Intrusion: A Novel (20 page)

TWENTY-THREE

T
he cottage looked exactly as Kat remembered it, exactly like its reproduction in Malibu: a bleached-wood floor, a few Chinese rugs, a long sofa of soft cream linen with periwinkle cushions.

The place was uncluttered. A few prints, including a Mary Cassatt and a Renoir, decorated the white-plaster walls. And yes, there was the cobalt-blue bowl, now empty of apples. The windows were wide, with wooden shutters painted a soft blue. When Kat opened them, salty sea
air whooshed into the room. The view of the sea filled the entire window;
gulls swooped into the surf. On the horizon, Kat could see boats heading toward the Brighton Marina. She stood for a few minutes, simply staring at the view, before turning to explore the rest of the place.

Only the kitchen looked different, larger. It had obviously been remodeled. She found a microwave, a fridge, and a cupboard stacked with staples: long-life milk, tea, coffee, and a variety of cans.

A fire in the fireplace was set but not lit. Kat took one of the long, thick matches and lit it, and immediately, the flames brightened and burnished the room with gold. She remembered sitting by the fireplace with Sarah, waiting for the call from Helen that would summon them to dinner at Lansdowne. In the large bedroom—the bedroom that had been Sarah’s—the bed was already made up, sheets turned down, towels laid out. It was as if this cottage was always ready for visitors, or for Sarah.

Kat took a can of baked beans from the cupboard and a variety of cheeses and crackers, and setting it all out on thick pottery plates, she settled down in front of her now-blazing fire. It was so quiet. There was no sound but the sea, no lights but the fishing boats out there. The edginess she had felt in Los Angeles, the pain and disappointment, had faded, leaving only a strange emptiness. But she did not feel lonely.
Chris,
she wondered,
did you come here with me?
She felt the tightening in her chest that she had previously recognized as the ache of loss or grief, but it had changed slightly. It felt warmer, some warmth spreading across her chest.

“See how nice it is here, Chris,” she said aloud, just in case.
Who is to know if the dead hear us?
she considered.
Or whether God exists, or if there is life afterward. Who has the answers?

After dinner, Kat wondered if she should call her sister, just to reassure her. She pulled out her cell phone, saw a flashing light indicating that the battery was low, and remembered that her charger still sat on the dresser in Los Angeles.
Damn.
She looked around for a landline. The phone was not visible in the den, or the sitting room, or in the kitchen, either. She looked in the smaller bedroom, and then, with mounting puzzlement, she returned to the larger bedroom to check again. Distracted for a moment, Kat looked at the framed print on the wall—Rothko’s
Violet, Green and Red
. The same print Kat had hung in the Birmingham apartment. She remembered Scott’s words about Sarah needing to replicate things. It was true. Even here.

Kat shook her head and continued her search for the phone. After five minutes, she began to figure out the answer to a question she had never thought to ask. There was no phone in this cottage. She bit her lip. Well, that solved that problem. She would go to bed instead.

When Kat woke, at dawn, she heard the sound of the sea and the frantic squawking of gulls. It was cold in the cottage, the fire long out, and a mist of vapor fogged the windows. Kat dressed quickly, warmly, for her walk to the village.

The air smelled of damp grass and undergrowth as Kat moved briskly along the path from the cottage, hesitating at the lane that led to the big house. The road had a sharp bend, so she had to stride up the hill for a few yards to see clearly, but she was curious about the home Sarah had described as “hideous”—the house that had replaced Lansdowne. She paused on the curve; the driveway now led straight and steeply to the house on the hill, a modern structure, with a wide building alongside it, a garage for the owner’s collection of cars. One of the garage doors was open. Kat could see the glint of a Jaguar. A black compact was parked in the driveway. She studied the house: not hideous, certainly, but all angles and glass and lacking the charm and elegance of Lansdowne. After a few moments, she turned back to the empty lane. She could taste salt in the wind. There was no sidewalk, so she kept to the edge of the road, but only one flatbed truck trundled past, the driver tooting his horn to warn her.

The village was little changed: a small Saxon church, the haberdashery, and the neat lawn of the village square, with its carefully manicured borders. The timbered pub, though, looked closed, a new “For Sale” sign nailed to one of the beams.

