Two Weeks Later
I’d never thought, until now, how close I’d lived to Waterford Harbour, where The Three Sisters – The River Barrow, The River Nore and The River Suir – meet before joining the sea. But as I stood at the window of Celia’s cottage, blowing steam from a mug of tea, my eyes focused on the river in the distance, I wondered if my destiny had always been mapped out to intertwine with Ella’s. Our lives had appeared to be flowing in such different directions, miles apart, yet we’d found our way to the brackish waters of the same estuary.
It was cloudy but bright, and Reagan was digging up potatoes in the back garden, puffing and brushing sweat from his forehead. I would never have imagined him doing something as mundane as gardening, but it suited him. He smiled and raised his hand. I smiled back. Can you love someone you’ve only just met?
‘You’re quiet today, Colleen.’
I turned. Celia was spreading jam thinly on a slice of toast. She looked so small. Her hair was grey and unkempt, hanging past her shoulders. It had been such a beautiful chestnut shade when I was a child, but after Bryony died her appearance had no longer mattered to her. Nothing had.
Since Reagan and I returned from Sligo, she’d been making an effort with me. She was still vague, unable to shift fully into the real world, but Reagan’s influence had made her try, and I’d tried too; after coming so close to death, holding on to old grievances didn’t seem so important anymore.
‘I never blamed you for Bryony’s disappearance, Colleen,’ she told me, the first night I arrived back. She’d wanted to get it out in the open, lay it bare, Reagan told me. But there’d been that word ‘disappearance’. I wondered if she would ever accept Bryony was dead.
My eyes skittered around the kitchen for the hundredth time since I’d returned, seeing the wooden cupboards, the old-fashioned cooker, the dull-coloured paint on the walls, which were as they’d always been. My gaze snagged on a framed picture of Bryony tucked on a wooden shelf, then moved on.
I couldn’t believe I’d been staying here for two weeks now, or that Reagan hadn’t done a runner. I’d meant it to be a short visit, a few days and then I’d be on my way – though, where to, I had no idea.
‘I was thinking about what the Gardaí told me,’ I said, my eyes settling on Celia’s face.
She fiddled with her teaspoon, breaking her gaze away from mine. ‘Please don’t worry your head about that, Colleen.’
‘But they never found his body.’ I’d been playing the thought over and over in my mind. I knew it was irrational. Nobody could survive that fall.
‘He’s dead, Colleen. His body lost at sea.’ The irony was heart-breaking.
I pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table and sat down. It was covered with a plastic red and white tablecloth and I pushed my finger through a layer of crumbs, and thought about the fire. The Gardaí had worked out that Gabriel drove Ella’s hire car to a cliff top a few miles away from the farmhouse, planning to make it look as if she’d thrown herself into the sea. He’d even put her bag on the front seat. He’d then walked back to the hotel, before driving to the farmhouse to set it alight. None of it made sense at first, but I realised he’d worried that Ella would be searched for, and that he’d been seen with her.
He hadn’t thought for a minute that anyone would miss me. And the farmhouse was so out of the way, he must have felt sure nobody would notice it had burned to the ground. And if they had, Jake was the only suspect.
Reagan came through the back door and I smiled, still hardly daring to believe my da was here, within touching distance. He was heading off at the weekend, and had asked if I’d like to go with him. He’d been in touch with some old contacts, and they’d asked him to play some backing gigs in London. Music was still a big part of his life.
I’d said I would go. I would meet Ella too; she was taking some time off work. We’d decided to go for a pizza, just the two of us, and talk about everyday things, like what type of music we liked. It sounded ordinary, but it was a big step. We also planned to visit Anna’s grave.
But first, I needed to see Jake. I’d half wondered if he would come looking for me, and had braced myself to confront him. I couldn’t explain the urge to see him. Maybe I was looking for closure.
I got up and put my mug next to the sink. There was a dusty old bottle of whisky on the windowsill – one of Terry’s leftovers. I’d seen it the day I got back, but hadn’t touched it. I hoped I never would.
‘It’s weird Jake hasn’t been in touch,’ I said to Reagan. ‘I mean, I got him arrested, for Christ’s sake. You’d think he’d be pissed, and want to have it out with me.’
Celia narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t blaspheme, Colleen,’ she said, in a voice I recalled from my childhood.
I stared at her, but didn’t reply. We still had a long way to go.
‘Get off your high horse, Celia,’ Reagan said. ‘Or you might fall off.’
I smiled. He’d defused the moment, as he had several times since our arrival, and she seemed to tolerate him better than anyone. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said, grabbing my jacket and heading out.
