by Sam Hayes
The streets of Burwell are quiet. It’s a pretty place, with everything you’d expect in a Cambridgeshire village; a place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens. Except maybe tonight.
‘You’ve changed your name already,’ David says.
I recall the fuss that Murray kicked up when I chose to keep my maiden name after we married.
‘I’ve always been Julia Marshall,’ I reply. With hindsight, it was the right thing to do. I don’t have to worry about changing names now the divorce is underway.
‘When did you and Murray actually separate?’ David looks down at me.
‘Last July,’ I say. ‘Saturday the fifteenth at three twenty p.m.’
‘That precise, huh?’ He tugs on my arm. A belated gesture of sympathy.
‘It was the exact time the locksmith finished changing the locks. Murray wasn’t even around. He was at . . .’ I stop. Not yet. Don’t colour David’s picture of me with the stain of Murray’s drinking. ‘Well, he just wasn’t there, that was all. It was for the best.’ I remember Murray at the bar, the look on his face when I approached him. By then, he didn’t even know who I was, let alone that he was supposed to have picked Alex up from the ice rink.
‘Have you ever been married?’ I ask. David’s been carefully protective of his past. He’s more interested in finding out about me, my childhood, than revealing his own story.
‘No,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I’ve always managed to put it off, wriggle out. There have been women . . . a woman.’ He swallows and his pace slows; drags almost. ‘But the time has never come.’ He stops walking. ‘It obviously wasn’t meant to be.’ I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. We are beside a bus stop. He turns me to face him. ‘I think we have a lot in common.’ A breath, a pause, and then he leaps. ‘I’d like to see you again.’ Then, ‘I want to know all about you.’
‘That would be nice,’ I say far too quickly, without even considering what it all means. I grip his forearms, giddy with pleasure, because they are the nearest things – strong, supportive, just where I need them – and suddenly his hands are holding me in return. In a flash, I am seventeen again, when Murray and I finally got together properly. He was strong. He was there. He was everything I’d ever wanted.
‘I’m not quite thirty,’ I say absurdly, perhaps thinking of all the roadblocks that we will encounter. I am completely unable to remove the grin from my face. He wants to see me again. Surely he knows there’s an age difference. It’s ridiculous but the only thing I could think of to say.
‘Lucky you,’ he says, laughing. There is no shock.
‘But it’s OK. I like older men,’ I say, grinning back. And it’s true. As of now, I do, because when he walks me back to my car, he kisses me. Just a dusting of skin, his lips missing mine by a fraction. I feel the heat in them anyway, his warm breath on my cheek, the passion I know he’s holding back. He stays there for a beat too long, causing my heart to kick up in my throat all the way back to the children.
MARY
After my visit to the surgery, after all the words I wanted to scream got wedged in my gullet, the woman that I’d become over the decades quickly unravelled and fell apart. The result was silence. I couldn’t speak a single syllable. It was self-preservation of the highest level. There was no one immediately available to talk to anyway, and by the time I got home, a few hours later, the vile bung that was trapped in my throat was as stubborn as a blocked drain. And it stank as much.
Everything I ever feared had come right back at me; a full circle of horror. And this time, I had more to lose.
Initially, I don’t think Brenna and Gradin even noticed my silence. Of course, they knew that something was wrong but their already troubled minds made it impossible for them to grasp what needed to be done. They were barely able to function normally themselves. My condition certainly made them unsettled, but ultimately, they were simply content to be out of their abusive home. They still took guesses at what I’d got them for Christmas, shrugging when I didn’t reply; they still squabbled and left the bathroom in a mess and ate up all the food in the house. During the first day or so, I managed to cook for them, just enough to make toasted sandwiches, a casserole, hot chocolate, and I washed their clothes. I got through the day hour by hour.
Until the telephone rang.
‘Mary . . . it’s . . .’ There was a sigh. A hesitation. ‘It’s David . . .’ I hung up immediately.
I stood for ten minutes, staring blankly at the wall ahead. My hand was pressing down on the receiver, pinning it to the base as if that would prevent it ringing again. It didn’t. He called twice more that evening.
