Bad Faith

by Gillian Philip

  Mum dealt with that in the traditional family way: she changed the subject.

  ‘Ming’s parents aren’t home, are they?’ she said. ‘They’re in jail. Long term.’

  RESUME.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. I was still worried about leaving Ming in the house with Dad, who beat people to death with rocks when they touched his daughter.

  ‘You lied to me, Cass.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I didn’t say another word. I didn’t have to. I think she took my point.

  Mum sighed again, but she didn’t sound angry, just tired. ‘You’ll have to come home, Cass. Please.’ Taking a breath, she added, ‘Ming must come too. He can’t stay there on his own.’

  ‘He does it all the time.’ I shrugged.

  ‘It’s different now. It’s not safe. Have you watched the news? They’re whipping up the mobs. An Assembly member was beaten up in the street for suggesting Todd’s death might have been an accident. He said there was no proof of foul play, that Todd might have slipped and fallen in by himself. That won’t do, of course. They want someone to pay.’

  I started to shiver, and couldn’t stop. Wrapping my arms around my body, I hugged it tightly. My mother was silent for a very long time.

  ‘Cass,’ she said at last, my name croaky as if it had fallen out of use and she couldn’t remember how to use it. ‘Cass, if I ever have to go away...’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Suddenly I was screaming at her, I couldn’t help myself. ‘Don’t say that! That’s what Abby said! Why would you have to go away? If you’ve got some other secret just tell me! I can’t stand another surprise, okay? You tell me!’

  She looked so shocked you’d think it was odd that I’d want to be kept informed. I almost hated her for a second.

  ‘You think I like not knowing things?’ I yelled. ‘Sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything! I don’t even know any more what I’ve done! I can’t remember!’

  ‘But you...’

  ‘Mum, there’s a whole month or more still gone. I don’t remember my eleventh birthday.’ I swallowed tears. ‘There’s voices in my head, how’s that ever good? Maybe they told me to do stuff. Maybe I still have blackouts. How would I know?’ My voice rose in pitch, uncontrollable. ‘I’m always down in the ghost wood! How do I know I didn’t kill Todd? Me!’

  Mum stared at me, terrified. She said, ‘How do you know he died in that wood?’

  ‘Because I... because I...’ I didn’t know how to tell her, I just didn’t. And suddenly that wasn’t what was worrying me. My throat tightened.

  ‘Mum. Mum. How do you?’

  To give her credit, she didn’t look away. She smiled a meaningless motherly smile that was meant to reassure me, and then she said, ‘The same way I know you didn’t kill Todd.’

  I wanted her to stop talking now. But I couldn’t speak to shut her up.

  ‘I know you didn’t, Cass. I know that because I killed him myself.’

  • • •

  ‘I saw him walking on the road, right past our house. I thought it was such unbelievable, God-given luck, seeing him go up that way alone, and I had the most desperate need to follow him. To talk to him. That’s all, Cass, I swear it, I didn’t go meaning to harm him. I wanted to hear him say sorry for what he’d done to you, to all of us, but of all the stupid mundane things, I couldn’t find my boots. In the end I grabbed your Dad’s, but they’re too big and I had to rummage around for thick socks. By the time I ran after Todd, he’d gone quite a way. He’s a fast walker. I didn’t catch him up till he was at that disused track, the one that goes into your ghost wood.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Picking up a twig, I began to shred the bark from it. We sat together on Mum’s waterproof jacket, watching the roaring river and not seeing it. Mum had her arms wrapped round her knees, leaning slightly forward, so there wasn’t actually any physical contact between us, but I felt closer to my mother than I had in years.

  She sighed, blinking. ‘It all started spilling out of me straight away, but you could see Todd was panicking. He kept glancing around, like he was afraid someone might hear what I was saying. It’s a quiet road, but cars do go past. One did go by, as we were standing there, but whoever it was hasn’t ever come forward. Anyway, after that Todd really got antsy. He said, look, come off the road. So we did. We walked down the ghost wood track, and once we were out of sight of the road we just kept going, because I couldn’t stop talking. I talked and talked. I think I was crying. And I thought he was listening, I really did. I truly thought I was getting through to him, Cass. I thought even now I could forgive him, if he’d only say sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t up to you to forgive him,’ I said. The words were out before I could think.

