by Sam Hayes
‘I’m scared, Mum.’ Alex’s voice is suddenly that of a much younger boy.
‘It’s OK, love. Just stay with me.’ I have the car keys aimed at the protesters as if I’m armed with a stun gun. I grapple with the front gate. We have to push through the gathering. ‘Look, please, just let us through.’ Flora is huddled inside my coat.
‘Is he in there? Is he still in the house?’ The woman’s sobs stop me dead. I look up and my hood slips off my head. I stare into her vacant eyes.
‘Yes,’ I lie. Then, ‘I’m sorry,’ although I’m not sure what for. The flash of recognition – perhaps from a parents’ evening, perhaps when Grace was in Romeo and Juliet – quickly ends when the jeering begins again. I want to reach out to her, to talk to her, explain that things aren’t as they seem. I want to tell her everything I know about David so that she understands he didn’t hurt her daughter.
Alex pulls at my sleeve. ‘Mum, come on.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say softly. I look at the woman’s fidgeting hands. Between her fingers she holds a tiny brown bear; a mascot, perhaps belonging to Grace. It takes all my effort but I turn away from her and hurry to the car. I hold Alex and Flora tightly by the hands.
As I fumble with the keys, there is more shouting – a muddle of anger and bitter threats of revenge. I hear Grace’s mother sobbing. ‘Justice will be done,’ she wails and I block it from my mind until we are safely locked inside the car. The engine starts on the third attempt and several stones clatter off the roof as we drive off down the darkening lane to find David.
The telephone wakes me. For a moment, I forget where I am, but once I’ve located the clunky plastic receiver in Mum’s spare room, I remember the day before with sickening clarity. David forced from his own home.
‘Murray,’ I say, wondering if I’m still dreaming. ‘Why are you calling so early?’ I am lying on my side, facing the wall. I hardly dare turn over to inspect the remainder of the bed. My eyes are wide and my cheeks flush with expectation. I am waiting for the warm hand to settle on my bare shoulder. I pray that nothing in my voice gives away what might have happened between David and me. As Murray tells me why he is calling, I frantically think back to the night that followed our arrival home.
It was late by the time we’d grabbed some food at a tiny anonymous restaurant. David was chilled from his dash across the fields. We returned to Northmire, exhausted, scared, determined, and once the kids were tucked into bed we sat and talked. David had bought some brandy and set the bottle on the table beside the fire. Having him at Northmire seemed somehow . . . right.
Oddly, he didn’t want to go over the day’s events or figure out how he could be protected from harassment in the future. I insisted we call the police for advice but he wouldn’t hear of it. No, he was more concerned with talking about me. He asked crazy, irrelevant things about my childhood; he spoke of what he was doing in the world as I was growing up – only serving to highlight the age difference between us. For instance, when I was born, David was a second-year medical student at Cambridge University. Perhaps it was his subtle way of telling me there was no future for us together, that we were simply worlds apart.
‘And your school years?’ he asked. ‘Were you a good student?’
‘Average,’ I replied, yet before I could expand, he had asked three more questions about my school days. Was I happy? Who were my friends? What made me want to be a teacher?
Then, ‘What about your mother, Julia? How did you get on with Mary as you were growing up? Did you fight? Were you close? Did you spend time together?’ I never had the chance to answer. David poured more brandy, his eyes slurred with curiosity. And then he hit me. ‘What was it like growing up without a father?’
‘Look, I’m tired. It’s been a crazy day.’ My eyes vindicated my excuse. If my mother wouldn’t let me discuss the subject, then there was no way I could talk about it with David. Not yet, anyway. ‘I’m going up.’ I left the room with my head bowed; a child sent to bed. I went to shower . . . promising to make up the spare bed for David . . . promising to see him in the morning . . . Perhaps a warm hand falls around my waist, igniting my heart . . . A soft breath on my neck, with the promise of breakfast. I wait for the memory of him on top of me, beneath me, inside me, to fill my mind. It doesn’t come. I look round. The bed beside me is empty.
‘Julia?’ Murray says.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m tired. I had a late night.’ In my dream, David fondly strokes my hair. I can smell him, feel the soft brush of his skin against mine. ‘What do you want?’