Kat decided that she would walk toward Wystandean and then circle back through the next village. An hour into her hike, she found herself outside Elmwood Hall, the school from which the young Sarah had been expelled. Kat tried to imagine Sarah here at that age. The girls she could see playing hockey looked about fourteen years old. Sarah had been fourteen when they first met, with that thick braid down her back. But these girls seemed younger, sweeter, with their pink, raw cheeks, their bright, clear voices.

It was midafternoon by the time she returned from Wystandean, choosing the cliff path back to the cottage. It felt freezing near the cliffs; the wind had a biting edge to it, so Kat pulled the neck of her sweater up around her mouth and tied her scarf tighter. The Channel was choppy, the water a gunmetal gray, edged with white foam. To the east, she could see the chalk headland of Beachy Head, high on the list of the world’s suicide spots.

She stood on the edge of the cliff staring at the water, studying the rock formations. Years ago, Sarah had shown her this place. Sarah’s young friend Joanna had jumped to her death from here. It would be simple enough, Kat thought: the rocks below were jagged, hard, and a long way down. Instantly.
You will die instantly,
she told herself.
And be with Chris. And if not with Chris, there will be nothing. Our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Kat moved to the edge, thinking hard. This must not be an impulsive thing. She must think about it carefully. If she were to do it, then it must be a considered decision. It must be the right decision. It occurred to Kat that this did not frighten her, or even disturb her, this option to end her life. It was simply that: an option. It was something she could do now, or later. Or not do at all.

She inspected the sloping bank to the lower rocks. A better place would be fifty yards farther north, where the rocks were sharper, spiking in a circle. It was an interesting rockscape, with a maelstrom in the center: swirling, turbulent circles of water, where a body could be lost, possibly sucked down into the cavernous dark. But that would leave Scott endlessly searching for her. Maggie and Paul, too, forever scanning the surface of the water. No. Better the simple dive into the Channel; her body would wash up, eventually, with the tide. She walked to the promontory, stood at the edge, and looked down. Yes. Yes, this would do. This would be a good place. She would not need the pills.

Kat stood still, biting at her thumbnail. What would one think before the water took over, spinning a body swiftly into that dark void? What was Virginia Woolf thinking when, not so far from here, she walked from her house to the riverbank, put down her walking stick, and filled her pockets with stones?
Something similar to the thoughts I have now,
Kat concluded.
That it is time for it to be over. It is simply time for the pain to be over.

At the edge of Kat’s consciousness was the certainty that she would come back to this. And when the time was right, she must write two letters: one to her sister and one to her husband. She must not leave them wondering and searching. They had talked of healing, Maggie and Scott, but Kat knew that this was not why she had come to Sussex. She did not believe that healing was possible.
I am broken,
Kat thought,
in some deep, unfixable place. And possibly Scott is, too. Perhaps he can find a way back. I thought I had found a way. A new baby. A new beginning. But there is no way back for me now.

The sound of twigs crackling underfoot jarred Kat so severely that she jumped. She turned. A shadow moved near the trees on the far side of the path. Kat waited, holding her breath. The shadow stepped out into the light. Sarah. For a moment, Kat thought that she was imagining it, that the image she saw was only in her mind. Sarah smiled.

“Hello, Kat,” she said softly.

Kat, too stunned to reply, simply stared, wondering how long Sarah had been there, watching her, hidden in the shadows.

“Sorry to startle you,” Sarah said. “I thought you might be up here.”

Kat stepped away from the cliff edge. “I didn’t expect—”

“I did try to call. Scott said you were in England. I hoped you’d be at the cottage. Cell phone reception is abysmal there and you didn’t bother to plug in a phone. Why didn’t you collect the phone from Mrs. Evans?”

“I didn’t think—” Kat said, bewildered. “You’re here for a vacation?” she asked, unsure of how to word the questions spinning in her head. It was Sarah’s cottage, after all.

“Only for a day or two,” said Sarah. “I thought I’d rest here before taking on the big city. I have meetings in London.”

She smiled at Kat’s unsure expression.

