Healer of My Heart

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  His hands were greasing the steering wheel when Robyn sat forward and looked round.

  “Angus, you’ve passed my street.”

  “But I’m bringing you back to my place for a drink, remember?”

  She frowned. “No, I don’t remember. We were heading back.”

  “And so we are. Back to my place.” He pulled off the main road, drove down the street to his own two-storey semi and pulled into the drive. His mouth was dry. He put his hand on her knee and felt her go rigid.

  “You said just dinner,” she said tersely.

  “Come on, Rob.” She was beginning to make him angry. He could feel his head starting to pound again. “Just a drink.”

  She shifted away from him, back against the door, hand reaching round to pull the handle. “I’m going home now, Angus. I’ll walk.”

  His eyes narrowed. Briefly he reached over and gripped a strand of her hair. Then he turned and flung himself out of the car. She was out before him, backing towards the street into the view of the traffic and the neighbours.

  She held her bag and jacket in front of her. “I don’t think I’m your type, Angus!”

  He held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “It’s been a great evening. Can’t blame a man for trying!” He indicated the still-open passenger door. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. I promise.”

  “‘On your honour’ I bet! No thanks.” He took a step towards her. “Don’t touch me!”

  Her low snarl mildly surprised him. He brought a hand up to take her hair again. The next second, he had staggered back against the car, doubled up and gasping in pain. The bitch had fired her knee into his balls!

  “You don’t even understand a two letter word!”

  The disgust in her voice drenched him as she vanished into the evening. Inside the house he lay on the sofa until he could breathe again. Then he knocked the ornaments off the mantlepiece in one sweep. He was as mad with himself as he was with her. Stupid bastard! He should have managed that so much better. She was laughing at him right now. He just knew it. He flung himself up the stairs and went into his bedroom. He lifted a mirror off the wall and hurled it across the room. Glass shards went everywhere, just missing the picture of her at the shop window.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his breathing erratic. A piece of glass glittered beside his shoe. He picked it up and turned it over. Cool down, cool down. This isn’t over yet. Not by a long way. He’d get her in the end, and when he did he’d make her suffer. His head throbbed so hard he pounded his temple. He tossed the glass into the bin. Cool down. Cool down. Think.

  Pale and tired, Robyn sat at her desk in the upper corridor of the almost empty school. It had been a bad night. The devils had come out in force. And the voices. She stood to fetch a book from the store and winced as her shoe hurt where her heel had rubbed raw. It had been a long walk home last night. She could have called a taxi, but she had too much anger to work off. She even thought of calling David, but dismissed the idea immediately. She had her pride. She had told him she was going on a date. She didn’t want him to know the near disaster that it was. From the moment Angus had picked her up, she was uneasy. There was just something about him…

  Had her father put a curse on her? She sat at her desk again and buried her head in her folded arms. His large face loomed in front of her. She could feel his hand on her chin, turning her face this way and that, studying it in the light, the same light that caught on the hairs curling from his nose.

  As the memory took hold, coalesced into still living horror, Robyn sat back in her chair and hugged her arms tight around herself as she had then. The the day went dark as his face closed in on her mind, to obliterate the world. “Daddy’s little girl.”

  She flung the book at the wall. Then regretted it because the cover tore from the spine and there weren’t enough copies as it was. Pacing up and down between the desks, she fought back. Damn you, I have every right to leave you behind, you bastard. You will not spoil my life. You will not. You’re dead. Dead. Anger threatened to choke her again.

  There was a faint sound from her bag. Her phone was ringing.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “How was last night?”

  “Fine. OK.”

  Pause. “Good.” Pause. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in the school. Sorting a few things.”

  “Need some help?”

  She didn’t. “Well, yes, OK. If you’re about.”

  “See you in fifteen.”

  She was in the storeroom when footsteps approached. She turned, the smile already on her face. “That was quick. It’s only ten…” Her smile froze as Angus walked in.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Get out, Angus.”

