The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (13 page)

He sighed again.

How could your father have carried out Mr Hunter’s instructions, your father of all people?

He told Shereen about the letter he had taken to Mr Hunter. ‘It was a mistake, Shereen. Your father is stupid.’ Mr Hunter had said, ‘Anonymous letters about something that may or may not have happened twenty-six years ago can wait. Can we just focus on what we
have
to do today please Mr Anwar?’

He breathed in. ‘Shereen, if you had been abandoned as a baby and didn’t know your mother’s name, wouldn’t you want to see that letter?’

Another silence: this time because Mr Anwar was unsure of Shereen’s receptiveness to the question. Meera had died when Shereen was only a few months old, the pregnancy accelerating the cancer which killed her. All through Shereen’s childhood, Mr Anwar kept Meera’s name alive by telling stories about her. But round about the age of 16 Shereen had asked him to stop. He didn’t know why. At different times he favoured different explanations. The kindest to Shereen, the one he reverted to at times like this, was that his daughter carried the guilt of Meera’s death. To escape, she had to run away.

Mr Anwar stared again at the poster, at the starlet’s flawless face. Suddenly he felt a foolish and deluded old man. What his heart knew his head would not admit: glamour not guilt carried Shereen away.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember where he was, the place in the story. Had he told Shereen about the inquiries he made with the police, about his visit to Violet Wells, the abandoned baby, now a mother with her own little daughter? In case he hadn’t, he would tell her anyway.

He wondered whether to tell Shereen about his gift of £200 or the guide book, but decided against.

As he’d expected, Violet Wells went looking for Megan Bates, looking for information about her. ‘Your father doesn’t have all of the details but it appears that Miss Wells tracked down the officer in charge of the original investigation. Your father hadn’t told Miss Wells about Mr Hunter’s instruction
not
to pursue the case, so Miss Wells cannot be blamed for the repercussions. Anyone in Miss Wells’s position would have done exactly the same.’

Nor was he surprised the retired police officer complained. Not surprised either by Mr Hunter’s reaction or his suspension for going against his manager’s instructions.

He glanced again at the starlet, and her face brought to mind his wife, Meera, and how he used to talk to her in the dark. He would sit on his side of the bed, as if readying to swing his legs in beside hers, but instead he would turn off the light and he would tell her all his ambitions, fears and secrets, the atmosphere of the night becoming so charged with intimacy that when he lay down beside her they would make love.

One moment Mrs Anderson was fast asleep, the next wide awake and startled at being jolted from unconsciousness. Her eyes strained against the pitch dark of her bedroom, and her head shifted on the pillow so that she could listen with both ears. She picked out familiar sounds, those that had accompanied her for her thirty-five year occupation of Gardener’s Cottage: the hollow tick of her alarm clock; the rustle of mice or tumbling mortar in the sealed chimney at the foot of her bed – she had never been sure which; the movement of a floorboard; the murmuring and rattling of the pipes which told her it must be past six because the boiler had started to heat the water.

What kept her on edge was a sound she couldn’t hear. She listened for the noise that woke her, of someone banging at her front door accompanied by a shout; a woman. She waited for it to be repeated before deciding whether she’d had a vivid dream or whether there really was someone outside.

The seconds ticked away. The fug and confusion of waking from a deep sleep began to clear and with it the uncertainty. Mrs Anderson had heard the noise before; the first time when Diana brought the baby and thereafter at odd occasions like this when she was deep in sleep and the room was dark and still.

‘So much blood,’ she whispered. It was what she always said.

Diana at the
door, holding a new-born baby, drenched in blood; the
baby covered in it too, a girl.

Mrs Anderson rolled
on to her side and turned on her bedside lamp.
Her clock showed it was 06.23. At seven her alarm
would ring. She watched the second hand’s circular journey.

Then, she’d have done anything for Diana.

Violet’s
head was pressed against the sitting room window. Her slow
breathing made a plume of condensation on the cold glass;
its expansion and contraction the only movement inside or outside
Orasaigh Cottage, as far as Cal could tell. From the
armchair in which he had spent the night, he saw
she was as motionless as the branches of the trees
behind her.

‘Did the storm go in the night?’ Cal
asked, stirring, pretending he’d only just woken when he’
d been watching her for a while.

His voice startled
her but she attempted to conceal it.

‘Would you like
coffee?’ she asked. ‘I found a jar of instant in
the kitchen. The milk I bought is still in Mrs
Anderson’s car – do you mind black?’

She was talking
quickly as if she was worried about what he might
say if she gave him an opportunity. He played along. ‘
Black’s fine.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘No sugar,’ he
called after her.

When she returned, holding a single mug
of coffee, he said, ‘Aren’t you having one?’ She
shook her head, barely looking at him. ‘Not at the
moment.’ She put it beside his chair and made for
the door again.

