Meet Me on the Beach

by Hilary Boyd

  “You’re a real miracle worker,” Karen told him, as she noticed Sophie eating every tiny delicious morsel she was offered. “Not only do you rescue damsels in distress but you feed them up, back to health and strength, too.”

  The meal had indeed brought color to her stepdaughter’s pinched features, and a look of pleasure—almost contentment—that Karen hadn’t seen for a long time.

  “Picnics for me are ham sandwiches and a punnet of strawberries in a cool-bag,” she said, remembering the beach and William’s bare feet in the sand. The memory stabbed her like a lance and she pushed it firmly away. “Although they used to be chicken and ham paste baps and tomato soup when I was a child.”

  Patrick chuckled. “You’re lucky you had picnics. We didn’t. Everything I ate as a child was out of a tin: potatoes, peas, corned beef, pork luncheon meat, peaches with Carnation milk as a special treat on Sundays. A gastronomic desert. When I left home I vowed never to eat anything tinned ever again.”

  “What’s Carnation milk?” Sophie asked.

  Patrick laughed. “Ooh, it was marvelous. Evaporated milk, it was like an alternative to cream back when we didn’t all have fridges. Went splendidly with peaches.”

  “Daddy loved corned beef,” Sophie said, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. “He used to have it with sliced tomato and bread for his lunch.”

  “Dear Harry,” Patrick murmured. “He loved you so much, you know.”

  Sophie’s tears slid silently down her cheeks as she lay back on the pillows, head turned to the side. Karen knew she should say something, anything decent about her husband. He had been a loving father, as Patrick said. But the degree to which he had spoiled his daughter had also ruined her life, helped drive her to this drastic point. Now, she felt tongue-tied in the awkward lull.

  “Maybe you’d better get some sleep, Sophie,” she said, eventually.

  “Yeah . . . probably.” Sophie sniffed and reached for a tissue.

  Patrick packed the picnic things back into the wicker basket with great precision. “I’ll be back in the morning to see how you are, dear heart,” he said as he dropped a light kiss on her forehead.

  She smiled tiredly, thanked him again for the beautiful meal. “I hope I’ll be home tomorrow.” Sophie looked anxiously at them both for confirmation.

  “I imagine so,” Karen agreed.

  She said goodbye too and followed Patrick down the corridor and out to the car park.

  “I’ll go on thanking you for this until the day I die,” she said, giving him a long hug and bringing a blush to his aging cheek.

  *

  The house felt eerie with the atmosphere of near-death when Karen got home, especially as Largo was still with Jennifer. She couldn’t help herself picturing Sophie, alone and in terrible distress, coming to the tipping point, deciding how many pills she would take, pressing them out of the blister pack, drinking the cold medicine, waiting, waiting for something to happen. She must have been so scared, and in such total despair. Did she have a moment when she regretted her actions, but it was too late to do anything about it?

  “How am I going to cope with a suicidal stepdaughter?” she asked Mike, who had phoned to see how Sophie was.

  “Awkward, you guys not being that close and all. Be easier if you knew her better.”

  “Yeah, she barely spoke a civil word to me when Harry was alive. And although it’s got a lot better recently, I still don’t feel I really understand her.”

  “All that sitting around does nobody any good. I’d want to shoot myself if I had nothing to do all day. Send her to me, I’ll work her so hard she won’t have time to breathe, let alone feel suicidal.”

  Karen laughed. “Wish I could. It’d be the best tonic in the world.”

  “She’d have to be better than Gina . . .” He paused. “Are you OK?”

  “You mean apart from feeling guilty about Sophie, cringing with embarrassment at kissing you, totally exhausted and gutted to have lost William?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, you know . . . just dandy.”

  She heard Mike chuckle. “That’s my girl! Listen, come and visit if you get the chance. Things’ll calm down here from now on, so we’ll have a bit more time.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that.”

  *

  She sat with Patrick in his garden, wrapped in her coat, sipping a large frothy coffee and nibbling a croissant around ten the following morning. It was brilliant sunshine, the autumn air was so clear and inviting they neither of them could bear to stay inside.

