We paused as soon as we were hidden in the semi-shelter of a tree. The wind took the branches and shook water down on us. She was laughing. I was angry. Cold and wet and furious. We argued. She said, ‘It’s, like, really raining.’ I said it’s not ‘like’ really raining. It is really raining. She’d never get anywhere in life if she didn’t learn to speak. I told her to go home and she said she wouldn’t go without me. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until she began to cry. I walked off and she followed, stumbling behind, through the wood and out into the field on the other side. Heavy mud where the cows had trodden. We needed each other to get through the worst of it. We’d waded to the stile on the other side, and I was halfway across it when my phone rang. It was Lizzie. I remembered, like a knife in my chest, that I was supposed to have been in Exeter today. What had I been thinking, going down to the Blue Lagoon? I glared at Onnie. I shouldn’t have slept with her. It was all her fault.
Lizzie asked where I was. I told her I was on Dartmoor, painting. The scenery, I said, was glorious – not a person as far as the eye could see. Onnie made a noise, as if she found it funny, or was so stupid she wanted to put me right. I almost put my hand over her mouth. Luckily, from my position astride the stile, I couldn’t reach. I might have suffocated her. Lizzie was worried about it being dark. ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Just setting off back to the car now.’
It took a good forty minutes to reach the bungalow. My feet were scratched and sore, trousers filthy, socks stuck to the skin like black bandages. Onnie was limping. The rain continued to stream. We didn’t talk. I was too busy trying to think through the thumping in my head.
I didn’t want to let her into the house, but I didn’t know what else to do. The lantern was glittering in the porch of the bungalow opposite; their car, a grey Hyundai, was parked outside. I pushed her up the path, opened the front door and shut it behind us. It was dark in here even then. Onnie stood on the mat, bedraggled, dripping on today’s post. I found her a towel and we felt our way towards the shower. She could put the light on in there, I told her, but she had to switch it off before she came out. I locked her in just to be on the safe side. Then I peeled off my socks and trousers, picked up the post, including the letter from Lizzie, and sat down here in the dark.
My phone rang. A number I didn’t recognise. A furious voice. ‘Do you have my daughter?’
‘Who is this?’
‘I know she’s with you. You’ve been up at my house. Don’t even try to deny it. She’s half your age. You filthy, disgusting man.’
Oh, Victoria. Bloody hell. I hung up.
It rang again. And again. And then a text: I hope you feel proud of yourself.
I could still hear the shower, the gurgle of the pipes. I stood up. Beyond the glass, dark shrubs writhed. Rain streaked. I pulled down the blinds, sat on the edge of a chair.
It felt like seconds later when the car slammed into the verge at the bottom. Victoria running, knocking over planters, banging on the door, shouting. ‘Onnie. I know you’re in there. Come out.’
Her voice right up at the window, under the streaming gutter. ‘Jack. I know she’s with you. I found the drawing. And your boots.’ She was talking under her breath, hissing. She moved away from the window and her voice got louder. She was losing control. ‘You sad fuck, Jack, Zach, whatever you call yourself, you talentless arsehole.’
Her footsteps moved around the bungalow and back down the path. I watched her through a crack in the blinds. The old woman came out of the house opposite with an umbrella. Rain glanced off Victoria’s coat; her hair stuck to her face. They talked. The old woman looked back up at Gulls and shrugged. Victoria clapped her hand to her head and got back into her car.
A text. Where are you?
I left my boots; of course I did. Annoying, as they were absurdly expensive and I can’t see a way of getting them back – not that she’ll ever know for sure they’re mine. But ‘the drawing’: that was stupid. Did I sign my name? A stupid slip. I’ll have to bluff it out.
On the road from Dartmoor, I wrote. Who is this? Pressed ‘Send’.
A banging from the bathroom door. ‘I’m ready to come out.’
‘Give me a few minutes,’ I said.
Next text: You’re lying, you fucker. I know it was you. I’m not stupid. Where is my daughter, you pathetic man?
