The Missing Marriage (10 page)

‘What day?'

‘In the garden – on the brick path near where the potatoes were growing. It was summer. I must have been thirteen?'

‘What day?' Mary said again.

The magnifying glass had been irritating her since their conversation that morning, but Anna remembered now. ‘The day Jamie Deane locked me in their wash house. I went round to the Deanes' house to return Bryan's magnifying glass, but he wasn't in. It was Jamie Deane who answered the door. You remember . . . I came home in such a state.'

Mary shook her head.

‘You had that job up at the Welwyn electrics factory where Rachel used to work. It was so hot that day.'

So hot, she remembered her palms sweating as she turned the magnifying glass over and over in her hands, waiting in the overgrown and neglected front garden at number fifteen Parkview. She was on the point of turning away – she'd never rung on the door to number fifteen before because Bryan always came for her through the back garden and knocked on the kitchen window – when the decomposing nets at the window were lifted then dropped. A second later the front door opened and Jamie Deane was standing there in bleached jeans and a black T-shirt – she could hear Iron Maiden playing inside the house.

By then she'd changed her mind, but it was too late.

‘Is B-B-Bryan there, please?' She could hear herself saying it.

Jamie stared – then laughed and jerked his head at her to come in.

‘What d'you want with Bryan?'

He didn't mimic her in the way most people did.

‘Just wanted to return s-s-something of his.'

That's when he pulled the magnifying glass out of her hand and stared at her through it. ‘And what's Bryan want with this then?'

The scene continued to play itself out – vividly – as she sat motionless on the stool, watched by Mary.

‘Is he here?' she said, without much hope. Nobody seemed to be here at number fifteen – apart from Jamie.

She'd never been inside number fifteen Parkview before and was trying hard to hide her shock at the fact that there was no carpet on the stairs; that the wallpaper was scratched and shredded, and that the door to the lounge was peppered with darts.

Then Jamie called out, ‘Laura – look who's here,' and Anna's shock intensified as an upstairs door opened – the Iron Maiden that was playing becoming even louder – and Laura appeared at the top of the stairs smoking and staring at her, without warmth.

Anna and Laura had barely spoken for the past few years. Doreen and Mary had, between them both, sporadically attempted to reinforce the friendship, but it hadn't worked. Doreen was especially keen because Laura was doing badly at school, hanging out with boys much older than her and smoking. She shared all this with Mary knowing that Mary would understand because of what had happened to Bettina, and that she wouldn't hold it against her. The thing she didn't share – with Mary or anyone else – was that the happiness had gone out of Laura and it was this that was really haunting her. Where had the happiness gone? Who had taken it? The fact was, the Hamilton family was disintegrating and Doreen thought Anna would be a good influence on Laura, which was an honourable enough sentiment but the fact was Anna and Laura now existed in different worlds. Anna broke into a cold sweat if she got a verb ending wrong in a German vocabulary test while Laura was happy to hurl chairs across classrooms and set fire to other girls' hair in home economics.

In fact, Laura now terrified Anna as much as Jamie Deane did.

Jamie was still smiling at Anna in a slow, lopsided sort of way as he started to run his hand over her back.

She froze, staring helplessly at Laura, who remained at the top of the stairs staring blankly at her and exhaling.

‘How old are you?' Jamie asked.

‘T-t-thirteen,' Anna croaked.

‘And still not wearing a bra?'

‘She's got nothing to put in a bra that's why,' Laura said belligerently from her post.

‘Let's have a look.' Jamie started to pull at Anna's T-shirt, dropping the magnifying glass on the floor and breaking it.

‘No,' Anna yelled, instinctively knowing that whatever happened, she mustn't let Jamie Deane lift up her T-shirt.

‘Alright – alright,' he said, laughing, and stumbling back towards the staircase.

Then he was staring at her again – they were both staring at her, Laura and him, and it occurred to Anna that behind the blankness, Laura was scared as well.

‘Bryan's in the wash house,' Jamie said suddenly.