  “It’s a shame Sophie can’t avail herself of our dear vicar’s wisdom,” Patrick said as he helped himself to more homemade blackcurrant jam.

  “Why can’t she? I think it would really do her good to talk to him. He was so brilliant with me after Harry died. And I’m sure he wouldn’t be judgmental about the suicide thing. He’s not like that,” Karen said.

  “Judgmental or not, darling, if he’s not here he can’t help her.”

  “Not here?”

  Patrick’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Ooh!” Patrick was relishing his power to surprise. “The news has got the village by its ears . . .” He paused for effect. “Reverend Haskell has done a bunk.”

  “William? What do you mean?” The words sounded so forced, her cheeks instantly draining of color. She hadn’t told Patrick about her relationship with Will. Although she would have liked to confide in the actor, he loved to gossip too much and she knew he would never have been able to keep her secret.

  “I’m amazed you haven’t heard. No, he just upped sticks on Thursday and ran out on poor Janey without so much as a by-your-leave. Didn’t tell her where he was going or why. And quit the Church, if rumor’s to be believed. Mrs. J had the low-down when she came in on Friday. Apparently, he might have been a naughty boy, bit of a ding-dong with some woman in the parish. I’d love to know who.”

  Karen was having trouble breathing.

  “She said Janey was in a right old state, which is to be expected, of course, poor dear. But no one’s seen her since Friday either. Seems she packed her bags and went to stay with her mum, or at least that’s what Jennifer said when I took Largo over. But gossip can never be relied upon, can it?” He frowned. “Karen? What’s the matter? You look desperately pale all of a sudden.” The delight at a juicy tale so clear on Patrick’s face a moment ago had been replaced by concern.

  She brushed her hand over her sweaty forehead. “I’m OK. Too much caffeine, I expect.”

  Her mind was in turmoil. Here it was—the moment she’d been secretly waiting for, the moment when things did actually change. But William was gone.

  “Someone must know where he is,” she managed to say.

  “Haskell? I don’t think anyone much cares, do they? Such a dreadful thing to do, just walking out like that. Poor Janey, who really is the perfect wife. So humiliating. And what about us, his parishioners? He obviously doesn’t give a tinker’s cuss for his responsibilities. You really would expect better from a man of God. Jennifer is incandescent about it all.”

  “Maybe he had a breakdown . . . you don’t know what goes on in people’s heads, as we’ve discovered with Sophie.”

  “True, but William always seemed so sane, so dedicated. All those wonderful things he did for the old people and those disabled kids over at the archery club. And there’s no question he loved his wife. Couldn’t he have done the decent thing and had a breakdown at home?”

  “He’s probably only gone for a day or so . . . to clear his head. He’s bound to be back.”

  “You’d have thought. But Mrs. J says that Sheila says that he told Janey the whole thing was over and to forget him. As if she could! Very peculiar indeed, don’t you think?”

  Peculiar, thought Karen, is an understatement.

  But it did sound like William in his current mood of despair. That time she had bumped into him on the hill he’d been alm
ost catatonic with guilt and self-blame. Maybe he really had just given it all up.

  Patrick held his hands up in a theatrical shrug. “Nowt so queer as folk, as my old mum used to say.”

  Karen tried to smile. “I suppose I’d better get off to the hospital. Sophie texted me to say the shrink was coming at eleven. She’s hoping to get out after that.”

  “Are you worried about having her home?”

  “Yes. I’m worried as hell, worried that if I turn my back she’ll try again.”

  Patrick thought about this for a moment. “I have a feeling she won’t. She seemed pretty relieved she was alive—which, if you were truly intent on ending it all, you wouldn’t be, you’d be furious that you’d failed.”

  “Maybe . . . but how will I know?”

  Patrick pulled her into one of his famous bear hugs, strength, comfort and kindness radiating from him like a physical heat. Karen didn’t fight it.

  “You know I’m here, dearest, even if I’m not. Always on the other end of the phone if you need me.”

