‘Are you going to complain all day?’ Harriet snapped. ‘We can sit on the rocks, or on that bit of dry sand there.’
Before Jessica could start complaining again Harriet stalked off in the direction of the rocks, the soft sand making her departure less glamorous than Evie thought she intended. Giving a shrug, Evie gestured her head towards Harriet’s retreating back and trailed after her friend.
Evie laid out her towel and kicked off her sandals, well aware of the eyes of the boys on the rocks following her every movement. As they had approached she could see there were five of them, they were maybe a couple of years older and not completely unfortunate-looking. One of them let out a wolf-whistle as the girls peeled off their tops to reveal a bikini top – Harriet – and swimming costumes – Jessica and Evie. Evie wasn’t anywhere near as confident as her friend, and the thought of anyone seeing her in her bikini had made her cringe. Although now, looking at her friend, she wished she’d had the guts to put hers on; her black swimming costume with white stripes down the side made her look like a stupid schoolgirl in comparison to Harriet. As her friend stepped out of her shorts, Evie looked at her slender legs and athletic figure, then glanced down, noting the way her thighs met at the top – Harriet’s had an inch-wide gap – and the swell of her own hips where her friend had none. She left her shorts on.
Pretending to ignore the boys on the rocks, the three girls stretched themselves over their towels. Evie closed her eyes, basking in the warmth of the sunlight on her face and chest.
After less than five minutes she was bored beyond belief. How did anyone lie still for hours without going braindead? Lying in one place and trying to look grown-up might be Harriet’s thing but it definitely wasn’t hers.
On the rocks above, the boys had grown bored of the three prone girls and Evie concentrated on trying to hear what they were arguing about.
‘You first, gutless.’
‘You must be shitting me. After you, Doris.’
‘I wouldn’t want to take the honour away from you, Peaches.’
She opened her eyes, squinting as the sun hit them. They were standing on the edge of the rocks, peering over the edge at the water below, goading one another to make the first jump. Evie smiled to herself. Boys. At what point in their lives did things stop being about bravado and ball-swinging? She thought of her father, his flashy parties where he spent thousands of pounds a time catering for people who were too drunk or high or self-important to even notice that the napkins were all folded at perfect forty-five-degree angles. Never, then.
She stood up, adjusting the straps of her swimming costume, and slipped off her shorts. She was restless, the need for something to happen was overwhelming, and Evie had never been the type of girl to lie in the sun and let the boys have all the fun. Neither Jessica nor Harriet even opened their eyes. Evie thought Jessica might have fallen asleep but there was no chance Harriet would risk snoring or drooling when there were males in the vicinity.
Planting her hand firmly on the lowest rock and wedging her foot into a crevice, she clambered her way to the top, realising halfway up that she was inappropriately dressed for a rock-climbing expedition. It was too late now though, and thankfully none of the boys even noticed until she was standing behind them.
‘Move out of the way then, if you’re not going to jump.’
At the sound of her voice all four of them swung around.
‘What, you’re jumping off?’ one of the boys scoffed, looking her up and down. ‘Don’t be stupid. Go back to sunbathing with your friends.’
‘Evie!’ Harriet had opened her eyes to find her friend gone and was now standing on the sand, staring up at Evie, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Going for a swim,’ Evie shouted back, and stepped up to the edge of the rock. It was barely a six-foot drop – hardly a distance to worry about – but there was no way of telling how deep the water was below, or what it might be hiding. It was too late to back out now though – there was no other way down. Climbing downwards would be impossible, she’d have to walk the long way around back to the beach. She took a deep breath and threw herself off the rock edge.
Evie pulled her knees up to her chest to lessen her depth. She hit the water – which was warmer than she’d been expecting – and her head went under. She released her knees and kicked upwards. Breaking the surface, she let out a piercing scream and disappeared once again, under the water.
