Swimming in the Shadows

by Diane Janes

  The body was the fourth story on the six o’clock news. It had been found at the edge of a field on the outskirts of Nicholsfield, a few hundred yards from the road. Contrary to speculation in the health centre common room, it appeared that neither the West Country clairvoyant, nor even a tip-off from a witness with a troubled conscience had been responsible for the discovery. A local farmer had been doing some drainage work and disturbed what appeared to be a shallow grave containing human remains. The police were not confirming anything, but for some reason the press had got hold of the idea that it was Jennifer Reynolds. ‘Speculation’ – that was the word they used. ‘There is speculation that the body may belong to Jennifer Reynolds, who has been missing from Nicholsfield for more than six years.’

  It might not have been such a newsworthy story if it hadn’t been for Martin Bullock’s programme putting the case back into the public eye, I thought. As it was, one of the better-known reporters had been rushed to Nicholsfield to be filmed at the roadside, making statements to camera which could just as easily have been conveyed by the team in the studio. He began by explaining just where and when and how the remains had come to be discovered, adding that although the police were refusing to confirm speculation that the body had been identified as that of Jennifer Reynolds, they would say that the remains were those of a female, and appeared to have been there for some time. Reporters had also managed to winkle out the information that the police were trying to contact Alan Reynolds, who was thought to be away from home on business.

  I thought of Alan, perhaps staying in a hotel somewhere, switching on his bedroom television to catch the news, or else reading about it in tomorrow’s Times. Poor Alan. They might ask him to identify the body. Though surely there would be nothing left but bones by now? You couldn’t identify bones. The television drivelled inexorably on, through the weather forecast and into the regional news. Nothing now, I noted, about Julie Peacock. This evening it was the turn of some other poor dead woman to have her fifteen minutes of fame.

  All through the news, I perched on the arm of the chair, ready to flick the set off the moment Rob returned my call, but the telephone remained ominously silent. Please ring. Please, please ring. Without warning, I broke down and began to cry. Muffled sobs, followed by louder sobs graduated into an uncontrolled howling which made me feel thoroughly ashamed of myself. It took me several minutes to regain control. Eventually I dried my eyes, blew my nose and went through to the bathroom to wash my face. After that I went upstairs and changed out of my work suit and into my jeans, occasionally catching sight of my face in the mirror, reddened and blotchy, Jennifer Reynolds staring reproachfully at Susan McCarthy.

  Seven o’clock came and still no call from Rob. Why didn’t he call? And what was I going to say to him when he did? Seven thirty. Still no word. When he hadn’t rung by eight, desperation got the better of me and I tried his number again, but I put the phone down before it had a chance to ring out. The thought of having to leave another message – my voice echoing around his empty sitting room – unnerved me.

  Where on earth was he? Logic said that he must be at home because he had to get ready for the field trip. Wasn’t that the whole reason for his not seeing me? I knew he would be leaving first thing in the morning and he had already warned me that the field centre was very basic: equipped with a single payphone, whose caller’s every word could be overheard by anyone standing around in the communal area. This made it all the more imperative that if I was going to talk to him, it needed to be now, tonight and preferably face-to-face. Maybe I should drive over to his cottage? But what was the point of that if he wasn’t there? And if for some reason he had decided to come over to my place, we could easily take alternative routes and miss one another.

  Theories about his whereabouts crept unbidden into my mind. The prolonged silence could no longer be explained by a quick call at the shops en route home. School was finished by four o’clock – that was four hours ago. Suppose there had been a car accident? Always everyone’s first idea. Or was there some other reason for his failure to contact me? Had he lied about getting ready for the trip? Was he actually planning to go somewhere else, do something that he didn’t want me to know about? Or suppose the police had taken him in for further questioning about the Julie Peacock business? I tried to dismiss these speculations as hysterical, but I was so unnerved by the discovery of the body in Nicholsfield that I felt capable of believing almost anything.

