by Louise Beech
‘It isn’t your fault.’
Ruth stands, awkwardly squeezes Bernadette’s arm, holding her gaze a moment, and they head down the corridor.
For the second time Bernadette watches her disappear into the shadows. Then she locks the door, pulls across the chain, and leans against it. What if Ruth is right and Richard escaped the river hours ago? She can’t know for certain his whereabouts – or his intentions – so she drops to the floor and sits with her back to the door, where she resolves to wait until there is news.
What she does know is how far Richard will go to keep her. If he had come home last night, and she’d told him she was leaving, as she had planned to, right now they might both be in the river.
52
The Book
10th November 2011
Dear Conor,
It’s your tenth birthday and I’m taking you to Ferens Art Gallery again and we’ll lunch afterwards wherever you like. I can’t quite believe I’m writing about your tenth birthday. How long it seems since you turned six and I hadn’t known you long. I sometimes think the happiest things are the easiest to get used to; just as they say that time flies when you’re having fun.
People think that adults teach children. I think it’s the other way. You’ve taught me to look at leaves as more than just green or orange. I try and find a better word, perhaps buttery or fruity. This morning the trees are mostly leafless now it’s November. Those with some still clinging on made me think of you. You’re not evergreen because you change colour, but you are a leaf that won’t just drop like all the others.
Anne asked me to come and visit at Christmas. I’m sad to say that it’s hard for me to see you over the festive period. I feel bad because it’s such a special time. On Saturdays at this time I can’t get away. But we’ll have an extra Christmas day in January. Anne said she’ll make turkey and everything one Saturday. How great is that?
But that is a while off yet. So happy birthday, Conor. Enjoy every moment. Looking forward to seeing you in two days.
Love,
Bernadette
53
Bernadette
Someone is coming up the stairs.
Bernadette starts. She has fallen asleep against the door. Her legs, curled beneath her bottom, are numb. The only light comes from under the lounge doorway, casting a thick line of gold across the corridor as though saying, this way. Her bags are still waiting there. This way, says the light. Take us, say the bags.
Someone is coming up the stairs.
Richard? It must be him.
He knows, she remembers. And he’s angry. Beyond angry.
Bernadette gets clumsily to her feet, her legs almost giving way. Must get out. But how? Where? This door is the only exit. Having one entrance to their flat always brought comfort to Bernadette – less chance of an intruder. Now it has her trapped.
The footsteps are coming closer. She has no time.
She heads up the corridor, not sure where to go. At the lounge doorway, she pauses. In there? The light is inviting. Escape through the window? No, way too high. She sees herself in the mirror, hair dishevelled, clothes crumpled, eyes wild. Someone is behind her. She spins about.
Nothing.
The footsteps have stopped. Silence.
Then a knock on the door. Slow, heavy, taunting.
It’s Richard, she knows it. He’s toying with her. He has walked here from the river and he’s cold and wet and angry.
She stumbles on, past the yellow room where children never sleep, and ends up facing the kitchen. There’s nowhere else to go. She looks back along the corridor. More knocking. She’s sure the door shakes under the force. Why isn’t he just opening it? He wants to tease her.
Bernadette goes into the kitchen, to the window. It’s painted shut. Should she break it and jump? Again, too high. This draughty old house, with its high ceilings, means a bone-breaking drop from their upstairs flat. Where now?
There is only the pantry.
Bernadette’s nemesis. Her greatest fear. Being alone in the dark. Being alone. No, not alone. Lonely. Now her only choice is Richard or loneliness.
He won’t think she’ll dare go in here. She doubts he’ll even check inside. He’ll remember her reaction the other time he came home late.
Along the corridor, slowly, the door handle turns.
Bernadette opens the pantry door.
Someone heaves against the main door.
Bernadette slips inside.
The black is so intense she can’t see her own hands. Her other senses sharpen with the lack of vision; bleach fills her nostrils; dampness hits the back of her throat. But sound is muffled within the thick walls so she puts an ear to the door. Everything is quiet.
