Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  She nodded, waited.

  ‘Adam and I were talking about morality and what constitutes evil. Adam said that evil was merely the absence of good. That evil was not an outside entity that can be fought and vanquished. I did not agree with him, of course. And neither did I subscribe to his belief in destiny.’

  ‘He believed in destiny?’

  ‘Very much so. Not by divine decree, but by connection of cause and effect.’

  ‘So he believed in inescapable fate.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Reverend Wyatt nodded. ‘He believed in it absolutely. And he believed in reincarnation.’

  ‘Reincarnation? You probably didn’t agree with this view either.’

  ‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’ve always found it interesting that a certain school of Kabbalists saw in reincarnation a punishment.’

  ‘A punishment? For what?’

  ‘For Cain’s slaying of his brother Abel.’

  • • •

  THE WIND was picking up. The air had a wet, wild smell. As Justine walked back to her car, there were few people left on the street. A woman on the top floor of a house opposite shut her window against the first fat drops of rain. Justine glanced back and saw that even the church doors were now closed and the spire poked into a sky the colour of crushed mulberries.

  She shivered. By some trick of the light, it seemed as though a shadow was falling from the tall spire and was racing across the narrow high street, swallowing the houses and shops. There was something not quite real about any of it, as though, were she to blink, she might wake up and find herself alone in her bed, and Ainstey—its houses and its church—a memory from a dream.

  SEVEN

  THE WATCHER liked her name. Justine. He liked her eyes. In fact, he had liked everything about her from the first moment he saw her. Such an uneventful morning and then—suddenly—there she was.

  Small, heart-shaped face. Cigarette-thin arms. Fragile wrists that looked as though they might break from the weight of the thick silver bracelets clamped around them. Her eyelashes were long, the tips pale. The curve of her upper lip was naturally exaggerated. But, despite the pretty cupid’s bow of her mouth, there was a wildness about her. It marked her person like a birthmark. It was evident in the set of her jaw, the tone of her voice. It thrilled him deeply.

  Justine. A good name; feminine, but it had that connotation of justice, and justice was a masculine concept, despite the ubiquitous blindfolded lady and her balancing scales. And her eyes. He really liked her eyes. She spoke of Adam Buchanan and there was a tiny tic at the corner of one eyelid. The expression on her face almost rapt. When he saw that expression and recognised her deep fascination with the man, he had felt his pulse quicken.

  It was a long time since he had found someone worthy of the game. He didn’t ask just anyone to play. He had to be intrigued first. Something about the subject needed to engage him and engage him powerfully. Interesting players were few and far between. The majority of people led deeply mundane lives; possessed deeply mundane minds. But every now and then he got lucky.

  Sometimes he chose a man. More often than not his choice was a woman. Women were more furtive—they had more secret places in their minds.

  The Watcher knew he had a gift. People never really noticed him. He fulfilled a certain role in the community and his work meant that he knew many of the residents in Ainstey and many of them knew him. But he never truly registered with people.

  Take Justine Callaway. Doubtless, when they met again, she’d nod her head in his direction and smile. She might even stop to talk to him, but just as with all the others he would make no real imprint on her consciousness.

  When he had looked into Justine’s eyes, he had felt his breath catch. In that instant he knew the game was on. And when he recognised her fascination with Adam Buchanan, he knew that fate had brought her to him.

  The Watcher was feeling tremendously energised. The game was about to start. His visits would be furtive, but at the end of the day he would know the rhythm of her days. And the fragmented landscape of her mind.

  Observe the observable. The imprint of her lips on the rim of a cup. A passage marked in a book. The crescent of a stray eyelash on a pillowcase. The slope of her shoulders as she sits at her desk. The sound of her breathing as she sleeps.

  The shape of her dreams.

  EIGHT

  THE RAIN EASED by night-time, but the wind had intensified. As Justine descended the staircase she could hear it crooning around the corners of the house.

