The Judas Scar

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘One minute,’ she called back. ‘I’m just going to jump in the shower. It’s like the tropics out there, I’ve been sweating all day.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. He appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ll be in the garden. Come out and join me when you’re ready. I’ve something to show you.’ He turned away but then stopped and looked back at her.

  ‘Oh, and Emma called. She asked if you could ring back when you got in. She sounded a bit stressed.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll shower first,’ she said.

  She walked into the bathroom, her legs like jelly, and slid the lock shut. She ran the shower, undressed, made sure she pushed her clothes deep into the laundry basket, then stepped under the water and cleaned herself all over. When she was finished she wrapped herself in a towel. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. There were red scratches over her chest and neck, and her lip had a small cut on it. She brought her fingers up and ran them lightly over the cut. She recalled the way he’d cried out as he pushed into her and a wave of sadness swept through her as she realised she was a different person now. Two weeks ago she was one half of a long-term marriage, a loyal wife whose only desire in the world was to conceive a baby with the husband she loved. Now she was a stranger to herself, a person who’d had sex with a man she barely knew, she was a liar, a cheat. She walked through to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She felt unwelcome suddenly, as if the room was telling her she had no right to be there, that she didn’t belong anymore.

  ‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘What on earth have you done?’

  C H A P T E R S I X T E E N

  First year dormitory,

  Farringdon Hall,

  October 1986

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I hope this letter finds you well. School is fine. I’ve been doing my best and if you saw how hard I was trying you would be proud of me. The only thing I can’t do at all is rugby. I know this will disappoint you, Father. I’m just a lot smaller than everyone else and also not very fast at running. I will keep trying though! I quite like swimming, but it’s very cold and the water is quite green. If you are in the swimming team, you get to wear swimming trunks, but if you’re not then you have to swim naked, nothing on at all. When I said that I didn’t think that was fair to the PE teacher, he sent me to the headmaster for a caning. I’m learning the hard way that it really is best to keep your complaints quiet. Though I find it very hard! I’ve been saying my prayers every night and asking God to help you do your work. I hope the new church is built now and the villagers are happy they have love in their hearts at last. It’s sometimes quite hard here. Lots of the boys are still unkind to me. There is this one boy, a prefect if you can imagine, who is awful. Mother, you’d say he has the Devil in his eye. I never knew what you meant by that until I saw him. Now I know just what you mean. I’m teased every day but I do try to do what you said and ignore it, though it does get annoying and makes me very cross sometimes. Things are better now because … wait for this … I have found a friend!!! His name is William (Will) and he’s great. We like all the same things like adventure stories and the Beano, and we play this game where we pretend we are marooned on a desert island with cannibals who’ll eat us alive if they catch us. I know you will think this is a very foolish game but it’s really fun! Will is tall and quite strong for his age (our age, I mean!) and he thinks I’m very funny. It’s great! When I hear him laugh it makes me feel so happy I could burst. I feel like he is the only person in this whole place who understands me and likes me for being me and it is very comforting. As you know I have found it very lonely here but now I have Will things are looking up! We talk about everything and I can tell him what I’m thinking and even what I’m feeling deep inside. He has a camera so I’ll ask him to take a picture of us together and send it to you. I’ve grown a lot! You’ll see what good friends we are (you’ll just be able to tell).

  The food here isn’t great apart from the puddings. Mother, you would love the jam sponge! They serve it with custard which is as yellow as the African sun and thick like glue but they must put a sack of sugar in it because it’s so sweet it makes my teeth hurt! The showers are stone cold and take your breath away but I’m used to those now. One bad thing here (there are a few but I won’t tell you them all!) is the morning runs we have to do on Tuesdays and Fridays. They make us get up at five-thirty in the morning and run up and down this hill four times. The hill is nicknamed The Killer and at the top you have to touch this tree and a prefect gives you a tick on a piece of paper when you do. It’s very steep and there’s another prefect who stands at the bottom and basically has the job of shouting. I am always one of the last to finish however hard I try and run. The masters are quite scary but they seem to know their jobs and I am certain I am getting a very good education, which I know is what you want for me. I miss the heat of Africa. I wonder if I will see you at Christmas or if I will be going to Aunt Grace’s? It would be nice to come home if you will let me. I’m not sure Aunt Grace likes having me under her feet all the time …

  I am doing well in Latin and with my oboe. I’ll take Grade Six in January and Mr Granger thinks I should get a merit at least and a distinction if I’m lucky. I must sign off now as the bell is ringing for supper. (It’s right outside the study and is so loud it deafens you!) If I did have one wish it would be that you came and got me but I know this isn’t possible so I will not think about that anymore.

  Please send my love to Nairobi. I miss it. I will try not to get cross or do anything that will make you embarrassed and I will keep trying at rugby, Father. Maybe God will help me with that one!

  I know God loves you and the important work you do and I hope He loves me too.

