Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  Toby made no move to open the door. Jenna turned off the engine.

  “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to Paul.”

  Toby gave a thin smile. “Believe me, my dear, it means a lot more to me than it does to him.” He shrugged. “But that was always the way.” He looked through the gate at the villa set in large grounds and began to talk quietly as if to himself. Wrought iron lamps flanked the front door and tendrils of trailing plants hung from baskets on the wall. “And now I have to go in there and be polite and happy and make conversation. Even though I have just…” He stopped suddenly and Jenna heard the soft smother of a sob.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Thank you for what you told us tonight. It was a big decision for you.”

  Toby put his hand on hers where it lay, and faced her, controlled again. “Jenna, I must tell you. I said you were brave and you must continue to be.” He squeezed her fingers. “Paul will not see the baby.”

  Jenna didn’t flinch. “I know.”

  “I don’t know how this… will end. It’s impossible to know.” He met her eyes deliberately. “It could be sudden.” This time she said nothing and he went on, relentless. “If there is anything you both would like to do, anywhere you would like to go together, then…” he squeezed her fingers again “… I think you should do it soon.”

  “OK.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

  Toby flung open the car door and stepped out. She got out herself to say goodbye. They stood on the footpath facing each other awkwardly. She held out her hand. “Thank you,” she said again.

  He ignored the hand and hugged her. “Take care of yourself, my dear. That’s important. Keep in touch with me.” He coughed. “You know?”

  She pulled away and nodded. A fresh breeze blew a strand of hair across her mouth. “Of course.”

  He looked down at his feet. A soft summer rain was beginning to glitter on his hair. “I would like to see the baby, if I may?”

  She smiled a reassurance. This was not a man who was used to making requests. “I hope you won’t mind being called ‘uncle’.”

  His beard dipped. “That would give me the greatest pleasure.” He turned to the gate. “Now I mustn’t keep you. This rain is getting heavier.” He walked through the gate and his feet crunched on gravel. He slowed, stopped. The gravel slewed under his heel as he pivoted. The lamps by the front door cast a nimbus of light round his head and left his face in deep shadow. His bag hung from one hand and his spine was straight, shoulders square. His words came out of darkness.

  “I love him too, you see.”

  36

  PAUL TURNED HIS head and pressed his ear to Jenna’s bare stomach. She stood in the bedroom and Paul knelt on the floor in front of her, arms round her and eyes closed. Jenna bent over his black head and ruffled his hair, smiling gently. Her hand dropped to rest lightly on his shoulder.

  “It’s too soon to feel anything, you idiot.”

  “You’re tired, my darling. Why couldn’t the old fraud have taken a taxi?”

  “That wouldn’t have been hospitable! The man flew over just to see you.”

  He turned his head again to kiss her skin, run his lips across from hip to hip. “Your skin’s so soft.” He put his hand on her, below her navel. “I think there’s a slight bump. There is! Put your hand there.”

  She chuckled. “It’s my body. I know there’s a slight bump.”

  “Toby flew over to see an old friend from way back. He just came here to see me on the way.”

  Gently she detached herself and sat on the bed. “If you say so.” She took his hand to help him up beside her. “How are you feeling?”

  He leaned on her mischievously until she fell over sideways and he fell in a heap, half on top of her. “Not too bad.” He growled in her ear and bit it. “Good enough anyway.”

  She giggled, delighted, and stretched in delicious anticipation.

  In the darkness, she cuddled close within his arm. “You asked me once if it was my heart or my pride that was hurt.” She raised her head from his chest to look down at him. “Remember?”

  “Very well. You were in the pink dress that tore on a thorn.”

  “It was my pride then.” She settled her head on him again and reached across his body to find his hand and pull it to her lips. “This time, my heart hurts. You knew the difference then. I know it now.”

  He turned over and lay face to face with her. “You mustn’t be unhappy. You must move on. We’ve talked about this so often. I can’t bear you to be unhappy. You must get over me, for yourself and for the baby.”

  She extended a finger from under the covers and brushed his nose. “Don’t be daft, Paul. Tell a dog not to bark; tell a fish not to swim.”

  He fondled her hair, twining it round his fingers. “I told you something else that night. Reach for the moon and the stars and the sun. I want you to do that still. Do it for both of you.”

  She raised herself on one elbow. “But you are the moon and the stars and the sun for me. I’ve grasped them all already.”

  He rolled onto his back and took her face between his hands. “And you are my first and last, the one I have needed and wanted and loved. The one who gave me such a passion for life that I hunted you down and I want more than anything to stay with you.”

  There were tears tracing her cheeks now, funnelling down along his fingers. He pulled her down so that she lay on top of him, warmed by the mounds and hollows of his body. His arms round her gave her a little shake.

  “Listen to me, Jenna. There are more moons and stars in the universe than we have known. You’ll find more. I know you will.”

  She rolled to lie beside him again. In the dark she felt her teddy bear fall sideways against the wall where he had been propped.

  His voice thickened. “You’ll tell him – or her – about me, won’t you? Don’t forget me.”