‘Violet, we’ve got to talk about
this.’

She stopped with her back to him.

‘I know
what I saw last night,’ he continued.

She seemed to slump in resignation. She knew what he was going to say, or thought she did.

Cal hoped she would turn round. ‘Well, you know what I think.’

She replied in the same weary tone of the night before. ‘There are creeps like him everywhere. There’s always some guy . . .’

‘It wasn’t like that, Violet. You know it wasn’t.’

She grunted in exasperation, as if Cal didn’t understand, as if any man could. ‘That’s
exactly
what it was like.’ She sounded impatient with Cal for doubting what she was saying, but the emphasis was forced. Cal could hear it. She was trying to persuade herself as well as him.

The night before, driving to the causeway in
Cal’s pickup and then crossing it on foot, Violet
had been more concerned about Mrs Anderson than about herself.
Despite Cal’s reassurances about her having reached her car
safely, the first thing Violet did inside Orasaigh Cottage was
to find the old woman’s number and ring her.
While they talked, Cal went round the cottage checking the
windows were locked and wondering at Violet’s behaviour, at
how odd it had been. Perhaps it was shock. Perhaps she
found it easier to worry about Mrs Anderson than
to confront what happened to her. After checking upstairs, he
joined Violet in the sitting room. She had been sitting
in the dark. Cal suggested drawing the curtains and turning
on the light. She told him not to bother. She
felt tired – no, much more than tired, exhausted, as if
she hadn’t slept for a week. He wasn’t
surprised, he told her. She had had a nasty experience.
She was bound to have a reaction, anyone would.

He sat in the chair opposite her. What, he asked, had Mrs Anderson said?

‘About what?’

‘What happened to you.’

‘I didn’t tell her,’ she said. ‘I was arranging to meet her tomorrow, to collect my shopping.’

He took the opportunity to question her some more, asking whether she had seen the man before, whether he’d said anything to her, if she knew of any reason for him to do that to her. Shouldn’t she involve the police?

Her replies were clipped, her voice strained. She couldn’t really remember the man. It was like trying to recall a dream, the detail kept slipping from her it had happened so quickly. She hadn’t really looked at him. One second he was there at her side, gripping her, forcing her to go with him; the next he was gone. She hadn’t seen his face; it was dark and he had a hood pulled over his head. He might have spoken but the wind had been howling and there was so much noise anyway. She had no recollection of a voice. The police? What did she have to tell them? A man grabbing at a woman: it happened. It wasn’t pleasant but nor was it uncommon.

‘Can’t we just leave it for now?’ She moved in her chair making herself more comfortable, letting him know she had had enough for one day.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘Maybe I should go, leave you alone if that’s what you’d prefer.’

She didn’t reply, and he listened to the wind wailing outside until she dropped off to sleep. Then he went upstairs to find blankets to cover her, puzzling why she was downstairs in an uncomfortable chair when there were bedrooms upstairs. Was she afraid to be alone?

Eventually he dozed off too, wondering if rest would make her more receptive in the morning.

About that, he had been mistaken. Sleep didn’t appear to have altered her mood. He was suddenly irritated by her behaviour, by the stupidity of it. ‘For Christ’s sake Violet, I’m only trying to look after you.’ He regretted his outburst immediately, not only what he’d said but the manner of it, the unexpected emotion he invested in it. Now she would know he minded about her. He swore silently. He expected her to leave the room but she stood there, quite still, as if caught between opposing forces: wanting to hear what he had to say; not wanting to; wanting his company; not wanting it.

Cal sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on or why . . . maybe it’s none of my business.’ She stood with her head bowed, arms folded. At least she was listening. ‘Violet, what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense – some bloke just trying it on. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in a place like this.’

He watched the rise and fall of her shoulders.

‘All I’m saying is that you should take it seriously. Just in case. Go to the police. Tell them what you can.’

She shook her head. ‘We’ve already talked about this, and I told you I didn’t have anything useful to tell the police.’

‘Ok, so why don’t you move on? Go somewhere else. Go home. Why stick around when there’s some guy out there . . . ?’

‘I’ve still got things to do,’ she insisted. ‘Things I want to see.’

‘What happens if he finds you on your own, when you’re walking a beach?’

She sighed again. Cal going over the same ground frustrated her. Without turning, she said, ‘I’m going to have a shower, all right.’

Do what the hell you want, he thought.

While she was upstairs, Cal
made another cup of coffee and took it to the
front garden. He leaned against the gate, letting the sun
warm him. His clothes were still damp from the rain,
his bones chilled by the cold and airless atmosphere inside
Orasaigh Cottage. He checked the time on his phone: not
quite 8am. Low tide was three hours away. Until then
he was stuck on an island with someone who would
prefer him to shut up or leave. He remembered seeing
Violet for the first time and thinking she might be
a companion spirit, someone who was like him, who found
refuge by the sea. How wrong he’d turned out
to be. The thought accompanied him uneasily as he wandered
along the track. ‘Fuck,’ he groaned. Had he made it
obvious he was attracted to her? Perhaps that’s why
she was being difficult. Was that why she kept a
distance between them?

