Where the Memories Lie

 

When we finally got to the car park at Durdle Door he refused to go in the wheelchair – he wanted to walk. We were walking along the usual path and we got to near the bench we always sit on. And then . . . Christ, Olivia. It was just so . . . it was like everything happened in fast motion. We were talking, and then he got angry with me. He was confused. I didn’t really know what he was going on about and he wasn’t making any sense. We were standing near the edge of the cliff and he told me to leave him alone!’ Ethan’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘He pushed me away from him. He . . . he . . .’

 

‘It’s OK, darling, take your time.’

 

Where the Memories Lie ‘I tried to calm him down, but he wouldn’t listen, so I thought I should give him a bit of space. I turned back and walked towards the bench, hoping it would give him time to calm down. But when I got there and looked back at him, he was staring at me. And then . . . then there was this moment, where he had this expression of clarity on his face, and then he turned around and stepped off the cliff. By the time I got to where he’d been standing he was . . . he was gone. Shit!’ He yelled so loud it made me pull the phone away from my ear for a second. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t believe it happened.’

 

I tried to avoid looking at the others, who were all wearing expressions of worried expectation.

 

‘Liv, it’s . . . oh, God.’

 

‘I’m so sorry. So sorry.’ I closed my eyes, the tears smarting behind my eyelids. Part of me felt a rush of emotion. Part of me felt numb, disbelieving.

 

‘Oh, the police are here now. I have to go. I’ll see you soon.’

 

He hung up.

 

I stood there, phone still pressed to my ear, blinking away the tears, not really seeing anything in front of me.

 

‘What’s happened?’ Nadia rose and walked towards me. ‘Has Dad had another heart attack?’

 

I couldn’t speak, just let the tears snake down my cheeks.

 

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. ‘What’s happened?’

 

I stepped out of her grip, took a tumbler from the cupboard and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Tom’s just taken his own life.’

 

I poured myself a large whisky and didn’t stop drinking until I’d swallowed the whole lot. It burned on the way down, igniting fire inside the pit of my stomach, which was already delicate from not eating all day, from the constant jangling nerves. I wanted it to anaesthetise me. Make everything go away.

 

‘Suicide?’ Nadia sat next to me, her expression dazed, shaking her head. ‘No. How on earth could he do that?’

 

173

 

Sibel Hodge

 

‘He . . . um . . . he stepped off the cliffs at Durdle Door.’

 

I poured myself another drink. The bottle was almost empty.

 

Nadia leaned her elbows on the table and flopped her head in her hands, her hair falling over the table and shielding her face as her shoulders shook with sobs.

 

Lucas’s face drained of colour. He slid his arm around Nadia and drew her closer, rubbing her head in soft strokes. ‘I’m really sorry, darling. This is . . . wow. I can’t believe it. Any of it.’

 

‘He can’t have killed himself.’ Chris shook his head vacantly.

 

I retrieved another bottle of whisky from the cupboard ? an old, expensive single malt thing that Ethan had been saving for a special occasion. Murder and suicide trumped special occasion, any day.

 

I topped up all our glasses. We were silent for a while, lost in our own stunned thoughts, grief filtering in slowly.

 

‘Who knows what was running through his mind,’ I said.

 

‘Ethan said he wasn’t sure if he meant to do it or he was just confused because he was angry and upset. Maybe it’s a good thing.

 

What was the alternative?’

 

‘But surely the police wouldn’t have prosecuted a seventy-five-year-old Alzheimer’s patient for murder?’ Lucas said. ‘It wouldn’t be in their interests, would it?’