Stillwater (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

She stocked up at the supermarket on the way home, getting the food for the evening as well as supplies to last her the rest of the week. Once home she faced the laborious task of unpacking the shopping and loading her fridge and freezer. After a number of trips back and forth to the car she finally shut the back door and opened a bottle of wine. She poured herself a large glass of Merlot, and took it onto the veranda to sit and enjoy the last sunshine of the afternoon.

She had only taken one sip of her wine when her cell phone rang. Caller ID told her it was James and her heart sank. He was going to cancel, she was sure of it.

“Hello,” she said.

“Red or white?”

“Eh?”

“I'm buying wine for tonight and I wasn't sure which you preferred.”

She let out her breath in a long sigh of relief and took a sip of her Merlot. “I'm just sitting here with a glass of red, and I don't want to switch horses in midstream.”

“Mixed metaphor if ever I heard one. Red it is then,” he said. “See you at seven thirty.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

She disconnected, and relaxed into her chair, taking a large gulp of wine and closing her eyes. She felt giddy and wasn't sure if it was the drink or the relief she felt that he wasn't going to let her down. “Get a grip,” she scolded herself. “You're making more of this than it actually is. It's just a meal, nothing more.” She was speaking aloud. If Teddy were still around she'd be talking to him, confiding her secrets, her innermost thoughts. The cat made a great listener. Passive, nonjudgmental, everything a girl could ask for in a confidante, and she was reminded sharply how much she missed him. She sniffed back a tear, swallowed the last of the wine, and went in to prepare dinner.

Well, he's punctual
if nothing else
, she thought as she opened the door to him. He was casually dressed, and his hair wasn't as neat as it had been earlier. He bent forward, pecked her on the cheek, and at the same time handed her a bottle of Pinot Noir. “Something smells delicious,” he said, and walked across to the kitchen counter. “Corkscrew?”

“Three drawers across, two down.”

As he pulled open the drawer, she wheeled herself to the cooker and lifted a spoon from the steaming chili pot, and breathed in the aroma. Satisfied, she dropped the spoon back into the pot and spun round to face him. He'd uncorked the wine, and was pouring some into the second of the two glasses she'd set out on the counter.

“I thought red wine had to breathe,” she said.

“It can breathe in the glass,” he said, and handed her a half-full wineglass. Nodding her thanks, she turned and headed back to the sofa.

“Come and sit down,” she said. “Dinner will be another a few minutes yet. The rice is nearly ready.”

He sat down on the sofa and took a mouthful of wine. “Not bad,” he said appreciatively as he swallowed.

“Well, have you decided?” she said, as she wheeled up opposite him.

“Decided what?”

“Whether or not you're going to tell me everything you know about the Franklins?”

“I decided that this afternoon,” he said. “But first, you must tell me, have you seen or heard anything out of place?”

“Ha! Well, that's one way of putting it.” Briefly she told him about the incident in the bathroom, the overheard argument coming from upstairs, the feeling that she was not alone in the house. “The scratches on the bedroom door you've seen for yourself, and Derek told you about Teddy.”

“Anything else?”

“Won't that do?”

“Well, it's a start. The people before you had a three-page list of things they thought were wrong with Stillwater. Mind you they had been here two months before they contacted us to complain, and they weren't the easiest of people. She was very highly strung and he should have been. He was something in banking, and had an elevated opinion of himself. They were on a three-month lease, but left with twenty days still to run on it.”

“Should I be worried?”

He gave an easy smile. “I don't think so. Many of their complaints were about practical matters, and all the issues they raised were addressed during the refurb. Besides, I don't think you're the type of person to be easily alarmed. After the events that have happened to you, you're still here.”

“That's because I'm nosey. The Franklins intrigue me. I want to know all about them.”

“Okay. Let's start with dinner. I'm ravenous.”

“Okay, but I'm not letting you off.”

“I'll tell you everything once we've eaten, but the smells coming from the kitchen are distracting. I concentrate better on a full stomach.”

