by Jemma Wayne
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Luke sat in an empty pew at the back of the church and clung to his bible. There were no other congregants, only an assortment of children at the front waiting for choir practice, and the organist playing heavy chords. He had known there was no service but had nonetheless left work early. Deeply uncharacteristic, particularly on a day in which everything was going wrong and he was being looked to for solutions. Luke Hunter, who always had the answers. His Blackberry vibrated in his pocket. It might be Vera. It might be John, or his mother. It might be work. It might be all kinds of people for whom he didn’t have answers. Who he couldn’t help. Who he had failed.
Or pushed away. He knew that if he pushed too hard, Vera might never come back to him. They were slipping, slipping, further and further and in opposite directions. He longed to grab her arms, to wrap them around him inside his coat like she used to, to bury himself within them, to never let go. But he didn’t know how to do it. He didn’t know how to deal with her secret, with her son. It wasn’t the sex so much, or the pregnancy. The thought of both was like a thump, hard against his chest. But it wasn’t those things; it was the running away, the abandonment, the abandonment of her flesh and blood. And the continuation of that abandonment. He could understand, almost, barely, a hormone-fuelled, fearful, momentary collapse. But now she was a Christian, and an adult, and supported - why didn’t she want to find the child now? Why didn’t she have that strength? Why didn’t she even talk about him? If only she’d ask, he would support her, he’d be the father, he’d adopt. But it was without the excuse of youth that she continued to shut him out, and cut off her parents, and think nothing of her somewhere son.
Now, when her hand crept onto his arm or his shoulder, her nervous, tentative touch only reminded him of frailty. And so of his mother. And filled him with anger and umbrage. And perhaps Vera sensed this, because lately she seemed to have stopped reaching for him altogether, and didn’t notice the needy twitch of his own useless limbs.
Luke clung harder to the closed book in his hand. The children at the front had started to sing along with the organ and the noise was unexpectedly stifling. Luke heard a door opening and the priest entering the hall. He stood up, clutching still to the bible. By the time he reached the car, his fingers were bone white.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“Hey, sister!” Omar shouted as Emily hurried down the final stairs of her building and stumbled out into the impotent December sun. He was leaning against the wall opposite, locked in close conversation with a friend who wore flowing white trousers, a cream kaftan, and sandals despite the cold. Emily didn’t know this man’s name although he was always with Omar, but she and her new neighbour had taken to greeting each other like proper acquaintances. Most mornings he was there, propping up the building, and despite her apprehension, Emily had begun to look forward to bumping into him like this, though they never exchanged more than a few words and rarely ventured beyond the briefest of niceties.
“You’re early for a Saturday?” Omar stated as a question, his intense eyes brightening slightly as he dug into his back pocket for a cigarette and waited for her reply. He stood as always making a triangle with the wall, his slender shoulders grazing the red brick, his head leant slightly backwards against it so that whenever Emily spoke to him she had to lean in. Smiling, she smoothed down her fringe, aware as she always was of her untidiness against his beauty.
“I work at weekends now,” she informed him.
“Oh?” Omar’s face lit up with interest but his friend tapped him on the arm in an effort to direct him back towards their conversation. The man’s indifference to her was nothing new. Emily was used to him crossing his arms when she appeared, or speaking on the phone, or simply walking away. He had never offered her so much as a handshake, but this time he seemed actively irritated by her presence, or at least fed up with Omar’s continuing dialogue with her. Emily felt uncomfortable. Being inconsequential was one thing, unnoticed was good, but in the face of his seething acknowledgement, danger crawled beneath her skin.
“Congratulations, sister,” beamed Omar, flashing her his movie star smile to make up for his friend’s rudeness. “Does that mean no more night shifts?”
Emily nodded. “I’ve stopped cleaning altogether. I am a full-time carer now.”
“You’re practically a doctor.”
