And So It Begins

by Rachel Abbott

Mark’s gone now. He spent most of yesterday looking for an excuse to stay at home with us. He’s not comfortable doing what he calls ‘sucking up to the rich guys’ and, although he’s no longer the recluse he was, he still doesn’t enjoy it.

  This afternoon I am supposed to be on duty at the charity where I volunteer. It’s my turn to man the phones. I haven’t been for weeks because I couldn’t drive, and today I’m going to have to cry off again. I feel guilty, but I know I’m doing the right thing. I’m going to have to call Harriet to make an excuse.

  The first time I saw Harriet James she was on the local news, standing outside a courtroom speaking on behalf of a client. A slight woman with sleek dark hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, her brown eyes shone with fervour as she explained why the judge had made the wrong decision. There was an intensity about Harriet that silenced those around her and I was so impressed with the way she spoke that I looked her up online. Learning that she was heavily involved in charity work, I offered my services, although I’ve not told Mark the detail of what I do.

  Right now, though, I need to ring her and apologise yet again.

  ‘Hi, Harriet,’ I say when she answers my call.

  ‘Hello, Evie – how are you doing? We’ve missed you. How’s the hand?’

  Harriet sounds as brisk and efficient as always, and I imagine her looking at her watch, wondering how long this is going to take. She cares, but she has so many people to care about and not enough hours in the day.

  ‘It’s okay. The plaster’s off, but I’m not quite up to coming in this afternoon. I’m supposed to be on duty at three, and I’m so sorry to let you down.’

  Harriet’s tone changes. She can hear something in my voice and suddenly she has all the time in the world.

  ‘What’s up? I can tell from your voice that something’s wrong. What is it?’

  ‘I’m okay, Harriet. Please don’t worry about me.’ I can hear the break in my voice and know that she heard it too.

  ‘Do you want me to come over? Are you on your own?’

  I sniff. ‘Honestly, I’m fine. I’ve got Lulu here and I think I just need to be with her today.’

  ‘Look, I’m not going to push you if you don’t want to talk to me. But I’m used to keeping confidences. It goes with the job, so if you change your mind you know how to get hold of me. Night or day, Evie.’ She pauses for a moment to see if I have anything to say, but my silence says it all. ‘I’ll call tomorrow to see how you are. Take care, Evie, won’t you?’

  I end the call feeling bad about Harriet, but knowing I had no choice. I couldn’t let her see me today.

  Lulu’s having a nap and I’ll hear her on the monitor if she wakes up, so I wander into the kitchen, looking for something to occupy my hands in the vain hope that by default my mind will be occupied too. I was supposed to be seeing Aminah for a quick lunch here, and then she was going to have Lulu for me this afternoon so I could go to the shelter. I’ve left a message on her mobile, telling her not to come. I wonder for a moment what she will make of that, and of my tone of voice. She won’t have missed it, though. Like Harriet, she’s too smart.

  My mind drifts back to the night before. Mark had decided to go to bed and I promised to follow him soon. But that wasn’t good enough – he wanted me with him. It was the night before a trip, and he said he wanted us to be close. He must have doubted that I would keep my promise, so he waited until I relented.

  I knew he would want to make love – it is part of the ritual. Immediately before he leaves, and immediately he comes back from a trip, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to comply and my withdrawal has become a serious issue between us. Before his last trip my refusal to surrender to his passion was painful for us both. But how can I? It’s asking too much. It breaks my heart.

  ‘Making love to you is something to think about when I’m away and on my own,’ he said when I asked him why he has to be so predictable. ‘I’m scared that when I come back you’ll be gone, so each time it feels like it could be our last time together.’

  It’s not clear whether he thinks I will leave, or whether he thinks that – like Mia – I will die.

  ‘When I come back,’ he said, ‘it’s as if I’m repossessing you – claiming you back as my own. Then I feel calm again.’

  I sometimes try to break him out of his routines, but I’m always met with obdurate resistance.

  ‘Doing things a certain way gives me a sense of security. As long as I – no, we – stick to the rules, we’ll be okay. That’s how it feels.’

  Trying to prove a point just before he leaves for a trip is guaranteed to do nothing more than wind us both up, so I let it go. Despite everything I strangely find myself understanding him. I know that his head is full of disconnected ideas that vie for dominance, and while most of us try to curb the excesses of our thoughts and manage our emotions, as an artist Mark feels he has to let them roam free. His need for rules is his way of keeping his feelings in check, and last night had been no different from the others.

  He wrapped his arms around me and spoke softly. ‘Evie, I want you to have something to remember me by when I’m away. You can’t have it now, though. You’ll have to wait until morning. Now all I want is you.’

  I could hear the smile in his voice and knew he was excited about what was to come – another part of the ritual, and one that was supposed to fill me with anticipation.

  The front doorbell rings fifteen minutes after I had expected Aminah to arrive for lunch, and in spite of the text I sent I know she’s the one pressing repeatedly on the buzzer. She will have ignored my message telling her not to come because she’ll want to know why I cancelled, and will want to ask me to my face. If I’m ill, she’ll want to help.

  But I’m not going to let her in.