On his return to the cottage, he saw her before she saw him. She was coming out of the porch into the garden. Her hair was still wet from the shower. She had on jeans, a white vest and a blue and white check shirt which she wore loose.

‘What a difference a day makes,’ he said, stopping by the gate.

‘Hard to imagine it’s even the same place,’ she replied, smiling and squinting as the sun caught her eyes.

He wondered if it was her way of making amends: a new beginning for them too after the disagreements of the last twelve hours.

‘Can I get you coffee now?’ he asked.

‘No thanks.’ She glanced at him and away. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’

‘For getting cross when I should have been grateful.’

‘It’s ok.’

‘No . . . No it isn’t.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘This cottage . . .’ she looked behind her. ‘It’s so depressing inside.’

Cal nodded.

‘Are you in a hurry?’ she said, a look of anxiety in her eyes.

‘No.’

‘Could we do something?’

Mrs Anderson’s morning walk usually took her over the moor path to the churchyard where she sat and rested her feet if the weather was sufficiently clement. Today, however, she skirted the walled garden and joined the main driveway. Turning left, away from the big house, she settled into her stride and prepared for the possibility of an encounter with Alexandra or Matt Hamilton. Should either of them drive by she would carry on regardless, neither stepping on to the verge, nor looking up. She fixed her face accordingly – it drained from milky pink to pallid grey to suit the dourness of her expression – and stared at the potholed tarmac ahead of her. Yet in her breast there was a flutter of excitement at what had been set in train, at its potential.

There she was walking the driveway of the people she would destroy, tramping across their property just as surely as she was tramping on their hopes and ambitions, just as they had trampled on hers. Yet, if they were to drive past her now what would they make of her, she wondered? Would they see the resourceful and dangerous adversary who had arranged the return of Mr William’s only child, the rightful heir to Brae, or the dry husk they had discarded, a woman barely worth the bother of reviling or pitying, let alone fearing? She assumed the latter and wished one or other of them would happen by and glance up at her in condescension. Just for the joy of it: Alexandra or Matt Hamilton being taken in by the illusion she was creating, of a woman brought low by her expulsion from the family she had served beyond duty for all these years.

Where the drive met the Poltown road, she turned right, crossing over to the paved footpath on the other side. She walked slowly, enjoying the sun and the unexpected warmth, until she reached the turn-off to South Bay. She forked left and, after 150 metres or so, stopped beside a slatted bench with a decorated iron frame. She put down her bag and glanced at her watch. Low tide wasn’t for another hour. She had time to while away and where better to waste it than there, where she could see the long crescent sweep of the bay, where she could watch for Duncan? She sat and made herself comfortable, the only sign of any restlessness the frequency with which she lifted her eyes towards the north-west, towards the bay. Where was Duncan? Where was the idiot?

While she waited for him to put in an appearance, she occupied herself with memories. Nowadays her head was filled with so many bitter recollections that she wondered whether she had ever been happy for anything more than fleeting or long-forgotten periods of her life. So preoccupied did she become in resuscitating past insults, slights and grudges that it seemed no time at all before she noticed a figure moving quickly through the dunes. Mrs Anderson checked her watch. It was 10.53. Fifty minutes had passed. She opened her bag, removed a tissue from its packet, dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. She waited a while longer until Duncan was busily clearing the beach of its latest debris before stirring. Just to be sure.

She walked quickly along the road, her childhood knowledge of the folds in the land being put to good use. Only when she reached the stone pillars at the gateway to Boyd’s Farm did she rest. There, with the dunes rising between them, she could no longer see Duncan, nor was there the risk of him seeing her as long as he was working the high tide line.

Her exertions had made her short of breath and she reached out to the stone pillar at her side. As usual, its touch stirred up vivid memories. She sniffed at the air, a reflex response, her head tilting one way, then another, just as it used to when she’d been a girl, following the wafts and trails of smoke from her father’s pipe as the two of them spent early summer evenings watching over the sheep. Her father’s habit had been to lean against the gate while Mary Boyd (as she was then) perched on the stone pillar from which he would lift her and send her running across the cropped grass to move a ewe that didn’t ‘seem right’, to let him cast his expert eye over it. She examined the pasture now: not only was it no longer lush and dark green, the field was colonised by docks and rushes as well as old and rusting machinery. The nearest wreck to her was her father’s Ferguson tractor. ‘This farm and land is NOT for sale. Turn round here’ was emblazoned across it. A ‘pah’ of annoyance erupted from her. Everywhere her eye settled, she saw neglect, chaos or madness. Was it any wonder it tore at her soul?