15
Rebecca
I dropped Richard off at home last night hoping he would go to bed and forget about the mystery man Evie had been arguing with on her wedding day, but I know he won’t. Would I, if I hadn’t already known who she was speaking to, and why? Lately I’ve been wondering how I’d be reacting to all this if I didn’t know what I know. Probably not too differently to Richard: a mournful silent acceptance, then so quick to jump on anything that might answer the question that will hang over the rest of his life.
Richard answers the door this morning in his bathrobe. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. Thanks a fucking bunch, Sarah.
‘God,’ I wrinkle up my nose. ‘You do realise it’s eleven am?’
Richard rubs sleep out of the corners of his eyes and looks as though he is struggling to focus. His sandy brown hair, ever so slightly too long, sticks out at odd angles around his head.
‘Yeah,’ his cheeks redden. ‘I was up late last night, um, thinking.’
‘You need a shower,’ I tell him, sniffing the air as if to prove how ripe he is. ‘Go and sort yourself out and I’ll find you something to eat.’
He doesn’t even register the irritation in my voice. How long is he going to mope around, content to let me mother him?
I’m just debating whether the farmhouse loaf is still edible when I hear the doorbell. I debate ignoring it but after the third ring whoever it is isn’t going away. Perhaps it’s the police – perhaps there is a body. Pushing down the ever-present image of Evie, bloated and rotting, I answer the door.
Martin Bradley is three years younger than Richard, and the saying ‘chalk and cheese’ could have been written about them. He’s somewhere in the region of 5’6, slightly shorter than his brother, and stocky, with the look of a rugby player about him. In fact, when he shows up today he’s wearing a dark green rugby top, the collar upturned at the back, and navy jeans with brown shoes. Despite not getting the height advantage, Martin stole the typical good looks – that’s not to say Richard is unattractive, but where the older brother is (or should I say, was, because these days you can’t tell) always smartly turned out, Martin has the air of falling out of bed looking like he wants to get you back in it. Not my thing, but he has never been short of a woman or two, and he has never married.
‘Martin,’ I say, and I can hear the weariness in my voice. We’ve only met three or four times, the wedding being one of them, but I always got the impression he could never quite work out where I fit into Evie and Richard’s relationship. Or perhaps he could, and that was the point. ‘Lovely to see you.’
‘Where’s Richard?’ he says, without preamble, and steps forwards to come in. I can hardly deny him entry into his own brother’s house so I step aside. I follow him into the front room where he throws himself onto the sofa and I perch on the chair, as far away as I can.
‘He’s in the shower,’ I say, immediately clocking his furrowed brows. ‘I haven’t been here all night, if that’s what you’re thinking. I only just got here and he smelt like three-day-old chicken so I sent him up to get washed while I did him some lunch. Breakfast. Well, brunch, I suppose—’
‘Did you know about this argument?’ Martin cuts off my culinary ramblings and gets straight to the point as always.
‘What argument?’
‘The one Evie’s supposed to have had with someone before she jumped off that cliff. Richard rang me last night asking if I’d argued with her on the cliffs. Might as well have asked if I’d bloody pushed her.’
‘Oh,
yeah, Sarah and Chris mentioned something yesterday and I think he’s jumped on it as a way to try and understand, you know.’
Martin grimaced. ‘Well he needs to stop it. He’ll drive himself mad analysing every step she made, every conversation or argument she had. I mean, what does it matter? It’s not going to bring her back, is it?’
Richard would say, ‘Typical Martin, all action’ – if something couldn’t be changed, what was the point in worrying about it? I always got the impression they weren’t particularly close and I can see why.
‘Surely you can understand – he just wants to know why she would have done it. He’s heartbroken that he might have missed something that could have stopped her.’
‘Yeah,’ Martin ruffles his hair. ‘Except from what he was saying to me it sounded like he was questioning if she’d done it. Like there might have been someone else involved. But the police ruled that out, didn’t they?’
