After the Storm (28 page)

She walked back to their cabin. The night before she’d told Owen her story about staying at the villa because of the storm and then finding her keys and money stolen; how she’d walked back, then fallen asleep on the beach. She was so sorry she’d worried him. He’d accepted it all without question; he had no suspicions at all. He was feeling faint from the loss of blood and had needed to lie down. She had helped him out of his clothes and unwound the bloody bandages around his torso, had cleaned his wounds and re-bandaged his chest. In the kitchen she found the bloody towel and T-shirt soaking in the pail. This was what happened when she left him alone. As she approached their cabin she could hear raised voices coming from Rob and Anna’s cabin. She stood on the path and strained her ears but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Anna had made them coffee and Rob was drinking it in the sitting room while she was walking up and down restlessly, repeating the details from the articles she had read the day before. She couldn’t seem to stop talking about Owen and his father and the killings and the suicide note and it was making Rob feel uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say and he had no idea how to stem her impassioned outpouring. This was exactly why Kim had been cagey about Owen’s family, to stop this kind of poring over his terrible ordeal and to give him some privacy.

‘Something so traumatic and what does Kimberly do? She hides what happened; she’s made it into a great big taboo.’

‘But I think she’s probably right.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She’s protecting his privacy. She doesn’t want people to discuss him and pity him; like we’re doing right now.’

‘Can’t you see it’s not helping him? He’s been cutting himself for years.’

He wanted her to stop obsessing about Owen.

‘He gets by,’ he said.

‘He needs help.’

She had said it fervently and a crushing realisation was dawning on him. He stood up.

‘You’re in love with him,’ he said in a shocked voice.

‘No!’

She stopped in her tracks and he moved in front of her and looked at her intently.

‘You’re in love with Owen.’

She drew back from him a step.

‘I’m not. But my heart aches for him.’

‘Oh my God, you think you can save him, don’t you?’

‘I want to help him yes.’

‘That’s bullshit. You want to be with him.’

‘What about you and Kimberly? You’re always going on about how she’s so gutsy, so brave, so resourceful. I’m sick of hearing it.’

‘Well she is.’

‘You fancy her.’

‘You can’t see her goodness can you?’

‘And you of course can, nothing to do with the fact she’s an attractive blonde.’

They looked at each other appalled at the pent-up anger and revelations which were coming out. It felt as if this had been building for a while.

‘I can’t deal with this,’ he said.

He flung himself out of the cabin and charged down the hill propelled by the ferocity of his rage against Anna. It felt as devastating as the moment when his mum had abandoned him for Elliot.

Kim was in the kitchen planning to make fried chicken and her special salsa. But she couldn’t find her knife. She crept into the bedroom and looked around the room and under the bed as Owen slept on. She felt in the pockets of his shorts. She searched the bathroom and the sitting room. It was gone. She picked up one of the cabin knives from the kitchen drawer and it was hopelessly blunt and made hard work of severing the chicken into pieces. As she reached in the cupboard for a can of tomatoes she found her knife case, tucked behind the cans. She opened the case and there was her knife. Anna must have hidden it there. She remembered with a pang that if she hadn’t left her knife lying around Owen would not have cut himself and Anna would not now know his secret.

Owen woke up but he felt so drowsy from his deep and dreamless sleep. He could not remember the last time he had slept like that. He lay in the bed and noticed the smell of chicken frying. He sat up slowly still feeling a bit faint and dizzy from the effects of the loss of blood. He swung his legs out and slowly dressed himself and joined Kim in the kitchen.

‘That smells good.’

‘You feeling better darlin’?’

‘A bit, but like I did ten rounds with Tyson.’

‘I made you your favourite,’ she said.

They sat in the kitchen and she served up the fried chicken and her salsa.

‘I’m thinking we should go back to the boat Kimbo,’ Owen said.

‘But we haven’t even started the varnishing yet.’

‘I know. I’m sorry but I wanna get out of this cabin. I don’t wanna owe Money Joe any favours. I bumped into him here and he was acting weird.’

‘I’m with you there. He’s a lowlife. But maybe one more night here?’