She held her hands up in defeat. “Okay, okay. You win. Food first. I'll go and dish up.”

“Need any help?”

She shook her head. “I can manage. You can choose the music. You know where the stereo is.”

As she ladled the chili and rice onto the plates, she stole a glance across at him as he rummaged through her music collection. “Is there anything you like? Celine?”

He glanced back at her with a smile. “Quite a lot actually. You have good taste—apart from Celine Dion!”

He chose a disc, slipped it in the CD player and pressed a button. Seconds later the intense vocal stylings of Jeff Buckley filled the room.

“Good choice,” she said, as she carried the plates to the table. “And appropriate. He drowned in tragic circumstances too.”

“So he did. I'd forgotten.”

“How close were you and Jessica?” she said, as she watched him take the first mouthful of chili. She was nervous. She hadn't cooked for anyone other than herself in a couple of years, and she found herself willing him to enjoy the food.

He took another mouthful, swallowed and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “This is really good,” he said. “Probably the best chili I've ever tasted.”

“
Probably
?” She looked at him archly. A smile played on her lips.

“No, it's very good. Seriously good.”

“So, you and Jessica…” The smile deepened.

“We were very good friends.”

“You gave the impression there was more to it than that.”

“Did I? My mistake. Jess and I were close, but there was never any romantic involvement. We would talk a lot and she confided in me. Her life at home was…difficult.”

“Was it worse once her mother had gone?”

“No, actually it seemed to get easier for her. Jess said Dolores was not an easy person. They were always arguing, in some conflict or other. Her father didn't help matters. Privately he'd side with Jess, but if there were any conflicts where the three of them were involved he'd unite with his wife. I suppose that was understandable. I think he always took the path of least resistance. Anything for a quiet life.”

“So Jessica was isolated at home
and
at school.”

“Pretty much.”

“Poor kid. It must have been awful.” She thought about her own recent isolation. Since being confined to the wheelchair she felt cut off from much of the kind of life she had enjoyed before.

He nodded and took a mouthful of wine.

“Tell me more about Dolores. Arthur Latham said that she saw herself as a bit of a hippie, even a witch. Any truth in that, or was it just malicious gossip?”

“According to Jess, Dolores saw herself as a lot of things: hippie, mystic, cougar… Jess found it embarrassing.”

“
Cougar
?”

James nodded. “Sadly. For an older woman she was very attractive, and I think she liked to exploit her sexuality. She had most of the boys at school drooling over her. I think she enjoyed the power it gave her.”

Beth opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. “And before you ask, no, I wasn't one of them. I was friends with Jessica. I knew how much her mother's behavior bothered her.”

“And did she ever act on the attention she was receiving?”

He shook his head. “No. Jess told me that although her mother was flattered by the attention, schoolboys were too young, even for her. Besides she didn't need them. There was a group of young men in town who apparently satisfied all her needs. According to Jess, Dolores played up the
mystic
part of her personality. They were her acolytes and she took full advantage of her position.

“But I don't think she had an honest bone in her body. Even her name was a fake. She was Christened Margaret Mary O'Donnell to a family of gypsies based in the southwest of England. Devon, I think. She adopted the name Dolores because she thought it made her sound more exotic. How she wooed and won Bernard Franklin was a mystery to everyone who knew him. Franklin is a well-educated, very successful businessman whose family owns large parts of west Suffolk. Jess said that her paternal grandparents never accepted Dolores into the family and, although they treated their granddaughter well, and were never overtly hostile to their son's wife, there was certainly no love lost there.”

“She sounds like a screw-up,” Beth said.

“Yes, she was, and in turn she made her daughter into one.”

Beth reached across the table and topped up their wineglasses. “Did she come back for her daughter's funeral?”

“If she did nobody saw her. In fact no one's seen her since the day she left. I know for a fact that, up until her death, Jessica never heard from her.”

