Secrets of the Tides (40 page)

‘It’s so terribly sad, Richard. You all miss him and you each need to mourn Alfie in your own way. I can understand you wanting to stay up here, away from the world. I just don’t want you to forget, in your grief, that you have two beautiful, vibrant daughters downstairs who need you an awful lot right now. And a wonderful wife who loves you very much.’

There was a small sigh from Richard’s side of the bed.

‘Helen is very worried about you. They all are. I know you’ll be up and about when you’re feeling ready to face everyone, and I’m not pressuring you. Truly I’m not. I just wanted to remind you that although Alfie has gone, there’s a lot more life left in your home, for you to enjoy, when you’re ready.’ Violet paused and tucked her blond hair back behind her ears. ‘Anyway, listen to me going on and on. I really just came up here to let you know that I’m leaving now. I have to return to Sussex. I need to go and check up on my shops. Autumn is a busy time for a florist; strange, isn’t it? But if you ever need me, you or the girls, you just go right ahead and pick up that telephone. I’ll be here like a shot, for any one of you.’

Violet leaned over and gently kissed the top of Richard’s head and as she touched him, Richard jolted. He lurched up into a sitting position, reaching out for her hand and staring at her with wild, dark eyes.

‘I can’t do this,’ he’d croaked at her. ‘I can’t carry on. I keep thinking of him, out there in the water . . . his little body battered and bruised from the waves, being pummelled against the rocks, or’ – Richard’s voice cracked – ‘or dragged along the bottom of the ocean. I close my eyes and I see his skin being torn by the reef, his beautiful face all white and swollen. Fish nibbling at him . . . crabs tugging at his hands and feet . . .’

Helen shuddered. Her heart was in her mouth. She couldn’t bear to hear Richard’s nightmares, but she couldn’t tear herself away either.

‘I can’t talk to Helen about it. I don’t want to upset her any more than she is already. It’s not fair to her. Oh God,’ Richard sobbed, ‘I just want to hold him. I’d give anything to hold him one more time . . . to smell his skin . . . to touch his hair. My beautiful boy. My beautiful boy is gone.’

With that Richard had let out a cry and thrown himself at Violet. He put his arms around her, leaning his head onto the curve of her shoulder and let out loud, primitive sobs that made his whole body tremble with grief.

It was clear that Violet did not know what to do. She sat utterly still and helpless as Richard held onto her. Then, slowly, she raised a hand to Richard’s head and began to stroke his head. As her hand moved, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, she murmured comforting shushing noises, over and over, until Richard’s weeping subsided. The two of them sat like that for a while. Then, as if sensing Helen’s presence, Violet looked up towards the door. The two women locked eyes over the top of Richard’s head; they stared at each other, frozen in the moment, until Helen mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ and turned on her heel.

Violet left an hour later, and an hour or so after that Richard had wandered downstairs in his dressing gown. He’d walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he’d asked Helen, as if the last seven days of self-imposed isolation had been nothing more than a surreal dream.

She decided to follow his cue and pretend that this was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.’

‘I think I’ll go back to work on Monday,’ he’d added as he rummaged in the crockery cupboard for mugs.

‘Oh, OK, if you’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ was all he’d said.

And that had been that.

Helen shook herself. The memories were still fresh more than two years on. Just like her grief, just like her guilt. She glanced once more at the devastated painting hanging on the wall, sighed and then lifted herself wearily from the arm of the sofa. It was cold outside and her joints were stiff and sore. She felt tired, old and tired. Pulling her dressing gown around her body protectively, she walked through the chilly hallway, bracing herself for the confrontation she now knew was coming.

As she walked through the dining room, she averted her gaze, as usual, from the framed family photos spread across the sideboard, memories of a happier time. They hadn’t thought to capture any moments on film since Alfie’s disappearance. It was as if life had stood still in the Tide family; as if life now held nothing worth celebrating; a sad state of affairs but she hadn’t had the energy to put things right. She’d been trying her hardest just to keep herself functioning, on some basic level.

