Authors: Julie Parsons
‘Go away,’ she hissed at him, nudging his ribs with her bare foot. He moved quickly to the other side of the terrace. But already as she dragged herself back across the wall she
could see that he was inching slowly and deliberately towards the pool. And by the time she had reached her room at the top of the house she could see that once again he had something between his
front paws as he crouched by the side of the rockery.
She had to admire his persistence, that big black cat that lived on the other side of the wall. Or was it persistence? She supposed not, in an animal. It must be an instinct, she thought,
something from which he cannot escape. And then she thought of other cats she had known. Who had been more than happy to lie in a warm spot for most of the day, purring and preening and rolling
over to have their soft stomachs rubbed and patted. Beautiful creatures, they were, she remembered. Secure in their bodies and sure of their place in the world.
Like the people whom she saw now at Ursula and Daniel Beckett’s anniversary party as she stood beneath the pine trees at the edge of the garden, watching the groups of twos and threes,
glasses in their hands, who moved behind the picture windows. She could hear through the open door the hum and burble of their voices rising above the music, which came from the group of musicians
seated on a small raised platform on the lawn. She watched Ursula move among her guests. She knew the kinds of words she would be using. Welcoming, supporting, confiding, flattering. She watched
the children, dressed in their best, running in and out of the house, fetching and carrying. She drew back for a moment into the trees and turned to look out to sea. It was still very bright. The
water below the cliffs gleamed in the evening sunshine. Dark green close to the shore, dark blue further out, and a line of light along the horizon. And the beginnings of the sunset touching the
clouds with a fine feathering of pale pink and grey. She took a powder compact from her bag and opened it. She looked at herself, critically moving the small mirror from feature to feature. She
smoothed down her eyebrows with her fingertip and pulled out her comb to settle her hair. Then she turned back to the house. She took a deep breath. She lifted her head and gazed towards the
lighted windows. Now was the time. Now she was ready.
It was easy to slide in through the wide open door. No one noticed her. No one was watching. Except the white-coated waiter, who immediately spotted a guest without a glass and held out his tray
in her direction.
‘Drink, madam? Wine, mineral water or perhaps some champagne?’
She hesitated, her hand hovering, looking down at the colours. The dark red, light yellow, pale lemon fizziness. She picked up a glass of white wine. She held it to her nose and breathed in its
essence before she drank as her eyes scanned the room, looking for the man with the thick dark hair and the equally dark beard, whose face she remembered from the time before. Whose photograph she
had seen in the articles he had cut from the pages of the glossy magazines. She moved forward, carefully easing herself through the throng, picking up snatches of conversations as she passed.
She could see Ursula’s blonde head and hear her voice, her accent rising above the hum of the room. Rachel walked slowly towards the doors to the garden. She sat down at a table on the
terrace and looked out to the sea, watching the line of clouds along the horizon.
She finished her glass of wine and signalled to the waiter for another. She drank some more. The alcohol was changing her demeanour. She felt bright and alive, confident, capable of anything.
She stood up and moved away from the house again, towards the marquee that had been put up on the lawn. It was empty still. A group of musicians were setting up in the corner. She could smell damp
canvas and crushed grass. It reminded her of holidays when she was a kid. Camping in Wexford. Rain on the roof of the tent and the smell of the Primus stove. She walked into the centre of the
wooden floor and leaned against the pole. The band had begun to tune their instruments. Guitars, a mandolin, a violin, and a huge concertina. She watched them, then leaned back against the wooden
support and closed her eyes. They began to play. Their music sounded like gypsy tunes. Rhythmic, romantic, nostalgic. She swayed from side to side, humming along with the familiar sounds, then felt
something tugging at her skirt. She opened her eyes and looked down. Laura stood beside her. Rachel bent and kissed her cheek, resting her lips against the child’s face.
‘Would you like to dance with me, sweetheart?’ she asked. The child nodded and held out her hands. Rachel took hold of them and together they swayed around the wooden dance floor.
