by Kathy Shuker
‘And she liked walking. And taking picnics. There were always sausage rolls.’ He smiled. ‘She used to take us on these ridiculous hikes. Wore us all out but they were fun.’
‘Why sausage rolls - because she liked them or because you do?’
‘Because I do.’
He stopped talking and began to chew on his lip, looking away.
They sat in silence, watching a herring gull strut towards them across the beach. After a couple of minutes it moved off, disinterested, when it realised they weren’t eating.
‘How did she die, your mum?’ Harry asked suddenly. ‘Was she ill?’
Jo turned to look at him. ‘No. Mum was at a party on someone’s boat. A big fancy yacht with a load of different decks. She fell overboard. She liked to party, you see, and she’d been drinking.’
‘You mean she drowned - just like that.’
He made it sound so simple. For years she had thought about that night, relived it in her imagination a hundred different ways, wondered how it had come to that and if she could have prevented it. She didn’t find it simple at all.
‘She couldn’t swim,’ said Jo. ‘It wasn’t until the party was packing up and the last people were going to bed that someone noticed she might be missing. They couldn’t find her on board. So they raised the alarm but no-one knew how long she’d been gone. Divers went in to look for her.’
Harry stared at her, mouth open. ‘That sucks.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘What about your dad? Was he at the party too?’
‘I never knew my dad. It’s the reason I’m so close to my aunt. Eleanor gave me a home and lots of love when I needed it. That’s why I’m looking out for her now.’
He nodded, frowning.
‘Harry, the last time we met you said maybe my aunt had been pushed. Why did you say that?’
He refused to meet her eye. ‘Forget it. It was a dumb thing to say.’
‘No, come on. You must have had a reason.’
He flicked a bit of sand off his leg. ‘It was just a thought I had.’
‘But what made you think it? Were you here the night she fell?’
Harry stood up suddenly, ramming the radio in his pocket again, and walking to the water’s edge. He bent to pick up a couple of stones and skimmed one across the water. Jo went to join him.
‘It’s important, Harry. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.’
‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’
‘Of course not. Why should you?’
He didn’t answer and continued to mechanically bend and throw.
‘You promise you won’t tell anyone if I tell you?’ He wouldn’t look at her.
She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I can.’
He turned his head then and glared at her. ‘I won’t say unless you promise.’
She hesitated. ‘OK, I promise.’
He threw another stone. ‘I did see something that night. That is, I saw someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I don’t know,’ he repeated crossly. ‘I couldn’t see them clearly. ’Cause I was down here, looking up. It’s not that easy to see who it is up there. People are like dark…like…’
‘Silhouettes?’ offered Jo.
‘Exactly. And I was trying not to be seen. I kept ducking out of the way.’
‘OK. So what did you see exactly?’
‘I saw your aunt. I recognised her ’cause of the way she stands. I’ve seen her before. She’s not very big is she but she sort of stands very straight.’
He demonstrated, pulling his shoulders back, lifting his head. He had caught Eleanor’s posture perfectly.
‘And then there was some other guy there too, talking to her.’
‘A man then?’
‘I’m not sure. As soon as I saw there was someone else, I thought they might come down here so I kept back and tried to listen.’
‘Could you hear what they were saying?’
‘No. It sounded like an argument but I could only hear your aunt and no words, just sounds. The other person was further away and sort of moving around. They were quiet, then got louder, then quieter again to almost nothing which was kind of worse. It felt…like…menacing. Like that silence you get before a big thunderclap, you know - that sort of charged vacuum, and you’re just waiting…?’
There was an uneasy fear in his eyes. It was infectious.
‘So what happened then?’
‘I dunno. I left. The tide was low enough for me to get round so I was outta here.’
‘You didn’t see my aunt fall?’
‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I?’ he said belligerently.
‘OK, OK. You didn’t see her. What time was this, Harry?’
He pursed up his lips and shrugged again. ‘Dunno. Can’t remember.’
