Beneath the Water

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Stella . . .’ Ben took a step towards her but Angus began growling, deep in his throat, and Ben stepped back.

  ‘I made a mistake.’

  Stella felt a sound like wind whistling in her ears. She resisted the urge to shake her head to dislodge it. She put a hand to her chest, instinctively. Her heartbeat was steady.

  ‘Please,’ Ben said. His eyes were on her hand, and she knew that he knew what she was doing. She dropped her arm, feeling naked. Would anybody ever know her as well as Ben?

  ‘I don’t think you did,’ Stella forced herself to say. It was true, but that didn’t make it less painful to admit.

  ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘We’re good together.’

  ‘We were.’ Stella patted Tabitha’s head for comfort.

  ‘Could be again.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Stella tried to smile. ‘I think we should have stayed friends in the first place. Best friends.’

  ‘That’s what successful marriages are built on. Friendship.’

  Stella could feel emotions coming back. Ben’s face was so dear to her and she knew that if she stepped forward and let him hold her, she would breathe in his smell and feel like she was home. He had always meant safety.

  ‘Hello.’ Jamie stepped from the living room. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘This is Ben,’ Stella said.

  ‘Oh.’ Jamie hesitated, and then held out a hand. ‘Jamie Munro.’

  Ben didn’t shake it and, after a moment, Jamie dropped his hand. ‘Right, then. Do you two need a moment?’

  ‘No,’ Stella said at the same time as Ben said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s the boss,’ Jamie said, ‘which means you have to leave, pal.’

  He crossed the hall and opened the front door wide, gesturing for Ben to walk through it.

  The moment was broken by the sight of Nathan in his silk robe. ‘Hello, children,’ he said. ‘I see we have company.’

  ‘Ben was just leaving,’ Stella said.

  Nathan gave him a lascivious look up and down. ‘Shame.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Stella said. Nathan was flushed and his eyes were shining in an unnatural way. ‘You should go and lie down.’

  ‘How many men live here?’ Ben said, looking annoyed.

  ‘Loads,’ Jamie said easily. ‘And we’re all big fans of Stella here.’

  ‘He’s kidding,’ Stella said.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Nathan said, and tipped the remains of his whisky into his mouth.

  ‘Shush,’ Stella said, feeling bad for Ben and suddenly very happy.

  ‘I’ve come all this way,’ Ben said, looking so lost that Stella felt the sudden urge to put her arms around him, comfort him. Habit, she supposed.

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk you out to your car.’

  ‘I didn’t drive,’ Ben said. ‘I got a taxi.’

  ‘That must have cost a lot,’ Jamie said, and Stella gave him a look.

  ‘I don’t care about the money.’ Ben was staring at Stella.

  ‘You can get the train back,’ she said. ‘I’ll drop you at the station.’

  ‘It takes over five hours to Glasgow,’ he said. ‘That’s why I paid for the taxi.’

  She passed Jamie and led Ben outside. ‘Why didn’t you drive?’

  ‘I thought we would be going back together, in your car.’ For the first time, Ben sounded uncertain.

  Stella unlocked the boot and put his bag inside. Then she got into the car and waited for Ben, who seemed to be struggling with the failure of his grand plan.

  Finally, he got into the passenger seat.

  ‘Please . . .’ He tried to take Stella’s hand. ‘Let’s go somewhere and talk.’

  ‘I’m sorry you made an unnecessary trip,’ Stella said, checking the mirrors and avoiding Ben’s gaze.

  ‘Did you hear me in there?’ Ben was starting to sound more annoyed than anything else. ‘I think we should get back together.’

  ‘What does Laura think about that?’ The words popped out and then Stella realised something: she actually didn’t care.

  Ben looked uncomfortable for a second. ‘That was a mistake. Infatuation. But it’s passed now. I know I hurt you and I’m sorry—’

  ‘No,’ Stella said. ‘It’s okay. You were right. I wish you could have been honest with me, but it’s done now. And it’s for the best.’

