The Secrets Between Us (32 page)

No, I was being paranoid. It was the children who must not hear. Jamie and the girls were running about upstairs playing some convoluted daylight version of Murder in the Dark. I heard their thrilled squeals and giggles while I stirred the roux for the leek sauce.

I was proud of the way the table looked when we sat down to eat, although I had to move the mistletoe after Claudia told me it signified bad luck at the table. The last thing Alexander and I needed then was ill fortune. It was only a small glitch. I was proud of the food, too, which turned out fine, but mostly I was proud of Alexander and Jamie. I looked across at them both, and I remembered how they were when I first came to Avalon, and it was not my imagination, things were better now, despite all that had happened. Some of the introspection and some of the hurt was gone.

We managed to go through the whole meal without anyone mentioning Genevieve. It was a record.

I knew we were making the most of the fact that there was, as yet, no conclusive proof that anything bad had happened to Genevieve. For those few hours, everything was all right. We had no reason not to be in a good mood. It was nearly Christmas. Nothing terrible ever happened at Christmas.

After we had finished the lemon meringue pie, Alexander raised his glass to me and said: ‘Thank you for everything, Sarah.’

The whole family followed suit and I had to look down at my plate.

‘I mean it,’ Alexander said quietly. ‘Thank you for putting up with us.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said Bill, and he winked at me.

And that’s when the dizziness came over me, just as it had done before, in Jamie’s bedroom. This time, the nausea overwhelmed me so fast that I had to cover my mouth with my hand. I stumbled from the room, and ran upstairs to the bathroom, where I was terribly sick. When I finally stood up to wash my face, my eyes were red and swollen and my skin was deathly pale and somebody was standing behind me. I saw a movement in the mirror and I felt breath on my neck but, when I turned, nobody was there.

‘Please, Genevieve,’ I whispered. ‘Please leave me alone. I didn’t do anything to hurt you, I’m only trying to make things better.’

I didn’t hear anything, but words came into my mind, just as they had before, as if someone had whispered into my ear. The words that were there, but which I did not hear, were: ‘You next.’

‘You OK?’ Alexander asked when I went back downstairs.

I nodded. ‘Fine.’

He looked at me quizzically. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘It’s nothing.’

I saw him and Claudia exchange glances.

‘
Nothing
,’ I said tetchily.

When the dishwasher was loaded and was sloshing away in its loyal, reliable fashion, we put on our boots and jackets, called the dogs in and put them on their leads ready for a walk.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Allegra.

‘What about walking up to the old quarry? We haven’t been there for ages.’

‘I don’t think we should take the dogs there,’ said
Alexander. ‘What if they were to chase a rabbit over the edge?’

‘Mendips then?’

‘OK.’

So that’s where we went. Alexander, Claudia and the twins went in the Land Rover and Bill drove Jamie, me and the dogs in the Volvo.

It was a lovely drive and Jamie was talkative. He was very fond of the dogs and maintained a running commentary with them. I, on the other hand, was silent. I turned the words I had heard over and over in my mind. Why was I going to be next? What did that mean? Next to do what? Disappear? Die? I sat, quietly terrified, pretending to listen to Bill’s operatic music on CD. We soon pulled on to the airport road and headed west towards Crook Peak, and I tried to work out what the warning meant, because it was a warning, I was sure of that.

I gazed out of the window. The trees were black and bare now, skeleton trees, their bony branches stark against a pale, wintry sky, and the grass was a winter green. Twiggy black hedges lined the fields and smoke curled from the chimneys of the farmhouses that sat square and grey in the landscape. The music seemed a fitting soundtrack to the bleak countryside.

You next.

Not if I got away from Burrington Stoke first. Alexander and I had to leave, as soon as we could. That’s what we had to do.

In the car, I lost myself in imagining how it would feel to be driving away from Burrington Stoke for ever. I wondered if this would be the road we’d take. Would tomorrow be too late? When was I going to be next? How long did I have?

When Bill spoke, it took me a few moments to bring myself back into the present.

‘I know you’ve had a rough time but, if it’s any consolation,
I think you’ve done a great job with Alexander,’ he said, turning to smile at me. ‘He’s like a different person now.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said.

