Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  Finally he looked round. “You told me I was like a king hiding in a palace. I don’t think you’re hiding.” He held the ring up and looked through it. “I think you’re in prison.”

  Amazed, she said, “Now we’re back to riddles!”

  He ignored that. “You’re afraid of what’s in you, Jenna. You’re afraid of what you could be and what you could do. There are bars around you.” He jabbed a finger at her. “So don’t talk to me about hiding.”

  “Bars aren’t just for trapping. Bars are for protecting.”

  He lounged back in the chair and threw the ring high. “I’ll take my chances outside the cage!”

  She considered him for a moment. “That’s a lonely place to be.”

  He held out a hand towards her. “Lonelier than I hope you’ll ever know.”

  He pulled his hand back. He must know she would not take it.

  “So why stay there then,” she challenged, “if it’s so lonely?” He looked down at his hand where he was jiggling the ring between his closed fingers. She thought that he wasn’t going to answer her, then he swung round.

  “Because, Jenna, I haven’t time to rattle bars.”

  She was reminded of something he had said to her before. She said, “You mean you’re chasing the moon and the stars and the sun. Your wings are spread.” He was listening, as if waiting to see how far she would go in reading him this time. “Rules are to be broken.” Still he did not speak. “Paul, that’s dangerous. Very dangerous.”

  He exploded in frustration. “Oh, don’t be so bland!”

  “Don’t be so childish!” she shot back, loud.

  Two men across the room glanced over their shoulders. Paul and Jenna sat in silence. She could swear he was sulking. She began to gather up her things, feel for her bag. It was time this day was over. They were both tired.

  “Jenna?”

  She looked up at him under bad-tempered brows. “What?”

  “Look.” He held up his hand. His wedding ring was back in place, snug on his finger. He spoke slowly. “The last time I saw you, you were crying under a tree because Adam had hurt you so badly.” He paused, watching her. “And yet for all of today, you’ve said not one word about it. You’ve listened to me. You’ve walked with me. You’ve read my mind. I told you something I’ve never told anyone else. Not anyone.”

  She nodded, sombre. “I know.”

  “Payback time,” he said.

  She folded her arms against him. “I don’t like talking about myself.”

  He grinned. “That’s a pout Dianne would be proud of!” When she didn’t relent, he spoke again. “All right. Then I’ll dissect your mind. I think five people lived in your house. Your mother, your father, Luke, you – and Duty. Everyone was more important than you. You didn’t rock the boat because that would have been selfish. If someone needed your father, he went to them, even if you needed him too. And that was all right. And that’s the way your world is still.” He stopped. Then he added, “Adam’s part of this. Adam seemed like a station on the right railway. The train was calling at all the right stops.” He raised an eyebrow. “Am I right?”

  She kept her arms folded and didn’t look at him. So he went on.

  “I said I wanted to talk about you. Now you tell me how you feel about betrayal. Tell me how you cope with the hurt. Tell me how the world seems to you, now the train’s come off the rails.” His head tilted and a slight smile brushed his lips. “Don’t stay in the cage, because that’s dangerous too. Very dangerous.”

  For a moment, she said nothing, unsettled. Then, “Why would you care?”

  “Beats me,” he replied.

  She sat back and closed her eyes. Paul was tiring, so tiring.

  Adam never made her feel like this, as if her mind were alight, crackling with life and thought, challenging, restless. For the first time it dawned on her. Dianne couldn’t possibly be a life companion for this man. She couldn’t come close. Was he realising that too?

  No one had ever reeled her in like this. No one had ever focused on her like this, spirit, mind and body, like a shaft of light piercing through crystal.

