by Dawn Goodwin
He flung open the glass doors and I felt the sting of the brittle sea air on my face as I followed him out onto the balcony. It stretched out a metre or two behind the house to a sheer drop down to the beach. I walked over to the glass barrier and peered down. It was stunning. All I could see ahead of me was the sea. I had a sense of being weightless, suspended in mid-air.
‘Wow.’
‘I know. This house is quite splendid, isn’t it?’ Sam replied wistfully.
The wind whipped my hair around my face and I hugged my arms in tight against the chill.
‘Makes you feel alive,’ I said, but Sam looked haunted.
‘Katherine, come and have a look at this,’ Viola called from behind me.
I returned to the lounge where Viola had a pile of what looked like newspaper articles in her hand.
I leaned over and picked up my dainty teacup, enjoying the warm bitterness in my mouth after the chill of the outside, but I was preoccupied by concern for Sam. The balcony doors were still open and he had remained outside, staring out to sea, lost in his own world. His earlier excitement at seeing me had been replaced by a veil of melancholy.
‘I gather his writing hasn’t gone well this week?’ I said to Viola.
‘He has a lot of things on his mind today.’
‘Please, give me a moment to talk to him, see if I can help.’ Viola was absorbed in the papers in her lap, so I walked back over to where Sam stood, stooped against the cold. ‘Sam, are you okay?’
He turned to look at me, a weak smile on his lopsided lips that looked more like a grimace. On an exhale, he said, ‘I don’t want to ruin your visit with my gloom, but today is an anniversary of sorts for Viola and me. But not a happy one.’
I put a hand on his arm. ‘I know all about difficult anniversaries. We’re friends, aren’t we? Do you want to talk about it?’
He stepped back into the room and went over to a small table on which stood a decanter of whisky. He poured himself a healthy measure and drained it in one, then poured another.
‘Anyone else?’ he said, waving the glass at us like an invitation.
‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Whenever things get tough, drown yourself in whiskey,’ Viola said spitefully. The animosity between them today was palpable and I felt uneasy.
‘Who needs clarity when fuzziness brings such sweet relief,’ Sam replied.
‘Maybe if you had clarity, you could write your own books for a change.’ She scowled at him.
‘Fuck you, Viola.’
‘Touch a nerve, did I?’
I looked from Sam to Viola, their eyes hard bullets of anger. Then what Viola was insinuating clicked and I said, ‘Wait, what do you mean? Sam does write his own books.’
She turned her sneer on me, saying, ‘Oh, sorry to burst your infatuated bubble, dear, but my darling husband has never finished a manuscript in his career.’
‘I… I don’t understand.’
Sam ran his hands through his hair and drained another whisky.
‘Perhaps it’s time for a brief history lesson. What do you think, Sam? Shall I tell her or do you want to?’
I listened to her hurl venomous darts at him, the tips dipped in years of bitterness.
Sam merely waved the crystal tumbler at her in acquiescence, his posture that of a man who couldn’t care less any longer.
Viola weighed down the papers on the table with the handle of the citrus-stained knife and got to her feet, her eyes blazing. ‘Sam and I met when we were both studying English at university. I was trying to make my literary mark outside of the influence of my father, and Sam had dreams of being one of the greats and escaping his working-class roots. He had worked hard to get to university, I’ll give him that. He was working as a waiter in a bar to pay his way and writing in his downtime.’
I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…
My defence mechanism to giggle inappropriately kicked in and I bit down on my lip to stop myself. I took a seat on the couch so that I was out of Viola’s firing line and so that she didn’t notice my reaction. I didn’t want to antagonise her any further.
‘We were in the same creative writing class and I can remember watching him from the back of the room as he read his work with such passion and vigour and a complete self-belief that he was good. At the time, he was okay, but his arrogance filtered into his work, making it difficult to like and relate to.’
I looked over at Sam, but he seemed unfazed at the criticism, as though he’d heard it all before.
