The Judas Scar

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘I don’t want that.’

  ‘Then what?’ he shouted suddenly, banging his hand against the table. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Will, don’t,’ said Harmony.

  ‘I should go,’ Luke said, wiping his hands on his napkin and standing.

  ‘Yes, I think you should.’ Will pushed back from the table and strode out of the room.

  He went into the garden and breathed deeply. He had to be stronger. He couldn’t let this get to him. He sat on the edge of the terrace, elbows resting on his knees, his chin in his hands. He shouldn’t have confronted him like that. He shouldn’t have lost control. He shuddered at the memory of Luke tied to the cross, as he remembered the look of adoration in his desperate eyes, as he remembered what followed.

  A few minutes later Harmony appeared beside him and sat down, her body pressed up against his. At first neither spoke. Then she put her hand on his leg and stroked him.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said.

  He looked down and nodded slightly.

  Harmony leant forward and picked a daisy from between the blades of unkempt grass and began to pull off each petal one by one. He imagined her chanting a childish rhyme: Will he talk? Won’t he? Will he talk? Won’t he … ?

  Will pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. When he’d collected himself he took a deep breath and blew sharply out as he tried to find the words he needed to tell her what he was feeling. It was so hard. It had all happened so long ago, but right now it felt like yesterday and the emotions were incredibly raw.

  ‘The bullying was pretty bad,’ Will said. The sound of his voice surprised him, as if his words had barged out of his subconscious without his consent.

  Harmony moved to face him and rested her hands on his knee.

  ‘Luke was one of those boys who should have stayed quiet, kept his head below the parapet, but he had this temper on him. Christ,’ Will shook his head, ‘he went mental sometimes, you know, if people teased him. And they found it hilarious so they teased him about everything – about his dad being a vicar, about his clothes, being small, his name, anything and everything – and each time he’d fly off the handle. It was like some vicious circle, the more he reacted, the more they went for him.’

  Will was quiet for a moment or two remembering the speed with which Luke’s anger would ignite. Sometimes the slightest jibe would set him off – screeching, stamping his feet, slamming his fists into walls.

  ‘I was with him when he broke a window once. A boy in the year above sniggered as we walked past, about nothing much as far as I could tell, and before I knew what was going on Luke grabbed this boy’s text book, tore it in half and threw it through a window, breaking the glass. Two prefects had to hold him down until he finally calmed.’ Will had watched, first in horror as Luke raged and then with relief as the anger left him like an exorcised spirit, his balled fists relaxing, his breathing slowing to normal, eyes refocusing.

  ‘I should have kept away from him. Being a friend of Luke was social suicide, but I was there, I saw them, those bastards tying him to that fucking cross, all of them laughing and jeering, like a pack of dogs on a rabbit. When … ’ Will paused to draw a steadying breath.

  ‘When they left I was about to go to him but then the headmaster turned up. He started shouting at him to stop mucking about, told him to get back to prep, didn’t untie him. It was the unfairest thing I’d ever seen.’ Will remembered his horror when he saw the look of spite on Drysdale’s face, leering down at the child on the manicured lawn, half-naked, piss-soaked, defenceless. ‘When I got over to him he was so scared he could barely breathe.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered.

  Will kicked at the ground with the heel of his shoe. ‘Word got out it was me who helped him and then I became fair game.’

  ‘What you did was the right thing to do.’

  Will didn’t reply. Yes, of course, she was right; at the time it was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, but if he could go back in time he knew he wouldn’t do it again. He’d have left him tied to that cross so that they never became friends, never pushed their bleeding palms together, never went up to the old oak tree on that crisp October afternoon.

  ‘It sounds like you took quite a risk helping him. And being his friend.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Will. Then he sighed. ‘But, you know, he was great. He made that first year more fun. We clicked. He was incredibly bright, which didn’t help, of course. Even the masters seemed to hate him for that, hated how he mucked around in class then got full marks in everything. You could see it drove them mad. And he was funny. Really funny.’ Will gave an involuntary smile as he allowed himself to remember the fun he and Luke had. ‘We had a laugh together. He was different to everyone else; there was something unpredictable about him. I envied him in many ways, liked how he didn’t follow the crowd and how he didn’t believe rules applied to him. He was ballsy.’ Will looked at Harmony. ‘He did amazing impersonations of our masters. He used to have me in stitches.’

  Will smiled again as he remembered the genius of Luke’s impressions. He’d have Will bent double and almost sick from laughing at Drysdale and his Magnificent Exploding Cane sketch or his Prof. Thomas the Chemical Car Crash, pretending to break test tubes and set the lab alight with a Bunsen burner as he bumbled blindly around. He even managed to turn his face puce like Mr Franks, their Glaswegian RE master, about to lose it because of forgotten homework.

  ‘You forgot your PREP?!!’ Luke would screech, mimicking Mr Franks perfectly, his skin turning redder and puffing up like a toad.

  ‘If you FORGOT your PREP then we MUST all ASSUUUUME, including sweet Jesus HIMSELF, that you HAVE mushy PEAS for BRRAINNNES. You. Are. An. IMBECEEEELE!!!’ And then Luke would fall to the floor writhing and twitching, chanting ‘mushy peas, mushy peas, mushy peas’ over and over while Will creased up with laughter, tears streaming down his aching cheeks.

