Healer of My Heart

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  “My parents were married for twenty-six years,” she shouted back. “And it was twenty-six years too long!”

  Total silence descended while they stood immobile, eyes locked.

  Then she hissed, “Let go of me!”

  He did. He released his grip and spread his hands wide on each side of her for a moment. Then he turned and opened the door. “Stop making excuses and start making choices.” He cocked his head in mock thoughtfulness. “Or is that where we came in?”

  She flung the door shut after him with all her strength.

  Tim flinched. The cloakroom door banged shut so hard it shook the wall. Thank God there was no glass in it. David went past him so fast Tim’s curls lifted in the slipstream. Then from the bottom of the stairs the outside door crashed against the wall as David went through it like a missile.

  Tim took off his glasses and polished them vigorously on his tie. Something was going to have to give with those two before the whole school ignited. He pushed his glasses on again, sighed and tramped down the stairs, reaching into his pocket for the car keys as he went.

  In the foyer he gave a token push to the office door and said without stopping: “David Shaw doesn’t feel well. Permission to take him home? Thank you.”

  David was sitting behind the wheel, his fingers just beginning to register that the keys weren’t there. Tim opened the driver’s door.

  “Shove over.”

  “The keys. Someone’s taken them.”

  “I did, man. Now shove over. There’s no way I’m letting you drive home. I’ve more respect for the citizens of this city.”

  David looked at him and then something in him seemed to collapse. He moved across. Tim settled himself and found the ignition. He wobbled the gear stick.

  “Where’s reverse?” David put it into reverse with his right hand. “Thanks.” The car jolted backwards and stalled. “Sorry. It’s been a while.” As he steered carefully down the driveway, Tim looked across at David. “Why are you mad at Fraser anyway?”

  David sank further into the seat and closed his eyes. “Just drive,” he said.

  That night, David saw the fox again. This time there was no moonlight and she slid across the lawn in the dim shimmer of the street lamp. The great seed heads of the pampas grass rose to rock gracefully in the breeze. The fox snuffled under the fronds, stopping every now and then to look around and nibble any titbits too slow to escape her flicking tongue. David watched her trot to the hedge and slip through it, the white tip of her brush vanishing like a snuffed candle.

  He put his head down onto his arms. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she slipped away like the fox, graceful and cold? What would have been the point of it all? What would be the point of anything?

  He heard a noise and raised his head. From his mother’s room came the sound of crying, rhythmic sobs of anguish and loneliness, the metronome of a desolation for which there was no comfort this side of the grave. He sat and listened, feeling himself turning to stone.

  27

  PENNY’S FUNERAL WAS a wretched little affair. The hearse drew up at the crematorium and she took her place in the queue to be consigned to the furnace, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  Her father was there, surrounded by hard men who had thrust their biceps into suits for the occasion. Her mother was sober, but with the air of one for whom this was a brief and painful interlude inserted into a life of much more preferable states. Her nose still bore the mottled remnants of a bruise. The only ones who seemed genuinely sorrowful were Penny’s brothers.

  Robyn looked round at the number of staff who had come. There were a few, including the Headmaster. This chapel must be full of uneasy consciences. Many of her classmates had also come but, by the time the service started, Robyn could not see David.

  As they filed out, dutifully looking at the few wreaths, Robyn saw David’s unmistakable figure disappearing from the colonnade. He had been there. He must have slipped in at the back and was leaving equally unobtrusively. She should have known. He had tried to hold out a hand to Penny Woodford in life; he wouldn’t desert her in death, even though it was the second funeral he had attended in less than a fortnight.

  Robyn turned to speak to someone, a question chipping at the back of her brain. She knew his every line, every changing note of his voice. She could tell what mood he was in simply by the way he walked towards her. She knew how his eyes could light with anger or dance with mischief. He never bought her a sandwich with mustard in it, and he never left her alone until she was safely inside her door. And yet today he had ignored her like a stranger. Is that really all there was left to be?

  The calls of Sunday afternoon golfers came over the hedge onto the quiet paths of the cemetery. Robyn stood beside her father’s grave and stared at the headstone. Some lines from Wordsworth came into her mind: “And have I then thy bones so near, And thou forbidden to appear?” She shivered. Those words were far too flippant for her current emotions. God forbid that he should ever appear again.

  She sat down on the black marble of the grave surround and then stood up again. Even that was too close. She wandered round to the back of the derelict church and looked out over the hedge to the golf links. The last time she had been here had been with Neil, when he was so proud of the new headstone, wanting to show it off.

  It had been many days since she had thought of Neil. Was she the same person as the one he had brought here that day, early in the summer? He could have been a refuge of sorts, if she’d desired that. She didn’t desire that any more; she wanted the colours of storms and lightening, the excitement of a world to discover and the courage to discover it.

  He wanted to be a guardian. She didn’t want that. She wanted no chains, no closed doors. She wanted the liberty to be hurt and to decide her own healing.

  He had been authoritarian. She would never bend to that again. She wanted to walk with someone who wanted to walk with her, beside her, talking, listening, laughing, crying.