  Stella drove to the station in Arisaig but didn’t feel she could just abandon Ben. She waited while he checked the times. ‘There’s nothing this afternoon.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Well, there’s one from Fort William, but I don’t think we can make it in time. I should probably stay here tonight.’ He looked hopeful and calculating at the same time, and Stella felt her heart harden.

  ‘I’ll get you there,’ Stella said.

  It was an hour’s drive to Fort William and Stella tried to keep the conversation on practical matters. It wasn’t easy, but as Ben talked about the new start they could have together, the more certain Stella became. She didn’t know when it had happened, but her feelings had changed and she knew the change was permanent. She was proud of how reasonable she was being. How calm.

  Outside the station at Fort William, Ben tried one last time. ‘Come home with me,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ Stella said. She passed him his bag. ‘Safe journey.’

  ‘You’re his employee, you know?’ Ben said, his sadness turning to anger. ‘I know you’re desperate for a home and a family, but you’re his servant, not his wife.’

  Stella swallowed.

  ‘Come back with me and we can live in our house again,’ Ben said, his tone conciliatory. ‘We can get married right away, have a baby as soon as possible. I will do whatever you want. You can have it all.’

  It was the word ‘baby’ that broke her. Stella felt white-hot rage, like a blot of electricity. Her scalp actually tingled. ‘A baby?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ben said eagerly. ‘I know how important that is to you. I’m willing to—’

  ‘You said that before. When you proposed. Do you remember?’

  ‘What?’ Ben frowned. ‘I know we talked about the future—’

  ‘You said that you had reconsidered and that you were willing to start a family.’ Stella was running out of air, her voice getting thin. She forced herself to stop, to take a breath. ‘You said we could try for a baby.’

  ‘I did.’ Ben nodded. ‘And I’m saying the same thing now. Nothing has changed. We can start again—’

  ‘When did you decide to have a vasectomy?’

  Ben stopped speaking. ‘What?’

  ‘A vasectomy. Without telling me. When did you book the appointment? How long after we got engaged? Or was it when you started sleeping with Laura?’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ Ben put a hand on her arm. ‘It was ages ago. I’ve changed my mind—’

  ‘Ages ago,’ Stella said, letting the anger fuel her, make her strong. ‘After my valve operation or before? Our deal. It was never really true, was it?’

  Ben looked down, his shoulders slumped. Stella waited, not saying anything. She had no desire to make this easier for him.

  ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen with you.’ Ben was speaking to the floor. ‘Everything was so uncertain.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t think I would live long enough for it to be a problem. You regretted the deal when you realised you might have to follow through.’

  He looked up. Misery on his face and something else. Guilt. ‘I didn’t know that when I proposed. I didn’t know how I was going to feel. I was so happy that you were well and you were so happy that you could really think about children and I didn’t want to disappoint you. I’m not a complete bastard.’

  ‘I know,’ Stella said. She remembered those heightened few weeks, the mix of excitement and terror. Feeling so ill, every step exhausting and simple things such as stairs suddenly out of the question. Her life narrowed down to breathing and sleeping and trying to gather th
e energy to eat. And then the operation and the miraculous recovery. The joy of feeling well, of having her whole world unfold like a map.

  Stella realised something: she hadn’t properly come down from the rush, hadn’t fully adjusted to her new situation. Ben had been by her side through the post-op weeks. He had cooked her meals and cleaned the house and taken her to her check-ups. He had loved her as he had always done and he had tried to give her what she had always wanted. Maybe he hadn’t felt able to look her in the eye and tell her that he had preferred their relationship when it had a best-before date. And, honestly, she could sympathise a little with that. He wasn’t a monster.

  ‘You should go,’ she said finally, getting back into her car and pulling away from the drop-off area. She didn’t look back.

  He wasn’t a monster, but he wasn’t what she wanted, either.

  It took Stella over an hour to get back to Munro House, having been stuck behind a tractor with no place to overtake safely. She drove carefully, as always, but was impatient to see Jamie.

  Rob had seemed so certain in the pub that it had begun to infect Stella’s thoughts. What if Jamie’s dad had killed Rob’s father? From all she had heard about James Munro, she could imagine a fight getting physical.

