Chapter 44

44

Grace's tread is leaden as she descends from the rock. As soon as she arrives on safer ground, she does her best to straighten up, shoulders back, head held high, but she gathers pace, scurrying along the path until gratefully she steps from sunshine into shade.

She has gambled, and she has lost.

She walks through the trees, pulse beating at the base of her throat, her blood dangerously close to the surface of her skin. So fragile, she thinks, it's absurd how fragile we are, how ill-suited to a world as perilous as this one. We should be like wolves, we should be able to hide in the shadows, to run for miles, to tear our prey with our teeth.

We should be able to see in the dark.

Looking back, she realizes that Becker isn't following. Perhaps he took the long way around the wood, perhaps he is still on the rock. Making a phone call? She hoped that his devotion to Vanessa would be enough to keep him quiet, but she fears his sense of civic duty will prevail. He's a good man, after all.

She's a little unsteady on her feet, her legs trembling after all that climbing. She needs to rest. Stepping off the path, she crouches down, leaning against the trunk of one of the trees, allowing her mind to empty. She inhales the earthy green scent of leaf mould, listens to the slow creak of old pines resisting the wind, to birdsong and the quick, frantic rustle of tiny animals in the undergrowth.

There is life here, more life than anywhere else in the wood: this is where the trees were ripped, root and branch, where their trunks lay rotting, feeding the earth. This is where the light gets in. Grace knows this place better than any in the wood, it's the place she returns to, over and over, when trying to make sense of all the things that confound her, when trying to make sense of herself.

At this moment, she would like this cold black earth to split open, to swallow her. How easily she laid all the blame at Vanessa's door! She would never have imagined herself so disloyal, but something about the way Becker was looking at her made it impossible to tell the truth. She couldn't find the words. She's never had to before, she never needed to: she and Vanessa understood each other.

Vanessa knew Grace was responsible for Julian's death, she made that clear in her letter: You know things you shouldn't , she wrote, and though it took a while, Grace figured out what she meant – she meant Morocco , she meant Venice . How could Grace know about those plans? They were made after Grace left the island, when Vanessa and Julian were alone. So it followed: Grace must have spoken to Julian some time after Vanessa went to Glasgow. In itself, no smoking gun, but enough to make Vanessa wonder, or perhaps to confirm a suspicion that had already formed.

This understanding remained, an unspoken thing between them, for the rest of their time together – ugly at first, and painful. But when Vanessa painted Love , Grace came to understand that she wasn't angry – or at least she wasn't angry any longer. When Grace looked at Love , she knew that Vanessa had forgiven her, because Love showed her that Vanessa understood that an act of violence can be an act of devotion, too.

Would Becker understand that, if she told him what really happened? She doubts it. Confession would be cathartic, but Grace knows the feeling of relief wouldn't last. Saying the words out loud is one thing, then you have to live with them. You leave the house as one person and you return as another; you have to walk through the wood and past the studio where Julian died and over the tank where his body rotted, and you cannot be the person you were before.

She hears the sharp crack of a branch snapping and when she looks around, there he is, walking slowly but steadily towards her. ‘How did it happen?' he asks, as soon as he reaches her. ‘How did Julian die?'

Grace hesitates. Part of her would like so much to tell him, but now's not the time, and try as she might to imagine how Vanessa would have killed him, she can't picture it. ‘You mustn't think about that,' she says. ‘It's terrible, of course it was terrible, but you mustn't feel sorry for Julian, he wasn't a good man, he wasn't at all like you.' She reaches out to place a hand on his arm but he recoils extravagantly. Déjà vu hits her like a fist to the solar plexus, breathtaking.

Becker forces his way past her. He walks briskly away, through the wood, towards the light, his desire to put physical space between them almost palpable. A wave of disappointment as powerful as grief crashes over her. Her mind is no longer blank, she sees what lies before her.

Grace has gambled, and Becker has lost.