‘No,’ I say. ‘I know that about you now. I know from spending some time with you, I know what you are capable of. But your story isn’t mine, Michael.’
‘How do you know that?’ he asks me. ‘How do you know that it’s not me that you came back to find? Luna, think about it, every time you’re here, so am I. Have you ever thought that maybe it’s me? Maybe I’m your fate, and you just need to choose me.’
For a brief shining moment, I imagine what it would be like if that were true, what it would be like to surrender to this time and stay here with him always, not looking, not seeing the world that falls apart all around, my mother being torn apart by what happens to her. It’s a choice I cannot make.
‘I … I have to go,’ I tell him. ‘I’m running out of time.’
‘Why, what’s going to happen?’
‘Nothing bad, not to you. Not to anyone I love, if I can help it.’ I smile, and allow myself to touch his cheek. ‘Look, you’re the man that taught me how to dance – badly – but you did, and that might have been the happiest hour of my life, so thank you.’
I take his hands from my arms and bring them to my lips.
‘Thank you,’ I say kissing his fingertips. ‘Goodbye, Michael. When you look up at the moon, remember it’s the same one that I will be seeing.’
‘No.’ He keeps hold of my hands. ‘No fucking way am I saying goodbye to you, Luna. You are my story. I don’t care what you say … I can’t let you go. I just … I can’t.’
‘Michael … you have to. I have to do this on my own.’
‘Who fucking says so?’ Michael asks. ‘Luna, please, let me help you. Who says you have to do this alone?’
Slowly, tenderly, I peel his fingers away from mine, each movement full of regret.
‘I do,’ I say.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
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Watkins Gillespie’s offices are in the same place, only the window front is freshly painted black, and there are only four plates in the window, standing side by side, neatly displayed in wire racks. Now they aren’t stacked and filmed in dust, I can see that they seem to commemorate historical scenes, one of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the Empire State Building, printed in sepia.
Every time I’ve met Mr Gillespie, in the past and in the present, he has helped me, and I trust him. And he did tell me once that if I ever needed help to come to him, no appointment necessary.
The girl behind the typewriter on the front desk is skinny and very young, scowling at the typewriter she is sitting in front of as if this is the first time she has ever seen such a contraption. When she sees me, she draws herself up in her seat and looks down her nose at me.
‘Got an appointment?’
‘Er, no. I met Mr Gillespie the other day and he gave me his card, said I could come to him if I ever needed any help, anytime.’
‘He says that a lot,’ she tells me, pressing her lips together.
‘Oh, it’s just … can I see him? It’s sort of urgent.’
‘You can see him, you’ll just have to wait is all. He’s seeing a client right now.’ She nods at a row of three wooden chairs leaning against the store wall, and I take one and I wait.
And I wait.
The clock ticks by on the wall, the second hand seeming to decelerate with every turn of the cogs and wheels the face conceals. I pick up a dog-eared magazine and put it down again, unable to lose myself in the small matter of thirty-year-old real estate laws, when everything I know and love is at stake, and yet still I wait.
Lucy mostly ignores me, except for the occasional glance, followed by a raised eyebrow and pursed lip that silently tells me she thinks I’m an idiot.
Eventually, an explosion of male laughter comes from the other side of Mr Gillespie’s office door and it opens, two very well-dressed men emerge: one fat and greasy in the heat, a heavy gold chain cutting into his neck; one tall and good-looking, dark hair slicked back to show off high cheekbones. It’s the third man to exit the cramped office that surprises me, making look twice – it’s definitely Curtis, in a denim jacket, his eyes on the floor. He doesn’t see me before he is ushered out onto the street by the other two men, the larger of the two with his heavy hand on Curtis’s shoulder.
‘Now I got you out of trouble, you stay out of it,’ Mr Gillespie calls after him, shaking his head.
‘This here individual has been waiting to see you,’ Lucy says, jerking her head in my direction.
