The Memory: A Gripping Psychological Thriller With a Heart-Stopping Twist

by Lucy Dawson

  ‘Let’s count some blessings here, shall we?’ Jen is on a roll now. ‘He’s got you, he’s got Rosie, he’s got his health. He’s a lucky man. And while his dad might be a control freak, he’s still going to give him – or you, whatever – a house! I mean… come on! Champagne problems doesn’t even come close! My diamond shoes are too high to walk in… so get a cab!’

  When she puts it like that, it does sound ridiculous.

  ‘Not that you have to do it, you know that, right?’ Her voice becomes firm. ‘You don’t have to stay with him. You and Rosie can come and live with me. I’ll buy us somewhere with my half of the money? We could get a mortgage together.’

  ‘That would defeat the whole object of you moving out in the first place.’ I smile sadly at her generosity.

  ‘I’d do it for you in a flash and you know it. Family, innit?’

  I feel tears start to well up again. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

  ‘Oh don’t cry,’ begs Jen. ‘I wish I was there to hug you. Don’t get me wrong – I might be trying to make out this isn’t as bad as it seems, but I’m still furious with Tim.’

  ‘Me too.’ I look down at Rosie on the lawn, throwing the ball as high in the air as she can and trying to catch it, before closing my eyes. ‘Me too.’

  Jen pauses. ‘But on the other hand again, he’s never done anything like this before. He can be pathetically precious when he wants to be, but you and Rosie mean everything to him. It’s been that way right from the start for him. You weren’t even that interested!’

  ‘No, I liked him straight away; he made me laugh. But I didn’t trust him. Who wants to date an actor?’ I say truthfully. ‘All that excitement and passion until they get bored and move on to the next girl, or co-star… and who also honestly ends up with a guest they snog when they’re waitressing a wedding?’ I open my eyes again. ‘I should have listened to myself. Stuff only goes wrong when you don’t listen to that inner voice.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’ve got Rosie now – you can’t apply the same rules as back then. They don’t exist any more. Bottom line – Tim loves you. That’s not in doubt here, he’s not that good an actor, believe me. He’s fucked up hugely – but do you really want to chuck everything out of the window because of one mistake? He hasn’t had an affair or anything. In some ways, he’s sort of right – it’s just money, although shitloads of it.’ She sighs. ‘He’s such a dick.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  There’s a long pause and then delivering that sugar-free dose of medicine that only a close family member can administer, she says suddenly: ‘Let’s face it, Claire, Tim is very funny, one of the most charming and charismatic people I’ve ever met; kind, generous, a great dad, but he’s also angry a lot of the time, damaged, frustrated, fragile and difficult. I know you love him but he’s a complicated sum of pieces and you don’t have to be the glue that holds him together any more if you don’t want to. He knew what he was doing when he gave Harry that money. It’s a huge deal to expect someone to say “never mind, darling! Yes, let’s pack up our lives and move two hundred miles away from our friends, school and work and do up some dump of a house!” All because what he’s done isn’t as bad as him cheating on you.’

  ‘Did I also mention said dump of a house is also owned by his ex-girlfriend, who he shielded at that shooting incident when he was eight?’ I add. ‘I told you that bit, right?’

  There’s an appalled silence. ‘Well now he’s just taking the piss,’ Jen says. ‘I suppose he’s not just finally having the nervous breakdown he’s been teetering on the edge of as long as we’ve known him?’

  I sigh and look down into the garden to see that Tim has come out to join Rosie and the two of them are playing Frisbee. He looks completely relaxed.

  ‘It’s just for a year though, right?’ Jen says. ‘Then you can do whatever you want with this place?’

  ‘Apparently. Would you do it?’ I feel suddenly exhausted.

  ‘Honestly?’ She pauses. ‘Yeah – I think I would. So it was some girlfriend’s house… it’s not like you have to live there with her. Do it up, make the money back, sell it on, come home. Think of it as the gap year you never got to have because you dropped out to look after me. A shit gap year, I’ll grant you, but a gap year nonetheless. You can still do your job from Shropshire, can’t you?’

