by Sam Hayes
‘For one who hates weddings, you’ve had your share.’ Robert took more of his whisky.
‘I wouldn’t have hated ours.’ Another bold remark, rendering them both silent.
Robert didn’t want it to be like this and was about to talk about Ruby again but Louisa stiffened. ‘Willem,’ she said brightly and stood, instantly divorcing the moment with Robert. ‘This is my old friend, Rob Knight. He’s a lawyer. I used to do the investigations for his firm.’
Willem, younger than Robert had imagined, stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Good to meet you,’ he said, obviously without threat or care that his beautiful wife had been having a drink with a man he didn’t know. Willem’s voice was gravelled with accent, pleasantly so, and Robert couldn’t immediately see anything in particular to dislike about the man.
‘They’re waiting in the lobby for us. We have to go.’
Louisa turned to Robert. ‘We’re dining with my cousin and her husband-to-be. I’m her maid of honour and she wants to go over a few things with me.’
‘You can tell her all about the delights of married life.’ Robert’s tone gave away none of the meaning that he knew Louisa would pick up on, especially to a foreigner who wouldn’t completely understand the nuances of English. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in the morning then. I’ll be up early for a jog.’ Robert remembered Louisa’s virtual addiction to a morning run.
Louisa smiled, and then, quite unlike the woman he once knew, she allowed herself to be led away by the elbow.
Perhaps it was the second double Scotch that he’d drunk while waiting for Erin and Ruby to join him, or perhaps it would have happened anyway – a small cyst, innocuous at first, rapidly reaching out its fingers into a full-blown tumour. Either way, Robert regretted mentioning Tanya’s news at dinner on the first night of their weekend break.
‘Ruby doesn’t seem to exist.’ Robert slugged a large mouthful of wine. He couldn’t help the occasional glance out of the restaurant to see if Louisa and her party had reconvened in the bar. He pushed his plate further onto the table.
‘Yeah, she’s gone to the toilet,’ Erin replied while picking apart a fillet of salmon. Then she suddenly looked up and laid down her cutlery, struck by Robert’s choice of words. ‘You mean like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy?’ The attempt to make light of the sudden heavy atmosphere was futile.
‘No, not like either of those. I mean like . . .’ he paused – another glance to the bar, another sip, ‘I mean like Tanya not finding any record of Ruby’s birth at the register office.’
There was a pause, nothing too conspicuous or stuffed with particular panic. ‘And you expect me to relax tomorrow while this girl’s in charge of my shop?’ Erin began to dissect the pink fish again although she didn’t eat any of it.
‘She’s quite capable of selling flowers for a day.’
‘But not so capable when it comes to locating simple documents, even though such jobs must take up most of her day-to-day work in your office.’ Erin smiled at her daughter as she slid back into her seat.
‘Can I have pudding?’ Ruby asked Robert, instinctively knowing she would have a better chance with him.
‘Sure,’ he said, shrugging. Then, ‘It’s not Tanya’s mistake.’ His quieter voice and refusal to look at his wife indicated that they should not argue about this in Ruby’s presence. ‘Like I said, the register office has no record.’ Robert couldn’t help himself.
Ruby wasn’t stupid. ‘Is this for my passport so that I can go to Vienna?’ She jiggled on the seat, reaching for the dessert menu.
Robert nodded. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it.’
‘Yeah, he’s got his ace secretary on the case, hon.’ Erin wiped her mouth neatly, stood and excused herself. ‘You can tell her not to bother, Rob. Ruby’s not going to Vienna.’
Robert watched his wife stride from the restaurant; he couldn’t bring himself to look at Ruby and see the heart-sinking disappointment on her face.
‘How about a double chocolate sundae?’ he asked, knowing it wouldn’t even make a small dent in Ruby’s disappointment.
Erin was propped up in bed reading a book. The room smelled vaguely of face creams and herbal tea. Robert dropped his key and wallet on the dressing table and kicked off his shoes. ‘She’s in bed,’ he said.
Erin placed the book face down beside her. Robert glanced at the red embossed cover of the standard hotel-issue bible. ‘Good read?’
‘Engrossing. You should try it sometime.’ Erin flicked off her bedside lamp and slithered beneath the duvet even though it was warm and humid in the room.
