The Wave at Hanging Rock: A Psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller (2 page)

three

THE DOORBELL RANG making Natalie jump. She looked at her watch, which was unstrapped from her wrist and laid on the arm of the sofa. The unsettled feeling that had been growing all afternoon vanished. Replaced with… She wasn’t entirely sure. Relief certainly but perhaps a little trepidation. She’d expected him earlier. She’d certainly hoped he’d be there earlier. She’d begun to imagine car accidents, a motorway pile-up that no one could escape from, no matter how confident or capable, or how quick their reactions were. But at least he was home. She smiled as she pushed aside the essays she’d been marking and she thought of the wine chilling in the fridge, the dinner cooking in the oven, nothing too fancy, but enough to show him she was pleased he was back, despite everything. She doubted the essays would get another look-in tonight. But then the smile left her. If it was Jim at the door, why didn’t he just come in? Had he lost his key?
 

Her visitor was bending in so close to the frosted glass of the front door that Natalie could see who it was before she got there. The smile stayed away, and the anxiety came right back, a new sense of irritation coming with it. For a moment she considered pretending she was out, but it got dark so early this time of year and the lights were on already. Instead she took a deep breath and drew herself up tall, then opened the door. The woman who stood there was holding a tupperware box filled with something green and liquid, a gossip magazine folded in two on top.
 

“Oh,” the expression on the other woman’s face fell, she made no attempt to hide it. “I was expecting Jim,” Natalie’s mother-in-law said.

“Hi Linda. Me too actually,” Natalie replied.
 

“He’s not here?” The woman tried to peer past Natalie as if suspecting she might be lying.
 

“No, he’s not back yet,” Natalie replied, not adding that he might be any minute. “You knew he was away for a few days?” she added, wondering if she could get away with not inviting her in.
 

“Yes of course I knew,” Linda said. She had a way of addressing Natalie as if she were a rather slow child. “But he said he’d take my washing machine to the tip.”

Natalie realised she must have looked blank at this as Linda went on. “The old one. I’m having a new one delivered tomorrow and there’ll be nowhere to put it you see.”

Natalie thought about this for a moment.

“Well I’m afraid he’s not back yet,” she repeated in the end.
 

This generated a sigh from the older woman, and another attempt to peer around Natalie.
 

Would you like to search the house?
Natalie thought, but she didn’t say it. Jim talked to his mum like that all the time and made it sound funny. On the few occasions Natalie had tried it she sounded bitter.
 

“It’s not like Jim to be late is it?”

Natalie opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. It was exactly like Jim to be late. Even after the argument they’d had about him going. Even after they’d made up on the telephone. Even after his promise to make it up to her properly when he did get back. “Traffic?” she offered, not wanting to go into any of this with his mum.

“On a
Sunday night
?” Linda was saying, as if nobody ever drove on a Sunday night. “Have you tried calling his what’s it called thingy?”

“His mobile? It’s out of battery. I spoke to him on Friday from a phone box. He said he couldn’t find anywhere to charge it.”
 

For a moment Linda made a face as if this was highly technical information way beyond her grasp, then she gave up.
 

“Well I can’t stop, I’ll just pop in for a moment and put these down. I had some left over soup I thought you’d like.”

Linda slipped past Natalie with a move she didn’t see coming, a kind of feint in one direction then a sliding pass on the other side. Before Natalie knew it the older woman was in the kitchen with the kettle on. Natalie looked up and down the street before she closed the door. It was empty, the neighbours’ windows obscured by bright curtains. She was pretty sure her entire evening now depended on whether she could get rid of Linda before Jim came back.
 

“Charge your bloody phone up next time Jim,” she muttered to the empty street.
 

It was nearly six months since Linda’s husband - Jim’s father, and her own father-in-law - had died. Linda hadn’t taken it well. She went from the sort of mother-in-law who kept her distance to the sort who popped around uninvited several times a week, a bit like elderly relatives did on the TV soap operas she liked to watch so much. Jim had told Natalie to be patient, she’d back off when she got herself back on track, he said. But it was alright for Jim, he was hardly ever there.
 