  She didn‘t quite meet my eyes. ‘I know that. I know it now, and I’m sorry. But I thought whatever else he was, Todd was a man of God. He must have a conscience, he must be afraid of his own judgement day. That’s what kept me going.’ Mum laughed without a trace of humour. ‘Being that scared would be a punishment in itself.’

  Passing the buck to God, I thought, but I didn’t blame her. If you couldn’t do that, maybe the world would drive you mad.

  ‘He hadn’t a shred of remorse,’ she said bleakly. ‘Your father told me that. But when I realised it was true? I thought all the air had been knocked out of my lungs. Todd didn’t think he’d ever be punished, not even in the next life. He told me to give it up, because who’d believe your father now? Not only was it too late to throw accusations, things had changed. Who’d believe your father about anything?’

  I waited in silence, knowing there was worse to come.

  ‘He knew, you see. Todd knew Gabriel had lost his faith. He said if I knew what was good for me and my family, I’d go home and forget all this.’ Mum frowned, shaking her head as if she still didn’t believe her ears. ‘He actually told me to forget it.’

  I leaned my head against her shoulder. ‘Maybe you should. You did your best.’

  Mum gave a cynical chuckle. ‘The smirk on Todd’s fat face! He reminded me it wasn’t just Gabriel’s job that was at stake. Did I know the criminal penalty for apostasy? Did I know the ecclesiastical one? Well, of course I did. It was one more hold he’d have over Gabriel, one more stick to beat him with, but I still didn’t understand it, I didn’t understand how a Bishop could tolerate an apostate in his diocese. See what I’m getting at, Cass? I was shocked Todd knew, but I was even more shocked that he’d done nothing about it. I asked how he knew about Gabriel’s apostasy and he said Don’t you think I know what a man looks like who’s lost his faith? And he laughed and said, I see one every morning in my bathroom mirror.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I breathed.

  ‘He’d never admit it, of course. Lose his position, his power, his celebrity? Lose that army of youths who worship him? Never. In a way he was as trapped as your father.

  ‘I told him I was sorry. I know how tortured your father is by his loss of faith, and I thought it was like that for Todd, too. He just looked at me with those cold eyes and smiled, and I realised he didn’t give a damn. Not a damn. He had Gabriel at his mercy, he could ruin him at any moment by exposing him, but the fact he was an apostate himself meant nothing to him. It was only politics. He could fake it. And we couldn’t threaten him with exposure in return, because nobody would ever believe me or your father. Not in a thousand years.’

  What must it have been like? I knew how it felt, that rage that fills you up, like trying to pour too much water into a glass. You just can’t do it. You can’t stop it spilling. Poor Mum.

  I pressed closer, till she leaned back and put an arm round me. ‘How did you...’

  ‘He turned his back on me, Cass. He told me to forget it, and he turned his back on me. That’s what I couldn’t bear. It was so... contemptuous.’ She stared down into the gorge.

  I swallowed. ‘Spur of the moment thing, then?’

  ‘He’d moved down the slope, trying to get away f
rom me. I’d followed. We were at the bottom of the slope and I was a little above him. And he dismissed me, like all he cared about was watching the river. He practically... he practically...’

  Asked for it. I stared at her. Shamefaced, she averted her eyes, and didn’t say it.

  ‘There were stones at my feet, big river stones, as if someone had put them there just for me. My head was spinning with hate. I didn’t think, couldn’t think, I could barely see for hatred. I picked one up and slammed it into the side of his head. He went down like a... down like a...’

  ‘Stone,’ I said. That part must have been easy, impulsive. I tried to picture the next bit, the bit where she slammed the stone down again and again, but my mind wouldn’t let me.

