I went back to the kitchen to get some more to drink.
I heard footsteps upstairs, padding along the landing and then coming down the stairs. I slipped back into the living room, turned off the lamp and crouched in the darkness on the window seat, my feet pulled up beneath me.
I saw him go into the kitchen, heard him opening the fridge – no, the freezer, I could hear him cracking ice out of the trays. I heard the glug of liquid and then I saw him as he walked past. And then he stopped. And took a step back.
‘Julia? Is that you?’
I didn’t say anything, didn’t breathe. I didn’t want to see anyone – I certainly didn’t want to see him – but he was fumbling for the light switch, and then the lights came on and there he stood, in boxer shorts and nothing else, his skin a deep tan, his shoulders wide, body tapering to a tight waist, the fuzz on his stomach leading down into his shorts. He smiled at me.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked. As he stepped closer I could see that his eyes looked a little glazed, his grin stupider, lazier than usual. ‘Why are you sitting here in the dark?’ He caught sight of my glass and the smile grew wider. ‘I thought the vodka was looking low …’ He walked over to me and clinked his glass against mine, then sat down at my side, his thigh pressed against my foot. I moved away, put my feet on the floor and started to get up, but he put his hand on my arm.
‘Hey, wait,’ he said. ‘Don’t run off. I want to talk to you. I wanted to apologize for this afternoon.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. I could feel my face reddening. I didn’t look at him.
‘No, I’m sorry. Those guys were being dickheads. I’m really sorry, OK?’
I nodded.
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
I cringed, my whole body burned with the shame of it. Some small, stupid part of me had hoped they hadn’t seen, hadn’t realized what it was.
He squeezed my arm, narrowing his eyes as he looked at me. ‘You’ve got a pretty face, Julia, you know that?’ He laughed. ‘I mean it, you have.’ He released my arm, slung his own around my shoulders.
‘Where’s Nel?’ I asked.
‘Sleeping,’ he said. He sipped his drink and smacked his lips. ‘Think I wore her out.’ He pulled my body closer to his. ‘Have you ever kissed a guy before, Julia?’ he asked me. ‘Do you want to kiss me?’ He turned my face to his and put his lips against mine, I felt his tongue, hot and slimy, pushing into my mouth. I thought I might gag, but I let him do it, just to see what it was like. When I pulled away, he smiled at me. ‘You like that?’ he asked, hot breath, stale smoke and alcohol in my face. He kissed me again and I kissed him back, trying to feel whatever it was I was supposed to be feeling. His hand slid into the waistband of my pyjama bottoms. I wriggled away, mortified, as I felt his fingers pushing against the fat of my belly, into my knickers.
‘No!’ I thought I’d cried out, but it was more like a whisper.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t mind a bit of blood.’
He got angry with me afterwards because I wouldn’t stop crying.
‘Oh, come on, it didn’t hurt that much! Don’t cry. Come on, Julia, stop crying. Didn’t you think it was nice? It was good, how it felt, wasn’t it? You were wet enough. Come on, Julia. Have another drink. There you go. Have a sip. Jesus Christ, stop crying! Fuck’s sake. I thought you’d be grateful.’
2015
Sean
I DROVE HELEN and my father home, but when we got to the front door I was reluctant to cross the threshold. Occasionally strange thoughts take hold of me and I struggle to shake them off. I stood outside the house, my wife and father inside, looking back at me expectantly. I told them to eat without me. I said I needed to go back to the station.
I am a coward. I owe my father more than this. I should be with him today, today of all days. Helen will help him, of course, but even she cannot understand how he will be feeling, the depth of his suffering. And yet I couldn’t sit with him, I couldn’t meet his eye. Somehow, he and I can never look each other in the eye when our minds are on my mother.
I took the car and drove, not to the station but back to the churchyard. My mother was cremated; she isn’t here. My father took her ashes to a ‘special place’. He never told me where exactly, although he did promise that one day he’d take me. We never went. I used to ask about it, but it always upset him, so after a while I let it be.
The church and graveyard were deserted, no one in sight except for old Nickie Sage, hobbling slowly around outside. I left the car, taking the path around the stone wall towards the trees behind the church. When I reached Nickie, she was standing with one hand on the wall, breath whistling in her chest. She turned suddenly. Her face was a florid pink and she was sweating profusely.
‘What do you want?’ she wheezed. ‘Why are you following me?’
I smiled. ‘I’m not following you. I spotted you from my car and I just thought I’d come over and say hello. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ She didn’t look fine. She leaned against the wall and looked up at the sky. ‘There’ll be a storm later.’
I nodded. ‘Smells like it.’
She jerked her head back. ‘That all done, then? Nel Abbott? Closing the file? Consigning her to history?’
‘The case isn’t closed,’ I said.
‘Not yet. Will be soon, though, won’t it?’ She muttered something else under her breath.
‘What was that?’
‘It’s all sewn up, isn’t it?’ She turned to face me full on and prodded me in the chest with a fat forefinger. ‘You know, don’t you, that this wasn’t like the last one? This wasn’t like Katie Whittaker. This was like your mother.’
I took a step backwards. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I asked her. ‘If you know something, you should tell me. Do you? Do you know something about Nel Abbott’s death?’
She turned away, muttering again, her words indistinguishable.
My breath quickened, my body flushed with heat. ‘Don’t mention my mother to me like that. Today of all days. Christ! What sort of person does that?’
She waved a hand at me. ‘Oh, you don’t listen, you lot never listen,’ she said, and tottered off down the path, still talking as she went, every now and again reaching out to the stone wall to steady herself.
I was angry with her, but more than that, I felt blind-sided, wounded almost. We’d known each other for years and I’d never been anything but polite to her. She was misguided, sure, but I didn’t think of her as a bad person, and I certainly never thought of her as cruel.
I trudged back towards the car before changing my mind and veering off to the village shop. I bought a bottle of Talisker – my father likes it, though he doesn’t drink a great deal. I thought we could share a glass together later, to make up for before, for my leaving like that. I tried to picture it, the two of us sitting at the kitchen table, the bottle between us, raising a glass. I wondered what – who – we would raise it to? The mere imagining of it made me fearful, and my hand started to shake. I opened the bottle.