  She opened her eyes and sat forward. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you how I feel.” She stopped to gather her words. It was an effort. “We’re all defined by other people. I mean, who are you really? Who am I? I’m my mother’s daughter, my aunt’s niece, my brother’s sister. You’re a husband, a son, a…” she hesitated “… brother, even if only a half one.” The firelight was fading a little, the light not so bright as its flame dappled them both. “But when all things end, we won’t be any of those things. When you left me to walk away by yourself today, I saw your footprints in the sand.” She dropped her head in thought. This was really how she felt and she hadn’t said it before, even within her own soul. “I thought I meant something to somebody. And that made sense of everything else. Now, I think maybe I’m nobody at all. I’m alone in the world, a maker of footprints.” She raised her eyes to his. “That’s all. Just a maker of footprints. And even they disappear when the water comes.” She swallowed. “I think I’m scared.”

  He was quiet, his restlessness stilled by her words. Then he said slowly, “It’s a great thing to be loved. It’s not the same as loving, though. Is it?”

  She smiled a little, sad. “A little bit of both would go down well.”

  Moments passed. Then he held out his hand to her. “Let’s go home,” he said softly.

  He did not withdraw his hand this time, held it steady beneath her bowed head. Finally her own crept into it and their fingers curled together.

  “Yes, let’s go home,” she said.

  18

  IT WAS AFTER one o’clock in the morning when Paul found a space by the kerb round the corner from Jenna’s door. Most houses were in darkness, and lamplight patched the street. A dog trotted by, busy.

  They had been very quiet on the way home, as if there were nothing more either of them had the energy to say. Paul turned the engine off. Jenna reached for her bag at her feet. “I hope I wasn’t boring company.”

  Paul’s teeth showed in the low light as he smiled. “That comment is just typical of you.”

  She looked down with a little laugh. “Sorry.”

  “So’s that one.”

  “I’d better stop talking then. I can’t say anything right.”

  He shifted round in his seat to face her. “Yes, you can. Quite a lot.”

  She turned her head away, looked out the side window. A Santa Claus still stood on a windowsill across the footpath. Still not looking at him, she said, “Paul, I’m not sorry about today.” She turned her head back and sought his eyes. “But we can’t do it again. A day like today can’t ever happen again.”

  His voice was low, almost wistful. “No. It never could. There never could be another day like today.”

  “OK.” She reached for the door handle.

  “Wait,” he said. She did. “You and Adam. What will you do?”

  “Talk. I’m not sure.”

  She felt the brush of his finger on her hand. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  She smiled. “You’re good for my ego.”

  A slant of lamplight crossed the road and cast a haze on the back of his head as he faced her. “Remember this morning?” he said. “No sparks, no life?”

  She nodded, wrapped by his voice in the stillness of the car in the silence of the street. Still she stayed. Then she rummaged in her pocket. She held out her hand and in her fingers she held the razor shell. “Would you like this?” She looked down at it, embarrassed a little. “To replace the shell you threw away.”

  He took it. Some grains of sand still clung to her fingers. He reached over to the back seat.

  “Here, keep this.” He held out his woollen hat. “It looked far better on you.” She folded the softness of it in her fingers. There was a silence. Then she pulled the handle.

  “Goodbye, Paul. Give my love to Dianne.”

  She got out of the
car and began to walk. Behind her, the car door slammed and he appeared beside her. “I’ll come to the door with you.”

  They walked round the corner and a short distance up the street.

  Jenna exclaimed, “There’s a light on in my house! It must be Luke. Missed the last bus again, I suppose. He has a mad social life.”

  As she searched for her key, the door was flung open from inside. She looked up, a smile ready on her lips.

  “Luke…”

  It was Adam. His hair was finger-tossed, his expression a mixture of relief and fury. He jumped down the two steps and took her by the shoulders.

  “Where have you been, Jenna? We’ve all been frantic. Your mother’s up the walls with worry.”

  Jenna was confused and alarmed. “Adam! How did you get into my house?”

  Luke appeared in the doorway. “Shit, Jay. Why didn’t you say you’d be away?” He turned back into the hall and kicked the door, the blond tips of his hair brushing the lampshade. “So now can we all go to bed?”

