The Lake

by Louise Sharland

  ‘Adam.’ I try to look pleased, but a multitude of questions are firing through my brain. Why is he here? Does he know something?

  ‘Are you going to let me in or not?’ Adam’s face is cold, pinched, his pupils two angry pinpricks. He doesn’t wait for an answer but strides past me and into the lounge. ‘Close the door, Kate,’ he calls to me. ‘Then come and sit down. We need to talk.’

  I think about fleeing. Flinging open the door and racing towards the river, diving, and swimming until I am nothing but a tiny speck on the horizon. When Michael was thirteen, I helped him train for the under-sixteens triathlon. I would get up with him at dawn, and, wetsuit clad, I would swim with him in the early morning sea, our lips blue, eyelashes encrusted with salt. Some days I would leave him alone in the water and sit sipping hot chocolate on the shore. I would watch him swim on and on, never seeming to tire. My beloved dolphin boy.

  I make my way into the living room. Adam is standing by the mantelpiece, his back towards me. I perch myself on the edge of the settee and wait.

  ‘What day is it?’ he asks, not turning.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘What day is it?’

  I hesitate, conscious that any response that I give might not be the right one. ‘Thursday?’

  I’m flooded with a sudden, terrible realisation. ‘Oh God. I was supposed to be home for tea tonight, wasn’t I?’

  Adam turns. ‘Yes. You were.’

  ‘I’m sorry, honey – with Grace here and all the running back and forth, I just lost track of the time.’

  ‘I called your mobile; the house.’ He points towards the telephone with its blinking answerphone light. ‘Why didn’t you answer?’

  There’s no point in trying to lie my way out of this. I think of Grace’s advice last night when she was texting Adam on my behalf. The trick is to keep it simple. The more you say, the more you give away.

  I try to keep my voice light. ‘It’s been a bit of a day.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘When I couldn’t reach you, I got worried.’

  ‘I was—’

  ‘Fine, I know.’

  ‘I just needed a little space.’

  ‘Well, I called Grace.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I called your sister.’

  My mind races as I try to imagine what Grace may have told him, but I stop myself from asking. ‘Look, I’m sorry I worried you. It just slipped my mind that I was supposed to be home tonight. I really am sorry.’

  ‘Grace said you drove to Falmouth?’

  There’s a sudden sick feeling in my stomach.

  ‘It was just to sort out a bit of admin about Michael’s memorial scholarship. Nothing serious.’

  ‘But driving all that way with everything that’s going on?’

  Adam has always been good at getting to the heart of the matter.

  ‘I just needed a change of scenery.’

  ‘You were supposed to come home.’

  A look of worry is etched into his handsome features and I feel overwhelmed by remorse.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I really should have come. It’s just that I never know quite what to expect when I get to the hospital, and with Grace here, well … to be perfectly honest this week has just flown by.’ I give a hopeful smile. ‘But you’re here now. Why don’t I make us a cup of tea and you can tell me about your week?’

  Adam is silent for a long while, his eyes searching mine. ‘You look tired.’

  I nod, and then the tears come. I feel a sob rising in my chest, the desire to scream and thrash about like some tragic heroine, a Dido at the pyre, but that would only worry him more.

  ‘I said this would be too much for you.’

  I really must close down this conversation. The last thing I want is for Adam to try and force me to come home. ‘It’s hard, Adam, I won’t deny that; but it’s also my duty.’

  ‘To her?’

  He’s fallen very nicely into my line of thinking. I keep my voice soft so that he doesn’t think this is a confrontation. ‘It’s not really that different to when your father was ill.’

  I’ve hit home with that one, but I don’t feel pleasure, only relief. Adam sighs deeply and his expression softens.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  He moves closer and then his arms are around me. I can feel the warmth of him; I can smell the woody scent of his aftershave. His arms tighten. I feel his hands loosen the belt on my robe, slip around my waist and then down to cup my buttocks. He pulls me towards him and slips his fingers between my thighs. Grabbing my wet hair, he pulls my head back and begins kissing my neck, working his way down to my breasts. I feel odd, distant, as if this scene is being reflected through a broken mirror, fractured and distorted. My robe is thrown off and I find myself being pushed back onto the settee. I hear a zip and the thump of his jeans hitting the floor. Suddenly Adam is inside me. Forcing his way inside me. I run my fingers across his back, gripping the taut muscles above his shoulder blades. I feel him buck and thrust harder. I close my eyes, willing it to be over. The warmth of his body, the salty taste of his skin should be comforting, pleasurable. Could this at last be a way to free my restless mind? Instead I feel soiled; polluted.

