Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  At the edge of the clearing, where the creepers grew thickly, she stopped and looked back. She could just see the top of the rose, a hint of white against the grey of the rock.

  She turned her back on it and left the secret place behind her.

  It was a relief to breathe in fresher air, to see a horizon. For the first time since Michael’s accident, she felt a sense of peace.

  Michael. He had stepped in front of a large, red, off-duty double-decker bus only two blocks away from Alette’s house. At that time of the morning the usually teeming high street was deserted and the bus driver had admitted to taking advantage of the absence of traffic by driving too fast. But he also swore that Michael had stepped in front of the bus on purpose. He insisted that Michael had walked into the path of the oncoming bus without any haste, keeping his eyes on the bus driver’s face as he did so. And he was talking, the bus driver said. As though there was someone at his side.

  Isa had corroborated his account. It had got the driver off the hook, although the police were still reluctant to call it suicide. There was no note. No apparent motive.

  She hadn’t told the police about Michael’s attack on her: it would serve no purpose. As for her knowledge that he had killed Alette, and that Alette in turn had seduced Michael into taking his own life: she had kept that part to herself as well. What proof did she have? ‘It came to me in a dream?’ She could imagine the reaction such an explanation would get.

  The sun was losing some of its sting. She glanced at her watch. She had been away from the house for almost two hours. Justin would be waiting.

  He had agreed to accompany her to the farm but had refused to be present for the scattering of the ashes. And she hadn’t insisted. She was still so uncertain of her footing with him. The two of them faced a long journey ahead, and whether they could work through her guilt and his anger to arrive at the end together, she did not know. His anger was fearful, and sometimes deepened into despair, but by some divine grace it had not curdled into resentment.

  ‘Why would you want to be with me?’ she had asked him on the day he had returned to the house. She was busy packing the last of Alette’s books into cardboard boxes, her hands dusty, her back aching, when the doorbell rang and there he was; eyes wary, lips tight.

  He placed his hands on both sides of her face. She held her breath.

  ‘Part of me says this relationship has been damaged beyond repair,’ he said. ‘But something about you moves me. Something inside me recognizes you.’ And for a few seconds the old Justin looked out of his eyes.

  But then he dropped his hands and moved away.

  ‘When I met Alette, I thought she was this free spirit—a beautiful, strong woman. That was the person with whom I fell in love. And that was the pact between us. I thought I would give her room to breathe, accommodate her independence. But this image she had presented to me was a lie. She never wanted room to breathe. She wanted a constant, cloying, stifling intimacy. Her neediness was fearful. If I so much as looked at another woman, she lost control. She was even jealous of my mother. She demanded constant attention and admiration. Do you know how tiring it is to be engaged in a never-ending courtship? It is impossible for the most devoted person to be continually loving.’

  His voice was suddenly tired. ‘You once said to me that if you love someone you love them regardless. Remember? I always thought so as well, so you can imagine how guilty I felt for falling out of love with Alette so completely. But she was simply not the woman she had pretended to be. And my God. She was manipulative. It was insidious, subtle but utterly relentless: this ability to steer you to go in the direction she wanted you to go.’

  He looked at her. ‘You lied to me as well, Isa. But you’re not a manipulative woman: not at heart. You yourself were manipulated by a master of the game. I suppose, in a way, it creates a bond between us.’

  She waited, aware of her heart beating painfully.

  ‘Whether it can work in the long run, I don’t know. We can try. Let’s take it one step at a time.’ He had added, his voice remote, ‘No promises.’

  No promises. Well, for now that was enough.

  She and Justin together. How would Alette feel about that? A breath of wind, more imagined than real, chilled the sweat on the back of her neck. Over the past few weeks she had been so busy—tying up all of Alette’s affairs, selling the house—that it hadn’t been difficult to close her mind to the thought. But now the apprehension and doubts she had repressed were thrusting their way up to the surface.

