I Saw You (38 page)

She stands and looks out at the lake. She sees the little boat tied up at the jetty. Dominic catches her arm. Here, he says, come here. He takes her into the house. Up to a bedroom at the
top. He lays out a line of coke on the dressing-table. She bends down and puts the rolled-up note to her nose. And now how about this? he says. He gives her the small white pill. Acid, he says,
you’ve had it before. Haven’t you? She nods. She swallows it.

They walk through the throng. She takes a bottle of vodka from the table. He leads her into the wood. He brings her to the little clearing. A huge fire is burning. She sees the familiar
faces. She feels warm, content. For a moment she feels loved. Dominic kisses her. Over his shoulder she sees his wife. Gilly smiles at her. Maybe everything will be all right. Then Mark takes her
by the hand. He pushes her to the ground. She looks at Dominic. He nods and smiles. Mark lies on top of her. The fire is warm on her bare legs. Mark pulls down her dress. He kisses her breasts. But
something is wrong. He stands up. He is crying. She rolls over. She vomits. She stands. She shouldn’t be here. This place is cursed. She picks up the bottle of vodka. She staggers away. She
is dirty. She smells. Her mouth tastes foul. She staggers towards the lake. And sees the little boat.
Bluebird
, her little
Bluebird.
She stumbles to the jetty. Fly away, little
Bluebird
, we’ll fly away together. She unties the rope and steps in. The boat rises and falls beneath her weight. She pushes it from the jetty. It is so beautiful on the lake. Quiet.
Peaceful. She raises the bottle to her lips and drinks. She lays her head on the seat. She sleeps.

‘But I have seen it.’ McLoughlin’s mouth was dry. He tried to lick his lips but he had no saliva. ‘And I saw what it did to Mark Porter. I saw him after
he died. I saw what humiliation can do. Why hurt Mark so much, Helena? Why punish him?’

‘Oh,’ she shook her head, ‘collateral damage – isn’t that what they call it? How were we to know that he wouldn’t be able to perform? He’d always been
able to do it before. And what was important was that Marina would know Mark’s interest in her meant that Dominic was done with her. That was the way it worked. Mark got the leftovers.’
Helena giggled. The dog lifted its head and watched her.

‘But what was it all for, Helena? What was Dominic going to do next?’ Keep her talking, keep her attention focused. Anything to stop her leaving and taking the girl with her.

‘Oh that was going to be the best bit. He had decided he was going to see Sally Spencer the day after the party. He was going to tell her what her daughter had done. It was going to be the
greatest fun. But then,’ she looked away, ‘when he discovered what I had done he decided – well, he decided—’ She stopped. She stroked Vanessa’s cheek. The girl
shook convulsively. ‘He decided . . .’

‘Tell me,’ Dominic says, ‘that when you found Marina, she was already dead. Tell me you didn’t touch her. You didn’t hurt her in any way. Tell
me, Mother.’

‘Well,’ Helena shrugs, ‘she was nearly dead. Her head was trailing in the water. I tried to pull her to the shore but she was too heavy for me. She fell into the lake. There
was nothing I could do. Nothing, honestly, nothing I could do.’ She begins to panic. ‘Please don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell the police. They’ll send me back to the
hospital. Please, Dominic, I’m begging you. I’ll die if that happens. I’ll die.’

And he puts his arms around her and holds her to him. He kisses her hair. He smells her perfume. ‘Don’t worry, Mother, don’t worry.’ And he closes his eyes and holds
her body close to his. And she rocks from side to side. Together they rock from side to side.

And McLoughlin had unlocked his phone. He began to press the buttons. Randomly, frantically. Suddenly the phone rang.

Helena leaned forward. She grabbed his hand from his pocket. ‘Give that to me!’ she shouted.

He tried to push her away but the phone spun from his grasp. Helena kicked it out of his reach. And the dog was on him. Snapping at his wrist, catching his hand between his jaws. Pain shooting
up his arm. He screamed, a high-pitched, pathetic sound. And Helena kicked the phone again. Into the water. She turned quickly and pulled a mooring rope from a coil on the floor. The dog’s
grip tightened on his hand. He couldn’t move. Helena shoved a loop of rope over his head and around his neck. She pulled his hand from the dog’s mouth. She twisted his arms behind his
back and tied the rope through one of the iron rings on the wall. She pulled it tight. His throat closed. He coughed. He choked. He gasped for breath. Helena moved away. She grabbed Vanessa’s
hair – the girl shrieked in agony. She dragged Vanessa to her feet and pushed her sideways so she fell into the boat. The dog barked. Helena beckoned and it jumped in beside the girl. Helena
spread her legs wide. One on the boat, one on the walkway. The boat shuddered beneath her weight, then moved. Vanessa screamed. ‘Please!’ Her voice was frantic. ‘Please, help
me!’

