Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  He lowered the book and turned away from the shelves. Opening the drawer of his desk, he urgently searched through the loose pens, pencils and sheets of paper until his fingers closed around the magnifying glass. Bringing his face close to the picture, he trained the magnifying glass on her sinewy arm, the finely muscled shoulder with its two tattoos. He had noticed the tattoos immediately, but they were small and he had to be absolutely sure.

  The two tiny marks swelled in size. He was able to see them clearly now.

  A wolf. A serpent swallowing its tail.

  He straightened slowly, the blood rushing in his ears. He was clutching at the inside of his arm and, as he looked down, he could see the outline of his fingertips where they had pressed into the flesh and into the black-and-white images inked into his own skin.

  He felt as stunned as a sleepwalker. He stepped out of the front door and into the night. The wind had come up and he felt the sting of infinitely fine grains of sand blowing against his face, settling between his lashes and in the hollows underneath his eyes.

  He started to walk and the derelict houses around him filled the darkness like mournful ghosts. The houses were groaning in the wind, their empty rooms filled with noise. A loose shutter banging against a wall. A door weeping on its hinges. The scarred oak floors creaking, as though they were registering the passage of ghostly feet.

  He passed by the hospital where the wind moaned down the long passages and the rusted skeletons of metal beds lined the wards. He passed by the school building, and through the broken windows he glimpsed old tip-up school benches, row upon row. Close by was the children’s playground and he could make out the shape of the slide. Its bottom lip was covered by a mound of sand. In the distance, the rust-covered hump of a desalination plant was bulky in the night.

  When at last he stopped he had reached the ocean. It was high tide and the roar of the waves was tremendous. The sand on the long stretch of beach seemed white as powder in the light of the moon but the moon itself was blue, a weathered coin in the wine-dark sky. He stretched his hand toward it as though he might roll it into his palm and fold his fingers around its worn edges.

  He had found her.

  Impossible as it seemed, he had found her. He knew that absolutely; there was no hesitation in his heart and his mind was clear. He had found the woman he had searched for not just in this life but in other lives as well.

  The knowledge of it was overwhelming; so enormous that it blocked out emotion. He did not feel joy. He did not feel apprehension. She was thousands of miles away and he was a fugitive, and just how they would ever manage to find themselves face to face was a mystery. But for now the act of knowing was enough. It was everything.

  He sat there for hours watching the dark water swirling, the waves capped with foam. Above his head the stars were scattered crazily across a windblown sky. His clothes became clammy and the mist chilled his skin. But he could not bring himself to leave.

  There was the merest glint of pink against the horizon when he finally returned to his house. And as he laid himself down to sleep, he immediately sank into deep and total oblivion. He slept as soundly as he had ever slept, his body hardly moving, his breathing slow.

  But inside the palms of his hands were maps of time and place. Behind his eyelids pulsed a knowledge of many lives and deep in his unconscious he sensed ancient forces at work. The massive shifting of tectonic plates. Mountains forming, oceans expanding. Erosion, flood and searing wind. Forces at work a billion years ago; forces that will be at work a billion years hence. Birth, rebirth. A never-ending cycle.

  SIXTEEN

  THE ROOM in which Justine found herself was conventional in the extreme. Glazed chintz sofas, doilies on the armrests, old-fashioned lace curtains, a china figurine of a dancing shepherdess on the coffee table. No books, only a leather-bound Bible on one of the side tables.

  The only extraordinary piece of furniture in that room was the mirror hanging above the fireplace. It was enormous; a confection of silver, ivory, and mother-of-pearl with two fat angels carved from wood arranged on either side and holding garlands of flowers and fruit in their chubby fists. The mirror was old. Chemical decay had attacked its face.

  She brought her eyes back to the woman sitting opposite her. Harriet Buchanan, older sister of Adam Buchanan and the previous owner of Paradine Park. She had taken Reverend Wyatt’s advice and had tracked down Harriet on the internet. It hadn’t been difficult.

