The Healing Knife

by S. L. Russell

  I put my dry clothes back on, then sat on the wooden bench that ran the length of the cubicle and slowly towelled my hair. I could not stay long, with others needing to use the space, but I had to think.

  I thought of the men I had known at close quarters, and there were a fair few. I could not say “men I had known and loved”, because if I was completely honest I probably had loved no one since my father’s death. I was very fond of my brother, of course, but that was different, and for most of the time he was just a distant reality: kindly, but not a part of my universe. Inevitably I thought of Howard, whom I had actually agreed to marry – why had I? I hadn’t loved him – it had barely entered into my thinking. Poor Howard! He was a good man and deserved better than cold, uncaring Rachel. I truly hoped he was happy. Now that I was being ruthlessly honest with myself, I realized that, then at least, I needed a man in my life, if only for sex – which I liked very much. What an idiot! To have thought even for a moment that I could found a lifetime’s partnership on the need to service my libido.

  Something similar had happened with Rob, hadn’t it? Good-looking, charming, and infatuated with me, easy to get into bed, easy to dismiss. Yes, I had liked Rob. And maybe I was lonely and a bit disorientated then. But there was no depth of feeling on my part. Sitting damp and alone in a wooden changing hut, I asked myself whether I was capable of anything other than superficiality. In some ways I had been like a typical young guy sowing wild oats: healthy, careless, out for everything he – or in this case she – could get.

  But it wouldn’t do. I couldn’t, in all conscience, seduce Michael Wells – much as I might like to. Momentarily I closed my eyes, thinking about the warmth of his body as he held me close, the clean smell of his skin, the strong muscles of his legs and back as he swam. With a great effort of will I shut off my train of thought right there. Knowing what I knew of him, he probably wasn’t as malleable and easily conquered as some of the men I’d known, but he was a man nevertheless, and – assuming he found me at all attractive, which he might not – most fall in the end.

  Whatever else, he was my friend. He had been immensely kind to me, and trusted me not to abuse that kindness. And he had already been hurt and damaged by the failure of his marriage. I smiled to myself, a little bleakly. Here was a fine thing – perhaps cold, uncaring Rachel was not so cold and uncaring. Perhaps she was developing empathy. Whatever the case, this Rachel could not cut a swathe of pain through someone else’s life. It wouldn’t do.

  Another thought struck me, and it was far, far worse. I looked at that old Rachel, self-obsessed (how otherwise could I have described my intense focus on my career, to the exclusion of all else?), vain, and hard, and the comparison with my mother was utterly horrifying. Why had I never seen it before? Sure, I could rein in my feelings for Michael Wells; I could behave as if nothing had happened – and nothing had, except in my head. I could carry on as usual, never betraying my desire. It wouldn’t be easy, but one day we would go back to England, and then no doubt I would at some point return to Porton and resume my life and work as best I could, away from those kind dark eyes, those strong brown hands. But from my mother there was no escape: she was locked into my genes.

  I made a point of mingling when we were all eating, sitting at a garden table with people I hadn’t spoken to before, introducing myself as if I did it every day, even though my instinct was to hide. What I was doing, of course, was hiding in plain sight. It wasn’t these people I wanted to avoid, but the people I was currently living with. I guess they noticed. Jasper would, I suspected, have thought nothing of it; Michael must have wondered.

  As the day waned people began to disperse and say their goodbyes, and we collected Dulcie from Mrs Crooke and put her in the car. I was quiet on the way home, and so were the men. After a while Jasper dozed.

  Michael looked at me in the rear-view mirror. “You OK, Rachel?”

  “Yes, thanks. A bit tired, that’s all. Too much sun, maybe. But it was a nice afternoon. They are good folk here at St Luke’s. And it didn’t rain.”

  “No.” He glanced out of the window. “But it might, maybe even before we get home.”

  He was right. We’d been on the road about twenty minutes when we heard the first rumble of thunder, and Dulcie gave a little whine. Jasper woke up with a start. “Was that thunder?” he slurred. He pulled himself up from where he’d slumped in his seat. “That’s one very black sky.”

