by Tina Seskis
‘I, er, I’ll sleep in the spare room if you like,’ he said. ‘For the time being.’
‘Yes, that would be good. Thanks.’
Jemma went and sat back down on the low leather sofa, which had never been comfortable anyway, and thought how, if they did split up, she wouldn’t miss it. She even considered taking a carving knife to it, as if it were skin, to let out the tension, but she wouldn’t, of course. She wondered where she would live if her gamble failed to pay off. She couldn’t go to her dad’s as he and Kay wouldn’t want her, although they’d never put it as starkly as that. It would all be about there not being room, and how Totteridge was too far from her job, and that it would be a terrible commute for her. There was always Sasha, who had a spare room and a whole heap of empathy, as ever, but Jemma didn’t want to burden her friend, or risk unbalancing Sasha’s relationship with Martin. So, ‘Spare Room’ it would be, then.
Jemma’s mind was so vacant now it was as if it had been flushed of feelings. She had taken back control at last. Ironically, her destiny was finally in her own hands, one way or the other, and she was glad. It felt good in a way. She went to the bathroom, took off her make-up, brushed her teeth until the spittle ran red, removed the delicate necklace he’d bought her last Christmas (and as she’d opened its box, had been convinced was a ring) and put it carefully, wordlessly, next to the tap. Jamie was obviously agitated by her actions, and he didn’t know what to say, what to do. Neither of them knew how to handle it, but when Jemma crept from their bedroom in the early hours, ostensibly to get a glass of water, or perhaps to launch herself at him, she found that he had gone. He was not in the spare room after all, nor watching TV on the leather couch. He’d just left a note saying he was sorry, and that he’d be in touch soon.
37
Now
The British police have taken over the sanatorium, and at last they’re about to officially interview me. In the buggy on the way over we chat as politely as if we were on the way to Manager’s Cocktails. None of us refers to my recent yoga practice. I still wonder why it’s taken them so long to speak to me, but I try not to over-analyze it. Trepidation laps at me like the ever-advancing waves of an incoming tide.
Detective Constable Simpson and his colleague are youngish, and excited, although they try to hide it. Once we are all seated and they have gone through the formal stuff, they announce that they have some news. I stare mutely at them, terrified at what they’re about to tell me. I feel so alone suddenly, and someone might as well have garrotted me, chopped me up, the ache in my gut is so intense, and I long to know what’s causing it. I sit on my hands, to be sure they don’t betray me.
‘Do you know Pascal Anais, the marine biologist here?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. Jamie and I went on a snorkelling trip with him.’
‘Do you know his sister, Camille Anais?’
The name is familiar, but my mind is fuddled. ‘No.’
‘Are you sure? She worked with your husband in Deutsche Bank.’
Of course! Camille, Jamie’s boss, until just a few months ago. The one who used to be a slavedriver, emailing him day and night, even that time we went to Amalfi. The one who went to the same gym as him, even though Jamie had insisted that loads of people from work went there. The one I became so jealous of. I picture her now. Slim. Groomed. Gorgeous. What did Camille have to do with all this? Pascal, sexy louche Pascal, is her brother?
‘It seems Camille was the last person Jamie tried to contact before his disappearance. We have traced the calls made from the phone in your bungalow.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say, or what to think.
‘We have interviewed Mr Anais, and he claims not to have seen Jamie since the afternoon of the day he disappeared.’ They pause, as though I’m meant to interject here, say something helpful.
‘Uh-huh,’ I manage. The silence goes on and on. There’s just the gentle rustle of the palms, reminding us of the discordance of the conversation, here on my honeymoon. ‘What a coincidence.’
‘Now, that’s just it, Mrs Armstrong.’ I grimace at the name, and it makes me think of Veronica. ‘It seems that it isn’t a coincidence.’ They pause again. Detective Constable Simpson has a wide, round face, and he looks so baby-innocent, it belies what he’s saying, the accusations he appears to be making. It doesn’t help that he’s wearing shorts.
