“I think I may need a map or something.”
“A map? You’ve spent half the night trawling up and down these roads.”
Nathan glanced over towards the farmhouse. The kitchen light was burning.
“Do you have one inside?”
“A map?” Lily scratched at her head with all the uncultured abandon of a flea-ridden torn. “I don’t know.”
She clambered over the gearstick and into the front passenger seat. “But I want to stay out here for a while yet,” she confided, settling herself down.
“Why?” Nathan frowned. “You must be chilly.”
“Not really.”
Lily stared at Nathan evenly for a duration. He took her scrutiny without a flinch.
“You didn’t speak to Ronny earlier,” she said, “and you had plenty of opportunities.”
“I know. Bad timing.”
Lily digested this, but not fully. She changed tack. “So how did you come to meet Connie before?”
Nathan cleared his throat. “Lost Property.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She’d found some letters and she needed to trace Ronny.”
“So you sent her here?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“And now you’re here.”
“Yes.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Nathan smiled weakly. Lily smiled back. “Do you like her?”
Nathan looked surprised. “I don’t know her terribly well.”
Lily nodded. “Even so. I think she likes you.”
Nathan shook his head.
“Honestly,” Lily was wide-eyed and emphatic, “you should both drive home together. It’s the same route.”
Nathan inspected his car keys. They were silent for a while.
“So are you going inside now or what?” Lily spoke.
“You want me to?”
“Yes. Get yourself a cup of tea or something.”
Nathan nodded. “Fine. I might just do that.”
He climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him.
Lily sank down in her seat, shoved her cold hands under opposite armpits, then watched through hooded eyes as Nathan tramped over towards the farmhouse.
♦
Connie was drying her feet on a towel next to the Aga when Nathan walked in. She looked up, guiltily. “I hope this isn’t a tea towel,” she said, “because my feet were filthy.”
Nathan noticed his book still lying open on the table. He walked over to it. “You’ve been looking at this?” he asked, touching the glossy page with a tentative finger.
“Yes.”
“And did you reach any conclusions about it?”
“Conclusions?”
Connie threw down the towel and went over to stand by him. “What kinds of conclusions?”
“About the picture.”
She pulled out a chair and sat on it.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, “and it’s very sexy…”
“And the angel?”
Connie looked up at him. He was utterly engrossed. “You don’t think this is a little strange, Nathan?” she asked softly. “You come all the way down here with a picture of Jesus and then ask me what I think of it?”
“I didn’t really consider it that way.”
Nathan pulled out a chair and sat down himself.
“Are you finding religion or something?”
“Me?” He looked amused. “I don’t think so.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Connie picked up the book. “I suppose that in a quite poor light the angel looks a tiny bit like I do, and Jesus, if I screw up my eyes, he looks a little bit like you do…”
“It’s odd that you should put it that way,” Nathan said, slightly unsettled by her bluntness.
“You asked what I thought,” Connie smiled, “and so I’m telling you. The truth is,” she continued, “that I don’t think this picture is about me at all. Or you for that matter. I think it’s about Ronny.”
Nathan inspected his fingers. He didn’t like what he was hearing.
“It’s about forgiveness,” Connie said, putting the book down, “and it’s about sex.”
She pointed. “I was looking at Jesus’s hand earlier. Do you see it? His left hand. It’s curled up on his thigh as if he’d just finished masturbating with it. And his mouth is open. His eyes are closed. He looks kind of…ecstatic.”
Nathan shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“And the angel,” Connie continued, “he seems very upset. He’s been crying. Perhaps he’s just sad or perhaps he’s feeling guilty about something.”
Nathan’s eyes were suddenly fully focused upon the angel.
“He?”
“Angels are always boys,” Connie said, “aren’t they?”
Nathan stood up. His face was red.
“What’s wrong?” Connie didn’t understand this dramatic mood change.
“I thought it was a girl,” Nathan muttered, and then began rubbing his hand across his chest as if trying to wipe something from it.
“I think it’s one of the weirdest, crudest, rudest paintings I’ve ever seen,” Connie said, “and I’m glad you brought it to show me. But I also think you’ve come here to forgive Ronny. This was just your roundabout way of doing so.”
She sat back and watched as a whole herd of expressions trampled over Nathan’s face. For a second he was full of an inexpressible agony, and then fear kicked it out and took up a cold residency in his lips and in his eyes.
And for some reason – although she gave no outward sign of it – Connie found herself enjoying the sight of Nathan’s misery, she celebrated it, quietly, deeply, inside herself. Because on some strange level, it all felt so neat, so complete, so necessary.
♦
“Can I do anything else for you?”
Luke had pushed the boar’s carcass into an outhouse and then had helped to secure the door with a padlock.
“I don’t think so,” Sara put the key back into her pocket, “but thanks anyway.”
They were standing close together in the darkness, facing each other.
“Feel my hands,” Luke said, and touched the back of his fingers to Sara’s cheek.
“Cold,” she smiled.
“Extremely.”
