Girl Unknown(94)

‘And as for that pathetic attempt just now …’

‘Don’t,’ he warned her.

‘Coming on to me. Your own sister.’

‘You’re not my sister,’ he said, petulance creeping in as he tried to cover up his humiliation.

‘What?’

‘You’re not. I know you’re not.’

He couldn’t make her out but he knew, somehow, that she was smiling. When she spoke again, it was in a low whisper, but he felt her voice coming close to him, knew that she was leaning in. ‘You thought one little piece of paper could clear the way for you, did you?’

‘Shut up.’

‘All this time I thought you were being nice to me because you’re my brother but, actually, you’ve had a crush on me – fantasized about me.’ She said this in a kind of amazed voice, but there was detachment, too, as if it didn’t really affect her. It was not shock she was expressing but amusement. Everything was just a joke to her – even his love, delicate and shy, was something to be kicked around with hilarity.

‘That’s pretty sick,’ she whispered, her mouth close to his ear. ‘Sick and twisted. I think that’s even worse than what your dad did to me.’

He would never forgive her for this. Never. Whatever she had meant to him before, however much he had loved her, it could never be the same between them again.

Movement behind him. This time he didn’t imagine it. A third party. A witness to what he had said, to what he had attempted to do. Zo? looked up.

Suddenly he couldn’t bear it. He pressed his arms hard over his face and thought of every sad, sweaty encounter on the dance-floor at Wesley, every look of amusement and apology he’d received before the girl turned away and started giggling with her friends. He thought of Melissa Lynch in the orchestra and that time he’d tried to kiss her, heard the surprise in her laughter, her voice in his head saying: ‘You’re the kind of guy girls want as a friend, Robbie. That’s the great thing about you. Knowing we can be friends without things ever getting complicated by sex.’ Even poor Claire Waters, who looked more dead than alive: Robbie knew, in his heart of hearts, that not even she would touch him. Zo?’s words were in his head, the way she had looked at him. He knew that she had seen right through him, taken the measure of him, and what he felt now was a swelling of shame. He thought again of what Holly had told him, what she had said. The noise rose to a crescendo, all those screaming strings, the screech of brass, and he pushed his fingers deep into his ears. It made no difference. The music was inside his head. No matter what he did, he couldn’t block it out.

Did he say her name? He cannot remember. All he remembers is the surprise on her face as she fell backwards. The sound her head made as it met the edge of the diving board – a sharp crack like a small pistol going off. Her mouth opening but no sound coming out, nothing but a gasp of air as she fell backwards.

Blood bloomed from the side of her head, spreading out into the waters of the pool. His mother was there, too, although he has no recollection of her arrival. She’s in the pool screaming something at him, but he doesn’t hear the words. Debussy is still in his head. He can hear the whines of the violins, the jagged edge of the cellos’ bowing. How can he still hear them? Why haven’t they been silenced?

Arms going around him, the strong clasp of hands against his back. ‘It will be all right,’ a voice whispers. ‘Everything will be all right now.’ His father leans over Zo?, for all the world like he’s going to kiss her again. Debussy is in Robbie’s head, playing in an eternal loop, the waves of the music like the waves of the sea, moving in tides, endlessly back and forth. His father leans over Zo?. Robbie closes his eyes.





26. Girl Unknown


The evening before Caroline and Holly fly back to France, Susannah calls over with a bottle of Margaux – a Christmas present, she says. They sit at the kitchen island and drink it, just the two of them, trying to summon some semblance of festive cheer. There are no decorations, not even a Christmas tree.

Susannah, the one true friend who has stuck by her, leans on the counter and imparts her news. ‘He has a new girlfriend.’

Caroline absorbs the information with mild shock. She has not spoken to Chris since Zo?’s death and neither has David, apart from that first terrible phone conversation when they had called to break the news. His reaction, the instant outpouring of grief, was awful. He has not spoken to them since, ignoring calls, emails, messages. Caroline reads into his silence the measure of accusation.

‘Another infant,’ Susannah goes on, a sneer in her voice. ‘Not quite as young as Zo? but not far off.’

They had met at a concert, apparently. It seems that, for all the coolness and hostility between Chris and Susannah, there is enough contact between them to keep her up-to-date with his love life.

‘I’m glad,’ Caroline tells her. ‘At least he’s moving on.’

Susannah gives her a mild look of pity. ‘No, he’s not,’ she says, her voice softening. ‘He’s stuck in the past. This is just his way of hiding from it.’

For a while, Caroline had wondered if the shock of Zo?’s death might have hurled the two of them back together. But she has learned that people deal with these things differently. Some try to carry on as normal; others cower behind a wall of silence. And some, like Chris, seek to replicate what has been lost, searching out some other young girl with blonde hair and a cool, feline gaze, a bold, meddling streak kept hidden beneath a patina of innocence.