Emily smiled hesitantly, allowing herself to consider this assertion, how proud she was of it. And how, despite the difficulty in revealing some of her past to Lynn, despite how unsettled and dazed she’d felt for days afterwards, now she had begun to feel just the tiniest bit emboldened. Needed. Useful. Omar noticed her smile and his own grin broadened. She liked this grin, but then his friend hit his hand sharply against the wall, landing just short of Omar. “I should go,” Emily mumbled, and turned towards the road.
“See you later!” Omar called after her. Called, but did not move. It seemed that nothing weighed heavily enough on his shoulders to pull him away from idling by a brick wall. Emily shuffled away without looking back, but at the very edge of her periphery she noticed Omar standing up from his eternal recline, bending his head towards his friend, scowling, and the two of them exchanging urgent words. Was it possible that Omar was castigating him on her behalf? Emily smiled again and quickened her pace towards the bus stop.
They were going to tackle the china today, Lynn had told her. Emily would take each piece out of the display cabinet and clean it, and Lynn would tell her where and when and who it was from. In Emily’s bag, was a packet of Jammie Dodgers. And a silver elephant she had decided to return.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Charlie has filed for custody. He tells Vera this in confession, in her flat, a week before Christmas, a few moments after she refuses him sex. She has decorated her living area with white tinsel and Charlie strokes it as he talks, every now and then a sparkly strand coming loose in his fingers. He has had the paternity test, he says, wrapping one such strand around his thumb and not quite looking at her. He has been visiting Charles (as he says he is known) for more than a month now. ‘Presumption of Contact’, he explains, as if this is an explanation. And during the weeks and weeks of, well, unreturned phone calls, he has decided that with or without Vera, he wants his son. Charlie’s face glows as he says the word ‘son’. He twiddles the tinsel strand into a ball, and flicks it into the air like a miniature basketball. Vera nods, her heart tightening a little, but says nothing. She watches the tinsel land and unravel on the floor. Now Charlie moves closer to her on the sofa. He puts his hand under her chin and leaves it there for a moment, studying her, tilting her face upwards. She lets him. It is great fortune, he continues animatedly, that he made contact with St Andrew’s when he did. Charles has not yet been adopted but was about to be placed with his first foster family, which would have made the process much harder, many more legal hoops to jump through. His lawyer’s pleased. He lets go of Vera’s chin and waits for her to say something. “That is fortunate,” she agrees quietly. Charlie smiles. The staff are stunned that he has only just learnt of his paternity, he tells her. At first they were sceptical but now they’ve covered him in plaudits for stepping into his fatherly role so willingly, and he likes this, he admits. But points out that he need not have also stopped drinking and smoking and taking coke - all of which he has done. All of which he has done, he repeats. She congratulates him. He could easily have continued in secret but he wants to be a good father, he reiterates. She nods. He never wanted the abortion. She nods again, slowly. He has thought about it ever since.
“So have I,” Vera mutters carefully.
Charlie frowns, and there is a long silence before he addresses her again. He has a girlfriend, he tells her now, but if Vera wants to get back together, be a family, then for the sake of Charles he will end the relationship. His hand has somehow made its way onto Vera’s thigh. Gently, she pushes it away. And this is when Charlie mention
s that the staff have also been asking about Charles’ mother: Has he seen her recently? How did he find out about the child? Does he want to prosecute? There are legal consequences, it seems, for abandonment.
Vera does not respond and Charlie allows another lengthy pause before getting up and pulling her to her feet. “Of course I’m not telling them V,” he winks, drawing her in for a too-long hug. “Who you are, I mean. Cheer up.”
She smiles, obediently.
“But think about it, okay?”
“Think about what?”
“About us. About whether you want there to be an ‘us’. A family. Because, well, it’s all of us V, or none of us. It’s the whole hog, or else, when I get custody, I’m taking Charles with me. I’ve got a job in New York. And there’s no point mixing him up by introducing him to an absent mother. Don’t you agree? It would be selfish really. Not a very Christian thing to do.
“I’ll be a good dad,” he softens on his way to the door, when she says nothing.
