She can have anyone. She has had anyone, any time she's felt the itch. She doesn't need...She doesn't."
Alan stared at her, as if she were speaking a language whose words he understood but whose underlying meaning was foreign to him. A wave hit the side of the Sea Pit, and he flinched as if surprised at its strength and proximity. The spray from it hit them both. It was fresh and cold, salty against their lips. He said, -I'm completely lost."
She said, -You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."
-As it happens, I don't. I honestly don't."
Now was the moment. There was nothing left but to present him with the evidence she'd gathered and to speak the truth as she understood it. Kerra had left the postcard in her mother's bedroom, but the fact of the postcard still existed. She said, -I went to the cottage, Alan. I looked through your belongings."
-I know that."
-All right. You know that. I found the postcard."
-What postcard?"
- This is it. That postcard. Pengelly Cove, the sea cave, Dellen's writing on it in red and an arrow pointing straight to the cave. We both know what that means."
-We do?"
- Stop it. You've been working in that marketing office with her for... how long? I asked you not to. I asked you to take a job some place else. But you wouldn't, would you. So you sat in the office with her day after day and you can't tell me...You bloody well cannot claim that she didn't...You're a man, for God's sake. You know the signs. And there were more than just signs, weren't there?"
He stared at her. She wanted to stomp her feet. He could not possibly be so obtuse. He'd decided this was the way to go: to feign ignorance until she simply threw up her hands in defeat. How clever of him. But she was not a fool.
-Where were you the day that Santo died?" she asked him.
-Christ. You can't be thinking that I had something to do with - "
-Where were you? You were gone. So was she. And you had that postcard. It was in your room.
It said This is it and we both know what she meant. She'd begin with red. The lipstick. A scarf. A pair of shoes. When she did that...When she does that..." Kerra felt as if she would weep, and the very thought of weeping because of this, because of her, because of them, caused all of her anger to come roaring back, swelling within her to such an extreme that she thought it might explode from her mouth, a foul effluent capable of polluting whatever remained between her and this man whom she'd chosen to love. Because she did love him, only love was dangerous. Love put one where her father was, and that she could not begin to bear.
Alan was apparently beginning to track all this because he said, -I see. It's not Santo at all, is it?
It's your mum. You think that I...with your mum...the day Santo died. And this was supposed to have happened in that cave on the postcard?"
She couldn't reply. She couldn't even nod. She was working too hard to get back under control so that if she had to feel something - indeed, if she had to show that she felt something - what that something would be was rage.
Alan said, -Kerra, I told you: We talked about the video, your mum and I. I'd spoken to your dad about it as well. Your mum kept telling me about a spot along the coast that she thought would serve our purposes well because of the sea caves and the atmosphere they provided. She handed me that card and - "
-You are not that stupid. And neither am I."
He looked away from her, not at the sea but in the direction of the hotel. From the lip of the Sea Pit the old Promontory King George Hotel could not be seen. But the beach huts could, that neat blue and white line of them, the perfect spot for assignations.
Alan sighed. -I knew what she had in mind. She suggested we go to the caves and have a look, and I knew. She's rather painfully obvious and not very creative when it comes to innuendoes.
But then, I don't expect she's ever had to be creative. She's still a beautiful woman, in her way."
-Don't," Kerra said. Finally they'd come to it, and she found she couldn't bear to hear the details. It