  All it would take is a push and an awkward fall. A temple cracking on a coffee table or a misjudged punch to the head. Accidents were all too common, the human body more fragile than most people realised.

  Jamie’s car was in the driveway but the house was quiet when Stella walked through the front door. The dogs were absent, and since Esmé was nowhere to be seen, Stella assumed that they were out for a reunion session with the plastic ball-thrower. In the office, Stella found a cold cup of green tea on Jamie’s desk and the window half-open. The flesh on her arms rose in goose pimples, but Stella didn’t think it was just from the cool air rushing through the room, ruffling the loose pages on the desk.

  Something was wrong.

  She went through the rest of the house, calling Jamie’s name. Nathan was fast asleep in one of the bedrooms and she woke him up long enough to glean that he smelled like a distillery and he hadn’t seen Jamie since Stella had left with Ben.

  Stella looked out of the window in her bedroom, scanning the gardens for Jamie, hoping to see his figure loping through the trees at the edge of the grounds or crossing the lower lawn, the dogs jumping around him.

  The landline rang and Stella ran downstairs to answer it, taking the stairs so fast she was in danger of going head over feet. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Rob’s gone out in the boat,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s taken the dinghy out.’ Caitlin sounded terrified.

  Stella couldn’t work out, in that paralysed moment, why Caitlin sounded so upset. She settled on the basics. ‘Rob has a dinghy?’ Absurdly, Stella was picturing a small inflatable, the kind of thing you sat on to float around in the shallows on a hot summer day.

  Caitlin blew out a fast, exasperated sigh. ‘Everyone has a boat. Or knows someone who has one. He and Bark bought the dinghy together a couple of years back, but he hardly uses it. But he didn’t come home from work and he didn’t tell me he was going out. He always lets me know where he’s heading, it’s basic safety procedure.’

  Stella was still scrambling to understand why Caitlin sounded so terrified. ‘Maybe he just forgot to tell you, maybe he’s told the boys or he’s out with Stewart or Doug—’

  ‘I called and he hasn’t spoken to either of them. It’s not a good day to be out; the sky is black over the water.’ A pause. ‘Is Jamie there?’

  Stella went cold. Caitlin’s voice had become suddenly and artificially casual.

  ‘No,’ Stella said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  Stella shook her head, even though Caitlin couldn’t see her. ‘He isn’t home,’ Stella said. ‘Do you think—’ She broke off, unable to finish the sentence.

  Caitlin said, very quietly, ‘Shit.’

  ‘Why would Jamie go out with him?’

  ‘If Jamie asked about his parents, maybe Rob offered to show him where the boat went down. Maybe he’s doing a nice thing.’

  ‘Rob ground up vitamins and put them into a fruit cake which he delivered to the house.’

  ‘No,’ Caitlin said. ‘He wouldn’t go that far. Besides, anybody could have eaten that cake. Rob wouldn’t want to hurt Esmé. Or you.’

  ‘He encouraged me to move into the main house,’ Stella said.

  There was a silence on the line, one that confirmed Stella’s suspicions. ‘Bloody hell, Caitlin,’ she said. She had thought that her stomach could not fall any lower, but she had been wrong.

  ‘He said that you needed a push. That you would never get close enough to get the dirt on Jamie if you weren’t forced together.’

  Stella got off the phone as soon as possible, feeling that Caitlin was too deeply in denial about Rob’s instability to be helpful. She also worried about upsetting her too much, with the vague feeling that you weren’t supposed to stress a pregnant woman. Caitlin had betrayed their friendship, but Stella still loved her. She certainly didn’t wish her any harm.

  She rang Stewart and he said he would come and pick her up right away. He drove them to the harbour front in the village and spoke reasonably about why they shouldn’t alert the coastguard or the lifeboat. ‘The emergency services are stretched thin,’ he said. ‘If we call them out from Mallaig and there’s a life-threatening situation elsewhere, it could be pretty serious.’

  Stewart’s usually smiling and open face was sombre and Stella got his meaning. If they tied up the lifeboat and someone else needed it, they would be responsible for the loss of life that could ensue.

