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  ‘Your gaff, huh?’ said Wayne. It would fit into one of the rooms of Wayne’s modern mansion and Erasmus suddenly became conscious that this teenager, this boy, would probably earn in a few months what would take him a lifetime to make.

  ‘We’re going for a walk. I want to show you something.’

  They walked through the park. It was quiet. Only a few joggers and an occasional hemp head could be seen. They passed the Palm House and bore left.

  Erasmus strode towards the treeline. Jutting out from the rest of the trees was a large tree with a thick trunk and a crown of branches that reached down and touched the ground. Erasmus didn’t hesitate. He scrambled up the trunk, disappearing in the greenery after only a couple of seconds climbing.

  ‘What are you waiting for, come up!’

  Wayne giggled.

  ‘Your’re fucking mental, you are, Raz.’ And then he climbed up following the path Erasmus had taken up the trunk. The thick bows of the tree formed a tunnel that stretched up fifteen feet and then suddenly opened out into a natural bowl.

  Erasmus was lying back, reclining in a natural La-Z-Boy made of branches and a thick bed of leaves.

  Wayne laughed again. ‘This is fucking boss!’ He dived onto a thick cross section of branches and lay back.

  Erasmus started to laugh too. ‘Welcome, Wayne, to the Magic Tree, home of pot heads, poets and princes for at least two generations, or so I’m told.’

  ‘Why are we up here?’ said Wayne. ‘I’m not moaning mind, I love it.’

  Everyone loved the Magic Tree. The way you were suspended in complete safety and comfort in the canopy and Erasmus’s only worry had been that there would be people already up here already. He had known it would cheer Wayne up.

  ‘Because everyone needs to come to the Magic Tree.’

  They both leaned back and said nothing for a while in an easy silence. It was with regret that Erasmus broke it.

  ‘It must get boring sometimes, all the training, the football and then the madness like today?’

  Wayne yawned.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a drag but, you know, as Steve says, it comes with the territory.’

  Erasmus hesitated for a second.

  ‘So, is that why you go to the Blood House?’

  He looked away but even so he could sense Wayne tense up.

  ‘Ah, that place. We just go and let off steam there sometimes.’

  ‘And the girls?’

  There wasn’t an instant response. After a second Wayne shifted his position, propping his head up on his hand. From the lake there was the cry of a swan. It sounded like a child in pain.

  ‘Well, the girls yeah, there’s always girls – ’ a pause ‘ – it can be difficult sometimes, you know.’

  ‘To say no?’ Erasmus didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Is that what happened with Jessica?’

  ‘I, we, I shouldn’t talk about – ’

  There was an electronic beep from Wayne’s large expensive watch. Relieved, he looked at it and then grinned his dopey grin at Erasmus.

  ‘Vitamin time!’

  He dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out a small pill tin, opened it and then popped one of the white tablets in his mouth.

  ‘Vitamins?’

  ‘Yeah, Dr Khan says I need them. He gives me shots as well.’

  He checked his watch again.

  ‘Hey, I gotta go. I said I’d meet Gary for a game of snooker. Any chance of a lift?’

  Erasmus sighed.

  ‘Sure, after you.’

  He watched Wayne lean forward and grip hold of the branch above the tunnel before letting go and descending. He couldn’t help noting Wayne’s hands: they were trembling.

  CHAPTER 19

  Erasmus felt like a nervous teenager again. He had spent longer than usual combing his unruly hair into something resembling what he imagined was a style. He held a bottle of wine, Rioja, of course, redolent of the bottle they had shared on their first holiday together when they were young, on a warm, lazy evening on a terrace in Llafranc. That evening they hadn’t finished the bottle before they were tearing each other’s clothes off. Fifteen years later and he was standing in front of a large house on the Wirral, the place all Scousers dreamt of ‘making it’ to, and the part of him that loved Karen hadn’t changed

  He pushed his hand through his mop again, and then, after taking a deep breath, he rang the doorbell.

  Karen answered almost immediately. She looked gorgeous, dark hair tumbling to her shoulders, a tight black roll neck and jeans that accentuated her long legs and athletic figure. She looked like his memory of her and the effect made Erasmus’s stomach perform acrobatics.

  She smiled and at him, noticed the wine, and then winked.

  ‘Come in, and let’s get that uncorked, though as I remember its effects on us are rather intense!’

  Erasmus was lost for words for a moment, and then he laughed, and held the bottle up as though to examine the label for the very first time.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed but now you mention it, perhaps we better not drink it?’

  She took the bottle from him.

  ‘Not a chance, it’ll bring back some good memories. Come on in.’

  He followed her into the house and through into the kitchen.

  ‘Nice house,’ he said, although it pretty much looked like every other thirty-something’s house he knew: floorboards, a bit of kitsch, ironic decorations and lots and lots of beige.

  She was looking through a kitchen drawer, rattling cutlery. She produced a corkscrew and held it up triumphantly.

  ‘Thanks. The divorce settlement was generous. That tends to happen when your husband is screwing the intern in his office.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said not meaning a word of it.

  ‘Wasn’t it you who told me life is just tearing up one rough draft after another and starting again? Well, I guess I’m starting another right now.’

