The Silence Before Thunder

by Kathy Shuker

‘No?’

  He stared at her, frowning. ‘You’re doing that thing, aren’t you? Trying to get me to talk about her. Why do women do this?’

  Jo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do what? Show an interest? Care?’

  ‘Care? Is that what you call it?’ His tone of voice had changed. He was cross and defensive.

  ‘Yes. Of course it is. I care. Sophie is part of you so I’d like to know more about her. Is that so unreasonable? And, yes, I guess it might help you not to keep it all trapped inside. It can eat you up can’t it?’

  ‘Well it doesn’t help,’ he said, voice rising. ‘It won’t bring her back. I tried all that nonsense before, after… Karen insisted I saw a counsellor. It just brought back all the pain, mountains of it. I’m not doing that again.’

  ‘I see.’ She stared into her wine glass, swirling the red liquid round in the bottom of it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  When she looked up Matthew was rubbing the flesh of his thumb back and forth across the side of the wine glass.

  ‘I know, don’t tell me: I should be getting over it by now.’ He flicked her a bitter, angry look. ‘I’ve heard it a thousand times. Everyone’s so full of advice but no-one knows the hell other people have to go through.’

  She finished the remains of her wine and put the glass down with deliberate care.

  ‘You’re absolutely right. They don’t. But you can’t keep blaming everyone else for your own pain either. Or for trying to help, can you? It seems to me that you can’t move on with your life without coming to terms with the past. Shutting it up and throwing away the key doesn’t work.’ She stood up. ‘I don’t want to argue though. Can I use your bathroom?’

  He looked up, surprised. ‘Top of the stairs and to the left. There’s a light switch at the bottom on the right.’

  The bathroom smelt of cleaning fluid and sparkled. Jo took her time washing her hands, regrouping her thoughts. She liked Matthew. A lot. Part of her wanted to hold him and soothe away his pain. She understood pain. But another part wanted to shout at him, force him to step outside himself and see what he was doing both to himself and to his son. He felt wronged - Sophie had been stolen from him - but his resentment was shutting everyone out and a shouting match wouldn’t change that.

  She exited the bathroom and hesitated on the landing. There were two other doors, both a few inches open. The nearest one had a Beware sign on it and a picture of a skull and crossbones. She heard the armchair creak downstairs as Matthew stood up and she waited, listening. There was a clink of glasses. He had gone back into the kitchen. She pushed the nearest door back a little. It swung silently and she took a step inside. Clearly this was Harry’s bedroom.

  It was untidy and cluttered though the bed had been made and assorted clothes had been loosely folded and stacked up. Every wall was covered in dark, fantasy posters. To her right stood a tall chest of drawers and, right at the back, behind an abandoned baseball cap and a couple of comics was a framed photograph. She edged closer and picked it up. This was the photo Harry had mentioned. A younger version of the boy stood with a woman and the likeness between them was evident. They were laughing at something out of shot. Jo examined it, sucking her lower lip. Sophie looked so young and pretty and vital and now she was gone. No-one knows the hell other people have to go through.

  Putting the picture back she noticed Harry’s broken phone, the one with all his old photos on. It had been pushed behind the photo frame out of sight and left there, gathering dust. On an impulse she picked it up, slipped it into her pocket and went back downstairs.

  Matthew was still on his feet when she entered the room, standing square on, facing her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was out of line there. Completely out of line.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘No, I am sorry. Really.’ He pointed to her glass which was back on the coffee table, not quite half full. ‘I divided up the last of the wine. Is that OK?’

  ‘Thanks. But I ought to go. My cat’s had a rough week. He’s pretty shook up. I don’t want to leave him too long.’

  Matthew didn’t respond, examining her face, dragging a restless hand across his cheek. No doubt it sounded like an excuse and maybe it was, partly.

  ‘Look Jo, I know people mean well but sometimes I just can’t cope with it all. It’s in the past and I want to leave it there. I feel safer like that. Does that make sense? But I didn’t want to offend you. You least of all.’

