by Jo Baker
In my lap, Sammy curled round on his side; his thumb slid into his mouth.
“Those are the last memories Gracie has. She weren’t poorly back then, or we didn’t know yet, if she were. She got properly poorly after Sarah died.”
“How did it happen?”
“Sarah? She took an overdose. This stuff called ketamine. Have you heard of it?”
I nodded.
“They say it gives you hallucinations; too much and it messes up your lungs, and then it stops your heart. She’d taken off her clothes; she were out in the snow, but it were like she were too hot. And all the time we thought she were tucked up safe at her friend Judith’s. So the last thing she said to us were a lie.”
He cleared his throat. The collie got up from the rug and came over and lay her chin on his lap, and he stroked her forehead with a calloused thumb. “She were a good lass and expected that of other people; it weren’t her fault if he took advantage.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He raised a shoulder. “It were term-time so he were at college, he said, like that meant owt; like he couldn’t get up here in a few hours in his car. They checked her phone records but, nothing.”
“You suspect…?”
“I reckon. I believe. They arranged it in advance. The place they used to go to in the woods, middle of the night, middle of his term, meeting up together like they did before the summer ended. He brought the stuff. Persuaded her to take it.”
“Was there no evidence?”
“His dad’s a lawyer, so. Nicholas played it all so well. Stuffed his car on the bypass not long after, dropped out of college. Like he were all messed up. But also the car went in the crusher and that’s that. He got himself admitted to some nuthouse, breakdown they said, heartbroken. And it were never considered a crime. Misadventure, they said. Like I said, she had a reputation.”
“But you don’t believe that?”
“She’d promised us she wouldn’t take anything. Once she knew about the baby.”
I rubbed my arms. I remembered a class, early in the MA, how I’d talked about story structure, about pebbles dropped into a pool, and charting the ripples that they made. What pebbles had Nicholas dropped, I wondered; what ripples had he watched run…?
“He’s back now, swanning around without so much as a by-your-leave,” Mr. Metcalfe said. “And I tell you what, I ever see him up this way, I’ll shoot the little get right in the face. And I’ll call that misadventure.”
“You’d go to prison. And then what would Grace do?”
He tilted his head at this, mouth hard.
Then I said, “I’ve had dealings. With Nicholas.”
He gave me an appraising look. “Are you alright, love?”
I cleared my throat. “He’s out of the picture for a bit, you’ll be glad to hear. He’s in a psychiatric unit.”
“First sign of trouble, and old man Palmer fixes him up in some comfy ward. The sly get.”
“Anyway, I feel better, knowing he’s locked up. Thought maybe you would too.”
“Aye well, that’s not where he belongs.” He moved the dog’s head aside, then pressed his hands down on his blue-overalled knees and groaned up to his feet. “You need owt, you knock for us, eh. I’d best be getting on.”
* * *
—
I walked the three hundred yards home in a swarm. I thought how Nicholas only wrote the truth and how I’d seen him twist it. How his truth wrapped around and slotted into John Metcalfe’s like the black and white curls of yin and yang. What he’d said in class about death and telling lies and trigger warnings. If he had indeed been there the night she died. If he had given her the ketamine. If he had known that it was too much. If he had watched her take it, watched her sweat and struggle and peel off her clothes, watched her sink down in the snow to die. If he had considered it all with a cool appraising eye…That was a lot of “if”s. That was five “if”s in a row. And at any one of them, my line of thinking could stumble and fall. Except that there was this: Sarah had been John Metcalfe’s sunshine, a young woman with an inner life and friends and interests and a future; and all of it was so ordinary and beautiful and full. But when Nicholas wrote about her, the lost girl’s only meaning was what she meant to him.
A raw dripping cold. Snow sliding from bare branches, landing with a hush. The beck whispering to itself again, burbling over stones. Sun shafting through low cloud and the temperature creeping up, and the snow creeping away.
A black-and-white springer thunders through the woods, nose to the ground, tail thwacking; she circles away and back, away and back, from the straight dotted line the man walks. A heavy man, heading for his work. Pheasants need feeding, or they roam looking for food, and aren’t there when they’re wanted for the shoot. From time to time he brings a whistle to his lips; only the dog can hear, and she comes galloping; sits, has her head ruffled. G’lass.
He trudges along through crusted mud. High up on the bank above him, among the beeches, the dog barks. He whistles but she doesn’t come. Whistles again. She doesn’t come. She whines now, yowls; he’s never heard sounds like this from her before. Dreading the hurt she’ll have done herself, the blood and pain and vet’s bills, he’s scrambling up the bank till he is under the tall beeches, and he is stopped dead, in his footprints.
The body is blue-white against the rotting beech-mast. The dog is snuffling round it, wagging anxiously, whimpering. He pushes the dog aside.
He sinks to his knees, presses his fingers into her throat. He knows her.
There is no pulse. No warmth. His thoughts stumble through a web of connection, her mother father brother friends, and out along a life that should have spun ahead of this girl, lying here, cold as the earth. Sarah.
