Saving Nathaniel (18 page)

'It's perfect. Thank you. How come you know how to tie a bowtie?'

'It's your tie, how come you don't?'

'I do. It just wouldn't go right this time.'

'Nervous?'

'Clumsy. How do I look?'

She straightened his collar, tweaked the tie straight and looked him up and down with a critical eye. She picked a loose hair from his shoulder. 'You look…quite splendid.'

The dinner party passed off without incident.

Despite her trembling hands, Megan muddled through plating up and serving the meal to all four guests and the host. She didn't spill soup in anyone's lap or forget the gravy; she ensured everyone's wine glass was kept topped up, and when they had done, she cleared away without fuss. Not one of them acknowledged her presence or thanked her for her effort.

They were appalling people; loud, rude, arrogant and rich, with a veneer of civility that peeled away as the wine flowed, revealing even more vulgarity underneath When they did deign to speak to her, she replied with all the sincerity she could muster, which didn't amount to a great deal.

When one of the men put his hand up her dress it took all of her self-control not to stab him with a fork.

Even Nat ignored her. When she did happen to catch his eye, as she served him his dessert, she gave him a look so cold it would have made a penguin reach for a muffler. He smiled weakly at her before returning his attention to the guest on his right.

Between courses she sought refuge in the kitchen. There she disposed of the tell tale signs of the evening's deception - the foil trays and cartons and wine carriers from the restaurant, and fed the pile of dirty dishes and glasses to the hungry dishwasher. Eventually she was called on to serve the coffee and mints - usually the final course. It would be over soon.

It wasn't.

They then moved onto brandy and Cuban cigars for the men, liqueurs and chocolates for the women. The chatter became more strident and more uncouth, and that was just the women.

Pompous arseholes, she thought as waves of coarse, drunken laughter drifted through to where she rested her now bare feet on the cool tiles. A crumb of consolation came in the form of a half-empty bottle of expensive red wine.

She yawned. She was tired. It had been a long day and an even longer evening. To save her having to drive home alone in the middle of the night, Nat had insisted she stay over at the Lodge.

Crawling away to bed couldn't come soon enough.

Eventually, the laughter died away and the evening broke up. The guests were ushered out of the front door to effusive goodbyes, and two large, powerful motors were heard crunching their way down the gravelled driveway.

Megan doubted that either driver could pass a breathalyser test. A fleeting, despicable thought crossed her mind.
What if I tipped off the police?

Chapter 16

Nat waited until the last of the tail lights were out of sight before he closed and locked the front door. He put out the lights and went in search of Megan. He owed her thanks for what had turned out, as far as the business was concerned at least, to be a very successful evening.

'There's no need to stay in here,' he said from the kitchen doorway. 'They've gone. Come through to the study. Have a nightcap.'

She followed him across the hall to his private room, where he motioned for her to sit in the easy chair. He took off his jacket and undid his bow tie, leaving it to hang loose around his neck. He undid the buttons of his stiff collar. From the large bottom drawer of his desk, he took out his secret bottle of Southern Comfort and two glasses. He poured her a generous measure.

'Can I talk to you yet, or are you still mad at me?' he asked, handing it to her. He sat on the edge of the green velvet window cushion, his forearms resting on his knees, his own equally loaded glass cupped in his hands.

'No, not any more,' she said, taking a sip from her drink and letting it slide down her throat, appreciating its warmth. 'That fine bottle of red washed it all away. Thanks for abandoning it.'

'You're welcome to it. You did a great job tonight, Meg. I can't thank you enough. I really appreciate it.'

'Like I said, it was a one time deal. It's over and done with. I'm not doing it again.'

'It wasn't that bad.'

'It was dreadful! Those people were dreadful! I hated every minute of it. Don't ask me again.'

'Understood,' he conceded.

'I mean it, don't ask me.' She took a small sip from her glass and watched Nat roll and rub his neck. 'You look tired,' she said.

He gave her a weak smile. 'I am. It's been a long day.'

'Tell me about it. I've been at it since six this morning. You didn't get up until nine.'

'Only because you took it on yourself to go banging on the florist's door to get first pick of the flowers. They looked very nice by the way.'

'Thank you.'

He drank deeply from his glass and smacked his lips. 'I should sleep well tonight,' he said absently. He looked across at Megan and her expression of quiet disapproval.

'Do you need it to help you sleep?' she asked.

'Sometimes,' he admitted.

'Why?'

'I have trouble dropping off sometimes.'

'Are the nightmares still troubling you?'

'No.' He averted his eyes, looking into the cut crystal drinking glass. He was lying, she was certain of it.

'I don't believe you,' she said.

He gave a small derogatory laugh, conveying an unspoken, 'I don't care whether you do or not,' after which the ticking of the clock filled the silence hanging between them.

She sat back into the chair, feeling it sag slightly. 'I used to have nightmares,' she said.

'Did you?'

'Hmm. I used to wake up in a sweat, crying and screaming. It was awful.'

'What brought them on?'

She took a drink, held it in her mouth and swallowed. 'I had an accident with my car.  I knocked down a little boy in the street.'

'Christ, Meg! You didn't...?'

'Oh no, he wasn't badly hurt, thank God, just a broken leg. He had run out into the road, chasing after a ball. It was an accident, pure and simple, but I couldn't help but blame myself, thinking I should have seen it coming; I should have braked sooner, and a million other what ifs. It played merry hell with my conscience and I couldn't get past the guilt. Even after I'd been to see him in hospital and knew he was going to be fine, and his mother and the Police all said it wasn't my fault, I couldn't get over it. I didn't sleep properly for weeks after.'

Nat was hanging onto her every word. 'Do you still...have them?'

