Beneath the Water

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Mebbe.’ Jamie was looking into the flames of the wood burner. ‘Hearing about it in situ certainly made it more real.’

  ‘Was it not real before?’

  He shook his head. ‘I had been away at school for years, this place was always just a holiday spot. Somewhere temporary. And we weren’t a close family. I was sad when it happened, of course, but I never felt I had been sad enough. I mean, they were my parents. I should have been devastated.’

  ‘But you weren’t?’

  ‘I didn’t think so. With hindsight it’s when I got really busy, though. Really focused.’

  ‘Is it when you started experimenting with your own health?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jamie looked at her. ‘I didn’t connect the two at the time. I really didn’t.’

  ‘Grief is weird.’ Stella thought about how her grief had sent her north, to this place. To Jamie.

  ‘I think it’s time I spoke to Esmé. Properly.’ He straightened his shoulders.

  There was a light knock on the door and Esmé appeared, carrying her tea, Tabitha following her like a shadow. She sat on the armchair facing the sofa and Tabitha laid her head on her lap. ‘What?’ Esmé said, looking from face to face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Stella said, not wanting to intrude.

  Jamie caught her hand. ‘Stay. Please.’ To Esmé he said, ‘I want to talk about the accident.’

  Esmé put down her mug. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Why did Mum go out on the boat with Dad? She hated the water.’

  Esmé pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know.’

  Jamie looked down for a moment. Then he said quietly, ‘I think you do.’

  ‘What good will it do? Raking over old ground never turns up anything worth the trouble.’

  ‘Do you remember when I stole pennies from your purse and you skelped me?’

  ‘Aye,’ Esmé said, looking wary.

  ‘You said that I had to set a good example, that I was privileged and that meant I had to be more hard-working, more moral, more honest than anybody else. Why did you say that?’

  ‘You were a wee toerag, I was just trying to bring you in line.’

  Jamie didn’t say anything, he just looked into Esmé’s face until she looked down, sighing. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Your dad made your mum go out on the boat that day. He told her that it was the least she could do after everything.’

  ‘After everything? What did he mean?’

  Esmé’s lips went thin. She shook her head.

  ‘Please,’ Jamie said. ‘I just want the truth.’

  ‘Your mum was stepping out with another man.’ Esmé spoke quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He deserved it, to be fair. Wasn’t exactly a choirboy himself.’

  ‘I heard that he was violent.’

  Esmé nodded. ‘He could be.’

  ‘Did he hit Mum?’

  Stella’s heart contracted at the misery in Jamie’s voice.

  ‘No!’ Esmé said. ‘Well. Mebbe once. I can’t be sure. They did get physical when they fought, sometimes. Smashed plates and that kind of thing. I don’t think he ever struck her, but it’s not like I was with them for every minute of every day.’ Esmé shook her head, thinking. ‘Your mum had a terrific temper of her own and they used to really go for it. I’m surprised you don’t remember.’

  ‘I remember Dad shouting. Things crashing. I assumed it was more him than her.’

  ‘Aye, well. There’s never any excuse for raising a hand to a woman, right enough, but I don’t think he did. She scratched his face plenty of times, sore provoked him. Sometimes they would wrestle, like a couple of kids. That often turned into something else, though.’ Esmé went pink. ‘It was no way to behave out of the bedroom.’

  ‘What about her wearing shades to hide the bruises?’ Stella hadn’t meant to speak, but the words were out.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Esmé said, surprised. She shook her head. ‘She wore sunglasses when she’d had too much to drink. Which was quite often.’

  Stella felt her heart lift. It was still awful, of course, but not as simple or horrifying as the image of mother and son being terrorised by a monstrous father.

  She peered at Jamie, trying to gauge how he was feeling. His face was serious, and he was intently focused on Esmé. He looked the way he did when he was trying to understand the data in a meta-study on increasing human growth hormone, or the chemical reactions brought on by ketosis.

