The Lives She Left Behind

by James Long

  ‘You think that was chance? She didn’t come back here by chance. You know how it works. She told you. She and I, we die here. When it works out right, we’re born here. Over and over. That’s the way it should be, the way it used to be. We’re born here and the place helps us remember.’

  ‘So why not this time?’

  ‘Sometimes it’s gone wrong, but we almost always found our way back and the other one could help with the reminding.’ The boy frowned. ‘It’s harder now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There were families all round the village then, always babies on the way, waiting for us when our time came. Nobody moved around much. We were safer then. Not these days. Up here they’re mostly retired, aren’t they? Down there on the main road, that’s where the expecting mothers are and they’re all tearing past at seventy miles an hour. That’s what makes it hard. They take us and we could wind up anywhere.’

  ‘You’ve been gone half an afternoon and you suddenly know all this?’ Mike’s words covered his uncomfortable sense that the boy had become formidable.

  Ferney showed him his hands with the earth still on them. ‘I left myself a note, a letter from me to me. I dug it up.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Just . . . helpful stuff. Things that tell me I’m not bonkers.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In a private place.’

  ‘Where’s this letter now? Can I see it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t for you. It was for me. I put it back. Something else. The gravestone. My last stone. It says I died February 7th, 1991.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So, I should have been born again some time that year, within a few months – nine at most.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘But I wasn’t. I was born in June 1994. Something happened in between. I must have been somewhere. Do you know what happened?’

  Mike held on to himself and shook his head as if that didn’t count as a lie. The boy didn’t know the worst part of it all. That didn’t let him off. ‘So get to the point,’ he said. ‘Is she coming?’

  ‘Call me by my name.’

  ‘All right. Is she coming . . . Ferney?’

  ‘Like I said, she might be. If everything goes right.’

  ‘When?’

  It was the boy’s turn for evasion. ‘How would I know that?’ He saw hope on the older man’s face. ‘You think that’s good news, do you? What are you expecting? What do you think it will be like when she does come?’

  The truth suddenly seemed simple and Mike enjoyed saying the words. ‘It will be wonderful.’

  ‘Will it? Why?’

  ‘To have her back? Of course it will. How could it not be?’ The boy watched him with a frown that annoyed him unreasonably. ‘She died, Ferney. My wife died. Dead means gone. Dead means miserable and lonely and days that drag on forever so I wished I were brave enough to walk in front of a train. Dead means idiot friends finding hopeless single women they think you might like. That’s while you still have friends. Dead means the worst weekends and the worst school holidays you could ever imagine and you don’t know about this, do you? You don’t know about it because it’s just another hiccup to you. I’ll die and that’s it, game over, the end of Michael Martin. It’s easy for you, isn’t it? You pop back up like some sort of weed and all you have to do is sit on your hands for a few years to get her back.’

  Ferney stared at him impassively. Mike felt judged and found wanting by those old eyes. ‘I know what loneliness is,’ Ferney said. ‘You’ve only had to live it once.’

  ‘Once is enough. This time it’s my turn and I’m not used to people coming back so, yes, it’s wonderful.’

  Ferney looked at him, astonished. ‘Your turn? She’s not coming back to you.’

  ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘Oh, I can. Think about it. Will you even recognise her?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Did you recognise me?’

  ‘That was you, not her, and I suspected soon enough. Yes. Yes, of course I will.’

  ‘How?’

  Mike’s forehead wrinkled. ‘We’ll know each other. We loved each other. Don’t you dare look at me like that. We did. Anyway, why are you asking, you of all people? You’ve met her over and over again and you’ve known her.’

  ‘Sometimes I haven’t been too sure, not at the start.’ Ferney got to his feet and paced to and fro. ‘Just be quiet a moment.’ Mike waited, watching the boy’s mouth working silently. He saw Ferney nod in some sort of culmination. ‘It comes back,’ the young man said, ‘sometimes just when you need it. Maybe this will help you understand. I was up there once, up on the hilltop. I looked all the way across to the church and I saw an open carriage pull up. I’d lost her young, the way it used to happen, and she’d been gone a long time. I was waiting, every day, watching out for her. I knew that carriage mattered so I ran through the fields all the way there.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Before cars?’

  ‘Cars? Of course it was – way before cars. I got to the church and there they were, in the churchyard. A well-to-do family, you could tell. A father and a mother and two girls . . .’

  Ferney found himself back there as he talked, more vividly than he had remembered before. Part of the roof was off, the stone tiles piled carefully against the church wall and canvas lashed over the hole. He could see both girls. They were maybe thirteen or fourteen. One of them was halfway up a ladder, climbing fast. She turned, looked at him and smiled a radiant smile.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said, and he just stared as the wind wrapped a wing of dark hair across her eyes. She giggled and took one hand off the ladder to push it back. Her face was as sweet as he could have hoped and expectation took shape in him. She looked so like his last Gally and though he was ten years too old to make it easy, he was thrilled through and through. Then the other girl, kneeling by a grave, turned to look at him. She was as plain as her sister was pretty but then she said ‘Hello’ and just those two syllables told him all he needed to know. It was not a tentative greeting. It held calm certainty and the grave in front of her was her own. The parents came round the corner, scolding the wild beauty to bring her down from her dangerous perch, and they walked off back to their carriage, and all the way the other girl trailed behind and waved to him to show him she would be back.

