by Karen Clarke
‘Make a wish,’ I urged her.
‘Don’t tell, or it won’t come true,’ Mum cautioned, winking at me. She used to say the same when Jamie and I were little, but I never did get the pony I wished for every year.
After posing for photos with a knife poised over the cake, time passed in a haze of snatched conversations and unwrapping gifts. There was a pretty utensil pot from Marianne, an expensive bottle of champagne from Lewis and Jude (more for their benefit than mine, I suspected, seeing their eyes light up when I smiled my appreciation) and a beautiful, walnut desk-easel from Emma, who waved away my thanks with an airy hand. To my surprise, Jamie produced a three-tier stand on wheels for my paint supplies, explaining he thought it might come in useful. While I knew my parents, and probably Rosa, had had a hand in his choice, I couldn’t help being touched. Vic had bought me a ruby pear-drop necklace that looked expensive. ‘It’s your birthstone,’ he said, fastening it carefully around my neck.
I kissed him, wishing it didn’t make me think of blood. ‘I love it.’
We all ended up dancing the hokey cokey at Dad’s insistence, as though I was seven again. Hayley loved it, and only the sight of her earnest expression as she followed the moves stopped my mind returning over and over to the text messages. Enjoy your birthday, Beth. It’ll be your last. Whoever had sent it wanted me to be scared, and while I knew I was playing into their hands, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something malevolent lurked among the smiling faces and bursts of laughter around me.
Senses heightened, I found myself studying Jamie at one point, noticing his gaze tracking Rosa around the room. I wondered whether they’d had an argument. If their relationship was going through a bad patch, he was bound to blame me. It wouldn’t be the first time. ‘Apparently, I’m too needy,’ he’d said, when his last relationship ended. ‘Not surprising, considering the years I spent trying to get my parents’ attention.’ He’d once said that, after my near-drowning, he might as well not have existed as far as our parents were concerned, but I doubted he’d go to the trouble of buying a phone and sending a threatening message. Apart from anything, Jamie had never been shy about telling me to my face exactly how he felt, and despite our strained relationship, I couldn’t imagine he wanted me dead. Unless he’d had enough of playing second fiddle and wanted me out of the way.
Catching Mum’s eye, I forced a smile and turned to chat to Pam, who wanted to tell me a friend had a Labrador who’d given birth to a litter of golden puppies. ‘In case you’ve thought any more about getting one for Hayley.’
‘Except Hayley won’t be the one looking after it.’ The headache I’d felt brewing earlier strengthened its grip. ‘Sorry, Pam, I’m just—’
‘It’s fine.’ Her already rosy cheeks flushed crimson. ‘I could help though, if you do decide to have one,’ she said. ‘You know I think of you and Hayley as family.’
‘I know you do, and thank you.’ Mustering a smile, I placed an arm around her narrow shoulders. She was small but strong, from years of running her own cleaning company, and her upper arms were still more toned than mine. ‘I promise I’ll think about it, but don’t say anything to Hayley, will you?’
‘I won’t.’ Her gaze turned wistful, watching Hayley spinning in circles on the rug in front of the fireplace with Rory, giggling as she staggered into Mum. Pam didn’t have children of her own, had lived alone since her husband died of a heart attack a couple of years before we moved next door. It was something she rarely talked about, but if anyone deserved to be a grandparent, it was Pam.
As we drifted into the garden, where the sun had turned the lawn patchy and dry, Jude sidled over and nudged my arm. ‘You’re so lucky,’ she said in a stagey whisper, watching Vic top up glasses and offer food.
I felt a stab of dislike because she’d never said that about Matt when we’d all been friends, even though he’d designed her website free of charge when she became a Pilates instructor. ‘Thanks,’ I said shortly.
Jamie interrupted, saying he had to leave, and Jude wandered away. ‘I’ve got an early start tomorrow,’ he said, which was probably true. He was a plumber, often called out at unsociable hours. It was how he’d met Rosa, when a pipe burst in her flat, flooding the kitchen. ‘You look exhausted,’ I said, noting the bruised-looking crescents beneath his eyes. ‘You should take on someone to help.’
