Chapter Six The Drowned Man

CHAPTER SIX THE DROWNED MAN

I arrived home to find a silver Mercedes parked on the street outside my house. I rounded the car, which exaggerated the pitiful state of my mother’s battered Ford just by being near it. The Mercedes may have been sleek, but it was empty and unfamiliar. What’s more, my mother was usually in bed at this time of night, not welcoming rich visitors. I might have been infamy’s child, but she was infamy’s wife, and that meant her social calendar was a lot more open than it used to be. Now, instead of friends, she had projects.

I began to panic that she was welcoming a visitor – the kind of visitor who was going to try and replace my father. Maybe my mother was already tired of waiting. Maybe she didn’t want to face the next four years alone, fielding questions from nosy neighbours and fair-weather friends, and spending every Valentine’s Day crying over the night my father was taken away from her. Maybe this was the car of the man who was going to try and fix it all.

I centred myself. There was really only one thing to do. And that one thing was not to stand outside panicking. No. I was going to march inside, muster up every strand of teenage sarcasm and moodiness I had in me, and use it to scare away whoever this mystery suitor was.

I let myself in through the front door and shut it quietly behind me. Deep vibrations were wafting from the kitchen – a man’s voice! I padded down the hallway, stopping just behind the door that led to the kitchen. It was ajar.

‘I don’t know why you’re acting so jumpy. You’re going to terrify her,’ my mother was saying.

‘Will there ever be a time when you take my advice, Celine?’

The strained voice of my uncle Jack surprised me more than if it had been a different man entirely. Historically, my mother and my father’s brother had never gotten along. In my mother’s mind, Jack was always getting in the way. And even when he was getting in the way with concert tickets or take-out pizza, he was still a nuisance. He was about the only person in the world whom she refused to tolerate. He ranked below Mrs Bailey on the I-don’t-want-you-in-my-house scale, and that was saying something.

Growing up, my father and my uncle only ever had each other – a result of two absent, alcoholic parents – and with Jack being younger, and always refusing to settle down, he had relied a lot on my father, pulling him away for nights at the local bar, or sweeping into his life during private moments that my mother had wanted to keep for just us three. In short, Jack was always there, and was, in my mother’s esteem, a bad influence.

But I knew the other parts of him – the man who took me into the city to see Wicked at the Oriental Theatre just because I once said in passing that I liked musicals; the man who purposefully lingered around my conversations with Millie at work so he could chime in with his idea of sage advice about our boy problems; the man who ruffled my hair when I was trying to complain about something completely serious, who would buy me the new iPhone on a whim, ‘just because’, and who would insist on driving me to school when it was snowing so I wouldn’t have to walk through the slush to reach the bus. I saw the man who did his best to step in and protect me when my father went to prison, and even though he didn’t always succeed in shielding me from the cruel jibes and the rescinded party invitations, at least he tried.

I pressed closer to the door.

‘I don’t want you getting Sophie involved in your conspiracy stuff,’ my mother snapped. ‘Haven’t you learnt anything?’

‘It’s my prerogative to look out for her, Celine. I made a promise to Mickey.’

‘I think you’ve already done enough,’ my mother replied in a dangerously quiet voice reserved only for her most terrifying moods. I flinched in sympathy for my uncle.

‘When are you going to let all this shit go?’ Jack spat.

‘When you accept your part in it!’

I peeked around the door. My mother stood at one end of the kitchen, wearing her bathrobe and slippers. Her short golden hair lay messy around her face, and her features were pinched in disgust. She had folded her arms and was leaning to one side, her hip hitched up at a defiant angle. Small as she was, nobody wanted to be on the wrong side of Celine Gracewell. I, of all people, could certainly attest to that.

‘I’m just trying to keep Sophie safe,’ Jack said, his shoulders dropping in resignation. ‘Why won’t you let me?’

‘Because I don’t trust you. Not after everything.’

With a frustrated sigh, my uncle stepped back and shook his head. ‘You’ve never trusted me.’

‘Oh shut up, Jack.’

Feeling like I had heard enough to make me feel sufficiently uncomfortable for the rest of the year, I kicked the door wide open.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Jack’s face flooded with relief, settling the high colour in his cheeks. ‘There you are!’

