Authors: Julie Parsons
‘Are you all right?’ The woman put her hand on the dog’s head. He blinked, then closed his eyes again.
Vanessa forced herself to nod. She couldn’t speak.
‘I’m sorry if he frightened you. He wouldn’t hurt you, you know. He’s an old sweetie, really.’
Vanessa unclenched her fists.
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ She still could not move.
The woman took a heavy leather lead from her pocket. She clipped it to the dog’s collar. ‘There. Is that better?’
Vanessa nodded again. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just – when I was little a dog like yours bit me. On my leg.’ She reached down and touched the scar through her skirt.
‘Oh.’ The woman’s mouth turned down. ‘I’m so sorry. How dreadful. No wonder you were frightened.’ She jerked the lead and the dog lumbered obediently to his
feet. ‘You poor thing. Can I help you at all? Would you like a lift home?’
‘No, really, it’s fine.’ Vanessa smiled tentatively. ‘It’s OK. I live near here.’
‘Oh?’ The woman put her hand on the dog’s collar again. She stroked his thick ruff. ‘I have friends in Monkstown. Where do you live?’
‘Trafalgar Lane.’ Vanessa’s legs had stopped shaking. She felt light-headed with relief. ‘Do you know it? It’s near Belgrave Square. It’s a lovely place to
live because it’s really close to the sea.’
‘Trafalgar Lane,’ the woman repeated the name slowly. ‘I think I do know where that is. You’re right. It is a lovely place to live.’ The dog looked up at her. His
long pink tongue flopped out of his open mouth. ‘Why don’t you try patting him? He really won’t hurt you.’
‘No.’ Vanessa’s palms were damp at the thought of it. ‘No, I couldn’t.’ She tried to smile. ‘Thanks, but really I’m fine now. I know I
shouldn’t be so frightened. I’m not scared of all dogs. We have a little mongrel called Toby and I love him. It’s just, well . . .’ She stopped.
The woman held out the dog’s lead. ‘Why don’t you try this? You hold his lead. I’ll walk beside you. You’ll see, he’s really docile. He wouldn’t hurt a
fly. Honestly.’
Vanessa took the leather strap. The dog stood quietly. He turned to look at her.
‘Come on,’ the woman gave her a gentle prod, ‘we’ll walk together. You’ll see how easy it is.’
The dog gave a tug at the lead and Vanessa took a step forward.
‘That’s the way. Come on. Show me how brave you can be.’ She smiled and Vanessa realized she must once have been beautiful. When she was young.
And they walked together in step. Woman, girl and dog. Back along the pier.
Margaret stood in the doorway and looked into the bedroom. Sally Spencer had woken up. She had propped herself up on the pillows. She still looked exhausted, but she smiled as
Margaret came in. ‘Thank you so much for that. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not in the habit of falling asleep at other people’s kitchen tables.’ Her voice
sounded stronger.
‘That’s OK.’ Margaret sat down in the rocking-chair by the window. She pushed with one foot and felt it tilt beneath her.
‘What a lovely chair,’ Sally said. ‘We had one like that when I was a child. I seem to remember I tipped it over backwards once.’
‘Me too. I was banned from it for years.’ Margaret rocked slowly and smoothly. ‘This was my parents’ bedroom when I was a child. My mother used to sit here and watch the
sea.’
‘Has she been dead for long?’ Sally shifted her legs under the heavy quilt.
‘About ten years.’
Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.
‘Oh, of course, I remember now,’ Sally said apologetically. ‘She died around the same time as your daughter, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Margaret said. ‘We had a funny relationship, my mother and I. I never thought we were close, but I miss her now.’ Margaret’s eyes closed
as she rocked. She could smell her mother’s perfume. It had clung to everything she wore, everything she touched.
‘They were tough, that generation of women.’ Sally rolled over on her side and pillowed her head on her arm. ‘I don’t know if we match up to them. Loss seems to knock the
stuffing out of us. They took it in their stride.’
‘I’m not so sure if that’s so.’ Margaret’s eyes opened and her gaze drifted towards the sea. ‘I think they just had different ways of expressing it, or not
expressing it, if you know what I mean. And, anyway, look at you. I understand from what Vanessa has told me that you’ve had your fair share of loss, and you’ve survived.’
