‘Jesus – no wonder he killed himself,’ Josephine said. ‘The woman he loved – the only woman he could ever love – accused him of turning to their little sister?’
‘But why didn’t he deny it?’ Archie asked, bewildered. ‘Why would he just accept it and say nothing?’ It was, he realised, exactly what Nathaniel said Harry had done when asked about the fire – except then he had been guilty as charged.
‘Perhaps the knowledge that Morwenna could even think that of him was enough to make him want to die,’ Josephine suggested.
‘But they saw each other again after the argument,’ Archie said. ‘And Harry was kind to her – like his old self, she said. He ought to have been indignant with her – furious, even. Why would he make his peace and ride into the lake because of something he didn’t do? It just doesn’t make sense. Something else must have happened in between.’ He looked questioningly at Morveth.
‘That wasn’t the only reason he might want to take his own life,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘He might have tried to make Morwenna see the truth after he’d calmed down, but by then it was too late.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘He’d done something that couldn’t be denied.’
‘Will you please stop talking in bloody riddles and just tell me what else you know? When was the last time you saw Harry?’ Morveth hesitated, so he asked again. ‘Did you see him on the night he died?’
‘Yes.’
‘At last – we’re getting somewhere,’ he said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Hesitantly, Harry took a step towards Morwenna and went to touch her face, trying to blot out the memory of the last time the two of them had stood here together, when he had raised his hand to her in anger.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, taking a step backwards. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘Don’t come anywhere near me.’
The combination of shock and loathing in her eyes almost made him falter, but he carried on, desperate to make her understand. ‘At least let me explain,’ he said.
‘Has someone kept you away from here until now? Held you prisoner, and prevented you from popping home to tell me that you weren’t actually dead?’
‘No, of course not…’
‘Then how can you possibly explain what you’ve put me through? Do you know what it was like waiting by that lake every day, dreading the moment they found you and yet hoping against hope that you really
‘Unless what?’ he shouted, following her out into the garden. He grabbed her by the arm and made her turn back towards him. ‘Morwenna, tell me what you mean.’
‘Did she know all along? Is this something you made up between you – one of those precious secrets she kept telling me about? She must have known. How else could she have been so sure?’
‘No – I swear Loveday didn’t know. No one knew. I did this for you – only for you. For us.’
‘There is no us, Harry,’ Morwenna said, looking at him, and the quiet certainty with which she spoke frightened him more than her anger or her scorn. ‘There never really has been, has there? We were a sickness, you and I – that much was obvious to me when I found out that you could move on so easily. Everything I thought I was – every honest feeling I’ve ever had – was twisted and warped beyond all recognition when you betrayed me with Loveday. What sort of life do you think that left me with? Now you walk back in here and start talking about us – with God knows who in your grave and some other poor woman going through the hell of not knowing what’s happened to the person she cares about. And do you know what the most priceless thing of all is, Harry? You honestly thought I’d be pleased to see you, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?’ she shouted, infuriated by his silence.
‘Not straight away, perhaps,’ he lied, trying to ignore the emptiness in her voice whenever she spoke his name, ‘but when you’d had a chance…’
‘A chance to what? Calm down?’
‘To understand.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you? Do you really want to know what I felt when I turned round and saw you standing there, holding Loveday’s hand? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
‘That isn’t true,’ he said, more defiantly than he felt. He had played out his meeting with Morwenna a thousand times in his head, anticipating her anger, her horror, her disbelief. Not once, though, had he imagined that she could be indifferent and, even to his own ears, his insistence that she would eventually understand felt hollow and ridiculous. He remembered now how tongue-tied he always became whenever they argued as children, how her spirit made everything he said sound slow-witted and insensitive, and suddenly, standing in front of her, his despair was greater than it had ever been in those long weeks apart.
‘There’s nothing left here, Harry, where it matters,’ Morwenna said, holding her hand against her chest. ‘You made sure of that. Ironic, isn’t it? Both of us back here, alive and dead at the same time.’ She laughed bitterly and took his face in her hands, forcing him to confront the darkness in her eyes that he had tried so hard to ignore. ‘Look at me – look at what you’ve done. We were two parts of the same person, you and I – locked together, for better or worse. What you’ve done has tainted us both. When you ceased to exist, so did I. But there’s no coming back for me – not any more. That’s the difference between us.’ He felt her fingers trace the thick growth of stubble, searching for the familiar contours of his face as if she could somehow find their past there. ‘Why didn’t you let me die when I wanted to?’ she asked. ‘It would have been so much kinder than this.’
In the distance, Harry could hear the sound of a car engine. Quickly, he pulled Morwenna into one of the stables next to the house, out of sight of the road. The threat of the outside world seemed to renew his sense of urgency. ‘Because I couldn’t let you die believing that of me,’ he said, and now it was his turn to force her to look at him. ‘It isn’t true. Whatever you think and no matter why you believe it, I’ve never loved anybody but you. Loveday’s a child, for God’s sake – she’s our little sister. How could you ever think I’d hurt either of you like that?’ She tried to pull away, but he refused to let her. ‘You know me. The most intimate moments of my life have all been spent with you. Every physical and emotional instinct I have has been shaped and guided by you. Is that honestly what you think you’ve created? A monster?’
‘You’re lying, Harry – otherwise, you’d have denied it straight away. Has it taken you all this time to think of a convincing story? Well, don’t waste your breath. I’ve had enough.’
‘How did you expect me to react? You’d just accused me of never loving you and fucking our sister, who we’ve brought up like our own daughter since she was six years old.’ She flinched as though he’d struck her again, and he tried to stay calm. ‘I was angry when you told me – angry and frightened and dazed, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Then I hit you, and suddenly I no longer trusted myself to be near you. I had to get out before I really hurt you.’
‘But what about later – at the boathouse? You were calm enough then.’ There was a long silence as Harry wondered how to go on, and he sensed a change in Morwenna: for the first time, she wanted to believe him. ‘Don’t play with me, Harry,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Loveday reminds me of everything I hate most – the thrill of you, the knowledge that I can’t have you – and I know what it means to fear the violence in yourself. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you both back there.’
He risked a smile. ‘You can’t kill a ghost.’
‘If you knew how often I’d died since you left, you would never say that.’ She sat down on a bale of straw, and asked him again. ‘Why didn’t you even
He pretended not to have heard the past tense. ‘Of course we’re worth saving – that’s all I’ve ever tried to do. But something happened that night after I left you, Morwenna, something I never planned. By the time I saw you again at the boathouse, things were different. I’d done something I couldn’t undo, no matter how badly I wanted to.’
‘Could there really be anything worse than what I was already thinking, Harry?’ she asked sadly. ‘You’re right, though – I do need to understand.’
‘I met him on the coastal path,’ Morveth said, and she spoke so quietly that Josephine had to lean forward to hear. ‘It was one of those nights when the mist comes in from the sea more quickly than you’d think possible. I’d
