The Debt Page 7

  ‘No, he hasn’t, not any more. But that was it, the other day he was saying you reminded him of her a bit.’

  I feel a tightening in my stomach. Tentatively, anticipating that I’m about to hear something I’d really rather not, I ask: ‘So what happened to her?’

  ‘Oh, she died, years ago. A car accident, I think. Just after they separated. Shit, that really must have done his head in, her asking for a divorce on top of everything else. You can tell he was mad about her. He didn’t want to let her go.’ Marc shook his head. ‘Losing someone like that – God, it drives you crazy when you’re inside.’

  I feel an unwelcome shiver shimmy down my spine. How crazy exactly? Crazy enough to . . . no, this is just my imagination working overtime, my dislike of him twisting a terrible tragedy into some ill-founded suspicion. An accident is an accident. There’s no reason at all to believe he had anything to do with it. You don’t kill the person you love. You have to be . . . well, crazy to do a thing like that.

  The waiter has arrived with the food and champagne.

  But somehow I don’t feel quite so hungry as I did.

  Chapter Six

  Johnny

  I’m not expecting anyone when the knock comes on the door. Shit. Talk about bad timing.

  I raise a finger to my lips, nod towards the bathroom, and my companion scurries inside with a grimace. Then I quickly cross the floor, open the door and smile.

  ‘Dee! What a lovely surprise! I thought you and Jim had gone out.’

  I try to look flattered that she has deigned to climb the stairs yet again to spend a few precious moments in my company. It’s become a habit over the last couple of evenings and one I should have anticipated. Over-confidence has made me careless.

  ‘Oh, only to the Swan. I can’t stand round chatting to his cronies all night.’ Then, perhaps picking up a hint of distance in my tone, she narrows her eyes and adds suspiciously: ‘I’m sorry, love, am I disturbing you?’

  ‘No, of course not. Come in, come in.’

  As I stand aside to let her enter, the pungent scent of her perfume wafts unpleasantly into my nostrils. She’s dressed in a short red skirt and white T-shirt, looking more like a poor impression of a teenage US cheerleader than a fifty-three-year-old wife and mother. All she needs is a pair of pom-poms. It takes an effort to keep my mouth curled in the right direction but I’m used to going that extra mile. When it comes to effort I’m the expert – after all, it takes determination to wade your way through eighteen years of fucking nothing.

  ‘Let me get you a drink.’

  ‘I can’t stay long.’ She smiles faintly. ‘Well, go on, just a small one then.’

  While I do the honours, she drifts around the room as if she’s never seen it before, as if it isn’t her room, in her house, as if she hasn’t put the sheets on the bed or the flowers in the vase. I hold my breath as she passes the bathroom, hoping she won’t decide to pop inside and check if the plumbing is still working efficiently. But thankfully she proceeds to the window and stares down into the blackness of the garden.

  ‘Maybe you were right,’ she says eventually, ‘about Jim . . .’

  Good, so it’s still on her mind, although that’s hardly surprising after Carl’s outstanding performance this afternoon. I try not to snigger at the recollection, the best piece of entertainment I’ve had for quite a while. ‘Of course I was,’ I insist solemnly, pressing the glass into her hand. ‘Cheers! I mean, it’s not his style, is it? Other men, yeah, they might be tempted by some chit of a girl with it all hanging out, but not Jim. He’s got more sense – and more taste.’

  ‘If I imagined for one second—’ she begins.

  ‘Don’t,’ I insist, ‘don’t even think about it. Whatever Carl saw, or whatever he thought he saw, I’m sure it was all completely innocent.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she snaps back, rising to the bait. ‘Carl didn’t say he saw anything. What did he see? He only said the girls were talking, that some of them were claiming that Jim and that Aimee slut were . . . What’s he said to you?’ Her lips have drawn into a tight straight line. ‘What’s he told you?’

  I raise my hands in a gesture of submission. ‘Nothing, I swear. Calm down. That’s what I meant – what Carl heard. Nothing else. It’s just malicious gossip. Forget it.’