  She was dressed for bed and her skin felt pleasantly flushed from a hot bath. In one hand she carried her portable CD player. She set it down on the windowsill in the entrance hall and slipped a disc into the slot. Dido and Aeneas: story of the doomed passion of the lovesick queen of Carthage. As she walked through the library door, Leontyne Price’s voice followed her in all its crystalline brilliance.

  The library was not her favourite room. Despite its dazzlingly high ceilings, grandeur and size, she felt stifled in here. Every morning she opened the windows as wide as they would go, but it seemed to her as though no breeze ever managed to enter this room. The air in here was dead air and, try as she might, she could not dispel the feeling of closeness. But apart from her bedroom and the dreary formal sitting room, it was the only other furnished room in the house. And against one wall was a big wood-burning fireplace. Tonight she would build a fire.

  As she stepped over the raised threshold she had to admit that the design of the room was quite lovely and as lavish and opulent as an opera set. The dark wooden bookcases reaching up to the ceiling were at least five metres tall and fronted by glass. But the most striking feature of the room was the huge three-metre paintings covering the length of one wall and the murals peeping from the recesses over and between the bookcases.

  As she gazed at the dramatic canvases, painted by modern-day acolytes in the style of the old masters, she wondered briefly what Reverend Wyatt had made of them on his visits to the house. Surely he must have been slightly taken aback by this strange mishmash of biblical scenes and characters from Greek mythology. Here was a double-chinned Dionysus, surrounded by over-ripe fruit and inanely smiling maidens. Next to him Christ, with bloodied thorns and a body mottled with blue, as though some dreadful disease could be glimpsed through the parchment skin. The divergent images were arranged cheek by jowl without any apparent rhyme or reason. Angels with astonished eyes. Lascivious nymphs. Haloed saints and pink-nippled goddesses. Dark shadows, buttered light. Colours as rich as polished gems.

  And this room, too, had its mirror—just like all the other rooms in the house. This particular specimen was grand indeed: at least two metres tall with a gold lattice frame studded with rosettes. She glanced into its depths and grimaced at the reflected image of herself. She was wearing a man’s nightshirt and thick socks. In that opulent, theatrical room she looked faintly ridiculous, with her bare knees peeping out from beneath the rounded hem and her arms stick-like within the wide sleeves.

  She knelt in front of the fireplace. Striking a match against the side of the box, she stared at the tiny flame creeping down the stick toward her thumb. At the last moment she opened her hand and the match dropped against a crumpled ball of newspaper.

  For a while she continued to sit quietly, her eyes unblinking. Considering what had happened to her and Jonathan, she ought to be terrified of fire. But here she was, kneeling calmly in front of the open hearth, actually stretching out her hands to the warmth. It was practically obscene, such unconcern. And she hadn’t given up smoking either, even though it was the reason she had woken up to flames and smoke and Jonathan screaming.

  Jonathan. She could conjure up his face without even closing her eyes. The lanky figure, the silky blond hair forever tumbling over his forehead, the kind eyes. She had adored him even though it would have been just as easy to resent him. He was the good son. He was lovely and sweet and liked by everyone who crossed his path. They were as unlike as brother and sister
could be.

  She had been a challenging child and an impossible teenager. She had shaved her head once, which did not go down well with her mother at all, and neither did the two tattoos—the image of a snake and the head of a wolf—which she had acquired at the age of sixteen during a summer holiday in Blackpool.

  By the time she entered adulthood, she was a person most people found difficult to warm to. Her father called her ‘wilful’, but ‘wilful’ was a pretty word, a word that smacked of the exotic and slightly mischievous. A heroine in a romance novel is wilful, a flirtatious Scarlett O’Hara used to getting her own way. It was not a word that applied to her. She was not wilful; she was angry. And self-destructive. Her mother’s word, that: ‘Justine won’t live to see forty. She’s too self-destructive.’

