The Swan Lake Read online

  THE SWAN LAKE

  Lisa Ryan

  When Astarte Weaver finds her boyfriend and best friend in her bed, she returns to County Clare in Ireland, a place that holds happy childhood memories, and buys a ruined cottage in an area that the locals call “the Swan Lake.”

  Trying to rebuild her home – and her life – with the help of local builder Flynn, Astarte gradually becomes part of the tightly knit local community, but when tragedy hits the small village, Astarte discovers that the only way to heal the sorrow of the present is to come to terms with the events of the past.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  When Astarte Weaver parks her car and trudges across the quiet street, she doesn’t notice the greetings of sparrows and blackbirds or the coarse shrieks of seagulls. A cool, salty breeze whispers secrets through the laburnum trees that line the road like sentinels. She sighs in unconscious harmony with it. Her feet move automatically, one before the other on the already warm asphalt. They know the way home without instructions. Her feet have worn faint tracks that shimmer in the early morning light.

  She fumbles in her big black shoulder bag, her fingers blindly seeking out her keys as she turns into number twenty-seven. The gate swings closed behind her and a weight lifts from her shoulders, as it always does when she approaches her front door. She glances down to admire the luminous clumps of lavender that edge the path and breathes in the heady antiseptic fragrance. The sea has brought a light mist this morning. Droplets of dew sparkle on fresh cobwebs cunningly woven across blades of grass and over petals of flowers. They will vanish as the sun strengthens and sucks up moisture but, for now, those delicate sticky threads wait to trap the unwary who are foolish enough to get drunk on the scent of nectar.

  Mrs Hargreaves, her neighbour, comes out in her dressing gown and stoops creakily for the pint of milk left on her doorstep. She calls a greeting across the boundary of buddleia that separates their gardens and Astarte stops, keys in her hand, to enquire about her sciatica. Mrs Hargreaves has lived alone since her husband died four years ago, and this morning she is happy because her niece is coming to stay for a few days. Astarte watches her nylon-clad back as it retreats into the house, smiling wryly to herself as she fits the key into the lock and moves into the sudden gloom of the hall. Happiness lies in small things, she reminds herself as she closes the door behind her. A smile, a kind word, brings a glow to your day; a misty golden edge that lasts as long as you don’t try to capture it. She knows how it feels to be old, although she’s only thirty-two. She fights death daily on behalf of others, and loses the battle frequently. Sometimes, on mornings like these, she wishes she had chosen a different vocation. She feels tired, emptied out, but she knows that a decent breakfast followed by a few hours of sleep will revive her. And she has four days off; plenty of time to relax before hurling herself back into the fray.

  She switches the hall light on, takes a deep breath of relief at being home, and instantly realises that something is wrong. The silence she has been eagerly looking forward to is filled with groans and gasps. Astarte stands very still, listening. A chill begins in the pit of her stomach and spreads outwards, creeping through veins and arteries and turning them to ice, even though the morning is warm. Steady grunts and squeals filter down from her bedroom, permeating the hall with a wall of sound. The primeval beat grows louder and faster with every passing second, and her heart accelerates along with it. She takes a deep breath to force oxygen into her lungs, hitches her handbag higher on her shoulder and, keys still clutched tightly in her fingers, steps quietly up the stairs and into the doorway of her pretty peach bedroom.

  Marianne is poised astride Steve, making high squeaking noises that synchronise with his guttural moans. A section of Astarte’s mind detaches itself and drifts off to become an impartial observer, registers Marianne’s position, and is hardly surprised by it. Marianne always has insisted on being on top in everything, and Astarte has frequently applauded this, though at the moment she considers a slow hand-clap would be more appropriate.

  She stands leaning against the door-frame. The last residue of energy drains out of her and her legs give way as she slides downwards to sit heavily on the floor. Her handbag lands beside her with a thud, and only then do they notice her.

  In films the guilty parties leap apart, grasping the sheets close, and everyone talks at once. Usually the betrayed partner hurls abuse or nearby objects. But although Astarte is succumbing to a pervasive sense of unreality, this is no film. This is really happening, and she doesn’t know quite how to handle it. She sits slumped on the floor, handbag at her side, keys still dangling in her right hand, staring wide-eyed at her lover and best friend as they freeze in mid-coitus, their faces turned in her direction. The silence is broken into segments as the clandestine couple catch their breaths after the interrupted exertion.

  If their expressions had reflected shock or remorse, Astarte would have cried a lot, shouted a bit, extracted promises of future faithfulness, fumigated her bed, and carried on as before. She would have been rather less trusting, but still willing to offer another chance. A feeling of security, of having something and someone to hold on to, has been more important to Astarte than anything else throughout her life, but the cold feeling in her chest is creeping upwards, freezing out logical thought. She wants to run away, to pretend that this has never happened. She wants to walk back out of the door and return an hour later when they have left. But Astarte has never been skilled at self-delusion. She hauls herself into a more upright sitting position and gazes blankly at both of them.

  What impacts more deeply than the act itself is the smugness that rises in waves from the bed. She unwillingly registers that they intended her to find them. Steve was fully aware of when she would be home from work. They had planned to meet at his house later that day. Astarte feels sick.

