The Drowning People Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1999 by Richard Mason

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Warner vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books.

  The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Cover design by Diane Luger

  Cover photo by Franco Accornero

  Bood design by Giorgetta Bell McRee

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group,

  237 Park Avenue,

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  A Time Warner Company

  First eBook Edition: January 2000

  ISBN: 978-0-446-54888-5

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PREFACE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PRAISE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

  FOR RICHARD MASON

  AND THE DROWNING PEOPLE

  “[AN] OXONIAN LITERARY SENSATION … Mason’s twist on his generation’s cynicism is that his narrator has, in fact, seen it all.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “MANNERS, MUSIC AND MURDER … MASON IS A TALENTED WRITER … with an eye to the wink, the wry aside, evidence of a youthful writer predisposed to mischief.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “How [Mason] could have so much wisdom and insight is baffling. … His elders will be jealous of his storytelling ability, not to mention his BEAUTIFUL COMMAND OF THE LANGUAGE. HIS DESCRIPTIONS … ARE LYRI-CAL AND HIS TAKE ON BRITISH HIGH SOCIETY UNCANNY.”

  —San Francisco Examiner

  “EARLY FAME EARNED. … Mason’s take on the world and the human condition often is more sagacious than that of many people twice his age, and the scope of his writing talent is broader than some writers with many books in their canons.”

  —Denver Post

  “The much-hyped literary thriller/romance actually is HYPE-WORTHY.”

  —Esquire

  “GRIPPING … wonderfully articulated characters … Mason’s strength is the plot.”

  —New York Post

  “Richard Mason, a student at Oxford, is only 21, but … this suspenser, a bestseller in England, echoes WUTHERING HEIGHTS.”

  —People

  “THE DROWNING PEOPLE is this summer’s A Secret History, and author Richard Mason is the publishing world’s Donna Tartt.”

  —Newsday

  “COMPELLING. … NODDING TO FITZGERALD in its Gatsby-esque world of beautiful people smoking elegantly and luminous women.”

  —GQ

  “THE STARTLING OPENING SENTENCE AND THE COMPELLING VOICE … DRAW THE READER INTO THE EMOTIONAL VORTEX OF THIS ACCOMPLISHED DEBUT NOVEL. … Mason is remarkably assured for a young writer … clever plot twists … told in literary and polished prose.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “PAGE-TURNER … a sweeping, romantic thriller … quite an achievement—at any age.”

  —Vogue

  “AUDACIOUS … ENGAGING AND WELL PACED. … Impressively conceived and painstakingly executed.”

  —Seattle Times

  “What is most stunning of all is his intelligent grasp of the tangled emotions of a man in his seventies. … Mason’s perception of the interior life … his comprehension of the forces that motivate betrayal and revenge, and his command of language result in a story that is, in the literal sense of the word, UNFORGETTABLE.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “ASTOUNDING. … How he can be so accomplished at such an obscenely tender age is beyond reckoning … thoroughly authentic, displaying an empathetic imagination that would be notable in a writer twice Mason’s age.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “Mason writes perceptively of love, relationships, and the foolishness of youth. … A BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN STORY … EXQUISITE USE OF LANGUAGE.”

  —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

  “STRIKING IN ITS WISDOM and thoughtful beyond its author’s years. It would be a worthwhile addition to any writer’s body of work—IT’S A STUNNER.”

  —www.bookpage.com

  “ADMIRABLY AMBITIOUS … the pacing and control of the plot, too, have the confidence of an experienced hand. His themes and upright, retrospective tone echo Daphne du Maurier and John Fowles.”

  —The Times (London)

  “Assured, well paced and ambitious … the writing is a delight. … A junior Iris Murdoch, with promising nods to Donna Tartt … AN EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT.”

  —The Guardian (UK)

  “AS A STUDY OF THE AWESOME POWER OF FIRST LOVE, IT DAZZLES. … Mason, awesomely for one so young, writes with a style both spare and powerful.”

  —Birmingham Post (UK)

  “ONE OF THE MOST TALKED ABOUT FIRST NOVELS OF THE YEAR. If you want to be au courant with modern fiction, you will need to read it. … A truly extraordinary novel … impressive stuff. Mason is also capable of thrilling concision: densely packed sentences pregnant with ideas; vivid descriptions; terse, epigrammatic dialogue.”

  —Sunday Telegraph (UK)

  “A GREAT READ, A SUSPENSE-FILLED BLOCK-BUSTER WITH BRAINS. … It’s a brilliantly written book, a profound statement on love and revenge and what some people will do to get it.”

  —Toronto Globe and Mail

  “Drowning in talent. … All-round super-Brit Richard Mason shows uncommon nerve by infusing a confessional narrative with gothic creepiness, touches of the whodunit formula, and yes, a beguiling probe of disturbed psychology. … AUDACIOUS FROM BEGINNING TO END.”

  —Toronto Star

  “ONE CANNOT HELP BUT BE AMAZED WHILE READING THIS EXCEPTIONAL STORY THAT THIS IS THE WRITER’S FIRST NOVEL. … Beautifully told … a remarkable book.”