  But she can’t. She peers at me, broodingly, over the rim of her glass. She doesn’t trust me but then she doesn’t trust Jim either.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I urge. ‘Jim isn’t going to risk everything he’s got for a roll in the hay with some brainless little slapper.’

  ‘Unlike you,’ she retorts, pretending to joke although her eyes are deadly serious. The laugh that emerges from her crimson mouth is harsh and bitter.

  I’ve wondered how long it would take her to get around to this. She’s been leading up to it from the moment I arrived. And the question I’ve spent the last eighteen years trying to answer rises to the fore again: Why the fuck did I ever get involved with her? There are some decisions you make, some bloody stupid decisions, that you end up regretting for the rest of your life, and my fling with Dee, long ago as it was, comes right at the top of the list. Why, why, why? But even before I’ve finished asking, I already know the answer – because I thought with my cock instead of my brain, because I didn’t have the sense to keep it in my trousers, because if it was there for the taking I’d never say no.

  ‘It’s not the same. You were hardly a . . .’ But I think it best not to finish that sentence. ‘There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. It’s history. We’re over all that stuff now, aren’t we? Dee?’

  I throw her one of my more irresistible smiles.

  She doesn’t seem overly impressed.

  Instead, she knocks the rest of her drink back in one, goes over to the table, picks up the bottle and sloshes another large measure into her glass. The smell of gin wafts through the room. ‘Do you know what I’ve always wondered? Why you told him. I could never figure that one out. Why did you?’

  I raise my face to look straight into those hard blue resentful eyes.

  Because you were a reckless bitch who was ruining my life. Because you wouldn’t leave me alone. Because you mistook a few quick fucks in the afternoon for a lifetime of commitment. Because you made sure Sarah knew about it.

  ‘I didn’t tell him anything,’ I reply smoothly. ‘At least, nothing he didn’t already know. It was common knowledge, sweetheart. There wasn’t any point in lying about it.’

  She makes a sarcastic kind of tsk sound in the back of her throat. ‘But you were always so good at lying, a bloody expert. You could have thought of something. What happened? You have a sudden attack of conscience? I mean, God, Johnny, you almost wrecked my marriage.’

  That’s what I love about women, the way they’re able to rewrite the truth to suit themselves. What is it – some kind of selective memory process, a cut and paste option that allows them to delete any unpalatable facts? She’s conveniently forgotten that she was the one who made all the running, who was panting for it, who had her knickers off before the office door was even halfway closed. She didn’t give two fucks about her precious marriage then or when, horror of horrors, she started mapping out our future together.

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ I repeat insistently. ‘He already knew.’

  Although I’d made damn sure he was told. Of course I did. All of it. Just as she had made sure that Sarah was apprised of every sordid detail – almost blowing my marriage apart in the process. Well, an eye for an eye. You can’t say fairer than that.

  ‘Huh,’ she mumbles derisively through another slurp of gin.

  If Jim had been any kind of a man, he’d have taken the opportunity to floor me, to give me a damn good kicking. I wouldn’t have fought back. I wouldn’t even have tried. Well, only enough to protect myself. No, I’d have just been glad, fucking glad that it was over, even if it was at the expense of a battered face and a few bruised ribs. But the cowardly bastard couldn
’t even do that. He just lowered his eyes and walked away. And waited . . . and waited . . . until he got the chance of an even greater retribution.

  It’s time to take the offensive. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were so . . . Perhaps it’s not a good idea for me to stay here. I’d never have agreed if I thought you were still—’

  ‘Oh, don’t flatter yourself,’ she interrupts. ‘You think I really give a damn about you, about any of that?’ She ejects another of her humourless laughs.

  I skip the landmine of trying to answer. Whatever I say will be wrong. Silence is often the most judicious of replies. Best just to stare at the floor, dodge the trip wires and try to look chastened.

  She pulls a face and starts roaming round the room again. While she paces, she drinks, pouring the gin down her throat like it’s going out of fashion. ‘I was only asking,’ she says. ‘No harm in that, is there?’

  I shake my head.