  ‘Oh, Cass.’ Mum looked dreamily into the middle distance. ‘I’d already been involved in violent death, hadn’t I? I didn’t wield that rolling pin, but I covered for my mother, Abby and I both did. I manhandled a broken corpse into a suitcase and stuffed it in a hole in the wall. It hardens you, Cass, over time. It just does, when there’s no way to confess, no way to get the poison out of your soul. If Todd had known that, he might not have made such a terrible misjudgement, but he didn’t know. A terrible mistake. His last mistake.’

  I sat there letting chills run up and down my spine, but Mum was calm.

  ‘I didn’t panic straight away. I didn’t feel anything as I walked away, but when I came back to the track it dawned on me what I’d done, and I ran. I crossed the road and went up to the steading and went home that way. No-one saw me. Except your Dad. I thought he was at his meeting but he’d been walking up on the hill and he saw me cross the road. He can always read my mind. He nagged me for days, till I told him everything, and then he was as scared for me as I was for him. He went to the wood, but by that time the body was gone.’

  I thought I’d better keep my mouth shut at this point.

  ‘Todd must have drowned when the water rose.’ She shrugged. ‘Got washed away. Maybe he got stuck underwater for a while, but I knew he’d come back, I’ve been waiting, and they’re bound to trace it to me. Your Dad wants to take responsibility. He says he’s a One Church cleric and they’ll let him off lightly, but I know that isn’t true. It’d be worse for him. Much worse. I won’t let him take the blame, so I wanted to warn you. And explain, so you don’t think too badly of me. Because if I’m arrested, I may not get another chance to talk to you.’

  All I could do was stare at her. She felt empty under my touch, as if I could nudge her and she’d simply blow away into the gorge like tumbleweed. My own head was so full it ached, and I shook it and shook it till I’d shaken it to the top, that thing she’d said that was all wrong.

  ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘He didn’t drown, Mum. How can you think that?’

  ‘Oh, Cassie, he was alive when I left him. I could have gone for help and I should have.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I could have pulled him away from the water. But I didn’t. I let him die.’

  I started to laugh then, I couldn’t help it, and Mum stared at me as if I’d gone mad. She looked hurt, and bewildered, and so frightened for me that I started to feel bad. So though I wanted to go on laughing, I made myself stop, and we sat there in electric silence.

  ‘Cass,’ she said in a trembling voice, ‘you haven’t told me.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You haven’t told me how you knew. How you knew he was in the wood.’

  ‘Same way I know he didn’t drown, Mum. You didn’t kill him.’ I gave her a happy inappropriate grin. ‘Somebody got there after you. He’d a hole in his skull the size of a fist.’

  20: Don’t Look Back

  ‘Jeez, I bet that took some explaining,’ said Ming. ‘How you knew that.’

  ‘Not half.’ I grinned at him.

  We were both a bit out of breath, having run and dodged, giggling, halfway from my home. Griff was still stalking us. Hard habit to break, I guess.

  ‘Think we shook him off?’ Slipping his hand into mine as we walked on, Ming glanced back.

  ‘I think so. Poor Griff. We could just have waited for him. Now we know he isn’t going to kill you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ His fingers tightened on mine. ‘But I want you to myself for a bit. It’s not like we’ll get left on our own once I’m staying at your house.’

  I laughed. ‘Not ever again. Mum’s just mad as hell. She doesn’t want to fall out with me, but she won’t take her eyes off us.’

  ‘I’ll have to suck up to her like mad. Do the dishes every night. How much slave labour will make up for your chastity?’

  That made me laugh again, but I was still glad to be going home. It would feel safer and far more normal than Ming’s. I had only my backpack to pick up, and Ming didn’t want to take much: a few changes of clothes and his toothbrush, and Keyser Soze of course. God knew what we were going to do with him. I had a notion involving a syringe and some merciful barbiturates, but I supposed we’d have to give the brute house room for a while.

  We could have asked Dad to drive us to Ming‘s place (no, he hadn’t battered Ming to death; indeed Ming said he was pretty civilised, given the circumstances) but we needed the air. Somehow, after the saturated days that had gone before, the air was breathable again, and we wanted to breathe it, make our heads float with it. The absence of lashing endless rain made you grin whether you felt like it or not.

  Besides, I still felt absurdly happy at clearing my mother of any wrongdoing except for hitting Todd on the head with a stone and knocking him out. And let’s face it: who wouldn’t?