  ‘I’m not offended. Look, I’d better be getting back.’

  ‘I’ve frightened you away.’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘No, Matthew, and yes. I realise it’s not me you’re angry with but it is intimidating.’

  ‘I know. I can see that.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘Please say you’ll give me another chance. You’re right, I need to come to terms with it all. And I will, somehow. Really.’ He lifted her hand up to his lips and kissed it. She smiled and he kept hold of it, pulling her closer, kissing her softly on the mouth, gentle but insistent. He pulled away as suddenly as he’d started and looked down, taking a long breath, then back up into her eyes. ‘Can I see you again? Please say I can. I promise I won’t bite your head off next time. That was unforgiveable.’

  She held his gaze. He had kind eyes, honest too. Not that she had a great record at judging men. But she could see the pain there as well; he was haunted. She looked away, uncertain. Even so, she found herself saying yes.

  ‘Thank you.’ He put his arms round her and held her tightly, rocking her gently.

  Walking home a few minutes later, she suspected she was going head first down yet another rabbit hole.

  Chapter 16

  Sunday morning dawned fine. It was bright and fresh and still. Frank hadn’t slept well and got up early, sliding out of the bed as smoothly as he could. It was an unnecessary precaution: he had never known a woman who slept as deeply as Louisa. Even the agitation of her dreams only rarely woke her. He envied her that rest.

  He relieved himself and dressed in the bathroom, grabbed his notebook and pen and left the apartment. Outside he shivered lightly in the chill. It was nearly seven o’clock and sunshine already cast shadows on the ground and lit the treetops in yellows and golds. There was no-one else around, no sign of life from the other apartments and he liked it that way. The world was his for a little while, silent, expectant, welcoming.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he found his steps leading him towards the house. He yearned for the sanctuary of its grounds. He missed them. Or was it Eleanor he missed? So much of his life had been spent with her in and around that house. The previous summer, staying for a few weeks in one of the apartments, brave with his new freedom from their tumultuous love affair, proud of their adult attitude to the final break up, it had all been an adventure. He had met Louisa. Everything felt possible. But it had been an illusion; the cords that bind you to someone else don’t break that easily. Some of them are invisible, impossible to get hold of let alone to cut.

  He turned left along a track through the shrubs and trees and only crossed the entrance road far from the eyes of the house. He didn’t think Lawrence was an early riser but he wasn’t taking any chances. If Jo was up and around, so be it; he thought she would understand. He opened the gate to the rear garden, lifting the latch carefully to avoid its metallic ring and silently passed through. Now he was in among the skirt of Eleanor’s private grounds, the pittosporum bushes, the late-flowering roses, a weeping crab apple tree. This section of the garden arched up above the lower ground of Lawrence’s annexe and the vegetation made the path invisible from his windows.

  He paused, savouring the peace. Out of sight, birds sang mellifluously as if determined to make the summer last. A large bumble bee buzzed slowly past him like a miniature helicopter; he saw it land on the purple flower head of a buddleia bush to his right. To his left was the bench with its arch of trellis over the top where a clematis clambered. When he had first seen this garden it had be
en little more than a stretch of weedy lawn and some overgrown flowerbeds. The woods had been trying to reclaim the land for themselves. Eleanor had had a vision for it even then though it had taken years for it to come to fruition.

  He walked on, carefully negotiating the path furthest from the house till he came out on the lower terrace. He glanced towards the rocks and bushes marking the edge and the fall beyond, then across at the steps. An image of Eleanor in her hospital bed, ashen and flaccid loomed into his mind. Jo had told them she was a little better now, talking occasionally about the past and walking short distances. Lawrence had informed them on Friday that she had gone to a rehabilitation unit. He ought to go and see her again but that was more complicated than ever now.

  Frank retreated from the terrace and sat on the bench under the clematis. A red admiral butterfly fluttered past, a tortoiseshell soon after, both heading for the buddleia and its nectar-heavy flowers. He used to sit here quite often when he lived here; Eleanor knew but never bothered him when he was trying to write.

