[Pause]
Mack: Is it okay if I still miss him?
Faber: Of course it is. That’s part of the recovery, too. You’re missing your actual father. Not some monster you’ve created in your mind.
Mack: But Dark Daddy was real, too.
Faber: Yes, but he doesn’t exist now. Neither of them do. That’s the point you have to reach, Mack. You have to let them both go in order to be free. The only place they exist is in your head, and eventually you’ll have better control of what you see there. You’ll be able to filter out the stuff you don’t like, just like the rest of us.
Mack: What if I can’t live without him?
Kincaid: You won’t have to, Mack. He’ll be there when you need him, right inside your head. You can call on him anytime you want.
Mack: It’s strange, isn’t it, how everything works? It’s like a jigsaw, all the pieces coming together to make a bigger picture that at first you’re not able to see.
Faber: [Smiling] That’s an excellent way to describe it, Mack. That’s exactly what it’s like.
Mack: Sometimes I don’t see Daddy’s face in the recreation room for hours.
[Pause]
Kincaid: Does that bother you?
Mack: At first it did. It made me nervous. It was a real shock seeing all these strange faces. Then, after a day or two, I must have got used to it, because now, when I see Daddy’s face, it makes me jump.
Faber: Eventually, Mack, you won’t see your father’s face at all. Not in the real world, at least. You’ll have to get used to life without him here at the facility. Do you think you can do that?
Mack: I don’t know. Maybe.
[Pause]
Mack: Will you still be around to help me if I get confused?
Faber: Absolutely. Dr. Kincaid and I will continue to monitor your progress and you can talk to us whenever you like.
Mack: It’ll be like a burial.
[Pause]
Faber: I don’t think I follow, Mack.
Mack: I’ve been remembering the time when Daddy buried my cat because he got scratched. It’ll be just like that.
Faber: What will?
Mack: Letting go of Daddy. It will be like burying him in the back garden. That’s what you do when things aren’t alive anymore.
Kincaid: That’s a good way of looking at it, Mack. Then the people left behind have to grieve. They cry for the people that are gone and they miss them and then they move on.
Mack: I cried when Daddy buried the cat but now I don’t even remember its name. Isn’t that weird?
Kincaid: Sometimes we have no control over what we choose to remember, Mack. Or what we choose to forget.
Mack: I remember throwing soil in the grave and then we all said a prayer. I thought it was all over after that, but it wasn’t. I spent the night worrying about whether the cat might still be alive and had terrible nightmares about it. I imagined it clawing its way out of its grave and coming after me. I thought it might be angry with me for not protecting it in the first place. Daddy said that was my job; to always look after it, no matter what.
[Dr. Faber and Dr. Kincaid briefly consult with each other.]
Faber: Dead things can’t come back from the grave, Mack. And neither can your father. Your daddy’s gone, just like that old moggy of yours. It was never your job to protect him, not even from himself. No one could have done that. It was his job to take better care of his own family. Do you understand?
[Pause]
Mack: [Frowning] I thought I was just talking about the cat.
Faber: [Smiling] You were, Mack, but sometimes what we really mean lies just beneath the surface.
[Pause]
Mack: I’ve been thinking about some other stuff, too. Stuff I think it’s important to know, but that I can’t remember, no matter how hard I try.
[Pause]
Faber: What is it that you want to know, Mack?
[Pause]
Mack: I want to know what happened to my face.
CHAPTER 19: SHEDDING SKIN
At eleven o’clock the following morning the three of them walked to the pier along the beach, Jasper taking the lead and Billy holding Alison’s hand. The boy kept leaning forward, trying to peer round Jasper’s legs, desperate to see if his mother was waiting for them beneath the iron stanchions of the pier. Alison couldn’t blame him; she was anxious to see Kate herself. The two days they had been apart had been tough. Not knowing how the situation with Jimmy had unfolded had left Jasper and Alison feeling restless; Lord knows what it had been like for the kid.
“Do you think Mommy and Daddy will be there together?” Billy said, sounding faintly troubled.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Alison said. “Your mom will have done the right thing, Billy, you can be sure of that.”
She looked across at Jasper, who had said little since finishing his breakfast; he looked uneasy and quickly turned his head, staring out at the somber waters of the bay.
“I think I can see her!” Billy said, pulling his hand free of Alison’s in his excitement. He started to run towards a woman in a white coat who was standing beneath the pier, but Jasper called him back.
“Wrong woman, squirt,” he said, trying to sound upbeat, for which Alison was immensely grateful. “See? She’s smoking. You ever seen your mom with a fag on?”
Billy gazed into the distance shaking his head. “Mommy never smokes,” he said. “She calls them coffin nails.”
The innocence with which Billy explained this made Jasper laugh. He ruffled the boy’s hair in the stiff breeze and said, “We all do, kiddo.”
They continued to walk along the beach, falling silent as it became apparent that Kate was nowhere to be seen. They had agreed to meet at the point where the donkeys assembled for their daily toil along the sand, but when they arrived, the only thing waiting for them was the smell of dry straw and donkey shit. It reminded Jasper of their short spell with Sally, which had ended with Jimmy being tied up in the barn; a bad omen indeed.