‘It’s for you, Mary.’ Brenna answered and held out the phone to me. She frowned when I didn’t take it; when I didn’t stir from my chair. Even across the room I could hear him. Hello, hello? Each word ripped out another organ from my body. Piece by piece, David Carlyle was tearing me apart.
Stunned that he’d made contact, that he’d dared to enter my home – even if it was just his voice – I fell on to my bed and wept silently.
By Christmas Eve I was even worse. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t speak – although the words inside my head still flowed at a thousand a minute trying to unravel the mess, formulate a plan – but by now, my body had lost its tone, too. A fuse had blown in my brain, short-circuiting pretty much everything about me. I transformed from an active, stubborn, determined woman into an incapable, terrified shell.
‘There’s nothing to do,’ Brenna moaned, and the pair of them lurked through Christmas Eve, grumbling that they wanted a television, some sweets, something nice to drink. It wasn’t like Christmas at all. I dipped into my purse and fished out twenty pounds. They knew where the village shop was. It would still just be open.
‘What about you, Mary?’ My catatonic state had even prompted concern in Gradin. Before this, I’d been very concerned about his destructive behaviour. Now all I could think about was mine.
Christmas morning, they didn’t care whether I spoke or not. They’d already sniffed out the gifts I had hidden away and gorged on the chocolates, played the games and even read the books I’d bought for them. They were teens acting out a missed childhood and I was supposed to be helping them. It was all I could manage to breathe in and out.
In the afternoon, Julia arrived. She found me in the blue velvet buttonback chair that was only ever sat in when something was wrong. She didn’t know my heart was bleeding.
Today she’s back to take me to the hospital. ‘Are you still willing to have the tests, Mum?’ Julia sighs – all the weight of her worry pouring out. She is doing her best under the circumstances. I can’t even bring myself to look at her. I’m scared she would see the truth in my eyes. I twitch my finger. She knows what I mean. ‘Good. It’s cold out. Let’s get you into this.’
She holds my coat in a welcoming spread in the hope I will slither into it. When I don’t, she fumbles one arm into the sleeve, then the other, then hauls me upright by the hands. She truly believes she’s helping me; that her kind actions will make me better. What she doesn’t know is that there is no getting better.
‘Let’s get you into the car then, eh?’ Suddenly, everything is let us, as if that familiar, uniting use of words will make everything all right.
Oh, Julia. They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.
The hospital is busy and noisy. Doctors and nurses are rushing around and patients are shuffling along the polished floors. I look back at the entrance – a cluster of dressinggowned women are smoking outside. One of them catches my eye and turns away. Her dressing gown is as bright as the tumour on her leg. Already I am regretting agreeing to this. I don’t need any tests. They won’t find anything.
We wait in the neurology department for my appointment. Julia talks to me but I don’t hear her. My ears only pick up fragments of sound – shattered remnants of other people’s lives. She mentions cuts and guilt and suddenly, even without hearing her words, I know exactly what s
he is talking about. She says she will perhaps visit Grace while we are in the hospital. I think of Julia discovering the girl and wonder how much more my daughter can take.
‘Mrs Marshall?’ I leave it to Julia to reply. I hope she tells them I never married; that I’m Miss.
‘It’s my mother,’ she says, gesturing to me. ‘Come on, Mum. Our turn.’ She pulls me upright and I go dizzy.
It’s hard to believe that I’m shuffling like an old woman when two weeks ago I was chasing the chickens around the yard and repairing the goats’ pen. My previous foster child had returned to her family and I was looking forward to getting on with my next challenge – Brenna and Gradin. I was convinced I could help them; certain I could make a difference. Instead, it’s my life that’s pulled inside-out. Julia leads me into Mr Radcliffe’s office.
I don’t like doctors. My skin prickles.
‘Well, Mrs Marshall. Dr Carlyle has referred you to me as an urgent case. I’ve known him personally for a long time and we chatted at length about you. He’s extremely keen for you to be assessed as soon as possible. I’m going to ask you a few questions and most likely refer you for some tests. How does that sound?’