To Sam, she said, ‘Pour me one of those, darling, and I think your pupil could do with one to take the edge off too.’
He poured two healthy tots and delivered them to us without a word. I left mine untouched.
Viola continued, ‘He paid little attention to me. I was the quiet, shy girl in the back, reluctant to read out loud or engage with anyone else. I realised soon enough that I didn’t necessarily have the courage to be a writer, to face the endless circle of rejection and criticism, but I found great pleasure in reading and I was perhaps more suited to being a publisher or agent, even though I loved the creative process of writing – and still do. Sam was the antithesis. He loved hearing his own voice sounding out the words he had written. You could see it gave him an egotistic thrill to be the centre of attention, the subject of adulation when he got it right.’ Viola stared at him, as though seeing him as he was then. ‘His eyes would sparkle and I couldn’t help but be captivated by him.’
She shrugged. ‘He certainly rubbed the men in our class up the wrong way with his arrogance, but the girls were charmed by his intense passion. He was never short of dates, were you, my love? But it was his intensity and self-belief that I found fascinating. I was in awe of him from afar for most of that year, until one day in a tutorial my tutor casually mentioned my father’s publication of his book on the Tudors, which was a surprise commercial hit that year, and Sam’s face lit up. I remember it so well. It was like a spotlight had been shone on me all of a sudden and I became someone he should know. To be honest, I could’ve been anyone with a connection to publishing and he would’ve reacted the same way. I didn’t recognise that at the time though. No one else mattered from that moment on. I became his pet project. By the end of that year, we were a couple, he was a firm friend of my father’s and I was Sam’s first reader on his manuscripts.’
She sipped at her malt whisky.
‘That’s not entirely true, Viola. It may be how you recall I noticed you, but it was your equalled passion that I fell in love with.’
‘Whatever,’ she replied dismissively. Drops of whisky spilled from her glass as she gesticulated with it, her eyes manic and shiny. ‘We were close to finishing our degrees. Sam would start a novel, get halfway through and decide it was rubbish, then start something new. I spent a lot of time inflating his ego, encouraging him to finish just one draft – it was exhausting and there were some fearsome arguments, I recall.’ She smiled nostalgically. ‘Anyway, then my parents were killed and suddenly everything changed.’
I jolted in my seat. ‘Oh! I had no idea.’
‘My father was very successful in his own right by that stage. He not only came from old money, but his books on the Tudors were critically acclaimed and his earlier works were being reissued in light of his success. They were travelling by car to the London Book Fair and they crashed into a lorry and were killed outright.’
‘How awful for you!’ I gawped at her.
She turned her feverish eyes on me. ‘Save your misplaced sympathy. It was a long time ago.’
I recoiled, bemused by the direction the afternoon had taken.
She drained the glass. ‘Suddenly, as their only child, I was heir to a large inheritance and I was alone, apart from Sam. He became my family. We made plans to set up a literary agency of my own, with him as my first client. It seemed the most sensible arrangement, suited us both really. Of course, it had to be a success. He had to be a success or we’d have been ruine
d before we’d even begun, no matter how many contacts and favours I called in on my father’s name.’
Sam watched Viola closely, his face difficult to read. I sipped at my own whisky, not particularly enjoying the burning warmth scorching my throat.
‘At this stage, Sam still hadn’t finished a full draft of one manuscript. I sent partials off to various publishing houses for him and most expressed interest, but they wouldn’t commit without a full manuscript, especially from an unknown agent and a debut author. It had to be brilliant. So he kept writing, cutting, changing, tossing it away. Meanwhile, my family’s money supported us. He insisted a bestseller was just around the corner, but with every failure came a drinking binge and a healthy dose of self-pity. He blamed the pressure to write and the urge to succeed for stifling his creativity and I believed him every time. Then after one particularly bad night where he got very abusive in his drunkenness and threatened to set fire to his latest work, I talked him down, put him to bed and read what he had done. It was Muses and Starlings. It was a good idea, so I worked on it myself for a few weeks without him knowing, shaped it into something great, if I do say so myself, then submitted it to publishers without his knowledge, trying to save him from more rejection, but it went to auction and the rest is history.’
