The Camel Trail

by Merrigan, Peter J

  ‘Did he get rain in his lungs?’ Kevin asked.

  Sarah hugged and rocked him.

  Tessa had called Graeme and Alan and told them to come as quickly as they could. They should arrive in a few hours, Sarah told Kevin.

  Now, listening to the muffled hospital sounds from the waiting room, Kevin got down from Sarah’s lap and walked across the room to the door.

  Sarah stood and followed him. ‘Where are you going?’

  He walked down to Martin’s room and entered without knocking. The door was open. Tessa sat in a chair beside Martin’s bed and held his hand. The plastic screen had been taken down. She cupped her other hand over her eyes and did not see him come in.

  Kevin walked around the bed and took Martin’s other hand. It was cold. He looked at the monitor beside him, followed the green spike as it rose and fell.

  ‘He’s going to be okay,’ he said.

  Tessa looked up. ‘No, honey,’ she said. ‘Not this time. This time he’s going to Heaven. Do you know where Heaven is?’

  Kevin nodded. He knew where Heaven was but he didn’t want Martin to go there. ‘Why does he have to go?’

  Tessa sighed deeply, rubbed her eyes. Sarah came and stood beside her. ‘Martin’s really sick,’ his mother said.

  ‘But he can get better, right?’

  Nobody said anything. Kevin knew that meant no, Martin wouldn’t get better. He reverently placed Martin’s hand back on the bedspread, palm down, fingers extended, and he came around to Tessa. He reached out and hugged her and Tessa sobbed against his neck.

  Four hours later, shortly after Graeme and Alan had arrived, everyone gathered around Martin’s bed and stared at him. Still nobody spoke. Finally, Sarah hugged Graeme and Tessa, and Alan kissed Tessa’s cheek and shook Graeme’s hand. Graeme pulled him into a hug. Then they went to Martin’s side and kissed him.

  Sarah and Alan each took one of Kevin’s hands and led him out of the room, back towards the waiting area.

  They had been there only ten minutes when Kevin could hear Tessa screaming and sobbing from the other end of the corridor.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  ‘Do you want me to go in with you?’

  Sarah shook her head, looked at Alan. ‘No, I think I need to do this one on my own.’

  Alan nodded, smiled, and kissed her.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d be this nervous,’ Sarah said.

  They sat in the visitors’ car park, staring up at the stark grey façade of Wandsworth prison, with the sun setting behind them, turning the windows to fire. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and sighed heavily.

  ‘Hey,’ Alan said, touching her leg. ‘We’ve come all this way.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m not backing out. I just need a minute.’ She looked into his hazel eyes, swam in them.

  ‘He really hurt you, didn’t he?’

  ‘I’ll get over it,’ she said. ‘Eventually.’

  The setting sun washed the car in a luminescent glow, glinting in his eyes and reflecting off his hair. Alan knew when to say something and when to keep quiet. That was one of the things she liked about him. Now, he sat back in his car seat and watched her.

  ‘It’s the right thing,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Of course it is. I wouldn’t have driven you all the way to London and put up with your small talk if it wasn’t.’

  ‘Put up—?’ she said. She slapped his arm playfully and he laughed.

  In silence, they looked back at the building in front of them. It was time to go in, she knew, time to face Frankie. She kissed Alan, said she wouldn’t be long, and got out of the car.

  Frankie was in custody awaiting sentencing for abduction, assault, and the manslaughter of Martin Boaden. He was looking at fifteen years if the judge was lenient, Sarah’s solicitor had told her. Robert had been housed in a separate facility and by all accounts his own solicitor was haranguing him to press charges against Frankie for the beating he sustained. Robert was saying nothing.

  Sarah signed in as a visitor and was shown, with a number of others, to the visitation room. They were each assigned to a different table that had been fixed to the floor by heavy-duty screws. The orange plastic chair in which she sat was also immobile.

