Part 34 (1/2)

'I thought I recognized you,' said Bill McNaught. Their black c.o.c.ker spaniel was nose to nose with Herman now, their tails nervously twitching. 'I said to s.h.i.+rley, that's young David from next door. You haven't changed much, lad.' He extended his hand. 'Nice to see you again.'

'You too. I've just been up to West Drive actually,' David explained. 'I even knocked on your door, but there was no reply.'

'We always walk along the beach on Sunday mornings,' said Mr McNaught. 'Come rain or s.h.i.+ne.'

'Come rain or s.h.i.+ne,' agreed his wife.

'Come rain or s.h.i.+ne,' he said again. 'Then we go home for lunch.' Now, to my horror, he was looking at me and smiling. Don't say it! Don't, don't say it! 'So I see you've found your young man then.' There was a split second while David absorbed this, then I was aware, as if in slow motion, of his head turning towards me. 'Isn't that funny, s.h.i.+rley?' Bill McNaught went on happily. 'This is Miranda. The young lady who was looking for David just a few weeks ago.'

'Oh,' she said with pleasant surprise. 'h.e.l.lo there. Nice to meet you.'

'h.e.l.lo,' I replied faintly.

'So, s.h.i.+rley's information obviously helped,' he went on genially. 'And it didn't take you long to track David down. I told her you were a photographer,' he explained to David, who was looking at me, dumbstruck now. 'Very glad to help her, we were. She was most anxious to find you, weren't you? But then, it's always nice to catch up with old college friends. And how's your mother, David? We heard she'd moved to Norfolk.'

'Yes,' he said weakly.

'To be near Michael and his family?'

'That's right.'

'Well, I'm so glad you two have got together again,' he said benignly. 'Friends Reunited and all that. Anyway, our lunch will be spoiling so we'll be on our way, but it's very nice to see you again. Do remember us kindly to your mother and Michael. So glad you two have caught up with each other again. Bye for now.'

I gave them a weak smile. 'Goodbye.'

We stood watching them retreat down the beach, the dog pulling on the lead, and then climb the steps. I felt David's eyes staring into me, with the intensity of a blowtorch. His mouth was slightly agape.

'What was that about?' he asked quietly. I didn't reply. 'I don't understand,' he went on. 'Who are you, Miranda?' Who am I? Good question. 'And how do you know the McNaughts? And why the h.e.l.l did you tell them we were at university together?'

I slumped onto the bench, then looked up at him. 'Because I was trying to find you, that's why. I'd wanted to find you for years and years, but I was too afraid. Then, a few weeks ago, I finally plucked up the courage. So I went to West Drive, and I asked Mr McNaught where you lived now. And he didn't know, but he said he'd ask his wife, who was away; and then he asked me how I knew you. So I told him that we'd been at university together-because I couldn't possibly tell him the real reason.'

'But what was that reason? And how did you know that I'd once lived in West Drive?' As I stared up at him his features began to bend and blur. 'Will you please tell me, Miranda? I don't understand.'

'I knew,' I croaked, 'because I'd been there before.'

He stared at me. 'You'd been to our house before?' he echoed faintly. 'But how?' I didn't reply. Suddenly, some kind of comprehension seemed to dawn. 'Did you know Michael?' he asked. 'Is that what this is all about? That you had an affair with Michael, but you didn't want to tell me?'

I shook my head. 'No. No. I've never met him.'

'Then how did you know about me?'

'Because...because...for the past sixteen years, you and I have had a terrible connection, of which you've been quite unaware, but I'm now going to tell you what it is.'

And so, at long last, I did.

When I finished, David was too stunned to speak. His face was as drained of colour as the chalk pebbles beneath our feet.

'It was me,' I said, sobbing quietly now. 'It was me. I did it. But I didn't know what it was. I genuinely believed it was a video-because that's what Jimmy had said. But it wasn't-it was a letter-bomb-and you opened it, and you got hurt, and I'm very, very sorry.'

'I...' Words still eluded him; his face was suffused with pain.

