by Natasha West
But that wasn’t the world we lived in. I was writing a fairy-tale born from how it had been, not how it was. I was letting myself get carried away on a story. The truth was the pile of dirty clothes sitting outside the tent. It was a woman in another tent, alone. It was the absence of my brother. These things were real. And tomorrow, I’d find out just how far from a happy ending I really was.
Twenty-Three
Rachel
I couldn’t look at her that whole day.
As we trudged toward Gable, my eyes were only on what was in front of me. I never looked to my side, to where she walked. I never spoke a word to her.
And she let me. She seemed to know I couldn’t speak to her and she never tried to start any conversations, never asked me a question. She didn’t even check the length of the journey, the miles remaining to Gable, and those were questions that would have been on her mind all day. But she let Jude or Emma ask. Which they did, with regularity. Particularly Emma.
I spent my day in my head. I was thinking about Sarah. What would she think about what I’d done? She’d been gone nine years, but her opinion still seemed like the only one that mattered to me. Except that wasn’t quite true, not now. There was one other person who was on my mind, the woman I’d taken my clothes off with last night, the woman I’d let kiss me and touch me. I wondered how she felt about it all. I’d made it clear that it was a one-off, that I couldn’t let it happen again. If that was something she wanted, then she’d be hurting right now. And if she didn’t, then she’d be relieved at a lack of real consequences for what we’d done. I couldn’t know which.
All I knew was that last night, she’d wanted me and she’d taken me in the dirt, holding on tightly, like she did with everything in her life. I hadn’t been held like that since Sarah. Almost a decade had gone by without being touched in that way. Feeling it again had been a shock to the system, like going a long time without sugar and then gorging on it. It made your heart race and your blood pump. It scared you, because it felt like you were dying and living in the same moment. Alice was like a hit of sugar, I was alive and I was dying a little. Today was the death, as I let her go.
But I had to, didn’t I? That was how I lived now, without that hit. The price was too high. That’s what I’d been trying to tell her before it happened, that I wasn’t equipped for her. I’d made my choices and that was who I was now. A person alone. She’d told me I was wrong and for the briefest second, I’d wanted to believe her. But when it was over and I lay there, it was just me again. Alone next to Alice. Whatever she believed about me, she couldn’t force me to be that thing. However hard she tried. I was just going to have to be yet another person on her list that she would need to relax her grip on. I wasn’t giving her the choice. I’d meant what I said. It was a thing that happened in a time and a place, in a particular set of circumstances. Those circumstances couldn’t occur again. I wouldn’t let them.
Around two in the afternoon, we saw it on a country road, dusty and forgotten. GABLE – 0.25 MILES read the sign.
I heard an odd little cry come from behind me and I turned to see Emma standing stock still, like a mechanical toy that’s wound down. Jude turned to her and said, ‘Mum! What is it?’
Emma looked at the three of us and then she said, ‘It’s fine. I’m just... It’s been a long journey and we’re nearly there, so I suppose I just feel a bit overcome and I…’ She stopped there, the run-on sentence over. Jude seemed to accept Emma’s explanation, but I noticed Alice didn’t look so sympathetic. She looked suspicious.
‘Emma’ she began and then looked at Jude, uncertain. She looked back to Emma, deciding to press on. ‘Did you tell us everything?’
Emma was immediately on the offensive. ‘What are you talking about, what do you mean, what about?!’
Clearly, Alice had picked up the scent of something. I didn’t know what it was, but I could tell it was something, alright. I hadn’t known Emma before this journey, so I didn’t have a gauge for her behaviour. But I was starting to realise just how many times she’d slowed us down. The fake ankle injury, taking the motorway even though she’d been told it was trouble. I wondered if she might also have been the one to lead the way into that hotel. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Emma wanted to reach Gable and find Olly. I believed that she did. But there was also some reason she wasn’t breaking her neck to get there, that she seemed to want to slow it down. I hadn’t smelled it before now but clearly, Alice had.
‘You were the only one there when he left’ Alice went on. ‘I took you at your word that he just went off on a little jaunt. But I don’t know now.’
Jude was confused. ‘What do you mean?’
Emma had jumped from defensive to angry. ‘You’re saying I lied?’
‘I’m saying it’s odd that he was only supposed to travel a few miles and he ended up half the country away’ Alice clarified.
‘Why is that on me?’
‘It’s not. Necessarily.’
‘How dare you do this to me right now! We’re almost there and you’re making this about you. I can’t deal with this. I’ve got real things to worry about than whatever nonsense you’re trying to dredge up.’
‘Dredge up?’ Alice repeated. ‘So there’s something to talk about?’
Emma gave a little angry yell and turned to Jude. ‘Are you gonna let her talk to me like that?’
Jude looked baffled. ‘I don’t even know what you two are talking about?’
‘If it helps, I don’t either’ I told him.
Jude looked at me. ‘Not enormously.’
‘Oh, It speaks’ Emma said in my direction.
‘Don’t make this about her’ Alice said darkly.
‘What is it about?’ Jude asked.
‘You know what?’ Alice said. ‘You’re right. It doesn’t matter, does it? Because we’re here now. So why don’t we just end it?’