Suddenly, Richard’s breath is at her neck. She turns, feels about, heart pounding. Nothing. But he’s here. She feels it. He’s part of the dark. The Richard she fears is next to her. So maybe the one on the stairs is the one she first married, the sweet man who could be kind, who sometimes held her gaze so tenderly.
But Bernadette can’t get Ruth’s words out of her head: He said he’d never let you leave. He said he’d kill you both rather than lose you. She sees Richard’s pale eyes colour with rage. Sees him dragging her down the stairs, to the waiting river. Feels the ice cold water around her feet, then her knees, her waist. Higher.
A crash outside. Something broken. The door. She puts her ear back to the wood. Richard is inside.
Half a day late, he is home.
Silence again. Bernadette waits, breath held. If she keeps quiet Richard might explore all the rooms and, finding them empty, think she isn’t here. He might leave, search for her elsewhere. And then she can escape.
The last time, in this enclosed space, Bernadette was sure she’d seen Conor. They exchanged shoes. But she won’t think of him now. Doesn’t want him to be any part of this horror. He’s been through enough. She backs away from the door, cowers in the corner. As she does, her sleeve catches on the shelf.
Something metal hits the stone floor with a horrifying crash.
No.
Richard will come now. She’s cornered in the dark. Everything she’s been through today has led to this. At least Conor is okay. At least they found him before this. He’ll survive whatever happens and he’ll know they all tried.
The pantry door opens.
54
Conor
Anne sniffs my hair and says I still have the river in it and she will run a bath. I kinda want to keep the river there. My dad might still be in the river. Makes him part of me. Anyway, I hate baths in the day. Reminds me of my legs hurting.
I’m really tired suddenly.
Anne says I can have a nap after my bath. Like a baby. She puts loads of her blue bubbles in the water and I watch it froth and fizz. Then the telephone rings. Anne hurries downstairs and I follow. I wait on the stairs in case it’s anyone interesting.
Anne says, Hello, softly like always.
Who is it?
I can still hear the water splashing upstairs. Maybe there is news. I bet they found my dad. I want to stay and listen but I’m worried the water will overflow. I hear Anne saying oh goodness a few times and I want to know about it. But the water will ruin the bathroom rug and I think Anne has forgotten the taps are on.
I run back up and turn them off. The bathroom’s all steamed up. I feel a bit dizzy after running so fast. Can’t fall over now though. Don’t want to drown in the bath when I managed to come out of such a dangerous river. So I hold the bannister going back downstairs in case I fall.
Anne is waiting for me in the hallway and her face is full of news.
55
Bernadette
Bernadette shields her eyes from the invasion of light. Just as a child thinks he is invisible because he can’t see, she hopes it will delay the inevitable. That somehow Richard won’t see her.
‘Mrs Shaw?’
Bernadette opens her eyes. It’s PC French. In the harsh light she is all lines an
d creases; like the drawing of Richard.
Bernadette steps into the kitchen, looks up the corridor, confused. The front door is open, hanging lopsided, the chain swinging like a noose.
‘I had to,’ says PC French. ‘I knew you were here and was concerned when you didn’t answer. In light of all that’s happened. I did call to you.’
‘You did?’ Bernadette frowns. ‘It’s just you?’
‘Yes. Are you okay? You look terrified. Why were you in…?’ The police officer pauses and in the silence Bernadette hears other quiet times. Waiting times.
‘Isn’t Richard here?’ she asks.
‘No.’ PC French pauses. ‘I think we should go and sit down.’
‘I don’t need to sit down,’ says Bernadette. ‘Where’s Richard?’
PC French takes a breath and sets her mouth. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that a body has been found in the river. It was pulled out near the south bank early this morning.’
A body; not a named person.
‘Is it…?’
‘We can’t be sure until someone identifies him officially, so he’s been taken to Hull Royal Infirmary mortuary. I’m very sorry.’
