The Woods, page 29
“Of course. I just wanted to make you aware. Also…there’s something else.”
“What?” I glance toward the window. The first people from the funeral are making their way up the lane.
“You told us you barely knew Greg Lewis, that you’d stopped working in the garden of Dean House. But you were seen. In the gardens with Mr. Lewis. Several people have told us you were there on many occasions right up to when he…disappeared.”
I’m flooded with memories of dirt under my nails, weak tea and ginger nut biscuits in a half-finished garden, muscles aching from digging. Old books about gardening, lessons about Latin names, lessons about plants and flowers.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “I…I don’t remember exact times. But I had stopped. All your witnesses, they’re the ones who are mistaken. Telling you about my visits would have muddied things. It would have stopped you from seeing—”
“Tess, it’s not your sister’s death that’s concerning us right now. It’s Greg Lewis’s, who was murdered. We know your state of mind is fragile right now. The incident at your school, the insomnia. You have to appreciate it looks…”
Suspicious. It looks suspicious. If I were on the outside looking in, I’d have the handcuffs out. I’d be arresting the crazy woman who attacks her students and sees her dead sister.
“Who told you, anyway? Was it Jack or Lena? You know he’s trying to stir things up, trying to implicate me or Dad…”
“I’m aware of the lingering hostilities. But you need to come into the station to answer some more questions. Tell us more about this…friendship between you, Greg Lewis, and your sister. There may be things you remember that can help us.”
“You need to go,” I say through numb lips. “I have fifty people coming back here from my stepmother’s funeral. You need to go.”
“I will. But don’t go anywhere, Tess. And you need to come to the station. I’ll expect you in the morning.”
What will I say when he asks those questions? Will I tell him about the last photo that was on the film in Bella’s camera? The photo that’s making me wonder…oh, it’s making me wonder the most awful things. Or will I tell him about the final argument I had with Bella and the terrible lie I told?
When did you stop sleeping, Tess? Bella whispers.
Was it after I died? Or was it before? What is it that’s waking you up every night? What do you need to remember?
THEN
Chapter 36
August 2008
It’s four days before the wedding and we’re trying on the bridesmaid’s dresses. I no longer have dirt under my nails. Bella is trying to do up the zipper on my dress. I’ve been sneaking downstairs at night and eating, unable to sleep until Bella gets in from wherever she’s been sneaking off to. She’s struggling to pull the zipper and I’m hot from humiliation, a scenario playing in my mind of having to go downstairs and tell Dad and Julia that I no longer fit into the dress.
There’s a tug and a whoop and the zipper is pulled up. It’s so tight I can barely breathe but it’s on.
“You look gorgeous,” Bella says as she steps next to me, but I turn away from the mirror. Her dress, two sizes smaller than mine, is loose around her waist. I frown. Julia already had to have it taken in on the last fitting and now it’s too big on her again. But the mint green goes beautifully with her blond hair and, even too skinny and pale, she looks like a princess. The jealousy is like hot needles pricking my skin. All I can imagine is Max, Sean, Jack—all of them—watching Bella walk up the aisle behind Julia. Then I picture them looking from her to me. My wicked imagination even puts Greg in the picture, watching from the entrance of the hall.
I want to take off the dress and take off my sixteen-year-old skin, peel off all the misery and aching want.
Bella’s face grows somber. Does she feel it too? Despite her beauty and the fact that everyone wants her, does she feel any of that misery? Of course she does.
“Tess, did Dad say anything to you about—?”
A car door slams and Bella spins around, her lace skirts swirling, her question forgotten, a smile growing on her face that chases away the sadness that was there only a few seconds before. “They’re here.”
