The Drowning (18 page)

Meryn ran into the room, bringing with him the chill of the dark November night. His face and hair glistened with rain.

He looked at Jenna. “Well?”

Jenna released Gaby’s hands, got shakily to her feet. “The story has been told. Thank you, Gaby. Thank you so much.”

Gaby looked up at her. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. Hasn’t it all been done? Benjie’s dead. Nothing will bring him back.”

Meryn put his arm round his sister. “I’ll take you home . . . Will you stay, Jenna? I need to talk to you.”

“Tomorrow.” Jenna forced her lips to smile. “Tomorrow is another day. And maybe the sun will shine.”

“Yes.” Meryn frowned, his eyes anxious, his face pale. “Yes, maybe it will.”

Jenna walked slowly into the rain.

She waved at Meryn and Gaby.

They waved back.

They went one way.

She another.

If Jenna had been awake on the beach that afternoon, this is what she might have seen.

Benjie all alone, sitting on the sand, poring over his crossword puzzles, sweating with concentration, his glasses slipping down his nose in the heat.

Gaby running up to him, calling him Benjamin. She’d spotted him in the crowd. She was supposed to be with a group of their neighbour’s friends, celebrating a birthday. She’d given Phil the slip. Phil had a summer cold. Mum had kept her at home.

Benjie blushing with shyness and relief and happiness.

Gaby spilling out the words, fast as they’d come, faster than a torrent of rain, telling him everything. About the bracelet. How much she’d treasured it, worn it, even slept in it. Phil’s jealousy, her foul-minded resentment. Plotting against Benjamin. Unforgivable. How sorry Gaby was and how ashamed. How she still wanted to be his friend – how she would
always
want to be his friend.

Benjie crouching in the sand, scarcely able to conceal his joy.

The group of other kids, Gaby’s friends, none of whom Benjie knew, racing up to them, saying, “Let’s all go to the rocks. Come on, we’ll try to catch some crabs in the pools. Who can catch the most? We’ll race you there.”

And Benjie standing up, unsteady on his feet, what with the sun and the crowds and his overwhelming joy, holding Gaby’s hand.

For a moment in time, for the first and very last time, holding his beloved Gabriella’s hand.

They’d been fishing, mucking about, among the rock pools.

Benjie caught a crab. Everyone cheered. He squealed as it nearly slipped from his fingers. Just in time, he managed to plop it into one of the other kids’ jam jars.

“More!” everyone cried. “What did you say your name was? Benjamin Pascoe? Go catch us some more, Pascoe. Go catch some more.”

Sun-struck, dumb-struck and love-struck, amazed at his new prowess, drenched in sea-water and joy, Benjie held his glasses to his nose and floundered on: over the rocks, round the vast craggy corner of the Island and then further still, into the deepest pools.

Trying to catch more crabs for Gabriella, trying to prove his worth.

“And then?” Jenna had asked, as the flames crackled and spat in the grate. “For God’s sake, what happened then?”

“Someone pulled me away . . .” Gaby had choked. “One of the other kids said we’d gone too far into the sea, his dad was shouting for us, we had to go back to the beach immediately. Two of the boys picked me up and carried me to the shore, shoulder high, over the rocks, screaming with laughter. I kept trying to look round for Benjamin, but I couldn’t see him. He’d disappeared behind the corner of the rocks . . . Five minutes later, we all went home. To light the candles on the birthday cake.”

Jenna felt blood draining from her face. “But afterwards, the following week, at school. When Mr Robinson asked you, when the police asked you. You said that none of you were on the beach that afternoon.”

“I lied. I had to. Phil knew I’d been to the party. But that’s all she knew. She didn’t know anything about us going to the beach. I was terrified of telling her I’d seen Benjamin, that I’d talked to him behind her back . . . She’d have been furious. I don’t know what she’d have done to me . . . I know that sounds pathetic, cowardly. But I have to
live
with her . . . She’s supposed to be my twin.”

Jenna walked through the darkness of the wet streets, down to the harbour. Exhausted and starving, she bought fish and chips, huddled in a doorway to eat them.

Nothing’s changed. Yet everything feels different.

I can see the last moments of Benjie’s life.

A hungry seagull perched on a railing opposite her, eyeing her chips. She threw him some food. In a flurry of dark wings, a flock of birds arrived to demolish it. Jenna remembered the whirring blades of the helicopter hovering over the sea, their patient, insistent drone.

She flung the remainder of her meal into the air.

Slowly she stumbled back through the Digey, towards home. Lights flickered in the living room.

I can’t face Dad. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’ll go in through the tea room.

She unlocked the door of the Cockleshell and locked it carefully behind her.

The tea room lay in darkness, the corners black, the tables bare, the floor swept, its windows waiting for the dawn.

From beyond the inner courtyard she could hear the television in the living room, Dad and Hester together, talking and laughing.

I can’t bear to go up to my room.

I’m so wound up I feel I’ll never sleep again.

No point in going to the studio either – I’m much too tired to dance!

She dropped her coat and umbrella by the till, kicked off her boots, pattered into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, carried it through to one of the corner tables of the Cockleshell.

She pulled out a chair and sat down.