He shook his head.

‘This place is getting to me.’

‘What happened? When Anna was here?’

‘I was cutting myself.’

‘You were cutting yourself in front of her?’

‘I think so. It’s all a blur. I know she bandaged me up so she must have seen my scars.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘The truth Kimbo. Everything.’

‘I wish you hadn’t.’

‘It’s OK. Anna’s not the kind to spread it around.’

He sounded so sure of that and it angered her.

‘Have you got feelings for her?’ she blurted it out.

He put his fork down and looked at her with surprise.

‘Not the kind of feelings you’re suspecting.’

‘What kind of feelings then?’

He shook his head at Kim’s interrogation.

‘I said, what kind of feelings Owen,’ she repeated.

He sighed.

‘I think she tries to be a good person. I think she wants to help people.’

Kim was shaken by the intensity of her jealous feelings at these few apparently innocent words. She crashed the plates together as she cleared them from the table and threw the cutlery into the sink. There was a tap on the cabin door and she pulled it open and Olivier was standing there, white, breathless, swaying in his agony.

‘Olivier, sweetheart, what is it…?’

‘They killed
maman
,’ he said.

Rob found a dark bar near the fish plant which suited his mood and he bought himself a beer. They had had fights before but never anything like this, never something that so rocked his belief in the rightness of their being together. He felt bitter towards Owen. He thought he was his friend, and to think he’d been glad when Anna seemed to be growing closer to him. He finished his beer and bought himself another one. He had fallen deeply in love with Anna so quickly. The miracle was that she had loved him back. She had understood the destructive eruption of Elliot into his life. He had been a happy little boy, secure in the love of his beautiful enchanting mother. And then Elliot had arrived like an ugly demanding toad, had seduced his mum and taken her away from him. Meeting Anna on the tube had begun a healing process. For the first time in years she had made him feel good about himself.

Two men came in and sat down at the table next to him. They sat hunched and silent over their beers for a few minutes.

‘
Viviana, ¡qué guapa era
,’ one man said finally.

The other man shook his head mournfully.

‘
No puede ser.
’

‘
Un acto sucio.
’

Rob had started listening when he heard Vivienne’s name. He had a little Spanish and he tried to understand what the two men were saying. He thought one man had said the words ‘a dirty deed’ and it gradually became clear to him that they were saying it was Vivienne who was the dead woman; it was her body that had been found at the fish plant.

He needed air. He got out of the bar and walked along by the sea, away from the town and the fish plant. To think of Vivienne lying there, in that rotten stink and mess. He reached the western end of the harbour and there was a small bridge you crossed to the narrow point facing the ocean. There was no beach here, only exposed rocky coral. There was a decaying wooden church on the point but no-one was around. He headed to the end of the point and sat on the rocks and looked out at the sea, the eternal restless sea.

There was a gentle tap on their door and they heard Anna’s voice calling tentative greetings.

‘I can’t see her,’ Kim said.

Owen opened the door, came out quickly and closed it behind him. Before Anna could say a word he said:

‘Best you don’t come in. Kimmie is distraught.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

He looked over his shoulder and then led her away from the cabin. They walked a little way down the hill. This was the first time she had seen him alone since she had read the articles and knew all the details of what he had endured as a boy. She glanced at the side of his face and he looked pale and drawn and his jaw was working as if he was trying to keep something in.

‘You don’t look well Owen. Do you need to sit down? Come back to our cabin.’

He stopped walking and turned to face her but said nothing.

‘What is it? You look so strange.’

‘We just found out it was Vivienne who was murdered; stabbed.’

Her hands went up to her mouth and she stared at him, her eyes huge. Vivienne, who was such a warm and vibrant human being, murdered.

‘Horrible, horrible, horrible,’ she said in a whisper.

‘Olivier is in the cabin with Kimmie now. They’re inconsolable.’

‘Stabbed?’

‘That’s what Olivier said.’

‘She was such a good person,’ she said.

‘She was.’

‘Who would want to hurt her?’

He shook his head helplessly.

