‘So at last, Pops, I decided you had to know. Especially because of the end, and what’s there.’
She picked up the bag and put it into his hands, heavy with the weight of the fourteen volumes, heavy with what they contained. ‘Don’t read them all,’ she said. ‘That’d be too much, even for you. No; especially for you. I’ve marked the pages that I think you have to see. They’re all in here, in order.
‘I’m going to leave you to it. You’ve got the strength to read them alone. If you want to speak to me when you’re finished, I’ll be at Fairyhouse Avenue for a while. I feel, at least part of me feels, defiled. I need to encounter purity. So I’m going to visit my brother. And to talk to Sarah while I’m at it, whether she or you like it or not.
‘After that, I’ll be at Andy’s. Even although he doesn’t know it, he deserves some reassurance. And I need to be reminded of who I really am.’
She picked up her coat, then turned and walked out of the cottage, leaving him standing in the silent room, staring at where she had been, with the heavy bag in his hands.
At last he sat down on the sofa, and took out the diaries. They were still bound together, in order. Two pieces of blue marker paper protruded from the second volume, others from the eighth, from the twelfth, from the thirteenth and several from the last.
He took out the second diary and opened it at the first page which his daughter had marked. It was Myra’s account of the day of her sixteenth birthday, April 21. The first cold shaft of desolation shot through him as he read of her seventeen-second coupling with Campbell Weston on the living-room carpet. Then he came into the narrative himself; suddenly he felt like a time-traveller, spectating at the events which the diary described. He saw his own face twist in pleasure at the flattening of Campbell, and his overt disappointment when Big Zed backed off. He saw the exultation in Myra’s eyes.
He turned to the next marked page, and read, pictures coming clear into his head.
April 28. At Home.
Afternoon with Alice, getting ready for the big date. She’s taken it really well, all things considered.
Met Bob outside the Rex at seven o’clock. He paid. It’s dark in there, especially in the back corner of the circle. It was a British film, with some guy named Roger Moore. I didn’t see much of it, though. I spent most of the time with my tongue down Robert’s throat and with his hand up my jumper. He caught on quick.
We went straight back to his house afterwards. He said his mum and dad were away at some place called Chirnside, visiting friends, and wouldn’t be back till Sunday night. I asked if we could have a drink, gin or something, but he said no, we didn’t need it. It was the first time he’s ever refused me anything. Instead we went straight up to his bedroom.
I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I felt a wee bit frightened. He left the curtains open and the light out, and he took my clothes off in the dark. He undid the bra-clip first time, too. I was shivering, lying there, watching him undress, until he lay down naked beside me, and touched me, between my legs. That’s when I knew that Alice had been wrong. It was like being with a man, not a boy like Campbell. His muscles were hard. . but not as hard as. .! He just lay there for a while, kissing me and touching me, until I couldn’t wait any longer and I pulled him over and into me. Right away I found out what an orgasm means. It went on and on, then I could feel him starting too. He was going to pull out, but I held him there, with my legs wrapped around him, until he shot it all, hot and sticky, way up inside me.
As he lay there on top of me, with the pair of us sweating, I told him that I loved him, and he said that he loved me. Guess what, diary? We both really mean it.
We did it again, with a Durex this time, (he had them in his bedside cabinet) then we got dressed and he walked me home. He doesn’t know it, but I’m going back round there tomorrow morning!
He smiled as he closed the book. In fact, Alice had been right, but from his and Myra’s first kiss at her party, he had been thinking about the moment. When it had come, he had simply known, instinctively, what to do.
He picked up the next diary in Alex’s sequence and opened it at the next marked page.
July 17. Estartit.
I don’t know what made me do it. It must have been the heat, that’s all I can think of. It’s not that I’m not getting enough; Bob and I have been at it two or three times every day since we got here.
But it happened, nonetheless. I had gone up from the pool to the apartment for a pee, since I don’t like the toilets down there. I did it, and I was coming out, when there he was, Dougie Fiddes, in his swimming trunks, going into his studio across the corridor. He gave me a smile, friendly, just like he does at the pool. I gave him a grin back, only something in me took over and it became a bit more than friendly.
The urge just swept over me after that, and I couldn’t stop myself. I kept grinning at him as I walked across the hall. I pushed him back, into his apartment. The bed wasn’t made or anything but I didn’t care, I just shoved him down on it. I tore his trunks off, then my bikini bottom, and I jumped on him. I did all the work. It didn’t take long, but I came like a train and so did he. I’ll never forget his face beneath me, tongue out and bewildered, all at the same time. I’ll never forget the thrill, the scariness, the excitement.
When I went back down to the pool and saw Bob, looking so fit and tanned, and happy and sexy, a funny thing happened. All of a sudden I wanted him, really wanted him, more than I think I ever have. I grabbed his hand and yanked him away from the pool, up to our apartment, up to bed.
Dougie’s terrified now in case Bob finds out. I must admit I’m a bit scared myself, because I’m never sure what he might be like if he really got mad. But then I’m not going to tell him, am I. And Dougie certainly isn’t, that’s for sure. Still, it’s as well we’re off home tomorrow.
Bob closed the diary and stared at the wall, gasping, his heart pounding. Dougie Fiddes: his best friend at the time. And his fiancée, for he and Myra had been engaged then. By her account, she had raped him, virtually. A week later, Dougie, his wife, and their baby daughter had died in the wreckage of their plunging plane.
Fighting away images of Dougie Fiddes’ last thoughts, he picked up the next marked entry, and he read on. And on.
An hour later, he closed the last diary and sat on the sofa, his face suffused with rage. Then with a roar like a bull he leapt to his feet and threw the volume against the wall, smashing it and sending pages flying everywhere.
Something unstoppable drove him through to Alex’s room. The black dress and underwear lay on the bed, the shoes and stockings on the floor. He gathered them all up and strode out to the back garden, grabbing a newspaper and a box of matches on the way.
He tore the funnelled lid from the garden incinerator and threw the clothes inside, mingled the sheets of newspaper among them and lit a match. Replacing the lid, he stood back as the fire took hold, watching like an onlooker at a witch-burning as the relics of a woman he had never known were consumed and rose in a column of smoke and sparkling ashes, up and away into the darkness of the night.
Gradually his rage began to abate, until he was able to walk back into the house; he was quiet, calm, and infinitely sad.
He thought of phoning Alex, but realised what she had suffered over the weekend, and that she deserved to be left alone with Andy. He thought of phoning Sarah, but could think of nothing to say to her. He thought of phoning Pam, even of going to see her, but knew at once that it would not be fair of him to visit her in such a mood. Indeed, some instinct within him warned him that it could be dangerous for both of them.
Instead, he turned off the light. In the darkness he sat, as a coldness swept over him. Staring at nothing, he thought of all of the day’s revelations, and he planned.