by Jo Bannister
Terrible things were happening to Daniel’s world view. He felt to be at the epicentre of a uniquely personal cluster of earthquakes that were shaking him to his foundations. Jonathan’s life – or at least, his relationship with Jonathan’s mother – had come to depend on his praying to a nonexistent deity. And the contentment of three good women hung on him lying to one of them.
He believed that lying was bad – that lies paved the road to Armageddon – so he didn’t do it. He hadn’t done it for so long that, though he was half persuaded that this time he should make an exception, he doubted he could do it convincingly. If there was one thing worse than lying to Margaret Carson about the necklace, it was having her find out that he’d lied. He felt his moral fibre unravelling by the moment.
‘Look,’ he said slowly, ‘I’m not saying I’m going to do this. But if we were to do it, how would we go about it?’
Chapter Twenty-One
Brodie had been growing increasingly anxious all weekend. She phoned Hester Dale several times, trying to find out if there were any ways of doing this that were better than others.
‘It’s not really like that,’ Hester explained gently. ‘It’s hard to see a pattern. We’re talking about divine intervention – if the results were predictable, that would be science. But when science gives up, God keeps going. And we don’t know why sometimes He pulls all the stops out to save one individual only to disappoint a dozen others. We just know that He does. We have to trust that He does when He can.’
‘It’s a funny kind of omnipotence,’ grunted Brodie, then flinched as she realised who she’d said it to.
But Hester Dale only laughed. ‘That’s the bit that passeth all understanding,’ she said ruefully. ‘There must be a reason. Maybe it’s just beyond our comprehension.’
There was a cricket on Brodie’s shoulder, and though it looked like Jiminy it sounded like Daniel. It was saying, And maybe it’s because there’s nothing there, and it’s just coincidence when someone recovers from something he expected to die of.
She couldn’t afford to think like that. She put it behind her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m all twitchy. I keep thinking there must be something more I could be doing.’
‘You asked your friends to support us?’
‘Oh yes.’ There was a shortness to the reply that Hester found puzzling.
‘Well, that’s about it. We pray. We go on praying. And we hope.’
‘We could – I don’t know – make a donation?’
‘If you want to later, fine,’ said Hester firmly. ‘Not at this point. It’s not about money. We don’t have much in the way of expenses. It doesn’t even take much time. We think of it as a gift of love. The only cost is that, sometimes, we get people’s hopes up only to see them dashed. We try not to do that. We try to be sure they understand the statistics. At best, we seem to throw a bit extra into the balance. Improve the odds, just a little. Sometimes it’s just enough, but more often it isn’t. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Brodie. She knew there were no guarantees. She knew that there wasn’t even much hope. But it was Jonathan’s last hope. She had to hang onto it with everything, including her fingernails. ‘What about meeting him? I could bring him to your – what do you call it? – your prayer meeting. Would that help? Might that help?’
‘Something else we’re not sure of,’ admitted Hester. ‘It certainly can’t hurt. But it isn’t usually practical. What you call our prayer meeting is actually twelve or fifteen people scattered all over southern England. We agree a time to pray, and some people like to get together with one or two others in the same area. But it’s all very informal.’
‘Well, where are you going to be? I could bring him to you…’
Hester hesitated. ‘If you feel in your heart that it’s going to help, I’m not going to tell you different. The truth is, I don’t know. But better than bundling Jonathan into the car, why don’t we come to you? There’s four, maybe five of us within an hour’s drive of Dimmock. Let’s get together at your place, just for the first time.’ She smiled down the phone. ‘See if we can’t grab His attention.’ She didn’t mean Jonathan’s.
Monday evening was a good time for everyone who was coming. Brodie had done an inordinate amount of housework during the day, as if prayers offered up in a clean environment were more likely to be efficacious. She’d also done some baking. When she caught herself going to the shed for the hedge-trimmers, she put a stop to it. A god with the power to save a dying child couldn’t possibly care about the state of its mother’s privet.
