Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

“Tell me what?”

  “She’s had an abortion. It didn’t go well and she haemorrhaged.” The shock swelled in Paul again, burst into slow fragments, pierced his body from the inside.

  “An abortion?”

  A ghastly relish bloomed over Luther’s features. He took a slow spin round the room and stopped in front of Paul again. “Well, you didn’t think I’d pay for your brat, did you?” He leaned forwards. “A bog-Irish half-caste!”

  The room was beginning to fade, to retreat into a mist of irrelevance. “Mine?” Paul whispered.

  Luther’s laugh was triumphant. “Oh yes. Yours. Think I’d make a mistake like that? Dianne said it was yours. She said she knew it was yours.”

  Paul gripped the back of the chair. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying.” He jabbed Paul’s chest and this time Paul did not react. “I don’t care if she’s sick now. I don’t care because she’ll get better, and she’s flushed the very last bit of you out of her. The very last bit.” He snapped his fingers. “Down the toilet.”

  Darkness closed slowly round the edge of Paul’s vision, like someone softening the lights. Dimly he saw Luther bend down and pick up something from the floor beyond the sofa. He saw him hold open an album of photographs, an album he kept upstairs. He heard Luther say something about having fun when the wife’s away.

  “Put some make-up on the bitch and she’ll make a better whore!”

  Luther hurled the album at him. It flew over his head and smashed against the corner of the ceiling. Pages loosened and exploded from their mounting. Paul felt the floor tilt and he dropped onto the chair. Finally, Luther had felled him with a blow that left not a single fingerprint behind.

  The front door slammed as Paul slumped forward and covered his face with his hands. Pictures of a laughing girl, a scarf, a wooden bench, settled round him like the charred aftermath of a bonfire in the wind.

  The brightness of daffodils burnished the library as the afternoon wore on. The red leather sofa had been pushed back and Dianne lay on a chaise longue by the window. She set her mobile down beside a bowl of black grapes on a low table. Across the sweep of lawn Luther’s house stood more proudly, its gates newly painted and the work of a gardener evident in the neat flowerbeds and the stripes of the first cut of the lawns. She wished he was back. He had just phoned to say that he had spotted an exhibition of American artists and wanted to stay in Belfast until the next day, to visit it. There might be contacts to be made. He would catch the ferry just twenty-four hours later than planned.

  Dianne dropped her head back on the soft cushion. Her brain worked slowly. What had he been doing all day? He was to go to the house in the morning and take no more than an hour; less surely? He could have visited the exhibition and still made the ferry. She picked at the grapes. Bella had brought them.

  “Grapes, Bella? I’m not in an old people’s home yet.”

  “Eat those and stay out of it a while longer, darling. Toby says you must be incredibly good and get better.”

  Dianne had looked anxiously at Bella. “Toby won’t tell Daddy, will he?”

  Bella plucked a grape and bit it. “Of course not,” she lisped round the juice. “Toby’s top of the range. Patient confidentiality and all that.” She licked her fingers. “A terrible miscarriage. It happens.”

  Now, Dianne looked out at a cloud of starlings swooping and swirling across the sky above the trees at the back of Luther’s garden. She ran her hand across her stomach. The bleeding had lessened and the ache in her belly had diminished a little. God, what a messy, ghastly business! She bit her lip. She had expected to feel happy. She didn’t expect to feel hollow, but she did.

  You have killed a child.

  She shook her head like a cat shaking off rain. Her hormones were all over the place. They would settle down. At least Luther had not run into Paul. “No, no sign of him,” he had said when she asked. Her father would come in soon, bringing tea on a tray for them to share. She decided to doze until then.

  Her phone rang again. Probably Bella. She reached for it and answered, her voice dull. In seconds her eyes widened and she jolted upright as a familiar, and yet unfamiliar, voice rasped in her ear.

  “Is it true?”

  “Paul!” Shock whitened her knuckles.

  “Is it true, you bitch? I want to hear it from you.”

  “Is what true?” Her voice seemed to be trapped deep in her throat, struggling to make a sound.