‘I said she’s in bed, if you’re interested.’ Robert removed his shirt and went into the bathroom. He cleaned his teeth and splashed cold water on his face. In the mirror, he noted how his features had tightened, perhaps from the cold water or perhaps because of the elastic thread of doubt that pulled under his skin.
‘Thanks,’ was her muffled reply. Robert didn’t understand. She always kissed Ruby goodnight. He walked up to the bed and whipped back the duvet to expose his wife’s foetal position. He saw the muscles tense around her bones, even through the soft fabric of her summer pyjamas.
‘What are you trying to do to the girl?’ he demanded. ‘She’s just had her first week at a new school, no thanks to you, and now you’re on a crash course to mess up her chances by telling her she can’t go to Vienna.’ Robert turned away. His palms itched. ‘You know I’ll pay for the trip, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
There was a heavy silence, disturbed only by the humdrum of chatter in the bar at the other end of the hotel. The warm night air hung between Robert and Erin like thick winter padding. Robert sighed and sat down on the bed. He tried to pull the duvet up over her again but she kicked it off. She seemed to be refracted several degrees askew of the real world.
‘Would you like a reminder of what this is all about?’ Robert rummaged in his bag and retrieved his iPod. He had put it in the bag as a credible aid to his planned morning run; a scheme he hardly dared admit to himself. A day hadn’t gone by in Louisa’s life, he didn’t think, when she hadn’t run before breakfast. He toggled through the digital menu and pushed the headphones into Erin’s ears. Her mouth and eyes wavered, indicating that she was suddenly drenched in Ruby’s piano music.
Robert knew that particular piece perfectly. Ruby had called it ‘Flight’. She had told him it was about running away and abandoning everything at a moment’s notice, as if life was expendable, she had said. Robert would never forget the honesty in Ruby’s face as she proudly told him of her composition. The music was rare, like her.
Now, he watched Erin listening as she lay on the bed, a tear collecting in the corner of her eye. He knew that Erin remembered Ruby composing it, her spine arced for hours at a time, head bent protectively over the baby grand that they had somehow squeezed into his dining room. The result was a collection of songs that Robert had mixed and recorded. He’d made Ruby feel special, like a professional.
It had been a condition of Erin finally moving in with Robert that the piano be allowed too; the three of them, a package. Robert had agreed without hesitation. He adored Ruby’s music and, between them, mother and daughter had brought the human equivalent of spring to his life.
‘So.’ Robert turned down the volume. ‘Does that refresh your memory? Now do you recall why we were so keen for her to go to Greywood?’
Erin nodded, strangely seeming smaller, fragile like a summer moth caught up in a light, wanting to pull away but unable, seeming trapped but nervously, stupidly, intrigued.
‘I just don’t understand about the birth certificate. Or lack of,’ he added gently, stroking her head.
Erin sat up. A tear bulged from her left eye, which she wiped on the sheet. ‘Someone’s made a mistake.’ She offered a small smile – a sugar-wafer smile doused with doubt. She unfolded herself from the bed and padded into the bathroom, half closing the door before she sat down. ‘Obviously something’s gone wrong somewh
ere,’ she called out.
Not wanting to interrupt her, Robert stood outside the bathroom, stiff in the doorway like an uncertain builder’s prop. ‘You’re right.’ He sighed. Upsetting Erin had not been his intention. ‘Something’s gone wrong. Somewhere.’ And, with his face relaxing from the doubt, he reached forward and pulled the door quietly closed.
Even at seven in the morning the air was humid and hung with the sickly sweet scent of dew-misted roses and honey-suckle that had just finished flowering. As their feet pounded the lane in a syncopated rhythm, Robert couldn’t help a couple of glances at the gems of sweat collecting on Louisa’s neck.
‘Been a while, huh?’ she laughed. Robert grinned back as best he could. She didn’t even seem to be out of breath and they’d been running for fifteen minutes. He grimaced. He could still be in bed, curled around Erin.
‘I play squash most Sundays. Go to the gym when I can.’ Robert tried to stop, lean his hands on his knees, but Louisa pressed on in a steady stride, her slim legs falling perfectly in line in an economical style. She looked back and grinned – a flash of white against the clean blue sky.
