Staring At The Light

by Fyfield, Frances

  They may have been right, Julie and Pauline. The coolness and sense of space in the chapel refined thought, gave an instant access to perception in a place where the distraction of movement was minimal and concentration on the non-peripheral was ordered. Personally, Sarah thought being locked in a cold cellar with a few crates of wine might have the same effect. Why had she never noticed before the strength in Julie’s arms? Born to hug a man and cradle a baby, quite clear about it. She felt a moment of envy so intense it was painful, followed by a wave of protective feeling that was equally intense. Nothing should harm her; nothing. Beneath that currently calm, strong face, she had all of Cannon’s fragility. It was only the combination that gave them the strength. Didn’t matter if they bankrupted her. Someone would. Perhaps she could be godmother to the child.

  ‘Some women put on weight very quickly, don’t they?’ Pauline murmured. ‘Not that Julie is yet.’ Still talking about her in the third person, as if impending motherhood made her a subject for discussion rather than a presence. ‘Can’t be more than a few weeks, can it? But all the same, if she stays here it’s going to be a little difficult to explain. Nothing insurmountable, provided I don’t have to confess to carnal goings-on in the sacristy, but tricky.’

  ‘She isn’t staying. Are you, Julie? We can go straight away.’

  Julie gazed up at St George, then at Sarah, then down at the floor, frowning. ‘He’s still there, Sarah. Still there. Cannon would never leave me now, not if he knew. But he’s still there.’ Sarah thought for a minute that this was an oblique reference to a saint. There were a lot of them around.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Johnny. And, child or no child, I’ll come apart at the seams if he ever comes near me again. Especially now.’ Her voice rose. Pauline patted her hand. The wedding ring gleamed a dull gold, insignificant in all the protection it promised. Pauline’s rosary beads were more effective, weightier and at least potentially useful for something. They looked ten times more likely to ward off the evil eye. They clicked with the smooth click of polished bone as Pauline moved.

  ‘But why, Julie? He’s only a man. A bad man, but only a man.’

  ‘He’s much more than a man. He’s the dragon in the story,’ Julie said. She was attempting to smile, but it did not mask the weakness of the fear.

  ‘And a man is nothing compared to God the Father who created him,’ Pauline interrupted, impatient with it. ‘What a shame none of you ever once thought of asking Him to intervene. Still, better late than not. And you’ve had the benefit of my intercession for months now. Go with God, child, and if you don’t believe in your own prayers, believe in mine.’

  She rose with a shushing of robes, ever the leader. ‘Come, it’s cold in here. Where the devil is that husband of yours? You’d best have something to eat before you leave. The gannets aren’t due home for an hour or more yet.’

  They moved in a slow trio towards the door, Pauline standing back for the youngsters to go through first in case either of them should forget the golden rule to turn off the light. How strange this place was, Sarah thought, that it should exert such an effect, creating as it did an aversion to going inside, followed by a reluctance to leave. Bye-bye, chapel. You can’t get at me, God, but sometimes I wish you could. She stroked the gnarled foot of St George’s dragon as she moved round it. There was, predictably, no response, but her hand felt warmer for the contact. Poor old dragon. Then Julie clutched her arm, her mouth forming into a scream.

  The swing door was shoved by a heavy hand and hit Pauline squarely in the face – contrast to the way in which it was used for sidling through. She fell backwards against the final pew, scrabbling for balance, and hung on, uttering a sharp scream, which sounded oddly girlish. Then she moaned. In the ensuing split second of silence, blood began to pour from her nose. In the same tiny interval of time, Sarah had the absurd notion of a divine punishment, about to be inflicted upon them all for the temerity of leaving the chapel without a genuflection. Pauline’s hands moved, clumsily, as if searching for something lost; and Sarah realized, with an unbearable stab of pathos, that she was trying to make the sign of the Cross. A gesture of futile courage.

  Oh, Lord, that fool Cannon, coming to find them with all the speed and tact of a raging bull.

  ‘Cannon?’ she mouthed, starting forward. ‘Cannon?

  The door swung on its hinge, a door bidden to silence. All three backed away from it, Sarah and Julie clutching Pauline, dragging her back with them towards the altar. She seemed reluctant to relinquish the knob of the pew, clawing at it with bony fingers white in the light, the other hand splashed with red.