  Then I noticed that it was getting foggy outside. Sometimes fog simply rolled across the dale out of nowhere – great cartwheels of grounded cloud, tumbling across the fields and abruptly enveloping everything – but tonight it began gradually, the visibility diminishing by degrees, dulling outlines until the furthest ridge was lost to sight, the change becoming more obvious as trees faded to mere shadows and little wisps of mist came riding past on the air. I remembered that I had left my bedroom window ajar and went upstairs to close it against the dampness in the air.

  At the upstairs window I paused to look down the lane, hoping to see the blur of headlights approaching through the gloom, but there was no hint of another human being at all. The fog had transformed the garden into a swirling tapestry of uncertainty, affording no more than temporary glimpses of the dry stone wall and the dark grass. A spider’s web on the outside window frame was illuminated with tiny droplets of water, a perfectly bejewelled, geometric work of art.

  I hadn’t bothered to turn off the television and as I stood at the window the raised voices of soap opera characters reached me through the floorboards. On the rare occasions when I saw soap operas, the characters always seemed to be quarrelling with one another. Either that or sleeping with someone else’s partner. In real life there was never anything like so much quarrelling or sex. Well, not in my life anyway.

  Yet tonight, the mist swirling outside the bedroom window and the raised voices coming up through the ceiling – impossible to hear what they were saying and yet knowing with certainty that they were quarrelling – brought back a memory of real life: of standing in my bedroom in the house in Orchard Lane, looking out into the fog and being aware of raised voices below, voices emanating not from the television but from my mother and father. It was almost as though I was watching a film of my fifteen-year-old self standing at the bedroom window, watching the swirling mist play games around the rose bushes, while wondering in a disinterested sort of way what my parents might be quarrelling about.

  The shouting had ended abruptly, followed by the briefest silence before the front door slammed – hard. Moments later I heard the base of the garage doors rasping as they opened outwards across the gravel – the wooden doors always swelled in the damp. Daddy must be going out in the car while Mummy sat alone downstairs, unwilling to follow him outside and pursue the argument in the garden where the neighbours might hear.

  I heard the familiar sound of tyres on gravel as Daddy reversed the car down the drive, turned into the road and headed away. The car was being driven a little faster than usual; the engine revved marginally harder than it was accustomed to. For all that I recognized these signs of parental agitation, I knew that if anyone had been passing my father would have concealed his temper beneath a friendly greeting. Not by so much as an impatient tug at the gates, nor a backward glare in the direction of the front door, would he have betrayed his feelings. No tattling gossip would be able to arrive home and hazard the opinion that the Freemans had been having a bit of a barney.

  After the car had gone I remained at the window watching the fog drift around the garden. I suppose a lot of daughters would have gone downstairs, maybe hugged and kissed their mother, offered some small kindness, some gesture of sympathy. We did not hug and kiss. We were not that kind of family.

  The next morning they found another body. This time it was in the woods at Sampton Sandyrest, a local beauty spot. It was almost a year to the day after Sally Walsh had vanished, but it wasn’t Sally Walsh, it was a different girl; a girl who had onl
y gone missing the night before. After that I was sure I knew.

  The sound of an approaching car cut across my reverie. For a moment I thought I was imagining it – still reliving the memory of that other car in that other time, but the loom of the headlamps appeared as it approached the bend, the driver negotiating the narrow lane slowly in the difficult conditions. I raced down the stairs and threw open the door, but as the driver emerged from the murk it was not Rob, but Terry Millington. I momentarily considered shutting the door and ignoring any summons from the bell, but instead I stood waiting on the doorstep, as if turned to stone.

  I couldn’t make out his expression until his face came within range of the bulb in the hall. This time he wasn’t drunk, just very, very angry. I belatedly attempted to slam the door, but I was too late and he barged in, his raised voice echoing up the stair well. ‘Why did you do it?’ he shouted.

  I retreated, staring at him.

