The Stopped Heart

by Julie Myerson

I wasn’t intending to harm her. But what could I do? She asked for it. Come on, Eliza, we’ve been over this. It’s not my fault.

  Not your fault? Whose fault was it, then?

  You know what a spiteful little bitch she was.

  No one asks to be killed, I said.

  I don’t know what else I was supposed to do.

  I stared at him in horror, then I couldn’t help it—I started to laugh. But almost as soon as I’d started, the taste of the laugh in my mouth turned bad and I stopped.

  You are unbelievable, I said.

  He looked at me carefully for a moment, then he stuck out his lip in a sulky way.

  A spiteful little blabbermouth, she was. You’ve no idea. I swear, I had no choice. I simply couldn’t trust her anymore. She said she’d go straight to her ma and tell her everything she knew about me.

  Now I stared at him.

  Everything? What do you mean? What was it that she knew?

  He shook his head then and blew out a long breath of smoke and looked down at his boots. I saw that they were unlaced just like Phoebe’s boot was unlaced and there was mud all over them. His breeches too. He shook his head.

  Nothing at all, he said. I mean it, Eliza. She had nothing on me. At the end of the day, it was all just guesses.

  But what? What are you talking about? I don’t understand. What thing did she guess?

  He shrugged. His eyes were calm.

  I don’t know. Whatever it was that I’d been doing, I suppose.

  A chill ran through me.

  What had you been doing?

  He raised his eyes and gave me a sticky look.

  Nothing. I wasn’t doing nothing.

  I held my breath. Tears were coming up in my face but I swallowed them back down. Talking to James Dix in this mood was like swimming in a swamp—the more you kicked, the more you got sucked down.

  I wish you’d never come here, I said. I wish I didn’t know you. I would give the whole world not to know you. I wish that storm tree had flattened you and left you properly dead.

  For the first time, he looked quite shocked.

  You don’t mean that, princess.

  I do, I said. I do mean it. I mean it with all my heart. I can’t love a murderer, James, I just can’t.

  He said nothing. Far off somewhere in the woods, an owl was calling. A terribly sad and lonely sound. I glanced over at Phoebe. No part of her was moving now. Her skin shone white in the moonlight. I used my apron to wipe the tears off my face. For a long while both of us were silent. I thought about everything James and me had done together—all the laughing and touching and dear little promises and happiness—and I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t say anything. He did not speak.

  But I won’t have you go to jail or be hanged, I said at last. I won’t do it. I can’t.

  His face lit up.

  That’s right, princess. I knew it!

  What? I said, the speed of the change in him almost making me regret what I had said. What did you know?

  That I could rely on you. I knew it. Oh, Eliza, you do love me, don’t you?

  I wasn’t all that sure I did love him anymore. I pressed my lips together. It was like I wanted to press all the kisses out of them, the memories of all that warmth and kissing.

  It’s not about love, I said.

  What then?

  I shook my head. The truth was I didn’t know what it was about. Perhaps all I wanted was for nothing to change—for everything to stay sweet and steady and the same, for the summer to go on exactly as it was. But I also felt impatient for something: what? I could hardly be bothered to explain it to myself, let alone try and make him see it.

  But I looked at him sitting there and, remembering the peppery smell of the back of his neck and the way his eyes could melt me and all the times we’d had connection, the things we’d done, the backs of my knees went hot.

  I’ve a better idea, I said. Of what to do with her.

  “DON’T GO HOME,” HE SAYS AS THEY MAKE THEIR SLOW, SUNLIT way back along the rough-mown path by the golf course to his car. “Do you have to go? If Graham’s not even there? Come back to ours for a bit.”

  She hesitates. Looking at him.

  “Is Deborah there?”

  “I told you. She’s in London today. Seeing her mother. I’m getting her from the station later.”

  Mary says nothing. A quick picture of Deborah on a train, her pale hair falling over her shoulder as she pushes down the window to open the door.

  “What?” he says.

  “Nothing.”

  “You looked worried.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She does not look at him and then she does. He reaches out and touches her hand, just for a moment, the lightest touch.

  “Go on,” he says. “I’m asking you. I’m begging you. I really want you to come.”

  AT THE HOUSE, MARY’S STARTLED TO SEE DEBORAH’S BAG ON the chair in the sunny, coir-matted hall. A cardigan flung over it.

  She stops in front of it for a moment. Then follows Eddie into the kitchen. Watching as he goes over and fills the kettle, plonks it down and switches it on, turning back to her.

  “She has another bag, you know.”

  “What?”

  “The bag. Out there. It’s not the one she took with her. To London.”

  “Oh.”

  He comes over to her then—crosses the room and stands in front of her. She has no idea what he’s going to do, and then she does. He puts his two hands on her shoulders. The unexpectedness of it—almost painful. She feels a flush spreading up from her chest to her neck, her cheeks.

  “What are you doing?” she says.

  He keeps his eyes on hers for a moment, then takes his hands away.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  He walks away, crossing the vast, blond space of the kitchen—its airy cleanness odd and alarming to her now, even though she’s eaten several suppers in here, even, one weekend, let herself in to feed their cat—and goes over to the polished counter of the island.

