He walked back toward the school, wondering if the butterfly fluttered its wings in such a fashion. Could one decision—or indecision—cause the ripples to spread in a completely different way? Or was he destined, no matter what, to tread the path he now walked? Was fate so unyielding?
Allan’s legs trembled with all the walking, and the rats in his stomach whipped their ropy tails. He sat down on a wall, fished one of the airline’s paper towels from his inside jacket pocket, and spat a wad of blood into it. He thought about balling it up and tossing it into a doorway with the old newspapers and crushed beer cans—adding his cancer to its own—but instead folded the towel and pushed it into another pocket. He wiped rain from his eyes and looked toward the football field. No sign of the girl now. No reminder of that possible destiny. He was alone.
Late afternoon, and the daylight—if you could call it that—was quickly fading. Allan thought of Holly. Only three miles separated them now, although the emotional distance was beyond measure. He had come here hoping to build a bridge but was afraid his soul might be lacking the raw materials.
Still, in the time he had left . . . he had to try.
He recalled her voice on the phone, one word—hello—that had set his mind spinning. He hadn’t been able to speak to her. Everything inside him had clenched. Would it be any different in person? Would he stutter and walk away, carrying his burden, a coward until the end?
Would she slam the door in his face, or fall into his arms?
Would her hair smell the same?
How dark are you now?
Was her soul filled with the light he needed?
HE COULDN’T FIND a pay phone anywhere; the classic red telephone box, which adorned every street when he lived here, appeared to have become a thing of the past. Allan ended up dragging his luggage into a pub, ordering half a bitter (one thing that, blessedly, hadn’t changed at all), and having the barman call a taxi on his mobile phone.
The taxi driver was an elderly man who’d lived in Meadingham all his life. He pointed out the many changes as they drove through the town: the Wetherspoon’s bar where Woolworths used to be; the multistory car park built on the spot of the old library; a shimmering office block that had replaced several small stores. So many changes—too many for Allan to keep up with. He sat in the back and watched the ghosts whisper along High Street and grunted in agreement every time the driver remarked that the country was going to the dogs.
They followed Cattlestock Lane out of town, the gray buildings and bleak streets giving way to rolling hills and farmland. The driver stopped talking and turned on the radio. The Beatles sang “Yesterday.” The windshield wipers left streaks on the glass.
The barn appeared from behind a clutch of black trees on the left side of the road. With its collapsed roof and blistered boards, it looked exactly—hauntingly—as it had when Thomas’s body was discovered there twenty-six years ago. Allan thought it was mental residue—a trick of the memory, attached to his pain. Maybe a sip of morphine would make it disappear. He pulled the flask from his pocket and asked the driver to stop.
“The barn,” he croaked, unscrewing the cap.
“What about it?”
“You . . . you see it?”
“Yeah.”
Allan sipped anyway. He wiped his eyes and blinked and sipped again. The barn wavered in his vision. He stifled a cough. The morphine touched him with many hands, and each felt like ice.
“It’s been there for years,” the driver said.
“Yes.”
“I always get a chill when I drive past it. You know that Meadingham Monster, right?”
“Yes.”
“They found one of his victims there. Little boy. Seven years old.”
A slight shift in the scene, and this was mental residue: the barn cordoned off with barrier tape, policemen with dogs searching the area for evidence while television and newspaper reporters squabbled for the best positions. A white van was parked in the field beside the barn, with Thomas’s shattered body inside, wrapped in a sheet.
“Tell me something,” Allan said, sliding the flask back into his pocket. He blinked and the white van disappeared. “How can everything else around here change so much, when that hideous old barn looks exactly the same?”
“God only knows,” the driver said. He shrugged, then looked over his shoulder at Allan. “Seems to me that, sometimes . . . it’s the bad things that stick around.”
THE OLD HOUSE hadn’t changed much, either. The front door and windows had been painted, and there was a newer car in the driveway, but other than that, Allan could have been stepping into 1987. He paid the taxi driver and wheeled his luggage down the garden path to the front door.
A thousand doubts crept in. An ocean of fear and anxiety. He knocked on the door (an enfeebled tap of the knuckles) before he could change his mind. The sweat and rain trickled down his face as he waited. His heart had been pounding hard all afternoon, but now it grew wings and flew furiously around his body, banging off every surface like a fly in a bottle.
He saw her soft silhouette through the frosted window set in the front door and suddenly wished he were back in Toronto, calling her on the telephone—this would surely have been easier over the phone. He clutched the flask in his pocket and wiped his eyes, then the door opened and she was there. The breath creaked from his withered lungs, and for what seemed like an age he couldn’t draw another. The first thing he noticed—before he saw how terribly she had aged, and that the coldness in her eyes was still there—was that the bow in her hair had come untied. A wild coincidence, almost certainly, but for one second he was twenty years old again, and the future was theirs to write.
She didn’t recognize him, of course. He was stooped and skeletal, the illness had drawn all the character from his face, and he had claws instead of hands. She looked at him questioningly, and it was only when he reached out with one of those claws and pulled the ribbon from her hair that she realized who he was.
Her mouth dropped open. Her cold green eyes fluttered.
