And what would Emma do, if she did find out that the man she was waiting for was dead? Maggie wasn’t stupid, she knew Emma had been searching for him, trying to find him, get in touch. She knew that one of the reasons Emma hadn’t tried to leave was the fact that James might come back. Part of Emma had been forever trapped in her fourteen-year-old self, the girl with ideals, hopes, dreams of the man she thought loved her.
If Emma knew he was dead, would she leave? Ask Maggie for her money, the money Maggie didn’t have?
She took another sip from the flask, emptying the dregs down her throat, the thought of Emma leaving her stinging more sharply than the gin. She had a second flask in her back pocket but didn’t reach for it, not yet.
The ground was boggy in this field, the fallen leaves beginning to mulch. She couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of her, kept her head bent to study the path.
What would she do if Emma left? She had no one else, her son had never tried to get back in contact, despite being an adult and free to see her if he so wished. Emma was all the family she had; she couldn’t imagine living without her.
She would tell her about James, she would, but not yet. She’d wait until the pub was doing better, until she had clawed back some of the money she had lost. If the business was doing well maybe Emma wouldn’t want to leave. Especially if Maggie signed her onto the deeds, offered to go into business with Emma, give her half the pub now and the other half when Maggie retired.
Light starting seeping through the trees, and Maggie knew she was nearing Shore Road. One more stile, then an alley cut between houses, then onto the tarmacked road home.
The road to Emma.
She eased herself over the stile, her knees and hips screaming at her to stop. She sat on the plank, felt the moisture on the wood seep through her trousers.
She could tell Emma the truth. Do the right thing.
But if Maggie kept her in the dark, wouldn’t it be for her own good?
She could stop the story now, tie up the one loose end that would leak the news of James’s death to the village … and to Emma. There had been a shift in Emma’s mood of late, a bleak obsession with the past that didn’t sit well with Maggie. News of James’s death might push her too far towards turmoil, when Maggie wanted her to brighten up, look ahead to the future, help her get the business back on track.
Maggie got up, headed down the alley. The street ahead was empty, dark save for the lights from the houses, one house in particular catching Maggie’s eye.
She could turn left, go home to Emma, tell her everything. Do the right thing.
Instead, she turned right, crunched her way along the gravel path and knocked on Lois’s door.
The windows were dark, but Maggie knew they always were whether Lois was at home or not.
She pressed her ear to the door, swayed slightly, off balance.
She knocked again, heard a deep sniff from inside.
Maggie lowered herself down, knees on the doorstep, opened the letterbox with a finger and peered through.
She could see Lois, sitting on the stairs, hands hugging her knees.
‘I can see you,’ Maggie whispered. ‘Let me in.’
Lois didn’t answer.
‘It’s me, it’s Maggie,’ she said. ‘I know about James.’
The words were like magic, always had been with Lois, and the woman eased herself up, came to the door and opened it.
‘Nuala stayed at the pub last night, she told me today what happened to James. I need to know if you’ve told anyone, Lois. I need to manage the situation if I still can.’ Maggie was out of breath from the walk, queasy from the gin. ‘Have you told anyone?’
Even in the darkness, Maggie could make out Lois’s red-rimmed eyes, swollen lids, bloodshot whites from an afternoon spent crying. Lois was shaking, one hand tapping at her chest with the nervous tap-tap she’d developed since the fire took her old house, robbed her of every possession she owned, every picture of her son, stealing every last bit of empathy and generosity from her already weak spirit until she became the bitter, suspicious woman she was now.
‘My son is dead.’
‘I know, Lois. I’m so—’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Lois’ breath was dry and smelled foul, her lips cracked with white scum at the edges. Her shoulders heaved with a sob but her eyes remained tearless. ‘Don’t you dare pretend that you care.’
Lois stepped backwards, hand on the door ready to close it but Maggie pushed back, gently easing the door open and stepping inside, feeling callous, heartless, shamefully cruel.
‘I’m sorry, Lois.’ And she was, she really was, but she still had to think of Emma. ‘I just wanted to know if you’ve told anyone.’