After Richard had returned to work, Helen hoped things might settle down. The girls had gone back to school and Helen had steeled herself and returned to campus for a new term. It was as if some strange force, some inevitable momentum pushed her onwards. She woke. She dressed. She went to work. She bought groceries. She made dinner. She brushed her teeth. She went to bed. She felt like an actress playing her part on a vast, empty stage, day after aching day.

She did her best to avoid him, but Tobias pursued her. He arrived at her office unannounced and begged her in urgent, hushed undertones to return to him. He would leave flowers and notes on her desk, and messages on her voicemail, but Helen ignored them all. She simply couldn’t face him, or the thought of the destruction their affair had wreaked. Each scribbled word he left her, every wilting bloom he plucked and presented as a symbol of his affection now served as nothing more than a painful reminder of her raging guilt. Alfie’s death had sucked every ounce of passion from their relationship, just as a raging fire sucks oxygen from the air, and losing Alfie only served to highlight an inevitable truth, one she had been too foolish to see: it was Richard she wanted. Only Richard. Only now did she realise his dependability, his fierce principles about family and duty and his fundamental goodness weren’t signs of weakness or things to irritate and annoy, rather they were qualities to be admired, qualities to cling to.

Yet Richard was strangely absent. Business trips kept him away for longer and longer periods, and when he did return, he would drift about the house aimlessly, or take long solitary walks up onto the Cap, returning hours later mud-spattered and windswept yet with the same distracted look in his eyes. And at night, after they had completed their familiar round of locking doors and turning off lights, they would retreat to their bedroom, only to dress chastely in nightwear before turning off bedside lamps and slipping silently under the covers.

‘Goodnight, dear,’ he would say primly, the words and tone of a man much older than his forty-odd years.

‘Goodnight,’ she’d reply, turning away from him and pulling the sheets up underneath her chin, all the while silently yearning for the warmth of his touch. She couldn’t remember the last time they had made love. She had spent nineteen years in a marriage she had convinced herself did nothing but stifle her, only to find that she now longed for its security, its safe dependability. It was more than ironic; it was perverse. But she knew it was nothing short of what she deserved. With Cassie, troubled and in hiding up in London, and Dora closeted away in her bedroom or out of the house at every seeming opportunity, Helen found herself wandering around Clifftops like a ghostly, lost soul. The echoing, empty house was her cross to bear, her punishment, and she knew it was being meted out in full force: purgatory.

Yet, through all the pain, and all the sadness they had inflicted and endured, she still dared to hope that Richard loved her. She just needed to give him time, she told herself; time to let go of his grief, time to heal, and time to find her once again, this time, waiting for him.

She paused outside the kitchen. Perhaps now the affair was out in the open they could begin the necessary steps to healing their marriage. There didn’t need to be any more secrets or lies. Perhaps this was the fire they needed to walk through to cleanse their marriage. It had been the worst two years of her life yet she could still hope there was a future for them; for really, what else did she have left?

She braced herself. Then, with a deep breath, she pushed open the door and walked in.

Richard was seated at the kitchen table. He had his back to her but she saw him stiffen as she entered the room and he spoke before she had a chance to address him.

‘How long, Helen?’ He didn’t look at her. His voice was gravelly, like sandpaper, as though he’d been crying. ‘How long has it been going on?’

She swallowed. ‘Two months . . . maybe three, but it’s over; it has been for a long time. It was nothing, Richard, it meant nothing.’ Her words sounded clichéd, even to her ears. She moved around the side of the table to look at him but he avoided her gaze, turning his head to look out of the window instead. There was a scrap of paper on the table in front of him. She peered down at it, and sensing her interest, he pushed it across at her.

‘You’ll probably want this little memento.’

She looked at the scrap of paper lying in front of him. It was a simple sketch, drawn in charcoal, of a naked woman reclining under the shade of a tree. She had been captured in a blush-inducing pose by the artist’s expert pencil. He had even taken the trouble to sign and date the piece, in the bottom right-hand corner. Helen stared at the image with horror.

‘You look lovely,’ Richard said.

‘I . . . I had no idea . . .’ she stammered.

‘Don’t try to deny it, Helen. It’s clearly you. As you told me yourself all those years ago when you brought that hideous painting home, he’s a “genius artist”. The likeness is uncanny, don’t you think?’

