by Karen Perry
A moment to catch her breath. Behind her, she hears Ken say: ‘Get rid of him.’ All the fight gone out of him, he turns away.
At the top of the steps, he stops to look back down at them. A searching gaze, full of pain and confusion. It is not for her, but for Jim, as is the question he asks.
‘Tell me this much, Father. How will I ever forgive her?’
She feels the heat of it scalding her.
Everything is changed.
The screen-door slams behind him leaving Murphy and Sally outside.
For a moment, they stand there, looking at each other. In the lamp-light, she sees his face is white with shock, despite the scuffle with Ken.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, composing himself. ‘I didn’t mean it to come out that way –’
‘Don’t,’ she says, her voice barely controlled.
He heaves in his breath, his eyes imploring, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything.
‘Don’t you see?’ he goes on. ‘I couldn’t just let you leave. Not after everything … I couldn’t just let you go.’
‘You don’t have a choice. Neither of us has. The boys –’
‘I’ll take care of them. I’ll take care of all of you.’
She stares at him, aghast. ‘You can’t protect them. What they did –’
‘It was an accident. Anyone can see that. They’re just children.’
‘This country can be harsh. It can demand that children be treated as adults. That policeman who came today … he frightened me.’
‘We’ll find a way, Sally. God will help us.’
Still, he speaks of God, as if he retains that authority.
‘Please, Sally. You can’t go. You can’t do this to me. I know you won’t. You can’t.’
‘I have no choice. It’s too risky for the boys to stay.’
‘Then let them go!’ he bursts out. ‘Let their father take them home. But you and me,’ he comes forward, takes her hands in his, ‘we need to be together. How I feel about you … how we feel about each other …’
She is bewildered. ‘I’m their mother. They need me –’
‘I need you.’
He pulls her towards him so he is staring straight at her, close enough for her to catch the wildness in his eyes. How to explain to him the difference between his need for her and the all-encompassing pull of motherhood? She looks at him now, the shadow of stubble running over his jaw and neck, how deeply set his eyes are, startlingly blue beneath brows that are thick and dark and a little unruly. Such a serious man, capable of volcanic anger and extraordinary tenderness. She sees the yearning in his eyes – and the fear – and with it, she feels an answering disappointment inside herself. This man, whom she had always considered so strong, now veers towards desperation, and their bond is coming undone.
‘Please don’t do this, Sal. Please don’t shut me out. Not after all I’ve done. Not after the sacrifices I’ve made for you.’
‘Sacrifices?’ The word scratches at her – a match to tinder.
‘Yes! I’ve made sacrifices. I’ve broken my vows for you!’ His voice rises now. ‘Do you think that was easy for me? Do you think I held them so lightly that breaking them was just a casual thing, like slipping off a coat?’
His eyes flare with fury, the veins bulging in his neck.
She thinks of all she knows about him: his long struggle with his faith, arguments with his superiors, an endless battle between stifling clerical duties and the pull of his earthly desires; and always that silent but insistent pressure from his family back home in Ireland, the unspoken rule that he must never shame them. She’d known it was wrong from the moment it started – a terrible sin – but somehow the wrongness seemed to stir her desire, a jolt that went straight to her groin the first time she opened herself to his embrace. And now, in this garden filling with darkness, she feels at once how reckless she has been, how naïve, to think she would not have to pay for what she has done, that there would not come a time of reckoning.
His grip around her wrists tightens.
She pulls her arms free, takes a step back. She says nothing. Taken by a cold anger, she backs away, turns to the steps.
Furious at her silence, he shouts after her: ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, what do I have to do?’
A movement of wings catches her eyes. Flutterings from the cage on the veranda: the birds on their perch, witnesses to this unravelling.
She has a sudden flashback to an afternoon at the start of things between them. He had come to the house, the cage in the back of his car, a gift for the boys. Two birds with bright plumage – petrol-blue feathers and orange breasts, twittering, black eyes gleaming like brightly polished seeds.
How many times has she allowed him in her house? In her bed? With a sudden glare of clarity, she sees the foolishness of her behaviour – the immense selfishness of it – and all the destruction it has wreaked. In this darkening house, a home she will soon leave, each member of her family is nursing a wound that she has, somehow, inflicted.
She casts one last look at Jim, then goes to the cage, opens the little door and reaches in with both hands. She catches one bird and releases it, followed swiftly by the other. They take to the wing at once, fluttering briefly about the veranda before powering their way high above the roof and disappearing into the darkness.
She does not look at him, does not want to see the pain crossing his face. Instead, she goes into the house, closing the door softly behind her.
Part Five
* * *
KENYA 2013
15. Katie
Light breaks through the darkness. It’s fleeting at first, glimpsed through gritty eyes, a fog in my head keeping me under. But something pulls me towards it. Dark silhouettes announce themselves as trees. The long knotted hair of some demon woman reveals itself as a hanging vine. The coil of roots in the ground beneath me presses into my flesh. Ragged breathing, stones embedded in my cheek. A smell like decay rising from the earth. Shadows deepen, the light becomes true and clear, the slow creep of reality trying to break through.
