Beneath the Skin(53)

Sophie wakes at the sound of the front door but struggles to peel back her eyelids. She can hear Sami’s voice. She can smell that bloody aftershave.

‘Sophie, wake up.’

She eventually opens her eyes. It’s dark beyond the open curtains. The television is shrill in the background. Oh, yes, she remembers. She drank all afternoon, all evening. The chilled Chablis won.

‘What time is it?’ she asks, closing her eyes and turning away from the harsh beam of the lamp.

Sami turns off the television. ‘Nine o’clock or so. Wake up, I need to talk to you. Sophie? Are you listening? It’s important. Mike called me earlier and it’s bad, really bad. David committed suicide last night. He slit his wrists in the bath … Mike thought we should know.’

She doesn’t move for a moment, but then his words sink in. David’s killed himself? Last night? Sami knew about it fucking ‘earlier’.

‘My God, Sami. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before now?’ she says, sitting up and vividly recalling Antonia’s earlier visit and the angry words they exchanged. She hadn’t known that David was dead. Antonia didn’t tell her. More to the point, she didn’t give Antonia the chance.

Sami holds out his palms in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I couldn’t get away from work and I’m telling you now.’ He sighs. ‘Look, I thought it would be better to tell you in person, Soph.’

‘So I’d be the last fucking person to know. You bastard!’

She scurries to her feet, grabs a crystal whisky glass from the sideboard and hurls it at Sami’s head where it shatters on impact, leaving a small cut on his forehead which immediately pulses with blood.

Sami stands for a moment, his face frozen with shock, then he puts his fingers to his forehead before bringing them down to his eyes and bolting to the bathroom.

‘Poor precious Sami and his beautiful face,’ Sophie yells up the stairs.

She picks up her discarded wine glass lying on the floor, thumps back on the sofa and sloshes in more wine, but after a few moments, regret seeps in through the fog. She wants to hear more about David’s suicide. She needs some detail to feed her sedated sluggish mind so she can absorb what he’s said. David can’t possibly be dead, can he? Not David, of all people. Antonia was here earlier, they argued. It’s ludicrous, a joke, surely? She hears Sami’s footfall on the stairs and lifts her head as he appears. His jaw is clenched, a pale plaster looks stark and accusing on his dark skin. She takes a breath to speak, but he shakes his head silently. Then he opens the front door and walks out.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


It’s a cold Saturday morning in early October, but the Turners’ lofty old home is warm, busy and bright. Olivia and Mike are smiling and chatty, appreciative of each other, helpful. But in the silences, there are unspoken words, Mike naturally assuming hers are the same as his. ‘What a terrible thing to happen. Thank God it wasn’t us. Thank God for all this.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?’ Mike asks a second time.

‘Sure, love. I’ve really got so much catching up to do. Send my love to Margaret and Liam.’

Mike contemplates Olivia as he drives in the balmy lull of the car towards Chester. It’s his monthly visit to see his mum and dad. Hannah is asleep on the back seat, Rachel sits next to him in the front, gazing out of the window. Olivia doesn’t always come to the monthly visits, so that’s fine, though Mike idly wonders what she’ll do all day. He would like them all to be together as a family today. Safely together. When death’s been so close, it haunts, makes you appreciate what you have, and realise how lucky you are. But it’s frightening too. Life can change in a moment and you might not be looking. And David’s death was so lonely, leaving Antonia lonely too.

‘Why did he do it, Dad?’

Rachel’s small voice interrupts his thoughts. He smiles, squeezes her hand and looks back at the road. Why did David do it? Why did an apparently happy and successful man take his own life? He hasn’t asked the question, nor has Olivia, but he’s sure it’s what everyone is thinking. Especially Antonia. ‘I wonder what he was thinking. I wonder what went through his head,’ she whispered that night. He can still picture her face, her huge perplexed eyes.

Mike clears his throat. ‘I really don’t know, love. Probably best not to mention it to Grandma.’

Rachel rolls her eyes. ‘I’m not stupid, Dad.’ Then after a moment, quietly, her blue eyes troubled as she looks at him. ‘You wouldn’t … you wouldn’t do that, would you?’

‘No, absolutely not, Rach.’

He takes her hand, but she’s turned her head and is staring at the yellow countryside through the passenger window. She’s wearing her new boots, pressed neatly together in the footwell where the black dog used to sit, the black dog he hasn’t seen for days. His happiness seems wrong. Unfair. David is dead. There’s nothing more final than death. Unless you believe.

He squeezes again. ‘Love you lots, you know, Rach.’

‘Dad!’ It’s said with embarrassment, but he can tell that she’s smiling.

Helen says goodbye to Antonia, replaces the telephone receiver carefully and stands in the cold conservatory looking out to the garden for several moments, thinking.