Beneath the Water

by Sarah Painter

  As she’d expected.

  Stella resumed her position, drinking her coffee and gazing out at the garden, acting as though nothing was amiss. Her skin tingled as if aware of being watched. Stella imagined the photographer behind the camera, wondered what they were thinking as they watched her sip her coffee. She knew Jamie didn’t want her to alert the illicit photographer that they had been caught, but then it occurred to her to wonder why.

  A second later she saw Jamie moving stealthily along the side of the hedge, shielded from the view of where she had seen the flash of light. Seeing him at this distance, moving with quiet purpose and with his solid, muscular figure, he looked almost dangerous. For a second, Stella could see why everybody kept warning her away. He was going to confront the intruder. At once Stella felt a spurt of fear, saw images of punches thrown, the glint of light on a knife blade. Ridiculous. She was letting her overactive danger-reaction lead again, but her heart was pounding nonetheless. Stella put her palm to her chest as she scanned the hedge for another flash of light, a sign that the photographer was still there.

  The camera seemed to have gone. Or it had been a figment of her imagination. Or Jamie had caught some skinny boy with an iPhone and was beating the crap out of him. There was an intensity to Jamie’s wish for privacy that bordered on the pathological. Stella continued to scan the garden, paralysed by indecision about what else to do.

  After ten minutes, Stella began to really worry. She went to the back door and dithered for a few minutes, wondering whether to get a torch and go out into the gathering dark to look for Jamie. Unable to decide, she stood on the threshold with the door wide open, listening. It was eerily quiet, with just the rustling of wind in the trees.

  Another ten minutes crept by, and Stella had just decided that she would go and find Esmé in her private quarters, ask the housekeeper for advice, when Jamie banged through the door and pulled his boots off. He was sweaty and dishevelled and smelled of the cold outside. Stella felt her heart hammering as she trailed him down the hall and into the sitting room. She balled up a fist against her ribs. ‘What happened? Are you all right?’

  Jamie was scowling and there were dark-green stains on his clothes and scrapes on his hands and forearms. ‘Couldn’t find the bastard.’ He was vibrating with anger.

  ‘Must have scared them off,’ Stella said, not sure she believed him. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Not good.’ He spat the words as if she were an idiot. ‘I wanted to get the pictures first.’

  ‘They can’t use them though, surely.’ Stella struggled to keep her voice calm. She was not going to be cowed by the great Jamie Munro in a bad mood. Even if that was a frightening sight. ‘Not if they were breaking the law to take them.’

  ‘Maybe not in a newspaper, but online,’ Jamie said. ‘Anonymous blog. Cowardly fucking bastards.’

  ‘You could still get the police to investigate if that happens, though.’

  He sat down on the nearest chair and tipped his head back as if searching the ceiling for answers, his face still tense.

  ‘Or get a lawyer to have it taken down.’

  There was a short silence, and Stella watched the muscles in Jamie’s jaw working as he visibly struggled with his frustration. His voice was quieter now, and he no longer looked as if he were about to punch something. ‘That all takes time, and a load of people will already have seen them, downloaded them. Once information is online it’s impossible to take it back.’

  ‘Maybe they won’t post them,’ Stella said, trying not to sound as if she was clutching at straws. ‘Maybe they’re for personal use only.’ Too late, she realised that ‘creepy stalker’ wasn’t much of a step up.

  Jamie looked cheered, though. He stopped studying the ceiling and fixed onto her. ‘Mebbe,’ he said. Then: ‘Sorry I snapped. Just tense.’

  ‘I know,’ Stella said. ‘You want to feel safe here.’

  He looked shocked, and Stella mentally slapped herself on the forehead. Why had she used such an emotive word? He was going to think she was cracked. What was wrong with ‘value your privacy’?

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jamie was on his feet, advancing.

  ‘Safe from the media – all that outside intrusion, distraction.’ Stella waved a hand in what she hoped was an airy manner. ‘You know.’

  Jamie stopped and nodded. ‘That’s what Arisaig means. In Gaelic.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Safe place.’ Then he changed direction. ‘I’m pumped. Gonnae lift some weights, use the energy.’

