Son of Heaven

by Wingrove, David

  ‘It’s his shoulder. It’s begun to swell up again.’

  ‘And the doctor?’

  ‘Cath went half an hour back. He said he’d come.’

  Jake went across and, careful not to disturb Tom, had a look.

  He winced. It looked bad. Looked like it was infected.

  ‘But it was fine,’ he said, looking to Mary again. ‘The wound was clean.’

  She took a shivering breath. ‘I know…’

  ‘Tell him, Mary,’ Tom said wearily. ‘Just tell him.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Mary’s head went down. She was hunched forward, as if fending off some physical blow.

  ‘What?’

  He was conscious suddenly of Peter and the girls in the doorway behind him.

  Tom opened his eyes. He turned his head slowly, looking up at Jake.

  ‘I’m dying, Jake.’

  Jake shook his head. ‘You can’t say that. The doctor’ll be here any minute. He’ll give you something…’

  Mary turned, looking up at him. Her eyes were raw, her face pale. ‘It’s not the wound.’

  ‘I don’t get it…’

  ‘I’ve got cancer,’ Tom said. ‘Liver cancer. At least, that’s where it started. It’s spread. And my immune system…’ He smiled wearily, as if it were a cause for amusement. ‘It’s shot…’

  Jake shook his head. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. Only a few days ago, Tom had been striding along at his side, all ruddy-faced and healthy.

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘He went to see them. In Dorchester. They did all the tests.’

  Jake looked to Mary, then back at Tom. ‘That young doctor we saw…?’

  ‘Had seen me before… three… no, four times…’

  Tom had closed his eyes again, but he seemed much more relaxed now.

  There was a sudden, sharp movement behind him. Jake turned, in time to see Meg turn away and rush off, bursting into tears as she went. Peter chased after her.

  Cathy too was crying. Only she and Beth seemed calm. ‘Is it true, Daddy?’

  ‘It’s true,’ Mary said quietly.

  ‘And the bullet?’

  Tom smiled; a proper smile this time. ‘One of life’s little ironies, eh?’

  But Jake couldn’t smile. All he could see now was the damage in Tom’s face. He hadn’t seen it before now. Maybe he hadn’t been looking properly. But now he could.

  ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘Best part of a year,’ Mary answered, taking Tom’s hand again and squeezing it. ‘He thought it was simple tiredness to begin with. A sign ’e was growing old. But then the pains began.’

  ‘Christ, Tom, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You’d only have fussed…’

  ‘Yeah, well, you should have let me fuss!’

  Jake stood. His own anger surprised him. He felt like breaking something.

  ‘Fuck it!’

  ‘Jake…’

  He looked at Tom, blinking through his tears. ‘You saved me! You gave me my fucking life that time! I owe you. You can’t just die on me!’

  Tom’s mouth trembled. ‘Seems I can.’

  There was a sudden knocking down below, then hurried footsteps on the stairs. The local doctor, Hart, appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Jake… Mary…’

  He went straight across, setting his bag down by the bed even as Jake stepped back.

  ‘I’ve told them,’ Tom said, looking up at him.

  ‘Thank god for that. Now what’s the trouble?’

  While the doctor did his examination, Mary took Jake downstairs.

  They spoke quietly but intensely.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Mary shrugged. She was close to tears again. ‘He asked me not to. He wanted things to be normal…’

  ‘Normal? How could they be fucking normal?’

  ‘Jake…’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just… No, I’m sorry… I really am. I love Tom.’

  ‘I know.’ But it sounded desolate.

  Jake shook his head. Now that he’d been told, all manner of things came clear to him. Even Mary’s behaviour the night of the gathering.

  Mary turned away, busying herself, filling a kettle simply for something to do.

  ‘We... talked about it… Tom and I… when we first knew… I… I wanted to tell you.’

  ‘Did you?’

  She glanced at him. ‘Yes… only Tom didn’t want that. Didn’t want you looking at him in that way… you know…’

  He did, and he understood. If he was dying the very last thing he’d want was for his friends to look at him that way – in that mawkish, over-sentimental fashion.