  The girl in the painting at Paradine Park had been young and slightly tomboyish in appearance. The woman facing her was stodgy. Dressed in a lavender twinset and beige shoes, she looked every inch the matron. Her grey hair was fastened in a tight roll behind her head. She had seed pearls in her earlobes and resting against an ample breast was a small watch-face hanging upside down from a gold-plated ribbon. Her face was unlined—round as a digestive biscuit—but there was something about the set of the tiny mouth that hinted at an inflexible personality, and her eyes were without warmth.

  Justine smiled at her and took a sip of tea. ‘These are lovely cups,’ she said as she placed the thin, gold-rimmed porcelain cup back in its saucer.

  Harriet Buchanan nodded. ‘I inherited them. My great-grandmother received the set as a wedding gift. And I’ve been fortunate. There have been remarkably few breakages. I still have twenty-eight cups left from a set of thirty-two.’ She somehow made it sound as though this extraordinary circumstance had been brought about by strength of character alone.

  ‘You brought these with you from Paradine Park?’

  ‘Yes.’ A sigh. ‘I did not bring many things with me. They would hardly fit the cottage. A few bits and pieces. This mirror, of course.’

  ‘I’ve been admiring it. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It was my mother’s favourite possession.’ For a moment something flickered behind her eyes. ‘It used to hang above her bed. It looked wonderful in that room; the proportions were right for it. In here it looks a little out of place, but I could not bring myself to part with it.’

  Justine fiddled with the spoon in her cup. ‘With the house empty, it’s difficult to know which of the rooms is the master bedroom.’

  ‘Third bedroom on the right to the front,’ came the immediate answer. ‘But you’re right, the rooms are all so evenly sized, any one could have filled the purpose.’

  The third bedroom on the right to the front. That was the room with the large Chinese vase on the mantelpiece and the bathroom with the taps sculpted like fish. She had walked into that room several times. She had taken pictures of it, sensing nothing amiss. But a woman had taken her own life in that room. Had placed a shotgun against her face and had shot her head off. This mirror, hanging above the bed, had probably reflected the entire bloody mess. She glanced at it, shivered.

  Harriet Buchanan leaned back in her chair. ‘So, you would like to photograph the house for a book.’

  ‘Yes. I know you’ve sold the house recently, but as it’s been in your family for such a long time, I thought it would only be right if I checked with you first. But I hope you won’t have any objections. It’s an extremely photogenic house. A lovely place.’

  ‘It is that.’ A tinge of nostalgia softened the tiny mouth. ‘I photographed it myself when I was younger. I had plans to write a history of the house. But I never got that far. I only took the pictures.’

  ‘I’m actually using your old darkroom at the moment.’

  ‘You are?’ She smiled, genuine pleasure lighting her eyes for the first time. ‘I spent many happy hours there. Of course,’ she smoothed the fabric of her skirt across her knee, ‘that was many years ago.’

  Justine hesitated. ‘When you took pictures of the house, did you… have you… was there anything unusual about them?’

  ‘Such as?’ Raised eyebrows.

  ‘Oh, you know. Anything. Any strange pictures, wild images?’

  ‘Wild images?’ The tone of her voice suggested that she found the idea incomprehensible, if not p
ositively distasteful. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Justine made a self-deprecating gesture with her hand. ‘It’s just that since I started photographing the house, I seem to have more flawed pictures than normal. Almost as if there’s a jinx.’ She laughed but received not a glimmer of a smile in return.

  ‘Well, I can assure you I never had any problems. As a matter of fact, if you’re interested I can show you my photographs.’

  ‘Please.’ Justine nodded. ‘I’d love to see them.’

  The photographs were excruciatingly self-conscious. Weird angles, odd close-ups. And despite the deliberate attempts at creativity, the pictures were devoid of imagination.

  There were many of them. An entire box full. Still, it was interesting to see what the place had looked like furnished. In contrast to her daughter’s bland taste, Louisa Buchanan’s taste had run to the exotic. Lots of velvet, gilt and tasselled cushions. And, of course, the mirrors. Even in these pictures there was no escaping their presence. Justine had hoped to catch a glimpse of the occupants of the house—of him—but no such luck. These pictures were ‘arty’ and obviously not meant for the family album.