  In her twenties, she had delighted in practising sports with an edge: bungee-jumping, sky diving, white-water rafting. Whether these pursuits had been the result of a genuine need for speed, or whether she was merely trying to annoy her parents was another question. From there she had graduated to drugs, finally ending up in a hospital A&E with a stomach pump pushed down her throat. And then there was the suicide attempt: lying in the bathtub, watching the wrinkling of the skin on her toes and fingertips; watching her blood turn pink and thin as it mixed with the tepid water.

  But her mother had it wrong. She wasn’t just self-destructive—she was also a wrecking ball in other people’s lives. Like Lord Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know. She could be very bad for your health. Lethal, in fact. If he were alive, Jonathan would be able to testify to that. If he were alive…

  She remembered that she had looked forward to spending those two weeks of holiday in Jonathan’s company. They had rented a house in Cornwall, a ramshackle place much too big for the two of them but all they could find at fairly short notice. The house was worn around the edges; the porch sagged and the slates on the roof were in need of repair. But the front rooms had a view of the sea and flowers bloomed in the garden.

  But almost from the beginning things went wrong. She had arrived at the house edgy and restless. On their first evening together, after dinner, she lit a cigarette knowing full well it would irritate Jonathan, who did not smoke. He didn’t say anything. Leaning over, he simply removed the cigarette from her lips and stubbed it out.

  She lit up again, just to spite him—not really in the mood for a cigarette, but enjoying the opportunity it would give her to pick a fight. But he decided not to play. Tucking his newspaper under his arm, he told her he was going to bed.

  At the threshold he paused. ‘You should watch out.’ He gestured at the pack of cigarettes and the box of matches. ‘Those will be the death of you.’

  But it wasn’t the death of her. It was the death of him. Because when she had stumbled to bed a little later, tipsy from too many glasses of whisky, she had left behind—on the arm of her chair—the cigarette, still smouldering. The tired old house had gone up in flames like the box of tinder it was.

  What had that librarian said earlier today? A wild night and a new road: that was what dying was all about. But sometimes you longed to walk that road even in life. Especially in life.

  She shook her head sharply. These were dangerous thoughts; she needed to put them from her mind. And she knew just the man who would be able to help. Mr Johnnie Walker. Now there was a guy who rarely let her down.

  She had brought a fresh bottle of whisky only this morning and as she walked into the kitchen she could see the neck peeping out from the brown paper bag. Good. She was feeling better already. But as she extracted the bottle from the bag and twisted the top open, she thought she heard something. The sound was just sufficiently offbeat for her to lower the bottle and still her movements.

  For a few moments she stood quietly, trying to identify what had caught her attention. From behind her, in the entrance hall, Price was singing her heart out. Dido’s lament. The trilling voice sounded far-off, muted by the passage and the thick swinging door leading to the kitchen. In here it was almost completely quiet.

  The fridge made a small shuddering noise. There was the sound of wind, and the window above the sink jerked sporadically.

  She stood quietly. She listened.

  Nothing. Her imagination was running away with her. But as she reached for the bottle once more, there it was again; a small, metallic rattle.

  She walked over to the back door and slid the heavy bolt from the lock. The door opened inward and the force of the wind took her by surprise. The night was gusty and the courtyard very dark. She could barely make out the tower with the clock.

  Her fingers searched for the outside light switch. There were several spotlights fixed to the walls, but when she pressed the switch, only one of the lights lit up. The others must be dead—or maybe they didn’t even have bulbs. Still, the feeble light from the single bulb was better than nothing.

  She had no shoes on, only her socks, and the gravel underneath her feet cut into her soles. She walked forward hesitantly, straining her ears. And there it was—the same flat, metallic rattle that had first alerted her. Her eyes darted to the left.

  A beer can. That’s all it was. She could see it clearly in the yellow light. With each new gust of wind, it skittered across the cement walkway. She stooped and picked it up.

  Where had it come from? As she turned the aluminium can over in her hand, she heard a door bang and her head snapped up.

