“And you know it too, and that’s why you’re upset. Because the truth is bloody pain-ful.” She hesitated again. “You’re as vulnerable, in your way, as your mother was. I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you the way it did to her.”
Jem stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“That I don’t want,” Eve said carefully, “history repeating itself.”
The only good thing, in Gil’s opinion, about someone being as predictable as Henry was that you always knew where to find them. At this hour with this tide he would have completed his first surf of the day and be back at the flat over the souvenir shop. Gil arrived on the doorstep minutes between when he calculated Henry would have stepped out of the shower and before he left for the Junior Watersports club he ran down in the bay.
Henry opened the door, hair dripping, towel tucked around his stomach. In the half-second it took him to recognise Gil his features calcified from their default benign-bovine setting into hostility. “What?”
“Have you seen Cecily?”
The implication of his question hit Henry instantly. “Shit. Come up.” Gil followed him up the stairs to the flat. Henry indicated his towel. “I’ll just go and – ”
“Yeah.” Gil entered the living-room, its usual inhospitable jumble of wetsuits and boxer shorts, beer cans and take-away cartons, and sat down on the edge of the sofa. He thought fleetingly of his place back in Bristol, the first floor of a crumbling Georgian terrace in what had been, when he’d bought it, an undesirable part of town. Over those first months he’d sanded and waxed the floorboards and stripped back the shutters, painted the walls from someone’s Heritage range, thrown down tapestry rugs rescued from skips, installed an old leather sofa and an oak table inherited from his parents. He refused to live like a student when it cost relatively little in all but effort to live with some sort of style. And it was rare, for him to be in his beloved Cornwall at the height of the summer and to be thinking nostalgically of home. It was unprecedented, for him to be in this level of emotional turmoil.
Henry returned, dry and dressed. “What’s happened?”
“Don’t know. No sign of her anywhere. No answer from her mobile.”
Henry sighed. “This is your fault, you know.”
“Yeah?” Gil was sarcastic. “I had a feeling it might be.”
“Well for fuck’s sake, what were you thinking bringing that girl to Patrick’s?”
Gil’s insides churned. He didn’t want to hear this, that he’d been insensitive, hurt Cecily, that the kind of complications he’d spent years avoiding surrounded him now like barbed wire. That he was as entangled in it as anyone. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. The look on her face was enough.” Henry shook his head. “You are unbelievable. God knows it pains me to say this but you know how she feels about you. Yet you still have to rub her nose in your shagging someone young enough to be her daughter.”
“It isn’t … I didn’t … Jesus.”
“Then again, you’re nearly always shagging someone young enough to be her daughter.” Henry looked at him levelly. “Fucking hell Gil, I could punch your lights out but we’re not going there again. What happened last night?”
“Nothing. Jem was dancing with Radar, I was getting the drinks in, you and Cecily turned up from the pier and then suddenly Jem looked like she was going to pass out and Cecily’d disappeared. You didn’t see her again after that?”
“No. I should’ve … ” He let out his breath. “Maybe it’s my fault too.”
Gil said thoughtfully, “She’s been different, this year.”
“Well yes, what with the baby … ”
Gil frowned at him. “The baby? You mean Sam?”
“There’s more than one?”
“No, but – ”
“See, this is another thing I don’t get. It’s like you have nothing in the way of feelings about this. You have a child together and he dies and – ”
“He wasn’t mine! That was years ago. I would’ve been, what, fourteen when she had Sam.”
Henry stared at him, the truth he’d thought he’d known fragmenting in his head. “So whose was he?”
“I don’t know. Some guy who was the love of her life and who she’s never got over.”
“I thought that was you.”
“No.” Gil shook his head. “No.”
There was a short silence. “Right. Okay.” Henry cleared his throat. “We need to find her.”
