I lay in bed, facing the window with my eyes closed. Rain lashed against the pane like thousands of tiny fists knocking on the glass, and then the wind changed direction for a while and all I could hear was the howling in the eaves. I hoped none of the trees would come down on to the house. I imagined huge branches tearing into the fabric of Avalon, ripping it apart and bringing everything pounding to the ground, the three of us crushed inside like berries. Several times I heard the awful grating of a tile coming loose from the roof and then the crash as it fell to the ground. Water would be tumbling over itself to find a way through the gaps left behind. We would lose the power again. The house would smell of wet wood, plaster and carpet in the morning and we’d have to go round finding the leaks and putting pans and buckets beneath them. I thought of all the practical things that would need to be done and that stopped me thinking about what I’d found in the cellar.
When I couldn’t put off thinking about Genevieve’s laptop any longer, I asked myself if anything had changed by my finding it. Nothing, was the answer. It was one more hidden thing, one more secret, that was all.
The only new fact I could be certain of was that Alexander had written the letter that was purportedly from Genevieve, to convince Jamie that his mummy was fine and was thinking of him. His original motivation could only have been to reassure and console Jamie when his mother left. But if Genevieve had left voluntarily, why hadn’t she written to Jamie herself? Wouldn’t she have at least talked to him about her plans? Everyone agreed that she was devoted to the child; it made no sense her going away and leaving him without a word.
I took a mental step back. I was trying to think logically. I didn’t know why Genevieve hadn’t left a letter of her own for Jamie. I did know that Alexander had made sure I found and read his letter to convince me he was telling the truth. His plan had worked. I had believed it was conclusive evidence that Genevieve had left her home and her life because that was what she wanted to do and that she intended, at some point, to return. Now I knew that wasn’t the case. And now the police were closing in, preparing to search Avalon. Now that they wanted to see the letter, the letter was gone.
Of course it was. If the police found it they would know Alexander had written it and they would wonder what other, greater deceptions he may have carried out.
Why had Alexander kept the writing pad, I wondered. Had he intended to send further letters from Genevieve?
My head hurt inside and out; it was full to bursting with too many thoughts and too many questions.
Outside, the storm raged and banged and, beside me, Alexander breathed deeply and peacefully, his arm around my waist, holding me tight to him so that my back was hot with the heat he emitted from his front. I imagined how the well in the cellar would fill up as the new surface water seeped its way down through the rock. I wondered if the laptop would rise with the water or if it would stay at the bottom of the well. It might have been down there for months. The water would have killed it. Laurie once comprehensively fucked up a laptop by spilling a can of Vimto over the keyboard. Genevieve’s computer’s memory would have been destroyed long ago. Whatever secrets it held would stay secret and whoever put it in the well must have known that.
The storm blew itself out overnight and I opened my eyes to a sunny December day. Beyond the window pane, clouds floated across an optimistic blue sky. The rooks wheeled and cawed and danced. Over the sound of the wind and the birds, I heard the low wailing of the quarry siren. It sounded like an animal desperate, in pain. The dinosaurs were loose again, I thought; running rampage through the valley. Jamie never tired of inventing bad deeds for the dinosaurs to do. One day, I’d told him, we’d put the stories into a book. We’d already made a start on the illustrations. I smiled at the thought and then I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Alexander opening the bedroom door with his elbow and putting a tray of coffee, toast and orange juice on the chest of drawers.
‘Hello, you,’ he said, leaning down to kiss me. My neck was stiff and my head was sore but I reached up to receive his lips. He kissed me on the side of my face that wasn’t hurt.
Alexander held my chin in his hand and examined my injuries. He had been right about my eye: I could barely see out of it, it was so swollen. I could feel that my lip was huge too, and there was blood on the pillow.
‘You look a bit of a mess,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to see the other fella.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘You had me worried last night, Sarah. You weren’t yourself at all.’
‘Of course I wasn’t. I’d banged my head.’
‘It wasn’t just that. Did something happen while I was away?’
‘Nothing much,’ I said.
He sat beside me and passed me my coffee.
‘Don’t you want to know how I got on in Fowey?’
‘Fowey …’ I said, and the word sounded strange and unfamiliar. The last time we’d talked about Fowey had been in a different life, another era. ‘Yes, of course. How was it?’
‘It’s perfect,’ he said. ‘Just a small yard; the rent’s cheap. I don’t think there’d be a huge amount of business locally, but it’s close to the main road with good access to the motorway.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said.
‘And there are loads of places to rent to live in, nice places. You’d love it, Sarah. You could do your art. We could live quietly there. We’d be safe.’
‘That’s great.’
‘I spoke to a few people. I had a look at a flat in the town centre. It’s furnished, a bit shabby, but the views are lovely and it’s cosy, and we could manage there, for a while. Until we found something better, at least. I thought maybe we could go straight after Christmas – Boxing Day even. We’ll be all right until then, won’t we? That’s only a few days away. The landlord’s desperate to have it occupied. Sarah?’
‘Mmm?’
