I shifted a little to ease the pressure on my bladder.
‘Do you trust him?’ Virginia asked me.
I looked up, into her eyes. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Even though it must be clear to you now that he hasn’t been entirely open with you?’
‘He’s told me everything that I needed to know.’
‘So you know he’s been in prison?’
That shocked me. The trembling in my fingers made the cup rattle in the saucer on my lap and for an awful second heat engulfed me and I was afraid I might collapse. It took all my energy, all my will, to maintain my composure. Virginia must not see how upset I was by this revelation; she must not. I raised the cup to stop the rattle and sipped the coffee. It was lukewarm.
‘You didn’t know, did you?’ she asked.
I put the cup back down in the saucer. The coffee had left a horrible taste in my mouth.
Virginia leaned forward and took the cup and saucer from me.
‘Sarah,’ she said, almost gently, ‘you might think you know Alexander, maybe you think he loves you or he needs you or that you can help him, but what you’re dealing with is a fantasy; a romantic fantasy. The truth is different. You don’t know what kind of man he really is. You have no idea. I suspect your fantasy is stopping you from seeing the truth.’
Tears were prickling at my eyes and my bladder now was so uncomfortable I felt faint. I was too hot.
‘It’s not Alexander’s fault Genevieve’s gone away,’ I said. ‘Genevieve left because she wanted to, not because he did anything wrong. Perhaps she was seeing someone else.’
Virginia froze when I said this. She seemed shocked, but not surprised, and I realized that I had, inadvertently, hit a nerve. Her discomposure gave me strength. If Genevieve’s own mother suspected her of adultery, then there must be a strong possibility of it. It would explain everything. And if she and her lover had run away together, then no wonder they had covered their tracks so carefully, no wonder it had all been so sudden. It was the obvious explanation. I felt myself flush as possibilities raced through my mind, but before I could put them into any sort of order, Virginia spoke again.
She leaned forward so her face was close to mine, so close that I tasted, for the second time, the sourness of her breath.
‘Who is this other man, Sarah? Do you have a name for him?’ she hissed.
I shook my head, alarmed by her intensity.
‘Has Alexander told you anything about him?’
‘He doesn’t know anything.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nodded.
Virginia sat back a little. She pursed her lips and considered me in the same way a snake might consider a mouse. When she spoke next, her words were slow and precisely measured.
‘Here’s something else you don’t know, Sarah,’ she said. ‘When Genevieve told Alexander she wanted to leave him, a little while before she disappeared, he said he wouldn’t let her. He told her he’d rather see her dead.’
‘People say things they don’t mean when they’re upset.’
‘And sometimes they say things they do mean.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘How “upset” do you think Alexander might have been if Genevieve told him she was leaving him to be with someone else? Somebody who would treat her better than he did? Somebody who cared for her?’
I swallowed.
‘Hmm?’
I could not answer.
‘What do you think he might have done, Sarah?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, but the words came out so quiet I don’t think Virginia heard.
She seemed drained now. She sat back in her chair, looked up at the wood panelling on the ceiling and sighed.
‘If Genevieve has come to any harm,’ said Virginia, ‘I’ll make sure Alexander pays for it. And you. I don’t think you’re evil. I think you’re naïve and easily led, but if he’s guilty and if you stand by him, you’re just as culpable.’
We were silent for a moment. Across the room an elderly man in a wing-chair snored. A fly batted at the window behind us.
I tried to keep my voice steady and calm. ‘I trust Alexander,’ I said.
‘Then, Sarah,’ said Virginia, ‘you’re even more stupid than you look.’
The day, the week – everything had been tainted.
After Virginia stood to pay for our coffees, I went into the ladies and sat on the toilet for ages, until I was quite composed. Then I came out of the cubicle and washed my face in the basin with cracked, heavily scented soap that dried my skin. I had no make-up with me, so had to go back out through the lounge with my face swollen and blotchy. I could feel the eyes of the staff on my back as I made my way through the dark reception hall with its huge fireplace, and out of the front door. I was barely across the threshold before the murmur of their excited voices set to gossip and speculation. I went into Burrington Stoke’s tiny library and spent an hour or so browsing the shelves and looking at leaflets about ploughing contests and bell-ringing until I was certain Virginia would have left the village and there was no danger of bumping into her again. I tried not to think about what she had told me, but her words were inside my head. No matter how I tried to pretend they were not there, their presence was pervasive.
The handles of the carrier bags dug into my hands as I walked along the road back to Avalon. I did not even notice the car pulling up beside me until the passenger door opened. It was Bill.
‘Penny for them,’ he said.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Hop in. You look exhausted.’
I climbed into the seat, putting the shopping in the footwell. I rubbed the palms of my hands on my knees to restore the circulation.
‘Has something happened?’ he asked gently, moving the car forward.
I shook my head, but then the tears gave me away.
‘Oh dear!’
Bill turned the car into a lane and stopped on the verge beside a gate. He passed me a handkerchief and sat quietly beside me while I cried, and when I began to feel a bit better he said: ‘If I had to bet who had upset you, my money would be on Virginia.’
‘How did you guess?’
‘Because the woman can be an absolute class-A bitch.”
