The River House (35 page)

I get up to go and fill her hot-water bottle.

“Mum.” She’s hesitant. “That’s the man who—you know—isn’t it? The man Dad told me about?”

“Yes.”

She looks at me, her level blue gaze. Her forehead is creased in a frown.

“He was trying to rescue me, Mum. That’s why he was there with you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” she says.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s complicated. But I think you should get some sleep now.”

I make her a drink of cocoa and put arnica on her bruises and give her half a sleeping pill. There’s such an intense pleasure
in looking after her and doing all these things.

Will has showered and put on some old clothes of Greg’s that I’ve found for him. The kitchen is full of the childhood smell
of wet wool.

“Is she OK?”

“She’ll be fine,” I tell him.

I make coffee for both of us, pour sugar and brandy in it. We sit quietly for a moment. I sip my coffee greedily. I’ve put
in too much sugar, but the brandy is fiercely warming as it slides into my veins. I still feel the fear, but faintly, echoing
in my mind, like a sound that carries on resonating when the source of it has gone.

“Ginnie,” he says slowly then. “When you told me that Greg had left you …”

“He’s staying with his mother,” I say. “I told him about us. I had to. I’ve told Roger I’ll go to court, so I had to explain.”

“So, what will happen?” he says.

“You mean, with Greg and me?”

He nods.

“I don’t know. …” And then I realize I do know, that I can see it all. The inevitability of this shocks me, the whole thing
spooling out in front of me. “Well,” I say slowly, “I think he’ll come back in a day or two. His mother’s kind of bossy, she
likes to give lots of advice. Anyway, all his books are here. And we’ll try to make a go of it, and we’ll be so careful with
one another for a while.” I look down at my hands. There are bruises like Amber’s on my palms that I didn’t know were there.
“Perhaps for a bit it will be OK— for weeks, months even,” I tell him. “But in the end we’ll part again. With Molly gone and
Amber leaving soon, there’ll be nothing to hold us together. There just won’t be any point to it. I think that’s how it will
be.”

He listens to me quietly.

“You don’t know that,” he says then. “Anything can happen.”

There’s silence between us for a while. The wind has dropped, and the rain is gentler now, just whispering at the window.
The water will still be rising.

“And you and Megan?” I say then.

“We’re still together,” he says. “She knows. I had to tell her. There were rumors in the office. We don’t talk about it.”

“And Jake?”

“He’s just the same,” he says. He’s moving the coffee spoon from one hand to the other, as if he can’t work out what to do
with it. “I’ve applied for a move to Bradford. Megan has family there. She’s always wanted to go back. There’s a good school
for Jake, where they’re getting brilliant results with Asperger’s kids. We thought we could make a fresh start.”

“Are you happy with that?”

“I think it’s for the best,” he says. He’s stirring his coffee around and around; he isn’t looking at me. “She’s pregnant,
Ginnie.”

“Well. That’s great, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t say anything.

I wrap my hands around my coffee cup to warm them.

We hear Amber upstairs going to the bathroom, then her bedroom door click shut. The house creaks and shifts, all the old timbers
contracting, like someone settling down or turning over in their sleep.

I look at him surrounded by all my things, my geraniums and the clutter of flowered crockery on my dresser.

“I like having you in my kitchen,” I tell him.

He looks around at the room, as though he’s only just noticed it.

“Your house isn’t like I imagined it,” he says.

“How did you imagine it?”

“I don’t know. Posher, more modern. More kind of expensive.”

I smile. “I guess it needs some work.”

“I like it as it is,” he says. “All your pictures and plants. I didn’t know you grew all these plants.”

I think how little we know about each other. These are things that belong when you first fall in love—going to your lover’s
house and looking at all the things they own, eager to understand them. Everything we’ve done has been the wrong way around.

“Ginnie,” he says then, “I was wrong, when I told you not to make that call. I shouldn’t have done that.”

I feel such tenderness for him, that he’s said this. I can tell how hard it is for him to say.

