Sophie’s husband is waiting for them when they get home. He steps back at the sight of their faces.
‘What happened?’ he asks. Sophie simply looks to him and he is there beside her, pulls her into his chest and just holds her. She shudders in his arms. Their children cluster in around them.
Darcy looks at Hannah and she nods, turns again and heads outside.
The black horse is at the gate, snoozing in the sunshine. His bottom lip is drooping and his eyes are closed. Hannah reaches a hand out to him.
‘I let her down,’ she croaks. Darcy leans on the rail beside her and they stand in silence a moment.
‘Not your fault,’ he says eventually. For a moment, Hannah is carried back to Ghost lying caught in the wire.
‘I didn’t help her enough,’ she replies. ‘I left her.’
Darcy reaches out to her. He takes her hand and places it on the black horse’s neck, holds his over the top. She looks at his wattled skin. He is getting old, she realises. Older than her mother was.
‘We all let her down, honey. Not one of us ever met your mother’s standards.’
Hannah holds back tears. They stand there a moment, each waiting for the other to speak.
Darcy wipes his face. ‘He’s looking alright,’ he says, squinting. ‘Lost a bit of weight, though.’
‘Lost a bundle,’ Hannah replies softly. ‘Losing muscle too.’
Darcy just grunts. ‘Getting old, now.’
Hannah steps away, leaves him to enjoy the sun. ‘I’ll start feeding him mash,’ she says.
Darcy doesn’t reply but she knows what he is thinking. Can’t do much for old age.
They drink that night, after the kids are in bed. Darcy joins them and they sit around the table finishing bottle after bottle of red wine. Sophie is quiet. She watches her drink, sips regularly and says little. Darcy rattles on about running the place when they were kids, can’t seem to stop himself, old stories, well worn. Hannah is happy to let him talk.
‘You gonna stay?’ he asks her eventually.
She looks across the table at Sophie, leaning against her husband.
‘Yes,’ she says.
Sophie’s face spreads open. ‘Why?’ she asks softly.
‘Mary,’ Hannah says. ‘I can’t leave.’
Darcy says nothing but pours another glass and Hannah knows he is pleased.
It is late when they finish. Darcy is slurring. Sophie makes him a bed on the couch.
‘Thank you for today,’ Hannah says as Sophie unfolds the sheets. ‘Thank you both.’ Sophie and Dan look at her, Sophie’s face drawn with pity.
‘I’ve got my eye on a horse you might like, kiddo,’ Darcy says, as he stretches himself out. ‘Bay fella. Reminds me of your old boy.’
Hannah smiles, a painful lump in her throat. Sophie squeezes her hand and they both back out of the room.
XVII
October 1992
Saint’s Day of Luke the Evangelist, 18 October
Saints’ Day of Simon and Jude, Apostles, 28 October
READING BACK NOW, I REALISE I have done this wrong. How is it that I have written just another story about a girl who is a victim? All these women dying. Or silent. It was so frightening that she was silent. I’ve fallen into that old trap of telling the world the same way it has been told to me. I could have offered her something of redemption, at least. Imagine Mary, standing above us all, and lit with fire – the church, the church on fire – and tearing us all to pieces, some divine retribution. Imagine them crawling before her. Why shouldn’t she have that power? They made her a deity. Imagine her Old Testament and fierce, and burning us all. The island alight. Only the forest left.
That isn’t real, though. There is a difference between the truth of a thing and how it happened. This will always be how it happened. I made her a victim. The church women left a plaster statuette in our mother’s bedroom, when she was dying. I took it while she slept. It was cheap, powdery, painted in insincere colours. I took it outside and I threw it into the dam. Later, it felt like a prediction.
It isn’t even my story to tell. And it confuses me; it twists and won’t stay straight. I can’t remember if my mother died before the wedding in the street, or after. I can’t remember when the birds fell from the sky, or who was with me. Coincidence. These are the things that shift. But there are things I just know, too. Things I can still feel, like existing. I remember the Virgin, covered in salt, my mother leaning on my arm. Sitting with Sophie in her bedroom, while we waited. Darcy’s hand on the black horse’s neck . . . I didn’t go to the church, on the last day. Darcy didn’t either. I don’t know how he heard.
