The Perfect Daughter Read Free Page A

if, with my disorderly life, I’d been in any position to cluck. When I was only a little older than Verona I’d done much the same myself, in a more censorious generation. Normally, as far as I was concerned, Verona could have kept her secret and I shouldn’t have dreamed of hinting at it to her mother. But wasn’t my guess better than any of the horrors Alexandra was imagining? Then I looked up at the solid house and the pony in the buttercups, down at the boathouse and the estuary, thought of the ideal I’d be shattering and knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even hint at it.
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    The heron made a sudden dive into the reeds then heaved itself into the air, beak empty. I heard the creaking of its wings as it flew over. Still no sound of a motor. Now the decision was taken there was nothing I could do for Alexandra. I wanted to be back in Hampstead, where our plan would be near its critical stage by now. If Ben wasn’t gone in half an hour I’d walk the four or five miles back to the ferry across the estuary then to the railway station without bothering to say goodbye. Bored with sitting on the rock, I decided to pass the half-hour having a look at the boathouse. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was half envying Verona her uncomplicated childhood and her present hypothetical happiness with her lover. I had the childish idea of spending the time sitting in one of the boats, seeing if the tide would come back soon enough to set it afloat. I slid down the bank under swags of wild roses and honeysuckle to the start of a wooden walkway over the reed bed. It had been newly creosoted and the smell fought with honeysuckle and seaweed. The landward end of the walkway joined a narrow path that led up through pasture and orchard to the house. The seaward end went to a small door at the back of the boathouse. I followed it across the reed bed and opened the boathouse door.
    The light hit me. The narrow silver channel of water between the mud flats was blindingly bright against the darkness inside the boathouse. I was standing on a wooden platform with the masts of two dinghies in silhouette. Seagulls were swooping outside, flies buzzing inside. As my eyes adapted to the contrast of light I saw that the platform turned a right angle and went on down the long side of the boathouse to the left. There were a couple of rowing boats moored there, one long and slim, the other a little tub. I started walking towards them and turned the right angle. Concentrating on where I was stepping, I was only half aware that something was hanging over the space on my right above the mud. If I thought about it at all I probably assumed it was a fishing net or a clutch of oilskins hung up to dry. But I’m not sure I even thought about it until flies came up in my face, and the smell wasn’t creosote or seaweed. I think I probably put up an arm to wave the flies away and that disturbed the air just enough to set it moving, revolving.
    There was something white in the net or oilskins, as if somebody had hung a mask there. A grotesque mask with a swollen face and protruding tongue. I heard my own voice saying something. I don’t know what. Then I’d got a boathook from somewhere and was hooking at the hanging thing. It was some way out from the platform. I could only just reach it with the boathook. It was the jacket belt I hooked. The thing came reluctantly to me, bottom half first, swollen mask tilted away. It was heavy, soaked. A skirt, smelling of wet wool. Then the belt came unbuckled from the weight of it and the thing was swinging out over the mud, then in again towards me, half turning as it came. I dropped the boathook, fell on my knees and grabbed a handful of the skirt. Something rattled against the platform. A plank of wood. The bottom of the thing was lashed to a long soaked plank. The feet, still in their stockings and shoes, green weed trailing over the insteps, were