Gil elected to return to the square. Henry would take a drive around town. Were they over-reacting? Gil asked himself, striding back through the sunny streets. She was a grown woman. He didn’t doubt he held some responsibility for whatever had happened, whatever she was feeling, but at the same time to withdraw when hurt was Cecily’s way. It didn’t mean she was likely to do something stupid. It meant she needed peace and solitude in which to recover. He understood that. He also understood that the other night they had come breath-lessly, perilously close to making love. Though now he didn’t so much understand it as have it burning at the forefront of his mind.
Jesus.
His phone buzzed. In the moment it took him to dig it out of his pocket he heard Cecily saying I’m fine, Henry saying it’s not goodso he was slightly taken aback, and relieved, to see that the display readJem. “Hey.”
Silence. Then the rasping, snuffling sound he recognised because he had so often heard her make it. Oh Christ. He said, “Where are you?”
A gasp, her voice shrill and broken. “At the house.”
She was in the garden, when he arrived, pacing the lawn beside the flowerbeds which had been the burial place of the clothes of the dead. Her face was swollen with crying. He held her.
When she had calmed a little, he took her to sit with him on the low wall at the foot of the garden. “Tell me.”
“My dad … ” Tears again. She couldn’t speak. He stroked her hair, long soothing caresses. She swallowed. “He was having an affair.”
He nodded.
“My mum had discovered it just before she died.”
“Oh Jem.”
“She needed him so much and he … how could he, Gil? How could he do that to her? She found out he was being unfaithful and she died. She killed herself because he was screwing around.” She sobbed, bitterly.
“Screwing around?”
“Oh I don’t know, I don’t know the details. She wouldn’t tell me, she said she didn’t know. Eve,” she added, unnecessarily. “I went to see her.”
“And she just came out and told you that?” He wanted to wring Eve Callaghan’s neck.
“She said – she didn’t want history repeating itself.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know.” She wept. “I don’t know who he was any more.”
“Jem.”
“I can’t believe he could – ”
“Jem listen. You know what he went through with your mum. You know better than anyone what life was like for him. If someone else was kind, offered him - I don’t know – sanctuary from the way things were at home, can you really not understand him taking it?”
She stared at him. “Are you defending him?”
He held her gaze. “Yes.” He took her hand into his. She let him. “He was an amazing guy, but we all need to feel wanted and loved and – ”
“She was ill. He had me.”
He slipped his arm around her, kissed her forehead. “It’s a shock.”
She nodded. After a while she got up and went into the house. He sat for a few minutes then followed her, could hear from the bottom of the stairs the sound of her crying. It was a very high pedestal Alex had been on. He had a long way to fall.
Gil, casting around for something to do, tidied the kitchen, shoved the boxes of discarded belongings into a neater pile. Stood regarding them. Presumably, then, Alex’s affair had not been with Eve after all. That had not been what she’d meant when she’d said she felt guilty. Had she thought
she should have seen that he was likely to stray and warned Marianne? Did she think she could have prevented Marianne’s death? Bloody woman. Jem hadn’t needed to know. Not now, not like this. And no one had been better placed than Eve to find out whether it had been a single affair or a series of sexual encounters and with whom. Was she withholding these details or had she refrained from doing any digging, out of – what? Respect? Compassion? Could it possibly be that Marianne had believed Alex was having an affair, jumped in her fragile state to a conclusion for which there was no evidence? The thought struck him with some force. For in all their sorting and boxing away, they had found no evidence.
A sound from the landing. Jem came halfway down the stairs and sat. He smiled. “Can I get you anything?”
“A hug?”
He sat beside her, drew her into a close embrace.
She said, “I can’t get my head round it.”
“I know.”
“It’s as if he’s someone else. I feel … wild. I want to scream, run, hit someone.” She shook her head. “I can’t bear to be here. I thought it was full of too many memories. Now I know it was full of lies.”
He saw, with perfect clarity, what he must do. “Come to Bristol with me. You need a break from this place, I have to get back there in a couple of weeks anyway. It might help, you know, for you to get some distance.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She nodded, her eyes huge and sombre. “I’d like that.”
“Okay.”