  “Don’t be like that. I’ve recovered, as you see.” He came closer, pulled up a stool and sat. She turned back to the shelves.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said.

  His pale eyes studied her, unblinking. “You’ve got me all wrong, Rob. I’m really quite a nice guy. It was all a misunderstanding. I thought we’d just have a nightcap, like normal people. You’ve got spirit. I like that.”

  She snorted. “I don’t see why. It was painful. I hope.”

  He spread his hands. “Let’s forget about last night and start again.” As she looked round, her face loaded with scorn, he put on a pleading expression and joined his palms in front of his chest. “I misjudged you. Forgive me?”

  “Get lost. I’m sure there’s some poor woman out there who might be warped enough to think you’re attractive. Beats me, though.”

  His face darkened at her undisguised contempt. “What’s so wrong with me?” He stood and stepped towards her, lowering his voice.

  Robyn backed against the window ledge as he came closer. She felt her stomach start to heave as a thick gold chain round his neck glinted on his pale flesh. Reaching round, her hand found an old window pole propped in the corner.

  “The Headmaster will hear about this when term starts,” she hissed.

  “I did nothing…” Angus began.

  Robyn turned slightly and her eyes darted past him to the door. Angus swung round. David Shaw filled the doorway. He was leaning his back against the door jamb, arms folded, ankles crossed across the gap, biding his time. How much had he heard? Robyn saw his deep eyes narrowed in warning as, without moving, he said evenly, “She said get lost, Fraser.”

  Angus said smoothly: “Ah, the toy boy.” He turned back to Robyn. “I forgot, of course. You do have other fish to fry.” He went up to David. “She’ll have finished with you soon, Shaw. Moved on to the next one.”

  Robyn held her breath. She knew what David was thinking as if she were inside his head. Don’t hit him, David. Please don’t hit him. David flicked a glance to her as if he had heard. Then he moved his feet aside.

  Angus turned back to Robyn. “Message received.” He pushed roughly past David and they listened to his footsteps fading in the empty corridor.

  Still propped in the doorway, David looked at her from under his brows. “Great evening was it then?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, well. Maybe not that great.”

  “Want to get out of here?”

  She propped the window pole into the corner. “Definitely.”

  She had never been in his little green car before. His music was a mixture of pop and gospel. There was a Newsboys album playing as he nosed onto the motorway and headed east across the city. Terrific beat. Great lyrics. On the back seat was a rolled up jacket, a book of choruses with guitar chords, and an unopened bag of liquorice allsorts. She looked across at his profile, his expression one of concentration as he negotiated a roundabout. He must have felt her gaze because he looked across momentarily.

  “You OK?”

  “You don’t apologise for who you are, do you?”

  His brows rose. “Wait till I’ve stopped driving before you ask me questions like that.”

  She hardly noticed wher
e they were going, tiredness dulling her senses. He drove for miles, finally leaving the city and heading along the coast. At one point a train kept pace with them, rising high on an embankment between the road and the sea. Finally, he pulled up on the main street of the village of Groomsport.

  She looked down at the harbour, and over to the right, past the Harbour Master’s house to the sea wall where she had told Neil she didn’t want to see him again. They were standing quietly side by side. Robyn looked out over the lough.

  “‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls…’” she began.

  “‘…And like a thunderbolt he falls,’” he finished, not missing a beat.

  They looked at each other, delighted. Then, taking their time, they strolled across the grass past the play area and found a seat near two restored fishermen’s cottages that sat, whitewashed and proud, at right angles to the sea.

  A middle aged couple went past, pushing a girl in a wheelchair. A child in a mauve dress skipped along, then stopped to take off her shoe and shake a stone out of it. She replaced the shoe and did a few experimental hops before running on. On a flat area near the road, several youths in baseball caps and T-shirts with numbers on the back, noisily kicked a football about. Two girls in jeans leaned against a lamp post, licking lollipops, resolutely unimpressed.