‘Really?’ Mr Gillespie smiles at me enquiringly.
‘We met the other day, you stopped a kid from stealing my camera?’
‘Oh yes.’ His smile is charming. ‘Yes, come in, Miss …’
‘Sinclair,’ I say, before I even think of offering a false name. If this works, nothing else will matter.
He shuts his door as I take a seat, not on a garden chair this time, but an upholstered office chair that looks brand new. Framed certificates line the wall, and I’m pretty sure his desk is still the same one, but now it’s clear and smells of polish. A photo of his wife sits on the desk, facing away from him as if the last people in here were just admiring it. Gillespie himself looks like a man on the up – dark tailored suit, perhaps even stitched by Riss, manicured hands and a clean-shaven jaw.
‘How can I help you?’
‘I have reason to believe that Father Thomas Delaney is taking advantage of the young women in his parish. And that he could be at risk of raping them.’
I don’t have time for preamble, every second counts.
Gillespie’s eyes widen and he sits back in his chair, as if I have pushed him.
‘That’s quite some wild accusation, young lady.’
‘I realise that, but I can’t stand by and let him hurt people I … know don’t deserve it. Someone needs to speak up.’
‘So why me?’ He leans forward, across the desk. ‘The precinct’s just a few blocks away, why not tell the cops?’
‘Because I don’t have any evidence,’ I say. ‘And someone told me it’s not the cops you go to round here, they told me that in Bay Ridge people take care of their own.’
‘Is that right?’ He hooks his hands behind his head. ‘And you’re “one of our own”?’
‘Perhaps not, but the people who are at the risk … the person is.’
‘OK, so tell me, what is it you think I can do?’ He spreads his hands as he talks, but he doesn’t sound dismissive or disbelieving. Something about this concerns him, and I hook onto that.
‘Watch him,’ I say. ‘Maybe even talk to him, tell him that you’re watching him. People around here respect you, and you have a standing in the community that means something. That could be enough, enough to stop him, don’t you think? If he thinks someone like you is keeping an eye on him.’
Gillespie regards me for a moment, his pale-blue eyes looking into mine.
‘Maybe, but it’s very hard to stop a man who doesn’t want to be stopped, Miss Sinclair.’ It isn’t said as a warning or a threat; it’s simply a statement of fact. ‘And the Church, well, let’s just say I’ve seen families in here who do have proof, who do have evidence of a priest interfering with a loved one, and at the end of the day no one ever hears about it, because families round here, they don’t want to rock the boat. You talk about us looking after our own, that’s true, but the Church? The Catholic Church? For many people it’s beyond reproach. What you’ve said today in my office would just instantly be dismissed as lies, maybe even some kind of lunacy.’
I can’t help but smile, because it seems fitting. Luna the lunatic.
‘Is the name that’s come up before Delaney’s?’ I question, leaning forward in my seat. ‘Have other people made allegations against him?’
‘I can’t comment on that.’ Watkins frowns. ‘Tell me exactly whose safety it is that you are worrying about?’
I’m not sure why I hesitate, except that I can feel something bigger than me, bigge
r than anything, grating along the surface of reality, distant planets turning, the fabric of the universe creaking and stretching. But when I look at Gillespie I trust him; after all, I know him already.
‘It’s Marissa. Marissa Lupo. She’s vulnerable at the moment, in love and scared about the future. And I’ve heard things about him. She needs someone to talk to and I’m afraid, if it’s him … I don’t know how to explain it. I’m just afraid for her and what I think he will do to her.’
‘Well, I know Marissa Lupo. I’ve known her since she was five years old. She made the pants of this suit, you know,’ Mr Gillespie tells me thoughtfully, running his hand down his leg, before making a church of his fingers as he leans back in his chair. ‘I know her father well. Why don’t I talk to him, tell him to keep an eye on her.’