My blood pressure rose at that. I stood to try to recover my composure. I peered through the slats. There she was, mistress of the universe, sitting out there, in that smooth sleek black BMW, with her slew of inherited houses, her politician husband, her stuck-up face and her vile mouth. She thinks she knows everything. She knows nothing. I might have followed her down here all those years ago, not for love, of course – though it was satisfying to seduce her that once – but for social admiration, a sense that she was living a life that could belong to me. But it’s empty, all that, I realise it now. All that education. She doesn’t even know how to look after her own child. It’s impossible to state how irritated I felt by her superiority, her sense of entitlement. She thinks she’s better than me. Her horror that I had spent time with her offspring. Her noxious combination of snobbery and hypocrisy.
I couldn’t stop myself. I wrote, What a lovely girl Onnie is. What a treat to spend the night with her. Oh, the sweet joy of youthful flesh.
The phone rang again almost immediately. I watched it skittle across the table. I realised I was smiling. It rang off finally. And then several texts all at once.
You fucker.
You don’t know what you’ve done.
She’s 17.
I was beginning to enjoy myself. If I’d wanted to wait two decades to serve my revenge, I couldn’t have planned it better.
Young enough to be my daughter, I replied.
A moment. A pause. And then her last text pinged in. I stared at it, aware of the BMW outside roaring into life and driving off. She’d gone. It was still a few seconds – five or six maybe – before the text reached my brain.
Even then. The words jerked, in and out of focus. They made no sense. A bad joke. A clumsy reiteration of how young Onnie was. A predictive mistake.
They made no sense. What did they need to make sense? The synapses in my brain fired, connections were made. A night years ago. A party at the hotel, gatecrashing some arsehole’s twenty-first, flirting with Vic because it was fun to see Murphy, little round tummy in a stiff suit, the youngest MP in the history of the Tory Party, scowling across the room at me. And Vic, not yet bitter, but flexing against the bonds of early motherhood and Important Wifedom, desperate to flirt and be found desirable, dragging me on to the beach. Drunk with the night and the attention, completely off her head with it, letting me fuck her down on the rocks, under the overhang of the cliff.
When was it? Sixteen, seventeen years ago? Maybe. Probably. 1994. The maths could work. It was before I bought Gulls. The next time I saw her, after my mother died and left me the money, Onnie was a toddler, up on the headland, kicking her legs on Murphy’s shoulders. It had never occurred to me even to wonder.
I read it again, letting the content settle.
She IS your daughter.
‘Let me out!’ Banging from the bathroom door.
‘Wait,’ I said.
My daughter. Her eyes, I suppose, could be said to be like mine, perhaps the shape of our faces. Her restlessness. Her interest in the more obscure aspects of pharmaceutical production. But what else? Nothing. Murphy’s large hands clamped those kicking legs, her fleshy knees under his hairy knuckles.
Guilt? Remorse? No, not me. I threw back my head, and laughed. I poured myself another malt, dipped my finger in Kulon’s plastic bag.
The delicious position in which I found myself finally dawned. Victoria would never denounce me now. What sweet agony. Having to watch me carry on as if nothing had happened. Never to be able to tell, for the sake of her own daughter’s sanity. And Lizzie would never find out.
I opened the bathroom door and released On
nie, the fruit of my loins, from the bathroom. I gave her some dry clothes to wear, some shorts that she secured with one of my belts, a sweatshirt. She told me she loved me and wanted to be with me. Did I love her? she asked. I prodded around to see if I could find an emotion – a paternal instinct perhaps – but the probe came up clean. ‘Yes I do,’ I said, wishing the words were true. But it’s not in my make-up. Am I to be blamed for that?
The fact is, Onnie was already an inconvenience. I wanted rid of her, so I could read Lizzie’s letter in peace.
Could she have something of mine to take with her? Yes, yes, a picture, I said, scanning the room, letting her choose. I put it in a bin bag along with her filthy clothes. (Annoying, actually. It’s one of my favourites.) I was running out of patience. ‘Where shall I go?’ Find Kulon, he’ll look after you. ‘Will you come and get me later?’ she cried, barefoot on the doorstep, clutching her swag. ‘Will you leave your wife?’ ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ll come and get you.’ ‘Do you promise? Whatever happens?’ Yes. Yes. Yes. ‘Keep the faith!’ I shouted after her.
