by Emlyn Rees
David barged into her thoughts, images of him flicking through her head like a never-ending Rolodex of memories. Would their lives really be that easy to separate?
She held her breath as she saw a shadow fill the light under the door.
‘Steph. Are you in there?’
The door opened and Stephanie sat bolt upright in bed. Her father was silhouetted by the corridor light. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that he wasn’t David.
‘Can I come in?’
Gerald didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he shut the door and came towards the bed, as Stephanie shuffled up and turned on the bedside light. He sat down next to her on the duvet. She felt ashamed that she was still fully clothed.
‘It’s blowing a fair old gale out there,’ he said.
She felt like a little girl. She knew she’d detonated Christmas Day and hurt everyone’s feelings. She wondered whether her father was going to deliver a lecture. She didn’t have the energy to be contrite.
‘I heard from Sally at the pub,’ he said. ‘David’s going to stay the night there.’
Stephanie nodded. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘He’s a bit drunk, apparently. I’ll check that he’s OK in the morning.’
Her father pressed his palms down on his knees. She was expecting him to leave, but he didn’t.
‘What exactly happened today?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Dad.’
‘Oh, I think you do. I think talking about it would help you very much.’
From the tone of his voice, she realised she had no choice.
‘We argued about Paul.’
‘Paul?’
‘I told David that I think Paul’s death was . . .’ She stopped, remembering David’s face.
‘Was . . .?’ her father prompted.
‘Was his fault.’
The words, uttered for a second time, seemed irrationally cruel. Her eyes suddenly welled up.
‘Oh. Oh, I see,’ he said. He put his hand over hers. It was warm and steady.
Stephanie felt tears coming now as if a tap had been turned on. Uncontrollable, grief-laden, angry tears.
‘All I know is that I can’t get past it. Whenever I think about Paul, I can’t get past thinking about them in the boat.’ She looked at her father, imploring him to understand. ‘How could David not have seen him fall into the water? How could it have been that difficult to save him?’
‘You weren’t there. It was an accident.’
‘But . . .’
All she could see was Paul’s body, as she’d held him in her arms, and the tears she had not shed then overwhelmed her now.
Her father’s voice was calm and gentle. ‘Don’t you think David’s punished himself enough over this? Don’t you think he cares?’
‘No, he’s moved on. He’s done what I never could.’
‘I think it’s very brave of David to deal with it the way he has. Lots of weaker men would have crumbled, but David has picked himself up and dedicated himself to being the best father he can to Nat and Simon.’
‘It’s like Paul was never with us. You know . . .’ she paused, tears making it almost impossible to speak. ‘We’ve never really talked about it. I was so numb for so long, and now . . .’
‘Now?’
She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Now, it’s too late.’
Her father searched out her eyes. ‘Too late?’
‘I could have stopped them. I could have stopped them going out on the boat.’
‘Steph, darling, you can’t blame David, or yourself. It was a whole combination of circumstances, most of which were out of your control.’
‘But it shouldn’t have happened,’ she cried.
‘But it did, and that doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s fault.’
And now it came. A wail, unstoppable and loud. Right from somewhere deep down inside her. Like a demon leaving her body. Her tears burst out of her as she grieved for her little boy. Her father rocked her in his arms, gently stroking her hair.
She wept for the wonderful little person Paul had been and the adult he’d never become, she wept for the big brother and little brother he’d never be, and for the girl he’d never marry.She wept for all the smiles he’d never smile and the tears he’d never cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper.
‘Don’t be. You know, it should be David here, not me. You should tell him how you feel.’
‘I told him I want a divorce.’
‘Divorce?’
The way he said it made it sound so drastic. Stephanie shook her head, wrung out.
‘I can’t go on like we have been,’ she said.
‘And you think splitting up will solve it?’
‘Everything’s such a mess, Dad. If I’m alone with the kids, I –’
‘If you take those kids away from him, you’ll destroy him. You can’t really want that?’
‘No. But –’
‘Whatever happened today doesn’t mean you have to end your marriage.’
‘It’s over anyway. All we do is argue. I look at Elliot and Isabelle and how perfect they are, how much of a future they’re building. I don’t know . . . seeing them this Christmas has only reinforced how far David and I have grown apart. We don’t even like each other, let alone love each other like they do.’
‘Their marriage has nothing to do with yours. What you need to do is sit down with David and talk.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘Sleep on it. Please. Promise me that at least you’ll do that.’
Stephanie hunkered down under the covers, as her father left the room. The house was quiet, except for the wind outside. She thought about David in the pub. What a terrible way to end Christmas. She turned over, knowing she wasn’t going to sleep. Then, next door, she heard the muffled rhythmic thump of the bed against the wall. It was coming from Isabelle and Elliot’s room.
They were having sex. She was falling apart and they were having sex.
Chapter 22
He couldn’t see a thing. The night was as black as the bottom of a well. The wind roared, rushing past the pub like a river, nearly sweeping Ben and Kellie off their feet. It was like stepping out on to the deck of a boat in a storm, Ben thought.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Kellie shouted, grabbing Ben to steady herself.
