Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  “I mean a house that doesn’t have curtains closed on the front window and a jungle for a back garden!” she yelled, wrenching open the back door. “Just look at it! My father’s grounds are always beautiful.”

  “But then, ‘Daddy’ doesn’t have to look after his ‘grounds’ himself, does he?” He leaned back against the ledge beside the fridge and folded his arms. “Anyway, I can’t look at it. It’s dark outside. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  She slammed the door shut. “I’m the one who’s just been jolting around in a bus, remember? I did notice it was dark. It’s cold too.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m cold.”

  Paul examined the floor for a moment. Then he looked up at her from under his brows. “What happened to agreeing to live in my world rather than live without me in yours, Dianne?” he asked softly.

  She stared at him. “That’s the way it has to be, isn’t it? Here, on your terms.” She hadn’t asked this before. She took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t have stayed with me in my world. Would you? You didn’t love me enough to do that.” She swallowed. “Did you?” He met her eyes but didn’t speak. “I said…” her tongue flicked across her lips “… you didn’t love me enough to do that.”

  He lifted a spoon and examined it, tapped it on the back of his hand. Then he said, “But that cuts two ways, Dianne.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He dropped the spoon into the sink with a clatter. “I mean – why shouldn’t I use the room upstairs?” She didn’t understand. He pushed himself upright and took her by the shoulders with strong fingers. He had never been anything other than gentle with her. He shook her a little and brought his face down, close to hers, glaring. “After all, we’re not going to need it as…” his fingers tightened “… a nursery, are we?”

  She was trembling. “That’s not fair, Paul.”

  “It seems perfectly fair to me. You don’t get what you want. I don’t get what I want. That’s what I call quits. What do you call it?”

  They stood like that, locked, silent. Then abruptly, he seemed to tire. He let her go and walked into the lounge. She followed. At the door into the hall, he put a hand on the door frame and half turned back towards her.

  “If the garden bothers you, you know where the spade is.” He went into the hall and lifted his car keys. “Just watch you don’t break a nail.”

  The door slammed. After the noise of the car engine receded, Dianne bent to the pieces of her porcelain penguin. Cold fingers of resentment gripped her skin within a silence that descended like a cage.

  6

  HE WANTED TO see his mother.

  Forty-five minutes after walking out on Dianne, Paul strode from a cold foggy night into the seaside house where his father had died in the frozen hours of a January dawn. A smell of baking filled his nostrils. Across the beige and gold swirls on the carpet, past the china cabinet that he remembered as long as he remembered anything, the light was on in the kitchen. He heard classical music on the radio and realised his mother hadn’t heard him arrive.

  He peeped round the kitchen door. Her back was to him and she was making pastry, turning it, rolling it, turning it, dusting flour on the board and rolling the pastry again. The small radio was in the corner where the jar with the sweets used to be kept. Adam and he were allowed six each when they came in from school. Small sweets counted as a half.

  He watched her for a moment. Hazel Shepherd was fifty. A widow at fifty. Her movements were those of a vigorous woman in her prime. Only her sons detected the slight slump that had curved her shoulders the night her husband died, and had never lifted from that time.

  If he spoke, he would alarm her. He walked softly back to the front door, opened it and shut it again loudly.

  “Mum?” he called.

  She appeared round the corner of the door where he had been standing, wiping flour from her hands on a damp cloth.

  “Paul! What are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “Why are you baking at this time of night?”

  “I’m just stocking up the freezer.”

  He gave her a peck on the cheek.

  She stood back and examined him. “What’s the matter, Paul?”

  He went through the kitchen into the small den. A black cat lay in a perfect circle on his favourite chair. He picked it up and sat down. “Hi Widget,” he said, feeling the warm fur slipping beneath his fingers as he settled it onto his knee. The cat yawned, stretched one white paw into the air, turned round once and curled again into a soft circle on his lap.

  “Do I look that bad?” he said.

  “Worse.” He didn’t say anything. She went back to the pastry. “I’ve one more to put in the oven and then I’ll make coffee.”

  He listened to the sounds of her moving around: the rolling pin, the knife trimming the edges of the pastry, the knife being set down, a cloth being lifted. The oven door opened. The warm smell of baking pastry transported him back to the edge of memory, back to a time of uncomplicated, uncompromised love; a time before everything changed. Two pies, one apple and one rhubarb, were already turning from pale cream to the colour of nutmeg.

  “Seen Adam lately?” he asked as she shut the oven.

  “Not for ages. He doesn’t really call that often.” She reached for the kettle. “He doesn’t even ring that often.”

  Paul heard the hint of complaint in her voice. “It’s a tough time for printing companies and he’s on the road a lot.”

  She propped herself beside the kettle while it boiled. “I know. But it’s nice to see you more often. You’re only fifteen miles away now, instead of across the water.”

  He smiled briefly. “Getting through the city’s the hard bit.”

  There was a brief silence. Then she said, “I suppose Dianne wanted to be on the south side. It’s a bit more… her sort of place.”

  “I picked the house, Mum. Dianne doesn’t know the Falls from the Shankill. And it’s small, compared to what she’s used to,” he added.