He threw another couple of stones aggressively along the water and they fell disappointingly short, lacking his usual finesse. He was still hiding something, she was sure.
‘You should tell this to the police,’ she said eventually.
Again the accusing stare. ‘You promised you wouldn’t tell.’
‘I won’t. But you should. If someone tried to kill Eleanor, they should know. Whoever it was might try again.’
He opened his mouth, frowning, but said nothing and just stared at her. After what seemed an eternity, he shook his head.
‘I’ve got history with the police. They’d never believe me. There’s no way they wouldn’t find some way to blame it on me. I’m not doing it. And if you tell, I’ll deny it. Anyway, I didn’t see nothing.’
‘Anything,’ she said automatically. ‘You didn’t see anything.’
‘Shut up,’ he bellowed. ‘You’re not my mother. Just because we talk a bit doesn’t mean you know me. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do and what not to do.’
‘OK, OK,’ she said wearily. ‘Look, I won’t tell, Harry. I promise.’
He moved quickly away, back towards the headland and the way he had come. Jo watched him go. He was rattled. She was rattled herself. Before this meeting she had all but convinced herself that Harry had been messing with her; now she was sure it was no game. He had seen someone.
It was an uncomfortable, half-formed but unavoidable truth and she didn’t know what to do with it. She felt a drop of rain fall on her bare arm, then another. Glancing up, she saw the white clouds had turned to a steely-grey. She turned quickly and made for the steps.
*
Frank and Mari walked out of the barn together. Depending on the number of students and the topic for that week, some of the workshops were run by a pair of tutors. This week it was their turn. Expressing Yourself in Poetry was the course and they’d just finished their first morning together. Frank was pleased; it had gone well. The tutor pairings weren’t always so felicitous but he and Mari had worked together before and complemented each other: he was in the students’ faces, pushing them, being controversial, making them think outside the box; Mari was soft-hearted, patient and coaxing with a real talent for choosing exactly the right word. She was annoyingly good at times. Her mild and often apologetic manner hid a shrewd brain. But she was a sweet lady - sweet with everyone, not just him - and devoted to Imogen. How Louisa could be jealous of her was beyond him.
‘They’re shaping up into a good group,’ he remarked to Mari now. ‘They might shock us with some decent poetry by the end of the week.’
‘Oh definitely.’ Mari smiled. It was her default expression. They moved aside as the last students let themselves out of the barn and drifted away. The afternoon was set aside for one-to-ones, tutor and student, discussing individual issues. As was the usual workshop practice, he and Mari were making themselves available on alternate afternoons. It was Mari’s turn that day.
‘What are your plans for the afternoon?’ said Mari.
&nb
sp; ‘Oh, a bit of writing,’ he said dismissively. ‘Louisa’s gone to do a signing in Tavistock. She went off early this morning. She said she’d do some shopping on the way back.’
‘I think Imogen’s out too.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better go and grab a sandwich. Rich Taylor wants to see me at two to look at a sonnet he’s written.’ She pulled a face. ‘At least, he thinks it’s a sonnet.’
Frank grinned as she walked away, heading for the courtyard. He turned and went in the other direction, left the estate and made for the pub which stood towards the top of the village on the road out.
The George was busy with holiday makers. With the start of the school holidays the population of Petterton Mill Cove appeared to have quadrupled in one weekend. Frank stood just inside the doorway and looked round. Vincent might claim to have found God and abandoned his dissolute ways but he still drank regularly and he’d been seen having the occasional lunch at the pub. And indeed, there he was, sitting alone at a small round table the other side of a pillar. Frank queued at the bar, bought a pint and weaved his way back to Vincent’s table.
‘You won’t mind if I join you,’ he said, pulling out the only other chair and sitting down.
‘Certainly not. Company is good for the soul, they say. And my soul, poor sinner that I am, needs all the help it can get.’ Vincent raised his glass to his lips, watching Frank over the top of it. ‘Yours too, I imagine.’