“Don’t worry, Kat. I’ll be in the other room. I won’t get in your way. You can stay in the big bedroom. I see you’ve made yourself nice and cozy in there. Ignore me if you like.”

Kat swallowed. Ignore Sarah? She was not so easily ignored.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
nside the cottage, evidence of Sarah’s presence was everywhere. A sweater had been thrown onto a chair; a scarf snaked across the kitchen counter. A white phone had been plugged into an outlet to the right of the fireplace, and Sarah’s laptop was open on a small table beside it. Sarah had lit the fire; the coals glowed in the dim light. Two bottles of red wine had been placed on the dining table.

Kat took off her coat and stood with it draped over her arm, like a hospital visitor.

“I’m going to have a bath,” she said. “I’m frozen to the bone.”

Sarah had thrown off her jacket and taken one of the seats by the fire. She stretched her hands toward the flames to warm them.

“I bet you are. That’s a bitter wind. But hurry. I asked Mrs. Evans to cook her
coq au vin
. And we have two bottles of excellent Bordeaux.”

Sarah’s green eyes gleamed with reflected light from the fire and what appeared to be pleasure and anticipation for the evening ahead.

“Go have your bath and we’ll have a drink.”

“I’m glad we have a phone,” Kat said. “I need to make a call.”

“I wouldn’t call Scott just yet. A small legal crisis in LA—he’ll be tied up in meetings.”

“I’ll call later.”

Kat stood, waiting, until Sarah reached out, unplugged the telephone, and handed it to her.

“There’s a phone outlet to the left of the dresser. And please, Kat,” she added, in a coaxing tone. “Don’t look so put out. I don’t mean to be a bore. I rather thought you might enjoy this. For old times’ sake.”

Kat smiled faintly and escaped into the bedroom. She saw that the book she had left open on the bed was now closed and had been placed on the bedside table. The closet door was ajar. Sarah had been looking around, of course, snooping through clothes and papers. She used to do the same thing years ago, when they shared an apartment. Nothing was out of bounds for her, not private diaries, not personal letters. Strangely, this snooping did not bother Kat now, though it used to infuriate her. There was nothing private here. Sarah’s curiosity was simply an irritant.

Kat found the outlet for the phone, pushing a lamp and a photo frame out of the way to reach it. The old silver frame with the picture of Chris at his junior high school graduation had tipped onto its side. She straightened it, studied it. Chris wore a white shirt and a serious expression. It was a formal school picture. Why had she brought this one? Instead of one of him laughing? She had grabbed this photograph from the hall table instead of choosing a better one from upstairs on the dresser.
Shows what kind of glazed fog I was in when I packed,
she thought.
I must have been in some kind of fugue state.

When the phone was plugged in, and she had checked the dial tone, Kat sat on the bed and took a deep breath. It was midmorning in Los Angeles. If Sarah was right, and Scott was in a meeting, she could leave a voice mail, ask him to call her back. She hesitated, holding tight to the phone. Their conversations had been so angry lately, or polite and false. What could she say to him that was true?
I love you. I’ve always loved you. But it’s not enough.

She rested against the wall, uncertain. In that time on the clifftop, she had made a decision: she would not be returning to California. But what words could she use to tell him that?

Sighing, she replaced the phone. Later. She would call him just before bed. From the kitchen, she could hear the sound of a wine bottle clinking against glass. Sarah, too impatient to wait, was pouring herself a drink. Kat ran a bath and climbed into it, adding more hot water and ducking down so that she was entirely submerged. The air in the bathroom felt cold. Sarah’s voice was now audible in the other room, talking to someone Kat assumed was the formidable Mrs. Evans. Kat slid down under the water. She would wait until Helen’s former housekeeper left. She could easily visualize the pinched face, the pursed mouth. No. She had no interest in seeing that woman again. A few minutes later, Sarah knocked on the bathroom door.

“Dinner is served, madam,” she called. “And quite delicious it looks, too.”

Sarah was enjoying herself, Kat realized, as she sat up in the bath and reached for a towel. Her voice sounded as young, as lively, as it had all those years ago.

“Be right there,” Kat called.