Biting at the loose skin on my lip, I nod. ‘They aren’t treating it as suspicious. I’m not sure if he’s told them about this row, though. I don’t think it would change much.’
‘He should be moving forward, grieving. Not acting like there’s some sort of investigation. If he’s not careful . . .’
‘What?’ I ask. ‘If he’s not careful, what?’
‘Well, don’t they always look at the husband first?’ Martin’s voice is full of exasperation. ‘I mean, if they open an investigation, and find out she was arguing with someone – won’t they look at Richard as the main suspect?’
It’s true, and that’s how I’ll convince him not to go to the police. Even his own friends thought it was him on the verge. It won’t look good.
‘Yeah, maybe. Look, I don’t think you have to worry. He’s been doing really well. This is a temporary setback.’ I don’t mention the other day, when I found him drinking at one pm. He has been doing well, just a couple of bad days. ‘He’ll move on in his own time.’
‘And you’re going to help him with that, are you?’
And there it is. Asshole.
‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating,’ I snap. ‘Richard and I are just friends. I was, I mean I am, Evie’s best friend. I’m just trying to help. I don’t see you here every other day making sure he doesn’t starve.’
Martin sighs. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I just don’t see how he’s going to move forward when you’re here, as a constant reminder of her. And now his obsession with some black jacket guy . . .’
‘Look,’ I stand up, move towards the kitchen. ‘I get your concern, I do. But if I’m not here for him now, who will be? He’s having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that his wife killed herself, on their wedding day of all bloody days. Cut him some slack.’
‘And you think that’s what happened, do you? I mean, Richie was rambling last night about someone pushing her off a cliff, or hitting her so she stumbled and fell. You knew Evie better than anyone – do you really think she’d try to kill herself?’
I don’t think, I know she threw herself off that cliff, and my life would be a lot easier if I could just tell them all why, but that would defeat the point.
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Yes I do. After all, it’s not the first time, is it?’
16
Rebecca
Martin tries to be subtle with Richard, doing his best impression of a caring human being, but he can’t seem to keep it up for more than a few minutes. Listening to them argue, I marvel at how different they are: Martin attractive in all but personality, Richard just ever so slightly the wrong side of cool. If they hadn’t been brothers they never would have been friends. Although I suppose opposites do attract; Evie and I were proof of that.
‘Get over it?’ Richard shouts from the other room. I can feel Martin’s flinch through the wall. ‘Oh fuck off, Martin.’
‘I didn’t mean get over her,’ Martin backpedals furiously. ‘I just meant you need to stop obsessing over the way it happened. She did it. No one knows why but no one forced her, or pushed her. She chose this, mate, you have to accept that.’
And he’s right. Evie chose this like she chose everything else in our lives. Even without knowing it she was always in complete control, the first to suggest a new place to go, the best place to eat, the perfect style to suit my short stumpy frame.
If it sounds like I was a pushover, maybe I was at first. At first, I just wanted to be near her. I’d even stayed friends with Steve in the hope I’d see her again. Except I hadn’t, not for three whole weeks. She hadn’t called Steve, and after a couple of weeks he got tired of me asking casually if he’d heard from that girl, Evie. His pride had been damaged by the fact that I hadn’t cared about him enough to go mad at him for cheating on me. I hadn’t screamed and shouted or staked my claim, I’d stepped aside and hoped she liked him enough to come back. She hadn’t and, pissed off by the fact that he’d been surrendered by one woman and ditched by another in one morning, he’d casually suggested I stopped hanging around.
I found myself wandering past the Art department hoping to bump into her accidentally, although if you’d seen me and asked what I was doing there I’d have sworn it was a shortcut to wherever I needed to be. It felt like a crush, only different: I didn’t want to sleep with her, I just wanted her to smile at me again and ask me what I thought about things. I’d pre-formed an opinion on just about every current issue there was; I just wanted to see her look impressed.
