The Rumor, page 2
“Then, one day, everything changed. I still remember the blood. The way it seeped out of him and turned his shirt red. The way it bubbled up around the knife. And his eyes. His little blue eyes. I knew he was dead just from looking at them.”
Asked about her reaction to the fact that McGowan is reported to have been released in the early eighties and has been living as a free woman ever since, Margaret said: “It’s not right, is it, after what she did? I mean, I know she had a hard time at home, but plenty of kids suffered just as bad and they didn’t do what she did. My heart goes out to Robbie’s family. This anniversary must be raking it all up again.”
I glance at the clock. Shit. It’s almost two thirty. Time to get Alfie.
I grab my bag, stuff my feet into my sneakers without undoing the laces, and open the front door. I can’t believe I’ve wasted all this time messing around on the internet, and now I haven’t made any notes for this evening’s book club.
* * *
—
ALFIE IS FIRST out of the classroom, his frizzy hair damp with sweat.
“Why are you so hot?”
“Gym,” he says. “I got to the very top of the climbing wall.”
I’m not sure how I feel about him scaling one of those things. When I was a little girl, I was bullied by some overzealous first-grade teacher into climbing higher than I was comfortable with and ended up falling onto the mats on my back and having the wind knocked out of me. I thought I was going to die. But I don’t want to discourage Alfie. He’s clearly not as awkward and uncoordinated as I was—as I still am. Alfie actually likes gym.
“Wow!” I say. “That was brave.”
“Liam and Jake said I was a show-off and Jake told Miss Williams I pushed him, but I didn’t.”
Oh no. This is supposed to be a fresh start. New school. New friends. I couldn’t stand it if he was bullied again. It’s one of the reasons I came back here in the first place. That and feeling guilty about working such long hours and having to rely on a babysitter.
Alfie kicks at a stone. “Jake’s always saying mean things.”
Jake Hunter, Cathy’s son. That figures. I squeeze Alfie’s hot little hand. “He’s probably just jealous that you’re a better climber than he is.”
Alfie tugs at my arm. “Is Grandma still coming tonight?”
“Of course. And she’s bringing cupcakes.”
He grins and punches the air. My shoulders relax. This spat with Jake Hunter can’t be that bad, not if he’s forgotten it already. It helps having Mom around the corner, of course. Not to mention the beach. It was definitely the right decision to leave the city and move here. Even if I did have to say goodbye to my lovely little apartment and my well-paid job and my friends (thank God for Facebook) and…well, my whole life basically. Having a child changes everything. And when your child is unhappy, you do whatever you can to make them smile again.
Before Alfie came along, I hadn’t been in a relationship for years and having a baby was the last thing on my mind. I’d worked my way up to becoming the listings manager for a large real estate firm, overseeing their entire rental-property portfolio. I drove a silver Audi A3, I lived in a small but fashionable second-floor apartment that was all sharp lines and minimalism, and my cooking skills didn’t extend to much more than popping a Trader Joe’s meal into the microwave.
Then I hooked up with Michael Lewis, an old friend of mine from college. It was only ever going to be a casual fling. Michael’s an investigative journalist, which isn’t exactly a career that lends itself to a stable family life, and to be honest I was enjoying my independence, too. We became—what’s the expression?—“friends with benefits.” What we didn’t realize was that one of those “benefits” would turn out to be Alfie.
I’ll never forget Mom’s face when I told her. I don’t know what was the bigger shock: me being pregnant or Michael being black.
Michael was fabulous. Still is. He didn’t freak out or immediately offer to pay for an abortion. He sat me down and told me he’d support me in whatever it was I decided to do. He said that if I went ahead with the pregnancy, he’d play as big or as little a role as I wanted him to. He even offered to marry me.
I can’t pretend I wasn’t tempted, but I knew he was only offering because of Alfie. Besides, if we’d gotten married and it hadn’t worked out—and let’s face it, how many relationships do these days—we might have ended up hating each other’s guts like my parents did, and that wouldn’t have been good for Alfie.
