The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,8
up for winter. In fact, we took blankets and a bottle of champagne and he took me right out to sea, then furled the sails and we floated together, naked, drinking and making love and drinking some more until the wind turned and the chill across the water finally forced us to put our clothes on and head back to the shore.
Seeing it again, now, his death seemed impossible. I would wake up tomorrow and this would be nonsense, all of it.
Ralph would be there at school, an elusive, charismatic figure disappearing into a classroom to share his passion for Shakespeare or Keats or Milton and Anna would be out in the playground at lunchtime, chasing her friends or playing hopscotch, hair flying, not a care.
Helen turned into the shadowy, deserted car park and came to a stop at the far end, close to their friend’s boathouse. She climbed out and opened up the back.
I forced myself to follow her. Already, she was rummaging inside, dragging her dead husband towards the lip. The wind, rough with salt, whipped across my face as I helped her.
We worked in silence, carrying the bulky surfboard cover across the shingle to the edge of the water and dumping it there. Freezing water seeped into my shoes. She headed back at a run to the boathouse and unlocked the double doors, then together we pulled the dinghy across the stones to the edge of the water on its metal, wheeled frame.
She climbed inside and I handed her the mast, then watched, uselessly, as she set about attaching it and trimming the sails. Ralph lay on the beach beside me. Near enough for me to reach out with my toe and touch him. It wasn’t too late. I could still turn and run, call the police and tell them everything, beg for mercy.
I thought about what she’d said. Manslaughter. She was right. I’d killed him, however it had happened. They’d send me to prison for years. I shuddered, trying to imagine being locked up in a small cell, at the mercy of hardened criminals. I’d never survive.
Helen’s movements were quick and sure. She seemed an experienced sailor. I thought of the shock on her face when she’d stood, frozen, in the doorway, staring at me in horror. Then, the desperate pain of her weeping. Now, she was pouring every ounce of her strength into holding herself together, into coping. Into stopping herself thinking about the fact that her husband, the man whose bed she shared every night, the father of her child, lay cold in our makeshift body bag on the wet stones at our feet.
Once the sails were secured, she bent forward over the side of the dinghy and gestured impatiently to me to drag the surfboard bag closer over the loose stones, to lift one end – I imagined his head and shoulders, stiff now – and help her heave it on board. We managed it together, both sweating and grunting.
Finally, she drew the dinghy clear of the frame and together we slid it deeper into the water until it rocked and swayed on the waves. I took off my shoes and tights and splashed through the shallows, pushing the dinghy ahead of me as far as I could. My feet ached in the ice-cold water, my arches stabbed by stones sticking out of the sand.
As soon as the dinghy was properly afloat, she gestured to me to grab the rubber handle on the side and pull myself on board. I fell head first into the boat, then shuffled sideways to sit on a coil of rope, keeping as far away as I could from the surfboard bag, my wet feet stinging with cold, my hands thrust into my pockets, and watched her manoeuvre into the wind, catching the force of the night breeze and taking us steadily further out onto the black water. Please, God. What had I done?
The weak lights of the coast shrank to points. Darkness pressed down on us, broken only by the dim glow from the dinghy’s small, mounted lights. One, near the rim where I was sitting, spilled over onto the water, illuminating the black waves which were now whipped high by the wind. The dinghy bounced and splashed its way forward. Another light, fixed to the mast, glistened in Helen’s eyes. Her expression was intent. She was clearly concentrating hard, lost in her battle to keep us stable in the gathering swell.
Finally, she tied off the sail