The Fire Child (11 page)

Night

David is home. Finally ready to tell me. His plane was late. I’ve already warned him on the phone that I have a lot of serious questions to ask him. He knows that whatever is on my mind is deeply important, easily a deal-breaker. And now he sits here, in the bright kitchen, its windows dark, and speckled with drizzle.

He always likes to sit in Carnhallow’s kitchen. It embodies peace and happiness for him.
Drop scones and clotted cream, and my father away in London.

Pouring himself a thick finger of Macallan whisky, he looks surprised when I refuse a similar dash of port. It is the only alcohol I usually like: I enjoy the sweetness. But for now I want clarity. This is the moment: our marriage probably hangs in the balance. I cannot trust a man who lies about something as important as a death. Even if it was an accident. If it was an accident.

And I won’t mention anything about Jamie, not yet. I need my questions answered, first.

David gazes my way, then speaks, his voice terse. As if
he
has had enough of
me
. ‘All right then, Rachel. What is it?’

We are sitting on kitchen stools three yards apart. I go for the nerve. ‘I know that Jamie was there. When Nina died.’

Only his mouth betrays him. The tiniest grimace.

‘How do you
know
?’

‘Various ways. I went into your study and read Jamie’s letters, the ones you kept, the ones he was writing to Nina, even when you told him not to.’

He looks at me, eyes sparkling with emotion – maybe anger. But his voice is flat. ‘Go on.’

‘There are other things, little hints, it doesn’t matter. The big one is this – he said it, or rather he wrote it, he wrote these words for me to see:
I saw it, you did it, it’s your fault she’s dead.
’

A scatter of drizzle on the windows. My husband’s face is rigid, betraying nothing.

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes.’ I guess this will anger him most of all. I do not care. ‘I asked Juliet to confirm it, and she did, basically. She confirmed my suspicions. Jamie was there. He saw the fall. It explains so much.’ I cross my arms. ‘Tell me I’m wrong, David, tell me I’m right, but tell me. And explain it. Enough of the bloody lies. One more lie and that’s it. I’m walking out of the door. And not coming back.’

He stares into the whisky, and I see a passing flash of emotion in his eyes. This is it; our marriage surely depends on whether he is truthful now. Then he looks up at me, once more, and says:

‘Yes. It is true. Jamie saw his mother fall. He was there when she died, in Morvellan.’

My anger surges into words. ‘How? Why? Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you tell the fucking
police?
’

‘Wait—’

‘You perjured yourself!’

Necking the residue of his Scotch, he pours another inch into his crystal tumbler. It glitters like dirty gold in the bright kitchen light. ‘Jamie was an eyewitness. But I lied, we lied, to protect him.’

‘I’m sorry? You what?’

‘There was an argument, right after Christmas. Nina and I were arguing, as Jamie mentions in those letters – that you
found
.’

‘What was the argument about?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes it fucking does.’

‘No. It’s irrelevant. We were simply bickering, like husband and wife—’

‘Tell me!’

‘All right. We were bickering about the restoration of the house. She was taking so long, it was so bloody exquisite, thanks to her perfect taste, but each room was taking a year; more. Most of the house is still barely habitable, as you’ve seen.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes,
that’s all it was
. But Jamie was always sensitive to our arguments. He didn’t like them. And that night it kicked off.’

‘How?’

His eyes meet mine. He sips whisky, and dries his lips with a smear of his wrist. ‘I am going to tell you. But first, Rachel, I want you to promise not to tell anyone else. Can you do that? It’s very important.’

I choose my words with definite care. ‘It depends what your answer is.’

He frowns. And then shrugs:

‘As I said, we were arguing. Repeatedly. You know what Christmas is like, too much booze, too many relatives, too many people in the same rooms. And Jamie is an only child, he always resented that.‘ David looks abruptly at the door, as if his dead wife is about to walk inside, dropping her coat on a chair.

