The Legacy (44 page)

Chapter 7

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eve-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Frost at Midnight

T
he stairs take the last of my energy, so when I reach the bathroom door I am gulping, fighting for breath. The light is on inside, tendrils of steam creeping under the door. And the tap still running. With my hand on the door I freeze, shut my eyes for a second. I am so afraid; so afraid of what I might see. I think of Eddie, pushing back Beth’s hair when he came home after school and found her. How I need his courage right now.

“Beth?” I call, too meekly. No reply. Swallowing, I give two tiny knocks then throw open the door.

Beth is in the bath, her hair floating around her, water perilously close to the rim, escaping into the over flow. Her eyes are shut and for an instant I think I have lost her. She is Ophelia, she will ebb away from me, float off into serene oblivion. But then she opens her eyes, turns her face to me, and I am so relieved I nearly fall. I stumble in, sit abruptly on the chair where her clothes are folded.

“Rick? What’s going on? Where are your clothes?” she asks me, pushing the tap closed with her big toe. I dropped them and Dinny’s blanket in the hallway, before I ran. I am wearing wet, muddy underwear, nothing more.

“I thought . . . I thought . . .” But I don’t want to tell her what I thought. It seems a betrayal, to think that she would do that to herself again.

“What?” she asks, her voice flattening out, growing taut.

“Nothing,” I mumble. The light stabs at my eyes, makes me flinch. “Why are you in the bath at this time of night?”

“I said I’d wait for you to get back,” she replies. “And I was cold. Where have you been?” she asks, sitting up now, wet hair smoothing itself to her breasts. She bends her knees, wraps shining arms around them. I can see every rib, every bump of her spine, marching down into the water.

“I was with Dinny. I . . . fell into the dew pond.”

“You did
what
? What was Dinny doing there?”

“He heard me fall in. He helped me out.”

“You just fell in?” she asks incredulously.

“Yes! Too much whisky, I suppose.”

“And did you just . . . fall out of your clothes? Or did he help you with those as well?” she asks tartly. I give her a steady look. I am angry now—that she scared me so. That I scared myself so.

“Who’s jealous now?” I ask, just as tart.

“I’m not—” she begins, then puts her chin on her knees, looks away from me. “It’s
weird
, OK, Erica? You chasing after Dinny is weird.”

“Why is it weird? Because he was yours first?”

“Yes!” she cries; and I stare, amazed by this admission. “Just don’t get involved with him, all right? It feels incestuous! It’s just . . . wrong!” She struggles to explain herself, stretching her hands wide. “I can’t stand it.”

“It’s not wrong. You just don’t
like
the idea, that’s all. But you needn’t worry. I think he’s still in love with you,” I say quietly, feeling my own heart sink inside me.

I wait to see her expression change, but it doesn’t.

“We should go, Erica. Can’t you see? We should leave here and not come back. It would be by far the best thing. We could go tomorrow.” Her voice gains conviction, she fixes me with desperate eyes. “Never mind sorting out all Meredith’s things—that’s not why we came here, not really. The house clearance guys can do it! Please? Let’s just go?”

“I know why I came here, Beth.” I am tired of not talking about it, tired of tiptoeing around it. “I wanted us both to come because I thought I could make you better. Because I want to find out what it is that torments you, Beth. I want to bring it to the surface. I want to shine a light on it, and . . . show you that it’s not so bad. Nothing is as bad in the light of day, Beth! Isn’t that what you tell Eddie when he has nightmares?”

“Some things
are
, Erica! Some things are as bad!” she cries, the words torn from her, terrified. “I want to
leave
. I’m leaving, tomorrow.”

“No. You’re
not
. Not until we’ve confronted this. Whatever it is. Not until we’ve faced up to it!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shouts harshly. She stands abruptly, sends water cascading onto the bathroom floor, reaches for her dressing gown and shrugs it on violently. “You can’t stop me if I want to go.”

“I won’t drive you to the station.”

“I’ll take a taxi!” she hisses.

“On New Year’s Day? Out here in the sticks? Good luck.”

“God
damn it
, Rick! Why are you doing this?” she swears, anger snapping in her eyes, clipping her words. They echo from the tiled walls, attack me twice.

“I . . . I promised Eddie. That I’d make you better.”

“What?” she whispers.

I think carefully, before I speak again. I think about what I saw, as the dew pond closed over my head.

“Tell me what Henry was looking for at the side of the dew pond,” I demand softly.

“What? When?”

“At the side of the dew pond that day. The day he disappeared, and I’d been swimming in the pond. He was looking for something on the ground.” I hear Beth’s sharp intake of breath. Her lips have gone pale.

“I thought you said you didn’t remember?” she says.

“It’s coming back to me. A little. Not all of it. I remember jumping back into the pond, and I remember looking up at Henry, and he had been looking for something on the ground. And then I remember . . .” I swallow, “I remember him bleeding. His head bleeding.”

“Shut up!
Shut up!
I don’t want to talk about it!” Beth shouts again, puts her hands over her ears, shakes her head madly. I watch, astonished, until she stops, stands snatching at the air, chest heaving. I take her arm carefully and she winces.

“Just tell me what he was looking for.”

