‘What?’ She watched him with a prickle of apprehension. There was no more wine, dinner was over; they were fast approaching the point of the evening where they would have to decide, tacitly, by inference, how or whether he was going home. He couldn’t drive with the amount he’d had, even on a tiny island with no traffic police. She wondered if he had deliberately drunk too much in the hope of being invited to stay.
‘We should look at that book.’
It was not the suggestion she had expected. Wrong-footed, she flailed for an answer. That same fierce possessiveness clawed at her; she did not want to share the book, though she knew there was no way she could avoid giving it up. Edward would tell Charles, the first chance he got, and she had no claim on it, besides being the finder.
‘Now?’
‘Aren’t you curious? It’s got to be connected with the McBrides. It must have been hidden there since before the house was done up. I remember Mick saying the chimneys and the walls were the only parts that had survived intact, because they were built so solidly.’
Zoe swallowed, her throat scrunched tight. ‘Sure, why not.’
Ailsa Mhairi McBride. February 1862.
Inscribed on the flyleaf in a looping Victorian hand, the name and date stood out as a declaration of intent. Zoe concentrated on keeping her hands steady, her eyes on the page, fighting the impulse to slam the book shut, away from Edward’s avid attention. He sat next to her on the sofa in the drawing room where they had found the gull and the book, so close that she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck as he leaned in for a closer look, his arm and thigh pressed warm and solid against hers. Without the book, she might have welcomed such proximity; in its presence, she felt a distinct unease, as if she were about to commit a betrayal. Ailsa had purposely hidden her journal away from prying eyes, more than a century ago; if it were to be read at all, it should be by another woman, who would understand and respect the privacy of her most intimate thoughts. Zoe could not shake the sense that she had become the guardian of the book’s contents, and that it was her responsibility to protect Ailsa from further slander or misunderstanding.
‘Go on.’ He nudged her gently, reaching across to turn the page for her.
She put out a hand to stop him. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t.’
He pulled back and stared at her. ‘Are you kidding? It’s Ailsa McBride’s diary – it might have the answer to the island’s greatest unsolved mystery. Charles is going to go insane when he sees it.’
As if it were all settled and there could be no dispute about handing it over to Charles; as if he had an automatic right to it.
‘He’ll know better than anyone what should be done with it,’ Edward said, sensing her reluctance. ‘This is a piece of history – it ought to be studied properly. I know by rights we should tell Mick, but you know how touchy he can be about the McBride story – I wouldn’t put it past him to destroy it, if he thought it might embarrass his family.’
He was canny, Zoe thought; he guessed she wouldn’t want to put the book at risk. She wished she had been alone when she found it.
‘But it feels intrusive,’ she said, stalling. ‘Someone’s private journal.’
Edward looked at her, frowning, trying to work out if she was joking. ‘She’s dead,’ he said, in the voice she supposed he used to his fourth-graders.
Zoe breathed in and turned the first page.
He came to me again tonight, it began.
9
19th February 1862
HE came to me again tonight. Tamhas instructs me to make a note of every such Visitation while he is away, so that he may copy it into his tables and charts, so that every Act may be quantified and measured and the progress of his Success determined. My Husband appears not to entertain the idea that some things might resist his scrutiny. Tamhas cannot comprehend the Passions; his talk is all of obligation and duty, principally mine. But should I condemn him for that, when – until HE appeared – I had no more knowledge of Passion than this table on which I write? I was inanimate, sleepwalking, dead to my own Will and Desire until HE wakened me, and for that I must thank my husband – though he sees only what he wishes to see.
