‘A club? But I thought you were going to a party. And you only just got back now?’ For Claire, there was missing time and she wanted it filled.
Rain just stared at the floor.
‘She spends a lot of time in London and knows how to look after herself,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s different these days.’ As soon as she’d said it, Claire noticed the regretful look on Maggie’s face.
‘I really don’t think it is,’ she replied quietly. She turned back to the bacon. ‘I don’t think it’s different at all.’
* * *
Callum called out that he wasn’t hungry when Greta knocked on his bedroom door to let him know there was breakfast up at the farmhouse, that she and Jason were going up. He hadn’t slept well, and last night’s wine was banging in his skull. He felt ghastly.
Then he remembered.
‘Greta,’ he called out again. ‘Would you take Amy up to the farm with you?’ He was lying on his back in the dark, his arm spread across the empty space where Claire usually was. Greta replied that she would.
There was a pause, then Callum heard his daughter being cajoled into getting dressed. He rolled onto his side and pulled a pillow over his pounding head.
How could he have been so bloody stupid?
The scent on the pillow got to him first. A young, spicy aroma – slightly sweet but still tangy and tempting. Yes, dammit, that was it. Tempting. She’d tempted him, and he’d had no choice in the matter, especially with all the alcohol. Any man would have done the same. Then he saw the bangles on his bedside table. She’d left them on top of a novel that he was halfway through reading. Fuck.
So where the hell was she now? He’d forbidden her to leave earlier, even though she’d wanted to. He knew she’d just go running off, telling lies – he’d got the measure of her – and he’d needed time to think, to talk to her, for her to calm down. His whole body ached, and his brain throbbed against the inside of his skull.
He threw back the duvet and sat up, feeling giddy and sick. He shuffled into the en-suite bathroom, feeling like an old man – his joints stiff and slow as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He peed, then turned on the shower as hot as it would go, scalding his skin as he stepped under it. He washed feverishly and then came back into the bedroom wearing a towel around his waist, dripping all over the carpet. He flung back the curtains and opened the window to take away the stench.
He dried himself, dressed, then began to pull the duvet cover off the bed, knocking all the bangles onto the floor. He collected them up and put them in his back pocket. He would dispose of them later. But then he stopped. He would never normally change the bed. That was Claire’s job. There was a cup of half-finished coffee on his bedside table. He vaguely remembered bringing it upstairs when he came to bed last night. He’d been so drunk. He took the mug and sloshed the curdled remains over his side of the bedding and the mattress. Then he set to mopping it up, making sure a stain was left, before stripping the bed.
With the washing churning in the machine, Callum sat at the kitchen table. The house was quiet. His nail tracked the grain on the wood as he stared into nowhere, his forehead resting against his fist.
‘Dad, have you seen Rain?’ Callum glanced up. Marcus stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed and bare-chested– his skinny, white and virtually hairless body a contrast to his bright pyjama bottoms. ‘She went off in a strop last night.’
Callum shook his head and Marcus went back upstairs, leaving Callum cradling his head in his arms. He had absolutely no idea what to do.
* * *
Nick couldn’t resist phoning Trevor for an update, even though it was Sunday. He came down to join the others for breakfast feeling pleased that the renovations were going well. Trevor was polite but had clearly wanted to keep the call short on his day off.
‘Morning all,’ he said brightly. His meal last night had been a success and, despite Patrick’s accident, they’d all had a good evening reminiscing and chatting, digging up stories they’d long forgotten.
But he couldn’t fail to notice the worried expression on Claire’s face as she passed him a plate of food. ‘Thanks,’ he said, hoping to catch her eye. He wanted to gently take hold of her hand, sit her down, ask her what was wrong. But he wouldn’t do that with everyone present. ‘I thought of another one,’ he said instead, instantly regretting it. The cold light of day suddenly didn’t seem the right time to bring it up, but he wanted to catch Claire’s attention.
‘Another what?’ Maggie’s pained voice betrayed her hangover.
‘Oh dear, Mags,’ Nick said. ‘One too many?’