TRINITY
The meeting of the Disciplinary Committee was set for the last week of term; I was to submit a statement a fortnight in advance. I’d planned to tell it straight and simple, just refute the accusation of favouritism. But somehow it just wouldn’t let itself be told that way.
Huddled up in isolation, the words came; they filled pages. The document swelled and grew; other voices nudged themselves in. I barely spoke a word to anyone apart from Sammy. I’d nod to John Metcalfe maybe, wave across a field to their son James, or say thank you to the grocery delivery driver. Sammy and I were curled up together in a mammalian ball, backs turned towards the world, communicating in murmurs and nudges and squeezes.
It stopped raining. A whole week went by and the sun shone. I’d glance up and there’d be blue.
I saw the jay again, swinging on a lilac branch; maybe it was a narrow escape the day it left feathers on the path. Or maybe it was a different jay.
I noticed small things, though. Details. The heather in bloom. Two humps of it, one on either side of the concrete front path, smelling sweet as honey, tiny bees picking their way through it. I noticed the different birds’ song, though I couldn’t name them all yet. I watched the blackbirds in the lilac, and the scythe-billed curlews as they peeped and flapped over the moor. There were crowds of black and white oystercatchers in the back field, that rose shrilling into the air as we approached the garden fence; their flight was rendered as an intricate paper web in Sammy’s Pop-Up Book of British Birds. The trees were suddenly gorgeous, green and burgundy, the chestnuts spread their hands like magicians, and the hawthorns frothed with milky blossom. I really fell in love with the place then, that late spring, early summer, Trinity, when it was already too late for me to fall in love.
I did tell John Metcalfe about Nicholas’s eyrie, though, and he came and took the ladder away and nailed boards across the trapdoor, making it inaccessible, but keeping it all locked away up there, preserved as evidence.
“Been thinking we could sell the old place,” he said.
“The barn?”
“The whole lot. Get ourselves a ni
ce little bungalow somewhere, maybe Silverdale.”
“Won’t James take the farm on when you retire?”
“It was always going to be Sarah’s. James does his best, but his heart’s not in it. There’s nothing for him round here, a lad like him.”
* * *
—
One Tuesday afternoon, the postman’s van pulled up at the verge and a letter flumped through the front door and landed on my mat. It was from Hartwells, my lettings agency. A change in circumstances, the letter said: the proprietors suddenly found themselves obliged to put the house on the market, and I was hereby given notice. Until that particular moment, when I stood in the hallway with the unfolded letter in one hand, and the torn envelope in the other, birdsong coming through the open door and Sammy pootling up the hallway trailing a purple lilac bloom from his fist, I hadn’t made the connection between this house and that family. Everything had gone through the agency; I hadn’t met the owners; or at least I thought I hadn’t. When I signed the lease the name had meant nothing to me. Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Palmer.
We were leaving anyway; this was just them handing me my hat and showing me the door. But house-hunting would have to wait; everything else would have to wait until I’d got this written.
* * *
—
It was like that for weeks, quiet, work-filled, inward; and then it wasn’t.
It was late; I was in my favourite white cotton pyjamas, and had my blue and white scarf wrapped round my shoulders and thick socks to keep out the night-time chill. Beyond the faint hum of the laptop and the tap of my fingers on the keys, other noises came to me like echoes: the ghost of an owl’s cry, the after-shock of a fox’s yelp, and the sheep calls across the fields like memories.
But when Nicholas wrote about her, the lost girl’s only meaning was what she meant to him.
I clicked Save and closed the laptop, and stretched out the ache in my shoulders, and ambled through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. It was late; it was nearly midnight. I felt exhausted, but also satisfied. I felt that I had told my truth.
I opened the back door and leaned there, looking up at the full, bone-white moon, breathing in the scent of lilac and of cow dung and catnip. The kettle came to a boil, and clicked off; I turned to make the tea and caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the window, hair a scrubbed-up mess, white PJs, pale scarf around my shoulders. I set the kettle down. I was back in that rainy evening, months ago: Sammy standing in the sink, staring out the window, fists on the glass.
Man, he’d said.
Man.
At the time I’d thought that it was John Metcalfe out in the fields, or that Sammy had imagined it. But when he’d helped me get a babysitter, Nicholas already knew where we lived. I’d assumed it was from the bus; but it could equally have been from a letter left lying open months before, from the copy of the lease that I’d signed and carefully returned in August. He could have been expecting us. He could have been out there, even then, watching. It could have been Nicholas that Sam had seen.
And. I rubbed at the back of my neck, where a shiver grew.
And.
My photo was on the departmental website. My photo was also on the back flap of my book. But when we met, that first time, on the square, no hint of recognition, just the sly flattery of taking me for a student. Nudging me along, nudging me with glimpses of vulnerability and talent and trust. Nudging me into being what he wanted, into doing what he wanted. And when I didn’t want to do it, he went on with his narrative anyway. Making me a character in his story. Writing his version of me.
A flare of professional irritation now, as well as fear: Why couldn’t he do what the rest of us did and just make something up?