‘Wait, you wrote Muses and Starlings?’
I looked over at Sam for confirmation. He stared back, shrugged nonchalantly.
‘We’ve worked that way ever since. He comes up with the idea, flirts with it for a while pretending he can finish it, then gives up and sends it to me. It works every time. Except this time around, he met you and suddenly he developed a conscience.’
I frowned at Sam, willing him to say something to alleviate the betrayal I felt. This man who I had looked up to as a great writer. But he drained another shot of whisky and merely said, ‘Busted,’ with a wry smile.
‘And no one else knows about this?’ I asked.
‘Why would they?’ Viola replied.
‘Well, Lydia found out.’ Sam looked pained. The name was familiar, but I couldn’t grasp why.
‘Ugh, that woman again. Can you just let her go?’
‘She believed in me and I wanted to be better for her. You’ve always liked the idea of having to save me, haven’t you, Vi? In fact, I think you go out of your way to find fault with my manuscripts because it gives you power and makes you important.’
Viola shot to her feet. ‘Because without me you are nothing! You thought you could just toss me aside for that woman, after everything I have done for you? Run off into the sunset on a whim? A mid-life crisis?’ Her face gurned into a mask of rage.
‘I loved her!’
I didn’t want to be witness to this, their naked marital anguish playing out in front of me. I wanted to run, get away from this house, from them. Suddenly all that mattered was getting home to my children, wrapping them in my arms, re-evaluating my own life and the choices I had made. Because the two people in front of me were a colour illustration of what happened when you lost perspective.
‘Look, I should go. This is none of my business.’ I got to my feet and went to fetch my bag from behind the couch, draining my whisky as I did.
‘You’re not going anywhere. We haven’t finished,’ Viola growled at me. A gust of wind blew through the open door and grabbed hold of the papers that had been anchored down by the knife. She caught some in her fist and shook them at me. ‘There’s still this to talk about.’
I frowned. ‘I don’t know if today is the right time to discuss contracts and things, do you? Maybe we should do it another time.’
‘Sit down,’ she commanded and I acquiesced out of shock and bewilderment at the malevolence in her voice. I dropped my bag, my other hand still clutching the empty whisky glass tightly.
Did she also think I was having an affair with Sam, just like Paul had? Was that what this was about? Some of the papers were still writhing and twisting in the breeze. My eye caught on one of the titles and I picked up the article as if in slow motion. My grip on the empty whisky glass failed and it spun from my hand onto the table, shattering instantly.
Sam came over, slurring, ‘Oh dear, no harm done,’ but my attention was riveted to the paper. I flicked my gaze over the other pages, spread out in front of me like junk mail.
‘What is this?’ My voice was emaciated.
I could sense Sam looking from me to Viola, now puzzled himself, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the silent accusations staring back at me in black and white.
Viola sat forward, pleased with herself. ‘Think of it as a sort of quiz, a “what happened on this day twelve years ago” sort of thing. Can you remember what happened on this day twelve years ago, Katherine?’
I knew very well.
‘Or is it Katie?’ Viola continued, her voice dripping spite. ‘Which do you prefer? You know, as soon as I saw you, I knew I had met you before. It was like one of those clichéd light-bulb moments. But, of course, I had to be sure. So I did some investigations, amateur Agatha Christie stuff, and would you know it? I was right.’
‘Viola, what are you talking about? What are these articles abo—’ Sam froze, one hand reaching out. He paled. ‘Viola, explain yourself.’
‘Well, actually, I think Katie should.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘Oh, I think you do.’ Viola smiled gleefully and sat back on the couch, as though casually discussing the weather.