Quite calmly, but in a way that makes me realise he’s deadly serious, Murray says, ‘The children.’
The toast burns and of course I blame Murray. It’s better than screaming at him about this crazy idea he’s woken up with. The kids look at me as if I have two heads and David refuses to leave the room in case I need support.
‘Is now the best time to be discussing this?’ I scrape the toast and a shower of black rains on the floor. ‘In front of them?’ I add. Murray is infuriatingly calm.
‘I just want you to know that I’m going to be filing for sole residency with limited contact. As far as I’m concerned, any agreement we already had about Alex and Flora in our statement of arrangement – sorry, your statement of arrangement – is now unacceptable. None if it was based on you shacking up with . . .’ Murray knows when to stop. ‘Look, their lives are inside out at the moment, and until you sort out yours, they have no chance of stability. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Ha!’ It’s a half-sing, a half-scream. This is not Murray talking. ‘And you’re in a position to provide a little steadiness, are you? On a sinking, rat-infested narrow boat?’ I shake my head. ‘Why are you wasting your time, Murray? Just accept the way things are now. We are nearly divorced, the kids live with me, I’ll never stop you seeing them and—’
‘Then let me have them today.’
‘What?’
‘Hand the kids over now and show me you mean what you say.’
‘Murray, you’re being unreasonable.’ David is suddenly behind me, just where I need him. His fingers thread through mine.
‘Julia, it’s Saturday. The kids always come to me on Saturday.’ Murray shrugs and sighs.
I sigh too, shaking my head in despair. ‘It’s just the way you said it, Murray.You’re scaring me. Demanding them as if they are a couple of toys to hand over.’ I’m relieved as Murray weakens. ‘They are our children.’
‘Look, I just want to see them, OK? I miss them. I have a surprise planned and, well,’ he glances at David, ‘I didn’t know what kind of weekend you two would be having, so . . .’ He’s said enough and bows his head. I’m squinting at him, squeezing David’s fingers, trying to get a message to him to ask what he thinks. This is the man I loved. So why do I feel so scared about letting my kids go with him? It’s the glaze of tears on Murray’s eyes that does it. I always was a sucker for that.
‘I’m sorry, Murray. I’m being stupid. Of course the kids can go with you today. Just don’t talk of residency orders and courts and taking them away from me.’
‘Yay! A surprise,’ and Alex signs at Flora to tell her about the treat.
What surprise? she signs back.
Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise then, would it? Murray signs.
‘Can you bring them home by six?’
‘It will be eight o’clock.’
‘Seven, then.’
‘No, eight,’ he says firmly, and I thank my lucky stars he’s even agreeing to bring them back at all.
Alex clatters their breakfast bowls into the sink and grabs his coat. He skids to a stop at Murray’s side while Flora gathers up her little bag of crayons and folded sheets of paper. She is harbouring quite a collection of pictures. She also packs up a couple of dolls and half a packet of chewy sweets. She’s all set and excited by the promised surprise.
‘Have fun then,’ I say wistfully, although quite pleased to have time alone with David.
>
The kids’ excitement is such that when Murray bundles them out of the door, neither of them remember to give me a kiss goodbye and Flora forgets to take her coat. I run down the drive waving it about, the sleeves flapping a silent message, but either Murray doesn’t see or he doesn’t want to risk me changing my mind. I stop running and stand panting, watching them drive off, my lips aching from not having kissed my children goodbye.
MURRAY
I didn’t float but the papers did. All those white squares rippling in my wake. It was a crazy plan in hindsight. And the stupid thing was, I thought she was holding out the pole to save me. But no, Chrissie was frantically trying to rescue each and every one of Mary’s medical notes, fishing them on to the deck with the long boathook I keep on the roof. But her panic was understandable – she was the one who had signed out the file from hospital records.
