Freeing Grace

by Charity Norman

  ‘Marvellous,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Just . . . bloody . . . marvellous. What a bloody triumph. How proud I must be.’ He poured us both half a glass of the stuff, spilling a fair bit onto the table.

  I’d never get up the stairs if that lot hit my stomach; I just didn’t have his capacity. I managed to put back a thimbleful, and then I smuggled my glass over to the sink and tipped the rest down the drain. What a waste.

  ‘Going to court tomorrow, Perry?’

  For a couple of seconds he looked right through me, as though there was something fascinating on the kitchen wall behind my head. Perhaps he was gazing into his crystal ball. Then I saw the flash of his rare smile.

  ‘I doubt it, Jake. I very much doubt it.’

  I said goodnight soon after that and headed upstairs, leaving Perry sitting straight-backed in his usual place at the kitchen table.

  I made it to the landing without falling over. The wind had grown stronger if anything, and the banshee moaned in anguish around the front door. Matt’s light was out, and the corridor beyond was in blackness. But a trickle of moonlight, seeping through a window, dipped the old boards of the landing in luminous paint.

  I was just feeling my way towards my room when a floorboard creaked behind me. I turned towards the sound, straining my eyes. ‘That you, Matt?’

  It wasn’t Matt.

  I glimpsed her for a second as she moved from moonlight to shadow, her nightdress shimmering like a stream of mercury, and then she was beside me. She took my hands, interlaced her fingers with mine, and I felt the touch of her mouth on my cheek.

  I heard the clear, warm voice over the banshee’s lament. ‘I wanted to say goodbye, Jake. I wanted to say thank you. You’ve been such a friend.’

  Well, what could I do? What would anyone do, in the dark and the wailing wind? I couldn’t run any more. The storm had caught up with me. Knocked me over. She was the only one I’d ever wanted, you see. I’ll never understand her. I know that. But I’ll never forget her either.

  She drifted, slender and alive under my hands, and the world shrank until there was only her. I breathed in her warmth, and I kissed her. I felt as though my whole useless, aimless life was given validity in that moment, that single breath of time in the violence of the night. Perhaps I should have told her. She wouldn’t have minded.

  Then she slipped away, and I let her go. I had to. She wasn’t mine. You can see that, surely? She wasn’t mine, and she never would be.

  I lay awake for too long, reliving it all in my mind, over and over again. Wondering how I’d let myself get hit so hard. I was at a loss. I had lost. I was lost. It was a new experience for me.

  I finally managed to doze off, swirling dazedly down the whirlpool of sleep. I suppose it was the booze. Sometime in the night an owl screeched in Coptree Woods, and I remember opening my eyes for a few moments. The moon hung in a patch of clear sky, shining full onto my face. Through the window I could see the yew, stooped like a hunchback in the hedge. The world seemed breathless; the lost soul at the front door had fallen asleep, exhausted by her agony, and the trees were still. I closed my eyes, drifting, wishing like hell I hadn’t let her go.

  And Sala had been in the pig bin again.

  I can see the mess as soon as I get off the school bus. Rotting scraps are scattered right across the yard.

  He said he’d shoot her the next time she did it. I was scared, so I found a big rock and put it on the lid to stop her getting in. I check it every morning, make sure it’s still holding down the lid, but today she’s managed to tip the whole bin over and the rubbish is everywhere.

  She’s patiently waiting for me, running around in circles by the road gate. She meets my bus every day. It’s the only good thing about coming home. I run from the bus and try to clean up the mess before he sees it, frantically shovelling the maggoty scraps back into the bin with my bare hands. Quick, quick. Jesse laughs at me, but he tries to help too.

  Sala knows she’s in trouble, but she doesn’t care. She trots importantly off down to the kennels to boss the quad dogs about.

  Oh, no. Oh no. I can hear the quad bike roaring up the paddock and through the gate. Dad sees the mess straight away and yells, ‘Fucking filthy bitch.’ He’s in a rage, his face has twisted like it does, and he storms into the house. Jesse has the sense to disappear.

