The Fault

by Kitty Sewell

  She turned to look him in the eye. ‘Didn’t you notice that stain on the floorboards near our bed…her bed! She’d obviously been dripping rivers of body fluids in the summer heat. I couldn’t get rid of the mark no matter how hard I scrubbed and bleached. That’s why I painted the floor, I just had a bad feeling about it.’ She blew her nose on a strip of household paper. ‘I knew there was something sinister about this place. Why didn’t I just listen to my instincts?’

  So Mimi had let the cat out of the bag, and added a chilling twist of her own. A suicide! She’d promised to keep quiet about Mrs. Cohen’s untimely death, but Mimi had her hidden agendas. She had every reason to be jealous and resent her new rival.

  ‘We can move somewhere else if you want,’ he said gently, hugging her resisting body as close as she would allow. A sudden alarming thought crossed his mind: the moment she no longer liked this situation, she could just pack up and go. There was nothing to stop her. ‘I know you’ve done a huge job here, but if you don’t like it, I’ll capitulate and we’ll rent an apartment in Ocean Village. Hang the hassle and the cost, we’ll just do it. We can get a removals firm to pack us up and move us in a couple of hours.’

  Her eyes softened a little. ‘Oh, come on. That’s plain ridiculous. I’m not that pathetic. But I’m moving bedroom, I’m telling you. Your twisted sister can live with Mrs. Cohen’s dangling ghost.’

  Maybe that was the reason his twisted sister had leaked the secret: she wanted the room with the ghost. She’d always had a ghoulish streak.

  He took her hand and kissed it repeatedly. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘To be totally frank, I don’t like Gibraltar.’ She said it quickly, forcefully and her eyes shifted away from him. ‘As soon as you can possibly finish here, I’d like to be away.’

  He was taken aback. So it wasn’t just the apartment: it was the whole territory. She’d been so excited about going to live in Europe and she’d been in Gib not much more than a month. She hardly even knew the place.

  He studied her for a moment. He couldn’t claim to understand women, nor had he ever really tried, yet he had the definite feeling that her distress was a coverup for something else. He hoped with all his heart it wasn’t Mimi driving her away. If ever he was faced with a choice, he would have to choose his sister, no matter how passionate his feelings for Eva. He could never abandon Mimi again.

  ‘You know…my love, you should get out and do more diving. You’ve got an amazing skill and a huge amount of experience. You owe it to Gibraltar. This place ought to be your oyster, really.’ Eva’s eyes were still averted and she didn’t answer. ‘What’s wrong, my love? What’s this about?’

  She turned to him with a tired smile. ‘You’re right. I’m at a loose end here. Of course I should be diving. I need a job, but there’s the hassle of getting a work permit. It’s an impossible process, and by the time I managed to get one we’d probably be ready to leave.’

  He took her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes. ‘You know the solution to that, don’t you? All you have to do is marry me and you’d be British.’

  She sighed. ‘Come on! Surely you don’t want me to marry you just so I can get a job? That’s not good enough a reason and besides, it’s illegal. You’re the one who’s usually such a stickler for correctness.’

  She was right, of course, but her words stung. From beneath the love that he felt for her rose that nebulous mist of misgivings. He still could not understand her refusal to marry him, but after the humiliating fiasco at the embassy in Dubai she’d at least pledged to give their love a chance and be, at his insistence, his ‘fiancée’. They’d agreed that the move to Gib should be a thick black line across that incident. They could start afresh, in a place new to both. He’d told her there was no need to explain her motives or give account of what had led to them. He’d made these concessions partly in an attempt to hold on to her, but also to justify his own history, his own silence. Even so, he could not deny the feeling that she was not who she said she was, or what she said she was. She’d risen out of the sea, but from where? And why?

  Eva

  The place was situated between two waterfront restaurants in Ocean Village Marina, behind an opulent casino. It was surrounded by swish apartments and boardwalks with the water lapping under one’s feet, yet right next door was the airport runway extending far out into the sea. Despite the occasional roaring of jet engines, it seemed a very pleasant environment from which to conduct business – and from her point of view – was only a ten-minute downhill walk from the apartment.