‘I, I don’t understand,’ I say. I’m struggling to keep up, but the fact is I don’t much care what they’re trying to imply. I just care about what they think has happened to my husband.
‘Mrs Armstrong, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but do you know why your husband would be contacting Ms Anais on his honeymoon?’ I can feel them watching me closely, forensically, for my reaction.
‘No,’ I say, at last. The word feels very small, as if it has been dropped out of a plane, into the ocean. I want to tell them that it’s OK, that that’s the least of my worries, but a survival instinct kicks in from somewhere, and I force myself to be quiet.
‘We think there may be a link to your husband’s disappearance,’ says DC Simpson now.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Mr Anais has access to the resort’s boats. It is possible that he helped Jamie get off the island.’
I am so astonished I just gape at them, my mouth a round hole that the words have fallen into. Is he suggesting that Jamie really has disappeared on purpose? That Pascal helped him? I start to cry, with relief that maybe they think he isn’t dead after all, and they take it to mean I’m distraught about what he may or may not have been doing with Camille, which I suppose is no bad thing.
‘That’s ludicrous,’ I say at last. ‘Why would my husband want to do that? It’s just so far-fetched.’ I cough, and the bile I drag up is bitter and stringy, like seaweed. ‘Surely it’s more likely that he’s …’ I struggle to even say it. ‘… That he’s drowned?’ No-one says anything, so I plough on. ‘When would you expect him to be found?’ They just stare at me, and it’s clear I’ve made an error. ‘Er, if that is what has happened, of course?’
‘Well, that’s just it, Mrs Armstrong,’ says DC Simpson. ‘We’ve been talking to the Maldivian police about this. If your husband has drowned, the body could wash up on any one of the hundreds of islands here. It could be years, if ever, before anyone finds it.’
It seems DC Simpson doesn’t have the same sensibilities as me, and I wince at the word body, at the thought of my husband, so full of life, devoid of it, lying abandoned somewhere with only the sun to cook him, the maggots to eat him. How will we ever know? Will we ever know? It seems that drowned people are hard to find in this most dispersed and sparsely populated of countries.
I have managed to just about compose my thoughts now, and I have to know. ‘Are you honestly saying that you think Jamie might still be alive?’ I say. ‘That he might have absconded? On purpose?’
‘Yes, it does sound rather unlikely, I must admit, but we are looking into it as one possibility.’ DC Simpson pauses again. It seems the other one doesn’t speak, and I wonder why they needed to send two of them.
‘Mrs Armstrong, at the risk of sounding intrusive, how was your honeymoon?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, were you enjoying it?’
They know. I struggle to compose myself. The silent one looks alert suddenly, and I can sense the shift in him. Of course it has occurred to them. I could have done it. If only I could recall what I’d blurted out to Chrissy during our drunken, rampageous evening, on the very same night that my husband vanished. I still can’t remember exactly. I still can’t work out what Chrissy’s capable of.
‘Mrs Armstrong? I said, how was your honeymoon?’
‘Um, well, it was fine.’
‘Fine. That’s a very strange word to use.’ The other one has spoken at last, and I am reminded of a fisherman with a spear. The baby-faced one casts the bait, and the silent one stays still, his weapon primed. And then he pounces.
/> I’m not sure what to say. I say nothing. I begin thinking whether I should be asking for a solicitor. The world has gone mad, taking my sanity with it.
‘Mrs Armstrong? I was asking about your honeymoon?’
‘It … it was good. I mean, it’s so beautiful here. How could it not be?’
‘We have reports from some of the other guests that you and Mr Armstrong didn’t seem very happy together. That’s rather strange, on a honeymoon, don’t you think?’ There he goes again, the thin, quiet one, in the loud floral shirt.
I need to think fast.
‘Well, it’s true that I’ve been feeling a bit unwell. Apart from that it was fine.’
‘Apparently you had an argument on the night your husband vanished. Is that right?’
Shit. Yet how could I have hoped to get away with it? I wonder who told them. I try to keep my tone neutral. ‘Well, we did have a bit of a row, it’s true, but what couple doesn’t?’