  ‘So he was angry about her affair?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Esmé said. ‘He was angry about everything at that time. He wasn’t a very happy man, you know.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He wasn’t very discreet, caused no end of bother for different folk. Just didn’t seem to care.’

  Jamie nodded. ‘Why do you think he wanted her to go with him?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it over the years, gone over every detail, and I honestly don’t know. I swear I’m not keeping anything from you,’ Esmé said. ‘I think they just got like that. They couldn’t stand each other, but they couldn’t stand to be apart, either. They were joined and no matter how much they pulled, something stuck them in place.’

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ Jamie said. ‘I remember them in different parts of the house. Sitting in the audience at my school events, but not speaking to each other. I always thought they had grown indifferent to each other.’

  ‘Never that,’ Esmé said. ‘When your mum was running around with Fraser Baird it was only to get back at your dad.’

  ‘Fraser Baird?’ Stella said.

  Esmé nodded. ‘Your friend’s father. He left his wife and son, probably for the best, although no doubt it didn’t seem like it at the time.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything.’

  ‘It’s nobody’s business,’ Esmé said. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Did Fraser come to the house?’ Stella said. Jamie looked at her in surprise, but she carried on. ‘Did he and James fight?’

  Esmé’s eyes slid to the left. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Fraser left his wife and his son and was never heard from again.’ Stella watched Esmé carefully. ‘Rob started to wonder whether he ever really left Arisaig.’

  Jamie looked at Stella with wide eyes. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘There’s a reason Rob hates your family,’ Stella said, ‘and it’s not just that they were all playing creepy seventies wife-swap.’

  Over the next week, Esmé kept mostly to her room. Coming into the kitchen only when it was empty to make vats of soup, bake bread and scones, and to leave roast dinners warming in the oven.

  Stella saw it was a way to take care of Jamie without having to speak to him, and while part of her wanted to lock Esmé and Jamie in a room until they had talked everything through properly and openly, she recognised that they had maintained a close and loving relationship for many years, and so perhaps the situation didn’t need her meddling. Besides which, Esmé was still mostly terrifying.

  Stella and Jamie spent hours together in her office. Jamie sat at the computer transcribing while Stella read him Jessie Lockhart’s letters and they discussed the book that would come from them.

  ‘I don’t want to just write about the court case, the scandal,’ Jamie said, ‘I want to show the human side to the experiments. And the good that can come from them, even if the people suffered. Even if they didn’t make it through themselves.’

  There was no news of Rob and, after two days, the coastguard called off the search. Rob’s remains would wash up eventually, perhaps on a distant shore where nobody knew him, or perhaps as close as Mallaig or Oban.

  Stella spoke to Stewart for an update on Caitlin, uncertain as to whether she would want a visit. She felt as if she ought to offer to help arrange his funeral and all the things a friend should, but she felt awkward as well as inexplicably guilty. ‘Survivor’s guilt,’ Stewart said. ‘You’re still in shock.’

  On the Friday, the doorbell rang,
sending the dogs into fits of excitement. Stella shushed them and was pleased when they obeyed. Caitlin was stood on the steps, a vision of glowing health at odds with her tragic expression.

  Stella didn’t think, she just stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Caitlin, hugging her as tightly as she could with the enormous shape of her pregnancy pushing between them. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Stella whispered into her ear. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  They were both crying, the cold stinging the salt water on Stella’s cheeks, when Esmé’s voice cut through the sniffing and nose-blowing. ‘Come in if you’re coming, you’re letting the heat out.’

  ‘Is that okay?’ Caitlin said, worry etched across her face.

  Stella took her hand. ‘Of course. You are always welcome here.’

  Inside, Stella helped Caitlin take off her boots and Esmé led them into the kitchen. ‘I’ve a lemon loaf cooling and we’ve fruit tea if you’re off the proper stuff.’

  Tabitha pressed against Caitlin, laying her head in her lap as soon as she sat down.

  Jamie walked in saying, ‘Can I smell cake?’ but he stopped speaking when he saw Caitlin.

  After a beat he bent down and gave Caitlin a brief shoulder-hug. ‘I’m so sorry. How are you holding up?’