The following day, a Friday, Luke announces that he is taking Vera to Venice. “We need some time for the two of us,” he explains quietly when he appears at her work at midday, a surprise, both of their bags already packed in the back of his Prius. Vera has been sitting at her corner desk in the office surreptitiously Googling the law surrounding child abandonment and she clicks off the screen quickly when Luke appears. She would however like to go through the computer memory more thoroughly. She would like to make sure that the articles citing jail terms, and sites for legal help lines have been properly deleted. Not that it’s the threat of jail that has been consuming her. Or rather, not most. Most, is the question she has been asking herself over and over since Charlie’s ultimatum and cannot answer; the question of whether knowing her son is alive, is enough.
For so long Vera has believed him dead, and at her hands, that merely the knowledge of his living in the city, somewhere, is far more than she had ever dreamed. Far more than she ever deserved. And should, she supposes, be enough. But is it? She isn’t sure now if she can stop with just knowing. If she owes it to her baby not to stop. If she owes it to Charlie to stop. And what the hell she owes herself.
Luke hovers. Vera glances again at her computer and takes her time tidying her desk. Under her stack of files is her bible. This too she has been searching surreptitiously. As she slips the book into her bag, Luke winks and Vera smiles at him. She would love to ask Luke what to do, what he thinks she should do. He would weigh her questions carefully, mull them, pass them through the filter of his goodness, and then he would solve them, with a few words tidying them away, tucked like a strand of escaped hair behind her ear. But he hasn’t mentioned the baby since she told him about it, it is a bump she feels they are smoothing over, and besides she cannot declare to Luke that her son is alive (alive!), because he never knew otherwise. Vera touches her hand to her face, neatening her hair herself. Office chatter rises and falls around them. Luke waits patiently. Waits for her. To be clean. She picks pencils up one by one and carefully tears Post-it notes off pieces of scrap paper. And glances at her screen. Felicity and the other girls saunter over to her desk and grin at Luke with the same admiring look they once gave her engagement ring. Luke smiles and leans one hand against the wall, ever so slightly amused by the attention, or flattered by it? It is the same way he used to look at Vera. But she cannot remember the last time they had such light, fun moments, the last time they felt so close and easy, the last time she noticed him glancing at her in such a benevolent way. Abruptly, she feels saddened by this realisation, and guilty, and a little afraid. Vera shuts her computer down. A co-conspirator, her boss smiles as she is bundled away.
Once they are seated in the car, Luke turns to her. “I know I’ve been distant lately, and impatient, and bad-tempered,” he says softly. “Of course there’s been a lot to think about, but I’ve been praying over it and asking God for a revelation, and I’ve realised that I’ve been unfair, and unkind, and I’m sorry. I’d really like to make it up to you. Will you let me?”
Vera’s heart thumps. Here is the tenderness, the benevolence. Vera ventures across the dark interior to find Luke’s hand. His nails are bitten painfully short. She runs her fingers over the uneven stubs.
She cannot tell Luke that she is meant to be meeting Charlie for lunch. She cannot tell him that today she is meant to be giving Charlie an answer - Luke or Charles. She cannot tell him how sick she feels for having barely even noticed the distance he is trying so hard to cross.
“Of course,” is what she tells him. “Wow, Venice!”
Luke accepts her enthusiasm gratefully and changes gear. “I love you, you know,” he says gently, a whisper of the old him dashing for a moment across his face. “It’s my something true,” he says.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
It was Lynn who had suggested Emily stay when Luke took Vera away for the weekend. To Venice, where she had always wanted to go but never had. Luke had wanted John to make himself available, to pop in to make sure she’d eaten. At first she’d tried to hide this new facet of her disease, but there were too many times now when she couldn’t find the energy to make it down the stairs, or the inclination to eat if she had done. It was strange how food had become merely a requirement. Once, whole afternoons would be planned around cooking, tasting, savouring, sharing. But the ingredients of a meal had returned somehow to their most raw function, a necessity that filled, or stole, a few minutes of her day. Anyway, John couldn’t pop in. His play had matinees at the weekends.