  Above all, he had been a child, a silly child throwing tantrums when he didn’t get his own way. The grass rustled and a blackbird flew up onto the top of the hedge. It opened its throat and began to sing. She kicked at a nettle and sat down on the grass. A realisation shot through her like a laser. Age isn’t about how much time has passed since you were born. It’s about how much you’ve grown up.

  And how did she know so clearly what she wanted now? Clouds built overhead and the breeze strengthened, blowing her hair in unheeded tangles as she sat for a long time without moving, thinking about just how she knew.

  Finally she became aware that someone had come round the corner and stopped behind her. She turned and stood slowly.

  “Hello, Robyn,” said her mother.

  Robyn was shocked. Her mother’s hair had lost its groomed look; it was long and without shape. She wore no make-up and her coat was baggy over her bones.

  When Robyn didn’t speak, Anne said hopefully: “Were you coming to see me?”

  “No,” said Robyn. She moved to go past. “I have a bus to catch.”

  “You came for some reason.”

  Robyn kept walking. “Maybe I came to see if he’d written an apology on the headstone.” Then she swung round. “Why did you come?”

  Anne shrugged helplessly. “Maybe for the same thing.”

  Robyn turned away again. “Then we’re both disappointed.”

  Her mother followed her to the front of the church and called out as she walked quickly down the avenue towards the gate. “Robyn, Onion’s dead.”

  Robyn slowed to a stop. Without turning she asked: “What happened?”

  “He went too far one day. I found him on the main road. There was hardly a mark on him. It must have been just a glancing blow. Neil helped me bury him. He’s just at the back door, near the roses.”

  Robyn stood for a moment remembering the last hug she had given him, the purrs squeezed from him the day she had left her mother’s house for the last time. He was the pet of her adole
scence, the soft refuge, the warm round weight on her knee in the evening.

  Behind her, her mother said: “So now, you see, I don’t even have a cat.” Robyn turned slowly. Anne held out a hand. “Even if you never forgive me, Robyn, please don’t end up like me. A lonely old woman.” Her voice rose in urgency, pleading. “Some of the things you said have haunted me. Don’t let him do to you what he did to me.” She clenched her fist and shook it as she spoke. “Fight him, Robyn. Fight him.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Anne dropped her head. In a low voice that was close to breaking, she said: “I wish to God I had. Regret is a life sentence.” She looked up. “Don’t pass it on yourself.”

  Robyn looked away across the forest of headstones. Traffic rattled past on the road beyond the gate. She looked back at her mother.

  “As I said, I’ve a bus to catch.”

  She walked away, leaving her mother standing alone.

  That night, tired from the long bus journeys, a memory stirred and Robyn pulled the volume of Beowulf from her bookcase. She flicked the pages until a fragile, translucent petal fell from them. It had been pink and still held a hint of colour, but it was dried and pressed to tissue, smooth as fine silk.

  She ran it between her fingers, conjuring up the selfish, odourless red rose and the fragrant pink rose; the day she had decided to accept a dangerous friendship and nothing had ever been the same again. The day the petals had scattered from her bag and she thought she had thrown them all away until she found a last one in her slipper. She raised it to her cheek and held it there. Then carefully she smoothed it back between the pages and returned the book to its shelf.

  On Monday morning the Headmaster called a special assembly for Penny. The senior school filed into the hall in unaccustomed order. Robyn looked for David. He would have to come to this, even if he had left the school. She saw Tim Thompson a few rows from the front. Chloe was on one side of him. He was keeping a seat on his other side. Then, just before the Headmaster started to speak, David entered and looked around for Tim. His long grey jacket and dark tie stood in sharp relief in the sea of uniforms. He was different. He had always been different.

  Robyn turned away, feeling winded. As his eyes had searched for Tim, they had briefly caught her own. Had he even paused before continuing to sweep the hall? She didn’t think he had.

  Edith was beside her. “David’s taking his mother back down to Fermanagh after this,” she said. “To her sister’s. I called with Elizabeth last night. She’s finding it very hard. She said David had suggested it. She shouldn’t have come back at all.”

  “Was David there when you called?”

  “I think so. But he didn’t appear while I was there. Apparently the Head asked him to take part this morning. To do a reading, I think. His choice. It’s the least the Head could do. I hope he’s given him an apology too.” Edith sniffed. “I never believed a word of it.”

  Chloe sang a solo. As always, there was an innocent sweetness to her clear, untrained voice. She stood quite still in the centre of the podium and took a deep breath. At first her voice was soft, dejected, the melody sad. She sang of how life just doesn’t seem to make sense sometimes.

  Robyn looked at David. He was leaning forward, dark head bent low. As if he had told her, she knew he had picked the song. Chloe’s voice rose in strength as the song ended on a note of fragile hope for the future. When she finished, there wasn’t a sound. David left his chair and went to the podium. He was carrying a book, but Robyn didn’t think it looked like a Bible. He set it down and gripped the sides of the lectern firmly.