‘You’ve brought new meaning to the expression,’ I say. I’m huddled under my duvet with a shot of whisky. Chrissie eyes me warily through her glasses. Her eyebrows peek above the frames. She doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about. ‘I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole,’ I explain. ‘Meaning I’m—’
‘Low-down dirty scum?’ she suggests. I’m shivering from my heart out. She’s not. She’s sitting there wondering how someone could stoop so low. After she’d pulled the first couple of pages from the water, Chrissie quickly saw that they weren’t from the Marshall file at all but rather to do with a petty fraud incident in Kent concerning a Mr Barrett. It only took her a second to figure it out, and while I was dragging my body from the freezing, weed-choked water, she was ransacking Alcatraz looking for the swapped papers. And she found them too, even before I got back inside the cabin.
‘You don’t understand.’ I was dripping everywhere, too cold to even know I was cold.
‘Damn right I don’t. Nadine said you were a decent sort.’
‘Decent sort of what, though? Did she ever tell you that?’ I’m trying not to smile. Chrissie bows her head away, trying not to smile too. ‘This case is really important to me.’ I’m serious now. I can’t help it. I take a step towards her but she backs away. I stink. ‘My wife – rather my nearly ex-wife – is . . . has fallen in love with a man who’s . . .’ She’ll think I’m crazy for sure now. ‘Look, I’m just trying to save my kids from having a violent criminal for a stepfather. All right? Does that sound so mad to you?’ I knock back the whisky.
‘Completely,’ she says solemnly. ‘You are mad and what you are saying is mad. Everything about you is mad. Your entire life is mad. How long have you known your wife?’
‘For ever. Since she was born.’
‘Have you always been this crazy?’
She makes me think. ‘Always. Completely,’ I answer honestly.
‘Poor wife.’
‘Life isn’t about charts and statistics and research and graphs and computers spewing out loads of useless information that—’
‘If you’d shut up for a second, I was going to say that I like mad people. They remind me that I’m sane. That must be why I’m friends with Nadine.’ And, to my shock and surprise – causing me to pour another measure of whisky – Chrissie hands me the papers from Mary’s medical file. ‘You have my number,’ she says, standing up to leave. ‘I can see this means a lot to you. Call me when you’re done. But make it quick.’
I’m speechless. Chrissie disappears through the hatch and Alcatraz wobbles a little as she steps on to the towpath. ‘Thanks,’ I say to her legs as she strides past the cabin window. ‘Thanks very much.’
I swear Mary Marshall’s pupils dilate when she sees me approach. Of course, it could be the sun glittering on the lake giving a false effect. Either way, she doesn’t move. She is frozen solid.
‘Mary, you have a visitor,’ the nurse says. The uniformed young woman paces about, stamping her feet and clapping her hands together at the shore. Her nose is red and shiny. The water’s not frozen, but fingers of icy grass reach right down to the tiny waves that splash on to the bank. There is a single bench and Mary sits on it, staring out across the expanse of water.
‘Hello, Mary. It’s Murray. I’ve come to see how you are.’ I don’t sit down. Instead, I squat in front of her so that she has no choice but to look at me. ‘How are you feeling?’ Just in case, I sign the words. Still there is no response. ‘Mary, I’ve been looking into your case and ...’ This is no good. I stand up and speak to the nurse, guiding her a few steps away. ‘Could I have some privacy with my mother-in-law? Would you mind giving us a few minutes alone?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t. Mrs Marshall is on twenty-four-hour observations. She’s not allowed to be alone even for a second.’
‘How come?’ Julia never mentioned this.
The nurse glances back to Mary. ‘It was since she tried to set her room on fire. Sister thinks she might try something similar again.’
Sighing, I get my wallet out. ‘OK, how much?’
‘I don’t think—’
‘How much?’ Everyone can be bought, especially poorly paid nurses. I pass a twenty-pound note to her. She holds out her hand but raises her eyebrows. I pull out another twenty and there’s only a moment’s hesitation, probably for the benefit of her conscience, before she takes the money.
‘A couple of minutes only,’ she says while glancing around. The hospital looms behind us; dozens of lit-up windows in the blank white façade. ‘I’ll lose my job if I get caught.’