‘Yeah.’ I pointed at myself for added effect. ‘Here I am. What’s all the yelling about?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’ He ran his hand along his greying buzz cut, stopping to scratch the back of his head. ‘I’m just stressed.’

Jack was always stressed about something.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Being dramatic,’ my mother hissed before he could reply.

Yikes.

‘Is that your new car in the driveway?’ I asked, coming to stand between my uncle and my mother and trying to alter the mood. ‘If you’re making that kind of money from the diner, you should probably give me a raise.’

He wasn’t amused by my joke. ‘I borrowed it from a friend. I’m not driving my car right now.’

‘Feeling too conspicuous these days?’ I tried to lighten the mood again.

There really was nothing more uncomfortable than awkwardness. And besides, Uncle Jack drove a red vintage convertible – a homage to his midlife crisis. It was only fair I got to make fun of him for it.

He sighed. ‘Something like that.’

My mother moved around me to fill a glass of water. ‘Just say what you want to say to her so we can get back to our lives.’

‘What are you doing here so late?’ I asked again. ‘And why haven’t you been at work? The delivery man still hasn’t shown up.’

My uncle shuffled his feet like a lost child, unsure of where to put himself. ‘I know,’ he said, his voice thick with weariness. ‘Luis died on Friday night.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling a sudden pang of guilt. The delivery man had a name – Luis, yes, I remembered. And now Luis, who was barely forty, was dead. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He drowned.’

‘Drowned,’ I echoed. ‘At night. Where?’

‘In his bathtub,’ said Jack, simply, like there wasn’t anything bizarre about that statement.

‘Oh dear,’ said my mother, covering her mouth.

I, on the other hand, was gaping. It just seemed so illogical. ‘Was it an accident?’ The last time I signed for a delivery, Luis was chattering on about how great the weather was.

‘Luis had too much to live for,’ Jack replied matter-of-factly. ‘He didn’t do it to himself.’ What did that mean? A sudden coldness rippled up my arms. My uncle continued, undeterred by the implication, leaving me to ponder it in silence. ‘Eric Cain and I are going to see Luis’s family tomorrow. I want to see that they’re taken care of while they deal with all of this. His wife is inconsolable.’

I was starting to feel like a royal ass. I had met Luis maybe twenty times and I barely knew his name; my uncle knew his story, his family, and now he was going to go out of his way to make sure they were OK.

‘That’s really good of you,’ I said, looking to my mother for her agreement – surely she would give Uncle Jack credit for this – but she wasn’t paying attention to me.

‘That poor woman,’ she said quietly instead.

‘It’s the right thing to do,’ said Jack, to me.

‘Are you OK?’ My uncle wasn’t one for big displays of emotion, but I could see by his face that he was upset.

‘Yeah,’ he said, brushing off my concern. ‘I just wanted to come by and talk to you before I left.’

‘You could have called me,’ I ventured, not unkindly, but there’s just something so unnerving about people visiting you without calling first. ‘I’m permanently contactable.’

‘I lost my phone. I have to get a new one.’

My mother circled the table and sat as far away from Jack as she could. She started drumming her fingernails along the table – a not-so-subtle hint – while still keeping a watchful eye on our conversation. If I thought Luis’s death had softened her obvious disdain for my uncle, I was wrong.

Jack ignored her exasperation, and I felt like I was the only one left experiencing the full awkwardness of the situation.

‘So… what’s up?’ I asked.

He pulled a chair out and sat down, propping his elbows on his knees. His shoulders sagged. ‘After I visit Luis’s family tomorrow, I’m going to go stay in the city. I won’t be back in Cedar Hill for a while. But I want to talk to you about something before I go away.’

He looked at me with solemn grey-blue eyes – they were my eyes, my father’s eyes, and with a sudden pang I was reminded of just how similar they were. Before, they could have been mistaken for twins, but not any more. Prison life had been unkind to my father’s appearance, while my uncle’s face remained mostly unlined, his hair neat and his skin lightly tanned from being out in the sun.

‘What do you want to talk about?’ I backed up against the counter and gripped it a lot harder than I meant to, sensing something was wrong. This was what they were arguing about. My mother continued to drum her fingernails on the table.

‘A new family have moved into the neighbourhood, and I need you to be careful of them.’

I felt alarm spread across my face. ‘What?’