  “As long as I’m alive, and your child is alive, and his children after him.”

  They were quiet then for some time and Jenna thought he slept. Indeed he might have, for he slipped in and out of sleep at random now. Eventually he stirred and his hand smoothed across her waist.

  “Remember what you told me about moments? When we were in the old hut. The time you jumped the fence.”

  “I do. You were so odd.”

  “You told me time is only a succession of moments. Jenna, are you really listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll always be only moments from you. Do you hear me?” She nodded against his neck, unable to speak. “I will always be only moments from you,” he repeated firmly. He settled her more comfortably against him and his chest rose and fell beneath her fingers.

  Then he spoke again softly, gently. “I think it’s time to go to Rossnowlagh again.”

  The beach was a vibrating rainbow of colour set on sand of summer gold. Where they had walked in solitude seven months before was, this early evening, a bright canvas of squealing children, bouncing beach balls, sprinting young people and precarious sandcastles. The roar of the surf was muted behind the motor of the ice-cream van; the tide had receded to the furthest extent of its ebb and the silver lines of the breakers were far away.

  Jenna threaded her arm through Paul’s and they walked slowly down the path to the sand. The salty tang of the wide shore filled their nostrils again and permeated the folds of their clothes. Today there was no need for coats. They threaded with care between the windbreaks and beach towels, the piles of clothes, picnic baskets and yellow and green striped folding chairs. One mother peeled a wet swimsuit off her little daughter and rubbed her vigorously. The child chattered and danced. A short-legged white terrier with a black spot over one eye hurtled past, paws cutting deep and tossing crumbs of sand.

  The ice-cream van was leaving and the last person in the queue was walking away licking his ice-cream. Paul and Jenna sat on one of the huge boulders.

  “I don’t think this is the place we sat on New Year’s Day,” said Jenna, looking fur
ther along the beach.

  He shook his head. “No, that’s along there a bit.”

  There was something about the way he was holding himself, the way his eyes moved.

  “Are you feeling dizzy?”

  “Just a bit.” He turned his head to her. “Thank you, Jenna.”

  She took his hand. “What for?”

  “Being with me all this time. Putting up with me. Forgiving me for what I’ve done to you.”

  She laughed gently and patted her stomach. “Specially this.”

  He bent to lick her nose playfully. “We both had fun doing that. You taste salty.”

  The beach was emptying gradually and they sat together watching the families packing up and heading home. A breath of salt wind brushed their skin as the evening wore on. Paul seemed lost in thought. Then he moved slightly and spoke.

  “I’d like to feel the sand again. On my feet.”

  His fingers didn’t work as well as they once had so Jenna helped him remove his shoes. When his feet were bare he dug his toes into the sand and scuffed it about in pleasure. He had had to put down his cameras for good some time ago but Jenna had her phone with her. She backed away from him, raising it.

  “Smile!”

  He broke into such a smile that her heart lifted as she took the picture. It was one of his broad, lopsided smiles that crinkled his nose and lifted his beautiful mouth into a curve that raised the sparse flesh on his cheekbones. Feeling relieved, she gazed along the yellow beach and breathed in deeply.

  “I’d like to go for a run,” she said. “Would you mind?”

  “Go for it, baby! I’ll enjoy the sight.”

  With a bounce of delight she sprinted away, running, running, running, leaping over sandcastles abandoned to the sea. Running, running, running over clumps of seaweed, patches of shells, three jellyfish. On and on she ran until, panting, she slowed to long, loping strides and turned in a long arc. She stopped to get her breath and saw that she had run farther than she realised. Her breasts tingled and she spoke to the tiny baby inside her.

  “I had to do that before you turn me into a whale!”

  She searched the edge of the line of boulders for Paul. When she spotted him he was a tiny figure far away, so far away from her. Terror hit her with the suddenness of a boxer’s punch. Last time they had come here he had made her confess to being scared, to being a maker of footprints, a maker of nothing. She dropped to her heels and covered her face with her hands. Will I go back to that? I am so besotted with him will I crumble when he leaves me? Can I face this? Can I? How many times had that question been asked already? She dropped her hands and sought him out again. I have to. I must. She crouched until the pit of her stomach was calm again.

  As she trotted close to him she could see he was still pressing his feet into the sand that he had loosened with his toes. He looked up to smile. His eyes were still so bright she could see the blue of them even at this distance. They were still moving slightly oddly; there was just something about his gaze that she could not quite identify.

  “That was Olympian!” he declared. “Feel good?”

  She fingered her hair to straighten it. “Wonderful. Soon I won’t be able to do that.” She looked at the sky. “It’s getting cooler. Maybe we should go in.”

  He held out a hand and she took it, drew into his side as he spoke. “Jenna, have we said all we need to say to each other?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want you to find that there are things you wished you’d said. And I don’t want to leave anything out that I want to say to you.”

  She thought. Finally she shook her head. “We’ve done a lot of talking. I can’t answer for you, but I think you’ve endured everything I have to say.”

  He drew her into an embrace. “Good. For it will be a long time apart, but still it will be only moments.”