  The news of Louisa’s pregnancy still resonated in his head. He didn’t know what to think. Many years ago, he and Eleanor had wanted children but it hadn’t happened for them and, after a few tests, they found Eleanor couldn’t. They might have gone down the adoption route but too many arguments and too many break-ups had intervened and they didn’t pursue it. After that he’d put it out of his mind. But now Louisa had presented him with the prospect of fatherhood again and this time it was a fait accompli. He knew he should be excited but he felt too old for it now. He had changed; he was set in his ways. He was a little bit scared.

  And there was suspicion too. Louisa was thrilled about the baby yet she described it as a mistake. So was it a mistake or had she chosen not to fit her cap one night…without telling him? Who was this woman he was living with exactly? Every time he thought he had a take on her, she changed, undergoing a subtle mutation.

  He got his notebook and pen out of his pocket. He did it from habit, to be ready, but there hadn’t been much writing lately; he couldn’t concentrate. If he was honest, he hadn’t written anything really special since he’d left Eleanor. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the insects, the cries of the gulls and the soft roar of waves on the shore down below. He stayed that way for several minutes but no words came. Instead he thought about Louisa again. Increasingly he felt that he was being manipulated. She kept trying to curtail his working pattern and now this. She was already making plans for the three of them. Her plans. He needed to find a space to talk to her, clear the air maybe. If they were going to bring a child up together he had to stop drifting in this relationship and set some of his own boundaries and not constantly jig to her tune. That was simply not going to work and she needed to know that.

  Then he remembered that they were going out with Mari and Imogen to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hell, he wouldn’t go. If he had the whole day to himself he might actually get something done and he badly needed to do that. When he couldn’t write he felt stifled, as if he couldn’t breathe or would burst from trying.

  He put the notebook away, left the garden and made his way back purposefully towards the apartment to tell Louisa.

  *

  For Jo, the morning dragged. She was tired, anxious and jumpy. It had taken hours for her to get to sleep the night before, the roller-coaster evening with Matthew circulating on a loop in her head, alternating with her hare-brained plans for the morning.

  She had convinced herself that it was Louisa who had caused Eleanor’s fall and when Jo had started asking too many questions, Louisa had taken Sidney and shut him away. And Frank had pointedly tried to stop her from approaching his fiancée. That was suspicious in itself. Did he know something about it? What was he hiding? With everyone going out today Jo knew it was her best opportunity to get into the woman’s flat and finally find some proof.

  It was already ten-thirty and the fine weather of the early morning had broken; clouds were scudding overhead on a brisk breeze and showers intermittently peppered the windows. Jo had acquired the spare key to Louisa’s apartment from the key box under the stairs and it sat tauntingly in the pocket of her capri pants. Mari had said they would leave at nine but Jo hung around, procrastinating, glancing nervously out of the front windows. There was no movement around the apartments. Then she saw Lawrence, sports bag in hand, leaving for one of his regular gym trips. She waited another five minutes, then left the house.

  Dark clouds loured and a gloom had descended; it felt more like October than August. Rain pattered rhythmically on the roofs of the apartments as she approached. They all appeared deserted and there were no lights on. She headed to number five, glancing in at the window casually as she passed then stopping, looking round the courtyard and peering in again. There was no-one there. She slipped the key in the lock, turned it and went inside, closing the door softly behind her.

  Jo had been in these studio flats before. They were all much the same: a double bed, assorted laminated furniture for storage, a couple of small armchairs, a small desk with a lamp and an electric kettle with a courtesy tray for making drinks. A door led through to the bathroom. In this flat, the bed was unmade, the lower sheet badly rucked, the upper sheet - and the thin coverlet over it - thrown back wildly and trailing on the floor. A pair of ladies’ house slippers had been abandoned near the wardrobe where they had been kicked off. A half-drunk mug of tea stood on the dressing table. It looked like a room that had been left in a hurry. Perhaps they had got up late.

