The Secrets Between Us (11 page)

Alexander unlaced his boots, one after the other, and when he eased them off his feet I could smell the hot wool of his socks. I found it endearing. If I had known him better, if I hadn’t known about the squirrel, perhaps I would have gone to his chair and stood behind it and rubbed his shoulders. As it was, my heart had hardened slightly.

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Then I said: ‘No. Actually, I’m not. Did you kill the squirrel that was trapped this morning?’

He didn’t apologize or shrug or look remorseful. He said: ‘Yep.’

‘Why? Why didn’t you let it go?’

‘Because it would have been straight back in the roof. There’d have been no point trapping it in the first place.’

‘You could have taken it somewhere else and released it.’

‘You can’t do that. Squirrels are territorial. They fight and they spread diseases amongst themselves. It would be cruel.’

‘More cruel than smashing its head in?’

He reached out and took hold of my hand and squeezed. I looked down at my hand in his. It looked all wrong.

‘It’s a country thing,’ he said. ‘It’s what you have to do. It’s kinder than poisoning them.’

‘It’s horrible.’

I withdrew my hand and rubbed it with the palm of my other.

‘You’re a city girl,’ he said. ‘You’ve got this Beatrix Potter idea of fluffy squirrels and rabbits in jackets and …’

‘Don’t patronize me, Alexander.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But it’s true. Squirrels are vermin. Real life isn’t like a romantic novel.’

Now there was anger in his voice, and I didn’t know him well enough to push it any further. I turned away so that he wouldn’t see the heat in my face, and I took the cucumber from the colander of washed salad on the counter and a sharp knife, and began to peel it.

‘This is stupid,’ he said, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Don’t let’s fall out over this.’

I nodded, but I didn’t say anything.

‘If it upsets you,’ he said, ‘I’ll find a different way to get rid of the squirrels.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

Alexander had a shower with his son while I finished making the dinner, and then the three of us ate together at the large, dark, wooden dining-room table. I’d given the room a cursory clean but, from the amount of dust and debris, I was pretty certain it hadn’t been used for its original purpose in months. Piles of paper, unsorted washing, riding paraphernalia and other mess lay in little heaps on the seats of chairs and on the sideboard. The huge oil painting of two horses in a field that dominated one side of the room was dull with dust. Genevieve couldn’t have been bothered with housework for a while before she went away. Or maybe she never cleaned the house. Why would she want to spend time polishing and vacuuming when she could be out riding in
this beautiful countryside with the wind in her face, knowing she was one of the best in the country?

I ate slowly and watched Jamie. He had forgotten his previous surliness and wriggled excitably in his chair. His delighted responses to Alexander’s constant, gentle teasing made me relax and feel happier. The blue teddy sat on the table beside Jamie’s plate. I was relieved to see the boy animated and cheeky, like a child his age should be.

Alexander had lit waxy yellow candles on the big old mantelpiece that ran almost the length of the room above a cavernous fireplace, and there were candles on the table too, flat paraffin tea-lights, and one stuck into the neck of a wine bottle that reminded me of our first dinner together, that night in Sicily. I watched the father and son, and listened to them, and after a while I almost forgot about the squirrel. I almost forgot about Genevieve too. Almost. But she was there, in the flickering shadows; she was in the pattern of the curtains and the weave of the rug, crouching behind the pile of books that cast strange shadows in the candlelight. I felt a draught on my face, and was convinced, for a moment, that it was Genevieve returned, but of course it wasn’t; it was just the door gently closing itself.

The candles burned down and, outside, the night dimmed and darkened. Alexander drew the curtains. Shadows flickered cosily on the walls. Jamie’s chatter slowed. Alexander wiped his plate with a piece of bread and put the bread in his mouth. He took a drink of his beer. I tried to relax, but my uneasiness was pervasive. I was aware of eyes in the walls; I heard whispers. The whispers were telling me that I did not belong at Avalon, that Alexander was right: I was not a country girl; it would be for the best if I left and went back to where I belonged.