  ‘I’m going to eat my own weight in buttered toast,’ Stella said.

  ‘You know, carbohydrate addiction is a real thing,’ Jamie said as he headed for the door.

  ‘I know,’ Stella said. ‘And it’s the most delicious and satisfying of all the addictions.’

  ‘Not quite all,’ Jamie said. Then he blushed, something Stella wouldn’t have thought possible, and left to lift ridiculous weights for five minutes.

  That night, Jamie didn’t leave his office until past one. Stella wasn’t intending to monitor his patterns, wasn’t consciously waiting for him to go to bed before she left for the day, but she felt uneasy, her adrenaline still running. She had channelled it into work, becoming engrossed in updating a spreadsheet and replying to the raft of emails that had come through when America jumped online.

  He poked his head around the door. He no longer looked half-crazed, and Stella felt the tension she wasn’t aware she had been holding loosen. ‘Are you still working?’

  ‘I lost track of time,’ Stella said, not entirely honestly. There had been a small part of her that had not wanted to walk outside in the dark. A flicker of a thought that suggested the photographer would be lying there on the path, beaten bloody. She felt guilty as she remembered how unsettled Jamie had been. Just because he valued his privacy and was physically strong didn’t mean he was violent.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re as bad as me. Make sure you come in late tomorrow. Or take the day off.’

  ‘Night,’ she said as he closed the door.

  It opened again immediately and he said. ‘Did you want me to walk you down to the cottage? I didn’t think about it earlier, sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ The last thing Stella wanted was to be a burden. Or for him to think she was weak. She switched off her computer and stood. ‘I’ll go now.’

  ‘You could just sleep in one of the spare rooms tonight, if you like,’ Jamie said. ‘I’ve locked up the house already.’

  Tiredness hit and Stella thought about walking down the quiet track to the empty cottage, imagined the darkness pressing in and the sounds of the night. The stranger with the camera could still be hanging around, too. Unlikely, but possible. She weighed the risks and said, ‘Thank you, I am a bit tired.’

  Lying in the unfamiliar bedroom, Stella tried to pretend she wasn’t listening for Jamie’s tread on the stairs, but she couldn’t deny it when, at five past three, she felt relieved to hear him walk along the landing past her door. He was a grown man and perfectly capable of looking after himself, but she couldn’t help reliving the evening. He had been genuinely upset and the crack in his usual armour was arresting. Her own heart still stuttered, ready for fight or flight. She uncurled her fingers, trying to relax, but she replayed Jamie’s words and heard the panicked tone of his voice. The contrast between his easy-going, in-control persona and the fear she had glimpsed was oddly seductive. Stella had spent so many years as the ‘poorly girl’, and the past four months in a fog of misery and loss, that it was refreshing to worry about somebody else for a change.

  Poorly girl. The phrase ran around Stella’s mind and she knew that sleep was a long way off. By the time she had left childhood and truly grasped that her ‘weak health’ wasn’t going to magically go away with a letter from Hogwarts, Stella was well versed in her own little calculations. First, she wanted to become a teenager. She didn’t want to die before she had hit puberty and found out what it was like to
have breasts. She wanted to wear make-up and have a first kiss and go see her favourite band play live. When all that happened and she found herself post-GCSEs and still breathing, she shifted her plans, looking forward to university but never, ever, planning too far; never hoping for too much.

  Lying in the bedroom at Munro House, Stella stared into the darkness and tried to stop crying. She ground her knuckles into her breastbone, a reflexive movement from childhood that she had never been able to shake. She was lucky, she reminded herself. So very lucky.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  15th February, 1848

  Dearest Mary,

  Please forgive me for not writing sooner. I have been ill and had not the strength to sit up with a writing desk. I asked Mr Lockhart to send a message, but he said I should not worry you needlessly as I was clearly getting better every hour. I did not feel it, I admit, but he was quite right! Here I am, sitting up in bed and feeling well enough to endanger the bed sheets with my ink. It was an indecent illness and I will not dwell upon it, suffice to say that I ate something that did not agree with me.

