Clare Houston - An Unquiet Place

Alistair took two steps towards her, his body threatening, but she was too angry to notice. She glared up at him, meeting stormy eyes. ‘I’m not poking,’ she spat. ‘I’m just trying to find out about Rachel Badenhorst, and every which way I turn, I come up against your bloody ego. You just can’t stand anyone getting in your face. If you would help me instead of fricking exploding every time you see me, I might get out of your hair a whole lot faster!’

His scarred mouth curled into a sneer, but his tone evened out. ‘If only that were possible. You see, I can’t help with delusions. The camp story is a fantasy and I’ve never heard the name Rachel Badenhorst. You’ve got your knickers in a twist over a few ghosts and a piece of fiction.’

‘My knickers have nothing to do with it, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.’ Alistair’s eyebrows shot up but she continued, ‘You do not get to tell me what I can and can’t do. Who I can and can’t speak to.’

‘Fine! Then stay away from Goshen.’

‘So you control whom your parents get to see, too? I don’t think so. I bet I can call up your dad any day of the week and get a guided tour of the farm.’

‘Hannah, I swear to God, if you use my parents for your own ends…’ He reached for her, but his hands curled and clenched in the space between them and he took a step back. ‘Just you try manipulate them – you’ll see the worst of me. I promise you.’

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes wide, though her words slid with sarcasm. ‘There’s a worse side of you? And I thought the twisted half was bad enough.’ As the words left her lips, she wished she could pull them back. She watched his face receive the blow. He seemed to stagger, all anger leaving his body like a breath exhaled.

As if injured, he stumbled away from her back to his Toyota and drove off, hunched over the steering wheel. She walked back into the shop, locking up as she went. In her kitchen, she automatically switched on the kettle and stood staring out at the garden. Her heart still thumped and her stomach churned, nausea and guilt so thick in her, she didn’t notice the kettle subside on the counter next to her.

Thirty minutes later, Hannah knocked on Alistair’s front door, shame and nerves tangling. The dogs thundered down the passage and scrabbled on the other side of the door, but no footsteps followed. Hannah retreated down the steps to her car but paused at the driver’s door. She had been awful. Yes, he’d provoked her. He’d been unfair in his accusations, but neither justified her nastiness. She glanced back at the house and sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Dammit. She headed around the house and stepped through the herb garden at the back door, rosemary scenting the air as she brushed past. The stable door to the kitchen was half-open and the dogs had beaten her to it. Grant stood on his hind legs, a crocodile grin on his face. She reached to stroke his head and saw Alistair sitting in the dim kitchen, elbows propped on the table.

‘Not now, Mum,’ he said, his hands pressing into his eyes.

‘It’s me,’ said Hannah.

For a few seconds they stared at each other, and then Hannah said quietly, ‘May I come in?’

He shrugged, getting to his feet as she stepped inside the kitchen.

‘Alistair, I came to apologise…’ Hannah shook her head, hating the weary pain in his eyes. ‘You made me so angry. I should never have said those things. I don’t know why I did.’

He drew in a breath and ran his hand into his hair, tugging on a chunk at the front. ‘It’s the truth, after all – isn’t it? I am twisted. And angry. And a bully.’

Hannah had prepared herself for rage, had wondered if she would even make it through the door. This beaten man disabled her. She leant against the counter.

‘It was Esme, or rather my talking to Esme, wasn’t it?’ Her voice softened. ‘It’s about your wife?’

‘What have you heard?’

‘Nothing. I mean, I heard that she died.’

‘She was killed,’ he said, his tone flat.

‘Yes.’

He looked past her, to the yard, and she felt him retreat somewhere else.

‘What happened to… to haunt you like this?’

Alistair slid to sit on the floor. His face paled, naked with a pain that brought tears to Hannah’s eyes. Something seemed to loosen in him as he said, ‘Marilie…’ He swallowed. ‘My wife. We married young. Too young, really. We were so careful not to fall pregnant in those first years. We were loving our lives. Had such big plans. She was showjumping competitively, doing really well. And then, when we thought the time was right, we couldn’t fall pregnant anyway. We spent a fortune on specialists and treatments but for nothing. Marilie became obsessed, then bereft, then depressed. I started suggesting we look at adoption, but the chances of getting a white child are pretty much nil in this country.’ He must have caught Hannah’s frown because he smiled a small, sad smile. ‘Marilie wouldn’t consider a black baby. We started fighting.’ His fingers rubbed across his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked straight at Hannah. ‘We were fighting that afternoon – I told her to get over herself. I actually said, Would you rather be a racist than a mother? ’ He shook his head. ‘If I’d held back those words… She wrenched away, told me to get away from her.’

Hannah’s heart ached for him, the way he sat crumpled in his own kitchen. She wanted to cross the room and touch him, but fear won. There was too much emotion in the room. Too intense for her to go near.

Alistair picked at the fabric of his jeans. ‘Her groom was loading her horse for an event. She stormed away from me and took over the loading, but she was so angry, she tried to rush the horse. He must have picked up on her emotion because he wouldn’t go in. And then, suddenly, he backed off the ramp and knocked her over. Her foot got caught in the lead rein and, with her screaming at the groom, the horse spooked and bolted. He dragged her a few paces and then started kicking and stamping on her to get away.’ Alistair’s voice cracked. ‘The groom was trying to get to the horse and I was trying to get to Marilie when the bungee cord holding the horse snapped and whipped. It sliced my face.’ He lifted his hand to cover the white scar. ‘I didn’t notice. By the time we got to her, she was dead. Her skull smashed on the driveway.’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘It was my fault.’

Hannah slid down to the floor across from him. They were both silent for a few moments, before Alistair said, ‘My dad sat with me on the driveway until the ambulance came, holding a towel to keep my face together. I had her head in my lap, trying to keep her brain in her skull.’ He gestured to his face. ‘This is to remind me what I did.’

Hannah brushed her eyes with her sleeve. ‘And Esme?’

‘She made Karl shoot the horse. Rooi Baron. I can’t imagine how Karl managed to do it, but he did – for Esme. How Marilie loved that horse. Sometimes I wondered if she loved him more than she loved me. Esme never forgave me for Marilie’s death. I can understand that. I don’t hold it against her. But she’s unstable – maybe she always has been – and what happened pushed her over the edge.’ He tipped his head back against the cupboard. ‘Better to stay away from her, Hannah.’

Hannah uncrossed her legs and stretched them out on the kitchen floor. She met his gaze. ‘I’m sorry I caused trouble, Alistair. Kathryn warned me and I just barged ahead anyway. I was so convinced the De Jagers hold the key to unlock Rachel’s story.’

He stayed where he was, looking too wrung out to react as he had earlier. ‘Why are you so determined to keep going? Did you come to Leliehoek for this?’