The art of drowning, p.16
The Art of Drowning, page 16
‘It was your fault Cassie drowned. No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But you drove Ivy away, you locked her out when she was vulnerable. Look, no one’s responsible for someone else losing their mind, no one says you fed her drugs, but you left her. And she went over the brink and dragged herself back, and I bet you don’t know what that takes, and she’s fine and … and … It’s just that I know she’ll never be entirely fine, I can’t imagine she will, anyway, until she can, sort of, have it out with you. And explain it to her son. She wants him to be proud of her, not ashamed. She can’t initiate it; she daren’t, but Grace tries, with all those letters she sends to your solicitor and you crumple up and send back. Now that really is despicable of you.’
The last, jumbled sentence startled him.
‘Recently?’
‘Of course recently. Over the last year, dammit.’
‘Oh. Those.’
The carelessness of the response infuriated her.
‘YOU kept them apart. You keep them dangling. You prevent any resolution. Grace can’t live with it.’
‘Do you mean closure?’ he said. ‘Dreadful word.’
‘Not closure,’ she said angrily. ‘An opening. The chance to make amends. The chance to see things for what they are, oh, I don’t know. Ivy blames herself, for everything. She wants forgiveness. She’s done absolutely marvellously.’
He was nodding again, as if he entirely understood. A good trick. He probably did it with witnesses, to get them on side, make them think he was with them somehow, stuck right in the middle of their point of view.
‘You aren’t a lawyer, Miss Doe, although your firm …’
‘You looked me up?’
‘I didn’t, my clerk did. That aside, have you ever heard of the hearsay rule?’
‘Even accountants know a little law.’
‘There’s a rule which says that reported conversations between third parties are not admissible as evidence in a criminal court, because they themselves do not prove the truth of their own content. Just because one person says to another, so-and-so dyed their hair black yesterday, that cannot be evidence that they actually did. So we don’t let it in. I often think it’s a rule applicable in real life.’
‘You condescending sod,’ Rachel said. She was suddenly as angry as her father had been; indiscretion came upon her just as quickly. ‘You just don’t want Ivy to appear in any way, shape or form, in case your hypocrisy comes out with it.’
Neither moved, sitting on the bench, staring ahead, like lovers having an argument, with the difference that he still seemed at ease. The truth was that there were several reasons why she could not look at him. She was embarrassed because she had flunked this self-imposed test of sangfroid, because he was so composed and unashamed, because she was waiting for him to laugh at her, almost wished he would. And because she could feel this great gravitational pull towards him, a horrible desire to impress him with her own honesty, somehow, to be able to say to herself, later, that she had walked away intact, like one of his defendants. He made her feel guilty.
It had been a lousy idea to see him in court, discover in advance something of that ingredient which might have made Ivy fall for him hook, line and sinker in the first place. The stinking, cruel, cunning, bully-boy hypocritical bastard, the worst kind, honed into charm by sheer bloody practice. The shit. Dead right. The obverse of a talent for putting people at ease and granting them dignity was the subtle ability to humiliate. She wanted to snarl and grind her teeth, snap at his ankles, and above all, make him smile at her.
‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ he said in his quiet voice, which was surely honed, and practised too, to carry such resonance at so low a pitch, ‘I do think you’re very brave, doing this. I mean, it takes some doing. It’s not everyone who can wade in and interfere in the name of friendship, duty, love or anything, and confront someone else’s tragedy for them. Try and fix it, instead of doing that very English thing of nothing. To act as a friend as only a parent does for a child. It’s brave. It’s unusual. So are you. What I meant to say is it deserves hearing. Do you think we could start again? And before we do that, I should say I quite understand how and why anyone would love Ivy in whatever fashion they do. You’d have to be out of your mind to resist it. Such a capacity for giving love. Hatred, equally. Am I going on?’
She felt suddenly tearful, a child admonished and forgiven, bent her head in a kind of ‘yes’. Let’s start again, please. Please like me.