This way, we’re still the best of friends and Alfie gets a proper relationship with his dad, which is more than I ever had.
Alfie waves at someone on the other side of the street. It’s the woman from the ranch house opposite the school. She straightens up from where she’s been bending over her rosebushes and waves back at him, pruning shears in hand. A few weeks ago, just after Alfie started school, he fell over and scraped his knee on the sidewalk and she was kind enough to come out with a Band-Aid. Made a real fuss over him.
An unwelcome thought pops into my mind. What if she’s Sally McGowan, with an unencumbered view into the school playground? I’m being paranoid, I know I am. There’s no reason it should be her any more than this woman walking toward us now with her shopping bag on wheels.
The demographic in Flinstead is older than the national average. People retire here. From the city, mostly, drawn to the sea and the slower pace of life. Except for the beach and one main street of stores, that’s it. For anything more exciting, you have to drive for half an hour, or jump on a bus if you don’t mind waiting forever. It’s why I was so desperate to get away and live in the city the minute I turned eighteen, but it’s different now. I’ve got Alfie to think about.
Back home, in my little galley kitchen that will be utterly transformed when I get around to painting the cabinets, I make Alfie his after-school snack and listen to the familiar strains of the Star Wars soundtrack blaring out of the living room. I can’t imagine life without Alfie. Nothing could have prepared me for the joy of having a child. Or the terror. I take his sandwich in and try not to think about the nightmare that poor Robbie Harris’s mother had to endure, all those years ago. But try as I might, I can’t stop the images spooling out in my mind, imagining that it’s Alfie’s limp, bloodstained body I’m cradling in my arms.
I always do this. Conjure up the worst possible thing that could happen to him. Maybe every parent does. Maybe this morbid imagination is what we need to keep our children safe.
I snuggle up to him on the sofa and kiss the top of his head. What kind of child could stab a five-year-old boy through the heart?
3
“I’LL BE BACK BY TEN,” I tell Mom. “Don’t let him have any more cupcakes.”
Mom ruffles Alfie’s freshly washed hair and laughs. “It’s a good thing you’re always running around, young man, or you’d look like one of those big fat sumo wrestlers.”
Alfie throws back his head and roars with exaggerated laughter.
Outside, I pull my jacket on and set off toward Liz Blackthorne’s house for book club, head bowed against the sudden gust of wind. The nights are getting colder and darker now. The smell of damp earth and wet leaves hangs in the air. I push my hands into my pockets and walk faster.
Liz lives right on the waterfront. The wind is even stronger here, barreling in off the ocean. As usual, I evaluate each house I pass. Michael often jokes that, like journalists, real estate agents are never off the clock. While he’s always on the lookout for newsworthy stories, I’m sizing up properties. Writing sales copy in my head. Guessing the market value.
When I pass the empty house with the boarded-up windows and the overgrown garden, I can’t help wondering who it belongs to and why they’ve never done anything with it. It could be stunning if it was renovated. Maybe the owner died without a will or didn’t have any heirs. Or maybe they just don’t want it anymore. Imagine that. Imagine letting an investment rot away. Although you’d have to spend a bundle to bring it up to code. It’s like a lot of old houses around here—they might look great on the outside, but inside they’re falling apart.
Liz’s house is one of those Dutch-style affairs with a gambrel roof. It reminds me of a face—the sharply pitched roof slopes like straightened hair and the two semicircular upstairs windows look like hooded eyes, peeping out across the water. I love it.
“Come in,” Liz says, and we give each other the customary peck on each cheek.
With her three-quarter-length harlequin jacket and her long white hair, which this evening she’s wearing in a thick braid coiled around her neck and over the front of her shoulder, she looks even more stylish than usual. If I look half as good as Liz Blackthorne when I’m her age, I’ll be thrilled.