  Adam grunts, rolls off me, and lays on the settee panting. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and slips his jeans back on. I pull my robe tightly around me and double knot the belt. He clears his throat.

  ‘How about that cup of tea?’

  12

  We sit on the Queen Anne chairs sipping our tea and not speaking. Adam, still with a post-coital flush, looks troubled. I wait.

  ‘When I spoke to Grace earlier …’ he says, finally, ‘along with telling me about Falmouth, she said you found something?’

  ‘Something?’

  ‘Of Michael’s – she said you found something of Michael’s. A notebook?’ My eyelids flicker. My heart pumps fiercely in my chest. Has Grace betrayed me? How could she betray me? I struggle to contain my feelings. How could my sister give up my secret? A secret that was mine alone to tell?

  ‘What notebook?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Kate. Stop playing it so coy.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Grace said you had found a notebook of some sort … no, not a notebook. A diary. Michael’s diary.’

  He sounds dismissive, patronising. I know what he’s thinking. What kind of teenage boy keeps a diary? I feel as if I’m balancing on a tightrope and any wrong move could send me hurtling into the pitch-black depths below. As a child I had been afraid of the dark – that unseen space beyond my bed. I had so desperately wanted to be like Grace, striding headstrong and fearless into the unknown. I did try, once.

  I was fifteen and Michael’s father, Ryan, had offered to take me upriver from Cotehele to Calstock on his homemade dinghy. We had sat next to each other in Geography for the entire year, me discreetly holding my notebook open to share my answers, while he kept the bullies at bay. He was kind. Not like the other boys, who called me loser and freak because of my hand-me-downs and headscarves. We would walk together from the bus stop until we were forced to go our separate ways to avoid being spotted. In those magical ten minutes he would fill me in about the latest episodes of The Simpsons and Stargate and let me listen to The Verve on his iPod. The afternoon of the boat trip, my mother was working late then going on to a Bible reading. It was a sunny Friday, only weeks before school breaking up, and I was haunted by the knowledge that I would be spending the entire summer either babysitting for one of the Brethren families, or, even worse, having to sit through endless prayer meetings and Bible classes in the hot, stuffy church hall. It was windy and for some reason the breeze made me feel rebellious. When Ryan asked if I would like to go for a sail in his dinghy, I thought of Grace’s daring: Donna-Marie and me have got ourselves jobs at a hotel in St Ives. I raced home, changed into one of Grace’s abandoned t-shirts and a pair of cut-off jeans she had kept
hidden under the floorboards in our bedroom, and went to the river.

  Then I waited. It seemed like ages. Just as I was convinced he had abandoned me I saw a small flash of white as the sail floated downriver towards me. After tacking, Ryan eased the boat towards the jetty.

  ‘I’m going to pull up as close as possible and then I want you to jump.’

  ‘Jump?’

  ‘Don’t be scared, Kit Kat. Just one big jump and you’re on!’

  I watched him approach with a mixture of excitement and terror, holding my breath as I launched myself from the jetty, across the swirling water, and into the tiny boat. That airborne second had seemed like an eternity – an infinitesimal moment of possibility. When I landed safely in the boat next to Ryan, he smiled proudly and kissed me.

  That evening, as the sun dipped behind the Tamar Valley, we made love in the boat shed. My first time. Nine months later, Michael was born.

  No matter how fierce the intimidation, how frightening the threats, I never told the elders who the father was. Even then, I knew the value of keeping secrets. We spoke once or twice afterwards, but a few months after that dinghy trip, Ryan left Cornwall for good. Maybe being fearless and headstrong wasn’t such a good thing after all.

