‘But isn’t it different? They’re at a girls’ school.’
‘What difference does that make? You’re just talking about opportunity, Scott. If they were co-ed, do you think it would be okay for Hayley to be sleeping with someone? Without me knowing?’ She was excluding him.
Scott tried to consider the matter. It wasn’t easy to think about, but he didn’t feel outraged at the idea. No. Clearly that wasn’t what Heather expected or wanted to hear. ‘I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up about this, honey. They were going out. Boyfriend and girlfriend. As Laura tells it, they really cared for each other.’
‘Not enough to wait.’
‘Is this some American purity bollocks?’
That was probably a mistake.
Her eyes sparkled with anger and she knelt up in the bed, poised. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No. It’s not some American purity bollocks, Scott. No. It’s international morality.’ She used air quotes, and in raising her hands, the sheet fell down, exposing her breasts. That seemed to make her madder, and she pulled it back up angrily.
‘I think you’re being ridiculous, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘No. Go ahead. We’ll agree to disagree.’ She shucked on her robe, which had lain discarded at the foot of the bed when she’d pulled him between the sheets.
He didn’t know what had happened. He felt defensive on Ethan’s behalf, but she seemed so genuinely upset by the story. He wanted to understand what he was missing. He took her hand. ‘I’m sorry, baby.’
For a moment her hand stiffened and he thought she was going to snatch it away. But she didn’t. The fingers softened, then interlinked with his own.
‘I’m sorry. I know he’s your nephew.’
‘And I honestly think he’s a nice kid.’
‘I’m not saying he isn’t. I just … I don’t like to think about it, you know …’
‘Who does?’
‘I’m just saying, I have rather more sympathy with this girl’s father than you seem to. If it was Hayley – if it had been Hayley – I’d have wanted to rip off that boy’s head.’
‘I get that.’ He wasn’t entirely sure he did, to be honest. It all seemed a bit out of proportion. But he was relieved that she was letting him hold her hand, and that her voice had returned to the modulation he was used to. Hissing Heather wasn’t his favourite.
‘And it changes how I feel about him, to be truthful.’
‘Oh, honey. Please don’t let that be how it is. He’s in pieces. Laura’s in bits too. He’s got results coming up.’
‘So has Hayley.’
‘Hayley’s fine.’ He told himself this was just transposed anxiety. He knew Heather had worried about the girls making the transition to the English system. He knew she felt selfish. This wasn’t about Ethan, not really. It couldn’t be. She’d reacted like he was almost a criminal. A predator.
‘I know. I know.’
He pulled her head to his chest and stroked her hair. She seemed calm now. ‘You look after all of us, and you do it so brilliantly, I sometimes forget to take care of you.’
She snaked her arms around his back. ‘I love you. I’m sorry.’
‘Sssh. Nothing to be sorry about.’ He kissed her and reflected that, just as he thought he was getting the hang of marriage, of real intimacy, perhaps he still had a long way to go. He had the uncomfortable feeling he hadn’t really understood what had just happened, and wasn’t quite brave enough to try to.
40
Ethan had only gone down to the pool because no one else was there. At first, he’d had no interest in swimming. He hadn’t even had his trunks on. It was the peace and stillness he wanted. People were suddenly everywhere, in the kitchen, in the living room, on the terrace … Some ignored him, some seemed to goad him, some wanted to be sweet to him, and he didn’t want any of it. Nick was getting ready to go for a run, and he and Scott were teasing each other about their relative fitness, like kids. Heather was cooking something, or at least pretending to cook something so she could take her stupid photos. Hashtag family! It was embarrassing. Granddad was reading the paper, like always, his head nodding as he dozed behind the pages, where he thought no one could see. He didn’t know where his mum was, but he didn’t particularly want to see her either. He could have stayed upstairs in his little room, but he was bored rigid by the four walls. His misery kept him mobile.
He took the cover off the pool to dip his feet in the water. Perhaps he’d like to swim after all. Just float, maybe. With the big glass doors closed, it was a bit hot. He had too many clothes on. The water began to look deliciously cool and welcoming. He might as well wallow while he wallowed. An adult might have stripped down to their underwear. Or skinny-dipped. No one was around, after all. There were towels – Heather seemed to be drying and folding them all the time – in a stack on one of the loungers. No one need ever know. A sober teenager would never do that. Ethan padded up the path, then upstairs to get his trunks.
And, of course, he didn’t put the cover back on. The same way he didn’t put wet towels on the radiator, or dirty socks in the laundry hamper, or the lid back on the Marmite. He’d sloped back to the house to get something: he’d be gone for, what, three minutes tops? And he just hadn’t done it.
At exactly that moment Meredith went into the toilet with Delilah, to make sure she washed her hands after she’d used the loo, and at precisely that time Arthur, who had been watching a cartoon with them, in his odd but customary pose of face down, bum in the air, thumb in on the rug, rolled sideways, a bit bored, and tottered outside, past his granddad, who had fallen asleep, his head back, his mouth open, snoring gently.
And because it had been so much fun, when he’d done it with Uncle Scott and Daddy, and because the water looked so nice, and because he had no real notion that the orange armbands, rather than his own natural buoyancy, were what kept him bobbing on the surface of the water, instead of sinking, Arthur stood starfish on the side and jumped in.
Ethan got back downstairs in his trunks, T-shirt slung across his shoulder, just before Meredith, standing on the patio from where she could see the open door to the pool, issued a piercing scream. ‘Arthur?’
What followed seemed, to all of them, to happen in heart-stopping slow motion. Ethan barged past his step-cousin, shoving her roughly against the door frame, and ran. Simultaneously, the adults within hearing distance appeared from the corners of the house and garden, Heather wiping her wet hands on an apron. Charlie, dozing on a reclining chair, sat up with a start, looking confused, then afraid.
Getting there first, Ethan side-stepped down the first part of the pool. Arthur had gone in about halfway towards the deep end, just where Scott had scooped him up last time. The exuberant projection of his jump had taken his small arms out of reach of the side, but, anyway, he was too young and too scared to think about making contact with the tiles. He didn’t know how to save himself. For a second, Ethan was frozen by terror. Arthur was below the surface, face down. His arms were still in mid-flail.
He was dead. He had to be dead. With a wild sob rising in his throat, the spell broken, Ethan belly-flopped into the water with a loud crack, and lifted the small body out of the water in the arc of his movement.