‘Leave me alone!’ Lois shouted again, but it came out as barely more than a rasp, and her face crumbled in on itself.
Maggie moved towards her, put her hands on her shoulders, tried to draw her in, but Lois pushed back like a feral cat.
‘I’ll tell who I want! Whoever I want! He’s my son! He’s my—’ The words failed in her throat, her mouth moving silently, repeating my son.
‘Let me get you some water,’ Maggie said, stepping to the side, but Lois stopped her.
‘Get out of my house,’ Lois said, her hand tap-tap-tapping again. ‘I don’t want you here. Get out and leave me alone!’
Maggie tried again to hold her, to comfort her, said, ‘Lois, please, let me help you.’
Lois pushed her away. ‘You don’t care,’ she said, standing up straight, putting all her strength into remaining composed. ‘You didn’t come to offer your sympathy, or to bring one of those fucking casseroles that everyone else gets when they’re bereaved. You don’t care how I might be feeling, how hard this is. You just want to make sure I didn’t tell anyone so Emma fucking Bradbury doesn’t find out, doesn’t get hurt, run away, leave you all alone like I am now. Well, I don’t care if she does! I don’t care if anyone does! My son is dead, he’s dead, Maggie!’
Lois covered her face with her hands. Maggie stepped forward, hands hovering in front, not sure whether to touch Lois or not.
‘It’s hard for you, I know. It’s going to be so, so hard, and I am so sorry.’ She touched Lois’s elbow. ‘It’s going to be hard for Emma, too, if she finds out.’
‘If it wasn’t for Emma he would never have left!’
The blame on her goddaughter was too much, and Maggie drew her hand back. ‘You cannot put this on Emma’s shoulders!’ Maggie said, remembering the final piece of the story. ‘And besides, you’re the one who sent James away!’
‘I wanted him to be safe, away from this damned village, away from her!’
‘She was fourteen, just a child, it wasn’t her fault. James should have known better, he was five years older, a fully-grown man. He ran away and left her to deal with her father, alone, he saw what Arthur did to you and still he left, he knew what happened to Elaine for Christ’s sake, he should have stuck around to help Emma get through it! He behaved like a callous, selfish coward, took of advantage of a young girl and ran when it all got too real.’
‘Her parents should have done more. She should have stayed away—’
‘She was a child—’
‘She was his sister!’ The words burst out of Lois with crude force, plunging them both into a horrified, pregnant silence.
Maggie faltered. ‘What do you mean?’ she finally asked, nauseated, but she already knew. Lois’s eyes darkened to black.
She remembered Jim staring at Lois when the girl was fifteen, Edward’s fingers on the curve of her waist. And Arthur, always a step behind, always watching, always there, silent, arrogant, above suspicion.
‘It was only ever Arthur,’ Lois began. ‘Edward and Jim would bring me to him, drive me to wherever he wanted to have me, and wait, listen, take it in turns to watch whilst he, he—’ Lois’s chin quivered and she sniffed, rubbed her dry eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Arthur would let the other two touch me, have me sit
on their laps whilst they felt me up, their goddamn dicks getting hard on my thigh. But when it came to fucking me, it was always, only Arthur,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Until I fell pregnant and asked him to help me, to pay for an abortion. But they had an agreement, those three men, from the very beginning. Edward got money from Arthur for keeping his mouth shut. Jim, the man I would be forced to marry, live with as husband and wife, refused the money. Instead, when it all went wrong, he got to pretend he was the father, he got to keep the damaged goods that was me, a teenage girl all to himself to fuck whenever he wanted to, raise Arthur’s son as if he were his own. He used to remind me all the time as he held me down, my face pressed into the pillow. He’d tell me that I was Arthur’s little whore, that he knew all my dirty little secrets, that he was my keeper now and I better do as he said or he’d tell James everything, tell him what a dirty, disgusting, filthy little girl his mother was.’
Sickened, Maggie remembered watching him, Jim’s eyes on Lois, mouth wet as he drank the girl in.
‘Did James know?’ Maggie asked. ‘Did you tell him?’