Helena jumped into the boat. Then she picked up the oars, slotted them into the rowlocks and began to row.

McLoughlin slumped against the wall. The rope was tight. He tried to swallow. His hand was badly torn. The rope dragged at the wound. He tried to shout, but his voice was
caught in his throat. He kicked out with his legs and banged his feet on the decking. ‘Remember Mary,’ Margaret had said. ‘Remember Mary.’ He bowed his head. Then heard.
Quick footsteps outside. He shouted again and the door to the boathouse opened.

A man stood in the entrance. He was holding a gun. ‘Where is she? Where are they?’ Dominic de Paor lifted the gun to shoulder height.

‘Your mother and half-sister are in the boat. Out on the lake.’ McLoughlin tried to pull himself up. ‘Help me. Get me out of here. Quick. Your mother’s going to drown
her. The way she drowned Marina.’

De Paor stared at him. He lowered the gun. ‘She didn’t drown Marina. It was an accident. She tried to help her. She tried to get her on to the beach. She didn’t mean to do
it.’ He wiped his hand across his face.

McLoughlin twisted his head frantically from side to side. ‘That’s not what she told me. And I believe her. You would believe her, too, if you’d seen her here with Vanessa. If
you love your mother, you must stop her. You did this. You made this happen. It’s your fault. Do something.’

‘She doesn’t mean it. She’s not well.’ De Paor’s face was white.

‘Not well? Is that what you call it? She’s out of control. She’s dangerous. She needs proper help.’

‘I have helped her. I love her. I’ve looked after her – I’ve kept her from harm!’ De Paor was shouting now.

‘Kept her from harm? Are you as mad as she is? You haven’t kept her from harm. You’ve let her harm others. Let me go. Let me help you – let me help
her
.’

But de Paor wasn’t listening. He picked up the gun. ‘I am her help. Her help and her salvation. No one else can do anything for her. She can’t go back to that prison they call
a hospital. I remember what it was like. The madness there. The smell. The indignity. The drugs. The ECT. They strapped her down. And afterwards – afterwards she was like a zombie. All
sensation dead. And I promised her. Never again. I would never let anyone touch her again.’

Together they rock from side to side. He remembers when he was little and his head reached barely to her breast. The comfort, the love that flowed from her. He could hear
her heart beating. Badoom, badoom, badoom, badoom. He closes his eyes and breathes her scent. He was warm, he was loved, he was happy. Now he holds her head against his shoulder. He strokes her
hair, her dark, dark hair. He murmurs the song she used to sing to him: ‘Black, black, black is the colour of my true love’s hair’. He reaches down and takes her ear-lobe between
his thumb and first finger. He rubs it gently. She sighs and he feels her body cleave to his. ‘Don’t worry, Mother, don’t worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I will never
leave you. No one else matters to me the way you do. Ssh, ssh, don’t worry.’

He made for the door, then stopped. He turned and said, ‘My father didn’t care. He didn’t want to know. I promised her. I swore to her. I would never let her
go back there. No matter what.’ He opened the door. He walked through and slammed it behind him.

Vanessa was cold. She was shivering. Her teeth chattered. She couldn’t control them. She wanted to be brave and strong. She wanted to fight back. But there was no fight
left in her. Her head ached and one eye was swollen and half closed. Helena rowed the boat smoothly across the lake’s dark surface. The dog sat beside her. His paw rested on Helena’s
thigh. Helena was singing. Vanessa knew the song. They had learned it one year in school. The choir had sung it at the end-of-term concert.

Helena’s voice was loud. She screamed out the words.

‘Sing it, little bird, sing with me.’ She twisted her hands through Vanessa’s hair.

