Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  Jenna put her head on one side. “And you? What do you think?”

  Donald set down his pen and slumped back. “I’m worried. The world’s not a safe place any more. It’s not Brighton Luke wants to go to. It’s much, much further than that.”

  “But lots of people take gap years, Dad. He’ll be back.”

  “Will he?” His kind eyes were sad as he looked up at his daughter. “Will he? So many people never come back once they leave here.” He sighed. “That would kill your mother.”

  “He was going to go to university in Scotland anyway. Not here.”

  “Scotland’s not that far away.” Donald swivelled his chair and stood. “Outer Mongolia’s a different matter.”

  Jenna stayed only one night. It was the candlelight carol service in her father’s church on Sunday evening but she decided to go back to Belfast on the afternoon bus. He ran her to the bus stop in the village. As they waited in the car in the darkening afternoon, he asked, “Are things still good between you and Adam?”

  Jenna grinned happily. “Great. We’ve a dinner date tomorrow.”

  Her father’s anxiety seemed to lift a little. “It’s great to see you happy.” A look of concern crossed his face. “Don’t rush things, will you?” He shifted uncomfortably. “He… Adam doesn’t… make demands…”

  Jenna laughed. “No, Dad. He doesn’t ‘make demands’!”

  Donald looked relieved. “Anyone who lays a finger on my daughter will answer to me!”

  “You’ll thump him with your commentary on Revelation!”

  “And that would hurt!”

  The bus arrived and the doors hissed apart. Jenna opened the car door and leaned over to peck her father on the cheek.

  “Next time I come, it’ll be Christmas.”

  “Be good till then, Missy,” he said.

  It was dark when Jenna walked through the patches of lamplight to her own door. Every house she passed had a Christmas tree; some were more flamboyant with reindeers flying across the glass and coloured lights framing the windows. As she skipped up the two steps to her door, she could see the tinsel on her own unlit tree glistening faintly from the reflected light through her living room window.

  The dim silence of the hall embraced her like a welcome. She dumped her bag and, without putting any lights on, sank into her favourite chair in the front room. Adam said this chair was Jenna-shaped. There was a headache trying to break into her head. She couldn’t imagine life without the refuge of her own house, her own patch of this earth. It was like a wedge from a sliced loaf, in the centre of a long unbroken terrace, in a mass of identical streets.

  Since the others had left, Jenna had made it entirely her own. Clean but chaotic. Dimly, she saw her slippers near the tree, under the window where she had last discarded them. One was upside down. And on the floor at the side of the sofa was the pink polo-neck she hadn’t been able to find yesterday when she was rushing out to meet Dianne. Luke said that everywhere collapsed into bedlam as soon as she set foot in it. She had this house until the summer, until this extra year at university was over. Her parents couldn’t pay for it any longer than that. She closed her eyes and leaned back.

  If she gave up her studies, she’d have to move back to the manse, to her parents, until she had a job and enough to pay rent somewhere. No way. Even if she bored herself stupid over tutorials and assignments, no way. She sighed. She would have to start looking for a job in the New Year. That way, she might have something to go to as soon as she got her MA. A stab of anxiety jabbed her. If she got her MA.

  She decided to try Luke’s mobile. Her phone nestled beside the jewellery case where it still lay at the bottom of her bag. She stood behind the dark tree, looking out onto the street, quiet now on a Sunday evening. She liked the dark, the feeling of looking out and knowing that no one could see her watching.

  There was both stealth and security in it. Luke answered almost immediately.

  “Hi, LW. It’s me.”

  His voice was deep and wary. “So you’ve been home then.”

  “I have. I’m just back.”

  There was a slight pause before Luke said, “How’s Mum?”

  “Not pleased.”

  “I know that. Shit.”

  She walked round the room and back to the window. “You might have told me. Maybe I could have worked them round to the idea.”

  “Yeah. Well. They know now.” His tone became exasperated. “What’s wrong with them anyway? There’s three of us going. We’re going to work our way around a few places for a year. That’s all.”

  “How long have you been thinking about doing this?”

  “A few of us have been talking about it since the summer. I suppose you’re mad at me as well.”

  She imagined him, probably sitting with his legs straggled across a room, hair spikier than ever, defensive and stubborn. She loved him.

  “No, I’m not. I think I’m a bit envious.”

  His voice rose. “Envious?”

  She leaned against the wall by the window. “Yes, envious.

  What’s so wrong with that?”

  “Can’t imagine you canoeing across a swamp.”

  “Maybe not a swamp.” Outside, three children ran past giggling. She put a hand to her head. The headache was making progress. “But I don’t suppose you’d take your big sister along too, would you?”

  “Shit!”

  She held a hand up to the empty room. “OK, OK. I’m joking.” She did a circuit of the room again. “Mum thinks Adam’s brother put it into your head.”

  “No, he didn’t. But he did…” his voice tailed off.

  “He did what?”

  “I suppose it was him made me finally decide to go for it. Before I talked to him, I hadn’t… it hadn’t…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Been real. It hadn’t been real. That I could do what I wanted and that doing what I wanted wasn’t stupid.”