  A flash of lightning bisected the cloud with sudden brilliance and I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Dulcie growled and whined. “Don’t worry, old girl,” I soothed. I reached back into the boot and stroked her sleek fur. “We’ll soon be home, and you can hide under the table.”

  For the next few minutes the lightning and the thunder alternated with breathless speed, and then the rain came, thudding down vertically onto the hot roadway, bouncing and hissing. The windscreen wipers were going at maximum, but visibility was dangerously poor.

  “I’m going to pull over till it eases up a bit,” Michael said calmly. He slowed and eased the car off the road onto a gravelled verge. There were no other cars in sight. “It’ll blow itself out before long.”

  We sat and watched the storm. My eyes were dazzled by the sudden flashes, my ears assaulted by the accompanying cracks and rumbles. Little by little the time between light and sound stretched out. The noise and fury abated, the rain became just rain rather than a torrent, and the heavy cloud moved towards the horizon, shifted by a following wind.

  I’d been trying to console Dulcie all the while. “There you go, girl,” I murmured. “All over.” I could feel her tremble under my hand.

  Michael started the engine and pulled out onto the road. The surface was awash, and the car’s tyres whooshed through standing water, but by the time we arrived back at the house the rain was reduced to drizzle, and the sky was beginning to clear. Dusk was falling, and the first hesitant stars were beginning to appear.

  “I’ve just thought,” Jasper said. “It’s August 12th – shouldn’t we be seeing some meteors later?” He turned to me. “We always watch the sky in mid-August. I think it’s the Perseid shower tonight.” He frowned. “I wonder if it will be clear enough.”

  Michael was unlocking the front door. “It should be. We’ve got several hours yet before it’s fully dark – there’s time for this cloud to disperse. We’ll have to put something down, though – the grass will be saturated.”

  “Would you like to see some meteors, Rachel?” Jasper said, standing back to let me go indoors.

  “I’m not sure.”

  I saw Michael flash a signal to Jasper and no more mention was made of meteors. As we drew curtains and closed blinds against the night, Michael said, “I’m thinking it’s time we invited the Boutins to dinner. You two up for that?”

  “Sure, why not?” Jasper said. “I could make an interesting starter and dessert.”

  “Not too interesting, please, JB,” Michael said, smiling.

  “I’m no cook,” I said, “but I can clean the house before they come and wash up afterwards.”

  “Good, OK, then. I’ll go round in the morning and see what evening would suit them.”

  No one seemed inclined for talking that evening, and as soon as I could I made an excuse and went upstairs, taking with me some of the books on Michael’s bookshelf. I had a lot to think about.

  I lolled on my bed fully clothed. I must have fallen asleep reading, because some hours later I awoke with a jolt. I could hear muted voices under my window. I got up and pulled the curtains back a few inches, and saw below me Michael and Jasper, shadowed by Dulcie, walking out onto the back lawn. They unrolled what looked like a groundsheet on the grass and both lay down on their backs. I looked at my watch – it was after two. Looking up, I could see that the sky had indeed cleared. I saw Jasper go back into the house and the kitchen light went out.

  I put on my shoes and a sweater and padded down the stairs, feeling my way through the darkened house, throug
h the kitchen, and out of the back door. I’d crept so quietly that neither of them was aware of me until I lay down beside them.

  “Hi, Rachel,” Jasper whispered. “You’re not asleep after all. I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  “If you did, I’m glad,” I said. “I want to see a meteor. It’s been a long time since I lay outside on a summer night to watch the stars.” I spoke more bravely than I felt, but I told myself that the past was to be embraced, not shunned. Those were, after all, happy times, even if they were now lost. I remembered my brother, with all the self-importance of being five years my senior, telling me the names of the constellations.

  We had to wait some forty minutes before anything happened. After the storm the night was cool and I was glad of my sweater. Then Jasper exclaimed, “There goes one!”

