One last secret, p.29
One Last Secret, page 29
As soon as we are in the chateau, we call for Marmalade and are relieved when she bounds towards us. I tell Evan to take her outside and tie her up out of harm’s way, then to find the box of tricks that holds the security footage and delete the past few days. I put the letter knife back in the library. Together we place Shaun’s body in a chair in the salon; I put a whisky decanter on the side table next to him, and a glass. I have no idea if it will melt to nothing in the fire, but I feel a need to be thorough. I’m imagining a scenario where he drank too much and passed out cold, therefore wasn’t woken by the smell of smoke. We deliberate lugging Jonathan’s body into the same room and positioning him as though he had fallen asleep on a chair opposite. I’m nervous of doing so. ‘How would we account for his injuries? If there’s anything left, they might see broken bones or his smashed head from the fall.’
‘Will there be anything left?’ Evan asks. He looks haunted, beaten.
‘I don’t know.’ We have to hope not, because an autopsy would show that Shaun drowned, but I don’t know for sure.
There is so much we don’t know about the whole thing, but we have to push on. I clear my throat and say, ‘We should leave Jonathan where he is. He could have fallen during the fire while, you know, trying to escape.’ Evan needs me to stay focused and firm.
We light candles throughout the house, and then I tip over one that is positioned near a curtain in the salon. The fire quickly catches, the flames licking the velvet fabric, the floorboards, the wallpaper. The intensely hot summer means everything is bone dry and basically tinder. Whoosh, the fire leaps; a playful imp quickly becomes an angry devil. I move the side table closer to the flaming curtain and watch as it catches fire too. I need to shunt Shaun’s chair towards the curtain but can’t bear to articulate the thought. Instead, I take kindling from the woodpile near the fireplace and put the sticks in a trail from the burning curtains to below his chair, under which I build another pile and add logs.
The heat is becoming overpowering; a few sparks snap and singe my skin. I step back and watch the blaze. ‘His damp clothes,’ I mutter. ‘We can’t afford for this fire to peter out.’ Evan looks like he wants to howl. The fire scorches my face, and my sunburnt arms and shoulders flare and sting, as though the flames are actually reaching me. I’m in hell.
‘Should I do the same in another room?’ Evan asks.
‘No. It will be more realistic if there’s one source. I’m certain they can work out that sort of thing.’ I start to cough. ‘Come on, we need to get out of here.’ I take him by the arm and pull him out of the room, through the hall and out the front door. He looks back over his shoulder and I pretend not to notice.
Outside, I take my suitcase out of Jonathan’s car, find fresh clothes and change into them. I throw my wet ones back into the blaze. The flames are dancing through the salon now. I can see them through the window, a brightness against the blackness. I sniff the air and wonder whether I am imagining that I can smell burning flesh. I need to get Evan away from the house. ‘Go and throw the gun down the well. I’ll meet you back at the pool. I’ll bring Marmalade.’ He follows my instructions wordlessly, seemingly grateful to have had the responsibility of decision-making taken from him.
Returning to the pool, we sweep up the broken glass that is scattered across the patio. We wash blood from the sunloungers using wet towels, then dip the towels in the pool to clean them too. We reassure ourselves that the pool filter will have removed all traces of blood by the time the fire engines arrive. We leave the empty whisky and wine bottles where they are; a night of excess will help to explain slow reactions. I glance towards the house and see smoke above the trees. I pray that no one alerts the fire service too swiftly. We then lie down together on the double sunlounger. Marmalade climbs on top of us, creating a welcome blanket across our legs. ‘We have to pretend we fell asleep here,’ I say.
‘I can’t sleep,’ replies Evan.
‘No.’ I put my arms around him, and he rests his head on my chest as though he is a child I am comforting. I gently caress his back and hair. Eventually he does fall asleep, and even as I am wondering how, I must do the same. I only know this because a little later I am shaken awake as I feel Evan’s body shudder. He weeps, but I continue to pretend to be asleep. Grief is a very private thing. What can I do? Nothing. Leave well alone. What’s done is done. I think I finally know that sometimes doing nothing is everything you can do.
