That anger lessened as he talked to her, but somehow that was more frightening, because she saw how he pushed it down and stored it away for later.
That night she went out with Franklin. That was the last time she went out with him.
A week later she found Paul in a pub with his best friend Simon. Paul’s nose was broken. His front tooth was missing – he would later get a crown over it – but his face lit up when he saw her, and his smile was radiant.
‘Oh, Paul,’ she said, putting her hand to his face.
Simon pushed himself up. ‘My round,’ he said. She smiled at him for being such a sweetheart, and took his seat opposite Paul.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She didn’t have to say what she was grateful for. They both knew. He watched her. She watched him.
She touched his arm before Simon came back, and left her hand there. It didn’t feel like an awkward gesture. She just wanted to touch him now she could.
She already knew she wanted more.
‘Let me buy you dinner. To say thank you,’ she said, because she didn’t know how else to go about keeping Paul in her life. She was sure she didn’t want him to go. Franklin didn’t matter. It wasn’t even an issue. That was over. This was now. She didn’t want to fuck this up.
‘Irene...it’s difficult...it’s...I don’t know...’
‘I don’t care if you don’t know about dinner. Do you like me, Paul?’
Simon came back and hovered. ‘Sorry,’ he said, putting down three drinks. ‘I think I need the toilet now.’
Paul nodded at Irene. ‘I’ll call you,’ he said. She knew he would, and she knew there would be more afterwards. She knew in that nod, and the way he looked at her. Looked her in the eye, but she knew he wanted her, and not just in the ways that Franklin had used her.
‘You don’t need the toilet, Simon,’ said Irene, pushing herself up and feeling lighter than she had since Paul had stood up for her against his older brother.
‘But I love you for saying so,’ she told Paul’s childhood friend.
She kissed Simon on the cheek, but looked at Paul. Paul smiled. She smiled for the rest of the night, sitting with her girlfriends at the other end of the pub, stealing glances at Paul.
Love, first. Marriage second.
Her life was blessed. Then Franklin killed Paul.
But that was old news. She’d told the sea all that already. But it was somewhere to start, and while it hadn’t been easy then, and wouldn’t be easy now, you have to start somewhere. With a hard story, or an easy one, there’s only one place to start.
*
The rain became heavy enough by the end of her telling to make her worry for the baby. He woke and began crying. He was a quiet baby, on the whole, but when he was hungry or tired or uncomfortable, he had his ways of making it known.
She covered his carrier as best she could and with one last look out to sea and the black clouds gathered there, turned back to the Blue House.
The Blue House seemed to rise from the sea behind it, the sea quieter in the bay. She felt stronger again, able to face the rest of the day after unburdening herself to the sea, and stronger still, as always, at the sight of her beautiful house. Something about the sight of it restored her. Those strong weathered board, the fresh blue paint, the shingle roof...all of it made her feel whole. Since losing Paul she felt best when she was in the Blue House or down by the sea. Complete, again, though neither could ever be a replacement for Paul or her lost baby.
She wondered how people got over such a loss. People kept telling her things would get easier, but they hadn’t yet. Maybe the murder of her husband and the death of her son were still too fresh.
She looked down at Sam wailing as she headed across the wet sand and smiled at him. She had something else to fill her life now, her baby. Her son. Her Sam.
When she opened her front door and went back into her house she was smiling. Her hair, long and blonde, hung down in thick wet strands around her face. The rain ran in her eyes, and she used the sleeve of her coat to wipe them clear so she could see.
With a soft sigh she closed the door behind her and the sound of the rain quieted, though Sam was crying up a storm and she knew even on a still day their house would never be quiet again. Maybe when she was older and Sam was away, the house might be silent. She might sit in front of the fire or by a radiator, reading a novel, or sipping hot chocolate and calmly staring out to sea.
The thought of growing older alone didn’t frighten her so much now she knew Sam would be there in her heart, growing all the time.
A gentle knowing smile on her face, she turned toward the living room to feed her baby. On the way through she noticed the mannequin in the lobby. But this time she spotted a note tacked onto the back. Marc had written a note with his present.
She smiled again. It was just like Marc to leave a note, not to be around when he did something nice, a little embarrassed, maybe, by other people’s gratitude. She took the note, in a thick handmade envelope of pink paper from where it was taped to the old, beautiful wood, and tore it open.
The paper inside was good quality, too. Just like Marc, she thought with a smile.
She read the note, then read it again.
‘I’m coming back,’ it said.
And beneath that, ‘I haven’t forgotten you.’
She dropped it on the floor, her light mood gone and cold chills in its place. And in the Blue House, it was suddenly cold, because someone had been in her home.
*
‘Marc,’ she said into the phone, after walking around the house, checking every room, paranoid that there was an intruder. It was the first time in the six months she’d lived there that she’d locked the doors and windows, and hated herself for it.
But she was scared.
Terrified? Maybe...certainly not far off it.
‘Honey? Are you OK?’
‘Marc...did you...did you leave a note with the mannequin?’ she asked. She asked because she had to, just to be one hundred percent sure, even though she knew before she asked. She knew as soon as she’d read the note, hadn’t she?
