Betrayal (55 page)

He staggered to his feet and we faced each other warily. He tried to say something but I wasn’t listening and I went for him again with a tight swing of my left fist, a feint which I intended to follow with another solid blow from the right. But he caught my first arm and held onto it and tried to twist me off-balance. I shoved my shoulder under his arm in a half-remembered wrestling manoeuvre but he hooked his foot behind my ankle and the next moment we fell untidily to the ground. For a few seconds we grappled ineffectually. I became aware of a frenzied barking and growling from one of David’s dogs. Perhaps it was the fear of being bitten that gave me new strength but I managed to push David over onto his back and land a quick knuckle on his face. I didn’t think I’d hit him very hard until I saw his nose spout a stream of blood. While I stared at the blood spreading down his face, his fist came out of nowhere and caught me high on the cheek, just under one eye. I felt my head snap back, I saw stars and, falling sideways, rolled slowly onto my back.

There was a silence broken only by the sound of our panting. After a second or two I heard a different sort of panting and felt a wet nose snuffling at my face. I pushed the dog away and it went to inspect David, who murmured, ‘Piss off, Bodger,’ so I knew he couldn’t be too badly hurt.

My face was throbbing painfully, and my hand too. I touched them gingerly, but as far as I could tell nothing was broken. I’d only ever got into one serious fight, at school, and that had ended in defeat after one blow. I was rather surprised that I had managed to land any sort of a punch on David, let alone a couple which had found their target. But I felt no sense of satisfaction, far less triumph, only a depressing futility.

Pressing a hand to my burning cheek, I sat up cautiously and looked across at David. He was still lying flat on his back. Opening one eye a crack he peered blearily at me before closing it again. The dog stood nearby, wagging its tail sporadically.

‘Couldn’t let her go,’ David said without warning.

My breath caught high in my chest. I kept very still, as if by ignoring him he might leave the subject alone.

‘Just couldn’t do without her.’

‘For Christ’s sake shut up!’ I retorted furiously. ‘I don’t bloody want to hear.’

‘Please,’ he asked simply. When I didn’t reply he continued with a gasp, ‘Never thought anyone would ever get such a hold on me. I’d never . . . in all my life . . . Never been so –
taken
. So –
mesmerised
. Or perhaps I mean obsessed,’ he said in the bemused tone of someone who still hasn’t quite worked things out. ‘Hardly knew what to do with myself. Got so I couldn’t even
think
when I was away from her. Couldn’t function. She was so –
different
. So –
crazy
. Made me laugh. Made me feel—
Okay
,’ he conceded as though I’d put up some sort of argument, ‘Okay, it was sex to begin with. I mean, I hadn’t strayed for a long time, I’d forgotten how . . . well, how bloody fantastic it could be.’ His voice shuddered at the memory. ‘But then . . . then it was more than that. Much more. I always felt so good when I was with her. For the first time in my life – good,
good
. I thought, so
this
is what it’s all about, this is what people go on about. She made me feel alive, Hugh. That was the thing – ’ the gasp again ‘ –
alive
.’ His tone dropped. ‘I thought we had a future. I thought I could cure her, you see. I thought I could get her off the drugs. I thought she would do it for
me
. That’s the worst thing, thinking that someone’s going to change because you want them to. But I really believed—’

He broke off suddenly. I looked across at him and his blood-smeared face was so contorted with grief that I quickly looked away again.

‘I believed she’d do it for me,’ he whispered at last in a raw voice. ‘But I was wrong. She was never going to change. I didn’t give up trying though. I never gave up trying. I had this plan. I was going to take her away. We were going to make a new start, somewhere completely different. America. Italy. Somewhere where she wouldn’t know people in the drug world. Somewhere she could do a sculpting course and study her New Age stuff. We made plans. Lots of plans.’ He made a harsh sound, a sigh that was also an expression of despair. ‘Right up until the end, until the last day. More plans.’

The dog, who had been sitting down, got up and, whining softly, tried to lick David’s face. Holding it at bay with one hand, he went on, ‘I stopped her drugs when I realised she was making no effort to cut down on them. Well, that was the reason I gave for stopping them – because she wouldn’t cut down – but really I was trying to force her into coming away with me. I couldn’t think of any other way. She’d never agree on a date, she was always wriggling out of it for some reason or another. It had got so she wouldn’t even talk about it any more. I began to imagine the worst – imagine that she was going to finish the whole thing. I was terrified she’d just up and off one day and I’d never see her again. I thought that if I cut off the drugs she’d come crawling back.’ He grunted at the idea. ‘Of course, crawling back wasn’t Sylvie’s style. She just found other ways of getting what she wanted. Her brother in Bristol. That chap Hayden and the excursions to France.’