I closed the door now, and locked it, then went to check the front door was properly locked too. I climbed the stairs in moonlight, the curtains undrawn. Upstairs, I looked in on Sammy, who was sleeping, then I went to the bathroom. I’d spooked myself; I knew he was in a secure unit, but still…I had to share this with the police. This was not just about that night now. It was not just about me.
The moonlight was strong through the bathroom window so I didn’t bother switching on the light. I scrubbed at my teeth. I was thinking about the happenstance of all of it, how someone could just crash into your life and send you sprawling, and you just have to stagger on in your new trajectory and adjust to it, or fight your way back to the old course and try to hold it steady though you’re still reeling and can’t catch your balance. I bent to spit, scooped a handful of water from the tap, and as I straightened up I caught my own dark gaze in the mirror. Behind me the landing was now washed in yellow light: the outdoor security lamp had come on. I set my toothbrush down, wiped my mouth with the back of a hand.
Sammy turned in his bed. No other sounds. It was a perfectly still night, bright and clear. No wind to stir the branches and set the sensor off; a fox maybe, maybe a cat. That prickling of fear was just the ordinary everyday fear I carried with me; Nicholas was in the unit; all was well. Calm yourself. I picked my way downstairs.
The light shone through the stained-glass panel of the door, making coloured patterns on the tiles. Patches of purple, tobacco, bottle green. I hadn’t thought to draw the bolts earlier; I stood on tiptoe now and pushed the top bolt into place. I dropped to my heels, and at the same moment my focus shifted, from the surface of the patch of tobacco-coloured glass, to the other side of it.
He was there. Standing on my path, one hand in his jeans pocket, head bowed as though lost in thought. Just a panel of old glass between me and him. I watched as he drew his hand out of his pocket, and picked something from his palm, then lifted his face towards me.
I dropped to my hunkers. Inward cogs spun and crunched and wouldn’t synch: he couldn’t be there; he was in a secure unit; he was right outside my door; this could not be happening; it was happening. It was happening now.
His shape against the light; I heard the scratch of metal against metal; and then I heard the tumblers turn inside the lock.
They owned the place. No great wonder that he had managed to get his hands on a key.
I shoved at the lower bolt, shunting it into place. At that same moment, right in front of my eyes, the latch slid back with a click, and the handle levered down. The door flexed inward; he leant his weight against it, but the bolts held.
The bolts were as old as the door; and the door was as old as the house. The wood was parched and brittle, and coming apart at the seams. I couldn’t move: I was caught in the trap of myself, of body, toothpaste perfume pyjamas flesh and fear, and love; because Sammy, upstairs, still asleep.
Nicholas muttered something. I could hear the frustration, but I couldn’t hear the words.
His footsteps scuffed away on the concrete. I creaked up to my feet. He was leaving. We’d stay locked up tight for the night and in the morning, we’d go straight to Mr. Metcalfe and then to the police…
…back door.
Shit.
I slid along against the hallway wall. The back outside light came on; his shape loomed. This door was new, sturdy, UPVC, locked and the key left in so it wouldn’t open from outside. He tried his key, levered the handle up and down, pushed against the resistance. Then his shadow took a step back. Maybe he’d just give up and go. Decide the place was empty. Decide if he couldn’t sneak in quietly and catch me sleeping, it wasn’t worth his while.
Then a fist slammed into the door. I yelped. He leaned in close against the textured glass. He’d heard me.
He said, “There you are.”
I held my breath.
“Come on now,” he said, “let me in.”
I didn’t speak.
“You know you have to,” he said. “You know this is what was always going to happen.”
I bit my lip.
“Stupid bitch,” he said. Then he was gone.
I was stalled there, in the dark hallway, no idea what to do next.
But then front security light flicked on again. His darkness formed beyond the glass. And then it all crashed into utter chaos.
He threw himself at the door. The whole house thudded with the impact. I just stood, watching, as he flung himself into it again; the doorjamb splintered, the bolts jolted. I skidded over, put my shoulder against the door. He slammed himself against it; it whacked into me. And I remember the clear cold thought, that this was where any excuse or explanation must fail, and that he must know that, and that he must no longer care.
“Nicholas, please.”
A pause, but there was now steady insistent pressure on the door; it creaked under the weight of him; I could hear the breath of him, just beyond the panel. I glanced up at the top bolt: the screws were loosening from the wood.
“Go home,” I tried. “Go back to the unit. Get well, Nicholas. We’ll talk another time. When you’re better.”
Just his breath and the press of his weight against the door. My stockinged feet slid on the tiles.
“Nicholas. D’you hear me? You go on like this, it can’t end well for you.”
He spoke then. He said, “It was never going to be a happy ending.”
Then the pressure went from the door, and a second later he slammed into it again. I could get no purchase on the tiles, so I slid to the ground, set my back against the door. It was giving way. The reality of this was forming in ice crystals inside me. I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. And he was right; this was always going to happen.
“Mummy?”
He stood at the top of the stairs in his blue pyjamas with the green monster on the chest, his hair stuck up in tufts. A rush of love for him. It hurt. I raised a finger to my lips, then waved him away.