  Your loving son,

  Luke Matthew John Crawford

  C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

  Will’s stomach buzzed with nerves as he waited for her. He began to pace, his eyes fixed on the back door. When he saw her coming into the kitchen he ran up to the back door and watched her face as she came into the garden. She stopped on the back door step, her hair wet from her shower, her skin flushed and glowing, and took it all in. The surprise on her face dawned gradually, her eyes jerking from one thing to another, her head slightly shaking in disbelief. He wanted her to love it and he crossed the fingers on one hand behind his back.

  ‘I did the garden.’

  ‘I can see,’ she said, giving him a brief smile before returning to survey his work.

  ‘I know it doesn’t make things better, I know it’s not as simple as that,’ he said. ‘But, well, I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said, about it being neglected and scruffy, and well, once I got started, I couldn’t stop.’

  She stepped out onto the terrace, which he’d cleared of weeds and swept. He watched her slowly absorbing the changes.

  ‘Do you remember how excited we were when we walked out here when we were buying the place? That estate agent droning on about how close the flat was to the tube station and the patisserie that sold the best custard tarts in West London and all we could do was grin at the garden?’

  ‘Did you have any help?’ she asked. She glanced at him before walking over to look at one of the flower beds.

  ‘No, but I started first thing this morning. I called Frank and told him I wouldn’t be in and then as soon as you left I got going.’

  He’d made himself a sweet, milky coffee, then dressed in a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt and set to work. He dug out an assortment of garden tools from the narrow lean-to shed, including an electric mower which hadn’t been used since the year before. He got a load of rubbish bags from the kitchen, some matches, and a big blue tarpaulin that he could collect leaves and weeds on. The more he worked the more driven he felt, moving in some sort of frenzy, digging, cutting, weeding, dragging, burning. Sweat poured off him as the June heat beat down. This was his way of showing her the future. He didn’t stop to wonder if this was what she’d meant when she talked about the garden being a mess, he
just knew he needed to tidy it up, that whatever the outcome, whether it helped or made no difference, it was symbolic in some way.

  At just past one o’clock he took a break and went inside. He made himself a tall glass of orange squash which he drank in one beside the sink, then he opened the fridge, cut a chunk of cheese and rolled up a slice of ham, which he ate as he went back outside to assess his morning’s work. The place resembled a war zone, with rubbish, piles of weeds, clods of earth and clippings littering the whole area. He heard his mother’s reassuring voice in his head telling him things always looked worse before they got better and for the first time in months he missed her. If she lived closer then he’d have called her to come and help. She was a fantastic gardener, one of those sleeves-up kind of people who got jobs done quickly with no complaining. He wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead and went back indoors to send a text to Harmony to ask what time she’d be back. She was usually home anywhere between five and seven, and today, the later the better. He wanted to have it perfect. He tidied up what he had done then spent an hour and half turning the soil to reveal moist, deep brown earth, which made a world of difference.

  ‘Flowers,’ he said to himself.

  He checked the phone for a reply from Harmony, but there was nothing. It was three o’clock. He’d take a chance and drive to Homebase, the nearest place he knew that stocked plants. There he filled two large trollies with a variety of herbs, flowers and shrubs. He also picked up a couple of terracotta planters he thought would look great holding the herbs, a huge shiny blue urn, a fully developed specimen rose bush with flowers of such a deep red they could have been stained with blood, an Indian-style parasol with tassels and embroidery in a rainbow of threads, a small cast-iron barbecue, and some citronella candles to keep the midges away.

  He checked his watch. He’d be home by half past four. He had wanted to cook her supper as well but if he was going to plant he wouldn’t have time. When he got home he put a good bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé in the fridge and checked there was enough ham left. There were some olives as well, and right at the back of the cupboard, he found a jar of roasted peppers. Enough for supper. He went outside and began to plant. At half past five he finally got a text from Harmony to say she’d be home at six-thirty. He had quite a few plants left in pots and raced to get as many in the ground as possible, but as the clock reached six he knew he wouldn’t have time to finish, so he placed the rest on the beds in their pots. It wasn’t ideal but it gave an impression of what it would look like. Then he laid a rug on the freshly cut lawn, leant the parasol at an angle over it, lit the citronella candles and placed them around the rug, and then went inside to rinse the dirt, sweat, and grass clippings from his sunburnt skin. His heart began to pound with excitement; he couldn’t wait to see her, he couldn’t wait to show her, to start trying to make her love him again.

  He called out to her from the kitchen as she came in but she disappeared straight to the bathroom for a shower. His heart sank a little. When she appeared ten minutes later he looked at her face; she looked different, less angry, but perhaps that was merely wishful thinking.

  She glanced at him but looked away, as her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s not supposed to make you cry.’

  ‘It looks great.’ She walked across the small area of mowed grass to the other bed. ‘You’ve done so much. The plants are lovely,’ she said. ‘Do you know what they all are?’

  ‘I’ve kept the labels. I thought I’d try and learn their names.’ He smiled and walked over to her, then took her hand and gently pulled her up to the top end of the garden where he’d put the rose in the large blue pot. He touched its leaves. ‘This one’s called Danse du Feu. Isn’t that lovely?’ He turned to her. ‘It reminds me of the time you and I went to Anglesey, and we lit the fire on the beach.’ He stared at her, waiting for her to nod, but instead she avoided his eyes, transfixed by the brilliant red petals of the rose. ‘We danced in the sand beside the fire. Do you remember? When I saw the name I thought of that evening. I had to have it in our garden then every time I look at it I’ll remember that night. We were so completely happy then, weren’t we?’