The band began to play more quickly. Around and around they twirled. Laura was laughing. She was pulling back against Rachel’s grasp. Rachel could feel dizziness beginning to push her off
balance. She slowed down and lifted the child up, holding her on her hip as she moved in waltz time, her feet sliding across the wooden floor of the huge tent. Laura was laughing out loud, leaning
out to counterbalance Rachel’s movements as they spun around and around and around.
And then stopped as Ursula suddenly was beside them, pulling the child from Rachel’s arms, shouting at her, demanding to know what she thought she was doing, why was she here, how dare she
invade their privacy in this way.
Rachel pushed her hair back off her face. She was breathless. She gulped in air, then she picked up her glass of wine and drank some more.
‘But you invited me,’ she said. ‘That day when we were out in the nursery, you told me to come. And you told me again that night when I stayed here with you. You gave me an
invitation. Don’t you remember?’
She watched the expression on Ursula’s face change. Doubt replaced anger.
Rachel moved towards her. ‘Yes, you said to me how much you’d enjoy having me here, inviting me to meet all your friends, how much you wanted me to meet your husband too. You do
remember that, don’t you?’
The band had stopped playing. People had begun to drift into the marquee to see what was happening. They stood in a curious semicircle around the two women.
‘Yes,’ Rachel continued, ‘you told me there would be music and we could dance together, the way we danced that night, Ursula. Don’t you remember? You had such a great
time of it that night, you said we’d do it again. Why don’t we, why don’t we now? I’m sure everyone here would like to see it, the way we danced that night.’
She reached out and took her hand. And then she saw him, standing slightly apart from the rest of the guests. Those bright, shiny people, with their extravagant gestures and their confident
movements. Their jewellery, their make-up, their glittery surfaces. Who faded away to nothing now as she saw Daniel watching her. And she looked at him. Saw the streaks of grey in his dark hair,
the extra flesh on his body and face. Remembered how she had created him, called him up from the depths of her memory as she lay in her cell, night after night. Thinking of the way he had looked
and felt. As her legs weakened beneath her and her mouth dried up so she did not know if she would be able to speak. For a moment there was silence. Then Laura ran forward, towards him. She clung
to his knees, then stretched her arms up his thighs, pulling at his belt.
‘Daddy, Daddy, pick me up, give me a cuddle.’ He leant down and put his hands under her armpits. He swung her high, up on to his shoulder. The child laughed and shouted out,
‘Look, peaches lady, look. I’m the king of the castle.’
Daniel moved slowly towards her. He held out his right hand.
‘Rachel, I do believe it’s you. After so many years.’ She heard the voices then, the comments, the hum of recognition.
‘How nice to see you. How interesting. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying yourself here. Enjoying our hospitality.’
He lifted Laura from his shoulders and put her down carefully. He stepped forward and took hold of Rachel’s wrist. His grip was tight, uncomfortable. ‘But now,’ he said,
‘it’s time you were leaving.’ He tugged at her arm and she stumbled forward. The remnants of her glass splashed down her dress, staining it darkly. He tugged her again, and again
she stumbled. The crowd moved aside. She could see out through the open flap of the tent. Two men were standing, waiting. They were wearing dark blue uniforms, shirts with a logo written in white
on the front. Daniel nodded towards them, and they moved forward quickly. He let her go. The men stood, one on either side of her. Together, in step, they walked out of the tent, across the lawn,
around the side of the house, up the drive to the gate. Their footsteps sounded loudly on the gravel. And then as they reached the road Rachel heard the sound of the band starting up again. A dance
tune, another waltz. She heard the guitars, the mandolin, the violin, the concertina all playing together. She began to hum. The security guards opened the gate. They stood aside.