  “She would be dead if it weren’t for you,” Karen whispered, the full, tragic enormity of what had just happened to Sophie hitting her yet again.

  “Yes, yes, well, she’s not. And you mythering about whether she is or not, or whether she might be or not, isn’t going to help the girl. Just give her lots of love and chicken soup and she’ll come round, you’ll see.”

  Karen laughed. “Thanks, Patrick, I couldn’t—”

  “Don’t! You’ve thanked me far too much for doing what anyone would have done in similar circumstances. Now, go!”

  *

  The first thing Karen did as she sat in the car about to drive to the hospital to pick up Sophie was to phone William. His mobile went straight to voicemail, as if he were on the line, and she left a message: “Will, it’s me. Ring me.”

  She was sure that he would be in touch. Although a man who could walk out on so much must be in a pretty deranged state. And she felt partially responsible, of course. Because what had seemed like something so private and contained, just between the two of them, had slowly burgeoned into a nightmare that affected everyone. Although she had always known what they were doing had an explosive potential, she had not foreseen this outcome.

  Surely he would come home. Where would he go otherwise?

  Karen realized she knew very little about his extended family. His father was dead—and his grandmother, of course—and he didn’t have any siblings. She was worried for him. As Patrick said, it was so out of character. What if he were really ill, suicidal even? She dismissed the thought quickly—it was too painful to contemplate—and started the car.

  I don’t have time to think about this now, she told herself. I have to concentrate on Sophie.

  *

  Sophie was quiet on the way home. She wanted to go straight to her room, which Karen had cleared up as best she could the night before. Sophie had been right to say it was a mess. Aside from the unmade bed and stale vomit on the sheets, there were piles of clothes draped over every surface—even hanging from the window and the edge of the cupboard—plates, glasses, mugs with festering remains of coffee or tea, magazines torn and squashed open, piles of computer printouts, a bulging wastepaper basket, numerous make-up items scattered here and there, creams, perfume, wipes, jewelry, scarves, shoes . . . It was like a teenager’s room, not that of a woman of thirty.

  Nervously, Karen waited for Sophie’s reaction to her efforts. But the girl just sank down on the bed, sat there, her hands in her lap, and looked around.

  “I thought I’d better get it straight,” Karen said.

  Sophie smiled. “Thanks, you didn’t have to.”

  “Shall I bring up some lunch?”

  The girl didn’t reply, but Karen went downstairs and heated up some soup, made some toast and butter. She had to eat. It wasn’t quite Patrick Gascoigne’s standard, but she knew Sophie liked tomato soup.

  Setting the tray down on the now-cleared desk in the bedroom, Karen was about to leave Sophie to it, when she said, “Don’t go.”

  Karen hesitated, then perched on the armchair, feeling slightly self-conscious. Her stepdaughter got up and sat at the desk, brushing her chaotic hair back from her face and into a ponytail holder she pulled from her wrist, then began to take cautious sips without moving the bowl from the tray.

  After a few moments, she turned to Karen. “You don’t have to feel responsible for me, you know,” she said. “I foisted myself on you, but that doesn’t mean you have to look after me. I’m a grown woman.”

  It seemed to be a speech she had rehearsed. Karen didn’t know how to respond. She did feel responsible for her now, after what Sophie had done, but she didn’t want to say as much.

  “I’ve been a total pain, I know it,” Sophie went on, laying the spoon down on the tray, soup barely touched, and lifting her socked feet on to the bar of the desk chair, wedging her hands under her thighs in a childlike gesture. “You didn’t want me living here, and I can understand that. But it was only supposed to be for a few months, I thought I’d get something together sooner and move back to London. And then . . . it didn’t happen . . .” She bent her head and fell silent.

  “It’s not been an easy time for you.”

  “Nor you, either. And it can’t have helped having me hanging around being so bratty all the time.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Really? I wouldn’t have wanted me around being like that.”

  Karen smiled. “OK, well, it wasn’t great. But then my behavior hasn’t been exactly brilliant either.”

  The girl nodded. “Well, what I’m saying is, I’m sorry. And I’ll try to do better in the future.”