Tamhas intended me to be an instrument, to which I acquiesced, for what else should an obedient Wife do? but my Husband can have no notion of what he has unleashed in our lives. Into our cold marriage bed – shall I say less welcoming to me than a mortuary slab? – has erupted a molten fount of pure animal greed, so fiery I have no doubt it will consume me at the last. Already I feel myself changed utterly by it – all senses raw, uncovered, alive to the salt air and the rhythms of the tide, my body opened and laid bare like the most brazen Jezebel – I, who until the age of four-and-thirty had barely known the touch of my own hand, still less another’s! And while I do not doubt that HE is pure, I am certain HE is here not for our benefit but for purposes of HIS own, which cannot be good. My Husband believes himself to be Master here, but that was ever his error. He meddles too deeply with what he only partially understands. Some harm will come of all this, I know it in my marrow – whether greater or lesser only Time will show – but I would not go back now – I could not – no, not for a nursery full of babes and the safety of my cold sheets.
For my Husband, I will note merely the date, time and place, so that he may complete his charts for Monsieur Lévi, and therein my duty is fulfilled. Here I will set down the particulars, for my own record: how HE came to me, how HE touched me, what new heights HE urges me to. If there be harm to come, let it come.
‘This is incredible.’ Edward half-turned to her, his eyes shining. ‘She’s written the story of her affair. She might even identify her child’s father in this, if we read on, this mysterious he. God, Charles will be beside himself.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘It sounds as if it was with her husband’s consent, that’s the most extraordinary thing. Suppose all our assumptions about Victorian morals are completely wrong? Why would he pimp his wife out, though? Maybe he wanted her to get pregnant, and he wasn’t up to it. “An instrument” – that makes sense, don’t you think? Or maybe that was his kink – asking her to write down all the times she had sex with her lover while he was away.’ He paused for breath and noticed Zoe’s expression. ‘Are you OK?’
She had laid her hand flat over the first page to stop him reading any further.
‘Fine,’ she managed. Again that strange tightness constricted her throat; again she sensed someone looking over her shoulder.
‘Suppose the lover killed her and the child, like you suggested?’ Edward continued, sitting forward, animated by his own theories. ‘She clearly has misgivings about him. It’s like she knows it’s going to end badly, and this is seven years before she dies, look at the date. If she names him, that could be the key to the whole mystery.’
‘Why would he have waited seven years to kill her?’ Her voice sounded distant in her own ears.
‘She might tell us if we read on,’ he said, looking to her for permission. ‘Perhaps she started making demands on him as her son grew older. If the lover never intended to acknowledge the child, and it was supposed to be passed off as her husband’s, he might have been afraid it would all come out and decided to silence her. Maybe he had a family of his own already.’
‘So you believe they were both murdered now?’
‘I’m only thinking aloud. I bet it’s all in here.’ He brushed his fingers lightly across the back of her hand on the book. ‘Let’s go on.’
Zoe allowed herself to be led. She turned the page and they read on together, flicking through the diary entries: Ailsa’s breathless, self-conscious descriptions of her lover’s visits, her amazement at her own awakened sensuality. The house fell dark around them as they read, heads bent close over the cramped pages until they were marooned in the pool of lamplight while shadows gathered in corners. A charged silence filled the room, disturbed only by the rustle of paper and the rise and fall of their breath.
In the stillness, Zoe found he
rself painfully aware of Edward’s body, the pressure and solidity of him at her side, the nearness of his slender fingers on the paper, the faint crust of salt on his brow, together with the thudding of blood at her temples, the pounding pulse between her legs as Ailsa’s words stirred up memories, though she could no longer say for certain if the images she saw were her own or Ailsa’s. But it was the pictures that frightened her. Ailsa had been a talented artist, it seemed; almost every other page held a careful pen-and-ink sketch. Zoe recognised them as the cove outside the house, or the view from the turret. But then Edward turned a page and she saw a drawing of the beach seen from the gallery, through the high windows; there, at the western edge of the sand, Ailsa had sketched in a shadowy figure, looking up at the house. Zoe felt a cold finger trace a line up the back of her neck. She flicked quickly to the next page and heard Edward’s sharp intake of breath: half the page was taken up with a drawing of a naked woman draped over a chaise longue, arms raised above her head and crossed at the wrists, her face angled away so that it could not be seen. One leg was crooked up on the chaise, the other placed on the floor, and a man knelt between her thighs, his head buried in her pubic mound. Though it seemed a rough, hasty sketch, the picture had a compellingly lifelike quality; you could almost see the woman’s flesh quivering, her muscles braced as she arched her back.