  Without speaking, David pointed to the sky. A kite swirled above their heads, its long orange ribbon of tail twisting and dipping in the wind. Out to sea, a speed boat bumped over the creases of the surface, its wake as white as its own hull. Nearer the land, small orange buoys bobbed in the harbour, rising and falling to the gentle rhythm of the small waves that lapped their lace edges onto the shingle.

  Five minutes must have passed as Robyn looked about, feeling quietly, deeply, peaceful. Without looking, she knew he was feeling the same. A little dog, grey, hairy and snub-nosed, scampered by, trailing a lead. His owner puffed after him, whistling in vain.

  Finally David said: “What did you ask me in the car?”

  “It was more of a statement. I said you don’t apologise for who you are.”

  “Of course not. Do you?”

  She tugged her hair out of her eyes and said, surprising herself, “Not any more.”

  “You mean you did?”

  “All the time.” The breeze was laden with the salt smell of seaweed. She turned to him. “Angus frightened me. But I just … despise him.” She gave an impatient gesture, trying to find words to explain. “And he’s right, he didn’t actually do anything. But I might report him in September. I think, for the first time, there’s no-one blaming me. And I’m not blaming myself.”

  “I think,” he said slowly, watching a gull ride the breeze to twist onto the thatched ridge of one of the cottages, “Fraser might be a little bit nastier than normal.”

  “He’s no different from any other man.” She couldn’t help the bitter edge to her voice. It made him turn his head, a question in his eyes.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She laughed at the absurdity but his expression didn’t change. He was waiting for an answer. “Of course not. But you’re…” She frowned. He waited. “You’re a friend.” He leaned forward and reached between his heels for a tuft of grass. She was still frowning, thinking, as if somehow she hadn’t quite got that right to her own satisfaction. “You shouldn’t be. But you are.”

  He was quiet, dropping the grass between his fingers. Suddenly he sat back and in one swift movement his arm went round her. Startled, she stiffened.

  “You said you weren’t afraid of me,” he challenged.

  She felt the crook of his arm curled round her shoulder, his fingers descending to cradle her elbow. She turned her head into his shoulder and looked up. Tentatively she raised a hand and slowly traced the edge of his fine jawline. Then she pulled her hand away, watching his brown eyes darken behind his lashes. She drew her legs up under her and turned her whole body towards him, feeling him grip her tightly as she tucked herself into his side. Fitting her cheek to his shoulder, she closed her eyes.

  “I’m not afraid of you at all,” she said quietly.

  She kept her eyes closed, her mind a scramble of confusion. What am I doing? Why does it feel so easy, so good? This is so right and so wrong all at the same time.

  David looked down at the top of her head, at the glossy strands that escaped his arm to settle across his collar bone and tangle with the buttons of his shirt. He felt nothing of desire. This was quite different from that fiery, transient surge. There was a deep peacefulness in this. He tightened his grip on her slightly and looked across to the far side of the lough where a slight haze blurred the edges of the mountains.

  “Right, Lord,” he said in his mind, “you’d better have a good reason for this. Because I think I’m in big trouble unless you know what you’re doing.” He tilted his cheek onto her head. “And keep her safe.”

  Uneasily, he recalled how he knew that you don’t always get what you pray for, however fervently.

  He was still holding her when he saw Angus Fraser standing at the seaward side of one of the cottages, hands in his pockets. Fraser looked directly at him, then turned and disappeared.

  18

  THERE WERE THINGS she wanted to know. Things she wanted, needed, to know now. It was as if a heavy shower of rain had washed away a layer of mud and exposed the corners of long-buried shards. For the first time, Robyn contemplated these jagged edges; looked at them without instantly wanting to push them back out of sight again.

