Thorn in the Flesh (14 page)

Mrs Williams trailed off and on impulse Kate hugged her. Beneath her arms, the other woman felt frail, in spite of her stature.

‘Please, call me Kate,’ she said again, and Jenny nodded.

‘All right. Kate.’

‘What happened then?’ Kate asked after a moment or two. ‘Did he keep his promise?’

‘No. No, he didn’t,’ Mrs Williams said and began to cry in earnest, harsh sobs shaking her frame. ‘I’m sorry. Please, if you can just give me a minute.’

Wrenching herself away from the chair, Mrs Williams half ran out of the room, clicking the door shut behind her. Then the sound of the bathroom fan and running water. And silence.

Kate wondered if she should leave, but she needed to know more. She couldn’t go home yet. Getting up, she took two paces towards the door through which her hostess had disappeared, but the noise of footsteps and then the murmur of voices stopped her. Mr Williams had come back into the house. She should leave the two of them alone for a while. Instead, she turned her attention to the now abandoned photograph albums.

There were four of them. Thick tomes, two leather-bound and two in a shinier material. When Kate picked them up, they smelt of hope and other people’s dreams. She went through them again, from the beginning and in order, as she had with Jenny Williams, but more slowly, paying more attention this time to the pictures of her son. The soft tick-tick of the mantelpiece clock was her only accompaniment.

Her fingers moved over the small images of Stephen as a baby. Something she could barely remember herself. She saw his wispy dark blond hair, his solemn blue eyes. At first he was laid out on a rug in a garden and when she looked closer she could see the wall behind him was the bungalow itself. The starfish image was obvious. Later the background was indoors, in the room she was sitting in now, strewn with toys and books. As she turned the pages, hesitating over this unknown history, she could see the settings change: a school; a large field with what looked like swings in the far right corner; a beach with Stephen, his hair a little darker now, holding up a shell to the camera; a garden fence with an orchard behind, perhaps of apple trees. In swift time, without the years’ slow march, she watched him grow up: a small boy in his first school uniform frowning; then on what must have been a school trip to Brussels; at a birthday party with his adoptive parents who looked younger and so much happier; and then, later in the sequence, lounging on the settee, his arm draped round the back and with what seemed to be some kind of computer game on his lap. Stephen looked as if he were early teens by then and next to him, ranged across the room, other boys of a similar age were lounging on the floor or leaning up against the table. None of them were looking towards whoever had taken the picture and none of them looked pleased. Disturbed in the middle of something, perhaps? Or were they only being teenagers, in whatever context, in whatever country? She didn’t know. She had no experience to call on which might tell her. She was a parent in name only.

Now, looking at the image of her son under her fingers, his pale skin, with a hint of acne on the cheek, and fierce blue eyes, she found she was having trouble catching her breath and her skin felt hot.

She should go. Now. She should never have come at all. It was obvious neither of these people had anything to do with her letters. She couldn’t think about it any more. Stumbling up onto her feet, she reached for her bag …

… Just as the door to the hallway and bathroom clicked open and the parents of her son appeared. They stared at her as if she was a stranger who had appeared without warning in front of them.

Then Mrs Williams blinked and walked two steps further into the light. Kate could see her face was still streaked with tears she must have been trying to wash away. Behind her, Mr Williams hovered, an uncertain presence in the background. Perhaps it had always been that way.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I should have gone, but I …’

Not sure what she could tell them, she came to a halt and waved a hand towards the table where the albums lay open to view.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Williams said, almost to herself. ‘I should have let you see them again. Of course I should. I can get copies, if you like.’

Kate shook her head. ‘No, please. Thank you, but I’ve seen enough. I should be leaving. The agency told me to try to keep this meeting short. Before I do, there’s something else I need to know. No, two things. I need to know if you ever talked to Stephen about me. And … and if you might know where he is now. Please?’

Mrs Williams swallowed and sat down on the sofa Kate had just vacated. Her movements were those of a much older woman. Mr Williams glanced at Kate and then walked across to stand next to his wife, almost as if protecting her from something. He made as if to speak but Jenny Williams waved her hand once and he was silent.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, let me say it. Mrs Harris has a right to know.’

Kate waited. At last the other woman squared her shoulders and looked up. Her gaze met Kate’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I never talked to Stephen about you. Not that I knew very much, but I knew I should at least have tried. But the right moment never seemed to happen and he never asked.’

Kate shook her head. ‘It’s all right. I understand. Please don’t worry about it, but I …’

She couldn’t continue, but Jenny seemed to understand.