  Mr Lockhart was most attentive. It was almost agreeable to be unwell, the attention he lavished upon me. He sat up holding my hand all the first night. At least I believe he did so, as he was always there when I awoke. He wrote everything down in his little book, too, so I felt quite important. He usually only puts his valued work down in that book.

  Another fortunate aspect to the unpleasant sickness was the effect it had on my husband’s spirits. He had been terribly miserable, his mood both foul and black. He lost the university chair to J. Y. Simpson and had been brooding on it for days. He was so black you would have thought there had been a death in the family. Now he seems quite recovered. The light is back in his eyes and he held my hand this morning before he went to work and called me his ‘dear dove’.

  Now that I am well I wish to go riding again. Mr Lockhart has promised a trip home to Haddington once the weather grows warm. I do hope that I stay well this time. You know that I try not to curse my delicate health, but I do miss you so, Mary. Now we are both respectable married ladies (how peculiar it still feels to count myself in the same station) and you are very busy with the children and the house, but I like to dream of hours riding faither’s horses as we once did. Do you remember the trip to Aberlady bay? I think of it often. The salt-edged air was so clean and cold, it felt like a medicine, and the sea was made of a thousand silver points of light. When we took the horses into the surf and the waves caught our feet, we laughed and laughed and the wind took every sound. See how I tug at your heartstrings!

  I will stop writing now before my scribble becomes entirely unreadable, but I just have the strength to beg that you urge dear Callum to take up the offer sent by Mr Lockhart. I was speaking to Mrs Baxter, a most canny woman, and extolling the fine shoes made by your husband and she has promised to order a pair. I confess my plan is entirely selfish – if Callum gains custom in Edinburgh, perhaps he will bring the coach to deliver orders and I shall see your fair brown eyes and calm face.

  Your poorly wee Jessie

  Stella was dreaming that she was in the cool grey bathroom at Munro House. The giant claw-footed tub was filled with ice but her skin felt as if it were on fire. She opened her mouth to tell Jamie that she didn’t like it and suddenly he was there, watching her as if she were a specimen in a laboratory. ‘Four more minutes,’ dream-Jamie said, his mouth barely moving.

  Stella tried to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t move. Dream-Jamie leaned down from his great height and put his hands on her shoulders. Then he pushed until she slipped beneath the water, his face blurred now. Her lungs were filling with liquid and she couldn’t breathe; Stella felt the familiar sensation of drowning and she panicked, while part of her brain, the part that was aware that this was a dream, told her to wake up, told her that the ringing in her ears was not real, that this was just a—

  There was a ringing sound. It was loud and it was real. Stella opened her eyes and realised that it was an unfamiliar doorbell ringing. A moment later she grasped that she was in the cottage on the estate and that somebody was at the door. She pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs. She expected either Jamie or Esmé, so was surprised to find Doug on the doorstep. He was wearing a bright-red fleece and long shorts. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to wake you.’

  ‘No worries,’ Stella said, pulling her gown tighter. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘That’s my line,’ Doug said, smiling.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Rob asked me to check on you,’ Doug explained. ‘Make sure you were getting on fine.’

  ‘Oh,’ Stella said. She glanced behind her, trying to work out what to do. ‘I would invite you in, but I’m not supposed to have visitors. If Jamie sees you here—’

  ‘I’m the postie,’ Doug said easily. ‘Official business, like.’

  Stella looked back up the track and saw the red van parked behind the gate. She half expected to see Jamie or Esmé storming down the lane, shouting about privacy.

  ‘So you’re all right, then?’ Doug dipped his head a little. ‘I can tell Rob to stop fussing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stella said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Good, then.’ Doug turned to leave. ‘Just let me know if you’re needing anything.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Stella said, again. The air was cold on her legs, reminding her of the chilled water of her dream. She felt her teeth begin to chatter and she clenched her jaw.

  ‘Right, then.’ Doug started back up the path. He raised a hand in farewell and Stella closed the door, catching sight of a figure at the back of the house as she did so. It was Esmé. She was stood very still, watching. Stella could just make out the pinkish oval of her face but not her expression.

