by Sibel Hodge
‘It’s OK, darling, take your time.’
‘I tried to calm him down, but he wouldn’t listen, so I thought I should give him a bit of space. I turned back and walked towards the bench, hoping it would give him time to calm down. But when I got there and looked back at him, he was staring at me. And then . . . then there was this moment, where he had this expression of clarity on his face, and then he turned around and stepped off the cliff. By the time I got to where he’d been standing he was . . . he was gone. Shit!’ He yelled so loud it made me pull the phone away from my ear for a second. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t believe it happened.’
I tried to avoid looking at the others, who were all wearing expressions of worried expectation.
‘Liv, it’s . . . oh, God.’
‘I’m so sorry. So sorry.’ I closed my eyes, the tears smarting behind my eyelids. Part of me felt a rush of emotion. Part of me felt numb, disbelieving.
‘Oh, the police are here now. I have to go. I’ll see you soon.’ He hung up.
I stood there, phone still pressed to my ear, blinking away the tears, not really seeing anything in front of me.
‘What’s happened?’ Nadia rose and walked towards me. ‘Has Dad had another heart attack?’
I couldn’t speak, just let the tears snake down my cheeks.
She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. ‘What’s happened?’
I stepped out of her grip, took a tumbler from the cupboard and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Tom’s just taken his own life.’ I poured myself a large whisky and didn’t stop drinking until I’d swallowed the whole lot. It burned on the way down, igniting fire inside the pit of my stomach, which was already delicate from not eating all day, from the constant jangling nerves. I wanted it to anaesthetise me. Make everything go away.
‘Suicide?’ Nadia sat next to me, her expression dazed, shaking her head. ‘No. How on earth could he do that?’
‘He . . . um . . . he stepped off the cliffs at Durdle Door.’ I poured myself another drink. The bottle was almost empty.
Nadia leaned her elbows on the table and flopped her head in her hands, her hair falling over the table and shielding her face as her shoulders shook with sobs.
Lucas’s face drained of colour. He slid his arm around Nadia and drew her closer, rubbing her head in soft strokes. ‘I’m really sorry, darling. This is . . . wow. I can’t believe it. Any of it.’
‘He can’t have killed himself.’ Chris shook his head vacantly.
I retrieved another bottle of whisky from the cupboard − an old, expensive single malt thing that Ethan had been saving for a special occasion. Murder and suicide trumped special occasion, any day.
I topped up all our glasses. We were silent for a while, lost in our own stunned thoughts, grief filtering in slowly.
‘Who knows what was running through his mind,’ I said. ‘Ethan said he wasn’t sure if he meant to do it or he was just confused because he was angry and upset. Maybe it’s a good thing. What was the alternative?’
‘But surely the police wouldn’t have prosecuted a seventy-five-year-old Alzheimer’s patient for murder?’ Lucas said. ‘It wouldn’t be in their interests, would it?’
‘I very much doubt it,’ I said, rocking back and forth in my chair, wrapping my arms around my stomach.
Nadia let out a shuddering sob. Lucas kissed the top of her head.
I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. ‘But he was dying, anyway. Either another heart attack would’ve got him or the Alzheimer’s would’ve given him a slow death. As painful as this is, I think it was better for him.’ But what about for us? I wanted to say. What was best for us now? How could Tom do this to us all and then just jump off the cliff?
‘This is your fault!’ Nadia suddenly sat up straight, pointing an accusing finger at me, her eyes wide, eyelashes clumped together with damp, salty tears. ‘If you hadn’t said anything, none of this would’ve happened and Dad would still be here.’
A ball of guilt exploded in my chest at the force of her words. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. Any of it. Maybe I should’ve kept quiet. I just—’
‘Yes, maybe you should have,’ Nadia hissed.
‘How could she have kept quiet about it, love?’ Lucas stroked Nadia’s shoulder. ‘Olivia couldn’t have kept it a secret. It’s not fair to give her the responsibility of all this.’
