The Stopped Heart

by Julie Myerson

  “I love you,” he says before he says good-bye.

  “Me too,” she says. “I love you too.”

  She turns the phone to silent and lays it carefully on the table and sits down. And suddenly there it is—a smell she remembers from childhood. Hot, feverish skin and hair, poorly breath, the bright metallic tang of long-ago sickness.

  She looks around her.

  Everything is in its proper place. Chairs, bench, stove, sink. The big casserole dish washed and turned over to drain. The flowers she picked that morning and put in an old jam jar. The picture Eddie gave her propped on the dresser next to a pile of bills. She can’t see anything wrong anywhere.

  Then her eyes go to the calendar on the wall by the fridge. A present from her mother. Bright yellow spring flowers, celandines or something, a Swiss mountain in summer. All the squares blank and white, their empty life. As she watches, the page moves, unmistakable, blowing upward, as if a breeze had lifted it.

  Gasping, she tries to stand, scraping her chair on the old stone floor. The noise does it; it does the trick. At last she feels the presence drift, wobble, diminish.

  Gone.

  She notices her phone on the table, blinking. She picks it up, her hand trembling. Five missed calls. In the few moments since she said good-bye to Graham.

  “Eddie,” she says, “what is it?”

  THE LAST BLOW HAD GONE INTO PHOEBE’S CHEST. YOU HEARD A crack and a snap like the wishbone on a chicken. There was so much blood it seemed as if her heart was spilling out. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help it, I did look. The sight of her lying there with her bodice quite bloodied and open and every private part of her on display made the ground beneath me feel light and soft and tipsy.

  James, I said. Oh my God, James. What have we done?

  He did not seem to hear me. He threw down the spade and fished around in his pockets and lit a cigarette.

  Thank Christ for that, he said as he chucked the matches on the ground. Now, do we burn her or bury her?

  I watched as he sucked on the smoke, taking several long drags and blowing out furiously before throwing it down and crushing it hard with his foot.

  Come on, he said. I need ideas, Eliza.

  I stared at him. The way he’d flung down that spade, you’d have reckoned all he’d just done was finish spreading a patch of manure or something similar. You could imagine it was a perfectly harmless and ordinary day and in a minute he was going home to his tea that was waiting on the table. As if he knew what I was thinking, he scratched his head and yawned and then he smiled at me.

  I’m awful hungry, you know, Eliza. I’d kill for a cheese sandwich. Or a sausage. I’d love a sausage.

  I stayed silent. I had no answer to that.

  Oh, he said. And did your pa tell you by the by that we cleaned up at the races?

  HE’S STANDING THERE JUST AS HE SAID HE WOULD BE, ON THE edge of the cornfield. His car askew on the verge as if he pulled in abruptly, the door flung open against the hedge.

  Mary sees that he’s wearing jeans. A crumpled shirt, untucked. His hair bent and untidy, as if he just got out of bed. A sheen of sweat on his face.

  For a moment he just looks at her.

  “Mary. You came.”

  The sun is hot on Mary’s head. The dry, baked smell of the corn. An airplane moving overhead. The emptiness all around them. She feels suddenly trapped, lured.

  “Are you all right?” she says. “What is it? What’s happened? Should I call Deborah?”

  The smile disappears.

  “Please don’t. That would actually be the worst thing you could do.” He hesitates. “And anyway, she’s not here. She’s in London today.”

  “In London?” Mary’s heart speeds up.

  “With her mother. They had stuff to do.”

  She takes a step back, away from him, looking at him.

  “What’s the matter, Eddie? What’s going on? Why did you call me?”

  He smiles at her.

  “Can we just go for a walk?” he says.

  THE MOON HAD SLID BEHIND A CLOUD AND THE SKY WAS BLACK and starless, the whole world dark. I felt as if the life I knew before had ended, that I had walked straight out of that one and into another that was as sudden and frightening as the devil’s own hell.

  James sat down on the ground not far from where her body was and he patted the grass next to him.

  Come here, he said. Come on. Come to me, princess.

  I looked at him, but I didn’t go. I stayed where I was. The piece of ground he sat on had blood on it. I could not have gone and sat in those sticky black shadows for all the tea in China. I was about to say so, but then something caught my eye.

  I gasped.

  James! Look!

  Even though Phoebe’s chest had blood still coming out of it and her freckled face was shocked and still, her eyes wide, the leg with the boot on was moving.

  James was fishing around in his pockets for another cigarette.

  Don’t worry about it, he said, turning his head and watching for a moment, before going back to what he was doing. It’s what they do, when they’re dead. She’s gone, but the leg don’t realize it yet.

  I stared at the leg, twitching and twitching, and I thought of Phoebe who I’d always hated but who was gone—not just for a while, which I wouldn’t have minded—but forever and ever. She could never come back. I couldn’t help it. I began to cry.

  James found the cigarette and lifted his head and looked at me.

  For Christ’s sake, Eliza, he said as he put it in his mouth and struck a match. I tell you it’s nothing to worry about. I swear I’ve seen the exact same thing happen once or twice before and you can take it from me that on all those occasions the folks were goners.