“Perhaps Dolores died as well,” Beth said.

“Maybe. But if she did then word of her death never reached this part of Suffolk. And Bernard Franklin has never made mention of it.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Last October. He came into the office for a meeting with Edward Falmer about this place, just to green-light the changes your agent wanted made. We spoke, but it didn't really amount to a conversation, just pleasantries. I'm not even sure he recognized me as the scruffy sixteen-year-old who used to come to his house all those years ago as his daughter's friend.”

“So where's he living now?”

“When he's in this country he spends time at his house in Cambridge. He has a massive place, a Victorian pile, close to Cherry Hinton. He lives there with a housekeeper and a gardener-cum-handyman and, as far as I know, that's it. He's never remarried. When he's not there he has property abroad: Switzerland, Portugal and St. Lucia in the Caribbean. He's a very successful businessman, and very rich.”

“It makes you wonder why he maintains an interest in this house then. I mean, Suffolk hardly compares to St. Lucia, does it? And if he's as rich as you say I wouldn't have thought the rent I pay means an awful lot to him.”

“It baffles Edward Falmer too. He'd been trying to get Franklin to sell up for years, but now he's given up. He says Franklin has a very deep attachment to the place.” James stood suddenly. “I need the bathroom,” he said. “Excuse me.”

“I'll fix dessert,” she said, and wheeled herself across to the cooker.

Chapter Seventeen

“I'd like to meet him,” Beth said.

“Who? Franklin? Why?”

“I told you, I'm nosey. I'd like to hear his version of the story.”

“Stick to writing your own stories,” James said. “Bernard Franklin won't agree to meet a tenant. At least he never has in the past. That's why he employs Falmer's: to save himself the bother.”

They had moved to the sofas for their coffee. It was only the second time Beth had sat on the deep, leather chesterfield, and it had taken a few minutes to transfer herself from her wheelchair. James stood back and watched while she completed the maneuver, not offering to help. He was learning.

“Are you Italian?” he asked, switching the subject. “Alvarini's not exactly an Anglo-Saxon name is it?”

“I married an Italian, and kept his name after I divorced him,” she said. “Before that I was plain old Elizabeth Brown.”

“Did it last long, the marriage?”

“Too long. We married too quickly—hardly knew each other. It was a whirlwind romance that developed into a full-blown hurricane, and about as destructive. A big mistake.”

“We all make them,” he said.

They lapsed into silence as they drank their coffee.

“And what about you?” she said, as the pause grew pregnant. “Have you never been tempted to find a Mrs. Bartlett?”

“I'm not the marrying kind,” he said. “Besides, no one's ever come along to persuade me to make that commitment.”

She was watching him closely. A shadow had passed across his face, and he shifted in his seat, as if the topic of conversation was making him physically uncomfortable.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. “I'll put some more music on,” he said, and went across to the stereo. He picked up a CD. “Any objection to some Coldplay?”

“None at all,” she said.

He removed Jeff Buckley from the tray, slipped in
Parachutes
and pressed PLAY. When he came to sit back down he moved from his sofa to hers, sitting just six inches away from her.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Ask away.”

“May I kiss you?”

She looked into his eyes. They were deep brown, soft and kind. “Yes,” she said. “I think I might like that.”

He leaned in close, and brought his lips close to hers. “I'd understand if you said no.” Then he gave an impatient sigh, put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her close.

The kiss was long and intimate, sweet and tender, their tongues entwined, their bodies breathing each other in.

As the intensity increased, Beth fought down a growing urge to pull away. It had been years since she'd been kissed like this, and she was trying to let herself flow with it, to let herself enjoy the taste of him and the way his fingertips danced on her back.

But it was too soon, too sudden
,
a hectoring voice at the back of her mind nagged. Did he realize that the pulses of excitement she was feeling extended down only as far as her waist? Beyond that? What? Nothing—no feeling at all.