  ‘Why?’ he repeated, jabbing a finger in my direction as he followed me into the sitting room, where I stepped smartly aside, putting an armchair between us, while noting in an oddly detached way that my life had just slid from highly bizarre to scarily surreal. ‘I thought we had an agreement,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve watched that fucking tape. I don’t know why you changed your name and I don’t honestly care. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. It was just the booze talking the other night. I’m a doctor, right? I’m used to keeping secrets.’ In a part of my head which wasn’t wondering what the hell was going to happen next, it occurred to me that he wasn’t acting much like any doctor I had ever met before. ‘On my honour, I wasn’t going to tell a soul, but you couldn’t keep your side of the deal. Just like a fucking woman, you had to go telling tales to old McCleary, saying that I’ve been known to sink a few before going out on call.’

  I found my voice. ‘I never said anything about you to Doctor McCleary.’

  Something in my tone must have carried conviction, but he evidently interpreted it as a tactical lie, saying impatiently: ‘Well, to one of the others then. Woods or Hindmarsh. What does it matter? I’m on a warning, thanks to you.’ His voice was still loud and angry.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I swear to you that I haven’t mentioned anything about your drinking to anyone. Nor has anyone asked me about it. I never told anyone about your coming up here either, but I can promise you this: if you don’t stop appearing on my doorstep, making wild allegations, I won’t just be telling the doctors, I’ll be making a complaint to the police.’

  His laughter was so loud, so unexpected, that I jumped visibly. ‘Wild allegations? I told you, I watched that tape. I don’t get why the others don’t see it. Or maybe they do, but they don’t report you because they think it’s none of their business.’

  I took another deep breath. ‘If you are talking about my supposed resemblance to that poor woman, Jennifer Reynolds …’ There it was, I’d said the name out loud and it hadn’t scorched my lips, and the sky had not fallen in, ‘… I assume you can’t have heard that they’ve found her body, not far from where she originally went missing. It was on the news earlier today.’

  That stopped him dead in his tracks. He scrutinized my face for a moment, then abruptly sank down uninvited on the sofa in an attitude of complete deflation. ‘You’re having me on?’

  ‘I don’t joke about things like that.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘Oh, shit.’ He waited a moment before adding: ‘I’ve just made everything much worse, haven’t I?’

  ‘You clearly have a problem, Terry,’ I said. ‘But you’re a good doctor too. The patients like you. Some of them are asking to see you specifically, and believe me, that’s a compliment round here, where newcomers aren’t always accepted. Doctor Mac’s a good man. He’ll give you another chance, if you ask him.’

  ‘So far he’s just warned me to be careful, not to let it happen again.’ He seemed suddenly smaller somehow, younger than his years. ‘I’ve got to cut out the drinking, watch what I’m doing.’

  ‘And yet here you are …’

  ‘I know. But I thought … and if it wasn’t you …’

  ‘Lasthwaite’s a rural community,’ I said. ‘There are no secrets here.’ Well, OK – I’m lying. There must be secrets everywhere.

  ‘And you’re not …’

  ‘No.’ At least not until that woman turns out to be someone else.

  ‘You won’t say anything? About me coming up here. I’m really, really sorry … and you know, you do look just like that Reynolds woman.’ His face was contorted into what he imagined was a winning smile.

  I hesitated, pretending to consider, the way a woman who could afford to complain about being hassled might. ‘This has to be the last time,’ I said.

  ‘It will be. Believe me, I’m going to straighten myself out. This has been a big wake-up call.’

  I interrupted him because the deceit sickened me – my lies and his habitual drunk’s self-delusion. ‘Please just go. I’m expecting someone and if you’re here, I’ll have to explain why and I … I don’t like lying.’ Hypocrite, liar, liar, pants on fire. How is it that you aren’t struck down by a bolt of lightning every time you open your mouth?

  He looked at me curiously, focusing properly on my face for the first time. ‘You’re upset. I’m really sorry – and it’s not just me, is it? I’ve picked a bad time …’ He hesitated, en route to the door. ‘If there’s anything …’

  I followed him, all but shooing him out. ‘Goodnight, Terry,’ I said firmly before I closed the door.

