Beneath the Skin(77)

‘They didn’t mean anything,’ he says out loud to the garden. ‘They were just a bit of fun.’

Yet the jibes bother him now. ‘You’re putting weight on, Dave. You’re losing your touch. You’d better keep an eye on Antonia. She’s a stunner. Your hair’s getting thin. Naughty boy, Dave. A taste for redheads, eh? You wouldn’t want Antonia to find out.’

He remembers his last conversation with David. Only in retrospect does he realise it must have been on the afternoon of his death, perhaps even his final call. The thought makes him uncomfortable, a chill on his spine.

It was a telephone call out of the blue. ‘What the fuck are you doing with Antonia?’ David demanded.

‘Nothing,’ he replied, caught on the hop at work, surprised at David’s unexpected call and his anger.

‘I’ve just listened to your fucking answerphone message, Sami. The one you left for Antonia today. What have you got to be sorry about? You’ve been here, haven’t you? In my house. With my wife. You’ve been—’

But Sami cut the tirade off. He’d tried to speak to Antonia and to apologise for upsetting her over their Sophie meeting at White Gables several times. He’d followed it up with the answerphone message. But the whole thing with Sophie’s drinking and with babies was difficult. Personal. Embarrassing. Humiliating. He hadn’t felt able to talk about it to Antonia, so he wasn’t going to explain it to David of all people.

‘She asked me to go to your fucking house, David. It was Antonia who started it. Stop giving me grief and speak to her,’ he replied before ending the call.

Sami hadn’t been kind to Antonia when she’d tried to talk to him about Sophie’s drinking at White Gables. ‘Look at your own marriage, stop interfering in mine,’ he’d snapped. He’d assumed David’s angry call was because he’d upset her. But, thinking about it now, he feels David was suggesting something more about the visit. He might even have said, ‘You’ve been screwing my wife.’ But of course that’s ridiculous; Sami likes Antonia very much, he’s always felt a protective and brotherly love for her, not least for the connection of their skin colour. But he’d never dream of propositioning her, not even as a joke. He wouldn’t put her in that position, she’d be embarrassed and shocked.

Sami shrugs off the memory of the conversation. They weren’t particularly nice words to end on, but they had no bearing on David’s suicide, surely? It’s the thought of the occasional sniping that bothers him more. He knows he could have tempered that.

He stands and looks up to the sky. The drizzle wets his face. ‘The quips didn’t mean anything. You gave as good as you got, didn’t you, David?’ he asks. He feels abandoned and lonely and unbearably sad. ‘I’m sorry, man,’ he adds. ‘I’ll miss you. I bloody will.’

The geese are milling about on the banks of the lake at the water park. They’re vocal, angry and loud. Or so it seems to Mike. But who can tell? He wonders if he’s ever been able to read situations, or whether it’s a recent failure. Olivia, Rachel and Judith. Even Sami. He asked Sami what happened to Sophie, where was she, when she didn’t appear at the funeral or at the wake.

‘Things are difficult at the moment,’ Sami replied. ‘We’ve tried for a baby for a while and I think it’s getting to her.’

Mike nodded, thinking, these things happen, it takes time, poor Sophie.

But then Sami said, ‘We’ve had the tests and stuff. It seems I’m a Jaffa, you know, seedless.’ Sami laughed, trying for humour, but it didn’t spread to his face.

‘God, sorry to hear that, mate,’ Mike replied, trying not to show his surprise that Sami had any problems, let alone that type of problem.

The surface of the lake ripples as the rain becomes heavier. Mike knows he should move from the wooden bench. His shorts are soaked and they cling to him, but his eyes are transfixed by a lone swan gliding silently through the water.

He squints through the rain as he stands. Aren’t swans meant to swim in pairs? Don’t they mate for life? He remains rooted to the spot, his eyes scouring the mere for another swan. He needs to know. Really know. The kiss with Antonia was unmistakable. It was too sensuous, too intense and too long to be anything other than mutual desire.

Mike starts to run. He can feel the water from his hoodie streaming down the back of his legs. He shakes the rain from his hair and increases his pace, searching for the swan as he heads for home.





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


‘Come on Daddy, keep up!’ Hannah calls.

The local park is crisp and cold, the wind sharp against their faces. Hannah runs ahead and wades through rusty-coloured leaves in her pink-spotted wellington boots. Rachel hangs by Mike’s side, looking down as she kicks the autumn carpet. ‘Everything all right?’ Mike asks, putting a hand around her shoulder and kissing the top of her head.

Rachel nods and then sprints away towards Hannah. She has something on her mind, Mike guesses. But she’s like him in many ways. She’s not ready to talk. ‘I wish she wouldn’t do that,’ Olivia occasionally comments. ‘She needs to be more vocal. People will think she’s a pushover.’ ‘But she isn’t a pushover. And that’s what counts,’ Mike replies. But he understands Olivia’s frustration. Olivia is assertive, strong and opinionated. Not in a bad way. It was one of the things that attracted him back at university. The paradox between how she looks and how she behaves. She’s blonde, fine featured and petite, but she’s the first to wade into the fray, to stand up and be counted for something she believes in. He admires her enormously for it.