  She still loved Alette. And she recognized that Alette had warned and helped her on the night of Michael’s attack. But Alette was indeed a master manipulator, an alchemist magician who could transmute reality and shape it to conform to her objectives. Someone who had no trouble getting people to follow her wishes. Until the day she collided with someone who made a stand, who refused to be manipulated. Until the day she met Justin. And by striving to gain domination over Justin at all costs, Alette had set in motion events over which she lost control and which eventually destroyed her.

  For a brief moment Isa closed her eyes. The time had come for her to make a stand as well and live her waking life free from her cousin’s influence. They would never again meet in the dreaming world either. Their shared dreams were no longer the magical, liberating experiences of their childhood. She would never again take the hand. Since that last, desperate dream in which Alette had taken possession of her, Isa had adamantly shut her mind to Alette whenever she closed her eyes to sleep.

  ‘Alette.’ She spoke out loud. Her voice fell into the silence like a pebble into deep water. ‘It’s over. Let it be.’

  She waited, but she sensed nothing. Just sun, fragrant earth, and rustling cane.

  ‘I want him. I’ll fight for him.’ Isa hesitated. ‘I’ll fight you.’

  Nothing. Only the drone of a large bumblebee.

  She was close to the house. She could see Justin waiting for her at the back door. She increased her pace, stretched her stride.

  He was leaning against the door, his elbow and forearm creating a lopsided triangle. His head was turned to one side as though he was listening. And then she heard it as well and behind her eyes she felt a quivering nausea.

  The telephone was ringing. A long drawn-out monotonous sound. A curious sound, disturbing in its atonality.

  Flat, strident: strangely off-key.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THE MIDNIGHT SIDE required specialized knowledge of the stock market, pharmaceuticals and patents. Many thanks to my panel of experts: John Plimmer, Lesley Edwards and the incomparable Robert Swift. They allowed me the benefit of their expertise and gave freely of their time. The responsibility for any errors or excessive leaps of the imagination is, of course, not theirs but mine alone.

  Thanks to Dianne Hofmeyr, a good friend and gifted writer. Thanks to Joan Mostert, my mother-in-law, who was endlessly supportive. Thanks to my brothers, Stefan and Frans, who stood ever ready with words of encouragement and good cheer. A very special thank you to a remarkable woman, my mother, Hantie. Her imaginative ideas always take my breath away.

  To my extraordinary, deeply wonderful husband, Frederick, I dedicate this book. His love and support are at the centre of my life.

  NOVELS BY NATASHA MOSTERT

  THE MIDNIGHT SIDE

  THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

  WINDWALKER

  SEASON OF THE WITCH

  THE KEEPER

  A Martial Arts Thriller

  (published in the US as Keeper of Light and Dust by Penguin Dutton)

  DARK PRAYER

  Turn to the next page to read the first two chapters

  DARK PRAYER

  by

  NATASHA MOSTERT

  PROLOGUE

  The little girl was not a sound sleeper. In the early morning hours, she would often open her eyes calmly and unafraid into the near darkness. After a moment of staring at the far ceiling above her, she’d dangle her feet out of bed, tuc
k Mr Cuddles under her arm and pad down the passage towards her mother’s room.

  She never stepped inside. For a few heartbeats she would wait at the door, watching the soft shape asleep inside the big princess-and-the-pea bed. If she listened carefully, she would hear her mother breathing. This would be enough to satisfy her and she’d yawn once, twice—and return to her own bed.

  Tonight is no different. There is the door to her mother’s room. There, hazy in the gloom, the first glimpse of the dressing table with her mother’s red scarf trailing from a post, its gypsy fire muted by the dark. The air is scented with the familiar fragrances leaking from the perfume bottles reflected in the mirror’s shadowed face. The little girl pauses at the threshold and turns her head in the direction of the snowy bed.

  The bed is empty.

  The little girl looks at the undisturbed sheets and the plumped up pillows. Her head droops to one shoulder as it does when she is puzzled or feeling shy.

  Hesitantly, she steps back into the passage.

  ‘Mama?’