  ‘So you just…’

  Mary sighed. ‘You know… it’s been the ’ardest thing, watchin’ him each day… seeing him diminish. You must have noticed something.’

  ‘No. No, I… Small things, I guess, but you put them down to ageing. We’re none of us getting any younger…’

  ‘No…’

  He frowned. ‘You told the girls?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘No. Not till tonight… Not till…’

  She turned to him, her face distraught. ‘Oh, Jake… it was awful…’

  ‘Oh, Mary…’

  He took her in his arms and held her, letting her sob into his shoulder, the tears coursing down his own cheeks.

  ‘We’ll do our best for him, Mary, I promise you. Whatever you need… You only have to ask, you know that. Whatever you need.’

  Jake barely slept. Long before dawn he was up and dressed, ready to go and do what needed to be done.

  For once he was afraid. Afraid of seeing in the daylight what he’d glimpsed the night before. He had packed a bag with several old sheets and thick gloves and a shovel and was about to go – to get there at first light – when Peter came down and joined him.

  ‘Peter… you didn’t have to…’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Peter said, coming across, taking his coat down from the peg.

  ‘You don’t have to come.’

  The boy turned, looking back at Jake, clear-eyed. ‘I know. But I want to. We share things from now on. Okay?’

  Jake stared at his son, surprised. This was a new tone from him.

  ‘Okay… How’s Meg?’

  ‘Not good. She never guessed. Cathy and Beth… well, they knew something was going on. But Meg… it’s hit her hard.’

  Jake nodded. Like it hit you, he thought, when your mother died.

  ‘I meant to ask,’ Peter said, ‘did you…?’

  ‘The ring? Yeah. I’ll bring it back from Corfe later on. It’s in my pack.’ He smiled. ‘It’s really nice. Solid gold.’

  Peter grinned back at him. ‘Thanks…’

  ‘Okay… then let’s go.’

  East Orchard was barely any distance across the fields. As they walked down the long slope in the early light, Boy gambolling along between them, both were silent, lost in their own thoughts. It was only when they came to the cottage that Jake turned to his son again.

  ‘Look… if you find this disturbing…’

  ‘Dad. I’m all right. Really I am. It’s awful, yeah, I know that, but I have to deal with it.’

  Jake wanted to argue, only maybe the boy was right. Maybe you did have to see the worst of it – the very worst – to understand the whole. Good and evil. They were delicately balanced in the world. And you needed to understand that, for without that you were fucked. Well and truly fucked.

  He reached out and touched Peter’s shoulder. ‘Come on, then. But be warned. It’s not a pleasant sight. Poor Margaret…’

  Peter lowered his head, then nodded.

  ‘We’ll wrap her up in the sheets and bring her down. Bury her in her garden. That’s where she’d want to be…’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘What, boy?’

  I know it might sound a bit ghoulish, but d’you think Meg and I could have the cottage?’

  The ques
tion astonished Jake. ‘I… I’ll talk to Tom about it…’

  ‘Only…’

  ‘Go on…’

  ‘Just that if it is all ending… if the Chinese are here… then I want to have some time alone with Meg. Just me and her…’

  Jake wanted to say that he was only fourteen and that they had all the time in the world. Only fourteen was a different kind of fourteen these days – not like when he grew up and you were still a child. No, and they didn’t have all the time in the world. No one knew how long they had. So why not?

  ‘I’ll talk to him, Peter, I promise… when I’m back from Wareham. Now let’s do what we have to do.’

  Becky was waiting for him when he got to the Bankes Arms Hotel, her wagon secured with thick straps, her packed bags on the pavement next to it.

  Seeing him, she smiled and came across. She was dressed in her very best clothes and, most surprising of all, she was wearing her eye patch.

  ‘Jake, my love… As you see, I’m ready.’

  He put out his hand to her, but she ignored it, giving him a hug instead, and whispering in his ear.

