‘Is this yours?’
I’d hardly noticed the man standing by my sunlounger, holding out a stuffed bear. Sienna must have dropped it on the sand.
‘Thanks.’ He’s older, but not bad. I think I’ve seen him before. Maybe in one of the harbour bars. There’s a lot of his type around. Salt-and-pepper hair, twinkling blue eyes.
‘No problem.’ He smiles. ‘Have I seen you before? In Bojangles, maybe? Or Coconut Shack?’
I make a face. ‘Bojangles, maybe,’ I reply. ‘Not Coconut Shack.’
He laughs, looks away.
‘Well. Maybe I’ll see you there later.’
‘Maybe.’
I watch as he walks away. When he is out of sight, I reach into my bag and pull out the thin pale blue paper. A copy, he said, word for word, of what he sent to Helen. I read it over and over, considering each part carefully. I imagine I’m Helen. How much would I believe?
What about the notes? I’d said to Daniel, when we’d spoken the last time. Didn’t he tell me that he’d found one of them one night, tucked into her book? Won’t she wonder what they were all about? He said it didn’t matter, that the notes didn’t prove anything, that she wouldn’t understand them. And I suppose he’s right. After all, Helen has failed to understand rather a lot over the years.
I twist the cocktail stirrer in my glass until it knocks against the ice cubes. The sun disappears behind a cloud and the sand on the beach fades from brilliant white to grey. I thought I’d be gone by now. Hurricane season is coming. It’s not proving as easy as I thought, though. The plan.
My tolerance is lower than I expected for these yacht-owning types, their pot bellies, hairy backs. The look in their eyes, as if everything here is for sale, from the ceiling fans and the white-painted balconies to the rum cocktails and the woman drinking them.
I stare out at the sea, twisting my wedding ring between my fingers. Daniel hated my wedding ring, used to tear it off sometimes, with his teeth. That’s what he meant in that stupid note in the bathroom cabinet, a silver necklace in the envelope. Wear to show me, he said. I knew what he meant. Fuck the ring. You’re mine. So typical of Helen to see it, but fail to understand. She thought the charm on the end was a dog. It was a wolf. From my Wolf. And I was his Red Riding Hood.
All the mistakes were his, all the little slip-ups. I mean for God’s sake – why use notes that can be left lying around? Why give me a damn necklace? But of course, he is paying for it now.
A warm dusting of rain starts to prickle across the surface of the water. People start closing the beach umbrellas, winding in the awnings of the cafes down the shore. Vivienne returns with Sienna, now wrapped in her rainbow-coloured towel. Back at the house, as Vivienne puts Sienna in her high chair, I kiss the top of her head, then skip upstairs for a bath. As I lean back in the steaming water, I pour in a measure of the bath oil I brought from home, watch the little golden drops collect on the surface of the water. I close my eyes, breathe in the woody smell. Rosemary for memory, I read that somewhere, once. The scent fills the room, transporting me back home. To Maze Hill. Our house on the park.
When Rory and I moved there, it just became so easy to start it all again, Daniel and I. I think about the passage in that letter where he said he used to think about me even when he was fucking her. That can’t have been for poor Helen’s benefit. No, that part was just for me.
Of course, it was wrong. And of course, that was the appeal. It has always excited me, the way he craves me, the look in his eyes when I do things to him, things he never even dreamed about before me. And how I make him act in ways he never thought he would, or could. I suppose, in a sense, it’s his innocence that excited me. Although it seems strange to say that. Now he’s the one behind bars.
Daniel felt guilty, made up his mind a thousand times to stop. But he’s so weak. I could do anything, and he’d still keep coming back. It’s tiresome, anyway, all that guilt. He should have married someone like Rory – someone who fucks around too. It wasn’t just Lisa. I’m sure he would have fucked Rachel too, given half a chance. But in fairness to her, Rachel had bigger fish to fry. Women usually do.
It was Richard’s idea all along to get Daniel into Haverstock. The old man had always known Rory didn’t have the talent, or the application. Unfortunately, his mad wife drove him into a motorway reservation at ninety miles an hour before he had a chance to properly sort out the succession planning. But once he was gone, I managed to convince Rory that Daniel being there would work to his advantage, that it would save him doing the grunt work of running the firm.