  The noise came from the direction of the storage rooms on the far side of the quadrangle. Her heart was suddenly racing. She stared at the long building with its row of closed, locked doors.

  Except one of the doors was slightly ajar. As she watched, the force of the wind pulled the door open briefly and then slammed it shut once again with a muffled thud.

  She started to walk slowly across the empty courtyard, her eyes fixed on the door, which was continuing to open and close with each breath of wind. Every time the door swung inward, she was able to see only a deeper darkness than the blackness of the night that surrounded her.

  She placed her hand against the splintered wooden surface of the door and took a deep, steadying breath.

  Here goes.

  With a swift, determined gesture, she pushed the door open and it crashed loudly against the inside wall.

  Nothing. There was no one there.

  But there had been—and recently. The light falling over her shoulder was just strong enough for her to see a thin, filthy mattress and two pillows. In the corner was a six-pack of beer, with two of the plastic rings empty. It was easy to guess where the beer can she had picked up outside had come from.

  A greasy little nest of sweet-wrappers and empty crisp bags was sitting beside one of the pillows. Spread open at the bottom of the mattress was a magazine. She sat down on her heels beside it and grimaced at the cover: a topless woman with a gravity-defying bosom and a come-hither pout.

  On top of the seat of a chair was a half-empty bottle of cane spirits. Pink knickers hung jauntily from the back of a broken chair. Mattress, knickers, porn, alcohol. Classy.

  She dusted her hands and got to her feet. The idea that there was an intruder or intruders at Paradine Park was disturbing. She would have to do something about it.

  As she stepped out the door, she made sure she closed it tightly behind her, so that the wind would not be able to blow it open once again. For a few moments she stood looking around her, her eyes travelling around the courtyard, the walkway, the arch leading to the gravel driveway and the avenue of trees beyond. But she could see no one.

  She started to walk back toward the house, where a bright yellow wedge of light sliced through the open kitchen door into the darkness. Mason and his grandson would be coming in tomorrow. She would ask them to clean out the room and put a lock on the door. And to replace the dead bulbs in the wall-mounted spotlights while they were at it. It was high time she took her duties as a caretaker more seriously. She entered the kitchen and dead-bolted the door behind her.

  NINE


  HIS MOTHER WAS probably the most beautiful woman Adam had ever known. Louisa Buchanan’s colouring was that of milk and ice: creamy-white skin, ash-blonde hair and eyes of a blue so pale, they appeared transparent. Slim and long-limbed, she walked with grace and every gesture was elegant. But there was something about her that was almost unbearably languid. Just the way she lifted her hand or turned her head made it seem as though she was always in the grip of lassitude. She never raised her voice. She never laughed out loud. And when she touched you, her skin felt cool.

  But she was lovely and throughout the house were mirrors that reflected her beauty as she walked from room to room. There were photographs of the family scattered throughout the house—adorning side tables, bookshelves, the piano—but remarkably few pictures of Louisa herself. It was as though her beauty could not be adequately captured by camera and was better served by the shiny, reflective surfaces hanging from the walls—to be copied again and again—endless variations on the same beautiful theme. His mother and mirrors; in his mind they became inextricably linked. Often Adam would enter a room which she had vacated only a moment before, and he would look at the gleaming piece of glass on the wall as though he expected to still find within it a glimpse of her moving form.

  She had dutifully christened her firstborn, Adam, after his grandfather. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, the child did not resemble the mother. Her second son was born only a year later and this time she had felt free to indulge herself and choose a name she liked: Richard. It was a name she associated with chivalry and virtue, she always said. It was a romantic name, a name that would suit a knight, or a king. And she’d smile gently and from across the room her fair-haired son, whose long-lidded eyes mimicked the shape of those of his mother, would smile back. And then he’d turn his head and look at his brother who was watching this silent interplay carefully and his smile would deepen into something approaching contempt.