Emma’s lip trembled but her eyes were fierce as she said, ‘Yes. Let’s.’
And we turned back in the direction of Gable.
Fifteen minutes later, we came to a picturesque little stone bridge over a stream, leading into the town of Gable. Jude went to walk over it but I held up my hand and he paused. ‘We need permission first. They get pissy if you just roll in.’
‘So get it’ Emma said irritably. I didn’t look at her. Whatever was up her arse had nothing to do with me and the last thing I was going to do was take the bait.
Instead, I cupped my hands around my mouth and whistled loudly into the chamber I’d created. A woman popped her head out of a small cottage, the first of a row of similar detached houses on the other side of the bridge leading deeper into the town. I knew her, her name was May. She was kind of like the town mayor. No one called her that and there’d been no election, but there was a general compliance to her will as the oldest person in the town, and she decided who came in and who had to go around. She was a wily woman, but reasonable. ‘May! It’s Rachel! Rachel Moor.’ I yelled over the bridge. I’d met May a couple of times and I was hoping she’d remember me well enough to let me in with guests.
May came out of her door, her cane at her side, and locked it carefully behind her with a key. She took her time, in no hurry. As she finished locking, she reached around the side of the cottage for her little bell, which she rang, summoning four people from deeper in the town, her back-up. They were all young, all armed, in their twenties and they made up the village guard. I knew most of them vaguely, but not to speak to.
They all came up to their end of the bridge, May at the front. ‘Rachel’ May said to me with a nod. ‘Who’ve you got there?’ she asked, looking at the rest of the party.
‘These are the Quinns. They’ve come looking for one of theirs and this was the last place I saw him. His name is Olly Quinn.’
May’s face didn’t change, and I couldn’t tell one way or the other what she knew of Olly. ‘I see.’
Alice came up and stood next to me. ‘He’s my brother. We don’t know wh
at’s happened to him. Can you help us?’ she pleaded with May.
May looked to her guard and she leaned into one of them, a pale woman in her late twenties with black hair shaved to a grade one, a permanent scowl and a sawn-off shotgun dangling off her belt, whispering in her ear. The young woman looked agitated by whatever May told her and asked May a question. May shook her head and said something else and the young woman looked unhappy, but she nodded. I glanced over at Alice and she was holding her breath.
May turned back to us. ‘Come over the bridge. We’ll talk about it properly.’
We were sat down to afternoon tea in May’s cottage around her large wooden table, me, the Quinns, May, her guards. I’d never been in her house before and it was impressively kept up, given the times. Not a speck of dust to be seen and a gleaming tea pot poured a hot fresh brew from May’s range into a matching set of cups. There were scones, jam and butter. Over in the corner was a rack filled with Gable’s famous wine. Even Alice, who had a reasonable set up back at her farm, looked impressed. But it was clearly a secondary consideration. First and foremost, she awaited the news.
In due course, after May was sure that everyone had a cup of tea and was sat comfortably, she gave us what we’d come for.
‘Oliver Quinn is indeed here. He’s in our jail. He’s waiting for his trial.’
Twenty-Four
Alice
‘He’s what?’ Emma exclaimed, stealing the words before I could utter them.
‘In our prison’ May repeated.
There was some general noises of delight and relief from Jude and Emma at the pronouncement of his present tense. And my legs were shaking at the news that he was still alive. But I was holding off on celebrations until I had more information. ‘What do you mean, what prison?’
‘We don’t often need it, but we keep a building at the other end of town where we hold people who are dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Oh yes’ May said. ‘He committed a terrible crime. Here in Gable, we still take that sort of thing very seriously.’
I heard Rachel inhale deeply. ‘May. Just tell us what he did.’
‘He murdered the shopkeeper’ May said, giving me a hard look.
I was shocked. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘There were plenty of witnesses. He was found with the man lying dead at his feet.’
I couldn’t breathe for a second. Olly? A murderer? It didn’t compute.
‘So, what happens next?’ I asked.
‘We try him, naturally. We’ve tried waiting for a confession but he’s very stubborn and he’s still trying to lie his way out. So now we have to have hold court. You’re just in time for it, as a matter of fact. It starts tomorrow.’
‘Can we see him before?’ I asked May.
May pursed her lips. ‘No, I don’t think we could allow that.’
‘Why not?’ Emma interjected. ‘He’s my husband. I’ve a right.’
‘That’s just not how we do things here’ May said calmly.
‘That’s not good enough. You’re what, gonna have some kind of kangaroo court and we’re not allowed to see him? What kind of place is this?’ I asked, getting to my feet, my chair scraping the floor with a dreadful screech. The girl with the scowl was on her feet quickly. She looked ready to subdue me. Rachel got slowly to her feet and stood between us. ‘OK. Let’s just calm right down. Everybody get back in your seats.’
I looked at her, wondering if I wanted to listen. But she held my eye and I understood that she was right. Hot-headedness wasn’t the answer. I couldn’t help Olly by starting fights. I sat down. The scowler stayed on her feet and May put a hand on hers and said, ‘Ruby. Sit.’ I thought I saw a little flicker in Rachel’s eyes at the name, but she said nothing. Eventually, Ruby sat down.
