Page 29 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)

“Growing up in the work camp was bloody horrible. That’s why she fought so hard for me to get out.

She wanted a better life for me. When I won that scholarship to Oxford, the first thing she said was, ‘You must find a rich man there.’” Isobel gave a sad little smile.

“When Noah came along, she was ecstatic.”

“That’s not why you married him, though, is it?”

“Oh, God, no.” Isobel laughed. “I love your father. He’s a good man, like I said.

I know it looks like we have nothing in common, but he grounds me.

Also…” She lowered her voice, as if confessing some dark secret.

“The truth is that he loves me more than anything or anyone else in the world, and I need that. There’s nothing I can do that will make him stop loving me, and I need someone who’ll always be there for me, no matter how many mistakes I make.

” There wa s a wistful expression in her eyes as she turned to him.

“I hope you find someone like that, too, one day. We need it, I think. You and I are alike in that. Find him, Alex, find that one person who sees beneath your looks and loves you for you, who grounds you and keeps you safe, no matter what silly mistakes you make. Someone steadfast, who never wavers. I know stoicism and stability are old-fashioned values, but there’s a lot to be said for them.

Find someone who looks at you like your father looks at me, Alex – he’ll be worth it. ”

Alex coloured at the “he”, and his mother laughed again. “You should get used to it, darling, if that’s how it’s to be for you.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it all about me. It’s Charles’s time,” Alex mumbled.

“It’s been Charles’s time for years. Now he’s won his medal, I rather think it’s Alex’s time, don’t you?

” She put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed.

“When we get home, we’ll talk about next steps.

It was terribly naughty of you to be expelled again, but I must admit I’m glad you’re not going back to boarding school.

We’ll spend some time together and have tons of fun.

” She leaned back on her hands and gazed out over the water, her blonde hair rustling in the light breeze.

“You know, darling, this has all been quite an endeavour and I’m rather glad it’s done. ”

“You aren’t going to stop coaching Charles, are you?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I just mean that your brother is older now and he’s achieved what we set out to do.

Anything else he accomplishes is a bonus.

He may wish to retire, or forge a new path.

He’s certainly set for life with all these sponsorship deals, and maybe he’d like to try broadcasting – he has the looks for it.

It’s been glorious, but I’d like a new challenge now.

” She smiled at him. “I always used to resent my mother for living through her child, and then I did the same. I need to forge my own path, now your brother’s had his success. I need to find new challenges.”

He’d felt so grown up with her talking to him in that way. It was one of his most treasured memories. He wished she’d had a chance to find those challenges she sought.

Maura and Razin giggled and splashed happily in the pool, making him smile. He watched until Razin grew tired and Maura insisted it was time for his supper. The little boy threw a minor tantrum, but she was having none of it, and soon they’d said their goodbyes and left him there, all alone.

It was quiet without them. They’d injected a sense of normality into his very abnormal existence. He couldn’t say he missed them because he wasn’t aware of feeling anything, but it was so very quiet now.

The pool looked inviting. He removed his robe and sank, naked, into the water. Was that when it had started, this long, slow descent into hell? On the shore of Long Lake, all those years ago, with one little secret? He thought maybe it was. One secret that had led, inexorably, to so many others.

He turned onto his back, gazing up at the stars, slivers of memories slipping into his mind, jumbled up and disjointed.

A moment from his childhood, a brief scene from his university days, a few words, a vivid sunset, little fragments of time long since gone.

Often, they made him smile, but then, without warning, flashes of other memories slipped in like unwelcome guests: his mother, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, her lipstick still perfect on her dead lips; Peter, blood flooding out from his neck, while Joe clamped his hand over the wound in a hopeless attempt to hold back the inevitable; Solange, lying on the floor in a cloud of her own hair, a jagged red mark on her head.

These were memories that haunted him, and he wished he could forget, yet still they came when he least expected them.

Only the gentle motion of the swimming soothed him when they invaded his mind.

He floated for hours, watching the stars scurrying overhead. How fast they moved. He’d always thought of them as constant, but they were ever-moving, racing across the firmament. Sometimes, he let his head fall beneath the water, hoping somehow to disappear, but he always came up for air, gasping.

Soon, far too soon, he could see the faint rosy glow of the sun on the horizon.

He pulled himself out of the pool and wandered, slowly, back into the hacienda.

Had he been in the water all night? His skin was wrinkled like a prune.

He went to Tyler’s study, some impulse drawing him there.

He didn’t even know if it’d still be there, but he had to find out.

The room wasn’t locked. Maybe that was surprising, but he couldn’t be sure.

It was neat inside, just a desk and a chair.

All very Tyler. No paperwork, no work in progress, no mess. All utterly stark and sterile.

Alex knew his every move was being videoed, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even have to look in the desk drawers. He found the two light boxes lying on the desk, side by side. He clicked on the one nearest to him and the holographic image of his mother sprang to life in the room, vivid and real.

As she smiled and walked towards him, he wondered if he’d ever really known her. Maybe you only came to know your parents later, as an adult, and she hadn’t lived long enough for that. He sat in Tyler’s chair and watched her, over and over again, never growing tired of that beaming smile.

Oxford gave out one scholarship a year to a student from the work camps, and she’d been a recipient.

Had he ever really understood the kind of misery she’d come from, or what his grandmother had endured in the camp?

His mum had been bright, and while the level of schooling wasn’t great in the camps, the smart kids tended to work hard because they wanted to escape so much.

They could envisage the kind of future they’d have if they didn’t.

He could see now how well she and Tyler had been suited to each other.

She was always hustling, always wanting something better, always trying to escape the camp, long after she’d left it.

She’d said that she loved his father, and he thought maybe, paradoxically, that was true, too.

Noah had offered her the one thing she’d never had – stability.

Tyler was the son of an indentured servant, with no real prospects beyond servitude himself.

She could have thrown in her lot with him, but Noah was the sure thing, a way to escape the grinding poverty of the camps and be forever free.

He didn’t blame her for choosing his father over Tyler.

He was sure that her mother had pressured her to make the best choice for them both.

However, the repercussions of that choice still echoed down the generations.

Alex doubted now whether any of them had seen more than a glimpse of the real her.

She’d hidden herself too well. He wished he’d had more time to get to know her better, to be a friend to her.

She’d told Tyler she’d leave Noah when he turned eighteen, but she’d also told him she’d spend more time with him to make up for all the years she’d invested in Charles.

Had she been lying to one of them? Both?

Or had she somehow thought she could make it all come right in the end?

Leave Noah and take Alex with her? Stay and end things with Tyler?

It was impossible to know what she had planned.

He watched the hologram look at him, smile, and come towards him, over and over again for a very long time, just as Tyler had. Unlike Tyler, he grasped, in the end, that she would remain unknowable.

Instead of frustrating him, he found it comforting. It was as if she’d been playing a game with them all and had never fully shown her hand, right to the end. He liked that. Admired it. She’d checked out far too early, but on some level, he rather thought she’d won.