I got to my feet, bile creeping up the back of my throat. I could feel the shards of crystal crunching under my shoes. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘I told you, I did some digging – but some of these I’ve had for years.’
‘Why? This… this happened a long time ago. It surely can’t have an impact on my writing career?’
‘Well, only in so far as I’m not keen to represent the woman who murdered my daughter.’
The words hung between us like a guillotine.
‘You still don’t see the connection, do you?’ she continued. She got to her feet and pulled something from her pocket. The scrap of bright yellow velvet fell from her fingers.
‘Viola, you have our attention now, so how about explaining what the hell is going on?’ Sam demanded.
Viola was staring at me, but my eyes kept pulling back to the screaming headline partially obscured by the yellow material: Child Dies in Playground Tragedy.
Sam turned to me. ‘Katherine?’ He looked on the verge of tears. I was numb.
Viola continued. ‘You never met us when you worked at the school, did you? That was our fault. We had an au pair who took Imogen to and from school for us – and you weren’t there very long in the end. Of course, in those days, you were called Katie Hayes, not Katherine Baxter, which is why Sam didn’t put two and two together himself. You’ve also changed a lot since…’ she leaned across the table, then pulled out one report lying hidden beneath the others, ‘… since this was taken.’
The grainy newsprint photo was of a visibly younger Katherine being escorted through institutional gates, a chubbier version of me with shoulder-length blonde hair and eyes obscured by a thick fringe.
Sam picked up the photo and looked from it to me and back again. In any other situation, I would’ve laughed at the bemusement on his face.
His voice was low and pained when he said, ‘Explain this to me, Katherine. Explain it so that I can understand. What am I seeing here? This is you, isn’t it? Oh god, did you know who I was all along?’
I leaned towards him, my arms outstretched, but I stopped short of touching him as he recoiled. ‘No, I had no idea! It’s a cruel twist of fate.’
‘It is indeed,’ Viola said, smirking. ‘They say once a connection is made with someone, you are bound together forever.’
‘Stop it, Viola. Let her explain.’
How could I explain? How could I put into words what was possibly the most traumatic, life-changing day of my life and one that I had tried hard for over a decade not
to think about but that skirted my consciousness constantly and intruded into my thoughts like a persistent cough, always there, tickling at me, teasing me, reminding me of its presence?
25
8 December 2005
The sun was lukewarm on my skin, the sky a bright cornflower blue, and happy little voices tinkled like wind chimes in the breeze, as though Mother Nature didn’t want to give way to the grey veil of winter that threatened. I closed my eyes and tilted my chin to the sky, soaking up the puny rays, enjoying the melody of the children’s laughter and allowing it to lift my mood. It was cold enough that I had a scarf around my neck. I’d chosen something I thought the children would like: a coral-coloured chiffon dotted with mini Dalmatians.
The children ran and played around me and I kept an eye on them as best I could with so many hurtling around, all the while fighting the urge to go and sit in the corner and close my eyes to the light. I had a persistent headache and was hungover, so a cheeky rest wouldn’t go amiss. However, I had been tasked with supervising the playground during morning break while the teacher on duty, Celia, was escorting a sick child to the nurse’s office and I needed to keep my wits about me. There was a lot of playground to watch over and about fifty-nine children, all tearing around in excitement as the essence of Christmas hung in the air like tinsel and fairy lights.
I shouldn’t have had that bottle of wine last night, but the argument with Paul had pushed me and I had wanted to do something to annoy him in return.
Things hadn’t been good between us for some time. Initially he had come across as caring, supportive and protective as a boyfriend, but since we got married I had begun to feel suffocated. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere without checking up on me regularly, told me to change my clothes if he thought my outfit too way out and had started suggesting what I should and should not be eating. Sure, I wanted to lose a few pounds, but I felt like he was watching and judging me constantly, silently tutting at every piece of chocolate or prawn cocktail crisp that passed my lips.
