Summer at Shell Cottage (30 page)

‘We’d had a bit of a row too.
Just a silly one about whose turn it was to fill up the car.
Of all the things!
Petrol, for heaven’s sake.
But I wouldn’t leave it.
I kept
on at him.
Even got a receipt out of my purse to prove it had been me who’d paid last time, like the annoying old cow I am.’
Her mouth quirked in a miserable twist.
‘He lost his
temper, anyway, we both did, and then he stormed out.
It wasn’t unusual for him not to come home when we had rows, he’d often go drinking with a mate and kip over, come slinking back
the next day.
Not this time, though.’

Olivia reached over and took her hand.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said helplessly.
She and Alec had had fairly tempestuous rows on occasion.
Didn’t every married couple?
What
dreadful bad luck for Gloria and Bill, never able to make up again.

‘Yeah,’ said Gloria, a heaviness in her voice.
‘But then that afternoon a text comes through, and it’s from him.
And I’m, like, what the hell, because I’ve
just been told he’s dead, but the signal’s so shit around here, it can sometimes take hours for a text message to get through, especially if the weather’s bad.’

Olivia’s heart clenched.
‘Oh gosh.
What a horrible shock.’

‘I know, right?
Total shock.
First I have this, like, euphoria that he must still be alive, that there’s been some terrible mistake.
Then I’m confused – wait.
How can
that be?
But then the penny drops.
Ahh.
No.
He’s not alive, it’s just a delayed text winding me up from beyond the grave.
So
then
I’m like, oh my God.
He was texting to
say sorry.
His last words will be that he’s sorry we had a row and that he loves me and I was totally right about the petrol.’

She pulled a face but her mouth was resolutely down-turned and Olivia had the sinking feeling that Bill’s last words were nothing of the sort.
‘What did the text say?’
she
asked gently.
Gloria seemed to have run out of steam.

‘It said .
.
.’
Gloria stubbed her cigarette out in the sand and chucked it into her empty mug, her expression grim.
‘It said “Sorry, love, but I can’t go on like
this.”
That was it.
And ten minutes after he sent it, he was dead.’

Olivia winced.
‘Oh no.
So you think .
.
.
?’
She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.
Poor Bill.
And poor, poor Gloria.
It was just heartbreaking.

‘Yep.
Not “accidental death” at all.
Not that I told anyone about it, mind.
Couldn’t face them all knowing.’
She looked sidelong at Olivia.
‘You’re the
first person I’ve told, actually.’

Olivia still had her hand around Gloria’s and she squeezed it tightly, at a loss for what she could possibly say ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again eventually, the words
seeming inadequate.
‘That’s awful.’

‘Yes,’ Gloria said, ‘but what can you do?
Life goes on, doesn’t it?
The world keeps on bloody well spinning, whether we want it to or not.’
She gave a snort.
‘And for us reckless widows left behind, we have to just pick ourselves up and carry on.
It’s that or go into full nervous breakdown mode, anyway.’

Olivia nodded.
‘I think I’ve done a bit of both recently.
It’s hard.
Especially, as you say, when they surprise you like that.
Selfish sods.’

‘Yeah,’ Gloria agreed, sounding a bit more like herself again.
She propped herself up on her elbows then shook a fist at the sky.
‘You selfish old twat, Bill!
You inconsiderate
ball-sack!’

Before she knew it, Olivia was doing the same.
‘You cheating prick, Alec Tarrant!’
she heard herself screeching.
‘You smooth-tongued weasel!
You lying snake in the
grass!’

‘YEAH!’
Gloria yelled, before catching Olivia’s eye and snorting again.
The snort became a laugh and then the two women collapsed into giggles, shoulders shaking, tension
released.

‘Tune in next week for the latest episode of
Two Streaking Madwomen in Devon
,’ Gloria said, still laughing, ‘when the madwomen gatecrash a beach party.’

‘The madwomen get arrested for indecent behaviour.’

‘The madwomen bust out and go joyriding.’

‘The madwomen go to expensive restaurants and run off without paying.’
They could hardly speak for laughing now.

‘And then toddle off and enjoy a nice cup of tea in front of the wrestling,’ Gloria finished, wiping her eyes.
‘Oh, you do make me laugh, Liv.
I’m glad our paths crossed
this summer.’

‘So am I, Gloria,’ Olivia said, feeling slightly hysterical from so much laughter.
Her stomach muscles ached but in a good way.
‘So am I.’

Robert had barely slept up in the attic room the night before.
His mind had churned and circled, unable to be stilled, with everything coming back to Harriet and her face when
the penny dropped.
The bewilderment.
The shock.
And then, worst of all, the contempt.
He would never forget the contempt, for as long as he lived.

You piece of utter shit
, her eyes said.
How could you do this to me?