  There was a man behind a rack of wetsuits, on his knees talking affectionately to someone. She peeked over the rack and stood watching him for a moment, smiling at the sight of a grown man making baby noises to the world’s ugliest dog. He sensed her presence and stood up, clearly not at all embarrassed. ‘He’s sixteen,’ he said. ‘Painful hips.’

  ‘I’m Eva Eriksson. Jonny Risso told me about you. You sometimes charter his boat to do offshore dives.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Jonny Risso. Always has some insult to throw at me.’ He reached out to shake her hand. ‘And I don’t mean you, of course. Brian Lockmarsh.’

  She found her hand encased in a warm grip. Brian Lockmarsh was a stocky but handsome man in his late forties with the flushed and freckled complexion that comes from a life spent in windy, sunny, salty conditions. His face was open, topped by a thick pom-pom of brown hair and eyes of a disconcerting blue. Brian noted her glance around his premises.

  ‘People who like my dog get a discount,’ he said. ‘What can I offer you?’

  ‘A job,’ she said simply. ‘I’m a PADI qualified open-water scuba instructor and paramedic. I’ve taught diving for several years, most recently in Dubai.’ She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a plastic folder containing all her certificates and a few letters of reference. ‘I’m good,’ she added.

  Brian laughed, but took the folder from her hand. ‘I wasn’t really looking for anyone.’

  ‘The best things happen when you’re not even looking. And you know what? I come free.’

  He regarded her with a mixture of appreciation and incredulity. Perhaps he thought she was a madwoman, or else he wasn’t used to that sort of directness.

  ‘If I hadn’t guessed from your accent, now I know you’re American!’ he said as if it explained everything. ‘Though you look Scandinavian, I dare say.’

  ‘Right on both counts, born in California but both my parents have Scandinavian roots,’ she replied. ‘I can’t be bothered with a work permit, and I live on my savings, so just to keep my skills up, I’ll work for nothing. If you’ll have me.’

  ‘Hold it now, slow down a little,’ Brian said, rubbing his chin.

  He invited her into his tiny office. It was the only place with chairs. After sitting her down, he leafed through the contents of her folder. ‘Impressive!’ he said after a moment. ‘Actually, I could use a hand occasionally and there is no reason why you shouldn’t pocket the gratuities. That’s often sizeable sums, as the divers here tend to come off the yachts. We don’t get a lot of beginners. It’s more a case of guiding experienced divers around the sights. Have you dived around Gibraltar at all?’

  ‘Yes, I dive with my partner quite frequently, but only on the east side. That’s why we need Jonny and his boat.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Not much of interest on the east side, I dare say.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s got to do with an engineering project Sebastian is involved with. That’s our excuse anyway.’

  ‘Engineering project?’ Brian looked interested. ‘Under water?’

  ‘Yes…that’s right.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s to do with the land reclamation project, what are they calling it…? The Frontiers Development Project.’

  She sighed imperceptibly. ‘That’s the one.’ She’d read the Gibraltar papers and couldn’t fail to notice how polarised opinions were. Brian’s attitude would probably settle her job application on
e way or another.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘I was so impressed with that thing, I even went to the planning offices to look at the blueprints. Everyone says that’s what we need here in Gib – groundbreaking ideas and money to back them – but I can’t help wondering about the ecological damage and the destruction of the natural beauty of the cliffs.’

  She nodded unhappily. At least here was a guy who looked at both sides of the coin, and was honest to her face with no obvious bias. ‘Sebastian is very excited about the project, but it’s not him who’s forced it on Gibraltar. He was simply hired by the developers.’

  ‘No need to justify his work. We all do what we have to do. I’m not lily white by any means. I don’t actually know anyone who is.’ He smiled reassuringly and she relaxed and smiled back.

