Authors: Julie Parsons
‘That’s what I need,’ he said, offering her peanuts. ‘A hobby. Something to take my mind off work.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, between crunches. ‘Yeah, I used to be obsessed with my job. Couldn’t stop thinking about it, talking about it too. All the kids, the ones whose
fostering I supervise, they were like my kids. I was always on call for them. They used to ring me up night and day. Bothering me, badgering me. And then the parents. Christ, they were worse. And
there was me, muggins, stuck right in the middle.’
‘And was Amy Beckett like that? She’s one of yours isn’t she?’
‘Ah, Andy’s been talking, I see.’ She shook another handful from the bag. ‘Actually, I’ve never had any bother from her or with her. She was dead lucky with her
foster-family. They’re a very nice bunch and they all hit it off right from the start. Which was a good thing, because I can tell you, you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of that
kid. She’s tough. Single-minded. Focused. All that and more.’
‘Like her father, that’s what she sounds like.’
‘Yeah.’ Alison, looked at him. ‘Of course, you knew him, I suppose. I never had the pleasure.’
Jack reached over and took the bag of peanuts from her, tipping it up and gesturing in mock horror that it was empty.
‘Sorry.’ She smiled. ‘Here, let’s have some more. I’m starving.’
‘And let’s do ourselves a favour,’ he said as he waved to the barman for another round. ‘Let’s not talk about anything remotely connected with work. I’m sick
of it and I’m sorry for raising it. Give me some nuts and tell me again about your garden.’
She kept him entertained until they were called for take-off. He was surprised by her. She didn’t seem to square somehow with the way Andy had described her. He watched her fair head
during the flight and fell into step beside her as they moved through the arrivals area at Dublin airport.
‘No luggage,’ she said, pointing to her neat little bag on wheels. And when they emerged into the twilight outside it made sense for him to offer her a lift. And even more sense for
her to ask him in for something to eat, and maybe something nice to drink.
‘You put me to shame,’ he said as he wandered around her large, beautiful sitting room. ‘How do you manage to make it all look so perfect?’
‘It’s love,’ she said. ‘I fell in love with the house two years ago. It was a mess, practically derelict. It’s taken me this long to get it even half
right.’
The rooms on the ground floor were painted with bright jewel-like colours. Mossy greens and deep blues. The kitchen was vivid yellow. He thought of his flat. White walls. No decoration. And of
the house in which he had lived with Joan for all those years. She had nagged and pleaded, cursed and threatened. And he had never given in. He would do nothing to it. Now he sat and watched Alison
as she prepared a meal. Making a tomato sauce for pasta. Slicing red peppers and breaking up pieces of feta cheese to go with a crisp lettuce for the salad. Her movements were neat and precise.
‘Here.’ She turned towards him, a bottle and a corkscrew in her hands. ‘Man’s work.’
He sniffed the cork. ‘Mmm, that smells good.’
She took the bottle from him and poured.
‘Not half as good as it tastes,’ she said, and lifted her glass. He looked at her neck as she swallowed. It was long and white. He suddenly wanted to catch hold of her skin with his
teeth. He could feel himself blushing as he thought about it. He lifted his own glass and drank. The wine was rich and fruity, with a slightly acid aftertaste. She watched him.
‘Nice,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘Guelbenzu. One of those Spanish vineyards that have suddenly got really good.’
‘Oh, you know about wine, do you?’
She smiled and refilled their glasses. ‘Only so I get to drink the good ones. That’s all. Like this.’
‘You like good things, don’t you? Good food, good wine.’
She took a step towards him. She put her hand on his shoulder. He could see the shape of her breasts through her white shirt.
‘Yes, I do. I like to be satisfied. I like to enjoy myself.’
He put his hand on her shoulder, then ran the tips of his fingers along her collarbone and rested them in the hollow at the base of her neck. She swallowed and he felt his fingers rise and fall
with the movement. When she spoke he could feel the vibration from her larynx.
‘I’ve often wondered about you, Jack. Andy would never say much. He’s too discreet. But I did hear that you’re separated now. Is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ he said. He took another swallow of wine. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She moved her face so her mouth was on his. He kissed her again and
felt her lips open.