  “Where?” It had gone so quickly I hadn’t seen it. But then I did see one, streaking across the sky and quickly doused like a glowing cigarette butt suddenly plunged into water. We waited, the night grew darker, and I began to feel cold. Then several meteors came at once, flashing across the blue-black sky.

  I could hardly see Michael and Jasper, and Dulcie was just a dark mass among the shadows as she lay on the edge of the groundsheet, her nose on her paws. I started, very softly, to name the stars we could see, and then as I lay looking up I felt a warm hand clasp mine. Not for the first time it was kindness that caused a sharp stab of pain across my chest, rather than any memories of the past. We watched for a little longer, and at one point we saw six or seven meteors all at once, like a celestial firework display. Then Michael sat up and groaned, flexing his shoulders. “Time for bed, I think,” he said. “I’m getting cold. If you’re staying, JB, roll up the sheet, can you, and put it in the scullery. Dulcie, you come with me.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “I think I’ll come in too.”

  In the house, with the light back on, I saw how tired Michael looked. He saw me looking, and he muttered, “Still catching up. Can’t cope with being up in the dead of night, not these days. Must be getting old. I’m going to make some tea. Would you like some?” He slapped his forehead lightly. “Oh, no, I forgot, you don’t like tea.” He filled the kettle and set it to boil. “Can I get you something else?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You seem pretty lively for three in the morning.”

  “Ah, well, I went to sleep reading,” I said. “I don’t suppose you did.”

  “No,” Michael said. He put a teabag into a mug. “Jasper and I stayed up talking. Mostly about what he wanted to do with his life, what universities he was thinking of applying to, things like that.” The kettle boiled and snapped off, and he poured water onto the teabag and stirred it. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his hands braced on its edge. “You seemed very quiet this evening. Is everything OK?”

  I shrugged. “So much has happened; so much has changed. Inside my head, I mean. Just telling you about my dad has stirred things up. I feel… I don’t know, vulnerable, exposed. I’m not used to that. And being at St Luke’s, and watching the people, talking to Letty, hearing Jasper play… such a lot to process for me, though I guess it’s all quite normal for you.” He said nothing, and I struggled on. “I don’t want to keep you up; it’s very late. But there are things I wanted to ask you. Tomorrow, maybe.”

  He took the teabag out of his mug and added milk. “Go on. You might as well hit me with it,” he said, smiling wryly, “just while I drink this tea.” He sat down at the kitchen table and I sat opposite.

  I remembered my thoughts from earlier that day and felt hot blood rise in my face. “Well, actually, I wanted to know how you became a Christian in the first place.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh, OK. I suppose I could give you the short answer. It’s a bit late for anything else.” I said nothing, and he cleared his throat and sipped his tea. “It was my ex-wife, as it happens – Alison,” he said abruptly. “She brought me back, which is ironic, because now, as I hear, she’s drifting away.”

  I felt that I might be on perilous ground. “Perhaps it’s the influence of her new husband,” I said, “if he’s not a believer himself.”

  Michael sighed and shifted in his seat. “He isn’t, and you’re most likely right. He, as far as I can gather, is interested in everything that I am not. Acquisition. Being noticed. Making money. Socialising. Fun.” He laughed derisively, and I waited. “Fun indeed. That’s what she accused me of, when it all went belly-up. Of being too serious, no fun.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That seems a bit of a flimsy reason to end a whole life.”

  He shook his head and took a gulp of his tea. “I guess,” he said quietly, “Jack was already on the scene.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That must have been tough.”

  “Well, it happens. It doesn’t matter much now, except that I no longer see my son every day. I miss that.” He sighed. “Sorry, you asked me a question and I didn’t answer it at all.”

  “It can wait.”

  “The short answer is, I was raised as a Christian, fell away in my teens and early twenties – too busy building a career – and when I met Alison she persuaded me to go back to church, and the rest of that mysterious process was without a doubt the work of the Holy Spirit.”

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “I’ll let you get to bed now.”

  He finished his tea and got to his feet. “Are you asking me because it’s something you want to reclaim for yourself?” he asked. “Because I suspect you once had a hold of it, and you let it go.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I said. “Being here, thinking about everything that’s happened, seeing the people at St Luke’s, has changed something, but I’m not sure I can say what exactly. Not yet.”