‘No, no, that would be the worst thing you can do. Riss loves her dad, but he doesn’t know everything about her life, not yet anyway. It’s important she’s able to explain things to him at the right time.’
‘She’s keeping secrets from Leo Lupo? She’s braver than most grown men I know.’
‘She thinks she’s invincible,’ I say. ‘She isn’t.’
‘Well, Miss Sinclair, you can see there is really nothing I can do, but I like you, and I don’t like to see you looking so worried. So, I’ll tell you what’ll do. I go and see Delaney, get the measure of him, and I’ll keep an eye on Marissa. She’s known me her whole life. If she knows she can talk to me about whatever secrets she is keeping, then maybe I can make sure she steers clear of Delaney. Does that reassure you?’
There is something about him so innately kind and strong that just the sound of his voice makes me feel better. Perhaps this could be the one thing that makes all the difference.
‘It does,’ I tell him.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
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This time back it’s just like walking through a door, almost exactly like it, except it feels like I left half of myself on the other side, a wraith that cannot follow me, watching me as I depart. I return in a single step to my own time, although with so much of my heart left behind, I’m not really sure what time I belong to anymore. Or even what time he belongs to, my father. And yet he is inside me, crawling through my veins. If I am part of him, then perhaps I am capable of what he is capable of, because I feel it, that rage I saw in his eyes. It’s still there, outlasting the other more familiar parts of me that I can feel falling away. And if that’s the only thing left at the end, then I’m afraid of what I could do with a rage that wants to tear the world apart.
Walking towards Mrs Finkle’s house, the first thing I see is the plaster statue of the Virgin Mary, standing on the sill, still faded, still benevolent, and somehow still whole. Did Mrs Finkle glue her back together? The second thing I see is Pea, a laptop that I don’t remember her bringing with her open on her knees, sitting on the steps.
‘Hey,’ I say, glad to rest, glad to see her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Hey.’ She glances up at me. ‘I thought I’d just catch up on some work while I can. There’s no Internet, of course, Mrs Finkle lives in the dark ages, but it’s better than just doing nothing … Sometimes I wish she had never told us.’
‘Yes,’ I say, wondering what work Pea has ever done on a computer, and where the laptop came from. I suppose I expected her to be happier to see me, more grateful that I’m home. Our last goodbye was such an emotional one, I want her to hug me like she normally would. Instead, I feel something has changed, like she is stranger to me.
‘I know it’s wrong to think that,’ Pea says, ‘but whenever I think of how long she has had to live with what that monster did to her, all alone … only feeling like she could tell us now.’ She stops. ‘I’m sorry, it must be even harder for you.’
I stand back a little and look at her, taking in this woman who is my dearest friend and somehow so unfamiliar. Her hair is blonde to the roots, when did she do that? It’s smooth and shiny, conditioned to the very tips. Her face is clean of any make-up, but her skin looks plumper, shiny. The whites of her eyes are white and bright. She looks like she slept really well last night. She’s wearing a pair of running shoes and she looks like she’s actually been for a run.
‘So where have you been, Mum was wondering? She worries about how you’re taking all of this.’
‘What?’ I ask her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Mum, she’s been worried about you. I told her: Luna is an adult, let her process it in her own way.’
‘Mum is …’ I cover my mouth with my hands, feeling my eyes stretch wide, a twist of pain in my chest stopping my heart for a moment. ‘Mum is here, you’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure, wait, Luna …’ I am already scrambling up the steps, almost on my hands and knees, elbows and shoulders scraping and bruising against the walls as I struggle to get upstairs. And then outside the apartment door I stop, sink down onto the top step, as I try to catch my breath.
Carefully I get up, compose myself, brush my face from my hair, tucking it behind my ears the way she likes it, smooth down my rumpled T-shirt over my breasts, and I take a breath.
And when I see her I don’t care what it has taken to bring her back to me. I don’t care if meddling with time means that dinosaurs are walking down 5th Avenue, or Nazis are in the White House. I don’t care about anything except that she is here, she is back. In this timeline she has never left us, she’s here.
