Rope of Sand

by C F Dunn

  Matthew flicked onto manual and the blades became still. “We’d better find you somewhere to eat,” he observed, the first thing he had said since we left the church. It was well past lunchtime.

  “I can wait until we get back.” The windscreen clouded with snow again, forcing him to switch the wipers back on. I scowled at them.

  “I don’t think you can.”

  We drove on. I couldn’t remember seeing much in the way of roadside cafés on the way there, and I didn’t want him wasting time with a diversion to a town. But he was right, I was becoming increasingly short-tempered as hunger bit, and I could have murdered a mug of tea at the very least.

  We passed the trailer, like a long silver tube abandoned by the roadside, before I registered it as a diner. Windows obscured by condensation declared it to be open.

  “Stop! We’ve just passed one.”

  “That? When I said you needed to eat I meant food, not pathogens.”

  “Matthew, it’ll do,” I insisted, and he took a deep breath and swung the car in a tight circle without warning, and headed back the way we had come until we drew up in front of the diner. He peered dubiously at it through the windscreen. I didn’t give him any choice. Huddling into the raised collar of my coat, I climbed out and located the metal steps to the door.

  We weren’t the only customers, but given that there wasn’t much in the way of choice along this stretch of the highway, perhaps that wasn’t so surprising.

  In a uniform of red shirt and black skirt, the waitress perked up visibly when Matthew walked in, but no one else bothered looking up. Preserving anonymity could be difficult sometimes, but we had as good a chance as any in here.

  We went to the opposite end of the diner, as far away from ears and eyes as possible. Matthew helped me out of my coat and I smiled up at him, but he avoided my eyes. I bottom-shuffled along the padded bench seat to be near the window, my shoulder brushing against the glass and leaving a bald patch in the condensation.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Don’t have anything with meat,” he muttered, “or eggs.”

  “It’s not as bad as that.”

  He didn’t answer.

  The waitress bounced up and I ordered tea and toast.

  “I can do you coffee and pie?” she offered. Matthew groaned and I kicked him under the table.

  “Toast and… what else do you have to drink, please?” She ran through a list of alternatives, adding, “… and coffee.”

  “Toast and cola, thank you.”

  She looked expectantly at Matthew, the tip of her tongue playing against the end of her pencil as she waited for his order. He stared morosely out of the window. “Nothing else, thanks,” I told her, and she swung away in her purple trainers and short socks like a thwarted cheerleader.

  I reached across the table to where Matthew’s hand rested on the worn red melamine, his fingers drumming a relentless beat against the aluminium trim, and curled my hand over his. His fingers twitched under mine.

  “Matthew, please – what is it?”

  If he had been me I would have said he must be tired and hungry, but neither could be true in his case. He continued to drum.

  “I wanted you to eat, not scavenge for scraps.”

  “Oh, come on, give me some credit, and I know it isn’t the funeral.” Although Heaven knows, that would surely have been enough. As I said it, I knew it to be true. His moods were becoming colours to me, and I began to recognize the shades in between sad and happy, rage and calm.

  He loosened his tie and shrugged off his coat, and finally met my gaze. “I don’t understand why you’re not angry with me, or at least resent me.”

  That took me by surprise. “Why should I?”

  “You were there, Emma – you heard what the woman said.”

  “Of course I did. What of it?”

  His eyes suddenly blazed and he whacked the table, making the sugar dispenser jump and fall over.

  “If it were not for me, you wouldn’t be going through hell in that bloody trial.”

  I sat back against the upholstered seat, thankful he had his back turned to the rest of the trailer’s occupants. A moment later, I registered what he had said, and my temper flared in response.

  “You’re right, if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be there, would I? I’d be dead!”

  “I meant…” he ground his teeth in frustration, “… that Staahl would still be banged up in a mental institution for the criminally insane and you would not be being crucified for the entertainment of that bitch.”

  “I know what you meant,” I shot back at him, aware that everybody now watched us with open mouths, “but you weren’t to know, and you are not responsible for her behaviour any more than Maggie was responsible for that crash. Perhaps you should have killed her, and put her out of our misery.”

  “You really think I should have? Do you think I’m soft, no – impotent – as she so delicately put it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, of course not. Anyway, I thought she was already dea…” my hand shot over my mouth. “Blow.”

  Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “You thought she was already dead. Why?”

  I faltered. “It is only that nobody seemed to know where she was, or even if she were alive.”

  “I see,” he said slowly, “and you thought that I had killed her?”

  I squirmed under the full force of his gaze, pinned like an ant under a microscope.

  “No. Well, yes – all right, it did cross my mind at first, but not recently.”

  “Why not recently?”

  “Because I know you better. I think I would have been tempted to kill her, but not you.”

  “I say again, why not?”

  “Because you are a better, stronger person than I am, Matthew, and it takes strength and conviction not to give in to your base instincts, that’s why not.”

  He leaned back and observed me through half-closed eyes, then straightened his back and gave a grunted laugh.

  “Mmm, well, we’ll see. At least there’s one thing for which we can be thankful – Maggie’s in no fit state to stand as prosecution witness tomorrow; her mother’s seen to that.”