Then he returns his attention to me. ‘Sometimes Jamie and Nina would squabble, too. Sometimes he was cruel to his mother, saying nasty stuff:
Why didn’t you give me a brother or a sister?
He knew Nina didn’t want any more children. But he had a reason to be peeved: Nina wouldn’t even let Jamie have a dog. I
really
wanted him to have a dog, I had a dog when I was a kid, a Lab: it helps so much if you’re an only child. But a dog meant hairs on Nina’s perfect furniture, hairs on her perfectly restored curtains, from Gainsborough of St James. Therefore: no dogs. And this was yet another Christmas when he didn’t get a bloody dog. I think he wrote that to Santa four hundred times
. Please can I have a dog
.’

‘You haven’t got him a dog since?’

‘He says he doesn’t want one now. Because, of course, it reminds him of the arguments with his mum. And what happened that night.’ David takes another slug of Scotch. I say nothing. Let him fill the silence, let him do the work.

‘The cruelty of families,’ says David, gazing at the stone hearth of the huge, empty fireplace, once used to cook for a hundred monks. ‘The cruelty of families.’

‘And?’ I don’t want any philosophizing.

‘It was late at night. We let Jamie stay up, sometimes, especially around Christmas. But this night the arguments went on too long and Jamie came out with some of his worst remarks.’ David closes his eyes, as he swallows his liquor, apparently savouring its fieriness.

I am well aware that he is dragging this out like an actor. Like a lawyer in a court, showboating for the jury. And it is working. My adrenaline races. And yet I think I believe him.

At last, he continues. ‘Jamie was in a terrible state by the end of this particular argument, and he went crazy, saying he never wanted to see Nina or me again, and she was the worst mummy, and he wished she was dead, then he ran out of the room. Like he says in the letters, if I remember correctly. You know how angry and passionate kids can be, the things they say when they are six. This was bad, though. Very bad.’

I nod, despite myself. I do know this feeling.

‘So where did Jamie go? Up to his bedroom?’

‘No.’ A grimace. ‘He ran out of the house, on to the cliffs. Towards Morvellan. Towards the Shaft House. In those days we never bothered to lock it: everyone knew the risks. These days it’s locked all the time. I keep one key, there’s another in the kitchen, high in the cupboard. Perhaps you
found
it.’

‘What happened?’

‘It took us a while to realize he was nowhere in the house. Such a ridiculously big house. We were all searching for him. Everywhere. Then outside. Mummy and I were looking in the garden, in Ladies Wood, and Nina was looking for him on the front lawns, the north lawns, and she heard him shout – but Cassie heard him shout first, she heard a cry from the mineheads.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Cassie was apparently right at the end of the path, at the end of the front lawn, where the cliffs begin. But she was barefoot. You know what Thais are like.’ He breathes out. ‘And you can’t walk the cliffs barefoot. So she ran back to get boots and told Nina – and then she watched Nina race down Carnhallow towards Morvellan. Of course, Cassie blames herself now. Either way, Nina was first down the path to the mines.’

‘God.’

‘And that’s where Jamie was. In the Shaft House. Stuck on a ledge, like someone who climbed too high up a tree.’ David gazes miserably into his Scotch.

The empathy surges inside me; it just does. Poor Jamie.

‘I can imagine the rest. You don’t have to tell me.’

‘No, no I want to tell you.’ David stares at the ceiling and sighs, heavily. Sighing with relief at his own confession. ‘Nina was in heels, all that is true – in heels and a dress, in the mud and rain, a nice party frock under a coat, it was such a filthy night, late December – and wearing all that she went to rescue Jamie.’

‘She fell.’

‘She fell down Jerusalem Shaft. Trying to save her son. That’s how it happened.’

I have a yearning for that glass of port. I also have questions.

‘How do you know this, if no one else was there, if no one else saw?’