There was a tense moment as we all looked at each other, trying to decide how to go forward. Jude was the one to break the silence. ‘Look, Mrs…’ he started, and May said, ‘You can call me May.’
‘May’ he corrected himself. ‘You’ve got my Dad and he’s done something… Wrong. Maybe. But you wanna give him a trial so that means you wanna be fair, right?’
‘Of course we do’ May answered.
‘But who’s gonna speak for him at this trial?’ Jude asked.
‘We’ve given him counsel.’
‘Alright. And who’s gonna be the judge?’
‘I will be carrying out that role.’
I saw where Jude was going and I jumped in. ‘Well, none of that sounds very fair. You’ve given him one of your own townspeople as defence and you’re going to decide the verdict. I think that’s what we used to call a biased system in the old days.’
‘Exactly’ Emma echoed. ‘This is bullshit.’
May narrowed her eyes at Emma and then turned to me. ‘We will give him the fairest trial possible under the circumstances.’
I was confounded. I was in this town with its own rules and regulations and I had no idea how to get around them. Back in the day, I would have had some idea what to do if my brother was charged with a crime. I’d have gotten legal help. There was a system. Not a perfect system, admittedly. Plenty of people had fallen foul of it. But it made a kind of sense. In the society of Gable, how did I fight this?
‘I have a suggestion’ Rachel said quietly and we all turned to her and she shrank in her seat at the eyes, speaking hesitantly. ‘What if you let his sister defend him?’
It didn’t take but a second to come around to that idea and I spun back to May. ‘Yes. I could do that, couldn’t I? Isn’t that fairer? To let someone who’s on his side defend him?’
Abruptly, and for the first time, Ruby spoke up, a low and gravelly voice breaking apart the rationality that had settled on the room. ‘Fuck this. No. I’m not letting these strangers walk in here and start messing things up.’
‘It’s not your decision, Ruby’ May told her.
‘No’ Rachel said, strangely angry suddenly. ‘It’s not.’
Ruby turned to Rachel and they locked eyes. Ruby said with a light sneer, ‘I know you, don’t I? and Rachel nodded, the rest of us forgotten. They seemed more concerned with each other than what was happening here.
‘That’s right. It’s May’s decision’ I said, hoping that if I reminded everyone that May was in charge, that she’d be more likely to come down on my side.
May gave a light cough and lifted a cup to her lips, taking a long sip and placing her cup down with a clatter on the saucer. She looked around at me and gave her pronouncement. ‘Fine. You may defend him.’
I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. ‘Thank you’ I whispered.
‘Wait’ Emma said, ‘What if he’s found guilty? What will you do with him?’
‘That’s undecided’ May told her. ‘If he’s found guilty, his sentence will depend on how much of a threat I feel he is. If he’s really as dangerous as I think, we may have to execute him.’
I looked at May sharply and heard a thud at my side. I turned to see Jude, fainted clean away. I got out of my chair and ran to him, Emma already at his side, giving him a few light slaps until his eyelids fluttered open. He began to come around and got to his feet, helped by myself and Emma. Standing together in the cottage, looking down at the little old lady who’d just made it plain that she had it in her power to have Olly murdered if she decided to, I wanted to do precisely what Jude had just done. Pass out.
But I couldn’t. Because I was now my brother’s defence lawyer. There was work to be done. And if I failed at my job, a job I didn’t have a clue how to even begin to do, my brother’s blood would be on my hands.
He was alive, Olly. But I might have just come along to alter that wonderful fact with my own incompetence. I was suddenly a lot less thrilled to have gotten the job.
Twenty-Five
Rachel
Ruby stood outside May’s door with the rest of us, looking right at me. She remembered me. And I sure as shit remembered her. Funny that I�
�d never spotted it before, when I’d seen her around the town. But she chopped off all her hair, gotten older, and I’d never seen her up close until today.
But as soon as I heard May call her by her name, I looked more carefully, seeing that old scar on her eyebrow and I knew exactly who she was. She was the crazy girl with the crew who’d shot at me on the M1 all those years ago, making me run for my life like a coward.
‘You seem different to how I remember you’ she said to me.
‘You don’t’ I replied.
She gave a light laugh. ‘I was a kid back then. I didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘No?’ I asked, losing interest. I wasn’t here for this. It was jarring to see this girl again, all grown up and apparently running May’s private militia. But I wasn’t interested in hashing the past out with her.
‘I wasn’t really gonna shoot you, you know. I was just messing about’ Ruby said dismissively.
I turned away to watch Alice muttering to Emma and Jude down the street. I wasn’t really sure what to do for them now. I’d gotten them to Gable and they’d found their brother. And miraculously, he was alive. It had seemed a good idea to suggest that Alice take charge of her brother’s defence. It had to be better than whatever local currently had the job, and who would have little to no interest in making a real fight of Olly’s defence.
But considering what the sentence for a guilty verdict was, I might have simply landed Alice with a case she couldn’t really win and a result she’d have to bear the burden of for the rest of her life.