  ‘Well, Eva Eriksson. All these bits of paper look good, but you’ll have to show me what you’re made of. I’m free tomorrow morning. Why don’t I take you into Camp Bay and show you the treasures on our sea bed? Nine o’clock?’

  She jumped up, trying not to look too excited. She wanted to throw her arms around Brian Lockmarsh, but instead she shook his hand. ‘You won’t be disappointed.’

  The feeling of pleasure and achievement had had time to subside by the time she got home. Since the silent phone call, her world had shifted slightly on its axis. The ground she walked on had become unstable, tiny noises made her jump. The sun here had been so warm: now it seemed harsh and penetrating, exposing her. She didn’t want to even think it, but couldn’t help but wonder if the call had anything to do with renewing her contact with Linda. No, no…surely not. Linda was her best friend, as loyal and dependable as any person she’d met in her whole life.

  Once inside the apartment, she stood at the bedroom door and looked in. This was not just a room. A person had been hanging there, flies laying eggs in bodily crevices, in the corner of the eyes, in nostrils and earholes, under nails. The sun rising, lighting up the room, the sun setting and many hours of darkness. Mail gathering on the floor by the door as the days and weeks passed, while a woman’s body hung from a rope, dissolving into a corpse, then a rotted carcass.

  She’d seen a film of a dead rabbit once, at some art exhibition. It just hung on a hook, its putrefaction speeded up so that the flesh was decaying before the spectator’s eyes. She’d stood there watching the film several times over, as if there were some mystery to be solved or that she would discover something about death that she’d not understood. But all it revealed was how precarious her own existence was. Death by violence seemed a close possibility. Adrian had injured her seriously more than once, but what was the point of being scared? Death would hit her in one form or another. She’d come away from the gallery feeling oddly liberated. That was when the seed began to grow. She could defy the future Adrian had in mind for her: take destiny in her own hands and escape.

  Eva looked at the spot on the floor where the stain had been. She could move into the middle bedroom, it was big enough to accommodate the population of a small village but it had only a tiny window facing the courtyard, or perhaps she could convert the living room into a bedroom. They all lived in the kitchen, after all. Or just take Sebastian up on his offer to move to Ocean Village. It was light and airy and new, and it would be next to Brian Lockmarsh’s shop.

  She stepped in and opened the wardrobe. Lying flat on the bottom shelf was her sorry excuse for a suitcase. She had bought it in Marseilles, a charity shop bargain at four euros. So many times had she thrown her belongings into it that – especially at the beginning – the act had acquired a comical quality. Just like in movies, the heroine decides she’s had enough, she’s going to leave him. She is either mad with rage or frightened half to death. Clothes are pulled from hangers and flung willy-nilly into a suitcase. He rushes in and begs her not to go, or he pads in to stop her escape. More often than not, she’s prevented from going, ending up in his arms, or on the floor, a corpse.

  She decided to move into Mimi’s room. It was smaller than the other two, but furthest away from the place of the tragedy. The apartment was quiet, the only sound her bare feet against the floorboards as she walked back and forth between rooms with her stuff. In the middle of her labours, her mobile rang and startled her.

  Her hand hovered above the phone as it lay on Mrs. Cohen’s bed. It rang ever more insistently and she picked it up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said quietly.

  Because she’d just been thinking about him, she wondered if she’d conjured up the silent caller, stirred the aura of his anger. She listened to his breath, the slow measured inhalation and exhalation. It was not the sound of a prodded beast, but then again, this beast didn’t always roar; preferring stealth and silence.

  ‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

  Moments passed.

  She rang off, and stood there looking at the phone. It rang again as if she had been willing it to do so. Number withheld!

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she shouted into it, her voice trembling, giving her fear away. ‘I am dead and gone…do you hear me!’

  Mimi

  Mimi came in and closed the front door behind her. After the heat of the streets, she rejoiced in the cool, still air of the apartment. She heard Eva shout something in the bedroom. As she sneaked up to listen, Eva saw her and furtively dropped her mobile into her pocket.