‘Have I?’ Sally murmured. ‘Seems like I’ve been cursed. Or, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “To lose one husband was carelessness, but to lose two” . . .’
She smiled sadly.
‘Vanessa told me something about how her father died. So shocking and unexpected.’ The horizon was beautiful. A luminous stripe of green, bright against the darker sea.
‘Unexpected, shocking, all those things. And such a beautiful day. I remember it so well.’ Her voice dropped. ‘It was hot. And when it’s hot up there in the hills,
it’s very hot. The house and the lake are so sheltered. They seem to catch the warmth and cradle it.’
So hot, everyone wearing their swimming togs. The whole family there. James’s son and his school friends. Sally’s children. Vanessa, the baby, crawling across the fine white sand of
the narrow lake beach. They had been swimming in the cold water. It drained from the peat bogs all around. It was a strange dark brown. Like flat Coca-Cola, Sally thought. It made her skin look
like pale amber. Now she sat in a deckchair, a glass of wine in her hand. Vanessa was changed and dry, lying in her pram, the little parasol at a jaunty angle, keeping the sun from her pale baby
skin. Sally relaxed in her deckchair and closed her eyes. For the first time in years she felt safe and protected.
‘I’d looked after myself and the kids ever since Robbie, my first husband, died. I had a little shop and I sold costume jewellery, accessories. Nice but cheap. I made a living, just
about. But life with James was very different.’
‘What about his first wife?’
Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.
‘That was difficult. But James told me that even if she hadn’t been ill he would have left her. He didn’t love her any more. He had already got his divorce before we met. He
wanted to marry me. We went to London for the weekend. We had a ball. Vanessa was conceived there.’ Sally rolled on to her back and stared at the ceiling. ‘I could never have imagined
that it would end the way it did.’
It was so quiet. She would sleep while Vanessa slept. Then she would go and speak to the housekeeper about the party that night. Dinner for ten. It was all planned and organized. James had told
her. She didn’t need to worry about a thing. She just had to enjoy it.
‘And then suddenly there was this terrible noise. An engine revving and revving on the far side of the lake. One of Dominic’s friends, a boy called Ben, had brought his motorboat
with him when he came to stay. The kids all wanted to try water-skiing. I thought at first it must be them. But it wasn’t. The boat came really close to the shore. It sprayed me with water.
And there was a group of boys in it. I didn’t recognize any of them.’
And James running down from the house. Shouting at Marina. Telling her to start the outboard.
‘I stood up. I shouted at him to stop. I said I’d call the guards. But he didn’t pay any attention. I saw Marina fiddling with the engine cord. And James pushing her out of the
way. And then they began to move out from the beach. James in the stern, holding on to the tiller, Marina sitting in the bow.’
Across the lake. The motorboat now in the distance at the far end where a little stream ran down over the rapids into the bog. Sally got up and waded into the water, shading her eyes against the
sun. She could see that the motorboat had turned. It was heading straight for the dinghy. At the last moment it changed direction but she could see the wash, the dinghy rocking violently from side
to side. Now it was circling the dinghy, slowing, slowing, then speeding up again and again the wash swamping the small boat. Swamping it, so it rocked from side to side, drifting now. And Sally
could see that James was standing up in the dinghy. She could see he was trying to start the engine. He was bent over it, and the motorboat was back. Going so fast she thought they would collide.
And she screamed and cried out.
‘Dominic, Tom – help! Where are you?’ Screaming so loudly that Vanessa woke up, began to shriek. Sally turned away from the lake to pick her up. And when she looked back the
motorboat was gone, to the far end of the lake, almost out of sight.
‘And the dinghy? What about the dinghy?’
Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.
‘Well, the dinghy seemed OK. I couldn’t really see. So I put Vanessa back in her pram and started to run to the house. I was calling for the housekeeper. Karen O’Reilly was her
name, a very nice woman, and when I told her what had happened, she said that Kevin, her husband, who looked after the grounds and the deer, had seen some boys down in the woods by the lake and
told her they must have taken the boat from its mooring. She said she was sure everything was all right. So I gave Vanessa to her and I went back to the water.’