  Always lean, he was now gaunt. His skin was stretched taut across his cheekbones, his collar loose at his throat. The slow look he directed around the hall seemed to hit every person, every pair of eyes, every conscience. In the long silent minute that David surveyed the assembly, no-one moved. Even Billy Dobbin stopped chewing. David turned right round to look at the Headmaster, seated behind him. Then his gaze travelled back again, considering the room for a second time. Robyn wondered if anyone else could tell, as she could, that this wasn’t accusation. He was thinking, thinking deeply.

  Then he opened the book and began to read. Robyn smiled a little. John Donne had obviously stayed in his mind. In a strong voice reaching to the very back of the hall he spoke firmly: “Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.”

  Robyn put her head down and let his voice envelope her. He was reading this for Penny, and he would honour that. But how could his father not be uppermost in his mind? The father who had not lived to see his son vindicated.

  Tears began to gather, threatening her lashes. She hadn’t cried for years. And it had been David who had so nearly coaxed them out before, as they stood in Down Cathedral in the thunder storm. Then, she had felt touched by a tenderness that had been missing all her life, a simple holding, companionship, understanding. And what made it so different was that the link between all of these was respect. It didn’t occur to him to treat her with anything other than respect. When he found out she didn’t like spiders, he didn’t tell her not to be silly. He just made sure he caught every spider that came close. He had never even shortened her name. Not once.

  Because she had always felt herself to be worthless, damaged goods, born in the memory of a terrible day and profaned where she should have been safest, she simply didn’t know what to do with deep, personal, intimate respect from another human being. She hadn’t considered herself worthy of it, hadn’t recognised that she could accept it, revel in it. Most of all, it hadn’t occurred to her that she was whole and free to return it, deeply, personally, intimately.

  She brushed her eyes and looked up. He was just finishing, not reading any more, just speaking from memory, holding his head high. Like a declaration of defiance, his voice lifted. “And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”

  As he stepped down from the podium, Robyn felt the strange emotion stir within her again, the one she had felt in the park as they had stood, palms touching. The final petals of it unfolded and she recognised it at last.

  He might already have walked away. She had to reach him.

  When the assembly finished, she struggled through the clumps of pupils, subdued clumps but just as solidly in the way. Then someone wanted an absence note signed. Then Duncan Maguire, the head of Geography, stopped her and said that, as Angus Fraser was off for a few days – he didn’t know why – he was down a teacher for the field trip. Sorry it was short notice, but could she go? It would be good experience for her, he said. The school bus was leaving after lunch tomorrow and she would only be needed for the one night. Between prefects and teachers, he had plenty of cover for the rest of the week. She said she would see him later and stumbled through a row of chairs to reach the exit.

  Which way would he go? She ran through the foyer and burst through the main doors in time to see the green hatchback disappearing through the gates. Against the rules, she ran to her room. Pupils were beginning to line up at her door. She told them to wait quietly until she called them, and shut herself in her storeroom.

  Phone to her ear, she paced the length of the room, biting her nails and willing him to answer. At last he did. And suddenly she found speaking very difficult. He sounded as if he was outside, and she heard a car door shut. He must have just arrived home.

  “Hello,” he said, his tone guarded.

  “David,” she said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I want to see you.”

  Silence.

  “David, I really want to see you.”

  She heard him take a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m away for the rest of this week.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m staying overnight in Enniskillen. Then they want me to go up to the school hostel to help with the Geography field trip. I volunteered before… all this. I’m told,” he added dryly, “it’ll do me good.”

  “So you won’t be back
till the weekend?”

  “No.”

  There was a knock on the door and Edith Braden put her head round it. Instead of leaving when she saw Robyn on the phone, she came in and waited.

  Robyn turned her back. “I’m going on that too. For tomorrow night anyway. I’ll see you there.”

  “What?” he said sharply.

  “I’ll see you there,” she repeated firmly and hung up. “Well, Edith, what can I do for you?” she asked, but she didn’t listen to the reply.

  At break time she sat beside Duncan Maguire. “Yes, I think I can manage the field trip for one night. I’d just need to get cover for two classes.”

  “Great. I’ll sort it. Thanks, Robyn.”

  28

  A TWO HOUR journey seemed double that in a school bus full of fifteen and sixteen year olds. Robyn made herself concentrate, doing all the things she was supposed to do. It was the first time she had any responsibility for a trip like this and she wanted to do it well, despite her preoccupations. She checked off names on the register; she ticked off the boys in the back seat when they became too rowdy, bantering them back to humour. Half way there, the driver had to stop and Robyn got off the bus to rub Kerry Jones back while she was travel sick behind a hedge.

  At last they were winding upwards round the narrowing roads, finally finding the lane that led to the hostel. The bus filled the lane from hedge to hedge and, as branches scraped across the windows, Robyn saw a small lake on the left, visible through the trees in the darkening evening. The driver steered them through the narrow gate, past the trees that partially obscured the front of the building, and round the gable to a yard at the back. Beside the kitchen door was the green hatchback.