  ‘Probably,’ I rub my forehead wearily, ‘with some effort on the commuting front.’

  ‘Then do it. He’s Rosie’s dad. Ultimately, we both know you’re going to stay with him for her sake anyway, because you don’t want her not to have the two of you together. So give him the chance to make this up to you.’

  I sit in the bedroom a little longer after I’ve let her go and crawl into bed on the other side of the world, watching Rosie rush over to Tim so she can leap on his back. I can just about hear her laughter through the glass as he gallops her around the garden.

  I glance down at my wrist and the tattoo I got the day after Mum and Dad’s funeral – two small stars, inspired by Peter Pan taking the second star to the right and going straight on until morning…

  Life is too short to make mistakes and waste precious time.

  I get up suddenly and go downstairs to find Tony. He’s sat in his study, leant back in his chair with his eyes closed, listening to Radio 4. I hover in the doorway, uncertain if he’s actually asleep and jump when he says suddenly, and without opening his eyes: ‘Reached a verdict then?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say clearly. ‘I’ve made my decision.’

  Six

  Eve

  My hand is shaking as I hang up on my solicitor, his kind congratulations ringing in my ears. I’ve barely been back from work for five minutes and we have just exchanged contracts. It is now definite. We will be completing and moving out of Fox Cottage forever, in just under two weeks, on Valentine’s Day.

  I look around the kitchen. I thought I would feel relief, but now the moment has finally come… I tremble and place my hand on the side to steady myself amid the small space where I’ve cooked thousands of meals and worn a path to the cupboards putting away endless rounds of washing-up.

  Bewildered, I make my way through the dining room to the sitting room, taking in the inglenook fireplace, the desk in the corner, photos on the wall where they have hung for almost exactly twenty-eight years. We moved in on the 1st of March 1990. Sinking down onto one of the shabby sofas, I cover my mouth with my hand. I close my eyes too, wanting so very badly to feel Michael’s presence at this pivotal moment – everything we wanted and hoped for in this house and were never able to share comes rushing towards me so suddenly I feel as if I’m being swept off my feet by an unexpectedly large wave. I reach out my hands, but of course, he is not there; I grasp at nothing and let out a sob. I can feel the house watching me curiously; the mad old woman sat waving her hands around, crying. I can’t let Izzie come back to see me like this. It won’t do at all – so, clumsily, I get to my feet, hurry through the passage into the utility room, fumble with the key in the back door and burst out into the freezing courtyard.

  The wooden door set in the deep stone wall – I used to refer to it as the ‘secret garden’ door – bangs open as I rush outside. Reaching the lawn, I stop, shiver and close my eyes again, feeling the cold wind blowing about me, stroking my hair and soothing my brow as I breathe deeply. I can hear crows cawing in the field as the sun sets out of sight behind thick cloud – but nothing else… and the stillness is calming. I give an odd moan of release and straighten up a little taller, opening my eyes and looking at the house from the outside. It’s done. My gaze alights on the crumbling pointing, the gutter hanging off. They are no longer my problem. I turn my back and look at the garden instead: tiny green tips of bulbs poking through the earth, buds beginning to form on the branches. I won’t be here to see them bloom. How odd. I shall miss this garden so very much. It has been my refuge.

  I wander over to the bench and sit down heavily in the twilight, before glancing at the empty swing on t
he branch of the apple tree as it moves slightly in the breeze. How strange that another little girl – almost exactly the same age as Izzie was when we first came here – will be sitting on that swing soon.

  I was shocked and unsettled when the estate agent told me that Claire Waters had made an asking price offer after the viewing. She’s not the first to have wanted to buy Fox Cottage – there were others, although every single deal fell through and the buyers pulled out. But I meant every word I said to Claire. I couldn’t bear the thought of another young couple and their daughter moving into this place – it felt too much like history repeating itself: three innocents being thrown at the mercy of this hungry house; but now I can see perhaps this time round will reset the balance. Claire Waters is not me, her daughter is not Izzie, her father not Michael. Their story will be different – and I will not have the monthly stress of wondering how on earth I am going to pay yet another sheaf of maintenance bills. I cannot pretend this purchase hasn’t been the answer to my prayers. I will have some money in the bank. I will also, it must be said, have a considerably smaller garden… I think about the handkerchief-sized square at the new house; the borders stuffed full of ghastly indoor marigolds by the developers in a bid to make the properties appear ‘aspirational’. They were probably all removed and returned to the garden centre the second I left.

