Something Might Happen (29 page)

LENNIE’S HEART IS NEVER FOUND. SOME MONTHS LATER
though, something horrible is washed up in a plastic carrier bag at Dunwich. It turns out to be a heart—badly decomposed
and a long time in the water. The carrier bag containing it has been sealed with duct tape—but not very well. I can’t imagine
what it was like for whoever had to open it.

Reporters rush to the town, only to be told it’s nothing, the heart of a farm animal probably—maybe a cow, maybe a horse.
Certainly not a human. No one has any idea why it was chucked in the sea in a carrier bag, but the truth is, people do strange
things. Satanic ritual, one or two of the papers eagerly imply, but nothing the police say backs that up.

* * *

And no one is convicted of Lennie’s murder either. The lead Mawhinney thought he had just petered out. Not enough evidence.
It takes more than just a lead to get an arrest, he says, and even more to get a conviction. Mick always said that, after
those crucial first days had elapsed, he didn’t think the police ever really believed they’d get anyone.

The case stays open—Alex has been assured it will remain open for some time—but, though Mawhinney stays in touch, the murder
squad leaves the town and the Dolphin Diner gets its storage rooms back and life returns pretty much to normal. One or two
vindictive people continue to cut Darren Sims in the street and whisper about him in shops and pubs, and someone tells him
he shouldn’t ever bother showing his face at The Red Lion again.

But everyone knows who they are and no one supports them. Everyone agrees that Darren should be left alone. As Jan Curdell
points out, since when did a low IQ make someone a murderer? Besides, Alex later admitted he could have been mistaken about
seeing Darren. So the police have established for once and for all that there’s nothing to link him to Lennie that night.

Actually, the knife Darren found in the ditch that time is indeed a lino-cutter. It is eventually traced back to a carpet
fitter from Wangford who was laying a new floor in the Pool Room at The Anchor. How it got from there to the ditch at Blackshore
is something no one has ever been able to explain. Even when the police interview the carpet man at some length—though there’s
still no forensic evidence to
indicate this is the murder weapon—still no satisfactory explanation emerges.

Anyway, the man has a perfect alibi for the night of Lennie’s murder. He was in custody in Lowestoft at the time, charged
with drunken driving.

Anyone who knows Alex well knows he won’t stay single for very long. After the funeral is over, after Rosa, it’s only a matter
of a month or so before he starts an affair with Gemma Dawson who has been helping out with the boys and who, at seventeen,
is far too young for him. In the end, Gemma ditches him, but too late, Polly’s furious. She never forgives him for distracting
her daughter during her spring mocks.

So it’s a relief when he falls for Ellie—single, thirtyish, independent and with her own business making and selling wrought-iron
garden furniture. Ellie’s based in London but, after only a couple of months of knowing him, she puts her flat on the market
and moves in with him and the boys.

Just to see how things pan out, she tells me. Nothing, after all, is set in stone.

I agree with her. Nothing is.

What makes me smile is that Ellie is far more like Lennie than anyone will admit. She’s unimpressed by Alex for a start. She’s
tough, she’s creative, she’s funny—she’s good with the boys. She rides a bicycle around town and the locals take an instant
shine to her because of her red hair and the fact that she’s not stuck up. She doesn’t mind getting wet or dirty—crucial when
you live with boys. Best of all,
perhaps, she doesn’t seem to expect miracles. Alex told me she’s even written to Bob, asked him to come over and spend the
summer, see his grandchildren.

I think they may marry. I really hope so. I’ve barely seen them this past year—all of us have been so busy with one thing
and another—but I’m hoping they’ll come up and stay soon. Besides, Jordan misses Connor desperately. Jordan misses everyone
desperately.

Last time I spoke to Alex on the phone, he mentioned that he and Ellie are trying for a baby of their own, but that it’s taking
its time to happen.

Still, she’s only thirty-three, he went on. She’s still got all the time in the world, hasn’t she?

Yes, I agreed, surprised to feel the tears spring to my eyes.

We didn’t stay in the town, Mick and me. How could we? As well as taking a part of us, the place had lost all of its magic,
all of its charm. It’s not that I blame it for what happened to Rosa, but I couldn’t go on being somewhere that reminded me—of
what? Of how I took my eye off the ball for that split second—which is, after all, all it takes to lose just about everything
you care about?