  The word stops in the air; the thick carpet and velvet curtains keeping the sound from carrying.

  She starts walking towards the staircase, Mr Cuddles dragging at one hand. Her other hand clutches at her pyjama bottom, which is slipping.

  Down the staircase and past the fan-shaped window framing the glossy blackness outside. Through the living room, with its tall bookcases and its many books, which seem to glow even in the dark. Past the piano with its exposed keys and sheet music trailing on the floor.

  Against the wall the old-fashioned clock tings softly. The big numerals and filigreed arms glow coolly phosphorescent. The little girl is only five but she can tell the time. She stares at the clock face and holds up her left forefinger and thumb in a wobbly L.

  ‘Mama?’

  The kitchen door is closed but there is a yellow slit of light at the bottom. As she turns the handle and pushes the door open, she smells lemons.

  Black and white tiled floor, bright in the electric light. Water drip, dripping into the sink. The woman lying on her back, her right leg forming a startling triangle, her mouth smiling and her eyes hidden in a sticky nest of hair and blood. There is blood on the floor, and on the cricket bat clutched in the hand of the man who turns to stare at her.

  He holds out his other hand. ‘Come with me, little girl. I will make you forget.’

  ‘Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.’

  —Meister Eckhart

  CHAPTER ONE

  Memory was a funny old thing.

  Jack watched his father lean towards the interviewer, his face taking on a nicely self-deprecating expression. Jack could tell his father was about to launch into an anecdote about his past: an anecdote that would tell of bravery under fire and a young man’s courage tested. Each time his father told this story, the battle became a little fiercer, the danger a little greater, the bullets a little closer. His father sounded sincere; because he was sincere. He wasn’t consciously embellishing: each time he wheeled out this chestnut of a story he truly believed he was accurately recounting what had happened.

  His father modestly inclined his head as the interviewer gushed her admiration. Jack smiled. You had to hand it to the old guy; he knew how to milk the moment.

  As he flicked off the TV remote, he wondered idly at what point unreliable memories started affecting one’s sense of self. If you remembered the earlier you as braver, stronger, more concerned for your fellow man than you actually were, would this souped-up recollection determine how you acted in the present? If you were born a lowly Ford Focus but started remembering yourself as a Shelby Mustang, would you become one? Maybe, after all these years of building a legend in his own mind, his father had indeed turned himself into the kind of man who would selflessly storm to the rescue: rushing into fiery buildings, swimming fast-flowing rivers, dragging limp survivors out of burning cars.

  ‘Finished?’

  Chloe Quindlen, his father’s personal assistant, stepped into the office. Chloe was attractive, smart and hopelessly in love with her boss. Smart and foolish were not mutually incompatible.

  ‘Yes. Thanks for showing it to me.’

  Chloe pressed her finger on the player’s eject button and removed the CD, her expression reverent. ‘Great interview, wasn’t it? Mr Simonetti is a wonderful man.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  His tone of voice was not to her satisfaction. She frowned. ‘I hear you’ve been naughty.’

  Naughty. He tried desperately to think of a response to this accusation, which would be even remotely appropriate.

  ‘Your father is rather disappointed, Jack.’

  ‘I know. Very sad.’

  ‘How can you laugh about it!’ She glared at him.

  Contrition was clearly called for. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m behaving badly. Will you forgive me?’

  She sniffed, slightly mollified. ‘He shouldn’t be long. Can I get you anything while you wait?’

  ‘No, I’m good. Thanks.’

  She walked out of the door trailing L’Air du Temps and left him to his own company and his father’s collection of contemporary art. Leon Simonetti had recently begun to see himself as New York City’s answer to Charles Saatchi and the vast walls of his office were covered with canvasses vibrating spiky angst.

