No One I Knew

by A J McDine

  Niamh smiled slowly. ‘I won’t,’ she said.

  ‘I loved Ireland. All that green…’

  ‘It’s the rain,’ Niamh said.

  ‘And the pubs, and the beer, and the whiskey…’

  I tuned out, casting my mind back to Bill and Melanie’s wedding, thirteen years before. They were the first of our contemporaries to get hitched and seemed very grown up as they walked down the aisle of the pretty country church near Bill’s parents’ sprawling Wiltshire pile. Stuart got uncharacteristically wasted during the wedding breakfast and, to my shock, slumped down on one knee in the middle of his best man’s speech and proposed to me to whoops of delight from the hundreds of guests.

  A memory unfurled, blurry, but undeniable. As I’d gazed around the beautiful marquee wondering how to answer, I’d glimpsed Melanie. All day she’d beamed with happiness, the quintessential glowing bride, but as Stuart waited for my answer her face was pinched, and her eyes glistened with tears. It wasn’t until my own wedding day, three years later, that I understood why. No bride wanted another woman to steal her thunder on her big day. I wasn’t sure Melanie had ever forgiven me.

  Feeling the sudden urge to pee, I pushed my chair back and weaved my way around the patio furniture to the villa. I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I was flushed from the booze, my lipstick had long worn off and my mascara was a bit smudged, but otherwise I looked amazing. Tanned and relaxed and horny as hell. Under my red sundress I was wearing my favourite Myla bra and thong. There was no way Stuart could resist me tonight. I kissed my reflection, peed, and headed back outside.

  Melanie had already begun clearing plates. I should have helped, but the promise of another glass of crisp, cold white wine was far more appealing. I sat down with a thump, and Stuart peered at my face and frowned.

  ‘Christ, how much have you had to drink?’

  ‘Not enough,’ I leered at him, holding out my glass for a refill.

  ‘I think you’ve had plenty, don’t you?’ He took my glass in one hand, picked up a couple of plates in the other and followed Melanie into the villa.

  ‘When did my husband become such a fucking killjoy?’ I asked Bill.

  When we met, Stuart was the life and soul of every student party, every rugby club piss-up. He was the one who instigated drinking games and hogged the mike on karaoke nights. He’d once pushed a booze-laden shopping trolley to our campus from the Sainsbury’s in town, over a mile away.

  But something had changed over the last few years. He looked the same, and he sounded the same, but he was so bloody uptight.

  ‘He’s not the Stuart I know and love,’ Bill agreed, as we watched Stuart come back for more dirty plates. He’d wrapped a striped apron around his waist and was wearing rubber gloves. Bill found me a spare tumbler, filled it with wine and we clinked glasses unsteadily.

  ‘I think Stuart’s lovely,’ Niamh said.

  ‘He’s already taken,’ I slurred.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ she tailed off, flustered.

  I leaned forwards. ‘What did you mean?’

  ‘Erm, I suppose he’s exactly the type of man I’d like to marry one day.’

  ‘What - boring?’ Bill said, and he and I peeled with laughter.

  A phone pinged, and I looked around in confusion. ‘Whose was that?’

  ‘Mine,’ Niamh said. She checked the screen, her face lit by its blue glare.

  ‘Who’s texting you at this time of night?’

  ‘A couple of people I met at the beach yesterday. They’ve invited me to a party.’

  ‘A party?’ Stuart said, appearing from the shadows. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’

  Niamh’s face fell.

  ‘Oh, come on, Stu, she’s eighteen,’ I said. ‘It can’t have been much fun hanging around with us lot all week. Let her have some good old Irish craic with kids her own age.’

  ‘They seemed really nice,’ Niamh said.

  ‘I agree with Cleo,’ Bill said. ‘She should let that beautiful red hair down. I’ll give her some money for a taxi home.’

  Stuart wavered, then sighed. ‘All right, go to the party. But make sure you keep your phone with you and don’t do anything stupid,’ he told Niamh.

