The Betrayal (26 page)

J
ake crossed
from the barn to his apartment as soon as band practice ended.
The few leaves still clinging to the trees were as withered as old skin.
He shivered when he entered the apartment but decided against lighting a fire.
The leap of flames suggested warmth, intimacy.
He turned on the central heating instead and the living-room was warm when Karin arrived.
She removed her coat and draped it across the back of a chair, unwound her scarf and flung it on the sofa, kicked off her boots.
Within moments she had stamped her personality on the room.

Anger curdled his stomach.
His reflection in the window reminded him of an X-ray, a translucent shadow on black glass.
Behind him he could see her shaking her hair loose, lifting the collar of her blouse so that it framed her chin.

‘What’s wrong?’
she asked.
‘Was it a difficult rehearsal?’

‘No worse than usual,’ he replied.

She slipped her arms around his waist, rested her head against his back.
‘Then why are you so tense?’
Her body was no longer visible as she ran the fingers of one hand along his spine.
He turned around and held her shoulders, walked her backwards and away from him.
She took tiny steps.
Why did he always think about her in miniature?
How had he been so turned on by those delicate wrists and ankles?
Seduced by a fragility that had never existed?

‘You told me once I was the most married man you knew,’ he said.

‘At the time, yes,’ she nodded.
‘But not now.
You’ve changed.’

‘That’s the problem, Karin.
I haven’t.’

She was silent for an instant, absorbing his words.
‘Are you dumping me?’
she finally asked.

‘You can use that word if you like,’ he said.
‘I’m ending our relationship.’

‘Because of this morning?’
She sounded puzzled.
‘I apologised.
I was way out of line – ’

‘Way out of line doesn’t even begin to explain what you’ve been doing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I found that box after you left.’

‘What box?’

‘The one you bought from Brian.’

‘You were
snooping
in my apartment.’
The irises of her eyes darkened, as if a shutter had descended.

‘I was looking for bandages – ’

‘How dare you!’

‘I found it by accident but I can’t ignore what was inside it.’

‘A few mementoes of your life.’
She could have been discussing the contents of her fridge.
‘What’s so awful about that?’

‘The fact that
you
don’t find it awful.
The fact that you don’t find it
sickening
.’
He released her shoulders and stepped back from her.
‘Those photographs of Nadine… I’d no idea your hatred of her was so malign.’

‘She’s gone from your life, Jake.
The same way she went from mine after that summer in Monsheelagh.
Defacing her was a symbolic gesture.
Ridiculous behaviour, I’m prepared to admit that.
I drank too much wine one evening and couldn’t handle the memories.’

‘What memories?’

‘She destroyed my family.
Did she ever tell you that?’

‘She was fifteen that summer.
A child.’

She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and held the pale underside of her arm towards him.
‘Do you remember what you wrote there?
I’ve never forgotten.
You drew a heart and wrote
Always Together
inside it.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Oh, yes, it’s true.’
Her gaze was unflinching.
‘And here’s another truth.
Nadine doesn’t understand love.
Not then, not now.
You chose her above me but I loved you that summer as fiercely as I love you now.
I’m ashamed of what I’ve done but you keep me at arm’s length.
All those excuses about not wanting to hurt your family with never a thought about how much that hurts me.
So I took what small possessions I found and treasured them.
That’s what love does, Jake.
It fills us with the need to possess and cherish those dearest to us.
Don’t let something so trivial destroy what we’ve built together.’

‘Trivial?’
He was unable to control his fury.
‘You deface those photographs of Nadine and you call it trivial.
You’ve taken possession of my life and you call it trivial.
You seek out my family –’

She stretched upwards and pressed her fingers against his mouth.
‘Shush… shush…’ she whispered.
‘You can punish me, Jake.
I deserve to be beaten… beat me hard… I deserve to be punished… I’ve been so bad… such a bold, wicked girl… I know you want to punish me...’

‘I’ve no intention of hurting you’ His suspicions had turned to cold certainty.
Their lovemaking had never been anything other than a performance staged for his benefit.

‘Intention is not the same as need,’ she said.
‘I understand violence.
It’s unmistakable.
But this… what you’ve been doing is worse.
You’ve been playing with my mind.’

‘You can talk about mind games?’
He shoved her backwards.
‘I used to feel sorry for you.
All those whacko boyfriends who messed with your head.
Now I just feel sorry for them.
Give me back the key to my apartment.’

‘Don’t do this, Jake.’

‘Give it to me,’ he shouted.

‘You’re making a big mistake.’
The sleeves of her blouse billowed as she delved into her handbag.
An inset of blue on the cuffs, a trim of blue on the collar.
He detested the flamboyant touches of colour that had once charmed him.
She was not a person, he decided, but an object designed to stand on a plinth and be admired.
She handed the key to him and buttoned her coat, wound her scarf around her neck.
When she reached the door she turned, as if waiting for him to call her back.
No tears this time.

‘Nothing can change how I feel about you,’ she said.
‘Ring me when you can no longer lie alone in that empty bed.’

He stood outside after she had driven away and breathed in the chilly night air.
The wind from the estuary was harsh and icy.
He had joined the ranks of Cody, Jason, Malcolm, Carl and the others who had been possessed by her.
But it was over now.
Like a snapped string, a broken spell, a last shuddering sigh.

S
now united
them all on Christmas Day.
An unprecedented snowfall had frozen runways and made many roads impassable.
Ali was marooned in London, her flight cancelled.
Brian was unable to drive from Dingle and Mallard Cove was impassable for traffic.
Eleanor, who had also planned to spend the day with Jake, was unable to reach him and had made alternative plans to dine with her neighbours.
Jake would spend the day alone.
No need to pretend.
To be merry and festive, wear jolly hats and answer daft riddles.
He would not have to eat turkey.