Alexander pushed back my hair and held my undamaged cheek in his rough hand. He looked at me intently. I had to return his gaze. I noticed how dark his eyes were and their intensity.
I was certain he could see into my doubting soul. I blinked.
‘You would tell me if something was wrong?’
I found a smile from somewhere.
‘Of course I would.’
I must have sounded convincing because he exhaled and leaned down to kiss my forehead.
‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘You’re so good for me.’
But I’m not Genevieve, I thought. You say I’m lovely, but you have never said that you love me. You say you trust me but you keep your secrets from me. I am so lost now that I don’t know which way to turn.
I thought maybe I had been wrong all the time about Alexander. Maybe I had been out of my mind when I met him in Sicily. I’d so wanted a hero to take me away from Laurie and Manchester and all the things that had gone wrong, maybe I’d just invented one and turned Alexander into that person.
But it had felt so real. It had all felt so right. And all along, right up until I’d seen the laptop in the well, I had believed Alexander. I was trying so hard to believe in him now.
I raised my eyes to look at him and then the door swung back and Jamie ran into the room in his pyjamas and bounced up on to the bed. The movement jarred and hurt my face but I could not help but smile and relax. At least my feelings for Jamie were unambiguous.
‘Are you better now?’ he asked me, putting his face very close to mine and staring at me with his father’s intensity but with paler, blue eyes. I smelled that honey and hay smell of newly woken child.
I put my arm around him and pulled him close. He elbowed his way into my side, fidgeted under the covers.
‘I’m absolutely fine.’
‘Your eye looks like yuk and there’s a big scab here.’ He pointed to the space between his nose and his top lip.
‘Thanks, Jamie.’
‘That’s all right. Daddy promised we’d get the Christmas tree today. You did, didn’t you? You said it’s time to do the deco
rations!’
Alexander looked at his wrist. He wasn’t wearing a watch.
‘You know what?’ he said to me. ‘The boy’s right!’
‘Brilliant,’ I said.
Jamie regarded me suspiciously.
‘Don’t you want to put up the tree, Sarah?’
I smiled. ‘Yes, yes, of course I do.’
‘Daddy said I can choose it and help cut it down.’
‘Too right,’ said Alexander, and Jamie used my thighs as a springboard to launch himself at Alexander, who hugged the child roughly, half-play-fighting with him. As the mattress bounced, my coffee slopped out of the cup and over the edge of the saucer, staining the coverlet pale brown. I didn’t resist, I let the stain take its course while I rested back against the pillows and watched the father and his son.
While Jamie was downstairs eating breakfast, I went back upstairs and opened the bathroom door. Alexander was standing at the basin clipping his beard, wearing just a towel around his waist.
‘Hi,’ he said, watching me through the mirror. My face looked awful, like I really had been in a fight.
I came up behind him, flicked both parts of the lavatory seat down and sat on it.
‘The police came round yesterday,’ I said quietly. ‘They’re going to start searching the area around Burrington Stoke.’
There was a pause, because we knew what they would be searching for.
‘It was bound to happen sooner or later,’ Alexander said.
‘It seems horrible timing what with Christmas and everything but …’
‘What?’
He moved the shaver carefully around his neck, holding the skin taut with his free hand.
‘Well, they’re going to search Avalon too.’
Alexander switched off the shaver and nodded.
‘I suppose that’s inevitable.’
‘The thing is, I think they’re watching us. I think they’ve been looking at the stuff we’ve thrown away and …’
‘They wouldn’t be doing their job if they weren’t.’
‘No, but I’m worried there might still be things here, in the house, I mean, that it might be better if they didn’t find. You know.’
Alexander smiled at me.
‘You worry too much,’ he said.
This time I nodded. I held my wrists between my knees. I was feeling quietly desperate. If Alexander was perturbed by the news, he wasn’t showing it. He turned on the hot tap and rubbed soap between the palms of his hands, working up a lather.
‘Did they say when they’d be coming?’ he asked casually.
‘I can’t remember exactly. Soon. Maybe not today though. Maybe not for a few days.’
‘It’ll be OK, Sarah. We’ll probably have left by the time they get round to Avalon.’
‘You don’t think they’ll want to start here? It was the last place Genevieve … The last place we know she was.’
‘It’s possible. But there’s no point worrying about it until it happens. Pass me the towel, would you? You never know, there might be some new development that’ll make them change their plans.’
I could not understand why Alexander was so relaxed when we were having such a terrible conversation. Didn’t he realize the implications?
He turned round and kissed the top of my head.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ he whispered. ‘It might never happen.’
After breakfast, Alexander went up to the attic and fetched down the Christmas decorations. He was in such an upbeat mood that it was difficult not to be infected. I had never heard him whistle before but that’s what he did as he spread the boxes and bags out on the living-room floor. There were hundreds of lights and ornaments and baubles, all meticulously wrapped in tissue paper. It made me feel a little sad and a little jealous to know that the last hand that had touched the decorations had been Genevieve’s. Jamie didn’t make the connection; he was far too excited. As I uncovered each new treasure, he exclaimed in delight – ‘Oh, the Santa in the sledge! The bird with the real feathers! The jingle bells – listen, they really chime!’ He ran in and out of the living room like a whirlwind, taking his favourite Christmas ornaments up to his bedroom and distributing the rest where he thought they ought to be.
