I thanked her and rummaged among the bags on the ground until I found my cigarettes. I perched on a rock to smoke while the others milled around on a patchwork of rugs and towels, picking at the food. It wasn’t much of a beach, small and pebbly, but we had it to ourselves. A path led through a sharp incline of trees to a strip of road, a silver stripe across the hillside. Most of the stones, white and oval, were stained with black tar. The air smelt unpleasantly of sulphur. In a crack between rocks, litter had collected, including a rolled-up nappy.
‘Everything always tastes so much more delicious when you eat it outdoors,’ Tina said after a bit.
No one bothered to say anything, though Alice, who had hardly eaten a thing, made a noise of agreement at the back of her throat.
‘Paul – are you going to eat?’ Tina called.
I waved my cigarette in the air, gestured to the beer lodged between my knees. ‘I’m fine. Maybe in a minute.’
‘That’s why you stay so slim,’ she sighed. She had made herself a sandwich, and she opened her mouth around it and took a messy bite. ‘I’m going to start the 5:2 diet when I get home.’
‘It works better for men,’ Andrew said.
‘Are you saying I’m a lost cause?’
‘I think you’re perfect the way you are,’ I said.
‘Bless you, Paul,’ she said.
Phoebe and Daisy had laid out towels and were sunbathing in matching swimwear – hot pink strapless bikinis. They were talking quietly to each other. I began to concentrate on the shapes of their mouths. The subject was Kylie’s brother, Sam, the young lad we’d seen being taken by the police at Delfinos and whether he could possibly be guilty of rape.
‘He didn’t look the type,’ Phoebe said.
‘What is the type?’ Tina, who had been eavesdropping too, said. ‘It’s an important lesson, you two. Appearances can be deceptive.’
I looked across at Alice. She had picked up a pebble and was studying it. ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘They might just have wanted to talk to him as a witness, not a suspect.’
Alice looked up at me, and then away. She threw her stone high into the sea and leant back, eyes closed, face up to the sun.
‘I think he went home early anyway,’ Daisy said, propping herself up on her elbows. She called to Louis who was sitting in the shade of a tree, picking delicately at a ham roll. ‘You talked to him, didn’t you? He left about the same time as you, long before us. Weren’t you going to walk up together?’
I watched Alice. She didn’t move.
‘I don’t know,’ Louis muttered, looking down. ‘I got a bit lost.’
‘I didn’t hear any of you come in,’ Tina said. ‘I was dead to the world.’
I waited. Surely Alice or Andrew would tell the truth now? When neither of them said anything, I opened my mouth to speak – I could quite innocently just say what I’d seen – but then thought better of it.
Tina said, ‘Anyway, that poor girl. I hope she has a good support group and she isn’t in hospital in a foreign country on her own. I hope her parents have flown out, or if not, she has a nice friend to look after her.’
‘She was with a big gang,’ Phoebe said carelessly. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’
I thought about the people Laura had been with: the bottles of beer, the shaved heads. ‘Her friends didn’t look much cop to me,’ I said.
Alice turned to look at me. ‘How do you know anything about her friends?’
I had spoken without thinking. I stubbed out my cigarette carefully and said: ‘If she is the girl I’m thinking about, she’s called Laura. She was with a load of skinheads on my bus up from the south yesterday.’
‘I thought you got a taxi?’
I felt the heat rise into my face. ‘Um . . . I got a bus in the end.’
She looked at me with an odd expression. ‘But I thought you said . . .’
‘Yeah, silly me – I don’t know why, but I lied.’
I climbed down off the rock and picked up a tomato to eat. Warm juice spurted down my chin. I wiped the liquid with the back of my hand and sat down on the pebbles, making a show of getting comfortable next to Alice. I was aware of her shifting very slightly away and of Andrew’s eyes on both of us. How typical. They were the ones behaving reprehensibly, but I was the one who now felt in trouble.
I would get tar on the seat of the trunks, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t mine. Nothing here was mine, I realised unhappily, no matter how hard I pretended.