‘Don’t rub it in,’ she replied, popping a couple of pills.
‘Another story about Lenni?’ Claire asked, sitting down next to Nick with her food.
He paused, knowing he’d have to continue now. They’d been sharing happy memories about Lenni the night before and Claire hadn’t seemed to mind; in fact, it was as though she’d wanted to talk about her sister.
‘Yes, I remembered it in a dream last night, actually.’ He didn’t let on that it was Claire who’d featured in his dream, that it had simply reminded him of this other story on waking. ‘I’d been to pick Lenni up from school. Your parents asked me to help when you had chicken pox, Claire. I think we were about fourteen. Shona was busy looking after you.’
‘We were fifteen,’ Claire said. ‘I was stuck in bed for days. I thought I was going to die.’
‘Lenni was about nine, maybe ten. I was waiting outside the school and all the kids started coming out to their mothers, but there was no Lenni. When the playground was deserted, I went inside. I found her in the cloakroom sitting on a great big central heating pipe and kicking at the floor with bare feet. She just stared up at me with those big eyes of hers.’ Nick drank some coffee. Everyone was riveted, as if he was about to reveal what happened the day she went missing.
‘Turns out some mean kids had stolen her shoes,’ he said, opting for the short version. ‘She didn’t want to tell on them, so I gave her a piggyback all the way home.’ Nick felt the sweat break out on his forehead. The memory burned inside his mind. ‘Lenni kept saying “Mummy told me never to go off with anyone except her or Daddy or Claire or Jason.” But despite her protests, she was very willing to go off with me.’ Nick remembered how she’d bumped along on his back, her breath hot in his ear as she clung around his neck. ‘“It’s OK because you know me, Len,” I told her on the way back. “It’s not as if I’m kidnapping you.”’
Everyone stared at him, but no one spoke. He wiped the sweat from his top lip and carried on eating. From now on, he would have to be more careful with what he said.
Chapter Thirty
Claire dashed back up to the Old Stables to change, relieved that Angus had found Patrick still in the hospital grounds. He hadn’t seemed particularly disorientated or lost. Just determined and stubborn.
‘He’s at home now but refusing to rest,’ she told Callum. ‘Cal, have you been listening to a word I’ve said?’ She closed the wardrobe doors and lay down on the bed next to him. He’d come up for a lie-down, clearly feeling a bit worse for wear like Maggie.
‘Sorry, yes, I’m listening. I’m glad Patrick’s OK.’
‘Why did you change the sheets?’ she asked, running her hand over the fresh bedding. ‘I only did them on Friday. You never change the sheets.’ Claire was puzzled, but smiling. Perhaps he’d finally realised how much she did around here.
‘I spilt my drink and didn’t want you to have to deal with it. There’s a coffee stain on the mattress, I’m afraid. Sorry.’ Callum stared out of the window as he spoke.
‘Not to worry, love.’ She wound her arms around his neck, resting her head on his chest. ‘It was fun last night, wasn’t it, even if poor Dad couldn’t join in?’ A good end to a stressful first day, she thought.
Callum remained silent, even when Claire squeezed his hand.
* * *
Angus offered to look after Patrick’s follow-up care and
medication, leaving the others free to go for a walk up to the old primary school. But when Patrick heard of their plans, he insisted on going along too, rebuffing Shona’s suggestion to lie down. He refused to miss out on the beach picnic afterwards either.
‘Don’t think I don’t know what Claire’s up to,’ he’d said to Shona as she followed him about the house while he searched for his sun hat. ‘She’s done all this for me, you know.’ He almost sounded annoyed, but Shona could tell by the twinkle in his eye as he scoured the cloakroom, knew by the raised tone of his voice that he was touched. She hoped, in some small way, that it would help.
‘Found it!’ Patrick waved the hat in the air. It was hanging by the back door, where he always kept it.
* * *
Claire lay on the rug and stared up at the clear blue sky. The sand was warm under her back.
‘It was kind of those people at the old school house to let us nose around their home, wasn’t it?’ she said to Jason. ‘Jeff handled the sale about five years ago before it was converted. They’ve done a really good job.’