I looked over my shoulder. Jamie was entirely engrossed in his game with the dogs.

‘Maybe he’s starting to get over Genevieve,’ I said quietly. ‘At last.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Bill. ‘He was in a bloody awful state when she left.’

We drove on a little longer and then were stuck at traffic lights.

Bill shook his head.

‘Poor bugger, she put him through hell,’ he said.

‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Jamie, leaning forward.

‘Nearly,’ said Bill. He was staring straight ahead now. The lights changed and he put the car into gear.

‘Don’t blame Alexander,’ he said.

‘What do you mean? Don’t blame him for what?’

Bill turned slightly and gave me a strange look.

‘Being the man he is,’ he said.

Jamie was leaning on the headrest, his breath was hot in my ear, and I did not have the opportunity to pursue the subject any further.

CHAPTER FIFTY

WE HAD A
lovely walk, although Blue had to be kept on the lead after he bounded after a child with a football and knocked him flying and then punctured the ball. Bill gave the boy’s parents a ten-pound note and a long-winded apology to compensate for the dog’s bad behaviour. Afterwards everyone came back to Avalon for tea and cake and we laughed at Blue’s inability to repent his sins.

‘Do you know, the only person he ever listened to was Genevieve,’ said Claudia.

I tensed a little.

‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she asked Bill. ‘Gen never even had to raise her voice; she only had to look at him and he’d behave. She was so good with animals!’

Bill smiled indulgently, but I had the feeling he thought Claudia was remembering things differently. I felt sorry for them both. And it felt odd that even Claudia was talking about Genevieve in the past tense now.

It was evening before I had a chance to speak to Alexander alone. As soon as the Lefarge family left, I told him I wanted us to leave Burrington Stoke immediately, straight away, now.

‘Hey,’ he said, stroking my back. ‘Don’t get in a state about it.’

‘We have to go. It’s really important we go,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘What don’t I understand?’

‘I think if we don’t go now, something really awful’s going to happen,’ I said.

He laughed. Then he stopped laughing and took hold of my hands.

‘What do you mean? Has somebody said something to you? Have you been threatened?’

‘No, not exactly. I don’t know, I’ve just got a feeling.’

‘Oh, Sarah, come on,’ he said. ‘It’s been a tough week, that’s all.’

I shook my head. ‘No. I mean it, Alexander. We have to get away.’

He took me seriously enough to go upstairs and do some internet searches, and after a while he came back downstairs with the laptop tucked under his elbow.

He was smiling, looking pleased with himself.

‘There’s a yard up for rent in Fowey. It was being used by a memorial mason but he’s retired. It’s got the space and the kit I’d need. We could move the business down there. What do you think?’

‘Fowey in Cornwall?’

‘Didn’t you say you liked Cornwall?’

I did like Cornwall, and Fowey in particular was beautiful. Laurie took me there for a long weekend once. I remembered the church tucked away in a hollow at the bottom of the hill; sea water splashing against the wall beneath the restaurant where we ate scampi and chips; a boat trip along the green estuary that took us all the way along to Daphne du Maurier’s house: we saw its gardens rolling down to the water, cold and clear like glass. I had thought it one of the loveliest places I’d ever been. I’d always thought of Cornwall as somewhere to visit, not
somewhere to live. How small-minded I used to be. I thought the civilized world began and ended in Lancashire.

‘It sounds perfect,’ I said.

‘Then we’ll do it. We’ll go.’

‘What about your work here?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I’ll have to give a month’s notice on the yard. Everything else we can take with us.’

I leaned back and breathed. It seemed as if, at last, everything was being made easy for us. Everything was going our way.

‘How quickly can we leave?’ I asked.

‘As quickly as we like.’

He put his hand on my shoulder, leaned down and kissed my head. He wound his hand in my hair and the vegetables I was stirring in the pan sizzled and the rain tapped and spattered against the window panes.

‘What about this place?’

‘We’ll send Philip a letter. With Genevieve gone the house belongs to him.’

‘The Churchills won’t want Jamie to leave Burrington Stoke. Do you think they’ll try to stop us?’