“Stones, of course,” she says, quietly, defeated. “He was looking for stones to throw.” She pulls away from me then, slips from the bathroom into the dark of the corridor.

N
o sleep for me. I try counting my breaths, counting my heartbeat; but when I do this my heart speeds up, as if startled by such scrutiny. It rushes along, makes my head ache. I shut my eyes so tightly that colored shapes bloom in the dark and flounce across the ceiling when I open my eyes again. There’s a bright moon tonight, and as I skim sleep, as the hours spin past, I see it sail heedlessly from one pane of the window to the next.

I feel dreadful when I get up: heavy and tired. My throat is sore; there’s an ache behind my eyes that won’t go. It was a hard frost last night—Dinny was right about what might have happened if I’d lain about on the ground, drunk and befuddled. Now there’s a dense mist, so pale and luminous that I can’t tell where it ends and the sky begins. The thing is, we ran. That day. Beth and I ran. I remember scrambling out of the pond as fast as I could, bruising my feet on flints. I remember Beth’s fingers closing tightly on my arm like little bird claws, and we ran. Back to the house, back to lie low, to hide and stay quiet until the trouble started. Or rather, until the trouble was noticed. We didn’t go back, I am sure of it. The last time I saw Henry he was by the side of the dew pond; he was teetering. Did he fall? Was that why I got out, so desperately fast? Was that why I told them all he was in the pond—why I insisted upon it? But he wasn’t, and there was only one other person there. There is only one person who can have moved Henry, who can have taken him somewhere else, because I know he didn’t take himself. He was taken somewhere so secret and so hidden that twenty-three years of searching couldn’t uncover him. But I am close now.

It could be this memory that I’ve fought so hard to regain that’s hurting my head. I don’t have to concentrate to recall it now. It capers in my mind’s eye of its own accord, again and again. Henry bleeding, Henry falling. It worries me that I didn’t want breakfast. I looked at the food and I remembered Henry and there was no question of eating anything. No question of putting anything into my mouth, of enjoyment or satisfaction. Is this how Beth has felt, for twenty-three years? The thought turns me cold. It’s like knowing there’s something behind you, following you. That neck-prickling feeling, a constant distraction. Something as dark and permanent as your shadow.

The doorbell startles me. Dinny is there, wearing a heavy canvas coat for once, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets. In spite of it all my cheeks glow and I feel a wave of something ill-defined. Relief, or perhaps dread.

“Dinny! Hello—come in,” I greet him.

“Hi, Erica, I just wanted to check you were all right. After last night,” Dinny says, stepping over the threshold but staying on the doormat.

“Come in—I can’t shut the door with you standing there.”

“My boots are muddy,”

“That’s the least of our problems, believe me.” I wave my hand.

“So, how are you? I wondered if . . . if you’d swallowed any of that pond water, it might have made you sick,” he says. An awkwardness about him that wasn’t there before, a diffidence that touches me.

“I’m fine, really. I mean, I feel like death, and I’m sure I look like death, but other than that, I’m OK.” I smile nervously.

“You could have killed yourself,” he tells me gravely.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention, believe me. And thank you for rescuing me—I really owe you one,” I say. At this he looks at me sharply, his eyes probing my face. But then he softens, puts out his hand and brushes cold knuckles lightly down my cheek. I catch my breath, shiver slightly.

“Idiot,” he says softly.

“Thanks,” I say.

There’s a thump from upstairs. I picture a full suitcase, pulled off a bed. Dinny drops his hand quickly, puts it back in his pocket.

“Is that Beth?” he asks.

“Beth or the ghost of Calcotts past. I expect she’s packing. She doesn’t even want to stay for one more day.” I give a helpless little shrug.

“So you’re leaving?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to. Not yet. Maybe not at all.” I glance at him. I really don’t think I could stay in this house by myself.

“No more Dinsdales or Calcotts at Storton Manor. It’s the end of an era,” Dinny says, but he does not sound regretful.

“Are you moving on?” I ask. My heart gives a little leap of protest.

“Sooner or later. This is a rotten place to camp in the winter. I was only really here because of Honey—”

“I thought you said you saw Meredith’s obituary?”

“Well, yes, and that. I thought there was a good chance you and Beth might be around.” For a moment we say nothing. I am still too unsure of him to test this tide that’s towing us apart. Perhaps Dinny feels the same way.

“I’d like to say goodbye to Beth before you disappear,” he says quietly. I nod. Of course he does. “I didn’t get the chance, the last time you went,” he adds pointedly.

“She’s upstairs. We had a fight. I don’t know if she’ll come down,” I tell him. I study his hands. Square shaped, smeared with grime. Black crescents under the nails. I think of the mud by the dew pond, him hauling me out. I think of the way he held me, just for a while, while the embers sank low and my body shook. I think of his kiss. How I want to keep him here.

“What did you fight about?”

“What do you think?” I ask bitterly. “She won’t tell me what happened. But she
has
to face up to it, Dinny—she has to! It’s what’s making her ill, I know it!” Dinny sighs sharply, shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, as if he would run. He rubs a hand over his forehead, exasperated. “You never did get to tell her the things you wanted to, Dinny. But . . . you can tell me instead,” I say.