Voices then. Someone saying, She’s had a fall. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth. My tongue, swollen and thick, like a foreign object. The chirrup of insects, the nearby swish of water as some unseen creature launches itself into the river. The river. Something sparks in memory. Then another voice, Let’s get her to the car.
Hands under my arms then – the shock of human contact. I’m on my feet, held up by strangers I can’t see, yet I can feel their blocky presence against me. Feet stumble and drag along the ground. Roots, like ancient fingers in the soil. My head lolls – I can’t seem to hold it up. A pain blooming deep within my ears. Feet stumbling over rocks, floundering, trying and failing to gain purchase. We break clear of the trees and, Jesus, how the light cuts through me, the backs of my eyelids singing with hurt.
I can’t get a handle on my bearings. The pain, like a heavy stone in my head, making me stupid. Long shadows and the nip of cool air. Early morning, then. Still, it’s too bright, I can hardly stand to open my eyes to it. Lungs working like a wheezy organ. A thought surfaces: I might have died out there. Grit and red clay on the ground in front of me. Then the jarring sight of a dusty wheel. Everything is distorted. The creak of a car door scraping through my head.
Next thing I know I’m sitting in a car. Legs stretched out and aching in the foot-well. A bottle of water in my hands, a voice telling me to drink, but I’m so weak and the bottle is so heavy. Water in my mouth, cutting across the dried membranes of my lips and teeth and tongue. I might cry, I feel so fucking grateful. A shiver that comes up from my bones. My heart a dull thud in my chest. More, the voice instructs, and I feel the water reaching down towards the dryness in my throat, the parched plains of my insides.
The thump of a door closing. Low voices in conversation outside. I tilt my head to see but the pain comes in my ear like a swarm of black flies, and I hold myself still. Close my eyes, feel sleep coming.
Movement wakes me. The jolt of the car going over a pothole. The landscape a smear of colour seen through a windshield speckled with dirt. My head feels heavy and dull with sleep, but the pain has subsided. My breathing has calmed. A mess of filth rises up over my feet and ankles, the tideline skirting the legs of my jeans. The car bumps over uneven roads; the dream-catcher dangling from the rear-view mirror jumps and spins with each bump.
‘You’re awake,’ Lauren says.
She drives with a committed air, both hands on the steering-wheel, her eyes narrowed on the road ahead.
I try to say something, but all that emerges is a strangled croak. She glances across. ‘You shouldn’t try to speak,’ she tells me. ‘There’s more water. You should drink.’
It is warm and tastes of plastic. I drink as much as I can, but I’m starting to feel strange again – thinned out and stretched, the water sloshing inside me, like seawater in a cave. Part of me craves a cigarette, yet the thought of dry smoke curling around my insides makes me nauseous. We drive across land that is spartan and bare, save the occasional acacia tree or thorn bush, the grassy scrubs in clumps over the dusty plain. No sign of civilization.
It hurts to speak, but I manage to ask where we’re going.
‘You shouldn’t talk,’ she says again. ‘You’ve had a shock.’
And all at once I’m back by the river, something stirring behind me, turning to the darkness, and that sudden wash of violence breaking over me, like a wave. I squeeze my eyes shut against the memory, queasy.
Opening my eyes, I see a sticker on the dashboard in front of me – an anti-nuclear sign in black and white – and a tatty fringe in a colour that was probably once red but now has faded to rust. The steering-wheel is covered with a greyish wool. It’s like someone has tried to soften the contours of this pile of junk, make it homely. The car squeaks and groans over the uneven surface, the springs beneath my seat jumping enthusiastically, adding to my nausea.
‘The hotel,’ I say.
‘Soon,’ she says.
Over one wrist, she wears a band of cheap bracelets – leather ties and plastic beads in orange and turquoise. They wend their way up her arm, which is tanned against the deep purple of her open-necked blouse, a tie-dyed blue skirt stretching down over her knees. Her feet on the pedals are brown and strong, as if she has spent her whole life barefoot or in flip-flops. This is the first time we have been alone together and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I draw my gaze away and stare out of the window.
A heat haze lies heavily on the land blurring it. Inside the car, it is hot and oppressive. No air-con in this rust-bucket. I lean my head against the window and allow myself to become distracted by the dancing dream-catcher, its beads and feathers hopping around crazily.
‘My father used to have rosary beads hanging from his rear-view mirror,’ I say. My tone is dreamy, calm, almost dazed by the heat, the fatigue left in the wake of all that adrenalin.
‘Where is he?’ she asks, and I tell her he’s dead. My mother too. My voice coming back to me.
‘Just like Nick’s parents,’ she says.
She looks across at me, a levelling stare, and adds: ‘Something else you two have in common.’
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. My head hurts. There’s a lump at the back of my skull from the force of the blow. I put my fingers to it, a tentative exploration of injured flesh, the sharpness of a graze. Taking my hand away, I see dried blood caught beneath my fingernails. Suddenly it feels like we’ve wandered far from the town.
‘Where are we?’ I ask, as she drives off the road onto a track that is barely passable.
It is now that the thought occurs to me: finding me by the river was no accident. She meant to bring me to this place.