He reaches out and puts his hand on mine. We sit like that for a long time.

It’s so quiet in my kitchen. You can hear the softest things— Will’s breath, the creak of his chair when he shifts a little,
the velvet fall of a petal from a flower. I don’t want to say anything, don’t want to break the silence. As though if I keep
completely still, nothing will happen, nothing will change—nobody will leave me. I look at him, drink him in, his graying
hair, his dark eyes with the red flecks in them: his skin and mouth and hands. I know that I’m learning him again, imprinting
him on my memory. I’m storing these things away inside me and keeping them safe.

“I’m glad I met you,” I say, in the end. “I’m glad I had that.”

“Even after what happened?”

“Even after everything.”

I can see the river house in my mind. I think of the way I pictured it, the long-ago summer evening, the lovers who step down
into the boat and move briefly through the brightness: then off into the shadow, leaving no trail but a wake of broken gold.

He takes his hand away and gulps down the rest of his coffee.

“I really ought to go now.”

“But you hurt your leg. I could drive you …”

He shakes his head.

“I’ll manage. You stay here with Amber. She needs you to be here. I’ll send the clothes when I’ve washed them.”

“Perhaps you should go to the hospital—get yourself checked over. Don’t they say you should do that if you fall into the Thames?”

“I think I’ll just leave it,” he says.

He leans toward me across the table: his eyes holding mine.

“I hope it all works out OK. Whatever you want. You know, with Greg and everything.”

So I know that he is going finally, irrevocably, now.

“Thanks,” I say. “And for you. Bradford and—the baby.”

He gets up and picks up his bag of wet clothes.

I follow him to the door. My throat hurts with the things that will never be said now. I open the door, but he doesn’t go
for a moment, just stands there looking at me. I press my mouth into his: We kiss for a long time. In the end, he pulls away
from me. He has his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes.

“Ginnie.”

He says my name as though it is the answer to a question. Then he turns away and walks off into the night.

I
T’S COLD IN THE COURTROOM
. Outside in the streets it’s a blazing July day, but in here the air-conditioning is icy. Yet my hands still seem to be slippery
with sweat. As I hand the Bible back to the usher, I see that I have left wet fingerprints on its plastic cover.

The prosecution barrister shuffles his papers and stands. I glance around the court. Sean Faulkner is in the dock at the back
of the room, his face without expression; now and then he chews at his lower lip. Over the barrister’s shoulder I can see
the jury; a woman in the front row sips from a fruit-juice carton. The judge has his chin propped on his hands, and you’d
think he was on the edge of sleep, except for the acuteness of his gaze. I look to my left. The public gallery is full. I
see Karen and Ray, and Roger leaning forward with an intent look. So many people, all staring straight at me. In the front
row of the public gallery, there is a woman about my age who immediately reminds me of the photo of Maria— Italian-looking,
black hair pulled back, dark eyes. Her hands, in her lap, are never still, moving together as though she is wringing out wet
linen, the gesture speaking of her unguessable grief. There are lines scored deep in her face. I know that this must be Maria’s
mother. The courtroom seems to shift and sway around me. I turn back to the barrister.

“You are Virginia Holmes?”

“Yes.”

He’s built like a rugby player, with bits of rumpled fair hair poking from under his wig. His voice is ponderous, every consonant
clear.

“I believe you are a child psychologist at the Westcotes Clinic. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And how long have you worked there, Mrs. Holmes?”

“Fifteen years,” I tell him.

“Now, on February the twelfth, the day after Maria Faulkner disappeared, you were on the bank of the Thames, roughly opposite
Eel Pie Island?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what time this was?”

“It was about one thirty in the afternoon.”

“And you were where exactly?”

“I was in a broken-down house on the riverbank. The river path goes past it.”

“Were you there on your own, Mrs. Holmes?”

“I was there with a friend.”

“Mrs. Holmes, could you please tell me exactly what you saw on the river path?”

“I saw a man running along by the river. He stopped a few yards from the house and turned and went off into the trees.”