He dug his hands into his coat pockets and stood close to the boy.
Billy stared up at him. “Where’s Mommy?” he said.
“She’ll have been detained somewhere,” Jasper said. He felt uncomfortable saying it because he had no idea where she was. He wasn’t even convinced that two days would be long enough to track Jimmy down, yet Kate had seemed so certain, so measured in her resolve.
He glanced out to sea again, losing himself in the graduated swell of the surf. God, he hoped she was all right. She had become almost as precious to him as the boy. He admired the way she had conducted her life, trying valiantly to find a way to live with that monster Jimmy Hopewell, mostly, he suspected, for the boy’s sake. But he admired even more the way she had freed herself of Hopewell, the conviction she had demonstrated in placing her son beyond her husband’s poisonous reach.
“She’ll be here,” Jasper said. Even as he looked along the promenade, he was unclear whether the words had been spoken to reassure himself or to comfort the boy. He glanced down at Billy. “Why don’t you run along to the water’s edge and see how many times you can skim a stone across the surface of the sea? By the time you get back your mom will probably be here.”
Billy looked to Alison for approval and, when she nodded, he let go of her hand and jogged to the water’s edge. He was starting to look desperate and he glanced over his shoulder after every throw.
Alison reached for Jasper’s hand. “I don’t think she’s coming,” she said softly.
Jasper turned his head and, just briefly, Alison thought she could see the ghost of every expression he’d ever worn etched deep within his face.
“Don’t even say such a thing,” he said. “Of course she’s coming. She’s just been waylaid, that’s all.”
Alison said nothing for a few moments, before adding: “That doesn’t sound like Kate. She’s usually very prompt.”
“This is different. Anything could have happened.”
“That�
��s what I’m worried about, Jasper. Anything could have happened. We have no way of knowing, do we?”
Jasper turned and watched Billy throwing stones into the sea. He looked like a tiny seed, filled with promise, from which a man of real substance might grow.
“We knew the risks, Jasper. Kate did too. That’s why it was so important she go alone. None of us were under any illusions here, right?”
Jasper nodded. He felt empty, lost to everything that mattered, trying to come to terms with the fact that Kate had probably sacrificed her life for her son.
“Jesus,” he said, “the boy…”
They held each other and stared at Billy. He skimmed a stone across the water and then turned and smiled at them. He waved and they waved back.
“We look after him in case she returns,” Alison said. “Isn’t that what we promised to do?”
Jasper nodded again, finding it difficult to retrieve the right words. As always in situations like this, it was Alison—gentle, reserved, dependable—who would guide them, enabling them all to move on.
“It’ll destroy him,” Jasper said. “I don’t think I can watch something like that.”
Alison scowled and clamped both of Jasper’s hands in her own. She moved her face to within an inch of his.
“He’s a child, Jasper, and he’ll need you to be strong. We don’t need to tell him anything right now. We keep the whole thing very low-key. You can do that, can’t you?”
Jasper stared into his wife’s eyes and remembered again what it was that he loved about her. She had the capacity to empower them both.
“I can do that,” he said.
Billy ran towards them up the beach and they moved apart, conscious that the boy was searching the length of the promenade for his mother.
“Where is she?” he said. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
He was exhaling heavily and Jasper could see the warm life of him being blown into the air as he breathed. He looked at Alison and smiled.
“She must be running a little late,” he said. “Perhaps she’ll meet us later back at the hotel.”
Billy looked confused. “But she said she’d meet us here.”
“Women change their minds all the time,” Alison said, taking him by the hand. “That’s what makes us so special.”
Billy looked at Jasper and he rolled his eyes, making the boy grin.
They began walking back down the beach towards the hotel, Billy occasionally glancing over his shoulder towards the pier. Overhead a squabble of seagulls stole across the bay. They dipped and rose like confetti, drifting along on the breeze.
“Wait a minute,” Jasper said. He smacked his forehead and stopped, as though a wonderful idea had just occurred to him. He looked down at the boy. “You don’t look like a Billy. Or a Fred, or even a Francis.”
“Good Lord, not this again,” Alison said, but she was grinning, just as Billy was, glad that Jasper had latched onto something that might steer the boy’s thoughts away from Kate.
“What do I look like then?” Billy said, reaching out and holding on to his arm.
Jasper squinted and tweaked the child’s nose.
“You’re a Frank, aren’t you?” he said.
Alison and Billy laughed, but Jasper felt raw and frail. His vision was darkening and all he could see was Kate screaming beyond his reach, listing towards the long shadows, as 1965 drew to a close.
CHAPTER 20: THE VERMILION BORDER
When Cindy regained consciousness, it took her a moment to reconfigure her senses and establish any kind of sane context to explain where she was. A single candle flickered on a bureau and shed a little light on things. The room she was in smelled of meat and she realized Frank had left one of his sandwiches on her chest, just out of reach. She was lying on a hard bed, her hands and feet tethered to the posts with rope. The rough fibers felt damp and were already cutting into her skin. On the floor, several feet away, sat the boy. He had been tied to a heavy pipe. He was watching her closely as she awoke.
