AN
HONEST
DECEIT
AN
HONEST
DECEIT
GUY MANKOWSKI
urbanepublications.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016
by Urbane Publications Ltd
Suite 3, Brown Europe House, 33/34 Gleaming Wood Drive,
Chatham, Kent ME5 8RZ
Copyright © Guy Mankowski, 2016
The moral right of Guy Mankowski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-911129-97-4
EPUB 978-1-911129-98-1
MOBI 978-1-911129-99-8
Design and Typeset by Michelle Morgan
Cover by Michelle Morgan
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
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The publisher supports the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®), the leading international forest-certification organisation. This book is made from acid-free paper from an FSC®-certified provider. FSC is the only forest-certification scheme supported by the leading environmental organisations, including Greenpeace.
THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO MY PARENTS, VIVIENNE AND ANDREW MANKOWSKI, WHO HAVE BEEN THERE FOR ME FOR THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
PART TWO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
‘MUM, WHERE DO FISH GO in the winter? They’re not in the sea any more. I’ve checked.’
A small, dark bob pokes out from behind a small rowing dinghy, placed a few feet from the sea. The girl attached to it is lying belly up, as if the ocean has just handed her over to us.
‘Mum’ does not answer, and so Marine, with her sandy nose, looks me.
‘Daddy, where do fish go in the winter? Mum’s not sure. But they’re not in the sea any more. I’ve checked.’
If I close my eyes, then I am straight back in that moment. Not remembering it, but back in it. When that moment occurred the scene on the beach felt so permanent. Have you ever had moments like that in your own life? When you exist out of time, and feel privileged to be away from the petty concerns of life? As I did in that pale, milky moment, tinged with sand and faint sun. As my five-year-old daughter Marine, on her first visit to the sea, tried to make sense of the foaming, swaying mass in front of her, I experienced such an instant.
I moved from my warm seat on the white sand to watch her take in the morning tide.
That moment still exists at my core. Its soundtrack is the distant clink of boat rigging on an undulating ocean. Its scent is the smell of rubber from speedboats, glistening from a mellow shore. My young family are, at that moment, concerned only with the sand and the subtle pleasures of the August sun. We have no other problems.
That scene has the same texture as all my other memories from that weekend. In it everything is spiced with salty air. The world is slick with brine, and the sea is ready to redden our fragile bodies after a moment of contact. Our family had entered a mythical pact with the surroundings that weekend. The sea promised to take care of us and we, in turn, promised to cherish it.
Marine was ours then. She belonged only to Juliette and I. She was yet to be swept along by forces we could not control. Slender, slim-limbed Marine, in a stripy, blue and white summer dress. That summer, whenever she smiled, she tended to squint, as if overpowered by the sudden happiness of it all. It was the summer that she kept pulling Juliette’s hair over her mouth, and laughing at the thought of her mother having a moustache. To answer her question I remember just shrugging. Her head disappeared back behind that small dinghy.
We had left for the beach early that morning. The parts of London that had decamped to the island over summer had been making their way back home over the past few days, and I could not resist wanting to bathe my family in that glacial morning light once more before we left. I remembered it all so vividly from when I was a young boy. The exoticism of the moored boats in the harbor, each laced with the salt of former journeys. The dissolved mysteries of summer.
When I closed my eyes I knew that on opening them, Marine would be there. Right now I want to grasp that feeling so hard that I consume it. I know that in that memory, if I walk just a few yards down the golden incline of the beach, Marine will be hiding behind the dinghy. She will simply be consumed with making a pristine sandcastle, and her eyes will be bedazzled by waves. Sometimes, I like to go back there, because Marine lives in that space. With her essence fully realized, as she works out the secret behavior of water with her toes.
We had gone to this part of the island to get away from it all for a long weekend by the sea, just the four of us. My father, during his rounded, assured lifetime, had built boats in a large hut on the coast. It seemed right that Marine had such a fascination with the sea, given that my father had dedicated a lifetime to taming it. I’d spent many summers on the island as a child, and had long known that some of the east coast had pale, secluded beaches ideal for a family that wanted to be alone. Juliette hadn’t had a holiday in nearly two years, and it showed in the whiteness of her skin. She looked as if she was made of china that weekend.
Juliette and I had worked hard to give our young family a home, and now and then we reminded one another that we should stop and savor it. Juliette always smiled with relief when she heard that. She needed to hear that her tireless work wasn’t in vain, and so we agreed. Four days away; I would find us one of those eccentric bed and breakfast cottages by the coast, run by a batty couple who swim in the sea throughout Winter.
It isn’t easy to return to that beach now. Perhaps because I know that the moment I am there Christian will be two again, and Marine will be five, and nothing will have changed. Marine will be living out her secret games, the rules of which we never understood. I know also I will be reminded of the nonchalant passage of time, and I will still do anything to not be reminded of that.