‘Yes, I’m sorry for this too,’ she said, ‘but, as you must have guessed from the little we told you, we don’t know where Stephen is now. After he attacked me the first time, he became increasingly difficult to manage. I knew by then he was on drugs. Somehow he’d found a regular supply of them. I don’t know where from. We never did find out. Over the next few months, he kept running away. The first few times we called the police, but he would always turn up in the end and after a while they lost interest. He had a few warnings, some fines, but nothing serious. Nothing we couldn’t take care of ourselves.’

For a moment, Jenny paused and the pride in her voice made Kate’s eyes fill with tears. Mr Williams almost imperceptibly moved closer to her.

‘Then,’ the woman continued, ‘just before his sixteenth birthday he disappeared for good. We didn’t know that at first, of course. We thought it was just another of those occasions when he’d be away for a few days and then turn up wanting food or money, and saying how sorry he was. Like always. A week later, with still no Stephen, we rang the police. They took another two days to visit us for a statement, even though we’d asked if we could come to the station. To try to find our boy, we contacted everyone we could think of. The school – not that they’d seen much of him over the past months – the gang of boys he went around with, the neighbours, anyone at all. Nobody knew anything. I put an advert in the paper for a month but nothing came of it. We even thought he might have gone to London – he often talked of getting away, going south for the jobs – and we stayed there in a hotel during the end of the summer season for three weeks, searching every day. We asked around the charities for the homeless, spoke to people on the streets, we even hired a private detective for a while. But nothing worked. Nothing at all. When we came back home, there was nothing here to help us either. I don’t even know why we thought there might be. But I don’t think you ever give up hope, do you? Not really.’

Mrs Williams glanced up at Kate, who shook her head.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Did you ever try to find him again, more recently?’

A pause followed, naked with all the words neither woman could say. Someone sighed, perhaps Mr Williams. Then his wife spoke again.

‘No, we didn’t,’ she said. ‘We thought about it last year, when Stephen was eighteen. But in the end we were too afraid. We thought that if he had wanted to see us, he would know where we are. So you see how it is. We can’t give you your son, Mrs Harris, even though maybe I think we would have liked to share him with you. I’m sorry. We can’t find him ourselves, so how can we find him for you? Maybe we weren’t in the end the best parents you could have chosen.’

Then Mrs Williams cried again. Kate could find nothing more to say, or at least nothing she could think of which might help. Her head was too full of the need to escape. Three minutes later, the couple were standing at the garage gate, preparing to bid her farewell, the iron railings a barrier between them. All her instincts were straining to go, to be where there’d be time and space to consider. And to forget.

She shook Mr Williams’ hand. It felt cold in her grasp and for a moment he wouldn’t look her in the eye. Then just as she was about to let go, his grip tightened and he leaned towards her.

‘Mrs Harris,’ he whispered, softly enough for his wife, standing a little apart from them, not to hear. ‘My fear is that Stephen was always susceptible to turn to what was bad, no matter what we did or didn’t do. My wife won’t accept that, but … I believe in the end nothing could have been done. Our son was always restless, discontent. It was how he was.’

Then he let her go. Kate couldn’t think how to respond, but by then Jenny had stepped forward to say her goodbyes and it was too late. Kate stretched out her hand and smiled at her. The next moment, the two women found themselves in each other’s arms and Kate could smell a lavender scent coming from her skin.

She eased herself away. Then on impulse she turned round, her hand already on the car door. When she spoke, she hoped she answered both of their fears.

‘I think you’re mistaken,’ she said. ‘I think you were the best parents you could have been. Because, sometimes, no matter how much we don’t want them to, things simply go wrong.’

Chapter Fifteen

It was strange how the body could store memories and knowledge that it never allowed the mind or heart to comprehend. Kate could feel her cells, her blood, her marrow crystallising in a kind of understanding she was unable to name to herself. She was at home and with no-one to question her. Due to traffic, the journey from York had taken more than five hours. Not once stopping for food, she’d simply driven until the road became familiar again. She’d left behind an image of domestic security and its failure, the calm solidity of people who’d tried their best but had been unable to cope with what had been handed to them, and the uncertainty of hope.

When she’d arrived home, it was dark but she’d felt no fear. There was a birthday card from Nicky and the family, which she opened and put on the mantelpiece. She felt nothing. She’d unplugged the telephone, switched off the mobile, drawn the curtains and lain down, fully clothed, on her bed. Her limbs felt as if they belonged to someone else, not her, and she shivered, even though the night was warm. In the end, she stayed there for nearly two days, getting up only to go to the bathroom, both to relieve herself and to quench her raging thirst. Once – it must have been in the afternoon as her room was flooded with light – she heard someone knocking and then the faint click of the letterbox. For a few moments, she thought about going downstairs to see what it was, but then she drifted off and her dreams were filled with colour and something like the sea.