  There was no jewellery box visible. Did Louisa even have a box with her? If she kept her jewellery in separate bags or boxes, it could take ages to check what she was missing. The dressing table had one central drawer and two on each side. Jo opened the first on the left. It contained knickers and bras. The drawer below contained socks and tights, some in packets, some screwed up in a ball. The central drawer held a box of paper tissues, a packet of wet wipes, a few small notebooks and an assortment of pens. Already she feared this was going to be a waste of time.

  A noise had her nervously glancing back at the door but there was no-one there. The rain still fell and it was darker than ever. She flicked a switch to turn the wall light on over the dressing table.

  There was a jewellery box after all, a small wooden one with an inlaid lid, hidden under headscarves in the top drawer on the right. Jo pulled it out and laid it on top of the dressing table. It had no lock and she flipped the lid back. The box was lined with velvet and a run of small earrings on straight posts had been pushed into a ridge along the back. She pulled the stud she had found out of her pocket but knew without checking that it didn’t match any of the ones she could see. In any case, they were all in pairs. A loose tray in front of the ridge held a couple of bracelets and several pairs of large drop earrings with hooked posts. Underneath the tray lay a variety of necklaces, mostly beads, all jumbled and knotted together. There was no sign of a solo earring stud.

  She straightened up, blowing out a long, frustrated breath. Perhaps this was a wild goose chase. Maybe she had been wrong and it wasn’t Louisa’s stud after all or maybe the woman had thrown the pair of it away. Did people do that with jewellery? Wouldn’t you keep it on the off-chance and perhaps keep looking for the missing stud? Maybe not if you were scared you’d lost it somewhere incriminating. But this was gold. So perhaps Louisa had hidden the remaining stud somewhere. She abandoned the jewellery box where it lay and turned, looking round the room.

  ‘Where would I hide a stud?’ she muttered to herself. ‘Among my clothes?’

  Desperate to prove her theory about Louisa right, she turned back and ferreted obsessively through the remaining drawers, plunging into every corner, finding nothing. The other smaller chest of drawers contained only Frank’s clothes. The wardrobe had shelves and hanging rails and most of it was filled with Louisa’s things. Jo delved into pockets and felt behind sweaters. Wrapped up in her task, she didn’t hear the do
or opening, nor the light squelch of a damp foot on the floor.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  The voice was male and angry. She spun round.

  ‘Frank. Hi. I…’ She didn’t know what to say. There was no disguising what she was doing. She watched his gaze sweep the room. ‘I thought you’d gone out with the others.’

  ‘Clearly. Sorry to disappoint you. What are you looking for?’

  Still she hesitated, searching for a plausible excuse but finding none. She had known Frank a very long time; his relationship with Louisa was a mere drop in the ocean in comparison. She could risk honesty and hope he would hear her out.

  ‘An earring.’

  His face crumpled into disbelief. ‘An earring? Are you kidding me? Why are you looking in here?’

  ‘I’m looking for the matching pair to this one.’

  She took a couple of steps towards him, holding the stud out on the palm of her hand to show him, watching his face. Frank looked down at her hand, still frowning, then back up at her.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that, Jo? What weird game is this you’re playing?’

  ‘I wish it were a game, Frank. I found this earring on the terrace near where Eleanor fell. You know the place. No-one else goes there much. It’s Eleanor’s favourite spot.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re suggesting it has something to do with her fall? And to judge from your accusing expression, you think that the person who wore this was responsible for it?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  His expression hardened. ‘And you’re looking through Louisa’s jewellery to prove it’s hers.’ It wasn’t a question this time.

  ‘I’m looking just to check. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t ask her, could I? Look at it from my point of view.’

  He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I’m shocked at you, Jojo. This is beneath you. Louisa has no reason to want to harm Eleanor. On the contrary, Eleanor was the one who might have felt wronged and bitter, if anyone, not Louisa.’ He glanced back at the earring. ‘Have you shown it to the police?’