After lunch, as Louis had rallied, we swapped places. I took a lift back to the house with Tina, leaving him to paddle by kayak back around the headland. I watched them all push off from the shoreline, and shouted ironic advice and encouragement – ‘that’s it; well balanced, nice clean strokes’ – trying to use humour to wrest back control of the situation.
The car was reached by a climb through trees, along a rough path, half stones, half pine-needles. The air was sharp with eucalyptus. Above us, a bird of prey circled, a hawk maybe, its shadow curling and slanting. Tina clambered a way ahead, though I could hear her exhaling loudly, letting out small cries of astonishment at the gradient. I was carrying the bags and paced steadily behind, glad to have a few moments alone with my thoughts. I had a lot to think about.
When I arrived at the road, Tina was leaning against the car, fanning herself with her hand. ‘Phew. Hot work,’ she said. ‘I’d have died if you hadn’t offered to be my pack horse.’
A convoy of quad bikes, topped by teenagers in vests, snarled by, like chainsaws on wheels.
I waited until they had rounded the bend, a skirt of dust in their wake. ‘At least I’m good for something,’ I said. I’d meant to sound flirtatious rather than self-pitying, but Tina took a step forward. ‘Don’t worry about Andrew,’ she said. She made a strange darting movement with her hand, curling it into a fist and pressing it into my cheek. Sympathy in a lunge. A feint retreat. If I’d been a child I wonder if she’d have squeezed my cheeks, pushed her face into mine. She took her hand away and sat next to me on the barrier. ‘He feels responsible for Alice and sometimes he gets carried away.’
I said: ‘Thing is, I wouldn’t mind being responsible for her myself.’
Again I must have misjudged the tone. I’d been wondering on the way up whether to tell her about Louis being drunk, about Andrew and Alice covering for him. I knew I wouldn’t now. Tina looked at me for a long time. I half laughed under her scrutiny, felt the prick of tears, bit the side of my lip, looked away.
‘You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you?’ she said eventually.
It was a peculiar moment. I had had no idea until that point of the truth of it. Perhaps I was feeling over-sensitive because of the rape and the worry about Alice. Or perhaps it was the delayed trauma of the kayak trip and relief that it was over. My insides weakened and for a second I found it easier not to speak. I gave a nonchalant shrug and eventually managed to say, ‘I’m not good enough for her. That’s the problem.’
She said, ‘Was that why you lied about taking a taxi? To make yourself sound more suitable?’
‘Probably. Yes.’
We were leaning in, facing the road. But she spun round to face the view. ‘I’m sure you are good enough. I’m sure you’re just what she needs. She just needs to realise it, to relax into it. She’s not quite herself this week. She’s worried about Louis. And losing the house isn’t easy. On top of everything.’
I turned round too. The prospect before us was of trees and sky and the large dark body of Albania, but on a triangle of sea, a few small shapes wriggled slowly towards the headland. ‘On top of what, though?’ I said. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be on holiday?’
She sighed lightly. ‘You wouldn’t understand. It’s never completely a holiday here. It’s almost like a duty. Alice has always carried Jasmine’s disappearance on her shoulders.’
‘But why?’
She sighed again, more heavily. ‘Partly, I suppose, because she was there when it happened, lived through
that night and the days that followed, the police interviews, the search . . . We all did, I guess. But Alice – it’s just the kind of person she is – took it more deeply than the rest of us. And now, the end of the lease, having to give up the house . . . Here’s the thing about Alice. You don’t know her as well as I do. Alice has to be in control. She always has. She doesn’t trust anyone else to do anything; she is only happy if she has charge of it all. I love her dearly, of course I do, but she has this belief that unless she is at the centre of everything, nothing holds together. Without her in the driving seat everything goes wrong.’
I frowned. ‘That must bring a few problems.’
‘It’s just the sort of person she is,’ she said again.
We were both quiet on the drive back to the house. I was disarmed by drowsiness: a combination of physical exhaustion, upset, heat and the soporific effects of Mythos. Tina pressed in a CD, a compilation they brought to Pyros every year: a private joke in musical form. Through half-closed eyes, I watched olive groves rise and dip, the sea and sky merge and separate. I sang along sleepily to the second track, a haunting song about cruelty and betrayal.
