The Stopped Heart (16 page)

“The dog's not with you?”

Mary hesitates.

“I need to take her home and feed her.”

She gets up from the bench, suddenly annoyed at being forced to explain herself.

“You don't mind this, do you?” he says before he goes.

“What?”

“Me ringing you. Just because I felt like it. I suppose I just couldn't stop myself. I hope you don't mind it.”

Mary hesitates again, then tells him once more that she has to go.

Four or five minutes after they say good-bye, walking through the dark copse and back into the lane, she gets a text.

Forgive me! E

She stares at it for a moment, then she deletes it.

B
ACK HOME,
R
UBY AND
L
ISA ARE IN FRONT OF THE
TV
WITH
their feet on the coffee table and the curtains drawn. Both have cushions clutched against their stomachs. The dog is lying flat out on the rug. The moment she comes in, Ruby pauses the TV. Mary feels a lick of irritation.

“You don't have to do that every time I come in.”

“Do what?”

“Pause the TV.”

Ruby blinks at her. The dog lifts her head.

“It's very hard to concentrate with people coming in and out.”

Mary takes a breath and looks at the screen. The same well-groomed American characters frozen midgesture. She looks at the girls' feet on the table—Lisa's blue toenails; Ruby's black leggings and socks with holes in them.

“It's a lovely day outside,” she says.

Ruby looks at her and shudders.

“Well, it's freezing in here. We're really freezing.”

“Maybe you should try going out in the sunshine.”

“We did. We already tried it. We went outside for a bit but we were so cold that we had to come back in. I wish we could put the heat on.”

“Ruby, it's almost June. It's summer. We're not putting the heat on.”

“Mum has the heat on in June,” Ruby says.

Mary is about to say something about Veronica's heating bills being subsidized by Graham, but she stops herself. She's about to walk out of the room when she remembers something.

“Did Eddie call and ask you for my mobile number?”

Still clutching the cushion against her stomach and shivering, Ruby nods.

“He didn't call. He came around.”

“What? You mean he came around here?”

Letting her eyes go back to the TV, Ruby sighs.

“Where else would he come?”

Mary thinks for a moment.

“But—so when was this?”

“When was what?”

“When exactly did he come around?”

“I don't know when it was. Earlier.”

“Can you tell me what time?”

Ruby gives a yowl of impatience.

“I don't know what time! What does it matter? A while ago, OK? Anyway, it was Lisa that saw him.”

Mary looks at Lisa.

“You saw Eddie and you gave him my number?”

Slowly, Lisa turns to look at her. Sleepy-eyed, running her hands through her bleached hair—several thin bangles falling down her arm.

“He said he needed to talk to you. Is it OK? Rubes gave me the number.”

Ruby tuts.

“Look, is this important? Have we really got to talk about it right now? It's just that me and Lisa have only got about three more episodes to watch.”

Mary gazes at her for a moment, then she turns and walks out of the room.

I
DID NOT LOVE
J
AMES
D
IX.
N
OT AT FIRST, AND NOT IN THE WAY
he wanted me to. If love meant waking up and letting your thoughts go straight to that one person and then keeping them there. If it meant knowing you had a sweetheart and wanting to be near him all the time and breathe in every word he said and have his fingers wrapped in your hair, then this was not what I felt.

Sometimes I woke and I was afraid of what had happened between us, of what might still happen.

But James knew a lot. He knew how to entice me. He liked to promise me things and call me his love and his princess and make sure I knew that I now had his heart in my two hands and must take great care of it or else. He said that his heart had been broke in the past—not by the dead woman from Lowestoft but by another one he hadn't even told me about—and he did not think he could take that again.

Who is the one you haven't told me about? I asked him.

He said it was better for all of us that I did not know.

A private matter, he said. Don't get the wrong idea, Eliza. But even though I love you, I would not want you to know the sad and tawdry details of that little romance.

Some of the things he said made me laugh, and not always in a good way.

You should have seen me, he told me when he was talking about the one who broke him. I was so mad with love that I used to rage and howl and throw plates around. Once I ran out in the street with no clothes on, I was so very upset at the way in which she had spurned me.

I looked at him and said I hoped he would not do that with me. And he looked very sad and serious then and said didn't I realize that I was a whole different kettle of fish altogether? Could I not see that I had punctured his soul with my sweetness? And if so, why did I keep on laughing at the things he said, instead of gazing into his eyes with the kind of loving dedication he required?

I reminded him that I was only thirteen.

I thought you were fourteen?

Not till November, I said, suddenly not wanting to be old at all, but to stay as young and safe as possible for as long as possible.

He looked at me.

Thirteen isn't young, he said, as if he could read my thoughts. You're not a kid, Eliza. I've known much littler girls than you who had far better manners.

I didn't like the sound of that and I asked him what he meant by it. He looked bashful.