I sniffed.
‘Also I was in the post office just now and Midge told me Virginia had whisked you off to the hotel for a dressing-down.’
I smiled feebly.
The windscreen was steaming up. We both stared out of it across a green and brown landscape. The crop-fields had been ploughed and long dark lines of churned mud stretched up to the horizon.
‘Listen, Sarah,’ Bill said. ‘I don’t like Virginia. I can never forgive her for what she’s done to Claudia, but it seems to me that, right now, she’s very close to a breakdown. The stress of all this, not hearing from Genevieve, she can’t cope with it and she’s looking for somebody to blame.’
‘I know.’
He said gently: ‘Ironically, it’s easier for her to believe Alexander has done something unspeakable to Genevieve than it is to accept that her darling daughter has buggered off and simply not bothered to get in touch.’
‘She thinks Genevieve was seeing someone else,’ I said.
‘What?’
I nodded. ‘Honestly, she does. She thinks Alexander flipped when she told him she was leaving him for another man.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Bill said. He shook his head. ‘That’s just crazy.’
I smiled at him gratefully.
‘Although if she was in love with someone else and wanted to be with him, it would explain why she just upped and left like she did,’ I said.
‘I suppose.’
‘Don’t tell Claudia about any of this, will you, Bill?’
‘Of course not.’ Bill tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘You still look awfully worried, Sarah. Was there something else?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh
, it’s just … Virginia told me some things about Alexander that I didn’t want to know. Things he’d said and done …’
Bill sighed and stretched his arms against the steering wheel.
‘Try not to worry about it,’ he said. ‘Virginia always had trouble seeing anything beyond Genevieve. She’s never been able to understand the bigger picture.’
Through the window glass I saw two crows settle in the field. We were quiet for a few moments and then I remembered something that had slipped my mind.
‘Bill, have you still got your stalker?’
‘He seems to have moved on,’ Bill said. ‘The police have been pretty good. They’re sending a patrol car round every so often, but they haven’t seen anyone. And we’ve had another alarm fitted.’
‘I think I know who it was,’ I said. ‘I should have said before. I think it might have been Claudia’s brother.’
‘Damian?’
‘He was here, in the village, a little while back. I saw him. He seemed a bit—’
‘Damian was here? In Burrington Stoke? Are you sure?’ Now Bill sat up straight and tensed.
I nodded.
‘Why didn’t you tell us? Oh, Sarah, why in God’s name didn’t you say anything?’
I moved closer to the window. I hadn’t expected such a strong reaction.
‘I thought Claudia would be hurt that he hadn’t been to see her. And he was only here a day or two – at least that’s what I thought. He seemed harmless.’
Bill exhaled and stared straight ahead.
‘He’s poison,’ he said. ‘If you see him again, call me. Don’t say anything to Claudia but call me straight away.’
‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘Sorry.’ I felt close to tears again. ‘I didn’t realize it was such a big deal,’ I said miserably.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bill said, but there was no genuine reassurance in his voice. His mind was on something else. ‘That man’s dangerous. He’s bad news, Sarah.’
He dropped me off at the end of the track and I walked the last quarter mile or so to Avalon beneath the trees, the shopping bumping against my calves. Every now and then the wind rustled the trees and a leaf would spin to the ground just ahead of me. May used to tell me it was lucky to catch a falling leaf, but none of them stuck to my hair or my clothes. I kicked some of the loose leaves up in front of me. I felt I could use a little luck.
I had learned so much that morning, and nothing I had learned was good.
If Alexander wanted me to be on his side, shouldn’t he have trusted me with his skeletons? Of course he should. Unless the secrets he kept hidden were so terrible that he couldn’t risk sharing them.
I kicked open the gate with my foot and put my shopping down on the path while I searched in my bag for the key to the door to Avalon.
Alexander was a good man. He was a good man. He was my lover, my man. If we could not trust one another, if we were to lose our faith in each other, then we had nothing.
I unlocked the door and picked up the post. There was a brown envelope from the Inland Revenue and two equestrian auction catalogues and a postcard for Genevieve. I put them on the counter and heaved the shopping through the outer room and into the kitchen.
I plugged in the kettle and sat down on the settee with my head in my hands.
Virginia had handed me a poisoned apple, and I had bitten into it. I must not let her infect me with her insinuations. I wouldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I DIDN’T TELL Alexander about meeting Virginia. I would tell him, but only when I’d decided, in my mind, how to broach the subject. There was no point trying to have a rational and objective conversation when I was feeling so upset and wrong-footed. He would want to know what she had said and I would not be able to lie to him. I was a terrible liar. As soon as the truth was out, he would have to endure the humiliation of knowing that I knew things about him he hadn’t wanted me to know.
So I kept quiet.
