‘I can walk,’ she whispers.
But I don’t put her down. I turn around with her in my arms and Melanie wordlessly opens the front door. I walk out with my baby in my arms.
I could have lost her. But I didn’t. Never again will I be so careless with her.
I put her on my bed and she looks up at me drowsily. The stress has worn her out. She looks so small and defenseless in my bed. Her fingers are curled into a light fist. I circle the wrist, shocked at the fragility of the bones in her hand. Gently I rub my thumb along the pulse leaping on the pale underside of it. Her vulnerability terrifies me. Scares me. Makes me feel weak.
‘Sleepy?’
‘Hmmm…’ she hums.
I sense her slipping away, drifting into dreamscapes where I will not be. I pull her closer toward me. When she is awake there is always a part of her that remains aloof and watching. She is like a forest. Deep and dark. You can lie or howl in it. She murmurs something that I don’t catch, and snuggles in, accidentally scrapes her face against my forearm, and winces.
My breath catches. I can’t bear to watch her in pain.
She is wearing cotton pajamas. An erotic seduction it is not. It is so demure it makes her seem a child. I guess this must be what fathers feel when they watch their daughters sleep—absurdly protective. The collar of her top shifts and my heart fucking stops. I stare in horror at her neck.
Fucking bastard bit her.
Bit her so fucking hard he broke her skin. That piece of shit marked my woman! I ease myself out of the bed carefully and pad into the living room. The rage is nauseating and gut-churning. It is so all encompassing I can’t even think straight. I want to go back to his fucking poky little flat and finish the job, but he won’t be there. He’ll be behind glass in Intensive Care by now. I go to the bar and pour myself a large measure of Jack Daniel’s. I drain it in one swallow and slam the glass on the bar surface, so hard the noise reverberates like a gunshot. I press my palms to my temples.
‘Stop. Just stop,’ I tell myself.
But the desire to go out and bash his sick head in is so strong I have to physically fight myself. I stride out to the balcony. It could rain anytime. I throw my head back and take large gulps of air. I feel like a volcano about to erupt. I would have loved to go out running. A couple of miles and some of this pent-up energy would’ve been gone, but I can’t leave her alone.
‘He’s not worth going to prison for. I have already broken his legs and hands in at least a few places and smashed his kneecaps. Not to mention the shitbag’s ribs and jaw.’
I reach into my pocket and retrieve his mobile phone. Before I click into his photo file I take a deep breath. Then I press the button. The shock of seeing her pinned on the ground, her eyes full of fear and horror is harder to take than I had anticipated. I stare at it hard. And yet she didn’t want to call the police!
My fists clench hard as I force myself to calm down. ‘Let it be. Leave it be.’
Eventually my pulse returns to normal, the boiling rage goes. In its place comes guilt. I shouldn’t have left her alone and unprotected. I should have protected her better. That was my job.
I take the battery out of the phone and toss them both into my safe. I very much doubt it, he is a little coward, but I might still need it. Chance favors the prepared mind.
I go back to the bedroom and stand over her. Her hair is fanned out on the pillow, her lip is split, her face is swollen and bruised. How strange that the split, the swelling and the bruise have only made her more precious and intriguing. She moves, dislodging the sheet down to her waist and exposing a small strip of skin between her pajama top and bottom. It is milky white and flawless and it gives me great pleasure to claim ownership of it.
I watch the easy rhythm of her breath going in and out. It is strangely seductive and I watch her for a long, long time. Part of me is shocked by the strength of the emotion I feel. Part of me is in awe of it. I never thought I would ever feel this way for a woman. The signs are all there.
I watch her slip into a restless dream. She turns and tosses. I reach out and slot my finger inside her loosely curled fist. She makes an odd sound and tightens her grip. And then, while still deep in her dream, she says the oddest thing. Something I never in my wildest dreams thought I would hear from her lips.
TWENTY
LILY
I wake up with my head throbbing and my body aching. I stretch and wince and then realize that I am in Jake’s bed. He is sitting at the foot of the bed watching me.
‘Good morning,’ he says softly.
I groan a reply.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Worse than yesterday.’
He stands up and comes to my side. ‘Need some help getting out of bed?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I reply, but he bends down and gently lifts away my upper body, and puts pillows under my back.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he says so close to my ear, I am filled with the fresh scent of him.
‘Have you been awake long?’
‘About an hour. I’ve got to go soon, but I wanted to get some food into you before I leave. Alicia will be around later with some magazines and if there is a book you want she can get it from the bookstore. Just call her.’
‘Am I going to be staying here tonight?’
His jaw tightens. I recognize it. He is about to impose his will on me again. ‘I’ve moved all your stuff here. You’ll be staying here from now on.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not open to discussion, Lily. You’re staying here.’
I lift my hands in disbelief. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘Impossible is a dare.’
‘Jake, you can’t do things like this. You can’t just move my stuff in here and tell me I’m going to be living here from now on. You have to ask me and I have to agree.’
‘Asking would imply a choice.’
I give a gasp of laughter. ‘Yes, that’s right. At least give a girl the illusion of choice.’