Cindy turned her head and her entire body seemed to sing out in pain. Her face felt swollen; she could still taste blood at the back of her throat. She was breathing heavily through her mouth and realized that Frank must have broken her nose. The whole area felt like she’d been whacked with a mallet; there was a distant throbbing at the back of her head.
“What happened?” she said. The words came out sounding like she’d run them through a blender and she had to repeat herself.
Philip propped himself up in the dim light. “The place nearly burned down,” he said. “He only just stopped it.”
“Did you get hurt?” Cindy asked.
“No. But he did. The man. I think you broke his nose.”
Cindy wanted to feel like she’d scored some kind of moral victory, but in her current predicament it was difficult to feel anything but pain. The failed escape would also mean that Frank would be increasingly watchful, making a repeat performance more hazardous.
“Where is he?”
Philip looked towards the door. “I don’t know. I heard him go outside a while ago. I think he might be down by the lake.”
Cindy had no idea why that might be so, but felt disinclined to mention it. He was more likely to be sat outside the bedroom door, nursing his injury and listening to the two of them talk. Frank had become unpredictable, his personality disfigured by something that was going on inside; something unreachable and arbitrary that Cindy had lost the capacity to define. The idea of making some kind of connection with him no longer seemed viable; she was struggling to recognize the man her husband had become.
“What should we do?” Philip said. Even by candlelight, she could see that his earlier confidence had been markedly drained. He looked pale and much smaller than she remembered, as though the eruption of violence he had witnessed had exacted a much heavier toll on the boy than it had on Cindy.
“We do exactly the same as before,” she said. “Play along with his sick little fantasy and hope that eventually he drops his guard. What more can we do?”
Philip remained silent. He hated the man and he hated playing the part of Jake. He closed his eyes and thought of his own father. He allowed himself the luxury of dreaming of home.
* * *
Frank was down by the water’s edge, kneeling in the fresh snow, staring out across the lake. He touched his nose and felt searing pain as the cartilage crunched beneath his hand. He smiled; the pain made him feel more alive. The snow was still falling and he turned his face to the stars. It was like breathing in the heavens, the whole damn thing, wide and clear and bright.
He glanced down towards the jetty and felt a lurch of nostalgia. He and Jake had spent an afternoon jumping off it last time they were here, while Cindy had looked on concerned. She had told them to stop but he and Jake just kept doing it anyway, their laughter mounting each time they launched themselves into the water. Eventually, Cindy had stripped off her shorts and blouse, sprinted down the jetty, and thrown herself into the lake, squealing like a little girl. He and Jake had barely been able to contain their delight, and the three of them had ended up splashing one another until dusk, a wave of starlings swooping above them like a sandstorm. When they had dried off, they had sat on the dock and watched the birds change direction above the lake. Jake had lain quietly in his mother’s arms, mesmerized.
Frank sighed and touched a hand to his mouth. The paint had dried and was set hard against his skin, and he ran a finger the entire length of the fake smile, trying to remember how happy he was.
He cast his mind back to earlier in the night and felt angry with himself. He and Cindy had had a disagreement, and Frank was trying hard to recall the details. It happened sometimes, even when you were perfectly happy, but he was irritated with himself for not handling it better. It had all unfolded in front of Jake, too, which hardly ever happened. He and Cindy had an arrangement that any dispute should wait until Jake was out of the room. It wasn’t fair to inflict the shortcomings of the p
arents onto children who had no idea what was going on. He had been a victim of that kind of thing himself.
Better Cindy and Jake sleep it off, he thought. He had put them to bed and tucked them in, kissing both of them on the forehead before he left. By the morning the whole silly argument would have been forgotten. They could get on with being a family again.
* * *
At some point during the night both Cindy and Jake must have fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion. When Cindy awoke, a cold strip of morning light was falling across the bed and she could hear the sound of Frank’s Volvo driving slowly across the snow towards the road. It sounded like it was struggling, but Frank gamely pressed on and the noise of the vehicle’s straining engine eventually ebbed away.
“You awake?” she said.
There was a shuffling noise on the floor and Philip reappeared above the lip of the bed.
“My body’s all stiff. I can hardly move.”
“It must be morning. I just heard Frank leave the cottage. We’re all alone.”
Philip sat up and propped his back against the wall. “What does that mean?”
“He’s probably gone for more food. It also means the snow can’t be too deep, otherwise the car wouldn’t have been able to reach the road.”
“If we’re alone in the cottage, maybe we should do something.”
Cindy looked across at him. She could clearly see the red paint smeared across his face and the sight was more unnerving now than it had been last night.
“What do you suggest we do? We aren’t exactly in a position of strength here.”
“But the ropes are old. We should at least try to work ourselves free.”
Cindy rattled her hands against the bedpost. “After you fell asleep, I spent half the night trying to pull loose. All I did was make the knots tighter, Philip. Now they’re biting deep into my wrists. If you’ve any sense, you’ll think twice before doing the same.”
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