  Three burly prison officers entered the room from another door, followed by seven men in worn, blue uniforms and two more officers. Frankie walked slowly towards her and Sarah’s stomach lurched. She did not rise to greet him, kept her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes on the Formica tabletop.

  He stood by the table but did not sit down. She could feel him leering at her and still she did not look up.

  When he said nothing, Sarah spoke in a small voice. ‘Sit down, Frankie.’

  He sat, grinned at her when she looked up to meet his gaze.

  She looked away but quickly forced her eyes back to his face. She couldn’t show any fear, not any longer.

  ‘Ask me,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Ask you what?’

  ‘Why I did it. Why I took Kevin from you. Ask me why I took our son—my son—from his own mother.’

  She stared at him, felt her mouth going dry. ‘I don’t need to know why.’

  ‘I think you do, Sarah,’ he said. Hearing him say her name almost broke her resolve, but then she thought of Alan, of Kevin, and of Martin who lay now in a small white coffin waiting to be buried in the morning.

  ‘You did it because you’re a sick man,’ she whispered.

  He laughed. ‘No, love, I did it because I could.’ She almost stood to leave, but sat there and stared at him as he continued. ‘Now you know how it feels. You took my son from me.’

  ‘You were in prison,’ she explained.

  ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘He’ll never be your son again. The reason I’m here…’ She faltered, lost her voice. ‘I’m filing for divorce,’ she said. ‘Something I should have done a long time ago.’

  Frankie laughed. ‘You’d never do that.’

  ‘I already have.’ She looked straight into his eyes, drew on all her reserve not to look away again, and said, ‘The necessary papers will be posted to you. You’ll be expected to sign your consent and return them promptly.’

  ‘I won’t sign.’

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ Sarah said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. It won’t be long before I no longer need your consent.’

  ‘What’s the waiting time? Five years? That’s a long time, Sarah.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘Five years from separation allows one party to divorce another without consent,’ she said, as though reading a manual in her mind. Her smile broadened. ‘We’ve already been separated two years, or don’t you remember that? I can wait.’

  ‘Bitch,’ Frankie scowled.

  Sarah stood. ‘I’m giving you your name back. And soon, I’ll have Kevin’s name changed from Catchpole to Derry. That’s all I came to tell you. Goodbye.’

  She turned and walked across the room. A prison officer unlocked the door for her. As she signed out and walked back out into the car park, the sun had gone down and the February sky was darkening at the fringes.

  Alan got out of his car and came to meet her. She hugged him, said nothing, and he led her back to the car for the long drive home.

  Kevin pulled his black necktie into a thin knot and flattened his collar down. He did it mostly with his left hand because lifting his right arm any higher than his chest made his ribs ache. The bandage wrapped right around his body. He took great pride in showing it to Alan three days ago.

  Sometimes he caught himself being happy and that made him sad. Today they were going to Martin’s funeral and he was supposed to watch as they lowered his coffin down into the ground. The very thought made him ill.

  He hated his father.

  Sarah came to his open bedroom door and knocked on the door frame. ‘Hey, honey. How’re you doing?’

  He shrugged one shoulder. ‘I’m okay.’

  She came in and sat on the edge of his bed. ‘
Did you manage your tie all right?’

  He nodded, looked in the mirror and flattened his hair down a bit with his left hand.

  ‘How’re you doing?’

  He shrugged again, faced her. ‘You just asked me that.’ One corner of his mouth twitched in what was supposed to be a smile.

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Did you polish my shoes?’

  ‘Come here,’ Sarah said. ‘Sit down a minute.’ She patted the bed beside her and he sat, clasped his hands together and tried to think about nothing.

  ‘How come we don’t go to church?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘Martin’s Mum and Dad go to church every Sunday.’

  ‘Yes, they do. My parents never did. I guess maybe that’s why I don’t go and why I never took you.’

  ‘If you don’t go to church,’ Kevin said, ‘can you still go to Heaven?’ His head felt as sore as his ribs.

  ‘I think so,’ Sarah said.

  Kevin said, ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Me, too, honey. Me, too.’