  ‘I can take you out, though,’ Stewart said. ‘We can go for a wee cruise, see if we can spot them. Put your mind at rest, like.’

  ‘You have a boat?’

  ‘One I can borrow, no bother. Aye.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Stella said, even as the terror gripped her. She had learned to swim, of course, even though she hated the water.

  She had forced herself through the levels until she could swim strongly in a current, dive down to the bottom of the pool to retrieve thrown objects, and rescue a dummy while fully clothed. It wasn’t about enjoyment or mastering the skill, it had been another grim exercise in risk avoidance. She hadn’t kept it up, though. Despite her best intentions, she avoided water and reasoned to herself that as long as she never put herself in any water-based situations, it didn’t matter that she was out of practice.

  Sitting in the back of the small fishing boat and tying the straps of the yellow life jacket Stewart had just handed to her, Stella tried not to think about all the things that could go wrong. The conditions were fine for a trip. Stewart was a trained member of the lifeboat crew and an experienced sailor. There was no need to panic. He had calmly explained that they would navigate from the moorings across the sea loch and then cruise around the small isles, Eigg and Rùm.

  ‘Munro’s yacht went down between the isles, but they have quite a head start. We’ll probably meet them on their way back.’

  Stella hoped he was right. Anything that would shorten this trip would be a blessing. The boat sat much lower in the water than she had expected and, seen from her new vantage point, the water seemed dangerously close, as if only the smallest swell would wash over the side.

  Stella shifted her view to the distance, but it didn’t help with her nerves. ‘Is that a storm?’ Stella pointed at the bank of black clouds amassing on the horizon.

  ‘Nah, just a wee shower,’ Stewart said. ‘I’ve checked the forecast, hen, and we’re all clear to go.’

  ‘Great,’ Stella said.

  Stewart paused in the act of unwinding the rope which tethered the craft. He peered into Stella’s face. ‘Are you sure you want do this? I can go out and have look on my own, if you like?’

  ‘No,’ Stella said. ‘I want to come. I need to do something.’ And it
was Jamie. Funny, strong, vulnerable Jamie. Out there somewhere on those rolling waves with a man who hated his guts and a pit of guilt eating away at his insides. She couldn’t explain why, couldn’t find the words to tell Stewart why it felt so important and so urgent, but she had to look for him. Couldn’t leave him to face this alone.

  When the motor kicked in and boat began moving, Stella gripped the side for a few seconds, but it actually felt all right. She could do this. They moved into the channel that led out of the harbour, Stewart pointing out boats which belonged to vast extended family. ‘See that one?’

  Stella followed his pointing arm to a neat red tug with the name Bonnie Jean painted on the side. ‘My uncle renamed it to get out of trouble with my auntie Jean.’

  ‘Did it work?’ Stella said, grateful to Stewart for trying to distract her.

  ‘No idea,’ Stewart said. ‘They’re still in the same hoose, though, so mebbe.’

  And then, before Stella had gotten used to the idea of being in the boat, on the water, they were out of the confines of the marina and heading across the loch to the south channel. In great volume and from the low vantage point of the boat, the water seemed more like a solid mass, the sharp edges of the waves black and shining. Stella stopped watching the movement, closing her eyes to relieve the sudden nausea, although that seemed to make it worse.

  Stewart threaded the boat through the gap between the promontory and the islet of Luinga Mhor, and within minutes the land fell away and they were out on open sea. Immediately the boat began dipping up and down, and the waves alongside looked threateningly choppy.

  Stella resisted the urge to ask Stewart, yet again, if this was safe. He was doing her a huge favour and it was rude to question his judgement. A tiny thought pushed forward: she should keep him on side, in case he had to dive into the water to save her.

  The wind seemed to have picked up, too, and it was far colder than Stella had imagined. Her cheeks already felt frozen and they had only been out for five minutes. Stewart didn’t seem affected by the cold and he moved around the boat as comfortably as if he were in the bar. He leaned in and cupped his hands, protecting his speech from the wind which was now slapping angrily against the side of the boat. ‘We’ll go as far as Rùm. Okay?’