‘I need to get back Anna. We’re gonna take Olivier back to his mom’s place and stay the night with him. He can’t be left on his own.’

‘Of course, of course…’

He saw that her eyes were filling with tears and she looked so bereft that he felt bad about leaving her. He felt moved to reach out and touch her shoulders and squeeze them.

‘I’d hug you if I could but my chest is too sore. I don’t remember much about the other night but I know you looked after me, so thanks for that.’

Kim put Olivier to bed, like a child.

‘She seemed so happy. I thought she was in love,’ he said as Kim cradled him in her arms and they sobbed together.

Finally he had fallen asleep. He had taken one of his mother’s scarves to bed with him. It carried her smell, the Jicky perfume she always wore. Kim joined Owen in the sitting room and sat down on Vivienne’s purple sofa. Everywhere there were signs of the wonderful warm woman Vivienne had been. She told Owen that Olivier had been advised to stay on the island during the investigation into his mother’s murder. His three friends were packing up the villa at West End and were moving in with him the next day. She picked up one of the cushions and buried her face in it.

‘My friend, oh my friend…’

She started to cry again. Owen moved over next to her and stroked her back.

‘They killed my friend. I can’t stay here any longer Owen. I can’t do this life any longer. I
have
to go home.’

‘We can’t just leave the boat.’

‘I don’t care. I’m going back to Florida.’

She was getting frantic and her voice was rising. Owen got up and closed the door worried she would wake Olivier.

‘You need to give me some time.’

‘You could sell it like that if you wanted to,’ she snapped her fingers aggressively.

‘There’s that Dutchman. But you won’t call him, I know you won’t. You stay here Owen and keep the boat. I’m going home.’

Anna lay awake in the flimsy cabin she now hated and was sick at heart and itchy. She had had a miserable day and had gone to bed early when it was clear that Rob was staying out for the evening. She hadn’t secured the mosquito net properly and mosquitoes had been feasting on her when she fell into a troubled sleep. She could feel the little bumps on her arms. She sat up in bed. How could Rob have left her alone tonight? It was scary to feel so alienated from Rob. What was even scarier was a thought that had been troubling her all evening. At first it had been a tiny flicker, but lying alone in the cabin it had grown. In her training to be a speech therapist she had learned something about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She knew that people who survived atrocities alternated between feeling numb and reliving the event. On the night of his fever Owen had been hallucinating. He had left the cabin and gone down into Oak Ridge and he had Kimberly’s knife with him. When he came back there was so much blood on him, the towel had been wet with it. It had seemed excessive to her at the time. She remembered soaking the towel in a pail and watching the water turn red.

She got up and went into the bathroom to find the cream that would take the itch out of her bites. The tube was nearly empty. She squeezed at it in frustration and applied a tiny amount to the itchy red bumps. There was a touch of death about Owen. His mother, father and sister were dead and now their great friend Vivienne was gone; her life cut off prematurely. She heard someone trying to unlock the cabin door and she was afraid.

‘Is that you Rob?’ she called out.

His voice came through the door, tired and angry.

‘Who else would it be?’

He came in and went straight into the kitchen and got a large bottle of water out of the fridge. She followed him in there.

‘You heard about Vivienne?’ she said.

He nodded and sat down at the kitchen table, poured himself a large glass of water and drank it slowly not looking at her.

‘I want to leave here. It’s a horrible place, beautiful on the outside and rotten underneath,’ she said.

‘I want to go too but we have to stay until our flight,’ he said.

A bleak silence followed as they contemplated having to stay in the cabin for another two days with such a toxic atmosphere between them. She couldn’t bring herself to share her suspicions about Owen with Rob. She needed longer to think about them.

Olivier’s three friends had arrived from West End. The bar was closed indefinitely and they had been given guest rooms. Kim was making a large pot of coffee for them. Olivier had asked her to stay over another night and she’d agreed. She watched how his three friends gathered around him protectively, held him in their affection and concern. They seemed to be kind boys and she hoped their presence would help him get through the dark days ahead. She took the coffee pot out to Owen who was sitting on the verandah and poured him a cup.