His glance is sharp. ‘Sorry? No one?
Jamie
was there. He told us, he was sobbing – “she fell, she fell” – already he felt guilty, dragging her down there. That’s no doubt why he wrote those words, the words you read – “You did it, it’s your fault” – he’s blaming himself. You see?’

I scan his face. I want to see.

‘But what happened, after that?’

‘I got to the Shaft House minutes later. But too late. Cassie helped me carry him back to Carnhallow.’

‘Then you went to the police? But you
lied
to them?’

‘Yes. We did.’ His gaze is undaunted. ‘Tell me, Rachel, what would
you
have done? Anything different? Think about it. Jamie believed he was responsible for his mother’s death. In a certain manner he was, indirectly: telling her he hated her, saying he wanted her dead, then running away and bringing her down to the mineshaft. If he hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have died. He was hugely unstable. So I couldn’t put him through an inquest. Police questions. His name in the papers.
Son lures mother to death
? Imagine.’

‘And Juliet and Cassie agreed? To cover this up.’

‘Cover it up? I suppose you could put it like that. But what we said wasn’t far from the truth.’ My husband’s glance has a hint of disdain, or maybe despair. ‘Cassie and Mummy love Jamie. They didn’t want him to go through any of that, to relive this terrible scene in court. We didn’t want him to be the
only witness to his mother’s death
, we didn’t want him to think about it ever again. We pretended it was a total accident. It was easy to do. She really was drunk, she really did fall, she really did drown. And yes, we came up with a story to protect him, we told everyone else that Nina wandered off alone, down to Morvellan. An accident.’ His attention turns to the rainy windows. As if it is too painful to look me in the eye. ‘And now you know, Rachel. Is that enough?’

I sit back, calculating. Perhaps this is enough. Or maybe it isn’t. David still lied to me, several times, in so many ways. The story is terrible, but the trust is broken, it will take time to rebuild. I won’t let men manipulate me again. Not the guy at Goldsmiths or my father, not my husband here. Not Patrick Daly, Philip Slater, not the pale-faced priests at my school – I won’t let
any
of that revisit me.

And there is still another, nagging question. The only witness to all this, supposedly, was Jamie. Is he entirely reliable? And why is he behaving so oddly,
now
?

‘David.’

He is pouring yet more Scotch. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘You need to know some things. About Jamie.’

I see his eyes glitter, immediately. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s this. He’s been acting very strangely, worse than ever. It’s not just the words he wrote, on the car window.’

The rain makes an irritable noise at the windows. Like angry scratching. My husband scrutinizes me. ‘How, exactly? How is it worse?’

‘We were at Levant, this week. Taking photographs. And then suddenly, it was, well – very unsettling. He had a kind of episode.’

David spins his whisky glass on the granite worktop. Thin-lipped. ‘And then?’

‘He went on about the Kerthen gift, the Kerthen legend. And then he actually said he’d been talking to Nina, that she was back from the dead—’ I barely pause, aware that I may sound ridiculous. ‘And then, to top it all off, he claimed that I was going to die at Christmas.
Dead by Christmas.
That’s what your son Jamie said, two days ago. I would be dead by Christmas!’

David’s stare is hard.

I hurry on, acutely discomfited. ‘And then he says things to no one, in the house. Like he is talking to his mother. So many things. You already know about the fires, the lights in the Old Hall, how he predicted that. And – and then there was this dream, back in the summer, he predicted that I would run over a hare, and then I did, he predicted that, too – of course, it is all explicable, and yet, and yet, now he predicts I am going to die at Christmas.’ I come to a sudden stop. Too late, I realize I have made that ghastly mistake. Now it is me under scrutiny. David is looking my way, with something like distaste, even revulsion, in his eyes.

I’ve exposed myself. I said it all wrong. He thinks I am mad. He thinks I believe in this. He think I believe something ghostly is happening. That Jamie can foresee events.

And why shouldn’t he think that? Because sometimes I do believe these things.