“So you went for lunch and just happened to fall into bed with each other, is that it?”
“No! It wasn’t like that. We were friends for a while before.”
Richard eyed her suspiciously. “No lies, remember?”
“Okay, we were more than friends. We flirted with each other, for a few months. I liked the attention.” She sighed. She knew it was better if she were completely honest. “I was lonely and bored. I was sick of only being seen as a wife and mother; I was sick of small-town life. You and I, we never talked about anything except the kids, about school runs and packed lunches, bills and laundry. Tobias made me feel special; he made me feel attractive, and desirable. I liked that. I liked him.”
“So it was my fault, is that it?” Richard asked with scorn. “I didn’t make you feel like enough of a woman? I didn’t pay you enough attention?”
“No! It wasn’t your fault; of course I’m not saying that. I’m just trying to explain how I was feeling. And you have to admit, we were going through a rough patch back then. There was the move…adjusting to this house…”
“Oh yes…this dreadful house…of course.” There was a flatness to his voice, but something else too, a hint of bitterness.
Helen ignored it. There was no point rehashing that old argument, not now. “We started sleeping together just before the summer break, just before the holidays; you know, the summer Alfie died. And I ended the affair as soon as we lost him. It was three months, at the most. It was a horrible mistake. We had lost Alfie. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you or the girls as well. I still can’t.” Helen’s voice cracked and she struggled to keep her composure.
Richard heard the emotion in her voice and turned to look at her for the first time. Their eyes locked across the table. She could see a tornado of emotion behind the clear blue of his eyes. She reached out her hand, desperate to make physical contact with him. Richard looked down at it for a moment but didn’t move. Instead he continued with his questions.
“Why him? Why Tobias?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He was there. He wanted me.”
“Were you attracted to him—from the beginning?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. There was no point lying about it now.
“How many times did you meet up? How many times did you sleep together?”
“I don’t know…eight, ten maybe?” She couldn’t remember exactly.
“Did you meet him here? Did you ever sleep with him in our bed?”
“No!”
“Did the kids know about him?”
“No!” she repeated.
“Did you ever think of leaving me?”
Helen paused. She thought for a moment and realized that she never had. No matter how intense things had been between her and Tobias, no matter how many silly daydreams he had concocted while they were together, she had never once truly considered leaving Richard for him. “No.”
Richard paused again. “And it’s really over? You haven’t been with him since you ended the affair?”
“No. I swear. I couldn’t bear it. It’s over. Losing Alfie made me realize how much our marriage means to me. Richard—” She gazed at him. “Richard, look at me!” He glanced up, and she stared him straight in the eye. “Richard, I love you. I’ve made some terrible mistakes. I’ve caused a lot of pain. Truly, I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I do know that I don’t want to lose you. I couldn’t bear it. Our marriage may not have started well. We may have had some rocky patches…and some downright miserable times…but the one thing I am absolutely certain of, more than anything, is that I do want to be with you.”
She meant every word she said. After nineteen years together they stood staring at each other across a great chasm of misunderstanding and pain, and Helen knew now the part she had played in creating the divide. She’d always privately blamed Richard for talking her into a marriage she’d since convinced herself she didn’t want. She’d railed against his decision to move them from London and cloister them away in a small seaside town. She’d grown to resent his sense of duty to Clifftops and to the memory of his parents, and believed he had put these first, before her needs and those of their children. And yet she knew now it was she who had been wrong. She had forgotten to see how good he was, how strong and true and kind. She’d been determined to resent him and all the things he stood for in order to justify her infidelity, and later, in the storm of their grief, she had allowed the chasm to crack wider and wider. She wanted a man who respected his family heritage and felt his responsibilities deep in his being, a man who could hold his two daughters up while inside he collapsed with grief, a man who spread his butter carefully on his toast each morning and turned off all the lights at night and locked the doors and kissed her good night in bed each night with a gentle dependability. Because that was who Richard was. And when all was said and done, when all the dust had settled on the remnants of their life together, it was Richard she still wanted most of all.
