Still Water by Catherine Marshall
She shook her head, her hand trembling badly at the lock. He took the key from her and opened the door, moved her gently inside. “What?” he said again.
“Henry knows about Sam.”
“Oh Jesus.” He drew her into his arms and held her for a long moment. Her shoulders racked as she wept and he stroked her hair, kissed the top of her head. “Oh sweet-heart. How?”
She pulled back, wiped her face with her hand. “He found his identity tag.”
Gil, knowing where the identity tag was kept, made all the connections and his spirits sank a little further.
She watched him. “Do you have to be somewhere now? Can you stay for a while?”
“Of course I can stay.” When life was good or when they were annoying the hell out of each other it was easy to forget all the things that only he and Cecily knew; that there were times when no one else’s comfort or company was enough. She plucked a bottle of wine from the kitchen and he followed her upstairs.
He smiled as they entered her rooms. Nothing much had changed. He remembered the summers he had spent more time here than at his own place, all the confidences and intimacies they’d exchanged, all the times they’d peeled each other out of their clothes and fallen together onto her patchwork bed under the eaves. It seemed like yesterday. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
They sat on the stripy sofa and Gil poured her a large glass of wine. “Tell me.”
She did, describing the evening and the earlier conversations when Henry’s questions had seemed determined and too close to the bone. He listened, silently furious with Henry’s insensitivity, with his own failure to protect her. “How much did you tell him?”
“Only that he died.” She hesitated. He squeezed her hand. “After that I didn’t want to be around him. It’s all always been so private and I couldn’t believe firstly that he knew and then that he thought it was okay just to blunder in with it.”
“But that’s what Henry does.”
“He was upset.”
“You’re upset.” And so was he, but he wasn’t going to make it any worse for her by saying so. “Do you want to talk, about Sam?”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to say.”
He nodded. “When I first came back you were upset about something. Was it this? Had you been thinking about him?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Kind of. Sometimes the force of not having what I thought I was going to have – what I did have, for such a short time – hits me all over again and it leaves me reeling.”
“Of course. God. Why wouldn’t it?”
“I think I coped amazingly well and that I came to terms and all that crap and then one person says one thing and … ” She gestured. “It brings everything back. You know Henry wanted to take me to that party at the cove?”
He nodded. “What did you say?”
“We went out for dinner instead. Was that your suggestion?”
He was uncomfortable, that it seemed as though he had been interfering. “I was just trying to look out for you.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Gil. I didn’t mean to offload this onto you.”
“Jesus, don’t say that. Who else can you offload it onto? I know it hasn’t seemed like it much these last few weeks but I’m on your side. Always and forever, on your side.”
She hesitated. “We’ve … ”
“Been stupid.”
“Yeah.” She gazed at him. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
She touched his wrist. He smiled.
She said, “I hear you’re … seeing someone.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed a mouthful of wine, recognising the need for a skilful blend of honesty and tact which he hoped wasn’t beyond him. “I am.”
Cecily watched him. “What’s she like?”
“She’s lovely.”
“Are you smitten?”
He paused.
“Oh God. You are, aren’t you? It’s all right, don’t think you can’t tell me.”
“It’s not that. It’s … all happened so fast.”
“Well sometimes,” she said, “that’s what it’s like. You meet someone and you know instantly that you have to be with them, no matter what. It doesn’t even feel like love, or lust. It feels more uncompromising than that. As if it’s … elemental.”
He considered. “It does feel a lot like lust though.”
She laughed. “It is you.” She added, “And then there’s the other kind, when it isn’t fast at all, when you’ve known someone for years and then one day the thought of being without them is a knife to your heart.”
He looked away. Hearing her say this about Henry was more unexpected, more painful, than realising she was sleeping with him. And how bloody mean and unreasonable of him to feel that when he had just admitted to being with someone else. He said, “Is he still talking about going to Australia?”
She shifted on the sofa, topped up their glasses. “He is. I think it’s pretty likely to happen. He wants me to go on holiday with him first. Italy, in the autumn..”
“And will you?”
“I already seem to have said yes.”
He smiled, at her tone of surprise and because she was no longer distraught. “I think another beach party is in order.”
She looked at him. “After the last one?”
“Hey. No more fighting. Life is too short.”
“It is,” Cecily agreed soberly. “It really is.”
She stood up to put on some music and he listened to the opening chords of Second Hand News from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album – his own, he seemed to recall – lilting through the familiar space. They were all at the tipping point of change. Henry moving away, maybe Cecily with him. His own life headed in who knew what direction. At the beginning of the summer he would have railed against this prospect but tonight, beginning to make peace with Cecily and thoughts of Jem pulling at his heart, he could contemplate with some serenity – excitement, even – the scent of change like danger in the air.