  When Michael was three and I was just about to start university, I contacted Ryan. He didn’t seem surprised to discover Michael was his son – how could he be? – but he didn’t seem bothered either. That’s when I understood it would always just be Michael and me. Everyone else existed on the periphery.

  Ryan’s divorced now, with two teenage daughters and an ex-wife called Jackie, and living in Bromsgrove. Not quite the father I’d hoped he would be.

  ‘Kate!’

  Adam is standing in front of me, hands on hips.

  ‘It’s just a notebook,’ I say, hoping with all my might that’s all Grace has told him. ‘Nothing special, just a few scribbles.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The notebook, where is it?’

  ‘Why?’

  Adam gives a little cough. ‘Well, the thing is, I can understand how finding a notebook, or diary, whatever, must have been upsetting for you. No wonder you’re all over the place. After all, we’ve really been moving on, haven’t we?’

  I open my mouth to protest. I’m not about to let him think that finding Michael’s diary has made me unstable or unwell. That would just be too easy. It did, of course, but only for a little while. I’m now feeling the most focused and clear-headed I have been in months.

  Adam speaks first. ‘I thought we agreed that we’d work hard to try to put some of those painful memories behind us.’ Why does he keep saying we?

  ‘Michael is not a painful memory.’ How many times do I have to repeat this? Adam and Michael had never been particularly close, but after he left for Edgecombe their relationship deteriorated to the point where any communication between the two of them, on the few occasions Michael did come home, either consisted of yelling or sullen silence. They had clashed over everything: schoolwork, Michael’s social life, and especially his training routines. Adam, a former university rugby fly half, favoured a regime based around weight training, while the more adventurous Michael was exploring innovations such as plasma volume and decreased body temperature as a means of enhancing athletic performance. I smile as I recall producing endless jugs of homemade beetroot juice to help him reduce his oxygen uptake. My hands seemed to be constantly stained red.

  ‘This is not something to smile about, Kate.’

  ‘Will you just leave it, Adam? Please?’

  ‘But we agreed.’

  We didn’t agree.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ I sound guilty, defensive, as if I am a naughty pupil being chastised. ‘A bit of life history, a few poems; that’s all.’ I think of the diary, nestled under my pillow where I sleep with it each night. ‘It’s just a sweet reminder – something that gives me a little bit of my son back.’

  ‘So, where is it?’ Adam stands up and scans the room. ‘Is it upstairs?’

  Now I’m terrified. I’m certain Michael’s laptop is still on the bed. If Adam knew that I snuck into the house to get it without telling him he would be furious.

  ‘I’d like to see it,’ he adds.

  The tension in the room becomes solid. A wall of ice. Normally in these situations I acquiesce, roll over like an obedient dog to keep the peace and avoid confrontation. For weeks afterwards, I berate myself for being weak, giving in. Today, however, it’s as if some unseen force is guiding me to stand my ground.

  ‘Why do you want to see it?’ Sitting up straight, I add, ‘It’s private. It’s Michael’s.’

  Adam has gone very still. ‘I just want to help you, Kate,’ he says. ‘Help you to move on.’ He’s always talking about moving on when I know all he really wants is for me to forget – toss Michael aside like some old photograph, like the laptop hidden away in the loft and the clothes he made me pass on to the charity shop. ‘Just give me the diary. I’ll put it somewhere safe.’

  From deep inside I feel the rumblings of rebellion. ‘No.’

  For a few seconds there is silence: only the tick of the mantel clock and the beating of my heart. I see Adam’s left eye twitch.

  ‘What do you mean no?’ His voice sounds as if it’s coming from deep underground, slowly thundering its way through the dirt.

  ‘I mean no.’ I can see his chest rising and falling; hear anger in his every breath. For some reason it only makes me more determined. ‘You cannot see it; you cannot have it; you cannot take it.’ I think that I’ve gone completely mad. The events of the last week, including finding the rucksack and the information from Siobhan, have driven me over the edge, and my defiance reflects it. I can’t imagine what Adam is making of it all, but I have never felt so exhilarated in all my life.

  ‘Kate.’

