The Girl From the Sea

by Shalini Boland

  I hadn’t expected this.

  ‘So . . . then, you already know,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. It wasn’t anything you did. Sometimes these things happen. It was out of our control. We fell in love.’

  I must admit it’s a relief that he actually told her. That I don’t have to go into detail about it. But something’s not quite right. She’s smiling broadly now. My discomfort returns.

  ‘You poor, pathetic cow,’ she says. ‘You might be in love with Jack, but I’m afraid he doesn’t love you. He was distraught earlier. Begging me to forgive him. Said you were a stupid mistake. Said you meant nothing to him. Nothing at all.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ I say, shaking my head, trying to quell the sick feeling that’s rising in my gut. ‘Just trying to make yourself feel better. Trying to discredit what Jack and I have together. I can understand that.’

  ‘If you weren’t such a man-stealing whore, I could almost feel sorry for you,’ she says. Her tone is steely now. There’s no trace of the quiet blonde wife I’d always seen before. She has to be lying. It can’t be true. Jack is always telling me how he and Lucy are bored with each other. How refreshing I am. How funny and wild and exciting. And how the sex is incredible. He wouldn’t give me up just like that. He couldn’t. But I look at Lucy’s face in the moonlight and she’s smirking at me, a look of absolute triumph. She’s enjoying her revelation. Enjoying seeing me process her devastating information. It was supposed to be me enjoying my revelation. I was supposed to be the one seeing a look of shocked disbelief on her face. I was prepared to witness her anger, or preferably her tears. And then I would have consoled her. Told her that Jack was still fond of her, of course he was. But now he was with me.

  Instead, my features are twisted in shock. My chest hollow. I want to believe she’s lying. But I know deep down that she’s telling the truth. I can see it in the glitter of her eyes.

  What should I do now? Should I go and confront Jack? But what if he rejects me? If he truly loved me, surely he would have left Lucy already. They have no children together. No commitments other than their house. It would have been easy to leave her. But he hasn’t.

  My plans for a happy ever after with the man of my dreams are ruined. Destroyed by this smug-faced little bitch. A surge of rage wells up inside me. Fury that she is causing me such absolute heartbreak. Jack is the love of my life. My soulmate – I’m sure of it. Lucy is nothing.

  I growl in frustration and she laughs at me. She actually laughs out loud. I snarl and lunge forward, my hands grasping for her throat, knocking her back, desperate to put a stop to her mocking laughter. Her eyes widen and her mouth forms an ‘o’. Not laughing anymore, are you? I tumble with her onto the footpath. As she goes down, the side of her head hits one of the oversized rocks alongside the path. I hear a cracking sound, but I don’t register it properly. I’m too caught up in my rage.

  I fall on top of her, the air knocked from my lungs. But I’m not winded enough to stop what I’m doing. Not breathless enough to stop the squeeze of my fingers. I lift my head a fraction so I can see her face. I want to enjoy the fear in her eyes. To revel in the knowledge that I now have the upper hand. That I hold her life in my hands – literally. So she better not bloody well laugh at me again. But instead of fear, her eyes are wide open in shock. Blank shock.

  She looks . . . dead.

  But how can that be? I hadn’t wanted to kill her . . . had I? I simply needed to wipe the smile from her face. Anyone else would have done the same. If she hadn’t been so smug, I would never have . . . Never . . . I can’t believe she’s actually . . .

  It can’t be true. I scramble to my feet, my pulse racing, bile in my throat, my breath ragged. Shit. What have I done? I remember her hitting her head on the rock. That must have been what . . . killed her. I glance around. Then I drop to my knees again, lean over her inert body. She’s pretending, surely. Doing it to freak me out. To punish me.

  ‘Lucy,’ I hiss. ‘Get up. Lucy, please. Stop pissing about. Get up.’ I tug at her arm. Try to haul her upright. But she’s limp, her head lolling to the side like a doll. I let her drop back down to the ground. She really is dead. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Think, Mia. Think. I tap my head with my fingers, trying not to let hysteria take over. I could make it look like an accident. Yes, yes, yes, that would work. A rowing accident.