I think it worked like a vacuum. In the end, they had no one but themselves to fill the hole they’d shaped in their own lives, nothing at the centre of it but fear and blame. Blame is contagious. No one body can hold it. And no one ever looks to see where it is shared. Words like trial, sin. Failure. I heard those words again and again in the village, after all the hope had been consumed. It made me sad, even while it frightened me. I could imagine myself thinking like that. Even now.
MRS KEILLOR WAKES, THE bed empty beside her. It is strange, how luxurious it feels, sleeping without Harry. She can hear him in the guest room down the hall, turning, shuffling. He is waiting for her to get up, so he can come and shower. She lies there a minute or two longer for the sake of it, stretching her toes under the coverlet. She counts on her fingers. He hasn’t been to the pub in three weeks. She nods to herself and gets out of bed, washes and dresses. The bathroom is full of steam by the time she has finished her ablutions.
‘All yours,’ she calls to him, heading down the hall.
There is no answer from behind his door.
‘You’ll have to make your own breakfast,’ she calls again. ‘I’ll see you up at the church.’ It is so simple, assuming this power. She can’t understand how it has taken her this long.
*
Hannah wakes, and her mouth is sticky. The light coming in sideways through the curtains is too bright. She pulls herself sideways from the covers and drags a jumper on over her head. She thinks of the black horse outside, waiting for his breakfast, wonders if her mother is awake and then remembers.
Downstairs, the kitchen is empty. The house is quiet now Sophie has gone. She pulls boots on at the back door and stumbles across to the shed. She can hear the black horse around the yards, moving about. She piles his feed into a dirty bin and mixes it with water and molasses. Chaff sticks to her hands like scales. She carries it out to him and he paces over to greet her, but ignores the feed. She has to hold his head to get him to stand. He is walking laps around the yards with a strange urgency, head raised, hind legs stiff. She catches hold of him and rests a hand against his cheek. He drops his head into her chest and exhales.
‘Steady, mate,’ she whispers, but he is only doing what she is feeling, and she struggles to find it strange. She unbuckles his rug and pulls it from him, hangs it inside out over the yard rails. The sky is pale but clear. She rakes fingers across his withers and behind his elbow. The black horse just shakes himself, mouths at his feed and turns away again.
*
Thomas wakes to the colours. His bedroom is peopled with blue and red and green. It is Sunday. He pulls himself sideways from under the covers and they follow him, press in on him until he opens his curtains, and they dissolve into the morning light. Something is going to happen today.
His mother looks at him with surprise as he comes into the kitchen.
‘Up early,’ she observes.
He just reaches for the bread, orange juice. He is hungrier than he has been in weeks. His mother watches him as he puts his breakfast together, a cup of coffee in hand.
‘Thomas,’ she says softly, her head to one side. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘I want to go to the service today. We have to go.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Absolutely not.’ She hesitates. ‘The police are coming over next week . . . They�
��re going to want to speak to you.’
Thomas feels it all coming to solid within himself. Something red flashes out of the corner of his eye. His father comes down the corridor.
Thomas looks up at her. ‘I have to go. I want to see Mary.’
‘Let him,’ he says, voice deep. The three of them look at each other in shared feeling. Thomas’s father leans forward. ‘We’re coming with you, though.’
*
Father John wakes in a muck sweat. The dream is a new one. He is on the ferry and his wife is there, shivering on the chair beside him, her body juddering with the effort of each breath. The ambulance is waiting for them at the other end, but there is no time. The Ventolin is empty. He is shaking it and shaking it but it is empty. Her lips are turning blue. She looks at him with eyes wide, mouthing something. He can’t hear, so he leans in close and feels her cold against his cheek. She is dead already. She is looking at him and trying to talk but she is dead.
Sitting up in his bed, the sweat is beaded on his forehead. The room is silent, light coming in grey through the curtains. The talking bothers him. His wife said nothing when she died. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe. He wonders if it is a metaphor. He shivers. Don’t be stupid, he tells himself. It was only a dream.
