by James Long
They were still standing outside the cottage door. ‘I remember you bringing him home,’ said Gally. ‘I met you by the church. Someone helped us carry him.’
Someone did, thought Ferney – some nameless villager amongst all the bit-part players.
‘You nursed him,’ he said as they went back inside.
‘What year was that?’
He thought for a moment. ‘The fight? The third of the Edwards. The French wars. Six hundred and sixty years ago give or take a bit. He was quite young then.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I need breakfast, then I’ll tell you the bit that matters.’
‘What day is it?’ Gally asked as they looked for food in Mike’s meagre cupboards. She was happy again.
‘The day after yesterday. The day before tomorrow. The first day of our new life, with just you and me and nobody in the way. Heat hanging from a high, blue morning and the old birds singing.’
‘Old?’
‘Who’s to say they’re not? They sound the same as ever and they look the same as ever.’
When the phone rang, she answered it without thinking. It seemed so natural. It was her phone and her house. By the time she realised that was wrong, she had already recognised the voice at the other end.
‘Jo?’ it said, ‘Is that you?’
She nearly said no but before she could, the voice had dragged her back through the ploughed-up soil of the past day to the point where she had to say yes.
‘Where are you?’
‘Outside the church. Stay there. I’m coming. How do I get to you?’
‘No. Don’t come here.’ She didn’t want her here, in their house. ‘I’ll come and find you.’
‘But I—’
‘No. I’m going there now.’
In the last hundred yards of her walk, seeing her mother’s car by the church gate, Gally stopped in her tracks with pity in her heart trying to be Jo again. What could she say? She had thought she could work out some way to deal with this given a week. There wasn’t a week, there were thirty seconds. She had been here, walking on this same tarmac with Ali and Lucy when she was still partly Jo. She pulled a bit of that old self into the here and now, searching for more as if a butterfly could remember how to be a caterpillar.
Her mother was out of the car, looking all around her, giving her agitation away in the staccato speed of her movements.
‘Hello,’ Jo called. ‘I’m here.’
‘Jo, oh Jo!’ Her mother ran towards her, seized her as if she wanted to shake her, then stepped back to look hard at her, holding on to her shoulders. ‘What on earth have you been up to?’
‘I’m fine. I’m sorry they rang you. There was no need.’
‘Oh, I think there definitely was.’
‘What about your conference?’
‘I had to abandon it. I could murder you.’
‘I was going to call you.’
‘It’s a bit late to say that. Now, come on, Jo. What’s been going on?’
‘Shall we go and sit down?’
‘In the car?’
‘In the church porch. There’s a seat.’
So they sat under the old king and queen and both pairs stared at each other blankly. Gally looked at this stranger next to her and the part that was Jo was just as baffled, unable to remember whether the space between them had always felt so unbridgeable.
‘I don’t get it, Jo.’ There was barely contained anger in her mother’s voice. ‘Lucy and Ali said you met a boy you knew. I couldn’t think of anyone that could possibly be.’
‘You haven’t met him. It’s quite hard to explain.’
‘I don’t care how hard it is. I have just had a horrid day, driving all the way down, then sitting around at the police station for hours, then I had to stay the night in some ghastly little bed and breakfast hovel.’
‘The police station? Why?’
‘Because I came to that man’s house and the next minute the police arrived and arrested him.’
‘What man?’
‘Martin or whatever he’s called.’
‘They arrested him?’ Gally could only think of what Ferney must have known, what he had concealed from her. She felt sick at the knowledge. ‘What for?’
‘You don’t know? For murder, that’s all – for murdering his wife and his child. What on earth has he got to do with you and why were you at his house? He could have killed you too. Now, what is all this about?’ and Gally, head spinning, could see no way to tell her or not to tell her.
‘You won’t believe it,’ she said.
‘Try me.’
She looked up at the two stone heads and they gave her no help. ‘All right. You’ve never been here before, have you?’
‘I’ve driven past, but I’ve never turned off the road.’
‘Well, that’s the thing. I have.’
‘Not with me.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t see how then, but anyway, you think you know this village?’
‘I know this place better than I know anywhere else on earth.’
‘Go on,’ said her mother but her voice was a little fainter than it had been.
‘I’ve lived here.’
‘Of course you haven’t. Wait a minute. Is this some past lives thing?’
‘Yes, in a way.’
‘Oh, I see. Now I know what you’re talking about. Fleur gave her daughter a tight smile. ‘The thing is, Jo, that’s all crap. Do you remember Stella? My screwy bookkeeper? She did that past life regression therapy and she was convinced she was a soldier who ran away from some famous battle. It was just her way of looking at what she was, which was bloody useless by the way. All it meant was that she was the sort of—’
‘Mum. I mean this absolutely literally. I have lived in this village many times over and for many, many years.’