  She presses the bell long and hard, and I can imagine her irritation that I’m not answering. Then the phone rings and I don’t answer that either. Any minute now she’ll wake Lulu and I need her to stay sleeping. Maybe Aminah will go away, but I doubt it.

  I stand in the kitchen by the tall, narrow window that runs from floor to ceiling. It looks out over the garden to the side of the house, and although not as spectacular as the sea view, I enjoy looking at the well-kept grass and the plants, especially the bulbs as they push their bright green heads through the sandy soil in spring or the roses as they burst with buds in the early summer.

  The side garden is protected from public view by the house on one side, the sea on another and the high white wall that curves round in a semi-circle to enclose the land. Set into the wall and protruding into the garden is a garage big enough for three cars, its white walls covered with clematis and honeysuckle.

  I continue to stare out of the window. I’m not going to answer the door however many time she rings the bell or calls my mobile.

  After five minutes she stops and Lulu starts to cry. I need to go to her. But not yet. She might settle again.

  I stare sightlessly out of the window, not focusing on anything as my mind takes me back to just before Mark left. It’s a moment before I realise that Aminah is in the garden. She must have come through the garage and out through the garden door. She’s gesticulating wildly at me, pointing at her phone.

  I turn fractionally towards her and for once she is struck dumb. She stops her march towards the house, and lowers the hand holding the phone. Her eyes open wide as she stares at me. After no more than two or three seconds I pull the blind down to hide my face from her.

  I know she’s seen it, though. Seen the blue and angry red skin around my right eye.

  14

  Cleo was in full flow, eulogising about one of Marcus North’s latest local landscapes to a potential customer, when she heard the discreet ping indicating that someone else had come into the gallery.

  She turned her head to smile at the newcomer and was surprised to see it was Aminah, and she wasn’t returning the smile. Cleo’s momentary lack of focus as she gave her friend a questioning look proba
bly lost her the customer. His head swivelled towards the door too, following Cleo’s gaze, and it diverted his attention away from the photograph.

  ‘I’m going to think about it,’ he said with a smile, placing his hand on his wife’s waist as he guided her towards the door.

  Cleo was frustrated. Another few minutes and she would have had him, she was certain. It wasn’t Aminah’s fault, though. She looked worried.

  ‘Sorry,’ Aminah said as the door closed behind the potential customers.

  Cleo resisted the sigh that she felt building. ‘Don’t worry about it. It would have been great to sell a picture, though. I seem to have lost the knack somehow. Anyway, what are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were going to Evie’s for lunch and then having Lulu?’ Aminah was being unusually silent and hadn’t interrupted Cleo once.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Aminah said.

  ‘Of course. I can’t guarantee an answer, because it depends on the question, but ask away.’ She smiled to let her friend know that she wasn’t serious.

  Aminah paused as if considering her question.

  ‘Do you think Mark has anger issues?’

  Cleo wasn’t expecting that.

  ‘Why the hell are you asking me that? Why would you even think that?’

  ‘It’s not a hard question.’

  Cleo was quiet. There was something going on here – something Aminah wasn’t saying.

  ‘No.’ She didn’t feel the need to elaborate but she gave the word more force than it needed.

  ‘Don’t bite my head off, Cleo. I had to ask.’

  ‘Why, though? Have you seen him losing it, or something? Has Evie been telling lies about him?’

  Aminah’s face was showing nothing, which was unusual to say the least. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  ‘That incident – years ago when you were kids. You always said Mark had nothing to do with it, but were you covering for him?’

  Cleo knew straight away the incident that Aminah was referring to. It was long before the two fifteen-year-old girls had become friends but it had been a well-known story locally – one that Cleo refused to think about. She closed her mind to the sound of gulls screeching overhead, of waves lashing onto the sea wall and of a long piercing scream.

  ‘Don’t go there, Aminah. It had nothing to do with Mark, but you need to tell me what this is about.’

  Aminah was silent again, biting the inside of her cheek as if pondering what to do.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to tell you. I’m sorry I asked. Let’s just forget it.’

  ‘Absolutely not! You can’t accuse my brother of something and then not explain where you’re getting your ridiculous notions from.’ Cleo knew she was over-reacting, and could see a puzzled look in Aminah’s eyes. But she couldn’t help herself. ‘Has Evie said something? He should never have let her move in with him.’

  Aminah gave her friend a half smile. ‘I wasn’t accusing him, and if I remember rightly Evie resisted the move for quite a while. She was six months pregnant before she finally relented.’

  That was true. Evie said that Mark hadn’t suggested a long-term relationship before she unexpectedly fell pregnant. Therefore she wasn’t going to force him to commit to her and the child. In the end he’d had to convince her it was what he really wanted.

  ‘Yes, but that was then. Look, if Evie’s suggesting that he’s hurt her in some way…’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to her, so she’s suggested nothing.’

  Cleo could see there was something that Aminah wasn’t telling her, and she wasn’t sure who her friend was trying to protect.

  ‘Forget I said anything,’ Aminah said.

  ‘How can I do that?’

  ‘Because I’m not going to say any more to you or anyone until I know the facts.’