“I’d invite you in,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea under the circumstances.”
“No.”
“Your car’s over there.”
Sara pointed. Luke took this opportunity to kiss her on the nose, and then on the lips. She was moderately responsive, but her face was wet with rain and her skin was slightly red and numb. The waterproof fabric of their coats made a little scraping noise as they clashed.
“Friction,” Sara said, once he’d finally withdrawn.
“Will I see you again?” Luke asked.
“If you must know,” Sara said, “I’ve actually been thinking a good deal about your dot-to-dots.”
Luke found her timing inappropriate. He straightened up a fraction. “Really?”
The dot-to-dots were absolutely the last thing on his mind.
“Yes. I decided that it was very interesting how the thing you found most fascinating about the dot-to-dots was actually the part which was missing…”
He frowned. He was confused.
“Because when I really thought about it,” Sara continued, “I actually found the least fascinating part the bit which was missing.”
Luke smiled, Sara felt, somewhat patronizingly. “Men and women, huh?” he intoned carelessly.
“One day,” Sara said, “and hopefully it’ll be one day soon, somebody will come along who’ll manage to make the other bits seem fascinating to you. But she isn’t me. She just isn’t,” she smiled kindly, “and that’s really all I wanted to say on the subject.”
Luke nodded. “Good,” he took several steps back, “you said my car was where?”
Sara pointed again.
“Thank you.”
He smiled back at her, but his cheeks were clenched.
That’s probably the cold, Sara reasoned, then put her hands up to her own cheeks, feeling vaguely corny but as smug as hell.
♦
“What’s going on?”
Connie walked over to the window and tried to peer out through it, but the glass was steamy. She tried to wipe clear a peep-hole with her hand. Outside she saw the tail-lights of the Volvo disappearing, and, closer by, Sara and Lily in the midst of an extremely heated confrontation.
“Oh dear,” she moved back a fraction, “I think all hell just broke loose.”
Nathan had closed his book. He looked up.
“There were four of them,” he said, “our father, Little Ronny and two others. They kept her in the flat for almost a week. She was sedated to keep the noise down.”
Connie turned away from the window. “They kept who?”
“The girl. She came from a local estate. She was two years younger than Ronny. He might have seen her at school sometimes. At first nobody missed her.”
Connie put her hand up to her throat. “Monica?”
“No,” Nathan shook his head, frowning, “she had a different name. One of the others was a lab assistant at the school. That’s how the connection was made. My father preferred boys, actually,” Nathan said, and as he said it, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Connie’s heart twisted for him. “So where were you while all this was happening?” she asked softly.
“I had a flat. I’d left by then. I escaped.”
“And Ronny?”
“Seventeen. But he seemed much younger.”
“He could have escaped too.”
“I begged him. He wouldn’t leave. He wanted me to force him.”
Connie considered this for a while. “To force him? Why?”
“Because he was frightened. Because that’s what he was used to. That was all he understood.”
“But you didn’t force him.”
“No,” Nathan shook his head, “I couldn’t.”
“So they killed her.”
“Yes. Eventually.”
Connie pulled out a chair. “I didn’t ever want to know what he’d done,” she said, “and now that I do know…”
But she couldn’t complete what she’d wanted to say. She sat down. “Poor Monica,” she muttered eventually, “now I realize what she meant. Death came so slowly.”
She looked up at Nathan. He seemed perfectly composed again. Her eye slipped down to his shirt pocket. It was full of something white and had a kind of sticky-looking stain on it which had spread down from the pocket and into a couple of square inches of the fabric below.
“There’s a leak or something…” Connie indicated. Nathan glanced down at himself. “Oh. It’s just honey,” he said, and drew out Lily’s sandwich. Connie went to the sink and picked up a cloth, squeezed it firmly and then ran it under the warm tap.
♦
“I saw you!” Lily screamed. “I saw him with his hands all over you!”
She’d sprung from the car with all the momentum of a jackrabbit as soon as Luke had driven out and on to the road. She’d bided her time, this time.
Sara hadn’t bargained on a witness, or, for that matter, a confrontation.
“It was nothing,” she said airily, “and it was none of your business. Where’s Nathan? Why were you sitting out here all alone in the dark?”
“He’s a monster!” Lily bellowed. “He stinks of fish! How could you let him touch you? You’re disgusting!”
“No.” Sara shook her head. “No, I am not disgusting.”
“And what about Dad?”
“Dad?” Sara’s eyes widened. “Don’t pretend you give a damn about his feelings. You haven’t mentioned him once since he left this house. Not one word in two whole months. Your dad doesn’t even enter into it.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking!” Lily screamed. “You’ve never known what I was thinking!”
Sara stared bemusedly at Lily’s rage-torn face. “No. Sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking. You never tell me what you’re thinking. I’m not a mind-reader, Lily. I’m your mother. That’s all.”
“You’re not my mother,” Lily snarled. “You wanted me dead. You always wanted me dead. You both did.”
