The art of drowning, p.20
The Art of Drowning, page 20
Like cat and dog, she finished. Something came into her mind. Ivy practised on the cat and the dog. Can’t risk having pets.
It had become warm and muggy. Maybe Ivy and Grace would have gone back to the sea. Or down to the lake. She must swim in that lake. She wanted to dive into the dangerous river Thames, get cool. It was pre-thunderstorm, oppressive heat.
‘All I want,’ she said, ‘is for you to meet Grace and Ernest. That’s it. That’s all I have to do, all I want to achieve.’
‘All? And for what purpose?’
She had thought about this, scaled down the ambition of whatever it was she had wanted.
‘Ernest is getting old and uncertain. He dreams of you, or your father, coming back. I’ve done the sums, unofficially, on the farm. It loses money. Grace has a bed-and-breakfast business which just about keeps it afloat, but not for much longer. It might … reconcile him, them, one way or another.’
‘It might enrage him. He might ask me for money, in advance.’
Money, again. She knew what judges earned. Not bad, but not mega-riches either. She could not help but be interested in the money aspect of everything. It was her job. It was natural to be preoccupied with money.
‘What do you mean, in advance?’
‘Ernest has always known that if I die, prematurely or otherwise, half of what I own will go to them. My money, such as it is, is never mine. Unfortunately, everyone has to wait until I die, and I’m only forty-five. Ancient, I know. That was a provision in the will I made when I married and I haven’t altered it. Prudent people make wills when they marry, as you know.’
Yes, prudent accountants always advised it.
‘I made that provision because of my father. He wanted me to look after them. He said we owed our start in life to the Wisemans. It was his home, you see. But I can’t help them yet. What I earn is earmarked for Sam.’
‘Carl the elder,’ she said.
‘I see you know the history. Or some of it. Why are we talking about money?’
‘It’s always … relevant. But not the point here. Ernest has to work out what to do, and dreams get in the way, perhaps. As for darling Grace, I think if she clapped eyes on you, all would be forgiven. If she could get to see her grandson, once, all would be forgiven. There would be an ending and a beginning, and from there you could all work out how to get Ivy and Sam together.’
It sounded depressingly optimistic and naïve, even as she said it.
‘And Ivy would have no part in this initial meeting?’
Rachel shook her head, sure that that was right.
‘No. She wouldn’t know. It would be a … strategic meeting. Tell her afterwards. Let Grace tell her.’
He poured more wine into her glass, scarcely touching his own. He did not fidget. She noticed the way he applied his full concentration to everything she said, and everything he said himself. Not a man for the ill-considered remark. Rachel was trying to remember his cruelty. Beyond the awning, the sky darkened.
‘All right, I’ll do it, on those terms.’
‘What?’
‘I said, I’ll do it. Or at least I’ll consider it, as long as you do too, because there’s something you have to understand. Wisemans don’t do forgiveness, at least not the female of the species. I don’t think Ernest would ever forgive me either; God knows, I’ve a lot to be forgiven for. And Ivy herself may never forgive you at all for your part in it. The result could be as hurtful as the hurt it intends to avoid. Especially if I have to explain that Sam is so absolutely adamant that he does not want to meet his mother, or his grandparents, that he resorts to deceit to avoid it.’
She did not believe him. How could anyone not want to know Ivy and Grace? How could anyone not be better for knowing them? This was the man who had virtually killed his own child by neglect, left her to drown, blaming his other child for not wanting to make amends.
‘It’s always useful to have someone to blame,’ she said.
‘You could,’ he said, ‘apply that to Ivy as well as to me. Are you sure she would like this to happen?’
All of a sudden, she wasn’t. She fell back on it being, feeling, the right thing to do. It was all too easy. He was too damn straightforward, too likeable. The images simply didn’t fit with that of a man who had thrust his wife out into the cold because she was mad with grief. But then she herself had loved a man corrupted by greed, and that had not shown either.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘will you come home with me? I’ve got better wine than this, and if you really do want to remain involved, there’s a couple of things I’d like to explain. You might meet my son, although I doubt it on Sunday. Alternatively, you can back out now and we never had this meeting. Ivy need never know.’