The hunter moves quickly and quietly through the trees. He is conscious of the obstacles he will meet. Dry sticks that might break with a loud snap. Uneven ground upon which he
might stumble or fall. Low-hanging branches that might snag his hair or clothes. He sees everything. He stays upwind so his quarry will not smell him. He keeps his head and body low so he will not
be betrayed by his silhouette against the skyline. He stops. He listens. He looks. He sees his prey. He calculates the distance. He slips a magazine into the barrel of the rifle. He pulls back the
bolt. The first bullet slides into the chamber. He lifts the rifle to his shoulder. He closes one eye. He lines up the target in his sights. He squeezes the trigger. The bullet travels at three
thousand feet per second. Three times the speed of sound. As it breaks the sound barrier the sonic boom crashes through the air. It ricochets from rock wall to rock wall. The target drops. He pulls
back the bolt. The spent bullet spins from the chamber and the second slips into its place. He fires again. Again the sound crashes across the lake. The second target drops. He pulls back the bolt.
The spent bullet spins out, the third bullet takes its place. He puts down the gun. He wipes his hands on his shirt. They are sweat-covered, slippery. He picks up the gun again.

Vanessa opened her mouth. But no words would come. And then, and then. A noise so loud she thought her ear-drums would burst. A crash that rolled around the lake. From rock
face to rock face, from the trees across the water. And Helena dropped, slumped, the oars slipping from her hands. Her body collapsed in the boat. Almost immediately before Vanessa could draw
another breath, another crash, as if the world was ending. And the dog’s body exploded. A fine spatter of blood coated her face. And she opened her mouth again and this time there was a
voice. A scream that tore from her.

‘Help me, help me, help me! Please, help me!’

McLoughlin heard the sound too. The crack, then the echo. And almost immediately, the second shot. A deer hunter, he thought. Two shots in three seconds. He waited for the
third. Three bullets in the magazine. There would be three shots.

Dominic looked through his sights. The boat was drifting. The oars hung uselessly in their rowlocks. The girl was screaming. He couldn’t see Helena or the dog. And now he
could see nothing more. Tears filled his eyes. They blotted everything out. The lake, the boat, the girl, the dog, his mother. He picked up the gun. It would end now. All of it. He jammed the gun
beneath his chin. For the third time he pulled the trigger.

Stay near to me and I’ll stay near to you.

McLoughlin couldn’t get the words out of his head. They kept on bouncing around in his memory.
Near to me, near to you, near to me, near to you.
He couldn’t think at first
where he had heard them. Then he remembered. It was Marina’s favourite poem. Read at her funeral. McLoughlin sat at the computer, did a search, found it. He printed it off, read it out loud a
couple of times, folded the page and slipped it into his pocket. Then he put on his jacket, picked up his car keys, and walked out into the evening sunshine.

McLoughlin had brought wine and flowers. He had parked his car outside the house. He waited. The minutes passed. He replayed the phone conversation in his head.

‘Michael, hi, it’s Margaret. How are you? How’s your hand? I hope it’s OK.’

He hadn’t known what to say. He had tried to speak but he couldn’t find the words.

‘I want to see you. There’s something I have to tell you. Do you think you could come and see me?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Sure, of course. When?’

She had asked him to come in the evening. He had put down the phone. Then picked it up again. Pressed the button to call her. Then disconnected. Quickly. He didn’t know what he would
say.

He sat in the car and waited. It was still warm, although he could see it was raining out at sea. Smears of dark grey hung low on the horizon. And above him a thundercloud pushed its ice-cream
peaks into the dark blue sky.

He watched the clock on the dashboard. She had asked him to come at eight o’clock. It was five to now. He was tired and his hand ached. The doctor in A and E had stitched it. Given him a
shot of antibiotics. Written a prescription for painkillers. Asked him if he’d like some sleeping pills. McLoughlin had shaken his head.

‘Well,’ the doctor rested a hand on his shoulder, ‘if you’re sure. I know you had a pretty nasty experience. If you need help don’t hang about.’

A pretty nasty experience. That was one way of putting it.

He got out of the car. He opened the boot. He picked up the two bottles of wine wrapped in tissue paper, and the bunch of flowers. More delphiniums. He felt like a kid on a first date. Now he
stood with the bouquet in his hand. He pushed open the gate. It squeaked loudly. He walked up the path and knocked on the front door. The catch had slipped and it swung open at his touch. He
stepped into the hall. He went down the stairs into the kitchen. Margaret was sitting in the garden. She was reading a newspaper. He stood silently, holding his wine and his flowers, and he watched
her. She looked different. Her hair was short and grey. But when she lifted her head and smiled the difference disappeared.
Near to me, near to you, near to me, near to you.