The Judas Scar

by Amanda Jennings

  Emma rested a hand on Harmony’s arm, her head tipped forwards with concern. ‘It’s not jumping the gun, it’s being prepared. You’ve got to channel the inner Girl Guide when it comes to babies. What if it comes early? Take the Moses basket and sling at least.’

  But Harmony stood her ground and a disgruntled Emma had driven everything back to Oxfordshire.

  Then one day she weakened. It was a crisp winter morning with a royal blue sky and brilliant sunshine that glinted off the shop windows and lit the clouds of vapour as they formed on her breath. She was happy, the type of happy that fills a person up and spills over the edges, and as she walked, stroking her hands lightly over her tummy, she couldn’t keep her smile from beaming. Before she knew what she was doing she’d turned into a Baby Gap. The tiny cardigan caught her eye immediately. The wool was soft and warm and she clearly saw her baby buttoned into it and lying in her arms. It had seemed such an innocuous thing to do, to buy the cardigan that day; so easy, so inconsequential. But after her miscarriage this piece of clothing seemed to possess an almost mystical hold over her. It represented so much that should have been and, though she’d tried on numerous occasions, she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.

  She breathed its smell in one last time then carefully folded it and put it back in the drawer. Just as she closed the drawer, the bedroom door opened.

  ‘Harmony?’Will said, poking his head around the door. ‘Are you nearly ready?’

  ‘Yes, sorry, I’ll be two minutes.’

  He nodded and disappeared back to join Luke.

  They had to talk soon. She’d make him, later, after Luke had left perhaps. It wasn’t fair of him to keep avoiding the subject.

  When she walked into the living room Luke stood up and placed his empty glass on the coffee table and smiled at her. His presence overpowered the room. There was a luminosity about him she imagined famous actors possessed. He seemed so out of place in her living room and she felt strangely uncomfortable.

  ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ Will asked her.

  ‘I’ll have one with supper,’ she said. ‘Maybe some orange juice if we have any?’

  ‘We do,’ he said. ‘Luke? Another beer? Or some wine now?’

  ‘Yes, wine would be great,’ he said.

  Will left the room and Harmony and Luke stood in an awkward silence until he cleared his throat and gestured at the mantelpiece.

  ‘I’ve been admiring these beautiful pictures of you.’

  Harmony felt herself blush again. ‘My husband’s a great photographer. He can make anyone look good.’

  Luke laughed. ‘He said they were only good because you were a great subject.’

  ‘He’s too modest,’ she said, sitting on the sofa as Luke sat down in the armchair. ‘It’s impossible to compliment him. A bit more self-belief would do him no harm at all.’

  Will came back into the room and handed Harmony her juice and put a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of Luke. ‘Do who no harm at all?’

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about your photography.’ She saw him bristling uncomfortably.

  ‘I was saying it would be good if you believed in yourself a bit more.’

  ‘Right, well, I am who I am, I suppose. Anyway, Luke bought you some lovely flowers,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I wasn’t sure which vase to use so I put them in some water in the sink.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Harmony said to Luke. ‘I love cut flowers.’ He was looking at her in that way again, like he was studying her, taking in every detail, every eyelash, every mole.

  ‘So,’ said Will, as another silence took hold of them. ‘How about I go and get the steaks on? I mean, if you’re both hungry.’ Will looked at Luke. ‘How do you like your steak?’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Harmony with a smile. ‘You like your steak rare.’

  ‘Yes. Always rare.’ He leant forward and took hold of his glass of wine, his eyes locked on to hers. ‘With the heart still beating if possible.’

  She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

  ‘I presume from your face you like yours burnt to a crisp with all the guilt and flavour cooked out of it.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with having a conscience.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with liking your food to taste good.’

  ‘Well, we’ll beg to differ on this.’ Harmony smiled. ‘I was a vegetarian for years and still can’t get my head around the idea of eating bleeding food.’

  ‘And you marched against the war and you believe immigration is the basis for economic growth and cultural advancement?’