They don’t bother answering that. Instead they just stare at me, unblinking. I’m floundering. I decide to plunge onwards, in the absence of any other choice. And anyway, no-one knows what was really going on in our relationship. (Except Chrissy, who I’m ninety-nine per cent sure I told. Except Dad, who guessed, I think. Except Dan, who has now arrived on the island. This is a mess.)
‘It’s just that I’ve been feeling very odd, and sick, and —’ I stop. I can’t face voicing my suspicion after all, under these most dreadful of circumstances. I might not be pregnant anyway, and besides, it’s none of their business. ‘… And I, I’ve had rather an upset stomach … I think it might be something I’ve eaten.’
I look down at my knees, push them together. The two policemen look impassive, and I wish I could remember the thin one’s name. Still I wonder whether I’ll get away with this. What has Chrissy said to them? Has she kept quiet, or not?
‘I see,’ says DC Simpson.
‘And so of course I’m upset if he’s deliberately done this, if he’s disappeared on purpose. We’ve just got married. It seems too improbable, too unbelievable – too much to take in.’ I raise my voice a couple of decibels, and I am not putting it on. ‘And at the end of the day, my husband is missing!’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Armstrong,’ says DC Simpson. Have I done and said enough?
‘Can I go now?’ I say, as I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.
DC Simpson seems unsure whether to let me. There’s another awkward pause, but then I start to stand up anyway.
‘There’s one more thing,’ cuts in the thin one. ‘You’re aware, of course, that we found his mask and snorkel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we’ve also found his dive torch.’
‘Oh?’
‘In a drawer in your bungalow.’
I say nothing.
‘How many dive torches did you have, Mrs Armstrong?’
‘Two.’
‘Yes, that’s what we found. Now, why would your husband go night-snorkelling without a torch?’
I’m quiet for a trifle too long. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Unless someone meant us to find the mask,’ he says. He looks pleased with himself, as if this is a game and he’s just put me into check, with checkmate imminent.
Again, I have no idea how to respond. I choose to say nothing, and my eyes grow wider as the silence expands, letting in the dulcet jungle noises through the open window. Everything feels light and bright, bleaching out to blankness.
‘Is that it for now?’ I say at last. ‘Can I go?’
‘Yes,’ says the quiet one. ‘Although we’ll need to talk to you again.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I know you’re only doing your job, but, honestly, it’s all such a shock. I can’t bear to think what might have happened.’
I stand up, and my pretty sundress is incongruous amidst this inference of dark deeds, done by me, or Jamie, or perhaps someone else altogether, or maybe by the great mysterious forces of the sea. Who knows? I am longing for a drink, and I wish I could call Chrissy, ask her to come over. But I can hardly drink cocktails any more, and certainly not with her. It seems everyone might suspect me now, and it is devastating.
Again, I try not to think it, but the person I want to speak to most at the moment is Dan, if only to make sure I get my story straight. I daren’t risk it, of course. We are both locked in a private Venn diagram of purgatory, and it’s hard to tell where there’s an overlap.
I move towards the door. ‘Thanks,’ I say, although no-one knows what for. My legs weaken as the nausea returns, and I stumble a little, yet I manage to steady myself before leaving the room. Outside, the leaf-filtered sunlight fails to permeate my psyche. Everything feels devoid of colour, like an over-exposed photograph. I refuse the smiley porter’s offer of a lift and start making my way back towards my bungalow. As I traipse along the path through the paleness of the trees, I see someone coming from the other direction, and from his distinctive gait I can tell it’s my husband, come back at last, and my knees go soft in a way that I had no idea knees could do.
And then I realize that it’s not Jamie at all, but his slightly taller, slightly stockier, slightly moodier brother. We can’t avoid each other, like we couldn’t at our first meeting, in a London pub on a rain-swept night, seven years and a world away. I don’t know what I should say. I don’t want to compromise either of us. Between us is a yawning gap of silence, of the unspoken.
‘Dan,’ I say, at last. I speak formally, sombrely. ‘I’m so sorry about Jamie.’
