Freeing Grace (39 page)

‘Oh, I see. It’s not enough for you to keep me rotting in this house. I have to
enjoy
it as well!’ She began to laugh. It was crazy. ‘Well, since you’ve asked for the truth, let me assure you that I don’t enjoy it. It’s like being walled up, actually.’ She grabbed her glass and downed it in one. ‘It’s like being buried alive. You buried me alongside you when I was twenty years old.’

‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No, Deborah.’

‘And now you’re going to bury Matt too. You’re using a baby to trap him just as you did me. We’ll be prisoners here, shut in with you until we’ve no life left to live.’

‘Matt? . . . No.’

‘And here’s another thing that’s true.’ Deborah was letting loose half a lifetime of regret. ‘I don’t think you even like me very much, Perry Harrison. I think you
need
me, but you don’t
like
me, do you? In fact, I think you find me utterly contemptible. After all, I’m nothing like your beloved Victoria.’

His eyes blazed with intensity. ‘I
adore
you!’

‘Oh, shut up.’ She slammed down the glass. ‘Actually I wonder, my darling. Did you really like Victoria, or was
she
a crutch as well?’

Perry sat for a moment, looking as though she’d just hit him squarely between the eyes with a carefully aimed slingshot. Then he stood up and walked out. I think he might have seen me as he passed, but he didn’t show it. The door slammed shut behind him.

Deborah let out a long breath. She looked as though she might cry.

‘I should
not
have said that.’

‘No,’ I agreed, folding the newspaper with a disapproving snap. ‘You shouldn’t. That last bit was well below the belt.’

‘I’ve always been jealous of that woman. Always.’

I probably looked as though she’d used the slingshot on me too. I mean, how could Deborah possibly be jealous of Perry’s first wife? When she next spoke, her voice was a little wobbly: the row had shaken her up.

‘You haven’t got a clue, have you, Jake?’

‘Clueless,’ I admitted, laying down my paper. ‘Sorry.’

‘All my married life she’s been looking over my shoulder. Lucy’s fairytale mother. Perry’s perfect wife, who broke his heart.’ She blinked, wiping her eyes on the heel of her hand. ‘You can’t fall hopelessly in love, at the age of seventeen, with someone fascinating and cultured and powerful, bear his son, raise children with him, share two decades of experiences, live with him through mental illness, be comforted by him when your parents die, and have
no
feelings for him.’

‘But you left him, Debs.’

She stood up impatiently. ‘Yes, I left him. He makes me terribly unhappy. But we go back a very long way together—can’t you see that? We go back almost into my childhood, and he’s an incredible man. I still admire him. I still . . .’

She walked to the door and pulled it open. A wild draught burst joyously past her and danced among the flames in the grate.

‘No matter,’ she said. ‘This time tomorrow, we’ll have a baby in the family.’

This time tomorrow, I thought, I’ll be gone.

We had a surprisingly good evening, in the end.

Come suppertime, I ventured up to Matt’s den and persuaded him to join us. Then I knocked on Perry’s study door and he came out too. Perry and Deborah seemed a bit wooden at first, and they weren’t looking at each other. I supposed that almighty ding-dong was still on their minds, but they were both too well-mannered to carry on slinging insults with me around. Matt stuck to Pepsi but Perry, Deborah and I got quietly canned, making serious inroads into the Hawke’s Bay wine while the wolves howled outside.

We’d all brightened up by the third bottle.

Perry—who seemed to be making a mammoth effort—regaled us with stories of army cock-ups, and I told them about the time I ran with the bulls in Pamplona and very nearly got mashed. I’d been rescued by a Spanish policeman who dragged me over a fence by my hair. We laughed with the slightly hysterical, guilty jollity you get after a funeral. Even Perry laughed.

‘Well,’ I burbled eventually, holding up my glass and squinting at the three of them. ‘Here’s to you all, and thanks for your hospitality.’

‘And here’s to your death-defying expedition, you lucky bastard!’ cried Perry, and tossed his back in one go.

‘And to the future Mrs Jake, and all the little Jakes!’ added Deborah, giggling wildly. ‘Bring ’em to meet us.’

Matt ran out of steam and lurched off to bed first, and Deborah soon followed him. After that, Perry stopped laughing. He was sitting very upright, staring at nothing with his bottomless black eyes.