“Could you describe this man?”

“He was wearing office clothes. He was tall and fair.”

“And there was something about this man that concerned you, was there not?”

“The way he kept looking around. He seemed to be looking for someone. I thought at the time it was odd. When I saw Mr. Faulkner
make the TV appeal, I realized it was him I’d seen.”

“Can we just spell this out, Mrs. Holmes? You saw the defendant, Mr. Sean Faulkner, on television, appealing for witnesses
to assist the investigation into his wife’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“And you recognized Sean Faulkner as the man you saw on February the twelfth on the river path?”

“Yes, I recognized him.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Holmes. No more questions, Your Honor.”

The defense barrister stands. He’s rather short and round, apple-cheeked, with an affable look. A man who would charm you.
He smiles warmly at me. My heart pounds.

“Could I first just ask your age, Mrs. Holmes?”

“I’m forty-six.”

“And I believe you are married?”

“Yes.”

“Now, do you and your husband have children?”

“Two daughters.”

“And perhaps you could tell me the ages of your daughters?”

“Nineteen and sixteen.”

He smiles appreciatively at me, as though this is an achievement.

“Thank you.” He leaves a little pause. “Now, on February the twelfth, you were on the river path opposite Eel Pie Island.
You were there with a friend, you say, Mrs. Holmes?”

Just the slightest, delicate emphasis on the Mrs.

“Yes.”

“You were in a derelict hut on the river path?”

“Yes.”

“A place you had doubtless chosen because you were in need of privacy?” His voice is glycerine smooth.

“Yes.”

“Am I correct in assuming that you were there for the purpose of conducting a clandestine affair?”

I feel my face flare red.

“Yes.”

I clasp my hands tight together. My mouth is completely dry.

“Thank you. Now, can I ask why you chose to come forward, Mrs. Holmes? Why exactly you went to the police with your information?”

“I wanted to help. I felt I should tell the truth about what I’d seen.”

“So, Mrs. Holmes, you would say that generally you are someone who seeks to tell the truth? Someone who values truthfulness?”

“Yes.” I see where he is taking this. I can’t go back now. I have to do what I came to do. I bite my tongue to try to moisten
my mouth.

A little gap, a little smile.

“But we have already heard, Mrs. Holmes, that you were in this place on the riverbank in order to conduct a clandestine affair.
Did your husband know where you were on February the twelfth?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Or who you were with?”

“No.”

“Did your children know where you were?”

“No.”

He gives his head a sad little shake, as though this is all much to be regretted.

“You lied to your husband and you lied to your children about your affair—so why should this court believe anything you say?
Why should we believe you about what you claim to have seen?”

I can hear my heart—its hard, dull thuds.

“I know what I saw,” I tell him. “I’m telling the truth about what I saw.”

He rubs a finger along his jaw, a questioning, perplexed gesture. He has plump fingers, white as dough, and a glinting signet
ring.

“Now, you were in a derelict hut, you say. But how did you gain access to this hut?”

“We untwisted the wire on the door.”

“So you were in fact trespassing, Mrs. Holmes?”

“Maybe. I suppose.”

“You were trespassing. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now, I’d like to take you through the precise sequence of events, if I may, Mrs. Holmes. This man you saw, or
thought you saw—was this before or after you had intercourse?”

The question shocks me. My instinct is to say I don’t remember. But I know he’d use that to invalidate everything I’ve said.

“It was before.”

The judge leans forward.

“Mrs. Holmes, I’d be grateful if you could speak up a bit,” he says. “We can hardly hear you.”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” says the barrister. He rests his fingers lightly together, like somebody praying. “So, Mrs. Holmes,
you saw this man who you felt was involved in some sort of criminal activity—whose behavior troubled you, you say—and you
then went on to have sexual intercourse with your lover?”

“Yes.”

He raises his eyebrows very slightly.

“You can’t have been so
very
troubled then, can you, Mrs. Holmes?”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I can say.

“Now, this affair that you were involved in—would you say this was a passionate relationship?”