She is here.
Mum, my beautiful mum, is sitting at the table, newspaper spread out before her, a notepad and pen at her side. Sunlight catches the silver in her hair, and just the sight of her fingers, holding the pen, her blue-veined wrist resting against the edge of the table, makes me want to whoop and scream and cry. I’m scared to approach her, in case I reach out to touch her and she dissolves before my eyes.
‘Mum?’ I say, stopping short of the table, catching my breath as I look at her.
Turning around she looks at me, concern in her face, the same freckles as before, the same line between her eyebrows, but in her eyes there is something missing. I can no longer see it, that desperate unbearable sadness; it’s gone.
‘Darling girl, come and sit down and tell me that you are OK?’
Her arms are suddenly open to me, and I find myself falling to my knees, wrapping my arms around her waist, pressing my head against her breast, listening for the beat of her heart, rejoicing as I feel it against my cheek. Her arms encircle me, I feel the press of her lips on top my head, and I feel so much happiness, so much gratitude that she is here and I’m here and whatever it was that changed, it hasn’t cost me my own life. We are all here … almost.
‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask her suddenly.
‘In England.’ Mum frowns, looking puzzled. ‘Have you forgotten? He really didn’t want me to come here; he wanted it left all in the past. He’ll come round when he sees how important it is to me, I know he will. This hurts him too, more than he can talk about really, but I won’t let it push us apart. It won’t, I promise.’
As I look into her eyes, a hundred new moments of history fall into place in my head, not replacing everything that I know, but pushing it over to one side. I know that I have lived a whole other life, another dual set of memories just as real as everything I knew before. My mother is exactly as I remember her, full of life and fun, her Super 8 never far away, except every time she laughs it is true laughter, every time she dances it is without a shadow following her every step. In this set of memories there are no secret stashes of pills, no endless cigarettes, no weeks in bed or a life spent mostly in an English country garden, walled away from the rest of the world.
The rape still happened; I feel a tiny tear in my heart as I realise that is the only reason I am still here. But it’s stitched by hope when I remember my mother gathering me to her, a few short week ago, and telling me that it was Pia and me who made her whole
again; Pia and me who made her determined never to let anything push her down into the darkness again; and that now she has one final battle to face to know that the man who hurt her has not won a single moment of her life. Her battle to confront him.
And I hold her again, all the tighter now as the memories of this new life I have forged pour into me. My mother who carried the secret of her rape all of her life. My mother who worked in a refuge for abused women, encouraging other women to speak out, until one day she felt she had the strength to speak out herself, to tell her family – the world – what had happened to her, despite what it might cost her, because she knew the truth would help others. My beautiful, strong, tender mother who held me in her arms and told me that she loved me, and that Dad loved me, and that they had always thought I was a blessing from the very beginning. My mother who had come back to the place where she grew up to use the money from the sale of her old home to start another refuge here for local women, a safe place to go to and begin a journey away from victimhood.
Elation sears through me; I feel like I have won some great cosmic gamble. Whatever happened, whatever I did, it was enough. It was enough; not to save her, no, but not to ruin her completely, and not to let her ruin the lives around her. Something, some small change, meant she didn’t kill him, that she always knew she never killed him. It meant that in not committing that worst or sins – taking a life – she found the courage to forgive herself, the strength to help so many others.
I wait for all the new memories to reveal themselves to me, and I know that they are there, but at the moment they are fuzzy and out of focus, remaining unseen. I must be patient. Dad’s not here, but at least he is somewhere. After this nightmare is over we can all be together again. For the first time in a very long time I feel hope, and I realise how much I love being alive. There is no Michael here, there is no love for me in this reality, and I will miss him every moment of my life, but, even though it hurts, I accept it, because I understand; I’m not allowed perfect happiness, that was never meant for me.
The Summer of Impossible Things Page 25