Little Black Lies (17 page)

I lean back and close my eyes. Do I still love Catrin? I practically proposed to her a few hours ago, shocking myself as much as her. ‘Come with me,’ I said, meaning come with me to my home on the other side of the planet. Leave this place and its crippling memories and build a new life. Dare to believe you could be happy again. She didn’t answer. Didn’t say a word for the rest of the drive back. I’d like to tell myself she’s thinking about it, but even I’m not that thick.

‘All I know is she’s become a part of who I am. I don’t particularly like it, any more than I like suffering from PTSD, or some of my mates from the regiment like their missing limbs or scarred faces. I’ve just learned to deal with her being there.’

‘Interesting that you compare your feelings for Catrin to war wounds.’

‘Which do you think I’m trivializing?’

‘I think your feelings for Catrin are like a shell strike that keeps burning. Three years after the affair finished, she’s still hurting you.’

She’s right. I’ve always known that she’s right and, at this moment, I don’t have the energy to keep arguing.

‘So what do I do about it?’

‘Well, I think you start by talking to her.’

‘I do talk to her. I spent most of yesterday with her.’

‘I’m not talking about chit-chat. I’m talking about what happened between you. Why it happened. Why it ended.’

I look at my watch and decide time is up, whether it really is or not. ‘It happened because it couldn’t not. It ended because she couldn’t deal with anyone or anything after her sons died. There really isn’t anything to say.’ I stand up and put cash on the desk. Usually I make some quip about her giving satisfaction. Not today.

‘Oh, I think there is.’ She follows me from the room and along the corridor. She’s never before continued a conversation once the session is over. ‘The child she was carrying when the boys were killed. The one she lost.’

I know what’s coming. I open the door and don’t look back. I don’t need to. Her parting shot is perfectly audible.

‘Callum, you need to know if that baby was yours.’

15

I don’t go home. God knows I’ve enough work to be doing but this isn’t going to be one of those productive days. Instead, I drive to a beach a couple of miles outside Stanley. I get out of the car and set out across the dunes.

There’s a storm coming in. The wind has picked up, is tossing huge waves against the shore. The birds – Catrin could name them in an instant; they’re just big, noisy birds for me – are having a ball above my head, diving and rolling and screaming their feathery heads off.

This is one of the less popular beaches, even with islanders. The rocks are mostly too low to offer any shelter but pretty much prevent ball games. They also make it next to impossible to keep your eye on young kids. On the other hand, they make ideal habitats for all sorts of nesting critters so it’s long been one of Catrin’s favourite spots.

It’s also a great place to run if you think continually dodging and weaving around rocks is good for your reflexes and flexibility. Which is how she and I met.

*   *   *

I was running, fast and hard, feeling pretty good. Life was good. Since moving to the Falklands permanently, the bad dreams and waking flashbacks had more or less disappeared. Whether it was being around the people and the way of life we’d been through it all to protect, being close enough to the demons to see the whites of their eyes, or simply having enough peace and quiet to think, my head was in a better space than it had been for years. I was healthy, too. Fit, strong, running regularly, lifting weights, playing football. Work was going well. I was making a living, putting something aside, with real hopes of a big breakthrough one day. And I was having a dalliance with a woman who worked for the Governor’s office. We both knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Or at least, I did, and really hoped she did too. Whatever, busy cock, healthy mind, as the lads in the regiment used to say.

All was well, my life as complete as it could be, with no idea that anything was missing. And then I turned round a taller clump of rocks and it was like someone had taken a pneumatic drill to that life and opened up a ruddy great chasm that just one woman could fill.

They were a hundred yards away across the sand when I caught sight of them. A woman and two kids, walking towards me along the beach, around the rocks and pools that littered the water’s edge. They all wore shorts and pale-coloured, light sweaters. They held hands. The younger kid was furthest from the sea, his shorts still wet from the splash. The woman’s hair was long and dark, like the kelp at the water’s edge.

I ran wider. No one relishes the thought of a big bloke thundering towards them. They’d been intent on something in the water but they looked up as I drew closer. I had a sudden thought and stopped.