A series of people had passed in front of their chosen bench during the time they sat. The to-ing and fro-ing of the Inns, coming back from court, hell-bent on the work which preceded the next day or week, more time inside a court than out, always. She let herself relax, ever so slowly and unsurely, fraction by fraction; she was going to be let go without looking a fool. Footsteps came quickly towards them, from behind.
‘There you are, Mr Schneider, sir. They said inside you’d be here. Sorry. Can I have a word, sir?’
He was like the setting, a relic of Dickens, with a droopy moustache, so harmless and sedulous he was almost laughable. Padding along in this sultry heat, as if there was any rush, trying to make a virtue out of a hurry.
‘We could have dinner and go from there,’ the judge said, peeling a card from his pocket and placing it, adroitly, inside the rim of her handbag. She had given him hers, with all the numbers, dammit. ‘Or if that’s too loaded, a drink whenever you please. Do give my best to Grace. It isn’t me who crumples up the letters. Hello, Donald! Do sit down. Please, don’t go,’ he added, turning back to her with the smile she had not realised she craved.
He waved at the intruder. ‘This,’ Carl said, ‘is Detective Sergeant Cousins, known as the Don. And this,’ he nodded in Rachel’s direction, ‘is Miss Rachel Doe, of Strickland and Co., a great friend of my ex-wife’s.’
Donald sat heavily, recovered his breath.
‘Oh, that’s helpful, ever so helpful,’ he said, pulling out a handkerchief and mopping his brow. She had a feeling they were acting out a scene, as he might have done in court. Donald settled back into the bench, downwind of the judge. A breeze had developed, wafting over the gardens, funnelling in the direction of the Inns’ narrow exits. There was absolutely no need for him to have run, or to perspire as he did. He could have stood and cooled.
‘Just what I needed,’ Donald wheezed. ‘That’ll save time. Bit of a development, sir. Might be a good idea if I had a word with your ex-wife. You’ve always said you don’t know where she is, but perhaps this lady could help us? If she’s a friend, that is. Save a lot of time.’
Rachel loathed him on sight, and felt caught in a trap, as if she were squeezed between them. She turned to Carl.
‘Why do you want to find her? You never did, and you always could, so why the hell now?’ she asked him. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s nothing really, sir,’ Donald said, looking to the judge first and then to her. ‘Only it looks like she might be involved in our business, sir, simply because she may know someone who is, and it may just be useful to … to … have a word. Eliminate from enquiries, so to speak.’
He looked as if he could nod and wink at the same time, like a dozy donkey invested with cunning, pretending to shake his head to get rid of the flies. Oh my, what a good double act.
‘So where is she?’ Donald said, leaning across Rachel, looking as if he might be about to pat her knee. She recoiled, felt oddly exposed, sitting on this bench in the early evening sun, as if she had been placed there deliberately, for a purpose she had not understood. Placed here like a target, because as soon as the names Wiseman and Ivy had been mentioned on the phone to his clerk, Carl would have guessed she would at least know Ivy’s whereabouts.
‘Why does a policeman suddenly want to know where Ivy is?’ she asked him, ignoring Donald. ‘All he has to do is ask you. You could always find her. You always could have contacted her, either directly or through Grace.’
‘Ah yes,’ Carl replied smoothly. ‘But as you’ve just pointed out, I haven’t been looking. I haven’t made the effort, therefore I don’t know.’
Ivy was going to be blamed for something again. Rachel could feel the closing of a trap.
‘Is this a set-up?’ she asked him. His eyes were fathomless blue, locked in a brief gaze with her own, saying I don’t know. She did not believe him; rose and brushed imaginary crumbs off her trousers, listening all the same. Carl turned to Donald.
‘My wife’s friend was only saying just now,’ he said, in a chatty tone she automatically mistrusted, ‘that although she’s a friend, she hasn’t the faintest idea where Ivy is. Isn’t that right, Rachel?’
She nodded. It was true in a manner of speaking. She had no idea what he was playing at.
‘There’s no urgency,’ Donald said, sensing something on the wind, addressing her with a winning, repellent grin. ‘Only that I came across someone who used to know her. Or she used to know him. She just might be able to tell me something useful about him, that’s all.’