‘Looks like Ailsa was definitely getting hers,’ Zoe said, to break the tension. ‘Good girl.’
It sounded childish; the words echoed around the room. Her face burned and she felt Edward tense beside her as he shifted his weight back, surreptitiously trying to adjust his erection. They had to stop now, she had to send him home, before Ailsa led them into trouble. There was too much awareness between them, too great a charge in the air; it was as if Ailsa’s unfettered desires had infected the house with the promise of sex. Zoe tried to move, but a glance at the door and the darkness beyond made her shrink back into the cushions. Edward turned the next page and she saw a picture that made her cry out. A young woman stood, naked, her hands fastened above her head to a hook in the ceiling, her hair hanging down in loose strands that obscured her face. The windows of the gallery were outlined behind her and to her right, the figure of a man holding a thin cane, his features in shadow. It was the image from her sleepwalking dream of the night before – not a vague approximation, but the identical image. But how could it be? Ailsa McBride had sketched this over a hundred and fifty years ago and she, Zoe, had not seen it until this moment. There was no explanation – at least, not one that Zoe was prepared to countenance. Worse still, she feared that if the woman in the picture were to lift her head, the gaunt face beneath the straggling hair would be her own; she could not let him turn the page to find out.
‘That looks like the man in your sketch,’ Edward remarked.
‘Stop.’ Her voice rang shrill in the silence. She grabbed the book from him and stood, holding it to her chest. ‘We have to stop, now.’
‘What’s wrong?’ He came to stand directly in front of her, a fraction too close, speaking softly. ‘Is it because of what happened to her?’ When Zoe didn’t reply, he nodded, as if answering himself. He reached up to take off his glasses and she noticed his hands were shaking. ‘You’re right – it feels wrong, reading this, knowing she was so obsessed with the guy that likely killed her. Especially when it’s so …’ His voice had grown hoarse; he broke off, lowering his head, his hair falling in his eyes. When he lifted his head again she caught the look in his eye: a glazed hunger, barely held in check. For a heartbeat she felt afraid. Unleashed, was the word that zipped through her mind: Ailsa’s word, and she could not help noting its aptness. A force had been unleashed in this house in Ailsa’s time; it had consumed her, as she had predicted, and it was still here. No wonder such stories had grown up around the place.
She opened her mouth to speak, but found no words. Her eyes remained locked on Edward’s as their breathing synchronised, quick and shallow. All she could hear was the ticking of the clock in the hall and the drumming of her own heartbeat; she could not take her eyes off his, even when he stepped towards her without seeming to move, and bent his head slowly until his lips brushed hers and she could taste the sea-salt. He placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her in as her mouth moulded to his, hot and open and searching, while disjointed thoughts scudded through her brain: I am twenty years older than you; I have a husband and child; go home, you pristine boy, before I taint you with my mistakes. But she gripped his narrow hips by the belt loop of his jeans and pulled him against her with one hand, still clasping Ailsa’s book in the other.
When she felt she might faint with the rush of it, she pulled away to stare at him, snatching gulps of air. He looked back at her with the same frank amazement, as if he could not believe his own boldness. Zoe felt herself shaken, off-balance with desire, all her senses wound tight to a trembling point. She could not articulate to him what she wanted; hardly daring to look at her, he slid down the zip of her hoodie and bent his mouth to the hard tip of her breast. She flexed like a cat, wrapped her fingers in his hair, tipped her head back and opened her eyes to gaze, unfocused, over his shoulder – and let out a scream.
‘What?’ Edward jumped back as if he had been slapped.
‘There.’ She pointed at the black window behind him, scrabbling with her zip as the journal fell to the floor. ‘I saw a face. Outside.’
She did not miss the flicker of doubt that clouded his expression as he turned to the French windows. The only faces staring back from the glass were their own; pale, wavering discs against the night sky. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t just the reflection?’