The next day, the chaos of pre-wedding planning and the relentless heat has chased us into the woods. It’s only supposed to be a small wedding—the ceremony at the town hall, followed by a reception at home. But it keeps getting bigger and bigger, ten people becoming twenty becoming forty. Now there are four crates of champagne filling the kitchen and the plan for sandwiches and homemade sausage rolls has become a formally catered buffet. None of our moods are helped by the onset of a heatwave. Instead of lying around in the shade, the four of us were sweating as we carried hired chairs and glasses in and out of rooms, Jack and Sean nowhere to be bloody found. After Bella lost her temper over a dropped glass, Dad told us to take a break.
We haven’t come to the woods, just the two of us, for such a long time. The sun filters through the trees, making the light stripes of green and gold. It’s warm on my skin and I’m only wearing a T-shirt and shorts, my freckled knees dappled with bruises from banging them on the stacks of chairs we’ve been ferrying about. Bella sits next to me on a log, throwing stones into the almost dried-up stream. Her own legs in cut-off denim shorts are long and brown, smooth and freckle-free. But she’s gotten too thin. When did she get so thin and drawn-looking?
The stream smells stagnant, mud and rotting leaves and God knows what else sluggishly floating downstream. The smell coats the inside of my nose like something corporeal and I know it’ll linger there long after we get up and go home. Bella has the old camera next to her, the one Greg gave her.
“You have to stop going there,” I say.
“Going where?”
“To see him. Greg.”
Bella laughs. “What—are you my mother now, giving me orders?”
“You told me not to go there.”
She glances at me, a frown on her face. “That’s different. I can look after myself.”
“What—and you think I can’t? I’m sixteen, not six.”
There’s a long pause and I watch Bella dropping stones, a faraway look on her face.
“Tess? Did he ever touch you?”
My face goes hot. I can feel the sweat leaking through my T-shirt. “Touch me?”
“Touch you—hurt you?”
“Bloody hell, Bella—shut up!”
The squirming distaste her words elicit is as stagnant and rotten as the stream. Her words put that ugliness inside me. What I’m remembering is me lurching toward him, trying to kiss him. God. Greg Lewis. It’s her fault—her fault for telling me Max only saw me as a sister, making me humiliate myself trying to prove her wrong.
“God, of course not. Ugh, I can’t believe you’d—”
“He tried to kiss me.”
Stop. Stop. Her words are a slap in the face. He pushed me away, rejected me, was embarrassed by my stupid, clumsy pass. I remember the things he said about Bella and her friends, the squirm of fear I felt.
She keeps talking. “And I keep thinking about Nic, how she used to go on about him, about how sexy he was for an older man. I knew she had a secret boyfriend, someone besides Jack, but she refused to tell me about him. And now she’s dead and Greg grabbed me and kissed me and it was awful, it was like he was a stranger and…”
It feels like worms are crawling under my skin. The worst part of it is not the horror I feel, the jitter of fear, but the thread of something like jealousy, of something like hurt, because, once again, it’s her, always her who gets chosen. It’s not fair, I want to cry.
“Well, he didn’t just kiss me,” I shout at her. All a lie, stupid fat lies that come hurtling out. “He took me up to his bedroom and he did more than just touch me.”
He didn’t. He never did. He listened to me when I told him about Max, the crush I had. I told him, as we pruned roses and dug in the dirt. I told him about boys at school I had feelings for who never liked me back because they always saw Bella and liked her. Mugs of tea and soft ginger biscuits and sympathy and knowledge, that was what he gave me. Until I tried to kiss him and ran off and hadn’t been able to go back since.
I don’t want to believe it. Bella…Nicole…he wouldn’t have. Why would he? But if he didn’t, then Bella is lying to me, and why would she lie about that?
But I lie right back, such ugly, rotten, stagnant lies. “I went round there because I felt sorry for him because of the wedding and he gave me whisky and he…he started touching me.” I watch her face twist with revulsion, I watch her recoil and I’m glad to have shocked her, glad to have taken something from her.
“What did he do, Tess?” I hear the warning in her voice, but I can’t stop.
“He had sex with me.” The lie bursts out and my cheeks flood with color.