  Shit, if she keeps going like this, drinking like this, it’s only a matter of time before her bladder leads her to the bathroom. And then . . .

  The next time she passes, I take hold of her arm. ‘Can’t you stand still for a minute?’

  She shrugs me off but doesn’t move too far away.

  ‘We’re okay, aren’t we? Dee?’

  She gazes bitterly into my face and for a second I think she might spit at me. She’ll never get over the fact I chose Sarah over her. Even after all these years it’s still eating away, a festering resentment that refuses to heal. I can almost see her reason vying with her rage, the rational thought of the money, of the diamonds, battling against her more irrational emotions. ‘Why shouldn’t we be?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  She sinks on to a corner of the bed. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means that this isn’t going to work if there’s bad blood between us. If you want me to go, I will. I don’t want to stay where I’m not welcome.’

  Her expression instantly changes. ‘Who said you weren’t welcome?’ She turns and looks up at me. Either the booze has hit a button and sent her hurtling into some nostalgic rose-tinted version of the past or she’s decided on a different game plan. ‘I never said that.’ She stretches out her legs, extends a hand and pats the edge of the bed. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

  I look into her eyes, still granite hard, and force a smile. ‘Sure.’

  ‘You know, Johnny, we were pretty good together once.’

  ‘Pretty good,’ I agree in a placatory tone.

  ‘So . . .’ she says, tilting her head in a way she maybe imagines to be seductive.

  But two can play games. I take a few lascivious steps forward before suddenly stopping and turning towards the door. ‘What was . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t you . . . I thought I heard . . . isn’t that Jim?’

  She leaps up from the bed, taking a moment to recover herself. ‘What if it is?’ she asks defensively. ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Well no, of course not, not under normal circumstances but . . .’ I lower my voice. ‘You know, he might be a bit . . .’ I glance down at the bed. ‘It might seem a bit . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she snorts, ‘and anyway, as if he’s got any right to . . .’

  But she still follows me towards the door. With an air of subterfuge, I open it carefully, peer along the empty hallway and usher her out.

  She pauses and then leans back as if she might kiss me. Her breath smells of gin and peppermint. ‘Johnny—’

  I take a step back. ‘You’d better go,’ I insist. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Christmas Day,’ she says, as if it might have slipped my mind.

  I stand for a minute, listening to her footsteps descending the stairs. Then when I’m sure, absolutely sure, that she’s gone I retreat to the chair by the bed, sit down and drop half a glass of whisky down my throat.

  Fuck.

  The door to the bathroom slowly opens.

  ‘Jeez, man, it’s freezing in here. Haven’t you ever heard of central heating? I didn’t dare turn on the radiator in case it hissed or something. God, I thought she’d never go.’

  She’s wearing a denim skirt, even shorter than Dee’s, and an even tinier top. A ruby stone glitters in her flat naked midriff. In her hand she’s carrying a pair of strappy red sandals.

  ‘Well, if you don’t wear any clothes, what the hell do you expect? And keep your voice down.’

  ‘Ah,’ she says, padding over to the table and pouring herself a stiff drink, ‘you’re not going to go all father-figure on me, are you?’

  Which reminds me of Dixie and which in turn reminds me that it’s against the rules to lust after your dead best friend’s daughter, even if she does send the blood pumping through your veins. I try to keep my gaze focused purely on the area above her neck. ‘It’s the middle of winter. You want to catch pneumonia?’

  She pulls a face, raising her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Stop stressing, you’ll give yourself a heart attack. You need to loosen up a bit.’ Dropping down on the edge of the bed, she leans over to fasten her sandals, giving me an eyeful of cleavage in the process.

  I glance at my watch. ‘Where’s Carl?’

  ‘He’s gone to see a mate. It’s only nine o’clock, he won’t be back for hours.’

  I may have agreed to the plan but I still don’t feel easy about her contrived relationship with the younger Buckley son. It takes fuck-all stretch of the imagination to understand how she captured his interest – but how far will she have to go, how far has she already gone, to keep it?