  “Have you killed my baby?”

  Days ago she would have been fit for this. She would have hurled abuse back at him and felt nothing of his pain. Now the same pain seemed closer to herself than she ever suspected it could be. Something reached down the wire and made her crumple into guilt and emptiness. She could say she had an abortion. She could say she had a miscarriage. She could say it wasn’t a baby. They had called it a foetus. She could simply deny it all. “What the hell are you talking about?” She could shout again about his selfishness. “It was my baby too!” but that thought was too new, too shocking, too unexpected, to put into words. It echoed round her head like the eerie howl of a wolf in mountains.

  “Have you?” Paul was trembling. She could hear it.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  The line went dead.

  For half an hour her father, puzzled and alarmed, tried to console her. She wept in paroxysms that hurt her womb and made clots of blood ooze from her body with every gasp. Her father must have called Bella because suddenly she was there, her arms round her, her voice devoid of its usual world-weary drawl.

  “Come on, Di. What happened? What’s wrong?” Bella pulled another tissue from a box on the floor and wiped Dianne’s nose. “You have to tell me, you know. This isn’t just hormones.”

  On a sudden thought she reached for Dianne’s phone and flicked to the record of recent calls.

  “Paul called you.” She gave Dianne a little shake and bent her head to look into her face. “What did he say?”

  “He told him!” Dianne cried, a wail of distress.

  “Who told who what?”

  “Luther told Paul about… about…”

  Bella stiffened. “The abortion?”

  Dianne nodded, her sobs shuddering into the misery of exhaustion. Her eyes felt as if they would never be normal again. Her hair needed washed and it straggled in pallid strings round her blazing cheeks. Bella pulled aside a strand that hovered close to the corner of Dianne’s mouth and tucked it behind her ear.

  “He would have been born in September,” Dianne whispered, her voice hoarse.

  “Don’t think like that, Di. You didn’t want it, remember.” Dianne turned huge and flooded eyes to her. “He might have looked like his father.”

  “You don’t know it would have been a boy. Stop thinking about it.”

  “My mind’s taking me over, Bella. I’ll never forgive Luther for this.”

  “You might have a point there, darling.”

  Dianne pounded a fist on her knee. “He’s a liar, he’s a horrid liar!”

  Bella rubbed her shoulders, back and forth, back and forth. “But you knew that, Di. You shouldn’t be so terribly surprised. You’re not a saint either. That’s why you suit each other so well.” She let go of Dianne gently and stood. “Now hush. I’m going to get Toby to come and give you something.”

  Dianne grabbed her hand as she turned. “Oh, Bella! He would have been magnificent if he’d looked like his father.”

  Bella bent and kissed her brow. “I’m going to phone Toby. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  With the familiarity of a best friend, Bella went up the curved stairs and across the landing, past the armchairs, the table and the punctilious ticking of the grandfather clock. The semi-circular table held a lustred vase of daffodils today. Along the passageway, past the Chinese urn, she turned the handle on a bedroom door. She was not going to risk Charles Butler overhearing her. The room had the odour of emptiness, the bed smooth and cold. At the window she pulled o
ut her phone, just as Dianne’s father appeared on the lawn below, to walked distractedly amongst the shrubs and flowerbeds.

  Bella called Toby first. He said he would come as soon as he could.

  “I told her this might happen,” he said. “I didn’t want her to do it. Feelings can turn somersaults after an abortion. She may need something for depression, specially after how it went with her.”

  “Give her whatever she’ll take.” Bella paused. “Paul knows.”

  Toby drew in his breath sharply. “My God! How?”

  “Luther told him. I think that’s what’s set her off.”

  Toby cursed in words that made Bella move the phone from her ear momentarily and stare at it, eyebrows raised. “Luther Chevalier should come with a health warning. He’s a twisted mongrel.”

  “Yes, well. She says she’ll never forgive him.”

  Toby gave a sharp laugh. “She will.”

  Bella checked her nails. “Yes,” she said, “she will. Eventually.”