  —Pretoria News (South Africa)

  “IF HIS DEBUT NOVEL … IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT MASON CAN ACHIEVE, NO ONE QUITE HAS THE NERVE TO IMAGINE WHAT MAY COME NEXT.”

  —Elle (Australia)

  “A COMPELLING WRITER … at times I just had to stop reading and marvel at how an eighteen-year-old could have such insight, such presence. The story is brilliant, with a touch of madness, wickedness, fate, consuming love, and jealousy. RICHARD MASON MUST BE THE NOVELIST OF THE NEXT CENTURY.”

  — Sunshine Coast Sunday (Australia)

  For my splendid parents,Tony and J
ane

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My great thanks, first of all, to my parents and my family: to Jane, Tony, Jenny, Kay, William, Terry and Matthew, without whose faith, love and encouragement this book could not have been written. My thanks also to my friends: to Rod, Christina, Marina, Victoria and Lycia Parker, for their seemingly endless generosity; to Lord Joicey for commissioning the diary which first sent me to Prague; to Adelyn Jones, Randy Watson and Holly Golightly who were my partners in crime there; to Daph and Shells Borkum for their tireless talk and Tequila; to Chris Ogden for being at the end of a ’phone when needed; to Fremmers, Thierry Morel, Eleanor Rees, Joy LoDico, Jani Loder, Sophie Orde, Kate Harris, James Hardy, Emma Dummett, Dougald Hine, Will Poole, Marjorie McMillan and my uncle Arthur Schoeman, amongst others, for all their affection, conversation, criticism and coffee. From a succession of fine teachers I am particularly grateful to Karen Le Gros, John Evans, Nicholas Kaye, Dennis Hunt, Nick Welsh, Angus Graham-Campbell, Richard Pleming, Chris Davis and Jeffrey Branch; and I could not have asked for better agents than Peter Robinson, Kathy Anderson and Diana Mackay, nor for better editors than Jamie Raab at Warner, Tom Weldon at Penguin UK, or Hannah Griffiths at Curtis Brown. My thanks to them all.

  … I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quick sand, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice.

  —JOHN KEATS, in a letter to

  J. A. Hessey, 8 October 1818

  PROLOGUE

  MY WIFE OF MORE THAN FORTY-FIVE YEARS shot herself yesterday afternoon.

  At least that is what the police assume, and I am playing the part of grieving widower with enthusiasm and success. Life with Sarah has schooled me in self-deception, which I find—as she did—to be an excellent training in the deceiving of others. Of course I know that she did nothing of the kind. My wife was far too sane, far too rooted in the present to think of harming herself. In my opinion she never gave a thought to what she had done. She was incapable of guilt.

  It was I who killed her.

  And my reasons were not those you might expect. We were not unhappily married, you see; far from it. Sarah was—until yesterday—an excellent and loving wife, for she was conscientious, in some respects, to her core. It’s funny that, isn’t it? How completely contrasting standards can coexist in a person without seeming to trouble them. My wife was, at least outwardly, never anything but dutiful, correct, serene. “She gave of herself tirelessly in the true service of this island and its people”; that’s what the chaplain will say of her when the time comes; and he will be right. Sarah had many virtues, chief amongst which was an unflinching sense of duty made graceful by serene execution. That is what she will be remembered for. And her serenity was not only for herself: she had a way of making the lives of those around her serene also—serene, ordered, and secure. It was security on her terms, of course; but I would have welcomed it on anybody’s terms when I married her, and that has held true over forty-five years.

  If you knew me, you wouldn’t think me at all the murdering type. Indeed I don’t consider myself a violent man, and I don’t suppose that my having killed Sarah will change that. I have learned my faults over seventy years on this earth, and violence—physical, at least—is not amongst them. I killed my wife because justice demanded it; and by killing her I have at last seen a sort of justice done. Or have I? Doubts trouble me; old wounds reopen. My obsession with sin and punishment, laid to rest so imperfectly so long ago, is returning. I find myself wondering what right I had to judge Sarah, and how much more harshly I will be judged for having judged her too; judged her and punished her in a way I have never been judged or punished myself.

  It might not have come to this; I might never have known. But Sarah’s inexorable sense of wifely duty exposed her. If only she’d been slightly less considerate, slightly less conscientious, she might not be dead now. She was organizing a surprise party for my seventieth birthday, you see; not that the arrangements for it could have remained secret for long on this island. Nor did they. I’ve known that something was afoot for a month or more. And I was touched. But I’m particular about parties. I don’t like the tenants invited; and I don’t like some of Sarah’s more fawningly agreeable friends. So it was understandable that I should want to consult a guest list so that by hinting at least I could have made my wishes known.

  I chose last Monday afternoon to search her desk because my wife was out, supervising the extension to the ticket office. And quite by chance I found the drawer she has kept it in all these years.

  Even now, with her dead and nearly buried, the arrogance of it chills me.