Most of all I found I couldn’t any longer bear to look at the sea—at that grey and pitiless expanse, sucking and shifting
its shadowy weight over the cold wet sand. Or I could of course, if I had to—but only for just long enough to call Fletcher
back, or for Jordan to be able to run and grab his Frisbee out of the foam. After that I’d have to look away, to turn. I’d
have to run.

It took all of our strength to leave, but we knew, Mick and I, that leaving was our only chance of a future and we owed it
to ourselves and the children to hang onto that.

We moved there to be safe but, in most ways, I feel safer where we live now. I’m amazed that Alex can stay there, that he
loves it still. I think maybe Lacey was right. It makes you dizzy: too much water, too much sky.

Mick’s new job pays him well. Silly money, he calls it. Everyone says he’s fallen on his feet. He never really thought he’d
go back into journalism—and he despises the paper for its bland complacency—but he sees it as a temporary measure.

The best thing is it’s given him a push. Now he spends all his evenings and weekends writing his own stuff. I don’t know if
he’ll be able to make a living at it, or even if he can write. All I know is, I love the look on his face when he’s trying.

I know what will happen with Lacey. What will happen is that, sooner or later, one of these days, we’ll find each other. There
he’ll be, standing in his dark coat on a crowded tube platform—or striding along the street among the bright lights and shop
windows—and he’ll touch my sleeve.

Come for a drink, he’ll say.

What? I’ll go, blushing. You mean now?

Yes of course now, he’ll say, smiling. Why not now?

And we’ll go and sit in a bar somewhere—a bar crowded with business people and their crushed-up suits
and bags and phones—and in the space created by our new shyness, we’ll talk and not talk and I’ll remember him all over again,
what I liked about him, how he confused me, threw me off course, how it felt, to have his body against mine.

I’ll ask him how his life is going.

And he’ll look down at the dirty, pine floor and then back at my face.

OK, he’ll say.

And work?

A long story. Basically, something else came up, something I knew I could do better.

What? I’ll ask him, unable to imagine what that something could be. What thing?

Not now, he’ll say. I’ll tell you all about it. Some other time.

And maybe I’ll ask him how Natasha is. And he’ll say he split up with her a long time ago, that winter actually. But that
he’s been seeing someone—a woman, an old friend he knew from long ago, from his student days.

It’s all very weird, he’ll add dismissively.

In what way weird?

I’m just—not sure it’s going to lead to anything.

Well, I hope it does, I’ll tell him truthfully, refusing the bait.

I suppose I hope so too, he’ll say and then he’ll glance at me in that way of his and I’ll quickly look away and we’ll both
smile.

He’ll be interested to hear about the move and will
seem genuinely glad about Mick enjoying his work. He’ll ask how the boys are getting on and I’ll tell him fine, adding that
Nat now towers above me, would you believe it? and he’ll say that yes, he does believe it.

And Livvy? he’ll say—and it will make me feel strange, to hear him speak her name, not just because I know he has a soft spot
for my baby girl, but also because she was part of it. She was with us on that long ago terrible night.

A terror, I’ll say—explaining how she’s up and walking now, running around like a maniac, driving Mick and me crazy, getting
into every cupboard and pulling things off shelves and so on.

Maybe he’ll ask me who Liv looks like now and I’ll laugh and say she’s got Mick’s black hair and black eyes but she doesn’t
look like anyone really.

She just looks like herself, I’ll say.

Her own person.

Exactly.

And we won’t talk about Rosa, but when we discuss the other kids, I’ll see a question in his eyes and I’ll answer it truthfully
without speaking, because that’s how it is with Lacey. Not everything comes down to words.

We’ll both agree it would be great to meet up.

Well, I’ll say, why not come over for supper some time?

I’d like that, he’ll say and I’ll tell him that he could see Mick and he could see the house—though it’s still a mess with
builders everywhere of course—and he might if he’s lucky even get a glimpse of the kids.

And I’ll pull a scrap of paper from my bag and we’ll write
down each other’s e-mail addresses. He’ll read mine aloud to check he’s got it right and fold it away in his wallet, but we
both know we’ll never do it, we’ll never e-mail. We know that, even as we write them down so carefully and as we fix on each
other’s faces for that one last time, we won’t do it.

