Thicker Than Water (14 page)

‘Oh, it is, and quite historical. Go to the Tourist Board – they’ll tell you what to look out for.’

‘I’ll do that. Thanks. And thanks again for even entertaining the idea of helping out.’

Jill had known from the first that she’d lend him the money, knew also that one reason for doing so was to keep in contact. Which was odd, she thought, as she continued her shopping; she’d not given Patrick a thought since their divorce, but having seen him, she was reluctant to lose touch again. Douglas and Lucy notwithstanding, there was still a spark between them, and she knew he was as aware of it as she was.

She spent the afternoon in a secluded part of the grounds with her new library book, suitably garbed in a sundress, in case any of the guests wandered by. At five o’clock, since the pool was deserted, she stripped to her swimsuit and passed an energetic twenty minutes swimming strongly backwards and forwards, relishing the cold water on her sun-warmed body.

Wrapped in a towel, she used the staff entrance to re-enter the hotel, to avoid meeting guests on her way upstairs. Instead, along the corridor from the kitchens, she came face to face with Douglas.

‘So there you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where have you been?’

Jill looked at him in surprise. He’d never before questioned her whereabouts.

‘In the pool. Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Before that.’

‘Reading in the garden.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘Why should you have done?’

‘I wondered where you were, that’s all.’

What he meant, Jill knew, was that he wondered if she was with Patrick, and since she had been that morning, she felt it wiser not to pursue the subject.

‘Did you want me for anything in particular?’ she asked innocently.

‘No, not really. The Beaumont wedding reception has been confirmed, but that’s not really your province.’

‘Good for business, though. Well done.’ She bent forward and kissed him quickly on the mouth, feeling his instant response.

‘You’d better go and get some clothes on, Mrs Irving, or I shan’t be responsible for the consequences.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and, knowing she’d defused his anxiety, at least for the moment, she continued on her way.

Patrick was in the bar when she distributed menus that evening, but she treated him the same as the other guests, and he didn’t attempt to prolong the contact. She knew he was watching her as she moved around, aware that her brown arms and shoulders were displayed to maximum advantage in the primrose sheath dress she wore.

Douglas was still slightly guarded over dinner, watching her more closely than usual, and she was careful not to glance in Patrick’s direction. She kept up a stream of inconsequential chat, but it was an effort, and by the end of the meal she needed to escape from both her husband’s scrutiny and the possibility of bumping into Patrick, which would only aggravate it.

On impulse, therefore, she slipped out of the front entrance and crossed the road to the promenade. The families had returned long since to hotel or boarding house, and the beach was empty except for the odd figure or couple, some walking dogs. The tide was quite a long way out, and the darker sand was studded with shining pools reflecting the rosy tint of the sky.

Jill walked slowly along until she came to a set of steps, which she went down, stooping to remove her high-heeled shoes. The sand felt cool between her toes, and she started to move down towards the far line of the water, swinging her sandals by their straps. There was a slight breeze off the sea which lifted her hair and caressed her bare shoulders.

A wet collie dog came bounding up to her, spraying water from its coat, its breathless owner hot on its heels.

‘I’m so sorry! He didn’t splash your dress, did he?’

‘Don’t worry, it can go in the machine.’

‘I’m sorry – he just took off when I wasn’t expecting it.’

Then she was alone again. The sand beneath her was now dark and ribbed by the retreating waves, and the ridges made uncomfortable walking. She was in introspective mood, occasioned by the past and present being brought together in the form of Patrick. And what of Paul, her first husband? If she saw him again, would she want to go to bed with him, too?

Lifting her dress slightly, she stepped into one of the shallow pools, still warm after the day’s sunshine, and the sand, turned to mud by the water, squelched up between her toes. Some minute sea creature, stranded by the outgoing tide, swam in small circles round her feet. If she had a bucket, Jill thought, she would have caught it and carried it to the safety of the sea.