  ‘Of course I marched,’ she said, the smile falling from her face as she saw the challenge in his eyes. ‘Everybody should have marched. It was an illegal war based on fabricated motive. It was an utter disgrace and yet another blot on our country to add to the catalogue of blots that litter the history books.’

  Will, who was standing behind the sofa, rested his hands on her shoulders and gave her a steadying squeeze. ‘Harmony has an impressive moral compass,’ he said to Luke.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Will.’ She shrugged his hands off her and turned to glare at him.

  ‘I didn’t mean—’ Will didn’t finish his sentence. ‘I wasn’t patronising you.’

  ‘There is no shame in standing up for what you believe in, in making yourself heard and sticking to your principles.’

  Will drew in a sharp breath as if she’d stabbed him. ‘I need to get the steaks on,’ he mumbled as he backed out of the room, unable, it seemed, to get away quickly enough.

  ‘He seems on edge,’ Luke said after he’d gone. ‘Do you think it’s something to do with me?’

  ‘No, of course not. At least I don’t think so.’ She hesitated. ‘Will hasn’t mentioned you before, he never talks about school. Actually, he doesn’t talk about anything from his childhood. I suppose seeing you again is bringing stuff back that he doesn’t want to think about.’ She sighed. ‘I can see he’s finding it strange, unsettling even. I shouldn’t have snapped at him.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

  Harmony shook her head. ‘No, you should. It’s great that you and Will have met up again. I think it’s a good thing for him. Maybe it will help; it can’t be healthy to have so much bottled up inside him.’ She stood. ‘Are you all right for a minute or two? I might see if he needs a hand in the kitchen.’

  ‘Of course, take your time.’

  ‘Hey,’ she said to Will as she entered the kitchen.

  He was blotting the fat-marbled steaks with some kitchen roll. He was a great cook and she loved to watch him doing it. He made it seem so effortless. When she cooked it was stressful; she was far too concerned about measurements and timings, and had no natural affinity with flavours or seasoning. Will was flamboyant and experimental, loved unusual spices, and always sloshed an extra glass of wine in. But as she watched him drying the meat she noticed none of his usual enthusiasm. He was being deliberate, methodical, his face set in concentration as he pushed his fingers against the steaks. He glanced over his shoulder and tried to smile at her but didn’t quite manage it. His skin had paled and he blinked at her slowly.

  ‘I wasn’t patronising you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if it came across that way.’

  ‘I overreacted,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why. Work’s been difficult today.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that thing about your moral compass.’ He wiped his hands on a tea towel draped over one shoulder and then reached for the pepper mill. ‘I’m always saying stupid things. You should just ignore me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Are you okay?’

  ‘Just need to get these steaks on.’

  ‘No, I meant—’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He threw a couple of pinches of salt onto the steaks.

  ‘Do you mind going back and keeping Luke company? I’m nearly done.’

  She glanced back towards the living room and hesitated.

  ‘I won’t be long.’

>   ‘Everything all right?’ Luke asked as she rejoined him.

  ‘Yes, all under control.’

  ‘I was looking at your wedding photo. You both look so young. Did you meet at university?’

  ‘We were at different places but met while we were both students. He was studying photography and media studies at East Anglia and I did natural sciences at Cambridge.’

  She thought back to the day she met Will. He was so very different to the boys she’d been out with before; he drank wine, not beer, had longish scruffy blond hair, wore faded blue jeans and a crumpled pink shirt, and his well-bred accent was softened with a laid-back confidence. She’d have written him off as a vacuous posh boy if it hadn’t been for his smile – wide and open and honest, it sucked her in from that very first moment.

  ‘We bumped into each other. Literally. He was listening to music, not looking where he was going, of course, and I was late for a lecture and we collided.’ Harmony smiled. ‘My stuff went everywhere and he helped to pick it up then insisted I go to the pub with him. He was easy to talk to and I felt very relaxed with him.’ Luke nodded in agreement, as if this was also his experience of Will.

  ‘I kept wishing my mother was alive to meet him.’ She smiled.

  ‘She died when you were young?’

  ‘I was twelve.’