He folds his arms across his wide chest. ‘Would you like to move in here?’
‘I’ll stay here for a few days and then we’ll talk about it.’
‘See why asking is stupid?’
‘I’m not a child, Jake. You can’t decide for me.’
He walks up to me. ‘Don’t you get it? I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know you are safe.’
I look into his face and I know he is telling the truth. ‘It could have happened to anyone,’ I say quietly.
‘It didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to you.’
‘I don’t think he will be in any fit state to come back after last night, will he?’
‘I protect what’s mine, Lily.’ No remorse. His face is icy calm.
I sigh. My head is throbbing and I simply don’t have the energy to fight with him. ‘OK, OK, let’s talk about it when I’m better.’
‘Want some breakfast?’
‘Yeah, I do. I want some ice cream.’
‘For breakfast?’
‘I was always allowed to eat ice cream when I was feeling poorly,’ I say without thinking and realize what I have said.
In the morning light his eyes are suddenly sparkling emeralds. Impenetrable. But what comes out of his mouth is mild and friendly. ‘What flavor?’
‘I like pistachio and vanilla, but I’ll have whatever is in your freezer.’
He only has cookies and cream so I have a bowl of that. He watches me eat and then he has to leave. ‘I’ll be back at lunchtime,’ he says, and kisses me lightly on the cheek that is not swollen and throbbing.
When I hear the door shut I slowly get out of bed and limp into the spare bedroom where I know my things will have been put temporarily. I see my guitar propped up against a cupboard. I fetch it and sitting on the bed I strum it. I’m a mess inside. I’ve got all kinds of crazy emotions. Maybe I am still in shock about what happened to me yesterday, but I feel totally numb. No emotions at all
. All I can remember is Jake, blood splattered with helpless tears pouring down his face. I think of the last time I cried and cried and could not stop. My fingers start moving on the strings. My mouth opens and words come out.
Strumming my pain with his fingers.
Always the same song. Always the same sadness.
Killing me softly with his song. Killing me softly.
I forget my surroundings and go back into that place where everything is right in the world. My parents have gone to the movies. I can hear my brother downstairs eating jam sandwiches and making a mess of the kitchen. It is raining outside and I am lying on my bed, my palms folded under my head, looking at the lightning flashes in the sky.
I finish the song and there is a noise at the door. I turn around too quickly, pain jars in my ribs. Jake is standing there staring at me. He seems pale under his tan.
‘Why are you home?’ My voice sounds accusing. I did not mean it to be so.
‘I don’t know why I came back,’ he says. He walks up to me and kneels in front of me. ‘I didn’t know you could play the guitar so well.’
I shrug. It hurts to. ‘Now you know.’
He slides his finger down my unhurt cheek following the path of my tear. ‘Who were you crying for, Lil?’
I freeze. ‘No one. I wasn’t crying for anyone.’
‘Do you come with instructions, Lily Hart?’ he asks gently, but his eyes are searching and concerned. Who knows how much longer he will be so patient with me?
Three days later I sit on the toilet seat and watch him immerse himself beneath the bubbles. When he pops up again he is wearing a hat of foam. He wipes the suds from his eyelids. So endearing it makes my heart beat faster. When he opens his eyes I am startled anew by how beautiful they are. I try not to stare at the taut muscles of his shoulders.
‘My mother wants to meet you.’
My eyes widen.
‘You’ll like her.’
‘It’s a bit early.’
A shadow passes his eyes. ‘It’s not too early, Lil. We are a very close family.’
‘I’m not ready, Jake. Anyway, look at the state of me. I can’t meet your mother like this.’
‘OK, I’ll take you when all your bruises have faded.’
I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks, Jake.’
TWENTY-ONE
MARA EDEN
My firstborn comes to visit me, and the instant he walks through my door I know: there is a new woman in his life. It is there for all to see. The sparkle in his eyes, the faint flush on his cheekbones. And I am ecstatically happy. I am forty-nine and I want to see my first grandchild.
I never tell anyone, but my Jake is my private sorrow. From the time he was fifteen he has known nothing but responsibility and brutality. At fifteen he was held down and made to watch his father cut from ear to ear and given the choice by the men his gambler father had borrowed money from: work for us and pay off your father’s debts or watch your entire family die in the same way.
When he came home that day, the Jake I knew was already dead. There were no tears. No mourning. He set to work immediately and relentlessly. He would work all night, sleep for three hours and go back to work. It took him two years to pay off his father’s debts. I know he had to do a lot of bad things, but he did it for us, for me, Dominic, Shane, and for our little’un, Layla.
In time he made a lot of money, he bought me this beautiful house, the car I have, pays for my holidays, and he gives me a monthly allowance that I never seem to be able to spend all of. He himself lives in a mansion with a swimming pool, wears fancy clothes, owns fancy cars and has too many fancy women, but until yesterday I have never seen him happy.
‘Is she one of us?’ I ask.
‘No. But she’s beautiful, though,’ he replies. And there is such pride in his voice that I marvel at it.
‘Bring her to see me, then,’ I say.