  Dad’s coming out now, heading for the kennels, and he’s got his shotgun. He’s walking jerkily, furiously, with his face pushed forwards, shoving cartridges into the breech. There are veins on his neck, like snakes. I’m hanging onto his arm, trying to pull him back, but I just get dragged along. Then he gets sick of me hanging onto him, so he jerks the butt of his gun into my face, and it really hurts. I have to let go because my nose is bleeding.

  ‘She’s only two, Dad,’ I say, and I’m crying. ‘She’s only two, just a baby.

  She’ll grow out of it soon. Give her one more chance.’

  Sala’s pottering about down there, chatting with the others, her stumpy tail wagging. He gives her a terrible kick in her stomach with his big boot and sends her flying almost under the kennels. She’s yelping. She’s wriggling in the dust, trying to get up. I grab at his arm again, but he throws me off and takes aim, and I’m holding onto his leg, screaming at him to stop. No, Dad, no, please.

  Don’t.

  The shot, when it came, exploded into my brain with horrifying force. I was sitting bolt upright, ready to run for it, before I was fully awake. I felt sure it had blown my head away, so close and violent was the sound.

  My heart was doing a crazy can-can under my ribs. Gasping, I stared wildly around me. Nothing moved. The white walls gleamed silently in the moonlight.

  Gradually, as my breathing slowed, I subsided under the duvet. ‘Bloody Perry,’ I muttered, sinking my head into the pillow and closing my eyes. ‘Lunatic. Shooting bloody rabbits at this time of night.’

  I lay there for perhaps twenty seconds as the information filtered into my brain. Then my eyes snapped open, and I was out of bed and falling down the stairs.

  Deborah. Please, no. Deborah had said goodbye.

  The garden door stood wide open. Sprinting across the kitchen, I came to an abrupt halt as I reached it. For an endless moment I balanced on the step, peering out at the peace of the moonlit garden. Each blade of grass had its own shadow, and the hunchbacked yew crouched menacingly, silhouetted black against the stars. I didn’t want to go out there. I didn’t want to see what she’d done to herself.

  I heard light, rapid footsteps on the stairs, and miraculously Deborah appeared in the kitchen. She was still in her nightdress, and her eyes looked white with fear. I sagged against the doorway. I couldn’t get my breath.

  ‘Is there an outside light?’ I gasped, trying to take control of myself.

  Wordlessly, she pressed a switch beside the larder door, and half of the garden was brilliantly floodlit. I stepped out, but she pushed past me. She hesitated by the picket fence, her head turning, looking around her. Then she gave a cry and threw herself onto the ground in the black shadow of the yew. I could see the silver glimmer of her like water in the darkness, and then, as I moved closer, I made out the terrible shape beside her.

  I dropped down on one knee and put a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t seem aware of me at all. She was whimpering, frantic, and she had both her hands on what was left of his face. I had to force myself to look. Even in the strange black and white light, I could see that Perry had made a hell of a mess of himself.

  Surprising, really: such an organised, tidy person. Perhaps this was his last great manipulation. I don’t think there was anything left of the back of his head, and spread out behind him, gleaming sickeningly, were scattered substances that I’d prefer not to think about. They stretched all the way to the hedge. There was a smell too. I suppose forensic pathologists and serial murderers get used to that smell, but it still haunts me now.

  I left Deborah in the moonlight with her husband of almost eighteen years,
and went inside to make the phone call. When I was a kid I’d always wondered what happens when you dial emergency. But now I wished I never had to find out. I just felt sad. And I felt, somehow, that Perry should be left to lie in his garden.

  The operator was efficient and calm, and she knew what to do. After I’d hung up, I grabbed some clothes from upstairs, and a blanket for Deborah, and went to be near her while we waited. She wasn’t whimpering any more. She knelt beside him, stroking his chest and quietly talking to him. I draped the blanket over her shoulders and sank onto the wet grass nearby.

  High above the woods I could see the lights of a jet, moving silently across a giant backdrop of stars. I remember thinking how odd it was. Just up there were pilots, and stewardesses in tight skirts, and people in complimentary bed socks watching the in-flight movie.

