‘I shall,’ said Calvin Struan, protesting at their sniggering. ‘Just like father. All the Struans do their duty. It’s a matter of honour.’
‘What is?’ said Jonny.
Fraser turned to him. ‘Calvin says he’s going to be a soldier.’
‘Cool,’ said Jonny.
Calvin was delighted.
‘And what about you?’
‘I want to work in a baker’s,’ said Fraser Blades, ‘be warm and wear a suit.’
‘Like me?’ said Calvin Struan, mistaking it for a compliment.
‘No,’ said Fraser, ‘not like you.’
‘I’d like to be taller and stronger,’ said Connor Gardner, ‘so people stop putting me into bags and I can be a fireman.’
Norrie Storrie blew through his fingers. ‘I want a nice job, but I don’t know what, just something warm.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Jonny Raffique.
‘I know,’ said Fraser. ‘It’s hard being a builder. You gets loads of money but you’re cold and wet and dirty all the time. I might save up for a racing car.’
‘I’m going to teach,’ said Jack Todd. Nobody doubted him.
All eyes turned to the Longfields, next in line.
‘What?’ they said.
Murray and Clifford Longfield were amused by the possibility of doing anything other than the continued running of Longfield Farm. It was beyond their ken to imagine anything else, even racing cars, fire engines or being a soldier. They were farmers, overalls were their uniform and animal husbandry was their calling.
Likewise, Heavy Bevy was a child butcher; the village butcher in waiting. He stole a glance across the yard at Lucy Livingstone and toyed with the notion of pie-based wealth.
Kerr Munson wrote down all they said and nobody asked what he wanted to be. Kerr didn’t write down what Jonny Raffique said. His hand trembled and his pen hung over the page as he joined the other boys gazing at Jonny. They’d expected something special when they’d asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. It was no surprise to them that his reply made construction, racing cars and fire engines redundant. But still it was a surprise.
‘I’m going back to Sausalito to kill my dad, so me and my mom can go home. I want to feel warm again.’
It was a career path they couldn’t compete with: revenge. The damp and the cold of the day passed through their heavy boots and padded jackets into their blood. Coils of breath bound them. Connor Gardner loved his dad; he nearly cried but fought the tears in his attempt to grow up. He heard the girls laughing and wished himself still across the playground with them.
Jonny’s vocation spread around the school.
What Jonny Raffique couldn’t know was that he had planted the thought of parental murder, an altogether separate matricide, in the minds of his classmates, Clifford and Murray Longfield. They exchanged a look and understood. It struck them as the perfect solution.
The Longfields’ home life had changed. Their mum’s smile had lost most of its light. Dad’s sadness never went away. Sometimes he broke down while he was working. He tried to hide it from the boys, but they saw. Clifford, being the eldest, tried to cheer and protect Murray. Murray wouldn’t allow it, throwing his brother’s arm from his shoulder each time he made an attempt to console him.
During the late spring, after the first calves, when it began, their mum and dad had sat them down and explained everything to them as carefully as they could, but the boys didn’t really comprehend. As summer had drawn to a close and their mum had changed and been confined to a wheelchair, they found it hard to look at her and took any chance at all to be out of the house. They were angry with her, always sitting, not playing any more, unhappy. Ashamed, they made themselves scarce when friends or neighbours came to call. They hated Dr Corggie because he couldn’t fix their mum. They hated the priest, Father Finnegan, for his useless praying and for holding on to their mum for too long. They hated their dad’s cooking. Intuitively, the boys knew their dad was a good man. He had done nothing wrong for God to send Mum the disease as a punishment. It was easier when their mum had to stay in her bed and the door could be closed and they could remember her as she used to be.
She had been a tree surgeon, fit and strong, taller than their dad. Now she shook, her hands never still. It was impossible to picture them in control of a chainsaw. Sometimes she looked scared. Mostly she looked at her sons. Helpless when she had to be fed, mortified when she had to be cleaned she cried. Dad held her tight, until she was almost still.
The look between the brothers that morning as the other children gazed at Jonny was a rare moment of agreement. It would be a mercy killing. It would be for Mum. Clifford wondered if they should get Dad to help.
22
Shep drove down Main Street. He passed Munson’s. The paintwork and the gold lettering on the shopfront hadn’t changed. The window displays looked like they hadn’t changed; jars of sweets on one side of the door, displays of proprietary medicines and toiletries on the other. The medicines had been put in the window not long after the accident to replace the children’s toys that had lost their market and come to look distasteful.
Turning right at the bottom, he followed the left-hand sweep of the road around the marsh for the quarter-mile it took to reach the circular turning area at the dead end that was created when the entrance into the school grounds had been closed. He kept his attention to the right-hand side of the road, not wanting to look across the marsh. This forced him to take in the backs of houses that he passed. They looked to him to be long sealed up, rejected and forgotten, which saddened him. He felt he was a naturally optimistic person, despite it all.