  The only trouble was, it meant I wasn’t off the hook myself. Nor, strictly speaking, was Dad. But somehow I felt lighter of heart than I had for weeks. I was losing my cosy existence with Ming, but I was losing my guilty conscience about it, too (oh, that upbringing of mine). And he was coming home to stay with us for a while. That was even better.

  Even Griff’s presence wouldn’t be too oppressive, since these days he seemed to want to live and let live. He still kept an eye on us, but a protective one. And we were still good at giving him the slip. Like now.

  ‘I heard from my cousin,’ said Ming.

  ‘That means you’re really going,’ I said. I kept my voice as level as I could. No point making a fuss; this might be Ming’s idea but it wasn’t his fault. One of these days he’d be back. Why make it harder for him in the meantime?

  ‘Uh-huh. If I can get across the border and call him, he’ll pick me up and give me a place to live. Try and find me a job. Handle my asylum application. He says they might not even intern me, if I stay at his place and report every day. It won’t be so bad, Cass. Better than here.’

  I chewed my cheek. ‘Will you get over the border okay?’

  ‘Yeah. The government can’t focus on the border while there’s so much else happening. Did you hear? They’re trying to root out the secularist bases on the islands again, and there’s uproar in the Assembly. Two members have been arrested.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ I still couldn’t get too excited about politics.

  ‘So I’ll go south and I’ll slip across the border at night. There’s wild places. People who help. I’ll miss you, Cass. Wait for me?’

  He slipped it in quite casually, and he didn’t even sound too optimistic about my answer.

  ‘Course I will,’ I told him, a little crossly because there was no need for him to ask, and it kept me from crying.

  So he squeezed my hand, and that was that. It was a contract.

  We walked in contented silence, a whole street. The nicest walk of my life, and one I’ll remember on my deathbed. Ming’s lips were moving slightly, and I knew he was just singing to himself in absolute silence. He used to do that when he was much younger and I used to amuse myself trying to guess the song. I was almost never right.

  I was still watching him, sidelong, as we turned the corner. That’s why I saw his mouth form an obscenity, and I heard it clearly when he said it again out loud. He was staring ahead.
I didn’t want to, I knew that from the look in his eyes, but I followed his gaze anyway.

  There were people milling about, bodies hunched, a madness in the air. Others were hurrying past, panic in every taut angle of their bodies, pretending not to see. A single cop was talking laconically into his radio. I couldn’t look at any of them, only at what hung from the old swing frame in the playground, dangling between the disused swings that were slung over the crossbar by their chains.

  At first I thought maybe it was a shop dummy someone had put there for a joke. Not a very funny joke, certainly, but it couldn’t be real. And then I knew it was. The body hung motionless in the clear evening air, toes pointed downward like a ballet dancer, neck wrenched, tongue swollen and poking from its lips. That’s all I made out, that and the placard hung round its neck that said: NO SODEMY. JUSTISE FOR BISHOP TODD.

  ‘Turn round,’ said Ming, gripping my shoulder. ‘Walk. Don’t run.’

  I couldn’t. Not for the life of me. Because pallid and distorted as the creature was, I recognised it now. No, not it. Him, him, him. Sallow skin turned ashen, and dark floppy hair. Dull eyes that had lost their hunted nervousness, lost everything. It was the boy from Ruth’s gang, her protected henchman, her shadow.

  Ming hauled at my shoulder. ‘Go!’

  My limbs wouldn’t do anything by themselves so it was just as well he was ordering me around. That corpse terrified me. I could barely take my eyes off it. HIM.

  ‘But we have to...’

  ‘The police will come,’ snarled Ming. ‘We can’t do anything, it’s over. Don’t look.’

  It seemed a terrible inhuman thing to walk away, to not look. It seemed like abandoning the thing that hung there, abandoning the person it used to be, pretending it didn’t exist and never had. I never exchanged one word with the boy. I never even knew his name, but I knew him.

  I owed it to him to look. Was that rubbernecking? If it was, I understood the compulsion. ‘But...’