Undone (2 page)

All these men are Sol, and Sol is all these men.

I fear authority and I crave it.

I can’t allow the truth to rise up like this. This diary will help me stay sane.

I’ve been trying to identify the point where I began losing it. The death disturbed me, of course, but that wasn’t the start. I think it was later, in the woods, when Sol climaxed with a cry that haunts me even now.

When I was younger, I was a sucker for the romantic notion of not knowing where I ended and where the object of my affection began. Now, I want to know exactly where I end, thanks very much, and I’ll erect barriers should anyone attempt to trespass. Sol threatens my boundaries but I can’t yet pinpoint how, nor can I fathom why I’ve become so permeable and desperate.

The moment I met him seems a lifetime ago but, in real terms, it was a matter of days. For the first time this year, the sky was the rich, saturated blue of high summer. I’d driven to the party on my own, windows down, great music, winding country lanes, scarlet poppies blazing in the hedgerows. The breeze whipped at my hair, and I couldn’t stop grinning. I felt on the brink of newness, as if this was destined to be a weekend of change.

I’d been in two minds about attending because at the last minute we were short-staffed at the bar. Perhaps Misha would be alive now if I’d decided not to go, but madness beckons if I start thinking along those lines. When I’d paid my deposit, the weekend had looked perfect: the fortieth birthday party of a former work colleague from my days of working in a design practice in central London. A chance to breathe some country air, relax and hang out in the fabulously grand manor house they’d hired. There’d be al fresco dining, tennis, woodland walks, croquet, dancing and drinking. I’d meet some old faces and, more importantly, some new ones, which I still needed to do since the break-up of my marriage.

Technically speaking, it was a joint party: Zoe’s fortieth and the thirty-fourth of a friend of hers, Rose, whom I’d never met. What else? My first holiday since opening the bar, if you can call a couple of days off a holiday. And our decree absolute had come through so a celebration seemed in order.

Damn. Already I’m guilt-tripping myself, trying to justify my presence at Dravendene Hall. Spot the workaholic.

On arrival, I’d unpacked my case in my adorable little turret room, and then joined a couple of ex-colleagues, Trish and Abbi, in the sprawling garden at the rear of the house. The trees were hung with inert balloons of colour, Chinese lanterns waiting to be enlivened by darkness. Two conical canvas tipis, connected at the centre and trimmed with bunting, offered shade from the sun but few people seemed to want it. There was no bar or waiting service because this wasn’t a wedding or a high-society do. We were a bunch of people sharing a space for a couple of days and hoping to keep the costs relatively manageable.

After a short while, I went to fetch another bottle of chilled rosé from the utility room, as directed by Abbi. ‘Fuck, I need to pace myself,’ Trish had said from her deckchair, her cigarette hand rocking as she brought it to her mouth. You could tell it was already too late but nobody minded.

Guests were arriving in dribs and drabs while those already present were scattered around the grounds, doing their own thing prior to the evening celebrations. The weekend was a child-free zone and the atmosphere buzzed with a readiness to party. I passed a small raised lawn, edged by a stone balustrade and spiky, architectural planting. Silvery plumes of pampas grass fluttered against the blue sky. The breeze could barely be felt. Three men were playing giant-sized Jenga, hands on knees as they studied the precarious tower. A nearby field had been set aside for camping, and Zoe and Mike had driven off in search of a supermarket. There weren’t as many familiar faces as I’d been anticipating. I experienced a brief tug of yearning for the old, comfortable days when I’d belonged to a couple, and never had to feel alone at social occasions. I pushed the thought aside, knowing I was better off now than then.

The stone utility room was cool and shadowy, an Aladdin’s cave of alcohol. Sunlight filtered in through a small, grimy window, casting a meagre sheen on kegs, crates and exotic, multi-coloured bottles. I blinked as my eyes readjusted, goosebumps stippling my bare arms.

In the veiled light, a shirtless man stood before a tall American fridge, head bowed. He rested one hand on the matte silver door, while the other angled a pint glass at the ice dispenser. He wore canvas knee-lengths, slung low on his hips, and his dark, sweat-soaked hair was hooked behind his ears. He was powerfully muscular but not unnaturally chiselled, and a small roll of softness edged his waist. Ice cubes clattered into the glass. The bars of his ribs pumped below wet spikes of hair in the pit of his raised arm. His torso glistened, a soft curve of light resting on one shoulder. Beads of sweat trickled down his chest. A couple of droplets fell, making dark spots on the flagstones.