‘They have,’ Jason said. He was massaging Greta’s feet as she sat in the deck chair. She didn’t think she’d ever get up again if she sat on the sand.
‘I reckon it would sell really quickly if they wanted to move.’ Claire was conscious that Jason had hardly spoken since Shona and Patrick had arrived at the beach a short while after them. Neither of the men had acknowledged each other.
‘No one’s taking my home off me, they’re not,’ Patrick mumbled to himself. He was sitting a few feet away in a deck chair, tuning in and out of what Claire was saying.
‘The kindergarten classroom is now a massive kitchen, Mum,’ Claire said, trying to keep things light. She was talking for talking’s sake. ‘And the old book corner is now the utility room.’ She offered around the sandwiches she’d hastily packed up. ‘Please, do eat them up before they…’ But she trailed off, motionless, with the foil-wrapped package held out at arm’s length and her mouth slightly open. She stared down to the shore. Nick had taken off his T-shirt and dropped it at the water’s edge. He was diving in and out of the waves, not looking much different to how he did that day aged eighteen. Claire felt the hairs on her arm stand up, despite the heat.
This is now, this is now, she said over and over in her head as she felt herself being swept back in time. She gazed along the beach, almost expecting to see Lenni walking off to get ice cream, swallowing down the lump in her throat.
‘Well, I’m going for a paddle,’ Greta said.
‘Good idea,’ Patrick said, kicking off his shoes and rolling up his trousers. ‘I’ll come too.’ Greta stood up the way pregnant women do – her belly leading, legs wide apart and her hand leaving the chair at the last moment. She ambled down to the shore with Shona and Patrick.
‘To be honest, Jase, I’m finding this all a bit hard,’ Claire said, when they were out of earshot. ‘And I don’t just mean the tension between you and Dad.’ She paused, running her fingers through the sand. She was determined not to cry. ‘You, Nick and Maggie were in the sea when Lenni…’
‘I know,’ Jason said, patting her arm. ‘Though I wasn’t actually in the sea.’
‘But you were swimming when Lenni went off, I swear.’ She’d gone through the scene a thousand times in her mind since. Had it got distorted over the years? Had she turned it into something it wasn’t? She remembered the white foamy waves breaking high from the previous day’s storm, carrying the excited friends to shore on body boards, their skin grazing on the sand as they were dumped in the shallows. She’d given Lenni some money, then gone into the sea herself. Claire had told all this to the police. She remembered blushing feverishly when she mentioned that she and Nick were swimming together, skin brushing, lips finally meeting in their one and only kiss.
‘I’m certain you were in the sea.’ But what if she was wrong and it had messed up the entire investigation?
Jason was shaking his head. ‘No, I’d gone for a walk when I should have been there to stop her going off alone.’
‘So you’d have stopped her?’ While she knew he was trying to lessen her guilt, it felt a lot like blame.
Jason thought a moment, staring up at the sky and squinting. ‘No,’ he said honestly. ‘I felt ridiculously sorry for her most of the time. She was like a butterfly trapped in a jar. I’d have given her the money and sent her off to the shop too.’
‘Mum and Dad thought they were doing the right thing, you know. By protecting her so much.’
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘She never seemed quite capable of watching out for herself whereas we always did.’
Jason had a point. As Lenni was growing up, her naivety and gullibility bloomed with her. From talking to strangers, openly telling them her name and where she lived, to handing over her possessions at school when the bullies demanded, Lenni had little concept of mistrust. Once, she’d even run out of the playground, chasing a sick rabbit across the fields wanting to help it. She was gone for hours. Her nature was both beautiful and agonising to watch and, on reflection, Claire and Jason completely understood their parents’ hypervigilance.
They sat in silence, chewing it over, watching as Greta, Shona and Patrick walked slowly up and down a short section of beach through the breakers. They’d caught up with Maggie, Angus and Jenny, who were coming back with coffees from the kiosk. Nick was still tirelessly bodysurfing, waiting patiently for the perfect wave – or trying to prove something, Claire wondered. She felt sad Callum hadn’t wanted to join them.