He is speaking to me like I am a child. His desk is laminated, not real wood, and there is a snag of cotton on the edge where someone has caught their clothing. The carpet is a medium blue, worn near the door but otherwise serviceable. ‘Mrs Marshall, do you understand?’ I wish he’d call me Miss. The spider plant on the corner of the desk has trailed miniature plants right down to the floor. A slice of winter sunlight cuts across the room and dust motes hover, swirling and lost.
‘Mum,’ Julia says, although she knows I won’t speak. ‘Shall I answer for you?’
I would like to nod, to glance at her, to smile even or twitch my finger, but I can’t do it. There is simply nothing there. Julia’s boots have a rim of pale mud around the sole and the heel is a little worn. Brown leather, crinkled at the ankle, with a zipper up the side. Warm boots. Julia’s boots. I recall fighting with her to wear sensible shoes as a child.
‘I’ll answer for her, Mr Radcliffe. Will that do?’
‘Under the circumstances, it will have to. Dr Carlyle explained to me about your mother’s mutism. He said . . .’ Radcliffe trails off, leaving me wondering exactly what was said about me. ‘Look, selective mutes can be surprising. They’ll talk to some people and not others.’
Does he think I selected this?
‘Are you suggesting that Mum is choosing not to speak? That she could if she wanted to?’ Julia sounds angry.
‘If she is a selective mute, then yes, to a certain extent she can choose who she speaks to. But I’m more concerned with the neurological side of things – her brain, to be precise – in case she doesn’t have a choice.’
‘You mean like a tumour?’ Julia is always direct.
‘That’s one possibility. We need to look at everything. When did Mrs Marshall stop speaking exactly?’
Julia pauses and I know she’s looking at me. I can feel the burn of her stare on my face; the plea in her eyes for me to become normal again – the pair of us, mother and daughter, invincible against the world. ‘That’s hard to tell. We chatted on the phone a few days before Christmas, and then when I visited her on Christmas Day, she was . . . like this. So it must have happened any time in between, I suppose. Dr Carlyle said . . .’ When she says his name, her voice turns to double cream.
‘Dr Carlyle didn’t seem to think she should go to hospital straight away. I think he was hoping that with rest and close monitoring, she would recover. As if she’d just had a big shock.’
‘And has she spoken a single word since, or even made any kind of vocal noise? A grunt or squeal perhaps.’
I don’t grunt or squeal, I yell in my head so it aches. My farm animals grunt and squeal.
‘She whimpered when I lifted her out of the chair on Christmas Day. I think I hurt her arms. But nothing else. Not a sound.’
Julia glances at me, praying I’m suddenly going to join in their repartee. They are talking about me as if I’m not here, which certainly makes my feeling of not being real all the more tangible.
‘And what about your mother’s movements? Does her physical ability seem impaired in any way? Does she limp? Is there any sign of paralysis?’
Julia pauses and thinks for a moment. In my head I interrupt, try to whisper the truth, but she can’t hear me. Frustrated, I turn to Radcliffe and silently mouth the answer he requires. Like Julia, I doubt he will believe me.
To begin with, Doctor, my mobility was perfectly normal. After several hours had passed, I somehow got myself home from Dr Carlyle’s surgery. It wasn’t until it all . . . sank in . . . until I understood what was now going on . . . that my joints gradually stiffened and my tendons creaked as they slid across my bones. Once released, the poison that I’d worked hard to contain for thirty years spread quickly through my body. It reached every part of me. Several days later, my eyes became gritty and dry, my heart barely beat in my chest and my skin started to peel. Walking crushed every joint in my body and eating felt as if I was swallowing thorns. Tell me, Mr Radcliffe, what is wrong with me?
‘It’s so weird. Mum’s always been full of energy. She’s fantastic for her age. She eats healthily and keeps fit on the farm. So to see her like this, it’s impossible to say she hasn’t been affected physically. Of course she has. Whether she’s capable of moving more, well, I don’t know. My guess is no, she is not choosing to be taken to the toilet and bathed by me. If she could do it, she would. Whatever it is has hit her entire body.’
My entire soul.