  ‘I was pretty good at taking shit, kept my cool, didn’t react, and by the end of the year they’d eased up on me.’ He glanced at her and kicked at the ground again. ‘Bullies try and get under your skin. I found that if I built walls it helped. It’s probably why I don’t talk about any of it. As far as I was concerned, if I let them get to me I’d let them win. I also made sure I wasn’t seen out and about with Luke too much. We’d hang out on our own in the woods behind the school instead. There was this den place we made, hidden away in the woods. We went there. Sometimes in the refectory I sat with other boys to eat.’ Will felt a sudden swell of guilt as he heard those words out loud, recalling Luke’s downcast eyes, resigned and abandoned, while Will sat with other boys in his year, boys he didn’t like, but boys he could be seen with without risk. Luke took it on the chin. He never mentioned it, never asked to join them. It was as if he was just pleased to take whatever companionship Will was willing to give him, as if he deserved no more.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why did you ask if he wanted you to say sorry?’ she asked softly.

  Will’s stomach knotted.

  ‘Maybe talking about it will help,’ she said. ‘You can tell me. I’m your wife and I want you to trust me. I hate the thought that you have secrets from me.’

  ‘I can trust you. I do. My … ’ He paused, searching his head for the right word. ‘… reticence to talk about it has nothing to do with you.’ He heard her sigh and took hold of her hand in an attempt to reassure her.

  ‘He doesn’t seem angry or upset with you,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any bad feelings towards you at all. He seems fine.’

  Will put his arms around her and buried his face in the warm, sweet-smelling curve of her neck, breathing her in as if she were a drug. His skin prickled. He lifted his head and kissed her. He wanted to lie her back, and on the terrace in the dying warmth of the day, make love to her. He wanted to lose himself in her – his desire, their sex, blotting Luke and everything that came with him from his head.

/>   They sat like that for a while until eventually she made a move to stand. ‘We should go in; it’ll be dark soon.’

  Harmony cleared the unfinished supper away and scraped the food into the bin while Will scrambled some eggs, which they ate leaning against the kitchen worktop. In bed, she pushed herself into him, her back to his chest, his arms enfolding her so he felt she was part of him. He kissed her shoulder, gently lingering, parted his lips and brushed the tip of his tongue across her skin, the slightly salty taste arousing him, the desire he’d felt in the garden returned.

  ‘You taste beautiful,’ he whispered.

  He ran his hand along her arm and over her breast, kissed the sweep of her shoulder. She turned to kiss him back. When she touched him, he moaned quietly. She stroked her hand upwards and over his stomach and chest, then ran her fingers over his lips. He opened his mouth and bit her gently. She pushed a finger into his mouth and he closed his lips around her, running his tongue around the tip. They made love for the first time in a while. It was comforting and safe, each of them knowing their role to perfection, instinctively doing what the other liked, the familiar, satisfying sex of a twenty-year marriage. He adored her body – every curve, each imperfection, scar and mole. The touch of her skin excited him, and the smell of her, the real smell of her beneath the creams and lotions.

  Afterwards they lay beside each other with their fingers lightly laced.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  His stomach churned as nerves gathered. ‘Harmony,’ he paused, feeling the words begin to knot in his throat. ‘It’s about this baby thing.’

  ‘Baby thing?’ she repeated, with a small laugh. ‘Is it a thing?’

  He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her in the light coming in from the hallway. ‘Nothing’s changed, Harmony. I wish I felt differently, but I don’t. I … I still don’t want a child.’

  ‘But why? You’ve never explained why.’

  The words of the poem he’d memorised at fifteen echoed in his head, as poignant now as they’d been when he first read them. It was the first time a poem had touched him, the words chiming as if the writer inhabited Will’s own headspace, the headspace of a boy with no relationship with his father, who had been taken from his mother, his childhood blighted at home and at school. He’d found the poem while trying to find something by Wilfred Owen for a World War One history essay. It was by a man he hadn’t heard of before. A poet called Larkin. Standing alone in the library that smelt of old books and furniture polish, he read the words over and over, angrily swiping at the tears they provoked. The words were simple, accessible, not clothed in the old-fashioned pompousness of the poets he was usually forced to read. Man hands on misery, father to son. It was there in black and white, the truest thing he’d read. Don’t have children, Larkin told him. Don’t ever have children.

  Will reached over and stroked his hand down her cheek, tucking a tress of her hair behind her ear. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve kept from you. I should have told you months ago.’ He hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know how—’

  ‘Just tell me, Will.’

  ‘I … ’ He hesitated again. ‘I had a vasectomy.’

  ‘What?’ Barely spoken, no more than a breath. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘A vasectomy.’ He reached for her hand that clutched at the duvet. ‘I had a vasectomy.’

  C H A P T E R N I N E

  As his words sank in, she stared at his face, caught the weight of his pained expression, saw how his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

  ‘Harmony?’