“I’ll just wait for him a little while. Now that I’m in.” Linda said. Natalie never used a teapot but Linda had bought them one and knew they kept it at the back of the cupboard. She’d already washed and dried it and was now re-washing the already clean mugs while the tea brewed. Natalie sat at the table and watched her, glad at least that the kitchen was clean.
 

“Where’s he gone this time anyway? Is it work?”

“No. He’s off on one of his surfing expeditions somewhere.” Natalie made sure she didn’t sound bitter.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Lovely. For him.”

If Linda caught the irony here she ignored it.
 

“And did he tell you when he was coming back? Because the new one is being delivered some time tomorrow you see.”

It took Natalie a second to work out she was talking about the washing machine again.
 

“I don’t know. We last spoke on Friday. He said he’d call me on Saturday to let me know for sure. And obviously he didn’t. But he’s working tomorrow, so he’ll be back sometime today.”

“Oh dear. And you’ve made an effort haven’t you?”

Natalie glanced at her in surprise.

“I saw the wine in the fridge, and that smell is delicious. Don’t worry. I won’t stay long when he’s back. I’ll let you two young lovebirds have your nice evening together.” Linda said, sitting down opposite her. “Just as soon as he’s moved my machine.”

She wasn’t sure, but Natalie thought this was a joke. She sipped her tea thoughtfully.
 

“You know he’s a bloody fool if he prefers to go off on silly adventures instead of spending time with you. A bloody fool.”

For the first time since Linda’s arrival Natalie smiled at her naturally.

“Thanks Linda,” she said. Sometimes she glimpsed an alternate universe where she got on well with this woman. She wondered if they’d get there. One day, maybe.

“He’s not on his own is he?” Linda was saying now. “I don’t like it when he goes off on his own. Is he with Dave?”

“No Dave couldn’t…” Natalie stopped herself. “Actually I don’t know. I think Dave might have gone after all.” Natalie wondered what made her say that. She felt her cheeks flush hot and she blew across her tea so that tiny ripples appeared in the surface of the liquid.
 

Linda gave her a curious look but then brightened a little. “Oh well, that’s good. Jim won’t get into too much trouble if Dave’s around. He’s a sensible one, he’ll keep them out of trouble.”

Natalie just nodded, but she kept her eyes on the table and away from Jim’s mother.

four

“LOOK THEY’VE PROBABLY got into some scrape or another. Or stopped off for a meal on the way back.” Linda said a little while later. Her tea cup was empty now. “He gave me plenty of sleepless nights when he was a teenager I can tell you.” She gave Natalie a smile that was designed to be reassuring.
 

To Natalie there was something vaguely insulting in this, though she couldn’t say exactly what. Her anxious feeling was back. She tried Jim’s mobile yet again but there was still no answer, just the same electronic beep which she thought meant that his phone had a dead battery. She was pleased Linda didn’t think to suggest she try Dave’s number. When she set the phone down she was surprised to see that Linda was leaving, she was saying something about getting a neighbour to move the washing machine. Natalie had forgotten all about it. For a moment she thought about asking Linda to stay, just until Jim finally got home, but she said nothing. It probably wasn’t a good idea anyway. It was getting a bit late for a romantic reunion, and a rerun of the argument was looking more likely now anyway.
 

Linda bustled herself out of the house. She seemed untroubled by her missing son, reassured perhaps that he was with Dave. But Natalie could take no comfort from this.

With Linda gone the house was too quiet. She could hear a clock ticking and the burbling of the heating pipes. She turned the TV on to drown out the noises and tried to return to her scripts, but she found herself giving them even less attention than before. Instead she thought back to what he’d said on the telephone on Friday night. He was in a phone box outside a pub, the line wasn’t great, presumably because he had to keep pushing coins into the slot. They talked about nothing for five minutes, neither of them wanting to re-visit the argument they had when he left. But right at the end he did. He said he was sorry. He said he realised he was being selfish and he said he was missing her. She felt her throat constrict as she tried to reply. Eventually she said the same to him, only to realise he must have run out of money because the line was dead.
 