‘Don’t you start.’ He spoke with the bite I’d grown accustomed to over the years. It was hard to remember that, for a while after my accident, he’d been as protective as Mum and Dad, looking out for me at school, despite being in the year below. Much later, my counsellor suggested that, like Dad, Jamie felt terribly guilty about that day; that if the man who saved me hadn’t run into the sea, I’d have drowned while Jamie was waiting at the van to buy ice-creams. But when I asked him about it, he’d looked at me as though I’d grown two heads. ‘Of course I don’t feel guilty,’ he’d said, anger heating his words. ‘Christ sake, Beth, let it go.’
While he said his goodbyes to Mum and Dad, Rosa stood back a little. I was grateful she didn’t allude to our earlier conversation. Her smile was bland as she nodded briefly in my direction before following Jamie out, her hand reaching for his. It struck me how similar they looked from behind; practically the same height, similar hair colour, though Jamie’s was permanently tousled and more dirty-blond than brown, and both with a suggestion of strength in their shoulders – Jamie from regular gym sessions and Rosa from her police training, which required her to pass a fitness test twice a year.
I pleaded a raging headache once they’d gone – which wasn’t a lie – and though Emma was disappointed we hadn’t had a chance to talk properly, she gamely accepted the offer of a lift to the station with Mum and Dad.
‘Call me,’ she urged, pressing a kiss to my cheek at the door, her musky perfume catching in my throat. ‘I want to know everything.’
Something avid in her words made me look at her twice, taking in the sheen of her eyes and vivid splashes of colour along her cheekbones. I hadn’t noticed her drinking – which she did a lot when we were at college – but she seemed in the grip of some strong emotion.
‘I will,’ I promised, resolving to bridge the gap that had sprung up between us lately. ‘Thanks again for coming, and for your lovely gift; it was so thoughtful.’
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Vic seems like a really nice guy. If you’re happy with him, I’m happy for you.’ She hugged me a little too tightly and hurried out, leaving me with the feeling she’d left a lot unsaid.
*
‘I still don’t understand it,’ I said, once Hayley was tucked up and sleeping, the calming effect of her bedtime routine worn off. ‘I saw those messages, so where did they go?’
Vic spat toothpaste in the sink in the ensuite bathroom before coming into the bedroom. ‘There are ways if you know what you’re doing.’ He sat beside me on the bed, patting his face with a towel. ‘At least Rosa took you seriously.’
‘She probably felt she didn’t have much choice.’ It came out snappy, my nerves shredded from hours of pretending I was fine. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, rubbing the nape of my neck. ‘I wish I hadn’t told her.’
‘You did the right thing.’ Throwing the towel aside, Vic knelt on the bed behind me and massaged my shoulders, attempting to release the knots that had gathered there. ‘Let’s hope it was a one-off and that’s the end of it.’
‘There won’t be any more.’ I felt it deep in my bones, without knowing why. ‘Not now I’ve been warned.’
‘Should we get you a twenty-four-hour bodyguard, just in case?’
I tensed. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’ His fingers kept kneading. ‘Why would you make it up? I saw how spooked you were.’
I twisted to look at him. He had on the stripy pyjama shorts and white T-shirt he wore whenever he stayed over (‘in case Hayley comes in’) and a surge of affection washed away my annoyance. ‘Listen, thanks again for today,’ I sai
d, touching the ruby necklace, which felt hot against my skin. ‘I’m sorry if I spoiled everything.’
‘You didn’t.’ He lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my fingers. ‘Everyone had a good time and we should carry on doing that, and not let this … whatever it is, get between us.’
I fell silent for a moment. ‘I left my bag in the hall with my phone in.’
His brow furrowed. ‘What?’
‘My bag.’ I squirmed round to face him. ‘It was in the hall. Someone could have taken my phone out and deleted the messages.’
Sighing, Vic pushed away from me and lay down, one arm behind his head. ‘Like Rosa said, someone must have hacked your messages remotely.’
‘But what if they were deleted here?’
He looked at me sideways. ‘Do you still not have a password on your phone?’
I bristled. ‘I’ve never needed one,’ I said. ‘I always know where it is, I’ve nothing to hide, and it’s easier to access if I need to look something up.’