Laura stood up on the stairs, throwing the cigarette down. It looked like she was about to say something but in the end changed her mind.

Anna ran through to the kitchen, out into the back passage and through to the garden aware of Jamie directly behind her. The wash house leant against the back wall of the house just as it did at number nineteen Parkview, and every other house on the Hartford Estate. It was where a lot of women still spent their Mondays only not here at number fifteen because there were no women at number fifteen Parkview, and she should have thought about that – she should have known then that the wash house was the last place Bryan would be . . . the wash house was where Rachel hanged herself, but all Anna could think about was Jamie Deane behind her.

The door to the Deanes' wash house had been painted green by number fifteen's previous tenants, and there was a piece of orange string with rabbit's feet tied into it nailed to the doorframe. She should have thought about that as well, but she didn't.

The door opened easily and she slammed it shut behind her, leaning against it and breathing hard. Then she heard Jamie turning a key in the lock and realised – too late – what was happening. That's when she remembered that it was the wash house where Bryan discovered Rachel Deane, hanging from the roof beam – and there were a pair of large, still round eyes staring at her through the dark.

She screamed, turned round and started to pull on the door, pulling on it so hard she broke the handle, dropping it at her feet.

‘Laura!' she screamed out automatically, her eyes shut now, pressing her face into something soft hanging from the back of the door – Rachel Deane's old apron? ‘Laura!' she screamed again, her eyes shut still and breathing hard – not wanting to touch anything.

Then there was a tapping on the wash house window and turning to look she saw the eyes staring at her again, and what it was the eyes belonged to, which was also the source of the terrible sweet smell filling the wash house – a dead fallow deer hung up by its legs, which were bunched together with blue rope. The deer's head was hanging back and there was a yellow plastic washing up bowl on the floor, positioned to catch the blood coming from its throat. The deer must have been hanging for a while because there was no blood coming out of it any more. There were only the eyes, staring, and beyond them Jamie Deane's face grinning at her through the window.

After the first hour passed and she'd given up shouting and kicking at the door, she was almost glad of the deer. She had no idea how long she was in the wash house, only that the quality of light gradually changed and that at some point the door was clumsily unlocked and slammed suddenly open – so forcefully that in its juddering rebound it nearly shut itself again. Who was it who opened the door? Who let her out?

‘Anna, pet?' Mary said, concerned.

Anna stared at her, aware that she was breathing hard. ‘There was a deer hanging up in the wash house.'

Mary was nodding slowly at her now. ‘Bobby used to hunt them over the border, in Scotland. He started when the strikes were on.'

‘You must remember that day, Nan. You have to,' she insisted, looking at Mary, who she could barely see now in the doorway. Neither of them had made a move to switch on the lights. ‘I was in such a state when I got home.'

‘I think we should go back inside the house and have a sherry.'

‘Don't you remember it at all?'

‘I don't, no – come on.'

It was night outside as Anna followed Mary back indoors, turning on the light and watching her take the bottle of sherry out the cupboard, placing it with due reverence on the table.

Apart from the consecrated bottle of sherry, Mary didn't keep alcohol in the house. Life was too hard and the temptation of the bottle too strong, and so many men – women as well – had lost their reputation in the bottom of a bottle. You were only as good as your reputation – if you lost that, you lost everything.

So the unspoken rule was that you drank up at the club, in public and among friends. It was the only guarantee of being able to escape daily life – even if only momentarily – while at the same time preserving its sanctity.

Mary looked terrible beneath the unforgiving strip lighting in the kitchenette and suddenly, without knowing why, Anna realised that Mary had been lying in the wash house – about not remembering that day.

Mary looked up then – instinctively aware of Anna's eyes on her – before looking away again.

‘Jamie Deane's out of prison.'

‘Jamie Deane?' Mary sat down and tried to pour the sherry, but her arm wasn't steady enough. ‘Can you?' she said to Anna, handing her the bottle.

‘I'd forgotten he was even in prison. Did Don and Doreen not say anything?'

She passed Mary her glass of sherry.