She was walking along a road. The trees were so tall. Someone held her hand but she couldn’t see who it was. In front of her, the outline of a man in boots and a shooting jacket strode away.
Dad
, she called out in her head,
Dad
, but no sound came out. A voice beside her said,
he’s dead, don’t you know it?
But of course she did. When she looked up to tell her mother that she knew this – as surely the woman she was with must be her mother – she saw that the face was Penny’s, long-forgotten from college days. She tried to cry out, but again no sound left her mouth and then she snatched her hand away from the fingers enclosing hers – so long, so elegant and unreal – and was running through trees and grass. When she looked down, she was naked. She had to get away from whoever she had been with, and whatever was following her. Behind her the trees swayed and a rushing sound came to her. Ahead, there was only the river and nowhere to go, nowhere, and …

… and she was awake, lurching out of sleep, her bedroom walls shimmering into reality, closing up around her so that the trees, the grass, the water were gone and she was back in her life. In familiar surroundings.

After a while, she stopped shaking. The darkness was almost alive, but she knew the house was empty. Nothing here to frighten her or give her such dreams. Only what she understood inside herself. Why dream of her parents after so long? Why dream of Penny?

She got up. It was Thursday now, the 23rd June. She was hungry but found she didn’t want to eat anything. Her head spun and she sat as still as possible on the side of the bed until her world became stable again. In the bathroom, she filled a glass with water and drank deeply. Afterwards, she splashed herself clean and buried her face in the comfort of the towel. Finally, she gazed into the bathroom mirror and took one, then two steps back.

This was something she’d started to do on a regular basis since the attack. The cabinet which she’d bought when she first moved in was shaped in such a way that the two mirrored doors met at an angle with the wooden frame jutting out in the middle. This meant that if someone stood in front of it at about two paces’ distance, they disappeared entirely. Kate found it liberating. It gave her the choice of not being in her own life. For several minutes now she stared at the emptiness. In this position, she could vanish, but only while she stood here. Why shouldn’t she vanish for all time? It was possible, wasn’t it? If she willed it. She blinked. No, she didn’t will it. She didn’t want to die. Still, she stood there for a while longer, then when the time had run its course, she made her way downstairs, her feet luxuriating in the easy softness of the carpet.

It was only at the bottom of the stairs that she glanced at the door and saw the small, white envelope lying on the mat. A wave of sickness powered through her body and she clutched her stomach, drawing her thin shirt tighter round her waist. He was back. He’d written again then, just when she’d got used to the absence of letters. She slumped at the bottom of the stairs, feeling the hot sting of tears behind her eyes. Why should she feel she was safe? She had no reason to think anything had changed. Because she had travelled north to try to plumb the mystery and find the identity of her correspondent, this didn’t mean he wouldn’t write again. How could he not?

Brushing her tears away, she stared at the letter, as if by wanting she could make it go away.

‘I hate you,’ she whispered. ‘I hate you. And I meant what I said. You’ll know how cruel I can be too, one day.’

With a sudden movement which surprised her, she reached out and snatched up the letter, tearing with clumsy fingers at its casing and ripping out the contents. Her eyes scanned over the words. A sob rose to her throat and then she was laughing. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She shouldn’t have been so eager to draw conclusions.

When she’d brought her wild laughter under control, she read the letter again:
Kate – I haven’t been able to get hold of you. Your ansaphone isn’t clicking in and your mobile isn’t on. Hope everything was okay with your northern trip. Can we catch up soon? All my love, Nicky

At the bottom, Nicky had sketched a quick drawing of two women sitting on comfy chairs in a café, leaning forward and talking. The likenesses were perfect. Kate smiled and returned the paper to the envelope. She noticed another message scribbled in pencil on the back that she’d missed before
: K – saw your car. Hope all okay. Please ring me – or I’ll ring you. Love, N

Yes, she would ring Nicky. But soon. Not yet. Now, she needed to sleep once more.

The next day, a Friday, Kate got up late, just before lunchtime. For the first time since the day she’d met Mr and Mrs Williams, she showered and felt her muscles tingle and relax in the hot jet of water. Once dressed, she wandered downstairs and put the washing machine on. For breakfast, she defrosted two croissants, and then added a bowl of cereals, one orange and a cafetiere of coffee, as strong as she could make it, to the mix. Still hungry, she ate a yoghurt and walked around the house, opening the curtains and letting the sunshine in. She was ready. For whatever might come.

One hour after getting up, Kate rang Nicky but there was no answer. They must be out or, if David wasn’t at work, he might be somewhere with the twins and Nicky would be in her studio. She left a message saying she’d ring again later.