  Caitlin shook her head, unable to speak.

  ‘Is there anything we can do?’ Stella said. ‘Do you need help arranging anything?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure . . .’ Caitlin began. ‘I don’t know how to say sorry.’ She took a shuddering breath and then spoke in a rush. ‘Esmé, that fruit cake that Rob brought. I swear I didn’t know, but I should have realised how bad things were. And, Jamie, I’m sorry. I did know that Rob wanted to get in here, to dig up dirt—’

  ‘Words,’ Esmé said dismissively. ‘You can make it up to me over time. I want to see that bairn when it arrives, for starters. Don’t know when I’m going to get grandchildren of my own.’ She looked significantly at Jamie as she said this and Stella winced, but he just grinned back at her.

  ‘But what he did,’ Caitlin said. ‘What he tried to do. I can’t—’

  ‘It’s not your fault, hen,’ Jamie said.

  ‘You really didn’t know about the vitamins in the cake?’ Stella said, needing to see Caitlin’s face when she answered.

  ‘No,’ Caitlin said immediately. She looked sick. ‘When I think what could have happened. Any of you could have . . .’

  ‘Died,’ Stella said. ‘It’s hard to wrap my mind around. I mean, Rob . . . I can’t really believe it, it seems so extreme.’

  ‘I know,’ Caitlin said, her eyes filling with tears again.

  Esmé was banging the cups around, clearly uncomfortable with the emotions on display.

  ‘When are you due?’ Esmé said, putting tea in front of Caitlin and signalling a change of subject with firm determination. She and Caitlin began to discuss the wobbly science of due dates.

  Jamie grabbed a green smoothie from the fridge and went back to work, and Stella leaned back in her chair and enjoyed the warmth of the tea and Angus lying across her feet.

  She closed her eyes while she listened to Caitlin and Esmé talking about baby equipment and the local maternity ward and wondered how, given everything that had happened, it was possible to feel so safe and so happy.

  Once Caitlin had gone home and Esmé was in the kitchen, doing yet more baking, Jamie put his head around the door. ‘Fancy a walk?’

  The rain had stopped and there was a gleam of winter sunshine illuminating the clouds, so Stella nodded. Outside, the cold took her breath away, but within a few moments she had warmed up and was glad to be out in the salt-edged air. She felt strong and steady and grateful all at once.

  Jamie and Stella walked along the shore in silence. It didn’t feel awkward, more like a mutual agreement not to start talking yet. They passed the cliff overhang at the edge of the bay with the makeshift stone hearth and the blackened ground of a hundred campfires, and made their way over the rocks until they began to get bigger and more jagged and they were using their hands to steady themselves. Stella climbed the rock she had sat on all those weeks ago. She couldn’t believe it had only been weeks; it felt like years.

  Jamie took another route and got to the top before her. At once, he was above her, holding out a hand.

  Settled on the flat surface, facing across the water, Stella pulled in great lungfuls of the cool air. The sea and the sky stretched out forever with no boundary, wide open. Stella tilted her face to feel the touch of the sun on her face.

  Jamie finally spoke. ‘Nathan has gone home. He’s not too thrilled with me right now.’

  Stella shot an amused glance at him. ‘That’s what you want to talk about?’

  Jamie shrugged and so Stella told him about the postcard Nathan had left on her desk.

  It had a picture of a Highland cow on one side, to which Nathan had drawn a speech bubble with the words ‘my bad’. Stella got the impression that he didn’t often apologise, so she took it as a sign of acceptance. The emailed John Lewis voucher helped, too.

  ‘I don’t like Ben,’ Jamie said abruptly.

  ‘You don’t have to like him,’ Stella said. She had been waiting for Jamie to say something about Ben’s visit, knowing that the subsequent events had overshadowed it but also feeling worried that it didn’t seem to have registered on his radar. And then she’d worried about what that said about his feelings for her.

  ‘You said it was over.’

  ‘It is,’ Stella said.