  The girl had been hovering by the till with my order, apparently unsure whether to bring it over.

  “Matthew, we’re making everyone nervous – be nice,” I indicated the waitress and he frowned then nodded.

  She eyed him warily as she put the cola and toast on the table. “Will that be all, folks?”

  Matthew gave her one of his dazzling smiles along with a very generous tip, which she didn’t even look at. “Thank you, you have been most kind.”

  “You’re welcome,” she stammered, blushing the same colour as her top as she went away, happy.

  The smile dropped from his face. “That good enough?”

  “Oh yes, very charming, very smooth.”

  “I feel neither charming nor smooth at this minute. What a bloody awful day; I’m so sorry you had to be there.”

  I frowned a warning at him. “Don’t start that again. I’m glad I could be, even if I couldn’t exactly do anything.”

  He reached across the table and took both of my hands in his. “But you did, more than you can ever know.” He kissed first one hand and then the other. “Look, can you eat that in the car? It’s going to be long day tomorrow and I want to get you back to some degree of normality before you have to face it. Besides, you need a proper meal – that won’t do.”

  Tomorrow.

  Even the mere mention of it caused dread panic to surge from the pit of my gut to lodge in the base of my throat. When Monica said she was looking forward to what tomorrow might bring she had been gloating, as if holding all the cards in a game of poker she knew she had already won.

  Once we reached the campus, I tried to persuade Matthew to go home to be with his family, but he wouldn’t leave until he had placed an order with the restaurant and made me promise that I would eat it. My father assured him that I wou
ldn’t be allowed to leave until I had, and I made a feeble joke about being a martyr for my cause like a suffragette; but really Matthew and I were aching to be alone without the weight of grief and responsibility and the fear of what tomorrow might bring. In the few minutes we had alone together while my father answered the door, I wrapped my arms around Matthew’s waist and we melded until there seemed to be no semblance of self, but one entity – just briefly – for that fleeting moment, and then consciousness intervened driving reality, like a wedge, between us.

  CHAPTER

  20

  Judgment Day

  Sleep came late.

  I had eaten the prepared meal dutifully, but with neither hunger nor relish, and felt too full for hours afterwards. I took a bath, going over and over the day’s events and my predictions for tomorrow, until the two became a jumble and I gave up and washed my hair. By the time I climbed out, I felt no more relaxed than when I had started.

  I lay awake for hours in the certain knowledge that Matthew would be too, and it seemed wrong that I should sleep and escape when he could not, but my body defeated me and, by dawn, I drifted into a dreamless slumber.

  It hadn’t snowed for very long during the night, and by morning the sun shone strong and vital. The early air was still cold, and the new, thin snow had refrozen into a hard crust over which the students now skidded on their way to class. That was where I should have been going now, instead of sitting and waiting for Hart to come and collect me.

  I viewed Elena’s bag of students’ texts enviously when she popped in to wish me luck for the day.

  “It will all be over this time tomorrow, and you can return to your normal life,” she predicted in an attempt to cheer me up. Hard as I tried to imagine it, I couldn’t see beyond today, and normality – such as I had grown accustomed to with Matthew – seemed as remote now as when I had been back in Stamford in the days when each minute ran into the next without being marked with hope. She was right, of course – this day would pass. All things pass, one way or another.

  Hart was out of breath when Dad answered the door to his knock. He hurried us without explanation down the back flight of stairs to the car waiting with its engine running in the Dean’s private car park. The car pulled away as Hart’s door slammed shut and the security locks fired.

  He swivelled in his seat. “Now, Miss D’Eresby…”

  “Dr D’Eresby,” my father corrected him, still breathing heavily from the unexpected haste of our departure.

  “Sorry – Dr D’Eresby – you might find that there is more media attention than on Friday…” As he spoke, the car rounded the side of the building and almost ran into a group of people wielding cameras, all watching the front entrance to the atrium. They saw the car as it swerved to avoid them. It left me speechless.

  “As I was saying,” Hart continued as the car left the college behind, “there’ll be more interest from the media and the public, just so you know. There’s quite a crowd at the courthouse.”

  It was an understatement, and not even my imagination prepared me for what waited for us. The steps, the pavement, even parts of the road were teeming with people. Uniformed officers from the Sheriff’s Department fought to keep the crowd under some sort of control, but they were heavily outnumbered. The mass turned as we approached, and began to press forward. At this distance, the hybrid collection of moving colours were not human at all, but a ravenous animal waiting to feed.

  Hart tapped the driver on the shoulder and he took us straight past without slowing. “We’ll go in round the back.”

  “Don’t they have jobs to go to?” I snapped, tired and stressed.

  “A lot of them have taken the day off to be here; my cousin’s one of them. The national media’s in on it. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of the internationals were here, too. Not much else is happening, so you’ll get plenty of column inches I guess.”

  The car swung around the side of the courthouse without indicating, and came to an abrupt halt. Journalists and onlookers were already swarming around the side of the building from the front.