  A man and girl walked past. The girl had her head on the man’s shoulder and he held a lead that ended in a small terrier.

  “It’ll be OK. They’ll get used to it. You’re not going for a while yet anyway.”

  “Shit, no. I’m going to get good results this year.” He paused. “You’re not the only one with brains, you know.”

  “I know that.”

  “I wish they did.”

  “There’s a lot they don’t know about you, Luke. Like the fact that you say ‘shit’ when you’re not at home.”

  She heard the grin. “Yeah, well.”

  “But you wouldn’t embarrass Dad.”

  “Shit, no. He’s OK. In his own way.”

  “You’re going back home tomorrow, are you?”

  “I’m going to stay here for a bit. But I will, yeah. I’ll go back in a couple of days. I need some socks. And stuff.”

  “Right. They’ll have calmed down by then. But ring Mum and let her know you’re OK.”

  “If you see Paul, tell him I said hi.”

  “If I do, I will. See you at Christmas then.”

  “Oh, shit, yeah. Cheers.”

  Jenna set down her phone and bent to the plug under the window to switch on her tree lights. Before her finger touched it, she stopped. Someone was standing outside her front door. She peered round the branches of the tree, knocking a silver ball to the floor.

  It was Paul. He was wearing a knee length coat and a wool hat pulled down over his ears. She saw him checking the number on her door. Then he took an envelope from his pocket and pushed it through her letterbox. The noise of it falling into her hallway broke her surprise and made her move.

  The pendant she had bought for her mother was inside the envelope. She pulled open the door. He was several doors away, walking back the way he had come. He heard the door and turned. The street lamp lit his features from above, gilding the woollen hat and throwing shadows below his throat. He walked back.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here. You got the bus home yesterday.”

  Jenna held up the
envelope. “Does this mean I have an empty box in my bag?”

  She was above him, in her own doorway, two steps up.

  “Unless there were two, I suppose it does.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “A little piece of the chain peeped at me from down the side of the cushion.”

  “How did you know where I lived?”

  “Dianne’s added you to her Christmas card list.”

  “Ah.” He stood with his hands in his coat pockets. She moved back a little. “Come in.”

  He walked past her and turned into her front room as if he knew the way. He was standing beside her Christmas tree as she flicked on the coloured lights. It wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as Dianne’s tree. The colours were all over the place, the tinsel tangled this way and that. She reached for the main light switch on the wall.

  “Leave it,” he said suddenly, startling her. “There’s enough light from the tree. Don’t spoil it.”

  Her hand hovered, then dropped. Like a child, she thought, he wants to watch the bright lights. His fingers touched a branch, then another.

  “Yes, it’s real,” she said.

  He looked over his shoulder, his hand still on the branch. “Don’t you mind the pine needles all over the carpet?”

  “No. In fact I love pine needles. They smell good.”

  He sat down in her chair. Her chair. She went to the sofa and pulled her knees up to curl into a corner of it.

  “Thanks for returning the pendant. Adam could have given it to me tomorrow night. I’m seeing him then.”

  Red, green and blue light smudged across his face as the colours danced on the tree.

  “Lucky old you,” he said. “I tried him, but he’s not about.”

  He pulled off the woollen hat and ran a hand through his hair. It stood up in short spikes. Instantly, she was reminded of Luke.

  “Luke says ‘hi’.”

  He twirled the hat on one finger. “Say ‘hi’ back. How’s he doing?”

  She didn’t feel like being polite and tactful. She was too tired for that. “He’s going to Outer Mongolia.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Somewhere like that.”

  He laughed in delight. “Well, way to go, Luke!”

  “And my mother never wants to see you again.”

  He looked puzzled. “She probably won’t. Unless you marry my brother and I have to be polite to all your relatives at some fancy hotel. But why the particular desire?”

  “She’s blaming you for putting ideas into his head.”

  He went quiet, absently smoothing the wool of the hat on his knee. Then he said, “If it helps her, I don’t mind.”

  “What do you mean: ‘If it helps her’?” She mimed quote marks.

  “She’ll worry about him. He’s her son. She needs to be angry.”

  Jenna looked at him in amazement. “She doesn’t need to be angry at all. She needs to talk to Luke like she can hear what he’s saying.”

  Red, green, blue in his eyes. Red, green, blue across his wonderful mouth. “You don’t know how your mother feels,” he said. “And you’ll not know until you have children of your own.”

  The headache was chiselling the back of her eye. “Yes, well. You’ll know about that sooner than me.”

  He put his elbow on the arm of the chair and dropped his chin into his hand. His look was teasing. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’ll never be a mother.”

  “I noticed.”

  The silence lengthened. Then he straightened back in the chair. Her chair.

  “I’ll talk to him again if you like,” he said.

  “I’ll pass on the kind offer. As long as you don’t convince him he should be the first man on Mars.”

  He ignored that, his thoughts already moving on. The hat was on the arm of the chair now. “Will you all be together at Christmas?” he asked.

  “Yes, as always. Where will you be?”

  “As always. At my mother’s.”

  “And where will Dianne be?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Has she been talking to you?”