‘And how is our Den?’ Then, ‘Oh do come on. You won’t make it to forty if you’re that unfit.’ Louisa jogged back and hooked her arm beneath Robert’s, sliding it up into his armpit where the beginning of a healthy sweat was erupting. She heaved him forward and they laughed, each knowing Robert would never go the distance.
‘Den’s, well, Den,’ Robert said, breaking into a run again. ‘Business is good.’
‘And who’s doing your snooping now?’ Louisa adjusted the waistband of her grey jogging bottoms.
‘Brian Hook. He has the finesse of a clown at a funeral.’ Robert reached out and touched Louisa’s elbow as it pumped back and forward. ‘It’s a shame you don’t still work for us.’
As the pair passed the last row of ginger stone cottages and the road into the countryside narrowed, it was necessary for them to run in single file and stay close to the verge as there were some sharp bends up ahead.
‘Shall we take in the scenery?’ Robert stopped at a gateway and raised a hand to Louisa as she turned. ‘We can’t talk like this,’ he called, his voice replaced by shallow gasps.
‘I thought the idea was to run.’ She joined him at the wooden five-bar gate and they stared, side by side, out across the patchwork of green and gold fields. For a moment, neither of them said anything. They simply allowed their breathing and heart rates to return to normal while the rising sun dried their perspiration. The moment was so rare, that it was enough just to be. In Robert’s mind, there was too much that needed to be said. He didn’t know where to begin; wondered perhaps if he had got it all wrong. Complications that would spoil the simplicity of the moment.
‘Are you and Erin really happy?’ Louisa eventually asked, shifting round so that she was facing Robert squarely. ‘You didn’t convince me last night.’ Her breathing was steady now, just a faint sheen on her cheeks and breastbone. Robert suspected her question was a link into what she really wanted to discuss. Her own marriage.
‘Erin and I are good together.’ Robert noticed a slight cramp in his stomach muscles. ‘We adore each other. And Ruby’s a lovely girl. She’s an exceptional pianist.’
‘But are you truly happy?’
Strong fingers of pain inserted themselves between Robert’s ribs with every inhalation. ‘Sure.’
‘Why don’t I believe you?’ Louisa kicked her running shoe against the gate and shielded her eyes from the dazzle behind Robert.
Robert shrugged. ‘Like everyone, we have our share of problems.’ When Louisa didn’t say anything, he continued. ‘It’s not like you go into a marriage, especially second time round, as if you’re diving headlong into a crystal pool.’
‘No,’ Louisa replied thoughtfully. Then, laughing, ‘More like muddy waters.’
‘Exactly. You soon find out what’s lurking at the bottom. And if you don’t but happen to snag your toe on something, then that’s when you start to question what’s waiting beneath you.’ Robert drummed a distracted beat on the gate before blurting it out. ‘Something’s not right with Erin, Lou. She’s acting weird. Like she’s hiding something.’
A pause, enough time for a formation of ducks to pass overhead. A van rumbled past, leaving a tang of exhaust in the air.
‘Not again, Rob.’ Louisa sighed. ‘God, no. Not again.’
‘Pfah.’ Robert pushed hard on the old gate, dislodging Louisa’s foot, and waved one arm in the air. ‘Is that what you think? You think I haven’t learned?’
‘No, it’s just that—’
‘There’s something I never told you about after Jenna’s death.’ Robert’s usually deep voice thinned to a whisper.
To allow him time, Louisa said nothing. She knew this was way harder than a five-mile run.
‘It was on her phone. A message from a man. He said how he couldn’t wait for their next afternoon in a hotel.’
Louisa reached out and touched his arm. ‘Did it make you feel any better?’
‘What, that I was right about her affair? That I was right to hound her day and night, to have her followed, to become obsessive and intercept her post, her email, her messages . . .’ Robert became breathless again. ‘You mean, did it make me feel any better about being an insanely jealous, paranoid husband who sent her mad in the end, who forced her out of our home after we’d rowed, who caused her to get in her car after she’d drunk a bottle of wine, who sent her driving far away, anywhere, as fast as she could to get away from me?’
Louisa’s skin prickled with goose bumps even though the day was set to be as hot as the previous one. She’d heard the story a thousand times before and it never got any easier.