  ‘I wish you could ’ave stayed a little longer… I couldn’t sleep…’

  He moved back a little, feeling awkward. ‘Tom wasn’t well… We were up half the night… and then there was the burial…’

  Her face changed, grew concerned. ‘I’m really sorry…’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said gently, remembering how kind she’d been – how loving-generous – the previous evening. ‘Let’s get you to your husband, eh?’

  There was something faintly wistful in her expression, and then she grinned. ‘Come on, then… come up and sit next to me on the seat, Jake, and tell me what’s been ’appenin’…’

  It was an hour and more to Wareham in the wagon, and after the events of the past few days, Jake was wary. Letting Becky do most of the talking, he sat there, his eyes searching the horizon on all sides, looking out for any sign of bandits.

  If Becky had had her way, of course, they would have stopped along the road, but Jake was strict about that.

  ‘It was wonderful… really it was… you’re a lovely woman, Becks… but this is your wedding day, and I’m not – you know – on your wedding day.’

  Becky feigned disappointment. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she really was disappointed. But that didn’t matter to Jake. Sweet as it might have been, he was not succumbing to her again. And besides, his mind was full of other things. He only had to think…

  It had been a lot worse than he’d thought. The look of Margaret’s corpse in the dawn’s light had caught him unprepared. It wasn’t only that rigor mortis had set in, giving her a stiff, almost haunted look, but there was a marked discoloration of the skin. Already insects had found her and begun their hideous feast. But it was her hair – that lovely mane of silver hair of hers – that disturbed him most, for it was thickly matted now with clotted blood, like a black tar, fusing her to the pillow, such that when he came to try to lift her, the pillow came up with her, inseparable.

  Awful it was, that moment when he’d lifted her. Simply awful. But Peter had helped him, had quickly brought the sheet and wrapped it about her. Between them they had carried her downstairs – light as a child, she’d seemed – and out into the garden. Peter and he had already dug the grave, there between her roses and chrysanthemums.

  It was such an end as she never would have dreamed. Such a lovely woman, she had been in life. Such a power for goodness on the earth.

  He had stood there, before they covered her, saying a few words, while Peter bowed his head. Boy edged forward curiously, tiny whimpers escaping him at the smell of the open grave.

  Yes, but at least someone cared at the end.

  He looked up. Becky had been saying something.

  ‘What’s that, Becks?’

  ‘I was just sayin’… ’bout that craft we all saw.’

  ‘Go on…’

  ‘I was thinkin’… maybe they’ve come to ’elp us. You know… to set things up again. ’Elp rebuild… Everyone’s thinkin’ some’at else, of course… expectin’ the worst… only… well, maybe we’ve all become too untrustin’.’

  ‘It’s only to be expected,’ he said, made thoughtful by her comments. ‘It’s been twenty years and more since anything but trouble came down the east road.’

  They were coming close now, the town and the river visible up ahead.

  ‘Jake… before we get there… before I… you know… before I meet this man who’s gonna be my ’usband… will you promise me some’at?’

  He smiled, but he could see this once she was deadly serious.

  ‘Depends what it is.’

  ‘It’s just that… Well… if it goes wrong… if for some reason things go bad between me and this Jack… then you’ll come for me. That you’ll bring me away from there.’

  It was some request, and he was silent a moment, chewing it over.

  ‘Well, Becks,’ he said finally, shaking his head. ‘I guess I could say yes… only that’s not quite what you mean, is it? You mean you and your goods… your wagon and your pony and your bags and clothes and everything… have I got that right?’

  She smiled, relieved that he’d understood. ‘It’s just that… a single woman is very alone in this ’ere world. Unless she’s the most wicked o’ bitches then she’s vulnerable, and it ’elps to ’ave a good friend you can call on. ’Specially one that you’ve shared things with, if you know what I mean…’

  ‘Becky… get it clear… it was a one-off…’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she said, smiling broadly and laying a hand on his knee. ‘But what a sweet one-off, eh? One of the best hours of my life, I’d say…’

  ‘Becky…’

  ‘Oh, I know. And I’m gonna try my ’ardest to make things right… to make things work between Jack Hamilton and me. Only sometimes one’s best endeavours ain’t quite good enough. Sometimes there’s just no chemistry…’

  He almost laughed at that, but again, she was in deadly earnest.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I promise. But in return you’ve got to promise me something.’