  I glance up again to check that no one is around. My stomach clenches as I spy a figure up ahead, beyond the car park, heading this way.

  It’s Jack.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  What can I do? How can I explain this to him? He won’t believe me. Usually, my heart lifts when I see him, but not this time. No. This time, my heart is sinking into the concrete path, puddling around my feet. He’s coming closer. What am I going to say to him? He jogs across the car park toward me. Lucy lies on the ground beside the boulder, partially obscured from his view. Why has Jack come? If only he’d stayed away I could have sorted this out myself. Now he’s here, I’ll have to think quickly. But what can I possibly say that will sound convincing.

  ‘Mia,’ he hisses across the car park. ‘Is Lucy here yet? Her car’s here. What the hell did you think you were doing, calling her up like that!’

  He’s almost here and my mind has gone blank. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him.

  Suddenly, he stops dead. He’s seen her.

  ‘Is that . . . Lucy?’ As if in slow-motion, he raises his eyes to meet mine. Normally a vivid aqua, they almost appear black in this pre-dawn light.

  ‘Mia . . . Mia! What have you done? Is she okay? What’s she . . . Lucy!’

  ‘Jack,’ I croak. ‘It’s not what it looks like. It was an accident.’

  ‘Is she okay? Have you called an ambulance?’ He rushes around the side of the rock and crouches down in front of her. ‘Lucy! He puts a hand to her cheek. Lifts her wrist to check her pulse. But it’s no good. I know it’s too late. ‘What have you done?’ He twists back to me with a look of such despair that it makes me catch my breath. ‘Lucy, Lucy. No!’ He’s turned back to her now, gathering her limp body to his chest and kissing her blonde hair. ‘I’m sorry, baby,’ he moans. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  I don’t know what to do. What to say. I just stand here watching him. Watching my plans come to nothing. Watching the man I love cry tears over another woman.

  He sobs over her body for what seems like forever. I don’t know what to do. Should I comfort him? Put my arms around him. Should I cry, too?

  ‘You killed her,’ he cries. ‘You killed Lucy!’ He lays her back down on the ground and rises to his feet. Takes a step towards me. ‘You murdered my wife, you psycho bitch!’ His face is streaked with tears. His expression taut, drawn, like a beast about to tear apart its prey.

  ‘It . . . it was an accident,’ I stutter, leaning back.

  ‘You meant to hurt her, though, didn’t you, Mia.’ He grabs my arms. Squeezes. ‘She told me . . . She told me you called her and asked to meet. Why would you do that? Making trouble. Why did you want to speak to my wife?’

  ‘You’re hurting me. I only came here to―’

  ‘To what?’ He lets my arms go, his hands now hanging by his sides.

  ‘You said you were going to leave her.’ I hear the whine in my voice. ‘But you never did. I thought if I told her about us . . . I thought she might kick you out and we would finally have a chance to be together properly. It’s what we always dreamed about.’

  He’s looking at the ground, shaking his head, mumbling to himself. He raises his eyes to look at me. ‘I never dreamed about it, Mia. That was your idea, not mine. And it still doesn’t explain why she’s lying on the ground, dead. Mia. Oh my God, I can’t believe this. What did you do? What happened?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you – it was an accident. A terrible accident.’

  ‘You keep saying that. But how . . .’ He reaches into his shorts pocket and pulls out his phone. ‘You can explain it to the police. I can
’t even look at you anymore. They can deal with you now.’

  ‘No,’ I say, scrambling through my brain for something to say that will make him change his mind. ‘Lucy . . . she was laughing at me. She said you told her about you and me. She said you would never leave her. Is that true?’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t going to leave my wife! But who cares about any of that now. She’s . . . What we did was wrong, Mia. I was married. I loved her. I messed up. And now she’s gone.’