As a salesman, his knocking on these doors, and being invited in through most of them, had been his introduction to many of the villagers, years before he and Rebecca had moved here. The first time she had accompanied him, curious to see his favourite destination, she had left him to conduct his business while she spent the afternoon hours investigating, walking up and down the handful of streets a dozen times at least. He had a good day; made some money and finished early. He waited for her at the car, parked in almost the same place he sat now, completing his paperwork so that it wouldn’t hang over into the weekend. When Rebecca had finally come into view, it was little more than a saunter that brought her closer to him. She handed him all that was left of her ice cream cone, the last inch, a biscuit nipple of cold milk, for which he thanked her. She leant back with him, half sitting on the bonnet of the car, gazing out over the lush summer green of the marsh, where myriad flowers produced pinpricks of dancing colour: yellows, blues and pinks.
‘Shep,’ she said, ‘I think we should come and live here. No, I think we need to.’
‘I knew you’d like it,’ he said.
‘It feels special.’
‘I think it’s the fact that it’s at the end of the road. You have to come here, if you see what I mean. You can’t pass through or happen upon the place by accident.’
‘It’s a destination.’
‘Precisely. Somewhere to arrive.’
He could see she had already made up her mind.
She pointed to a large grey bird that had revealed itself by moving. ‘What’s that? It’s enormous.’
‘That’s a heron, and if I’m not mistaken, the thing wriggling in its beak is a frog. Whoops,’ he said as the heron jerked its head. ‘Was a frog. Do you think it’ll kick all the way down?’
‘Ugh, Shep, don’t,’ she said, waving her arms and dancing on the spot, her face creased in horror. ‘That’s disgusting.’
He grabbed her and flicked his tongue repeatedly against the skin in the crook of her neck, and she squealed and jumped up and ran around the car with her head pulled in and her hands trying to rub the tickly sensation away. She wouldn’t come back until he’d promised not to do it again. He was still laughing as he promised.
>
‘Anyway, I want to show you something else.’
She stood back, eyeing him, jumpy and suspicious. ‘What is it?’
‘Come here.’
‘You promised.’
‘I know. And I won’t break it. Now come here.’
She was tense as a set trap as she sidled back against him and let him hold her. She flinched as he raised an arm and pointed out into the marsh.
‘Come on now, trust me, I’m a salesman.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘Look along my arm, follow the line of my finger.’
‘Mm.’
‘To the edge of that wee pond, see it?’
‘Oh yes, I see. What is it?’
‘A great crested grebe, on its nest.’
‘Really. Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it?’
Shep felt her relaxing into him.
‘Beautiful. And the black and white stripes by her side, see them? They’re her chicks, well, their heads anyway.’
‘Ducklings, really?’
‘Mm, I’m not sure. Grebelings maybe?’
‘Oh Shep, look at them – they’re so sweet, and not ugly at all.’
‘You’re talking about cygnets, baby swans.’
‘Well excuse me, Mister Birdwatcher. Whichever, at least they’re not ugly, that’s what matters.’
‘Look, she’s got them sheltering behind her, keeping them out of the sun.’
‘Aagh.’
‘See, if you come down a bit, to your left, going towards that house on its own, the brown birds, they’re curlews; look at their beaks.’
‘How peculiar.’ Her attention rose to two birds in the air over the school, tumbling and flapping like rags in the wind. ‘Look, what are they?’
‘Lapwings, or peewits.’
‘Which one?’
‘Either, they’re the same thing.’
She raised her eyebrows as she looked at him. ‘How do you know all of this?’
‘Curiosity, I suppose. I see so much when I’m driving, particularly up here.’ He eased her off and went around to the passenger side. In the glove compartment, he moved his cigars aside and took out a book. ‘I thought I’d find out.’
‘The Observer’s Book of Birds,’ she said, taking the book from him. ‘How funny. Big handsome Shep, the bird observer.’
‘I think they’re beautiful, that’s all.’
‘I think this is beautiful, today, this place. I could stay here forever.’
And that day, so alien and so long ago, he understood why.
Shep sat for a while, engine running, headlights piercing the gloaming across the corner of the marsh. Around its drier edge, he could see a fresh path, to a gap where the chain-link fence was pulled apart. The mark of this recent footfall was enough to give him second thoughts. Had Rebecca been right to be scared? He turned the lights off, kept the heater on full.
Fear and the need to know pulled inside his chest like two threads on either side of a knot until it became unbearable. He turned the engine off and threw open the door. The cold hit him hard. His vision swam as his eyes streamed and he stumbled in the frozen steps of last night’s final gathering.
Looking back through the fence, the safety of his car felt a long way away, a different place. He’d crossed a border.
Across the marsh was an absence that was hard on the eye, a nothing that was difficult to believe. There was no evidence of the house they had moved into, the floors he had sanded, the walls he had hung with paper, the banisters and doors he had stripped of old shellac with meths and wire wool before applying Danish oil to bring out the natural grain of the timber, the porch they had sat on during those early summers, drinking beer and wine with new friends from the village until the citronella candles were no longer effective and the midges had gotten too fierce and forced them all swatting and cursing into the house, where they sat around the dining table on chairs made by John Cutter and ate snacks prepared in the kitchen he had helped Shep install.