  As Harriet extracted yet another pile of photographs from the yellow box, she suddenly made an annoyed, clicking noise with her tongue. The reason for her irritation seemed to be a snapshot: a head-and-shoulders picture of a woman.

  ‘I don’t know where this came from.’ She placed it on the coffee table and pushed it away from her.

  ‘What a lovely face.’ Justine picked up the photograph. The woman in the picture had a wistful smile, wide green eyes and long red hair. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘That’s Pascaline. My brother’s wife.’

  Justine felt her heart miss a beat. He was married? For a moment she felt as though she couldn’t breathe.

  She strove to keep her voice normal. ‘Pascaline. It’s an unusual name.’

  ‘She’s French.’ Harriet’s voice was grim. ‘Richard met her in Paris.’

  Richard. Pascaline had been married to Richard. Not Adam. Of course; the newspaper clippings had mentioned a widow. She felt almost lightheaded with relief. But why? Why the hell should she care?

  Something must have shown in her face because Harriet suddenly slammed the lid of the box shut. She turned to face Justine directly, her eyes cold. ‘Are you a reporter?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A reporter. Is that what this is about? You people. You just can’t leave it alone, can you? It’s been nine years, for God’s sake.’

  Justine made a time-out gesture with her hand. ‘Please, Miss Buchanan, I assure you I am not a reporter. I’m a photojournalist, yes, but I do not specialise in scandal. Although I have, of course, heard of the tragedy. Reverend Wyatt was the one who told me.’

  ‘Reverend Wyatt?’

  ‘Yes.’ Which was stretching the truth a little, but she didn’t think it would go down well if she told Harriet Buchanan she had heard the juicy bits after gossiping with the gardener and a librarian.

  And indeed, the good reverend’s name worked like a charm. As she mentioned his name, she could see the woman visibly relax.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Harriet touched her lips with a handkerchief. ‘But it is still so upsetting. You have no idea how people talked. Socially, it’s been a nightmare.’

  ‘I’m sure it must have been very difficult.’

  Harriet pushed the handkerchief into the sleeve of her suit. She suddenly placed her hand on Justine’s. It was so totally unexpected that Justine had difficulty stopping herself from pulling away.

  ‘People say terrible things, Ms Callaway, but I’m sure Reverend Wyatt told you we were a good family.’

  ‘Of course.’ The hand on hers was clammy and cold. She felt embarrassed and suddenly the only thing she wanted to do was to get away from this woman, who was now leaning toward her, bringing her face too close to her own. Something in Harriet’s eyes told her she was about to share a confidence. But even though she had travelled here today with the express purpose of finding out everything she could, she suddenly didn’t want to hear any more. But the grip on her hand tightened.

  ‘A good family, Ms Callaway. But one bad apple. You know how it is. It was my brother Adam, you see. He was the thorn in our side. His jealousy destroyed us.’

  ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘He knew he could not compete with my brother, Richard. Richard was a wonderful man, Ms Callaway.’ The tone of her voice almost shockingly flirtatious. ‘So handsome, too. I wish you could have known him. And he was close to his family. He and my mother—it was a delight to watch them together.’

  Justine watched in fascination as the tip of a pink tongue—quick as a snake’s—darted across her lower lip. ‘You cannot believe how different two brothers can be. Even as a child Adam was a troublemaker. He got into fights at school, you know. He was always getting into fights.’ The tongue darted out again. ‘After the funerals I burned all his pictures. I did not keep even one. He was a blight on the family. I wanted nothing around that could remind me of him.’

  ‘And this one,’ she gestured with her hand to the photograph of Pascaline. ‘She should never have married Richard. She wasn’t worth his old shoes. She could not even be bothered to attend his funeral. The witch.’ The words exploded like bullets. The ferocity on her face was frightening.

  Justine found her voice. ‘Have you kept in touch? Did she go back to France?’

  A snort. ‘Oh, no. Madam now lives in Knightsbridge, no less. Where did she get the money, that’s what I want to know. And she kept Richard’s name, heaven knows why.’