I seem to have got through rather a lot of whisky. More in the car. The plastic bag is looking depleted. I have to wash and change my clothes. Lizzie. She’s the only woman I’ve ever trusted, because I do trust her, despite everything. All the rest – they turn against you in the end. Betray you, tread your heart in the dust.
A love letter: I turn it in my hands. It’s all I needed.
Thank God for Lizzie.
It’s not about houses, I realise that, or finding the right location. It’s not about the sea. It’s about love. I’ll put the light on now and open her letter, inhale her soft words, and then I’ll ring her. I’ll think of a way out of the mess I’m in. As long as I have Lizzie, everything will be all right.
Chapter Twenty-four
Lizzie
It’s a cold, sharp day. The sky has cleared, blue sky for the first time in weeks, but a bitter wind flaps at the awning above Londis and flattens the long grass on the common. I run as soon as I am off the bus, down the last bit of Trinity Road and left into my street. The disloyalty to Zach has released something wild and unstoppable. It’s the final treachery. I feel the fear and freedom of it in the soles of my feet.
I know something bad has happened the moment I reach the house. The front door is open a crack. I push past and into the hall, and stand there, my breath still hot in my chest.
The tiled floor is covered in envelopes and pizza flyers, unopened bank statements, hair ties, a bottle of de-icer and keys. Lots of keys. The pottery pot they were kept in is in pieces on the ground too.
For a moment, I just stare. The shelf where all this lay yesterday is empty but for one thing. A small painting is propped there now. It’s of a young woman with dark hair in a doorway. She’s looking down at her arms, her face distorted by the angle of perspective. It’s an uncomfortable picture, shadowy and lonely. The room looks cold and she’s wearing too few clothes. It’s hard to look away.
It’s one of the best pictures Zach ever painted, the picture you might show if you ever felt his talent was in doubt. It used to hang at Gulls. It’s the one that was missing.
A pile of clothes is at the bottom of the stairs. I step towards them, as if in a trance, and pick them up, one by one – his old navy shorts, faded on the seat, the zip bent; a grey sweatshirt, with an ink blot on the hem, a worn brown leather belt. I hold the sweatshirt to my face, rub it against my mouth, run the heavy buckle of the belt down my cheek. There’s a towel at the bottom and something falls out of it – a shiny blue photo album. I flick it open with one hand. Each page holds a single photograph. The first shows Zach, smiling, in his charity-shop suit. He is standing outside Wandsworth Town Hall. Our wedding day. You can still see half my arm across his shoulder, but my face has been cut out. Through the jagged hole, a piece of the photograph beneath shows through. A fragment of the slate house sign fixed to the porch in Cornwall: ‘Gulls’.
A jolt above my head. A scrape. I drop the album and lay the shorts down on the bottom step. I am breathing so lightly it’s as if the air is hardly moving past my lips. I’m so faint I’m not sure I can do it, but I begin to climb the stairs. I put one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other: it’s what I’ve been doing all year. One foot in front of the other; it’s how you survive. He has come back from the dead, but I am the ghost. I am so quiet, so light, I seem to move soundlessly, up to the bathroom, and then the final flight of stairs to the two top rooms. A moment of dizziness. I put my hand on the wall to steady myself. The door to the bedroom is open, and I can see the mess inside. The bedclothes are on the floor and the contents of the cupboard emptied on top of that. The bedside lamp, switched on, lies on its side, casting a strange yellow shadow of itself on the wall.
I lean against the bannisters. The study door is closed. He’s moving around inside, shifting objects.
I don’t know what’s going to happen now, whether I hate him or still love him, whether he has come back to apologise or to kill me, whether I’m scared of him or whether – I haven’t thought of this before – he’s scared of me. I forget he’s a killer and a liar. All that matters in this small moment is that I’m about to see his face.
Tears are pouring down my cheeks. I can taste the salt.
I push the door. It catches on the carpet, and I have to push harder to make it budge. I’m not sure if I have stopped breathing completely or not.
I say, ‘Hello, Zach.’