I follow her into her dining room, where the other four are already sitting around the polished mahogany table, tucking into olives and Kettle chips and drinking wine. This is just the kind of room I’d like. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the alcoves on either side of the chimney, original artwork on the walls—most of it painted by Liz—and, under the window, a Turkish ottoman draped in vintage fabric and heaped with cushions. Liz has a gift for dressing a room that makes it look like a bohemian salon. A hodgepodge of patterns and colors that miraculously complement one another. It must be the artist in her. If I tried something similar, it’d look a complete mess. Maybe I should ask her to advise me on what to do with my place.
“You’ve just missed a very interesting conversation about flashers,” Liz says.
She gives me a pointed look and I smile. I feel a real connection with Liz. I’ve always been drawn to friendships with older women. Women comfortable in their own skin. Women who aren’t afraid to be unapologetically themselves.
One thing’s for sure: Mom was right about me joining a book club. It’s just what I need. Most of my old school friends have long since left the area and, though I occasionally see one or two familiar faces, we’ve little in common now. I still meet up with Tash, of course, and one or two of the others from my old life, but not as often as I’d like. It might only be four months since I washed back up in Pleasantville, as Tash somewhat disparagingly calls this town, but in many respects it feels like a lifetime.
Laughter ripples around the table and glasses are refilled. Liz slides an empty glass toward me and nods at the array of bottles on the sideboard.
“I started it, I’m afraid,” Barbara says, her deep, plummy voice loud in my ear. If she drinks any more, she’ll lapse into her native Georgia accent.
Barbara is a member of the town council. A large woman with an even larger personality whose wardrobe seems to consist mostly of smart black trousers and sensible shirts. She reminds me of one of my old colleagues: loud and opinionated, but very funny, too.
“Now, why does that not surprise me?” I say. More giggles. I’ve definitely got some catching up to do in the wine department. Even Maddie, who usually sticks to tea, is knocking it back tonight.
“Okay, then.” Liz’s voice is only fractionally louder than everyone else’s, but something in its tone brings us all to attention. “I suppose we’d better start,” she says.
This month’s read—Alain de Botton’s Consolations of Philosophy—was entirely Liz’s choice and is a departure from our normal fare of contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in. It’s Barbara’s turn next month and, judging by what I’ve just spotted poking out of her handbag, she’s chosen Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I was hoping for something a little lighter, to be honest. Something feel-good for a change.
As usual, Barbara isn’t backward in coming forward. This is my fourth meeting and I don’t think she’s liked a single book yet. She tells us she doesn’t care for this populist reading of great minds and, as someone who’s virtually given up all hope of meeting a suitable partner, she isn’t comforted by Schopenhauer’s views on love being merely a vehicle for the propagation of genes.
“I mean, what does that say about me? That my genes aren’t worthy of being passed on? Not that I could pass them on now,” she mutters into her wineglass. “Not without divine intervention.”
We all chuckle.
“Well, if you won’t be consoled by Schopenhauer, what about Nietzsche?” Liz says, fixing Barbara with her large, serious eyes. “I love his idea that we’re nourished by all the shitty things that happen to us in life, that we become better people as a result.”
Barbara snorts. “I’ve had so much shit thrown at me over the years, I’m surprised I’m not a paragon of virtue by now.”
I tell them how much I enjoy following de Botton’s School of Life posts on Twitter and Facebook. Barbara makes a face. “Thank God I’ve never gotten involved with social media,” she says, as if I’ve just admitted to a shameful vice.
Inevitably, as the evening wears on, the focus of our conversation moves away from Socrates and Seneca and the rest, and turns to one another and our respective news. Tonight, it’s poor Jenny under the spotlight. Jenny is our youngest member. A newly licensed nurse, slim, shy, and intelligent, with dark-blond hair in a ponytail and a taste for short dresses and opaque black tights. Karen is quizzing her on her love life and Jenny looks distinctly uncomfortable.
I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of Karen’s inquisitions. She tried it on me once, and I hated it. I wasn’t in the mood to explain my unusual relationship with Alfie’s dad. I didn’t see why I should and I don’t like being put on the spot like that. Neither does Jenny, by the look of things.