50
Dora
Sleep must have overwhelmed us again, because the next time we wake, it is to the sound of sirens. At first I don’t recognise them as such. I think it is Dottie crying, screaming, the way she did when she was a hungry baby. This dream is one that haunted me for a long time when I was younger, but I haven’t had it for a while. It’s disconcerting that it’s returned. No, in fact it’s devastating that it has returned. I wonder what am I going to be haunted by from now on. We run towards the house and the sirens; Marmalade barks her distress, adding to the confusion. I keep her on her lead and close to my side. Flames are towering above the treeline now, lighting up the sky. The smell of smoke and desolation lingers in the air, cloying. Choking.
We’re distraught and disorientated enough for the authorities to accept our story without question. It’s made particularly compelling because Evan tries to run into the house. He screams, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad. My dad’s in there.’ Over and over again. He’s so convincing I think for a moment he really has forgotten that his father is dead. That I killed him by stabbing him in the face and then pushing him into the pool, and that he was powerless to save him. He’s going to have to learn to live with being powerless, as I had to, and the thought makes me sad. Now that his innocence is lost, I realise how much I valued it. I always thought I resented it.
Powerlessness is torture. My baby girl would have been eleven and a half now. A child on the cusp of being a teen, then she would have stretched into womanhood. Who knows what she would have achieved, who she would have influenced or inspired, what she would have seen, thought and felt. If allowed. I am sure she’d have loved Evan. My mum would have adored him too. But there are some things that can’t ever be changed.
As expected, the heat is ferocious, but the noise surprises me: timber groans, the roof and floors crash loudly like thunder and then fall into oblivion. Despite the valiant efforts of the firefighters, we watch the house burn to a blackened skeleton. Eventually there is nothing left other than a few partial walls, charred and unrecognisable.
The next several hours are a blur. A translator arrives and helps Evan explain who he is, who his father was, what happened. ‘We had all had quite a bit to drink, we were celebrating our engagement. Dad and Jonathan – his employee, but really more of a family friend – turned in at about eleven. Dora and I wanted to stay out under the stars for a bit longer. I guess we fell asleep.’ I absorb sympathetic glances from firefighters, medics and the police.
Evan keeps his arm around my waist or shoulders almost constantly; he ushers me into a hired car that seems to arrive from nowhere but was most likely organised by someone from Shaun’s company, a PA or lawyer, I suppose; both have been called, along with Evan’s mother and sister. He made those calls alone and he doesn’t share details of the conversation with me; I guess he wants to spare me their pain at his lies. Lies my actions have forced him to tell.
We’re taken to a hotel. There are fresh clothes waiting for us. We are offered an array of food and drink, but neither of us manages more than a coffee. Concerned people constantly urge us to eat, sleep, rest, talk, cry if we need to. Evan watches me with wary concern. I imagine he thinks the guilt will be too much of a burden and that I’ll crack under pressure or pleasantries, suddenly confess to the double murder. When we are alone, he tries to reassure me. ‘It’s OK that we lied to the police. Morally it’s justifiable. We know the truth and understand it. Others might not. As long as we’re always honest with each other, we’ll be OK.’ He kisses my forehead. Then, turning from the subject, he adds, ‘Look, there’s a note here from the hotel manager offering you a complimentary massage. Do you fancy that?’
‘Not really.’ I lie on the bed and wonder whether we will be OK. Should we be? I wish the hours away until someone says it’s time to get a taxi to the airport. Despite the clean clothes and constant kindness, I feel dirty and fraught. It’s a relief when we are on the plane.
Like the staff at the hotel, the air steward is overly attentive. He asks if we want extra pillows or blankets; is Marmalade settled? She has a business seat to herself, so I’m assuming she’s fine. We’re offered food and champagne; when we refuse both, he runs through a list of teas (breakfast, fruit or herbal), coffees (latte, cappuccino, Americano, all available caffeinated or decaf), or water maybe – still or sparkling? To show willing, I finally accept a sparkling water.