  ‘I’m not going to cry today,’ he told her. ‘I’m going to be brave and strong because Martin wants us to be like that.’

  ‘It’s okay to cry, you know.’

  Kevin shrugged his good shoulder again. ‘I guess.’ He stood and went to the mirror on his wall, stared at his reflection. ‘Tessa told me yesterday when you went to London that Martin wants to see people smiling today.’ He turned to her. ‘I’m going to try not to cry, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to smile.’

  Sarah hugged herself against the chill wind and entered St Petroc’s church. Looking around at the people in the pews, there were many red and puffy eyes. So young, people were saying. Such a shame. Many of the people there were unknown to her and, she suspected, to Graeme and Tessa, too. When the story of Kevin and Martin’s abduction and Martin’s subsequent death made it to the local papers, people started going to Tessa’s home, bringing condolences and food like it would make the pain go away.

  Death, like births, brought gawpers.

  Sarah, Kevin and Alan sat in the third row. Graeme and Tessa, with their relations, sat up front. Tessa had suggested they sit with them, but she felt it more appropriate that Martin’s cousins should have the spaces. ‘You can go, though,’ she had said to Alan.

  ‘I’ll be fine sitting with you and Kevin.’

  ‘But Martin was…’

  He nodded, sat with her anyway, and held her hand throughout the entire service.

  ‘Eternal rest grant unto Martin, O Lord,’ the reverend said, ‘and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’

  As one, the congregation said, ‘Amen,’ and Sarah heard sobbing coming from behind her. Looking forward at the back of Tessa’s head, she knew that she was remaining as strong as she possibly could.

  Sarah looked at the coffin and bit her lip. It was so small, half the size of an adult coffin, a small white box that contained the remains of a wonderful child. Alan’s grip on her hand tightened as though to comfort her.

  She looked down at Kevin beside her. His face was stony and his eyes were watery, but he was doing his best not to cry.

  Graeme and Alan were pallbearers, along with a few of Graeme and Tessa’s relatives. At the end of the service, they gathered around Martin’s tiny coffin and lifted it up onto their shoulders. Sarah could tell Graeme was trying so hard to keep from crying, but his face was cracking slowly. They carried the coffin out into the churchyard.

  In the cemetery, a plot had already been prepared and Martin’s coffin was laid over the grave on supporting beams. Sarah noted that many of the faces she had seen in the church were no longer present. Around Martin’s graveside were perhaps twenty-five or thirty people.

  The reverend said a blessing, and then read solemnly from Scripture. ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.’

  Graeme and Tessa supported each other against their anguish and the violent wind that cried around Martin’s coffin.

  Kevin twirled a white rose between his fingers. Tears fell openly from his eyes. How could this be? Sarah thought. Why should a nine-year-old boy be forced to watch his best friend being lowered into a hole in the ground? She put a hand on his good shoulder, squeezed.

  Kevin sucked his upper lip into his mouth and stared straight ahead at Martin’s coffin.

  When the casket had been lowered into its final resting place, Tessa was the first to drop a rose into the grave, followed by Graeme. Even Alan was crying now. At her turn, Sarah crouched by the graveside, wiped tears from her cheeks, and dropped the flower on top of the coffin. When she stood and turned, Kevin was no longer with them.

  She froze, panicked, and looked around. She saw him standing over by the entrance of the cemetery, still holding his flower, looking the other way. His shoulders shook as he sobbed.

  Alan saw him, too, and together they walked to him.

  He sniffed, wiped his eyes, and turned away from them.

  ‘Honey…’

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to cry,’ he said, his voice broken. Sarah touched his shoulder but he shrugged her off. ‘Leave me alone!’

  He ran out of the cemetery and down the street.

  ‘I’ll go after him,’ Alan said. ‘You should go back to Graeme and Tessa. I’ll bring him back to their place when he’s ready to come home, okay?’

  Sarah nodded, felt lost and numb, and watched as Alan ran after her son.