And she’d called Marta, and Deacon, and Daniel. Marta Szarabeijka, Brodie’s upstairs neighbour, had no problems at all with prayer. She came from a milieu of Middle-European fervency in which faith was so all-pervasive that it was easy to not notice it at all, the way fish don’t think much about water. Even at the height of Communism, even among those who most firmly embraced it, the attendant atheism never really caught on. People paid it lip service, but an awful lot of them still went to church.
Deacon wasn’t so much an agnostic, someone who didn’t know if there was a God, as someone who didn’t care. If there was, He didn’t interfere much in the day-today running of a criminal investigation department, which suited Deacon fine. He could get on with a God who minded His own business. Except that right now he hoped God considered Jonathan His business. Deacon would pray with the best of them, even if he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it and would probably never do it again.
And then there was Daniel.
Brodie had been trying to speak to him since lunchtime. But the answering machine was picking up the office phone and Daniel’s mobile was switched off. However often she told him not to do that, that she needed to be able to reach him, he persisted. It was one of his little obstinacies, his way of saying that tools and gadgets were at his disposal, he was not at theirs.
So six o’clock came, and she still didn’t know if she could count on his presence tonight. She left messages on the office phone and his home phone, and texted his mobile. Then she waited for him to get in touch. And waited, and waited some more; and her temper did not improve with the passing hours.
Deacon arrived at quarter past seven. He looked round suspiciously. ‘Where are the God-botherers?’
‘Not here yet,’ said Brodie. ‘And if you call them that to their faces, I will kill you.’ She sounded as if she meant it.
‘And, um…?’ He was still looking, still failing to find anyone.
‘Paddy’s upstairs with Marta. They’ll come down when we’re ready to start. Jonathan’s in his cot. Last time I looked he was asleep.’
Deacon hadn’t meant any of the three of them. ‘What about Daniel?’
The sparks in Brodie’s eyes would have been lethal in a dry forest. ‘I don’t know where he is. I can’t get hold of him.’
‘Do you want me to fetch him?’
‘I don’t know where he is!’ Behind the anger he could hear a terrible anxiety. She so desperately wanted this evening to go well.
‘He’s on his way. Being Daniel, he’s walking. I’ll go meet him at the bottom of the hill. We’ll be back here in five minutes.’
‘How do you know that?’ demanded Brodie distractedly.
Deacon gave an oddly gentle little sigh. ‘Brodie, you asked him to come. That’s how I know. He can’t refuse you anything. He never could. Even something as hard for him as this.’
But Brodie was too fretful to acknowledge that. She remembered only how reluctant Daniel had been to cooperate. ‘Go see if you can spot him. Maybe he’s gone home, just isn’t answering the phone. Hester will be here about eight. Try and get him to come. Tell him, even if it makes no difference to Jonathan, it’ll make a difference to me.’
Deacon went out by the door he’d just come through. ‘Back in five,’ he repeated wearily.
As soon as he turned onto the Guildford road he saw the small blond figure trudging up the hill quarter of a mile awa
y.
Finding that Daniel had made it to the prayer meeting did nothing to soothe Brodie’s humour. In truth, it wasn’t much to do with Daniel, and it wasn’t genuine anger so much as worry following the path of least resistance. ‘Where the hell have you been all day? You know I was counting on you for this evening. You said you’d be here.’
‘I am here,’ Daniel pointed out mildly.
‘Only because Jack dragged you here kicking and screaming!’
In all honesty Deacon felt obliged to contradict. ‘He was on his way. I told you he would be, and he was.’
‘Took the scenic route, did you?’ demanded Brodie nastily. ‘Needed a bit of Dutch courage first?’
All the time they’d known one another Brodie had used Daniel as a kind of depository for her fears. Sometimes she talked to him as she dared talk to no one else, with a searing honesty that flayed her soul. And sometimes she dumped on him a coarse-gravel mix of rancour, sarcasm and something bordering on malice as if she despised him. She did it because there were times when she needed help carrying her burdens and hated to ask. Experience had taught her that most people would take her flak for longer than was reasonable, and Daniel would take it longest of all.