  It was not Cannon; there was no apologetic voice. Only a cough, like someone preparing for an entrance while adjusting a costume. Then the door opened and two men came inside. One was grossly stout, a caricature of a man built out of rubber tyres arranged in sequence from his neck to his knees and a rolling step to accommodate the thickness of his thighs, the other slight by comparison. A thickset man all the same, with a breadth of shoulder and enough height to tower over them. A whimper came from Julie’s throat, muted by the knuckle she placed in her mouth. The larger man held the kitten by the scruff of the neck; it seemed smaller than a piece of fluff and made no protest. He placed it gently on a pew, where it sat and began to lick itself. Sarah felt a moment of pure terror for the kitten. Wanted to tell it to run and hide.

  She knew exactly who it was. He did not look quite so foolish now, Johnnyboy. He looked like Cannon on a good day, with his grey jacket and brilliant white shirt and hooded eyes, which darted glances round the room, uneasily guarded against coming to rest. He looked a useful kind of man in here, where he was not swimming like a porpoise and his strange proportions were hidden by his suit. She knew who he was, and she knew in the same instant of sadness that Cannon had been right. The chapel did not affect him; the presence of a nun of senior years with blood gushing out of her nose did not affect him. There was no conscience of any kind to influence. None.

  He paused in his progress towards them, shielded his eyes with a cap, as if their presence blinded him. Julie began a slow keening.

  ‘Stop that,’ he said mildly. ‘Whoever you are.’ Then louder, a trace of nervousness in the voice. ‘Stoppit.’

  She stopped, dropped her head and let her hair fall across her face. It had grown long. Pauline came to life. Her voice shook, still held an unmistakable note of authority. ‘Get out of here. How dare you?’

  He seemed to consider this clichéd rebuke faintly amusing, came two steps closer. In unison, they took two steps back, like a single animal with six legs. Sarah could smell Julie’s fear: it rose with the power of perfume, bringing with it the smell of the kitchen, talcum powder, acrid sweat. Now that he was closer, shortening the distance between them, gaining confidence, she could smell him, too. He extended a hand towards Pauline, let it drop, shook his head.

  ‘My brother’s friends … His powerful friends … a bunch of women. Oh, come now, Sister. Don’t worry. What on earth would I want with a woman like you? It’s Julie I want. My brother’s wife. She owes me something.’ Julie began to whimper again. Sarah felt for her hand across Pauline’s shoulder, grabbed it. The grasp in return was soft, as if she were already giving up, had known this was going to happen all along and was unable to fight it.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded.

  Slowly, all three raised their eyes and stared at him. The larger man was motionless, simply a fat man, standing still, waiting for his cue. Johnnyboy held their gaze until his own faltered and fell away, talked over his shoulder to the companion. Any hint of nervousness had gone. He seemed almost relieved.

  ‘Well, that’s easy,’ he said. ‘He’s made it easy. He’s a good artist with a likeness, you have to grant him that. We’ll just make sure since there’s two to choose from.’ He turned back to them. Crooked his finger at Sarah.

  ‘Come here.’

  Pauline was grabbing her, putting the crucifix of the rosary into Sara
h’s hand, begging her to hold it, go no further than that short lead. She detached it gently, squeezed the cold silver into Pauline’s palm and moved forward. There was a sweet sense of freedom in moving at all.

  ‘Mrs Julie Smith, as I live and breathe,’ he murmured. ‘Well, he certainly captured the likeness, didn’t he? I could almost be proud of him for that.’ He was close enough for the spittle to reach her face; it seemed to require an extra act of courage for him to speak with such venom. She remembered the way he spat. A small gob landed on the floor. Imelda would clean it up in the morning, she thought, along with Pauline’s blood, her own, too, perhaps. Julie’s whimpering intruded. There was a sniffy sound and a yeugggh noise of anguish from Pauline. Sarah sensed she could scarcely stand or speak. The thought of her helpless like that was shocking. She wanted the power to usher the two men out ahead of her like a flock of sheep, letting the door close on safety.

