She smiled up at him. ‘You look terrified,’ she said, and reached up to kiss his cheek.
He forced a smile back in an attempt to mask the nerves he was battling.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
The truth was, he was terrified; so much so, he could barely walk straight.
He pressed the button to go up and glanced at Harmony. Her hand was on her stomach, resting lightly on its roundness. A picture of Luke, dressed in his suit, shaking hands with him in Emma and Ian’s garden, flashed into his head. These unwanted images would always be there, however much he fought to keep them at bay.
It was two older boys, sixth-formers, who’d found his body. The boys had been bunking off prep for a cigarette and stumbled upon him. Will had heard enough detail for him to picture the scene: Luke hanging from the oak tree, bare-footed, his hand cut across the palm. It was an image he knew would haunt him forever.
The story had made the national news and triggered a police investigation into abuse at the school when Luke and Will had been pupils. Will had found no satisfaction or release while raking over those days with the police, but there was an element of uneasy relief when Drysdale and a handful of ex-members of staff found themselves facing prosecution. He’d followed the trials closely. He hadn’t wanted to appear in court so sent a statement to be read on his behalf. His was circumstantial evidence, more linked to the atmosphere and culture of the school than specific events. It was hard reliving those unpleasant days. In the end he was left feeling empty as the full extent of the rot was revealed and Will discovered there were numerous men whose lives had been torn apart as children. He knew he’d got off lightly. The policewoman who’d talked to him had shown him a photograph that was found inside Luke’s jacket at the scene of his death. It was the Polaroid of the two of them taken in the summer before it all went wrong. Luke had wanted to send it to his parents to show them who Will was. They’d asked one of the other boys to take it, then hooked arms around each other’s shoulders and grinned. Luke had loved the photo so much he’d decided to keep it. Seeing it in the police file, knowing he’d had it on him when he took his life, was heartbreaking.
The receptionist called Harmony’s name and he followed his wife into the small windowless room off the main waiting area. She took her coat off and a nurse asked her to climb onto the bed and lift her sweater over her bump and unzip her trousers.
The sonographer smiled and introduced herself and then pulled the top of Harmony’s knickers well below the swell of her stomach and tucked green paper towel into them.
‘This will feel cold to start with,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s fine.’ Harmony smiled at her.
She squeezed a large dollop of gel onto Harmony’s tummy. Then she took hold of the ultrasound scanner and pushed it hard against her, moving it around in the gel, while staring at the screen.
Will noticed Harmony wince. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she whispered back. ‘Just a bit uncomfortable. I drank a pint of water before I came out and haven’t peed.’ She looked at the woman, who stared intently at the screen. ‘Apparently, it makes the picture easier to see.’
‘That’s right,’ the woman said with a nod, her eyes still fixed ahead.
Will looked at the screen too but found it hard to see anything that resembled a baby, just a mass of shapes in black and white. Then there was a deep, fast, beating sound and the sonographer centred on that part of Harmony’s stomach, pushing the scanner deeper into her, making her wince for a second time.
‘Are you sure it doesn’t—’ Will began.
‘This is the baby’s heartbeat,’ the woman said.
Will looked at the screen again and saw a tiny black mass pulsing in time with the sound they could hear.
Harmony reached for his hand.
‘And there’s baby’s head.’ She paused and moved the scanner.
‘There’s the spine.’
‘I can’t see it,’ he said, leaning towards the screen and squinting.
‘Don’t worry, most people can’t,’ she said. She pointed at the screen with her fingers. ‘This is the face. The nose, lips.’
Just then the baby opened its mouth and seemed to yawn.
‘Oh my God,’ said Harmony, a small laugh escaping her lips.
‘That’s amazing.’
It was a peculiar feeling. One of dread and excitement. This is it, he thought, as he stared at the indistinct face of the child on the screen. There was his second chance.
Luke’s child.
He thought back to when she’d told him. She’d been devastated. He sat on the sofa and stayed quiet as she dropped to her knees at his feet, took his hands in hers, and apologised over and over.
‘If you want me to … ’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘I will though … I will understand. If you want me to do that … I’m sorry, Will. I’m so, so sorry.’
He’d sat in the garden, at the wrought iron table, tracing his fingers over the filigree patterns in the rusting metal. Harmony was pregnant. He faced a huge decision. This wasn’t what he wanted. If he was to have a baby, it had to be his. The pain inside him was intense. He wanted her to be carrying his child. Could he ask her to get rid of it? He heard his mother’s words in his head: You selfish, selfish boy. She was right, he knew that. He’d learned a lot about himself in the last seven months. He thought back to Drysdale’s office, of how he’d watched the light seep out of Luke’s eyes when he’d failed to stand beside him.
He was responsible, not alone but in part, for the jigsaw puzzle of Luke’s tragic life. He knew that if ever there was a chance for atonement this was it. This was his opportunity to make amends for those things he’d done wrong, the selfish decisions he’d made again and again over the years. He could be a father to Luke’s child and give it all the love and support that had been denied Luke himself. He finally had the chance to prove his own father wrong, that life isn’t always ugly, and that, sometimes, it is fair.