And me, I thought. Don’t forget me.

As if reading my thoughts, David said matter-of-factly, ‘I didn’t cotton on to you for a long time, honestly. Amazing what you miss when you’re not looking. I thought you were simply having troubles with Ginny. When you kept coming down to the boat I thought you were just trying to get away from it all. I didn’t realise until the very end, really. Until just before . . .’

Cautiously, patting his nose gingerly, he pushed himself up onto one elbow. Then, just as slowly, he sat up and, pulling his feet towards him, rested his forearms on his knees and stared out across the garden. Our breath formed puffs of vapour in the cold, the ground was very damp, but neither of us thought of moving.

‘She was furious with me,’ David went on. ‘When I stopped the drugs. I saw the wild side of her then, and how. But it didn’t change anything. It didn’t stop me wanting her,’ he said gruffly. ‘Nothing could do that. She was my drug, you see. I could never get enough of her, even after all those months. Could never
imagine
getting enough of her.’ His voice cracked, he shook his head as though he himself scarcely believed the power she had exerted over him. ‘Part of me knew what she was like, knew she wasn’t too good at commitment, that she’d never stayed with anything for very long. But I thought it would all be different once we got away, once she was off that bloody poison.’

He raised a weary hand and rubbed his eyelids. ‘She always came back,’ he said dully. ‘Always. Oh, sometimes it was to wrangle a script out of me, sure.
Sure
. But most of the time she came back because she needed to see me, just like I needed to see her. Because we couldn’t stay away from each other. Underneath it all we had something, you see. Something
strong
. We were two of a kind. She always said so. Two of a kind.’ His voice rose and he stalled momentarily. ‘I think we could have made it together, you know. I think we could have been happy. I think – I think—’ He could hardly say it. ‘I think I loved her. I think I really loved her.’ He dropped his head into his hands and snatched at his breath.

I looked away and watched a magpie prowling through the trees. After a while I said, ‘What about Mary?’

He brought his head up heavily, dragging his hands down his face as he did so. ‘Mary,’ he sighed. ‘
Mary
. At the beginning – well, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her and all that. But then – yes, I would have left her, I would have left her like a shot if Sylvie had ever got her act together, if she’d ever committed herself.’ A slight shrug. ‘I can’t say our marriage was bad exactly, but it was pretty mechanical. It had never been much else, really. In those days I thought you just settled for a nice efficient person who shared some of your interests and who’d do a good job with the children. That sounds pretty unfeeling, I suppose, but that was what I thought it was all about. I never minded the fact that Mary wasn’t a great beauty – I never thought that mattered. I wanted someone who’d be a good wife, who’d fit in with my life, back me up.’

When he showed no sign of continuing, I said, ‘She found out.’ It was half a statement, half a question.

‘I guess so,’ he breathed distractedly. ‘I guess so.’

He turned away, and we sat in silence for a time. Only the dog stirred, cocking its ears to some far-off sound and lifting its nose to the air.

My anger had evaporated; only the sour aftertaste of violence remained. I had no feelings left for David, except perhaps pity. And, for the moment at least, gratitude for having told me his story and set me free. I almost left then, I almost got up and walked away to start the miraculous new existence which unexpectedly stretched before me, the new life with a Ginny whose only crime was to have tried to save her worthless husband. I almost got up and walked away, but something made me hesitate.