She stepped out of the pool and continued her walk until she reached the sea itself, pulsating slowly, retreating steadily. It was almost dark now. She turned and looked back the way she had come, surprised at the distance separating her from the lights of the hotel. In front of it, leaning on the promenade rail, she could just make out a solitary figure looking seawards. Could he see her, whoever he was? Was it Douglas, looking for her again, or Patrick? Or no one to do with her at all?

Suddenly conscious that she was now alone in the great, empty expanse, she started to walk back more quickly, keeping her eyes on the lights along the promenade. What, if anything, had she gained from her solitude? Only the smell of the sea and the coolness of the sand and, perhaps, the sense that she was her own person, and beholden to no one. Which was the most anyone could ask.

That night, Douglas’s lovemaking was rough and demanding, and Jill, while she gladly responded, recognized that it was also proprietary. After her meditations on the beach, she smiled to herself at the irony of it.

When it was over and he’d fallen asleep, she lay with the sweat cooling on her body, staring out at the star-speckled sky. Was Patrick awake, in his room on the floor below? Was he too anxious, awaiting her decision, to allow him to relax? Perhaps it was cruel of her, keeping him in suspense. Tomorrow, she must find some way of handing over the cheque without anyone noticing. Living in the public gaze as she did, that might not be easy.

The following morning, therefore, the cheque in her handbag, she set out again to walk into town, expecting him to catch her up as he had the previous day. But he did not. She’d seen him at breakfast, but he’d left the restaurant while she was still eating, and she hadn’t seen him since. Suppose he’d gone off somewhere for the day, somewhere recommended by the Tourist Board?

Well, she thought irritably, more fool him! How did he expect to learn her answer if he wasn’t there? She loitered about the shops, even sat for a while on one of the promenade seats, so as to be clearly visible if he came looking for her. But he didn’t, and after a while, she gave up and returned to the hotel.

Nor was he in for lunch, and Jill began to feel anxious. The morning would have been the best time to meet unobserved; now it seemed he’d be out all afternoon, too, and it would be almost impossible to meet privately in the evening. And tomorrow he was going home.

At four o’clock, seeing opportunities for a personal handover rapidly decreasing, she decided to leave the cheque in his room. It would save him the embarrassment of thanking her – he could phone or write when he got home – and also save her the anxiety of Douglas coming upon them in mid-transaction, which would certainly require explanation, whether or not it was her own money she was parting with. This afternoon, though, Douglas had gone to see his accountant.

She made her way to the housekeeper’s room, sure it would be empty at this time of day, and lifted the master key off its hook. She’d already checked that Patrick was in room 10, on the first floor.

It was a hot, cloudless afternoon, and everyone was out enjoying it. Jill didn’t see a soul as she went up the wide staircase and along the corridor. The master key turned smoothly in the lock and the door swung open. She stepped quickly inside, closed it behind her, and slipped the key in her pocket.

The room was much the same as all the others in the hotel – television, sofa, en suite. But there were personal touches. Patrick’s old leather travelling clock was on the bedside table, and Jill couldn’t resist picking up, seeing with a lurch of the heart the red stain on one corner where she’d upset a bottle of nail polish.

On the dressing table was the silver-backed brush that had been his father’s, and which Patrick took with him everywhere. Her fingers traced the scrolled monogram – ERS – Edward Roger Salter. She thought briefly of her ex-father-in-law, a small man with a military moustache, who had died of a heart attack the year after their wedding. Patrick’s belongings, she saw with a tinge of regret, were as they’d always been, unaltered by her absence, even if she’d left her mark on them.

She was still at the dressing table, the brush in her hand, when, to her horror, she heard a key turn in the lock, the door opened, and Patrick himself stood staring at her.

She felt herself flush scarlet. ‘I – was admiring your father’s brush,’ she said foolishly, hastily replacing it.

He came slowly into the room, pushing the door closed. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Well, not looking for something to pinch,’ she snapped, furious at being put in the wrong.