She did not want to go to his home with him, and yet she did. It seemed an insane, risky thing to do, but the curiosity was stronger. So was the challenge. She had wanted to be involved, and that meant being willing to be involved up to the neck. What kind of friend backed out now? And there was that inconvenient visceral thing. She did not want to leave him yet, not for a long time. He smiled that smile which had surely duped dozens of people into thinking he cared about them. She hesitated. Going back alone to the house of a man with a record of violence was a stupid thing to do, and she shouldn’t even think of doing it. Better stay on neutral territory. Then she thought, sod the risk, don’t flatter yourself, and besides, he’s already conceded a lot, so why not? She thought of all the things Ivy would risk for her without counting the odds. Ivy would jump into a pit of rattlesnakes for her. Besides, she dearly wanted the explanations, whatever they were. She wanted to give him a chance. He saw the hesitation.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘As a judge, I have a reputation to keep. I shan’t do anything nasty. Not to a successful professional woman who would report me anyway.’
But you would to a woman with no qualifications or status. Like a wife.
The thought was ironic but reassuring. She was protected by a certain status; shameful that Ivy never had been. He had too much to risk. She made up her mind. The whole scenario was bizarre; let it be more so. She was helped by the conviction that this simply was not planned.
‘By all means phone someone and tell them where you’ll be, if it makes you feel safer.’
She shook her head.
‘Where do you live?’
‘The other end of the river, by the water. Not far, on a Sunday.’
It began to rain. He took her arm as they ran back to the dented car, and she shivered.
Back through the centre in the pouring rain, keeping to the river, then into the hinterland she had never known, all of it obscured by the rain on the windscreen. Diving into the half-empty streets of the banking district, which she knew, out the other side towards the east. The territory of old markets, tide upon tide of immigrants who stayed and colonised, laid waste, rebuilt, moved on. She had never quite understood the romance of the East End and the old Docklands, apart from it being a route somewhere, and looking at it through the rain, she could understand why it impelled each new generation to get out.
‘This was where I grew up,’ Carl said. ‘At a time when no one was quite sure what nationality they were, or wanted to be. The main division was white and black. There were two many races for anyone to be racist. It was a good beginning. My father was a cleaner. Rose to supervisor.’
That jolted her. The judge had come a long way.
‘Did your father ever go home?’
‘He had no home. He never wanted to go back to see the ruin of what had been his. Berlin was razed to the ground. He thought it would make him feel angry, and he couldn’t afford that. Something he taught me. Keep your anger dry, boy. Otherwise it rots you.’
She forgot the route, and once the decision had been made and caution put to the back of her mind, she felt oddly comfortable in the passenger seat, being taken somewhere she did not know, like a patient, curious passenger on a coach trip. Nothing to do except say, Oooh, look at that, and wait to arrive. The destination, any destination became desirable as the rain increased into a torrent, beating against the car. There was a moment of anxiety when they entered an underground garage which looked like a prison, reassuring to find it light. She followed him up endless stairs into his flat, stifling the recurrence of unease, thinking how clever he was. This would be hard to find. It felt like entering a fortress.
A comfortable fortress, with attractive minimalism, the bare necessities of furnishings, wooden floors and rugs, enough clutter to show signs of life, and the luxury of silence. It was both domesticated and orderly and made her feel better. She scarcely noticed the details except for the cool clarity of it all, the balcony and the mesmeric presence of the water beyond that big window. That did it. Assessing it simply as a place, Rachel could have gone home, packed up her bags and come to live here tomorrow. She almost said so.