Sarah had set the table. The
coq au vin
steamed in a large casserole in the center; there was crusty bread, country butter, and Sarah’s wine. Sarah looked up, appeared to scan Kat’s face as if searching for something.

“You didn’t reach Scott?” she asked.

“Didn’t try. I’ll call him later,” Kat said. “Well, this looks good.”

“Doesn’t it, though? You’ll excuse me, Kat, if I should pitch forward into it. I’m so tired. Jet-lagged beyond belief. After this, I may just lumber off to bed.”

“Lumber away. Fine with me.”

“So,” said Sarah, helping herself to the casserole, “where else did you go, besides the clifftop?”

“Oh, walking about. A little hike.”

“Where? Tell me.”

“Into the village. It hasn’t changed much.”

“Nothing changes here.”

“The pub looks closed. It’s for sale?”

“Yes. Somebody will buy it and convert it, most likely. Pubs are closing all over England.”

“Mostly, I walked along the cliff path,” Kat said.

“You saw the place where Joanna leapt into eternity?”

“Was it there? On the path to Wystandean?”

“Yes. The bit that juts out.”

Kat longed to ask the question but faltered, unsure.

“Why did she do it?” Sarah said.

Caught out, Kat nodded.

“A boy, of course,” said Sarah with a small, strange smile. “He got another girl pregnant.”

Kat thought back to the Brighton clinic. Could the pregnant girl have been Sarah? The boy involved had never been named, not by Sarah or Helen, and described to Kat as just a village boy Sarah had met when she visited her aunt. There had been no mention, then, of a young girl’s suicide.

Sarah regarded her steadily, a challenging look.

“That’s very sad,” Kat said.

“Yes.”

Sarah, lifting the wine bottle to refill their glasses, said nothing more.

“This is delicious,” Kat said, after a while. “Mrs. Evans hasn’t lost her touch.”

“She was happy to cook something interesting. She calls her employer ‘that pie and pint man,’” Sarah said.

“She doesn’t like him?”

“Despises him. Refuses to stay overnight at the big house, drives home every night to a tiny bedsit. Says it would not be at all appropriate to live in with a man like that.” Sarah laughed. “Well, you know what a snob she is—”

“I certainly do,” Kat said, remembering her fear, whenever she visited Lansdowne, of the housekeeper’s thin-lipped hostility.

“She says he’s in trade. Lowest of the low in her book. Actually, he’s a trader in the city and makes an absolute mint. Sam knew him, was able to negotiate her contract as part of the deal to buy the land. I promised Helen I’d look after her.”

“Why didn’t you employ her yourself?”

“God no. Can you imagine? It would be like living under a cloud of constant disapproval. Besides, she wouldn’t want to live outside the UK. Her roots are here in Sussex. Family members have been in service in this area for decades. To the best families, she says. Her grandmother was employed at Goodwood House.”

“Ah. That explains her attitude to me. Working class riffraff. Doesn’t know her place.”

“We have our standards,” Sarah said in a perfect imitation of Mrs. Evans’s voice. She smiled, shaking her head. “Not just you, Caitlin. Oh no. She hated Sam, too, though in truth he felt the same. When I asked him if he would employ her, he said he would rather hire an ax murderer and take his chances.”

Kat smiled.

“No persuading him, then.”

“No persuading Sam into anything. Well, perhaps when we were first married . . . But later, no. When we learned that I couldn’t have children, I rather lost any leverage with Sam.”

Kat looked up at this, surprised, and caught a glimpse of Sarah’s expression: stiff, eyes cold, as if a shadow had crossed her face. At once, Sarah blinked, brightened, and it was gone.

“Come on, eat up,” she said. “There’s a delicious lemon tart for dessert.”

After dinner, Kat cleared away the dishes while Sarah had a bath, then settled in front of the fire with the Margaret Atwood novel she had taken from the shelves. Sarah emerged from the bathroom after a while, her hair wet, hanging down her back. The gardenia scent of her shampoo and body lotion filled the room. She wore an emerald-green dressing gown of a thick embossed silk and had a peach towel draped around her shoulders. With the rich colors and her dark hair, she looked exotic and young.