  Stella was walking back from the kitchen with her third coffee of the day when she heard the dogs barking. She stopped, listening for a doorbell or knock, something that would have set them off. Although not overly fond of large, noisy canines, she was not particularly alarmed, either. Esmé had them under good control and, however bad-tempered she appeared at times, Stella didn’t believe Esmé would set the dogs upon her.

  The barking continued, however, and there was no sound of Esmé’s brisk but reassuring commands. Unnerved, Stella slowed her pace. The barking was louder and there was a manic edge to it that made her worry they were trapped somewhere in the house, or in trouble. If she ignored them, that would not help relations with Esmé, but they might attack her in their fury and fright. She straightened her shoulders and opened the door.

  Jamie was lying on the floor with the black Labrador on top of him. It looked like they were cuddling and, opening her huge jaws, the Lab uncurled a pink tongue and licked Jamie’s face. The collie was leaping around and around this calm and affectionate tableau as if on amphetamines, barking manically. At the sound of the door, he turned and bounded over to Stella, teeth snapping. Jamie sat up, dislodging the Lab. ‘Angus! Lie down!’

  The collie dropped to the floor. Instantly, he went from snarling beast to alert hound, his head on his paws and his eyes trained on Stella.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Jamie said, clambering to his feet. ‘Angus is the guard dog.’ He patted the Labrador affectionately. ‘Good thing, too, since Tabitha here is such a softy. She would just invite a stranger in, wouldn’t you, darling?’

  ‘Esmé told me to be wary,’ Stella said, trying to explain her expression of horror and the fact that she wasn’t petting the dogs.

  ‘Oh, she’s just teasing. She always says that to visitors, just to put the wind up them.’

  ‘Right.’ Stella took step backwards and Angus lifted a lip, a low growl rising from his throat.

  ‘Angus!’ Jamie said sharply and the growl stopped. He frowned at the dog. ‘Angus, this is Stella. Be nice.’

  Tabitha was nosing forward, but Jamie held her back. ‘Do you like dogs?’

  ‘I haven’t known very many,’ Ste
lla said diplomatically. She was trying not to be frightened, but Angus was still watching her like a hawk with a mouse. He looked like he wanted to take a juicy bite from her leg.

  ‘These two are crazy, but they’re good dogs. They won’t hurt you, I promise.’ Jamie smiled. ‘Angus! Treat!’ The collie rolled over and stuck his legs straight into the air, holding the pose with his tongue lolling out. It looked both comical and faintly obscene.

  ‘Good boy,’ Jamie said, and the dog sprang back, sitting in front of Jamie, his tail brushing the floor with an enthusiastic wag. Jamie took something from his pocket and gave it to Angus.

  ‘You should carry some of these,’ Jamie said. ‘The way to a dog’s heart is definitely through its stomach. Don’t give them every time they obey, though. Expect obedience as a matter of course; reward sporadically.’

  Stella was distracted by Tabitha, who had evidently decided she was friendly and was now trying to nose her way between Stella’s legs. Stella clamped them together and pushed Tabitha’s nose away from her crotch. ‘No, thank you,’ she said.

  ‘See,’ Jamie said, ‘she likes you.’

  Stella looked at him to see if he was laughing at her, but he seemed sincere.

  ‘Tabitha can be shy, so that’s a great honour.’

  Stella shoved Tabitha’s nose a little harder, twisting her body away to dislodge the dog, who seemed determined to get acquainted with a very specific part of her anatomy. At the same time, she vowed to make friends with the dogs. She recognised a gauntlet when it had been smacked in her face, and she was damned if she was going to let Esmé win. Stella had dealt with many territorial managers over the last few years and she knew how to play their games.

  The sky had changed again and the view from the kitchen window showed the dark ridges of the mountains in the distance, looking moody and forbidding, while the sea was made of a thousand silver points of light. Stella surprised herself by wishing she was outside, stomping over the pebbles of the bay, climbing the jagged slabs of rock, picking through the ancient woodland dripping with moss. She had never thought of herself as being an outdoorsy type, but then she had never had much opportunity.