'But I just want you to know that however much you've suffered, I've suffered too. I've suffered for sixteen years because it's never, ever left me. I've been carrying it around like some b.l.o.o.d.y great boulder! It's weighed me down. It's crushed me.'

'But you should have told someone.'

'I know. But I was terrified that if I did, I'd go to jail. That's what Jimmy said. And I was sixteen, and I was so much under his thumb, and I was so afraid-so I kept quiet. But then, a few weeks ago, by chance, I met him again-and that was what finally broke the moral paralysis which had crippled me for so long.'

As David gazed, speechlessly, at me, I felt as though I'd been transformed into some hideous monster-a gorgon and a harpy all rolled into one.

'So it was you?' he whispered. He shook his head in stupefaction-and denial. 'You?' he repeated. I nodded. 'You're responsible for what happened that day?'

Responsible?

'Indirectly,' I wept. 'Yes. I am. And I was so...horrified when I found out. I overheard these women talking about it at the bus stop. That was the first I knew. So I ran to Jimmy's flat and confronted him, but he told me I'd go to Holloway if I ever said a thing to anyone. And I believed him. So I kept quiet.'

'You've kept quiet all these years?'

'Yes. Out of cowardice and fear. But then, six weeks ago, I decided to be brave at last, and to find you-if I could-and to tell you the truth. But it's been so hard, David.' I felt a hot tear snake down my cheek and seep into the corner of my mouth with a salty tang.

'Because you were still afraid?'

'Yes. But, more importantly, because of what I felt for you. It made it so much worse than it already was. And every time I tried to tell you, the words just died on my lips.'

David was no longer looking at me. He was staring out to sea, blinking slowly, as what I'd just told him began to impact. 'So it wasn't a game,' I heard him say softly.

'No.'

'You really did have a dreadful confession to make.'

I nodded. 'I tried to tell you so many times. But my courage kept failing, and then you began to make a joke of it, which made it even harder.'

He remained silent, then turned and looked at me, with an expression of ineffable sadness.

'I don't know who you are,' he said quietly. 'I thought I did. But I don't. I don't know you at all-I feel you're a stranger to me now.' My heart sank. 'The lies you've told,' he went on. 'The way you lied to the McNaughts about how you knew me. The way you contrived to meet me six weeks ago. But Lily gave it away, didn't she? Last weekend. That must have been a sticky moment for you, when she turned up at the zoo. She let slip that it was your idea for me to take your photo, not hers.' I nodded. 'You said it was because you'd admired that photo of mine in the Guardian. But that wasn't true, was it?'

'Well, it was true,' I protested. 'I do admire your photography. But no, the reason why I asked her to commission you was because I'd discovered from Bill McNaught that you'd become a photographer. So I looked you up through the Photographers' a.s.sociation and tried to work out a way to meet you; then Lily presented me with an opportunity to do so.'

He shook his head again. 'Christ-I feel as though I've been stalked! I feel as though I've been, almost, yes...hunted. Hunted down.' I felt sick. 'No wonder you were so weird when we first met,' he went on. 'I understand it now. It was because of what you'd done. That's why you asked me all those strange questions about where I'd grown up and where my father had worked.'

'I didn't realize it would be you. Because of your accent, I'd a.s.sumed you weren't the David White I was looking for. Then you turned up and I knew at once that you were.'

'Because of my scars.'

'Yes,' I replied miserably. I glanced at his hands, placed firmly on his knees now, as though he was bracing himself against the hurt. 'And I was just so...shocked. But I was also behaving strangely because I realized, even then, in those first few minutes, that I was very attracted to you. I was in turmoil.'

'And that's why you invited me to stay for a drink?'

'That's right. Because I wanted to tell you there and then. But I didn't know how to start such a terrible conversation. So I decided that I'd call you in a short while and make some excuse to meet you again. But then, to my amazement, you phoned me. And we went out to dinner.'

'We went out to dinner,' he echoed and, to my shock, I saw tears standing in his eyes. 'We went out to dinner, and we had such a nice evening.'