Frank took a long pull of beer, returning the cool assessment.
‘Imogen tells me she’s seen you prowling round the house,’ he said, ‘and wandering through into the private garden.’
‘And why did she do that?’
‘Because you’ve been behaving oddly and I asked her if she’d noticed it too.’
Vincent took another drink with a serene expression. ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to call my behaviour odd. Nor indeed, is Imogen. We’re all odd, dear boy, let’s face it. We’re writers. We live in make-believe worlds, pretending we can illuminate people’s lives, when God knows - and I use the phrase advisedly - we struggle to illuminate our own.’ He paused, a smirk tugging the corner of his lips. ‘So, engaged, eh? You’ve finally taken the leap and moved on. I suppose we all assumed you’d go back to Eleanor eventually, the way you always did. Tell me, how is la grande passion going? I hear Louisa’s latest novel has just hit the bestseller list.’ He raised an eloquent hand. ‘Her star is clearly rising. A shrewd move on your part, I must say.’
Frank reached across and grabbed Vincent’s glass as the man had it half way to his mouth and forced it down onto the table again.
‘What are you insinuating, you little weasel?’
‘Poor Eleanor.’ Vincent kept his gaze on Frank, steady and unflinching. ‘She’s not been able to hit the giddy heights recently, has she? The buying public is so fickle.’
Frank’s lips curled into a slow, sardonic smile. He released the glass and watched Vincent calmly drink from it again.
‘I never loved Eleanor for her money as you know very well. I loved her. I could say that Eleanor only lets you stay here and participate in the workshops at all because you’re her cousin. Or maybe it’s pity. But I wouldn’t suggest that.’
Vincent pinched a smile too. ‘It’s all coming out now isn’t it? And to think we were such a happy group of friends. Those were the days.’
‘Friends are honest and don’t go behind each other’s backs.’
Vincent scoffed. ‘Is that so?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning nothing. Just curious to hear your point of view. I guess that doesn’t apply to lovers then. As I recall, you were happy to go behind Eleanor’s back now and then with the latest pretty face. That’s why you kept breaking up isn’t it?’
‘You liar.’ Frank clenched his fists but fought to control himself. Vincent liked to wind people up - it was a game he played - and Frank refused to give him the satisfaction. ‘Is that what you’ve been telling Louisa?’ That would account for all the insecurity and jealousy, he thought.
‘No, indeed not.’ Vincent took another pull of beer, emptying the glass. ‘On that, my lips are sealed.’
‘That would be a miracle. But you’ve said something to her. I saw you, last week, in the den, all secretive.’
‘Did I?’ Vincent pursed his lips together, lifting his head, making a show of thinking back. ‘Maybe I did. She didn’t tell you what it was then? Interesting.’
‘What did you say?’ demanded Frank.
‘I think we were just sharing our sympathy for poor Eleanor. And Jo. Must be difficult for her.’
Frank stood up. He glanced round but no-one nearby was paying any attention to them, wrapped up in their own meals and loud conversations. He leaned his fists down onto the table, pushing his face a hand’s breadth from Vincent’s.
‘I’m warning you, Vincent. You’re going to leave Louisa alone from now on, or you’ll be sorry.’
Frank straightened up and Vincent blinked a couple of times, looking surprised.
‘You’re threatening me? How wonderful. It’s like something out of one of Eleanor’s novels. But perhaps you’d be better served asking Louisa what she got up to the night Eleanor fell. I saw her going to the house.’
Frank stared at him a long moment and walked away. When he glanced back, Vincent had pulled Frank’s barely drunk pint towards him and was lifting it to his lips.
He walked back down the hill, barely aware of his surroundings or the cars which threatened to cut him as he rounded the last corner before the turn off for the estate. He had been woken in the early hours of the night before by Louisa, dreaming and twitching and mumbling in her sleep. As he came to, she rolled over to face him and was silent for a few minutes, her breathing deep and slow. Then it got faster, anxious.