  ‘You can’t have it.’ I’m standing now, slowly trying to edge my way towards the stairs. If necessary, I will run up and barricade myself in the bedroom. ‘It’s my son’s diary. Probably one of the last things he ever touched. I’m keeping it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Kate!’ Adam’s outburst, the ferocity of it, sends me stumbling backwards onto the chair. He’s on top of me now, his hands gripping my shoulders, shaking me. ‘Give me the diary!’ I see his eyes shift to the upstairs landing.

  ‘No!’ I scream and breaking free of his grip run towards the stairs. Positioning myself on the bottom step, I block his way. ‘Get out!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Kate,’ he yells, his face an unappealing shade of red. ‘Don’t you know that I’m only trying to help you? Trying to save you from yourself?’ I have never seen him like this before.

  There is a knock at the door and a soft voice follows.

  ‘Katie, are you all right?’

  It’s Doris. Thank God. I feel relief flood through me. I turn to Adam.

  ‘Get out,’ I repeat, and with every ounce of strength I possess, take a step towards him. ‘Get out and don’t come back.’

  I sit at the kitchen table clutching the balled-up tissues in my tightly clenched fists. Occasionally, I release my grip to dab at my eyes or runny nose. Doris hands me a cup of tea and, finding a spare foldaway chair, sits down next to me.

  ‘I was just putting my recycling in the green bin when I heard yelling.’ She takes a sip of tea and I can see that her hands are shaking.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doris.’ I desperately want to join her in a sip of tea, but don’t think I will be able to swallow. ‘Things got a bit out of hand, that’s all.’

  Doris nods and reaching across the table takes my hand. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  I shake my head. In the past there have been occasional bruises where he has grabbed my wrists in frustration, but there’s no way I can tell Doris any of this – I’m embarrassed enough.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ she says, and as if reading my mind, adds, ‘You’ve not had an easy time of it, have you?’ We sit for a while in the kitchen’s soft
neon glow, not speaking. Finally, she says, ‘What are you going to do now?’

  I shrug. ‘I’m really not sure.’ I don’t realise I’ve started crying again until I see my tears softly plopping into my teacup. ‘It’s not been the same, you know … since Michael.’ Doris nods in understanding. ‘Maybe it never really was that good.’ I could confide in Doris about Michael’s diary entry describing his stepfather as threats-behind-closed-doors Adam, but that would be unfair. It’s a burden no one else should have to shoulder.

  Doris pats my hand. ‘You know you always have my support, no matter what.’ I lean across and give her a hug, wishing, as I so often had done when I was younger, that she were my real mother.

  13

  I spend most of Friday morning in bed ignoring the barrage of phone calls and texts from Adam:

  Kate, I’m sorry about last night. I got carried away. I was just so worried.

  Kate, we need to talk. Last night was a mistake, I overreacted.

  Kate, please come home. Let me make it up to you.

  Kate, I’m concerned you’ll become unwell again. Let me help you.

  There’s a long voicemail pleading for forgiveness, justifying his behaviour, saying it was just the worry of it all. Hadn’t he looked after me all these years? Didn’t I believe he had my best interests at heart? By midday, my head is spinning, my resolve weakening. With everything that’s going on, I’m not sure if I have the resilience to deal with a marriage break-up as well. It’s not just the emotional impact of separating, but the financial implications. The house, the cars, the credit cards – most are in Adam’s name. My bank account contains less than a thousand pounds; certainly not enough to start afresh. I’ve also had to take unpaid leave while Mum is in hospital – it’s not like my salary was enough to live on anyway – and I will need his financial support if I’m to continue my investigation.

  The thought of being financially vulnerable strikes a deep chord. After my father left us there was little money. Though not common for Brethren women, my mother took a job as a secretary for another member – a farmer. She did accounts, admin and arranged deliveries. But even then, the money was basic, and certainly not enough to keep a house and two children. Food parcels were regularly left at our back door: homemade bread, casseroles, the occasional cake. Also left were bags of hand-me-down clothing: skirts, blouses, cardigans, shoes. I don’t think I had a pair of shoes that fit properly until I was sixteen.