And then she saw the dinghy. It was moving slowly, so slowly. She waved and shouted, but there was no response. Just the slow, stately movement of the boat through the water. And then she
realized why there was no response. Because the only occupant of the boat was rowing it. She could see the back of the figure, bending and straightening over the oars. Bending and straightening and
the oars dipping, then lifting, the sun glinting off the drops of water that fell from the wooden blades. She waited and watched and then she saw. It was her daughter who was rowing. Her
daughter’s slight dark-haired figure, sitting in the centre of the boat, her hands grasping the oars, and the sun glistening on the drops as they were thrown back again. And as she got
nearer, she turned and shouted: ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’
‘But what could I do? I was on my own. And then I heard a shout and the men came running from the house. Kevin, and some of the men who worked for him. There was one called Peadar and
another whose name I didn’t know. And Kevin stripped off, waded into the water and swam out to the boat. And I saw him pulling himself up over the stern, then leaning down. He seemed to be
pulling something up and out of the water. It was heavy because the boat was rocking from side to side. I could see, but I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to see that it was
James.’
Rock, rock, rock, rock. The wooden runners drummed on the wooden floor.
‘And Marina was rowing again. And Kevin was crouching in the boat. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but he was bent over, his head bobbing up and down. And afterwards I realized he
was giving James mouth-to-mouth. Trying to save him.’
The boat came slowly to the jetty. She could see the body lying on its wooden slats. A rope was looped around James’s chest. Tied on to the seat in the stern. The men undid it and dragged
James’s body out on to the jetty. And Kevin tried again. Tried to blow life back into him. They stood and stared at him. And Sally stared too. She couldn’t believe he was dead. He
looked fine, just soaking wet. She wanted to shout at him, ‘Get up! Stop pretending! You’re frightening me.’ She wanted to prod him with her toe, take hold of his hands and pull
him upright. But she didn’t. She knelt beside him and laid her head on his chest. Why wasn’t his heart beating? Every night when she went to sleep she put her head on his chest and
listened to his heartbeat, slow, strong and steady. But not now. Now there was no deep, resonant vibration. Nothing but his cold wet shirt against her chest.
‘And I sat up. I shouted at Marina. She was still in the boat. She was white in the face and shaking. But I shouted at her, “What happened to him? How did this happen to him?”
And she started to cry and she said, “I’m sorry, Mummy, I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.’
They stood on the small wooden jetty, looking at James’s body. And someone went back to the house to phone for an ambulance.
And Kevin said, ‘Where are the others? Do they know?’
And Sally couldn’t speak. She just shook her head.
And Kevin said, ‘I know where they are. They’ll be in the woods. Where they always go. I’ll get them.’
‘And will you tell them?’ she asked.
And he nodded and put his arm around her and she smelt the smell of a man’s sweat. And she knew it would be a long time before she would smell it again.
The old bed creaked as she sat up. She pushed the quilt away from her small, slight body.
‘I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should phone Vanessa, tell her we must go home. It’s getting late.’
‘No.’ Margaret stopped rocking. ‘Don’t go. Stay and have dinner with me. I’ve spoken to Vanessa. She’s been for a walk on the pier and I’ve asked her to
go to the shops. She sounds fine. For the first time in ages I’m going to cook a proper meal.’
‘Are you sure? I feel we’ve imposed on you enough.’
‘No, really. It would give me great pleasure.’ Margaret stood up, and heard the trill of a ringtone.
‘Oh, sorry, that’s mine.’ Sally reached for her bag. She pulled out the phone and waved it apologetically in Margaret’s direction. ‘Just a minute.’ She held
it to her ear. ‘Oh, hi, Michael, how are you?’ She listened. ‘Actually I’m not at home. Is it very important? . . . OK, well, could we make it tomorrow? I haven’t been
feeling too well and I’m having dinner with a friend tonight . . . Yeah, fine, tomorrow morning then. Say elevenish? . . . Lovely. And thanks, Michael. Thanks very much.’
She put her phone away.
‘That’s my policeman. Or, rather, my just-retired policeman. I don’t know what to make of him, really. And I don’t think he knows what to make of me. I think he thinks
I’m just an hysterical mother.’ She smiled. ‘He’s probably right.’ She straightened the quilt. ‘I feel so much better after that. Not just the sleep but being
able to talk to you. You know the way it is. People get impatient with tragedy. It’s fine when it’s fresh and new but when it begins to go stale, well . . . You can’t blame them,
I suppose.’