  “I’ll keep on praying for you,” he said. “Jasper will too, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Right, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Rachel.” His smile was weary, but warm. “See you in the morning. Probably not too early.”

  The next morning after breakfast Michael went over the stile to invite the Boutins to dinner. He was gone a long time. I sat in the garden, reading, Dulcie at my feet. When I came in to make some coffee I heard Jasper tinkering on the keyboard. I took my coffee into the living room. He heard me come in and stopped.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “I promise not to go to pieces. I’ve just made coffee. Do you want some?”

  “No, thanks.” He looked at me for a moment, pondering. “You used to play, didn’t you, Rachel?”

  “Oh, that was years ago, when I was a child. I didn’t play at all after my teens.”

  “Reckon you can still read music?” he asked. “I’ve got a duet book here, really simple. Why not have a go? There’s nobody here to listen but us.”

  I hesitated. “Your simple and my simple may be two different things.”

  “Have a look,” he urged. “Duets are fun.” I crossed the room and sat beside him on the long bench. “The top part really isn’t hard,” he said. “Play it up the octave so we don’t get in a tangle. The left hand’s just one chord to a bar.”

  To my own ears I sounded like an elephant in ballet shoes – inclined to fall over. But Jasper drove me on with much encouragement and we laughed at my blunders.

  “You’re supposed to count,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll finish before me.”

  “Too much to think about,” I groused. But we battled on with much hilarity and after a while produced an almost passable tune, finishing together with a whoop of triumph.

  “See?” Jasper said. “I thought you’d remember.”

  I didn’t mention the few times I’d spent, before he and his father arrived, reacquainting myself with music. But he was right; it was fun. Was it just my fancy, or could I feel another tiny knot loosen inside me?

  Michael came back as we were giving the piece one last go “for luck”. He stood in the doorway and applauded as we came to the end, fortissimo. “That sounds almost OK,” he said.

  Jasper
and I both laughed. “Talk about damning with faint praise!” I murmured and Jasper giggled. “Yeah, Dad’s not known for being over the top,” he said. “Not one for gushing.” He got up and stretched. “You were a long time at the Boutins’, Dad.”

  “You know what they’re like,” Michael said. “Coffee was offered, and a generous slug of Calvados added. And we had to discuss the world’s problems, plus football, motor racing, and the weather. Anyway, they have accepted our invitation for Wednesday.”

  “We’d better think about what to have,” Jasper said.

  “I’m quite happy to wash lettuce,” I said, “or peel a carrot. Wash up afterwards. Make the coffee. But you two can concoct the menu.”

  “We can get stuff from the market,” Jasper said. “Shall we have loads of courses, Dad? Like they always do?”

  I left them to their culinary discussion and took my book back outside.

  The weather broke on Tuesday evening, and we heard the Boutins’ car rolling through puddles as they returned from their weekly visit to their daughter. I watched the rain from the kitchen window sluicing down in great sweeps with a westerly wind behind it. Dulcie was beginning to be restless without her usual exercise, and Michael talked about taking her back to the vet to see how her foot was healing. “We could do it at the same time as shopping,” he said.

  On Wednesday morning the rain had stopped, leaving the garden saturated and the temperature considerably lower. Michael rang the vet before we left and she agreed to take a look at Dulcie’s foot, so we piled into the car at ten o’clock and drove the short distance to town. While Michael and Dulcie were with the vet Jasper and I were deputized to acquire fish, shellfish, cheese, vegetables, and fruit.

  “We won’t be able to get everything here,” Jasper said knowledgeably. “We’ll have to go to the supermarket as well once Dad gets back with Dulcie.”

  Michael joined us, with Dulcie limping beside him on a long lead, as we were filling our bag with produce. “The vet was pleased with her,” he reported, “but she has to keep the plaster on for a while yet. I said she was getting bored and the vet suggested we make up some brain exercise for her – games that don’t involve running.”