  “It’s hard to shop together for a morning without talking.”

  He looked away. “She wants to go back to London.”

  “I know.”

  He moved the hat to the other arm. He folded it in two, unfolded it, folded it again. His eyes flicked to her and away. Red, green, blue. He wasn’t going to ask. And it was none of her business. But she’d tell him anyway. That’s the sort of night it was.

  “You should go with her.”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “I know. But you should go with Dianne.”

  Words flashed like bullets in a gunfight.

  “She should stay here with me.”

  “You should stay together.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Here.”

  “No. Do what she wants in this.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s homesick. You’re stronger than she is.”

  He snorted derisively. “You think?”

  “Your mother will understand.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And Adam’ll be here.”

  “Ha! Some company!” The hat became a ball in his fist. “What about relatives?”

  “An aunt and uncle up in Coleraine.”

  “Then she could go there.”

  He flicked the hat across his knee. “I don’t want to go back to London.”

  Jenna put her hand to her right temple. “Paul, put that hat down.”

  Ostentatiously, he held it in his finger and thumb and dropped it over the side of the chair onto the floor. Jenna gave up and stretched her legs out along the sofa.

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “What do I know? It’s not a problem I have. I’m nobody’s wife.”

  Red, green, blue in his eyes. Shadows chasing through the waves of his tousled hair. “I noticed.”

  The bells from the church at the top of the street began to ring. She had been thinking of going to their carol service. Not now.

  In one smooth movement he stood and turned to go. “I’d better go before I get caught up in all the traffic. More people going to sing about ‘mercy mild’.”

  His tone annoyed her. It was only yesterday that he had sung about it himself. She swung her feet to the floor.

  “Don’t knock it. It goes along with the ‘peace on earth’ you want in your stocking.”

  He had reached the hall but he put his head back round the door of the room again as she stood up.

  “Not that sort of mercy. The mercy that’s worth having is tough stuff.”

  She sighed. “Paul, go home.”

  He grinned, his lips curving over white teeth. She stood looking up at him in the dark hallway, reluctant to put on the light and hurt her head any more. She touched his arm.

  “Wait a minute.”

  She went back to the room, the red, green, blue room, and picked up his hat. Holding it in both hands, she reached up and pulled it down over his head, over his ears, tugged it over his brow. Then she raised his collar and folded the lapels across his throat. He stood still, letting her work at him. Her hands dropped to her sides.

  “Now go home.”

  He turned the latch on the front door. “Yes, ma’am. And you take two aspirins, a mug of cocoa and a hot water bottle. Your headache’ll be gone in the morning.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. It’s worked for me so far.”

  “You know everything.”

  A cold wind cut into the gap as he opened the door onto the street. At the bottom of the steps he turned to look up as she stood with her hand on the door. Then abruptly he strode away. The peal of Christmas bells chased him to the corner; a flurry of snow zigzagged through the air. Jenna watched him until he disappeared into the night like a fugitive, leaving the street empty, yet full of noise.

  In the kitchen she put on the kettle, reached into a cupboard and pulled out the cocoa tin. She looked rou
nd. She’d seen the packet of aspirin somewhere. Thank goodness the bells had stopped. The service must have started.

  She couldn’t read. Instead, she lay down in her bed and curled round the hot water bottle. Her eyes closed over the pain in her head and at first she couldn’t sleep. The aspirin began to take effect. She rolled onto her back. Red, green, blue; red, green, blue, strobed within her eyelids.

  Restlessly, she threw one arm across the pillow above her head. Tonight there had been a shifting; one small move on a game board. She and Paul had accepted each other. He wasn’t just Adam’s brother any more. He was Paul.

  Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

  10

  THE KEY TURNED in the front door, followed by a slam. Upstairs, Dianne had just switched off the hairdryer and tossed her hair back over her head where it hung in thick, tangled strands. She heard the drop of Paul’s keys on the hall table. After a moment of silence, she heard him coming upstairs on light feet. She could visualise him. Two stairs at a time, sometimes three. He appeared at the bedroom door.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. Did you find the house?”

  “Yep.” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his shoes and socks.

  “What’s it like?”

  “A bit smaller that this one and opens straight onto the street. No garden.”

  “How ghastly!”

  “It suits her.”

  Dianne turned back to the mirror. She saw Paul’s eyes taking in the towel that was wrapped round her, her bare shoulders peeping through her tangle of hair. She opened a jar of face cream. He lifted his feet and lay back on the bed, his hands behind his head. In the mirror, she saw him watching her lazily. She tossed her hair over one shoulder and began to smooth cream into her neck slowly.

  “She seems to really like Adam,” she said.

  “Weird.”

  “She really lit up like a beacon when I asked her about him yesterday.”

  “They’ve only known each other for a few months.”

  She smiled into the mirror, teasing. “That worked for us.”

  “Yes,” he said. “The whole of England’s still getting over it.”

  “Well, she’ll be glad to get the pendant back. It’s only nine carat, but I suppose her mother wouldn’t notice the difference. They’re only a clergy family after all. I didn’t say anything when she picked it.”