He was working very hard on a major commission, the restoration of some important historical building in Sherborne, often not coming home until Jamie was in bed, and his hair would be grey with dust. The skin on his hands was thick and calloused and muscle and sinew was carved out of his arms and chest. He was not a heavy man, but years of lifting, moving and cutting stone had made him very strong. I was aware of his physical strength. When we made love, he lifted and moved me as if I were a doll. In bed, his strength was part of his attraction. I enjoyed my powerlessness, his complete domination. Knowing I was entirely in his hands made me feel feminine and sexy and I knew that part of the thrill was the danger. Laurie, with his soft, desk-job body, had always been a courteous, polite lover, committed to my comfort and pleasure. He used oils, candles and music. He even warmed his hands. Alexander’s roughness, in contrast, was breathtaking. Sex was a rollercoaster and I was scared and exhilarated in equal measure.
Sometimes, when I looked at Alexander, I saw a gentle, good man who had been damaged by circumstance. Other times, his reluctance to talk about himself and his introspection were beginning to make me feel uneasy. I started to have nightmares, terrors that left me drenched in sweat and my jaw aching from clenching and grinding my teeth. And when I woke from those dreams, alone in my bed in the eaves, the house scared me. I was afraid to creep into the bathroom; going downstairs to make tea was unthinkable. I had a small stash of sleeping pills as well as the hoarded antidepressants. I had not liked the hangover they gave me, nor the dulling of my feelings and responses. Now I took to experimenting with them, taking a quarter or a third of a pill each night, making cocktails until I knew the exact quantity of drug that would send me to sleep soundly enough not to be disturbed by the house’s creaks and sighs but not so deeply that I would not wake up if I needed to.
I could have left Avalon. I was certain Alexander would not try to stop me if I told him I wanted to go. But I didn’t want to leave Alexander and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Jamie.
I hadn’t meant to, but every day I grew closer to the child. What had begun as an awkward, difficult relationship was changing into something deep and sincere. I never said the words out loud, but what I was feeling for Jamie was more than simple affection. I loved him.
We had fun when we were alone together. Jamie taught me to play racing games on the Wii, but I was rubbish. I taught him to play card games and he was good. We both liked drawing and often would sit companionably at the kitchen table, Jamie, with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, drawing people shooting one another and me drawing Jamie. I tried time and time again to make a half-decent image of him, but found it impossible to do him justice. His face was small and precise, but that wasn’t the problem – it was the fact that it was so alive, and that vitality was difficult to capture in two dimensions. I thought if I could make a good drawing of Jamie, I would give it to Alexander for Christmas, but I could never translate the essence of his son on to paper.
As the leaves fell that autumn, Jamie and I went down to the trees and stood beneath them, waiting for a gust of wind, and when the wind came we rushed to catch the leaves for luck, and we saved the ones we did catch and I bound them together with cotton and hung them around the house. I hoped they would protect me. I prayed for them to take away the nightmares, and the fears that stalked me during the day.
I wished Genevieve would come back to prove to me, and to everyone else, that Alexander had done nothing to harm her. I prayed she would not come back to take her son away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JAMIE INVITED CHRISTOPHER, his best friend from school, to stay over at Avalon for his birthday. We were going to have a bonfire and fireworks in the back garden because, although Jamie’s birthday was a few days after bonfire night, those two treats were what he loved best in the world. Christopher was to sleep in a put-me-up bed in Jamie’s room, but the room was a tip. That morning, I asked Jamie if he’d mind if I gave it a proper tidy round, and he said it would be all right.
‘Is there anything you want to tidy away first?’ I asked him.
Through a mouthful of bacon-and-bean sandwich, he assured me there wasn’t.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind if you want to play with any of my things.’
Alexander, behind him, peeling a banana, winked at me and smiled.
‘Thanks, Jamie,’ I said.
I was nervy. The date felt significant. I thought if Genevieve was going to make contact, if she was going to return, it would, most likely, be on her only child’s birthday. She wouldn’t want to miss it; no mother would.
*
While Alexander washed upstairs, I straightened the collar of Jamie’s polo shirt and helped pull the sweatshirt over his head, feeling the small, solid muscles of his back and the ridge of his spine. Jamie’s shaved hair had grown out now. Its true colour was pale brown, like honey, although the ends were still bleached from his time in Sicily. He had the bone structure of his mother; his eyes were shaped like hers, although the colour was different, and I imagined, from what I’d heard of her, that he had inherited his vivacity and charm from Genevieve. It was difficult to find anything of Alexander in Jamie’s face, although he had definitely inherited some of Alexander’s mannerisms and much of his stubbornness and preference for using no words when a few would have been helpful.
I smiled at the child, passed him his lunch box and his bag, and told him to have a good day at school.
That morning was truly beautiful, the air chill and the grass wet where the frost was melting, and dew-jewelled spiderwebs hung like decorations amongst the twigs of the shrubs. The swallows were long gone and the cows had been moved to different pastures, but the rooks still flew over the roof of Avalon and blue tits argued on the feeders.
In daylight, the house felt better now. It was lighter and less suspicious, less creepy. Still, I disliked being on my own, particularly upstairs. Usually I found reasons not to be there, but on this occasion I had an imperative to make Jamie’s room welcoming for his friend. I carried out a number of diversionary and procrastinatory tactics. I hung the wet washing on the line, then I sorted out some of the mess in the rosette room next to the kitchen. Behind the horse paraphernalia was a black plastic bin bag, tied at the top. I tore the plastic open with my fingers and they sank into the soft fabric of clothing.
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