‘I had no idea. No idea at all,’ David murmured at last, giving voice to some thought of his own. When he next spoke, it was with new emotion. ‘I’d arranged to meet Sylvie on the boat that day. Most of the summer we’d been meeting at someone’s house, a chap who’d gone away for a few months. But that day we decided to meet on the boat.’ He paused, and it was only with a visible effort that he forced himself on. ‘I got delayed – a stupid meeting – then they paged me – a heart attack. By the time I got down to the river I was almost an hour late. But I knew she’d wait. When she’d called she’d sounded really happy, really keen to see me. I knew she’d wait.’ He rubbed his head, close to misery again. ‘But when I got down there I couldn’t find the dinghy oars. Then I couldn’t find the
dinghy
. Thought someone must have pinched it. I was about to borrow someone else’s when’ – he inhaled sharply – ‘when I looked up and saw someone rowing the dinghy towards me. I thought it must be Sylvie, that for some reason she’d taken my dinghy instead of
Samphire
’s. I almost called out to her. It took me ages to realise that it was Mary. She was wearing this baggy old oilskin, one of Pa’s relics, with the hood up. As soon as I realised it was her, I knew she could only have been to
Ellie
– I mean, there was nowhere else she could have been. At first I persuaded myself that Sylvie would have made herself scarce in some way, that she would have seen Mary coming. That’s what I wanted to believe anyway, that’s what I told myself . . .’ He screwed up his eyes, his mouth turned down, he said bleakly, ‘Although deep down . . . deep down I had an awful feeling, even then.’

I had been avoiding the moment of confrontation, I had been shutting it out, but there was no escaping it now. Feeling emotionally sick, I gave the thought life.
Mary
.

‘Mary never went out to
Ellie
normally,’ David was saying, ‘she could hardly row a dinghy. There had to be a
reason
, and the only reason . . .’ But he couldn’t cope with this thought and pushed it aside. ‘So there I was . . . I couldn’t face a scene there on the river, so I went up the road and round a corner where Mary wouldn’t see me. As soon as she’d landed, she rushed off, went straight past me. I couldn’t decide what to do then. I looked for Sylvie, of course. I’d bought her a mobile phone but she never remembered to take it with her, she was always leaving it in the wrong place, so I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t answer. And then I looked for her dinghy. I couldn’t see it at
Ellie
. I couldn’t see it at
Samphire
.’ Quite suddenly he began to cry, awkwardly, with great contortions of his face. A trickle of tears mixed with the drying blood and dripped in a pink stream off the end of his chin. ‘It must have been there, of course, at
Ellie
– I just didn’t see it. I can’t stop thinking that if only I’d gone out there,
if only I’d gone and had a look
then maybe I could have saved her.’ And he gave a loud sob, a howl of irretrievable loss that made the dog recoil and whimper uneasily.

I stared at him, this brother I hardly knew. I reached out and gripped his arm. ‘You mustn’t think about that—’

‘I can’t help it!’ he cried helplessly. ‘It’s all I ever think about! If only I hadn’t been late, if only I hadn’t been called out, if only— Oh God, oh
God
,’ he wailed, ‘it’s all I ever think about!’

I shifted closer and put an arm round his shoulders. In my mind’s eye I pictured the shadowy figure spying on Sylvie and me from the terrace at Dittisham House, and I saw Mary there in the darkness, I saw Mary creeping up to the window and bumping the metal chair across the stone flags, and I wondered how often she had crept up on David and Sylvie, how often she had seen them together.

‘Afterwards I couldn’t get rid of this – this
feeling
,’ David said despairingly. ‘I knew . . . I just
knew
something was wrong. I drove around most of the evening. I went to her cottage, I went to Dittisham House and found you and Ginny. And I couldn’t find her, I couldn’t find her anywhere. And then, next day when they found her . . . When they found her . . .
Christ
. . .’ Weeping again, he shook his head and kept shaking it. ‘But I needed to know, you see. I needed to know for sure, so before Mary went out I went and looked at her car. And the oilskin was there in the boot, in a plastic bag. With some clothes. And the clothes, they were . . . covered, absolutely covered . . . ’

A wind had sprung up, intensifying the cold. My hands were frozen and I thought I felt David shiver. ‘Come inside,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t have let Ginny go to prison,’ David said as I helped him to his feet. ‘I swear it.’ He faced me for the first time since I had hit him, and I saw that one eye was swelling badly. ‘I swear it,’ he repeated.

‘I know that.’

He nodded emotionally.

We walked towards the house.

‘Does Mary realise?’ I asked.

‘That I know? That I saw her? No. We’ve never spoken of it, or anything to do with it. I don’t think she has any idea. But I’ll be leaving quite soon,’ he said firmly. ‘I thought it wouldn’t be safe to leave before, in case the police thought – well, whatever they might think. But I’ll leave quite soon now. In a week or so. I’ll miss the children, of course . . .’ He made a hopeless gesture.