In the living room, she finished her coffee and flicked through
The Surrey Advertiser
. She read the arts review with interest, vowing to book a ticket for a play – any play – as soon as she could. It would be another step back to the life she’d had before, although whenever that life arrived she sensed it would be different.

She spent most of the rest of the day in the garden, mowing the lawn, tending her roses, trimming the yew hedge and smiling at the neighbours, the couple of times they appeared. After her attack, they’d been concerned and had offered help, she knew that from Nicky, and when she’d returned home, she’d written them both a thank you note. There the new-found intimacy had ceased. Still, Kate found the simple work and the pacing of the day acted as a balm for her mind, although her muscles ached with the unaccustomed intensity.

Afterwards, she ate a meagre and very late lunch of oat biscuits, sliced ham and tomatoes, accompanied by sparkling water, in the kitchen with the back door locked but the window open so she could catch the scents and sounds of the garden. She could hear birdsong, the distant sound of a car, a dog barking and a burst of laughter. A small aircraft passed overhead and the sunlight through the blinds made long, sharp patterns across the table. Instead of putting the plate and glass in the dishwasher, Kate washed up at the sink, plunging her hands into the cleansing bubbles that glittered with the movement of the cloth.

In the early evening, as it was still warm, she thought about sitting in the garden but it seemed too public. She chose instead the cooler shade of the living room, drew her chair closer to the French windows and half dozed, half read the hours away. In her times of sleeping, no dreams occurred. Once, as she opened her eyes, a large grey cat – not one she recognised – crossed the lawn and she watched it lazily until it disappeared. Her book kept her attention intermittently, although it was one she enjoyed and in fact had already read twice. Joanne Harris’
Five Quarters of the Orange
was, Kate thought, her best novel by far, though all of them were good, perhaps because it was the strongest and also the most bitter. She had no truck with a too likeable heroine. What was the point of not writing the truth? No-one could be likeable all the time; it would be impossible. No, in the books she chose to keep and the life she chose to lead, Kate preferred a spikier brew.

Later, the wind turned and the air grew colder. Kate closed the window and watched the first few spots of rain patter against the glass. A summer squall. It would soon be over. She shivered and fetched a cardigan from the bedroom before returning downstairs and picking up her book again. This time she switched the radio on and allowed a Mozart symphony to drift softly around the room. It didn’t fit her reading matter, so she closed the book, relaxed back into her chair and listened. Not something she did often, preferring as she did silence or a book to music. Now the notes and lilting hint of tunes soothed her and she was asleep, this time more fully, before the piece had ended.

When she woke, it was well past 7pm, and the sun was making the rain-spattered leaves and grass sparkle and dance. The chill in the air had remained though and she kept her cardigan on as she got up to prepare supper. Glancing in the hall mirror on her way to the kitchen, she saw her face was creased with sleep and her auburn hair folded into impossible waves. Her green eyes blinked back at her as she tried to smooth the creases away. So many thoughts and actions ahead of her, but today was not a day for accepting their demands. It was instead a day for treading water, taking stock. She seemed to be waiting for something, but what that something might be eluded her.

Shaking her head at her own ridiculous inactivity, she turned her mind to supper. Not that she had much in the house; tonight she would have to make do, a phrase her mother and indeed her grandmother would have been proud to hear her using.

She chopped carrots, the last of the potatoes and an onion with sage and gravy, arriving at a mix between stir-fry and stew. The smell of the onion sweating brought into life again a vision of her grandmother cooking impossibly large feasts for her small brood on the annual summer trip north. Neither she nor her parents could ever finish the steaming offerings ladled onto enormous plates, and her grandmother would constantly complain about
silly southern appetites
, though now Kate remembered she had always said it with a smile.

When supper was ready, she ate her offering, accompanied by two torn-off hunks of bread, in front of the television, again something she never did. Her mother might have frowned and talked of
family values
and how one should always eat at the table. But of course Kate had no family. The sense of delayed rebellion made her smile and she opened a Rioja and poured a large glass. A reward and an acknowledgement. She didn’t wash up.

As night drew in, Kate closed the curtains and secured the house. She should ring Nicky, but the whole headiness and unaccustomed ease of the day had taken away the sharp edge of the need to talk to her friend. And indeed the need to move forward somehow. She would ring tomorrow.

At 9.30pm, she switched off the television, not even knowing what it was she had been watching, and in the silence pondered the delights of a second glass of wine.

The shrillness of the doorbell made her jump. When, a few moments later, her heartbeat grew easier, she padded in her bare feet along the hall to see who it was.

It was Nicky.