sing-song voice.
Joe bent into the speaker. ‘It’s me: Joe. I need a friend.’
‘Now is that Joe, as in Joe Jones, carpenter and all-round quiet but nice guy? Or is it Joe as in Marcus Whatshisname?’
‘Eifion, I deserve your contempt and mistrust, but, please, can you give me a few minutes? I need someone to hear my side of it. To hear the truth.’
Silence. Seconds that felt like interminable minutes passed.
‘Shouldn’t that someone be Saffron?’
‘I’ve tried. Rain won’t let me near her.’
> ‘Can you blame her?’
‘No.’
About to admit defeat, Joe stepped back from the intercom. The door buzzed. Astonished, he pushed, not expecting it to move, but it swung open to reveal a wide hall and a mat littered with junk mail. The dull scent of mildew wafted towards him as he stepped forward and a light clicked on. A bare bulb exposed the shabby hall. Joe made his way up the wide staircase, the bannister sticky beneath his hold.
Eifion stood in a doorway on the landing. Backlit, his face in shadow, Joe couldn’t read his expression. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
Joe followed him into a narrow kitchen, the sink full of dirty dishes. ‘I can offer you tea, coffee, or a tin of cheap lager.’
A good sign. He didn’t mean to throw Joe out immediately. ‘A beer would be great. Thank you.’
Eifion reached into the fridge and handed over a can. It was icy cold and Joe held it to his brow before pulling the ring and taking a gulp. He hadn’t realised how dehydrated he was.
‘Shall we go through to the lounge,’ Eifion said, gesturing for Joe to leave the kitchen. It would have been hard for him to pass without making physical contact. In the hall, Joe stepped back and allowed Eifion to take the lead.
The lounge was larger than Joe had expected, with a rounded bay and sash windows. A spindly cheese plant obscured the view to the street. Eifion gestured to a velour covered sofa and Joe sat down. Eifion remained standing which Joe found disconcerting and intimidating – it was a bit like being in the headmaster’s office at school for a telling off.
No less than I deserve.
‘Well, first off, I need to know what to call you. Ceri says this woman in red called you Marcus.’
Joe wiped his brow; he was still sweating. ‘I’d like you to call me Joe, but as this is truth time … yes, I was christened Marcus. It’s what I was called until I left prison, came here.’
Eifion pulled up a wooden chair – a dining chair, though there was no table – and sat down. ‘Joe it is then.’ He leaned back and folded his arms.
Joe saw it as a ‘Well?’ gesture, but then Eifion nodded and smiled, encouraging.
Joe didn’t know how to begin.
The very worst thing, tell him the worst thing first. It can only get better after that. No. From the beginning.
‘It was in the papers, a couple of tabloids. Not front page, but still …’
‘Ceri thought it might. She did a bit of digging. On the internet. But it’s not that easy without a surname. Anyhow, you can’t believe everything you read in those things, can you?’
Joe shook his head, and continued, relieved. The papers had lost interest, quickly, partly thanks to Allegra’s father’s influence and partly because other, more scurrilous, stories came along. ‘I was in love. Floored, crazy about her, absolutely and utterly crazy.’
‘Sex must have been good,’ Eifion said, and despite the seriousness of the occasion Joe laughed. ‘Sorry. Don’t mind an old cynic like me.’
‘We’d been to a party, in the countryside. Big posh manor house place. I hated those kinds of affair, and the people who held them, on the whole. A legacy of the private school I was dumped at after my parents died, I suppose. But it was the world I knew, the world I’d grown up in mostly, and Allegra’s family were wealthy and influential – her father’s high up in the civil service, her mother was some kind of a lady, old money, you know – and this sort of thing came with the package of being Allegra’s man.’
‘We all had you down as quite posh, though not that posh. What did you do for a living, back then? I can’t see that kind of woman being with a tradesman.’ Eifion put on a posh voice when he said ‘tradesman’ and Joe found himself smiling again.
‘I ran my own business. An internet network, connecting people in the property industry – developers, purchasers, buyers and sellers of large office buildings, that sort of thing. The great advantage, for me, of it being an online network was that I rarely had to deal with my client base face to face.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you liked it much.’
‘I didn’t. After school, I cruised. Bit of a slacker, unsure what I wanted to do. I love nature, and making stuff. I had a dream of creating art, sculpture, from natural materials. Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, I guess, but I lacked confidence without formal training and I needed to earn some money. It’s something I planned to pursue here. My family were comfortable, but the pot wasn’t bottomless. A friend of mine, Simon, set the business up and persuaded me to help him run it while I decided what to do with the rest of my life. He was my only friend, as I was to discover later. Still is. Told myself I’d do it for a few years. And then things spiralled out of control … The business really took off and I got sucked in’
‘You went to a party …’ Eifion brought Joe back to the main story.