  ‘What facts? What the fuck are you talking about, Aminah?’ Cleo could feel her heart rate increase. Even though she didn’t know what had provoked her friend’s suspicions, she knew exactly what Aminah meant and couldn’t deny that a worm of doubt had popped into her own head recently – until she had forcibly rejected it. But there was no way she was going to admit to that. ‘If she tells you he’s hurt her in some way, I’ll kill her myself.’

  The expression on Aminah’s face told Cleo that this time she had gone too far. She had to make Aminah believe that she hadn’t meant it, but she was too late. Without another word, Aminah turned and walked towards the door.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, Aminah,’ Cleo said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t hurt Evie.’

  As she reached the door, Aminah cast a glance over her shoulder and Cleo could see that she didn’t believe her for a moment. And why would she?

  Cleo raised her hands to either side of her head and pressed hard, as if she could force the memory from her mind. A second was all it took – a moment of madness, a single push, a pair of eyes, round with shock, and a piercing scream that still haunted her nights.

  15

  It took Cleo all of thirty seconds to decide what to do after Aminah left. She flipped the closed sign on, grabbed her bag and her car keys, set the alarm and left the gallery at a run. She was cursing Evie under her breath, but she had to see her, to know what she had said to Aminah to make her react like that.

  The drive took a matter of minutes, and Cleo’s car skidded to a halt by the long white wall. She understood why there were no windows on this side, but right now it frustrated her. She would have loved to see Evie’s face at the unscheduled visit of her partner’s sister. Mark had asked Cleo some time ago if she would please call ahead before she visited, and since then she had never felt that she could drop by unannounced. But Mark would surely forgive her for this.

  She leapt out of the car and marched towards the front door, banging hard on the wood and pressing the bell simultaneously.

  Nothing happened. She tried again.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered, knowing Evie wasn’t going to let her in.

  She glanced towards the garage, hoping to get through to the garden that way. She stomped over to the door and rattled it, but it was locked. Giving the door a last kick for good measure, she turned back towards the house. If Evie was going to ignore her there was nothing for it – she was going to have to let herself in.

  Her mind was suddenly bombarded with images of the last time she had impulsively used her ‘emergency’ key. It had been the day that Mia died, and then she had used it not once, but twice. The first time she had entered in anger, as she was doing today, and the memory stopped her in her tracks. She needed to calm down. There could be no recurrence of that dreadful day and of all that followed.

  She pulled the key from its place of safe-keeping in her bag and inserted it in the lock. She tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t move. She tried leaning against the door in case the lock wasn’t aligned properly, but it still wouldn’t turn.

  There could be only one reason for that. The locks had been changed.

  She spun round and flung the key with force over the cliff edge onto the rocks below.

  Climbing back into her car, Cleo picked up her mobile and punched in Mark’s number, half expecting him not to answer.

  To her surprise he picked up after two rings.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  It had obviously not occurred to Mark that she might have called for a chat with her brother, but on this occasion he was right to assume something was the matter.

  ‘Have you spoken to Evie?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Not yet. I’ve only just got off the plane and I was going to call her when I arrive at the yacht – which should be in the next half hour, according to the taxi driver. Is something the matter?’

  Cleo paused for a moment. She didn’t want to say anything that might affect his chances with this commission, and if he was worried he would be unable to focus. He might even turn round and come straight home. She forced herself to breathe more slowly.


  ‘No, but I decided on impulse to call round to see her – see if she wants some company one evening while you’re away.’

  ‘Really? That doesn’t sound like you.’

  ‘Don’t be mean, Mark. I’m trying to get on with her, and I adore Lulu.’

  She heard a laugh.

  ‘Cleo, you’re not trying at all. But you don’t have to ask my permission to go and see her, you know.’

  ‘No, but she’s not answering the door. I thought maybe she was out, so I was going to pop in to leave her a note but my key doesn’t seem to be working.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘No. It won’t work. We had the locks changed.’

  She felt a hot flush of tears. Her brother had locked her out of his house. ‘Why would you do that? I’m the only other person with a key, for God’s sake.’

  ‘It’s not personal, Cleo. When I started going away for commissions after Evie moved in, she suggested that we hire one of those security firms that comes round from time to time to check everything is okay. I thought it was a good idea, and the first thing they did was change the lock to something more secure. That’s all it was.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘Sorry – it never occurred to me. Evie dealt with it all, and I only knew the lock had changed because she presented me with a key and said the security company had insisted.’

  Cleo wanted to ask him if he would give her a key now, but if he refused it would be too awful to contemplate.

  ‘What’s really going on, Cleo?’

  She was going to have to tell him something, and it came to her in a flash.

  ‘Aminah was supposed to be having Lulu while Evie went to do her charity work, but she cancelled. I thought that must mean there was something the matter, but maybe she’s gone after all and taken Lulu with her. Do you know where this place is? You know, the place she volunteers?’

  ‘No, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you. Because of the type of charity it is, she’s not supposed to let people know she’s working there. Like the Samaritans, I suppose. If people believe they might get someone they know on the other end of the line, it puts them off calling. So I know she goes, and I know she hopes she’s helping, but that’s all.’