When I look back to that time, I should remember a glow of perfect happiness. But it isn’t that simple. I was young back then, I had just finished university but I already had responsibilities: a family. I had to be able to answer questions, to offer instant solutions, but I lacked the confidence of experience. I had a young partner, who I barely knew. I sometimes wondered if she had secrets that made her even less prepared for the journey ahead than I was. It was this sense of her secrecy, of removal, that had somehow prevented me proposing to her, but I still needed her to help hold this fragile raft of a family together. Somehow I had already realized that I had to treat her very carefully. But I did not yet know why.
Juliette had fallen pregnant with Marine quickly, and we hadn’t ever had time to get to know one another before our daughter blossomed in our lives. But Juliette had character, and integrity, and together we got through the transition. We were a couple. But it was only on that cool and melancholy day that we arrived on the island, when we got out of the taxi on the promenade, that I remember feeling for the first time I had been handed a family. They were all mysteries to me. As they remain.
In the evenings we ate at the local sailing club, with friends. It was, in many ways, the last place
I would have chosen. It was a small playground for the rich, a place for them to clumsily exchange clumsy boasts after a day of unnecessarily competitive racing. But my father, the man who had built the class of boat they raced, had gained a special status there.
Just before we sat down with the group to eat there was a strange moment. It was one in which I perhaps could have read a blueprint of the troubles ahead, if I was more perceptive. I was looking at a photo of my father with the first yacht he built, which the sailing club kept in a thick glass case by the bar. A beguiling scent of perfume preceded Juliette’s approach behind me.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asked. I realized that I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture, in which my father looked remarkably like me. He had a wild thatch of hair and his overalls were covered in oil. But the face was the same.
‘A picture of my Dad,’ I said, turning it towards her. ‘Did you know that he wanted me take over his business?’ I’d had a few drinks by now, and had to secure the bar for grip. She peered in at the picture. I took in the finely crafted features of her face, as she tucked a lock of hair over her ear. ‘Do you ever feel like you have let your parents down?’ I asked.
I was not expecting much of a response. Juliette looked up at the chandelier overhead, and as its light blasted over her face, she blinked.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked. She was silent as two tears traced the shape of her cheekbones. Their route - one to the ear, and one to the floor - was as unexpected as her reaction.
‘What did I say?’
She shook her head, her lips smiling in mock dismissal. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Let’s leave it, shall we?’
I had only ever met her parents very briefly. I didn’t have enough information to ruminate with, and I was too woozy to think straight just then anyway. I shook the incident out of my mind, and got on with the evening.
We ate on the veranda outside of the bar. Our table overlooked a darkened, hushed sea. I remember Juliette’s hair illuminating as she leant forwards to pass me a bottle of wine. That evening Juliette only smiled when I asked when we should return to the children, who were enjoying the company of an old friend. A slight smile played at the corners of her mouth as she looked up at me. I could not think what had changed her mood. I realized Juliette was a puzzle, a puzzle which I had now committed a whole lifetime to solving.
The sky was almost pitch black when we bade farewell to our friends. This night had started to reveal its hidden index, the words from its hidden pages whispering around the benches on the sea front. The route ahead was decorated with the detritus of summer. The boats covered in tarpaulins, the shuttered beach shops, the cafes loaded with upturned tables. It all made for a melancholy, charming spectacle.
Juliette and I had a brief walk home, along the promenade and down the small winding lane to our B&B. It sat high above the yawning sea, where the rest of our family would be fast asleep by now. I felt that the evening had belatedly returned Juliette to me, tired and happy, and for the first time a little unwrapped. It was so rare for the two of us to have time alone together for a walk. We so rarely get to linger in the moods we constantly reach for, in our favorite songs and books. So when that flickering moment arrives we try to discipline ourselves to feel at home there.
I remember the way Juliette swung her arms from side-to-side, almost dancing as she walked. ‘Are you happy?’ I asked.
‘I think I’m as close as I can be,’ she said.
I didn’t ask what she meant, as I felt satisfied by the way her eyes burnt with some rare desire. That night she embodied all the promises of the young woman I had first met. All her suppressed inclinations were now expressed through her movement, in vibrant colors. The usual subtleties of her mannerisms had grown strong with wine and, I hoped, love. I took her in for one blessed moment – the long curve of her body, the aspirations to better lifestyles captured in her smile. I experienced the inexplicable realization that I would sacrifice a lot to make her happy in the years to come, but that I would also never feel quite convinced that I had succeeded.
I only have one more significant memory of that weekend. Just before we packed the car for the ferry home, Marine insisted we use a spare hour to visit the beach one more time. It was the morning our daughter asked us both that question about the sea. Basking in the white blast of the morning sun, Marine picked up smooth pebbles to treasure when she returned home. She would cherish that weekend her whole life, and nurture the thought of playing on the beach whilst my father’s boats watched on. Juliette pulled off her plimsolls and ventured one last time into the sea, alone.