Every summer Henry and the boys rented the same flat above a souvenir shop two minutes from the beach. From April to October a track of sand led from one to the other even through the rain. Cecily, following the track up the slope to their doorstep, selected henry on her mobile’s contact list. “I’m outside,” she said to his voicemail. “Five minutes then I’m gone.” She waited. She had on flip-flops and shorts, a pink zip-up hoodie intended to shield her from the early chill. Yet this midsummer morning the air was already warm, blue skies promising another idyllic day ahead. She had left Justine on breakfast duty and was already questioning her own wisdom, but there had been no customers when she left and what she had to say to Henry would not take long. Better to let a few words fill a short space of time than wait until evening and let the silence draw on.
She heard heavy footfall down the stairs on the other side of the door, and then there was Henry, looking as hung-over as he smelled. “Hey,” he said warily.
“Hey. Come for a walk?”
He was uncertain. He was also wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. “Give me a sec.”
She waited again. He returned after a minute or so, in jeans and a t-shirt which also whiffed of booze. She said as they started down the slope, “I just wanted to talk to you before we get any further into the day.”
“Okay.”
She led him to the first bench at the end of the prom with its views of the beach huts and the empty sands, the tide a quiet shimmer under the gentle sun. She sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her heels resting on the wood beneath. Henry sank down beside her, put his head in his hands for a minute.
“I’ve blown it, haven’t I?”
“No.”
He looked at her. “Really?”
“Listen. I couldn’t talk to you last night but I shouldn’t have run away. You deserved more than that - ”
“I didn’t. ”
“Ssh. Listen. You can’t ask any questions and I can’t tell you mor
There was a long silence. Henry said, “I’m so sorry.”
She shook her head, wiped away her tears. “You should also know that I saw Gil last night – I didn’t go to him, he found me in the square – and I told him that you know. You have to stop being jealous of him. He’s my best friend but anything more than that is over. He’s seeing someone else. I’m with you.”
He nodded. “All right.” He paused “Is he fucked off with me?”
“I think he was more concerned for me.”
“Of course.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Oh God. I have to go back now. I’ve left Justine in charge of the croissants.” She smiled wryly, stood up.
Henry said, “I was scared – ”
“Don’t. Don’t be scared. We’re still here.”
He hugged her, at a loss, she knew, because she had told him he couldn’t say anything and because finding the right words at the best of times wasn’t his forte. He murmured against her hair, “I love you.”
Well there was that, she thought. She hadn’t forbidden him that.
Chapter Seventeen
“Okay.” Gil turns from his curtained surveillance of the street below. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
I pause. We’d come straight up here, silent with shock, Gil instantly to the window while I packed our rucksacks, hands trembling, desperately occupied. We’ve both sobered up so fast it’s as if the last few hours never happened.
He looks at me properly for the first time since the car with the smiley face nearly crushed him beneath its wheels. “Listen,” he says.
I do. It’s a nice hotel and the glazing muffles external noise, the air-con whooshes gently like some background lullaby. On the floor above a toilet flushes. There’s nothing more.
He says, “It’s been this quiet since we got in. It’s a good sign.”
“Why?”
“Would you feel better if someone were trying to break down the door?” His tone is one of soothing reason and I understand that fear must be emanating from me like a scent.
“You’re very calm,” I tell him, almost reproachfully.
“Yeah.” He takes a breath. “Yeah. Well, now I know what I’m dealing with.”
“How can you know that? It was just the car. We didn’t even see who was driving, we just recognised – ” I’m becoming shrill with terror and he shushes me.
“If the police were involved they’d have burst in here waving their guns at us and we’d be locked up by now.”
This makes some sense. I shut up, watching him pull the strings of his rucksack together, buckle the top flap. I do the same with mine but I can’t stay quiet for long, however much it’ll annoy him. “Why aren’t you scared?”
“I am scared. But when you’re waiting for the worst to happen, and then it happens, it’s almost a relief. And it turns out maybe it’s not the worst after all.”
“It’s something you can deal with.”
He looks grim.
“You haven’t told me yet what we’re going to do.”
He swings his bag onto his shoulder. “We’re going to drive to Nice. It should only take a couple of hours. Then we’ll ditch the car and take the train to Venice. The car’s a liability now anyway and we won’t need one once we’re there.” He meets my eyes, ready to meet my inevitable wailings or objections with intransigence.