  ‘So what are you saying?’ said Mike when he finished the story, but Ferney knew he had to bring the teacher slowly to the point of realisation. Mike had to find his way to the truth himself.

  ‘She might not be coming back fresh with recent memories,’ was all he said. ‘The old ones are stronger.’

  ‘I can remind her,’ said Mike.

  ‘No. I know how. If she gets scared, I know what to do. I understand this. You don’t. I’m the only one can help her. You’d better remember that.’

  ‘She’ll know me,’ Mike retorted. ‘And if she doesn’t, she soon will. You do your own reminding and I’ll do mine.’

  ‘You can try,’ the boy answered.

  ‘So it’s a competition, is it?’

  That’s exactly what you’re making it, Ferney thought to himself, and you have no idea what a handicap you’re under. But all he said was, ‘You have to think of her well-being.’

  ‘I don’t buy this. Back then, when we first saw you, years ago when we found the house, why didn’t you know it was Gally straight away?’

  ‘I was a bit too old. She was a bit too young,’ Ferney said. ‘It had been a long time and she didn’t remember anything, did she? She was blocked off.’

  ‘She found the house and she knew her name. That’s more than you did this time.’

  ‘She was always better at that. Yes, of course she knew the house. Speaking of the house, there’s something else, something I need. Will you help?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need to be back here in the village.’

  Mike
gestured around them. ‘You are in the village.’

  ‘I mean I need to be living here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s where I belong. I can’t stand it over there with them. It’s too hard. I feel mad there. It all slips. I’m sane here. The time’s right. I have to come back here.’

  ‘How on earth can you do that? Where would you live?’

  Ferney looked around the room, turned back, and frowned as if he didn’t understand. ‘Surely there’s space?’

  ‘Here? You mean in my house?’

  ‘Your house? Is that how you think of it?’

  ‘Yes, because that’s what it is.’

  The boy stared at him so intently that Mike looked away. ‘It is my house,’ he said. ‘It was mine and Gally’s and now it’s mine.’

  ‘Of course that’s what the law would say, I suppose,’ Ferney replied in a measured tone, ‘but the law only goes so far. There’s justice to consider and there’s history.’

  ‘History?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’ve always lived here – almost always. We found ways to pass it on, Gally and me – ways to pass it on to ourselves, I mean. Even when it slipped out of our hands, we always got it back in the end.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I bought it and I didn’t buy it from you. I bought it with a mortgage which I’ll be paying off for the next ten years and I spent a load of money putting it right. You know what it was like, all falling down.’

  ‘Isn’t there space for me to be where I need to be right now?’

  ‘Oh come on, you can’t possibly move in here.’

  ‘But I have to. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Can’t you see it’s completely impossible?’

  ‘I can pay rent.’

  ‘How?’

  The boy reached into his pocket and brought out a screw of newspaper. He handed it to Mike. It was surprisingly heavy.

  Mike unwrapped it and found himself holding five gold coins. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Sovereigns. Queen Victoria. They must be worth a month or two’s rent.’

  ‘Where did you get them from?’

  ‘From where I’d hidden them. Go on, take them. There’s lots more and you can always sell gold.’

  Mike knew there would be more. The old man had used the earth as his bank, depositing treasures to withdraw in a later generation. He put the coins down on the table as if they carried some contagion. ‘I don’t want them. You can’t come here.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  At that moment, the certainty that Gally was alive caught up with Mike. He understood that somewhere out there was a Gally with a young body, a body which breathed and moved and laughed and was not boxed in the churchyard earth beneath a sad stone. Ferney stood in front of him and that was complete proof. To his dismay he felt fresh tears on his cheeks. He looked towards the door as if he might suddenly see his lost Gally open it with that brilliant smile lighting her face, chasing the grey cold from every corner of his life. In their big bed, where he still slept to one side, lonely in the darkness, he always tried to capture that smile. In the days after her death it had been easy but now he had worn it to tatters in his head.

  ‘Maybe I do know something,’ Ferney said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Maybe I know something about where she is. Maybe I’ll tell you if you let me stay.’

  ‘That’s disgraceful. You’re not going to blackmail me like that. I’m not going to let you push me around.’

  Ferney was on his feet. ‘Push you around?’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me. Don’t you talk about—’

  The door shook as a fist hammered on it from the outside, then burst open. A man and a woman erupted into the house. Mike had seen them before, walking up the verge at Cucklington.

  ‘Found you,’ said the man. ‘Thought as much.’ He had a bright red face and slick, oiled-black hair. ‘Get in the car, boy. Outside. Now.’

  ‘Do what he says, Lukey,’ said the woman behind him. ‘We’ve been searching. There’s going to be a lot of trouble. Come with me,’ and she tried to pull the boy outside.