Once again we were lost in our own silent thoughts. The only sounds permeating the room were sniffs and sobs and the ticking of the kitchen clock that seemed to reverberate right through me.
‘We’ve got to tell Charlotte,’ Nadia suddenly muttered, smoothing away the hair from her damp cheeks. She gripped Lucas’s hand. ‘I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to get her upset.’
‘Darling, we have to say something. This isn’t something we can hide.’ Lucas’s eyebrows furrowed together.
‘But that means it’ll be the end of it now, won’t it?’ Nadia tried to give a brave smile but it wavered on her face. ‘Dad confessed and now he’s . . . he’s gone, so maybe we can keep a lid on this. There won’t be a police investigation and . . .’ She looked around the room wildly. ‘. . . and maybe we won’t have to even tell the girls. We can just say there was an accident and Dad fell off the cliffs.’
‘People are going to talk, though,’ I said. ‘We can’t avoid this forever. The police have to tell Rose about what happened to Katie, and it will get out like that. It will be in the papers. Maybe even on the TV.’
‘Oh, no,’ Nadia groaned.
Chris downed more whisky, seemingly oblivious to the discussion going on around him.
‘Poor Ethan, witnessing that,’ I said. ‘He told me Tom was angry and that he walked off to give him a bit of space to calm down, but then he looked at Ethan and just stepped over the cliff. The police arrived when we were on the phone so he couldn’t tell me any more.’
‘Shall I go up there?’ Lucas suggested. ‘He might need a bit of moral support.’
‘By the time you get there, they’ll probably be sending him home,’ I said.
‘Do you think Tom knew what he was doing?’ Lucas asked.
Chris pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. When he released them again, his eyes glistened with sadness and something else. Anger. He reached for the bottle and poured another couple of inches into his empty glass. He missed the edge and some of it spilled onto the table. ‘Yes.’ He sneered. ‘I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Why would take his own life otherwise? He killed Katie and he couldn’t stand the guilt anymore. I didn’t want to believe Dad could do something like that, but now I do. He killed her all right. Why else would he jump off a cliff?’
‘How can you say that?’ Nadia shrieked at him.
I put a hand on Chris’s shoulder but he shook it away.
Lucas gripped Nadia’s hand. ‘I know you want to protect him, darling, but—’
‘Don’t, OK?’ She jerked her hand out of his grasp. ‘Just don’t.’
‘Look, I’ve got to go and meet the school bus now − I can’t leave it any longer.’ I stood up.
Nadia wiped her eyes. She blew her nose forcefully with a tissue from her bag and thrust it in her trouser pocket. Then she squared her shoulders and stood up. ‘I’ll come with you. We’ll bring them back here and then we can all tell them together,’ she said firmly, back in control.
‘Shall I come with you?’ Lucas said.
Nadia waved him off. ‘No, I can manage.’
Nadia and I walked up the road in silence and waited at the bus stop. The same bus stop where Chris was sitting when he saw Katie walk past, heading towards her death. What if she’d stopped and spoken to him that day? What if they’d chatted and Chris hadn’t gotten on the bus, and she hadn’t walked towards the barn? Would she still be alive now? If she was five or ten minutes
later going down the road, would that have made a difference? Would Tom still have killed her and buried her body?
An uncontrollable shudder shook me. I rubbed my arms and shifted from foot to foot in the silence. There were no words to say. Nothing seemed good enough for the events that had unfolded and shattered our family like an atomic bomb mushrooming through our lives. No words would make sense of it. I could feel Nadia’s anger towards me coming off her in waves. She blamed me for all of this, just like Ethan did.
When the school bus arrived Anna and Charlotte were the last off, chatting excitedly about some boy at school called Howie whom Charlotte fancied.
‘Mum!’ Anna grinned, full of energy. ‘What are you doing here?’
Charlotte said goodbye to one of her friends before turning to Nadia and frowning in annoyance. ‘We don’t need a chaperone.’ Then she turned to me and grinned brightly. ‘Hi, Aunty Olivia.’