  ‘You sound like her dad. She won’t. She’s a good Catholic girl, aren’t you, Niamh?’ I mocked.

  Niamh flushed. Stuart glared at me and swiped my glass from under my nose again.

  ‘Hey, I was drinking that!’

  ‘Too bad.’ He turned to Niamh. ‘Where’s the party?’

  ‘On the beach.’

  ‘I’ll walk you down. But make sure you get a taxi back.’

  Bill produced his wallet, peeled off a couple of ten euro notes and gave them to Niamh. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he smirked.

  As they disappeared down the drive I said, ‘Buggerations. Looks like I’m on the naughty chair again.’ I pushed myself to my feet, holding onto the table for a moment as a wave of dizziness made the world spin. ‘But I can think of a way to get back in his good books. I’m off to bed. Night Bill.’

  He picked up the Bacardi bottle, poured a liberal measure in his empty wineglass and tilted it in my direction. ‘Night Cleo.’

  I hummed to myself as I staggered towards the villa. The sound of plates clattering in the kitchen made me stop in my tracks. If I went through the main patio doors Melanie would assume I’d come to help her clear up, and I didn’t want dirty plates, smeary glasses and Melanie’s moue of disapproval dampening my ardour. Instead, I lurched to the left and headed for the doors to our ground floor bedroom, which I was pretty sure I’d left unlocked.

  I let myself in and stepped out of my dress, smiling as the fabric pooled around my feet like a berry-red puddle. I cannoned into the en suite, peed again, cleaned my teeth and sprayed myself liberally with perfume. Back in the bedroom, I turned on a bedside lamp and arranged myself as provocatively as I could on the bed and waited for my husband to return.

  Five minutes passed, then ten. My eyelids fluttered, and I stifled a yawn. I sat up, rubbed my eyes and drank deeply from the small bottle of water on my bedside table. Twenty minutes had now passed since Stuart and Niamh left for the beach. He should be back any minute. I lay back down, wriggling my toes in anticipation.

  But I’d seriously underestimated the sedative effects of all that booze. Within a few minutes of my head hitting the pillow, sleep staked its claim on my consciousness and I drifted off, dead to the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  CORFU

  FOUR YEARS EARLIER

  It was light when I woke, gritty-eyed and furry-tongued. My head was pounding ferociously, and my heart was racing like I’d run a 100m sprint, yet my limbs felt leaden. I raised my head an inch off the pillow and prised my eyes open. Stuart’s side of the bed was empty, and the sheets looked unruffled, as if they hadn’t been slept in. I flopped back on the pillow, closed my eyes and groaned. I hadn’t had a hangover this hideous for years. I must have been completely wasted.

  As I waited for the room to stop spinning, I tried to piece together the events of the previous night, but everything was indistinct, as if I was looking at the evening through the wrong end of a telescope. Snapshots came back to me. Charred meat. Chilled white wine. Shards of broken glass sparkling like ice. Niamh’s beach party invitation. My designs to seduce Stuart, to work some magic back into our marriage. Too much of that chilled white wine and Stuart’s blatant disapproval. I peered under the single sheet draped over me. I was still wearing my red lacy Myla underwear. Surprise, surprise, my seduction plans had been in vain.

  Gingerly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pulled myself to a sitting position. Outside, I could hear Nate’s shrieks of delight as he splashed in the pool. I fastened a robe around me, ran my fingers through my hair and went to investigate.

  Stuart was in the pool with Nate, and they were throwing a yellow Frisbee back and forth. I crept over, trying to keep m
y head as still as possible, and carefully sat on the side of the pool and dangled my legs in the water.

  Nate waved, and I blew him a kiss. He grinned, and said, ‘Watch me swimming, Mummy!’ I shielded my eyes from the sun and watched as he doggy-paddled over to his inflatable shark.

  ‘Fantastic!’ I called, giving him the thumbs up. Stuart broke into a powerful front crawl for four strokes and joined me by the side of the pool. Droplets of water glistened on his shoulders. I dragged my eyes away and said, ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said back. His voice was more guarded than tender.