I’d about given up hope that I’d ever cross paths with her again and stopped looking for her around every corner when she injected herself seamlessly into my life for a second time. I was sitting in a greasy spoon copying out notes on Organisational Culture and Change when someone sat down beside me. Looking up from my book, ready to suggest they choose one of the other free seats in the café, my polite rebuttal died on my lips when I found myself looking into familiar green eyes.
‘Becky, right?’
‘Right. Evie?’
She looked pleased but not surprised that I’d remembered her. Today she was wearing a baggy grey knit and light blue jeans so tight they looked like they’d been sprayed on. She looked impossibly beautiful in something so simple and I couldn’t help but feel dowdy – despite the fact that I was wearing jeans and a jumper not totally unlike the outfit she had on herself. Her hair was still messy, but this wasn’t an ‘up all night screwing your boyfriend’ messy, it was the kind of hairstyle that would have taken me hours to perfect and still would have looked like I had a bird’s nest on my head. It was pushed off her face with a pair of oversized sunglasses that probably cost my year’s tuition. On her lap was a colossal multi-coloured handbag that hung open, giving a clear view of the chaos inside. People in the café were staring at her in interest – maybe thinking they should recognise her from the TV or somewhere.
‘Look, I’ve got these. Do you like them?’ She pulled some A4-size glossy photographs from a brown leather portfolio and handed them to me. The black and white images all showed the same subject with varying light and camera filters. The person facing the camera looked intense, deep in thought, and beautiful. I knew for a fact she was none of these things in real life, because the person in the photos was me.
‘Wow, these are great. Are these what you took at Steve’s?’
She nodded. ‘Do you really like them? I hoped I’d see you again to show them to you. I think you look beautiful in them.’
It was a surreal moment. The girl I’d found myself wandering around university buildings hoping to catch a glimpse of again was sitting here calling me beautiful. I’ve tried again and again to figure out what it was about Evelyn that had drawn me to her so strongly, and over the years so many people after me. Everywhere we went people gravitated towards her, like she was a magnet collecting iron filings from a tray, and it wasn’t just her beauty. I’d never met someone who could see beauty in everything her eyes fell upon, and yet at times could seem so lost, and so sad on the spin of a coin.
We sat and talked
in that café until our lungs felt sticky from breathing in the grease. That was when she convinced me to go with her to an art exhibition at the Copperfield Gallery followed by drinks with the artist which turned into a ‘gathering’ at a townhouse across the city. We spent the next few days tumbling from one place to another, integrating ourselves into groups of people we’d never see again and crashing on everything from four-poster beds in Victorian houses to an inflatable sofa in the kitchen of a flat that seemed to permanently smell of tuna fish.
On the third day, wearing the same clothes I’d worn when I first met Evie in the café, feeling grubby and exhausted, my captor pulled me around what seemed like every charity shop in London until neither of us resembled the people we had been that morning. We showered and changed in the local swimming baths after sneaking in when the cashier was having a fag break and ended up in front of a four-storey white house with ivy growing practically over the front door and trash bags piled up in the front garden.
‘This is my friend Philippa’s place. Well, she rents the ground floor. She’s a hairdresser.’
‘Why do we need a hairdresser?’
‘To get rid of the nits we picked up at that last place.’
I must have worn my shock plainly because Evie broke into wild laughter.
‘I’m kidding. I’m getting my hair cut – she’ll do yours too if you want.’
The inside of the house was as dirty and unkempt as the outside. Piles of rubbish overflowed the bin and someone had put a cardboard box underneath so they didn’t have to empty it. Half-full glasses with cigarette ends floating in dubious brown liquid littered every surface and the musty smell of body odour and smoke hung in the air, so palpable it stung my eyes. Philippa greeted us both with hugs and, despite the condition of the place, she was clean and well turned out, and smelt of oranges.
‘What am I giving you?’ she asked Evie, running a hand through her unruly locks.
‘Take it off.’
The Night She Died Page 6