He was there however, when Luke came to say goodbye. She’d made it downstairs that day and was wrapped up in a blanket near the fire. Emily had let John in and she’d heard them joking easily in the hallway. Emily was less rabbit-like with John, less jittery and likely to dart. He had a way of doing that, of encouraging confidence; or perhaps, Lynn mused, it was because Emily felt unthreatened by his sexuality. Lynn, on the other hand, was petrified of it; terrified by the thought of the conversation she planned to have with him. Had to have, if there was to be a chance of making things right between them, and between him and his brother. Had to have, if she was to practise what she intended to preach to Emily: a conviction that talking, unloading, unravelling, truth-finding, was the only way to peace. Was it? Was there such thing as peace? There was no way of knowing but it had at least to be tried. If Lynn was sure of anything now, then it was this: try, do. Do something, that was the thing. Something… more. While there was time; if there was time. Lynn felt itchy to talk again to Emily. But first there was her son, her youngest, whom she had wronged so deeply with perfection, and spoiled with extra slices of cake.
They didn’t know she was listening. Lynn, carrying a plate of homemade banana cake, stood at the door to their shared bedroom and smothered a chuckle with her free hand. Luke was teaching John about girls. They were seven and five. “You have to say they’re pretty,” said Luke. “Even if they’re not. Then they kiss you like this.” He smooched his hand dramatically. “Except on the lips, and if you do it for a really long time then you have to move to France.”
“Mummy says you shouldn’t lie,” John stated, seriously, wrinkling up his nose.
“That’s true,” replied Luke, weighing this up against the other things he’d learned. “But Daddy tells Mummy she looks pretty even when Mummy says she’s so messy she’s going to pull a hedge back into the woods.”
“No he doesn’t. He says she looks stunning,” John corrected, again with complete earnestness.
“Stunning,” laughed Luke, practising the sweep of it.
“Stunning, stunning, stunning!” shouted John, dancing around the room, singing it louder and louder, in delight at his older brother’s giggle.
They began a circuit of the room, sock-clad feet jumping from bed to bed to rug to toy chest. Lynn had banned this game in case of falling, but she waited a moment.
“Angel’s cooking lunch,” John grinned as he came into the sitting room and sat down ne
xt to her on the big sofa. “Smells good. I might stay.” He raised his eyebrows mischievously and Lynn wanted to relax into his jollity, to wait one moment more. But she nodded at him solemnly. He sat. “Why ever are you on the sofa?” he asked. “You never sit on the sofa. You’d be closer to the fire in your chair.”
“I wanted to sit by you,” she answered gently. “I wanted to sit near you while I, tell you something.”
“Tell me what?” He leant forward roguishly, as though about to revel in gossip.
“I don’t think a waistcoat is enough you see, of an explanation.”
John inspected her face carefully, looking she presumed for signs of delusion.
“I know, John,” she told him simply. “I know. And I need you to know that I know, and that I’ve always known, and that I should have let you tell me.”
“Known what, Mother?” John asked, shifting uncomfortably.
“About you.”
He said nothing.
“I’m sorry I made you keep it secret. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me for it. I want you to know that, well, whatever your choices, whatever your, sexuality, I only want you to be happy.”
“Mother, good grief!” John exclaimed, clearly unsettled by the directness of a conversation they’d buried for so long. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you happy, John? Do you, do you have somebody?”
“Mother, really. Angel, come on in with lunch won’t you? We’re going quite barmy with hunger!” There was a responsive clattering from the kitchen.
“John,” Lynn tried again. “I made you hide yourself, I know that, but you needn’t now. It’s my fault. Church and chastity and… claptrap! I drove you away. From all of us. I understand that’s why you keep things so private, so separate. I don’t blame you for it, and if only Luke knew too he might realise - ”
“There’s nothing for Luke to know. Nothing at all to tell Luke,” John interrupted quickly, firmly.