  “An island!” Deborah said as she showed them around the house that first time. “I don’t know what it is about islands, but I’ve always wanted one, haven’t I, Eddie?”

  Now he takes mugs off hooks. Puts them down on Deborah’s island. Opens a drawer for a spoon. Goes to a cupboard by the sink, takes out a big, unopened box of tea bags, rips the cellophane off. Glancing across at her.

  “Sit down,” he says.

  Mary does nothing. She doesn’t sit. He glances at her.

  “She’s not here. I told you.”

  “What?”

  “Deb. She had lunch with her mum and then they were looking at wallpapers or something. For the long-awaited bloody extension. She’s going to text me when she’s on the train.”

  Mary says nothing. At last she pulls out a kitchen chair and sits down. Looking at the sagging sofa by the range where the elderly Siamese lies curled and motionless on a blanket that is thick with hair.

  She feels Eddie watching her.

  “Do you need to call Graham?” he says. “To see how she’s doing?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I know he’ll call when he has news.”

  For a moment neither of them says anything. Eddie looks at her.

  “This must feel so hard for you both. After everything that’s happened—your daughters—after what you’ve already had to go through.”

  The kettle comes to a boil. He pours water into the cups. Mary watches him in silence. He lifts his head and looks at her.

  “What?” he says.

  “What?”

  “You. What are you thinking? You’re thinking something. I can see it all over your face.”

  She smiles. Shakes her head.

  “I don’t know. It’s just that—well, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who dares to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Refer to it. To the girls. And to what hap
pened.”

  He makes a face.

  “Deb always says I don’t think. That I just go blundering in.”

  Mary looks at him.

  “I wouldn’t call it blundering.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  She takes a breath.

  “When we were at the pub that time, and you asked me about the girls—you suddenly out of the blue asked me their ages and what they were called—well, this may sound strange, but I can’t tell you how much I liked it.”

  He looks at her. Lifting the tea bags from the cups.

  “Really? You didn’t mind it?”

  “It was lovely. Lovely of you. Yes, really. A lovely thing to do.”

  He sighs.

  “It wasn’t out of the blue actually. And it wasn’t me blundering, not that time. I’d been thinking about it for a long time. Wondering whether I should. Trying to pluck up courage, I suppose.”

  Mary stares at him.

  “You had?”

  “I wasn’t sure, you see, whether it was the right thing. I very badly didn’t want to upset you. Make you think about them, I mean.”

  She looks at him.

  “You didn’t upset me. Not at all. And anyway, I want to think about them.”

  “You do?”

  Mary nods, suddenly both elated and embarrassed. He gazes at her.

  “Of course. Of course you do.”

  She sits up in her chair.

  “No one ever asks me about them anymore. Literally never. Not even family, no one. People go out of their way not to mention them. No one ever says their names. Even Graham. Especially Graham. He just can’t do it—he can’t say their names.”

  “He can’t?”

  “Not yet. It’s not his fault. He just can’t. I don’t blame him for that. But what it means, you see, is that no one ever mentions them at all. Whole days—weeks—go by and I don’t ever hear them mentioned—”

  Her eyes fill with tears and she turns her head away quickly. A long silence. She turns back. Watching as he pours milk into the cups.

  “I’m sure it’s just that they’re afraid to,” he says at last. “The people, I mean. They probably think you’ll find it upsetting.”

  Mary watches as he puts the milk bottle back in the fridge. She shakes her head.

  “Well, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t find it upsetting. What’s upsetting is to have to live my whole life never talking about them as if they were—”

  He turns from the fridge to look at her.

  “Dead?”

  She nods, feeling herself flush. A kind of shame creeping over her. But confidence too. A little bit of confidence. Allowing herself to glance at him.

  “That’s right. As if they were dead. Sometimes I still can’t believe it. That they really are definitely dead. Not temporarily dead or just dead for the time being in some awful, painful way, but completely dead and gone—lost to me, completely lost, forever and ever.”

  Eddie is silent for a moment.

  “It’s impossible. To think about.”

  She holds herself very still, her cheeks still burning.

  “It is, yes.”

  “If you believe it is forever.”

  She looks at him.

  “What does that mean?”

  He hesitates.

  “Well, I suppose some people would say it’s just this life—”

  Mary shakes her head.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. No, I don’t. Why, do you?”

  He keeps his eyes on her.

  “Not really, no.”

  They’re both quiet again. Very gently, he places the tea in front of her.

  “But they’re not dead to you, are they? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That they aren’t.”

  Mary stares at him. She shakes her head. Tries to speak but finds she can’t. He leans back against the kitchen counter, folds his arms, looking at her.

  “You carry them around with you, don’t you? All the time. Anyone can see it. They’re in your eyes, in your gestures, the way you move your hands, your head. It’s impossible to be around you without feeling and seeing them.”

  She nods, tears now coming to her eyes.

  “That’s it. That’s it exactly. How do you know that? How can you say it? Do you think it’s mad? Doesn’t it sound very strange?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Not at all. Not to me anyway. Though I think it’s true that a lot of people might not get it.”