Bella’s hands squeeze mine too tight and tears spring into her eyes. “Oh God. Oh, Tess…”
The horror on her face makes me scrabble for other words, something to undo what I just said. I wanted to make her jealous. I thought…I thought she liked him, but she’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel dirty. “I tried to stop him like you did but he wouldn’t stop. I didn’t want to, but he made me…” I want to scrub at my own skin, sew my mouth shut. I’m saying this, spilling lies, none of it true. Greg never once looked at me in that way. Why did I say it? Because I wanted to punish him for pushing me away? Punish Bella because he wanted to kiss her?
Bella is breathing fast. She jumps up, starts pacing around. “We have to go to the police, tell them what he did to you. We have to—”
“No!” I get up and grab her arm. “I can’t. I can’t go to the police. Everyone would find out. I can’t do it.”
“Tess—we can’t let him get away with this. He’s a rapist, a pedophile…”
I shake my head, my lies blooming, building into something awful as Bella paces around. “What if it’s him?” Bella says. “What if he was Nic’s secret boyfriend? He tried to kiss me too and…the way he was, it was inappropriate. And Lena says he was the same with her. She thinks that’s why Julia left him, not because of Ellie.” She stops pacing and stares at me, her eyes huge. “What if he killed those girls? What if you’re next?”
Her words turn my stomach and I push past her to lean over the stream, only just making it before adding a splatter of vomit to the rotting trickle of brown water. Oh God, oh fucking hell, what have I done? I’ve started something and I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t tell her I was lying. Why would someone lie about that? I start crying and sink down onto the bank as she sits next to me and strokes my hair.
“No—stop it. It’s not…he’s not a bloody murderer. He’s Julia’s ex, Jack and Sean’s dad.”
“He raped you,” she says, her voice so damned cold.
“It wasn’t like that! You have to promise me you won’t say a word. To anyone. The wedding’s in three days—if you say anything, it would kill Dad and Julia. And I can’t…I won’t say anything. God, you know what this village is like.” My panic grows as my lie takes root and spreads. I can see it in her face, filling her up, eating her up. “Please, Bella—promise me you won’t say a word.”
She pulls me toward her and I bury my head in her T-shirt.
“Okay, little sis,” she whispers. “It’ll be our secret.”
It’s been two days since that awful confrontation with Bella in the woods. I’ve been out looking for her because the thread of fear that she’ll say something keeps growing bigger.
Dad and Julia are in the kitchen, talking in low voices. They’re surrounded by stacks of plates and boxes of glasses, and Julia’s dress is hanging in a zipped-up carrier on the back of the door.
My heart flutters. “What’s up?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. Maybe Bella has said something and that’s what Julia and Dad are talking about. I feel sick and wish I hadn’t come in and interrupted them.
I’m sorry, I’ll say. It’s not true, Bella got it wrong. She—
“It’s Greg,” Julia says. “He’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“We don’t know. The boys have been away with friends and when they got back to the house, it was locked up and he was gone. Suitcase, passport…all gone.”
I sit down. Oh God, is this because of me? My stupid mistake trying to kiss him, the horrible things I said? Has Bella been round there, accusing him with all my lies?
“Did he leave a message?”
“Apparently he texted Jack to say he was going away for a while.” Julia glances at Dad. “He couldn’t cope with the wedding, he said.”
That isn’t right. He wasn’t bothered about the wedding, I could see that when I went round there.
“So Jack and Sean are…”
“They’re here,” Dad says. “We’ve told them they can stay as long as they like. Until Greg comes back.”
“But—”
“I don’t want them staying in that house alone, Tess. Jack might be over eighteen, but Sean isn’t. And it’s my wedding—I want them here, they should be here with me. With us.”
Julia frowns and squeezes Dad’s hand. “This will make it easier, Leo. If Greg stays away, there’s no risk of…”
“Risk of what?” I blurt out.
“Tension,” Julia says. “Greg’s been making things difficult.”
“Difficult how?” My mind is swirling. He told me he wasn’t bothered, he sounded so casual about it.