‘I wasn’t suggesting—’

‘Time’s running out, isn’t it? I looked for you this morning, but you were nowhere to be seen, and you didn’t come back for lunch. There’s no way we could have talked privately this evening, so I thought the best thing was to leave the cheque here.’

She opened her bag, took out the envelope, and held it out to him.

‘You mean – you will? You’ll lend us the money? Oh, Jill!’

He came forward quickly and caught her in a hug of gratitude, realizing almost at once that it had been a mistake. They drew slightly apart, gazing into each other’s faces.

‘Oh, Patrick!’ Jill said on an indrawn breath. Then her mouth closed on his, and she felt rather than heard his protesting, ‘No!’ But the word was swallowed as he pulled her against him, kissing her as though his life depended on it. Still clinging to each other, they moved towards the bed, Jill, the hotelier’s wife, reaching behind her to pull the quilted bedspread aside.

‘Look, we really can’t do this!’ Patrick gasped. ‘I can’t make love to you under your husband’s roof!’

‘I think you’ll find you can,’ she said.

That night, she dreamed she was back in Patrick’s bed, making passionate love to him. Then he reached up and switched on the light, and the face gazing down on her belonged not to him but to Gary Payne.

Eleven

By the time Jill went down to breakfast the next morning, Patrick had already left, and though she knew it was for the best, she regretted that the spark so recently reignited between them had had, so soon, to be extinguished.

His visit had put Gary Payne out of her mind, and as she left the hotel, she was unprepared for the sight of him, reading a newspaper on one of the promenade benches. Her feverish dream, mercifully forgotten, flooded back, bringing a shudder of revulsion. Why couldn’t the blasted man go home? she thought irritably. And an appalling thought struck her: suppose he wasn’t a visitor after all; suppose he actually
lived
here?

Unable to bear the suspense, she half ran to where he was sitting, and, when he looked up, blurted out, ‘You don’t live here, do you?’

He smiled, removing his sunglasses. ‘Good morning, Mrs Irving,’ he said.

‘Good morning,’ she stammered, already furious with herself, and added foolishly, ‘It’s just that most people only stay two weeks.’

‘Ah, but I’m not most people.’ His expression as he looked her slowly up and down bordered on insolence, and she wondered hotly if he was remembering her without her clothes. ‘Since you’re so interested, though,’ he continued after a pause, ‘the answer is that I’m a schoolteacher, and we have long summer holidays.’

‘A schoolteacher?’ she repeated doubtfully. He didn’t look in the least academic.

‘PE and sport,’ he amplified, as though reading her mind. ‘But don’t fret, I’m not here for the whole six weeks.’

‘It’s of no interest to me how long you stay,’ she retorted, stung as always by his manner.

‘You could have fooled me,’ he shrugged, returning to his paper.

She hesitated, searching for the most dignified means of retreat, and, looking down at him, realized with a sense of surprise that some women might find him attractive. Apart from his colouring, which didn’t appeal to her, his features were good: his nose long and straight, his chin square with a dimple in it, and his eyes a very dark grey – surprising, with his complexion – like black pebbles in the pallor of his face. If he’d spent his holiday sunbathing, there was little to show for it.

Impervious to her presence, he turned the page of his paper, and she felt her temper rise. It was that lack of interest that needled her, making her want to force herself to his notice. That, and the expression at the back of his eyes which, despite herself, intrigued her. Again she remembered the dream, and again shuddered, though not, this time, with the same measure of distaste. Weren’t dreams said to reveal hidden longings?

God, no! she thought, recoiling. Her involuntary movement caught his attention, and he looked up with an exaggerated sigh.

‘If you’re staying, would you mind sitting down?’ he said laconically. ‘You’re blocking the sun.’

‘I’m
not
staying!’ she replied sharply, and, turning on her heel, walked quickly on towards the town.