He surveyed me warily. ‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’

I nodded slowly, trying to figure out where this was coming from and why it was making me feel panicky all over again. ‘What’s wrong with the Priestlys?’

I watched my mother’s reaction for more clues.

‘Theatrics,’ she murmured, with a dismissive flick of the wrist. Still, she stayed where she was, monitoring our exchange.

‘Persephone,’ I grimaced on instinct. I hated when Jack full-named me. ‘I’m not going to get into it,’ he said. My uncle’s stern voice was so like my father’s, it sent a shudder down my spine. For a second I wanted to close my eyes and pretend he was there, that everything was back to the way it should be – that we hadn’t just discussed somebody drowning in their own tub, and that we weren’t about to slap a big fat warning sign over the hottest boys in the neighbourhood. ‘Just do as I ask.’

I couldn’t help but feel sceptical. Even with his bruised hand, there had been something so soothing about Nic’s presence.

‘When will you be back?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

Cagey as ever. I wished Millie the High Inquisitor were here. She could get answers from a mute. And she’d enjoy it too.

‘So that’s all you’re going to tell me?’

‘That’s all there is.’ Jack looked away from me, out the window and into the darkness behind our house. ‘Do you understand?’

I was about to answer that I didn’t really understand anything about it, but then the most peculiar thing happened. He sprang to his feet like something had bitten him. The chair tumbled backwards and he darted across the kitchen.

‘What on earth?’ My mother’s chair screeched against the floor.

Jack lunged at the kitchen sink and shot out his hand. I thought he was going to punch through the window, but instead he grabbed the jar of honey from the sill. When he looked at me again, his eyes were red and bulging.

‘Where did this come from?’

‘The h-honey?’ I stuttered. I had never seen someone so freaked out by something so benign. ‘I found it.’

He pinched the black ribbon between his fingers, rubbing it. ‘Where?’

I shrugged. ‘Someone left it at the diner. I found it when I was closing up.’

The colour drained from his face, turning his usually red-tinged cheeks to an eerie paper-white. ‘If you find one of these again, I want you to leave it where it is and call me immediately.’

‘Jack, it’s just honey,’ I pointed out.

Why was everyone acting so strangely lately? I had already tasted it and lived to tell the tale, so it’s not like it was poisoned.

‘Just do it,’ he said quietly. ‘OK?’

‘I thought you said you didn’t have a phone,’ I reminded him.

‘I’ll call you when I get a new one.’

‘Jack?’ In all the strangeness, I had forgotten my mother was still there. ‘I think you should go now. You’re acting erratically and it’s making me very uncomfortable. Sophie probably wants to go to bed.’

I opened my mouth to protest – I wasn’t tired – but then I stopped myself. My mother was right.

‘OK.’ Jack looked at the ground, shaking his head. ‘Sorry, Sophie. I’ve had a very long day.’

‘It’s fine.’ I offered him an encouraging smile. Between managing the diner and taking care of his investments in the city, Jack always worked himself into the ground, but lately he had been more unlike himself than ever; he was exhausted and jittery, and now that Luis had died, his behaviour was stranger than ever.

‘Good night, Sophie.’

‘Night,’ I returned.

Honey still in hand, Jack trudged towards the back door.

Half a second later, the motion censor in our backyard flickered to life, illuminating my uncle’s shadow as it faced away from us, staring at the broken patio squares and the overgrown grass.

‘What on earth is he—?’

The rest of my mother’s question was drowned out by an ear-splitting crash. I pressed my nose up to the window, but Jack was already disappearing from view. I looked down, where the light was winking off a hundred shards of shattered glass.

‘That man!’ my mother shrieked, coming to stand beside me at the window. ‘This is exactly why I don’t want him around. Your uncle’s behaviour is completely irrational. He’s been drinking again, and if he doesn’t stop, he’s going to wind up doing something he’ll really regret…’ She trailed off and started to rub my arm. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied, pinning my hand against the window to stop it from shaking.

‘I wish your father were here to keep him in line.’

‘I think if Dad were here Uncle Jack wouldn’t be out of line,’ I said quietly.

My mother sighed. ‘I’ll have to wait until morning to clean up that mess.’

‘I’ll help you.’

We lingered at the window together, and watched as honey oozed into the pavement cracks like dark gold blood.