‘So, Perry.’ I carried our plates to the dishwasher. ‘You did it. You’ve put your family back together.’

‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ He opened a bottle of Scotch with the exaggerated concentration of the truly drunk person. I’d never seen him lose control like this before. Not really. As a rule, alcohol just made him more and more dignified.

‘Marvellous,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Just . . . bloody . . . marvellous. What a bloody triumph. How proud I must be.’ He poured us both half a glass of the stuff, spilling a fair bit onto the table.

I’d never get up the stairs if that lot hit my stomach; I just didn’t have his capacity. I managed to put back a thimbleful, and then I smuggled my glass over to the sink and tipped the rest down the drain. What a waste.

‘Going to court tomorrow, Perry?’

For a couple of seconds he looked right through me, as though there was something fascinating on the kitchen wall behind my head. Perhaps he was gazing into his crystal ball. Then I saw the flash of his rare smile.

‘I doubt it, Jake. I very much doubt it.’

I said goodnight soon after that and headed upstairs, leaving Perry sitting straight-backed in his usual place at the kitchen table.

I made it to the landing without falling over. The wind had grown stronger if anything, and the banshee moaned in anguish around the front door. Matt’s light was out, and the corridor beyond was in blackness. But a trickle of moonlight, seeping through a window, dipped the old boards of the landing in luminous paint.

I was just feeling my way towards my room when a floorboard creaked behind me. I turned towards the sound, straining my eyes. ‘That you, Matt?’

It wasn’t Matt.

I glimpsed her for a second as she moved from moonlight to shadow, her nightdress shimmering like a stream of mercury, and then she was beside me. She took my hands, interlaced her fingers with mine, and I felt the touch of her mouth on my cheek.

I heard the clear, warm voice over the banshee’s lament. ‘I wanted to say goodbye, Jake. I wanted to say thank you. You’ve been such a friend.’

Well, what could I do? What would anyone do, in the dark and the wailing wind? I couldn’t run any more. The storm had caught up with me. Knocked me over. She was the only one I’d ever wanted, you see. I’ll never understand her. I know that. But I’ll never forget her either.

She drifted, slender and alive under my hands, and the world shrank until there was only her. I breathed in her warmth, and I kissed her. I felt as though my whole useless, aimless life was given validity in that moment, that single breath of time in the violence of the night. Perhaps I should have told her. She wouldn’t have minded.

Then she slipped away, and I let her go. I had to. She wasn’t mine. You can see that, surely? She wasn’t mine, and she never would be.

I lay awake for too long, reliving it all in my mind, over and over again. Wondering how I’d let myself get hit so hard. I was at a loss. I had lost. I
was
lost. It was a new experience for me.

I finally managed to doze off, swirling dazedly down the whirlpool of sleep. I suppose it was the booze. Sometime in the night an owl screeched in Coptree Woods, and I remember opening my eyes for a few moments. The moon hung in a patch of clear sky, shining full onto my face. Through the window I could see the yew, stooped like a hunchback in the hedge. The world seemed breathless; the lost soul at the front door had fallen asleep, exhausted by her agony, and the trees were still. I closed my eyes, drifting, wishing like hell I hadn’t let her go.

And Sala had been in the pig bin again.

I can see the mess as soon as I get off the school bus. Rotting scraps are
scattered right across the yard.

He said he’d shoot her the next time she did it. I was scared, so I found a
big rock and put it on the lid to stop her getting in. I check it every morning,
make sure it’s still holding down the lid, but today she’s managed to tip the
whole bin over and the rubbish is everywhere.

She’s patiently waiting for me, running around in circles by the road
gate. She meets my bus every day. It’s the only good thing about coming
home. I run from the bus and try to clean up the mess before he sees it, frantically
shovelling the maggoty scraps back into the bin with my bare hands. Quick, quick. Jesse laughs at me, but he tries to help too.

Sala knows she’s in trouble, but she doesn’t care. She trots importantly off
down to the kennels to boss the quad dogs about.

Oh, no. Oh no. I can hear the quad bike roaring up the paddock and
through the gate. Dad sees the mess straight away and yells, ‘Fucking filthy
bitch.’ He’s in a rage, his face has twisted like it does, and he storms into the
house. Jesse has the sense to disappear.