He came back from the kitchen with wine, olives, roughly cut cubes of bread and cheese, the work of minutes. Better than lunch, a mere relaxing ritual. The eating of something made her feel better. So did the realisation of knowing that it was he who was nervous and anxious to please, and what he provided was leftovers. Kind, but hardly part of a grand master plan. This was not quite what he had expected to happen. He was not used to entertaining at home. No rings on his fingers. The bathroom she had used was notably free of feminine smells. The wine had gone to her head. Stop it, she told herself. Listen. Remember who he is. He is trusting you. Now you know how he lives, it makes us more equal.
Why is he being so nice to me?
Carl wiped his hands on a napkin.
‘What I wanted to explain is something you may not know, but it is the clue to rather a lot more. Ivy is …’
‘If you’re going to badmouth Ivy to me, forget it. I won’t hear it.’
He drew breath patiently.
‘I was going to say Ivy’s complicated. I’ve never criticised my wife, least of all to another woman. I’ve had to point out certain features of her, but that’s not the same thing. I don’t criticise her to my boy, or to anyone else. I tell people she had her reasons, as she still has. You’ll know better than me about that. But I do want to point out her unreason. If Ivy ever worshipped any god, it would be the great god Pan. Or some marvellous creature of a mythological world, Thor, or Diana the Huntress. A vengeful god at any rate, one with the power over life and death, although I suppose all gods have that. What I mean is that hers is a primitive soul, with all the sophistications that follow. Conventional morality simply does not matter.’
Rachel tried to stop him.
‘That doesn’t prevent her from being the kindest, most generous person alive,’ he went on. ‘But her head is full of images you and I might not be able to guess at. And a binary set of rules. She loves you or hates you. White or black, no shades of grey. Perhaps because she’s never mastered more than rudimentary reading – and no, I could not make her do that – she has less chance of analysis. There’s nothing to mitigate a fixation. She was reared on fairy stories. Love, death, revenge. Unless you read, you don’t shift the imprint of what you’ve, literally, learned by heart. You don’t change your own maxims. Practice makes perfect was one of hers. I can see why now.’
‘There are other ways of learning and analysing. Like drawing and listening.’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘You’re saying Ivy’s thick and irrational.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m saying she has a very literal mind, even if it isn’t literate. She’ll choose a single track and stick to it. She’s had to fight her way to what she knows. She sticks with what she’s good at. You’re right. Of course I don’t know what she’s like now, and I’m only saying anything at all because I don’t want you to risk Ivy’s hatred. It’s awesomely determined, especially when turned on herself. Oh, hell. That isn’t what I wanted to explain, though, even if it might be part of it.’
He moved across to the desk which dominated the room and came back with a folder of photographs, selecting a couple as he moved.
‘I wouldn’t wish these on anyone,’ he said. ‘They aren’t exactly holiday snaps, but if you really want to stay involved – and you can stop, whenever you like – then you must know how my daughter, Cassie, died. It’s the only way to get a grip on who has to forgive whom, and for what.’
He sat beside her. Her skin tingled. She felt as if the sea salt lingered from yesterday.
‘Police photos. Only the setting is aesthetic. You know the lake. You didn’t know Cassie.’
A pale, dead face in close-up, turned to one side, blood in the nostrils, red-blonde hair, and a triangular mark on the neck. Rachel wanted to turn away, and disliked him for being able to hold the photograph with a steady hand. He withdrew the last picture and turned it face down on the table beside the remnants of the food, watching her reaction with concern.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve looked at these so often, and judges see photographs of injuries all the time, I forget other people aren’t used to it. One more.’
A photo of a piece of excised skin, pinned and stretched on to a grey surface, the same mark, stained brown. Revulsion was at war with curiosity. He pointed at the mark.