‘No,’ said Marc. Of course it wasn’t him. ‘Why?’
What should she tell him? What could she say? I think someone’s threatening me? I think someone’s been in the house?
She was basing that on a dream she remembered now...but she wasn’t, was she? Because Marc hadn’t taped the note to the mannequin. Someone else had done that. And of course the note was threatening. There was only one man who would write such a note, and that was impossible, because he was in prison for killing his brother.
Franklin Jacobs, the psychopath.
There was no way Franklin Jacobs was free. After what he’d done, he’d never be free. Never. Even if somehow he could have broken out, escaped, he didn’t even know where she lived. Why would he? She’d severed all ties. No one from her old life, save her mother, knew where she lived.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing.’
Someone had been in her house. She was sure of it. The note was still there, on the floor where she’d dropped it. She wasn’t imagining things. It wasn’t a dream.
A mannequin stood in her boy’s bedroom, and the two boys screamed, and it rocked and rocked in the moonlight.
Irene realised she was crying. She tried to hide it from Marc with a little laugh.
But there was no one in the house now. The doors were locked tight. It was just her and Sam.
Sam, fed, was in a sling, leaving her arms free while she used her mobile. The signal was patchy, the weather playing havoc with the signal.
‘Irene, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m just a little spooked.’ She laughed a little, again, covering how afraid she was. ‘Just spooked.’
But it wasn’t nothing, was it, Honey? A voice spoke inside her, and it sounded a lot like Paul. He still had her back.
‘You want me to come out? I can do it. No problem.’
‘In the dark?
’
‘No problem,’ Marc said, and she could imagine him nodding, even though he was on the phone. He was an animated talker on the phone. She’d seen him phone enough times while they’d been in the shop together.
‘I don’t need you to come. I just...I wanted to know you were there, I guess. It’s nothing, though,’ she said.
‘Doesn’t sound like nothing.’
‘Pop out tomorrow, if you can. That’ll be soon enough.’
Marc must have heard something in her voice. ‘I’m coming out now,’ he said in his no nonsense voice.
Irene loved him for it, but she didn’t want him there. It didn’t make sense, but it was her home, and her first night with Sam. She didn’t have to make sense.
And she wouldn’t be scared in her own home. She wouldn’t. Perhaps...perhaps...
She tried to reason it out.
Realised she couldn’t.
‘I’d rather you didn’t, OK?’ she said, stubborn as always, even when she should know better. Even as she said it she knew she was wrong. She should have him there...she should go to him...
But you can’t, honey...not in the dark...not in the boat...
No. Of course she couldn’t. And she wouldn’t let Marc risk it, either, because she was...what? Spooked?
‘I just...I just want it to be me and Sam,’ she told Marc over his protestations, while she wondered if it really would be just her and Sam.
But she wouldn’t be scared. She wouldn’t.
‘You want me, you call. Anytime,’ said Marc, knowing he wouldn’t get Irene to do something she didn’t want to.
‘I will. Love you. Love to David, too.’
‘Love you,’ he said, and Irene snapped her mobile shut.
Then it was just her and Sam, and the night, and the rain running down the windows.
And a sound she couldn’t place. Like a...like a heartbeat?
At first she thought it was her own, hammering in her chest, afraid despite not wanting to be, and hating herself for that fear.
But it wasn’t her heart beating. It was coming from the mannequin.
*
Normally, Irene liked soft light in the house, rather than the big overhead ones, but she flicked on both big lights in the lobby. The lights started dim, because they were those low energy bulbs, but then they brightened and took away all the shadows but for that the mannequin cast. The letter lay on the floor behind it, just where she’d dropped it.
She concentrated on the sound, and became certain that the thump thump sound was coming from the dress maker’s bust itself.
Was it a bomb?
Did bombs tick? Did they beat?
Her heart ran cold, and indecision rocked her for a moment. Sam was in the lobby with her. She was loath to leave him alone while she was so spooked, even though she was sure there was no one in the house...
But how sure was she? Sure enough that she could leave Sam alone?
He was sleeping...he’d wake if someone tried to take him...wouldn’t he?
But if she didn’t take him, and it was a bomb...
She toyed with the idea of calling the police, but she wouldn’t, not after the way they’d handled Paul’s death, after letting Franklin get away with the things he’d done.
She decided it couldn’t be a bomb. She was being silly. It was all in her head, just fear brought about by that awful dream, and the memory of it resurfacing. A mannequin rocking in the babies’ room...remembering two babies in the room...
She placed her ear against the mannequin, sweat beading on her forehead and under her arms.
Thump...thump...
She closed her eyes, dreading the thing exploding. For a second, even though she knew it was just imagination, she felt her head being ripped from her body, her blood splashed across the room and Sam.
‘Stop!’ she said to herself.
Then it stopped, too. The thump...thump...
Nothing.
Just her imagination. Just her imagination.
She didn’t care if that was all it was. She picked up the mannequin and opened her back door, the one that pointed toward land, and pushed the mannequin out into the rain. It teetered, like it had in her dream, but then it fell to the sand with a wet dull sound (like a heartbeat?) and didn’t get up again. She watched it for a few moments, just to make sure.
