‘I’m not talking about this now,’ I said, starting to gather up my clothes.
‘If you can’t cope with me saying those words, how are you going to cope with it in court? From the police? From people who want to hurt you? You think they’ll care what really happened?’
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
‘Because I don’t think you’ve thought it through. I don’t think you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’
‘I can look after myself.’
‘How do you know? You’ve never had to.’
I squared up to him. ‘This is about Greg, isn’t it?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with Greg. I want you to talk about—’
‘It’s all about Greg. He sat there and riled you all evening, which reminded you that you’re not the only man I’ve ever been with.’ He sat down opposite me, his eyes closed as if that helped him not to hear me. But I carried on: ‘So now you’re taking it out on me. Well, if you’re going to pick a fight, I’m going to—’
‘Run away again? You know what? I don’t think this has anything to do with the whales any more.’
‘What?’
‘You’re determined to punish yourself for Letty’s death. This development has forced you to look at what happened, and now you feel the need to atone for it by sacrificing yourself.’
Downstairs the singing had stopped. The window was open, but I no longer cared.
‘And it’s pointless. You’ve already paid for what happened, Liza. You’ve paid a million times.’
‘I want a clean slate. And we need to—’
‘Save the whales. I know.’
‘Then why are you going on like this?’
‘Because you’re wrong. And you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.’
‘Who the hell are you to judge my reasons?’
‘I’m not judging you. But you need to think about this, Liza. You need to know that by—’
‘You need to butt out of my business.’
‘—that by going through with this, you’ll take Hannah down with you.’
My blood ran cold. I couldn’t believe he would attack me like that. If his words hadn’t sunk into me, like a knife, I probably wouldn’t have said what I did: ‘Who the hell landed us in this situation, Mike? You ask yourself that the next time you start judging me. As you said, we were fine here. We were happy. Well, if Hannah and I end up spending the next five years separated, you ask yourself whose bloody fault it really is.’
There was silence, both inside and out. All that could be heard was the sea, and then, after a few moments, the low scrape of a chair as someone beneath us began quietly to collect glasses.
I stared at Mike’s grey face, and wished I could take back what I’d said. ‘Mike—’
He held up his hand. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
And I understood, with a painful lurch, the truth of it: that he hadn’t wanted to hurt me. He just couldn’t bear the thought of losing me.
Twenty-three
Monica
My brother’s behaviour had been pretty surprising over the past few months. At this time last year if you had offered me a bet on the progression of his life I would have said that by March he’d be married to Vanessa, she would be in the process of getting herself pregnant and he’d be sliding his way up the greasy pole of his property-development company. A smart flat, perhaps a new house, maybe a holiday home somewhere hot, another flash car, skiing, expensive restaurants, blah-blah-blah. The most radical thing Mike would do was change his aftershave, or maybe the colour of his tie.
I no longer had the slightest idea where he’d be in March. He might be in Australia, or New Zealand, or boat-building in the Galapagos. He might be growing dreadlocks. He might be protecting a fugitive woman and her child, and saving the whales. When I told my parents the half of it (he’ll have to forgive me, I couldn’t resist) Dad nearly spat out his false teeth. ‘What do you mean he’s left his job?’ he spluttered, and I could hear Mum in the background telling him to think of his blood pressure. ‘How long is he planning to stay in Australia?’ And then: ‘A single mother? What the hell happened to Vanessa?’
I had thought perhaps Mike was having an early mid-life crisis, that maybe Liza really was his first love – people do weird things when they fall in love for the first time. Perhaps property development wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
And then he had rung me last week and told me this story. I can’t lie. My first thought was not, as he put it, how do we protect her? It was too good a story: the battered girlfriend of a political wannabe who fled the country after accidentally killing their child. It had everything: violent crime, long-buried secrets, tragedy, a dead child, a beautiful blonde. It even had whales and dolphins, for God’s sake. I told him all we needed was Skippy and we’d have a full deck. He didn’t laugh.
Except it didn’t add up. I looked at all of the guy’s cuttings, even with the change of name. I cross-checked that information with every database I could find. I spent almost a week doing nothing but looking up the facts of the story, and irritating the hell out of my newsdesk because I couldn’t tell them what I was doing. And it still didn’t add up.
Twenty-four
Mike
Milly had gone into a decline. She hardly ate, and slept only sporadically. She was watchful, anxious and snappy, twice disgracing herself on Ishmael by baring her teeth at passengers, and once soiling the lounge carpet – an act of depression that even she had the good grace to seem embarrassed about. Everywhere that Liza went, she was glued to her heels, a little black and white shadow. With canine intuition, she had picked up on the fact that her mistress was planning to leave, and was afraid that if she dropped her vigil Liza might disappear.
I knew how she felt. The anxiety. The impotence. Since the night of the party, we no longer discussed Liza’s plans. I worked harder, partly because that was the only way I could think of to stop her, and partly because I found it increasingly painful to be with her. I couldn’t look at her, touch her, kiss her, without thinking of how it would feel to be without her. If you want to put it in crude financial terms, I couldn’t make any more investment in something that was about to be withdrawn from me.
Kathleen evidently knew now what she planned – they had had a conversation – and her way of dealing with it, as with so much in her life, was merely to plough on, being practical. I hadn’t talked to her about it – I didn’t feel it was my place – but I saw her paying extra attention to Hannah, making plans for trips and special treats, and I knew she was engaged in her own form of preparation. Mr Gaines came most days now, and while Hannah was at school the two could often be found at the kitchen table, in whispered conversation or peaceably reading the newspaper and listening to what they both still called the wireless. I was glad for them, glad that Kathleen would not face this alone, and a little envious, too, of their happiness. Liza deserved that kind of contentment, after everything that had happened, and instead she was about to be punished again.