“Let the hair dry thoroughly before bed,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s double pneumonia, as every Englishwoman knows.”

Kat smiled.

“What are you reading?” Sarah asked.

“Atwood again.
Cat’s Eye.
”

“Oh yes. Great book.
Robber Bride
is here somewhere. Let me see if I can find it.”

Sarah found the book easily and took the other chair. It was quiet, the wind had dropped, the room felt cozy and warm. Sarah pulled over a footstool and put her feet up.

“This is so nice, isn’t it, Kat?” she said.

“Yes,” said Kat, hoping that Sarah would not want to talk, that they could both read peacefully, the only sounds the crackling fire and the distant beat of the waves.

“Like old times,” said Sarah in an odd voice. “The happiest days of my life.”

Kat looked up, alert.

“With your husband?” she asked. “You were here, like this?”

“Sam? Oh no. Not at all. He hated Sussex. I’ve
told
you what my life with Sam was like.”

“So when? When were the happiest days of your life?”

“You know when.”

Kat stared, puzzled. Sarah’s eyes glimmered, strangely bright in the firelight.

“I realized a while ago,” said Sarah. “That I was truly happy once. Just once. For quite a short time. Those times in our flat, or here in the cottage, or up at Lansdowne with Helen.”

“It was fun,” Kat said slowly. “But I’m sure you’ve had happier—”

“No,” Sarah said. “No. I haven’t.”

Kat felt the first stirrings of unease. She put down her book.

“Really?”

“Really. Lansdowne was the first place I felt safe. And later, when we had our little flat, I was happy. But I destroyed it all, didn’t I? With Sven. Destroyed everything.”

Kat shook her head, uncomfortable.

“Years ago, Sarah. Forgotten.”

Sarah reached for her wine, drank deeply from it, then circled around to lift the fresh bottle from the dining table. She opened it quickly, refilled her glass.

“I thought you would forgive me, Kat. I really did.”

Her voice was soft, more regretful than accusatory, but she spoke fast now, as if the words might damage her mouth, as if the buried regrets must be spat out at speed.

“But you couldn’t, could you? You cut me off. Everyone hated me. I was so hurt. After all I’d
shared
with you. You knew me, Caitlin. Like you were my family. I’d never had that before. Isn’t that what families do? Share history? Share experiences. Forgive. It was painful. And I had forgiven you, remember.”

“Forgiven me?” Kat asked. “For what?”

“For telling Aunt Helen I was pregnant. I know it was you.”

Silence in the warm cottage. Kat looked away, biting at her lip.

“Helen told you?”

“No. Mrs. Evans told me. I blamed that awful solicitor at first.”

Kat recalled then, a snapshot bleached by light, the young girl she had known, shaking under the duvets after the clinic visit, her skin the color of alabaster. For those seconds, Kat’s uneasiness was replaced by pity.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Sarah shrugged.

“You weren’t to know the consequences of that botched surgery, were you? None of us knew.”

“No. Even so.”

“Never mind. I forgave you. Forgave both of you. I thought you and Helen were the only people who cared about me. Nobody had before. And later we had our flat and university and a life and I was happy. Imagine? I was actually happy.”

She paused, studied Kat, eyes intent. Kat, made even more uncomfortable by this scrutiny, frowned, waiting.

“What is it?” she asked at last.

“I know what you plan to do, Kat,” Sarah said. “I know.”

“You know what?”

“I saw how you looked, up there on the clifftop. I know you have pills with you. I just want to say that I understand.”

Chilled, Kat shook her head.

“Sarah, I really don’t want to talk about—”

Sarah tossed her hair over one shoulder and began to rub at the ends of it with the peach towel, her eyes never moving from Kat’s face.

“You needn’t be alone, you know. I won’t intervene. If you’re at all nervous, I can—”

“Stop,” Kat said, getting to her feet. “Please.”

She moved so abruptly that she banged into the table and the wineglasses shook. She straightened them without looking at Sarah and walked to the window, aware of Sarah’s eyes on her back. She looked out into the night. It was dark out there; the shadowy trees swayed in the wind, and she could see the ocean, a black swirling cauldron.