  A calm voice behind Jenna said, “Adam. Let her go. No need to be melodramatic.”

  Only then did Adam realise that Paul was there. “Paul! I thought you were in London.”

  “I was. I came back. Shall we take this little scene off the street?”

  Jenna rang her mother. She told her she had been away with a few friends from university for the day and they had only just got back. She didn’t think anyone would be trying to contact her. She had turned her phone off for some reason and had forgotten to turn it back on. Her father came on the line. Relief was only just easing out the grip of worry in his voice.

  “So long as you’re all right. I was worried about you and rang you this morning. We wanted to wish you a Happy New Year. Seeing you weren’t here with us last night.”

  There was reproach in that last comment.

  When she went back to her sitting room, Paul was in her chair and Adam was on the sofa, eyeing him with some puzzlement. The photograph of the robin was propped on the mantelpiece where she had put it so long ago, yet just this morning. She could hear Luke in the kitchen.

  “All of a sudden this place is like Royal Avenue at lunch time.” She sat down beside Adam, weary to her bones.

  “It’s even more crowded than you think,” Paul said.

  He reached under his coat and pulled out a kitten. Luke came in and the kitten, cupped in Paul’s hands, miaowed at him. Luke caught the expression on Jenna’s face.

  “Well, what was I supposed to do?” he demanded. “Mum was getting fed up with him. She was going to put an ad in the shop.

  Some loony might have taken him. That was totally not going to happen.”

  “So you brought him here? That’s supposed to be a better idea?” She spotted the small litter tray on the floor beside her television. It had been used. “Oh, Luke!”

  “It’s all right,” he said confidently. “I brought half a dozen tins of cat food too. They’re in the cupboard under the sink. Along with a ping pong ball and a toy mouse,” he added helpfully. “Maybe some of your student mates might take him.”

  The kitten had climbed onto Paul’s shoulder and was exploring his ear.

  “So when’s Dianne coming back?” Adam asked him, taking up a conversation that must have been going on while Jenna was on the phone.

  “Next week some time,” said Paul. His finger was caressing the kitten as it clung to his shoulder. It began to tap at his nose with its small white paw.

  “So where did you meet Jenna?” Adam asked, frowning. Jenna stood up. “Let’s call it a day, shall we?”

  Paul hooked the kitten from his shoulder. “I’ll take him if you like.”

  Luke punched the air. “Way to go, Paul!”

  The cat food, toy mouse and ping pong ball were put in a plastic bag, the litter tray – emptied – was put in another. Luke produced a pet carrier and, with a last scratch of the black ears, Paul put the kitten into it.

  “Are you sure about this?” Jenna asked Paul.

  “No,” he said. “But I can always boil him for supper if we don’t get on.”

  Luke left with him to help carry everything to his car. There was a cold wind funnelling down between the close-packed sleeping houses. The kitten started to miaow in alarm, the sound loud in the night as it was carried away.

  Jenna went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Adam came up behind her. “Were you and Paul away somewhere? Did he give you a lift home?”

  She plugged in the kettle and stood with her back to him, studying the dishes dumped in the sink. Luke must have had lunch here as well as his tea. He had probably drunk all the milk in the house. She swung round.

  “Yes. He gave me a lift home.”

  He looked puzzled. “Where were you?”

  “Actually,” she said, “that’s none of your business.”

  “Jenna!” The kettle began to sing, the noise rasped into the air behind her. “You disappeared. No one knew where you were. We were all worried out of our skulls”

  “Why should I tell you where I was? Specially now?”

  He was wearing his blue jumper. She had always liked it on him. The collar of a checked shirt peeped above the round neck.

  He spread his hands. “Because you always do!”

  “Well, maybe I don’t any more.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “We do have to have a conversation, Adam.” She walked past him, out into the hall, up to the front door, which was lying ajar. She opened it. “But not now.”

