Gayle Wilson - Echoes in the Dark

“Julien’s wife was driving. Drunk and angry at some imagined slight. I never met her. I was too occupied here with my own marriage, with Edouard’s illness, and Julien never brought her to the island. Andre says she was like a child, a spoiled brat when she didn’t get her way. God knows how Julien put up with her. Love is blind, I suppose.”

Suzanne stopped suddenly, raising stricken eyes. “I can’t believe I said that, but he was. Blind to her faults. She wrecked the car and walked away without a scratch and then walked away from him. She just left him to deal with all she’d done to him.”

When the words finally stopped beating inside her head, Caroline lowered her face against the coolness of her glass to fight the rising nausea. She didn’t understand why the story had upset her so. The images formed in her head by Suzanne’s words had pierced her, like the nightmares always did, and she was glad when Suzanne stood and dropped her napkin beside her plate.

“I can’t write another one of those damn notes. Let’s give it a rest. We’ll start again in the morning. I think I’ll ride in with Andre when he takes the staff back to Terre-de-Bas. Until then, I’m going to sleep. We should take lessons from the Spanish. They know how to deal with long, hot afternoons. Think you can entertain yourself for a few hours?”

“Of course. I’ll be fine. I may get some sun by the pool if that’s all right.”

“Be careful. You’ll burn before you know it.”

“I’ll use screen. I just feel so city white.”

“I know,” Suzanne said, smiling, “but I fight the urge. Sun hats and beach umbrellas for me. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve discovered an age spot or two. Why don’t men get those? God, it’s so unfair.”

They laughed together, the tension suddenly evaporating, and then Suzanne climbed the long staircase to the upstairs rooms.

With Suzanne’s departure, the quietness of the house closed around her. She found herself wondering where he was. She shook off the thought and climbed the stairs herself to change into the pale pink swimsuit she had brought with her, another item on the lawyer’s precise list.

She looked down on the pool when she was dressed, feeling the inviting pull of the waters. Everything was going to be all right. She just needed to relax and fit in. Forget this morning. The nightmares would fade as they had before. She had simply been too tired, overstimulated.

She touched her lips, remembering the feel of Andre’s mouth against hers and, instead of the pleasure she had felt this morning, she remembered the familiar emptiness. The long years’ emptiness.

* * *

IN THE COOL SHADOWS of his office Julien heard the sounds from the pool. He knew it wasn’t Suzanne, so he walked to the window and listened to the movement of the waters. He knew by the sounds when she had stopped swimming, had walked up the steps at the shallow end and found one of the loungers. He even heard and identified the ritual of opening the lotion, the replacement of the bottle on the tile beside the chair.

He found himself imagining her fingers moving against her arms and legs, against her neck, her breasts. “She can’t hurt me,” he had told Suzanne, and in those images he knew that for the lie it was. He leaned, as she had, against the window and for the first time allowed himself, almost against his will, to remember.

* * *

“ARE YOU SURE you don’t mind if I leave you?” Suzanne questioned as she slipped her feet into her sandals. “Julien’s here, and we’ll be home before dinnertime, I promise. Knock on his office door if you need anything. He’s really a very nice man, doesn’t bite or anything.”

“I’ll be fine,” Caroline reassured. “I’m going to address the letters we got through this morning, so Andre can take them to mail tomorrow. Don’t worry.”

“I just need to pick up a few things and get out of the house. Unless you want to come with us?”

Caroline shook her head, knowing the invitation was only a polite afterthought. She had been hired to do a job, not to join in family outings.

* * *

SHE WORKED A COUPLE of hours in Suzanne’s small office and didn’t realize until she heard the rain how dark the sky had become. The coming storm was clearly visible from the long windows that looked out on to the patio. She was surprised to notice that all the furniture had been removed.

The flagstones stretched gray as the roiling clouds, and the wind pressed strongly enough against the long glass of the windows to rock them in the wooden frames. She thought briefly about the open boat and wondered if they would return now in time for dinner. She walked back to the office to finish sealing the last of the envelopes, wondering where she should leave them so Andre wouldn’t miss them. She wished she’d asked Suzanne.

By the time she reentered the living room, she had to turn on one of the lamps against the growing darkness of twilight and the storm. The wind and rain beat against the glass, and she watched a moment. She wasn’t afraid of storms. They were elemental and always made her feel strangely alive, turned on to the power they created.

She decided on a quick shower before dinner to wash the pool’s chlorine out of her hair. When she entered her bedroom, she opened one of the long windows, but the wind was too strong, blowing the rain in a fine mist over the carpet. She stood a moment, raising her face into the force of the storm, and then she closed the window and turned on the low light beside her bed.

* * *

JULIEN WAS STANDING by the sink in the kitchen when he heard the upstairs shower begin. He lowered his head and listened to the pounding of the wind and rain against the glass. He touched his watch to feel the time, and finally he walked to the box against the outside wall. His hand moved unerringly to open it and find the handle he sought. He pulled it, waiting before he walked back to the sink.

He concentrated against the growing noise of the gale, and he could still hear the water from upstairs rushing down through the pipes. He walked then to the clock above the doorway to touch the face. The slight vibration of the electric motor that drove the hands was still, and in spite of his determination, he found himself hurrying to the stairs, climbing too quickly to lean against her door.

He wondered again at his own motives, but since he had listened to Paul Dupre’s description, he had known that this moment would come. Finally he would confront her. There had been no doubt in his mind from the beginning that what would happen tonight was inevitable. He breathed deeply to calm his trembling fingers before he knocked.

She had stood a long time with her eyes closed under the hot spray of the shower, feeling it relax a tension she hadn’t even been aware of.

Enough, she urged herself mentally. This is something you’ve conquered. Enough.

The soft knock was an interruption, and she opened her eyes to blackness. She fumbled briefly for the controls of the shower and, in the sudden silence when the water stopped, she heard him call her name.

“Ms. Evans? Are you all right?”

She groped for her towel and dried her face and hair before she wrapped it sarong fashion to answer the repeated knock.

“I’m all right. I was in the shower. What happened to the lights?” she asked, adding unnecessarily, “The lights are out.”

“I know,” he said, his amusement at her explanation clear even through the barrier of the door. “I have a computer that talks. Suddenly it stopped talking to me, and I realized you must be in the dark. It’s the storm. We have our own generator, but this happens too often. I thought you might like to come downstairs.” He waited, and then he said into the silence, “If you’re afraid.”