‘Is the baby healthy?’ Harmony asked. ‘There’s nothing we should be worried about?’
‘Everything looks fine,’ she replied with a reassuring smile. ‘I’ve got a few measurements to take but otherwise all good.’ She turned to them both. ‘Do you want a picture of the baby?’
Will smiled at Harmony, who gripped his hand as if her life depended on it, then leant forward and kissed her forehead.
‘Yes,’ he said then. ‘We’d like a picture of our baby.’
N O T E S F R O M
T H E A U T H O R
An idea for a book can come from anywhere. From an overheard snippet of conversation. From a newspaper article. From an exchange you witness between two strangers in a supermarket quite by chance. Sometimes, of course, an idea will spring from personal experience, from something close to home, something that affects you directly.
A few years ago my husband got a telephone call from the police whilst he was at work. It was a call that threw him completely off balance for a period. As the woman took a moment to explain who she was he experienced a familiar and unwelcome wave of nausea that he had not felt since childhood. Beyond the fact that it was a female police detective asking him to confirm his identity he had no clues as to what the call might be about. An odd thirty seconds ensued. He described to me how the world seemed to close in around him, his conscious awareness of the situation diminished and he became an almost third party observer of the call. His subconscious took over and released waves of long and very deliberately buried memories and emotions from many years before. As the detective finished introducing herself he experienced a strange conviction that he knew what the call was about. “Does this relate to what went on at my school 25 years ago?” When she asked how he’d guessed he replied that he’d been expecting the call for years, but until that moment hadn’t realized it.
My husband was sent to a tiny boarding choir school when he was eight years old and left at thirt
een to go to the local grammar school. His parents wanted what they believed to be the best for him, and his musical abilities afforded them the opportunity to give him this privileged start to his education. Little did they know that the very fabric of their chosen school was infected by child abuse. Thankfully my husband wasn’t one of those physically abused, but the violent and oppressive atmosphere of the school stayed with him for many years. He didn’t know, nor could he have understood, what was happening to his less fortunate classmates, but he had an uneasy awareness of the further hidden malevolence. Nearly three decades later, two members of staff were being investigated following allegations made by men who’d been victim of their abuse, and the police were seeking other victims and witnesses from the time.
What both upset and fascinated me was the Pandora’s box of emotions that was opened by that phone call. My husband began to look up the names of boys he’d been at school with. He became obsessed with discovering what they’d gone on to do, whether they’d married, had children, whether, essentially, they’d survived their ordeals and managed to find happiness. Tragically, some had never recovered and this hit him hard. It was sobering to talk to him about these boys, these innocents, damaged for good. I became preoccupied with the idea of damaged childhood, not necessarily damaged by physical abuse, but by an array of incidents: the death of a parent, a father withholding affection from his only son, a child witnessing cruelty, bullying – from both the bullied child and the bully’s point of view. I didn’t want to write about sexual abuse – principally because I’d touched on it in my first novel – but the subject of bullying came back to me repeatedly. I started toying with the idea of two boys, one who actively denies his past, papering over his painful memories, focussing instead on his adult relationship as his salvation. Then another more ruined boy, unable to find peace, a desire for revenge that consumed him. It was then that the characters of Will and Luke began to take shape. I saw them clearly even before I knew what route my story would take, these two boys, their troubled childhoods indelibly marked by a single, brutal event, both affected differently, both using alternative ways to cope. I imagined them growing up, one carrying guilt into his adult life, the other anger. And how, if I pushed them together years later, their pasts might wreak havoc on their lives. As the story began to take shape, I started to think about what each of them had to lose, what was at risk. For Will it was his wife, Harmony, his ‘anchor in the storm’; his salvation. To threaten his marriage was to threaten to destroy his survival of the past. And there began the third leg to the story; Harmony and the dangerous love triangle she finds herself trapped in.
At the beginning Harmony was a fairly neutral character, stable, calm, balanced, but as the themes became clearer, I gave Harmony her own demons from childhood to battle. Though loved by her mother and sister, Harmony had experienced grief as a child and also abandonment. On the surface she seems fine, well-adjusted, rational, but the fallout from her past – the fault lines – were there. Childhood is the most precious and fleeting of times, as is the innocence that goes hand in hand with it, so fragile, so breakable. Any emotional trauma to a child will leave scars, some deep, some less so. Trauma in childhood can have a considerable impact on adulthood. It can influence the decisions people make, tamper with their ability to cope in certain situations, affect how they interact with others, how they deal with the things life throws at them. The inescapable truth is we are all a unique and individual tapestry of our past experiences. Everything that happens to us becomes inextricably woven into what makes us who we are.