  He willed her not to say anything more about Dianne. It didn’t work.

  “How is she, anyway?”

  “She’s fine.”

  His mother picked two mugs from the rack and spooned coffee. She lifted the kettle. “I’m not an idiot, Paul. She was with you last time you were here. She’s not happy.”

  He took the steaming mug from her as she sat on the worn green sofa opposite him. He felt her studying him over the top of her mug. “But you’ve married her now,” she said. “You’ll have to work at it.”

  He blew on his coffee and took a sip. “Let’s not go into all that again. She’s fine.”

  They sat in silence. He ran his hand down the cat’s fur. He noticed that Widget still had his three white whiskers: two on the right and one on the left. Gradually he relaxed, emotional exhaustion drifting through him.

  “Mum?”

  “What?

  “Did you ever regret having me?”

  “Good heavens! What an odd question!”

  “You know what I mean. Did you?”

  She settled back with her mug between her hands and became serious. He wanted the truth. “No. Never. Never once. Once you have a child, that’s a new person in your life, a new little person to get to know.” She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. “You were fascinating.”

  “I could have arrived a few years later, when you felt ready.” She shook her head. “No, you couldn’t. That wouldn’t have been you. It would have been somebody else. It wouldn’t have been the same recipe.” She became thoughtful. “I think there’s a time for someone to be born. If you miss that time, then you won’t ever know who they could have been.”

  The cat’s ears were like silk between his fingers.

  His mother got up to take the first pie out of the oven. Paul rested his head back. His eyes fell on a photograph on the wooden surround above the electric fire. It was of Adam and Jenna smiling at the camera, their arms loosely round each others’ waists. It had been taken on a
day out to a park. He nodded at it.

  “I see you’ve banished Rachel.”

  “Rachel banished herself,” said his mother briskly.

  “I don’t think Adam’s over her yet.”

  She dusted sugar over the pie with some force. “Well, I hope he’s found who he needs in Jenna. She’s a nice girl.” She sat down again. “She’s a good girl.” She sniffed. “So different to Rachel.”

  “But has Jenna found who she needs in Adam?”

  She sounded surprised. “Of course she has. He’s a lovely guy.”

  “And of course you’re not biased.”

  “I know his dad would have approved, even though he never met her.”

  Paul cocked his head. “Why exactly is Jenna a good girl?”

  She thought for a minute. “She’s got standards. She doesn’t swear. She’s thoughtful. She doesn’t…” she rocked an open hand from side to side “… make waves.”

  He nodded slowly. “Standards. No swearing. Thoughtful. No waves.” He tickled the cat’s chin. “Sounds like a thrill a minute.”

  “And her father’s a clergyman,” she finished.

  “Ah!” said Paul, “that must be where the adrenaline rush is.” She jerked her mug towards him. “You’re making fun, aren’t you?”

  “How did you guess?”

  They sat in silence again.

  “You should get a cat,” she said.

  His head was back, his eyes closed. “Maybe.”

  “Jenna’s cat has kittens.”

  “I know. I met the mother.” Another silence. He lifted his head to look at her. “Mum?”

  “What?”

  “How are you?”

  She knew what he meant. “Better some days than others.” She gave a brittle laugh and brushed flour from her blouse. “I didn’t expect to be alone just yet.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here more often when Dad was… suffering.”

  Her chin puckered. “It was awful. Watching him.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But that was all I could do. Watch.”

  The last word slid out on the cusp of a sob. Paul saw her struggle with a pain that was still raw after eleven months. What was it like to watch someone you love die slowly in front of your eyes and be powerless? His father had only a few days to live when Paul returned to see him for the last time. A tall, proud man reduced to a living, yellowing skeleton by a cancer that raced through his every tissue and bone faster than any doctor had predicted. Medical pain management had done all it could, but it couldn’t do everything.

  A need of his own made Paul push the cat to the ground, move over to the sofa and sit beside his mother. His arm went round her, she buried her head in his shoulder before the storm broke. He held her tightly. Above her shaking, greying head, his own eyes were wide, sightless, filled with the memory of the horror of it all, some that he shared with her and some that were his alone.

  She gave him one of the apple pies, knowing better than to give him a rhubarb one. It was still hot and he balanced it on a tray on one palm as she hugged him again in the hallway. “Take care.

  I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to either of you. It’s after midnight and that’s a bad road back to Belfast.”

  As he opened his car door, she called after him. “You never told me what was the matter.”

  He looked at her figure silhouetted in the doorway. “Neither I did,” he said, and slammed the door.

  Dawn was beginning to filter down the city streets as Paul closed the front door quietly behind him. In the lounge, there was no sign of the broken pottery on the carpet. He checked the kitchen bin. The bits were in there, topped by a used teabag.

  In the doorway of the bedroom he stopped. In the dim light from the landing he saw Dianne in their bed, lying on her side, facing away from him. Her blonde hair was spread like a fan on the pillow. One arm was above the clothes, the other under her cheek. Her breathing was regular and shallow.

