Page 54 of High Season
Josie tilts her head to one side, an almost imperceptible motion. This is it, Nina thinks. This is the moment when she says the thing that has always scared her the most. The thing that she has always been afraid to say, even to herself.
“I don’t remember what happened that day,” she says, the words coming out in a rush. “I don’t. I remember patches—little pieces—but I don’t remember finding Tamara. I don’t remember seeing you… you hurting her. And the bits that I do remember. They’re so murky. Like looking at something through stained glass. I’m not sure if they’re real memories, or memories of memories that have got all mixed upand distorted over time, or if I’m only remembering the stories that I’ve been told since—”
She breaks off, out of breath. It is the thing she has never said out loud. The thing that she has barely admitted, even to herself. In spite of the essays, and the seminars, and her intricate understanding of memory. This is the thing that none of her research and lecturers have been able to answer.
She cannot, even now, describe how it feels, the muddle of images, the tangled-up thoughts. The childlike sketch that she still sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night visualizing. The obsessions, and the anxiety, and the self-loathing that pile up inside her. A mother who went from neglectful to overbearing, seemingly in the blink of an eye. A brother who still seems to be missing part of himself. A sister that Nina will never know. So many lives, all sent ricocheting in one day, one moment.
And then, a singular, still image of Josie pushing Tamara beneath the water.
“The story is there,” Nina says. “I just don’t know how to access it. And maybe Ican’taccess it. Maybe it’s gone, and the more I go over it in my mind, the further away from the truth I get.”
There’s a moment when neither of them speaks.
“Right,” says Josie slowly. “And what do you think that I can do about it, exactly?”
“I want you to tell me everything about that night,” Nina says. “Everything you can remember.”
Josie lets out a sharp bolt of laughter.
“Why?” she says. “I’ve already told my side of the story. I told the truth in court. I don’t have anything new to say.”
“I just thought…” Nina hesitates. “You were there that day. And so was I. And maybe if we could just put our stories together, we might be able to find out the truth?”
Josie is already shaking her head.
“This is real life,” she says. “It’s not some kind of detective drama. It’s not a game of Cluedo. We can’t just put all the clues together and miraculously find the answer.”
“Josie, please,” Nina says. “Please. I just need to hear it from you. I just need to know. Where were you when I found Tamara? Why would I say that you did it?”
Josie sighs deeply.
“I’ve said all this a thousand times before,” she says. “I wasn’t anywhere near the pool when it happened. I wasn’t even near the house. I was down on the beach—the private beach you go down the steps at the back of the house to get to? I was looking for you. You’d wandered off and I—I was worried. I thought you might have slipped away, down to the sea. It’s a long way down, you know that. I would have been gone awhile. And by the time I got back up—it was crazy. They’d found Tamara in the water. Everyone was freaking out. I’d missed the whole thing.”
Nina waits for more. There must be more. This can’t be everything. It can’t all come down to this.
“And as for why you would have said it,” Josie says. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it over and over again, but I barely even spoke to Tamara that night. You couldn’t possibly have seen us together. I just don’t have an answer for you. I wish I did.”
“That can’t be it,” Nina says. “There must be something else. If you didn’t do it, there would be something—”
“I told you,” Josie says. Her voice is sharp, and Nina feels the brief confidence between them break, Josie defensive again. “It’s not a detective show. It’s real life.”
“But I thought…”
Not thought, exactly. Hoped. Hoped for something new, something definitive, something that would hold the truth together.
Josie starts to stand.
“It’s late,” she says. “You should go.”
“I’m going to do it,” Nina says in a rush. “The documentary. I’ve told the producers I’m going to do it.”
Josie looks at her like she’s crazy to think she would care.
“So?” she says. “Your funeral, not mine.”
“Why are you back?” Nina says. “If it’s not the documentary, then why are you back?”
Josie lets out a long, exasperated sigh.