‘So?’ she said, her voice suddenly clear. ‘I know what you’re doing. You see? I know. What sort of fool do you take me for?’ Her voice drifted away again, mumbling, unintelligible.
For ages afterwards he’d stayed awake, even after Louisa had rolled over and fallen silent. He had often wondered if Louisa had seen that message from Eleanor the Friday afternoon that they’d arrived. He had left his phone on the bed and gone into the bathroom and she’d had an odd manner when he came back out. It wasn’t the first time he’d suspected that she kept checking up on him. Not that he had replied to Eleanor’s message. Had she checked that too? Either way, it was unnerving.
So what exactly did Louisa do that evening?
*
‘Eleanor’s gone to the physio department.’
Jo turned abruptly at the sound of the voice, taken aback. It was the Monday afternoon and she had arrived later than usual. Louisa was sitting behind the door on the only small chair in Eleanor’s side ward and now stood up, looking apologetic.
‘The nurse said she usually goes in the morning but they’re short-staffed today and had to juggle everyone around.’ Louisa smiled, hesitantly. ‘I wasn’t sure I should come, you know, in the circumstances, but then I didn’t have any workshops this week so I thought perhaps I ought to. After all, it’s not my fault, is it?’ The smile was replaced with a frown. ‘Or do you think it’s a bad idea?’
She was talking too much and too fast, clearly nervous.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ said Jo.
She examined Louisa suspiciously. But for the workshops the previous summer, the woman hardly knew Eleanor. Given her recent engagement to Frank, the visit did seem out of place.
‘I suppose it depends on how she reacts when she sees you,’ she said. ‘She’s still confused.’
‘Oh she will be. I had a friend once whose brother had a head injury like that and he was never the same again.’ Louisa put out a hand to Jo’s arm. ‘Not that I meant that your aunt would be like that. I just…’ Her eyes were wide with alarm. ‘I’m sorry, I do have a way of saying the wrong thing.’
Jo pulled her arm away, moving to
put her bag down on the bed. ‘It’s OK. I quite understand how this might go.’ She sat in Eleanor’s vacant armchair.
‘Yes…of course, but I’m sure Eleanor’ll be fine.’
‘I’m afraid no-one can be sure of anything. Her memory might never come back.’
‘No…well….’ Louisa sat down again and clasped her hands together in her lap, watching them as if they might offer a safer topic of conversation. ‘Sorry,’ she said suddenly, getting up again. ‘Did you want to sit here?’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
Jo found herself facing the open doorway, looking out towards the nurses’ station, watching the toing and froing of staff, a porter pushing a woman in a wheelchair towards the exit, a man in a check dressing gown slouching towards the bathroom, pulling his drip stand alongside him. This was what Eleanor looked out on every day, stuck in a chair. For such an active and intellectually dynamic person, it wasn’t surprising she was frustrated and difficult. Jo glanced round the room. The number of get well cards had continued to grow and a new small bouquet of pink carnations stood in a vase on the bedside cabinet.
Louisa followed her gaze. ‘I brought those. I hope that’s all right. The nurse found a vase for them.’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ Jo said politely. Eleanor didn’t like carnations, especially pink. She would like them even less if she realised who had brought them.
Jo glanced at her watch. More visitors entered the ward and scattered in search of their nearest and dearest.
Louisa stood up again. ‘I think I should go. I didn’t realise you came in the afternoons. I don’t want to trespass.’
‘You’re not. Don’t go on my account.’
‘Frank doesn’t know I’m here. Please don’t tell him. I came on an impulse but I realise now I probably shouldn’t have.’
‘Eleanor’s here,’ said Jo. From where she sat she could see the porter sweep Eleanor’s wheelchair onto the ward. Already Eleanor’s familiar bristly hair and pale face were in the doorway and a nurse was following the chair in. Eleanor was glaring at Jo.
‘No,’ she said, waving an indignant finger. ‘My share.’