The lameness was embarrassing. She adjusted her handbag, stepped backwards, as if she had just realised the time and had to go, now.
‘I must …’ she said.
‘Go.’ Carl said. ‘But we’re meeting next week anyway, aren’t we? I’ll phone the office. Tuesdays are good for me.’
She was about to say yes, and then, startling in its irrelevancy, there came into her mind the comforting vision of the life drawing class. The weekly commitment, never to be missed, the start of all this. The last class of term.
‘Not Tuesday. Or … it would have to be late.’
‘We’ll speak, shall we?’
‘Yes.’
She walked away, and once round the corner found herself running. Once she was out of the Inns and hit the roar of Fleet Street at the top end, she paused for breath and went into the nearest bar. Her face in the mirror blushed red. She had bloody well said yes.
Rachel drank the indifferent glass of wine she had ordered as if it was water, sat in a crowded corner as though waiting for someone. No one ever quite mastered the art of being alone in a bar.
On the table in front of her, someone had abandoned the Evening Standard, flourishing a dramatic headline.
Yob culture hits the middle classes! Man stabbed in Theatreland! Young fans run amok. Is nothing safe?
She ignored it. She felt she was conspiring with the enemy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Quick, quick, get going. She was being shaken awake. Come on, Rachel, there’s a love. It’s a gorgeous day. Let’s go, if we’re going to go, before we get stuck in traffic. If we go now, we can get to the sea first. Sorry, were you dreaming?
Rachel had been asleep when Ivy got home, whenever that was. There was a mug of steaming tea in front of her eyes, and Ivy, imploring her to move, like an impatient child waiting to be taken on holiday. Ivy, who coasted on four hours’ sleep and ten hours’ work, brimming with infectious energy, because life was good, life was rich and you had to enjoy every minute. That was her gift. She could give away some of that energy even at six in the morning. She was nobody’s victim in the mornings and took no prisoners.
Rachel had been dreaming of the farm again. Imagining the figure of Grace and being hugged by her in the kind of embrace which said, nothing else matters, you’re safe here. Carl, hugging Grace.
Once on the road, it was singing all the way. Whizzing through the deserted streets of London as if they owned it and everything had been cleared and cleaned for their benefit, and even the traffic lights deferred to them, the skies lifting as they hit the motorway stretch and left it all behind. The first hour was nothing. The radio blared and they sang to that.
The lane going towards the house; the joy of it. Bluebells in May, Ivy said, blossom in June, every shade of green in July. August is for yellows. Snowdrops in February. Ivy said, Ivy said, Ivy said.
Grace was tending the tubs of lavender and herbs outside the kitchen door, but really waiting. The purple hair complemented the shocking red of her pelargoniums and the pink of her cotton shift, which looked as if she had sewn it the night before. She was barefoot and jangling with multicoloured beads. Follow the noise. The shriek of welcome could have woken the dead, and it was Rachel she hugged first, Ivy next, then both together. You made it, she kept saying, you made it, as if it was a miracle. I’ve been reading the newspapers, she said. I’ve been so worried about you. All those terrible things happening in London. It isn’t safe. You can’t queue for an autograph, or get in an ambulance, awful.
‘I had a plan,’ Ivy said, interrupting the flow.
‘To go to the sea,’ Grace finished. ‘I’ve been craving it all week.’
‘That’s why we’re early,’ Rachel added.
‘Party time for Mother,’ Ivy said. ‘The sea and the pub today. We’ve all been working too hard. Dad can make hay while the sun shines. We’re going to bring Rachel’s dad to keep him company next time.’
That had been discussed in the car. Ivy had suggested it.
‘Just to warn you, darling,’ Grace said to Ivy, as they bundled back into the car, Rachel relieved that she was designated driver, ‘I mustn’t be out too long. We have a slight problem at the moment. Because of the hay, they always arrive when he cuts the hay. Not to worry. The man’s coming sometime, with the dog.’
‘Is this code?’ Rachel asked. ‘Or can anyone know?’