‘There’s a colony of seals back there.’ I raised my voice so that it would carry through the wind, speaking directly to the woman, gesturing back the way I’d come with a jerk of my head. ‘Getting quite aggressive. You might want to keep the youngsters away.’

‘They’re southern sea lion pups,’ the older boy called back across the beach. ‘They’re about six weeks old. Their mummies haven’t left them. They’re forging for food in the sea.’

‘Foraging,’ his mother corrected him.

I stepped closer, until I could make out the coarsening of her skin and the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes that put her in her late twenties, possibly around thirty. Pretty much the same age as me.

‘You’re the soldier,’ the boy told me.

I risked walking closer still. The younger boy backed into his mother’s legs.

‘I’m Callum.’ I looked at the mum. ‘Callum Murray,’ I added. She nodded, as though she already knew.

‘Have you got a gun?’ The older kid was at my feet now, looking directly up.

‘Not any more.’ It wasn’t strictly true, but I had a sense it was the answer his mum would prefer. Close up, it was hard to take my eyes off her. Her face was tiny, perfect, every feature exactly the size and shape it should be. She wasn’t wearing make-up. This wasn’t a face for make-up. Cosmetics of any sort on this face would give it the look of one of those spooky china dolls.

Her eyes, watering in the wind, were the colour of the rocks around us. Her hair was long and straight, constantly moving in the breeze. Close up, it was more like the kelp than ever. Her skin was the warm ivory of the sand. She looked like the beach come to life.

The kids were dark too. The older one the image of his mum, the younger with darker hair and brown eyes. Even at such a young age, there was a set around his jaw that made me think he’d take after his father.

‘We’re the Quinns,’ she said, as her fingers tightened around the kid leaning against her. I wondered if that had been deliberate, her labelling them as a family unit.
We are complete and whole. Do not think of trying to break us.
‘This is Kit. Ned is the one with the obsessive interest in warfare.’

I waited, eyebrows high. She wasn’t getting away with that.

‘Catrin,’ she said, after a moment. ‘My husband’s Ben. He works at the hospital.’

Yes, definitely a message there.
I am not available. Don’t even think about it. Leave us now.

‘Also, and I can’t be sure about this, but I think there could be a pod of orcas just offshore. If they’ve come to hunt the seals, you really shouldn’t…’ I looked down from one kid to another, feeling sure she’d get the hint. Did she really want to risk feeding the kids to a hungry killer whale?

She, too, was looking down at the kids, her face suddenly alive with excitement. ‘Now that sounds like something we should see.’ A last, dismissive glance at me. ‘Thank you.’

She set off, jogging easily, the kids keeping up. In minutes, they were approaching the rocks that separated the safer part of the beach from the seal colony. Sea lions. Whatever.

I went after them. The animals I’d seen had been stocky, aggressive and numerous. They’d given me a good barking at as I’d run around the outside of their colony and I did not like the idea of this bunch of tiny humans getting chewed. Even if the mother seals didn’t come back from their forging expedition. Even without the added threat of the killer whale pod.

Woman and children disappeared behind some rocks and I picked up my pace. When I could see them again, I was relieved to find them perched on a wide, flat rock a safe distance from the animals. Catrin saw me and smiled to herself before pointing to where a black, triangular-shaped fin moved lazily some distance from the shoreline.

I stopped running and strode over to join them, choosing a rock a little way down the beach. Close enough to talk, but not so near as to be intimidating. The smaller kid, Kit, was on his mother’s lap, the bigger one cuddled at her side.

‘There are three, possibly four,’ she said, eyes still fixed on the black sail in the water. ‘Small pod, maybe juveniles out on their own for some fun. They’re waiting for the sea-lion pups to try the water out. This shallow bit of beach is a very popular nursery pool.’

‘Mummy, I don’t want the whales to eat a pup.’

She wrapped an arm around her older son. ‘I don’t think they will, sweetie. Look, the penguins have spotted what those big orcas are up to.’

It was as though the surf suddenly sprang into life as a clutch of sleek, fat penguins appeared at the edge of the water. They jostled and bullied and flapped their little arms hysterically in their bid to be out of the sea. Behind them, four black sails moved in.

