The final two payments had been made more recently, in the wake of Fliss’s accusations against Andrew Jarvis. Fliss had told the police everything and, yet again, they had taken the Fitzmaurice cash and made it all disappear, as if none of it mattered. As if Fliss’s life didn’t count.
And Fliss, who was told her memories were madness, had walked into the sea one night and died believing her life was an inconvenient truth to the people she loved. It was Felicity, in the end, who was sacrificed.
‘Must be tough,’ Rudy says now.
‘Yeah.’
Cosima starts to cry. The tears, when she feels them on her face, are a surprise. She’s been so good at not crying, at not allowing herself to be sad or scared or lonely. But here, on Canggu beach, sitting next to a German called Rudy whom she barely knows, she realises the truth. She misses her parents. Their absence is a dull ache she wakes to each morning.
Rudy pats her back, gently. It is oddly soothing.
‘Can you talk to him still? Your father, I mean?’
He pronounces father as ‘fatter’, which makes her smile. She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand.
‘I could,’ Cosima says. ‘He’s at home, awaiting trial. It’ll be months. But I haven’t. Called him, I mean. He emails but I don’t reply.’
‘Why not?’
She doesn’t have an answer. Not one that would make any sense. How to explain the revenge she had taken, the scores she had believed she wanted to settle? How to explain that she’d convinced herself she was defending her aunt – her poor, dead aunt whom she was never really that close to – rather than just being clouded by rage, by the need to bring her father down, to attack all that he represented, but also by her desperation to make him love her again? How to explain to Rudy, with his blond hair and his innocence and his nosebleeds and his uncool sunglasses (attached to his neck by a purple plastic chain) that she had formed an alliance with her father’s nemesis Martin Gilmour? And how to explain that she actually liked Martin? That he had become, if you really thought about it, her best friend? She couldn’t even begin. She’d messed everything up and now her father was probably going to prison. Because of her.
‘You should just call them,’ Rudy says and at that moment, Holly and Heinrich appear with three different soft drinks cans.
‘We weren’t sure which one you’d prefer,’ Holly says. ‘We’ve got Fanta, Coke and …’ She checks the label of the final can. ‘Some Balinese thing.’
‘Coke, please,’ Cosima says. The can is cool in her hand. She flips open the ring pull and drinks. The sugary liquid revives her. With Rudy’s help, she is able to stand. His hand is large and strong. She keeps hold of it longer than necessary before letting it drop.
‘Thanks, guys,’ Cosima says. ‘I’m sorry about that. The heat got to me, that’s all.’
‘I’m—’ Holly starts.
‘It wasn’t anything you said, Holly, don’t worry.’
Holly’s shoulders sag with relief.
Cosima chucks the empty Coke can into her rubbish sack and they continue to wend their way along the beach, cleaning as they go.
That evening, when she’s back in her apartment, freshly showered and clean, she takes a beer from the fridge and sits outside on the small wooden balcony that overlooks the yard at the back of a busy beauty salon. The manicurists often come out to smoke and gossip on their breaks. Two of them are there now, drinking cups of tea, and Cosima waves at them before taking out her laptop.
She clicks on her inbox. She sees his name immediately. Ben Fitzmaurice. Regular as clockwork, her father has sent her an email. She clicks on it.
‘Dearest Cozzie,’ he has written. ‘I want to start by saying how sorry I am.’
She holds her breath. This isn’t the usual email containing news of home and her siblings.
‘I’m sure you know by now that I was arrested and have been charged for offences I committed. Having had time to reflect, I now regret my actions wholeheartedly but, if you’ll let me explain, I’d value a chance to tell you why I acted in the way I did.
‘As a student, I made a terrible error of judgement and got behind the wheel of a car when I was drunk. I killed my girlfriend at the time. Her name was Vicky. She was kind and fun and clever. I have never forgiven myself.
‘My parents were terrified I would lose everything. My friend Martin, who was sober, agreed to take the blame. My parents paid him handsomely for this act of generosity and the police dropped their investigations. My family and I genuinely thought this was the best thing to do.
‘Years later, for reasons I don’t need to go into here, Martin exposed us. My father and I spoke to the police and persuaded them there was nothing to be gained by pursuing the issue. Martin and I fell out, I’m afraid, which was very painful but I understand a bit more now about why he felt the need to do what he did. I know you two have become close.
‘More recently, as you’re aware, your aunt Fliss struggled with addiction issues. She claimed Jarvis, a man whom I – we – considered to be a close friend, took advantage of her in the most wretched way. I don’t want to go into the distressing detail of that here but perhaps, one day, if you give me another chance, then we can talk about it.
‘I confronted Jarvis but he insisted what happened between him and Fliss had been consensual and that she had “thrown herself” at him. The thing is, Cozzie, Fliss had a reputation for doing things like that. She caused difficulties with quite a few of my friends over the years, even the married ones, and she had lied to us before. Many, many times. I’m afraid it didn’t take much for me to think she was lying to us again. I didn’t believe her. If I’m being totally frank, I didn’t want to believe her because of what it would mean about Jarvis. And then I was convinced by Jarvis that the best course of action for all of us, including Fliss, was to lean on the police to make the files go away. I told myself it would have been awful for Fliss to be dragged through the courts and I wasn’t sure she would survive it. And I also knew that, without Jarvis and his financial backing, my campaign to become PM never stood a chance.
‘Looking back, I’m disgusted I allowed my ambition to cloud my judgement. I’ve learned, over the last few months, that my ambition can be a curse. It killed my beloved sister. It has cost me my relationship with you. It almost lost me your mother. It has blinded me to the hurt I caused. But the person I was back then saw no other way. I felt I had to go along with what was being suggested. I truly thought I was doing the best thing for my sister, and for my family.