‘Probably. It’d be best if you didn’t say anything to anyone, not even Jamie. We’ll leave quietly and after a couple of weeks we’ll let them know where we are and that we’re OK.’

I felt a frisson run through me. Wasn’t that almost exactly what Genevieve had said in the letter to her parents? Had she had this exact same conversation with somebody?

‘It seems a bit cruel on Philip and Virginia,’ I said. ‘First Genevieve, then Jamie.’

‘If you want a quick getaway without any fuss,’ said Alexander, ‘that’s how it’s going to have to be.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

ALEXANDER SPOKE TO
the agent on the phone the next day and arranged an appointment in Fowey. He was going to stay overnight and come back the following evening. When Jamie was asleep, we sat at the door to his room and looked at properties for rent there on the internet and saw a couple of cottages just a stone’s throw from the sea. In the gloom of the mid-winter, I imagined summers to come, sitting bare-legged in a tiny courtyard garden, surrounded by pots of lavender, and drawing. I thought of Jamie, tanned and healthy, growing his hair, turning into a surfer-boy, and the three of us on the beach, barefoot, cooking fish over a driftwood fire and watching the sun set over the green and white waves. The picture was so appealing I wanted to leave there and then. I felt as if I could hardly bear another moment in Avalon. I wanted to feel the sand beneath my feet.

I cooked a full English breakfast the morning before Alexander left. We had told Jamie his father was going to price some work a long way away; still, Jamie was whiney and anxious. I hoped fried bread, sausage and beans would help, but they didn’t. None of the usual distraction techniques had any effect.

‘We’ll go and choose a Christmas tree when I get back,’
Alexander said. ‘Father Christmas won’t come if we don’t have a tree.’

Jamie put on his challenging face. ‘Father Christmas isn’t real,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Allegra told me. She said he’s just a made-up person to make children go to bed early so the adults can put the presents out.’

Alexander raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure about that?’

Jamie looked at his father.

‘That’s what Allegra said.’

‘Did she also tell you that he only comes to children who believe in him?’

Jamie looked from Alexander’s face to mine.

‘How does he know the difference if you’re asleep?’ he asked carefully.

‘He just does.’

Jamie swung his legs. ‘All right, but I’m going to ask for a dog for Christmas and, if I don’t get one, I won’t believe in Father Christmas any more.’

I laughed. Alexander wagged his fork at Jamie. ‘Don’t push your luck, son.’

‘Sarah, do
you
think we should have a dog?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I do. But not for Christmas. Wait and see what happens in the New Year, eh?’

Alexander hurried Jamie along and soon had him strapped in the Land Rover ready to drop off at school on his way down to the motorway. It was so cold outside that our breath steamed. A thick frost had lain down on the garden and the roofs of the old barn and the loose boxes, the trees were white and freezing mist swirled picturesquely above the course of the stream. The countryside did look particularly beautiful that morning, but already my heart was in Cornwall.

I passed Jamie his lunchbox and stood shivering at the side of the vehicle, waiting to wave them off. Alexander wound down his window. Close up, in the bright sunlight, I could see how tired he was, how much the past months had taken from him.

He reached out and touched my cheek with his hand.

‘We’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

That morning, I caught the bus into Castle Cary and then the train into Bristol. I planned to do as much Christmas shopping as possible. We were going to be so busy over the next few days, packing and clearing out, that there simply wouldn’t be time if I left it any later. Jamie was going for tea at Karen’s after school, so it didn’t matter if I was late back. I had been looking forward to this day, a day to myself, shopping in the city, for a while.

Bristol didn’t disappoint. I felt like a child in a sweetshop. Everything delighted me: I didn’t know what to look at first, which shop to go into. After the quiet of Burrington Stoke and those few, same, suspicious faces, I felt at home amongst all the thousands of people. I was a city girl. I belonged.

I was queuing up to try on an armful of clothes in Debenhams when my phone beeped. A text message had come through. I took the phone out of my pocket and checked. It was from DI Twyford.

My finger hovered over the button. I could just switch the phone off and read the message later. Or I could put the phone back in my pocket and ignore it. Or I could delete it without reading it, and deny I ever received it.