  She breaks the tableau by climbing laboriously to her feet. Her body seems to weigh a great deal, and she wonders whether the earth’s force of gravity has suddenly increased, dragging her down with it. A sudden vision assails her of the roof caving in, cr
ushing the contents of the room, along with its unwelcome guests, into dust. Fleetingly she glances upwards, but the ceiling remains intact.

  Marianne slowly and carefully eases herself off Steve, who winces but stays still, even though the cream silk duvet has slipped to the floor. His exposed body looks surprisingly pale and puny, and his hands slide from Marianne’s waist like dead fish as she clambers out of bed and starts to dress. Still no-one speaks, but Marianne holds Astarte’s gaze as she steps into her thong and jeans and pulls her shirt around her, groping for the top button. Her eyes are cold, with no trace of embarrassment or remorse, and Astarte wonders, looking into those narrowed slits, whether she ever really knew her. Steve gazes up at the ceiling as though the secret of life is emblazoned across it.

  Astarte swallows hard. Her throat feels parched and tight; words stick like chicken bones, refusing to be dislodged.

  ‘Get out of here,’ she croaks.

  Marianne silently steps into her trainers, not bothering to tie the laces, and walks with a slapping sound past her, through the door, and down the stairs. The front door slams behind her, the gate creaks a moment later, and only the shrill call of a blackbird warning off a rival disturbs the quiet morning. Astarte looks at the dishevelled bed and its occupant in distaste.

  ‘I want you to leave,’ she tells him quietly. Her voice feels distant, unfamiliar.

  Steve’s eyes slide down from the ceiling to meet hers for a second before he looks away and nods. Astarte turns and walks carefully downstairs, throws her keys and bag on the kitchen table, pours a large glass of brandy, and swallows it in one gulp, hardly feeling the fiery liquid scorch its way down her throat. She pours another and sits with her head in her hands, trying to still the muscles in her arms that shake and twitch, until she hears the sound of quiet footsteps coming carefully down the stairs. Steve slinks past the open door and Astarte calls, ‘Wait!’ She holds her hand out, and Steve sheepishly drops his keys into her open palm. They feel heavy, and the cold metal burns an imprint into her skin.

  ‘My boyfriend and best friend. What a pathetic cliché. How long has this been going on?’ she asks tightly, looking up into his face. Steve raises his eyes from the floor and focuses on her. She registers discomfort, and something that could be defiance, in his hazel eyes. He smooths a hand through his short hair, leaving it standing up in spikes, then looks quickly towards the door. Astarte memorises every line of his face: the angle of his cheekbones, the furrow between his eyebrows, the slim curve of his lips. She pokes him, hard. ‘How bloody long have you two been sneaking around behind my back?’

  ‘A while,’ he mumbles. She breathes in sharply. ‘Two months,’ he admits, still not looking directly at her. The words slip from the corner of his mouth, and Astarte stands and raises herself to her full height of five feet and one inch. A surge of rage hits her like a tidal wave, engulfing her, filling her vision with a rosy mist. Her fist shoots upwards, the keys sharp as daggers as they strike skin and cut through to the cheekbone beneath.

  ‘You piece of shit!’ she screams.

  Steve staggers back, his hand to his face, and she sees blood stream through his fingers as he bolts for the door and runs through, leaving it open behind him.

  Astarte follows more slowly, closes the door, and leans her back against it, feeling its reassuring solidity hold her upright even though the floor appears to be shifting beneath her feet. She walks back to the kitchen, throws the keys against the wall, and stumbles to sit at the table. She drinks the brandy slowly. Then she rests her elbows on the table, puts her hands in her hair to grasp a fistful of curls on each side of her head, and weeps.

  Chapter Two

  The steady ticking of the clock on the wall has a soothing effect. Whatever happens, time moves on; minutes stretch to days, weeks, years, unheeding of human concerns. Astarte stares blearily at the second hand as it clicks it way round in a relentless circle. It’s nine-twenty in the morning, and she is exhausted. Her eyes flick to Steve’s keys where they lie on the floor. There’s a dent in the wall from the force of their impact, and some drops of blood by the door have already dried to the colour of rust. Sighing, she goes to the cupboard beneath the sink and takes out a rag, wets it, and wipes the floor clean, then throws the rag in the bin. She feels emptied out, insubstantial. She half expects her hands to pass right through the rim of the counter that they rest on.

  Standing by the window, she casts her eyes over the front garden. The lavender still blossoms. Bees hum around it, oblivious to heartbreak. Butterflies hover around the buddleia blooms, their wings translucent in the sun, antennae quivering. The azure sky is cloudless, the air fresh. All the signs of a perfect day are there, and Astarte feels let down. She wants the weather to reflect her mood. It should be raining. Lightning bolts should be flashing to earth, striking down disaster. She blinks, hard. The sky retains its hopeful blue so she shrugs, despising it, and goes to the refrigerator. She feels so hollow that she needs to fill the space with something before she disappears altogether.