Why
, she wondered furiously, was she continually making such an idiot of herself in front of this man – she, who had always had the upper hand in her dealings with the opposite sex? How was it that he continually managed to wrong-foot her? And a dangerous little worm stirred in her mind, a resolve to
make
him interested, just to prove she could. After which, her goal attained, she could discard him and get on with her life, while he, thank God, would finally go home.

And though, turning into the bakery, she impatiently dismissed the thought, it remained in her subconscious and slowly, insidiously, began to grow.

It was only when Jill returned to the hotel and found Dilys, Douglas’s secretary, busy with accounts, that she remembered it was Friday, and several of their guests would be leaving the next day. So, possibly, might Gary Payne; it was three weeks since she’d first seen him.

She told herself that, were that the case, she’d be well rid of him, but part of her regretted a missed opportunity, a challenge that, the more she thought about it, became increasingly attractive. Contentedly faithful since her marriage, her session with Patrick had reawakened for her the delights of illicit sex, its excitement and sense of danger, and the unlikeliness of her latest prospect merely added to it. He was also, at a guess, five or six years younger than she was, a novelty in itself; her previous lovers had all been older.

Deliberately, therefore, she returned that afternoon to her private beach for the first time since he’d come upon her, and, by way of tempting fate, stripped before lying down to sunbathe. For three hours she remained there, swimming, reading, dozing, but no one came down the cliff path to join her, and it was with a sense of disappointment that she eventually dressed and made her way home.

For the next day or two she kept watch for him – on the benches along the front, in the town, in the bar before dinner – but there was no sign of him, and she concluded he must have returned home at the weekend. Which, she reminded herself briskly, was what, until the other day, she’d been anticipating with mounting impatience.

Then something happened that wiped him completely from her mind. As she came downstairs prior to menu duty, Dilys called to her through the open office door.

‘Jill, there’s an email for you.’

Jill frowned and went to join her. ‘For me? Are you sure?’

She had her own email address, and never used the hotel one.

‘Well, it says For the Attention of Jill Irving,’ Dilys replied. ‘In fact, that’s all it says, but there’s an attachment.’

‘Have you opened it?’

‘No; I was going to, then I thought it might be personal. Look, I’ve finished for the day. I’ll leave you to read it in peace, and come back in a few minutes to shut everything down. OK?’

Jill, still puzzled, nodded, and, sliding on to the vacated chair, clicked on the attachment and again, impatiently, to confirm that she wanted to open it. Which was the point at which the nightmare began, as what appeared to be the front page of a newspaper materialized in front of her, a provincial newspaper, dated July 1985.

Time stopped, gripping her in a horror of disbelief as, of their own volition, her eyes moved down the column, and a numb coldness closed over her. Then the screen blurred, and, realizing she was about to faint, she used the last of her strength to click on Delete. Only just in time; as the picture disappeared, she slid off the chair to lie in a crumpled little heap on the floor.

Dilys, returning to shut down the computer, found her minutes later, and Jill slowly resurfaced to find Douglas supporting her head and gently slapping her face.

‘She’s coming round, thank God. Jill – are you all right, honey? Whatever happened?’

He snapped his fingers at Dilys, indicating the glass of water she was holding, and held it to his wife’s lips. She turned her head away but he persisted, and she perforce took a few sips.

‘She was fine when I left her,’ Dilys was saying, anxiously watching his ministrations.

‘I can’t think why she was here in the first place,’ Douglas muttered testily. ‘She’s supposed to be in the bar, handing out menus.’

‘There was an email for her.’

He looked up, frowning. ‘On this computer? Then it must have been hotel business. Why—?’

‘I don’t know what it was; there was no message, just an attachment.’

‘Which was?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dilys said again. ‘I didn’t open it.’

They both glanced at the blank screen, now on stand-by. Dilys clicked to reactivate it, but the only emails listed were those she’d already dealt with.

‘She must have deleted it,’ she said.