I shivered. Laughter and the clink of glasses from outside grew faint, as if I were sinking under water, the world fading out of reach. He stood straight, glancing at me. For an instant, the light around him was magical, a diaphanous haze pricked with glittering motes. His chest hair was plastered to his body, and his lower lip was smeared with blood, a glossy violet bulge distorting its shape.

‘You see any cloths around here?’ His accent was American, a sexy, sonorous drawl, and a slight slur marred his words. He stepped into shadow and slid open a flaky, wooden door beneath an old Belfast sink. He bobbed down to peer in, holding the sink above for balance. Down his left side, from underarm to hip, was a tattoo unlike any I’d seen before. To be accurate, there were several tattoos but they formed a picture, or a panel, depicting a stemmed dandelion head gone to seed. The images were as delicately rendered as etchings under tissue paper in a botanical encyclopaedia. Single, fluffy orbs drifted from the spiky round flower, as if a breeze were blowing tattoos across his body. I half wanted to reach out and catch one so I could make a wish.

The man stood, glancing around the dimness. I grabbed a folded tea towel on the counter-top.

‘Here,’ I said. I caught a waft of fresh sweat as I handed him the cloth. The heat from his body pressed on my chilly skin. An image hovered in my mind of him shoving me up against the rugged stone wall and destroying my nice, neat tea dress with his hard, ruthless hands.

It’s fair to say, I hadn’t seen much action for a while. Bitch-on-heat had become my default setting. I’d been hoping the weekend might offer some respite from my dry spell. If he were available, a guy like this would suit me fine for a fling.

‘You OK?’ I asked. ‘What happened?’

‘Got whacked in the face with a tennis racquet.’ He spread out the chequered cloth on the wooden drainer by the sink and tipped ice into the centre. He cupped the tumbling cubes with one hand, muscles shifting in his shoulders as he moved, his breath puffing fast. ‘My backhand, his forehand.’ He twisted the cloth into a bundle and gingerly pressed the ice pack to his lip.

‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Can I do anything? Does it need stitches?’

He tugged open the fridge door with his left hand and snatched a large bottle of mineral water. ‘Take the top off that, would you?’ he said, proffering the plastic bottle.

I did as asked. ‘Are your teeth OK?’

He nodded. ‘He just caught me. I was lucky.’ He transferred the ice pack to his left hand, taking the opened bottle with his right. ‘Cheers.’ He tipped back his head, his mouth open wide, and poured in a stream of water. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his stubble-shadowed neck as he glugged, liquid bubbling from his mouth and spilling down his front. He stopped drinking, laughed and shook his head like a wet dog, showering me in droplets of sweat and water. ‘Whoa!’ he said, eyes popping.

‘You want to sit down?’ I said. ‘I could try and find some antiseptic. You should probably—’

‘You kidding me?’ he said. ‘It’s break point!’ And he bounded out of the room, ice pack in one hand, bottle in the other. He streaked past the window in a blur. I leaned forwards, hands on the drainer, watching him through the dirty, cobwebbed glass. He upended the bottle, emptying its contents over his head. Water coursed down the wedge of his back, pinging off his body as if a halo of diamonds were shattering around him.

Outside, a distant roar erupted amid a bang and rattle of wood. The Jenga tower had collapsed.

I watched him disappear from view. I was in control then, I’m sure of it. Lecherous? Interested? Oh, without a doubt. But I don’t fall that easily. I’m like the Jenga tower. I need to be studied and carefully dismantled by a man with skill and patience; by a man smart enough to recognise my own smartness and complexity. This sexy guy with the broken lip, he was sporty and he looked like fun. He’d never be up to the task.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that people can’t help but reveal themselves in bed? That they’re made vulnerable by their nakedness and admission of desire. That when you tacitly agree to trust each other by sharing the space of sex, there’s a truth in what you do. The barriers are down.

But it’s not always the case. Sol gave away so little that night. He was an artful performer keeping his distance. Only later, after Misha died, when he fucked me on the forest floor, did I see Sol for who he was. Or, at least, I’d thought so at the time. Because, ironically, I’m starting to suspect I saw his true colours when he was lying. Fucking and lying. Fucking with such abandon I thought we might disintegrate; thought we might crumble into ancient earth and tremulous ferns, pulling each other down into the disappearance of old bones and deep-diving tree roots.