  CHAPTER 1

  IAM IN THE LITTLE SITTING ROOM (in days gone by a dressing room) which connects my bedroom to Sarah’s. It is the warmest room in this icy house because it is the smallest. With both doors closed and a fire blazing and the radiators on under its pointed Gothic windows, it is almost cozy. There is no desk in here, only a sofa and two chairs and a small table covered with books. Old books; my favorite books; their inscriptions faded, their givers dead. They have sat on that table for more than forty years, I should think: a Bible, calf-bound, from my mother; my grandfather’s Fowler’s; Donne’s love poetry, an old edition of Ella’s borrowed long ago. There is a music stand in the corner too, hardly used now; a graduation gift from my parents. From where I sit I can see my initials engraved on its base: “For J.H.F. June 1994.” June 1994; almost fifty years ago. That stand was mine before I ever knew her.

  It seems suddenly important to me that I should have explained myself to myself by the time everyone arrives. I need clarity. The coroner’s inquest is set for tomorrow; then there’ll be the funeral and the interment and the house will be full of people. From this evening on I shan’t have a moment’s peace for weeks; no time to myself in which to think. If ever I am to put the events of my life in some sort of order I must begin the sifting now; I must try, I know, to understand what I have done; to understand how I, at the age of seventy, have come to kill my wife and to feel so little remorse over it.

  It is curious, my lack of compunction; not complete, perhaps, but almost. Now that Sarah is gone, now that I know the truth, I feel very little. Hardly any outright regret. Just a curious, empty, almost eerie calm: a numbness that shows me, perhaps, quite how much I have learned from her. Quietly, detached, I sit here alone; and it strikes me that in some ways I should be glad, though I am not; that the absence of gladness is a striking one, for years ago this knowledge would have freed me. It would have given me what some call a new lease on life; I might have gone back. So it is odd that I should feel nothing now, or at most next to nothing. The events of those weeks and months long ago, in which the seeds of it all were sown, have a playlike quality. I know the plot and can empathize with the characters; but the young man of twenty-two who plays such a central part is a stranger to me. He bears little relation (beyond a slight, decreasing, physical similarity) to the image that confronts me as I pass the looking glass by the fireplace; as I stare at the books, at the music stand, at the waves and the gun gray sky.

  My life seems to have slowed. The present takes up so much time. I see myself as I was at twenty-two. Young, very young, a certain physical gangliness characterizing my movements (I was tall, with long legs) and a small nose, delicate like my mother’s. My mouth is thin-lipped; my eyes a pale brown; and all are set in a regular oval face with small ears and a slightly pointed chin. Hardly handsome, I suppose; and at that age undignified by the lines of age. My face is more careworn now; the years have creased and folded it. But that is as it should be.

  I suppose that my family life and upbringing must go some way to explaining why my adult life has turned out as it has, why I have turned out as I have. Ella’s shoulders are too fragile to bear the complete weight of the responsibility, as are mine. Perhaps it is time to exhume old ghosts, to see my parents as they were in their forties an
d fifties: my mother with her dark hair graying and her piercing blue eyes, so shrewd and voluble; my father with his powerful shoulders and huge veined hands. He was a man of deliberate gesture and unshakable self-belief, a quality I don’t think he ever succeeded in passing on to me. What he did give me, and it is this for which I thank my family most, is stubbornness: for it has sustained me when all else has failed, when arrogance and self-belief have deserted me.

  What did my parents want for me? What were they like? It is so difficult to know, so difficult to give complete answers to any questions like these. We were not rich, I know that much, but we knew rich people (which my mother felt, and once or twice almost said, was enough). And I suppose that my parents, like any parents, hoped that their son would go far in the world. In their world, I should say, for they lived, like so many of their class and generation, in comfortable, unquestioning calm, unruffled by external change. My parents did not look outwards. They never ventured beyond the range of their own ambition, being serenely confident—in a way which frequently infuriated me—of their place in the order of things. Their gods were tradition, propriety, the maintenance of the social hierarchy. They looked both up and down; were deferential to those above and polite to those beneath. They read The Times, voted Conservative, and held unchanging and predictable views on the events of the day. The revolutions of the 1960s had done nothing to unsettle their values or to disturb their quiet hopes; and because they were kind they insisted on planning my future on their own terms and with all the tenacity of challenged sincerity.

  My own private plan of becoming a concert violinist, flatly and sullenly expressed in my second year at Oxford, could have met with no favor in their eyes; nor did it. And my late adolescence was punctuated occasionally, but always dramatically, by the slow buildup of family tension, its explosive release, and its subsequent subsidence over long days of icy politeness.

  It is ironic that I should end my life in a house like this one, with a titled wife whose family history is as weighty as any to which her parents-in-law could ever have aspired. It is ironic that, having made so much of following my own lights, I have succeeded ultimately in achieving only what my parents wished for me all along. My musical career died gradually as my marriage progressed, for Sarah could not hope to fuel it as Ella had done, nor did she try to; and my reserves of emotion have dwindled unavoidably over time. My talent lay in translating private passion into public performance, and as the private passion stopped flowing, dried, and finally turned to a dust so fine that the slightest wind scattered it to nothingness, there was no longer anything to be translated. Technically I remained preeminent, for I have always been diligent; but I stopped playing when I could hope for nothing more than mechanical brilliance.