I told myself not to be silly; I was homesick, that was all. It was bound to take a while for me to settle in. I wished I knew where I stood with Alexander. I had felt uneasy lying
to Claudia, but maybe it hadn’t been a lie. Maybe there
was
nothing between Alexander and me.

The best thing, I thought, would be if Genevieve sent a postcard, preferably from somewhere far away, saying she was blissfully happy. Then people wouldn’t mind if Alexander and I ended up together; they might even be pleased for us. They’d say: It turned out all right in the end.

I stacked the plates and took them into the kitchen. The cherry cheesecake I’d made earlier was in the fridge, its jelly and soft-fruit topping glistening. I tried not to notice the colour or the consistency. In the poor light it reminded me of congealing blood.

I took it out and was slicing it free of its tin with the blade of a knife when I saw, through the kitchen window, headlights drawing up on the drive. The white-yellow beams swept through the darkness and picked out the rambling stalks of unchecked brambles and failing nettles in the borders. The tyres made a soothing, crunching noise on the gravel and stone. I thought, at first, that it was Claudia returned – maybe she’d left something behind – but when the passenger door opened I distinctly heard the disembodied voices of people speaking over a radio. I’d heard that sound before. It was the police.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I HAD TIME
to call a warning to Alexander and to rinse my hands under the hot tap. I checked my reflection in the window and opened the door with a tea towel in my hand.

There were two police officers – a man and a woman – and they were friendly enough, brisk and apologetic. They came inside wrapped in a cloud of colder air that was blanketed with moisture. I shivered. The man was in plain clothes; the woman held her black, banded hat in her hands like a schoolgirl. She had dark shiny hair and a round, pretty face. She must have seen the worry on mine because she was kindly and assured me that nothing was wrong; they hadn’t come with bad news, they just needed a quiet word with Alexander.

Jamie was fascinated by the police. He stood barefoot in front of them and gazed at them, awestruck.

‘Have you got a gun?’ he asked the woman.

She laughed. ‘No! But I have handcuffs.’

‘Handcuffs!’ he whispered. ‘Can I hold them?’

‘I can do better than that. If you’re a good chap and let us have a few words with your dad in private, I’ll let you put the lights on in the car.’

‘The police lights?’

‘Yes.’

This was good enough for Jamie. He stayed in the kitchen with me like a lamb while Alexander, ashen-faced and with a new bottle of beer in his hand, took the police into the living room and shut the door. I stacked the dishwasher, cleared the table, wiped everything down, only half-listening to Jamie, who was rabbiting on and on about the police he’d seen on television. I should have been glad that, at last, he was talking to me, but I wished he’d be quiet so I could hear what was being said behind the closed door. It had to be something to do with Genevieve. It had to be.

When I’d finished tidying up, I poured myself a glass of wine and Jamie and I went to sit in the garden, to look at the stars.

It was country dark outside, but already I knew the physiology of the garden: I knew which tree was where and how the walls went and where the overgrown kitchen garden was bursting out of its boundaries, the sage, mint and rosemary gone wild and thuggish. The lawn was overgrown, its ruggedness interrupted with fallen apples that I had meant to collect. I sipped my wine and pointed out the few constellations I recognized to Jamie. His mother had told him that stars were wishes. I could tell, from his voice, that he knew that wasn’t exactly true, but we didn’t know one another well enough to argue the point.

The police talked to Alexander for nearly an hour. When we heard the living-room door open and their voices, Jamie and I went back into the kitchen. He huddled next to the Rayburn, I switched on the kettle, but nobody wanted tea or coffee. The policeman shook Alexander’s hand and thanked him for his time and cooperation. He called him ‘Mr Westwood’. Alexander looked pale and dreadful. The woman police officer smiled at me and fiddled with the radio at her shoulder. She kept her word and took Jamie outside to let him work the lights on the police car. They turned the garden into a fairground. I thought there was something
obscene about them. Jamie liked the lights though. He was truly impressed. I jollied him along but Alexander did not even come out into the garden to watch.

When the police left and we went back inside Jamie became withdrawn and subdued again. He put his thumb in his mouth and sidled up to his father. Alexander’s face was stony-cold. He hardly seemed to notice the child was there.