  ‘Losing someone close is incredibly hard.’

  ‘Have you lost someone close?’

  He nodded, visibly wincing with remembered grief. ‘My wife. Eighteen months ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. What happened?’

  ‘She was killed in a car crash. She swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a lorry. He said she came from nowhere.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ breathed Harmony. ‘How awful.’

  He smiled briefly and then looked back down at his glass. His face seemed to set, his lips became tight and she could see him turning thoughts over in his head, submerged in memories. Death did that, crept up, brought unwanted recollections at the slightest trigger: a turn of phrase, a song, a smell even. Sitting there watching him quietly process his grief, she found herself thinking of her mother’s death. She remembered climbing the stairs that lunchtime, carefully carrying a bowl of tomato soup, which was all her mother could eat by then, trying not to let the bright orange liquid spill. She set the bowl on the bedside table and rested a hand on her mother’s bony shoulder.

  ‘Mum?’ she said softly. ‘I’ve got your lunch.’

  There’d been no movement, and as Harmony looked at her mother, lips parted as if about to speak, she realised something was different. A calm had settled over her like a fine silk cloth. Her face was relaxed, lacking its usual pained tautness. Harmony had taken hold of her hand and turned it over, traced her finger along the crease that crossed her palm, her lifeline, strong and pronounced, no breaks at all, no warning her life would end at thirty-six, a dishonest line. Then she laid her cheek on her mother’s upturned hand.

  ‘Is she dead?’

  Harmony lifted her head to see her sister in the open doorway with her arms crossed. ‘Yes,’ Harmony said. ‘I think so.’

  Her sister nodded and walked over to the bed. She bent and kissed their mother’s forehead, pausing for a moment, her eyes tightly closed, then she reached for the bowl of soup and without saying a word she took it back downstairs.

  Harmony looked up at Luke. ‘Death is hard however it comes. We were expecting my mother’s for a very long time. She was in so much pain and had been for such a long time that in a way it seemed kinder for her to pass away. I still miss her, every day, even after all these years.’

  Just then, Will came into the living room carrying three plates like a silver-service waiter. ‘Supper,’ he announced with exaggerated brightness. ‘Burnt, bloody and somewhere in between.’

  Harmony pushed her mother’s death from her mind and stood.

  ‘That looks delicious, Will,’ she said, as she approached the table. She took a plate from him.

  ‘This is very kind of you,’ Luke said, as he came to the table and placed his wine down. ‘And what a treat – steak is one of my favourites.’

  Will wiped his hands on the tea towel, still slung over his shoulder, then pulled his chair out to sit down. ‘I hope it tastes okay.’ Harmony looked at her husband and saw how hard he was working to appear relaxed, how rehearsed his words were, as if he’d been in the kitchen practicing until he could talk without tripping up.

  ‘So how did you two meet?’ Harmony said as she cut into her steak. It was just how she liked it, cooked through with the slightest blush of pink in the middle.

  ‘You know how.’ Will furrowed his brow. ‘At school.’

  ‘Yes, but I wondered how you actually became friends.You seem quite different. It would be interesting to know what drew you to each other, I suppose.’

  ‘We just met,’ Will said. ‘We shared a dormitory with thirty other boys. No special story.’

  ‘But the thing that pulled us together … you know, cemented our friendship, was pretty special, wasn’t it, Will? Let’s be honest now.’ Luke finished his mouthful then sat back in his chair. He smiled broadly and reached for his wine.

  Harmony saw her husband swallow. ‘It was a long time ago. I’m not sure we need to talk about it. It wasn’t the happiest of times for either of us.’

  Luke laughed. ‘It certainly wasn’t. But what do they say? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’

  Harmony felt Will tense. She watched him as he cut vigorously at his meat. ‘The steak’s a bit tough,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about that. I should have let it rest a while longer.’

  ‘Mine’s perfect,’ said Luke.

