The Bones of You (10 page)

So he kept it in, held it back, probably lay staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping at night, and listening to my mother’s deep breathing next to him, hoping for a way out of the mess.

That day in the car, surrounded by the shadowed moors, I stared at him and felt a terrible tightness in my chest. I started to cry, but silently. I didn’t want him to know that I knew he was hurting. That was the extent of my insight: I could sense his pain, and it caused me pain, too.

We sat there for what felt like hours but what was really, in all probability, just the space of a few minutes, him staring out at the road, his face knitted in a fearful frown, and me staring at him, tears flowing down my cheeks.

Then headlights flared on the road ahead, and my dad blinked. I turned away, lifted a hand and rubbed my face, drying the tears. The headlights grew brighter, came closer. They were on full-beam. My dad started flashing his headlights, trying to signal to the other driver that he needed to dip his lights and slow down. The other driver sounded his horn, but he dipped the lights as he passed us on the other side of the road, heading in the direction from which we’d come.

“Fuck,” said my dad. It was the only time I ever heard him swear. “That idiot is going to get someone killed.” He turned toward me. His cheeks were wet. I hadn’t noticed before, but he’d been crying, too. He smiled. It was the saddest smile I think I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t say a word. I just sat there, feeling closer to my dad than ever before, yet also aware that there was an immeasurable distance between us. For some reason, this small incident had opened up a channel, forged a connection across that gap. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. It was just one of those things, those tiny moments where the universe tilts toward you, giving you an insight that makes no sense, but feels good anyway.

My dad is dead now. He survived my mother, but not by very long. He’s been gone a long time—too many years for me to want to count them. But whenever I think of him—when I remember what kind of man he was—I call up that time, that place, that moment in the car, when we shared something strange and intangible but neither of us possessed the knowledge or the understanding to speak of it.

NINE

Magic in the Garden

The basic idea was for Jess and me to do some gardening. The garden was in serious need of attention, she liked doing things—physical things—and I thought it might prompt some serious father-daughter bonding. It was a basic plan, but at least it
was
a plan. I found some comfort in that.

“So, what do you think?” I looked at her and smiled.

We were standing just outside the side door, facing the knock-kneed timber fence that wrapped around the overgrown area. I was trying to ignore the house next door. Its presence was becoming unsettling. I wished that I hadn’t been told about what had happened there, the things that had been done within its walls. If I could have pretended it was just a normal empty house, it would have been okay. But I couldn’t. I knew too much.

Jess surveyed the little patch of land at the rear of my house, taking in the high weeds, the out-of-control lawn, and the planting beds that had been choked so badly by weeds that little of the original flowers remained, just a few tired, drooping flower heads and torn petals. She folded her arms across her chest, pouted for a few seconds, and then turned to me.

“I think,” she said, her face all serious and beautiful, like that of a tiny shop-worn angel, “that we have a lot of work to do before dinner.”

“Come on, then. Let’s get cracking.”

I’d already changed into some old clothes—combat trousers, a torn sweater, and a pair of battered walking boots—and Jess was wearing the same clothes she’d arrived in, which would need washing anyway so it didn’t matter how scruffy she got. I went to the old shed at the bottom of the garden, fighting through the long grass, and opened the door. It wasn’t locked; the padlock was hanging by its broken metal ring. Inside, I found some old gardening tools. They weren’t very good; they were old and rusty, and looked like they might break if we used them. But they’d do; they’d serve a purpose. The aim here was just to make some headway, perhaps create a small dent in the jungle. We weren’t out to transform this into something out of
Homes and Gardens
.

“How about you start over there,” I said, pointing to a narrow planting bed that was choked with weeds but not so many that they obscured the soil beneath, which actually looked pretty healthy. I handed her a small hand-trowel and fork.

“Okay, Daddy.” Her quick smile almost broke my heart, and then it was gone as she scampered over to the planting bed, trowel in hand, and fell onto her knees to start work.

I stood and looked at the rest of the garden. It was a mess. Nobody had touched it in years. A lot of the rougher vegetation—the high weeds and the long yellow ivy that had smothered most of the fence—had grown through from the plot next door. It looked sickly, that ivy; it looked like something pestilent. For a second I imagined it as the physical manifestation of the deeds that had been carried out over there. A creeping, crawling evil.

I walked over to the fence, using a shovel to batter down the rampant grass. There were holes in the fence, and in some places it had given way completely, so that the only thing holding it up was that damned crawling ivy, or whatever it was. I remembered reading something about some kind of Japanese root that was impossible to get rid of. I was no gardener, but I seemed to recall the article mentioning something about the stuff killing every other plant it touched. I wondered if this vile weed was what I’d read about.

Something shifted in the grass off to my right. I turned and saw the grass shivering, as if something had ducked away out of sight. Something small and sly and fast: a wild animal, probably. I hoped it wasn’t a rat. That was one problem I really didn’t need.

“You okay back there?” I turned around and looked at Jess. Her small back was bent over, her arms were moving violently.

“Yes,” she said, without turning. “This is tricky.”

I smiled.

Tricky
, I thought.
Everything’s tricky, my darling. You’ll find that out by yourself quickly enough.

I walked away from the fence, returning to the part of the garden where my daughter was working. For some reason, I didn’t want to be too far from her side. It was broad daylight, the sun was even shining, high up in a waxy sky, but I felt afraid for her. So much had happened in her young life, much of it made up of events that she didn’t even know about. All I wanted to do was to protect her, to love her, to make her feel safe. I’d never felt safe in my life, but I was determined that I could do that for Jess. That, if nothing else.