The problem, he thinks, is with helplessness. This is what his mind is struggling over. He thinks of the girl, of her mother, of the letters they have been receiving. The power of the system over each of them as individuals. He thinks of the girl sitting silent in the kitchen, eyes down. Mary has always been a character in the Bible for whom he has a lot of sympathy. He looks up for his wife, but she isn’t there. The room stays grey.
It is Sunday. He follows his normal ritual, but nothing falls into place. He bumbles into the hallway dresser and a plate falls from the wall. It hits the floorboards and shatters. He stands a moment and looks at it. It belonged to his mother, and it was her mother’s before that. His wife used to touch it occasionally as she left the house. Broken on the floor, it seems like a bad omen. He picks up the pieces and carries them through to the kitchen, lays them out on the table and looks around. His wife does not appear. The priest tries to push his disappointment away, but it follows him through his breakfast.
He arrives at the church well before the service. He spends half an hour on his knees at the altar before going to the vestry to prepare. His wife does not join him, though he waits for her. Mrs Keillor arrives early and fusses as he dresses. He gives her the pew sheets and lets her go, watches at the door as the congregation comes in. It is a crowd. It is the whole island. Mary arrives with her mother and he steps aside to let them have the vestry. The bell finishes tolling, and Mrs Keillor’s husband leaves the rope. Mrs Keillor appears beside him. The music for the processional starts from the organ, and Mrs Keillor walks forward. The priest makes his way down the aisle. He can feel Mary behind him, feel her pull on the congregation. He kneels at the altar and then turns to the people.
‘The Lord bless and keep you,’ he says, and they respond. He looks down at Mary and smiles gently. She looks beautiful, swollen with child. She reminds him of his wife as a younger woman. He can feel himself settle.
It is pleasantly cosy in the church as he starts the service, bodies pressed in close. He relaxes into his role. There are only a few faces not following the words, not in step. He can see one of the boys who was flogged sitting at the back of the church, staring at Mary. The boy’s face is tight; he is glancing every now and again at the stained-glass windows. Penitent, he thinks. The priest looks at Mary, sitting in the front pew. Her face is blank. A cloud passes over the sun outside and for an instant the church is gloomy. Mrs Keillor stumbles in the reading. The priest lets his eyes travel up the windows to the ceiling, up to God above. The weight of the bare beams in the roof above seems dangerous. And then the sun re-emerges and the light is golden with a thousand motes of dust. Mrs Keillor continues, her voice strong, and the world levels. The boy is staring at him. His eyes are the same colour as the raw wood.
It happens during communion. The boy is kneeling at the rail to receive but Father John can see as he proffers the wafer that the boy is only watching Mary. Not penitent, then. Infatuated. The priest frowns. Mary is following him, bearing the wine. They had not thought of this sort of problem. It seems unnatural. The boy stares at her as he accepts the wafer. His hands are trembling. Mary is not looking at him, the priest notices. Good. That is right. Father John lowers one hand to bless the woman in front of him and glances back again. Mary is offering the boy the cup, drawing it from his lips. The boy is staring and staring, but Mary moves on. The boy almost shudders. His voice bursts forth as though torn from him.
‘We’re going to save you!’ he hisses.
It sounds out clearly through the church. The organ stops. The row of kneeling people snap their heads around. Mary flinches and then turns slowly.
‘Thomas?’ the woman beside him asks. Her eyes are panicked. The priest looks out at the congregation. They huddle in the pews anxiously, murmuring and staring around at each other with sharp, worried eyes. He can feel his heart beating. They are becoming animal again, he thinks.
‘Please,’ he says, trying to make his voice firm. ‘This is a house of God.’
The boy lowers his head, says nothing. It is Mary who saves him. She moves forward quietly and proffers the challis of wine to the upturned face before her, continues on with the task at hand. The priest steps forward and follows her example. The organ hurriedly whines back into life. She is serene, and he is overwhelmed with love. She is leading them.