  She phoned Luther next. She could hear the hum and bustle of a hotel bar. It faded slightly as he moved to a quieter spot. “I’ve just heard you called a twisted mongrel.”

  He bristled. “Who by?”

  She buffed her nails on her lapel and leaned against the window frame. “By someone who was right.”

  There was a silence. Then he said quickly, “Dianne? Is Dianne all right?”

  “Not really. No.”

  Alarm surged into his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  Charles was turning and walking slowly back to the house, head bent and shoulders slumped. Bella ducked back from the window. “Some would say you are.”

  “Bloody hell, Bella! Tell me!”

  Finally her rare temper flashed, her voice jagged as a saw. “How many steps ahead can that brain of yours imagine, Luther? You can see round the globe if it’s anything to do with money but you can’t see consequences an inch from your nose!”

  “Bella!” he shouted, angry now himself. “What’s this about?” She drew herself up, feet planted as if he stood in front of her. “While you were getting your revenge on Paul, didn’t it even occur to you that Dianne might get caught in the crossfire? Didn’t you even think that Paul might contact Dianne?”

  There was a long silence, and then a groan. “Oh, my God.”

  Bella sat on the edge of the bed, calm again, and twirled a toe. “Back tomorrow, aren’t you? Twenty-four hours to think of a way out of this one. You should manage it. You always do.”

  She had Paul’s number and tried it next. There was no reply and the answer phone kicked in. She snapped her phone shut. What message could she possibly leave?

  28

  LUKE WAS AGITATING to get home with his new crutches, but the doctors were being cautious. Jenna reached from her perch on a stool beside the bed and placed a hand of cards on the table that was wheeled across Luke’s knees. He sat on the chair in the narrow space between the bed and the window. His leg, encased in plaster, protruded from beneath the table. He threw down his cards. “Shit!”

  “You’re hopeless!” She gathered up the cards triumphantly. Luke’s had slid to the floor under the bed.

  He eased himself up in the chair, taking care of his splinted fingers and wincing from the pain in his ribs.

  Jenna shuffled the cards. “You OK?”

  “Yeah. Just a bit fed up.”

  “I’m not surprised.” The line of staples arched across his shaven head. “But your hair’s starting to grow again. What colour will you make it this time?”

  He just smiled a little and tilted his head up to look over the sill of his high window at the view over the city. The gap in his mouth where his teeth were missing still gave Jenna a sting of shock. She gave up on the cards. “Want me to get you a paper at the shop downstairs?”

  “No, it’s OK.”

  She sat forward. “What is it, LW?”

  His words lisped from his still-bruised mouth. “Oh, just remembering lying on the ground and the sight of a boot heading for my face. It… still scares me. I really thought I was going to die. Well, I knew I might.”

  “We thought you might too. You weren’t the only one scared.” He grinned. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise. Just don’t do it again.”

  He was solemn again. “I’ve nightmares sometimes. I see a flash of white jumper, a flash of red something, and then boots. Boots. All aiming at my head. And I put my hands up and I’m panicking…”

  “Have you told Mum or Dad?”

  “I told Paul.”

  “Why him?”

  He shrugged and then winced a little as his ribs jagged him. “He listens as if he understands.” He turned questioning eyes on her. “Know what I mean?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that, with him, it was clocks, grandfather clocks. He doesn’t know why.” He looked out the window again and was quiet for a moment. “He told me to enjoy every minute I’d been given back.” He turned back to his sister. “I remember exactly what he said. He said, ‘Milk each moment dry because you don’t know which one will be the one that takes you away.’” He frowned. “Wasn’t that odd? I memorised it because it was so odd.”

  Jenna put her arm on the sill and rested her chin on it. “He’s an odd guy.”

  “But he’s good. I mean, he really loves… things. He stood at this window and looked out for ages. He seemed to look at the view in bits, concentrating as if he was memorising it. And he really loves natural stuff. Like birds and trees and stuff.” He stopped, thinking. “As if he’s part of it.”

  “You think he’s good? I think he’s a prick.”

  “Jay! Language!”