‘I know you haven’t been taking your tablets. This is just your old crazy stuff coming back,’ but as Fleur looked at her daughter she was abruptly disconcerted. There were things about Jo that were different – the way she held her head higher, the way she kept a steady gaze on you as she spoke, the jut of her jaw. Fleur was thrown by that without fully understanding why. The stone king and the stone queen could have told her if they had the power to speak. Enough human sorrow had been aired on this bench below them over the centuries for them to understand when a mother mistook a daughter for a part of herself, a part that stood for something she did not like. Two people suffer whenever that mistake is made. Blank stone eyes had seen it. Blank stone ears had heard it. But stone does not speak and the moment passed, unexplained. Fleur had to wait under that steady gaze until Jo was ready to say more.
‘When I first came here,’ she said in the end, ‘there was no church.’
‘Oh no, Jo, that’s impossible. This must be medieval – well no, it’s Norman, isn’t it? That’s a Norman doorway. Do you see? The round arch?’
‘Yes, that’s a Norman doorway. Before that there was a wooden church here and the Saxons built that.’
‘Well then, how could—’
‘It had a thatched roof but that rotted quickly so they put on another one made out of little wooden shingles.’ She looked at her mother, who was staring at the heads over the door as if hoping they would interrupt.
‘That got burnt down in the end,’ the girl went on, ‘but I was here even before the wooden church. That was more than thirteen hundred years ago. I’ve been here ever since.’
Her mother turned to stare at her, frowning. ‘Stop it. That’s enough.’
‘I’m sorry. I have to tell you.’
‘How can I believe this?’ She stood up, opened the heavy oak door and pushed past it into the church. Gally followed. Fleur searched around, found a table with a pile of guides. She picked one up and opened it. ‘Have you been reading this?’ she demanded. ‘Is this where all that came from? Is it?’
Gally shook her head and watched as her mother ran her finger down the pages.
‘It doesn’t help,’ she said in the end. ‘It doesn’t help at all. Uncertain dates, Saxon influence, Norman zigzags. Nothing about a wooden church.’ She collapsed on to a seat. ‘I’m an atheist.’
‘I’m not asking you to believe in God.’
‘I believe that when we die, that’s it. There is nothing else afterwards.’
‘I’m not saying this is some universal thing . . . Mum. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just us.’
‘Us?’
‘Ferney and me.’
‘Ferney? This boy? Is he called Luke or—?’
‘Ferney. He’s Ferney. He always has been. His mother called him Luke but that’s not his real name.’
‘What? You mean it’s just you two. In this whole huge world, it’s just you? That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t say that. I have no idea if it’s just us. Maybe it’s everybody but we remember it – that’s what separates us.’
‘Separates. Yes, that’s a good word. That’s just the way it feels. This feels very separate from me. Hold on. You said his mother called him Luke, but his real name is Ferney?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But your real name’s Jo and I called you Jo. You didn’t choose it. What are you saying – that I somehow guessed your real name? Because that doesn’t . . . Oh, no. Oh my goodness.’
‘Mum?’
‘No, wait. You’re not saying that at all, are you?’
‘No.’
‘You’re saying your real name is something else.’
‘I’ve been Jo for sixteen years, Mum. For us that’s my real name. I’ll go on being Jo for you.’
Fleur looked at her, recognising that she truly was a stranger and was perhaps even to be feared. ‘What is it? No, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.’
‘All right.’
‘Are you saying you can remember all the times you claim you lived here?’
‘The ones that mattered. Most of them, I expect, if I work at it.’
‘How did it start then? Tell me that.’
‘Walk with me,’ said Gally. ‘Let’s go up the lane.’ She wanted to get out of the village, away from chance meetings.
‘Tell me about something – anything,’ her mother demanded as they left the churchyard. ‘Tell me about Henry the Eighth, for example.’
‘It’s not really been about kings and stuff, not in my experience. It’s just been about people.’
‘That’s the way I learnt my history,’ said her mother. ‘The proper way. Kings and battles.’
‘We let the wrong people tell our story for us, don’t we? The newspapers, the TV news, history books are all the same. We let the big egos tell us about the wars and the business deals – all the testosterone stuff. We let the drama enthusiasts tell us about the disasters and the tragedies and the accidents and we end up thinking that’s what the past is, that’s what the present is, that’s what our country is, but it’s not.’
Her mother was looking at her doubtfully, ‘What is it then?’
‘Mostly, it’s a lot of ordinary friendly, generous people over a very long time, doing the best they can in a quiet sort of way. Most of them don’t go round chopping other people’s heads off. We shouldn’t let the people take charge who want to be in charge. They’re the last ones we should trust.’
It was clear her mother didn’t understand any of that. ‘Is he very left-wing, this Ferney person? I’ve never heard you talk like this, Jo.’
‘A lot has happened.’
‘Where are we going? My shoes aren’t meant for this.’
‘It’s not far. I’ll explain when we get there.’
They walked on in difficult silence until they saw the ramparts of Kenny Wilkins’ camp ahead, straddling the road.
‘You see this place?’ said Gally. ‘This is as far back as I go. Do you want me to tell you about it? It might help you understand.’ She raised her voice as a truck laboured past, filling the air with a roar of harsh combustion.
