Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  He coughed. ‘Yes. Mr Temple attended the ceremony.’

  Isa skimmed through the handwritten names. Justin had not signed the book.

  She closed the album carefully. ‘You said there was an unusual clause in the will, which you needed to discuss with me in person.’

  ‘Yes.’ He seemed reluctant to continue. When he spoke his voice was hesitant. ‘Miss de Witt, I have to stress that you are not legally obliged to follow the instructions set out in this clause. If you decide against it, it will in no way affect your status as the heir. You will still receive the full inheritance. This last clause is in the form of a request. But Mrs Temple seemed very sure that you would accede to her wishes.’

  He opened the green folder again and took out another, medium-sized, manila envelope from it. ‘Once a week, for the next three weeks, I am supposed to give you one of these.’ He slid the envelope across to her. Her name was printed in the centre of the envelope and at the top right-hand corner were the words: First Envelope.

  ‘No, please.’ He stopped her as she made to open it. ‘I myself have no knowledge of the contents and Mrs Temple was adamant that the information within should be strictly between you and her.’ He rubbed his hands together in a Pontius Pilate gesture, as though to absolve himself of all responsibility.

  Isa looked at the envelope in her hands. Alette had certainly made sure that no one else would be able to open it. Not even her solicitor. The flap was not only sealed with blue wax, but the wax held in place a label on which Alette had signed her name. Anyone opening the letter would automatically tear through the signature.

  She looked back at Lionel Darling. ‘Why not give me all the envelopes now? I’m leaving for South Africa again as soon as I’ve found an estate agent to take care of the house and—’

  ‘Unfortunately, that would create somewhat of a problem. Mrs Temple stipulated that you were to receive the envelopes one by one in the order specified. She also indicated that she would like you to remain in London for the next month. She said it would simplify the entire process. Although, if you absolutely had to return to South Africa, she seemed to think that you might still manage to follow the instructions—or rather requests—contained within these letters.’

  Isa stared at him. ‘Well …’ her voice faded. She fingered the envelope. ‘Maybe I should read it first.’

  ‘Yes, I suspect that would be best. No doubt the letter will clear up everything. But as I said, she seemed very sure that you would comply with her wishes?’ The solicitor’s voice ended in a question, leaving the observation hanging in the air.

  Isa looked up to meet Lionel Darling’s puzzled eyes.

  ‘We were close,’ she said.

  • • •

  THE COFFEE SHOP was crowded and overheated. Steam pearled down the inside of the dirty windows. The only empty table was squashed into a corner next to a coat stand weighed down by countless coats and jackets.

  But even in an unglamorous little place like this, they knew how to serve a good cup of tea. Isa sipped the warm liquid slowly. In front of her on the table was the still-sealed manila envelope. She was reluctant to open it.

  She finished her tea and looked into the cup. She wondered what Alette would have made of the pattern of tea leaves at the bottom. Surely that cluster of leaves clinging to the side formed an anchor—or was it an hourglass? What did the hourglass stand for again? Imminent peril or some such nonsense. Maybe it was an anchor after all.

  It was no use anyway. The cup had almost perpendicular sides, which made it unsuitable for leaf reading. She replaced it in its saucer and pushed it to the far side of the table. It was time to face the envelope.

  She slid her forefinger underneath the flap and the waxed seal split and broke and Alette’s signature deteriorated into two fragments. Isa placed her hand inside and drew out the sheaf of papers fastened with a simple paper clip.

  The letter was written in Alette’s sloping hand and started off without an address or date at the top:

  Dear Isabelle,

  First, the ashes. I hope you’re not totally spooked, but this is what I’d like you to do. Take the urn or vase or whatever it is they use, and when you return to South Africa, take me with you. I want to go home; really home. I crave a truly blue sky. I don’t want the sun to shine, I want it to burn. I long for a landscape that is wild, not manicured. Please strew my ashes on the farm—in the cleft of the great Yoni stone—you remember: Siena’s secret place.