  “Hah! Pots and kettles come to mind!”

  Luke felt his head gingerly, tracing the line of staples down behind his ear. “It doesn’t suit you, though.”

  She made a face. “Because I’m a good girl. And don’t pull at those.”

  “I’m not pulling. Dunno what Paul thinks of you.”

  “Why should he think anything?”

  Luke narrowed his eyes. “Before I landed in here, he never mentioned your name. Not once on any shoot we were on.”

  She spread her hands. “So he doesn’t think of me at all then. Why would he?”

  His eyes were still narrowed. “Yeah. Why would he? Where is he anyway? He hasn’t dropped in in days.”

  She stood up and reached for her coat. “Oh, goodness knows. Probably underwater, photographing mussels in Strangford or something.”

  He remembered something. “Oh yeah, Dad said the Aardvark phoned.”

  She hunted for the sleeves. “He never told me that.”

  “Probably won’t either. News had travelled apparently and the Aardvark wanted to know if I was dead yet.”

  “I know you didn’t like him but be fair!”

  The fur hood was caught inside out down the back of her neck and she hooked it out. Luke shoved the table sideways against the bed and reached for his crutches. As Jenna reached to get them for him he waved her away angrily.

  “I can do it. I’m going to the toilet, not running a marathon.”

  “OK, OK, keep your hair on!”

  She caught his eye and he started to grin gummily. She was round the bed and at the door before either of them stopped laughing.

  “Hey,” he called as she opened it. “What about the Moron? Max thingy?”

  She turned back. “Seen him once since you were mugged. I don’t think he knows how to handle it.”

  Luke manoeuvred the crutches under his elbows and started to lean forward onto them. “I’m good with that. You don’t have much luck with men, do you?”

  “I’m good with that,” she replied. “Who needs them?”

  Small quick footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, pausing as the soft squeak and roll of a bed being moved, passed the door. There was a knock and Naomi’s head peered round, the school tie loose around the open neck of her shirt. Luke’s face lit up and he
smiled a gappy smile.

  “Hi, Naomi. I’m just going,” Jenna greeted her. Naomi stood grinning, her bag still on her back. Jenna pointed a warning finger at Luke. “Remember I’m getting the bus home to Mum and Dad’s tonight. Be good. You’re not up to being Heartbreak Hunk just yet.” She took a step towards the corridor then looked back at Naomi. “Oh, by the way. Go and get a coffee. He’s going to the bathroom all by himself. He should be back in about an hour.”

  She ducked out again before Luke could launch a crutch in her direction.

  Jenna knocked gently on the door of her father’s study and pushed it open. The scents of her childhood enveloped her: the smell of old books mingled with the sharper scent of new books; the rattle of the drawers of his desk, the slight rasp of his chair as he swivelled. All this was joined now by the clicking of the keys on his new computer. He was like a child with a new toy.

  “Hello, Missy. Look. Look at this.” He angled the screen towards her and pointed. She bent to look. “I can work out the whole preaching plan on this and print it out.” A small printer nestled on a new table beside the desk, next the door. “And look.” He searched, his fingers moving the mouse swiftly, and double-clicked an icon. “This is a database of all the church members.” He looked up, his eyes bright. “I can enter all the family names and even have columns for when I last visited them. Isn’t it great? And I can even…” another double click, a calendar appeared “… have my appointments computerised and it’ll give me reminders. Isn’t it amazing? Password protected, of course!”

  She was reminded of Luke. Her father was once young like Luke, and he still showed flashes of a vibrancy that Luke had inherited from him. He turned his attention from the computer and studied his daughter as she sank into the deep, worn chair in the corner.

  “You look as if you could do with a good sleep. Are you still worried about Luke?”

  She smiled briefly. “No. He’s made terrific progress. I beat him at whist today.”

  Donald grinned. “I wish he wouldn’t tell the congregation I taught him how to play it.”

  “Well, you did. And me too. A dentist’s already called to see him. I think they’ll bridge the gap very well.” She gave a small laugh. “He’s more annoyed about his teeth than his leg – or his head.”