  He stayed in the kitchen, looking after her with a bewildered expression. “But… it’s so late. I thought I could stay here tonight. On the sofa of course,” he added quickly.

  “Not even on the sofa.”

  He looked at her for a moment, decided she was serious. His anorak was on a hook in the hall beside her own coat. He pulled it on and stood, awkward, in front of her.

  “Jenna, I know you’re still angry with me.” He put a hand on her shoulder and tried to kiss her. She turned her head away and felt the brush of his auburn hair on her cheek. “I’m sorry I was such a prat.” He cupped her chin in his fingers. “And I was very, very worried about you today.”

  She pulled her chin away. “Maybe I should have disappeared before.”

  His laugh was unsure, forced. “Maybe!”

  Luke sprang up the steps from the street, shivering. “It’s baltic out there!” He shouldered sideways between them, called good night and took the stairs three at a time. Adam went down into the street and looked back.

  “I’ll ring you.”

  “OK.” She shut the door in his face.

  Luke had captured her bathroom. She heard him brushing his teeth loudly. Luke was the only person she knew whose tooth brushing could be heard through a wall and two closed doors. He had never had a filling. The whole village knew that the minister’s son had beautiful teeth. Jenna knew that her mother hoped the information would distract from the blond highlights and the earring.

  He came out of the bathroom and called, “Paul says he’ll call the kitten Jack.” He put his head round her bedroom door. “And he says he’ll take me on a few shoots. Some Saturdays. Cool, eh?” His head disappeared and then reappeared. “He took that pic of the robin, he said. I want a camera for my birthday.”

  He went off to the spare room, tired and happy. The towel that Jenna had used for her shower in the morning was still on the floor of the bathroom. She held it to her face before dropping it into the laundry basket. She had just climbed into bed when Luke appeared again. By his face, she knew his thoughts had moved on in a new direction. That usually meant trouble. He sat down on her bed. He was holding something in his hand.

  “I’m glad you’re back. You haven’t said where you were. I noticed that.” He waited for her to say something, but she was too tired and wished he would leave her in peace. “So his wife’s still in London?”

  “She is.”

  Luke shuffled his feet and kicked up the edges of the mock sheepsk
in rug on the floor. “You know how you said that I swear a lot, but that I wouldn’t do it anywhere it would let Dad down?”

  She wriggled down on her pillow. “Yes.”

  Luke held out his hand and seemed to change the subject. “Paul said to give you this.”

  It was an elegant white business card. Paul’s name and the address of his studio in London were written in deep green letters. A strong X was crossed through the address in black ink. In the same ink, a circle had been drawn round a mobile phone number. Jenna held the card for a moment and then looked up.

  Luke frowned down at the rumpled mat. “Why would he give you his business card?” She didn’t reply. “I heard you on the phone. You told Mum a lie. That’s really, really weird.” He looked up, directly at her. “If I wouldn’t let Dad and Mum down, you wouldn’t either. Would you?”

  Jenna held the card carefully, turned it over, turned it back, set it on her bedside table on top of her neglected novel. She spoke slowly, her eyes unfocused.

  “Maybe I don’t know what I could do.” Her attention came back to him. “I’m sorry if people were worried. But I checked out for a day. One day. You’re going off round the world for a year. We won’t know where you are every day.”

  “That’s different.”

  She turned onto her elbow, switched off the light, thumped her pillow and lay down on her side facing the wall. “Fix that mat before you go. And you’ll have to go out for milk before we can have breakfast.”

  She felt him get up from the bed and heard the mat being flattened. He muttered something about “bloody women.”

  “Go to bed. Your blond bits could do with a lie down.”

  She lay still for five minutes. Then she turned on the bedside light again and slipped out of bed. Her mobile was in her bag on the floor. With Paul’s card beside her, she punched the number into it and stored it. She turned off the light again and lay down. She closed her eyes. She sat up again. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Just a quick message to check the kitten was all right. She was fond of it, after all. She sent two words. “How’s Jack?”