  Oh, Isabelle. Where to begin? I am going to ask a favour of you: a big one and you probably won’t like what I’m asking, but hear me out, please.

  My life over the past three years has been a horror. Actually, make that five years, because the story really starts on my wedding day. You remember that day, don’t you? White veils and lace and Justin looking so handsome.

  I had such high hopes, Isabelle. I thought I had finally found a man who truly understood me; who loved me for who I am. A man to grow old by my side, someone who can go the distance.

  But things started to go wrong almost immediately. Justin became insanely possessive. His jealousy was a fearful thing. I was under constant surveillance: he was always checking to find out where I was, calling me from his office obsessively. If he couldn’t get hold of me right away, he’d start calling my friends and clients. He was smothering me; sometimes it felt as though he was sucking the very oxygen from the air. If I so much as looked at another man he flew into terrible rages. He was convinced I was being unfaithful. Now, you know me, Isabelle. I’m the first to admit that I haven’t been very—well, constant in my relationships with men. Love ‘em and Leave ‘em Alette, right? But not with Justin. With Justin it was different. I really can’t blame myself for the breakup of this one.

  Justin became immensely critical of everything I did. He belittled my interests, ridiculed all the things I love. During our courtship he had often quizzed me about my fascination with mysticism, but with a kind of affectionate amusement, or so I thought. Now all of a sudden he made me feel like a kook, a flake of the worst kind. And then there was the garden. It became a tremendous bone of contention. For some reason, which is beyond me, he found my love of gardening immensely irritating. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. This is all trivial, petty stuff: the kind of irritations that plague every marriage. But you don’t know what it’s like, Isabelle: a constant barrage of criticism, a relentless assault on everything you hold dear. I started feeling worthless, a failure. The person I used to turn to for comfort had become the source of my deepest distress. I can’t begin to explain to you what it did to my self-perception and the world I’ve created for myself.

  The situation went from bad to worse. Justin would set arbitrary rules, which I was not supposed to break. I was not allowed to move as much as a picture out of its place without his approval. I was not allowed to wear the colour green any longer. He censored my reading. When I listened to a CD from our collection, I had to replace it exactly where I found it. If I was in breach of a rule he would become enraged and refuse to speak to me for days. When he entered the room, I had to stop whatever I was doing and give him my full attention immediately. He even interrupted my sleep and would wake me on purpose if I slept too soundly. I was constantly exhausted and becoming disorganized. Even my memory became impaired. And I became so lonely. Justin forced me to cut my ties with my friends. And finally he made sure I gave up my business. He wanted me completely isolated.

  Isabelle, you know me as someone who can give as good as I get. But one day I woke up and realized that I had turned into a person I did not recognize at all. The sad truth of it was that I had become a willing participant in Justin’s mind games. I had enabled him to do to me exactly what he wanted and was even trying to find excuses for his behaviour by being critical of myself. I had allowed myself to become a victim.

  I had to get out.

  So I asked for a divorce. He refused, of course. He couldn’t actually stop me from leaving, but he promised he’
d make sure I would be financially ruined and tied up with lawyers for years to come. He also threatened to wash our dirty laundry in the tabloids. You can imagine the interest there’d be in Justin Temple’s story.

  But I had one foolproof way of freeing myself. When I realized there was no other way I’d be able to escape, I threatened Justin with the one thing in the world he could not afford. And so, he let me go. I’ll tell you his secret later on, Isabelle. It is very much an integral part of the favour I will be asking of you. By the time you receive the third envelope, you will understand exactly what it is all about.

  Escape. It felt so wonderful to move out of the apartment and into my own home. Getting reacquainted with the old Alette. Going about my business, reaching out to the world again. But I had rejoiced much too soon.

  The nightmare started again. Justin refused to accept that he would be unable to win me back. But whereas he had battered me with criticism while we were married, now he was killing me with kindness.