  For a few moments it was quiet. Then Harriet picked up the photograph and tapped it against the side of the coffee table. The sound was tiny but vicious. ‘She and Adam.’ Tap, tap. ‘I always thought there was something there.’ Tap, tap.

  She turned her round eyes to Justine. ‘I couldn’t be sure, but I sensed it. I’m never wrong about these things, and it would be just like Adam. He probably would have enjoyed cheating with his brother’s wife. Oh, yes indeed. That is just the kind of thing he would enjoy.’

  • • •

  WHEN JUSTINE finally managed to leave the cottage it felt to her as though the clammy imprint of Harriet Buchanan’s hand was still on her wrist. She gulped fresh air into her lungs.

  There was a telephone box right across the street and she could see a battered telephone directory of great age dangling from a chain. But here it was: Buchanan, P., 27 Pelham Close, SW7.

  For a few moments she hesitated, debating whether to call. What would she say? Pascaline Buchanan would probably just hang up on her. The chance of actually getting to talk to the woman might be greater if she gave her no advance warning. So maybe the best solution would be to simply turn up on her doorstep.

  She looked at her watch. Knightsbridge. That meant at least another thirty minutes of driving and the Brompton Road in rush hour. Well, it couldn’t be helped. She was probably going to get a door slammed in her face, but what the heck. She could but try.

  • • •

  BUT THE DOOR was not slammed in her face. Quite the opposite. From the moment Pascaline Buchanan opened the front door of her house and the two women looked at each other, they shared a connection. And for someone who was probably striving to put the events of a terrible time behind her, Pascaline was astoundingly forthcoming. She accepted without censure Justine’s interest as though it was the most natural thing in the world to discuss a personal tragedy with a woman she had never met before.

  Pascaline’s face was still recognisably the same face as the one in the snapshot. Her hair was as red and there was about her that same air of fragility and wistfulness. But there were deep lines running across her forehead and a web of tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. She spoke fluent English, but her words carried a strong, albeit very appealing, French inflection.

  She was now talking about Louisa Buchanan.

  ‘Louisa was extraordina
rily vain. She did not give that impression, but her beauty was everything to her.’

  ‘She was blonde.’

  ‘Yes, very fair. Like Richard. I still find it amazing to think that she placed a gun in her mouth and blew her lovely face apart. Poison, yes, that I would have been able to understand. So she could die looking beautiful, like La Dame aux Camélias.’

  ‘Richard looked a lot like her?’

  ‘Oh yes. And they were two of a kind. They shared the same kind of self-love.’ Pascaline’s voice was calm but there was a trace of bitterness in her eyes.

  ‘Everyone I’ve spoken to says Richard was a charming man.’

  ‘Charming?’ A very Gallic shrug. ‘Yes. He could be if he so chose.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But he was vain and shallow. And cruel.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Cruel in every sense of the word. He was good at manipulating people; finding their soft spot—their most shameful secret—and exploiting it. It gave him a sense of power. And he beat me.’

  For a moment Justine thought she hadn’t heard right.

  ‘He beat you? You mean he was physically abusive?’

  ‘But of course.’

  It was quiet. The only sound was the twitter of two white budgies in a wrought-iron cage hanging from the conservatory ceiling. Pascaline was smiling ruefully.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Tant pis.’ Pascaline leaned forward suddenly, keeping her eyes locked with Justine’s. ‘But you’re not here because of Richard. You want to know about Adam.’

  Justine hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Adam was not cruel, no. He was easily angered, yes, and he was too quick with his fists—but never cruel. And he was no match for Richard. Richard knew exactly what to do to make Adam lose his temper. He hated Adam and he knew which buttons to push. Even as children. You know what he did once? He told me, he was laughing. Adam had these pet bunnies when he was a child. With these rabbits, the males need to be kept apart or they’ll kill each other. So Richard thought it would be fun to throw them together to see what happened. The next morning, Adam found the animals with their stomachs ripped apart. Nice, yes?’