She pulled away from him and reached out to turn off the gas burner. ‘We’ll eat later,’ she said.
H
AD SHE EVER
seen such a sunset before? She couldn’t remember that she had. She sat on the terrace outside the house and looked out to sea. The
dark blue of the horizon lay before her, twelve miles out, and above it the pale blue of the sky streaked with clouds that were coloured improbable shades of pink and orange and gold. She sat and
watched until the view before her was refracted and distorted by the tears that filled her eyes. So this was how it had been during all those years when she was locked away from the world. Evening
after evening Daniel Beckett and his wife had sat here, on this bench, at this table, and looked out on the beauty that lay before her now. And she had not known.
She lifted her drink and smelt it. The sweetness of the gin, the astringency of the tonic and the tart bitterness of the wedge of lemon. She swirled it around, watching bubbles rise in long
beaded strings to the surface, hearing the musical tinkling of the ice, and then she drank. She was getting better about alcohol. Those first few weeks after she came out of prison she had found it
terrifying. The way her body ceased to be her own. The way her voice thickened and slurred. The surge of emotion, elation, well-being, excitement that rushed over her, carrying her along like a
wave pounding up the beach, then dumping her in a miserable heap at the tideline.
But now she was more measured in her attitude. She drank and felt the coldness slither down her throat and a flush rise in her cheeks. Today had been near perfect. And tonight was going to be
even better.
She stood up and walked to the doors that led into the long bright living room. She paused and listened. There was music playing, Frank Sinatra singing. And from the kitchen next door another
voice singing along with him. She called out.
‘Ursula, do you need help? Is there anything I can do?’
Ursula appeared at the door. She pushed a couple of strands of hair back from her face and wiped her hands on her striped apron.
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve done plenty. Getting the kids into bed is quite enough for any adult to do in one night. Here,’ she held out the bottle of gin,
‘have a refill.’
She had played with the children, hide-and-seek in the garden. They had shown her all their special secret places. The garden shed with the lock that was broken. The plastic polytunnel in which
they sheltered on rainy days. The three huge compost bins. One full with a dark crumbly mixture, one stuffed with garden and kitchen waste, and the third empty, big enough to scramble into, with a
lid that was easy to open and close down again. There was a platform built into the sturdy branches of an oak tree, and a rope ladder to climb up into it. Just enough room for an adult, a small
adult. And a great view in through the bedroom windows of the house. And all the little pathways and tunnels through the dense bracken, the gorse and the pines on the clifftop.
‘We’re not really supposed to play outside the garden fence,’ Jonathan confided. ‘They’re worried that we might fall down on to the railway line or on to the rocks.
They think we’re stupid.’
‘Yes.’ Laura nodded her head up and down, stretching out her chin as far as it would go, then touching it to the buttons of her blouse. ‘Stoopid, they think we’re
stoopid. But we’re not, are we?’
‘No.’ Rachel kissed her. ‘No, you’re not stupid, either of you. You’re clever. Now. Show me some more. Show me some really amazing hiding places, where no one would
ever think of looking for you.’
They had taken her around the side of the house, sneaked, fingers to lips, past the glass door that opened into the kitchen, and slid back the door into the garage.
‘Look.’ The boy pointed with his toe to the boards that lay neatly fitted together in a slight indentation in the floor. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘But we’re not allowed to get into it. Daddy says it’s dangerous.’ Laura looked anxious.
‘What is it?’ Rachel bent down to have a better look.
‘It’s for, you know . . .’ Jonathan put his hands on his hips and assumed a look of manly importance. ‘It’s for fixing things. When there’s something
underneath the car that’s broken. Daddy does it sometimes. He likes fixing it himself.’
Rachel reached down and prised one of the boards apart from its neighbour. An inspection pit, of course. Daniel had always been good with mechanical things. Good at taking engines, clocks,
sewing machines, transistor radios apart, and carefully putting them back together again.
She put her hands on each of the children’s shoulders and said, ‘I don’t think you should hide there. I think your daddy’s right on this one. It’s probably very
oily and smelly down there too.’
‘And very dark.’ Laura’s face was crumpling.
‘But dark is nice,’ Rachel said, bending down and looking into her face. ‘Dark isn’t scary, dark keeps you safe.’