Very sorry – is this better than just sorry?
Richard is dead?
‘Is there someone who could come with you to identify him, Mrs Shaw?’
There isn’t. Bernadette won’t call her parents. Anne is with Conor. For a foolish moment she imagines asking Bob Fracklehurst, but no, that wouldn’t be right. What kind of pathetic life does she have that her only friends are a taxi driver and the foster mother of a child she volunteers for?
‘I don’t have anyone,’ says Bernadette, simply.
‘I can take you now,’ says PC French. ‘Identify him with you.’
‘Oh.’ Bernadette doesn’t know what else to say. She looks at the clock; five-twenty. The intense emotions of the last few hours have left her feeling like a ghost, like she might fall through the floor if she moves, be able to walk through a wall if she tries. If there’s supposed to be shock from this news, that too is weightless, has no effect. Can Richard really be dead? Why doesn’t she feel anything?
‘I’ll get my coat.’
In the bedroom Bernadette picks out a smart, tailored one, as you should to identify a husband; it’s heavy so maybe it will stop her from floating away. She wore it once, to some funeral.
They head downstairs, to PC French’s car. Bernadette does not look at the river.
*
Despite the suitably heavy coat, Bernadette floats from Tower Rise to the hospital lobby. Inside it’s as if she’s come to and PC French is asking if she is ready. She nods and they walk down a corridor with gurneys and metal trolleys parked along the walls. Two women grumble at a broken coffee machine and a security guard tries to retrieve their money. The corridor goes on and on, like when the horizon at sea never comes any closer, no matter how much you swim.
Then there is a door.
Inside, the room is chilled. Like a pantry. Bernadette looks only at PC French as she introduces a colleague, PC James, and he says he’ll show her the body. He asks for her full name, date of birth and how she came to know the deceased. He explains that the body might be quite a shock to see because the skin has loosened after having been immersed in water for longer than two hours. He wants her to tell him if the man is Richard and if she can point out any specific marks, like a mole or scar, to verify identification for the record.
Then there is a gurney and something beneath a white sheet. Bernadette recalls suddenly the entry in Conor’s Lifebook where he got wrapped in a yellow blanket at birth because there were no blue ones. It’s curious that new babies are labelled pink or blue but in death all is white.
PC James pulls the sheet back slowly, as though it’s a gift on a birthday, and asks if she knows him.
Bernadette looks down; the body is wearing Richard’s newspaper-grey suit (Conor will be pleased she specified what kind of grey) and his shoes with the metal bar across. They’re dark with damp. The face is white and bloated and has Richard’s hair; the one curl he can never tame is finally flat.
‘I know him,’ says Bernadette. ‘He put those shoes on this morning for work. Though he didn’t go – he picked his son up from school. He has a son now, you see.’
Bernadette glances at the two officers but they don’t respond.
‘That wasn’t his best suit,’ she says. ‘He said the trousers were like cheap school ones. If you look at his lower back you’ll find two moles side by side and he has a scar below his knee from when he fell out of a tree when he was nine.’
Bernadette can’t seem to stop talking. She wants them to cover him up again; but she doesn’t. This is the only goodbye she’s going to get. It isn’t the planned one; that should have been in the flat yesterday, just after six. But that goodbye could have ended her life too. She should feel safe. Sad. Relieved. But she’s numb.
‘He was rescuing his son,’ she says. ‘That’s why this happened.’ She pauses, suddenly embarrassed about her verbosity. She still has so many questions but she’ll not get answers now. ‘For your records,’ she says, ‘this is my husband, Richard.’
‘Thank you for your assistance,’ says PC James.
He pulls the white sheet back over the body. Bernadette stares at it, still seeing the metal bars across Richard’s shoes. She hated them, but of course she never said so.
‘We have the things retrieved from his pockets,’ says PC James. ‘The wallet is ruined I’m afraid. We removed his wedding ring too.’ He hands Bernadette a plastic bag, which she puts in her pocket without looking at it.