  I stared at him.

  All what occasions?

  He waved the match to put it out. Shaking his head, looking at me through narrow eyes, breathing out smoke.

  It was only a couple of times.

  What was only a couple of times?

  Forget it. I didn’t mean it like that.

  What, James? What have you done?

  He looked at me, then down again at the cigarette in his hand.

  When you have lived as I have lived, Eliza—

  I could not listen. I turned my head and looked away and then I went and sat away from him, as far away as I could possibly get, my back against the apple shed. I tried to swallow my tears, for I knew there was no use to them. A strange kind of calm was coming over me. Everything bad that could ever happen had happened now. We were firmly in hell and it was almost a relief to know there was no possible way out. I sat back and looked at him.

  How many people have you killed? I said.

  SHE TAKES HIM TO HER BENCH. OUT ON THE GRASS PATH, RECENTLY mown and now with a scattering of molehills, by the tall reed beds toward the golf course. She can see that he’s still shaky, not himself at all. She still doesn’t know why he called her. He says he can’t explain it right away, that he just needs to calm down.

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  “What about?”

  “Anything. Tell me what you’ve been doing today. Tell me anything. I just need to hear you talking.”

  Mary hesitates, then she tells him about Ruby. She can see that he’s genuinely shocked.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I can’t believe it. She seems like such a sensible, level kind of girl. I’d never have dreamed she’d do something like that.”

  “Neither did we,” she says. “We thought she was fine. It seemed to come right out of the blue.”

  He looks at her.

  “Poor Graham.”

  “I know.”

  “And poor you. Both of you. And when’s he back?”

  She tells him she doesn’t know. Tomorrow, probably. It depends on what happens. He and Veronica are taking it one day at a time.

  Eddie looks at her.

  “He gets on OK with her, does he? This ex of his?”

  M
ary tells him the truth. That Graham and Veronica are not the best of friends but that it’s amicable. That he always tries to do the right thing by her, to behave well, because of Ruby.

  Eddie looks interested.

  “I realize I never even asked you what the situation was.”

  “The situation?”

  “Did he leave her for you? Sorry,” he adds, watching her face. “Is that a bit personal?”

  “Yes, it is, and no, he didn’t. She left him. For someone else. But it didn’t work out. With the person she left him for, I mean.”

  “So she made a mistake and now she wants him back?”

  Mary stares at him, shocked.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “What I meant is—I suppose I just thought he must have left her for you. That’s just the feeling I’d got.”

  “Well, he didn’t.”

  “All right.”

  For a while they sit and don’t speak. Eddie smoking a cigarette in quick, nervous puffs.

  “What a lovely spot,” he says, and she tells him that she comes here every day.

  Surprise on his face.

  “Every day?”

  “Almost every day. Whenever I can. I suppose it’s the only time I’m ever properly alone.”

  She watches as he puts out the cigarette and places the stub next to him on a slat of the bench.

  “And you brought me here,” he says, looking pleased.

  She shrugs, says nothing. Wonders if she’s already regretting it. Aware, suddenly, of the smell of him. Sweat and soap. Other people’s soap.

  “What a day,” he says. “Look at that. What a sky.”

  She tilts her head to look at the clear wide blueness of it, not a single cloud, the hot sun bearing down on them. He turns away from her suddenly, shielding his eyes against the light.

  “That bird. Can you see it? See how it just keeps on falling and falling out of the sky?”

  “A kestrel probably,” she says, wondering why the sudden sight of the back of his head makes her feel sorry for him.

  “Is it a kestrel?”

  “I don’t know. Graham would know.”

  “He knows about birds?”

  “A bit.”

  “He knows about most things, doesn’t he?”

  “Some things, yes.”

  “Is there anything he doesn’t know about?”

  She does not answer him. They both watch the bird for a moment, climbing and falling and climbing again.

  “Does he know about you?” he says.

  “What do you mean, does he know about me?”

  “Does he know what goes on inside your head? What you think about. What you want.”

  Mary says nothing for a moment, then she shrugs.

  “You’re assuming that I know those things,” she says.

  Eddie hesitates. Leaning forward, his wrists on his knees. She hears him sigh.

  “I had this dream. A couple of nights ago. The weirdest dream. One of those dreams that are so clear they almost don’t feel like a dream. And in the dream—believe me, Mary, I know how this sounds—you told me you were going to have a baby.”

  Mary feels her heart tilt. She turns and stares at him.

  “A baby?”

  He shakes his head.

  “I know, I know. Dreams don’t really mean anything. It’s probably just because of what we talked about at the pub—and me telling you about my son and all that.” He takes a breath. “And I promise I would never have told you, except—well, it wouldn’t let go of me. I couldn’t shake it off. And it felt like I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it until I’d told you.” He turns to look at her. “And then I was at work and—I don’t know how to describe it—I just sort of panicked.”

  “Panicked?”

  She stares at him. He looks away.