I walked down the quiet, tree-lined road, heading towards the house I’d lived in with Jake for fifteen years. It was the first time I’d been out alone since Sligo, and although there was nobody about, I found myself picking up speed. Every noise startled me, bushes morphing into Gabriel waiting to jump out. He’d left me a nervous wreck, and I wondered if I would ever be fully free while they hadn’t discovered his body.
The house, whitewashed, detached and immaculate, rose up as I rounded the bend, almost tripping over a black cat on the pavement. I stumbled, and stood for a moment, trying to calm my heartbeat. I’d thought he might be at the hospital, but his Ferrari was on the drive, and I was tempted to turn and run. I’d played out this scenario in my head every day for the last two weeks, but now I was there I had no idea what to say.
I walked up the path, and rang the doorbell. It felt strange. This was my home once. The garden looked as neat as ever, the beds bursting with newly planted flowers, and I wondered if he’d replaced me already.
He opened the door and even now, after everything, I could see how he’d reeled me in that day in Dublin. His good looks were a punch to the heart: the thick dark hair brushed back from a chiselled face, dazzling blue eyes that seemed to look inside me, and a magnetic smile he could switch on and off at will. He was wearing a thin grey sweater I’d bought him over a shirt and dark grey jeans.
‘Colleen,’ he said. There was no smile today. ‘You look awful.’
‘Jake, can we talk?’ I tried to ignore the way his eyes were examining my hair with distaste. It had already begun to grow out, blonde roots pushing through the blackness.
‘What is there to talk about?’
That threw me. Why was I here? Did I want to say sorry for getting him arrested? Did he deserve my apology?
‘There is nothing in here that belongs to you, Colleen.’
‘I don’t want anything. I—’
‘I thought we were happy,’ he cut in. ‘And yet you spread lies about me. Why?’
My heart gave an uncomfortable thud. ‘I never lied, Jake. You were a controlling bastard, you know that as well as I do.’
‘I never …’ He broke off for a moment. ‘I loved you.’ Another pause. ‘You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t gone to the hotel, seen that prick Gabriel in the foyer and followed him, you wouldn’t be here right now. I knew before he was halfway there, where he was heading.’ Jake had known about the farmhouse. I’d never had any secrets from him. ‘I called the fire brigade, and the police, and look how you thanked me.’
‘Can’t you see?’ I said. ‘Gabriel pretended to be you. He said and did things I thought only you knew.’ Things I’d told him when I was off my face.
‘You walked out on me, and didn’t tell me where you’d gone. I was worried sick about you. If that Greg bloke hadn’t called me …’ He shook his head. ‘I love you, Colleen, always will.’ He stepped back into the house. ‘But I can’t do this anymore.’ He began to close the door, but his final words reached me, loud and clear. ‘Don’t ever come back here.’
*
‘They’ve found his body,’ Celia called, as I stepped through the back door. I dashed into the kitchen to see her face brighter than I’d ever seen it. ‘They found Gabriel. He washed up a few miles down the coast.’
I covered my face with my hands, relief surging through my body, tears filling my eyes. I was safe. Ella was safe.
‘And a parcel’s arrived for you, Colleen.’
It was on the kitchen table, flat and oblong, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Inside were several layers of bubble-wrap and a note.
Mum would have wanted you to have this, Colleen. I believe it’s how she wished things had been. Ella xxx
I pulled free the wrapping and lifted out a small watercolour painting. It was a sea scene: two little girls on a golden beach with buckets and spades. They were blonde, with a sprinkling of identical freckles across their noses, smiling at each other as though they shared a secret. I turned it over to see the letters E and C on the back. My eyes prickled with tears. There was no doubting it was Ella and me. There was no doubting, either, that my mother, Anna, had painted it. Her signature was in the corner.
Celia hovered at my shoulder and my heartbeat quickened. I knew the painting would remind her of Bryony. I pulled it to my chest, but Celia prised it gently from my hands and placed it on the table. Her eyes focused on the sea, the frothy waves with whites and blues of every shade. She ran her fingers lightly over the picture, her dark eyes brimming with tears.
‘So this is you and Ella,’ she said, a tear splashing onto its surface. ‘You look like you’re having fun.’
‘Mam.’ My throat was choked with tears. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’
‘It’s OK, Colleen.’ She pulled a handkerchief from up her sleeve and wiped her face. ‘I know Bryony’s never coming back, that the sea took her.’ She reached for my hand and squeezed it. ‘But you’re still here, and I’m glad.’
I tried to speak and found that I couldn’t. I placed my hand over hers and hoped it was enough.