His hand slipped under her shirt, lifting her underwired bra, cupping her breast, his thumb flicking over her nipple.

As one heady sensation merged with another, she felt herself plunging into a black sea of panic. She clamped her arm firmly at her side, dislodging his caressing hand and pinning it. She jerked back from the kiss, shaking her head. “No!' she gasped. “I can't do this. I'm sorry. This is wrong.”

He pulled away from her, retreating back to the other side of the sofa, the confusion on his face giving way to a look of concern. “No, really, it's fine. I understand.”

“Do you?” she said hotly. “Because I'm damned if I do.” Tears were stinging her eyes but she fought them back. She wouldn't cry. That would be the final humiliation.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

She glared at him. “No, I don't want to talk about it! I want you to go.”

“Oh,” he said, and got to his feet. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I really am. I shouldn't have pushed…”

“Just go. Forget this ever happened.”

“But I…”

“Go! I can't be who you want me to be. Go and find yourself a real woman.”

She couldn't look at him anymore. She was being unreasonable, unfair and unkind, but she couldn't stand to see the pity in his eyes. This had been a mistake, a stupid, immature mistake. It was Mirri's fault, for planting the seed in her mind, leading her to believe she could lead a normal life and have a fulfilling, loving relationship. She was a paraplegic, and she always would be, a cripple, both physically and emotionally.

She heard the front door close as James Bartlett walked out of her life without another word.

“Fuck!” she said. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” With each expletive she slammed her hand down on the arm of the leather sofa until the palm of her hand was stinging.

“Pathetic!”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It filled the room with low intensity. A woman's voice, taunting her, picking at her shredded feelings.

Beth twisted her head from side to side, trying to locate the source of the voice, but it was useless; the room was empty.

“Where are you?” she shouted. “Show yourself!”

For a moment there was nothing. And then her wheelchair trundled forward as if someone had pushed it. It stood a yard away from her. She reached out, but before she could reach the arm and pull it toward her, the wheelchair was given another hefty shove, and it moved out of her reach. This time it kept on moving. It was circumnavigating the room, its speed increasing as it moved farther and farther away from her.

It was heading toward the doors at the end of the lounge, wheels spinning, the whole thing rocking slightly as the momentum increased.

It hit the bathroom door with a sickening crunch, before pulling back and smashing against the door to her bedroom. As metal hit wood, there was a splintering sound. When it pulled back this time Beth could see the deep gouges made by the aluminum footrests where they had scraped a path across the door.

“Stop this!” she shouted. “Stop this now!”

The wheelchair rolled to a halt, and the sound of a woman's laughter filled the room.

“You can't have him,” the woman's voice sounded again. “What would he want with a pathetic cripple like you?”

The voice was mocking her, throwing her deepest thoughts, her unspoken anxieties, back at her.

The wheelchair started to move again, rolling forward silently on well-oiled wheels. Slowly it turned until it was facing her. Then it stopped.

She stared back at it. The air between seemed to ripple. The chair was slipping in and out of focus.
The wine
! The thought threaded its way through her mind. She had drunk too much wine, and this was the result. Hearing voices, hallucinations.

Never again
, she thought.
Never ever again
.

But the comfort of a rational explanation was short-lived, as she wrestled with the problem of getting from the sofa to her bedroom. She had crutches. They were tucked away at the back of her wardrobe. She hated using them, and wouldn't be seen dead using them in public, so she hid them away. Now she realized the folly of her vanity. So the only choice now was an undignified crawl across the floor.

She stared again at the wheelchair parked on the other side of the room. If this was just a hallucination how the hell did it get there? She shook her head, trying to untangle her befuddled thoughts.

Before she got them unraveled, the chair launched itself at her.

One moment it was sitting across the room from her, idle and docile, but before she could blink it had halved the distance between them, heading straight for her; wheels skidding across the floor, footrests glinting in the subdued lighting, the aluminum ragged and spiteful from the collision with the bedroom door.