‘The body of Christ,’ he says, louder than usual. The man before him leans forward and almost licks the wafer from his hand.
The mother takes the boy by the shoulders and drags him bodily down the aisle, towards the door. The congregation settles back into their seats.
He calls for final prayers, gesturing for Mary to stand before them all. At the altar, touched by the gold reflecting from the cross behind her, she is beautiful, an inspiration. She glows. Standing there, her face is lit with the colours of the glass as though she is a part of the church, held safe forever. He is filled with a deep sense of peace and righteousness; carrying on, Father John is suddenly perfectly sure of himself. He feels his fears slide away from his body like discarded clothes. Not a real part of him but worn, soiled, taken up in a moment of weakness. Faith, he thinks, and is filled with hope. More than he has ever felt before. He stands and looks down at them. He opens his mouth to speak and then stops. His wife is there. Not as a memory, not as a dream, but there! She is sitting in her normal place, looking straight at him, her blue eyes alive. Real! Solid! He takes a step forward and she looks down, picks up her pew sheet and hymnbook and stands. Before them all, there for them all to see, she turns her back on him and walks down the aisle. He is smiling, he realises – he can feel it, his cheeks are aching. I will hold her, he thinks. He steps down from the altar and follows her. The people are murmuring again. He ignores them.
‘Please,’ he calls after her. ‘Stop.’
The congregation is standing now. His wife walks on until she reaches the doorway. There she stops. Her whole body is shining with a pure light. She turns her head for just a moment and looks at him with pity. He knows instantaneously what is going to happen.
‘No,’ he whispers.
She smiles sadly, steps out into the daylight and disappears.
He looks back to the people behind him. ‘No,’ he says again, quite simply. And he walks out the door after his wife.
*
Outside, Thomas sits leaning against one of the tyres of their car, his mother kneeling beside him. The world reels around him, black rising like sand in the corners of his vision. They hear the hymn finish in the church and the prayers begin and silence fall.
‘It’s okay,’ Thomas’s mother says to him. She looks across at his father. ‘We’re okay.’ Thomas is sweating, as if he’d exerted himself.
And then th
e organ stops. There is noise from the church, people are calling out. The service must be finished, he thinks. But when they look over, they see the priest come through the doorway. He is walking away, walking as though he is blind, towards the road, towards the village.
People appear behind him. ‘Father,’ Mrs Keillor calls. ‘Father, stop! Stop!’
He doesn’t show any sign of hearing. He is reaching out as if to someone in front of him, but no one is there.
The church is emptying, everyone moving out onto the grass, just watching. They are all silent. Thomas’s parents exchange a worried glance and join the crowd. He can see his mother craning her neck to see what is happening. Thomas gets to his feet. Beside him, the colours from the church windows climb down to join the throng of people. Everything seems to be moving around him, swelling and falling like waves. He looks back towards the doorway of the church, and Mary is standing there, her mother in front of her. Her mother seems to be hysterical; one of the women from the church is holding her up. Thomas can feel his throat closing, his chest folding in. Mary is staring at him over the crowd. She shakes her head. She turns. He follows her eyes out over the village to the bridge, a silver line, pale like her skin, the bridge shining across the water. And then she smiles. And then she is gone. He can’t make the breath come from him soon enough to cry out. He pushes through the people towards her. The colours from the windows press in. The crowd comes alive with his movement, people are shouting, calling out. A man tries to shove him back. The women are wailing, one or two have started to cry.
By the time Thomas makes it through the press of people, Mary has completely disappeared. He imagines her flying down the hill, silent, light.
Mary’s mother looks up at him, eyes lit with sudden fright through her tears. She looks around, over her shoulder. Thomas sees her stagger. And then she charges at him like a woman possessed, yelling, swinging at him with both arms. ‘Your fault, your fault, your fault . . .’ The words come streaming from her. People are watching them now. Mrs Keillor comes pushing through. Thomas raises his arms, shields himself. Mary’s mother draws a hand back and slaps him in the face. ‘Your fault,’ she sobs.
The Salt Madonna Page 28