  “I’m sorry too, Sophie. Really sorry. OK, I’m not technically responsible for you, but I could have been a lot more sensitive.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Hey, what are we like? Bring on the hair shirts,” Sophie said, then added, “but seriously, I’m really going to make an effort to get myself sorted.” She paused. “That scared me . . . what I did.”

  “Good, but don’t pile more pressure on yourself. It’ll take a while before you feel properly better.”

  *

  Karen left Sophie to sleep and took the tray downstairs, where she stacked the lunch things in the dishwasher.

  She checked her mobile again. Still nothing from William.

  Dying to find out more details about his disappearance, she wondered who might know the truth, not the gossip. Sheila might, or Jennifer, she thought. But she didn’t know what Janey had said to them. She balked at asking either woman the details, only to read in their faces that they knew about her involvement already. It was pretty unlikely, surely, that Janey, in the throes of her husband’s defection, wouldn’t at some stage have blurted out Karen’s name as the cause of all her misery.

  Her instinct was to lie low and wait for someone to say something, so that she could see how the land lay. But the village gossip machine, if Janey had fingered her, would be in full swing by now, anyway. She couldn’t hide. She would know immediately she went out and bumped into a local whether she had become persona non grata in the community.

  She was desperate to talk to Will. But if he were determined not to speak to her, there was little she could do. Presumably the church email wouldn’t work if he had left his post. How would she find him? Should she even be thinking of finding him? It was a low thing to do, leaving Janey like that. Running away. Childish. But she wasn’t convinced he was in his right mind. Be careful what you wish for, she thought. I wanted him to be free and now he is. Free of me as well as everything else.

  In the end she decided she would tackle Sheila before she went to pick up Largo from Jennifer. She was always in the church on a Monday evening, clearing up the flowers from the weekend. A kind, uncomplicated woman, Karen would just have to take it on the chin if she blamed her.

  The church door was open. At first Kar
en couldn’t see Sheila. It was raining heavily outside and the nave was unusually gloomy.

  “Sheila?”

  There was no reply, then the door to the vestry swung open and Sheila, wearing a padded maroon gilet over a pale-blue sweater and jeans, came into the chancel carrying two tall glass vases. She jumped when she saw Karen.

  “Oh, Karen . . . didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Hi, Sheila. How’s it going?”

  Sheila kept walking, taking the vases to the back of the church where she bent down, resting them carefully on the stone floor by the door.

  “Not so bad. Need to give these a good wash and it’s impossible in that piddly sink.” As she stood up, she raised her eyebrows at Karen in a question. “Did you want something, dear?”

  Karen, suddenly wishing herself a million miles away, found it hard to frame her question, even though Sheila’s tone held no hint that she knew anything bad about Karen.

  “Umm . . . I was passing and I wondered if you’d heard any more about Reverend Haskell.”

  Sheila let out a long sigh. “Well, wasn’t that a turn-up for the books? I couldn’t believe my ears when Janey told me.” She sat down in the open pew near the door, at the end of which were stacked neat piles of prayer books. “I don’t know what on earth went on. There must have been trouble in his head he wasn’t sharing with anyone, not even his poor wife.”

  “Patrick told me William didn’t even say where he was going.”

  “That’s right. It was after breakfast on Thursday, apparently. He hadn’t dressed in his black shirt and dog collar, which was unusual, Janey said, and he was dead quiet at breakfast. But he often was quiet, apparently, when he was thinking out a sermon or whatever. Then he suddenly asked her to sit down and jumped straight in, she said, told her he was leaving that minute and that she was to forget she’d ever known him.”

  “God . . . what did Janey do?”

  Sheila shrugged. “Not much she could do, poor soul. She said she just stood there in shock. She asked where he was going, tried to reason with him, but it seems the reverend had made up his mind, wouldn’t be budged.” She got to her feet. “No rhyme or reason to what folks’ll get up to. There’s a man who had everything. Loving family, dedicated to his work, part of a proper community . . . and he turns his back on the lot. Just can’t make head nor tail of it, I can’t.”