  Mary looks at him. She smiles at him and he smiles back and then for a moment they both laugh. She gazes at his face, unable suddenly to take it properly in, to get enough of it.

  “Some days it feels like they exist more strongly than ever,” she tells him. “Since we came to this place. I don’t know what it is about it, the cottage, I felt it from the very first time. They never came here, never lived in this place, yet somehow there’s a connection—a continuing. I feel them all the time. Everywhere. In the garden especially—”

  “The garden? Why the garden?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I only have to walk out into the garden to feel them, to feel that they’re right there with me. I didn’t feel it when we first got the house—it was something that grew slowly, creeping up on me. Now it’s unmistakable. They’re in the garden. I spend time with them every day. You think that’s mad?”

  He smiles at her. Picks up his tea.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  She feels herself start to laugh.

  “That it’s not mad. That I’m not going out of my mind. That you think it’s OK.”

  He smiles.

  “I think it’s OK.”

  Mary takes a breath, holding her hand out in front of her. Realizing she’s trembling.

  “Some days the feeling’s so strong I almost don’t know what to do with it.”

  Eddie looks at her.

  “Do you need to do anything with it?”

  “I don’t know.” She gazes at him now, a kind of euphoria building inside her. “Really, Eddie—I don’t know.”

  He is leaning back against the counter now, looking at her.

  “What were they like?” he asks her at last.

  She looks at him, her heart lifting.

  “The girls? What, I haven’t told you?”

  He smiles.

  “You’ve never told me anything. But I suppose I’ve never asked.”

  “You told me all about your boy without my asking.”

  He smiles again.

  “That’s right. You’re right. I did. Well, then. Tell me. It’s your turn. I’d just like to be able to imagine them, that’s all. Your girls.”

  Mary smiles and then she laughs.

  “It’s difficult. I don’t really know how to describe them.”

  “Try.”

  She shuts her eyes, opens them again.

  “I don’t want to make you think they were perfect or anything like that. They were just normal children, I suppose. Quite a handful, quite annoying sometimes, same as any kids that age. Monsters. That’s what we called them, the little monsters. They could be pretty impossible, both of them. Ella was probably the worst.”

  “Ella was the big one?”

  Mary nods. “Twenty-one months between them. She was just so bright, Ella was. Right from the start. She could read at three years old—I’m not exaggerating—not just the odd word, but proper books, a whole book. She’d make up stories as soon as she could speak and I had to write them down for her—” Eddie laughs and Mary smiles. “She was so bossy! Then later she wrote them down herself, of course.”

  “You think she’d have been a writer?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s easy to get carried away. I mean, lots of kids make up stories, don’t they? Maybe, though. But it wasn’t just that. She could do maths too. Anything, really, she was so quick, she could pick up anything. She had such an imagination. I think it might have
got her into trouble one day.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Mary hesitates. “We worried about her sometimes. She couldn’t always tell the difference between what was real and what wasn’t—”

  “She told lies?”

  “Not exactly. Not lies. You wouldn’t call them lies. She’d say things and you knew she really did believe them. But she seemed to live in a slightly different world from everyone else.”

  “She sounds a lot like you.”

  Mary smiles. “Me?”

  “You don’t think you’re like that?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. But she wasn’t that much like me. I can’t do maths at all, for instance. She had my impatience, though. And my hair—”

  “She had your hair?”

  Mary laughs. “Exactly the same! Very long and dark and out of control. Always tangled. But she wouldn’t let me cut it.”

  He looks at her.

  “I’d love to see a photo of her.”

  Mary takes a breath, shakes her head.

  “I haven’t been able to look at pictures yet. Graham can. It’s funny, isn’t it? He can’t speak about the girls, but he can look at them.”

  “And you’re the other way around.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder why that is.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I can’t. I don’t mind talking about them, not at all. But I just can’t seem to look at pictures yet. I think I worry that once I started . . .”

  “What? Once you’d started what?”

  She looks at the table. “I’d never be able to stop.”

  She’s silent for a moment. Eddie picks up his tea.

  “And the little one? What was she like?”

  “Flo?” Mary laughs. “About as different from Ella as it was possible to be. The most laidback child ever. Lazy, though. My God. She let Ella do just about everything for her. All our fault, I know that. We spoiled her, I think, it was hard not to, because she was such an easy baby, especially after Ella.” Mary lifts her tea, looks at it, puts it down again. “The big thing you need to know about Flo—the thing you couldn’t have helped knowing if you’d met her—is she was absolutely mad about Peppa Pig—”

  “Peppa what?”

  Mary laughs. “Peppa Pig! It’s a character, on TV. You won’t know it. Your boy’s probably too old. I’m sorry, but Flo was obsessed. She never stopped talking about Peppa Pig this, Peppa Pig that. Her lunch box, her trainers. She had this bathrobe that she never took off, she even wore it to school once. She wanted to go to Peppa Pig World—can you believe it, there’s a Peppa Pig World? We were going to take her for her birthday.” Mary feels Eddie looking at her. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I’m going on too much now.”