I’m afraid Sol is too much like me. He longs for the edge but a fear this would destroy him curtails his compulsion to know that dark delirium. I don’t know how close to ruin he allows himself to get but I know he is not merely fun. He’s more than the sunny, sociable, game-playing Sol he makes himself out to be; so much more. And I’m glad, and I’m scared. He has a hiddenness I want to find, but I’m terrified I might regret it. I expect the feeling’s mutual.

So he watches me. I watch him. And I do not know who will win.

Wednesday 2nd July

Time’s ticking on. It’s been three days now, and I still haven’t recorded the events of day one at Dravendene Hall. I’m being too cautious with my words, too reflective in my thoughts. I’ve been swimming too much as well, upping my daily quota of lengths by two then four. Last night, after closing the bar, I fell into an exhausted sleep, assisted by a large brandy and soda. I wish I didn’t dream.

It’s nearly 2 a.m. now. I’m sitting in bed with my journal propped on my knees, ink-blue handwriting making veins on the page as if I’m bringing something to life. Monsters and magic. Dr Frankenstein, I presume. I’ve tilted the slats of the bedroom blinds so stripes of silver-white light from the lantern in the courtyard pattern the room. The noirish illumination is negligible but at this brandy-steeped hour, writing by the glow of my reading lamp, the reminder of the ordinary outside world brings a comforting stability.

I take comfort too from being analogue. I feel more truthful when writing longhand, forming shapes on the page unique to me, the words flowing from my fingers rather than appearing on a screen in the tap-tap uniformity of Calibri or Times. And a brandy and soda, for shame! I ought to be wearing a Vanity Fair bed jacket in peach chiffon and lace while sipping champagne from lead crystal. But I’m distilling my story, and the drink matches my mood: a sparkle of alertness with an undernote of hot, sweet darkness.

To get to the point: Sol called in at The Blue Bar this afternoon, and I am all undone.

After Misha’s death, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see Sol again. Wasn’t sure I wanted to, either. But when he sauntered into the bar today, scruffy, dirty and hot, I wanted him so badly it hurt. He won’t be good for me, I’m sure of it, yet I’m tormented by thoughts of him and of the things he might do to me. Obsession starts this way. I fear we are doomed. There is no going back.

‘Let’s be in touch soon,’ he’d said when we were finally allowed to leave Dravendene Hall. That afternoon, black tarpaulin sheets had shrouded the glasshouse of the swimming pool. A barrier of tape stating
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
encircled the building. Detectives and uniformed officers busied themselves indoors and out, asking questions, taking notes. The detectives looked so clean-living; pleasant, patient people in good shoes and crisp shirts, not the scotch-sozzled cynics of legend.

I hadn’t contacted Sol since then. Back in Saltbourne, back at work, the weekend’s events became a nightmarish limbo to which I was loath to return. So many questions remained unanswered: How did Misha die? Does he have family? Who did he know at the party? What happens next? Are we under suspicion?

I had an urge to keep talking about it, to straighten out the chaos and make a coherent narrative in an attempt to get a handle on it all. But I knew that was dangerous, hence this journal. Damn, I’m going off track again.

To go back to the party. After meeting Sol in the utility room at Dravendene, I later saw him several times that day, always talking to someone, his aviator shades giving him silver-black, shellac eyes. He felt dangerous to look at because if he were mutually curious, I’d be none the wiser.

I was interested in talking to him but didn’t get the chance until the evening. I’d napped, bathed and changed, and was feeling nicely buzzed. I was wearing a 1960s mod dress, cut just above the knees, in navy blue cotton with a white Peter Pan collar and large, white buttons down the front. On my feet were strappy, Lola Ramona wedges in red, white and black. As I said before, when I picture myself from the outside, the nightmare feels more manageable. The events become discrete, strung neatly and evenly across a timeline of the weekend, rather than swirling in a maelstrom of upset. If I order them by clothing, we have: Day time: tea dress. Evening: mini-dress. Night time: handcuffs.

I spotted him alone on the fringes of the party, beyond the hubbub of the garden, where glowing Chinese lanterns now hung from trees like strange pastel moons. He was leaning against an enormous horse chestnut tree, smoking, and gazing out across undulating countryside to a mauve-blue sky shot through with streaks of pink. Swifts swooped high above, their screams trailing. Long shadows slanted across the landscape.