  I was the last to see Perry alive. I had been his last hope. But I’d tipped his whisky down the sink and left him sitting all alone. I’d even kissed his wife, in the shadows. Shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to put back the clock.

  The ambulance arrived first, its lights flashing quietly in the grey calm of dawn.

  ‘Dear God,’ Deborah said when she saw it, and she laughed. It was disturbing, that laugh. She had blood on her face and hands. ‘They’ve sent you an ambulance. Can they put you back together again, Humpty Dumpty, my love?’

  I went to meet them, and they followed me round to the back garden in their uniforms, looking grave. They’d had trouble getting up the lane, they said, because of fallen branches.

  As we approached, Deborah became agitated. ‘Don’t move him,’ she hissed, guarding that horrible sight with her slender body. She glanced at me and then stood up resolutely, and the blanket fell off her shoulders. ‘Jake. Help me. We must get Matt. Don’t let them touch him while I get Matt. Matt must say goodbye.’

  I looked at her and imagined young Matt, happy in the deep sleep of the teenager. ‘Er . . . Deborah? D’you think he should see—’ I stopped, gesturing at the appalling butchery. ‘Shouldn’t we at least cover him up?’

  As I spoke, Matt appeared at the kitchen door in boxer shorts and a jersey. He looked wildly around: at me, and the uniformed men, and his mother in her silvery silk nightie, a dark smear across her face. Then he spotted his father, and he began to run. I tried to stop him, but he just put out an arm to shove me aside as though he was heading for a try. He thudded to a halt beside Deborah, crouched over Perry for a second, and then threw himself sideways. I thought he was choking. His eyes were stretched wide open as though in terror, as though he couldn’t breathe. I took a step towards my young friend, but Deborah put her arms around him, and I heard him sobbing like a tiny child.

  I walked away a little. I looked over the hedge and across the fields. The sky looked huge, and bruised, beaten to a pulp by the storm. And the sun was coming up over Coptree Woods.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The sun was rising behind the tower blocks at Priory Park Farm. The sky hung suspended above the city landscape, soaked in a wild, reckless orange, as though a bloody battle was still raging among the clouds.

  Leila lay in bed for a time, watching the sky and gathering her courage, until the early morning traffic began to rattle the windows. She wanted desperately to tell David what she planned to do, but he’d be horrified. He liked to play with a straight bat, did David. He’d never countenance this.

  I’ll tell him tonight, she decided, when it’s all over, one way or the other. He can’t talk me out of it once it’s all over.

  She slid out of bed, took a hurried shower—the hot water was a bossy friend, urging her to hurry—and dressed in the clothes she’d chosen the night before: a skirt, and boots, and the jade velvet jacket she’d bought for David’s ordination.

  David was up; in his study, presumably. She lingered, straightening her things and making the bed. She felt a compulsive need to be sure that everything was tidy before she left, as though she might never be back.

  She was in the kitchen and checking her route by the time David clumped down the stairs. He was clipping up his dog collar.

  ‘’Morning,’ she called, too brightly, covertly dropping the road atlas next to her faithful old handbag. ‘Your dad’s still dead to the world. Tea?’

  He nodded sombrely, hovering beside her. ‘I’ll make sure I’m in this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to come home to an empty house. Actually, I don’t want to be alone myself. Knowing they’re making the order . . . knowing it’s all over.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ She screwed up her eyes as if berating herself. ‘That’s why I need the car. We’ve got, um, a staff meeting after work, might need to give someone a lift home afterwards.’ The lie hurt: it stuck in her throat. ‘I’m afraid I’ll be a bit late.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Best to keep busy.’ David slumped into a chair.

  She longed to tell him. She felt so lonely in her determination. Instead she asked, ‘What did you pray for this morning?’