Stillness. But a small creak – at once movement and sound, the rasp of fabric against wood. Someone is here, a figure by the desk. I can see the shape of them against the light. Jeans, boots, draped shirt, long hair.
The wave that has been building inside me rises and breaks.
I lean back against the door. Somewhere on Trinity Road, a motorbike squeals.
‘You,’ I say.
The figure moves towards me. ‘Oh. I’m sorry. The door was open.’
I feel myself sink. The muscles in my legs are worn thin, like paper. Perhaps I’m dead. Perhaps I am a ghost.
‘Sorry. I don’t know what you must think. I . . .’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I was looking for Onnie. The door was open and . . . I came in. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.’
Victoria is poised for departure, slinging her bag over her shoulder, pulling back her blonde hair, securing it at her neck with a tie.
‘Onnie?’ My voice sounds squeezed and odd.
‘I’ve looked everywhere.’
I’m staring at her, but she won’t meet my eyes.
‘Sorry about your photographs,’ Victoria says. ‘Do you have backups?’
‘What?’
I look down. The floor is covered in fragments of torn paper – an arm, a corner of sea. My photographs. The room has been destroyed. The books have been pulled off the shelves. The box that was under the desk has been shredded, stamped on with violence. I’ve got here too late. He has been and gone. I’ve slipped to the floor. I think about Zach’s anger, how he’s kept it down for a year, held it close to his heart, and how it will have grown and intensified in force. How frightening he could be, when he was in control of himself; how much more frightening when he wasn’t.
The door is still open and I push it shut with my hand and press my back against it. ‘Ring the police,’ I say. ‘My phone is in my bag downstairs. Could you ring the police? Please?’
Victoria takes another step towards me. She puts her hands out. ‘Wait a minute. Let’s talk about this calmly, can we? I’m furious with her. She isn’t always in control of her actions. But the police – well, if you could just think about my, our position.’ She sits down at the table and, removing her bag from her shoulder, pulls out a long leather-encased chequebook. ‘A terrible mess and an awful inconvenience for you. Let me pay for all the damage. Up here it’s mainly cosmetic, though downstairs there’s some smashed crockery and I think the glass in the back door might need replacing. Shal
l we say £1,000 – just to be on the safe side?’
I stare at her. Her left hand fusses at her neck, smoothing the hair into her ponytail, checking and checking for a loose strand. A nerve is pulsing to the side of her cheek.
‘You think Onnie did this?’ I say. ‘Why would Onnie have done this?’
She sighs, spreads her hands again to express hopelessness. But it’s fake. She’s pretending to be open and honest, but beneath the surface, I can sense panic. ‘It’s a pattern with her.’
‘I don’t think Onnie did this,’ I say carefully. ‘Downstairs, someone’s left some stuff – clothes and a painting. The person who brought those things into the house left them there for me to see. And that person—’
‘No. No. No.’ Victoria stands up and steps towards me. ‘That was me,’ she says. ‘I brought those things. I know . . . they belonged to your late husband. And again, I can’t apologise enough.’
I stand up. ‘You had Zach’s clothes? That painting? You brought them here?’
‘Yes. No. Not exactly. Look.’ She puts one long elegant hand under my elbow.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she says. Her mouth is stretched in a peculiar way. ‘I’ve handled it all very badly. I’ve been away all week. I got back last night to an empty house. Alan, when I finally spoke to him, said Onnie was staying in London with the friend whose aunt runs the fashion house.’
‘Shelby Pink.’
She glances at me and then away. ‘Well, it was lies. Onnie isn’t answering her phone, but she hasn’t been there all week. So then I went through her bedroom with a fine-tooth comb and that—’ she gestures to the door ‘—is what I found. Now you might be wondering why Onnie had some of your late husband’s possessions.’ She tries another ghastly smile. High spots of pink have appeared in her cheeks. ‘Nothing sinister. It dates back to the time he was tutoring her. I think it was raining once and he lent her some clothes to go home in, and the picture she borrowed for inspiration. So – there. I think I’d better try and find my daughter before she does anything silly.’
Remember Me This Way Page 29