Ben hardly felt rock steady himself. His recent abstemious lifestyle hadn’t done him any favours in preparing him for the evening he’d just spent. He’d lost count of how many drinks he and Kellie and David must have put away between them. Over the course of several hours, David had veered from depression, to euphoria, to fatalism and back to euphoria again, and Kellie and Ben had joined him for the ride. They’d now called it a night with a final round of tequilas, which was just as well, because they’d all been slurring for the last hour at least, none of them making much sense.
A shaft of wavering candle light shone weakly out from the pub door behind them, casting their black shadows across the snow-covered street, like paper-chain people cut from a white sheet of card. David lurched out on to the pavement beside them, drunkenly clawing at Ben. Then the shaft of light vanished and darkness returned.
‘Are you sure it’s OK that I stay with you?’ David asked, for what must have been the tenth time in so many minutes. His words came out in a drunken bellow, hacking through the noise of the wind.
‘Positive,’ Ben bawled back. ‘You can crash in the living room with me.’
‘But maybe I should walk back?’ David said.
‘Forget it.’
Ben doubted David would make it even if he tried, not in this weather and not in his condition. Besides, what David really needed to do was sleep himself into sobriety. Ben had only met David’s wife briefly when he’d ferried her over, but he guessed that if David were to turn up in this state – stinking of whisky and cheese and onion crisps, with bloodshot eyes and a Guinness stain o
n his shirt – it would only make their problems worse. He took a torch from his pocket and shone it down the street towards the annexe. Memories of the day he’d spent with Kellie were cast in footprints in the snow ahead of him.
Ben linked arms with David and Kellie and they set off together, driving into the wind, like a rugby scrum front row. He pictured his flat back in London: his retro B&O sound system, the Smith Brothers armchair and sofa, and his Fuegotech steel-shuttered gas fire. He’d only moved into the apartment three months before, after his share of the house he’d lived in with Marie had finally been deposited in his bank, but he’d splashed out quickly on making it feel – or at least look – like a home. He’d compensated for the lack of connection he’d truly felt for his new and alien living space by filling it with luxuries and gadgets. He’d surrounded himself with them like crutches, just to keep himself propped up, and when his friends had called round and looked over his funky little bachelor pad, they’d all smiled with relief and had commented on how well and how quickly he’d managed to adjust.
Leaving the pub last night, a little hazy, a little drunk (a lot less drunk than they were now), Ben had hoped that one day he might get to show it to and share it all with Kellie. He’d hoped she would smile, too, and maybe even want to stay.
But now he knew she never would. He’d got ahead of himself, dreaming up a future for the two of them. It had been a fantasy which she’d stamped all over that afternoon down by the harbour wall. He’d been left reeling as if he’d been dumped. Which made her huddling up against him now, using his body to protect herself from the wind, all the more difficult to handle.
Idiot, he told himself. Sucker, loser, jerk, fool . . .
He hated himself for not flinching and moving away. He hated the way he still wanted her. He knew this physical contact was nothing but pragmatic, at best the result of her being too tipsy to stand alone, and yet still he couldn’t help wishing it was something more.
She should be old news by now. He should have rejected her when she’d walked into the pub earlier this evening, for the sake of his ego if nothing else. He should have clawed back some of his lost pride by giving her the cold shoulder and leaving her to sit at the bar by herself.
But he hadn’t. He’d crumbled. Like some lovesick troubadour, trapped inside his own private Groundhog Day, he’d found himself warming to her all over again.
Why? That’s what he wanted to know. Why was he torturing himself? Why couldn’t he accept what she’d told him down by the harbour? Why couldn’t he throw her, and the possibility of them together, out of his mind? Why did he still feel hope?
When they reached the cottage doorway, they broke apart. The tarpaulin on the roof whipped and cracked in the wind, then suddenly shrieked, rearing upwards like a great winged creature. Ben fumbled for the door handle.
Sheet lightning switched the sky on like a lamp and he turned from the door to look up. Again the sky flashed white, like a mirrored reflection of the snow-locked land. He turned to see Kellie lurching towards him.
‘I feel really unwell,’ she told him. ‘Really pissed . . . everything’s starting to spin . . .’
‘It’s OK –’ he began to tell her, but then, before he could catch her, she was suddenly no longer upright. Her legs had shot out from underneath her, sending her crashing flat on to her back.
She didn’t cry out and she didn’t move. He dropped to his knees and shone the torch down on her face. One of her eyes was closed, the other was a half-open slit, registering nothing. Her lips were moving as if she was speaking, but he could hear no words.
Adrenaline punched through him, shocking him into sobriety. From being woozy himself, he now felt as if he’d just dived into a plunge pool of freezing water. His mind cleared and his whole body shifted into overdrive. He squeezed her hand hard.
‘You’re going to be OK,’ he said.
Then he noticed the trickle of blood on her neck, just behind her left ear, and he saw that she was lying on what looked like a metal sign. Wind hissed through his hair. Her head lolled to one side, then her eyes snapped open and she looked around, disoriented.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Ben.’
