Scream for Sarah

by Veronica Heley

  But such protest groups were listened to more and more, and Jack knew he couldn’t afford to disregard them. He was sure, however, that some solution, other than direct confrontation, would be found. He felt himself riding on a crest of optimism at the moment, when everything was undoubtedly going his way. For a moment, remembering recent troubling events, he had a flicker of doubt, but once more he put it out of his mind.

  2

  Taking a short cut through the narrow lane at the back of the Town Hall had been a mistake: Marc was wedged in between a following car and a big truck being loaded with huge pots of flowering plants. Probably from the previous evening’s function, he decided, and now being transported back to the Parks Department glasshouses. He waited impatiently, but it wasn’t long before the driver gave him the thumbs up and he could get past. It hadn’t really delayed him much, he made good time and his mother was still there when he arrived.

  The resiny smell of new wood filled her small flat as he carried in the planks, shouldering with ease the six three-foot lengths of three-quarter-inch-by-nine. Good, sturdy shelves that he left leaning just inside the door while he ran back down the narrow stairs to fetch his saw, plane, drill and sander, the Rawlplugs and screws. He’d always been good at practical things, and he was eager to prove his carpentry skills, to get on and see the results. They’d be just the job when he’d finished them, three shelves in each of the alcoves either side of the small cast-iron fireplace that was only just big enough to house a barely adequate gas fire. Even so, she wouldn’t have enough books to fill them, or even any small ornaments and such to make up the spaces. He wondered what had happened to them all, and whether she missed such things.

  The tiny flat, once a bedroom floor, just this one room partitioned off to make provision for somewhere to cook and wash up, plus a minute bathroom and a shoebox-sized bedroom, was sparse and comfortless.

  ‘I could get you a few pictures, some cushions,’ he’d suggested. ‘A cat?’ Even a budgie. Something, at any rate, to love.

  ‘No! No, thank you. I have everything I want.’

  Her refusal was quiet, but uncompromising, as if through the need to convince him that she’d grown away from the necessity for luxuries. He thought of her Spartan bedroom, its walls bare except for the crucifix above the narrow bed, seeming to dominate the room. It made him uncomfortable, this reminder of the faith that, despite everything, was still the main principle of her life.

  He’d left the door propped open while he went for the tools, and when she heard him return she called to him from the kitchen area.

  ‘Please – don’t call me that,’ he said, leaning against the doorframe, watching her as she moved quietly from one task to another. ‘You christened me Marc, and that’s who I am.’

  She was silent for a moment, her head bent as she folded the tea towel and placed it neatly over the rail, revealing neither pleasure nor displeasure as she lifted her head and looked at him. ‘If that is what you prefer.’ He saw the shadows in her eyes, shadows that he’d come to accept were permanent now. The thought both saddened and enraged him, it had all been so bloody pointless and unnecessary. Then a sudden rush of tenderness swamped his anger, and with it came an ever greater determination to look after and protect her, as though their positions were reversed, and she was the child, he the parent.

  She looked too young to be anybody’s mother, let alone the mother of a grown man, though he recognized his own bone structure and colouring in her narrow, dark face, and knew exultantly that his own blood and genes and chromosomes were hers, too. She was still a beautiful woman. Her hair, which she was growing again, was sleek and dark, without a hint of grey. She was slim – perhaps too slim, he thought, professionally critical – and made even her cheap, chain-store clothes look elegant. Even without hearing her faint accent, the slight pedantry of her speech that persisted despite all the years in England, anyone would guess by the way she looked that she was French, he thought – it must be that Parisian flair they spoke about.

  He reminded her, very aware of the time, ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way? It’s nearly ten.’

  ‘Yes. I have left you some soup and rolls for your lunch.’ She indicated a carefully prepared tray he could see sitting on the two-foot-square work surface next to the sink. ‘And there is fruit in the fridge.’

  ‘I’ll wait and have it with you. I don’t want to stop for lunch anyway.’

  He meant to work painstakingly, taking his time. He was always careful and precise when he needed to be. He would do everything perfectly, no lopsided or unsafe shelves – but even if the job went quicker than he anticipated, he intended still to be here when she returned, he wanted to see her face when she saw the shelves. Maybe he could use any spare time for a kip...you never got enough sleep, working the emergency rota.

  ‘Don’t wait,’ she said. ‘You will be hungry before I get back. I don’t finish until half past two.’

  He hated the idea of her job: waitressing, fetching and carrying, having to wear an overall and a cute, silly hat on her head. It was demeaning, cleaning up the sordid debris of other people’s lunches – even if Catesby’s restaurant was in a classy department store and though she’d recently been promoted from clearing tables in the self-service to the waitress-service area.

  ‘I don’t mind waiting, I had a big breakfast,’ he lied, as she slipped on her coat. He could always nip out for a pizza if he couldn’t last out. ‘And I’m not due back on duty today. Bye, Marie-Laure.’

  She didn’t like him to call her Mother, or Mum. Nor did she kiss him before she left, but she touched his shoulder, which was an improvement on previous farewells.

  He listened to her quick, light footsteps on the stairs and heard the front door close before turning to start on the shelves.

  The small room quickly became very stuffy and within ten minutes he’d worked up a sweat. He stuck it for a while longer then, looking at his watch, pushed up the sash window which overlooked the street where the betting shop, the Halal Meat Emporium, the Pizza Hut and a small branch of the Bank of Ireland jostled each other, and countless overflowing black plastic dustbin bags lolled together along the pavement edges. He let in a rush of knife-edged air, breathed in the smell of diesel fumes and fried onions, heard the noise of traffic and the dustbin lorry grinding away further up the road, the hiss of air brakes. The Town Hall clock sounded the quarter and, simultaneously, he heard the bang in the distance – or rather, the loud crump, the thud of an explosion. Minutes later, through the open window, he heard the wail of police and ambulance sirens.