  ‘My, my. I can see his point, I suppose. Pretty enough and Irish enough looking for an older hen, though I did think you were younger. He never described the hair. Magnificent, isn’t it?’ Again, the over-the-shoulder remark to the silent companion, met by an indifferent nod. ‘Couldn’t bear to look at you, could I? Covered your face and only saw you in the dark that time. No, he,’ jerking his thumb backwards towards the fat shadow, ‘was him covered your face, right from the start. Hurt you. I didn’t want to touch you, you disgusting piece of … but I did, didn’t I? Not much. Women like to be touched. You did.’

  Another gob of spittle on the polished floor. She wondered where the kitten was, diverting her eyes and her mind from the spotlight of his hatred. The man behind was wearing big boots – surprising they had not heard him: rubber-soled perhaps; black and dirty, making marks on polished floors.

  ‘You are Julie Smith?’ Johnny asked, suddenly doubtful all over again.

  She said nothing and, out of a perverse instinct, smiled at him. In a reflex action he smiled back, revealing a set of brown, uneven teeth. They looked almost artificial; joke teeth worn by a child to give offence on Hallowe’en; they made him look dead, tingeing his skin with their own appearance of rottenness and giving him the look of a sarcophagus. Lips like Cannon’s, but pale and greedy. As soon as he was aware of the smile, he stopped and spoke through the pursed pocket of his mouth. ‘See if it’s her. Make sure. Bound to be her.’

  There was a muffled sob from behind. The fat man came forward with his waddle of a walk and with one easy motion, ripped Sarah’s blouse from the neck. The buttons held. He yanked again, exposing a lacy bra and a collarbone. It had been a good blouse; she mourned it. There was a strangled gasp of outrage from Pauline; Sarah closed her eyes. Don’t, Pauline, don’t speak. There is more nudity on a beach, and I have been here before. I’ve done this kind of thing before. The big man was prodding her, as he would a piece of meat for tenderness, fat fingers tapping her breastbone with a hollow sound, reminiscent of a doctor tapping a bronchitic chest, touching with the same degree of indifference. He was feeling the tiny raised ridges of the white scars. Nodded. His hands rested on her neck; she knew he could have snapped it. There was a minor sense of relief in the understanding that this was not his purpose; it brought her to her senses. The man stepped back, waiting orders.

  She remembered the oil painting of herself in Cannon’s attic and suddenly understood the nature of the mistaken identity. The fat hands were confirming it.

  ‘Of course I’m Julie Smith,’ she said. ‘Who else would I be?’

  Part of her wanted to hear an emphatic denial from the two shivering women behind. Longed for the sound of words, saying, ‘no, she isn’t, I am; she is,’ in a convincing chorus, but there were no such words. The other part was relieved that they kept their silence. That was what she wanted them to do, however intense the feeling of treachery.

  ‘What do you want?’ Pauline’s voice was old and querulous.

  ‘Only her. Nothing else.’

  The foolish kitten went to play around the fat man’s boots. He scooped it up and held it aloft. They could all see him, dashing it against the knob of a pew. Or putting it on the ground, under the boot.

  ‘Give me the kitten,’ Pauline said faintly. He swung his arm, and threw it gently enough in her direction. Sarah could hear the swish of robe and click of beads as she picked it up. The beads were no guard against the devil. She kept her gaze on Johnnyboy, but he could not return it. He clicked his fingers, like a man calling an animal to heel, and moved towards the door. The fat man came back towards Sarah and, with one enormous hand on the back of her neck, propelled her forward. She resisted, but his fingers spanned her scapula; her head was level with his shoulder; there was no choice. Still she waited for the words of denial, which did not come. The fat man seemed to relent slightly at the sight of Pauline’s bloodied face as she sprang towards him and he shoved her back with ridiculous ease. Johnny was beyond the door, holding it open.

  ‘We’ll bring her back,’ the fat man whispered. He seemed, temporarily, in awe of the place. ‘She’s only going for …’ he hesitated ‘… for treatment. We’ll bring her back. Honest.’

  The last hint of conscience and then they were gone, the steps they had not heard in advance only audible in retreat. By the time Pauline had stumbled down the corridor after them and looked wildly into the road, the car was long gone.

  13

  No real pain yet. Only a dull pain like a stiff neck after a night spent in a draught. A pain in the neck; laugh about it. That was what Cannon had been doing when he came up the stairs, laughing, and that was what he remembered when he opened his eyes. There was a trick they had practised as children suffering minor wounds, such as grazed knees or cut fingers. They would concentrate not on something better but something worse. Stare at each other with their almost identical eyes, Johnny and Cannon, saying over and over again, This does not hurt, not really hurt, does it? Think of something that really hurts … something really scary, like the dentist, and this one will go away.