She rubbed her hands across her face. “I’m exhausted. I just want to sleep.”
“Sure. Here? My place?”
“Haven’t you got stuff to do?”
“Well.” He smiled wryly. “I still haven’t finished that bloody tree.”
She almost laughed. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Will you check on the gallery for me? I haven’t been down there for a couple of days.”
And maybe she needed some space and time alone, space and time away from some-one so ready to minimise her grief and suggest solutions, so quick to excuse her father’s betrayal. He saw that. “Of course I will.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I step back into Livio de Marchi’s magical cave for a moment. Gil is barely aware of me. “I won’t be a minute,” I tell him.
“Sure.” He half smiles - because I only have half his attention, less than half, a sliver -before he turns back to the carvings. As I reach the doorway a group of Scandinavian-sounding tourists blocks my exit and I negotiate their maps and oversized rucksacks with care, sliding past them, head down as they enter the store. I don’t want anyone remembering me.
The street is as empty as it was before. High, high above me the sky is a clear, cool blue. There’s a smell, a damp, sewagey smell I hadn’t noticed earlier and I see that the painted plaster of some of the buildings is flaking, missing entirely in places. There’s no sign anywhere of an overweight Englishman, but this street is trickier than it looks. It has tributary alleyways and recesses, sunken door frames. Easy for me to tuck myself away into these, less so for him. But seconds ago he had passed the window and where is he now.
He saw us, I am certain of that. He saw us and having tracked us from Cornwall across France to Italy, he isn’t going anywhere. He will be here, waiting. I feel nauseous at the thought. I tread softly along the paving, giving him plenty of chance to leap out in front of me, to declare himself in broad daylight, to give me chance to run. But he has done this already, at the station in Milan, and maybe he will be cleverer this time, stealthier. Maybe he won’t waste time with conversation. I take a deep breath. Think. He is waiting, out of sight somewhere, for me to pass. His advantages are surprise and bulk. My advantage will be speed and … well, what? Exactly?
I stop.
These narrow lanes, I realise, thread into each other. There’s a network through which maybe only cats and children can pass but possibly, just possibly … I slip into a gap between the buildings. I might get lost, never find my way back. Gil might walk blithely out into the street and it could all be over. I shudder. Slowly, silently, I creep along the path, over bins and junk, washing hung on lines out of windows above my head. It’s so dank and shadowed, I wonder how does it ever get dry. My head is full of dead daughters and psychotic dwarves.
I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this, occupied in hopeless pursuit of someone who might have turned right out of Livio de Marchi’s instead of left, who might now be far away. Watching, waiting. Calling the police.
But there. A flash of yellow at the end of an alley. The same yellow I’d glimpsed through the window. The same yellow grabbing and shaking me at Milan station. I almost retch. He’s standing, twenty, thirty feet away, leaning against a wall, looking out into the street. I creep forward. He doesn’t move. Another half dozen feet. Still he doesn’t move. He’s not very good at this, I think. And then I hear the rumble of his voice, see that his right arm is bent, his hand to his ear. He’s phoning someone. Telling them. They’re here. I’ve found them.
Now.
It has to be now.
I take the knife which has been in my pocket since Bristol and move at such speed I don’t even hear myself. At least, not my feet. I can hear the blood in my ears and my silent scream as my rage and grief channel down my arm, into the knife, into his back.
He doesn’t even turn. The phone hits the slabs. He slumps a little more against the wall. I back up, breathing hard. His legs buckle and he sits, as if he’s drunk too much and walked too far in the heat. I wait. For another longer time neither of us moves. I vomit against the bins, hot and cold now, shaking violently. After another minute I reach forward and extract the knife from the mass of his flesh. It’s harder coming out than going in, which is weird, but my energy has gone. Blood jets from him, dark and fast. I pick up the phone.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jem had sought refuge in sleep after Alex had died, spending as many hours as safely comatose as she could, aided by gradually increasing amounts of alcohol, of pills. It was when she was barely conscious for most of the day that he had begun appearing to her, just as he had been, wry, sensible, gently chiding. Except in reality he had clearly been both more and less than that. He had been selfish and duplicitous and her memories now were not to be trusted. Everything she had believed about him had been a lie.