  Will raised his head. His face was stony, his eyes hooded, and Harmony was shocked to see how angry he looked. He put his knife and fork together then pushed his plate away. ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ he said.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘It’s a charade, Harmony.’ Then he turned on Luke. ‘Don’t you remember what it was like? How can you just sit there like the steak is your only care in the world, like you’re interested in my photographs or how I met my wife, laughing it all off like it didn’t matter?’

  Harmony looked between the two men, Will’s face reddening, his breathing heavy, hands clutching the table with white knuckles. And then Luke, impassive, his body relaxed, registering no surprise.

  ‘You want me to tell you the story he’s laughing about?’ Will said to her suddenly.

  ‘No, I don’t—’

  ‘You want me to go over it in all its unpleasant glory?’ But then Will stopped speaking. He shook his head, pinched his nose between two fingers, and closed his eyes.

  Luke leant forward and rested a hand lightly on hers. ‘We knew each other, of course, from the dormitory, from lessons, but hadn’t really spoken much. Then one day, Will found me tied to a homemade cross,’ he said. ‘Two scaffolding planks stolen from a building site.’ He placed his knife and fork on his plate so they were perfectly straight beside each other. ‘A group of boys made it using rope and bungees, then grabbed me after supper. They tied me to it and left me on the lawn outside the headmaster’s house.’ He spoke with no emotion, his face blank, intonation flat; he could just as easily have been discussing the weather forecast.

  ‘That’s appalling,’ breathed Harmony. She looked at Will who shook his head slightly, his eyes closed.

  Luke ran a hand through his hair. ‘The headmaster came out and found me and told me to stop mucking around and get back up to the dormitory, and when my housemaster asked why I was late I was to tell him I’d been playing silly buggers and would need a caning.’ Luke then stretched his arms out as if on a cross and started to laugh. The noise was disconcerting against the uneasy silence in the room. ‘So there I was, hands and feet tied to this thing, lying on my back with this man shouting at me to get up.’ Tears of laughter began to form in the corners of his eyes.

  Harmony shifted in her seat. She glanced at Will and saw his face se
t in a grimace as he pushed a piece of steak fat towards the edge of his plate with the tip of his knife.

  ‘Then Will appears,’ Luke continued, his laughter fading, ‘and untied me. He asked my first name. I remember that so clearly.’ He looked at Will. ‘We all called each other by our surnames so him wanting to know my real name felt special.’ Luke smiled and looked back at Harmony. ‘Will was my hero. From that moment onwards I’d have done anything for him.’

  Will looked up at the ceiling and she noticed a hint of exasperation or perhaps impatience in his expression. ‘A hero?’ he said. ‘For Christ’s sake, I was just a boy who thought another boy tied to a couple of planks of wood could do with some help. I didn’t do anything. I just untied the sodding ropes!’

  ‘Will, I think—’

  ‘For crying out loud, Harmony. Please stop it will you? Just leave it alone.’

  C H A P T E R E I G H T

  The steak sat like concrete in the pit of Will’s stomach. He remembered the panic that had coursed through him as he’d fought with the ropes and bungee cords, knots so tight he worried he’d never get into them. All the time his heart pummelled his chest, all the time ready to run if the boys or the headmaster showed up. How could Luke talk about it now with such casual disregard? Will flinched as he recalled Luke’s pale skin marked with bruises from where the older boys had held him down, his trousers stained dark with urine, the tear tracks that cut through the dirt on his pinched cheeks, and how, as Will battled with those hellish knots, Luke had gazed up at him as if he was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

  ‘All I was going to say is I can’t believe those boys would do something like that,’ Harmony said with lilting sympathy that stung Will.

  ‘Alastair Farrow’s an accountant now,’ Luke said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Alastair Farrow?’ Harmony asked.

  ‘One of the boys who tied me to the cross.’

  Will’s gut twisted as anxiety flooded him and a hatred he tried to keep at bay sprung up in him.

  ‘I found him on Facebook,’ Luke went on. ‘He has a wife and two children.’

  Will closed his eyes and swallowed. Then he shook his head and looked at Luke. ‘Why are you here?’ he said. ‘What do you want? I don’t understand. Do I owe you an apology? Because if that’s what you’re here for, you can have it.’