I had a very young girl, he said. Much younger than you. Tilly, her name was. And we was going to be engaged and all that. And I even got a loan and went and picked out the ring, gold with a single jewel it was, and then she went and changed her mind for no reason at all.

It couldn't be for no reason, I told him—thinking that if Tilly really was so much younger than me, then she must truly have been a child no older than Jazzy who ought not to marry
anyway—why on earth would she do a thing like that if she properly loved you?

He threw me a sly look.

Well, but you see, the truth was she didn't love me after all.

Why not? I said.

We fell out about something, didn't we?

What do you mean? What kind of thing?

He kept his head down but he looked out at me from under his gingery lashes.

She would insist on seeing her family. Putting them first, before me. Her friends as well.

What? And you didn't think she ought to?

They were silly girls, Eliza, with nothing to say. Airheads, you might call them. They worked at the dressmakers. They were always laughing and chattering about this and that. They did her no good at all.

I thought about this. I thought about how it might feel to have some friends that were real girls, people you could chat and laugh with like that. For as long as I could remember—my whole life, in fact—all I'd ever had was Jazzy and Frank and a whole bunch of silly little babies.

I sighed.

Maybe she just liked them, I said.

What?

Her friends. Maybe she liked them. Being with them, I mean.

Straightaway his face went hard and tight.

What? You think she preferred them to me?

She might have, I said, already regretting it.

He shook his head.

You don't know what you're talking about, Eliza.

You're right, I said. I don't.

You don't understand.

All right.

He reached out then and took my hand. I liked the rough hot feel of his fingers on mine, so I let him. Sometimes he squeezed a bit too hard but I didn't say anything.

But is it really so wrong to want to see your friends? I said at last.

He gazed at me so hard this time that it gave me an icy feeling.

I thought if she wanted to be a wife, then she should cleave to me.

Well, I said, taking my hand away now. No man would ever stop me seeing my family and my brothers and sisters who I love so much, and that's a fact.

I know that, he said, though his face told another story.

Not my friends either. Not if I had any, that is.

I folded my arms. I saw him watching me.

But you don't have any, he reminded me.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see them if I did.

He stared at me for a moment.

Let's not talk any more about it, he said.

And that was it. He kept to his word and we spoke no more about it. Except that later I caught him looking at me in a very particular way. His head on one side. A little bit of light in his eyes.

What? I said. What is it now?

Are you my girl, Eliza?

I don't know. Yes. I suppose so.

You suppose so? You only suppose so? You don't love me passionately, then?

Maybe I do.

And would you do anything for me? Would you?

I don't know, James. It's not that I don't want to, but I think it's the wrong kind of question to ask.

What kind of question would be the right one?

I don't know, I said.

And that was when he whispered it. He bent and whispered in my ear that even though he didn't care at all for Phoebe Harkiss, he knew that she would do anything for him.

I looked at him.

Phoebe Harkiss is a child, I said.

No more than you, she isn't.

She is. She's a year younger than me and she's a horrible girl, I said.

He smiled.

Ah, he said. I thought so. Jealousy.

It's not jealousy. I'm just saying you shouldn't go blowing about with a young girl like Phoebe Harkiss.

He took his hands off me and lay back and put his boots up on the kitchen table even though he knew my mother didn't like it.

Then don't make me, he said.

R
UBY AND
L
ISA LEAVE AND GO BACK TO
L
ONDON.
G
RAHAM
drops them at the station on his way to work. Mary, stripping the sheets in their room, even though she had asked them to do it themselves before they left, sees streaks of blood on Ruby's sheets. She stares at them for a moment, then takes them down and sprays them with stain remover before putting them in the washing machine.

On the floor under Lisa's bed are a scattering of the white nubs that she recognizes as cigarette filters and an empty pack of cigarette paper with strips of the cardboard torn off. On the windowsill, hairy brown remnants of tobacco.

Mary sweeps the windowsill clean and flings everything into the waste bin and takes it downstairs, but before she can even tip it into the bin, she has to prize several pieces of dried pinkish-gray chewing gum off the bottom with her fingers.

She feels like phoning Graham to complain about all of this, but she doesn't. Instead, when Ruby rings from the train to say she left her phone charger, Mary tells her she'll put it in the post first thing tomorrow.

A
LITTLE LATER, SHE COMES IN FROM THE GARDEN TO FIND HIM
sitting at the kitchen table. His jacket is off. Briefcase on the floor. Head in his hands.

She stares at him.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“What are you doing? I thought you went ages ago.”

He lifts his head and she sees that his face is all wrong. White spaces under his eyes. Has he been crying? It's been a while since she saw him cry.

“I did,” he says. “I did go ages ago, but—”

“But what? Darling. What are you doing? What's the matter?”