  Hart sucked air as he contemplated the best course of action. “OK,” he said. “Here, put this over your head and we’ll make a run for it.” He began to take off his coat, but I recalled the countless images of individuals on trial at the Old Bailey, their heads covered with a blanket as they raced from prison van to the court. They had always looked guilty, whether that proved to be the case or not, and I was blowed if I would hide my face when I had done nothing wrong. Let them stare.

  “No, thank you, I have nothing to hide.”

  “If you’re sure…” he said doubtfully, his hand hesitating on the door catch.

  “I am,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “Ready, Dad?”

  He didn’t reply. He looked at me with such pride. “That’s my girl,” he said.

  The space between the car and the courthouse door had already filled with bodies, and the car began to rock slightly as the crowd pulsed around it.

  Hart and the driver climbed out first and formed a bubble of space around my door. If I hadn’t been prepared for the number of people before, I certainly wasn’t now, for the conflict of noise and movement and the smell of hot armpits and agitated expectancy brought instant confusion. “It’s her!” a man stinking of stale cigarettes in a big coat yelled over the heads of those nearby. The mob lunged forward despite the best efforts of the police, hands pushing through the cordon, grasping and pulling. One landed a punch on my arm. My father hit back but there were too many people and we were at risk of being engulfed.

  A soldier in uniform shoved determinedly through the crowd towards us, materializing into Joel, followed by Harry. He raised his voice above the lumpen throng. “In need of assistance, ma’am?”

  “Let them through,” I shouted across to the officers as someone grabbed my arm from behind and tried to pull me backward. Dad did his best but he was becoming overwhelmed as we fought towards the door, where Duffy was waiting with two court sergeants.

  “Geesh, Emma, you sure can pull a crowd,” Joel grinned, elbowing someone out of the way. “The old man sent us. He seemed to think you might need some help. Don’t know why.” He put his arm around me, using his body as a shield as a man, old enough to be my father, aimed a punch at my back. “Sorry we’re late, the cops wouldn’t let us through at first.” He craned his neck to judge the distance we had to cover. “It’d be quicker if I carried you,” he said cheerfully.

  “Leave me some dignity, please,” I puffed.

  The jostling lessened considerably as those intent on reaching me found their way blocked by the boys’ immovable frames.

  “Need a hand, sir?” Harry asked Dad over his shoulder.

  My father grunted. “Just get my daughter through, young man. I’ll be fine.”

  “Bitch,” a woman screamed at me from somewhere behind us, repeated by a number of voices, thick with vitriol.

  “Come on, you don’t need to hear this,” Harry muttered and picked up the pace, ploughing a clear path for us to follow. Once safely inside, Joel blocked the entrance behind us like a rock in the mouth of a cave. The noisiest thing in the peace of the rear hall was the sound of our breathing.

  Duffy looked concerned. “You all right, hun? That sure is some crowd today.”

  “Morning, Duffy,” I panted.

  “Yes, well, let’s get you upstairs and sorted out. You look as if you’ve been used to comb cotton. Come on, now, we need to hurry.”

  She ushered me into her office to tidy up. My arm hurt where I had been viciously pinched, but it was nothing compared to what scared me witless: with all the media attention, Matthew’s relative obscurity had been blown out of the water.

  I combed my hair and began to plait it. “Duffy, Hart said there’s a lot of media here today.”

  “Sure is. Here, let me do that for you.” She took the comb from my hand and started again.

  “And the national press?” I asked, feeling powe
rless against the forthcoming blitz.

  She finished the long plait and wound a securing band around the tail end. She curled it around my head, pinning it into place. The style felt alien. “Hell, yes, and the networks. Now you go into the bathroom and tidy yourself up, and then we can run through a few things before we go in.”

  Standing in front of the mirror in the cramped staff bathroom, I took in my shambolic state. My collar had been yanked sideways and a button had disappeared altogether from my jacket. My face went beyond pale, the freckles less gold and more grey in the artificial light. Bleak eyes stared back at me, the clear blue dulled, and with dark purple rings underneath. I pinched my cheeks and pressed my lips together to bring up some colour, but even my old pearl studs looked more luminous.

  Duffy came in as I neatened the revers, my hand automatically reaching to pull my cross around to sit straight in the dip of my throat. I felt for the chain but where the warmed metal usually lay was cold, bare skin. I looked down and then patted my jacket and shook my shirt, but heard no responding tinkle of metal on tiles as it fell to the ground. I bent hurriedly to look under the basins.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” Duffy asked, responding to my increasingly frantic search.

  “My cross, it’s gone!”

  “Did you forget to put it on this morning?”

  “No, I never do.” My voice caught. “Never.”

  The courtroom buzzed with the intensity of a June swarm, and it was already hot from the press of bodies squeezed inside it. My hands were damp with nerves, darkening the nutmeg as I rolled it back and forth between my palms, feeling it rattle in its hard outer shell.

  Henry and Pat had not yet arrived, but Harry and Joel were in the next row with Dad near them, so close that I could hear his short, husky breaths as I approached. He gave me an encouraging smile but was clearly anxious, despite his best efforts to hide it. I wanted to tell him I had lost my cross and how much it mattered, but I thought I would cry if I tried to explain it to him, so instead kept quiet.