‘You’re familiar with this one, then?’ Tina said.
‘Yeah. People used to play it a lot at college.’
Her face flashed towards me and then back to the road. ‘Everything But The Girl. “Charmless Callous Ways”. It was Florrie’s favourite. Apparently.’
Florrie. I opened my eyes and sat forward. Was it the song that brought the memory back? An image of that oval pixie face, the slight overbite, flickering in candlelight across the table from me. The Maharajah Tandoori. Dancing wildly in the buttery during some party, a clumsy drunken kiss on the corner of King’s Passage, and another physical memory: the slither of her sheets, the roughness of an over-washed cellular blanket.
‘It’s funny I wasn’t aware you’d gone out with her,’ Tina mused.
‘It was very brief. I wanted to say . . .’ I tried to judge the tone right – gentle concern with a smidgen of mortification. ‘How sorry I am that she died.’
Tina blinked slowly; possibly she moved her head but so slightly I wasn’t sure. ‘It’s awful, I know.’
‘Was she ill?’
‘Andrew doesn’t like to talk about it. It’s a bit of a taboo subject.’
‘An accident?’
‘Yes, I suppose it was: a terrible accident.’ We had reached the drive up to the house and she changed gears sharply, indicating and checking her mirrors. I opened my mouth to ask more, but there was a look in her eye as if she might be about to cry.
I said: ‘I’m sorry.’
I didn’t want to upset her. There were other ways I could find out.
Chapter Twelve
The house was sun-baked; the walls trembled in the heat. A black swimsuit hung, bat-like, from a limb of the olive tree; a plastic bottle of Ambre Solaire stood upright by the leg of a chair: otherwise there was no sign of habitation. It was silent – the builders had stopped. The empty terrace dazzled.
Tina put the towels to dry and sat outside at the table while I tooled around in the kitchen, making us a pot of tea with the Red Label sachets I found in the cupboard. Several flies droned, spiralling in head-height patterns. The breakfast plates lay unwashed in the sink: a smear of butter, a crescent of crust. Someone had left a scrunch of money on the counter – a few coins loosely wrapped up in a five-euro note. Andrew’s trunks only had a flimsy pocket so I slipped both the note and the coins into the cigarette packet I had rolled, James Dean-style, into the shoulder of my T-shirt.
I carried the tea out on a tray. ‘Ah, lovely,’ Tina said. ‘Will you be mother?’ and then, after I had poured and she had taken her first sip, ‘I needed this. Isn’t it funny how a hot drink can be so refreshing!’
I think about Tina quite a lot these days. She was a warm, interesting woman; wrong for Andrew. She could have been anything if she had followed her own instincts, if she had wriggled out from under the yoke of his control. I always liked her. Perhaps things would have turned out differently for me if I’d married a woman like her.
At that moment, she released her hair from the linen scarf that tied it back. It bounced free, springing in an auburn halo around her face. She ruffled her fingers in it and then raked it behind her ears, with an apologetic laugh.
‘You should grow it long,’ I said, smiling at her. For a moment, I let myself imagine her naked body rising above me, her hazel eyes half closed, the full breasts she liked to hide tumbling free.
She blushed, as if she could read my thoughts. ‘Andrew likes it shorter,’ she murmured. ‘Easier to keep neat. And at my age . . .’
‘What age?’ I said, as charmingly as I could.
‘Oh don’t flirt, Paul. I gave that all up when I went through menopause.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘It was an early menopause,’ she said, with a small smile. ‘I’m vain enough to tell you that.’
I smiled back and, when a few moments had settled, asked after her painting. Was it something she wanted to do more of? She looked thoughtful: ‘I don’t really have the talent.’
‘Those pictures in your kitchen – they’re wonderful,’ I lied.
‘I used to have more time,’ she said, ‘when I was younger, before the kids . . .’
We talked about her various jobs then: how she had left the City for a better work/life balance, how she had struggled with the pressures of bringing up children, of being a good enough parent. She worried about them both – of course she did. The shop was a wonderful compromise and had brought her fulfilment. She loved a new delivery of yarn, took an almost sensual delight in organising the balls by colour or texture, how balancing the accounts was an oddly satisfying task, how a grateful customer made a hard day worthwhile.