  They looked at each other and, despite the recent antagonism between them, Eva’s stricken expression moved something in Mimi.

  ‘Who was that?’ Mimi asked.

  ‘God knows. Wrong number.’

  ‘Jeez, poor man!’ Mimi said with a small laugh. ‘Time of the month?’

  ‘What made you think it was a man?’

  Conjecture, Mimi thought, or hypothesis. No, certitude.

  Eva was throwing clothes into a suitcase.

  ‘Why are you packing? You’re not moving out, are you?’

  ‘No such luck. You and I are trading rooms.’ Then she hesitated and turned to look at her. ‘You know, your new friend…Montegriffo.’

  Here we go, thought Mimi. ‘Yeah, what about him?’

  ‘Have you given him my phone number?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘He might have wanted to be able to call us for some reason. Like to give us hell about the garbage or music or something.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t. He’d knock on the door if there was a problem, wouldn’t he?’

  Eva shrugged.

  Mimi went to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich, then she sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. Every few minutes she saw Eva pass by in the corridor, carrying her and Sebastian’s possessions from the master bedroom to the room at the end of the hall, Mimi’s room…Mimi’s former room.

  Mimi grimaced to herself. Telling Eva about Mrs. Cohen’s death had been despicable, and she couldn’t decide whether it had slipped out accidentally or on purpose. She was quite capable of that type of devious manoeuvre, so it made no difference if she’d done it consciously or not: it had worked. Sebastian had been mad at her, of course, but in the end he promised not to reveal to another soul the true nature of Mrs. Cohen’s death.

  She put down the half-eaten sandwich and watched Eva through the door, pulling a big cardboard box filled with Sebastian’s folders along the floor through the hall.

  ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Eva snapped. ‘You got what you wanted.’

  ‘Come on…I’ll help you move the double bed. I feel bad, really I do.’

  ‘You feel bad? Who d’you think you’re kidding?’

  ‘Honestly, I feel like a real shit.’

  Eva let go of the box and stretched her back. ‘You can keep Mrs. Cohen’s bed, okay? It’s all yours – you perverse little creep – stains and all.’

  Mimi smiled wryly, glad to collect a proper insult. It was about time Eva stopped being so fucking nice to her.

  ‘Come on, you two lovebirds can’t sleep in single
beds,’ she insisted. ‘Listen, I’ll take the mattress out onto the terrace and scrub it with detergent. I’ll rinse it out with boiling water and it can dry out in the sun. I’ll buy you a thick new mattress cover too. Will that compensate for my fuckup?’

  A faint smile pulled at the corner of Eva’s mouth. ‘Really, it’s Sebastian I’m mad at. He should have known better than to lie to me, and embroil you in it.’

  ‘Withholding the truth is not the same as lying,’ Mimi said. ‘Anyway, Sebastian himself never knew about the hanging. I just found that out through my own sources.’

  Eva looked uncomfortable, as if she were familiar with the concept of withholding truths.

  ‘What do you care if some old lady died here?’ Mimi insisted. ’People die all the time.’

  ‘Something to do with the grotesque way she went, I guess.’

  Mimi studied her with a frown. Nah, that explanation didn’t ring true at all. Eva looked angelic, but in fact she had to be a gutsy kind of woman, with her deep-sea diving, rescuing injured people and living alone in Dubai. Would she really be freaking out over some dead old lady? It was clearly a coverup for some other anguish. She’d looked edgy for quite a few days. Perhaps things weren’t going so well with the fairytale romance and she was thinking of using Mrs. Cohen’s dangling body as an excuse to get the hell out of there. Where would she go? Looking back, Eva had never said a word about her family or her past. She never phoned anyone…but recalling Eva’s outburst earlier, it was possible that someone was calling her. ‘Okay, Mimi. Make us a cup of coffee and then you can carry the rest of my stuff over to your old room.’