“Let’s try again,” she pleaded. “All this time that we’ve been locked in our own private pain, feeling so isolated, so at sea…and yet here you are, the only other person in the world who can understand what I’ve been through with Alfie and everything that came after. And I am that same person for you.” She shakes her head sadly. “It could have made us stronger, not torn us apart.” She holds up her hands in protest. “I know, I blame myself. But is it really too late for us? Is it really too late to turn this around and try to find something good and decent hidden beneath the wreckage of it all?”
Richard held her gaze, staring deep into her eyes for a very long time. Then slowly, inch by inch, his hand stretched across the table to clasp her outstretched fingers. They sat together, for a moment, in complete silence, their fingers intertwined.
“I just don’t know how we move forward,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I can take any more punches.”
Helen nodded, tears welling in her eyes.
“But I don’t want to do this on my own, Helen.”
Helen’s breath caught in her throat.
Richard swallowed. “Perhaps if we take it slowly…,” he said finally, squeezing her fingers and closing his eyes.
Helen could have wept. She knew it was more than she deserved. She had imagined this scene many times, and it had never ended in anything other than total and utter devastation. To be given a second chance by Richard, to have a hope of saving their marriage, was more than she had dreamed of.
“You won’t regret this, Richard. I promise. I love you. I’m going to prove it to you. If I have to spend the next nineteen years making it up to you I will.”
Richard nodded again and opened his eyes. He took a breath. “We’ve both got a lot of making up to do, haven’t we? I guess I’m not totally blameless in this whole thing. I might have been a better husband, more attentive to you. I didn’t always listen to what you wanted…to what you needed. Let’s wipe the slate clean, shall we? Start again? Let’s you and I start from the beginning all over again. Let’s do it for us…and for the girls. I’m sure both of them could use us right now.”
Helen nodded sadly and as she thought of their daughters, and all the pain she had brought upon her family, she began to weep silent tears. Richard reached out and brushed them from her face with his fingers. Grateful for the compassion in his touch, she leaned her face into the palm of his hand, resting it there for just a moment. As she did, a teardrop ran down her chin and fell onto the scrap of paper lying between them. It landed on the charcoal lines of the sketch, blurring the edges of the woman into a fuzzy gray mist, erasing them forever. Helen looked down at the page and winced.
“Let’s burn it,” she suggested, sniffing and wiping her nose. “Let’s get rid of it, once and for all. I can’t bear to look at it.”
Richard nodded. “Good idea.”
He reached out a hand to pick up the piece of paper but as he did so he caught sight of something on the page and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked, seeing him hesitate. “What is it?”
He didn’t respond; he just continued to stare at the piece of paper as the color drained slowly from his face.
She looked down again, unsure what his eyes had fixed upon. He seemed to be staring at Tobias’s signature in the bottom corner of the paper, the area where he had scrawled his name and scratched the date. Suddenly, the pit of Helen’s stomach gave way.
The date. There it was in black and white.
It was the day Alfie had gone missing.
Helen could see the cogs whirring in Richard’s mind; she could feel a maelstrom of emotion suddenly flood the room. Richard looked up at her at last, but his blue eyes were no longer filled with sadness. They were on fire with rage.
“You were with him that day?” It was barely a whisper.
Helen couldn’t reply.
“You were with Tobias Grey on the day Alfie went missing?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“You and that man were holed up in some cheap hotel conducting your sordid little affair while our son roamed by himself on the beach? You and your lover were screwing each other while our boy, our beautiful boy”—Richard’s voice cracked with emotion, but he continued, spitting out the last words with venom—“was lost in the waves…drowning?”
She stared at him in horror. The look in his eyes was devastating.