‘Someone’s out there. I saw them, looking in. Quick, go see. I’ll check the front.’
Trying to hide his reluctance, Edward adjusted himself, opened the glass doors at the end of the room and stepped out on to the veranda. Zoe took a deep breath and slipped into the dark hallway, feeling for the light switch, snatching up a pair of boots by the front door on her way out. Triggered by her movement, the security lights blanched the drive with their sudden white glare, but she could see no sign of scuttling in the shadows. She made her way carefully around to the north side of the house where the marram grass sloped down towards the beach. Here, where the path ended and the cone of light did not reach, she found herself swallowed into darkness once more, obliged to guess her way over the coarse tufts, past the steps that led up to the veranda and on until she felt the shift of sand beneath her feet. Scraps of cloud dragged across a faint moon. She stood motionless, arms wrapped around herself, night air chilling her skin. In the distance, waves broke in white frills and the expanse of water beyond was pure, empty black. She might have been sunk in its cold depths now if not for Edward, she thought. The memory of that hand closing around her ankle caught at her and shuddered through her whole body. If she had drowned, how long would it have taken for Dan to find out, she wondered? She had not given Mick and Kaye his number; they didn’t even know he existed. How long before someone called him? If Edward hadn’t come, they would have found only her clothes strewn across the beach. They might have supposed she had made a deliberate choice. Dan would have been left wondering if that had been her whole purpose all along in coming here.
After a few more cautious, blind paces, the toe of her boot struck a soft lump; she bent to examine a pale shape among the dunes and stifled a cry when she realised it was the dead gull, the wind gently ruffling its feathers, its head bent at an unnatural angle. Beyond her field of vision she sensed a shadow stir; she jumped to her feet, casting wildly around, but could see nothing except the bulk of the cliffs on either side and a thin line of lighter sky at the horizon. Quick footsteps crunched across the gravel behind her; she whipped around, clutching at her sleeves, but it was only Edward, holding out his phone as a flashlight.
‘Are you OK? Did you see someone?’
She shook her head. ‘I almost stood on the dead bird. Sorry.’
‘I honestly don’t think there
’s anyone here,’ he said, sounding apologetic. ‘I’ve been all the way round the house. You probably saw a reflection, or a ripple in the glass. The light can do strange things up here.’
Zoe bit her lip; he meant to be reassuring, but that overly patient tone, with its implication that her judgement was unreliable, sounded all too familiar to her. She resented the suggestion that she was imagining things, especially from someone who was far from sober himself. The cold air had drained the wine’s glow from her; now she only felt tired and embarrassed by her own dizzy lust.
‘We should go in,’ Edward said, after a pause.
She nodded and set off towards the front door without looking at him. He trotted close beside her, sweeping his phone light along the façade of the house ahead of them, making a show of being her protector to ward off the awkward silence.
‘You’ve got a message,’ he remarked, as they passed the phone on the hall table with its blinking red light. Zoe glanced at it but could not muster the energy to listen, not with him standing there.
‘Look, Edward—’ she began, as he hovered in front of her in the entrance hall. She sensed he was waiting for permission to continue where they had left off, and was briefly touched by his deferral to her decision. ‘I’m really tired. I’m sorry if – back there, I didn’t mean for that to happen. It was all – I don’t know – the wine, the book. This afternoon, in the sea. Everything got a little crazy.’
‘You could have drowned.’ He said it simply, not as a reprimand; even so, Zoe heard the faintest hint of an obligation.
‘I know. I’m very grateful. I just think we should …’ She rubbed her hands over her face, searching for words that would do the least harm. She could not bring herself to meet his eye; that vulnerable, open look that suggested he would bruise easily. There was such a seriousness about him; he did not seem the kind of boy who was looking for an uncomplicated fling, and what good could it do him to become attached to her while she was here? He would think she had led him on, and perhaps he would be right, but she must be the adult now, before any real damage was done. He had come here to nurse his rejection by a woman; she did not want to add to it. ‘Be sensible. You know. There’s the age difference,’ she finished lamely.
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