“Hello, Holly,” he said.
FOR A MOMENT she said nothing. Just stared at him like he was something new, something that disquieted her. She was skinny and haggard, her flesh the color of the gray skies under which she lived, her once-laughing mouth set in a thin, straight line from which a myriad of tiny wrinkles radiated outward. Her hair, once so lustrous, was now gray and brittle. Allan wondered whether she too was ill. She certainly didn’t look healthy.
They might have stood there all day, a tableau of bitterness—of dashed hopes and lost lives—if he hadn’t raised his hand and offered her the ribbon.
She looked at it but didn’t take it. Instead she asked, “What do you want?”
Allan tried to smile but could only grimace. “I’ve come to see you.”
“What for?”
“It’s been a long time, Holly. Too long.” The arm holding the ribbon ached and he lowered it. He blinked rain from his eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“So tell me and have done with it.”
He felt battered not only by the rain but by the vehemence of her words. Weakly, he said, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Why should I?”
He hesitated, then played his trump card. It felt oddly triumphant to do so. “I’m dying, Holly.”
He hadn’t expected compassion, and he didn’t get it. Holly flinched ever so slightly, as if he had raised a hand to her, and then her face hardened again. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“I just . . . well, I wanted to see you before I . . . I just wanted to make amends.”
The sound she made startled him. A harsh bark that it took him a moment to realize was a laugh. Then she said, “Isn’t it a bit late for that?”
He was shivering now. The rain seemed to be getting inside him, worming into his skin. “I hope not. Won’t you at least let me try?”
She remained silent, her face as hard as ever.
“I didn’t invite you here.”
“I know that, but . . .” All at once the strength went out of him. He felt like a sponge, his clothes and flesh saturated, too heavy to support him any longer. The handle of his suitcase slipped from his numb fingers and clattered to the path. The wet ribbon dropped from his other hand like a dead bird. Allan felt his vision narrowing, the world receding from him, but he didn’t realize he’d stumbled until his shoulder crashed against the wall beside the door. He cried out as jagged forks of pain tore through him, and then he felt himself gripped by hands like twisted wire, felt his body supported as he stumbled over the threshold, out of the rain, into the house.
The pain from the blow to his shoulder was raging, gathering pace inside him, echoing and radiating from its point of origin into his bones and his soft tissues. He groped for his flask but couldn’t get his hand to work properly.
“What are you doing?”
“Pocket,” he gasped, and even that was like coughing out nails. “Flask.”
“You mean this?”
He squinted. Through the grayness he saw the flask being offered to him. He took it, and with Holly’s help twisted off the cap and tilted it toward his mouth. The callus on his bottom lip burned when he pressed the metal edge against it, but after a moment the pain faded and he began to revive.
Holly helped him along a corridor, through a door, and into the welcoming softness of an armchair. “Here,” she said and dumped a towel on his head. He dried his hair and face, then wrapped the towel around himself and sat shivering. Holly knelt on the floor, her back to him, twisting the knob on a gas fire. The “real-effect” flames flared, then settled. He felt heat lapping toward him, though it couldn’t penetrate the cold at his core.
Holly turned and stood, scowling at him. Her eyes jerked to the flask and she asked, “What is that? It doesn’t smell like brandy.”
“Oramorph—liquid morphine.” He shrugged. “It’s for the pain.”
“And what happens when it runs out?”
He felt a spike of alarm at the prospect. It was a reminder that he needed to organize a continuing supply while he was over here, and sooner rather than later. Perhaps Holly would help him. He had the necessary documentation.
“It won’t,” he said. “I won’t let it.”
“How often do you take it?”
“As often as I need to.”
She eyed the flask with suspicion, as if it contained something dangerous—salmonella or anthrax—that she was afraid he might release into the atmosphere.
Allan clutched it tighter. He lowered his eyes.
“Do you want tea?” She asked the question aggressively, as if it were a challenge she defied him to refuse.
“Please.”
“Anything to eat?”
“No. Thank you.”
While she was away he looked around the room, his head turning slowly from within the folds of the towel, like a tortoise waking from hibernation. The carpet was a warm coral color, the upholstery, cushions, and curtains emblazoned with bright floral patterns. It should have been a cheerful room, and yet it seemed to Allan that there was something desperate about it. In the corner was a sideboard on which were propped two framed photographs of Thomas, both of which Allan recognized. One was of him standing on a Cornish beach, squinting into the sun, wearing a yellow-and-black T-shirt and red swimming trunks. The other was of him blowing out the candles on a cake with a big number 5 on it. There were no photographs of Allan.
Holly returned with the tea. He’d half expected a tray with a pot and china cups, but instead she shoved a mug unceremoniously into his hand. The tea was pale, insipid. He sipped, grimaced.
“Not to your liking?”
He shook his head, then winced; even this small movement caused him pain now. “No, it’s fine. It’s my throat and stomach. Ulcers. Tumors. I don’t know.”
She regarded him dispassionately. “Where have you got it? The cancer.”