  His words twist into my gut. How can he dismiss our relationship so easily? ‘But you said you were going to leave her. That we would be together.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I would never leave Lucy for someone like you. Someone so shallow and caught up in herself. I was weak.’ He spits out the words, like poison into my ears. ‘And now this. We never should have been together. You were a mistake, a terrible, awful mistake. And now she’s gone.’ Tears still roll down his cheeks.

  I feel like I’m in a nightmare. My hands are shaking, my whole body is numb. I begin to cry, too. I’m not weeping for the girl I’ve just killed, I’m weeping for the look in Jack’s eyes. His grief for Lucy and his hatred for me.

  ‘But I love you, Jack,’ I cry. I know my words are useless, but I can’t stop them spilling out of my mouth, trying to undo some of the damage, needing to make him feel what I’m feeling. ‘I know you love me too. It’s just the shock making you say those awful things.’

  ‘I never loved you.’ He grabs my upper arm with his left hand and shakes me viciously, his fingers digging into my flesh. ‘I hate you!’

  I barely register the pain in my arm. It’s nothing compared to the tearing grief ripping my insides apart. I’ve never experienced such hurt. Have I lost him forever? He lets go, a disgusted expression on his face, like I’m dirt, filth. Like I’m nothing, and he turns away, his head bowed over his phone.

  ‘She fell backwards,’ I sob. ‘It was an accident. She hit her head.’ But he’s not even listening. He’s staring at his phone. He’s going to call the police and have me arrested.

  I can’t let that happen.

  ‘What are you even doing here, Jack?’ I’m trying to distract him. I need a minute to think. ‘Why did you come down here? Was it to sort things out? To back me up?’

  ‘You’re deluded!’ he says. ‘When Lucy told me you wanted to speak to her, I was horrified. She wanted to confront you on her own. She said it would be better this way. But I was worried about her so I came looking. And I was right to be worried. But now it’s too late. I should never have let her come here by herself.’ Jack wipes at his eyes and blinks, staring at his phone, his fingers hovering over the screen. He takes a deep breath. ‘We need to call the police. Now.’

  It’s too bad Jack’s so insistent on calling the police. I’ve come up with a story, and I don’t want to do this, but he’s leaving me with no option:

  ‘I’ll tell them you did it,’ I say. ‘If you call them, I’ll say I saw you push your wife. That I rushed over to help her and you became even more aggressive.’

  He stops what he’s doing and stares at me in disbelief, his expression turning to hatred and anger once again. I never thought I’d ever see him look at me that way. It’s like a punch to the gut. Will he ever show me his loving smile again? The one that makes my body melt. I feel such an aching sense of loss. As though my insides have been scraped out. But, as much as I love him, I won’t let him destroy my life. If I’m going to be arrested, I’ll take him down with me. I must pull myself together and make him understand that I won’t let him ruin my life.

  ‘They’d never believe you,’ he says.

  ‘Really? Do you want to risk it? Because don’t they always suspect the husband in these situations? I’m pretty sure they’ll believe me over you – the “violent” husband.’ I mime air-quotes. ‘I’ll explain to the police how Lucy was my friend. How I called her earlier to check up on her, because she’d been confiding in me about you, about how scared she was of you. That she thought you were going to hurt her. How she asked me to meet her down here to plan her escape from you.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. They won’t believe that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘It’ll be your word against mine.’

  ‘No! You can’t . . .’ He pulls at his hair, his face screwed up in disgust. ‘You’re evil. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. How can you lie like that? How can you . . .’

  ‘Because I’m not going to prison for something that was an accident. And anyway, it’s as much your fault as mine. If you hadn’t cheated on your wife. Or if you’d left her like you promised, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘So this is my fault? I wasn’t even here! You’re delusional, Mia. A total nutjob. How could I not have seen that before?’ He shakes his head and then lunges at me, dropping his phone and grabbing me by the neck of my t-shirt. His other hand is curled into a fist, raised, ready to punch me.

  I cringe backwards, but I manage to stutter: ‘Go on, Jack, hit me. It’ll only make my story more convincing.’