But not for ever. Paler than usual, his grey eyes glittered like steel. ‘Brodie, I’m doing what you asked. I’m going to do what you asked. Don’t talk to me as if I make a habit of letting you down.’
It was as if Lassie had bitten her. Even the anxiety went on hold while she stared at him in astonishment. If only she’d apologised then. She knew she was being unfair. He knew why she was so tense. If only she’d said, ‘I’m sorry. This business with Jonathan has got me bouncing off the walls. Forgive me?’ He would have done – of course he would, instantly, totally.
But she didn’t. When she got over the surprise she did what she always did: came back fighting. It was who she was these days. Often it was a source of strength, that got her through situations that should have defeated her. But there were times, and this was one, when it was a weakness, a way to avoid an unpalatable truth. She was quick with words. She’d discovered that being quick with words could make you seem right when in fact you were wrong.
‘Oh Daniel,’ she said impatiently, ‘don’t whine like a little girl! I swear to God, sometimes I don’t know if I’m talking to you or Paddy. I’ve been looking for you half the day. Don’t tell me you weren’t avoiding me because I know you were. I know you don’t want to be here. I’m sorry, but I need you. Your delicate conscience matters a good deal less to me than my son’s welfare.
‘You’re doing this for me, Daniel. Will you at least try to do it with a good grace, and save your Joan of Arc impression for some time when we’re not too busy to enjoy it?’
Even Deacon winced. Daniel went white. The shabbiness of her attack left him speechless. He’d taken some injustice from her over the years, and made allowances because of the circumstances, or the history, or simply because he loved her. This was different. It’s one thing to make yourself someone’s dog, another to have them produce the collar, the lead and the rolled-up newspaper. He couldn’t believe she’d spoken to him like that when he was pawning his soul to do what she wanted. Though in fact it was hardly out of character. She behaved like this primarily because people, Daniel included, let her. Even so, the magnitude of the betrayal stunned him. He stared at her open-mouthed, too shocked to reply.
She turned her back as if he was something dealt with. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘there’s wine in the kitchen. I’m not going to offer it up front in case it’s not the right thing to do…’
Daniel’s mouth was dry, his voice a husk. ‘You mean, in case you cause offence?’
Brodie looked round exactly as if the dog had spoken back to her. ‘What?’
Deacon muttered, ‘Daniel…’ and his tone was low with warning. Not menace; he had no thought of protecting Brodie’s feelings. But he saw a moment coming that, if they didn’t take care, would sunder them – would cleave this strange bond they had, that he would never understand but which he knew was massively important to both of them – as an adze splits wood. He knew what the loss of it would mean, not only to Daniel who wore it on his sleeve but also to Brodie who affected sometimes to have outgrown it. If this exchange continued to its logical conclusion, he thought that the woman he still cared for, the mother of his son, would regret it for the rest of her life. He flagged his warning to Daniel because he didn’t think Brodie would listen.
But Daniel was too hurt to heed him. The sting of her words made him reckless. ‘I love Jonathan too! I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be ready to give away something that matters to me. Jonathan, and Paddy, and heaven help me but even you, are the closest thing I have to a family. I’d do anything for any one of you – you know that.
‘But don’t presume on it. It’s not something you have a right to expect. Commitment is a two-way thing, Brodie, not just something that other people owe you. It’s time you stopped expecting so much more than you’re willing to give.’ Distress thrummed in his voice.
‘I know you’re worried out of your mind. I’ve tried to make allowances for that – we all have. But a sick child isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card: it doesn’t entitle you to ride roughshod over everyone else, and not even notice the damage you’re doing. I’ve given you all the help I could. I’m sorry if it wasn’t enough. I’m sorry if you think I could have done better. Tell me what you want and I’ll try to do it. Not because I think you’ll return the favour some time. And not, in fact, because I want your gratitude. All the same, a little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.’