I’m not sure I could tolerate Karen’s company more than once a month, which is a shame because, on the face of it, we’re quite similar. Both in our mid-thirties with a school-aged child. Both avid readers. And, like me, she moved here from the city, although she’s been here a few years now. She and her husband run a computer-graphics company, and she’s heavily involved with the PTA at Alfie’s school. At my first book-club meeting, she started giving me the lowdown on life in Flinstead as if she were the old hand and I the newcomer. When I told her I went to school here and that there isn’t a square inch of Flinstead I don’t know about, she looked almost annoyed, as if I was trying to show off. Maybe I was.
I help myself to more wine. “Can I top up anyone’s glass?” I say, hoping to divert the attention from Jenny. But only Barbara takes me up on my offer.
“So how long have you been seeing him?” Karen says. She leans in toward Jenny, eyes wide behind her geeky glasses, the blunt ends of her straight dark hair swinging out over the table. “Is it serious?”
Jenny blushes. The poor woman’s neck has turned all red and patchy and I feel a sudden need to protect her from Karen’s persistent questioning. Aren’t people allowed to have a love life without the whole town knowing about it?
“Just out of curiosity,” I say, “has anyone heard of Sally McGowan?” It’s the first thing that pops into my head.
Karen looks at me, astonished. Oh dear, why on earth did I say that? Typical me, engaging my mouth before my brain. Liz shoots me a quizzical frown. At least I think it’s quizzical. I get the impression she’d rather steer the conversation back to books. Which is exactly what I should have done.
Karen stares at me from behind her glasses and blinks like an owl. “The only Sally McGowan I know of is that child killer from the sixties. I remember my mom telling me about it.”
“God, yeah,” Maddie says. “You’re not thinking of making us read a book about her, are you, Jo? Because I honestly don’t think I’d want to read anything like that.” She shudders. “I’d find it too distressing.”
I don’t know what to make of Maddie yet. She reminds me of a little bird. Bright, beady eyes always darting from one face to another. High-pitched voice that warbles when she gets excited. Her daughter works in finance. Something high-powered downtown. I get the feeling she takes advantage of Maddie. It must be a lot cheaper and more convenient than a nanny. I know Mom helps me out a lot with Alfie, but I’d never expect her to do it full-time.
“No, nothing like that. I heard her mentioned earlier today, that’s all.”
“So what was it?” Liz asks, casually reaching for an olive. “Something on the news?”
“No. Just something I overheard when I was dropping Alfie off at school. A silly piece of gossip. You know what Perrydale Elementary’s like. It’s a hotbed of salacious tidbits.”
Maddie laughs. “You’re right about that. Every time I pick up my granddaughter, I hear something I wish I hadn’t.”
“Come on, then, Jo,” Liz says. Her eyes are wide. Inquisitive. “Don’t keep us on tenterhooks.”
I clear my throat. It’s too late to wriggle out of it now. Everyone’s waiting for my answer.
“I’m sure it’s a load of garbage, but someone mentioned they’d heard something about her living in Flinstead, under a new identity.”
“Jeez,” Jenny says.
Barbara puts her glass down on the table and stares at me, openmouthed. Her cheeks are flushed from the wine. “My parents used to say you could tell she was evil just from looking at her eyes.”
Liz snorts with derision.
“Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Karen says. “Flinstead would be the perfect place to hide out. I mean, who’d ever think to look for her here?”
The question hangs in the air, unanswered. Is it my imagination or has the rumor changed the mood of our gentle, bookish gathering?
4
MICHAEL ARRIVES AT TEN PAST eight on Saturday morning, straight from the airport. I open the front door, and for a few seconds I can’t speak. Whenever I see him after some time away, I’m struck by his physical presence. The way he occupies space. The way he owns it. He’s not bodybuilder-big, but there’s this aura of strength about him. Strength and gentleness—a very sexy combination—and this morning, combined as it is with a couple of days’ stubble and the fact that his crumpled white shirt looks so good against his black trousers and black skin, he looks even sexier than usual, which is infuriating when I know how tired he must be.