He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Well, I didn’t notice anyone sneaking into the hall, did you?’
‘No, but I wasn’t checking.’
Vic held out his other arm. ‘Come here, you.’
I rolled onto my side and rested my head on his chest. The rhythmic bump of his heart almost soothed my racing mind, but I couldn’t quite banish the guilty thought that Vic knew exactly where my phone was, and that he hadn’t been in the room when I was talking to Mum and Dad.
‘Seriously,’ he said, making me jump. ‘I could sort out some security for you, if it would give you peace of mind. It’ll make me feel better too.’
I closed my eyes, shame burning through me. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, as he kissed the top of my head. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Once his breathing had deepened into sleep and darkness pressed into the room, fear wrapped around me, tightening my chest. I couldn’t help imagining all the ways I might be about to die. A shove in the back into oncoming traffic, or in front of a train, or a knife driven into my abdomen.
My breathing grew shallow and sweat pooled between my breasts beneath my vest top. I threw off the sheet and turned over, but couldn’t switch off my mind, imagining poison being slipped into my food, an injection in my neck, or stomach – insulin, maybe; wasn’t that supposed to be undetectable after death? Maybe my demise would be prolonged, intended to make me suffer. Of course there was death by drowning, but I rarely ventured near water these days, so that seemed unlikely.
My mind switched to scenes of torture until I was almost hyperventilating. Every scenario I dredged up felt like it belonged to fiction, too far-fetched and unlikely for real life, but the thought provided no comfort.
Whoever had sent those messages meant every word.
Chapter 5
I had the dream for the first time in ages. Bobbing by the sand on my blue and white inflatable, fingers trailing in the water as I looked through the rippling surface for the starfish Jamie had told me he’d seen. Then, my heart jerking with fear as it dawned on me that the seabed was no longer visible. I was moving too fast, dragged by an invisible current away from the beach. An angry wind had whipped up, sending clouds across the sun, tossing the waves into peaks. Whimpering, I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, gripping the sides of the slippery rubber Lilo, eyes raking the beach for my family, the people there reduced to Lego size. How could I have got so far away so quickly?
Can’t swim. Fear flooded my veins as I raised my arm to wave. When I opened my mouth to yell, the inflatable tipped, flipping me into the water.
The shock of the icy plunge snatched my breath as the water greedily sucked me down, filling my mouth, my nose, my lungs, salt water stinging my eyes.
I blinked and choked, limbs thrashing as I was tossed to the surface, fighting for air, hands reaching for the sky. Wordlessly screaming, Help me, help me, no breath to push the words out. Water closing over my head, pain blooming in my throat, spreading down and down. I was solid, a statue, sinking, sinking, eyes wide open, nothing but churning water and fire in my—
I shot upright with a choking gasp, one arm groping the air, the feeling of burning lava in my lungs as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
It took a moment for the images to disperse and my eyes to adjust to the familiar sight of my bedroom. Pale sunlight filtered through the curtains, slanting across the clotted-cream walls, bouncing off the edge of the mirror. I focused on the mattress beneath me, the feel of the cotton sheet I was grasping, the garden-scented air drifting through the open window.
Gradually, my pulse slowed.
Outside, the street was waking up. A dog barked – probably Baxter in the garden next door, let out for his morning snuffle around the hedges – and a burst of classical music, quickly muffled by the slam of a car door. Lewis, across the road, on his way to work as Head of IT for a local pharmaceutical company.
Pushing strands of damp hair from my forehead, I glanced at the digital glow of my ancient bedside clock: 7 a.m.
Vic had already left for the hospital; nothing but a hollow in the pillow beside me to indicate he’d been there. I pictured him moving quietly, not wanting to wake me after my restless night. I wished he’d brought me some coffee and kissed me before he left, like Matt used to do, before he headed downstairs to work on his latest web-design project.
Shaking off the memory, I lay back down, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes as I relived the dream. It wasn’t even a dream; more like recreating what had actually happened, but a heightened version, without the fun bits of that day; eating sand-gritted sandwiches on the stretch of sand at Perran Cove in Cornwall; Dad whacking his thumb with the mallet while putting up the windbreak; exploring the long, winding caves there with Jamie while Dad did a crossword in his newspaper, and Mum read her book, her shoulders turning pink in the sun.