Helen swallowed again. Discussing the affair was one thing, but coming face to face with such graphic evidence was both unexpected and wholly mortifying. Poor Richard.

‘How . . . where did you find this? Did
he
give it to you?’ Helen’s mind was racing.

Richard gave a little snort. ‘Someone took pity on me and decided to post it to me at work. I received it yesterday. I should think his wife took it upon herself to inform me; poor cuckold that I am! I imagine she’s sick to death of her husband’s philandering and decided to take matters into her own hands.’

Helen bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t bear to think of Richard opening an envelope containing the crude sketch, and in the office of all places. ‘I don’t know what to say . . . it’s over. You have to believe me. It’s been over for a long time. Since the funeral. There was no way I could . . .’ Her words trailed off as Richard looked up at her. There was a genuine disgust in his eyes.

‘No way you could sleep in another man’s bed, a married man at that, when your own son was out there, lost? Dead? How very decent of you, Helen.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘How very noble.’

‘I’m not proud of myself, Richard. I’ve lived with the guilt these last couple of years. I wanted to tell you – I really did.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t want to add to your burden, Richard. We were grieving for our son. The affair was over. I thought it was best . . .’ Again, her words faded away.

They sat across the table from each other. Richard gazed at her blankly, and then shook his head with incomprehension. All the while, the little scrap of white paper sat between them, staring up at them like a glaring reminder of all that had gone wrong for them over the years.

‘Do you love him?’ Richard asked finally.

‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘God, no! He was a mistake; a fling.’

‘When did it start? I want to know everything. Don’t spare me the details. I don’t want any more lies, do you understand?’ His voice was grim.

Helen nodded. ‘It was a flirtation at first. We met that first time in Bridport, when I visited his gallery and bought the painting.’

Richard nodded.

‘We flirted with each other, but it was nothing more at that point. We hadn’t been in Dorset that long. It was a difficult time. Remember?’

Richard gave another little nod and turned to look out the window again. She could see tears welling at the corners of his eyes. She longed to move across the table and hold him, but she held herself back. She owed him an explanation.

‘Then I got pregnant with Alfie. Tobias just . . . he just faded away; it was one of those things that never happened. It wasn’t meant to be. You and I, we were happy. You must remember?’ There was desperation in her voice. It was important he remember what they had, what they could be.

‘So when did you first sleep with him then? What changed?’

‘It was my second year lecturing at Exeter. He’d been appointed as Artist in Residence at the university.’

Richard nodded, ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘We’d occasionally bump into each other on campus. Then at the end of the summer term he invited me out to lunch.’

‘So you went for lunch and just happened to fall into bed with each other, is that it?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. We were friends for a while before.’

Richard eyed her suspiciously. ‘No lies, remember?’

‘OK, we were more than friends. We flirted with each other, for a few months. I liked the attention,’ she sighed. She knew it was better if she were completely honest. ‘I was lonely and bored. I was sick of only being seen as a wife and mother; I was sick of small-town life. You and I, we never talked about anything except the kids, about school runs and packed lunches, bills and laundry. Tobias made me feel special; he made me feel attractive, and desirable. I liked that. I liked him.’

‘So it was my fault, is that it?’ Richard asked with scorn. ‘I didn’t make you feel like enough of a
woman
? I didn’t pay you enough attention?’

‘No! It wasn’t your fault; of course I’m not saying that. I’m just trying to explain how I was feeling. And you have to admit, we
were
going through a rough patch back then. There was the move . . . adjusting to this house . . .’

‘Oh yes . . . this
dreadful
house . . . of course.’ There was a flatness to his voice, but something else too, a hint of bitterness.

Helen ignored it. There was no point rehashing that old argument, not now. ‘We started sleeping together just before the summer break, just before the holidays; you know, the summer Alfie died. And I ended the affair as soon as we lost him. It was a matter of weeks, two or so months at the most. It was a horrible mistake. We had lost Alfie. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you or the girls as well. I still can’t.’ Helen’s voice cracked and she struggled to keep her composure.