She sat beside her bed and watched her. Watched the way her jaws gripped her thumb, her small cheeks quivering as she sucked and sucked, and then as she drifted deeper and deeper into sleep,
relaxed and let go, so her thumb dropped from her mouth, wet and glistening, a smear of saliva leaving a silvery snail’s trail across her chin. Rachel lifted a corner of the sheet and wiped
it away. She stroked the child’s soft dark hair and kissed her once more, resting her lips against her cheek. Then she stood up and walked away.
Ursula had decided they would eat outside. Make the most of the fine evening. Enjoy it while they could.
‘Here.’ She handed Rachel a corkscrew. ‘You do the honours.’
It was one of those wooden ones, with a long curling spike, and a top and a bottom section which were supposed to twist against each other and pull the cork effortlessly from the neck of the
bottle. Rachel tried to make it work. She could feel Ursula watching her. She was getting anxious, impatient. The food was waiting, the large bowls of chowder beginning to cool.
‘I’m sorry.’ Rachel looked over to her. ‘I can’t get the hang of this. I’ve never come across one like this before. You do it. I’ll get the rest of the
food from the kitchen.’
There were rolls, warm from the oven to go with the soup, and homemade hamburgers. She had watched Ursula knead with her hands the mince meat with onion and parsley, and bind it together with
the large orange yolk of an egg, and felt sick. But cooked, seared black on the outside they didn’t seem so bad. She had made chips, French fries she called them, thin sticks of potato, crisp
and salty. And there was a salad, lettuce, tomato, chives. ‘All from the garden here,’ she said with pride in her voice. And a bowl of mayonnaise and jars of mustard and pickles of
every variety.
They ate in silence. It was good. It was delicious. She watched Ursula. She was greedy. Cramming her mouth with food. Opening it wide so Rachel could see its contents, then lifting her glass and
swilling wine into it. Rachel felt her stomach heave. She pushed away her plate.
‘That was a truly a feast. Thank you.’
‘You’re not finished? There’s homemade apple pie, and ice cream. And cream too, if you’d like. Come on, Rachel, I don’t often do this. I’d never fit into my
clothes if I ate like this too often. But I thought we’d have a treat tonight. You look like you could do with one. Here, give me the corkscrew. I’ll open another bottle.’
Rachel watched her hands, the way she tore the foil from around the cork. It was sharp. She had cut herself. A small line of red appeared on her fingertip. But she didn’t seem to notice.
She stood up to pour, and swayed, slopping wine on to the tablecloth, drops spattering her white trousers.
‘Shit.’ She began to laugh. ‘I knew I’d do that. I’ll just go and get a cloth.’ The phone inside began to ring. ‘You get it, Rachel, will you? If
it’s Dan tell him I’m busy. Tell him I’m fine. Tell him I love him.’
There were phones everywhere. She had noticed that already. Every room seemed to have at least one. She passed by the red handset in the sitting room. She walked out to the hall. She closed the
door. She lifted the receiver. She listened. She spoke. She put the receiver down, then lifted it again, listened and laid it beside the phone. She backed away and out, hearing the sound of water
running in the kitchen.
‘Who was it?’ Ursula’s voice was loud, too loud.
‘It was nothing. It was a wrong number.’
It was getting late. It was getting dark.
‘You get the dessert, Rachel. It’s all in the fridge. And there’s a bottle of Baileys on the sideboard. Let’s have some of that too. I love it.’
She poured the liqueur carefully into two glasses. She looked over her shoulder out on to the terrace. Ursula had lit candles and an outside lamp, which hung from a bracket on the wall. The
light flickered over her as she leaned back in her chair, her eyes drooping. This would be easy, Rachel thought. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a plastic pill bottle. She opened it.
She took two of the red capsules from within. She carefully pulled apart their plastic shells and poured the fine white powder into one of the glasses. She looked over her shoulder again. Ursula
had got up and had walked to the edge of the terrace. She was swaying gently from side to side. Rachel picked up a teaspoon and stirred until the powder had dissolved. She bent her head to the
glass and breathed in deeply. All she could smell was cream and coffee and alcohol. She walked outside and handed Ursula a glass. She watched her bend her head over it.