‘No,' Mary said, her tone implying that Anna should know how the situation was. ‘Nobody's got anything to say about Jamie Deane any more.'

Anna nodded, drank her sherry, then put the glass back down on the table.

Mary's glass was empty as well.

Anna poured them another one, staring at the replenished glass and the thick amber liquid that slid sluggishly to one side when she tilted it. ‘You knew about Jamie being out of prison,' she suggested quietly.

‘I'm tired –'

‘You knew.'

Mary drank the second glass of sherry, but held up her hand when Anna tried to pour her more.

‘Is this the only alcohol you've got in the house?'

‘You know it's the only alcohol we keep. I've seen him – Jamie.' Mary sighed.

Anna was shocked. ‘You've seen him?'

‘At Bobby Deane's.'

‘What the hell were you doing at Bobby Deane's?'

‘He's not well – he needs stuff doing for him.'

‘And you've been . . . doing that stuff?'

Mary nodded sadly.

‘Why?' Anna demanded.

‘I told you why,' Mary responded angrily.

‘He's got Alzheimer's.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Inspector Laviolette told me – he's been to see him because of Bryan. You need to contact social services, Nan. Where's Laura in all of this?'

‘Bobby and Laura never got on. Laviolette?'

‘You know him?' Anna asked, interested.

‘Is he involved in this business with Bryan? That can't be right –'

‘Why not?'

Mary fought briefly with herself then pushed her glass forward for some more sherry. ‘It's his father, Roger Laviolette, who Rachel Deane –'

‘Had the affair with?'

‘Spent time with,' Mary corrected her.

‘The widower? What happened to him?'

‘You don't remember?' Mary said, surprised. ‘He died.'

‘How?'

‘Jamie Deane killed him.'

‘You said Roger Laviolette had an accident.'

‘Dying's an accident,' Mary said, uncharacteristically obtuse.

‘But murder isn't.' Anna paused. ‘Laviolette told me people thought it was Bobby who did it and Jamie who took the blame despite never actually confessing to it.' She didn't say that he'd failed to mention it was his father who was murdered.

‘He said that – to you?' Mary shook her head. ‘No. It was never Bobby. Bobby Deane never hurt anybody,' she said shortly.

Anna left Mary standing at the front door, one arm pulling her cardigan around her against the night, the other waving.

She got back to the Ridley Arms just after nine and put Bryan's picture of the spider next to the photograph Martha had given her, which she'd balanced against the wall on the kitchen bench. Bryan Deane . . . sitting sad and preoccupied in an island paradise Laura and he had paid a substantial amount of money to spend time in.

She picked up the photograph and read ‘Cephalonia – Aug 2007' written across the back before putting it down, looking round the empty apartment and deciding to go for the run she'd been trying to have all day.

*

It was too dark to run on the beach so she stuck to the coastal road, her ankles bearing the brunt of tarmac. She passed the bandstand – still semi-flooded from all the recent rain – and defences from the last war, buried in dunes that rose in a high line now alongside her. When they dipped she could just make out the blockish silhouettes of the tank traps – that she remembered playing on as a child.

She carried on running – past the Shipwright's Arms Bryan failed to show up at the night before, and the Duneside development he failed to return home to – until she got to the harbour at Seaton Sluice where she stopped, breathing hard. The tide was on the turn and the sea was loud in her ears. There was something large and white lying on its side at the water's edge – an abandoned fridge that the tide must have brought in.

Still breathing hard, she bent over – pressing her forehead into her knees.

What happened to Jamie Deane after that day Mary claimed to have no recollection of?

There had been police at number fifteen Parkview, she remembered now. The police took Jamie Deane away, and that was all she knew – at the time she didn't really care why or where; she never really asked. So it must have been then – the day she was locked in the wash house – that Roger Laviolette was murdered.

What she did care about was Bryan, who for some reason she never understood stopped speaking to her after that. When the summer finally ended and they went back to school, he no longer waited for her in the litter-ridden flower beds by the bus stop.