After I tuck a basket of homemade jam and a Tupperware of his favorite Madeleine cakes into the well of his passenger seat, I wave him off, close my door and run to my altar. I go to give thanks to the Black Madonna. She is the patron saint of my family. For generations we have venerated her and she has given us visions. My grandmother, my mother, even me. She told me when my husband was going to be murdered: I was standing in prayer when I had a vision. I saw him raise his hand and apologize to me.
‘I’m sorry, Mara, but I have to leave.’
The next day he was dead.
With a smile I light a red candle and stand in front of the Madonna’s statue. But as I begin to pray I have such an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that my knees buckle and I fall to the floor. While I am sprawled on the floor the vision comes. I see a bullet rushing toward my Jake. And I see blood. It seeps quickly into his clothes. I lie on the floor stunned and biting the fist that I have jerked to my mouth.
You see, from the day Jake’s innocence was snatched away from him I have never known peace. Not even in sleep. The terror lies coiled like a snake in the deep, dark pit of my belly ready to rear its head at a moment’s notice. Its day has come. It stares at me with baleful eyes.
With a cry I race to my phone and call Queenie. She is my grandmother’s friend. A woman with a great gift. The spirits talk to her through the cards. I call her and I am weeping.
‘Come now,’ she says.
She lives in a caravan on a field. I get into my car and drive the twenty miles to her. I park my car at the edge of the field and walk quickly to her home. She opens the door in her dressing gown and invites me in. Her face is round, the eyebrows plucked clean and penciled with brown eyeliner. Underneath them are a pair of large black eyes with a rim of white between the pupil and the lower lid that gives her face the look of a victimized saint. Her mouth is small, the lips shriveled. On Brighton Pier she is known as Madame Q, a charlatan, and loony bin.
I climb the steps and enter her abode. It is spotlessly clean and the sun is shining in through the net curtains, but it is full of mysterious shadows. It reminds me of my grandmother’s caravan—same net curtain, same love of crystals, little painted porcelain figurines, and potted plants on the windowsill.
‘I’ll make some tea. Or would you like something stronger?’ she asks.
‘Tea,’ I say quickly.
She nods and puts a kettle on to boil.
‘Sit down, Mara. You’ll wear my carpet out,’ she says, pouring tea leaves into a teapot.
I stop pacing the tiny area and sit on a dainty sofa with embroidered, tasseled cushions. My leg shakes. It always does when I am nervous or frightened. It shook when my mother was ill, and it shook uncontrollably when Jake used to go out in the night to take care of ‘something’.
She pours boiling water into the teapot and, placing it on a tray that she has already set with dainty cups and saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl, carries it to me. She puts the tray down on the small table in front of me, sits back and looks at me with her large, soulful eyes.
‘We’ll let it sit for a moment, shall we?’
I nod gratefully. ‘I’m afraid for my son.’
‘Let’s see what the cards say.’
‘Yes. Please.’
She reaches under the table and takes out an old wooden box. It is carved with intricate patterns. She puts it on the floor next to her legs and takes the cards out. They have strange markings on the back that are almost obliterated with use, and yellowed dirty edges. She shuffles them lovingly in her gnarled hands—the arthritic knuckles are the hue of church candles. She hands the pack to me.
I take it with frightened hands. Many times in my life the cards have revealed true things about my life—some small, some vitally important, some painful.
‘Think of him,’ she instructs.
I shuffle the cards and think of Jake. Deliberately, I think of him looking happy. I think of him strong and vital. I don’t infect the cards with my own fear and worry.
‘Give them back to me when you are ready.’ Her voice is level and diagnosti
c, and as pitiless as an immigration officer or prison warden.
I shuffle the deck one more time and give the cards back to her.
She takes them and spreads them into a semicircle on the table. ‘The Black Madonna protects you. Let your cry come unto her,’ she says softly.
I make the sign of the cross over my chest.
‘Pick only one.’
I ignore the creeping sense of foreboding and choose a card. The lovers.
She glances at it with a carefully blank expression. ‘Pick another.’
I take the card that is second from the last on the left-hand side and hand it to her silently. My heart is thudding against my ribs. My hands are clasping and unclasping incessantly on my lap. A diabhal. The devil.
She looks at the card and raises her eyes appraisingly toward me.
‘One last card.’
I close my eyes and let my trembling hand hover over the semicircle. With a prayer in my heart I fish one out. I hand the card to her without looking at it, but I already know. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
She frowns at the cards. It’s a hot day but I feel the chill spread over my skin, making my hair stand on end. She lays the three cards down on the table. Slowly she strokes the card in the middle with her forefinger. Her nail is thick and yellow.
‘An túr,’ she says. The tower. She doesn’t look up at me. Finally, she raises her martyr’s eyes, her expression portentous, and speaks.
‘Beware the woman who is wounded, beautiful and ruthless. She has soot and death in her mouth.’
My mouth opens with horror at her terrible words.
Her black eyes flash, her voice is a shade fainter. ‘You can still pray to the Madonna for a miracle. The abyss may not come to pass.’ She gathers the cards with a snap. ‘Perhaps.’
QUOTE
There is a sign on the door that can’t be missed.
It reads:
Enter but at your own risk.
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