  Cannon tried it now; thought of real pain to put this dull ache into perspective. His fingers touched the stickiness of the canvas; he imagined himself touching the heat of Sarah’s neck, feeling for a pulse, finding it. Those little scars of hers must have involved real pain, like the cigarette burn Johnny had once inflicted for fun, sneaking up behind him, stubbing it out on his bare back. That was real pain, like the dentist Johnny so feared and he no longer did. Johnny always lied about what pain was. The worst pain was loss and the worst result he could envisage was remaining as he was, beaten into accidental submission by one of Johnny’s dilapidated houses. Laugh about it, go on. Man who plays with fire since age of four dies under falling beam. Johnny never used to let houses rot. It was loneliness and despair made him do that. Three years of wilful neglect could bring down the beams of a house. Cannon thought of the house he had destroyed on Bonfire Night and what a pointless piece of destruction that had been. As if Johnny would care. All this time he had thought he knew what made Johnny tick, but no knowledge was complete.

  The joists in an attic floor, he remembered, often marked the point in the building process when the contractor ran out of the best wood. Rot might have made the broken beam lighter. He could not stay like this; it was ridiculous. He heaved and, like Prometheus unbound, he was, if not free, free enough to raise his torso and shuffle the weight of the broken rafter down his body and onto his buttocks. Then he lay, twisted to one side, grabbing the portrait with its wooden stretcher to use as a lever, shoved under the beam, raising it a fraction before the fragile frame of the stretcher snapped and he slithered his legs free, like someone curling away from a snake, leaving the skin of his coat. The portion of beam rolled to the floor with a dull thump like a sledge-hammer, bounced and landed on Sarah’s portrait. He stood uncertainly and gazed at it briefly, looked at the hole in the roof and then back to her. There were notes from the money stash scattered over the floor, one or two directly across her face. Sarah with ten pounds sterling over her lip
s, more on her bosom.

  No real pain yet, but he hurt. His shoulders were stiff, his left arm curiously reluctant to move as he tried to use it to hail the cab. He wanted a drink. The darkness had come down like a curtain at the end of Act Two. Not final, but determined. A taxi stopped; he flung himself inside.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit cold, mate?’

  Cannon looked at his torn sweater and dusty trousers. The temperature was irrelevant, the question perfectly stupid. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven o’clock, near enough. Where to?’

  It felt like the middle of the night; still early and the roads full. He felt he had escaped lightly from a stupid accident and the omens were therefore good; he was smugly pleased with himself, bordering on the euphoric, apart from a monstrous headache, into which there nudged that memory of happiness. Julie and a baby; the end of rotten houses and the old identity. Singing to himself softly and tunelessly as the cab rolled along. ‘“Rock-a-bye, baby boy, Go to sleep, son.”’

  The door to the convent was open. The ground floor blazed with light so that he was almost shy to go in, used as he was to its cautious darkness and the single light from Julie beckoning him inside. He should have been here at least an hour ago and he waited, humbly, for the chastisement of women, only mildly suspicious of the frenzied activity inside. Into that suspicion there crept the other fear about Julie and how she had come to belong where she did not belong; a little nag of doubt about her. Sarah would dictate and they would obey. Sarah with the ten-pound note stuck over her mouth and all the good ideas.

  There were flitting figures, like a nest of moths disturbed. He pushed past a sister who seemed so pleased to see him she must have mistaken him for someone else, apologized automatically and crossed into the parlour. There, more of them were huddled in a posse, clucking like quiet hens, Pauline resisting the attempts of Imelda to hold her hand; Julie curled in a tight, cold ball into one of the chairs, uncurling and racing towards him with a cry, flinging her arms around him, grabbing at him and holding on like a limpet. For a full moment, he enjoyed the sensation of public embrace. It seemed years since they had ever hugged openly with other people watching, but the pleasure and the pride were fleeting. Pauline’s voice cut through like a whip. Her face showed the presence of tears, as did the face of his wife, but in Pauline’s case, the weeping and the shock were under control. Her face was altered and aged, the sight of her iron grey crop as startling as if he had seen her naked, the voice unmistakable.