‘You won’t get caught,’ I assure her and sink down beside Mary again as the nurse walks off around the lake. ‘We don’t have long,’ I begin. ‘I know you can hear me and I know you understand. What I don’t know is why you won’t speak. The doctors and nurses, Julia, everyone who’s seen you like this, they all seem to accept that you have some brain disease causing your silence. Mary, I can’t.’ I push myself directly into her line of sight although she doesn’t focus on me. ‘I want you to know, Mary, that you’re not ill. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.’
I’m sticking my neck out, I know, building her up when I may, at a push, be wrong. Someone could have made a mistake. There’s a chance that papers could be missing from the file; doctors’ reports lying on a desk somewhere; a conclusive diagnosis yet to be reached. But I need her to have hope. I need her to speak. I need to know the truth.
‘Mary,’ I continue, ‘someone I trust has done a bit of investigating. There are no records of any MRI test results on your file here at The Lawns. Those results were the reason you were admitted here.’ I recall Chrissie’s words. I believe her. ‘After that, I had your NHS notes tracked down and, more specifically, we found the actual report on your scan.’ I take a deep breath, give her time to assimilate all this. ‘Your consultant, Mr Radcliffe, concluded in his report that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your brain. There is no clinical proof of you having dementia – vascular or otherwise.’
I stand up to ease the cramp in my legs. The nurse is on her way back to our end of the lake. I squat down again. ‘Do you understand, Mary? Give me a sign if you can. Lift your hand, smile, nod, blink . . . anything.’ I wait as she absorbs this news with one eye on the white uniform tracking back to us. My words battle between Mary’s ears, funnelling down into her brain, her mind, her understanding. There’s more to Mary’s mutism than mere cerebral bleeding.
Having left Alcatraz, Chrissie had done some more digging at my request. Thinking perhaps that the vital NHS hospital scan result was still somewhere in their system – at the very least they would have a copy – she set to work finding out. She called up an old boyfriend, a senior house officer working in accident and emergency. He would have access, she said, to all computer records within the hospital trust. Chrissie was prompt calling me back with his discovery.
‘Marcus had no problem in tracking down what you wanted,’ she said with a slow twist to her words. She was creating suspense, presumably as punishment for my stunt with the file. ‘How are you, by the way? Did you catch a terr
ible chill?’ Then laughter; an appealing giggle. ‘Have you dried out yet?’
‘Chrissie,’ I said finally. ‘The report?’
‘Marcus said that Mr Radcliffe’s report on Mary Marshall showed absolutely nothing unusual. The consultant concluded that no further action was required. A letter was sent to her GP confirming all this.’ A pause, but I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. ‘Marcus even studied the stored images that accompanied the report. Nothing. Zilch. As clear as a bell. And he would know.’ Chrissie paused dramatically, then said, ‘If she’s got vascular dementia – or anything else for that matter – then I’ve got lung cancer and a missing leg.’
‘Chrissie, you’re a star. An absolute shining star in heaven.’ I chewed my pencil. ‘And please, don’t have lung cancer.’
‘There’s more,’ she said expectantly, proudly. ‘Although it may be nothing. Marcus went one step further and called up the GP’s surgery where Mary was a patient. Being a doctor, he won the receptionist’s trust and made up some story about Mary being in his care. The receptionist told him that Mary had visited the GP recently. Marcus is completely mad too, by the way,’ she added as if that justified the extra digging, ‘and also desperate to date me again. Anyway, it turns out that Mary saw a Dr David Carlyle on the twenty-second of December for a routine appointment. Apparently she had an infected finger.’
‘Yes, yes, I knew about the infected finger,’ I said slowly, pondering. ‘But I didn’t know exactly when it was that she’d seen Carlyle. Thanks, Chrissie.’ And our phone call ended after more well-deserved praise.
‘A sign, Mary. I need to know you understand what I’m telling you.’ I clasp her hands and watch her eyes flick out across the water as if she is out there, cutting through the glassy surface. But she doesn’t give me a sign.
Before the nurse returns, I think about the sequence of events. Julia discovered her mother mute on Christmas Day. During the time since Mary’s visit to Carlyle on the twenty-second – that three-day period – something stopped her speaking. I transfer my grip to her brittle shoulders. ‘Mary, what was it that scared you into silence?’