'No. The boy himself saw to that. He sent me a little card he had made himself and he wrote in it that it wasn't my fault and he was sorry for having upset me. The minute I read that sweet little note...everything was fine again.'

Nat looked at her with suspicion. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because nightmares are a symptom of some kind of disturbance in your life, or in your mind. Put that disturbance right and the nightmares will go away. Mine went away with that sweet card from a seven year old boy.' She wet her lips from her glass. 'What will it take to make yours go away?'

The question caught him off guard and he stared at her. Her eyes locked onto his, waiting for his answer. He looked away, drained his drink and poured more, emptying the bottle.

'Absolution,' he said into his glass, swirling the liquid. He took a large gulp.

'For what?' she asked.

'I killed my wife.'

Megan felt her heart skip a beat and a cold hand of fear gripped at her throat, tightening her voice. 'What do you mean?'

Rebecca had told her next to nothing about Joanna's death because she herself didn't know anything. Nat had never spoken of it. The words 'tragic' and 'complications' were mentioned, but never 'killed' or that anyone was to blame.

'I killed her,' he said. 'It was my fault she died. I forced her to do something for me and it killed her.
Mea culpa
.'

Megan shook her head slowly. 'That can't be true.'

'It is,' he said. 'And if nightmares are the only punishment I get, it's the least I deserve.'

He got to his feet and stood stock still, staring out of the window. The darkness outside and the lighting in the room turned it into a dark mirror, and she could see his reflection in the glass, although not clear enough to make out his expression. She could have been watching a ghost.

She got up from the chair and touched her hand to his back. He shrugged it off, threw his head back and emptied his glass. Unable refill it from the empty bottle, he put it on the TV table and thrust his empty hands into his pockets.

'Do you...want to tell me what happened?' she asked.

'No.'

'It might help to talk about it.'

'I don't want any help.'

'It can't hurt...'

He whirled on her. 'I said I don't need any help!'

She immediately backed away, her eyes wide in a face paled in alarm. Nat blew out his breath. 'I'm sorry, Meg. That was totally uncalled for…' He sighed deeply and sat heavily on the plush seat, leaning his head back against the cold window with his eyes closed.

Megan slid into place next to him. She tugged on his shirt sleeve, forcing his hand from his pocket. She took it in her own, rubbing her thumb over the thick gold band chaining him to his guilt.

'You need to talk to someone about it, Nat. It might bring you some peace of mind. Have you ever seen a grief counsellor?'

'I was offered one, but I turned it down.'

'And all this time you've been bottling it up, trying to pretend that everything's all fine and dandy, when in reality, it's starting to seriously affect your health, both physically and mentally.'

'Is that your diagnosis, Ms Freud? That I'm slowly cracking up? That I'm taking giant strides along the road to self destruction?'

She did not dignify his sarcasm with a response.

'I don't want to talk about it,' he said. 'If I talk about it, it might go away…and then how will I be punished for what I did?' He sighed despairingly and pinched his eyes and the bridge of his nose. There was a long contemplative pause as he stared unblinking at the ceiling. 'Will you help me, Meg?' he said, his voice unsteady.

She stroked his hand. 'Of course I will, if you'll let me.'

'Then tell me what to do?'

She enclosed his hand in both of hers. 'You open your mouth and you let the words fall out and we'll sort them out later.'

He sat up and wiped his free hand down his face, dragging it against his cheeks and over his chin. Suddenly he looked very tired indeed and seemed to age before Megan's eyes.

In his throat, a lump had grown so large he thought it might choke him. He tried to swallow it down but it refused to go and he had to force words out past it. 'I don't know where to start?'

Megan gave his hand the lightest squeeze of encouragement. 'Wherever you like,' she said.

He tried to moisten his lips with a tongue that was as dry as parchment, despite all the liquid he had consumed over the evening. Forming the words as if they were made of broken glass, he told her everything he could remember.

'I wanted a child so much,' he said. 'It meant the world to me. Because Joanna loved me and wanted to make me happy she…'

He told of his and Joanna's delight at her falling pregnant, and how when she was late into the sixth month of her pregnancy, at friend's coffee morning, she complained of feeling unwell and collapsed. He recalled how the ambulance had taken almost an hour to reach her and how he had raced the eighty miles back over the mountains from Inverness to get to her, putting his own life at risk.

'When I got to the hospital…I was already too late…' He wiped his watering eyes on his shirt sleeve. '…she was dead. They said she'd died in the ambulance, the baby too. They never had a chance. It was too quick.'

'What was it?'

'She had a weakness in one of the blood vessels in her brain.'

'An aneurysm?'

'Aye. That's what they called it. The pregnancy had made her blood pressure rise enough to rupture it. It was…almost instantaneous.'

'Oh Nat…'

'They said she didn't suffer.'

'Perhaps not, if it was so quick.'

'I always wonder if the baby suffered. He was inside her. Was he aware of what was going on? Did he know her heart had stopped and her brain had died, and he was going to die too?'

'I'm sure he didn't.'

'They couldn't save him. If we had lived nearer to the hospital, he might have had a chance. But not out here. It was too far and too late.' He directed his curse to the ceiling. 'God! I hate this place!!!'

She clasped his hand tightly, and he laid his over hers, holding on with equal force.

'So that was it,' he said. 'My beautiful Joanna was gone. Just like that. She left me and took my son with her. We didn't get to say goodbye…she always said goodbye…even if she was only going to the store, she always...' The words were lost in an erupting sob. He held his jaw tense with his teeth gritted, breathing raggedly through them as he fought for control of his now rapidly deteriorating composure. 'My baby…my son…I never even got to meet him…he never got to take his first breath...or feel the sunshine…' Cold pressure built throughout his body and he began to shudder as the strain took hold. Another loud sob escaped him.