I was enjoying listening to her, touched by the obvious pleasure she felt in her work, finding I was actually interested in what she had to say; questions sprung from me unbidden! Did she advertise? How did she attract custom?
‘Word of mouth.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Usually, and when it doesn’t, we lasso them with balls of cashmerino aran and drag them in off the street,’ she replied.
Who was looking after the business in her absence? She stuck a sign in the window announcing annual holiday. No, she wouldn’t necessarily lose customers, wool being a seasonal purchase. ‘People knit in winter,’ she said, ‘and play tennis in summer.’
I laughed. ‘I think you move in different circles to me.’
She looked at me, once again almost fondly. ‘I expect I do.’
Now I’d brought it all to the front of her mind, she began to think out loud about the things she should be doing: re-orders to make, website designers to chase, course dates to finalise. This year, they’d be offering Starting to Knit, Beginners’ Crochet and Learning Fair Isle. ‘In fact,’ she gulped back her tea and brought her hands together in a determined little clap, ‘I might get on with some emails while it’s quiet.’
She went into the house, leaving me alone. The bags from the car were still on the ground where she had dumped them and I rummaged until I found my phone. Signal was terrible on the terrace and I walked round to the front yard. It was strongest, three bars, over on the far side, and I leant against the door of one of the outbuildings, to write the text to Alex I’d been composing in my head since the car.
It was a little awkward. I’d only seen him once since he’d got back from New York. He and his boyfriend Zach had invited me to supper and the experience had been traumatic. Alex cooked a spelt barley risotto with kale, surprisingly delicious, and they were full of Alex’s new job at the LSO, Zach’s latest Bikram yoga business, their plans to redecorate the bathroom. I’d hoped their return was temporary; I realised, sitting on the sofa like a guest, Persephone kneading my knee, that I was wrong.
Alex had suggested a coffee soon after that, and then later a trip to a concert. I hadn’t made the time for e
ither. Looking back, I suspect that as a flat-sit was no longer an option, I’d lost interest in the friendship. But Alex was my only link to a certain aspect of my past. I sent him this text: Hello. Sorry I haven’t been in touch – madly busy with work. Couple of ?s. 1st off, do you remember Andrew Hopkins’s sister – Florrie? Two years below us? Did you know she was dead?
It whooshed off. I waited for a while. No reply. I peered, for something to do, through the filthy window that took up the top panels of the double doors. Beyond it, a crochet pattern of spider webs, the hulking form of a vehicle. Hermes. I considered this for a moment, then turned the handle, expecting it to be rusted stiff, but it turned smoothly.
I stepped in. The door, on a vicious spring, snapped shut. Inside was a smell of grease and hot plastic and rotting earth. It was gloomy; a grimy strip of glass near the roof let in a grey light. Against the far wall, a row of shelves held ancient bags of unmixed concrete, battered pots of paint, a few dirt-smeared plastic containers. The truck itself, a white Toyota, was an ugly rusty thing. I couldn’t think why Alice was bothered with it. It looked ashamed of itself with its face to the wall, hidden away. I wondered how long it had been since anyone had sat in it. Years, probably.
Now I was here, a small thought wormed itself into my mind. Perhaps it was a simple thing that was wrong; to do with water, or oil. I had seen my father change those often enough on his old Morris Marina. The unscrew, the glug, the re-screw. The dip, the wipe, the re-dip. A fantasy grew: my macho credentials re-established; Alice’s arm-flinging delight; grudging respect from the others.
To reach the bonnet I would have to go further into the shed. There wasn’t much room between the vehicle and the wall, just enough for a person to squeeze through, but the walls were black with dust and I wouldn’t be able to get by without getting dirty. I paused, fastidiously averse. And then my phone buzzed: a text from Alex.
Hello stranger. Course I remember Florrie. Poor girl. One of your conquests, wasn’t she? Friend of Gillian’s. Surprised you didn’t know. Tragic.
Lie With Me Page 13