“You said you were at work that day. You said you had been called to campus. It was unavoidable.” His words came fast. “My God.” He shook his head. “All this time, you’ve kept the truth from me. All this time you’ve let me believe it was some terrible, tragic accident. And yet all along you’ve known that if it hadn’t been for your sleazy little affair, our boy would still be alive. You killed him.”
“No!” Helen cried.
Richard shook his head. “Look at this, go on, look at it!” He waved the piece of paper in her face. “How can you deny it when the evidence is right here in front of us? You are a murderer. You murdered our son. You should be locked up! And to think you nearly had me convinced. I was this close”—he held up his thumb and forefinger—“this close. My God! How could you?”
“Richard, you don’t understand…”
“What don’t I understand, Helen?” He was roaring now. It was terrifying. Richard never raised his voice. She had never seen him so angry. “What can you possibly say that will redeem you from this disgusting, sordid mess?”
She looked up at him. He was right. There was nothing she could say. She had no defense. She was guilty of everything he accused her of. It was her fault Alfie was dead. It was all her fault.
“Richard, please…”
“Please…please…please what, Helen?” he spat. “Please don’t leave me?” he mimicked in a high-pitched whine.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“You know, I always knew, right from the start, that you didn’t really love me.”
Helen looked at him in shock, unsure what he was saying.
“Yes, that’s right,” he continued. “I know you think I’m stupid, but I always knew. I was prepared to gamble. I was prepared to wait. I thought I could show you what real love was all about. I thought I could make you love me. But I was wrong.”
“No,” shouted Helen desperately. “I do love you, Richard.”
“Ha!” He gave a sour little laugh. “Love? You don’t know the meaning of the word. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of this diseased marriage. I don’t want to be a part of it anymore, do you hear me? I can’t bear to be around you. I can’t bear to be near you. You disgust me.” Richard got up from the kitchen table, moving with such force his chair fell to the floor behind him with a crash. He didn’t seem to notice. “I suggest you stay away from me right now. I’m going upstairs but I really don’t think you want to be around me right now, Helen.” He was wringing his hands violently. “I don’t trust myself right now. Just stay away.”
“Richard,” she pleaded. She had no more words but she looked up at him imploringly, tears now streaming down her face.
“What? You want me to feel sorry for you? Is that it? Forget it. Just stay away from me. I mean it.”
He turned and stalked out of the room. The door swung shut heavily behind him and Helen was left standing alone in the kitchen next to the overturned chair and the little piece of paper that had brought their whole house of cards tumbling down around her. She sank to the kitchen floor and gave in to her tears.
Richard left an hour later. He packed a bag, made a couple of quick phone calls, and then left, spitting his final words to her as he fled down the stairs toward his car.
“I’ll call you—in a couple of days. I’ll let you know where I am, in case the girls need me,” he added pointedly.
She merely nodded and bit her lip, terrified that if she opened her mouth she might start to plead and wail all over again.
It was over. There was nothing left to say.
Moments later Richard’s car hurtled down the driveway and Helen was left with nothing but the eerie silence of the vast, empty house echoing all around her.
Chapter 17
Dora
Present Day
Dora stops the car on the scruffy roadside and stares at the crumbling old manor house ahead. She glances back down at the address she holds in her hand, scrawled across the back of a well-worn envelope: Swan House, Little Oxington. It’s definitely the right place, but the old ruin standing at the end of the drive is in stark contrast with the crusty boardinghouse she has imagined over the past few years. Her parents’ passing comments about Cassie’s home have made her think of some sort of commune for pot-smoking hippies and hemp-clad dropouts, but this place looks anything but. It is a glorious country estate, albeit in some disrepair.
A decade is a long time. It’s a long time to pretend that a once-idolized sister no longer exists, and Dora has done a good job of it. When she looks back now, her memories of Cassie are a strange jumble, a series of glossy childhood snapshots mixed up with darker scenes and images from a troubled past. Yes, among the happier times lurk the tantrums and door slamming, the black moods and impulsive behavior, the long periods of self-imposed isolation. It’s a confusing swirl, but above all Dora remembers the overwhelming sense of rejection she felt at being left by a sister who had the world at her feet and still chose to send herself into exile.