He held the torch close and searched her scalp above the trickle of blood. There was the wound. A swelling, angry and raw, bloomed beneath her hairline at the base of her skull. He pressed his fingertips to it. It felt sickeningly soft, and fragile as an egg yolk, as if it might burst.
‘My head . . .’ she said. She reached up to touch the cut.
‘Don’t.’
He scanned her face again. She was staring up at him, confused. He should get her to a doctor, he thought, and soon. Chances were that she’d passed out from too much drink, but he didn’t know how hard she’d hit her head, and he hadn’t enough first-aid to know whether or not she was actually concussed. Her eyelids drooped. For all he knew, her skull could be fractured and she might be slipping into shock. It wasn’t a risk he was going to take.
‘Help me get her inside,’ he told David.
David knelt down beside Ben and the two of them got Kellie to her feet. It was only then that Ben saw what was written on the sign she’d slipped over on. It read ‘DANGER’. No fucking kidding, he thought. He shone the torch up at the annexe roof. That’s where the sign must have blown down from, he guessed.
They got Kellie quickly inside.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You slipped,’ Ben told her. ‘Or passed out. It’s hard to tell.’
‘Oh, shit,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m such a jerk.’
Her eyes drooped, again, then closed. Her whole face seemed to relax, and in that moment, Ben realised he’d never seen anyone so serene, so beautiful before. Nothing had happened between them, not even a kiss, and yet everything had. Her life felt as precious to him as his own.
‘She’s gone again,’ David said.
‘We need to get her checked out by someone,’ Ben told him. ‘I don’t know how hard she hit her head and I’d rather be safe than sorry.’
‘I agree.’
‘Can you get back to the pub and tell Sally and Roddy what’s happened? Tell them to bring their car.’
‘And then what?’ David asked.
‘We need to get her to a doctor,’ Ben said. ‘Or a nurse. And we need to do it fast.’
DAY 3
Boxing Day
Chapter 23
Where the hell was she? Kellie rubbed her eyes. She was lying in a narrow bed. There was a blackout blind over the window, but she could see daylight creeping around the edges, illuminating the small single bedroom. Her eyes ached with an intense pain, as did her head. As she tried to sit up, she felt queasy.
Squinting through the slits of her eyes, wincing, she saw Ben dozing in the armchair pulled up next to the bed. He was fully dressed. Where was she? What was he doing here? She felt as if her mind was swimming through cloudy water.
And then her heart lurched, as she stared at his face. Last night . . .
Suddenly, disjointed images flashed into her mind, like a strobe. The pub . . . David . . . drinking . . . the wind. Then nothing.
She groped backwards in her mind, trying to remember what had happened. She’d been outside with Ben. She remembered being drunk. Through her pain, she felt a deep flush start creeping up her until her cheeks burned.
Had anything happened? Had she and Ben . . . ?
‘Oh God,’ she said, aloud. Her voice was no more than a croak.
Ben snapped out of his sleep and leant forward. He looked tired, his forehead creased into a worried frown.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
Embarrassed, ashamed, frightened, nervous, were all too difficult to articulate.
Ben stood over her, making her lie back. His touch made her feel even more worried. It felt familiar.
‘Hey, don’t move too fast.’
‘My head hurts,’ she said.
‘Hang on one second.’
He settled her ba
ck on the pillow and walked quickly to the door, lifting the old-fashioned latch.
‘One second,’ he repeated, before disappearing.
Kellie lay back and looked at the ceiling before tentatively touching her head. There was something bulky and soft just by her ear. She explored the dressing and it crackled like sellotape. She twisted her wrists, and saw that her hands were filthy, her nails caked with blood.
What had happened? She started to panic. This must be more serious than she thought.
Then Ben was back in the room with a woman. She was tall, with brown hair and a strong, intelligent face. She walked towards Kellie.
‘You’re awake, that’s good,’ she said. She stood next to the bed and put her hand on Kellie’s forehead. ‘How are you feeling? Rotten, I should imagine?’
‘You can say that again,’ Kellie said. This had to be the worst hangover she’d ever experienced. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on.’
‘Didn’t Ben tell you?’ the woman said, glancing at him.
‘She’s just woken up,’ Ben said.
‘You fell over in the storm last night.’
‘It was a sign,’ Ben said.
Kellie stared at him, confused. ‘A sign? That I should do what?’
Ben smiled. ‘No, I didn’t mean that kind of sign. Not a sign sent from God. Just a regular sign. You tripped over it and banged your head. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’ She didn’t remember it at all. Now that he was telling her about it though, she felt like an utter fool. How could this have happened?
‘May I?’ The woman lifted up Kellie’s wrist and squeezed it, taking her pulse.
‘You fainted. You needed a doctor,’ Ben explained, ‘and a couple of stitches. Stephanie here did the honours.’
Stephanie? This woman next to her was Stephanie? Suddenly, the sleep-inducing fog that had threatened to overtake her disappeared in Kellie’s head.
‘But . . . but you’re Elliot’s sister,’ Kellie blurted out, before she had time to censor herself.
