The Shape of Snakes (35 page)

I did the same from my side, thrusting my face toward his and raking him with furious eyes. "Do you know what pisses me off the most? Not what you did to me"-I lifted a finger and stabbed it at his chest-"I learned to deal with that. It's the fact that you had the nerve to underestimate me ... and still
fucking well
do." I could feel the stridency roaring in my voice and, for once, didn't give a damn how it sounded. If the truth be told, I'd always been closer to loudmouthed fishwives than effete Victorian ladies who gave way to the vapors. "How
dare
you think I'm so stupid as to carry a master file with me? How
dare
you think I'd give you an opportunity to outflank me?

"You talked about a trade," said Drury aggressively.

"I want justice first," I flung at him. "
Then
I'll trade."

"What sort of justice?"

"The eye-for-an-eye kind. The same kind you believe in. You pumped a Neanderthal full of lies, then told him I'd be gagged the next day. What did you think he was going to do? Send me a bunch of flowers?"

He looked edgily toward Sam. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. You got more and more angry every time I accused you of racism. That's why you made my official caution so public ... so that even a moron like Derek Slater knew he could have a free run at the nigger-lover without any fear of my reporting it."

"You're inventing things again, Mrs. Ranelagh. If a crime was committed you had a perfect opportunity to give us the details the next morning."

"You mean in the middle of an official caution for wasting police time? In front of a husband and mother who didn't believe a word I said because they had more faith in a corrupt policeman than they had in me?" I flung out my arms and caught him across the chest with the backs of my hands. "How
dare
you suggest I had an unhealthy fixation on you? How dare you imagine for one minute that I'd be interested in someone who thought a woman's place was under a man ... preferably bound and muzzled so that he wouldn't have to listen to her criticizing his performance."

He retreated warily but didn't say anything. "I had nothing but contempt for you," I said. "I saw you as a
little
man ... a pygmy in uniform ... someone who was allowed to strut his stage because his superiors were too inept to see how incompetent he was ... and the only reason I spoke to you at all was because I wanted justice for Annie. But I never thought of you as anything other than a reptile." I looked deep into the dead black of his eyes. "And that was my mistake, wasn't it? If I hadn't made it so obvious that the mere sight of you made my flesh crawl, you wouldn't have set Derek on me. Because it wasn't me who fancied you, you bastard, but
you
who fancied
me
." I felt Sam move behind me.

"You're crazy," said Drury.

"You'd better believe it," I agreed, slithering 'round the bonnet of the car. "I haven't been sane since Derek did your dirty work for you. He knew I'd never let him into my house, so he sent Alan in first, blubbing about how his father had been hitting his mother again. The child was twice as big as me, and I was stupid enough to put an arm 'round him while I turned to shut the door." I gave a hollow laugh. "He had me flat on my back before I knew what was happening, and used his weight to hold me down while his filthy great hands yanked my hair out by the roots every time I moved my head." I halted in front of the offside headlight so that he wouldn't retreat any further. "They couldn't mark me," I went on, "because you'd told Derek I'd be at the police station the next morning. And they couldn't rape me because they didn't want leave any incriminating evidence inside me." I tapped two fingers against my mouth. "So I got a mouthful of Derek later's urine instead."

I caught a glimpse of Sam's strained, white face out of the corner of rny eye. "He pissed over my mouth and nose while his son held me down"-I glanced at the harbor's edge-"and it's like drowning. You can't breathe-so you drink. And the legacy is that you wash your mouth out every hour of every day as long as you live." I lifted my lips in a wolfish snarl. "They swapped places while I was choking to give Alan his turn-but he was too excited and couldn't control himself..." I fell silent as Sam moved 'round behind the car.

Drury made a half-turn so he could keep an eye on Sam as well. "No one's going to believe you," he said, "not if there's no record of such a crime being committed. And why focus your anger on me, anyway? Why not blame your husband for abandoning you? If he'd had any guts he'd have stood by you instead of protecting his tart."

I had time to think that Drury was a shocking judge of charcter before-with one galvanizing charge-Sam launched at him, head down, and shunted him into the estuary after my rucksack.
 

*23*

Sam doubled up and backed away from the edge, roaring obscenities from an overdose of adrenaline, but I stayed to watch Drury rise. Luke had assured me that the westerly tidal stream in Weymouth harbor would carry a floating body toward the pontoons, but I had a small twinge of concern about how good a swimmer Drury was. When his face bobbed to the surface, we stared at each other for a moment before I gave him a one-fingered salute and turned away.
Gotcha!

"We ought to call the police," said Sam, taking deep breaths to calm himself while he watched the man swim to safety.

"He can do it himself if he wants to. He knows our address." I walked back to the car. "But he won't. He'll bury his head in the sand and hope this counts as an eye for an eye."

"And does it?" he asked, following me.

"No chance," I said cheerfully, opening the passenger door. "He still has to answer for Annie, and he'll only do that when his name's plastered across every newspaper in this country with 'racist' attached to it." I slid onto the seat. "Come on," I called, buckling my seat belt, "let's shift. He'll be after your blood if I know anything about anything. Not reporting you to the police doesn't mean he won't break your jaw at the first opportunity."

Sam scrambled in beside me and fired the engine, twisting 'round to reverse the car out on the road. "I should have seen to him twenty years ago," he said as he spun the wheel. "I would have done, too, if I hadn't believed him."

"About Annie?"

"No," he growled, "about you stalking him. I know it sounds absurd now but at the time it seemed to make sense. The way you went off me after Annie died ... the hours you spent at the police station ... the fact that you were prepared to talk to him and not me." He eased the car forward and pulled out onto the road. "I started to think he was more your type than I was."