“Oh Christ. What have you done?” she said out loud, and threw the scripts down again. How did she end up in this position, with a man who was so damn
difficult
?

“And where the hell are you Jim?”

She sighed. She thought about the last few days. She’d come so close to throwing it all away. But all it had done was make her realise how much she wanted what she had. How much she wanted to make it work. If only life could be a little bit easier she thought, but then she smiled again. How was life ever going to be easy with a man like Jim? Not for the first time she let her mind drift back to the night they met. He’d practically got into a bar fight of all things.
 

There was an eccentric young man who dressed as if he was an eighteenth century gentleman. She saw him around the town from time to time, where he stood out somewhat in his waistcoats, woollen trousers and monocle. She’d never spoken to him but she’d smiled when he touched his hat on passing in the street. One night, possibly a Wednesday - it was midweek certainly - when Natalie was still relatively new in the city, she and a friend were in a trendy bar where the young man also happened to be drinking. He was alone, as he usually was, and reading quietly from a slim volume of what looked like poetry. They were sitting a little way away, chatting about work. It was a quiet evening, and it would have passed entirely unremarkably had the elegantly dressed young man not somehow managed to offend two drunk young men.

These men had stumbled in a while earlier. They were too drunk already to see how out of place they looked. Too far gone to notice that the sports bar they remembered on this site had been bought out, closed down, refurbished and reopened as a wine and tapas bar. But now inside it was obvious enough from the lack of giant screen TV showing sports and the middle-class huddles of professional people drinking quietly that they’d made a mistake. It was bravado that made them stay. That and one of them remembering drinking San Miguel on holiday in Lanzarote and how it didn’t give you a hangover. He persuaded his dubious mate to stay for one pint, only to discover that the bar was too posh to serve pints, and almost too expensive for him to afford two bottles of beer. The two men were now standing rather too close to the table where the young man was still reading, and they were compiling a list of the many faults of the establishment, including the “wankers” who drank there. And it was in this situation that the eccentric dress of the young man really stood out. After a while the two drunk men began to punctuate whatever they said with the expression “fucking freak” shouted every few words in his direction.

Natalie and her friend were sitting far enough away from this scene that it wasn’t their problem, and certainly not their responsibility to do anything about it. They could see and hear clearly enough, but it was in the background to their discussion. And if nothing else had happened Natalie might never even have fully registered that anything was wrong. The men were near the end of their drinks. Soon they would grow bored and wander out, presumably to another bar, more their style, and everyone else in the wine bar could relax, and get back to enjoying their quiet midweek drink.
 

Perhaps Natalie halfheartedly hoped that someone would do something, but it wasn’t a conscious thought. Certainly the scene wasn’t causing too much concern for Natalie’s friend, Alice. She had already persuaded Natalie to stay for another drink, was already at the bar fetching them now. And that’s when someone did do something.
 

It was another man, on his own, who had appeared to be simply walking through the bar, his route taking him close to where the two abusive men were standing. But when he drew level he suddenly changed direction, raised up his hands and shoved one of the yobs as hard as he could, pushing him into a pillar that held up the ceiling. The man crashed into it, and then his feet slipped out from underneath him, and he fell to the floor. He ended up on his backside with his San Miguel spilling onto the bottom of his pastel-pink shirt, and the crotch of his jeans. The man who’d had caused this didn’t stop to watch, he just carried on walking past until he reached the bar, and calmly ordered a drink. He was standing, as it happened, right next to Alice.
 

Natalie saw the whole thing and registered at once the spike in her anxiety levels. What scared her was the retaliation that would surely come. It was obvious how angry the man on the floor was, but also clear how fit and strong he was, she could see it in the way he sprang back to his feet and looked around for someone to retaliate against. But he had a problem, there didn’t seem to be anyone there to fight back against. The man who had pushed him was now engaged in conversation with Alice at the bar, as if he were nothing to do with what had happened. And the man who had been pushed looked suddenly uncertain, you could see it on his face. Anger turned to confusion, then to a kind of embarrassment - at his inability to respond in the way he felt he should when all eyes were now on him, and at the realisation that the large wet patch at the top of his jeans must make him look like he’d pissed himself.