  She didn’t move. He reached over and turned his bedside light on. She closed her eyes against the brightness, against him. His words tumbled around in her mind.

  Had she heard him correctly?

  Disbelief muddied her thoughts, her vision. She felt lightheaded, and as she forced herself out of bed her knees gave slightly.

  ‘You had a vasectomy,’ she said. ‘You had yourself sterilised?’ He didn’t answer.

  She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She stood in the centre of the room for a moment or two, unsure what to do, her body beginning to shiver. She reached for the towel on the rail. It was damp from her earlier shower, but she wrapped it around herself like a cape, then closed the loo seat and sat down, her head swimming as if she were drunk.

  Will opened the door. He’d put some boxer shorts on, which gaped unattractively. She felt nauseous and looked away from him. He crouched beside her. Touched her knee.

  ‘Get off me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Harmony, I—’

  ‘Get your hand off me, Will.’

  He dropped his hand from her and his head fell forward. She closed her eyes again, waves of sickness passing through her as the ramifications of what he’d done began to settle over her.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ she said, unable to look at him. ‘You went to a hospital and had a vasectomy without telling me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She concentrated on her breathing, focused on the air passing in and out of her body. Did he have any idea of the damage he’d done? As she sat there she felt her shock turn to disbelief. She fixed her eyes on him, her brow furrowed, her head shook from side to side as she grappled with what he’d told her.

  ‘Have you any concept of how serious this is?’

  He didn’t respond, just crouched there, struck dumb.

  ‘I can’t believe you’d do that.’

  His face showed all the shame, all the guilt, of a scolded child. His lips were pursed and his gaze was fixed on the floor between them.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, forcing the question through gritted teeth.

  ‘You know why,’ he said. ‘You know I never wanted children.’

  ‘But we were going to have one. I was pregnant. That changed things. It must have done.’

  He looked at her, his eyes flicking back and forth across her face, his head shaking almost imperceptibly.

  ‘But you must have felt something.’ she pressed. ‘When it died you must have felt something. Something in you changed, surely?’ She was pleading with him, pleading for him to admit some sort of emotional response, something that would reassure her he wasn’t a heartless monster.

  He sighed heavily, rubbed his face, then stood up and walked over to the bath. He sat on its edge. ‘That’s the point, I didn’t. I didn’t feel what you wanted me to feel, not when I found out about it and not when you lost it. I’ve tried to be there for you but I don’t understand how you can expect me to mourn something I never felt attached to.’

  Harmony closed her eyes against the anger that swelled up inside her. ‘How can you be so callous?’ she whispered.

  ‘You don’t understand what I’m saying.’ Will paused. She opened her eyes and saw his face, twisted as if in physical pain.

  ‘When it died … ’ He hesitated. ‘When it died I felt … ’ He stopped himself.

  ‘What? What did you feel?’

  ‘Relief.’

  The word hung between them, poisoning the air she breathed.

  ‘Harmony, I didn’t—’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  She dropped her face into her hands, struggling to process everything she was hearing. How could he have felt that? She took her hands from her face and stared at him, picturing his heart, black and shrivelled, in his hollow chest.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t discuss it with me.’

  ‘We’ve discussed and discussed it until we’re blue in the face,’ he said. ‘When we got married – no, when we met – we discussed it. Christ, Harmony, you knew the score.’

  ‘I knew the score?’ She spat the words out of her mouth like they were battery acid.

  ‘I never wanted children.’ He squared his shoulders, looked her directly in the eyes, faced her, ready to defend himself.

  She h
ated him then. Raw hatred. A hatred born of a wound she never imagined him capable of inflicting.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘How could you do that? You and I might have made decisions years ago but things changed. We got pregnant.’ She was crying now, hot tears running down her cheeks. ‘You knew how I felt about our baby. You knew from the start. But then you go … and … and have a vasectomy? Without even telling me?’ She paused and shook her head, pressing the edge of the towel against her eyes to blot the tears. ‘I mean, shit, is it even legal to do that without my consent?’

  ‘Your consent?’ He looked genuinely surprised and she fought the urge to slap him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My consent. As your wife. Given that what you did affects me profoundly.’

  ‘You’re missing the point. This goes beyond the vasectomy. It goes far deeper. I’m not capable of being a father. I’m not capable of caring for another human being—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she interrupted, looking at the ceiling to try and stem her tears.

  ‘I’m not being ridiculous.’ Then he got up and walked back into the bedroom. ‘I don’t want to have a child.’

  ‘But I do!’ she shouted after him. ‘I did!’

  Then she started to shake, shock taking hold of her body. She felt cold suddenly and tightened the towel around her. ‘Oh my God,’ she said under her breath. ‘Will, what have you done to us?’

  When she stood, her legs were shaky, her heart racing. She made herself walk when all she wanted to do was collapse on the floor. She took the towel off her shoulders and took her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door. She put it on, tying the cord tightly, and then stood in the doorway and leant against the frame. He was sitting on the bed, his back facing her, shoulders hunched.

  ‘When did you do it?’ He didn’t reply.

  ‘Will? I asked you a question. When did you do it? When I was dealing with the pain of losing our baby?’