She switched on a lamp.

Its pool of creamy light glinted on the polished table top, filled the room with shadows.

And lit another shape.

Something in the corner opposite.

Someone in a hat, a heavy coat and leather gloves sat motionless as a watchful spider in a web.

“Hello, Jenna,” said Mum.

“
Jesus Christ,
you gave me a fright!”

“I’m not surprised. You hardly expected me.”

“You can say that again!”

Mum turned on the lamp at her table. “There! That’s better. Now we can see each other properly . . . My, you’ve had your hair cut.
Very
grown up! Makeovers all round, I see. What about dear Elwyn? Does he look the same?”

Jenna ignored the question. “How long have you been here?”

Mum crossed her legs, pulled off her tight gloves, finger by finger. The scent of stale perfume wafted across the room. “Don’t know exactly . . . About an hour?”

“And you’ve been sitting over there all that time?”

“Admiring the new decor.”

“In the
dark
?”

“I rather like the dark these days . . . It’s kinder on the eyes.”

“Does Tammy know you’re here?”

“Your aunt is in New York again, on one of her glamorous jaunts.”

“Why haven’t you told Dad you’re—”

“From what I can hear, he’s entertaining a lady friend. Thought I’d wait for her to leave before I announced myself. I wouldn’t want to put him off his stride.” Mum gave a sarcastic gasp, flattened her mouth with her hand. “I assume she is
going
to leave? That she hasn’t taken my place in his bed?”

“That’s a disgusting thing to say.”

“I wouldn’t
blame
him. I have been absent for rather a long time.”

“You sure have.”

“Who is she, by the way, the lady friend?”

Jenna said sulkily,“We’re very short-staffed. She comes in from time to time, to help us out.”

Mum’s voice tightened. “
Really
? Not that girl who used to work here before I arrived on the scene? What’s her name again? Esther? Nessa?”

“Hester.”

“Right! Hester . . . I remember . . . Lovely chestnut hair . . .” She lifted a bulging handbag on to her table, took out a packet of cigarettes.

“No smoking,” Jenna said quickly. “The new sign’s on the wall.”

“I
see . . .”
Mum stuffed the cigarettes back into her bag. “You’re not making me feel particularly
welcome,
Jenna. You haven’t even offered me any tea.”

“I wonder why!”

“You haven’t touched yours either. Shall I make us both a fresh cup?” Mum heaved herself to her feet and strode into the kitchen.

Jenna screwed up her face.

Has she
any
idea how much Dad’s missed her,how hard we’ve worked?

This being here unannounced, sitting in the dark, it’s a deliberate game. She wants to catch Dad unawares, so she’ll have something else to bully him about.

Maybe I should warn him that she’s here.

“There you go.” Her mother plonked two more cups of tea on Jenna’s table. “New crockery, very trendy.” She settled herself opposite Jenna. “Well, now, isn’t this nice? Quite like old times!”

Jenna almost threw her cup of stone-cold tea into her mother’s face. “Don’t you even want to know how Dad and I have
been
since you left? It was August, remember? All these months, we’ve worked our fingers to the bone for you. Dad missed you so much . . .”

“Did he now?
Poor
Elwyn.” She gave a meaningful look through to the living room. “Found it hard to manage on his own?”

Right! That’s the final straw!

Jenna leant across the table. “You’re nothing but a selfish, cold-hearted cow. Do you even
care?
”

Mum took off her hat, stroked the fake fur, patted her hair into place. She gave Jenna a look which froze her to the core.

“Not a lot,” she said.

They drank their tea in silence.

China clinked against china. The new clock ticked relentlessly on the wall. Outside the Cockleshell, gulls shrieked in the rain.

In the living room, the television clicked off. Voices murmured faintly, then more clearly.

“Good night, Elwyn.”

“Thanks for your help, Hester. Good night, dear. Mind how you go.”

The front door opened and closed.

The silence thickened.

Dad started to sing John Masefield’s “Sea-Fever”, hopelessly out of tune.

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by . . .”

He trotted across the courtyard and stopped. “Why are those lights still on?”

He came through to the door of the Cockleshell. “What the . . .
Lydia? . . .
Good God! My
darling
Lydia . . . I can hardly believe my eyes . . . When did you . . . How
wonderful
to see you . . . I’d no
idea
you were here.”

“Hello, Elwyn. Could you take my suitcase upstairs?”

Jenna left them to it: her parents, sitting either side of the living room like strangers, Dad overwhelmed, wiping his spectacles on his sleeve, offering Mum some sherry. Mum sitting quiet, dour, holding the glass between finger and thumb, taking tiny sips with her heavily lipsticked mouth.

Jenna crashed up to her room, lay on her bed fully dressed, listening.

Voices droned on for an hour. A door opened. Mum’s footsteps climbed the stairs. Right up the stairs, to Benjie’s bedroom. The door clicked shut.

Dad went to his room. There’d be no more singing tonight.

Jenna switched off her bedside lamp.

She lay staring into the dark.

Listening . . .

Something woke her: a tiny shuffling, like a hungry mouse in the wainscot, or a dove settling its feathers on the roof.

She looked at the luminous hands of the bedside clock.

Midnight.