Teenagers. They can blow hot and cold in the blink of an eye.
Charlotte started walking off in the direction of her house.
‘Wait! We all need to go to the barn,’ I called out after her.
‘What? But it’s the last day of term. I said I’d meet some friends later since we don’t have any school now. We’ve arranged to go bowling.’
‘No. We’re going to Olivia and Ethan’s,’ Nadia said, her voice croaky.
‘Are you all right?’ Anna said to me. ‘Have you been crying?’
‘But Mum!’ Charlotte whined. ‘I promised them.’
‘We’ve got some news we need to talk about, I’m afraid.’ I took Anna’s hand in mine and held the other out to Charlotte. ‘Come on. You’ve got the whole summer holiday to see your friends. This is important.’
Charlotte sighed and walked back towards us. Or rather, stalked.
‘It’s Granddad, isn’t it?’ Anna gave me a worried sideways glance as we made our way up the road. ‘He’s had another heart attack, hasn’t he?’ Her eyes welled up with tears.
I slid my arm around her shoulder. ‘Let’s wait till we get home.’
‘But it is, isn’t it?’ she wailed.
‘Is it, Mum?’ Charlotte asked Nadia behind us.
As I opened the gates Anna started crying.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he? Just tell me, Mum.’
I gripped her hand as I opened the front door. ‘Come on, let’s go in the kitchen.’
Charlotte immediately went to Lucas, standing next to him and putting her arm round his shoulder. He slid an arm round her waist. ‘Hi, sweetie.’
Anna gripped my hand hard. ‘Tell us.’
I looked at Nadia’s face, etched with pain.
She looked at me. Took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, girls, but Granddad had an accident earlier today. He was . . .’ She trailed off and looked back at me for help.
‘Ethan took him out for a trip to Durdle Door and there was an accident,’ I stepped in. ‘Granddad fell off the cliff.’
Anna’s forehead scrunched up in a frown that looked like a scowl. I knew that look well. It was a prerequisite to a full-blown hysterical crying fit.
‘No!’ Anna cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, which were rapidly turning red, her shoulders shaking up and down with the weight of her sobs as she gulped for air.
‘Mum, he’s still alive, right?’ Charlotte said disbelievingly to Nadia. ‘Right?’
I pulled Anna to me so her head rested on my shoulder and smoothed a hand over her forehead repeatedly, a gesture that had always relaxed her when she was younger and couldn’t sleep. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I know how much you loved him. But no one could survive that fall. He’s gone, sweetheart. And he’s not suffering anymore.’
Nadia reached for Charlotte but she buried her head in Lucas’s chest.
‘Well,’ Chris slurred, his eyes glassy. ‘At least things can’t get any worse.’
But he was wrong about that. Things were about to get a whole lot worse.
Chapter Twenty
It felt like a lifetime later when I slipped under the cotton sheet in bed. Ethan lay on his back, hands laced together behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t cried yet but it looked like the tears weren’t far off. The room felt oppressive, and not just because the heat from the summer day was trapped inside. The weight of Ethan’s grief, of mine, too, lay heavy and stifling in the air.
‘Is Anna asleep now?’ he said as I turned and nestled into his chest. He brought one arm around me. His heart beat in a steady rhythm against my cheek.
‘Finally. She kept asking me all sorts of questions about what happened. I was trying to explain that maybe this was kinder to Tom in the long run. And that he’s not in pain anymore and will always be in our hearts and memories, even though he’s no longer physically here anymore.’
‘And how did that go?’ He blinked rapidly.
‘Not too well.’
‘This is the first time someone close to her has died. It’s bound to be confusing for her.’
‘I know. But now she’s angry and upset with me because she didn’t get to say goodbye to him. She wanted to see him after the heart attack but I didn’t think it was a good idea just yet. And − oh, God, we haven’t even told her the whole story still. Imagine how she’s going to react then.’ He didn’t reply, so I said, ‘Chris is still asleep on the sofa.’
