Chapter 56

Nadine

I can’t forgive him… but I wonder if Karin Moylan ever left me. Unfinished business. I pushed those stolen letters to the back of my mind as the years passed but when the memory reared up I’d feel the sudden clutch of panic, knowing they were in her hands. Gradually, the words I wrote were bleached from my mind but not their substance. No, that would never fade.

I tense every time Jake rings. As yet, he hadn’t mentioned anything about letters being dropped anonymously through his letterbox but I’m haunted by the knowledge that there’s one more out there. That’s all I wrote before sanity and the slam of a door closing saved my soul.

The final letter arrives. Samantha rings on behalf of her twin. Sam doesn’t have the vocabulary necessary to express extreme embarrassment. She emails a copy. I read it quickly, the last spoonful of medicine gulped down before my stomach turns.

Dear Max

It was a signal. I know it was, even though you were looking at Joan when you said, ‘There’ll be a shower of meteors tonight. The sky should be magnificent.’

She didn’t say anything. I’m not sure she even heard you. It’s like she was stoned out of her mind only she wasn’t. She wasn’t even drunk. She just seemed separated from us by a massive black cloud. I can’t figure out how she can look really nice at times and then her face sags like she’s wearing some kind of sad skin mask.

Karin said the only stars she wants to see are in the cinema. She’s hardly spoken to me since the picnic by the river when we saw the kingfisher. Did she really expect me to lie to you about her age? I still feel your fingers in my hair when you put that feather there. I wish it hadn’t blown away. I’d keep it forever. You gave me that same look tonight, kind of sly, like you didn’t want them to see and you said, ‘Fireworks in the sky. You don’t know what you’re missing.’

I wasn’t going to go out. I wanted to and I didn’t. I couldn’t decide. I kept going to the window and looking out. I saw you staring up at the sky. The cottage was quiet, like it was holding its breath. But that was me, I guess. I wore my jeans and my jumper, even though it was warm. I was afraid yet not afraid. Is that how drug addicts feel? All fog-brained up with wanting and not wanting?

You were right about the meteors. They were like arrows of light in the sky. I could see the Milky Way all stretched out like spilled milk being brushed with a feather. A kingfisher feather. You said I was a poet as well as an artist and I’d be famous one day.

‘Always remember tonight,’ you said and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes and you kissed my eyelids, like you wanted to seal what we’d seen there forever. My knees were shaking so much I was afraid I’d fall. I was frightened but you told me not to be. You said you wouldn’t hurt me and when you kissed my neck it was as if all those meteors were exploding inside my head. You knelt down on the grass in front of me and then I knelt too, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to think about Joan or Karin or Jake or anyone but you, kneeling there like you were praying in front of me and we kissed like that, I don’t know how many times, more than 3 definitely, and then I was lying on the grass. It was damp and ticklish on the back of my neck. I was glad I had my jeans on because they’re really difficult to get off but not my jumper… you pulled it over my head and my hair was all tangled in it. That’s when I got scared. You were heavy on me and wouldn’t listen when I said stop. I couldn’t breathe. I kept on thinking of Joan and her sad face and that what we were doing was going to make her even sadder. Not that she would find out. I’d never tell her. Not ‘til my dying day. But what if she guessed that you were touching my breasts, my nipples… oh my God… or if Karin knew. She’d kill me absolutely kill me stone dead. All I felt was frightened, like I didn’t know you anymore. I wanted you to tell me you loved me but you didn’t ‘cause you were breathing so fast and kissing me all the time and then we heard the door slam. You said it was the wind. I was glad because it made you pull my jumper back on. Everything was different, even the sky. You shook me and said, ‘Jesus Christ, if you say anything…’

Why were you so angry with me? You’re the one who hurt me, not the other way round. I was glad the wind blew the door closed but now I’m scared all over again. What if it wasn’t the wind? I wanted to look in at Karin and see if she was awake but I didn’t. I heard your bedroom door close. You’re in the next room lying beside Joan. Why did I go out tonight? Why does what we did feel awful and exciting at the same time? I hate myself. I really do. What would have happened if you’d taken off my jeans? Oh my God… oh my God! How will I face Karin in the morning? I hope it rains tomorrow night and all the meteors have fallen. I’m going to be strong from now on.

Goodbye Max!!!!!

It’s terrifying and cringing, all that innocence… all that womanly guile. Memory is a conjurer. A sleight-of-hand trickster that burnishes bright what was once a tarnished reality. Who was I that summer? What was I thinking? I can remember the longings, all that passion… but I can’t feel them. The emotions could belong to someone else, someone I don’t know, or don’t care to know. But the fear that followed is stamped indelibly on my mind. The search beams on the ocean, the clattering sound of the search helicopter, sirens, engines, voices, the ceaseless crash of the waves against the rocks below Cowrie Cottage… and Karin’s grief when Max’s body was recovered from the sea. On that day she keened as loudly as Alcyone must have done when she was told that her beloved Ceyx had drowned.

I went with my parents to his funeral. Joan embraced me. She was sober then and has remained so ever since. She never read those letters. If she had done so she would have gazed upon me with the same cold and palpable hatred that radiated from Karin’s eyes when she accused me of being responsible for her father’s death.

Chapter 57

Jake

The wall dividing the hall was gone. Cheap plasterboard disintegrated in clouds of dust when Hart and Reedy helped Jake to bring it down. When the dust eventually cleared, he was able to appreciate the light streaming through the stained glass panels above the front door. The stairs looked wide and elegant as they rose upwards to the empty rooms Nadine had once occupied. She remained adamant about signing her share of Sea Aster over to him but he still believed she could change her mind when she saw the house returned to its original loveliness.

Daryl was interested in setting up a recording studio with him in the barn. Times were tough for financial consultants, he confided to Jake. Too many of his clients were being declared bankrupt. With the way the recession was going that situation was unlikely to improve in the near future. He needed to diversify. They could form a partnership – his financial know-how and Jake’s creative talents.

The last band practice had been fractious. Reedy looked more wizened than usual as he lectured Hart over his timing on a chord change and Hart, abandoning, for once, his Zen-like tranquillity, accused Reedy of being a ‘know-it-all prick,’ which was true, Reedy agreed, since he was the only one in Shard with a lifetime of musical knowledge, disillusionment, disappointment and street cred behind him. Feral’s face looked wan under the light. She performed a thunderous tattoo on her drums to silence the argument and announced that all this arguing was creating disharmony in her womb.

Shard’s success had taken them by surprise but it was creating its own problems. Jake was afraid the band would not survive in its present format. Reedy would go on, and Feral too. They were born to be musicians but he was unsure about Hart, who was worried about Hartland to Health’s falling membership. Touring was a problem for him and Daryl, and Mik Abel was already organising a Shard tour in Germany. Jake, too, was beginning to wonder if there was a sell by date on a dream. A moment when it turned from an achievement into something faintly ridiculous? The memory of the Core feature and its consequences refused to fade away.