  But I refuse to tread the path of ‘what might have been’ a second longer. I am determined to move on, in every sense, now. I squint over at the swing again as a sudden last shaft of weak sunlight breaks through. I will explain to Izzie that another little girl is moving here, which might help – because now the sale is official, I must tell Izzie we are moving. This will be the hard bit.

  I don’t get any further with my worries than that, however, as I hear one of the two back gates – they sit at either end of the garden – clank shut and straighten up with a frown. Someone has come in. I remember just in time that Adam told me he was coming to get another load of his belongings and smile at the footsteps approaching on the gravel path, but my welcoming expression falls from my face as quickly as the sun disappears, when I realise the man who has walked into the garden is not Adam at all, but Antony Vaughan.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ is the best I can manage, both astonished and furious to be caught like this, sitting in the cold garden in slippers – as if I’m some sort of care-home resident who has been shoved outside for their daily fresh air but forgotten – and even more livid to find I give a hoot what he thinks.

  ‘May I come in?’ He smiles winningly, hovering on the edge of the lawn.

  ‘You already have,’ I retort, and his grin broadens, before he begins to gingerly pick his way across the garden in his smart leather boat shoes.

  ‘Do you want to hitch the hem of those up too?’ Irritated, I nod at his ridiculous salmon pink cords.

  ‘This grass is a disgrace.’ He gestures around him. ‘It needs cutting.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ I reply shortly, and he laughs.

  ‘That you are responsible for the shaping of young minds will never cease to terrify me.’ He sits down next to me, and I move right to the end of the bench. He notices and rolls his eyes. ‘It’s nice to see you, too.’

  ‘I loathe droppers-in. You’ve put on weight,’ I say rudely, nodding at the small, soft belly that’s rounding out the front of his biscuit-coloured cashmere jumper. ‘Retirement treating you well, then?’

  ‘I’m certainly keeping busy. No rest for the wicked, Eve. You know that.’

  I choose to ignore him and respond only with a starchy: ‘I do actually have a lot to get through myself this evening. What do you want?’

  ‘Yes, you look positively rushed off your feet.’ He glances down at my slippers. ‘Why are you sitting out here? It’s practically dark. And freezing.’

  ‘Well, you’re still not coming in.’ I hesitate for a moment, but then the excited urge to share my news with another grown-up becomes too much. ‘I was having a moment, if you must know. I’ve sold the house. My solicitor just called to let me know we’ve exchanged.’

  ‘Well, congratulations!’ he says. ‘That’s been some time coming, hey?’

  ‘Almost four years,’ I admit. ‘It’s not exactly a buoyant market.’

  ‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Not for a doer-upper of this magnitude.’

  ‘I had other offers,’ I sound defensive, ‘they just didn’t come to anything. This one has, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you staying local?’

  ‘Yes, I shall be living—’ I swing round and point across the now dark fields, ‘over there.’

  He looks surprised. ‘One of the new builds? But they’re soulless little boxes.’

  ‘You’re a dreadful snob, Antony Vaughan.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he says, stung. ‘I just know you like period properties, that’s what I mean.’

  ‘You’re right, I do,’ I concede eventually, ‘but it’s affordable and doesn’t need a thing doing to it. In any case, I’m starting to think character isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

  ‘Well, there’s that,’ he agrees, ‘perhaps a blank canvas is just the ticket this time.’ He smiles at me.

  It’s so nice just to chat with someone, I almost forget myself and ask if he wants to come in for a cup of tea after all. That’s how easily I could slip back down the slope.