She had reeled, open-mouthed, for a long, terrible moment before storming out of the house.
She had then vanished for the entire evening with Molly, reappearing only to defiantly stuff a white
plastic bag full of vinegar-smelling fish and chip wrappers into the kitchen swing-top bin.

‘Is everything all right, Harriet?’
Freya had asked, looking concerned, but Robert could tell that Harriet was so boilingly angry that she barely trusted herself to speak, other than
a gritted-teeth ‘Yes’.

The next thing he knew, his clothes had been taken out of the wardrobe in great armfuls and dumped unceremoniously back into his suitcase, along with his toiletries, alarm clock and the thriller
he was halfway through, before the whole lot was carted off to the attic room.
It was the least he deserved, he supposed.

Up in the attic he had stewed all night, cursing his own stupidity for having blown the best relationship of his life.
And all because he had been too proud to admit to his failings!
The worst
thing was, Harriet was the one person who wouldn’t have thought any less of him for it.
Harriet would have hugged him and told him, Never mind, declaring that books were overrated anyway,
give her real life any day – give her a real fabulous
husband
, even better, and, corrr, come here, let me cheer you up .
.
.
I
still think you’re the best thing since
squeezy Marmite .
.
.

She would, as well.
He could imagine her saying almost those exact words, just as he’d have said them to her had their situations been reversed.
She’d have comforted him, and
he’d have got over the rejections, then moved on to something else – a job that he actually liked and was good at, for starters.
Because that’s what loving wives and husbands did
for each other – they held hands through the disappointments every bit as much as they celebrated the triumphs.
He’d never met a woman who was so loyal and so cheerleading as Harriet.
Why hadn’t he appreciated just how good and precious and special their relationship was back at the time?
Why had he fucked it all up?

Today, Harriet had got up earlier than everyone else and gone out, taking the car with her.
For a moment he had feared the worst, agonizing that she’d driven home and left him for good.
In
a terrible flash of foreboding, he envisaged returning to Seymour Street and finding the locks changed, a huge sign up in the front garden: LIARS CAN JOG ON.
NOT WELCOME HERE.

No, he reminded himself thankfully, seeing Molly’s spotted raincoat hanging in the hallway as he came downstairs for breakfast.
Harriet wouldn’t have left without Molly.
And
she
was definitely still here, judging by the row of bikinis hanging bone-dry on the washing line, the vanilla-scented perfume and Clearasil in the bathroom, the jumble of sandals and
flip-flops abandoned in the hall.

For as long as they remained at Shell Cottage, the onus was on him to somehow make it up to her and show just how sorry he was.
He would get down on his knees and beg for a second chance if he
had to.

With no car and no desire for company, Robert decided to take himself off for a long walk in the meantime.
He wouldn’t come back again until he’d worked out his next move: a way to
make it up to his wife.
There must be
something
he could do to make her love him again.
He just had to think hard enough.

It was another perfect summer’s day and the roads were empty.
All self-respecting holidaymakers would be at the beach by now, he supposed, staking out their patches with windbreaks and
towels, snapping open folding chairs, trying to keep their picnics cool and sand-free in the shade.
If he hadn’t gone and messed everything up, they might have been there again too, the sound
of the surf rushing deliciously in the background, Harriet flicking through a magazine, teasing Robert about his awful shorts (he loved those shorts) and asking him to put cream on her back.

He thought longingly about the feel of her soft, warm skin beneath his fingers and cursed himself all over again.
Idiot, idiot, idiot
, every footstep seemed to say instead as he walked
dismally along.

Silver Sands village wasn’t large by anyone’s standards – a few streets of houses, the post office, the bakery, the pub, the newsagent’s run by the same elderly couple
who’d been there when Robert was a boy (he was convinced some of the stock was the same too, especially the crappier souvenirs at the back of the dusty shelves).
It was a quiet place, with
little traffic.
Most people tended to go further along the coast to Ennisbridge or Bantham, preferring the bigger, more touristy beaches to be found there.
In Silver Sands, you were lucky if you
saw the local bus trundle by more than once a week.

Talking of which .
.
.
He narrowed his eyes.
Maybe he was about to glimpse this rare and endangered vehicle again sooner than expected.
He’d reached the end of the village now, where the
bus stop stood, inconveniently after all the houses had ended.
You never usually saw anyone there but today a dark-haired boy waited with a small suitcase by his feet, anxiously scanning the
horizon.

Robert glanced around, wondering if a parent or friend was in the near vicinity, but the streets were deserted.
Strange.
The boy seemed quite young to be heading off on his own – ten?
Eleven?
Maybe he was older than he looked.
It was hard to tell with kids nowadays.

He shot another look at the boy as he walked closer.
There was something familiar about his face.
The green eyes, the freckles, the way he held himself so stiffly, back straight, like a
soldier.

A thought struck him.
Wait.
Could this be him, Leo?
His half-brother?

