One day, Marion saw Sally hurrying down the metal staircase that led to Dad’s office, black mascara streaks staining her cheeks. When Marion asked what was wrong, Sally told her that Mr. Zetland demanded that she finish with Owen or risk losing her job. Sally, of course, chose Owen over Zetland’s Fine Fabrics. A week later she was showing off her diamond engagement ring and telling everyone she had found a job as a receptionist at a solicitor’s firm.
Each evening Dad came home from work with a dark look on his face and snapped if you spoke to him. Just before Sally’s notice was up, he announced that he had to go on a business trip to Scotland to visit the suppliers at Highland Tartan Mills. He needed someone to take minutes, so Sally would have to go with him. Dad and Sally were on their way for lunch with the tartan suppliers when the majestic Bentley swerved off a bridge and into a river. An Australian backpacker who was hiking in the area dove into the fast-flowing water but couldn’t open the car doors and nearly drowned himself trying to save them.
Marion imagined the two of them trapped underwater, hair twisting about Sally’s face, Dad, his black mustache stretched into a scream, while the Australian banged on the windows of the Bentley, watching them perish. Yet it was impossible for her to accept that the accident had actually happened. She ought to feel devastated, but death, like algebra and French verbs, was something her brain just refused to grasp, leaving her wondering if she might be too stupid to grieve.
John took leave from his new teaching job at Broadleaf Academy to make arrangements for the funeral.
“That Sally was no good,” he said to Marion. “She drove Dad to this.”
“What do you mean?” asked Marion. “Sally wasn’t driving the car, Dad was.”
John made one of his “for goodness’ sake” huffing noises and went off without saying anything else, leaving Marion with a head full of jigsaw pieces that refused to fit. Certainly Mother couldn’t help her make sense of it all. She refused to speak to anyone and spent her days sitting up in bed, fervently dealing tarot cards like a gambler on a losing streak. It was John who dealt with the detectives that came all the way from Scotland. They talked to him in the living room for more than three hours, while Marion tried to listen at the door.
“They can’t prove it wasn’t an accident. There’s no evidence,” he told Marion after the police had finally left.
“But who says it wasn’t an accident?”
“Her dad, of course. That bugger Frank is trying to put the squeeze on us, but he won’t get a penny if I’ve anything to do with it.”
After things had calmed down, and John had returned to Broadleaf Academy, Mother overcame her dislike of touching people to hook Marion’s arm with her dry fingers and say: “You won’t leave me, will you, Mar, not ever?”
“Don’t worry, Mother,” she replied, full of happiness at being needed. “I’ll stay with you.”
Mother never spoke about Sally or how strange it was that the car had just gone off that bridge on a fine day in broad daylight. If anyone asked her about Dad, she told them that he was a wonderful and devoted husband who had been ripped away from her in the prime of life. Mother knew how to turn a blind eye to things.
LAUREN HARGREAVES
John had taken the job teaching chemistry at Broadleaf Academy, a mixed boarding school, straight after graduating from Oxford. If Mother had been disappointed by her son choosing to waste his talents on teaching when he could have been earning a fortune working for some drugs company or becoming a member of parliament like she wanted, she hid it well enough. For fifteen years he earned a reputation as a solid and well-respected member of staff, and it seemed likely that he would have remained at the school until retirement if it hadn’t been for Lauren Hargreaves.
There were two things that Marion knew for certain about John’s dismissal from Broadleaf Academy: the girl’s name was Lauren Hargreaves and John had never laid a finger on her. Never laid a finger—even those words troubled Marion. Where did the girl claim fingers had been laid?
At nearly forty with his reputation in ruins, he was forced to leave his flat on the school campus and move back home to live with his sister and ailing mother. Late one night he got terribly drunk and went into Marion’s room, where, sitting on the edge of her bed, he blurted out his story between glugs of whiskey:
The girl was a barefaced liar—everyone knew that. She’d already been kicked out of three other schools and was always up to no good—getting caught sneaking into the boys’ dorms or drinking cider. His only crime had been in allowing her into his flat on campus. And why had he done that? To give her extra tuition, of course, because she was falling so far behind. To help the ungrateful little bitch. But would anyone believe him? Not a single one of those bastards stood up to support him, did they? Not even his chess buddy Tony Boyle, head of Physics. Not even Bob Phillips! And to think he had bloody well covered up for him, hadn’t he? When that cash went missing from the legacy fund!
Marion should have been flattered that he confided in her; instead she found the unexpected display of intimacy frightening. Each bit of the story felt like something long and sharp being pushed into the soft pincushion of her brain.
After a while his words became too slurred and tearful, and she wouldn’t have been able to understand him even if she’d wanted to. All she could make out was something about a fruit knife, a school porter, and the girl wandering the grounds with a torn blouse and bloody knee.
Whatever had or hadn’t happened, it seemed that nothing could be proven against John. Even Lauren’s parents, who divided the year between the slopes of Colorado and the C?te d’Azur, didn’t seem particularly inclined to believe their daughter. All they cared about was avoiding a public scandal, and they agreed not to involve the police so long as John was removed from the school.
It was a small blessing that at least they managed to hide the awful business from Mother. She never even asked why her son had moved home. In the years since Dad’s death, a diet that consisted almost entirely of warm milk and sleeping pills had sent her so far downhill that sometimes Marion wondered if she even knew who John was. Mother died just six months after John lost his job. Secretly Marion was grateful to Lauren Hargreaves. She did not know how she could have coped all alone in that big old house without her brother there to keep her company.
NOISE FROM THE CELLAR
It was a warm summer night and Marion had opened a window to let some air into the stuffy dining room. While she and John ate their dinner of tinned ravioli the sound of voices could be heard coming from outside; Judith must have people over. She heard a loud shriek of female laughter, and then an unfamiliar male voice said: “Go on, I dare you to show it to Jude, she’s never seen one before.”
It occurred to Marion that Judith had not mentioned cutting down the tree since she and Greg trespassed into the garden some months ago. She must have forgotten all about it. John was using a slice of white bread to mop up sauce from his plate when a loud banging came from the cellar door. The commotion sent a bullet of panic right through Marion’s chest. She looked at her brother.