Nodded. Not a bomb. Not possessed. Just a fucking mannequin.
She walked back to the lobby and took the letter up, too, then threw that out into the wind. The rain dragged it down and it sat on her sandy porch, but it was good enough.
She wouldn’t be afraid in the Blue House.
‘It’s my home,’ she said, and at the sound of her own voice the spell was broken.
*
She checked the house one more time, before going to bed. For the first time since moving into the Blue House Irene locked all the doors and windows.
Sam stayed in bed with her, curled almost into a ball between her arm and her side. She knew she wasn’t supposed to keep the baby in bed with her, but she couldn’t bear to be alone. There was a Moses basket next to the bed, but it looked so cold. So uninviting.
It was pitch black out, heavy cloud covering even the lights from the mainland. The rain pounded and the wind rocked the wooden weatherboards of Blue House. All the while Irene lay looking at the ceiling, listening to the house creak. Wondering who could have written the note. Why they would. If she had an enemy she didn’t know about, but there was only one enemy and it couldn’t have been him.
It couldn’t.
Even so, she rolled over, trying to force herself to sleep, with one hand on a kitchen knife and the other on her baby’s belly, gently patting every time he stirred.
All night she imagined that she heard a gentle thump thump thump of a heartbeat, but it was only Sam, under her hand, and that’s all it was.
That’s all it was.
*
Irene woke with Sam snuggled tightly up next to her and her free hand on a kitchen knife. It took her a minute to wake properly, before she remembered the night before and the note.
She freed herself from her nightwear and began to feed Sam, refusing to start the day spooked in her own home. The doors were locked and the house was secure, and there was also no way that Franklin was free from prison.
Life might not mean life anymore, but he wouldn’t ever be up before the parole board. No way. Not ever. A life term didn’t mean life, maybe, but 22 consecutive ones certainly did.
No way was he free.
‘Morning, beautiful baby,’ she told Sam as he nuzzled. He stopped and gurgled a little, then went back to feeding hungrily, his tiny fist scratching at her breast while he took his fill. Rustled around him, her white quilt looked like snow, and he like a seal pup out on the west point.
If you were careful and calm, you could walk among the seals. The pups nuzzled and grunted just like Sam, entirely depended on their mother’s milk. She wondered if their mothers felt the same satisfaction she did, feeding her child. She would have bet money they did.
Her mobile rang on her old pine nightstand, once her grandmothers, now hers.
She shook her head and set her daydreams on hold while she checked caller ID. Her mother. She should have known. Who else would call this early?
She sighed. It was way too early for her mother to be calling. Anytime was too early for her mother to call.
‘Mum,’ she said, her voice short.
‘Oh, honey,’ she said. ‘I just heard from Marc. I’m so sorry.’
‘Mum,’ said Irene, rocking Sam on her shoulder with her free hand, while he brought up little burps of wind, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. OK?’
The last thing Irene wanted to go over was Jonathan’s death, and her guilt. If anyone could push her guilt button, it was her mother. And it was just like her mother to call up to...gloat? Was that the right word? Was her mum really that callous?
Irene didn’t think she was far from the mark
.
‘You want me to come back? I can get the next flight.’
‘No, Mum. I just want to be alone. OK?’
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Irene knew her mum wouldn’t like it, but there it was. Irene didn’t like her. It had taken years for her to come to the realisation that she didn’t like her own mother, but once she’d come to the conclusion there was no denying it.
Irene imagined her mother out there in Spain, pacing in the sun, thinking of some way she could muscle in on the drama.
But Irene wouldn’t let her because it wasn’t a fucking drama. It wasn’t some shitty soap on the BBC, but her life and her son’s death, and the simple fact was her mother could fuck off.
She thought all this, but she didn’t say any of it, because that was what her mother wanted...more drama. Something to tell the bingo club or whatever it was that she was into. Tell Aunty Michelle, or her friend Doreen, or Elizabeth in the shop, or a bunch of other people that Irene didn’t know and didn’t care if she never knew.
Only then did she realise her mother hadn’t asked after baby Sam, or congratulated her. All she wanted was to be in on the heartache. Then she’d go again, and Irene wouldn’t see her for another year.
Which would suit her, ordinarily, but not now. She owned this, these early days with Sam. Her mother wouldn’t intrude on that. Irene wouldn’t let her.
‘What did you name the baby, darling?’
Darling rankled, but she pushed it down.
‘Sam,’ she said. ‘After Dad.’
‘Oh, honey, that’s so sweet. Dad would have been proud.’
‘He’s a beautiful baby,’ she said, but already she got the impression that now her mother knew she couldn’t come that her attention was drifting.
No sense in fighting it. She’d learned that long before she learned her distaste for her own mother.
‘Mum, listen, I’ve got to go. It’s...only seven here. I’ve got to change Sam, get ready...’
‘Hmm?’
Irene almost smiled bitterly, but she kept it to herself. She didn’t think her mother would sense the sad smile on her face, but Irene wasn’t like that. She didn’t gloat. It wasn’t in her nature. And what would she have to gloat about? That her own mother was shit?
A Home by the Sea (A Supernatural Suspense Novel) Page 4