The sea-lion pups yelled back at the newcomers, who were invading their space, getting tangled in the kelp, filling the beach with noise. At the same time, seabirds appeared from nowhere, flocking towards the ocean where, I’m pretty certain, the water was starting to turn red. The whales had got something.

Closer to shore, the beach was turning into a wildlife rave, as the penguins reached the rocks and started bouncing around like balls in a bingo drum. As they left the water behind, they carried on jumping, leaping from rock to rock, getting further from the water. The younger kid burst out laughing.

‘These are rockhopper penguins. Can you see their big yellow eyebrows? Watch them now, they’ll leap all the way back up the cliff to their nests.’ She turned to her boys. ‘Why don’t we go up the easy way and see how the chicks are getting on?’

She’d seen the kill the whales had made at sea, was keeping the attention of her sons away from it. As she and the boys got to their feet, I stood up too. ‘Well, it looks like you guys know what you’re doing. I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘It was nice to meet you.’ She stretched out a hand. For a small, clumsy moment, I wondered if she were reaching to me. I think I even started, looked down as if to take it, and then I realized she was reaching for the older kid. He grabbed her hand and walked backwards, staring at me as his mother dragged him away. When I knew I couldn’t watch them any more without looking creepy, I ran on. Another hundred yards and something made me stop. I turned to see Catrin Quinn looking back at me across the rocks.

I knew then. She did too, although it was another four months before I made her admit it.

*   *   *

A gull flies low, screaming. I’m probably too close to its nest. Do gulls nest in November? I haven’t a clue. Catrin used to talk to me for hours about the wildlife of the islands. I didn’t take any of it in. I just loved the sound of her voice.

I turn and head back to the car. There are no answers for me here.

My therapist with a ridiculous name is right. Two and a half years ago, when the snow was thick on the ground, a woman whose heart and soul was broken gave birth to a tiny, stillborn boy. I need to know if he was mine and only Catrin can tell me that.

*   *   *

After the day on the beach I started seeing Catrin around town. I found out where she lived, where she worked part-time, in which department her husband worked. I learned which nursery she took her boys to on the mornings she was in the Conservation. I started being in Stanley when I was likely to see her, hanging around, watching for her boat coming and going, double-checking registrations of similar silver Land Rovers in case they were hers. Am I making myself sound like a stalker? I was. I simply couldn’t help myself.

I started running on that same beach every day because that’s where she might expect to find me and after two weeks had gone by, she was there, alone this time.

She didn’t make it easy. She had two young kids, a busy life. The last thing she needed was someone who could bring the whole thing tumbling down like a house of cards. When I dropped hints that I wanted more than a passing acquaintance, she backed away.

I joined the Stanley social scene, attending dances and film nights and whist drives. Whist, for fuck’s sake, that’s how bad I had it. I was rewarded time after time by the sight of her with her husband. He was a decent enough bloke, and I felt bad about what I was doing, but I was also pretty certain he wasn’t in love with her. Not the way he maybe had been once. There was a coldness about him. He never touched her in public, never put his hand, possessively, on the small of her back, never stroked her hair, or clasped his fingers around her wrist. I never saw him kiss her. Probably just as well. I might have landed him one and that would have been tricky to explain.

I never left a function before they did. I watched her drive them away – she never really drank – and then I’d go home, tormented by the memory of her dark hair swept up high so that her shoulders and neck were bare, by the curve of her instep when she wore heels. I’d think about what it must be like to touch her and I’d jerk off and tell myself if it didn’t happen soon I’d lose my mind.

And then one day, after I’d known her a few months, I caught her struggling to carry some boxes up from the boat. It was raining and her hair, more like the seaweed than I’d ever seen it, was streaming down her back. I took the boxes, carried them to her car and suggested coffee.

‘I’d rather have a stiff drink,’ she said to my surprise.

Ten minutes later, we were in the Victory Bar with a couple of large bourbons and she was telling me about a wreck she’d been diving. Thanking God and all his sweet angels for a scuba-diving course I’d done with the regiment, I laid on my enthusiasm for the sport as thick as I dared. Maybe it was the whisky, maybe I’d worn her down, but as we finished our drinks, she dropped her eyes to the tabletop.