  He glowers at me, eyes narrowed, top lip curled back from his teeth. But he gradually releases his grip on me and lowers his fist. Then he tears his gaze from mine and bends to retrieve his mobile.

  ‘Put the phone away, Jack.’ I say, trying to steady my voice.

  He’s shaking his head, but he isn’t making the call. I think he’ll see it my way. Otherwise, he risks being arrested for murder. I need to get my shit together. We can do this. And then, when he’s calmer, later, he’ll see that we had a good thing, that we really are perfect for each. This will bond us, connect us again. When everything has settled down, we can be together once more, this time without Lucy in the picture. I have this perfect vision of Jack and me – married, with children, growing old together.

  But first . . . first, we have to get through tonight.

  A plan is forming in my mind. Of how we can do this and have everything turn out okay. I think . . . I think this whole episode might have been fate. A way for me and Jack to finally be together properly without all the need for secrecy and sneaking around.

  ‘You’re going to help me get rid of her body,’ I say. ‘We’ll make it look like an accident. That she capsized and drowned. Okay?’

  ‘What! What are you planning to do, Mia?’ he says. ‘You can’t just dump her in the river. You can’t! That’s my wife. You can’t do that.’

  ‘No, she’s got a head injury. We need to row out to the rocks near the harbour mouth. Make it look like she had an accident out there.’

  ‘You can’t seriously expect me to―’

  ‘The river boats are too unstable,’ I continue. ‘We’ll need a sea boat to get her out there.’

  ‘I won’t do it. It’s monstrous. What you’re suggesting is―’

  ‘It’s either that, or you’re going to prison for a very long time,’ I say. ‘And we need to act quickly, before the sun comes up and the whole world descends on the quay for the day.’

  To my relief, he slips his phone back into his pocket. I may need to try and get that off him, in case he changes his mind.

  We spend the next ten minutes hauling a coastal four-seater out of the boat shed and setting it down on the shingle. We don’t speak. Jack shoots me filthy looks, but I ignore them. This is a shock for both of us, but we have to be practical. There’s nothing we can do to save Lucy, but why should we both suffer because she died? No. We need to dispose of her body, and then we can go back to getting on with our lives.

  I stride back up to the edge of the car park. ‘Help me put her in the boat,’ I say, bending down towards Lucy’s body.

  ‘Get away from her,’ he growls.

  ‘Fine. You put her in the boat then.’ I forgive him his temper – this is a shock. A stressful situation.

  He turns and squats by her side, dropping his head in his hands.

  ‘Quickly,’ I say. ‘If someone comes along we’re screwed.’

  ‘For God’s sake, she’s my
wife. Give me a minute.’ Finally, after what seems like an age, he scoops Lucy’s body up in his arms and stands. It hurts me to see the tender look he gives her, the kiss he places on her forehead, the tears still flowing freely down his cheeks. My heart twists with jealousy as I realise he may actually have loved her.

  ‘Put her in the boat,’ I say, wanting him to relinquish his hold on her. To stop gazing at her. I want this over. I want her at the bottom of the river.

  He does as I ask, hardening his features and staggering down to the river’s edge. I follow him. Watch as he lays Lucy in the stern of the boat, her body curled around itself on the boat floor, her blonde hair splayed across her face, a smear of blood from the back of her head stark across the white fibreglass.

  ‘Now, take her sandals off and throw them on the bank. You can take them home with you, later.’

  He slips her sandals off her pale feet and places them carefully on the shingle.

  ‘We’ll have to bring the river boat with us, too. It has to look like an accident. Like she went out on her own and capsized.’

  I jog back up to the boatshed, find a length of rope and grab a set of blades. I stride back towards the river to see Jack just standing there, staring down at his wife’s body, fresh tears dripping down onto her lifeless form. We don’t have time for this.

  ‘You need to get a pair of blades,’ I say. ‘And another pair . . . for Lucy.’

  He scowls and walks back up to the boatshed, shoulders hunched. At least he’s doing as I ask. He’s not arguing anymore. I glance around to make sure no one’s coming. To check nobody’s lurking in the shadows, watching us.