He looks at me now, and his eyes are impossible to read. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘It must be awful for you.’ It’s like we’re reading from a terrible film script.
I lower my voice to a whisper. It might be my only chance to see what he’s thinking, without his dreadful mother sniffing around. ‘The police think he might have absconded. That one of the guys at the dive centre helped him.’
‘I know,’ Dan says. He has a peculiar expression on his face, and his eyes are searing into mine. It’s hard to look at him.
‘I almost wish he had,’ I continue, twisting my left flip-flop into the sand, studying the indent I’m making. ‘I’d rather that, than the thought of him lying dead and alone somewhere …’ My voice tails off. And then I look up at Dan, and start again. ‘But, unless he has done it deliberately, which seems too incredible, what other outcome is there now?’
I can tell that Dan’s thinking about the snorkel, and what a strong swimmer I am, and how Jamie wasn’t particularly confident in the sea. I’m sure he’s thinking his ex-lover, his new sister-in-law, might be a murderer, and it seems I am forever tainted in his eyes. I try not to blame him.
And then I remember that this might all be Dan’s fault anyway, and suddenly I hate him for it, almost want to run at him. How dare he be standing there, when Jamie is not, with that weird, ambivalent curl to his lip? I can’t trust myself to do or say anything further, and so I force my anger inwards and march straight past him, without looking back, even when I hear him call my name, and the only saving grace is that he doesn’t follow me. But now we are both lost souls on this island of secrets, and in the silence of my room the sense of foreboding grows and grows, until it is fizzing and fermenting, and horrendous.
38
A year or so earlier
A week had passed since Jemma had given her ultimatum, but she hadn’t heard from Jamie. She was determined not to ring him – she had laid down her gauntlet, and now it was up to him. Jemma still felt spookily calm, in control at last, even though she knew that the longer his silence went on, the less probable their staying together was. She was busy at work, having been put on a new residential development in Morocco, and she was enjoying it. And at least with Jamie temporarily gone from his own flat she was able to imagine what living without him would be like, and it felt OK. There had been something about waiting for him to propose that had infused virtually every situation with angst lately, had dialled up every single one of her o
verwrought tendencies, all of his defensive ones. Sasha had been right. It couldn’t have gone on forever. She might have ended up killing him.
Jemma finished checking the project’s mood boards, which were a satisfying blend of neutrals with a single pop of deepest magenta, and sat back in her chair. All she needed to do now was the fee proposal, and she’d be ready for the meeting in Marrakesh the following day. She was proud that not only did she get to go to the overseas project meetings now, she was also running them on this job. She’d come a long way since the early days of being a stroppy little trainee, before she’d met Dan, had benefitted from his calming influence.
Dan. Jemma had tried not to think about him these past few years, but she wondered now what he was up to. She’d heard from Jamie that he and Lydia were getting married. Was that partly why she, Jemma, had given Jamie an ultimatum? No, she was being ludicrous. Dan had nothing to do with it.
Her mobile rang. It was Jamie. Her heart felt like it would stop, and she could barely breathe.
‘Hello,’ she said, as she got up from her desk and walked the long, sleek length of the office towards the exit. Her heels clicked busily on the herringbone oak floor.
‘Hi, it’s me. Can we meet?’
‘Sure. When?’
‘Now? I’m round the corner.’
Jemma felt wrong-footed. She had to get this work done, and if he told her it was over she would definitely have to go straight home and cry her eyes out. But if he was going to dump her, surely he wouldn’t have been so mean as to doorstep her at work to do it?
‘OK,’ she said at last.
‘I’m in the tapas bar,’ he said. ‘Hurry up.’
Jamie was sitting at a table in the corner, looking tired and anxious. His eyes had dark circles around them, and she felt for him suddenly, that she’d forced him into this. She sat down across from him. There was a natural-coloured linen tablecloth placed diagonally on the distressed wooden table, and the menu was printed on a sheet of brown paper, with prices that were just single numbers. A tortilla was ‘6’, which she thought was extortionate. She didn’t usually come here.