  ‘Crying?’ said the man to Mike. ‘You’ll be crying when we’ve finished with you, you ponce.’

  There was nothing the teacher could do but watch from his window as they drove their son away.

  He went to bed early, imagining the comforting shift of a body on the mattress next to him, imagining the woman he mourned, refreshed, remade. He got up early the next morning, showered, shaved and drove to the school singing. In the staffroom he read a notice about arrangements for the end of term, pulled a stiff white envelope from his pigeonhole and read its instruction to come immediately to the principal’s office.

  The note took the edge off his new feeling of goodwill. He guessed what it was about. The principal hadn’t liked his suggestion for the end-of-term activities week. She said nobody would be interested in yet another Somerset castles tour. She wanted something more contemporary. Her secretary, Mrs Firebrace, gave him a slack-jawed, unhappy look when he went into the outer office.

  ‘She’s in there with Mr Montgomery,’ she said.

  Mr Montgomery was the Chair of Governors.

  ‘Shall I come back?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Oh no. No, they’re waiting for you. You’re to go straight in.’

  Mr Montgomery was wearing a suit. He stood up when the secretary announced Mike but he didn’t put out his hand. Jennifer Foxton half stood from behind her desk, then seemed to buckle back into her chair. They both gaped at him as he looked from one to the other.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been a complaint,’ she said in the end.

  CHAPTER 12

  The latch was hanging off, two of its screws torn out of the softened wood, and the five-bar gate sagged open just far enough for her to squeeze through, careful not to let the damp decay stain her jacket. She was running late with two more appointments to go and had hoped to avoid emergencies like this one.

  The cottage stood on a slant from the lane, not quite at right angles, its slate roof dipping away. Paint curled off the window frames in grey-green flakes. Soapy leaves sprawled over newer shoots in the flower beds.

  She looked around what might once have been a farmyard, arming herself for the moment when the papers in her file would merge with a living, breathing client. It seemed to her to be a lonely place. Brambles arced in from the screen of trees around the yard, barring the way to old brick sheds.

  She lifted the door knocker, held it in the air for one more undecided second, then banged it down twice. A pigeon clattered out of the trees. She was raising her hand to knock again when she heard faint steps within and someone fiddling at the door. The man who opened it was frowning, grey and tired, and she could not imagine him laughing.

  ‘Mr Martin? Michael Martin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Rachel Palmer.’

  He looked at her blankly.

  ‘From Whitson Saunders.’

  ‘Who are Whitson Saunders?’

  ‘Solicitors,’ she said. ‘I’m here to represent you. Your union called me.’ That got no response at all. ‘Didn’t you know I was coming?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said.

  ‘They didn’t ring you?’ She glanced beyond him into the hallway. In the gloom, she could see a message light winking red on a machine.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Tony Ferranti. Is that right? Your branch representative? He asked me to come.’

  ‘Did he? I told him I’d be all right.’

  ‘I’m here to help you, Mr Martin. Your union thinks this is serious. We need to do something straight away.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What did the school tell you?’

  ‘The principal said I should stay at home while they sorted it out. She called it gardening leave.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘But you’v
e been suspended, haven’t you?’

  She saw his eyes lift to her and widen. ‘Suspended?’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to bring bad news but I’m quite sure you have. They tell me they sent a letter yesterday afternoon by Special Delivery.’

  As one, they looked at the floor next to his feet, where a scatter of envelopes spread across the flagstones. A red and white card lay on top and he bent to pick it up. ‘Oh. I didn’t hear the knocker. It says they tried to deliver something that needs signing for.’

  ‘Yes. Look, can I come in?’

  He shrugged and stepped out of the way. ‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

  Rachel Palmer had done matrimonial work and she had seen kitchens like this before, single men’s kitchens which had once been shared. She could even put a rough date on the start of the disintegration. Ten years ago? No, more than that. Fifteen maybe. Time for the paint to discolour darkly above the stove, for the small saucepans to show the marks of scoured burning while the larger ones gathered dust.

  ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ he said.

  ‘Have you got any herb tea?’

  He opened a cupboard and she saw a mess of very old cardboard packets. Some had split and the teabags spilling from them had turned mid-brown.

  ‘Don’t worry. Anything will do.’

  She watched his back in silence as he searched for a second acceptable mug, then they sat opposite each other at a wooden kitchen table and her papers stuck to its surface as she spread them out.

  ‘You’ve been suspended indefinitely, effective yesterday.’

  He looked up then, suddenly alert, and she found that a relief. Surprise made him more human, less like the relic of some profound disaster. ‘Is that normal?’ he asked, ‘No, stupid. Of course it’s not. What does it mean?’

  ‘It means you mustn’t go near the school or contact anyone else involved.’ She took refuge in her notes. ‘You are the subject of a complaint made by the parents of Luke Sturgess of Sandwell Cottage, Cucklington. They allege there has been . . .’ she hesitated . . . ‘an improper relationship between you and their son.’

  ‘What does improper mean?’

  She stared at him, saw he was younger than she had thought behind the fence of frown lines. ‘Don’t you know?’