  ‘Where did you sleep last night?’

  ‘I crashed on the spare bed in Nate’s room. You were out for the count and I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘Oh.’ I flexed my feet back and forth in the pool, whipping up the already choppy water. The analogy wasn’t lost on me.

  ‘How’s your head?’ he said finally.

  ‘Sore,’ I admitted. ‘Bloody awful, in fact. You’d think by now I’d have more sense than to get totally hammered.’

  ‘You would,’ he agreed.

  I looked around, but the veranda was empty. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Mel’s popped down to the supermarket. Bill’s nursing his hangover inside, and Niamh hasn’t surfaced yet.’

  I stopped kicking. ‘But you have seen her since last night?’

  He shook his head. When my eyes widened, he said, ‘I can’t just barge into her bedroom, can I? She’s a teenage girl, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better, then.’ I climbed stiffly to my feet. As I did, my robe fell open to reveal an expanse of thigh, topped by a scrap of red lace. I checked to see if Stuart had noticed, but he had already turned away.

  I made an espresso and downed it in a single gulp before I headed upstairs to Niamh’s room and knocked on the door.

  ‘Niamh? It’s Cleo. Can I come in?’

  There was no answer, so I went to turn the handle, but it didn’t move. ‘Niamh?’ I said again. ‘Can you open the door?’

  A few seconds passed. I wiggled the handle again, but it refused to budge. It was almost as if she’d wedged the back of a chair against it to stop anyone coming in. But why would she have done that? And then the penny dropped. She must have smuggled someone she’d met at the party into the villa last night. Knowing Bill would go apeshit if he found a stranger in his parents’ place, I rapped on the door. ‘Niamh, let me in now, please.’

  The slap of footsteps on the marble floor was followed by the scrape of chair legs and the door opened an inch. I peered through the gap right into Niamh’s tear-stained face.

  Apprehension crawled across my skin like an army of ants, and I clutched the doorjamb to steady myself. ‘Niamh?’

  Her gaze darted behind me. ‘Are you on your own?’ she whispered.

  I nodded, and she took a step backwards. I gave the door a gentle push and slipped in. Niamh closed the door and dragged the wooden dressing table chair over, propping it under the handle.

  ‘What on earth’s wrong?’ I cried, taking in her dishevelled appearance. She’d changed into a pair of baby-pink flannel pyjamas with a teddy bear embroidered on the breast pocket. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on a five-year-old.

  She still hadn’t answered me, so I sat on the end of her bed and assumed a maternal air.

  ‘Are you homesick, is that what it is? Because if you are, we’re flying home tomorrow, and I’m happy for you to take a few days off next week if you want to see your folks.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Is it me? I know I can be abrupt, so if I’ve upset you, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she mumbled. ‘I mean, you are abrupt, but that’s not it.’

  I scoured the room, looking for inspiration, my gaze falling on the green top and denim skirt she’d been wearing the previous night, laying in a tangled heap on the floor by the dressing table. ‘Did something happen at the party?’ I asked.

  She pulled her sleeves down, hiding her hands, and bowed her head. I touched her arm. ‘Niamh?’

  ‘N-nothing h-happened.’ But the tears clogging her throat told me she was lying.

  ‘You can tell me, you know.’

  ‘I c-can’t,’ she stammered.

  ‘Come on, don’t be silly. It can’t be that bad.’

  She sprang forwards and kicked the top and skirt under the dressing table with a ferocity that took me by surprise.

  ‘Niamh, talk to me. Please. Tell me why you’re so upset.’

  She wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. What on earth could have turned our cheerful, easy-going au pair into this trembling, nervy mess?

  ‘If you did something last night that you wish you hadn’t, you won’t be the first, and you definitely won’t be the last,’ I said.

  She made a strangulated noise that was halfway between a sob and a choke.

  I pushed myself off the bed. ‘Shall I help you tidy up while I’m here?’

  ‘I can do it myself,’ she said sullenly.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’d like to help.’ I straightened the bedclothes and picked her hairdryer up from the floor, winding the cord around the handle and placing it on the dressing table.