  ‘Boy, has Dee still got the hots for you,’ she grins, straightening up. ‘She almost had you by the short and curlies. Another few minutes and you’d have been a goner. You’d better take care of that virtue of yours.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  She throws me one of those female as if kind of looks before abandoning the advice and changing the subject. ‘I paid Aimee. You want her to carry on or should I tell her to lay off for a while?’

  ‘When does the club open again?’

  ‘Next Thursday.’

  I think about it. ‘Let’s see how it goes. I’ll let you know.’

  She grins widely. ‘God, she was good. You should have seen her, Johnny, all over him like he was bloody Tom Cruise. Jim didn’t know what had hit him; the poor sod thought Christmas had come early.’ She gives a giggle but then remembering the purpose of the exercise grows suddenly more serious. ‘You think Dee believes it?’

  ‘She isn’t sure. But it’s planted a seed and . . .’

  ‘And now all we have to do is watch it grow,’ she adds wickedly.

  I glance at my watch again. ‘Look, you’d better make a move. It’s late. I don’t want you getting caught here.’

  She gets up, lifting her long fair hair and flicking it over her shoulders. It’s another of those gestures that women often do and something else I’ve almost forgotten.

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She throws me a kiss. ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘And Mel,’ I demand as she advances towards the door, ‘watch your back.’ Not for the first time I’m having qualms about her being involved although, as she’s always insisting, it’s as much her battle as it is mine.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she laughs, ‘I can take care of myself. I am Ray Dixon’s daughter.’

  But as Dixie was stabbed to death fifteen years ago that’s hardly reassuring.

  Chapter Seven

  Simone

  It’s gone twelve before we head downstairs. Without overtly saying it, we’ve been putting off the moment for as long as we can, lingering over breakfast, taking our time over the opening of our presents, making endless cups of coffee, and using any excuse to delay the inevitable.

  But the moment of reckoning has finally arrived.

  It’s Christmas Day at the Buckleys’.

  And as we enter the living room, there’s definite
ly an atmosphere, a frosty chill that could freeze the toes off an Eskimo. Jim lurches out of his chair, grabs my arms to steady himself and plants a damp kiss on my cheek. ‘Simone! Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!’ He’s been at the whisky and I can smell the sour stench of his breath.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, leave the poor girl alone.’

  The voice is hard and accusatory. Glancing over his shoulder I catch Dee looking daggers. Suspecting perhaps some sexual slant to this clumsy embrace, she’s staring almost as hard at me as she is at him. I gently push him away. ‘Happy Christmas,’ I announce jovially to the rest of the gathering. It emerges more heartily than I intended.

  An audible, if subdued, return of festive greetings drifts back. My stomach takes a dive. It’s clear we’ve just walked in on yet another simmering Buckley row. The air seethes and bubbles with unspoken accusations. And I inwardly swear this will be the last occasion I ever go through this. What is it with families? If this is normal behaviour then I thank the Lord I’ve been spared. Oh, for Australia, for those long golden beaches! This time next year . . .

  Marc has already bagged the space on the oversized sofa beside Melanie, Carl and Dee, leaving only the chair beside Jim – not a good idea – or the one by the window beside Johnny. Reluctantly, I opt for the latter, wondering if it’s just my imagination or if Mr Frank has a more-than-normally-smug expression on his face today. And for a man who’s just got out of prison, he’s remarkably well dressed, attired in a well-cut dark suit, white shirt and charcoal tie: Mr Grey at his sartorial best. I’ve chosen to wear my blue jeans and although I’ve paired them with an expensive red cashmere jumper I feel positively downmarket in comparison.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ he repeats softly as I sit down.

  I nod, forcing a smile. Hoping to discourage any further exchanges of seasonal goodwill, I pretend to gaze out of the window but the rain-speckled glass obscures the view across the garden and instead I find myself looking, with almost ludicrous concentration, at a six-inch square of opaque smudge.

  In the meantime, Marc has started to chatter away. Either immune to the atmosphere or valiantly trying to overcome it, he’s embarked on a long and amusing story about Luigi’s. It has the effect, at least, of breaking through the ice and temporarily diverting everyone’s attention.