  The telephone rings. She ignores it and goes to collect two sausages from the freezer, throws them into the frying pan with some oil, and stabs them viciously with a fork to prevent the skins from bursting. The oil spits and hisses, and she adds slices of bacon then opens a bottle of Bordeaux. She empties the contents of the pan onto a plate and fries a slice of bread, adding more oil afterwards so that the egg won’t stick. The kitchen fills with cooking smells, and she downs a large slug of wine, feeling its warmth seep into the ice that seems to have crystallised in her stomach.

  Astarte can’t imagine how Steve and Marianne have kept their liaison hidden from her for so long. She searches her mind for clues, for links or connections, but finds none. The wine tastes of blackberries and vanilla, and she refills the glass. She’s feeling light-headed and confused. Her hands tremble as she slides the egg onto the plate, and a howl of dismay escapes her as it skates across the film of grease and slips right over the edge. The yolk bursts onto the surface of the pine table and spreads out, congealing instantly. Astarte bursts into tears that drip down and land on the sausages in small bursts of steam. She hurls the plate of food at the wall and storms through the house and out into the rear garden, the place where she has always felt most at peace.

  The dew has almost vanished. She sits on the grass and lets her eyes roam over the carefully cultivated vegetable patch, looking across at the rockery planted with tiny alpine flowers and violets, a tribute to her grandmother. Masses of honeysuckle and roses clamber lavishly up the fence, spilling over into Mrs Hargreaves’ garden. Suddenly she wants to be somewhere else; anywhere but here. Her eyelids grow heavy, and she doesn’t realise her head has dropped downwards until it jerks back with a nauseating cracking sound that makes her jump. She needs sleep desperately. She needs to escape from the whirlwind churning through her mind, scattering fragments of thoughts and images like a kaleidoscope of autumn leaves.

  Locking the door carefully, she hesitates in the hall, indecisive, before climbing the stairs. Her bedroom door is open. Steve has pulled the duvet up, as if that will hide the act that took place there. The room looks clean and tidy, but she cannot imagine wanting to lie on that bed ever again. A shadow encloses it, tainting the pale creamy colours with a greyish tinge. She goes to the small guest room that no-one ever uses and peels off her clothes, discarding them carelessly onto the floor.

  The polished wooden floorboards in the bathroom feel cool beneath her feet. Standing before the mirror, leaning on the basin, she gazes into the silvery glass. Her reflection stares back at her, the face of a stranger. The honey-gold hair is wild, tangled in knots where her fingers have clutched it. The blue eyes, that her Steve told her are the colour of the Mediterranean on a sunny day, are dull and swollen, rimmed with pink. Cheekbones that usually only follow a slight curve under flesh are sharply defined. Her skin looks white, as if all of her blood has retreated far beneath the surface, and her lips are dented with tooth marks where she h
as bitten down on them. ‘You look a bloody mess,’ she tells the reflection, and the lips in the mirror-image, the top slightly fuller than the bottom, mouth the words silently back at her. As a child she was terrified by the hypnotic effect of her own eyes, sure that she would be sucked into the blackness of her own pupils to arrive at the other side of the glass, trapped forever. Quickly she looks away, twists the tap, and splashes cold water over her face.

  The bed is narrow but comfortable, and she curls up like a question mark, trying to clear her mind and enter the dark tunnel that leads to sleep. A memory rises to the surface, and she traces its shining thread backwards. Green fields; rain that smells so fresh and clean that you could dance naked in it and wake with skin like satin the following day; stone cottages that have stood for generations, undisturbed by time and passing fashions; soft musical accents that make the most mundane appear poetic. Her breath slows and softens, and she slips over the edge of a cliff towards a beach of black sand, and into sleep.

  At dawn the following morning she surfaces and lies watching the dappled patterns growing brighter on the walls. She smelled rain in her dreams, and it has had a cleansing effect. However painful the truth is, it’s better to know it, and she’s aware that there is no going back.

  After her shower the clothes on the floor are thrown into the trash; she doesn’t want to wear the memories associated with them. Astarte makes a breakfast of tea and toast spread thickly with honey to sweeten the bitter taste in her mouth, and sets to work cleaning the house from top to bottom. Every corner is attended to. Spiders scuttle backwards into tiny webs hidden from view and she flushes them out, feeling slightly guilty as they disappear up the tube of her vacuum cleaner. She polishes floors and windows, scrubs skirting boards, carefully wipes picture frames, until not a speck of dust can be found anywhere.

  Small gifts from Steve and Marianne are thrown away: the cheap paste ring that he bought her at Southsea fairground, treasured even though they laughed at its tackiness; the caricature portrait that Marianne gave her for her last birthday; the photo of Astarte, Steve, and Marianne taken at a party two weeks previously. When she looks closely at this she notices that Steve is smiling into the camera, while she and Marianne are both looking at him, and she wonders how she could have been so blind. Steve’s spare toothbrush and wet shaver are discarded, along with a book and bottle of perfume that Marianne left behind on one of her visits. The house is scoured of all associations, and the smell of disinfectant burns away any wisps of ghosts that might try to cling to the furniture.