  He chuckled self-consciously. ‘Um . . . Lord, I don’t want to sound pushy, but if a miracle can happen so that we may have this child, please let it happen, but not if you think she’ll be better off with her own family, obviously, goes without saying, but please bear in mind that we will really love her, and we will cherish her, but if you have other work for us then you have only to show us the way, but on the other hand—’

  ‘Stop, stop! I get the picture. You’re so bloody good. Why couldn’t you just cash in some of your heavenly credit and insist that the baby be delivered to us, immediately, by Securicor? You’ve given your life to the Lord. You’d think he’d do a little thing like that for you.’

  David shrugged, looking sheepish. Leila lifted down a box of cereal and two bowls.

  ‘D’you want anything to eat?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Me neither.’ She sighed, sliding the bowls back into the cupboard. ‘You’d better get Christopher up soon, if he’s going to make his funeral.’

  David nodded, but she doubted whether he’d heard her. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, as though he’d had no sleep. Unheard of, for him.

  ‘We just have to get through one more day,’ he said quietly. ‘After this is over we can move on. We will move on, won’t we, and make use of our lives?’

  Leila crouched beside his chair, touching his cheek. ‘Yes, we will.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Together.’

  David ran a hand across his face, through his hair. ‘There’s an advertisement in the Church Times for a job. It’s at a theological college in the Philippines.’

  ‘Crikey.’

  He tried to smile. ‘If we’re to be childless, we’ll be free to do these extraordinary things.’

  ‘Babies can travel in planes, David.’

  ‘I know. I know. But there’s all the hassle with inoculations and malaria and education. Anyway, I really think we should talk about this one. I’ve had a look on the website. I think you’ll love it.’

  ‘No harvest supper? No committees? No telephone?’

  ‘I’m sure they have telephones.’

  She kissed him. ‘It sounds very tempting,’ she said, and meant it. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll cope.’

  She held her lips on his face for a moment, breathing, taking strength from the familiar warmth of him. It almost felt as though it was for the last time.

  Finally, she straightened and stood up. She must do this, come what may. She would never forgive herself if she didn’t make this final effort.

  ‘I’ve got the mobile, if you need me.’

  ‘Careful!’ He stood up too. ‘I’ve set it to play “Jingle Bells”. Couldn’t resist. It won’t sound very professional if it goes off in your meeting.’

  ‘We could do with a bit of light relief.’

  In the kitchen doorway she hesitated and then turned back.

  ‘David.’ Anxiety was writhing in her stomach. ‘I shouldn’t go. But I have to.’

 
‘No! I wish you’d stay here with me.’ He smiled, pushing her towards the front door. ‘But I’ve got a mountain of things to do, and so have you.’

  ‘It’ll all be over by tonight,’ she said.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Perry had done all the washing up, stacked everything with fanatical precision, and dropped his last empty bottle into the recycling. And he’d left a note, in his sharp handwriting. It was written in black ink on a sheet of watermarked paper, folded into an envelope and addressed to Deborah, Matthew and Lucy. He’d positioned the envelope exactly in the middle of the kitchen table where it still lay, patiently waiting.

  Deborah stood barefoot on the cold kitchen tiles while the people in uniforms swarmed around her like wasps at a picnic. She stared at the envelope. Eventually she opened it, read the note, and handed it to me without a word.

  Now we are ALL free.

  For God’s sake, cremate me and scatter the ashes in a raging gale.

  With so very much love, and sincere thanks for all that you have given me.

  Perry/Dad

  I didn’t like to see her in her silky nightie, surrounded by all those uniforms. It wasn’t right. There were goose bumps on her arms. So I fetched one of the jerseys Mum had knitted for me, and pulled it over her head. It hung down to her knees.

  ‘I’ll be comforted by your mother’s knitting, then,’ she murmured vaguely, and moved to stand with folded arms at the window, watching as the wasps ruined Perry’s lawn. They turned blind eyes towards Matt’s horticulture in the greenhouse, though, and that was a good thing because he was running quite an impressive operation out there.

  I fielded the swarm as best I could. Was it me who had found Mr Harrison? Yes, it was. Could I describe the events of the evening? Er, yes, I could, with one or two small omissions. They didn’t seem to suspect what the press call foul play, though; they were just following procedure.