I suppose this is the power of Evan’s gold card. I realise this is the life I will live from now on, one where other people make an effort for me, try to impress me. My comfort will be constantly and solicitously enquired after, prioritised. After a week of being so brutally treated by the people Shaun employed, and years before that of dismissals, slights, insults, restrictions and abuse, that are part and parcel of being a whore – or maybe just being a woman – this constant thoughtful attention is extraordinary. At the moment it feels awkward, since people are being especially kind because of Evan’s loss, but I’m practical enough to know I will get used to it. I will enjoy it. It will be a relief. Shaun accused me of being a gold-digger. I doubt he will be the last to call me that. Women who marry rich men are always treated with suspicion. I don’t care. I’ve been called worse, and besides, I know it’s not true. What I have with Evan, well, it’s never been about the money.
Shaun wasn’t stupid, though. He got some things right.
There’s something you need to know – or rather, there’s something I need to tell you, which is almost, but not quite, the same. I must confess it to someone, and a glance at Evan – transparent with shock – tells me he’s not up to hearing it.
I did know Evan was Shaun’s son. I knew all along, despite the different surname. And yes, if he had looked like Quasimodo, I would still have tried to make him mine. It took me two years to plan how to best destroy Shaun Beaufoy, and four years to do it. He bragged of plotting his revenge on me for months.
Amateur.
After Dottie and my mother died, I could barely get out of bed, but when I finally did, I started to look for Evan Smyth-Cooper. Shaun was absolutely correct. I did want to ruin things between him and his son. I wanted to make Evan more mine than Shaun’s. A child for a child has to be the going rate by anyone’s reckoning, right? Something else Shaun said comes back to me. When justifying what he put me through, he said, ‘Any parent would do the same.’ It’s perverse but if he had known about Dottie, I think he would have understood my actions. My need to make him pay. A parent’s love is boundless, bottomless. Infinite and forever.
At the beginning, I thought it would be a straightforward seduction. Evan being a few years younger than me was an advantage. I fully expected him to be easily beguiled, bedazzled. I mean, I know a trick or two. I imagined him falling in love with me, embarrassing his father. I thought they would row about me. I imagined Evan cutting himself off from his father, at least for as long as he was infatuated with me. I had no idea how long his interest would last. Forever was a stretch; I was hoping for six months to a year. I could create a scandal and bring pain and shame to them all. Especially to Shaun.
However, those were my thoughts before Evan became real. When he was simply a face on various photos at the end of a Google search, a mass of pixels and headlines, a regular on the sidebar of shame, it was easy to imagine making him a pawn in my game. When I met him, something changed. I liked him. He made me laugh. I made him laugh. I soon realised that I didn’t want to use him or hurt him. Truthfully, it was inconvenient to find I felt this way, but I suppose not unexpected. After all, I had fallen in love with his father; I suppose I should have accounted for an attraction to the younger, kinder son.
As the months went by, Evan and I became closer; our relationship blossomed and deepened while staying platonic. I realised that he brought a warmth to my life that helped me heal a little from the devastating grief that swamped and consumed me. For a time, that became more important to me than seeking revenge on his father. I lost faith in my plan. I didn’t see the point any more; it seemed like self-sabotage. I had already lost Dottie and my mum; why risk the only other person I had found to care about? I came to think that I didn’t want to risk Shaun finding out about us, as I knew he would inevitably try to prevent us seeing one another. Worse was the thought of Evan finding out about my history with his father and being so disgusted by it that he abandoned me. I decided to keep my head down. I thought maybe I could quietly maintain the friendship without Shaun discovering it. I stopped asking Evan about his family, I refused all invitations to family events, and yeah, I allowed myself to be loved and to love a little once again.
I suppose I could have turned down his proposal. I knew I’d have to if I wanted to hide from Shaun forever. You have to believe me, I really wanted to love Evan more than I hated Shaun, but I couldn’t, not quite. The persistent grief and horror, it’s always there with me. What happened to my mother and daughter was Shaun’s fault, and he had to pay. So I accepted the proposal and waited to see how things might unfurl. I knew there would be trouble, though there were things even I could never have anticipated, consequences I could never have imagined. But honestly? Even if I had foreseen the pain I’d endure, the conclusion for Shaun, bobbing in that dark pool, I think I would still have chosen the same path. I wanted to rattle Shaun’s cage, make him feel less secure, less comfortable, less bloody smug. He would have hated living with me as a daughter-in-law. You know, that’s about the only reason I regret his death. I’d have liked to watch him squirm.