‘We’d had a run of these kinds of events; everyone seemed to be getting engaged and throwing extravagant, ostentatious parties, desperate to out-do each other. It sickened me most of the time. All the money that was spent – wasted – on ridiculous flower arrangements, table decorations, waiters dressed up like penguins, string quartets that no one listened to. Vast amounts of rare, exotic food and drink – most of which was disgusting. Quite often I’d look around these marquees, these halls, and yachts, and wonder if these people had any idea how the majority of the population lived. How far removed they were from most people’s experiences, in this country, let alone the developing world.’ Joe paused, sickened by the memory, aware how it must seem to Eifion. ‘Look. Sorry, this all sounds like I’m trying to justify myself. Make myself out to be this great bloke, privileged and rich, but with a social conscience. I sound like a wanker.’
Eifion raised his eyebrows – Joe couldn’t tell if he agreed with his analysis or not.
‘After a stream of these parties, I’d had enough and I needed to have a drink to get through it. I only went because Allegra liked to have me there and I’d not mastered saying no to her. Usually, I did the driving. I hate taxis and I’m not a good passenger.’ He shrugged, as if that were his worst fault.
If only.
‘We agreed that we’d take her car and she would drive, just this once. It was a pretty standard, dreadful to my mind, affair, and drinking hadn’t done much to make it any more bearable. When we left, I wasn’t drunk. I’d had a few, but I wasn’t drunk. It’s important you know that.
‘In the car, we started arguing. Nothing serious. Allegra liked a good argument, and I went along with it because the making-up was amazing –’
‘So it was all about the sex,’ Eifion said, though he wasn’t smiling this time.
‘No. It was more than that. It was for me. Anyway, it was late, dark, few lights in windy country lanes and villages. Allegra was distracted. We were coming through a tiny hamlet, right on the outskirts, on a bend, when we hit something. On the left side of the bonnet. A heavy, dull thud.’ He felt nauseous at the memory. ‘It felt solid, like a badger or possibly even a deer, though I’d not seen anything. The car swerved, Allegra lost control for a moment, and braked. But then she started the engine and pulled away. I screamed at her to stop; to go back. After a few minutes, she turned back. Roughly where we’d felt the impact, we stopped. She looked over her shoulders to the road, to the verge. I followed suit. We couldn’t see anything. She said it was more than likely an animal and it had crawled away. I insisted we got out to look. It could have been alive, suffering. I had to know. Reluctantly, she opened the door and clambered out. It was at this point I became aware that she wasn’t completely steady on her feet, but I dismissed the thought. She’d had a shock; we both had.
‘It was very dark. There was a light, from a house perhaps, some distance away, but that was it. I used a torch app on my phone and shone it along the kerb, on the grass verge. And that’s when I saw it, a shadowy lump by the hedge, up ahead.’ Joe’s head swam, he felt dizzy, sick, as if he were reliving the moment when he real
ised this was no deer. ‘I staggered towards the shape, the horror of what Allegra had done increasing as I neared. I smelt him first. Shit and piss and poverty and pain. He wasn’t dead; he moaned as I hovered over him, unsure whether or not to touch him, to move him, in case I made things worse. That’s what they teach you, isn’t it? In first aid?’ He looked at Eifion, making eye contact for the first time since he’d began. ‘I called to Allegra. It was a man, he wasn’t dead. Would she call an ambulance while I offered comfort? She hissed at me to come over. Shocked, not thinking straight, I apologised to the man and walked the few paces back to where she stood, leaning on the bonnet of the car, smoking a cigarette.
“We can’t,” she said.
I shook my head, uncomprehending. “We have to. He could die; we have no idea how severe his injuries are,” I replied.
“I’ve had a drink, maybe two,” she said, and I knew then she’d had more, despite our agreement. “Not certain I’d get through a breathalyser, darling.” She stroked my cheek. “We could go. No one has seen us.”
She must have seen the look of horror on my face because she added swiftly, “We’ll call the emergency services and then scoot.”
“But he’s seen me, or heard me,” I said.
“He’ll never be able to identify you.”
“The police will trace the call. We can’t leave him alone. He must be scared shitless. What if he dies?” I was yelling now, terror and fear blending. That’s when she started to cry. I wouldn’t relent on this, no matter how much I loved her. I couldn’t abandon a man, a man who might be dying. And it was our fault. She asked how much I’d had to drink and begged me to say I was driving. I’d had three, maybe four. But I’d eaten and I’m tall, well built – and I was bulkier then, all that rich food and booze – large body mass, easier to absorb alcohol. I wavered. I couldn’t be certain I would pass a breathalyser either. Allegra was beside herself by this point, crying, begging me to do this for her, because I loved her, because I’d said I would do anything for her. Anything. She had more to lose than me. She was a lawyer. If convicted of driving under the influence, she might lose her job, her livelihood, her reputation. Her family would be destroyed. It was their reputation on the line too.’ Joe hung his head.
Redemption Song Page 27