‘It was so different then,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine a world where you don’t have noises like that? Until there were church bells, the loudest man-made sound was the smith beating iron. When a storm came, the thunder was unimaginable, God tearing the sky to shreds, almost enough to make you mad, but we were all good at little noises. We could hear a lark sing a mile away. We knew the voices of every cow. Come with me.’ She led her baffled mother up on to the camp’s earth bank and they pushed through bushes until they faced east out across the valley. ‘Now, imagine the noise an army makes as it approaches. Imagine how that is. You’re on watch up here and you know they’re coming. Scouts have come back to tell you but the rain’s beating down and you can’t see and you can’t hear and you’re hoping they’ve got it wrong. Then the rain lets up and the curtain lifts. For a moment there’s nothing but cows below and a fox barking, until something changes in the valley out of sight so that there is a far murmur, no more than that.’ Her voice had fear in it now. ‘Add up ten thousand breaths and ten thousand footfalls and the rattle of ten thousand blades in ten thousand sheaths and with every footstep and breath and rattle it gets just that tiny bit louder. Then it is no longer a murmur and you can no longer pretend it isn’t there. It is a mumble, then a mutter, then a clatter, then a roar, and by that time it is already far too late to do anything to stop it.’
She turned and faced her mother.
‘This is where it started,’ she said.
CHAPTER 25
She had gone as soon as she put the phone down to her mother. The phone call left Ferney stranded, alone and anxious in a house which belonged to a man who might return at any moment and worried to his core about where his lover had gone. He walked to the hilltop knowing he could see the church from there, hoping to keep a distant eye on Gally. His heart sank as he saw there was already someone sitting on the bench – a complete stranger where no one else should be, a stranger who turned and said, ‘Hello. I think you must be Ferney?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Rachel Palmer.’
‘You’re his lawyer.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. I think that depends on the conversation we’re about to have.’
He looked across the dip to the church far beyond and saw a silver car parked outside but he could see nobody there.
‘Michael Martin has been arrested,’ she said.
‘I know. I was watching.’
‘Were you? Where’s Gally?’
He pointed to the church and as he did so, they saw her walk out of the churchyard with a woman and the pair go off up the lane.
‘Who’s that with her?’ Rachel asked.
‘Her mother.’
Rachel studied the boy standing in front of her. ‘There is something I need to know,’ she said. ‘Mike’s in real trouble but I don’t know if I want to help him.’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘Don’t give me that. You and Gally and your peculiar schemes have got him into this. You owe him some straight answers.’
‘I don’t see that that will do any good. You can’t tell any of it to the police. They’d lock you up too.’
‘Ferney, I’m getting a strong feeling that you don’t really want to help. You haven’t told her, have you?’ said Rachel suddenly, on a hunch. ‘You know perfectly well he’s been arrested and you haven’t told her.’
He didn’t deny it. He just looked straight at her and said, ‘I have to do what I have to do.’
‘Where were you two last night?’
He didn’t answer immediately. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said. ‘You selfish boy. Don’t you care what happens to him at all?’
Ferney shrugged. ‘I don’t owe him anything.’ He was chafing at the bit, staring in the direction they had disappeared.
‘Listen to me, you little horror,’ she said, and that startled him. ‘If I chose to, I could make life pretty difficult for you. If I start rattling your cage, you’ll know all about it. You’ll
have psychiatrists strapping you to a bed before you can say knife. Do you understand me?’
‘There’s no need to be like that.’
‘Oh yes there is. A man who may or may not be a good man is sitting in a police cell right now because of you.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘A clear explanation of why the police showed me photos of Gally and a little girl called Rosie who looked like she’d been through a mincer.’
‘I don’t know about Rosie. I don’t understand about her. I can’t help you.’
‘I think you’re not trying very hard and I think you do know. I’ve worked it out. Haven’t you?’
‘Exactly what have you worked out?’ He didn’t want to hear what was coming because in the back of his mind, he knew it was true.
‘Mike told me Rosie did all those things to herself. At two and a bit years old. I thought he had to be lying, then I went back and did my sums. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh yes you do. It’s the only way the dates work, isn’t it? I know your birthday. It’s part of the police case, for heaven’s sake. I can read an inscription. I’ve seen your old gravestone. There was a gap, wasn’t there? Well?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so. You got me believing this stuff. Don’t start pretending now. There’s a stone saying Ferney Miller died in February 1991. He was eighty-three. Rosie was born the very same day. What a coincidence, eh? There’s another stone saying Rosie died on January the 31st, 1994. You do the maths. You were born in June 1994. That’s what the police file says.’
‘That’s all I know.’
She jumped to her feet and, to her own great surprise, grabbed him by the shirt with both hands.
‘Rosie was you. It’s obvious.’
He shrank back and she let go, then he sat down on the bench, curled into himself, and she sat down next to him. He covered his face with his hands. ‘I can’t go back there,’ he said.
‘You have to.’
‘Why do I have to?’
‘Because I will fight for Michael Martin if you tell me that’s what happened and if you explain why a small child does that to herself, but if you don’t then I’ll walk away and I am almost sure he will go to prison for many, many years. It’s up to you and your conscience if you have one.’