“It started in my colon. A long time ago. I had no idea, of course, and it just ran wild. I think it’s everywhere now. I stopped the chemo . . . the treatments.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because they can’t help me. They only prolong the pain.” Allan sipped his tea and held up the flask. “This is my only relief.”
Her eyes flickered briefly to the sideboard, the photographs of Thomas. “Well, it’s no more than you deserve.”
He sighed. “You’re probably right.”
Then she put her mug down, hard, on the small table by her side. He expected to see anger on her face, but instead her eyes teared up, and suddenly she looked ashamed. “No,” she said, “that’s a horrible thing to say. You don’t deserve it. It’s just . . . I’ve hated you for so many years. You abandoned me, Allan. When I needed you most, you . . . abandoned me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you go?”
“Because I was hurting, too. Because I couldn’t reach you. You were lost to me.”
“I was grieving.”
“I know. And so was I. But we weren’t grieving together. What should have halved our burden only . . . doubled it.”
“So you ran away.”
“I didn’t run; I just left. I thought it would be best for both of us.”
“You were wrong. I needed you, Allan. I was reaching out for you. Couldn’t you see?”
“No, I couldn’t.” Her claim astonished him. “You had a wall around you that I couldn’t penetrate. I tried, but . . .”
“You didn’t try hard enough.”
The bitterness was back in her voice. Allan wondered whether it was justified, whether he hadn’t tried hard enough. It was possible, he supposed. Maybe he had failed to recognize and respond to Holly’s need because to have comforted her, to have shared and absorbed her grief, would have felt like a betrayal, like lying to them both. There was so much that Holly still didn’t know. And if there was ever going to be honesty between them again, then she had to know, however hard that might be.
“Haven’t you got anything to say?” she said.
Despite her anger, despite her antipathy toward him, he could see that her need had never really gone away, that she was reaching out to him even now. It was as if the years of distance between them suddenly meant nothing at all, as if time was a flimsy curtain that could simply be swept aside.
Allan nodded, then finished his tea and placed the empty mug on the table beside the armchair. He kept hold of the hip flask, though—clutched it tighter than ever. “This is so difficult. You won’t like what I have to say.” He wiped his trembling mouth. “But it’s the reason I’m here.”
“Just say it.”
He’d rehearsed this moment, but now that he was here, in front of her, he didn’t know where to start. He gasped and stammered . . . used the towel to mop his damp brow. Eventually, he managed, “My sin . . . it’s . . .”
Red like crimson.
“ . . . It’s buried deep inside me. A part of me now. I can’t eradicate it, but maybe I can soften its edges . . . go to my maker with just a shred of peace . . . and maybe I can eliminate some of your pain, too.”
“Your sin?” Holly narrowed her eyes.
“The Monster,” Allan said. “Grayson—”
“Dead,” Holly snarled. Her green eyes blazed. “The fucker’s dead.”
“Yes, I read it in the newspaper.” He ran the towel across his brow again. He smelled rain and sweat in the fabric. “I saw it as a sign . . . to come here, to see you . . . before it was too late.”
“It’s not right, though, is it?” Holly snapped, as if she hadn’t heard him. “A heart attack. He deserved to suffer for killing Thomas . . . for what he did to all those children.”
Allan was silent for a moment, then he said, “You don’t have to worry about Grayson anymore. Because the thing about Thomas . . . what I wanted
to tell you is . . . he didn’t suffer.”
She scowled. “What do you mean?”
“He was never scared. Never alone. Not like you thought. Grayson didn’t kill him, Holly.”
Her eyes widened, as if the lid were being pulled back on something she didn’t want to see. Something terrible. “What are you talking about, Allan?”
He was shaking again. Tears gathered in his eyes. “That day. The day Thomas died. It was a Saturday. You were in town. Buying a new frock.”
“With Verity,” she said, her voice breathless, as though she needed to cement the facts into place. “I was with Verity, and you were at home, repairing something—”
“The radiator,” he said. “We had air trapped in the bathroom radiator. It was banging and shuddering like there was something trying to get out. I was bleeding the system—”
“And Thomas was out playing with his friends.”
“No.”
She stared at him, eyes wide with panic. “No? What do you mean, no?”
He took a deep breath. It hurt; fish hooks and barbed wire. “Thomas wasn’t out playing with his friends. I told the police he was, but he wasn’t. He was in the house all morning. Part of the time he was watching me—helping me, as he called it. Then he got bored and went downstairs to watch TV. I was struggling with the valve, the radiator was leaking, and my temper was fraying at the edges. I heard a crash from downstairs, and Thomas let out a squeal. I was furious and worried at the same time. I yelled his name but didn’t get a reply, so I packed a few towels around the leak and rushed onto the landing.”
Allan’s throat crackled. He gasped and took a quick shot of morphine. The pain, this time, was harder to displace. It lodged somewhere in his heart. A cold and jagged thing.
“Thomas came up the stairs. He was crying . . . holding something in his hand. He held it out, and I saw that it was my grandfather’s watch.”
Allan stopped again. He screwed the cap on the flask as the boy bloomed in his mind. Beautiful Thomas, wearing his striped T-shirt and blue shorts. He had tears in his eyes . . . a dimple set deep in his chin.
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