  On Friday morning she caught the express bus. On Friday afternoon, she was sitting at the kitchen table in her mother’s house, mug between her hands and Onion on her knee. As always, everything in the kitchen shone. There were no dishes waiting to be washed. The hand towel and drying cloth were folded precisely over the rail. The ceramic hob looked as if it were straight out of the showroom. An asparagus fern wound its way across the wall towards the window, every frond neatly supported on a small hook. Even the fridge magnets were arranged in straight lines.

  Anne smiled across the table. “It’s funny how long you can be away and yet Onion still treats you as if you’d never left.” She reached over and touched Robyn’s hand. “I’m so glad you came down. I did go to see Neil in Belfast, but I thought maybe you needed to bide your own time.”

  “Where’s Neil now?”

  “He’s back. His own car was repaired at last and he drove down himself. It was very brave of him.” “Indeed.” “And anyway, he couldn’t leave his office for any longer. And … he has a lot of thinking to do now that…” she waved a hand in the air.

  Robyn stroked Onion, provoking a crescendo of purring.

  “I hope he does well, but as you say…”

  Her mother looked at her for a minute and then sighed. “I hoped you would have been well settled with a husband and your father’s money would have meant you would have had a comfortable start.”

  Robyn stared at her, mug half way to her mouth. “What do you mean, ‘My father’s money’?”

  Anne looked surprised. “The money I said I’d invest in Neil’s business. Neil must have talked about it.” Robyn continued to stare at her as she went on. “How do you think he was going to finance the expansion and move to Belfast? What was going to pay for the new building?”

  Robyn put her mug down carefully. “This is complete news to me.”

  “You mean Neil didn’t tell you about it?”

  Robyn stood up, tumbling Onion to the floor. “You were going to give my father’s money to Neil?”

  “I’ve told him that I won’t be investing now.”

  Robyn kept her voice under control with difficulty. “Why didn’t you discuss this with me? Why didn’t you tell me yourself?”

  Anne put her hand to her forehead. “Please don’t get mad, Rob. I wanted to do what was best for you. Neil’s a good organiser. He looks after things like that. You’d got your first job…” Her voice trailed off.

  Anger was surging through Robyn, ru
shing in waves in front of her eyes, blurring the sight of her mother sitting at the table, twisting the gold and diamond rings on her fingers. She smashed her hand down on the table, making her mother jump.

  “Neil was going to look after that! Neil was going to look after me! Neil was going to look after the goods! Neil was going to take over! Wasn’t that the plan? Wasn’t it?”

  She threw the rest of her coffee into the sink, only just managing not to hurl the mug in after it. Onion pawed open the kitchen door and, with a flick of his ginger tail, slid away into the hall. Anne turned in her chair and looked up pleadingly.

  “I still want you to have the money, Robyn. Even if you take up with someone else.”

  Robyn looked at her and realised that her mother didn’t know her at all. She hadn’t a clue. Or had she, and was she trying to assuage some guilt? Robyn came back to the table and sat down. Unconsciously, she began rubbing her right wrist.

  “I wonder is there anything else I haven’t been told? In fact, I came here today because I wanted to ask you something, Mum. Something I should have asked you years ago. Why didn’t you leave Dad?”

  Anne fiddled with the pearls she wore even in the middle of the afternoon. “Leave your father? How could I do that? I was completely dependent on him. Besides, we had a good position in the town. Your father was a fine figure, people respected him. He gave a lot of money to the church.” She shrugged as if she simply couldn’t understand the question. “And then, when he became ill, well, I had promised to be loyal in sickness and in health.”

  “I was baptised, wasn’t I?”

  “Of course you were. You were beautiful even as a baby, except that you cried all through the christening. That was embarrassing.” Her eyes clouded. “Dad blamed me. He said I hadn’t fed you. But I had.”

  “So you made promises about me too. Didn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Robyn felt the old fetid bitterness spewing out of her, unstoppable. “Promises about keeping me safe. Bringing me up in a Christian home. Not putting any stumbling block in my way. Stuff like that.”