‘Passed out, more like. He was so drunk.’
‘I took his shoes off and left him there.’ I stroked my fingers lightly along Ethan’s flat stomach muscles, tracing a line over his hip bone.
He twisted a lock of my long hair round and round his finger.
‘I can’t stop thinking about everything. I’m so confused. If Katie dying was an accident, like Tom said, then why didn’t he just call the police when it happened? Why not confess to it at the time instead of covering it up? And then the next minute he said he had to do it, which makes it seem like it wasn’t an accident at all. I mean, there must’ve been other people working on site when he was renovating the barn. Chris was working here as one of the builders at the time, wasn’t he? And there would’ve been electricians, plumbers. Maybe Tom knew something about the murder but he didn’t actually do it. Well, he must’ve known something, otherwise he wouldn’t know where she was buried, would he? But I keep hoping that he wasn’t directly involved. Although, I suppose—’
He pressed a fingertip to my lips and rolled sideways so he was angled over me, forearms taking his weight. ‘Don’t. Just stop. For just a few moments I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to hear about it.’ His brown eyes looked almost black in the darkness of the room. They glistened as they roved my face.
Before I could agree to stop talking, he’d crashed his lips against mine, his tongue desperately delving inside my mouth with a fiery need usually reserved for make-up sex. We were lost in a tangle of legs and arms and lips and groans, and then I was pressing myself against him and he was inside me. It was short. Fierce. Electric. Something animal and primal we both needed to remind ourselves of our own mortality. We were still alive. We were the lucky ones.
Afterwards I lay in the crook of his arm again, sweat drying against my skin.
‘I just can’t believe he did it in front of me,’ Ethan said so quietly I had to strain to hear him. ‘Why would he do that? And did he even know what he was doing in the end or was he just confused? That . . . that moment when he looked at me, it was like there was an apology in his eyes. In that split second before, he seemed so clear, so alert, like he’d made the decision and he was saying a silent goodbye. And then he was gone.’
‘I’m so sorry, Ethan. It’s awful.’ I squeezed him close to me.
‘He must’ve blamed me for what was happening. How can I live with that? How can I live with the thought that if we hadn’t dug up that bloody garage he’d still be with us now?’
But I
knew what he was really saying to me. How can you live with yourself, Olivia? This is all your fault.
‘I’m sure he didn’t blame you. It’s not your fault, it’s m—’
He cut me off. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It might help.’
‘I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now so I can’t talk about it.’
We were both lost in silence, trying to deal with the shock and sadness. Eventually I listened to his breathing slow as he drifted under the blanket of sleep. It took me a long time, but when I finally joined him, I was haunted by images of Katie. A faceless person dressed in black carried her unconscious body through the dark woods and into our garage. He paused at the wooden door, looking over his shoulder, but I couldn’t make out any features. He carried her towards a hole already dug into the ground and gently placed her in its depths, shovelling soil over her. When he finished, he walked over the earth, flattening it down, and I could hear Katie’s voice, muffled and distraught, from beneath. Help me. Help me! She was still alive down there, trapped in a dark place, unable to claw her way back out.
I jerked awake the next morning, gasping for breath, covered in a sheen of sweat with the sheet knotted in my clenched fist. The bed was empty. I reached out and touched Ethan’s side but it was cold.
Running a list of things to do over in my head, I got dressed. I needed to call Elaine and see if she’d cover my shift that afternoon. I’d always thought work was a great distraction, and it would stop me sending myself mad with thoughts, but I wanted to stay home at least for one day so I could be with Anna. Nadia had said she was going to make arrangements with work to cover Ethan’s schedule so his meetings for the next couple of days would be rearranged and he wouldn’t have to go in. She had probably been up at 4 a.m. sending emails to people. Even though Tom hadn’t worked at Tate Construction for more than ten years since his retirement, a lot of people would be in mourning for him. Would they still be mourning when they heard what he’d confessed to, though?