Jenna crumpled over the wheel . . . Jenna’s neck meticulously snapped . . . Her spirit flown from her grey-white body . . . Only one small patch of blood on her right temple . . .
‘I keep thinking I see her,’ Robert admitted in a voice that was suddenly as collected as if he were speaking in court. ‘At the top of the stairs. By the tree in the garden. She still seems so real.’ He stared at Louisa, waiting for her reaction.
‘It’s not been much over a year, Rob. You moved too fast, in my opinion.’ Louisa lifted the hem of her running top and dabbed at her neck. ‘You have to expect ghosts to clash with reality.’
‘Moved too fast, in your opinion? That’s good, Louisa. That’s really good.’ Robert kicked the gate, walked away, walked back again. ‘My wife gets killed last April. Two months before that you’ve gone and bloody married William what’s-his-name who you only met at a Christmas party a few weeks before—’
‘Willem,’ she interrupted. Her voice cut like a whip snapping at his ear. ‘My husband’s name is Willem van Holten. And yes, we met at a Christmas party, yes we were married eight weeks later, yes in another two months Jenna was dead . . .’ Louisa paused, breathed deeply. ‘And yes, it’s a fact that you and I are never going to be given a bloody chance to get it together because one of us is always married.’ Then, like a racehorse kicking turf at the start line, Louisa sprinted away from Robert, knowing that he wouldn’t even try to keep up.
Robert stared out across the countryside for another twenty minutes before walking back to Martock. Never going to get it together, he thought, and wondered exactly what it was that had made Louisa, usually serene as a Buddhist monk, act the way she had.
Erin and Ruby were in the dining room, Ruby taking advantage of the full English breakfast buffet while Erin sipped pensively on a black coffee. Ruby’s reaction to Robert’s approach alerted Erin although she didn’t look up from staring at the starched linen tablecloth.
‘Hi.’ Robert kissed the top of his wife’s head. He had taken a quick shower and changed into jeans and a green striped shirt. His dark hair was still damp and glistened in the subdued ceiling lighting. ‘Not eating?’ he asked. He thought they could take a drive out to Sherborne Castle. He didn’t want to be around when Louisa’s co
usin’s wedding got underway. He didn’t think he could bear to see her dressed in a maid of honour’s outfit, even if she wasn’t quite the bride. He pulled out a chair and sat between mother and daughter.
‘Good run?’ Erin’s tone was as bitter as her coffee.
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Robert unfolded his napkin and the waitress took his order.
‘You went with Louisa.’
‘Dad, can we go to that castle you mentioned?’ A piece of Ruby’s sausage skidded onto the table as she cut it.
‘You could have asked me to go with you.’ Erin shielded her cup as the waitress offered her more coffee.
‘I didn’t think you liked running.’
‘Do you?’ Erin stood and walked briskly out of the dining room.
‘Of course we can go to the castle, Ruby,’ Robert said and as he was stirring his tea, he caught sight of Louisa and Erin passing each other in the foyer. Neither of them acknowledged the other.
NINE
I wake to find that I’m wet. My sheets, my legs, my fleece pyjamas are all soaked with something that smells of warm, wet animal. Mother will be angry that I made such a mess. I haven’t peed the bed for several years now. I put on the bedside lamp and see that it’s not just wee on the bed. There’s blood too and as I walk to fetch my dressing gown, I find that I’m still peeing. With each step I take, hot liquid spills down my legs and I try to stop it but I can’t.
I whimper, knowing I’ll get a good slapping for this mess. I pull down my pyjama trousers and see that they’re sodden and streaked with red. I take them off and hide them under the bed. I get the bucket and squat over it. At this rate, it’ll be full in a few minutes. They didn’t empty it yesterday and I wonder if I should tip it out of the window.
I look at my clock. It’s twenty to midnight. Nearly the New Year. Mother told me that tonight they’re going to a party at Uncle Gustaw and Aunt Anna’s house. They’ll be having delicious little savoury pierogies, cwibak loaf and piernik honey cake, and the children will be allowed sips of sweet miod pitny from tiny ceramic fish-shaped vials that smell of dust from Aunt Anna’s woodwormy sideboard. Uncle Gustaw will blow the bugle at midnight, like last year, like he has done every other New Year’s Eve I can remember.