  She turned slightly, facing him squarely on the long bench seat, her good eye looking back at him kindly, her mouth set in a broad smile which showed her perfect teeth.

  ‘Just ask me.’

  ‘Okay… You’ve got to promise me that you won’t fuck any of Jack Hamilton’s sons…’

  ‘Jake!’

  She seemed almost offended by that, but he wasn’t fooled.

  ‘No… I won’t have it… I know you, remember? You’ve told me what you’re like, and I know it now for a fact. You’re a girl with bad habits… very bad habits… but Jack’s sons… they’re off limits, you got me?’

  ‘But why…?’

  He spoke over her. ‘Because they’re your age, and strong and healthy and… do I have to spell it out?’

  Becky pulled at the reins, bringing the wagon to a halt, then turned to him again.

  ‘That’s unfair… that makes me feel almost like I ought to turn straight round and go home.’

  ‘What, that room you’ve got in that boarding house in Chikerell? You’re going to give up the chance to be mistress of the best inn in Wareham for that?’

  She looked down. For a time she was silent, then, in the tiniest voice, ‘Okay… I promise.’

  ‘Good… but if I hear any word… the slightest breath of tittle-tattle about a certain young woman’s taste in young men… then the deal is off… and I’ll come and tell Jack Hamilton myself, understand?’

  ‘Oh, Jake… you wouldn’t be so mean…’

  ‘Try me.’

  For a moment she stared at him almost angrily, and then, almost from nowhere, she began to laugh.

  ‘What?’ Jake asked, confused now.

  ‘Just that I was thinkin’… what a good job it was I got a stock o’ them old blue pills ’fore I set out…’

  Jack Hamilton was sitting in his office at the back of t
he pub, in his leather apron, his lunchtime glass of whisky in front of him as Jake stepped in.

  Jack stood, giving Jake a beam of a smile. ‘Jake… good to see you… ’ave you?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘An’ is she?’

  ‘She is. Only a word first, before you meet her.’

  ‘She cost more than I gave you, is that it?’

  ‘No, Jack. I didn’t buy you a wife.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jack looked confused. ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No. But I did find you one. An independent woman of means.’

  From the look on Jack’s face, he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. ‘Go on…’

  ‘All right… Well, first off, she’s a good-looking woman. Strong and young. She’ll bear you strong sons…’

  Again Jack looked confused. ‘Sons? I don’t need sons… got plenny o’ them from my first wife, may she rest in peace… What I need is a good woman in my bed every night and at my side throughout the day. Someone as’ll take some of the burden from me. Someone who doesn’t mind workin’ her arse off.’

  ‘Then I think I’ve found you the very woman, Jack Hamilton… There’s just one little drawback…’

  ‘Yeah? An’ what’s that?’

  ‘Her eye.’

  ‘Her eye?’

  ‘Yeah… She’s got a funny eye. It doesn’t focus properly. It wanders… But if you can overlook that eye…’

  ‘She could wear a patch…’

  Jake smiled. ‘Funny you should say that… Oh, and one other small thing… she gets to keep her stuff.’

  ‘Her stuff?’

  ‘She used to sell jewellery, in Dorchester market… She’s got a wagon load of the stuff and some bags and clothes and other things. You’ve got to let her keep all of that. Draft an agreement before you wed, so that it’s legal and binding.’

  Jack was clearly still thinking about the eye, for he nodded almost absently.

  ‘Good… You want to meet her, then?’

  Jack nodded, then, realizing he was still wearing his apron, hastily took it off, then combed his fingers through the last few threads of his hair.

  ‘Wheel ’er in, boy! Wheel ’er in!’

  Becky stepped into the room.

  Jake’s heart was in his mouth. What if they didn’t hit it off? What if they hated each other at first sight?

  Only he could see at once that both were relieved, even perhaps happy that the other wasn’t quite so awful as they had imagined. It wasn’t perfect, but then what was?