Lois’s face fell and she nodded. She stilled her tapping hand and tried to take a deep composing breath, but when she finally spoke her voice was thin and cracked with pain.
‘The morning we found out Emma was pregnant, James had been in the house all along. I told Emma he’d gone to London; I had to keep them apart. When you left to take Emma to hospital I woke him, I told him what had happened, that he needed to stay in the house and hide because Arthur was going to be furious. I told him I would look after him, protect him like I always had done. And he listened to me. But I couldn’t tell him the rest, I never wanted him to know, it was too much to even bear thinking about, especially when I discovered he’d been sleeping with Emma, for God’s sake! But he was still in the house that day, he was there when Arthur—’ Lois’s voice broke again and Maggie filled in the rest of the words.
‘When Arthur attacked you?’
Lois’s eyes bored straight into Maggie.
‘He saw it all.’ The pain in Lois voice, in her face, too, mixed with anger, bitterness, and an undercurrent of fear, even now, seven years after the event. ‘He heard me telling Arthur that he didn’t know Emma was his sister, I was begging him to leave James alone. Then I looked up and realised that he was watching from the top of the stairs.’
Maggie remembered that day: Lois slumped in her living room, face swelling before Maggie’s eyes. The smear of blood that ran up her face from her nose to the tip of her hairline. The bruising around her neck. The torn frenulum and the blood that seeped from her tongue.
‘And James saw Arthur do that to you … and did nothing?’ Maggie tried to fathom it, tried to understand how anyone could possibly stand by and let someone do that to their mother, to anyone.
‘He didn’t know what to do! He was confused, scared!’
‘He was an adult!’ Maggie said. ‘He was nineteen, fit and strong. He could have pulled Arthur off, he could have stopped him. He should have protected you!’
Lois shook her head, ‘I should have been the one to protect him.’
‘It’s not your fault, Lois!’ Maggie cried. ‘What happened then? When I arrived, why did I find you alone?’
Lois dropped her gaze, no longer able to look Maggie in the eyes. ‘Why would James want to come anywhere near me?’ Her voice had lost its ferocity, her tone as meek and vulnerable as she now looked. ‘Why would anyone? After Arthur left, my son looked at me as though I were vermin, a disgusting rat half dead on the floor.’ Her words were punctuated with sobs and gasps for breath and Maggie stared open mouthed, horrified, as Lois went on.
‘He didn’t have to say anything, I could read it all in his face, how pathetic I am, how worthless.’ She met Maggie’s eyes, the broken look on her face bringing a lump to Maggie’s throat. ‘Why would he want to help me? Why would anyone?’ The wall Lois had spent years building, hiding behind, crumbled before Maggie’s eyes. The hostility, the anger, the bitterness dissolved and Lois looked fifteen again, young and naïve without anyone to guide her, manipulated by three adult men.
‘He wouldn’t speak to me after that,’ Lois went on. ‘Before he left for good, the next night, I tried to talk to him, make it right. He pushed me away, my son pushed me away and told me that I’m a slut, a liar. That I’d ruined his life. And he was right.’ Lois stopped then, turning her face away from Maggie as though she could no longer bear to be seen.
‘None of this was your fault,’ Maggie said, Lois’s vulnerability, her thin frame shaking with cold and misery, too much to bear. She softened her voice, masking her disgust at James with her sympathy for Lois. ‘You were only trying to protect James. If everyone had known the truth, what really happened to you –’
‘You knew,’ Lois said and Maggie’s head shot up.
‘I didn’t! I didn’t know a thing!’
‘You knew something was wrong. That’s why you asked me if I was all right when you saw me with them by the shop, tried to walk me home. I knew that you knew, from that first day in Edward’s car when I tried to tell you, tried to show you, what had happened to me. But you ignored me. Like everyone else.’
‘But I didn’t see anything, I didn’t have any proof!’
‘You didn’t need any! You just needed to talk to me, or tell someone, but you didn’t. You kept silent. You kept their secret.’