Sara choked down a laugh. “You’re being stupid. You’re just hysterical. Luke and I had a brief…” she struggled to find an inoffensive, unincrirninating word, “a brief understanding.”
“Understanding? Understanding! Is that what you call it? You never had an understanding with me. Never! You never wanted an understanding with me!”
“You’re my daughter,” Sara said evenly, “of course I have an understanding with you.”
“You never liked me. Do you think I couldn’t tell? Every time I was ill you wished I’d die. But I’m not dead. I’m here. I’m here and you can’t ignore me. And I’m not going to die.”
“But I don’t want you to die.” Sara was confused. “I don’t understand where all this is coming from. I’m not even seeing Luke any more. It was nothing.”
“I don’t care about Luke!”
“But you obviously do care. Why would you hide in the dark spying on us both if you didn’t care about it?”
“You don’t know what I care about. You don’t understand anything about me!”
Sara began to lose her temper. “What is this? Of course I care about you. What do you expect to gain by telling me that I don’t care about you?”
“Waiting for me to die!” Lily screamed, flecks of foam spilling down her chin. “Like I was some sick animal. You never liked me. You never took any interest in me. You didn’t love me. But you love that fishy pig. That stinking man. You love him but you never loved me…” Lily’s hands were clawing at her chest, “and I’m your daughter!”
“You know what?” Sara was angry now, she took a step backwards to give herself room. “I do love you, but sometimes I don’t like you very much.”
Lily exploded. “You hate me! I know you hate me!”
“No. But I don’t like the way you treat me and I don’t like the way you kill my hens and I don’t like the way you sneak around the place as if I’m some kind of fool who doesn’t have a clue about what you’re up to.”
“I didn’t kill your fucking hens. I never killed your fucking hens!”
Lily smashed her fist into the roof of Nathan’s car.
“Never! Never! Never! Never!”
Sara stepped forward and tried to stop Lily from denting Nathan’s roof. She attempted to grab her flailing arms. Lily was powerful though and knocked her away.
“Let go of me, you fucking bitch!”
Sara decided that the moment had come to raise her voice. “Don’t you dare call me a bitch! And don’t you dare swear like that in front of me again!”
Lily clenched her fists and then swung out her right arm with all her might. Her knuckle made a temporary connection with Sara’s jaw. Sara’s jaw gave a brief little clicking sound and then she discovered herself down on the floor, on her back like some kind of bug, legs up, arms everywhere, sliding around in the mud. Lily stood over her, almost unnerved by the success of her assault. “You won’t kill me,” she whispered, “not you, not Dad.”
Sara lay at Lily’s feet, looking up at her. This is it, she thought, this is really it. With as much force as she could muster, she kicked out her leg towards Lily’s ankles. Before Lily knew what was happening, her feet had slipped out from under her and her head had smashed into the passenger door of Nathan’s car with a resounding crackl
Sara scrambled to her feet.
“No,” she growled through her stiff, throbbing jaw. “I have no intention of killing you, Lily, not even if sometimes I feel pretty sorely bloody tempted.”
She turned away, then turned back again. “And if you touch another one of my hens I’ll turf you out and le
t you live in the barn with the rest of the animals. Is that understood?”
Lily didn’t speak. Not at first. But as Sara slammed her way into the house she could have sworn she heard a selection of words which sounded suspiciously like ‘I love you’.
She stopped in her tracks, blinked. Her mind went into a kind of reverse. Then she played that strange audiotape over again in her head. She realized that what had in fact been uttered was ‘Fuck you’. But without much emphasis. Well that, she told herself firmly, has got to be better than nothing.
♦
“Are you bleeding?” Connie was bent over Lily, trying to discover which was the top end of her and which the bottom. Lily didn’t answer her question, but she grunted, thereby indicating that her head was obscured by the car’s undercarriage.
“Are you hurt? We heard the bang from the kitchen as your head hit the door.”
“Congratulations,” Lily croaked.
Connie fastened her hands around Lily’s midriff and yanked her out from under the car. Then she straightened herself up again. “I think Sara hurt her jaw. She was cradling it when she ran upstairs.”
Lily didn’t react.
“That was quite some disagreement.”
“I hate her.”
“I get the impression that the feeling’s pretty mutual at the moment.”
Lily tried to pull herself up into a sitting position. “She was screwing that fish-farm.”
“Luke?”
“Yes.” Lily shook her head experimentally. “Ow!”
“I bet you’ll have a big bump,” Connie observed, watching her.
“I hope I broke her fucking jaw,” Lily said thickly.
“Can I help you inside?” Connie put out her hand.
“I’m never stepping into that house again. I’ll sleep in the barn first.”
“Did you ever sleep in the barn before?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think it’s a great idea to start now. You might be concussed.”
“Fuck off, anyway.”
“You know,” Connie squatted down, “my mother had an affair when I was your age.”
“So what?”
“I know how bad it feels at first, that’s all. But when you get older it doesn’t seem to matter so much. You realize that your parents are only human and it’s actually quite a relief.”
“I am older.”
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