  Thirty minutes later, when a number of friends and family had gathered at Tessa’s house to raise a glass and talk about old times, Alan came in, flustered and rose-cheeked from the harsh wind.

  ‘I think you’d better come and see this,’ he told Sarah.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’ Already, worried thoughts span around in her head—what was wrong with Kevin? Where had he gone?

  But Alan was smiling, somehow in the middle of all this pain, Alan was impossibly smiling. ‘You, too,’ he said to Graeme and Tessa. ‘In fact, everyone should come. Take your cars and follow me.’

  He took Sarah’s hand and Graeme protested. ‘What’s this nonsense? Martin’s dead. What could possibly be more important?’

  ‘Please,’ Alan said. ‘Just come with me. The four of us can get in my car. The rest can follow if they want. But please, trust me.’

  When Graeme questioned Tessa with his eyes, Tessa nodded and they left the house.

  Alan drove them across town. There, at the foot of the Camel Trail, stood Kevin in his black suit, white rose still in hand. He wasn’t moving, simply stared ahead at the trail.

  Sarah got out of Alan’s car and called Kevin’s name. Alan came quickly to her side and put a gentle, restraining hand on her arm. ‘Wait,’ he said.

  When Graeme and Tessa joined them, standing about thirty foot behind Kevin, Kevin stepped forward, approaching the Camel Trail.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Graeme asked.

  ‘He’s going to…’ Tessa said, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Sarah looked at Alan. ‘He told you?’

  ‘No,’ Alan said. ‘I just found him standing there. He wouldn’t respond to me when I spoke to him. I just kind of guessed. I thought he’d have already started. Come on,’ he said to them. ‘You don’t want to let him do it on his own, do you?’

  They started after him, careful to remain some distance behind him, and Sarah’s heart swelled with love for her son. If Martin could no longer walk the Camel Trail, Kevin would do it for him.

  She looked at Graeme and Tessa. Tears streaked their faces but they were smiling. They came up next to Sarah and Alan and Tessa linked her arm with Sarah’s. ‘Thank you,’ Tessa said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Sarah told her.

  ‘Yes, you did. You
raised a wonderful and thoughtful son.’

  Sarah bit on her lower lip to stop the tears that were welling in her eyes.

  They walked on, along the Trail, over the Iron Bridge where cyclists veered out of their way and stopped to watch them. It must have been an odd sight, Sarah thought, one young boy leading a group of twenty people on a funeral march into woodlands.

  Of the friends and family that followed them to the Camel Trail—children as young as five, men and women in their sixties or seventies, and those in between—not one complaint was raised among them. Some of the children skipped ahead, unmindful of the occasion, but none of them went near Kevin. Sarah couldn’t tell if it was knowledge, respect, or fear that kept them from him.

  Kevin was crying and she desperately wanted to comfort him, but Alan held her back. ‘He needs to do this his own way,’ he said. ‘When he wants your comfort, he’ll ask for it. Until then, we just have to keep up with him.’

  As the trail merged into Wadebridge town, Kevin continued through the streets until at last he had to stop. He approached a man who had been watching him from the doorway of a shop.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, can you tell me how to get back onto the Camel Trail, please?’

  The man pointed. ‘Follow the bicycle lane,’ he said. ‘Turn right at the library.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kevin said and continued his walk. The man watched as Sarah and the others filed along behind Kevin.

  The tarmac roads soon gave way to the Camel Trail proper again and Sarah was relieved that Kevin was no longer crying. He still held the single white rose between his fingers, carefully avoiding any thorns that may have been on the stem.

  Though conversation had halted among the mourners, whispered words had gathered around them, quickly filtering along the trail. Everyone stopped as they passed. One little girl fell into step beside Kevin and walked with him for half a mile. Neither one spoke to the other, and when she turned to leave the procession he smiled at her and walked on.

  Evening was encroaching on the trail when at last they reached Bodmin and the end of the eleven-mile stretch of converted railway track. The sky overhead was tinged with as much sadness as it was with dark clouds.