What struck me as I began to research the book was the number of times people said things like ‘that’s just what went on’ or ‘it was different back then’ or ‘oh, yes, adults knew it was happening’. Blind eyes turned again and again. Children betrayed. Very quickly betrayal as a theme pushed to the front of the book.The exploration of betrayal. What broken trust means to different people. How easily one person can forgive a betrayal and how violently another might want revenge. Or redemption. The concept of betrayal worked its way into the veins of The Judas Scar.With it came love. Love and betrayal are inextricably linked. Betrayal is the antithesis of love, and the stronger the love, the harder the bite of betrayal and the deeper the scar left behind. Love and betrayal link all the stories in the book in different ways: between lovers and spouses, between children and parents, between friends. And where betrayal takes place there are only two options; forgiveness or the absence of it. And where there’s absence of forgiveness comes anger, comes blame, comes guilt, and sometimes, revenge...
Amanda Jennings, March 2014
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
My heartfelt thanks and appreciation go to my agent, the incomparable Broo Doherty, who from day one has taken care of me, and always makes me laugh, even when I don’t feel like it. To Paul Swallow for his belief in this book, his incredible passion, and his generosity when it comes to cupcakes. To those friends and family who read various versions of this book, but especially Charlie Jolly for his encouragement, Tiina Verran for her early suggestions, Cosima Wagner and Lou Botham for their expert proof-reading skills, and Sian Johnson who read far too many drafts of this book and offered insightful advice throughout. To Sean Costello for editing with a sensitive and skillful touch and being such a pleasure to work with. To those people I love on Twitter – authors, readers, book bloggers and like-minded souls – who offered support, distraction and laughter whenever I needed it. I have been blown away by the generosity of so many of you. I owe you much. Special mention to Tamar Cohen and Elizabeth Forbes for always being on the end of a phone. I am privileged to have amazing friends, both old and newer, you are my life-blood. Thank you. And then to my family, my three inspiring daughters who make me proud every day, my wonderful parents and sister, and of course, my husband, whose strength and integrity know no bounds and without whom I’d be lacking my very best friend. I love you all.
P R A I S E F O R
T H E J U D A S S C A R
‘A gripping and powerful read which will keep you turning the pages.’
Simon Kernick
‘Astonishingly good and utterly haunting.’
The Oxford Times
‘A beautifully crafted tale. Emotional, dark and so very compelling.’
Novelicious
‘That rare thing - a gripping page turner that’s also emotionally intelligent and very moving. I gulped it down.’
Tamar Cohen
‘The Judas Scar is a compelling, moving and captivating book that had me hooked from the first page. Harmony is an attractive lead character and I found myself rooting for her, hoping that she would find happiness in her life. At the core of the book is the profound impact that trauma, experienced at a young age, can have on the rest of a person’s life, and the lives of those who love that person. In The Judas Scar, the trauma and its aftershocks are intelligently described and beautifully written. It was refreshing to see these things from a male perspective and Will is just as sympathetic a character as Harmony and completely believable. This is a grown-up book tackling grown-up subjects intelligently and with tenderness. It certainly stands out from the crowd. In short this is a wonderful book, one that I thoroughly enjoyed and that I recommend wholeheartedly. I hope it achieves the success it deserves.’
Louise Douglas
‘The Judas Scar is a powerful story about the shadowlands that can connect people with long-held secrets. What I particularly loved when reading it was the constant interplay between menace and damage: the menace posed by others and the damage Jennings’s gritty and deftly-drawn characters actually do to themselves. A really great read.’
Claire Dyer
If you enjoyed Amanda’s book,
you may also enjoy the following from
Cutting Edge Press:
Twin Truths – Shelan Rodger
Jenny and Pippa are twins. Like many twins they often know what the other is thinking. They complete each other. When
one of the twins disappears the other woman is left to face the world alone as she tries to find out what happened to her “other half ”. Vividly set in Argentina, Brazil, Greece and the UK, Shelan Rodger’s stunning debut is a beautiful examination of identity and how much this is moulded by our relationships with others.
Nearest Thing to Crazy – Elizabeth Forbes
Dan and a group of his friends enjoy a Sunday lunch together on a perfect summer’s day. They’re pleased to welcome their glamorous new neighbour and novelist, Ellie, who has rented a house in the village to work on her book. She likes to place herself in the centre of her plots, she says, although it’s hard to see what she’ll find to write about in this quiet country backwater. As Ellie slots effortlessly into the village social scene, Dan’s wife begins to feel increasingly alienated from her friends and isolated from her family, but, for the life of her, she can’t fathom why.
Who Are You? – Elizabeth Forbes
Alex, a career officer in an elite regiment, returns from Afghanistan a changed man. The mental scars he has brought home disrupt his relationship and drive his wife Juliet to seek comfort by chatting in online forums. As Juliet relies more heavily on her life online, she is confronted by her weakest vulnerabilities and her worst fears.
A Cutting Edge Press Paperback Original
Published in 2014 by Cutting Edge Press
www.cuttingedgepress.co.uk
Copyright © Amanda Jennings
Amanda Jennings has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work under the terms of the 1988 Copyright Design and Patents Act.
This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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