"That figures," I said sarcastically, reaching across him to buckle his belt. "I mean he had everything I wanted in a man:
hair
, a uniform, not to mention an enormous dick, which he kept permanently erect for the purposes of rogering every bit of totty that crossed his tracks."

He gave me a sheepish grin. "Actually, I'm being serious. I was incredibly jealous but I didn't think I had much of a leg to stand on after Libby. Then you got pregnant, and I thought,
Shit, is the baby mine or Drury's?
... and I was so bloody churned up that when you agreed to try to make a go of it, all I could think about was getting away, burying the whole bloody saga and starting again."

I was so surprised that I felt as if my jaw had just hit the floor. "You thought Luke was Drury's?"

He nodded.

"Good God! What on earth gave you that idea?"

He took his foot off the pedal and the car slowed to a crawl. "Because the only time we had sex throughout that whole miserable period," he said with a sigh, "was when I forced myself on you and you told me you never wanted to see me again. You really hated me that night ... and I couldn't believe that something that was done with so much viciousness could produce something so grand."

I shook my head in amazement. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because it didn't matter," he said simply. "I always thought of Luke as mine whether he was or not."

I was humbled. If our roles were reversed-if Libby had given birth to Sam's child-1 could never have been that generous. "But of course he's yours," I said, touching the back of my hand to his cheek. "You should never have doubted it for a minute."

He leaned his head to one side, trapping my hand against his shoulder. "I haven't for a long time ... not since Tom was born, anyway, because they looked so alike." He gave an abrupt laugh. "Then you insisted on bringing me here for lunch so that Drury could leer at you, and I thought,
Is this the first step to telling the sod that my son is really his?
"

I snatched my hand away. "You said you didn't recognize him."

He speeded up again. "I never forget the faces of men who make me jealous."

"There haven't been any."

"That's what you think." He leaned forward to wipe mist from the screen. "Where are we picking up the boys?"

"Beyond the swing bridge."

"Well, be prepared for some embarrassed silences," he warned matter-of-factly. "I spotted them creeping in behind one of the other cars, so I think the chances are they heard every word."

"Damn!" I said with sudden weariness, leaning my head against the seat. "I told them to make themselves scarce."

"Mm, well, I suspect curiosity won out. You can't blame them. We've both been behaving very oddly lately. It could makes things difficult with Danny," he warned again. "And I'll have to come clean about Libby ... why I lied ... why I ignored Annie. It's only right they should hear the truth from me."

"It's not what I wanted, Sam," I said with a sigh. "It was supposed to be just you who heard it because I didn't think you'd believe it if I told it to you cold."

"You should have trusted me," he said lightly. "I stopped being a bastard twenty years ago."

"I know." I felt tears prick behind my eyes. "But I could never find the right time to tell you. I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm not," he declared with sudden boisterous good numor. "You've got more balls than an entire rugby team, my girl, and it's about time the boys found out what an amazing mother they have." He slapped his hands against the steering -heel. "I keep thinking of this Chinese proverb Jock quoted to me the other day. It's a variation on the theme of 'everything comes to him who waits'"-he turned to me with an-ocher grin-"and it's peculiarly apt in the present circumstances."

"How does it go?"

" 'If you sit by the river long enough the bodies of all your enemies float by.' "

1 thought I knew the man I married before that night, but now I know I could live to be a hundred and still not understand the twists and turns of human nature. I don't know what he said to the boys but whatever it was made them treat me like a valuable antique for twenty-four hours, until I started effing and blinding out of pure frustration, and normal service was resumed. They carefully avoided any reference to the Slaters, all of them understanding that it is one thing to reveal the presence of a scar, quite another to have it split open under the pressure of constant examination.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a subject that could be avoided forever and, after much shuffling of feet on Saturday night, Tom confessed they were supposed to be meeting Danny Slater for a drink but weren't sure whether they should. Sam and I said in unison that Danny bore no responsibility for what his father and brother had done and that it wouldn't be fair to tell him. Leave him in ignorance was our advice.

"Has Dad told you he's thinking of letting Danny use the barn as a studio?" Tom asked me. "Assuming we buy the place, of course."

"It's just an idea at the moment." said Sam, "but I'd like him to know that we aren't just fair-weather friends."

''He'd have to slum it," put in Luke, "because Dad won't let him smoke dope in the house. But he can clean out the tack room and make it reasonably habitable. There's electricity down there and the loose boxes are big enough to work in. All he'd need to do then is beg some stone off one of the quarries, and he could have a bash at being a sculptor without having to bankrupt himself in the process."

Three eager faces turned toward me. What did I think?

I nodded and smiled and said it was a grand idea. But I knew it wouldn't happen. Danny would never forgive me for what I was about to do to his family.
 

The following Monday I visited Michael Percy in prison on Portland. It was a troubling experience because I was constantly reminded that his life was in limbo. Perhaps the extraordinary setting of the Verne, built inside an old citadel overlooking the harbor and standing alone at the end of a series of hairpin bends, added to my sense of unfulfilled promise and waste. Certainly, I felt its isolation very strongly and wondered if the same feeling was shared by the inmates.

The weather had turned blustery again and the wind plucked at my hair and clothes as I scurried from my car to the main entrance in the wake of a huddle of similarly windblown visitors. I hung behind them, following their lead, unwilling to show my ignorance in front of older hands who, by their relaxed expressions, had queued at reception a hundred times to present their visiting orders.

I thought of Bridget repeating this process month after month, year after year, and wondered if it was a cause for depression or happiness that at the end of it she would see her husband. For myself, I was overcome by a frightening regression to the agoraphobia of twenty years ago when I hadn't been able to leave my house for fear of being watched. Perhaps it had something to do with the officers' uniforms-or being touched during the searches-or having to sit at a table, twiddling my thumbs until Michael was brought to me-certain that everyone's gaze was upon me, even more certain that their gazes were hostile.