‘Off you go, darling.’ The younger of the two spoke. He gave her a shove in the small of her back. She fell forward, putting out her arms to save herself. The heels of her hands and
her knees made contact with the hard surface of the road. She felt the sting of small stones pricking into her skin. Tears started into her eyes. She heard the sound of their shoes as both men
turned and walked away. Then the heavy clank of the iron latch closing. She waited for a couple of moments until it was quiet, then she pushed herself up to standing. She turned away and began to
walk up the hill to the village. The darkness pressed in on her, wrapping her in its comfort and safety. She stopped for a moment and tilted her head to look up at the sky. The half-moon hung above
her the way it had hung above the prison. But now when she moved it moved with her, following her path, stopping when she stopped, drifting through the night as she began to walk again.
It was such a big house, the house in which Daniel and his family lived. Full of nooks and crannies. She had it all there in her mind’s eye. She thought about the alarm system, the number
she had written down in her notebook, the locks on the doors and the windows. She thought of the bunch of keys she had put carefully away in her cupboard. He would be going around checking them all
before he went to sleep tonight, she was sure of that. And would he sleep tonight? Probably not, or if he did his dreams would waken him. But she would sleep well, better than she had slept for a
long time. For years really, when she came to think of it. She would sleep like a baby. A baby that at last has been fed and nourished and cosseted. She was so looking forward to it. She
couldn’t wait.
I
T WAS THE
banging that woke her the next morning. Persistent, loud, eating into the warp and weft of her dreams, even though she turned on to her
stomach and pulled the pillow over her head, flattening the palms of her hands against her ears. But it was no good. She was awake. She lay for a moment on her back, looking at the sunlight
creeping across the ceiling, trying to remember where she was. She sat up, a sudden fright making her sweat, wondering, thinking was she back inside again? Was that where the noise was coming from?
The screws working their way down the landing towards her cell? Keys in hand, the jangle, the rattle, the thunk of the lock, then the bang, the shout, the wakey wakey, rise and shine. Breakfast
time, ladies. But the voice that was shouting her name now was a man’s voice. A voice she knew from before, before prison even.
She would have wanted to have the time to brush her hair, wash her face, but now the noise was so loud that her neighbours from downstairs had joined in the racket. Banging on their ceiling so
her floorboards shook. Driving her up and out of her bed to hasten to the door and unlock it. To stand back and let him in. To face his rage. To answer his questions.
‘What do you want?’
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘Who do you think you are?’
‘Conning my wife and children with that crazy story. The deserted wife, the two sons, all that crap. So tell me now. Why are you here? Now, after all these years. Why now?’
‘I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I? Why are you here, now, after all these years?’ She wrapped her arms across her breasts, feeling suddenly cold. ‘You should
be thanking me that I didn’t tell your wife all about you and me. When I realized who she was. That I didn’t just spit it all out. The whole rotten story. That I kept it to myself. That
I was cute enough to make up something else that she wouldn’t suspect.’
‘So you’re telling me that it was just a coincidence that you met her, is that what you’re saying? Well, I don’t believe you, not for one moment. I know you, remember,
Rachel. I know you very well.’ His voice rose in a shriek of anger as he moved towards her, his hands in fists. As the door behind him opened and she saw the boy from downstairs standing
there, his blonde hair in a crest like a small child, his eyes puffy with sleep.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ He took a step further into the room, looking at them both. Then said, his voice concerned, anxious, ‘Are you all right, Rachel? Is everything
OK?’
She looked towards Daniel. ‘No, it isn’t. Get the bollocks out of here. Now.’ Her voice was harsh, her accent and tone suddenly not her own as she moved towards him and pushed
him hard in the chest so he lost his balance and stumbled back, as the boy from downstairs became changed too, threatening, his slight body inside the sweatshirt and jogging pants, hard and tense.
She slammed the door behind Daniel and they listened to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the hollow thump as the heavy front door swung back into place.
He was waiting for her when she finished work later that evening. His van was parked outside the shopping centre and he was leaning against it, flicking through a newspaper.
She saw him a moment before he saw her. She was about to turn away, but he was beside her, his hand on her arm.
‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘I want to talk.’
‘You do? What on earth can we have to talk about?’