‘Exhibit A. A section of skin, taken from the neck. No one could understand why Cassie drowned. All right, she was left alone. I was in charge, impatient father that I was, half asleep, time for tea. She wouldn’t get out of the water. Sam was furious with her: she was ruining his afternoon and he was hungry. He went down to the edge and threw stones at her. Pebbles, really, pathetic aim, no chance he would hit her, but she swam further out. I caught him and spanked him, yelled at her to do what she damn well liked and carted him back home, yowling all the way. I didn’t worry about leaving Cassie. She would come out as soon as she wanted; she was like an eel and the lake was her playground. Not usually so early in the year, because it would have been too cold, but it was a May heat wave. I didn’t know about the swans. Ivy’s father’s precious swans, the descendants of those which Ernest and my father had reintroduced to replace the ones Carl and his hungry mates had killed to eat, years before. Another story that was always on his conscience.’
Carl the younger was speaking faster and faster, as if to minimise it without omitting anything and get it over.
‘There were no injuries to Cassie, no third parties. Only that mark on her neck. Ernest pointed the police in the direction of the swans. It was too early in the year … she went too close to the nest. They trapped the adult swans, made beak imprints. One of them matched. Daddy Swan had done for her. It took quite a while to establish that.’
He took a deep breath and steadied himself. There was a slight sheen of perspiration on his brow. Rachel wanted to wipe it away. He put the photos back into the folder.
‘Ivy stayed with her mother, who tried to calm her. It simply wasn’t possible. Sam wanted to be with her. He cried in her lap and told her about throwing stones at Cassie in the water. She went ballistic. I took Sam back to London with me. My father was dying, then. I was trying to comfort them both in my ham-fisted way, and trying to keep myself under wraps. I had to stay in control at all costs. Then, a fortnight later, when I finally heard from the police that Cassie’s drowning was caused by the swans, something in me snapped. I drove down overnight, got Ernest’s rifle – he had a licence for one then, never used it, someone else always had to do the killings; my father had taught me, like Ernest taught Ivy. Anyway, I’d lost my mind. I bribed the swans with crumbs, and blasted away like a madman. I shot them all.’
He stopped abruptly. Pushed the folder away and gave a short, mirthless bark of laughter.
‘I don’t know quite why I’m telling you this. It makes me a helluva lot more primitive than Ivy. As stupid and wicked as a seventeenth-century judge, presiding over the trial and execution of an animal, as they did. Sanctioning the hanging of a pig for harming a baby, the ritual slaughter of a goat for damaging property. I’ve never been more ashamed of anything. More ashamed than I was of leaving Cassie. I hated them and I shot them.’
Rachel was silent. She wanted to touch him. He turned to her, as if imploring her to understand. She thought she did. She wanted to take hold of his hand, and didn’t. The silence seemed to relieve him.
‘That’s what I wanted to explain, because I never have. And also to put your very kind master plan into perspective. Ernest took the blame. The police sympathised and did nothing except take away his licence for a rifle. Only handguns left with a three-foot range, I expect. I think of it every day when I sit on the bench. It’s not so difficult to forgive people really, not when you’re me. I not only let my beautiful daughter die in terror, I killed her ghost as well as Ernest’s swans …’
‘They’ve come back,’ she said. He was not listening.
‘So you see, there’s rather a lot to reconcile, more than possible, I think. And if you should ever meet my son for long enough, don’t ever mention he threw pebbles into the water at his sister. He’s a nice boy, he doesn’t deserve to remember that. It had nothing to do with anything in the end.’
He turned back into the considerate judge, clicking his tongue, tut-tutting at himself, agonised with apologies.
‘I am so sorry. I’ve burdened you with more than enough. You look pale. It isn’t fair. Look at the time. I’ll take you home. Public transport on a Sunday’s a bugger from here. I shouldn’t have invited you here. I’m amazed you accepted, amazed you listened. I don’t want you to regret it.’
She wanted to say, yes, I’m amazed at myself, and I’ve got no problem with anything you’ve said. I’m just gobsmacked that you trusted me with it and I don’t doubt a word of it. I’m lost. And I’m also thinking, I’ve got no issues with that piece of history, only with what you did next. Did you apply all that leftover anger to Ivy? Is that why she had to go? Is your son frightened of you? I would be. Ivy was.