I watched her step into it. Sail-less yachts dipped and rose on silver beams of water. Juliette swam out so far that I wondered if I should shout for her to turn around. The waves became so tall that for a few minutes I couldn’t see her small, dark head.
I began to panic. But, as small waves offered a lull, I saw that my she was still swimming to the horizon. She seemed driven by some passion that I had never known, her slim arms chopping the water. Determined. Soon she had disappeared again. The terror rose in me once more. I had lost her. I looked and looked - nothing.
I stood up, and ran to the edge of the water. I could no longer see her amongst the waves. It was only as they eased that I saw Juliette, half-a-mile into the ocean, visible from the waist up. Through a veil of morning mist I could just make out her sleeking her long hair over her head, reveling in her solitude. Far from drowning, Juliette had found a sandbank, and had been standing on it all along. Those large waves were nowhere near her. They had passed around her. She had remained untouched.
PART ONE
ONE
IT’S ONLY NOW that I see how much Juliette has changed, after what we had to survive soon after that weekend. As young people, neither her nor I seemed to outwardly possess any toughness, but she was certainly the more fragile of the two of us. I know I have changed too; it’s just that I prefer not to consider what I might have become.
The Juliette I first met was a closed book. Although she was yet to come into focus, certain edges of her were creeping to the fore. When I remember her, I see someone who is yet to step out of her own darkness.
Juliette and I were at the same college at university. On the afternoon my Dad drove me to my new home I was enchanted. Enchanted by the silver, winding rivers and cobbled streets of that city. The roads that wound past illuminated windows. Each of which contained entrancing silhouettes, flitting amongst one another. We drove past immaculate grass lawns, on which vinyl-haired women carried paperbacks. It seemed to like the Promised Land. Though only I had promised it to myself.
I had been brought up in the sticks, in a village so remote that I had never experienced the bustle of a city. I had become so crushingly familiar with the place that I knew the intricacies of each street, each shop, and each corner. I’d notice the moment some aspect of it was altered, and in noticing such tiny details I then felt suffocated. I had sometimes wondered if I was the protagonist in some 70’s sci-fi series, in which a man can’t escape the confines of his hometown, no matter how hard he tries. I wasn’t just desperate to get out, I was as uncultured as the most awkward country bumpkin, and I wanted to remedy that before my new peers realized it was the case. I had never been to see a band play, never had a girlfriend, and had never experimented with anything other than sleep deprivation caused by adolescent worry.
I was studying English Literature, simply because it was the only subject in which I had gained even a decent grade at school. I was captivated by the contents of books at that age. During my last year at school I realized that the more I immersed myself in books, the less I had to worry about the outside world.
Our college had an air of functionality about it, with its sturdy apartment blocks and symmetrical plazas. When I first laid eyes on Juliette it was in the refectory. It was a lunchtime in the first term. I was sat on the table opposite hers, eating with some new acquaintances from my floor. They were debating the merits of
a Harold Pinter production that they’d seen the day before. I barely understood a word they were saying.
Juliette had her head down, and she was static in the midst of three girlfriends, each of whom were chatting animated. Juliette’s attention was completely consumed by a crumpled piece of paper in her hands, which she was looking at with great concern. So much so, that when her friends rose as one to fetch coffee Juliette stayed fixed to her seat. She only stirred when a friend caught her arm. She looked up. Rich dark curls framed a face that seemed almost too dramatic. I had never seen such a fragile expression, and yet her more assertive friends seemed to fuss around her as if she was one of their own. I must have smiled at her, because she smiled back, with what looked like relief. I remember hoping that I looked sympathetic to whatever plight was occupying her. But I suppose I must have done, because when I joined the queue behind her for a drink she looked back at me, and tucked her hair behind one ear with a vague smile. All this was enough to encourage me. In my inexperienced mind, this very English exchange of polite glances was a passionate tango, a roll in the hay - a spontaneous dance in a summer meadow.
I can’t describe the extent to which, at that age, I found women exotic. Juliette’s friends were no exception. After they returned, as one, to sip from steaming cups at their table, I noticed how they all had powder blue or scarlet winter coats. Strangely enough, if wasn’t their appearances which intrigued me; it was the way they approached their work. As I sipped my drink, and let my new friend gas uninterrupted, they each took out their books. For me, study was an obligation, the rough end of a pact that also offered me some freedom. To these women, university seemed a very serious opportunity, something to be grasped with both hands. I found their combination of discipline and femininity beguiling. At that time, all the possible apparatus that came with woman-from pashminas to lip-gloss- seemed enticingly foreign.
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