‘Sit tight,’ she says, with an air of calm authority. ‘We’re almost there.’
She parks the car and gets out, slamming the door behind her. It disturbs the peace, and a flock of birds rises, twittering, from a nearby tree, swooping in a broken cloud and passing over the long grasses to the field beyond. Once they have settled on new branches, the air falls silent again.
I sit in the car watching. Something is holding me back. I’m not sure I want to be alone out here but, for all my reservations about her, curiosity pushes me to follow. Gingerly, I get out of the car. There’s a murmur in my ears, and the landscape around me seems shimmery, indistinct.
‘Come on,’ Lauren says, finding a narrow track through the long grass and beginning along it, not looking back to see if I’m following.
The heat hangs thickly around us, like something viscous you have to wade through. Soon enough, I’m perspiring through my clothes, thin as they are, legs like rubber, beads of sweat running down into my eyes. Lauren pauses once to tie her hair back in a messy knot at the nape of her neck. Otherwise, she seems unperturbed, pushing on with a silent determination. We don’t speak as we walk. All my energy is required to keep pace with her. As I follow her up the track, I consider what I know of her and realize it isn’t much. Every time Nick spoke of her, I had the impression that his knowledge of her is almost as limited as mine and confined to certain things. Even I can see the romance in that.
‘You and Nick,’ I say, once her pace slows enough for me to walk alongside her. ‘How did you meet?’
A little smile, one hand reaching out to touch the tips of the long grasses as we pass through.
‘I sought him out.’
‘You did?’
‘I heard about a guy who was playing jazz piano in a bar in downtown Nairobi.’ She shrugs, as if that’s explanation enough.
‘From what Nick says, you hardly knew each other five minutes before you got hitched.’
A puckering of skin between her eyebrows – the tiniest frown before it’s smoothed away.
‘For some people, love comes quickly. Especially if they’re not afraid of it.’
She glances at me in a way that I don’t like and I stop. ‘Why have you brought me here, Lauren?’
But she keeps going, never once breaking her stride. ‘It’s this way,’ she calls over her shoulder and, to my annoyance, I find myself hurrying to catch up.
We reach a clearing, and I realize that the track has been leading us slowly uphill. Now we stand on the lip of a wide field that ripples with long grass, dipping down to a copse at the side where dark trees clump together along the perimeter and birds call from the leafy black boughs.
I stop, hands on hips, and look around me. Lauren has continued into the field, but I stay where I am. There is something about this place, something familiar.
There is a bald patch of land at the side where it seems as though the grass has been burned away. A structure of one sort or another once stood there. Slowly now, with caution, I move into the field in Lauren’s wake. She has come to the middle, and stands there in the full sun, idly swatting flies from her face. From the ground around us I hear the low murmur and rustling of insects. I glance at the surrounding lands where the grass grows waist-high and could easily conceal a creeping predator. This nervousness is not new. I have felt it before.
With a jolt I look down to the copse, bending subtly towards a river that I cannot see yet I know is there. The bald strip of land is where we pitched our tents. Here, in the grass, Sally Yates lay sunning herself. And down there, where the dark trees bend in towards one another and the water bubbles beneath, that was where we went to play, where the game took shape, where those little girls stood knee-deep in that brown water, grinning up at us with curiosity.
‘Oh, God,’ I say, the jolt ripping through me. It is as though the whole field is tilting, as if I could lose my footing at any minute and go hurtling down to the river and see again the skinny ankles dangling above me in the dappled shade of those ancient trees.
Lauren is close to me now and I can tell from the look on her face – patient and inquisitive – that she understands that I know where she has brought me. What I don’t know is why.
‘Oh, God,’ I
say again, as the tears come quickly.
In the bright sunlight, I shudder, trying to dispel the memory. The air seems to carry the poison of the blighted thing that happened here. I can hardly breathe, as if I’m crouched in the shadowy chamber of the past – the cramped, airless room that should remain sealed for ever.
‘Nick brought you here?’ I say, disbelief seeping into my tone.
And I do find it hard to believe – that he would want to open the lid of the past for anyone, even his wife. To bring her to this place and show her the site where all of our innocence was lost seems too painful to contemplate, like tearing the wound open.
‘Nick?’ she asks, but it is hardly a question. There is no puzzlement in her voice. ‘No. It wasn’t Nick.’
‘Then who?’
‘My mother told me about this place.’
Something is nudging at the edge of my consciousness – some hidden and crucial truth that is close to my grasp, yet still it eludes me.
‘Your mother? I don’t understand.’
Her face is clear of all expression – a deep, concentrated gaze. ‘They lived just over there.’ With one hand, she gestures to a place beyond the copse, a place I cannot see.
Something slips in my mind then, the sudden slide of truth falling into place.
‘Those little girls,’ I say, understanding now.
‘Yes,’ she answers, nodding slowly. ‘My sisters.’
I bend over, my legs suddenly weak, clasping my thighs to steady myself. Some part of me – some cold, dark part – had always known I would come back to this place. Things like that don’t just go away. For years now – almost a lifetime – I have been kidding myself that I could keep it there, locked away in the past. But the hard, honest part of me knew that one day it would jump up and bite me.