I had a tiny pang of homesickness. This would have been my baby’s first Christmas. I had looked forward to it so much. The previous year, I had been pregnant during the holiday. The foetus was four months old and I had already begun to feel him kick. At four months he was six inches long, almost perfectly formed, and the soul had been breathed into him, according to Rosita. Laurie and I, flushed with the imminence of parenthood, shopped that year with different priorities. For my Christmas present, Laurie bought me and the baby a Mamas and Papas Pramette that cost as much, Laurie told me, as a small family saloon. My mother shook her head, partly at the extravagance, but mainly at our foolishness. She said we were tempting fate. She said we shouldn’t buy anything until at least the seventh month. We giggled about her primitive superstitions behind her back, bought more decorations and spoke of how they would become our child’s heritage. I wondered if Laurie was unpacking those carefully chosen things now. I wondered if he was thinking of what might have been.
I had to be strict with myself to put those thoughts from my mind, and then I joined in with Jamie, helping him thread differently coloured baubles on to ribbons to hang over the fireplace in the dining room and making a big fuss of the handmade glitter and cotton-wool snowmen he’d made at school. I loved being with Jamie and doing these enjoyable jobs with him, but still I felt as if I were acting. Together we unravelled the fairy lights and plugged them in to make sure they all worked. Then, with the tangle of wires and tiny coloured bulbs heaped up and twinkling on the carpet, we moved back the furniture to clear a space in the corner of the living room for the tree.
‘That’s where it always goes,’ Jamie said solemnly. ‘Mummy says it’s the best place.’
He looked up at me in surprise, realizing what he had said and that he was without his mother at Christmastime.
‘She’s right,’ I said. I squeezed Jamie’s shoulder. He had put his thumb in his mouth and was staring at the dusty space on the carpet.
‘Come on, Jamie!’ Alexander called. ‘I need you to help me put the lights up outside.’
I made sure Jamie was wrapped up warm enough to go outside, then, while he and Alexander attended to their task, I filled the vegetable bowl with water, peeled some potatoes and cut them into chips. I was frying mushrooms to go in an omelette when Alexander opened the door, letting in a rush of cold air. Beyond, in the garden, I could hear Jamie loudly singing: Jingle bells, Batman smells …
Alexander was wearing his big boots, a jacket, gloves, and in his hand was an axe.
‘Jamie and I are going up to the farm to cut down a Christmas tree,’ he said.
Robin’s flown away …
‘Are you coming?’
I shook my head. Alexander weighed the axe-head in the palm of his right hand.
Uncle Billy lost his willy …
‘I need to get lunch on.’
‘OK.’
On the M4 motorway.
Still, he paused.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Please stop asking me. I told you there’s nothing wrong. I’ve just got a terrible headache is all. And my face looks like shit.’
Jingle drums …
Alexander frowned. ‘You’ve been distant. You’ve had a look in your eyes like you’d rather be somewhere else.’
Batman bums …
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, where’s Jamie got that from?’ I asked. ‘He shouldn’t be using that kind of language.’
‘It’s never bothered you before. Sarah, what is it?’
‘For the thousandth time, I had a bang on the head!’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that.’
Robin did a smelly poo.
‘And the police came. I’ve been worrying about the search
– I mean, about what they might find. I’ve had a horrible couple of days. Stop fussing,’ I said. I turned back to the counter, picked up a chilli and began to slice it.
Mr Whippy’s got a stiffy …
‘Go and fetch the tree,’ I said in a light voice. ‘I’ll get everything ready here. What do you normally put it in? A bucket?’
‘There’s a stand somewhere,’ said Alexander. ‘It’s biggish, red, it’s got three legs, made of wrought iron. I haven’t seen it since last year.’
And the penguin’s got one too.
‘I’ll have a look,’ I said.
Alexander bounced the head of the axe up and down in his gloved hand. He pulled a comedy face.
‘Do me a favour, Sarah – if you come across anything incriminating, perhaps you could find a really good place to hide it.’
‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘How about down the well?’
There was a pause between us. A heartbeat. Jamie appeared behind his father, his eyes bright, wanting to know without asking if we’d heard his song and if we were amused or annoyed. For once, Alexander and I took no notice.
‘What do you mean?’ Alexander asked.
‘I looked down the well yesterday. I saw what’s down there.’
‘The well in the cellar? You can’t have done.’
‘I did.’
‘Sarah, the cover’s padlocked, and I don’t know where Genevieve kept the key. It hasn’t been opened in years.’
I shook my head.
‘I moved the cover myself.’
‘That’s impossible.’ Alexander frowned. ‘It must have been the knock on the head that’s confused you. There’s no way you could have moved it.’
I swallowed and looked at my fingers. I felt tearful. I knew what I’d seen. Why was he lying to me? Was he trying to make me feel as if I was losing my mind?
The Secrets Between Us Page 29