“Coming over, threatening Leo.”
“Threatening? When did this happen?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Dad says, but he doesn’t look at me as he says it. “He’s gone—the wedding will be perfect now.” He leans over and kisses Julia and I turn away.
None of this seems right. I can’t imagine Greg threatening Dad. He genuinely didn’t seem bothered about the wedding. But…but what if the threats had nothing to do with the wedding? What if he came round after I tried to kiss him and said those terrible things? A picture grows in my mind of Greg telling Dad to keep me away from him; of Greg telling Dad I had some stupid stalker crush on him, telling him about the kiss. Was that why Dad couldn’t look at me?
All these awful thoughts and more, they won’t go away. My dad is so mild and gentle, but what would he do if Julia’s ex told him his baby daughter had been round his house drinking and kissing him? What would it take to make my quiet father snap?
And where has Greg gone? What about his business? What about his sons? Did I do this with the angry threats I screamed at him when I went there? I think about the lies I told Bella and the trickle of fear becomes a full-on flood. What if she went round there and confronted him with what I said to her? If she did, then this is my fault. I made him run. How am I supposed to even look at Jack and Sean now? They’re going to know—they’re going to see guilt in my face.
The wedding is tomorrow. I have to speak to Bella. I have to tell her the truth before my lies get out and blow this whole thing apart.
August 2008: The Day of the Wedding
I wince as a hairpin jabs into my head but don’t say anything because Julia is working miracles. I watch in the mirror as she tames my frizz into a sleek coiled updo that makes my face look thinner and more…grown up. Her own hair is a mass of curlers and she’s still in her bathrobe. She shouldn’t be wasting her time on me on her own wedding day but she insisted.
She catches my eye in the mirror and smiles. “What do you think?”
“I love it,” I say, smiling back. “Can you get up at six and do my hair like this every day?”
She laughs and steps back. “There, you’re done.” She pauses. “Thank you, Tess.”
“For what?” I say, getting up and unzipping the dress carrier hanging on the front of my wardrobe.
“For everything.”
“It’s going to be brilliant,” I say. “The weather is perfect and we have enough champagne to get the whole world drunk.”
“Well then,” she says. “I’d better go and get ready, hadn’t I?”
Bella comes in as Julia leaves and my smile fades. We haven’t spoken since the weird trip to Dean House last night, but in the light of day, I can see how thin and tired she looks. She’s been acting weird for days and the look she shoots me now is angry, like I’ve done something wrong. It makes my stomach turn over—does she know? Has she guessed I lied to her? I feel sick. Why did I say it? Why, why, why? I’ve tried to tell her the truth, so many times. Even last night, when she took me to Dean House, I wanted to tell her but the words wouldn’t come out.
I sip champagne and stand in the shadows watching Dad and Julia dance to the live jazz band they’ve hired for the reception. It’s such a beautiful day. The forecast has been threatening a break in the heatwave, promising storms, but there’s no sign of it yet, other than a single dark cloud in the sky. The day has been perfect—bittersweet for me, watching Dad marry someone else. Bella disappeared with Max and Lena as soon as the ceremony was over and I’ve been wandering round like a spare part ever since, pinching too many glasses of champagne.
I blink as I see someone come in through the side gate. It’s Max. Where has he been? He’s frowning and staring down at his phone as he walks toward the house and I impulsively follow him.
I find him in the kitchen filling a glass from an open bottle of champagne.
“Is there enough in there for me?” I ask, keeping my voice light. I stand next to him as he fills my glass and his arm brushes against mine. My heart is pounding. I’ve hardly seen him in the buildup to the wedding and this is the first time we’ve been alone in forever.
He fills the glass too fast and the champagne fizzes over the top and down my arm.
“Shit,” he says, reaching for a cloth. “Fuck’s sake. Sorry, Tess.”
“It’s fine,” I say, laughing. “Are you okay? You seem distracted.”