I say meekly, “All right.”
“Okay.” He rubs my arm. I think of us against the wall outside the club an hour or so ago, lost in passion. Something in his eyes tells me he’s thinking of it too but the moment is long past. “Let’s go.”
We step furtively out into an empty corridor and take the back stairs to the ground floor. It’s the early hours of the morning and there is neither sight nor sound of anyone but ourselves. We’re in a bare concrete lobby containing bins and cleaners’ trollies, one door leading to a carpeted passage, another to the yard outside. Gil tentatively presses its central bar. No alarm sounds and the catch gives.
The yard too is deserted. Something – a fox? a rat? – shoots from the pile of rubbish sacks across the pavement in front of us. We move carefully through the dark, hurrying softly along the network of alleys behind the hotels and find the car where we’d parked it, half-hidden behind the bushes from an overgrown garden. We climb in, trying to limit the thunk-thunk of our doors as we close them behind us. Gil starts the engine and we crawl out of the side streets, gaining speed as the main road opens up ahead of us. He is quiet, and I catch him checking the rear mirror more than maybe he needs.
“Are we okay?”
“So far.”
I lean back in my seat. “Can I say stuff or will you lose it with me?”
“Give it a go.”
“What if we’re followed to Venice?”
“Well, like I said, we’ll be better without the car. Nice’ll be busy, even this time of year. Then we’ll probably have to change trains a couple of times, which gives us more opportunity for confusion.”
“Venice isn’t a big city.”
“No, but it’s a good place for hiding dark deeds.”
I start to say, isn’t that the last thing we want, and then I realise that he doesn’t mean someone else’s dark deeds. He means his own. “Gil … ”
“I won’t be hunted down.” His voice is tense in the dark enclosed bubble of the car. “If he wants to back me into a corner, fine. But I can’t answer for the consequences if he does.”
I swallow. He’s scaring me. “He was your friend.”
“Oh I think anything any of us were to each other went up in flames a long time ago, don’t you?”
I have a vision of us all, charred remains on a scorched and blackened land and I don’t know which frightens me more - its accuracy or the deadness in Gil’s eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
Jem sat on the wall clutching her lunchbox and her bookbag, swinging her legs and scuffing her heels against the bricks. Everyone had gone. She’d watched them scrambling into their parents’ cars or loping away holding one of the handles of their babies’ buggies or running and swooping with their friends. Now she could see all the way up the street into town and down the street to the beach. The teachers would be coming out soon, unloading armfuls of books into the boots of their cars, asking her questions. She hopped down from the wall and began walking home.
It wasn’t really so very far, and she had taken the same route with her mother or her father every school day since she had been in Reception. She knew she had to turn right out of the playground, along the road past the vets’ and the supermarket, across the big road with its double zebra crossing. She was afraid of the crossing; it seemed too big, to invite traffic from too many directions, to provide too much opportunity for terrible disaster. But the cars had all stopped for a lady ahead of her and Jem scuttled in her wake, her heart thumping and her throat making little whimpering noises until she was safely on the other side.
Then a left turn, past the rows of houses whose walls were painted pastel colours like flavours. They had tiny front gard
After the double zebra crossing, the scariest part was the lane. The hedgerows on either side were taller than her father and there was no pavement; cars sometimes came whizzing round the corners before you heard them. Sometimes in the early morning there was a rabbit flattened into the tarmac and though she tried not to look a glimpse of white fluff of tail or soft length of ear made her want to cry. She kept to the edge, one foot directly in front of the other as though the grass were a tightrope, balanced by her lunchbox in one hand and her bookbag in the other. An older boy who lived in one of the big white houses cycled past her. A car rolled slowly by.
The further along the lane she trudged the quieter it became until it was her own stretch of road with her house at the end of it. So few people passed this way, so few visitors came, it always felt safe, like time and space outside the world. She pushed through the gate and followed the path round to the kitchen door, which stood open, but before she crossed the threshold she caught sight of something, some unexpected colour and shape further down the garden.
“Mummy?” Jem dumped her bags in the doorway and tramped across the lawn. Her mother was kneeling beside what yesterday had been a small flower bed and was now an empty patch of ground, its blooms uprooted and tossed aside. “You forgot to collect me from school.”
Her mother looked at her as though she had also forgotten who she was.
Jem said, “Mummy?” And saw that her mother was raking up the soil with her bare hands. Next to her was a pile of shredded material, a faded sleeve, a trouser leg, a piece of pleated skirt. “Why are you burying the dead people’s clothes?”