  He looked round the room. Her pink dressing gown was draped over the stool by the dressing table. How could one woman use so many bottles, jars, powders and tubes? Beside a clump of nail varnish bottles lay her hairbrush. He picked it up. A few of her hairs tickled his hand as he turned it over. He motioned with it in the air, imitating the many times he had drawn it through the waves on her head. He hadn’t done that quite so often lately. He wondered if she noticed. But she would ask if she wanted him to do it for her.

  He set the brush down and moved soundlessly round the bed. He crouched down beside her and put his head on one side. Even in the shadows, he could see that her eyes were swollen in the delicate features of her face. The fingers of one hand still clutched a crumpled tissue.

  Elbows on his knees, he joined his hands and rested his chin on them. “How long will you stay, Dianne?” he whispered, very low. He crouched there for several minutes, motionless, listening to her breathing. Then his brow creased as if in pain and he lowered his head abruptly, his brow on the thumbs of his linked hands. There was a rustle as she stirred and he looked up quickly.

  “Paul?”

  “Hi.”

  She sat up on one elbow. “Where have you been?” She looked at the clock. “It’s nearly morning!”

  “My mother’s. And then I went walking.”

  “Walking? In the middle of the night? Paul, that’s not safe!”

  His smile was small and tired. “A lot safer than in here.”

  “When you didn’t come back, I tried to ring you. But your phone rang in the boxroom. You forgot it.”

  He had gone very still. “Did it ring any other time?”

  “No. Not that I heard. But it seemed a bit faint. I only heard it because I was up here.” She hesitated. “Paul…”

  There was nothing left in him to say. She would want to talk about it, analyse it. Sometimes it was better not to do that, whatever the agony aunts said. It would mean analysing himself and that frightened him. What he wanted most was to sleep.

  “Dianne, I just want to sleep. Am I allowed in the bed?” he asked.

  She didn’t reply for a moment, studying him. He knew he was disappointing her. Finally, unsmiling, she said, “OK.”

  He undressed, left all his clothes on the floor and crawled in behind her. She didn’t turn round so he put an arm across her waist. As his eyes closed, he heard her say, “You stink of night air and fog.”

  Sleepily he replied into her hair. “That’s not a stink. That’s a scent.”

  7

  JENNA SAT IN a coffee bar at the university. There was too much onion in her egg and onion sandwich. Her breath was going to empty the library in sixty seconds. She stuffed the sandwich back in its wrapper and looked around. There wasn’t a single student that she knew, really knew. Everything had changed this year. All but one of her friends from the past four years had left after graduation. The one who remained was pursuing a different discipline and in any spare time she had, she seemed to be stapled to her boyfriend.

  Jenna had spilt a puddle of coffee. Her chin in her hand, she pulled it into figures of eight with one finger. She wondered what Adam was doing and whether she should tell him what her tutor had said this morning. He had gestured at her assignment on the desk in front of him.

  “You should be producing better than this, Jenna.” He had leaned across his desk, hands clasped in front of him. “You’ve always been a great student. Conscientious. What’s happened to you?”

  She sighed at the memory. Doing better was going to have to be a priority or this whole year was going to be a disaster. She pushed back her chair and reached for her folder. Her phone rang; it was Adam.

  “Hello, brainbox,” he said. “I’m just outside.”

  “Hey! I was just thinking about you.”

  “Where are you?”

  She told him. A few minutes later he walked into the coffee bar. His dark blue business suit marked him out as a visitor as he made his way to her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked as she raised her
face for a quick kiss.

  He screwed up his nose. “You’ve been eating onions.” He pulled out a chair. “I was on my way back from a call up the motorway and thought you just might be around. So you were thinking about me, were you?”

  “Don’t get a big head. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please. And a biscuit or something.”

  She joined the queue at the counter. She should be back in the library by now. She had some research papers reserved and needed to look at them before the week was over. She set his coffee down and handed him a chocolate biscuit.

  “I can’t talk long, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve already had a very long lunch.”

  “You seem a bit tense. What’s wrong?”

  She decided to tell him. “My last assignment was crap.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. You only think it was. You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “My tutor said it was crap. Well, not in so many words but that’s what he meant.”

  “The next one’ll be better.” He patted her hand. “Not long to Christmas. You’ll get a break then. We’ll have some fun. Don’t go all gloomy on me.”

  She was quiet. She wasn’t exactly depressed. There was a discontent grubbing about in her head. Suddenly she said in a rush, “Adam, I’m not sure I should be here.”

  He looked puzzled. “You mean in the coffee bar?”

  “No, I mean in the university.”

  He sat back and laughed. “Hey, get a grip! I’d love to be back here lounging about drinking coffee instead of driving miles every day to crabby clients.”

  Jenna looked down at the puddle of coffee on the table.

  When she looked up again, Adam had tipped his chair back, put his hands behind his head and was looking around. She studied him. Well dressed, confident, earning good money. Everything that she was not.

  “This is as good a place as any to spend a year,” Adam was saying. “What else would you do anyway?”

  “Something useful, maybe.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Build houses in Africa maybe.”

  He was incredulous. “You’re not serious? You’re not a muck and dust kind of person. Your parents would have a pink fit. And so would you. All those spiders and huge bugs. And Aids and malaria.” He sat forward again. “Besides, I’d miss you.”