  “It was like I had no choice: I just had to see you. To tell you. About the dream. Seriously, Mary, I felt almost sick with panic. It’s never happened to me before. I got in the car and drove here as fast as I could. The only reason I stopped the car by that field is my heart was pounding so hard I honestly thought I was going to crash.”

  Mary looks at the ground. Swallowing. Looking at her hands in the lap of her jeans. Her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

  “See?” he says. “I told you it was crazy.”

  She swallows again.

  “It’s not crazy.”

  “It is. It is crazy.”

  She clasps her hands together, suddenly afraid.

  “I’m pregnant,” she says. “I think I am. I think I’m going to have a baby.”

  JAMES, I SAID, WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. BEFORE THEY GO looking for her—before they find us here.

  James nodded, but he seemed in no hurry. He lit another smoke. Held it over to me but I shook my head.

  I mean right now this minute, I added. Before someone comes.

  He nodded again.

  The field, he said. We’ll put her in the field. The clods are still quite claggy from the storm. It’ll be easy enough to dig there.

  I stared at him.

  Are you mad? And in a month or two when they dig up the potatoes, what then?

  He nodded. The moon came out again, turning his face gray, then bluish, then silver. I thought that he looked like a bad fairy king.

  You’re right. Good girl. Well done for using your head. What, then? What’ll we do? We could take her to the river at Bly, I suppose. Put her in a sack and make sure it sinks? But I’m not sure how we’d get her there.

  Easy, I said, because I was very angry with him now. We toss her in my father’s cart and trundle her along the road for everyone to see.

  For a moment he looked at me as if this might really be a plan, but when he saw that I was ribbing him, he smiled.

  HE STARES AT HER. CATCHES HIS BREATH.

  “But I thought—after what you told me—it wasn’t possible?”

  “It’s not. You’re right. It’s not.” She blinks. “It’s not possible.”

  She waits, pressing her lips together, holding herself very still. She feels him looking at her.

  “So—then how?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But are you sure?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. I suppose so. I mean, they did a test.”

  “The doctor did?”

  “Yes.”

  She thinks of it for a moment. That beige room with its mottled walls. The doctor’s face. Her thudding heart. Confusion. The memory of it making her heart race again.

  A breeze stirs the reeds. They both watch as the bird drops through the air before gathering itself just in time and heading back up into the sky. She feels him looking at her.

  “What does Graham say?”

  “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “But you will.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You have to tell him.”

  Mary looks at her knees.

  “It only just happened. I don’t even know why I’m telling you. I haven’t decided what to do yet.”

  “Do?”

  “I don’t think I can have it. I can’t, Eddie—if it turns out to be true, that is.”

  He glances at her.

  “True? But what are you saying?”

  “Well, it can’t be true, can it? How can it be?”

  “You think they’ve got it wrong?”

  “Well, they must have, yes.”

  “But you say they did a test?”

  She looks at him, her eyes filling up again.

  “Please don’t make me think about it,” she says.

  Far off, the sound of a dog barking. Someone calling to it. Whistling. She feels him watching her again and she looks at him, noticing that dimple in his unshaven cheek.

  “Well, miracles happen,” he says at last.

  “Miracles.” She hears herself laugh.

  He
shakes his head.

  “That’s what it was. In the dream. Someone kept on saying it. A miracle, they said, it’s a miracle.”

  She lifts her head, looks at him. “I can’t have a baby, Eddie. I just can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  Mary says nothing. She glances down and for a moment she sees his arms, his hands resting on his knees. The chunky metal wristwatch that looks like it means business. The light hairs on his forearms. The deep blue veins on the backs of his hands. His fingers, knuckles, nails.

  “I just can’t,” she says again.

  “Look,” he tells her after a few more moments have passed, “I wasn’t joking when I said it was a miracle. If anyone deserves a miracle, it’s you. So maybe you should just think of it as a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  “My mother had a child that drowned. A boy.”

  She stares at him.

  “What? You mean your brother?”

  He hesitates.

  “My half brother, yes. He drowned at Christmas. Can you imagine? Christmas Day—Christmas morning—in the pond.”

  Mary feels her blood jump. He takes a breath.

  “But she went and got pregnant again the very next year and this time she had twins. What a blessing it was. A miracle, you see.”

  She looks at him.

  “I thought your mother died when you were ten?”

  He blinks at her. Feeling around in his pocket for his cigarettes.

  “Ah, but you see, all of this was long before I was born.”

  “And the twins?”

  “What?”

  “They’re still alive?”

  He sighs. Pulls out a cigarette, looks at it.

  “I’ve told you about my family. It’s a messy business. God knows where the twins are now.”

  “But are they boys or girls?”

  “Girls. Women, I suppose. I don’t know how old they’d be now.”

  “You don’t even know? You’ve never tried to find them?”

  He rests his arms on his knees for a moment, lighter in one hand, cigarette in the other. Staring into the long grass.

  “I haven’t,” he says. “You’re right. I feel ashamed now that I haven’t bothered. I ought to have a go at finding them, I suppose.”

  YOU DID SOMETHING TERRIBLE, I TOLD HIM.

  He shrugged.