  Imagine waking up in the morning and finding not one, not two, but twenty romantic cards shoved through the mailbox in the front door. The envelopes have no stamps on them, so you know they must be hand-delivered. Every card has a sentimental message and a plea for forgiveness.

  Imagine having lunch with a friend in a restaurant and a smiling maître d’ brings a bottle of Krug champagne to the table: compliments of Mr Temple. Oh, and he also asked to have a crème brûlée prepared for your dessert. Actually the menu does not feature crème brûlée, but the restaurant understands from Mr Temple that it is your favourite dessert and of course they’ll be happy to prepare it specially.

  Imagine returning to your home and finding a repairman on a ladder outside your house, attending to a leaking gutter. And when you ask him how he comes to be there, he replies that Mr Temple had arranged it and is also taking care of the bill.

  The next morning you open the door to find that every single flower in the garden has been picked and arranged into a lovely bouquet, which is lying on your doorstep, fastened with a gorgeous bow. Beautiful, no? But the garden is denuded, not one single bud is left. So you go to the police station and tell the absurdly young desk constable that you are feeling harassed. And he looks at the flowers in your arms and says, ‘We can hardly arrest someone for sending you flowers, ma’am.’

  Justin is so clever. He is terrorising me, but he knows it will be very difficult for me to convince anyone that his motives are malignant. This new behaviour of his is just another way of exercising control over me. His constant attention is intruding into my life, keeping me from returning to an ordinary existence. The never-ending intrusions are a subtle way of assuring me that he remains a presence in my life. Things would be quiet for a while, and then just as I would start to relax, something small and not at all threatening would remind me that he’s still out there. I’d return to the car and there would be a red rose under my windshield wiper. Or I’d receive in the mail the latest book on some or other topic in which he knew I’d be interested. These are not expressions of love, Isabelle. They are expressions of a terrible anger. Sometimes I wish he would rather explode into violence—threaten me with physical harm—beat me. I want bruises, scars, something tangible to prove to the world what kind of man he is and the evil game he is playing. Instead I get chocolate, flowers, a string quartet on my doorstep. And the sick feeling that his hold on me will never ease.

  Obsession is a terrible thing. Do you remember that day we saw the flamingo and the eagle? You remember: that day we visited the Etosha desert and we saw those hundreds and hundreds of flamingos taking flight—one moment dragging their wings through the water and the next moment turning into a pink-and-white cloud.

  You remember how beautiful that was? And then there was this one bird. She couldn’t take flight because a fish eagle had spotted her as his prey and was hovering just above her. Just high enough to allow her to leave the water, to flap her wings a few times—but not high enough to allow her to fully take flight. And this beautiful bird would almost become airborne and then crash back into the water. Again and again it happened. Again and again. Until, finally, the bird was so exhausted that it put up no fight when the eagle came in for the kill. I feel like that bird, Isabelle. I can never get away. I can never free myself.

  I live with a kind of free-floating anxiety. I can’t explain why, but I feel threatened. I feel as though I’m being watched, as though I have no privacy left, as though Justin knows my every move. Maybe I’m becoming paranoid. Maybe this sense that I need to be eternally vigilant is impairing my judgment. But that, you see, is the real horror. Justin has succeeded in making even a normal environment feel hostile. Seemingly insignificant things now make me wonder and worry. When I return to my house, I think: did I leave on that outside light? When I look out of the window I hesitate: is there someone watching behind that tree?

  Why haven’t I ever told you about this, you ask.

  I couldn’t. The entire situation made me feel ashamed. And I’m used to taking care of you, not the other way around.

  Justin keeps telling me how much he loves me, but love does not behave this way. No tears from him when I’m no longer around. And as I write this, I know death is close. The feeling is so strong: the strongest feeling I’ve ever had.

  But then it will be my turn.

  I want to leave him a little keepsake. Something for him to always remember me by. Justin made me his captive; now he will find out what it feels like to be rendered helpless, to lose everything that gives you a sense of control in your life. But in order to succeed I need your help, Isabelle. I will explain exactly how, in this and in the following two letters you will be receiving.