Curiosity got the better of Robert.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, reaching the bus stop.
The boy flinched, his hands curling protectively around the handle of the suitcase.
He’d
obviously been told not to speak to strangers.
‘I don’t suppose your name is Leo, is it?’

The boy eyed him warily.
God, it
must
be Leo.
He really looked like Dad, right from the way he cocked his head to that suspicious well-who-wants-to-know?
glint in his eye.
Actually, now
that Robert was standing right in front of him, those green eyes looked kind of bloodshot, as if he’d been crying.

‘I’m Robert.’
He held out his hand gravely.
The boy didn’t move.
‘And I know you’ve probably been told not to talk to strangers but I’m not completely a
stranger.
Or rather, I’m not, if you’re Leo.’
He pulled a face.
He was getting this all wrong.
‘I’m Robert Tarrant.
Alec’s grown-up son?
And if you’re Leo,
then that makes me your big brother.
Kind of.’

Leo – if it was him (it
had
to be!) – looked worried but didn’t speak.

Robert dropped his hand, feeling awkward, and leaned against the lamp post.
‘I always wanted a brother,’ he said, which was true.

Leo glanced down and scuffed the floor with his trainer.
‘Are you the policeman?’
he asked in a low voice.

‘Am I the .
.
.
?’
Oh, he meant Victor.
‘No, I’m the other one.’
The unsuccessful one, in other words.
The loser!
Robert changed the subject quickly.
‘Where
are you off to, then, with that case?’

Now Leo looked positively anguished.
‘Nowhere,’ he mumbled, looking past Robert in the direction of oncoming traffic.
Not that there was any, of course.

Robert studied the timetable.
The buses from here went up to Ivybridge but only ran twice a day, midweek.
He glanced from Leo to the times listed, then back again.
‘You know, you could be
waiting here a while, mate,’ he said gently.
‘The next bus is at three o’clock.
That’s .
.
.’
He checked his watch.
‘That’s four and a half hours
away.’

Leo slumped at this news.
He looked as if he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders.

‘Where were you going to, anyway?’
Robert asked again.
A thought occurred to him.
‘Does your mum know you’re here, waiting for the three o’clock bus with a
suitcase, by the way?’

A tear rolled down Leo’s cheek and he kicked at the dust as it plopped to the ground.
He shook his head.

‘Oh, mate.
What’s up?’
Robert vividly remembered being that age, and the passionate feelings that could be aroused by some injustice or slight.
He’d once marched out of
the house himself, having left a note declaring that he’d run away because it wasn’t fair that he had to tidy his bedroom before
Doctor Who.
He’d ended up in the park for
the longest ninety minutes of his life, sitting on a bench and feeling increasingly sorry for himself, until Olivia found him and gave him the biggest hug ever, shortly followed by the biggest
bollocking.
And
he’d missed
Doctor Who
after all that.
‘Were you running away?’
he asked.

Leo didn’t say anything but his lower lip trembled – a dead giveaway that Robert had hit on the truth.
‘Look,’ Robert said, ‘there’s not another bus for
hours, you know that now.
There’s only one thing to do, if you ask me.’

‘What?’

‘Let your big brother take you to the pub and buy you a drink.
And then tell me what’s happened.’

The Haystack pub was yet to open when they arrived, so they wandered further along to the newsagent’s, Robert carrying the suitcase, and bought two cans of pop instead.
Then they sat on the wooden bench outside the pub and cracked them open in the sunshine.
‘So, first things first,’ Robert said.
‘Where’s your mum today?’

‘Cleaning,’ Leo said, chugging back his lemonade thirstily.

‘And she thinks you are .
.
.
?’

‘She said she’d be back just after eleven.
She left me on my own.
I
am
nearly twelve, I’m not a baby.’

‘Right.
But you were hoping to be gone by the time she came home.
Was that the plan?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you have an argument or something?’

Leo shook his head, eyes to the ground.

Robert elbowed him.
‘Come on.
I’m your brother, remember.
You can tell me.
Brothers can tell each other anything.’

Leo bit his lip and for a moment, Robert wasn’t sure he was going to get anywhere.
But then the boy asked with great solemnity, ‘Do you promise you won’t tell that
policeman?’

‘What, Victor?’
God, this sounded serious.
It crossed his mind for a split second that he might regret becoming involved.
But the kid was looking at him so beseechingly that there
was only one possible answer.
‘I won’t tell him, if you don’t want me to.’

Leo looked down at the table, then searchingly up at Robert, then all around, as if to check that nobody else could possibly hear.
Bloody hell.
What had he
done
?

‘It was my fault,’ he mumbled eventually.
‘I .
.
.
I killed him.’

Holy cow.
What on earth .
.
.
?
Was the kid some sort of psychopath?
Robert tried to keep his cool.
‘What do you mean?
Who did you kill?’