Maggie shook her head, stepped back, away from the stairs, away from Lois and those eyes, those dark, accusing eyes.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said, feeling the shame of the lie burn in her cheeks. ‘I did nothing wrong.’
‘You did nothing, Maggie,’ Lois said, her hands still by her sides. ‘You did nothing. So don’t ask me to help you now. My son is dead. I’ll tell whoever I need to.’
Maggie took a step backwards, away from Lois, and caught the step, falling and landing with her hip on the ground.
She looked up at Lois, standing on the threshold.
Her eyes filled with pain, Lois slammed the door shut on Maggie, turned the lock.
Head swimming, Maggie stumbled to her feet, felt saliva flood her mouth as she tried to digest what she’d heard.
From behind the closed door she could hear Lois sobbing, a dry, rasping sound, crying for the dead son who had slept with his own sister.
Maggie walked away, knowing that Lois wouldn’t answer again if she were to knock, knowing, too, that she couldn’t bear to hear any more.
She thought of the rare glimpses she’d had of Emma and James together; a hello, a brief hug here and there, James’s libidinous stare as he watched Emma walk away.
Maggie lurched along the street on unsteady legs.
The garden walls began closing in; the pavement felt too narrow. She concentrated on walking: right foot then left foot.
Had she really done nothing? Told no one? It had happened in the world she shared with Tom and their son, a world where she was content, happy with their lot and less concerned, perhaps, with the lots of others.
Maggie’s head ached, the road swimming before her eyes.
It was fate, or so it seemed, that she would end up where she did, the graveyard calling to her.
How many other people had suspected? Why hadn’t anyone helped Lois?
Why, for Christ’s sake, hadn’t Maggie done something?
Her mouth felt dry, eyes heavy. She didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to see Emma or tell her about the money, the pub, about James. Didn’t want to tell her about who he really was, didn’t want to look her in the eye and admit how she’d failed Lois.
Would she have to tell her everything? Even the fact that James was her half-brother? It would destroy her, disgust her, but still Maggie knew that the truth would finally have to be told. It would be better coming from Maggie than from Lois, and Maggie didn’t trust the other woman not to speak out. Now James was dead she had no one left to protect.
Maggie looked up at the church,
the cross standing proud on top of the steeple. It was Arthur who deserved the anger; it was his fault, and Jim’s and Edward’s. Maggie had done nothing wrong.
She had done nothing at all.
She stumbled on, tripping over grass and pebble until she finally came to Tom’s grave, her place of solace, reassurance, comfort, but for once found no comfort there. She rested her head on the gravestone, traced his name.
‘Oh Tom, my love, Tom.’ She squeezed her eyes shut, the tears stinging behind her lids. ‘I need you here to tell me what to do. I don’t know any more. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Emma, I don’t know how I’m going to fix this mess with Arthur, Lois, the lot.’
The rough stone grazed her forehead but she didn’t move, just kept tracing Tom’s name over and again, trying to focus on that, and not the horrible story Lois had just told.
She pictured James with Emma and clung to her stomach as she retched, spilling thin vomit across the grass to her right. It was James’s fault; he was the one who did wrong, as though his father’s immorality was inherent, woven into his own DNA.
She spat on the ground, her bile tasting of gin, of regret and of guilt. If she’d said something to someone about Lois’s abuse, none of this mess would have happened. Lois would be a different person entirely. James would never have existed, Emma would be free from the pain of his memory, her stepmother might still be alive.
The thought of Elaine was too much and Maggie couldn’t hold back any longer, bursting into tears as she clung to Tom’s grave.
The sound of Maggie’s cry rang out through the churchyard, echoing from the tombstones and the graveyard walls.
With her final wail, she raised her head, letting the cold air quiet her tears, the wind dry her eyes and cheeks and longing for Emma to come, to take her home and put her to bed and promise her that it would be better tomorrow, that it would all be better in the morning.
Emma, it all centred around Emma. It was she who had put Maggie back together again after Tom had died and Lee had been taken away. Emma had given Maggie hope, made her look forwards instead of wallowing, drunk, in the past.
Never Go There Page 18