  I don’t know how much I told you about Justin’s business affairs, about Temple Sullivan, his company. When Justin and I first met, it was still a pretty shaky concern, but over the past few years the company has gone from strength to strength. Temple Sullivan is tiny compared to the other pharmaceutical giants, but its fortunes have skyrocketed because of Taumex.

  Taumex represents the most important development in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Not only can it arrest the development of Alzheimer’s to a remarkable degree, but it also has the potential to stave off the onset of the disease altogether. Temple Sullivan holds the patent for Taumex. In the U.S. a patent is valid for seventeen years from date of grant and in Europe it is valid for twenty years from date of application. It took Justin eleven years to steer Taumex through the clinical trials, which means that he has approximately seven years left in which to make a profit. Holding the patent for Taumex is a license to print money and it is the cornerstone of Justin’s success. It also holds the seeds of his downfall. You see, Justin made the mistake of putting all his eggs into one basket. Temple Sullivan is not a diversified company: this makes it vulnerable.

  My plan is this: over the next three to four weeks you and I will orchestrate an offensive against the company, which will cause its stock price to fall dramatically—to such an extent that Justin will be removed as CEO. I give you my word that the drug itself is not the target: it’s Justin I’m after.

  Justin is a driven man. He has always felt the need to prove himself. His father was disapproving and critical and I won’t even begin to tell you about his mother. A cold-hearted bitch if ever there was one. She hates me and I truly detest her. Between the two of them, his parents did a bang-up job in assuring that Justin fears failure above all else.

  Your first assignment will be simple. We are going to start a rumour. It’s easy: here’s how.

  I want you to call three brokers—you’ll find their names and the houses they work for at the end of this letter. Call them and tell them that you have some inside information on the company. Don’t give your real name. You can use any name you feel like, of course, but it would be nice if you would identify yourself as Sophia. (Don’t ask: private joke.) Tell them that Justin has been experiencing supply problems for quite some time now. This, by the way, happen
s to be true. One of the ingredients for the drug is sourced in Madagascar—there really is no alternative source available. Justin has had some run-ins with the local officials and there are a host of other problems.

  Keep in mind that in England, British Telecom offers a service that allows you to find out the number of the last person who called. Obviously, you don’t want this to happen. There is a way to get around this, though, so make sure that when you place your calls to the brokers, you enter 141 before dialling the number. This ensures that if these men should try using the call-back service, they will be unable to trace you.

  The three men I want you to call will be sceptical and probably won’t act on what you have to tell them. However, they will act when later they read a report on this in the financial pages. Thereafter, when Sophia calls again, they will be sure to pay attention.

  You will notice that I’ve enclosed two smaller envelopes under cover of this letter, addressed to Dan Harrison of the Financial Times and Martin Penfield of the London Post respectively. The Financial Times probably won’t print the story until after they’ve done some investigating of their own—but when they do, they’ll find that the story pans out. Next time they will act more speedily on information coming from Sophia. As for the Post, Martin Penfield is an aggressive editor and I’m sure he’ll run the story on the basis of the information I’m sending him. We can expect a quick turnaround from his paper. In the letters to Penfield and Harrison, I’m referring them to Simon Fromm, a former employee of Justin’s. He and Justin had a tremendous row a year ago and he’s still holding a grudge. With enough persuasion, he’ll open up and confirm the rumour.

  Temple Sullivan’s stock price is likely to dip—but not by much—and will then most likely recover. But we will have drawn attention to the company and at present that’s all that is necessary.

  Next week we will turn up the heat.

  I’m not insane, in case you’re wondering. George Herbert said, ‘Yet Lord, instruct us so to die, that all these dyings may be life in death.’ Well, Herbert was deeply religious and I’m not, and revenge is not the most noble of motives, but with your help my dying can be life in death. The balance of power was always with Justin during our relationship. Now it will change. Revenge is an immensely empowering emotion, and Justin can’t get to me. How do you punish a ghost?