  A bad time, I thought. You can say that again.

  Rob finally rang at just after ten p.m. I had been pacing about, wondering what on earth to do, and when the call finally came through I almost knocked the telephone on to the floor in my eagerness to grab it.

  ‘Hello, Sue? Is everything all right?’ His voice was tinged with anxiety.

  I didn’t know where to begin. ‘I just wanted to talk to you,’ I said. ‘I was getting worried when you didn’t answer. Where have you been?’

  ‘We had a meeting straight after school, for the pupils going on the field trip.’ Even as he said it, I remembered him telling me about it. ‘After the kids had gone, the staff stayed on to run through all the details again. You know what a fusser Louise Bunstead is. It was well after six by the time we got away. Then I called into Safeway, so I didn’t get home until just after seven o’clock. I never noticed the light flashing on the machine until a couple of minutes ago. I wasn’t expecting anyone to ring so I never thought to check it.’

  It all had the absolute ring of truth. His answering machine was tucked up on a shelf above his desk. It was a silly place to have it really – you could easily not notice the message light flashing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten about the meeting after school. I was going to suggest that I come over and cook your supper.’ Face-to-face. It would be far, far better to tell him face-to-face. ‘Or I thought perhaps I could help you with your packing,’ I added rather desperately, ‘but I suppose it’s too late now.’ Please say it isn’t. Please tell me to get in the car and come over.

  ‘Afraid so. I whizzed myself up an omelette as soon as I got home. I’ve just got to do a final check through my kit and then I’ll be turning in. To tell the truth, I’m absolutely knackered.’

  ‘Poor you,’ I said.

  ‘It was sweet of you to offer,’ he said. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I shall miss you, too.’

  ‘You are all right, aren’t you? You sound … well, I don’t know, a bit strained …’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘It must have been the tape distorting my voice, although I wish you weren’t going away. If I could just see you before you go …’

  ‘I’m only going to the other side of the Pennines for a couple of weeks,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ I repeated.

  ‘Take care of yourself while I’m away. I’ll try to phone, but it’s pretty hopeless with half of 9C hanging on
your every word.’

  ‘I love you,’ I said, rather desperately.

  ‘I love you too. Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Goodnight then, sweetheart.’

  ‘Goodnight. Have a safe journey.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ He made a kissing noise at the other end of the line. ‘Bye for now.’

  ‘Bye, darling.’

  As the call ended I experienced a feeling of terrible emptiness. Had there been a chance there, a glimmer of a chance? Is everything all right? his very first question, inviting me to embark on an instant confession that my all-rightness had seldom been less in evidence and that I had earth-shaking news to impart.

  I went over it in my mind. Three times during the course of the conversation he had asked and three times I had given an affirmative. For how can one begin, even begin to say that today on the news there is talk of a body and everyone says it belongs to Jennifer Reynolds, but I and perhaps only I, know that this is not so and the reason I know – are you hearing this, Rob? Can you even begin to take this in? I know this dead woman, whoever she may be, is not Jennifer Reynolds, because I am Jennifer Reynolds. Susan McCarthy? Oh, you may well ask. Susan McCarthy is dead. As dead as a Dodo. As dead as that woman whose body they have found in a ditch in Nicholsfield.

  Are you still there, Rob, or have you dropped the phone? Can you believe any of this? Well, of course you can’t believe it. How can you know where the lies begin and end when you’re hearing these things from someone who has told you so many lies, covered up, concealed, papered over the cracks. And what can you expect except concealment? She was brought up to conceal things. Raised in a house of secrets and silences. Taught to hide feelings behind the façade of preoccupation with the ordinary.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped unchecked on to my sweater. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said aloud. ‘I’m so sorry. I never knew how to love or be loved, until I found you. I never knew how to be open enough to let someone get really close. And now it’s too late. We’ve lost our chance.’