She thought of her mother, walking slowly but steadily into the sea, and she under-stood.
Sitting on the purple bedspread of her teenage years, she listened to the silence. Gil hadn’t wanted to leave her alone in her parents’ house, but then he had never liked the place. She wasn’t sure she liked it anymore either, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep in Gil’s bright, sunlit room with its grandstand view of the sea. She thought of sleeping here with him, his arms around her, and wished she hadn’t sent him away, but he needed to believe her capable of coping, of behaving rationally. She didn’t want him to regret offering to take her home with him. She could scarcely believe that despite everything, he was still trying to rescue her. If she were going to go a little bit mad she had to do it all by herself, here, steeped in the past she’d believed she had.
She locked the doors and drew her curtains, returned to the bed. Beside her sat the little pile of Marianne’s diaries. She picked up a spiral bound book with curved corners, its cover decorated in orange and white flowers looking, like everything Marianne had owned, as though it belonged to the 70s. But it was dated 1996. The year of her death. You knew, Jem thought. He was betraying you – betraying us – and in the end you knew. The handwriting swam and her throat hurt. She blinked, flipping the pages mechanically. Marianne had died at the end of May. Most of the pages before then were empty. She never had been able to communicate her misery.
Jem had been twelve years old. Why hadn’t she sensed something? How could he not have let anything slip? How could her dad, whom she’d worshipped, whom she’d believed so lovin
g and so full of integrity, have been such a traitor? Or maybe the loving integrity bit had been the charade. For all those years. Why hadn’t she known? She lay back, tears sliding into her ears and her hair, and tried to search her slideshow of memories of her twelfth year.
It was a dull blur, as it had always been.
She won’t be there, Jem had told him, reluctantly giving the details of Eve’s address. She was going out when I arrived. Such was Gil’s rage with the woman and his need to take action he stormed down there nonetheless, glaring up at the house and banging his fist on the door as if he could make her appear through sheer force of will. But as with Cecily earlier today, there was nothing. He shouted, giving the door a final thump, and stood in the overgrown grass, fury unassuaged, the beginning of a tirade running through his head. If you are so concerned for Jem’s welfare, why, why, would you tell her something so fucking painful when she never needed to know? Why is the truth more important than her feelings? Why would you do that to her?
He called Eve’s mobile. No reply. Of course. Tried Cecily’s number. No reply there either. Jesus! He strode back into town, along the sea front, towards The Wharf, his mind churning. He needed to spirit Jem away from here, take care of her until she was no longer careering out of control with grief. They could do normal, restorative things – work, watch TV, go to the pub. He could heal her again with real life. Before that he needed, for his own sanity, to find out what was going on with Cecily and restore some equilibrium there too. He had been brought up to believe that life’s shit was best dealt with swiftly and decisively and procrastinating or brooding did no good at all. Not that he didn’t indulge in procrastination and brooding sometimes, but he usually managed to haul himself out of it. Not so easy, to haul someone else. Especially if they didn’t want to be hauled.
He unlocked the door of Alex Gregory’s gallery and stepped across the threshold, breathed in the musty air. No matter how often he and Jem checked the place, opening windows, tidying up, the sense of neglect and disuse wasn’t getting any better. He could see this room as it had been when Alex was alive, the walls full of the deep blues and turquoise greens of his seascapes, the hum of customers stirring the airy tranquillity. He could see Alex himself, mug of coffee in his hand, explaining some element of a painting, wrapping one with deft care before he took payment. Gil could understand, recognising temptation on a regular basis as he did, why life with someone as unstable as Marianne would drive you into the arms of someone else. It made complete sense to him. That it hadn’t detracted in any way from Alex’s love for his daughter was something he suspected Jem was going to take a very long time to accept.