‘Mr Radcliffe said the MRI scan is booked for Monday, Mum. That’s good news, isn’t it?’ Julia is driving me home. ‘We just have to stop by Nadine’s house to pick up Alex and Flora.’ She’s being how I used to be with her – patient, understanding, driven to the ends of the earth with exasperation.
I think about the MRI scan. The doctor explained that I will be slid into a tube, where the machine will image my entire body, map my brain, my internal organs and trace the path of my blood vessels to make sure they are not bleeding inside my head. I will be slammed by noise as the machine goes about its business, probing a magnetic field into parts of me that no one has ever seen. Mr Radcliffe will study the results and report back what’s wrong. What they don’t yet know is that the scan, the precision picture of my entire being, will not show up a thing.
Outside Nadine’s house, Flora and Alex climb into Julia’s car. They smell of Coke and sticky sweets. Normally I would remind Julia to tell her sister-in-law not to fill my grandchildren with junk. She would eye me in a way that told me not to interfere, and then explain why Ed and Nadine enjoy spoiling their niece and nephew. Later, we would laugh about it and I would apologise.
But things are far from normal, and as we drive back to Northmire, Alex bombards his mother with news of Ed’s new case. The boy is clearly obsessed by his uncle’s job and talks nonstop about how he has to make sure no more women are hurt.
‘Uncle Ed is in charge of the case, Mum. He says I can go down to the station and interview the officers for a school report.’ I can’t see him sitting behind me but instinctively I know that he is beaming, already planning the questions. Alex is set on joining the police force when he is old enough. He looks up to Ed almost as much as to his father. Then I’m thinking about Murray and wishing he was here for Julia; to hold her and support her through the inevitable, because I can’t. I see an abyss so deep that when she is at the bottom, no one will hear her call.
‘Alex, you shouldn’t ask your uncle so many questions.’ Julia’s voice is shaky, like her driving.
‘Oh, Mum,’ he moans. ‘Uncle Ed says I can. He’s going to find the man who killed Grace.’
‘Grace is not dead,’ Julia retorts. She sighs and pulls the car straight after hitting a pothole on my drive. ‘She’s very poorly, though, and I sincerely hope that Uncle Ed catches whoever did this to her.’
>
‘I want Uncle Ed to catch him otherwise it might happen to you or Grandma or Flora.’
‘Enough, Alex!’ Julia explodes, as if being in the neurology department has stripped all her nerves raw. ‘Inside, kids, while I help Grandma.’ She paces her movements with short, sharp breaths, each one taking her to the next minute.
As Julia helps me out of my seatbelt and leads me inside, I think about what Alex said. How can I tell him it’s already too late?
MURRAY
There was no point in the world trying to hide my mistake. We could have died, I admit. With not a speck of air left in the cabin from the hungry furnace-like stove, Alex and Flora had heaved open the heavy wooden hatch of Alcatraz and stepped out on to the rear deck to gasp lungfuls of icy night air. Their bodies hungrily drew in the oxygen and I was saved only because they left the hatch open.
‘How could you, Murray? They could have suffocated. You’re irresponsible and selfish and useless and . . .’ Julia screamed at me from the deck, her barrage dissolving into the freezing night. She didn’t set foot inside the cabin, which smelled like a distillery and blew out hot, dry air from the over-coked stove that I had lit to keep my children warm. That was all. I’d not wanted them to go back to Julia and complain that Daddy had let them shiver. But I’d drunk Scotch and fallen asleep on the floor with my neck bent crooked and the empty bottle between my knees.
It was eleven fifteen when Julia, reeking of Dr Nice, finally stormed back down the towpath, dragging our bemused children with her. They were sure, I heard them tell her, that they had seen three giant pike lurking in the light of the moon. When I looked up – Julia’s cross words still ringing through the night – I saw that the moon was obscured by cloud. Had the children imagined the pike, just as I’d imagined I could take care of them?
I’ve made it into work today. Odd, considering my head feels like a demolition ball has crashed through it, and also odd because I’m about to lose my job. Any sane person wouldn’t have bothered showing up under the circumstances – pride or shame or simply the hangover keeping them away. Me, however, I’m desperate, and turning things around is what I have to do. If I can keep my job, there’s a chance that I can keep my family.