She needed me, and I certainly needed her. I think I needed her needing me.

“This is horrible,” she said, lifting a long gray weed into the air and flicking it away. She’d done well, clearing a large patch of the planting bed so that I could inspect the soil. The ground wasn’t as good as I’d first thought. Now that it was exposed, it looked gray, too, as if it were parched.

I glanced again at the plot next door, the abandoned house. The boards on the windows. The dirty roof tiles. The walls and the flaking paintwork. Had it infected my place? Was that even possible, that bad deeds could spread like disease, leaving a trail of destruction, churning up the earth and planting its seeds to flower into degraded life much later on?

Bad memories stirred at the back of my mind. I didn’t want to go there, not when I was with Jess. I had no desire to pollute my time with her by remembering events that should remain buried, like the corpses of old house pets under the earth upon which I now stood.

I knelt down beside her and clasped her hand. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea?”

She put down the trowel, wiped her small hands on her jeans, and grinned. “I know a good idea.”

“Come on, then. Tell me. What’s this good idea of yours?”

She giggled. The sound almost broke my heart. “Ice cream,” she said, blinking.

“You know what?” I stood and kicked at the grass. “I think you’re right.” This had been a bad idea. Gardening was stupid. However hard you worked, no matter how much crap you cleared away, it grew back stronger.

Jess giggled again, and then she glanced quickly to her left, near the place where I’d seen that quick, stealthy movement in the grass. “Oh, Daddy,” she said. She stood and rushed over to the fence, not far from where I’d been standing. “Did you see it?”

I walked to her side, trying to ignore the irrational fear that I brought along with me. “See what, baby?”

“The cat.”

I looked where she was pointing. There was a shape crouched in the long grass. It might have been a cat, yes, or an extremely large rat. I wasn’t taking any chances. Not anymore.

“Come on, Jess. Let’s get that ice cream. I’m hungry.”

“But
he
might be hungry. The cat. I think he wants to make friends.”

She took a few cautious steps over toward the fence, and the longer grass wrapped around her legs, her knees, her thighs… The grass stirred. There was no breeze. I glanced again at the house next door, wondering what might be hiding in its dark interior. Could badness be stored, like preserves in glass jars? Perhaps if I went in there, I’d find row upon row of containers, each one containing a small sin. The larger sins—the ones committed by the ex-tenant—would be skulking in the corners, hidden from view.

A shadow crossed the area of wall I was looking at. I looked up at the sky and then back again. The shadow was gone. There had been nothing to cast it.

I turned back to my daughter. “I’m not sure it’s a cat, Jess.”

Then what else could it be? One of those sins escaped from its jar, or set free to roam the area, looking for a sinner to cling to?

“It is, Daddy…it’s a pussycat.” She took another step toward the long grass. Whatever was in there darted quickly away, clearly more afraid of her than I was of it. That was good. Sins could have no fear, unless they feared the innocent. “Here, pussy, pussy…” She started to make that odd hissing noise, the one people make when they’re trying to beckon a feline. She couldn’t quite form the sound properly, so it came out all wrong. It was no surprise that the cat—if that’s in fact what it was—didn’t want to approach her. It was probably terrified.

I thought about the box I’d found in the cellar, and turned around to look at the house. I checked that Jess was okay, and then walked toward the building. I’d been at this end of the house at the time, standing on the other side of the cellar wall. I bent down, moved some grass and weeds aside with my hand, and found a small window. It was more of a vent, really. The opening was much too small to be called a window, but had a pane of glass set into the plastic frame. It was the size of a letter box…just big enough for a small animal to enter. And, yes, when I reached out and pushed it, the vent opened inward.

A cat…

It must have entered the cellar through this vent and been playing with the box, moving it around the cellar floor. It made perfect sense—at least more sense than any other explanation that I could think of.

I felt relieved, yet the fear didn’t leave me completely. I twisted my head around and looked at Jess. She was leaning forward, bent over at the waist, with her hand out…rubbing her first finger and thumb together and making that silly beckoning sound again.

I walked over to where she was standing. “I think you’re right. It is a cat.”

“I know, Daddy. I’ve just seen him. He popped his head out and meowed. He’s lovely…so cute.” She dropped into a low crouch. “Come on, Mr. Cat. We won’t hurt you.”

As if obeying a direct order, the cat appeared. It slunk out of the tall grass, looking timid and uneasy. It was black, with large green eyes: a beautiful creature. The closer it came, the more I realized that the cat was uncared for. It was thin; its ribs were visible through its skinny flanks. The fur was matted, filthy, and coated with brambles and seeds. The cat wasn’t wearing a collar. Even a fool could tell it was a stray. I thought it might have belonged to some past tenant of the house I was renting, and had been living rough in the area, feeding off scraps. Perhaps it wandered by often, looking for its old owners, hoping that they might have returned to take it with them.

I no longer felt scared; I just felt sorry for the thing.

“Oh, Daddy,” said Jess, and in that moment I knew that we were keeping the cat. That
I
was keeping the cat—at least for a little while, until I could think of a way to get rid of it that wouldn’t upset my little girl. She would have it no other way, so I might as well just accept the situation and move on. Me and my new house pet.

The cat walked right up to Jess. She dropped to her knees and held out her hands. The cat jumped up into her arms. I flinched, but it was too late to make a difference. If the cat scratched her, the damage was already done. I could do nothing but watch.

But the cat didn’t harm her. It sat in her arms as she cradled it, singing a wordless tune. The cat shut its eyes and began to purr. The sound was absurdly loud, like a distant motorbike engine drawing closer.