Dad’s coming out now, heading for the kennels, and he’s got his
shotgun. He’s walking jerkily, furiously, with his face pushed forwards,
shoving cartridges into the breech. There are veins on his neck, like snakes. I’m hanging onto his arm, trying to pull him back, but I just get dragged
along. Then he gets sick of me hanging onto him, so he jerks the butt of
his gun into my face, and it really hurts. I have to let go because my nose
is bleeding.

‘She’s only two, Dad,’ I say, and I’m crying. ‘She’s only two, just a baby.

She’ll grow out of it soon. Give her one more chance.’

Sala’s pottering about down there, chatting with the others, her stumpy
tail wagging. He gives her a terrible kick in her stomach with his big boot
and sends her flying almost under the kennels. She’s yelping. She’s wriggling
in the dust, trying to get up. I grab at his arm again, but he throws me off
and takes aim, and I’m holding onto his leg, screaming at him to stop. No,
Dad, no, please.

Don’t.

The shot, when it came, exploded into my brain with horrifying force. I was sitting bolt upright, ready to run for it, before I was fully awake. I felt sure it had blown my head away, so close and violent was the sound.

My heart was doing a crazy can-can under my ribs. Gasping, I stared wildly around me. Nothing moved. The white walls gleamed silently in the moonlight.

Gradually, as my breathing slowed, I subsided under the duvet. ‘Bloody Perry,’ I muttered, sinking my head into the pillow and closing my eyes. ‘Lunatic. Shooting bloody rabbits at this time of night.’

I lay there for perhaps twenty seconds as the information filtered into my brain. Then my eyes snapped open, and I was out of bed and falling down the stairs.

Deborah. Please, no. Deborah had said goodbye.

The garden door stood wide open. Sprinting across the kitchen, I came to an abrupt halt as I reached it. For an endless moment I balanced on the step, peering out at the peace of the moonlit garden. Each blade of grass had its own shadow, and the hunchbacked yew crouched menacingly, silhouetted black against the stars. I didn’t want to go out there. I didn’t want to see what she’d done to herself.

I heard light, rapid footsteps on the stairs, and miraculously Deborah appeared in the kitchen. She was still in her nightdress, and her eyes looked white with fear. I sagged against the doorway. I couldn’t get my breath.

‘Is there an outside light?’ I gasped, trying to take control of myself.

Wordlessly, she pressed a switch beside the larder door, and half of the garden was brilliantly floodlit. I stepped out, but she pushed past me. She hesitated by the picket fence, her head turning, looking around her. Then she gave a cry and threw herself onto the ground in the black shadow of the yew. I could see the silver glimmer of her like water in the darkness, and then, as I moved closer, I made out the terrible shape beside her.

I dropped down on one knee and put a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t seem aware of me at all. She was whimpering, frantic, and she had both her hands on what was left of his face. I had to force myself to look. Even in the strange black and white light, I could see that Perry had made a hell of a mess of himself.

Surprising, really: such an organised, tidy person. Perhaps this was his last great manipulation. I don’t think there was anything left of the back of his head, and spread out behind him, gleaming sickeningly, were scattered substances that I’d prefer not to think about. They stretched all the way to the hedge. There was a smell too. I suppose forensic pathologists and serial murderers get used to that smell, but it still haunts me now.

I left Deborah in the moonlight with her husband of almost eighteen years, and went inside to make the phone call. When I was a kid I’d always wondered what happens when you dial emergency. But now I wished I never had to find out. I just felt sad. And I felt, somehow, that Perry should be left to lie in his garden.

The operator was efficient and calm, and she knew what to do. After I’d hung up, I grabbed some clothes from upstairs, and a blanket for Deborah, and went to be near her while we waited. She wasn’t whimpering any more. She knelt beside him, stroking his chest and quietly talking to him. I draped the blanket over her shoulders and sank onto the wet grass nearby.

High above the woods I could see the lights of a jet, moving silently across a giant backdrop of stars. I remember thinking how odd it was. Just up there were pilots, and stewardesses in tight skirts, and people in complimentary bed socks watching the in-flight movie.

I was the last to see Perry alive. I had been his last hope. But I’d tipped his whisky down the sink and left him sitting all alone. I’d even kissed his wife, in the shadows. Shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to put back the clock.