The memory of the lost warmth of those days melted away as Shep stepped into the twilight of the trees. He recoiled, violated by the touch of frosted leaves against his face. His back ached as he bent low to creep beneath the reach of the branches. Straightening when he came to where the schoolroom used to be.
He wasn’t ready for the clearing. He hesitated at its edge like a novice skater, wary of stepping onto the ice. The last time he had been here, he was alone amongst the rubble of broken walls, the smashed tiles of the collapsed roof. The air had been thick with distress. Heavy snow had continued to fall. He’d wondered at the wreckage his son had survived. Tonight it was quiet. Dark lines of footprints converged at the centre like wheel spokes. A mound provided the trampled axis that drew Shep out into the glade. He picked up the abandoned spade, recognising it as his own, and used it to move the flaps of turf apart. Steadying the blade, he put his foot across its top and pushed down.
‘You don’t need to do that.’
He whipped the spade out of the ground and raised it like a baseball bat, ready for all comers, searching for who had spoken.
‘He’s in there.’
‘Who?’
‘Your boy.’
There was a slight movement coming from the direction of the voice and Shep could make out a denser shadow.
‘How do you know?’
A priest stepped out from the trees.
‘I watched them bury him.’
‘Who?’
‘All of them.’
Shep returned the spade to the ground and his foot to the blade.
‘I need to see.’
‘He’s naked. He was hit with a branch. It cracked his head. I think his neck was broken. I’d say he died instantly.’
Shep’s fingers tightened around the handle.
‘My name’s Father Wittin.’ The priest extended his hand but the offer was ignored.
‘You followed me?’
‘I was waiting for you.’
‘You left the note?’
Wittin nodded.
‘Why?’
‘I thought you should know what happened.’
‘So tell me.’
Wittin was just another Finnegan.
‘We came to say mass. He was already here, buried up to his knees. He wasn’t much more than skin and bone. He said it was his birthday. It upset people. John Cutter killed him.’
‘Cutter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nobody stopped him?’
‘He was too quick.’
‘Convenient.’
‘Everybody helped bury him,’ said Wittin. ‘Nobody left here with clean hands or souls.’
‘Including you?’
Both men stared at the ground between them.
‘Would you like me to say a few words, for Dog?’
‘Doug. Douglas.’
‘Douglas? Douglas. I’m sorry.’ The priest looked stunned. ‘I didn’t even know his name.’
It was the first time Shep had said his son’s name in years.
‘You didn’t know him at all.’
‘The whole village called him Dog.’
‘Wasn’t he part of your flock? Shouldn’t you have tended him until he was back in the fold? The stray lamb, isn’t that the story?’
‘I failed.’
‘You’re a priest. Of course you failed.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Wittin. ‘You abandoned him.’
The speed of the punch caught them both by surprise. Wittin fell backwards. Shep stood over him, hunched, fists balled, rocking and ready.
‘No,’ he said, ‘she did. I had to leave with her.’
‘Did he know that?’
Shep didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
His anger subsided. He slackened as
Wittin got to his feet. He didn’t help him.
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
Wittin brushed himself down as though he hadn’t heard.
‘For your information, I did try to see him once, not long after I arrived. I went with the best of intentions. Sure, I wasn’t going to be told by the likes of anybody in the village who I should or shouldn’t be talking to. I make my own mind up. Your boy threatened me with an axe, so he did, said he’d do the same to me. He pulled his shirt up and kept pointing to the cuts across his stomach, and I thought that was what he was meaning.’
‘Cuts? What do you mean? What cuts?’
‘Well, more slashes I would imagine, judging by the scars,’ said Wittin. ‘Up here, messy, high on his stomach.’
‘Who cut him?’
‘I thought he’d made an attempt on his own life.’
‘What?’
‘It made sense all right. I’d been told he wasn’t right in the head, whatever right means any more. And I thought his giving out at me was him threatening to kill me.’
‘Kill you? Why?’
‘Because now I think it likely that it was the priest I replaced who wounded your boy.’
‘Because?’
‘His remains were found in the ashes.’
‘His remains?’
‘Amongst others.’
‘The body under the tarpaulin?’
Wittin nodded.
‘He killed Finnegan?’
Wittin was surprised to hear admiration in Shep’s voice.
‘Good for him. Even if it wasn’t self-defence, it was justified. If anybody in this village was unstable, it was that twisted fucker Finnegan. I can still hear him, his false fury, straight out of a dishonest mind.’
‘What had you done to warrant this fury?’
‘Accused him of fathering Mary Magnal’s child.’
‘Francis?’
‘Francis the firstborn, as Finnegan called him, a new child, a gift from God. It was an open secret as soon as the child was seen in public. He was Finnegan. It was sickening, a priest corrupting things even further. I put it into words. He had the temerity to scream at me to get out. “This is my house, a house of God,” he said. “Get out, get out, get out.” He doused me with holy water. “Why don’t you burn? Why don’t you burn? Why?” and “Why didn’t he die with her?” That’s when I realised.’
The Wrong Child Page 15