  His father’s desk was exceptionally neat. Apart from a leather blotter and a telephone, the only other object on the slab of polished mahogany was a tripod-shaped piece of steel engraved with the words, aut vincere aut mori. ‘Either to conquer or to die.’ Very macho. The Latin wasn’t an affectation, though. His father had a genuine love for the classics and had insisted on his reluctant son acquiring a nodding acquaintance with both Latin and Greek. As a teenager, the value of studying a dead language had never made sense to Jack although he found it paying off in unexpected ways later on. Girls, he discovered, were surprisingly impressed with a guy who could drop a casual quote or two from the Ars Amatoria.

  The sound of voices in the outside office, and the next moment his father strode into the room, his shoulders belligerent and his eyes snapping behind the steel rims of his spectacles. He waved impatiently at Jack who was getting to his feet and slapped a newspaper onto the desk.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  Jack looked at the grainy black and white picture and winced. The photographer had certainly captured the moment. It showed him with an unholy grin on his face holding a chair above his head, which he was clearly about to crash down on the head of the wild-eyed individual facing him. The caption read: ‘Tycoon’s son in brawl.’

  ‘I was helping a lady in distress.’

  ‘You were looking for a bar fight and you found it. The woman was just an excuse.’

  Jack sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  His father jabbed a vicious finger at the photograph. ‘And this is out there for everyone to see!’

  It probably wasn’t the time to tell his father that he had become quite the celebrity on YouTube as well. 2,300 hits since the previous night and counting.

  ‘I don’t understand you. You have a brain but you waste it. I’ve given you an education. I’ve given you all the tools you need to make something of yourself but you take nothing seriously. You are not a child any more. Is there anything you care about, Jack? Anything you truly want?’

  ‘A long cool woman in a black dress …’

  His father’s nostrils flared.

  ‘No, sorry. Of course not. World peace. That’s it, world peace.’

  A long silence.

  ‘Well, I’ve had enough.’ His father’s face was set.

  Jack looked at him warily. He had heard these words before but this time they sounded different. Something told him he wasn’t going to like what came next.

  His father opened the drawer of his desk and removed an envelope.

  ‘Here. An e-ticket to London. You have a seat booked on the late flight to Heathrow.’<
br />
  London. Well, that wasn’t so bad. If his father wanted to banish him from home and hearth, he could think of worse places to hang than London. Jack pushed his hand inside the envelope and removed the ticket. Economy class. Still …

  ‘An English friend of mine has a problem. He thinks you might be able to help. His name is Daniel Barone.’

  The name stirred a recollection. In his father’s study at home were dozens of tastefully framed photographs showing his father glad-handing the rich and famous. Pushed into the back row was a picture of three men and two women. They were a striking group: young, beautiful, confident. On the photograph his father still had a shock of black hair and a jaw as planed as Clark Kent’s. Next to him, a handsome man with dark blond hair was looking into the camera with hooded eyes. ‘Barone,’ his mother had told him years ago when he had asked her about the photograph. ‘He was a friend of your father’s when they were both at Oxford. He was a famous scientist. I met him once. Charming man.’

  ‘And the girls?’

  His mother frowned. ‘I don’t know. When your father moved to the States he said he lost touch with all of them except Daniel.’ His mother had frowned again, touching her hand thoughtfully to the glass pane, her fingers hovering over the young faces.

  Jack replaced the ticket in the envelope. ‘What kind of problem are we talking about?’

  ‘Daniel’s ward disappeared.’

  Ward. To Jack the word tasted old-fashioned. Like something from Jane Eyre.

  ‘Surely this is a matter for the police?’

  ‘You don’t understand. His ward disappeared but she has been found again. But there are … complications.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can help.’

  ‘This is not open for discussion, Jack. You will get on the plane tonight and when you arrive at the other side, you will place yourself at Daniel’s complete disposal. If you refuse —or if you make a mess of things over there—I will cut you off. No allowance. No apartment. No trendy little art gallery for your friend, Nicola. No more funding for your mountaineering expeditions or that ridiculous stock car racing. And this time, I mean it. You will come back to New York to nothing. And don’t go crying to your grandmother—I’ve discussed this with her and she finally agrees with me that the time has come for you to get on track.’