  She looked at him and nodded. ‘That seems a long time ago.’ Her arms were crossed, hands clasping her elbows tightly. He could see the whites of her knuckles. He tried to fight his disappointment. He had no idea what he’d been expecting from her but this passive sadness was heartbreaking.

  ‘Harmony,’ he said with a deep breath. ‘I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just listened to what you said, that’s all. The garden needed doing and I wanted to do it for you. For us.’

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at the ground, hugged herself more tightly.

  ‘You look around. I’m just nipping into the kitchen. Back in a sec.’

  He went to the fridge and took out the wine, which he sank into the clay wine cooler she’d given him the day North End Wines opened for trade. He put it under his arm and then picked up the tray he’d already filled with the food, two glasses, a corkscrew and some paper napkins.

  Harmony was sitting on the seat at the far end of the garden, her hands loosely clasped and resting on her knees. He put the tray on the rug on the grass, then knelt down, smarting a little at the pain in his lower back. He thought of his mother again, of all the times he’d seen her out in their garden, pausing to stretch her back as she weeded on her knees for hours at a time.

  Harmony came to join him and he handed her a glass of wine then leant over to put the bottle back in the cooler. He thought she looked pale suddenly. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

  ‘No.’ She sat on the rug, knees pulled tightly in to her chest. ‘I’m tired, that’s all.’ She glanced at him again. ‘I love the garden, though.’

  She gave a thin, watery smile that didn’t hold.

  ‘Well, you were right,’ he said. ‘When you said that the garden was neglected. There was no reason for it and it’s my fault.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s both our faults. You’ve transformed it.’

  ‘This isn’t about the garden,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a shit about the garden. It’s you I care about.’

  Still she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  She picked up a small leaf and turned it over in her fingers.

  ‘Harmony?’ He paused, wishing she didn’t look so pained. ‘Do you want this to work or not?’ He regretted the question as soon as he’d asked it, worried in case she said no.

  Finally, she looked at him. She was chewing on her lip and he noticed a small red graze on it. ‘I’m confused.’ She looked like a child, her eyes large and wet with tears, vulnerable, exposed.

  ‘I wish we could turn back the clock and do things differently.’

  ‘Yes, I wish that too.’

  ‘Do you want to eat? Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I am a bit.’

  He was filled with a sense of relief, as if her accepting supper in the garden was a step in the right direction, but though they talked as they ate, they avoided anything of importance and their conversation was stilted, as if they were on an unsuccessful blind date, unsure of comfortable ground, preferring instead to keep to neutral subjects. She asked him about the garden, about how much he had needed to burn and how hard the earth had been to dig. He told her about the stag beetle larvae he’d found, two fat white grubs that looked like a pair of albino slugs. He had reburied them because he remembered reading somewhere they were endangered. She nodded and told him they were. Like bats.

  The sky eventually grew dusky and with it came a chill in the air. Harmony rubbed her arms.

  ‘Are you cold?’ Will asked. ‘Can I get you a sweater?’

  ‘I’m going to go in,’ she said. ‘I might take some work to bed; I’ve some notes to read through.’

  He stood too and they faced each other.

  ‘We’ll be okay,’ he said.

/>   His sentence hovered in the still air as if unfinished. She folded her arms across her stomach and looked at the ground. He reached for her with a sudden feeling she was floating away from him, that if a heavy gust of wind blew she’d be carried away with it.

  ‘You still love me, don’t you?’

  She lifted her trembling hand and placed it flat against his cheek.

  ‘Because if you do, that’s enough.’

  ‘Is it?’ she asked, dropping her hand from his face. ‘I’m not sure it is.’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. Nothing is more important than that. If we love each other that’s all that matters. We can work through this, Harmony.’

  She bent to pick up the tray and plates and took them back into the kitchen.

  Will blew out the sickly-sweet citronella candles and folded the rug. He closed the parasol and threw the last olive into the bushes, then picked up the glasses and gathered the rug and took them inside. He suspected his marriage was over. It was there in her eyes. She was distant from him; she had been since the miscarriage, but there was something else between them now, something he couldn’t pin down. She hadn’t been able to look at him, the only touch she’d given him was when she’d placed her hand on his cheek, and that gesture held more regret and sadness than he’d thought possible. It was as if she were saying goodbye. Helplessness gave way to anger, which billowed like a mistral wind, bringing with it images of Alastair Farrow, leering at him with malignant eyes.

  Will sat up until late, staring mindlessly at the television, desperate to keep Alastair Farrow at bay. He watched the news, then a poorly written sitcom with jerky camera work, then the shopping channel, a man in a shiny suit desperate to flog steam cleaners to his zombified post-midnight audience. But as much as he tried to keep Farrow from his head, all he could think about was the message he’d sent him. Glib, fatuous, facetious, sitting on the wall of his Facebook account, laughing at him.

  I was a bit of a cock at school! No hard feelings.