  This time Karen looked directly at Erasmus as though throwing down a gauntlet. He held her gaze, they both said nothing, and then she looked away.

  ‘Let’s go through to the living room – ’ she touched his arm ‘ – it’s cosier.’

  Erasmus nodded and accepted the full glass of wine she passed to him.

  Karen led them through to the living room. A couple of lamps cast a soft glow and there was a fire burning in the open fireplace. He wondered what she would think of his living/kitchen area with its mean little gas fire. Steady, Erasmus, you are getting ahead of yourself here, he thought.

  Karen sat down in the corner of the sofa that was positioned directly opposite the fire and placed her glass of wine on a side table. There was an armchair at an angle to the sofa and fireplace and Erasmus looked at it.

  ‘Come and sit next to me, Erasmus. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a move on you,’

  It wasn’t her he didn’t trust though. He sat down next to her and took a sip of his wine.

  ‘Sorry for the whispering. Rebecca’s room is right above us and even though I know she’ll be in front of that computer screen right now, probably with her earphones in, I thought it better if we talked in here. You said that you had a proposal?’

  She moved a little closer to him. His mouth felt dry so he took another sip of the wine.

  ‘I also recall you said the same thing the last time you got me drunk on Rioja,’ she smiled.

  ‘That was a lifetime ago,’ he said not meaning it. He could remember everything as though it were yesterday: the crisp white sheets, the colour of her bikini, and the salty taste of her skin.

  She toyed with a strand of her long hair.

  ‘Do you sometimes wish …’ She halted.

  He held her gaze.

  ‘Everyday. I never understood why, you know. I thought everything was, well, perfect.’

  She looked up into the air.

  ‘I feel twenty-four again,’ she said laughing.

  ‘You never gave me a reason. You just left me hanging.’

  She cupp
ed her wine glass on her lap and then sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry. It seemed easier at the time. You want to know why I left you? It’s because I was scared.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Scared of what? We were about to go travelling, see the world, have a once in a lifetime adventure – ’

  ‘That you wanted,’ she interrupted.

  ‘That we both wanted.’ He leaned forward. The gap now was only a matter of inches between them. The hairs on his arms began to stand up, tickling him with delicious sensations.

  ‘I wanted you, Erasmus. But you, you always wanted something more. It’s part of you, and it still is. I can see it. It’s who you are. I thought I couldn’t live with that, that it would be like living on a rodeo horse. I wanted stability.’

  ‘And Tony offered you that.’ He drew away again.

  She placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘No, Tony just happened to be there to pick up the pieces. I loved you, Erasmus, but I knew I couldn’t be with you because of the chaos. You were always bouncing from one thing to the next, it was exhausting.’

  He thought of his life since Karen. It had been chaotic, only marshalled at times by the discipline of the army. He had always secretly seen the start of his chaos as the split that had sent him careering off like a particle from a smashed atom. Now, she was suggesting it had always been there, that it was the reason and not the symptom.

  ‘Chaos?’

  ‘You want the world, you need the adrenaline. I thought I couldn’t live with it.’

  He was supremely conscious of her hand on his arm.

  ‘And now?’ he asked.

  She moved closer, their lips brushed.

  There was the sound of a door slamming.

  Karen pulled away and patted her hair.

  ‘We need to talk about – ’ she mouthed ‘ – Rebecca,’ and pointed upstairs.

  Erasmus let out a theatrical smile and this seemed to break the tension. They both laughed.

  ‘We’ve got a way of putting a piece of software on Rebecca’s computer. It will mean we get to see everything, and I mean everything, she types. If you give me the go ahead we think we can start monitoring her computer this evening.’

  Erasmus explained about Charlie and the sock puppet account.

  Karen frowned.

  ‘I spoke with Rebecca’s teacher today. She knows her well and she told me that she thinks it’s probably just a phase, the cutting. She said it rarely led on to, you know, other things.’ She looked away and put a hand to her temple.

  ‘Well, maybe that’s true. Maybe you’re getting things out of proportion?’

  It was a mistake, her head snapped around.

  ‘Out of proportion? She is taking a knife to herself and I found her in the bath with a razor blade. You don’t live with your daughter, do you? You wouldn’t understand a mother’s bond.’

  And like that the guilt was fed and tore up through his stomach demanding to be satiated by drink or sex. He took a deep breath and tried to blank out thoughts of whisky and the arms of a stranger.

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I just want you to think things through.’ He kept his voice measured and calm although part of him wanted to scream back and tell her that not living with his daughter was the worst thing in his life.

  Her face switched in an instant from contorted rage to tears.

  ‘I’m sorry. I ask for your help and then treat you like this? I don’t know what I’ve become. I’m so sorry.’ Tears ran down her face.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  He leaned forward and held her in his arms. She looked up at him and then he was lost, it happened without conscious thought. Suddenly they were kissing, urgently and with the loss of years, making up for the things that couldn’t be said. It was more than passion or love making, it was a need, a compulsion that they both felt. She bit his neck and then pulled him back onto the sofa and on top of her, her hands unbuckling his belt and freeing him.

  ‘Now, quickly,’ she whispered.