She was screaming, a pitiful wail, a cry for help. It was all she had left.

As the wheelchair smashed into her, her scream was cut off abruptly as her body was swamped by a tsunami of pain. She pictured the aluminum footrests slicing through her skin, biting through the bone and severing her useless legs at the ankles.

A wave of blackness washed in on the tail of the tsunami, deadening the pain and carrying her away from her body. For a moment she was hovering on the edge of consciousness. She seemed to be hanging somewhere between the sofa and the ceiling, staring down at her broken body, tangled in a mess of twisted metal and buckled wheels.

“Stupid bitch!” a voice hissed in her ear.

She closed her eyes and the black wave swept her away.

The lake was still and quiet. Peaceful and inviting.

Beth was running through the trees. Branches pushed aside as leaves tickled her face. She would have laughed if she wasn't already smiling, her face lit up from a happy glow that began deep inside her and threatened to bubble and burst out of her like a waterfall.

The moon was full, shyly hiding behind wisps of cloud that parted like theater stage curtains to let light fall onto the woods and the water. Beth reveled in the sensation of running over the damp earth. Moss and twigs felt soft beneath her bare feet, carpet caresses.

Above her head the oak and birch stood silently watching her meandering path. If animals lived here they were as silent as the trees that concealed them. Beth might have been the only person in the woods this night, but she wasn't.

Water rippled as something entered it. By the time Beth broke the cover of the bushes and stood at the edge of the lake the surface was still. It may as well have been a mirror, gently holding the reflected moon, the stars bobbing lights that made it seem as if the pondweed was on fire.

Beth stood at the water's edge and stripped. She was wearing only a white shift dress, cotton, loose and flowing, and it fell beside her as if a resolution too easily broken.

Naked, she saw her body in the glass of the lake. Slim, pale, perhaps younger than she had a right to be.

Movement behind her should have caused alarm but it didn't.

Then she heard the voices.

“Dive. Dive in.”

“I can't walk…my legs…”

“Dive and swim.”

Beth hesitantly walked to the line where water met land and then her feet were immersed. The water was cold but she couldn't feel it.
I have no feeling below the waist
, she thought.

The trees began to move all around her. Birds and animals swarmed in agitation across and over the branches. Broken leaves fell onto the water where they lay like discarded confetti.

She bent her knees, held her arms in front of her, and plunged headfirst into the black water.

The darkness engulfed her, and yet she could see everything quite clearly. The waves caused by her dive swamped the grassy banks, picking up her white dress and carrying it away.

She dived deeper, eyes open, taking in what she saw. There were fish, soundlessly floating by, and weeds, swaying as if flags in a breeze. Then she saw the people.

They were a small group, and they were waiting for her. She swam toward them, the smile on her face getting more relaxed.

She hovered next to the group of people, her legs tirelessly treading water, her skin alive with sensation.

“Jessica.”

She started to protest, to tell them she was Beth, but no words came out of her mouth, they stayed locked inside her head, and after a short while she stopped trying to convince herself.

They were young men, nude, attractive, bodies glistening with the water of the lake.

“We've been waiting for you.”

“I came as soon as I could. The wheelchair slows…”

The laughter came quickly. “Pathetic cripple aren't you.”

Beth swam a stroke or two away from them.

“Teasing.”

They swam toward her, surrounding her, and began touching her.

“I can't feel anything.”

“Of course you can, Jessica. Let it go.”

“I'm not Jessica.”

“You are here.”

Out of the darkness of the far side of the lake Beth saw movement. White, writhing, squirming through the water.

The men were holding Beth casually, stroking her skin, kissing her.

The white figure swam closer and Beth could see it was a female; she might have been a teenager or a mature woman, it was impossible to tell. The men held Beth out to her as if offering her up for approval.

“She can't feel anything.”

“We'll have to teach her.”

The woman reached out her hand and placed it over Beth's face. Soft fingers closed her eyelids and Beth slipped into her own darkness.