‘Rain didn’t come home last night,’ she told Jason. ‘And Maggie didn’t seem that bothered.’
‘Really?’ Jason suddenly sat up, brushing sand from his hair.
‘Marcus was reluctant to say much. He did tell me that she went a bit weird in a club they went to and she took off on her own. She had their taxi money.’
‘Claire…’ Jason reluctantly took the sandwich she was offering. ‘There’s something I should—’
‘Thankfully, Marcus had enough money in his account to get some cash from the machine, otherwise the boys would have been stranded.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry, what were you going to say?’ She bit into a smoked salmon sandwich.
‘Nothing,’ Jason said, fingering the bread. ‘It can wait.’ Probably forever, he decided.
‘What I don’t get is that Maggie didn’t seem very concerned about Rain. She sauntered in this morning looking like a dog’s dinner, as glum as anything and refusing to say where she’d been all night.’
‘OK…’ Jason said, cursing his voice for wavering. ‘Maybe she was fast asleep on the living room floor at your place. You know, literally just slept wherever she’d fallen. Downstairs.’
‘Maybe,’ Claire said, waving at Amy who was sitting over with the teenagers.
Jason stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.
‘Anything could have happened to her. She went out wearing virtually nothing.’
‘Clubs stay open until all hours. She probably met a lad or two, ended up having breakfast in a greasy spoon with them. It’s different these days.’ Jason’s mouth was full and dry. He could hardly speak.
Claire wished everyone would stop saying that. She didn’t think it was different at all. She stood up. ‘I’m going to join Greta. Coming?’ She hoped it would get him walking with Patrick.
‘I’ll sit this one out, sis,’ he said, lying back down on the rug.
* * *
Claire walked off, keeping Nick in her line of sight as she went. She thought he looked exhausted, though he continued ploughing back out through the waves on the body board, paddling hard against the current so that every strap of muscle stood proud on his back and shoulders. Halfway down to the tideline, Claire stopped. She felt dizzy and dug her toes into the cool wet sand. Something sharp caught against her foot – a razor clam – and she pulled back her wind-whipped hair, staring down the long crescent of beach. The memories swept through her… the coin, fat an
d full of the promise of an ice cream in the palm of Lenni’s hand, her saggy-bottomed swimsuit under her denim shorts, the water quickly seeping through… the creeping tide drenching their stuff as Lenni was about to set off…
Nick had been in the water, that day. She knew that. Though she recalled he’d gone off somewhere shortly after Lenni went for her ice cream, perhaps embarrassed by their kiss. She couldn’t be sure. She was certain Jason had been in the water too. But in her mind’s eye, she couldn’t picture him there at all now. It was as if all the memories had been dislodged by the reunion, stirred up in a freak tide of doubt. Over the years they’d loosened, become malleable, as if taking on the shape of whatever she was told.
She shook her head, not knowing what to believe, and cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Wait for me!’ she called out, but her words blew back against the wind.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sometime Long Ago
The ceiling, once a measure of my growth, bears down on me daily. I feel like Alice – all gangly-legged and too big for the room. I’m told I won’t get much taller, that I’m stunted, like a plant with no light. I stare into the grimy mirror – I’m a wiry, pale creature with a big, bobbing head sprouting thin, ratty hair. I’m nothing like the lovely actresses in the movies I watch. A girl I don’t recognise stares back at me, as if one of us is waiting for the other to pounce. I know one of us has given up. Her mouth is blistered and sore and her eyes hang heavy with loneliness. At night, she dreams of what lies beyond the door, but her plans to find out are always dissolved by morning.
Anyway, she tells herself, those pretty actresses always end up dead. Outside is no place for someone like her.
I turn around and around very slowly, looking, checking I’m alone. Sometimes people come, just stand there and watch me. If I stare back, if I blink and rub my eyes, they’re gone. But today it’s just me and the same four walls. I’m told to be happy, to be grateful. You’re alive, aren’t you?
The Reunion: An utterly gripping psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 13