Brodie’s fine, dark eyes were vast with indignation. ‘Daniel! You want a sticker for your star chart! Of course I’m grateful. Without you I’d have had to wind up the business instead of watching it die by inches. On the other hand, I’d still have a professional reputation in this town, and clients who’d want to know when I was in a position to start up again. Right now Looking for Something? is a public joke. Your antics have got half Dimmock laying bets on whether it’s Bobby Carson’s mother or Tom Sanger’s fiancée you’ve got the hots for. And which of the three of you is the most pathetic.’
‘Brodie!’ growled Deacon, scarce able to believe what he was hearing. He knew how Brodie felt about Daniel Hood. It had irritated him almost beyond bearing for four years. Though he understood that she had more pressing matters on her mind right now, still he was sickened at the way she’d turned on her friend.
And he knew that tomorrow she’d be sorry. By tomorrow, though, it would be too late. You kick a dog once too often and it runs away. Daniel was hard up against the limit of what even his devotion could take. Deacon saw it in the ashy pallor of his cheek, the glassy stretch of his eyes. She’d pushed him before now, pushed hard – an unthinking cruelty, or because she was hurting and needed to unload some of it. And he’d loved her enough to take it. But Deacon didn’t think anyone could love anyone enough to take this.
There’s nothing intrinsically impressive about a grown man drawing himself up to his full five foot seven. But it isn’t always the biggest volcanoes that erupt. Daniel stood still, utterly still except for a fine trembling, his face as white as bone, his jaw clenched. Behind the thick glasses a steely resolution had replaced the pain. He felt in his pocket, put her office keys on the coffee table – not violently but with a rigid control that was much more awesome.
His voice was quiet but every word was clearly audible. ‘You’ll find everything in order. If there’s anything you don’t understand, call me.’ He headed for the door.
And it seemed that only then did Brodie realise what she was doing, how profoundly she’d hurt him. She reached out a hand – but not far enough to touch him, as if even then she baulked at admitting the enormity of her offence. ‘Daniel! Don’t go off in a huff. Talk to me.’
He didn’t look at her, just paused in the doorway. ‘I don’t think we’ve anything left to say to one another.’ Then he wa
s gone.
Deacon was looking at her in appalled incredulity. When she felt his gaze Brodie sniffed and gave a little shrug. ‘I knew he’d get out of the praying thing somehow.’ Then she went into the kitchen to turn down the oven.
A minute later the doorbell rang. Deacon stayed where he was because he wanted to see what Brodie would do.
She didn’t run. She walked out into the hall and opened the front door. If she had an apology ready it didn’t show in the set of her shoulders.
But it wasn’t Daniel. It was Hester Dale and two of her friends. When Brodie looked past them, there was no one else in the drive.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The house on the shore was in darkness by the time he returned. Daniel climbed the iron steps on automatic pilot and let himself in without turning on the lights. It was as if he was afraid what he might see. Not the end of the world, but perhaps the end of his.
It had taken him two hours to get home. Normally he could walk down the hill from Chiffney Road in twenty minutes. This evening he’d taken a detour that took in the park, Fisher Hill, the undercliff and other places he didn’t actually remember being. He’d always walked a lot. He did much of his thinking on his feet, but not tonight. His brain was paralysed by the turn events had taken. He wasn’t distraught so much as numb – the kind of numbness you get if you lose a limb in an accident. For just a few seconds, before the nerves recover enough to start screaming.
It wasn’t a big living room. There was a sofa and a chair. He sat in the chair. He hadn’t drawn the curtains as he came in so he could see down the stony beach to the faint line of luminescence where the Channel began. It was a calm night, everywhere but inside him, so the glassy swells reflecting the sinking moon made a silver highway to France. Pinpoints of light miles away marked the passage of ships. Higher and brighter were the stars, light years away, swinging above the horizon in an endless silent carousel.