  ‘I didn’t mean to sound mealy-mouthed,’ I say suddenly. ‘The truth is, I was hanging on by my fingernails. This has come in the nick of time. It’s a blessed relief, frankly.’ I hesitate. He’s right, it’s almost completely dark now. ‘I shouldn’t have been rude to you, Antony. I’m sorry. What can I do for you?’

  He sits forward and twists the gold signet ring on his little finger, and I jolt slightly at the familiar nervous tic that I haven’t seen him perform for years.

  ‘It was me,’ he says. ‘I’ve bought Fox Cottage.’

  I make a ‘ha ha’ face at him, even though I don’t see how that is supposed to be funny. ‘The buyer is a Claire Waters,’ I correct him. ‘She’s moving here from Surrey with her daughter and partner.’

  ‘That’s right. Rosamund – Rosie. She’s my granddaughter, and Timothy’s daughter.’

  I jump off the bench and away from him like I’ve been scalded.

  He looks up at me smiling ruefully before holding wide his hands. ‘Surprise.’

  I sway on the spot as I stare at him in horror. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Claire Waters is my daughter-in-law – well, by proxy. She’s not actually married to Timothy, but as good as.’

  I whirl around on the spot and rush back to the house, hearing him call after me. Slamming back through the gate, I bang into the kitchen, breathing heavily as I watch him walk through the courtyard before appearing on the threshold of the kitchen.

  I’m shivering with anger. ‘You stupid, meddling old bastard.’

  His eyebrows shoot up and he laughs, rubbing his chin. ‘Not quite the thanks I envisaged.’

  ‘“Thanks”?’ I repeat, incredulously. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done? Timothy is going to come and live here? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Darling, he’s as good as married now.’ He steps towards me. ‘It’s water under the bridge.’

  ‘DO NOT call me that,’ I shout, ‘and no, no it isn’t. Oh my God, Antony, you fool. What were you thinking? I told you – I TOLD you not to interfere.’

  ‘I’ve bought this house because Timothy and his family need somewhere to live, for one reason or another, and as you’ve said it’s hung around on the market forever, so it was a good deal. This isn’t charity. I didn’t do this to help you.’

  ‘Rubbish – you just said this isn’t the thanks you envisaged. You couldn’t wait to come here and tell me what you’d done, show me how powerful you are!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I came to tell you that Timothy will be moving in here with Claire and Rosie, because I thought it would be better coming from me than as
a shock on moving day.’

  ‘It was you all along. You were the cash buyer?’ I shake my head. ‘I cannot believe this. But I dealt with Claire.’ I look at him challengingly. ‘She signed off on everything. She lied to me,’ I realise, furiously.

  ‘I gave her the money to buy it, but it’s in her name.’

  I sink onto a chair. ‘You have no idea what this is going to do to Izzie.’

  It’s his turn to look irritated. ‘You said yourself you were hanging on by your fingertips. This is a good thing, surely?’

  ‘I told you, specifically, NOT to interfere, not to try and buy this place. That’s why you sent Claire.’ I’m working it through, catching up. ‘I would never have sold it to you – so you made sure I didn’t suspect a thing, and she went along with it. She came here, ingratiated herself and I fell for it. You’re all in this together. How disgusting.’ I manage to stand up. ‘Get out.’

  He looks bewildered and his shoulders sag. ‘I wanted to do the right thing, for everyone. It seemed the perfect answer. What good is money sitting in the bank, when I can use it to help the ones I love?’

  I stiffen and step back, away from him. ‘Stop it. Now. You honestly thought you could walk back in here after all this time, start saying things like that and everything would be all right? Well you’ve made everything a hundred times worse!’ I’m starting to feel wild with panic. ‘I’ll cancel the sale – I won’t proceed to completion!’

  He softens. ‘Evie, you can’t do that.’

  ‘I don’t want your money!’

  ‘I mean, in the short-term, you’d still have to pay the estate agents, your solicitors, my solicitors, Claire and Timothy’s temporary accommodation costs when they become homeless on the 14th of February; you’d lose the deposit you’ve paid to the developers for your new house… you’ll also be in breach of contract and the courts will force you to complete in any case if Claire decides to sue you. You have to go ahead. You have no choice.’