He takes a breath. Letting it out. His hand on his forehead. Looking down at the table.

“I did go. I tried to go. I dropped the girls off and got part of the way to work and then I had to turn the car around and come back. I'm so sorry.”

He lets his hand slide down over his face, beginning to sob.

“What is it?” she says, her voice small and stupid now. She pulls out a chair and sits down next to him, stroking him, touching his shoulder. “You're hot,” she says. “You're sweating. Are you ill? Do you feel bad? What is it?” she says again.

He shakes his head, wiping his eyes and swallowing hard.

“I'm not ill.”

“What then?”

He looks at her, then back at the table.

“I haven't been like this for a while, have I? You know I haven't. Seriously. I've been great, haven't I?”

She looks at him, suddenly afraid.

“You have. It's true. You've been great.”

He nods.

“I know. I know I have. To be honest, I haven't even found it very difficult. But then this morning. I don't know what happened—”

He begins to sob again. She holds out her arms to him.

“What? Please—what is it? Did something happen?” She watches, trying to hold him as he continues to sob. “Just tell me what it is,” she says.

He looks at her.

“It isn't anything.”

“It must be something. Is it because Ruby's gone?”

“No. No, that's a bloody relief, if I'm honest.” He shakes his head, trying to laugh.

“What, then?”

He swallows. Looking around the room.

“I hadn't thought of him in a long time, really I hadn't.”

Mary is silent. She knows who he's talking about. Graham looks at her, his eyes wild and hard.

“But when I woke up today—for no reason at all, don't ask me why—he was suddenly right here in my head. Almost as if he was here in the house with us. I can't get rid of him. Nothing I do—” He gazes at her for a moment. “I'm sorry, my darling. I'm so sorry.”

She holds her breath, her eyes filling now.

“Sorry? Sorry for what?”

“I didn't mean to say this to you, to talk like this. Didn't want to tell you. I thought—if I could just get myself to work . . .”

Mary hears herself saying something, making some kind of a sound, but she doesn't know what it is. She holds him. Trying to pull him to her. His wet face. Trying to kiss his rough, hot cheek, missing and instead brushing his ear with her lips.

“It's all right,” she says.

“It's not all right.”

“It is, it is. Darling, it is.”

He lifts his head and looks at her.

“I mean it. For so long, I've been absolutely fine.”

“I know. I know you have—”

“And there I was, telling you you needed to talk to someone, when all along—”

“Stop it,” she says. “Don't.”

He stares at her.

“You see, I really did think I was on the way to—but now, today—why suddenly today after all this time? Why now? Why suddenly out of the blue like this?”

Mary is silent. The cold—it runs from her head through the very center of her and right down to her feet. Remembering the trial, the shock when he suddenly changed his plea, the brief couple of seconds when she dared herself to look at his dirty, gingerish face and saw how relaxed he seemed, smoothing his hair and pulling down his shirt cuffs and carefully adjusting his collar and tie, as if the only important thing in that moment was to get himself settled and comfortable.

“It's not out of the blue,” she says.

“It is.”

“It's not.”

“But I haven't thought of him in so long.”

He takes another quick, sobbing breath. Mary stands up and
gets the roll of paper towels from the rack. She hands it to him and he tears off a sheet and blows his nose.

“I love you,” she says.

He tears off another sheet. Holds it.

“I know you do. I know. And the terrible thing is, it means nothing.”

She stares at him.

“What means nothing?”

“Love. Our lives together. This. Everything. He destroyed it all, didn't he?”

“Graham. Please don't say that.”

“Isn't it true? Don't you think it too? Isn't it absolutely obvious to you? He destroyed us completely, didn't he?”

Mary says nothing. She looks out the window. Taking her eyes away from him, away from the room, beyond, out. That blue sky out there.

Graham is shaking his head, staring at her.

“I should have killed him. That's what I keep on thinking. Even if I went to prison for the rest of my life, even if it meant my whole life was over—my life and yours together—even if that was it, forever, it would have made us happier. Wouldn't it? Admit it, Mary. Anything would have been better than existing in this—this fucking awful limbo.”

F
RANK WASN
'
T WELL.
H
E
'
D GONE TOO NEAR A HORSE AND IT HAD
kicked him in the stomach. The doctor said he might be bleeding inside. But the pain wasn't in his stomach, it was in his chest. He coughed and coughed. All night long he couldn't stop. Afraid he might have the whooping cough, Mother rubbed some pork lard on him, but it did no good at all and he kept on hurting.

My mother was worried. She said the doctor should have looked at him more carefully. My father said he would be fine
and they should wait. I heard them arguing about whether they could afford to see another doctor. In the end, my mother won and they put him in the cart and drove him into Ipswich. She couldn't take the baby, and Honey had a tooth coming through, so I was left with the little ones while Jazzy and the twins went off to school.