  He pushed her pants to one side and entered her.

  ***

  He was right, of course, when was he ever wrong? He had known from the start how I felt and nobody!! NOBODY ever has.

  Mum and Dad pretend they do and they talk about what is was like for them, AS THOUGH IT’S THE SAME, HA!! And they love me, though they make me take pills for feeling normal, as though what they are is NORMAL! Their love wasn’t real, was it? She left him and now who has love? Real love, not companionship but LOVE, an understanding that what I feel, he feels.

  Nothing can ever be the same. I cry, the pain comes and I know he is feeling the ebb and flow of the darkness. We are like lighthouses in a inky sea fog, beams of light that occasionally cross and we see each other and KNOW_exactly who stands at the top of the lighthouse looking out, looking for each other. It is all that matters, that fleeting moment of recognition of your soul, it is all there is in this world and without it what would be the point. To end up like Mum, like Dad, empty vessels? Not for me.

  We knew that she could be like this, that she would stop us. You said the BITCH would do it and SHE has. For all the world, for all our LOVE, I, I above anybody else, understand why and its unfairness crushes my spirit and takes my breath. She will not take my soul because only I can give that away and I have given it to you, my love.

  We knew she might do this and I have no regrets with what we must do. My only regret is that I had not been the mother to your Jonathan and Katy, who are innocents, as are we, in this tragedy of love.

  Remember the lighthouses? They are turning quicker and quicker now. I see your soul and your suffering, faster and faster, the light is almost like a strobe and I see the anguish and pain in your face. I know what must be done, you are right and I know it too – I CANNOT AND I WILL NOT LIVE WITHOUT YOU!!

  I thought about it and for the innocents there is nothing we can do – THE BITCH will kill them. I saw the picture of little Jonathan’s arm and the burns, they were the worst thing I have ever seen! I cried so much. You know how much. It’s just not fair, my love. To do such a thing to a child when she only suspects. I truly believe that you are right and that she will kill them both if you leave her.

  There is nothing left. I see you in the light and you wave. I know what we must do.

  We must be together and we will. Tonight we will be together in the storm.

  The light spins faster now. Do you feel it too?

  I have the razor. We will do it together, as you said.

  The sweetness and slickness of the metal slicing through my virgin flesh. The wrist is easier than the shoulder. And the knowledge that each cut brings me to you makes the pain more deliciously sweet than any before.

  The darkness is being pushed away – do you feel it? I know you do, you feel me now. We are joining.

  It is warm now. Warmth flowing from each open vein. It is no longer cold out here in the sea. Do you feel it now? Are you there? I thought it wlld be cold but it warms me …

  I slep

  My keys are sowet, soak…are yo ut here??/

  Ar thevf/

  Pleaseeee

  Ans

  Red

  ***

  Karen gasped and Erasmus felt the years and the chaos melting away. At that same moment there was a crash from upstairs, the sound of something heavy landing on the floor. Karen pushed him away. Her eyes widened.

  ‘Rebecca!’

  She was moving and out of the door before Erasmus understood what the bump may mean. He ran after her, following her up the stairs, pulling up his trousers.

  At the top of the stairs she turned, running along a narrow hallway then started hammering against a bedroom door.

  ‘Let me in! Now!’

  She was crying and a look of panic and fear was on her face, a look that Erasmus had last seen on the face of one of his toughest sergeants in Afghanistan. A look that said something terrible had just happened.

  ‘Rebe
cca!’

  She saw Erasmus.

  ‘It’s locked can you – ’

  Erasmus was already running and he put his shoulder to the door before she had completed the question.

  CHAPTER 20

  The drive from Watson’s Point to their unit in Surrey Hills was one that Ella Logan thought she would never tire of. Even now, fifteen years after she had arrived in Sydney with a backpack, a student visa and £400, she still felt the differences, the strangeness, less pronounced for sure, but still she would always notice them, she reckoned, even when she had lived here longer than the place she still called home.

  She breathed in the salty air and the sweet fragrance of eucalyptus and geraniums. Maybe it was the fact that the memories and experiences you had as a child burned deeper and left more long-lasting grooves in your personality, she thought. Maybe that was why the place she had lived in for twenty-three would always be home and not here. Or maybe that was just sentimentality brought on by the fourth glass of Chablis she had had at the Fisherman’s Restaurant where she and Clive had spent a leisurely, summer’s afternoon enjoying a long and boozy lunch.

  Clive smoothly steered the Mercedes through the light, early evening traffic and she tried to remember how many beers he’d had – was it four or five? There was a time when this would have been the cause of a row between them, but not now, now she was ‘with the programme’ as Clive liked to say. Clive liked to say a lot of things he had heard on TV or at the golf club. A pang of old resentment, not sufficiently dowsed by the wine, made itself known in her stomach.

  Clive turned to face her and winked. For a second he was transformed into the boy she had met fourteen years ago at the Orient Hotel on the Rocks. It was the same stupid grin underneath the same, admittedly thinning, blonde shock of hair that had approached her as she played pool with a friend, and asked her if she thought it was appropriate for a girl as attractive as her to be playing a game suited to bludgers and brickies.