‘Did they come to talk about Mummy?’ Jamie asked around his thumb.

‘Yes.’

‘Is she in trouble?’

‘No, Jamie,’ Alexander said. ‘Nobody’s in any kind of trouble. Not yet.’

After Alexander had put Jamie to bed he came into the living room barefoot, his shirt hanging over his too-loose jeans and with a bloodstain in the region of his kidney, where he’d been picking at his scar again. His beard was like pencil strokes drawn on the skin of his cheeks.

‘Jamie wouldn’t settle,’ he said. ‘He’s all wound up.’

‘It was an exciting evening.’

‘We read
The Gruffalo
four times.’

‘Is that a record?”

‘Oh no. No, some nights we got into double figures after …’

‘Genevieve left?’

‘Yep.’

I uncurled myself from the settee and followed him into the kitchen.

He took a bottle of vodka from one of the cupboards, half-filled two small glasses and topped them up with ice.

He sat on a chair at the table. I sat back on the settee and pulled the throw around my shoulders. I took a sip of my drink and enjoyed the alcohol rush in my bloodstream.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Ask.’

‘It’s not my business.’

‘It is now; it’s very much your business.’

‘Then tell me why they came. What did they want?’

Through the open door that led into the living room, I could see the portrait of Genevieve on the bookcase. I could feel her eyes watching me, smiling at me. I shivered and tucked my legs up underneath myself.

Alexander rattled the ice in his glass.

‘Virginia has reported Genny missing. As in “missing person”.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘She’s been threatening to do it for a while.’

‘But why now? Why has she done it now?’

He looked at me and raised his glass.

‘Because I’m here?’

‘She suspects you are my mistress!’ He gave a splutter of laughter. ‘“Mistress”! That’s what the police said. I bet that wasn’t the word
she
used.’

‘Oh.’

Alexander put his glass on the table and hung his head.

‘Virginia’s come up with this story about me wanting Genevieve out of the way so we could be together, you and I. She knows I can’t afford to pay a qualified nanny’s wages and doesn’t believe you’d have agreed to come unless there was already something between us.’

I stared into my glass.

‘What did the police say?’

‘They asked questions mainly. I told them the truth: that you wanted to get away from Manchester and I needed someone to live here to look after Jamie in return for board and lodging and the paltry sum I could afford to pay you. They asked if we were sleeping in separate bedrooms.’

I shuddered.

‘Did you have to give them a tour of upstairs?’

He shook his head.

‘Do they want to talk to me?’

‘Not at the moment.’

I took a sip of my drink. ‘Did you show them the letter Genevieve left for you saying she was going?’

‘No.’

I waited for him to tell me why he hadn’t produced this irrefutable evidence that Genevieve had left of her own accord, but he said nothing more. Something moved at the periphery of my vision – the cat returned maybe, or a curtain in the draught. I wrapped my arms around myself.

‘Why didn’t you show them the letter?’

‘I don’t have it any more.’

Again a movement caught my eye. It was distracting me.

‘Where is it?’

‘I burned it.’

‘You
burned
it?’

I struggled, for a few moments, to come to terms with the fact that Alexander might have disposed of the only evidence he had to support his story. Then I told myself not to be stupid. Why would he need evidence anyway? It wasn’t as if he’d done anything wrong.

‘I was drunk,’ Alexander said. ‘It was a few days after … I couldn’t get hold of Genny. I kept calling her, begging her just to let me know she was OK, but her phone was always switched off and I …’ He trailed away into his memories. ‘Every time I heard her voice on the answerphone … it was driving me mad. I was out of my head for a while.’

I stood up and went to check the door was closed. Perhaps the draught was coming through the cat-flap.

‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ I said gently, struggling to maintain my stream of thought. ‘She wrote to her parents too, didn’t she?’

‘Yep. And apparently in that letter she went on about how unhappy she was with me and what a heartless bully I was.’

We were quiet for a moment or two. Then I asked: ‘Are they going to look for her? The police?’

‘I suppose so.’

Something about his voice bothered me. I took another sip of my drink.

‘Are
you
worried about her, Alexander?’