Yes, ten years is a long time, and Dora believes she’s mastered her anger now. She’s not the same person anymore; long gone is the naive, daydreaming teenager, always eager to please, always eager to keep the peace. She has a career, a boyfriend, a home…and now, a baby on the way. But if ten years can bring about such dramatic changes for Dora, she can’t help but feel nervous about whom she will greet inside the house. It’s terrifying but Dora knows the time for hiding is over now. She needs to confront Cassie, if only to try to put the past finally to rest.
Dora shifts uncomfortably, remembering it all as she navigates her car around a huge stone fountain standing in the center of the driveway, its pale young nymphs staring back at her with lifeless eyes. A surge of guilt washes over her as she pulls up outside the elegant manor and turns the car engine off. She should have visited before now. She should have made the effort.
She sits there, rooted to the spot, awash with guilt and nerves. Fighting the overwhelming urge to turn the key in the ignition and speed off down the driveway, Dora grabs her handbag and steps out into the heat of the day.
It is glorious; the warm air wraps itself around her like a blanket, carrying with it the heady scent of summer and the distant call of a blackbird high up in the trees above her. Her shoes crunch on the gravel, and as she reaches the grand colonnaded entrance of the old house she pauses to look up. The doorway stands before her, dark and forbidding, a gaping black mouth in stark contrast with the lightness of the day around her. She shivers, and then, summoning a final burst of courage, takes the steps two at a time, suddenly ea
ger to confront whatever lies inside head-on. She’s come this far. All she has to do now is get it over with as quickly as possible, and then get the hell out of there. She takes another step forward and, before she can change her mind, presses decisively on the doorbell.
A very tall man with braided hair and drooping, spaniel-like eyes opens the door. He peers out at her suspiciously. “Can I help you?” he asks, his eyes flitting nervously up the driveway behind her. It’s almost as if he expects Dora to jam her foot in the frame and barge her way inside, uninvited.
“Is Cassie here?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m her sister, Dora.”
The man seems to relax slightly and looks her up and down. “You don’t look much like her.”
“No,” she agrees. She waits a moment longer, hoping to be invited inside, but the man remains where he is, solidly blocking the entrance until another voice booms out loudly behind him.
“Who is it, Samuel?”
The ponytailed man jumps. “It’s someone for Cassie. She says she’s her sister.”
The door is suddenly wrenched open and Dora comes face-to-face with another man, attractive with smooth, nut-brown skin, unruly curled hair, and high Slavic cheekbones. He is grinning at her. “You must be Dora,” he says, offering her his hand. “I’m Felix. Felix Reveley-Jones. Good to meet you. Sorry about Samuel here; he’s our resident conspiracy theorist. He thinks everyone who shows up on the doorstep is either a spy or a journalist, ready to put the kibosh on our little Secret Garden project.”
Dora smiles politely and shakes his outstretched hand, not quite sure what he’s talking about.
“Cassie’s expecting you,” Felix continues. “Come on in. She’s probably out in the back. Did you find us okay? You drove out from London, didn’t you?”
Dora nods again and looks about surreptitiously as the man called Felix leads her into a grand but very empty entrance hall, her heels clicking noisily on the marble floor. There is nothing much in the room: a few muddy boots lined up by the door and an old oak table housing a landslide of unopened mail, over which hangs a gilt-framed portrait of a severe young man dressed in black, the whiteness of his dog collar shining in stark contrast with the faded colors of the painting. The man seems to peer into the middle distance, as though contemplating a bleak and unpalatable future. While there are gray shadow marks on the walls around, marking where other paintings presumably once hung, the rest of the hall remains empty besides an elegant wooden staircase that spirals away into the upper levels of the house and is missing a few balustrades here and there.
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