‘Can I give you a lift home?’ asks PC French.
Bernadette nods and allows herself to be led from the room, back along the corridor that now doesn’t seem half as long. The coffee machine has been fixed and the two women sit on plastic chairs near it, sipping paper cups. Bernadette’s coat is still too heavy and she wants to take it off, but she’s so cold she can hardly get her breath.
Outside the light behind the rooftops is changing – it is subtle greys, like someone pressed gently with their pencil. PC French doesn’t drive back along the river; she takes the route through the back streets and Bernadette realises this is intentional.
By the time they reach Tower Rise, the light over the trees is different enough to be given a new colour title – the grey of eyes. PC French parks by the front door and looks up at the house with what Bernadette is sure is distaste.
‘There’ll still be an autopsy,’ she says. ‘It’s normal procedure in a death like this. It will happen in the next forty-eight hours and then you can claim his body.’ She pauses. ‘Then you have to register his death within five days and you’ll get the documents you need to arrange a funeral.’
Bernadette nods. These are just words about things that don’t matter yet. She opens the car door.
‘Can I call someone for you?’ asks PC French. ‘You’ll be in shock even if you don’t realise. I don’t like to leave you alone.’
Bernadette wonders if she is lonely or just alone now.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘I’ll make breakfast and sleep a bit. I’ll call my parents if I need anyone. Listen, don’t call Anne Williams, will you? She should hear this from me.’
PC French looks concerned but doesn’t push it. ‘Take care,’ she says.
Bernadette watches the car disappear beneath the archway of trees and around the drive’s curve. She stands a while, waiting for her feet to decide where she’ll go. She must depend on her body because her mind is untrustworthy. Images of white, bloated faces and over-dyed red hair and smashing doors blur into one watery painting that disintegrates as quickly as it forms.
Bernadette goes to the trees.
When they moved to Tower Rise ten years ago she had explored the woods on the second day. Richard watched from the window as she stepped over dead branches and rotten logs. He asked later why she was bothered about the trees and – as though knowi
ng what was ahead – she said they were probably going to be her companions for a good while.
Now she looks up at the window as though Richard might be there; it stares back. The morning light is hazy, and against it the trees are half-dressed for autumn. She hears the river moving past the end of the drive.
Richard is dead.
The husband she intended to leave only yesterday can’t be divorced. She can’t tell him that she loved him at the start, for a long time. She can’t tell him that Conor – his own son – is partly why she was going. She can’t ask why he visited prostitutes or how he felt about Ruth. She’ll never know how he felt when he discovered he was a father.
Richard is dead.
His car will never again pull up on the gravel at exactly six o’clock. She need never abandon whatever she’s doing half an hour before to prepare his tea. She won’t have to worry if Anne rings at six o’clock or Carole from Befriend for Life on a weekend. She won’t have to reject Conor’s drawings.
Richard is dead.
He cannot hurt her. He cannot kill her. She is safe.
Bernadette sits on a log beneath an evergreen and waits for the inevitable tears. The traffic on the bridge builds to the eight-thirty rush, then slows again, and the sun moves higher over the trees. She takes the plastic bag from her pocket. The fusty smell makes her wince as she opens it. Inside, Richard’s wallet is damp; within the money and one photo of her are ruined. There are his car keys and wedding ring.
And a locket.
A gold locket she has never seen before.
She moves the fine chain between her fingers, turns over the ornate heart. Inside is a picture of their wedding day, barely spoiled despite the water, perhaps protected some by its case. On the back is an inscription: Together in death as in life.
What on earth?
Did the people in the mortuary mix Richard’s items up with another body’s? But their picture inside. It must have been his. Together in death as in life. As though the inscriber had foreseen death? She shivers. Was it to be some sort of final gift? Had Richard intended her to wear it when he … She shakes her head. The day has been so long, with so many revelations, Bernadette can’t face any more.