If I thought back – which I tried not to do often – I had to force myself to remember that the beginning of our holiday in nearby Penzance, with its bustling streets and shops and busy harbour, had been idyllic; sun-drenched days, exploring smugglers’ tunnels, eating fish and chips, burying each other in sand, and staying up late for a bonfire party on Porthen Beach the night before the accident.
‘If only we hadn’t gone to Perran Cove,’ Mum had sobbed afterwards. Jamie and I had been promised a trip there and pestered from the moment we woke. ‘We should have had a lie-in and stayed near the cottage.’
She and Dad blamed themselves, citing the bottle of wine they’d shared the previous night for giving them fuzzy heads, meaning they hadn’t noticed more quickly what was happening, and when they did, for not being able to reach me. More importantly, they’d blamed themselves for not teaching me to swim. My fear of water had asserted itself early on. It had been easier not to force me back to the local swimming pool for lessons, but Dad had planned to teach me during that holiday.
‘I don’t understand why you went in,’ he’d wept – the first time I’d ever seen him cry. ‘I should have stopped you. What was I thinking?’
I didn’t understand it either, except I’d wanted to try out my new inflatable, and maybe there was something about the place that lulled me into a false sense of security – or Jamie’s promise that there were starfish in the sea and that the water wasn’t deep.
Since having Hayley, I understood more deeply the anguish they must have gone through. Despite being told that the wind had sprung up so quickly there’d been no warning, and that the lifeguard who should have been patrolling the coves had gone for a break, my parents felt they’d failed for not keeping me safe.
‘The sight of that man, staggering out of the water with you in his arms will never leave me. We thought you were dead,’ Mum cried at the hospital. He wasn’t the man who’d saved me. The man who swam out and grabbed me and kept my head above water until help arrived – whose face I couldn’t recall – had been washed away the moment I left his arms. Presumably too tired to battle the surging sea, he’d simpl
y vanished. No one knew until the holidaymaker who deposited me at my parents’ feet admitted he wasn’t the hero of the hour, just the person who’d happened to be out surfing and brought me back to shore. My rescuer’s body had washed up along the coast a few days later and wasn’t identified for a week.
I knew nothing about it at the time because my parents had done a good job of hiding what really happened. It was bad enough that I could barely look at a bath full of water without crying, never mind go near the sea again, and my drowning nightmares were so debilitating, I had to be medicated in order to sleep for a while. They hadn’t wanted the man’s death on my mind, on top of everything else, so had dealt with it privately.
I lay in bed for a while with a hand on my belly, drawing in deep breaths, trying to stay in the moment. What would Vic have made of me waking in a sweaty panic? I normally slept well, barely stirring once my head hit the pillow. Matt was the one who’d had to cope with the resurgence of the nightmare in the months after Hayley was born, when I was sleep-deprived and hormones were playing havoc with my emotions.
In the warm light of day, my fears from the night before were embarrassing. Had I really thought that Vic could have deleted the messages? Thank God I hadn’t asked him, just to be sure. He’d encountered enough obstacles since meeting me, from Hayley announcing, ‘You’re not my daddy,’ when I introduced them, to being ignored by Matt and threatened with having his legs broken if he hurt me by Grandpa Buckley. He’d be horrified if he even suspected what had gone through my mind.
Already tense, I reached for my phone and switched it on, exhaling when I saw that the only new message I’d had was from Vic. See you later, Sleeping Beauty. Try to have a good day and DON’T WORRY xx
Maybe I’d dreamed up the messages. It wasn’t lost on me that I was approaching the anniversary of my drowning day (Why do you have to call it that? Matt used to say.) In previous years, I’d noticed a subconscious response to the date, a vague feeling of doom, mind bouncing off flashes of memory: the feel of water trailing through my fingers; waking up in hospital and seeing Mum’s tear-ravaged face; Jamie, pale with pink-rimmed eyes, bringing me ice-cream because you didn’t get to have one; and my grandmother with a crumpled handkerchief pressed to her mouth, her normally immaculate hair askew after driving for five hours to check that I was OK.
