Chapter 25 #2
Still, there’s something about the cold light of day and the clear-headedness it brings, that makes me look at things a little differently.
The fear of last night dials down a notch.
There’s still the ache of dread in my belly, but I’m willing to consider the possibility that everyone just got carried away – me included.
Perhaps the stuff about Gen being unhinged and unkind was true, but there’s absolutely no evidence she was murdered.
She was high, drunk, sad. She really might have waded out into the estuary, convinced Leo or I would come after her.
And when we didn’t, perhaps she went a little further to punish us.
Serve them right if I drown and they find my cold, dead body.
I can imagine that. It’s in keeping with what I know about her – even in my gilded memory of her she’s a drama queen.
But she wouldn’t have planned to die, not at all. She’d have felt as invincible as always. It would have been a cry for help, a plea for attention.
A tragic accident after all.
Not murder.
That version of the story suits me much better.
Still, I’ll find a good therapist when I get home.
I’ve clearly got a lot of trauma locked in from Mum’s death, from my relationship with Gen and the nature of her passing.
The fact that I’ve blanked out so many memories so completely is testament to that.
I’ll need to work through it all if I’m to move on.
Last night was carnage. But as Euan pointed out, we were all wasted, and now I know Alex was doing drugs again it makes sense that he wasn’t making sense.
We all got carried away and with the isolation of the storm we were primed for a good story.
I’m sure that’s all it was – I need that to be all it was.
Considering the prospect of escape, I am propelled into action, eager to quit this place.
Sitting shivering in the huge bed, I can hardly believe that I went as far as to Google that stuff. Did I really contemplate that I might be a murderer?
I fling off the duvet, thinking clearly again, and then something catches my eye: a stain on the sheet below. I lean over for a better look. The smears on the sheets look like … mud.
Why would there be mud on my sheets? I leap out of bed and spin round, hands on hips, as if a clue might reveal itself to me somehow.
That’s when I see the footprints.
A muddied slice for the heel, a few half-formed ridges.
The muddy prints lead towards my en suite. With doom in my heart, I rise and silently follow them. In the en suite, all seems normal at first glance, but when I pull back the shower curtain, I see more muddy smears in the shower bed. In the corner of the shower, balled up, I find a pair of socks.
My socks. Purple Bridgedales.
I look around, panicked. Behind the sink I spot something and spring forward to snatch it up. Twisted into a damp ball, are my Merino wrist-warmers. I shake them out and hold them up to the light. I wore these yesterday on my walk with Jameson, but I know I hung them up to dry in the boot room.
I leave the socks and wrist-warmers on the side of the bath and go back into my bedroom. I pace for several minutes, trying to calm myself. What does this mean?
The dream comes back to me: I’m out in the snow, disorientated and filled with rising terror. Chasing or being chased, I can’t tell.
Did I go outside last night?
Why would I do that, and why can’t I remember?
Numb, I brush my teeth. I can’t face cleaning up the mess I’ve made so I just pull my hair back in its usual claw-clip and get dressed.
Given the freezing temperatures I layer up – baggy dungarees, a thermal top and a sloppy wool sweater over the top.
Thick socks – a fresh pair, as I try not to think about the damp Bridgedales in my shower.
Despite my attempts to rationalise everything, I’m not looking forward to facing them all this morning.
I bring my phone and duck into Lord Morrow’s study again.
The home phone is on a side table. Still shivering – I hope Euan can get the generator going – I pluck the handset out of its cradle hoping the base unit has enough charge to have withstood the power cut.
I put it to my ear but there’s nothing. I press a few buttons.
The display lights up – there’s residual charge in the handset.
But the line is dead.
I try not to panic as I stab buttons, on the phone and the router too. I don’t know if the issue is the power outage or if the phone lines have been felled further up the valley, brought down by the weight of snow.
Either way, once we get the generator going it should be okay. With Wi-Fi I can email Mitch, even if I can’t call him. I have only a vague sense of how Wi-Fi works – does it require a functional landline? If the phones are down, will the internet go down too?
It could take days for the phone company to get an engineer out to fix it.
Still, there must be a way for me to contact my brother. Don’t panic, Eilish.
I just want to get back to my simple, orderly little life. With no drama.
No love either.
Jameson’s face comes to my mind, but I push it away. He defended me, but I don’t know for certain that I deserve defending … Things are messed up and what we’ve been through is no basis for a relationship.
Maybe I just felt like taking a walk in the night to clear my head. I think again about the mud and wet socks and wrist-warmers. I’m trying to make it make sense.
I head for the kitchen. I meet Becca in the hallway, walking in the same direction. Great. I can barely look at her. I’m desperate to ask her if she still thinks I’m a murderer this morning or if she too has had time to reflect on the lunacy of last night.
She has the grace to look embarrassed, but she’s Bex Morrow so she brazens it out. ‘Eilish! How did you sleep?’
I stare at her. I’m not in the mood to keep the peace and play nice today. ‘Are you serious? Not great. My friends accused me of murder last night so … there’s that.’
She winces and reaches for my hand. I let it hang loose and unresponsive in her grip. ‘About that … We might have taken things a bit far.’
‘You mean, you don’t think I murdered Genevieve and have been lying about it all these years? You haven’t believed that of me for the past decade?’
Her lips twist. ‘I mean, I did. We did. But it was easier to believe from a distance, you know. There was the way you ran away, your wet clothes, the big scene when Alex told you what Gen had done to Jameson. It sort of made sense in our heads.’
‘Oh I’m glad it was a nice, neat solution for you.’
‘Listen to what I’m saying, Eilish. It was easier to think of you that way when you weren’t right in front of me. Seeing you now, I mean, you don’t really give murdery vibes.’
‘That’s because I haven’t murdered anyone.
’ I resist the urge to cross my fingers behind my back in childish gesture, hoping desperately that this is true.
Because there’s still an outside chance that they were bang on the money last night.
That I entered some dissociative state and killed my best friend for what she’d done to me, and have spent the last ten years hiding the truth from myself.
We descend the stone stairs in less than companionable silence.
In the kitchen we find Leo, Kimmy and Jameson standing in the middle of the room.
There’s no smell of coffee brewing or bacon cooking.
Euan is absent – hopefully sorting the bloody generator so we don’t all freeze to death before lunch.
‘He can’t have gone far,’ Leo is saying. ‘He must be in the house. I mean, it’s a big fucking house. He’s probably passed out somewhere.’
I look sadly at the empty coffee pot. I’ll have to start from scratch if I want a cup. ‘What’s going on?’ Becca demands.
Everyone swivels to look at us, and I am reminded of last night.
The sensation of being stared at is like a sucker punch.
I pick up the kettle and turn to the sink to fill it, trying to conceal how badly my hands are shaking.
‘FYI, I’m still going home today,’ I say.
‘I just need to get in touch with my brother—’
‘Eilish, we don’t have time to worry about that now.’ Leo looks agitated, running his hands through his fair hair until it stands up like dandelion fluff. Someone should tell him that doing that is not helping his hairline.
‘What’s going on?’ Becca repeats, more forcefully, and I become aware of the mood of the room – I was too preoccupied to notice before but now I realise that all three of them look stricken and an air of agitation hangs over the kitchen.
‘It’s Alex,’ Jameson says gruffly. ‘We can’t find him anywhere. He’s … missing.’