  Jamie didn’t look at her and Stella could see the muscle in his cheek tense. He had let his stubble grow out again until it was thick, almost a beard. His skin was red from the cold wind and she wanted to reach out a hand and cup his cheek.

  ‘Why did he come here?’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘I guess my real question is how you feel about him coming here.’

  ‘You know when you brush your teeth and you think your teeth are really clean and then you floss and you find all these bits?’ Stella didn’t know why this image had popped into her mind and she wished it hadn’t, but she ploughed on. ‘It’s like that. I thought he was all cleaned out, but there are just some last little bits left. To spit out.’

  ‘I use a water pick,’ Jamie said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Blasts everything in one go.’

  ‘Yeah, well. You’re efficient. Do you want a medal?’

  The quickest of smiles and then his jaw tightened again. ‘I just want to know.’

  ‘I’ve told you. What else can I say?’

  ‘Do you still love him?’

  ‘No.’ The word came quickly. Stella looked across the sea to the islands, remembering this view, this place, and the mobile phone in her hand. She had wanted to throw it out into the water then. She had let Ben go at that moment, but it had taken these weeks and all that had happened since for the process to complete. You couldn’t just blast a person from your life in one go.

  ‘I know he’ll always be important to you.’

  ‘Who knows,’ Stella said. ‘Time is strange. I always thought time was running out, but I feel like I’ve had more of it in the past few months than I’ve had in the previous ten years. I don’t know anything about the word “always” or how I will feel in a year or next month.’ This wasn’t sounding as reassuring as she had planned. ‘I just know how I feel today, right now.’

  Jamie looked at her then, his eyes on Stella’s. Pale green-blue and fringed with golden eyelashes. The chicken pox scar above his left eyebrow and the lines which creased the corners of his eyes. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said.

  ‘I want to be with you,’ Stella said. ‘I would like to stay here, but I’ll go where you go. If you want me to.’

  ‘I do,’ Jamie said.

  ‘Good.’

  He put an arm around her shoulder and she moved close, leaning against him and wishing they didn’t have so many layers of clothes, that she could feel more of his body against hers.

&
nbsp; ‘I don’t just want you, though,’ Jamie said, squinting as the winter sun moved from behind a cloud and pierced the water with silver spikes.

  Stella’s heart seemed to pause in the middle of a beat, the systole waiting for the answering release of the diastole.

  ‘I love you. There’s a difference.’

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I’m working on a book it seems impossible that it will ever be done and, despite my best intentions, I forget to make a note of all the people I will need to thank on this page. Which is to say a pre-emptive ‘sorry’ to the folk I will undoubtedly forget to name. I hope you know that my gratitude is not dimmed by my poor organisational skills.

  Books are never easy, but this one refused to come together for what felt like a very long time. Huge thanks to Agent Fabulous, Sallyanne Sweeney, for helping me to shape my ideas and for encouraging me to stick with it, and to Sammia Hamer at Lake Union for her patience and enthusiasm. Thank you to Victoria and the rest of the Lake Union team for all your help in bringing this book into the world. I am a very lucky author.

  To my brilliant bookish friends on Twitter and Facebook – thank you for keeping me company when I am taking a ‘quick’ writing break – and extra hugs to Keris Stainton and Clodagh Murphy for writerly support.

  I don’t intend to list all of the books and sources I used while researching the historical strand of this novel, but I must mention Simpson the Obstetrician by Myrtle Simpson, which helped to give me a good flavour of the fine Edinburgh doctor James Young Simpson.

  My heartfelt gratitude goes to all who work in medicine and healthcare, and those who dedicate their lives to medical research, with a special mention for the cardiac department at the Heath Hospital, Cardiff. Like Stella, I would not be alive today if it were not for their efforts.

  Thank you to all my friends and family for being understanding, supportive and loving, especially when I have been stressed and distracted. Emma, thank you so much for your positivity and kindness; Lucy, for letting me whinge and for plying me with wine; and Cath, for being my partner-in-crime for almost thirty years. Blimey!