‘We’ve got a rat in the house,’ Grace shouted from the back seat, yelling as loudly as she would in her own, deafening Volvo. ‘Ivy’s never liked them much. Oh look, we’re nearly there. This bloody thing goes so much faster than mine.’
‘I can’t go into the house if there’s a rat,’ Ivy said. ‘I can’t.’
Rachel paused at the mention of a rat. Such a nasty word. She was not going to tell anyone, not about yesterday, or anything, not yet, and it felt like being a rat, all dispelled by responding to the instructions they yelled at her to take a different route, no, right, I mean left, did I mean left? No, I meant that way, to a different stretch of the coast which was over there, the five miles separating it from the farm and the fields like crossing the Gobi Desert, the same difference as the City and here. Another secret place they knew, reached by a series of back doubles, hidden under cliffs, with a railway line snaking above their heads into a tunnel. The City was another country, and the railway, hugging the coast, was only a reminder that there were people unfortunate enough to be going somewhere else. A tiny cove, hidden beneath a mysterious cliff, which hung above it more like a guardian than a threat. Mid-morning, empty, and still the same old glorious sea. This was the precise point where I learned to swim, Grace was saying, but then again, I’m not sure. We knew every scrap of this coast, Grace said, when we were kids. We cycled for miles. We were shoved out in the morning with jam sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof, and told to come back when we were tired. I thought we might try it. The sandwiches, I mean. There is really nothing quite as disgusting as a jam sandwich made with margarine and red pulp with woodchips in it.
‘Golden syrup on toast,’ Ivy said. ‘Treacle sandwiches. Butter and sugar on fresh white bread.’
‘Go on,’ Grace said. ‘You were way too young for that.’
‘I know, Mum,’ Ivy said. ‘But old habits die hard. That’s what you fed me.’
There were no waves like before, simply a breeze which ruffled the surface of the water so that it mimicked a smooth lake. It was like approaching a different, friendlier animal, which would embrace softly, rather than a rough, challenging hug. It was markedly warmer than the week before, a different stage of summer. There was the same rushed changing into swimwear, although Grace and Ivy had no shame. Grace simply stripped naked, hauled on the baggy swimsuit; Ivy did not bother with changing and reached the shoreline first, clad in her bra and knickers, ran straight in with a noisy splash. Rachel followed, wading gingerly to waist height, testing the ground for the way back, automatically looking on the way for jellyfish and monsters, laughing at herself for doing it, while Grace squealed and flopped and decided it was best to go in backwards, tripping and splashing, yelling, watch out, it’s fucking freezing, Oh bloody hell fire. They were there to play, Ivy to swim. She outranked everyone as a swimmer; she moved away from them with natural speed in a graceful crawl into the distance, and only turned back to shore when Rachel and Grace were sitting in the warmer shallows, feeling virtuous, kissing the last week goodbye.
Grace did it again as they were towelling dry, dropped a small stone of conversation into the flurry of movement, as if tossing it into the sea and getting rid of it. It was directed at Ivy.
‘You remember that paying guest, Joe his name was, the one in May who got drunk all the time when you were here that week? Well, he died. PC Plod had to bestir himself and come and tell us.’
‘Oh, what a pity,’ Ivy said with careless politeness, wrapping her head in a towel, then balancing to pull on her jeans over bare skin with the ease of practice.
‘One of your guests?’ Rachel asked. ‘How awful. Wasn’t your food, was it?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Grace said. ‘Though he ate enough of it. No, he went and drowned somewhere after he’d left. Remember him, Ivy love? He wanted to swim in the lake and we told him he couldn’t. Because of the swans still nesting.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Anyway, he preferred the pub. He was bloody rude to you. He was always trying to do things he couldn’t do, wasn’t he? Probably took up sailing next. He never could see the need to practise. Like that lot.’
She pointed to the horizon, where a small flotilla of yachting dinghies with yellow and pink spinnakers tacked about like waterborne butterflies, chasing each other. Grace shielded her eyes with her hand, and sighed.
‘I wish I could do that,’ she said. ‘But perhaps not. I’d rather be in it than on it. God, I feel better for that. It’s like taking the cure. What time were you up? You must be bloody starving.’