Frozen swathes of ice glistened on the estuary as he crunched his way through the snow to feed the huddled, bewildered swans.
Back indoors, he fried rashers and sausages, toasted bread, simmered a pot of strong tea.
The fire blazed and the hiss of burning logs was the only sound to break the silence.
He had stocked up on food before the unseasonably heavy snowfall paralysed the country and could sit it out for at least another week.

By noon his phone was ringing constantly.
Ali and Brian first, his friends from Shard and then Eleanor.
Everyone seemed convinced that he would deflate with misery by having to spend Christmas Day alone.

He made pancakes for dinner.
A stack of them drenched in maple syrup and brandy, delicious with a chilled, white wine.
He switched on the television and opened a bottle of whiskey.
Darkness fell early.
A flicker at the window distracted him and the outside security light automatically switched on.
He opened the door but only the curlicues of bird claws and the deeper indentation of cat paws marred the crystalline whiteness.
Nothing to see except his snowbound van and a seagull flying above it.
He shook off his uneasiness and returned indoors.
The bird had flown too close to the light and triggered it.
Nothing to worry about.

Eight o’clock.
Still too early to ring Alaska or California.
The flow of water was worryingly slow when he turned on the kitchen tap.
After eight days of freezing temperatures the possibility of a burst pipe was very real.
He switched off his water supply but the tank was in the attic in Nadine’s apartment.

The air smelled musty and the oppressive silence of an unoccupied space bore down on him as he crossed the landing.
Could it still be called her apartment?
It was obvious she was never going to return.
Resisting the urge to enter her rooms, he pulled down the wooden staircase and pushed open the attic trap door.
His hand tingled with a faint electric charge when he switched on the light.
The whole place probably needed rewiring.
The sight of the muddle on the floor added to his dejection.
Nadine’s efforts to clear out the attic had only removed a fraction of what they had taken with them from Bartizan Downs.
Sorting through everything would have to be his next project.
He stepped over crates of Christmas decorations that he had not bothered opening.
He recognised a box of dressing-up clothes from Ali’s fantasy childhood world and lifted out a dress dotted with diamantes.
She used to wear it to bed at night, along with the matching tiara, which he would remove when she was sleeping.
He hunkered down to examine Brian’s lopsided early creations.
Wisps of memory escaping.
They were stored in the frontal lobes of his brain – he had read that somewhere – awaiting the right trigger to free them.
Today they needed no prompting.
Nadine must be feeling the same way.
Something so strong had to have a magnetic pull.
But the time difference… he stepped around two broken computers, a treadmill and exercise bike, broken musical instruments.

He found the stopcock on the tank and closed it off.
He inspected all the pipes and the boiler.
Everything seemed in order and well insulated.
The slow flow must be due to an outside problem.
Relieved he reopened the stopcock.
He sneezed, dust clogging his nostrils, cobwebs quivering.
Nadine’s half-finished paintings were stacked under the eaves.
This was where she had hoped to establish her studio but the sheer volume of her family’s possessions had defeated her.

The twins’ trophies clanged sharply when he accidently kicked against a black, plastic sack.
They were tarnished, long neglected.
He carried the bag from the attic and climbed backwards down the folding stairs.
The front door of his apartment had blown open.
He had obviously not closed it properly yet his fear that someone was waiting inside was palpable.

He shook off his disquiet.
Karin Moylan was gone from his life and he was safe within frozen banks of snow.

He googled how to polish silver and made a paste of baking soda, which he found at the back of a press.
The trophies were cleaned and lined up in front of him when the twins rang from Alpine Meadows.
Breathless from the rush of snow in their nostrils they wished him a merry Christmas then rushed off to meet their friends on the snowboarding slopes.

At midnight Nadine answered her phone.

‘Happy Christmas.’
He enunciated each word with the precise concentration of the very drunk.

‘Happy Christmas, Jake,’ she replied.

‘Where are you?’
He could hear voices in the background, music, laughter.

‘Daveth’s house,’ she said.
‘He invited some friends to Christmas dinner.’

‘That’s nice.’
He batted away the image of Daveth Carew basting the turkey and wearing a ridiculously festive apron.
‘I’d better not keep you from your host.’

‘I’m okay for the moment.
Is the snow bad?’

‘It’s brought the country to a standstill.
I was in the attic earlier checking for burst pipes.’

‘Any danger of a leak?’

‘No.
All sound.
I’ve just polished the twins’ trophies.
Baking soda and water.
You should see the shine.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘A few glasses of wine with the pancakes.’

‘You made
pancakes
for dinner.’

‘Beats turkey any day.’

‘You should go to bed.’

‘Nadine… I need to tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘It’s over.’

She remained silent.
Only for the background voices, he would believe she had hung up.

‘Did you hear me?’
His voice was louder than he intended.

She cleared her throat.
‘Yes, I heard you.’

‘I don’t know where to begin… can we talk sometime soon?’

‘What’s left to talk about?’
Her tone brought their conversation to an end.
‘I’m sorry, Jake.’

He found his favourite Bruce Springsteen album and placed it carefully on the turntable.
Tonight was the time for vinyl and scratching
The River
would be an unforgivable crime.
The lyrics released a backwash of nostalgia… down by the river… a girl of seventeen, a boy of nineteen, caught in the spiral of youthful passion.
The fire turned to ash, like the ash of their youthful passion, and the room grew cold.
Finally, stiffly, Jake rose to his feet.
He stepped over the trophies.
Whiskey was not a good idea when the frontal lobe was involved, he decided as he collapsed onto his bed.
His last image before he fell asleep was of the seagull suspended like a white cross against the black sky.