Everything I have been through was because I put myself in Shaun’s path. I guess therefore he’d have maintained it was my own fault, that I asked for everything that came my way. He’d have probably coughed up something trite like, ‘If you play with matches, you’re going to get burnt.’
And I’d have said back to him, ‘Touché.’
I glance over at Evan. He’s sipping on a small plastic glass of red wine, provided by the air steward. I can’t imagine it’s a decent year; I don’t suppose he cares. He keeps picking up the laminated safety instruction sheet, even though as a frequent flyer he must know it off by heart; and more pertinently, he must know that you can’t ward off disasters anyhow. I reach out and squeeze his arm; he pats my hand. We seem old, weathered, but also solid, or at least bound, substantial. That’s enough right now. It’s a start. We just need to get through the funeral. And then our wedding. We have our lives ahead of us. We do.
‘You OK?’ he mouths, for the hundredth time. I nod, also for the hundredth time. It’s obvious he doesn’t really believe me. ‘I’ve got you,’ he murmurs. I’m not certain if he says this to reassure me or to comfort himself.
I love Evan. Finally, I am free to love him unreservedly. There is no hate or revenge clouding my vision, pulling at my heart. I’ll be a good wife to him. However, I daren’t tell him that truth about me. Not the entire truth. He thinks he knows the worst, since he’s seen me kill a man. He doesn’t. How can I tell him everything about my history with his father? How can I tell him about Dottie? It’s an idealistic view of marriage, isn’t it – being one hundred per cent truthful with one another. Idealism, that’s the ultimate rich person’s privilege. Not the schools with chapels and multiple sports fields, not the jobs that Daddy finds for them, not even the trust funds that afford a deposit on a swanky flat. The ultimate privilege is idealism. That, and optimism. They know it will all work out in the end. Because it does, for them. The rest of us feel foolish thinking there is room in the world for such things; we feel safer doubting and dreading. At least that way we can’t be disappointed.
So, the question I’m left with now is: am I finally one of them? Am I a privileged person who dares to optimistically believe that it will indeed all be OK?
When I was sitting by the pool, a gun literally and metaphorically held to my head, I tried to bluff Shaun. I demanded to know why I would have waited all these years to avenge my disastrous love affair. I said it didn’t make sense. His vanity meant that he believed I might have held onto a grudge about being dumped for over a decade. But who would do that? Not me, I promise you. Shaun believed I was madly in love with him and had never got over him, never stopped thinking about him. As if! There were months, years when I barely thought of him. But then there was the accident, and I did think of him.
Hatred surged through my body; hatred at the person driving the other car, who got away with a broken leg and some bruises. However, the hate I felt for that driver was fleeting and insignificant compared to the hate I felt towards myself for the choices I’d made. The choices that had ended in a chilly morgue, the two people I loved most in the world gone. Maybe if I’d had someone else to talk to, someone who could have picked through my grief with me, helping me make sense of the different stages – denial, anger, depression and acceptance – things might have been different. As it was, I faltered at anger.
My anger – my fury – grew, swelled to gigantic proportions. I didn’t even get to attend their funerals. The authorities couldn’t find me, because I had changed my name, something I’d done to hide from Shaun. I had been emailing my dead mother, cross with her for not responding. Then I called her telephone for days, becoming increasingly concerned when I couldn’t contact her. Weeks went by; I thought she was avoiding me. I tried to work out what I might have done to annoy her; her silence couldn’t be about the flask of green tea at the airport, could it? Eventually, I jumped on a plane. I went to my mother’s house and found it up for sale. My lack of ability to speak Serbian meant that making enquiries was confusing and complicated. Initially I thought she’d done a bunk; finally decided I just wasn’t fit to be in Dottie’s life in any way, shape or form and so run away from me. Eventually, the accident was explained to me. A neighbour had taken charge of the funeral arrangements. I was handed an urn of their combined ashes and a lot of sorrowful looks.