Jill stirred in Douglas’s arms and gave a little moan, and they both turned back to her.

‘Help me to get her up on the chair,’ Douglas instructed, and they achieved it between them. Jill put a hand out to steady herself, the other going to her bowed head.

‘How do you feel, love?’

‘I’m all right. It was – the heat. It suddenly came over me, I don’t know why.’

Douglas and Dilys exchanged a puzzled glance. Jill had never complained of the heat before; on the contrary, she frequently declared that the hotter it was, the better, sunbathing at every opportunity, even at midday.

As though aware her reply lacked conviction, she added, ‘And it’s the time of the month, which didn’t help.’

‘Nothing to do with that email, then?’

A tremor crossed her face. ‘I wasn’t prepared for it, I admit. It was spam, but of a particularly obscene variety.’

Dilys looked stricken. ‘I’m so sorry, I should have opened it myself.’

‘What the hell is the point of all these anti-spam devices?’ Douglas demanded. He studied his wife’s face. She was pale beneath the tan, and he wasn’t satisfied that she’d completely recovered. ‘Would you like to go and lie down for a while? Rosie can do the menu stint.’

Jill hesitated, aware that she still felt shaky. ‘That might be best,’ she admitted. ‘Just for a few minutes. I’ll be down for dinner.’

‘See how you feel. We can always send something up on a tray.’

His arm round her, he escorted her to the lift and up to their room. The bedspread had already been turned down, and he settled her on top of the duvet, pulling the pillow down to support her head.

‘You’re sure you don’t need the doctor?’

‘Absolutely. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be fine.’

‘Right, then I’d better get back downstairs. Ring if you need anything, won’t you?’

She nodded, forced a smile, and he left the room, closing the door softly as though she were an invalid. As soon as she was alone, she slipped off the bed and went to the dressing table, sitting on the stool and staring at herself in the mirror.

It didn’t happen, she thought. It couldn’t have done; it just wasn’t possible. She looked about her, seeking reassurance in the familiar surroundings. This room, this hotel, was the here and now, and she was safe in it. The past couldn’t touch her. Could it?

She spread her hands on the cold glass, fighting down incipient panic. She’d been so careful. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could link her to that other self. But though she wanted more than anything to expunge the whole episode from her memory, it was necessary, just once, to think back to what she’d seen.

In all conscience, it had been little enough before darkness swiftly overtook her, but it was enough to know that the paper was genuine, and not some malicious mock-up. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind to delete it. All the same, it would have been helpful, perhaps, to have studied it more closely – not the content, God help her, but the sender’s name and address. Because she needed, quite desperately needed, to know his identity, and whether he was in any position to harm her.

Could she risk asking Dilys if she’d registered it? Would she think it odd Jill should want to know? She’d hoped, of course, to deflect their interest by blaming the heat and the lie about her period, but doubted if either had convinced them.

Oh God, she’d really thought all this was behind her! How, with three name-changes, had they managed to track her down? And
why
, after all this time?

She drew a deep breath. She would not, repeat not, let this destroy her. If the chance rose in the next day or so to question Dilys, she would take it. Otherwise, she’d confine the whole thing to oblivion. It was the only way to survive.

As it happened, Dilys was of little help. The sender’s name and address had been something cryptic, she thought, like ‘guesswho’, and then some numbers. There’d be no way to identify him.

Guess who? Jill thought with a shudder.

‘So there’s no way to block future messages?’

Dilys shrugged. ‘As Douglas said, we should be protected against this sort of thing, but there’s always one or two that get through. I’m so sorry I didn’t intercept it, Jill. I’d just try to forget it, if I were you.’

‘Oh, I will,’ Jill assured her.

But though during the day she was able to clamp down on the memory, her subconscious was not so easily deflected, and the nights became a minefield during which she woke repeatedly, drenched in sweat, with the trailing strands of nightmare still clinging to her.