  Bending down, I scooped up her green top.

  ‘Don’t touch that!’ she cried, darting forwards.

  But I was too quick. I held it up and stepped towards the window. What was it she didn’t want me to see? Spilt wine? Vomit stains? My eyes widened. The top was ripped from the neckline to the hem. I glanced at Niamh. Her face was white with terror.

  ‘What happened, Niamh? How did this get torn? Did someone attack you?’ My grip on the silky material loosened, and it fell to the floor. ‘Oh, my God. Were you raped?’

  The word leaving my lips had an instant effect. Niamh began keening, a mournful wail that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I opened my arms, and she collapsed into my embrace. I felt tears prick the back of my throat as I held her tight and whispered into that fiery red hair, ‘It’s OK. You’re safe now. It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.’

  When she was spent, I extricated myself and fetched her a glass of water and a length of toilet paper from her tiny en suite. She took a sip of the water and blew her nose. I sat beside her and said gently, ‘You need to tell me what happened.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Niamh…’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘Did it happen at the party?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘On the way home?’

  She gave the tiniest of nods.

  ‘But Bill gave you the money for a taxi.’

  I hadn’t meant it as a rebuke, but it was obviously how she interpreted it as it sent her into a fresh storm of crying.

  ‘Niamh, sweetheart,’ I soothed. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. Did it happen on the way back to the villa?’

  Another barely discernible nod.

  ‘Did you recognise him? Was it someone from the party?’

  The silence stretched between us, as thick and sticky as molasses.

  ‘Who did this to you, Niamh? You can tell me.’

  She shook her head, her eyes fixed on a swirl in the marble tile under her feet. She mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

  ‘Tell me, Niamh. Who was it?’

  ‘It was no one I knew.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE

  I woke the next morning feeling, if not optimistic, slightly less despairing than I had the day before. If my gut instinct was right and Niamh had taken Immy, it meant she hadn’t fallen in the river and drowned or been snatched by a paedophile. If Niamh had taken Immy it meant she was out there somewhere, very much alive, because Niamh loved children and she wouldn’t have harmed her only daughter.

  My feelings about Niamh were harder to unpick. She’d once been part of our family. I’d trusted her to look after Nate. It was impossible to picture he
r in that rancid squat, sleeping with strangers for her next fix, and a week ago I’d have felt nothing but compassion. Plus a sliver of guilt that her descent into self-destruction was somehow my fault.

  But by taking Immy, Niamh had committed the ultimate betrayal. I hated and pitied her in equal measure.

  Once the police tracked her down - and I had every confidence they would, eventually - Immy would come home and our lives could return to normal. It was just a matter of time.

  My upbeat mood lasted until I dropped Nate off at school and his class teacher, Miss Henderson, scurried over and asked if she could have a word.

  ‘Right now?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, beckoning me to follow her through the main entrance and along the corridor to Nate’s classroom. She pulled out one of the tiny chairs and said, ‘Please, take a seat,’ before sitting at her desk.

  She clasped her hands together and stared at a point on the wall somewhere above my right shoulder.

  ‘I take it there’s no news about Immy?’

  I shook my head. ‘But I’m guessing you didn’t summon me here to ask me that.’

  ‘I’m afraid I need to speak to you about a rather delicate matter. We’ve had a complaint from a parent about Nate. It appears he’s been using very inappropriate language in school.’

  ‘Nate?’ I said.

  ‘It surprised me,’ Miss Henderson admitted. ‘But when I questioned Nate, he readily admitted it.’

  ‘What’s he supposed to have said?’

  Miss Henderson flushed pink. ‘He told one of his classmates that his mum was a c-word.’

  My eyes widened. ‘Nate said the actual c-word?’

  ‘No, he said “c-word”,’ she said, sketching speech marks in the air. ‘But the inference was obvious.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, leaning back with relief. ‘He doesn’t know the actual c-word. He means cow. He told Fergus Barton his mum was a cow.’