Maybe once or twice in my life, on a sad or shaky night, my fingers will hover over the keys. They may, occasionally, even
go so far as to type in his address. But I’ll always reach for the split-second safety of the delete. Mostly it will just
be enough to see that scrap of blue paper with his handwriting on it stuck to my wall, to know it’s there, to know it could
be there, that it will continue to be there if I want it to be.

Rosa is buried right bang next to Lennie, as close under the yew as they could manage. Cleve was very good about it. Asked
no questions, made no fuss, just made it happen. Leave it to me, he said and we did.

She is there and we are here and sometimes that is very hard, but that’s why we still go down there, why we’ll always go.
Apart from Alex and his family, Rosa is what pulls us forever towards the town. She lies there and maybe one day we’ll lie
there too. I hope so. I used not to care at all about where I ended up, but I don’t think I could leave my little girl there
forever on her own.

Though she’s not alone of course. When I’m there, I’m amazed at how I see the place through their eyes—Rosa’s and Lennie’s.
Lennie used to say that the countryside around
there scared her—that it had an energy that sucked you in, that snared you, whether you wanted it or not. I think Rosa understood
that. And now I too am beginning to understand what she meant.

Because I know that, if you walk along past Blackshore and the ferry to the marshes, something strange happens. Sound and
texture dissolve and all signs of human life recede and silence crashes into your ears. And that, once you’re past a certain
point, the cow parsley grows as high as your head and the sky clots to a palish green and the horizon dips and swerves and
falls away.

And then, when you can no longer see a single soul or any sign of life save, to your right, maybe one small dark sail out
at sea and, to your left, crowds of terns alighting in slow motion on the flats beyond Buss Creek, you can convince yourself
that you’re truly alone on the planet, that everyone’s gone and there’s no one out there but you.

Knowing this can cause a person’s breathing to sharpen and their heart to tilt. Because, with or without the friendly souls
of the dead, this place can seem like the loneliest and forlornest on earth.

And then, despite the crackle of insects in the gorse, the cry of the bittern, the brown gleam of the saltings, the eerie,
mauve light that creeps in just before rain, you shiver. Because—smelling the coltsfoot coming off the dunes, feeling the
sharp breeze that lifts your hair—you sense the truth. That there’s no one at all out there to save you, should something
happen.

Apart from the usual suspects—thank you Jono, Jake, Chloe and Raff!—a few special people made a difference during the writing
of this novel. Jonathan Coe, Susanna Denniston, Esther Freud, John and Jackie O’Farrell, and Henry Sutton gave me unconditional
fun and friendship through a dark winter. Philip Hensher generously told me things I needed to hear when I was down. Gill
Coleridge and Lucy Luck believed unswervingly in the book right from the start, and Dan Franklin and Caroline Michel gave
it the best home it could possibly have. And when I needed to remind myself all over again about babies, a small person called
Izzy Thomas was somehow—magically!—there. One day you’ll know how important a job that was. Thank you, Izzy.

JSM, London 2002

JULIE MYERSON
has written four other novels, one of which,
Sleepwalking
, was shortlisted for the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. She lives in South London with her husband and their three
children.

On a cold night in autumn, an unspeakable crime shatters the quiet calm in a small seaside village.

When Tess’s best friend, Lennie, goes missing, Tess holds out hope that a simple accident has delayed or trapped her somewhere—but
on some level she can already feel her absence. When the police confirm that Lennie has been found murdered, the pain is impossible
to bear.

Ted Lacey comes to town to help the police better understand the crime, to get to know the families involved, and to comfort
the community. His skill is to fade into the background in order to see everything with clarity, and he sees Tess etched in
full relief: a woman on her own terms, outside the boundaries of wife, mother, or friend. In the shock that follows Lennie’s
death, Tess is drawn to Ted Lacey in ways she can’t explain. At a time when she should pull her husband and four children
in close, she finds herself stepping away, powerless in the face of her attraction to Ted Lacey’s steady presence. In a world
where grief has suspended all rules, Tess uncovers emotions long buried, and she unravels the extraordinary skein of secrets,
evasions, and repressed passion her life has become.