Girl Unknown(75)

Holly went inside, and I stood there, feeling wobbly, an unbidden thought entering my brain: What if Linda had told me? A dangerous thought. It conjured up images of a different life, a different holiday, a different wife – Linda in the kitchen now chopping fruit, rather than Caroline. A blonde version of Holly going indoors to dry off, a different son lounging upstairs in bed. And Zo? – how differently might she have turned out had her natural parents stayed together? Physically the same, but might she have been less mercurial, more grounded and together? In that scenario, I had no doubt that the insides of her arms would be free of scars, and there would be no middle-aged man sharing her bed.

And what about me? How different might I have been? I shied away from the thought, uncomfortable with the gnawing doubt it brought on. I slipped back inside, past the kitchen where Caroline was rinsing a salad. Her back was to me and I noticed the tension in her shoulders, a tightness that had come on overnight. Holly and Chris had disappeared, and as I climbed the stairs, I felt the quietness of the house all around me.

The children’s door was closed. I had the impression that the room was empty. Walking past Chris and Zo?’s, I heard low whispering. At least, I’d thought it was whispering. But as I lingered I realized that what I was hearing was not language but the fluency of movement. A subdued grappling, the tangle of sliding limbs, a moan so hushed I hardly heard it.

Recoiling, I hurried down the corridor to my bedroom, the heaviness bursting in my head. I closed the shutters and lay down for a long time. But even though my body was present in the room, my mind was elsewhere. It was back down the corridor, hiding in a corner, scared and watchful in the darkness as they twisted and writhed together.





21. Caroline


Because of the fire we couldn’t leave. Even though we couldn’t see leaping flames or billowing plumes of smoke, the air above us became infused with the smell of it, as the day progressed and news reports told of a growing inferno. As our planned day-trip to La Rochelle was cancelled, I suggested we take the bikes and cycle along the paths that crisscrossed the salt flats leading to Saint-Martin-de-Ré. There were plenty of shops, though mainly of the tourist variety, but still, I was hopeful of finding something to please Holly. It bothered me when the others pounced on my suggestion, Chris and Zo? making a quick run to the marketplace to rent bikes. But it was part of the weirdness of the day, brought on by the haze of smoke, the heavy heat pressing down on us, so it didn’t matter. Torpor suppressed my fear, making me disinterested. It was just one day, I told myself. We could get through it.

We were sitting around on the sun-loungers, waiting for David to come downstairs so we could leave, when Chris said: ‘So, July, the eighth. What does that make you, Holly – Cancer or Leo?’

‘Cancer,’ she answered quietly.

The sun was rising high in the sky and I wanted David to hurry, the boundless heat making me restless.

‘What about you, Robbie?’ Chris asked, striving against the collective silence.

Robbie didn’t answer. He didn’t have it in him to be conversational that day. He was sitting halfway along the diving board, his feet dangling into the water. Since the lovers’ arrival the night before, he had grown sullen, hardly speaking apart from the odd grudging reply when a question was put to him. If either Zo? or Chris was aware of his unhappiness, they hid it well, the two of them perched on the sun-lounger opposite me, Chris’s hand resting on her thigh.

‘Robbie’s a Leo,’ I answered in his stead.

‘Like myself,’ Chris said. ‘Not that I believe in any of that astrology stuff.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘There are personality traits common to David and Holly.’

‘That’s because they’re father and daughter, not because they have the same star-sign.’

‘What about you, Zo??’

‘I’m Pisces.’

‘What’re they like?’ I asked, keeping up the veneer of civility. I already knew what she was like.

‘Spiritual, intuitive. The chameleons of the Zodiac.’

‘Chameleons?’

‘Yes, we’re very adaptable. And our inner lives are important to us. Our secrets and dreams.’

Her expression was masked by large sunglasses; she might have been staring at me mockingly or with an empty gaze.

‘In other words,’ said Chris, winking at me, ‘they have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.’

‘We’re watery types too,’ she continued, ignoring the jibe. ‘Just like Cancerians. Which makes us excellent swimmers.’

Robbie shot her a sidelong glance. ‘You can’t be a good swimmer just because of your birthday.’ His expression, though guarded, seemed quietly furious.

‘Our sign is symbolized by fish,’ she answered coolly.

‘So what? You’re a better swimmer than me just because you’re a Pisces?’

Unfazed, she smiled sweetly: ‘One way to find out.’

Instantly rising to the challenge, Robbie got to his feet.

‘No, Robbie,’ I said. ‘We need to go.’

He ignored me, pulling the T-shirt over his head as he padded back along the board to the pool’s edge. Zo? looked on with amusement although there was something mean about her smile, the corners of her mouth turning up in hard edges.