  Her chin wobbled as she tried to smile for him. “I think that must be the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.”

  He tilted his head and mused for a moment. “Nope. I don’t think it’s the stupidest. There are a few other candidates for that.”

  She punched him gently. “You always were a charmer!”

  When she helped him up to walk slowly to the hotel she looked back at the place where they had been sitting and saw the two firm prints he had left in the sand.

  Their room was large, mulberry and green on the bedspread and curtains. There was a bay window that overlooked the sea. The beach was close below them, just beyond a short apron of grass. Paul stood propped against the edge of the window and Jenna leaned against him as he circled her with his arms and pulled her back against his body. Together they looked out at the tide swirling closer through the closing dusk, but still some distance away.

  “I don’t want to get any worse, Jenna,” he whispered. “It’s not fair on you.”

  She gave a little snort. “Me? It’s not too great for you either.” She turned in his arms to face him. “We’ll manage. A day at a time. That’s the pact we made, remember.”

  She always remembered the intensity with which he gazed at her then. His eyes picked up a shimmer of light as his mouth came down on hers. In that window alcove above the sea, Jenna abandoned herself to an abundance, an overflowing of love and care that streamed from him in a tide that was as ceaseless as that beyond the window. His arms strained to find their old strength and to mould her to him; his mouth and fingers traced the contours of her face as if he had not already imprinted them on his mind. She responded with all her heart and yet this was love, not passion. They were burning a brand on time and space, saying we are here, together, now; whatever has passed, whatever is to come, we are here, together, now. It was a declaration of all that they meant to each other, all that they had found in each other, and a lament for all that they would lose.

  Paul woke in the middle of the night, feeling drugged. His head hurt as he raised himself to look down at Jenna who was sleeping on her back beside him. She was getting more beautiful every day. Her skin glowed, her hair shone and her face was filling out a little, giving her the contours of a new maturity. Her nightgown was rumpled round her and he moved it aside across her stomach. Despite the pain in his head he bent slowly to kiss the soft skin above the slight swell of her womb.

  “I love you, my son,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and fading. “Be good. Make up for your bad old Dad.”

  He did not know how he knew it was a boy. The knowledge was simply there. Jenna stirred and turned onto her side. A tiny smile flitted across her lips and vanished. She must be dreaming. He tried to whisper something to her too but his voice would not work again. He had said his last words.

  Carefully he swung round and dropped his feet to the floor. He waited with his eyes closed while the pulse of nausea stopped beating. Something was draining from him; he could feel it on his skin, seeping silently from deep inside, a falling away.

  He held his robe round him, unable to put his arms into the sleeves. By leaning along the end of the bed, he made his way through the near dark to the bay window. He was so tired, so tired. He sank into the soft chair that faced out to sea and propped his head against the wing of it. He could see the stars. That was good. He wanted to see the stars. Below them the sea was very near the top of the shore. He could not hear the roar of the breakers but he could see them, line after line, crashing into tossed braids of white foam that cut across the night.

  Swirl after swirl of lace edged across the beach, closer and closer, creeping inexorably towards the footprints he had planted firmly and deliberately in the sand. Calmly he watched the sea coming to erase them until sight faded from his eyes.

  A softness of peace fell in feathered folds across him, a peace more certain than his loneliness or fear had ever been. All pain had gone and he felt light, so light…

  It’s all right, Jenna.

  It’s going to be OK.

  You’re going to be OK.

  I love you.

  Epilogue />
  JENNA WALKED BAREFOOT along the sand. They were not staying in the hotel overlooking the sea. Even after two years that would have been too much.

  Ahead of her, glimpsed through the crowd of chairs and children, dogs and rugs and buckets and spades, was the mixture of people that she called family. Luke was home for the university holidays and walked with a slight limp that he would never lose. Outer Mongolia would wait for a year or two. Donald bent to take a ball from a passing Labrador and throw it. The dog bounced after it, tail whipped aloft in excitement.

  Jenna smiled to see her father so relaxed. He was taking more time to himself now, slowing up and enjoying his family. She wished he might consider retirement soon, although that was perhaps too much to hope.

  Cora was sitting in a deck chair patterned with bright orange flowers, holding the pages of a magazine against the ruffling of the sea breeze. Jenna knew that magazine. It was the one that had carried pictures of the London wedding of Miss Dianne Butler and Mr Luther Chevalier. The pictures had been taken in the opulent surroundings of their exclusive art gallery. It was such a happy occasion for Miss Butler, after the tragic and untimely death of her first husband.

  Jenna was passing the hotel now, high on the shoreline. She sought out the window of the room where dawn light had silvered Paul’s body. She had stumbled to her knees to hold his still-warm hand and to realise that the moments, the long march of moments, had begun while she was unaware.

  She had been furious with him for that. Her grief had been fierce, as strong as the instant love for their son that had filled her like a wind thundering from a deep valley the moment he was put into her exhausted arms. She had traced his tiny puckered lip, from one corner, up over the first curve of the bow, down into the dip, up again over the swell of the other curve until her finger came to rest lightly at the other corner where it tucked into the swell of his plump little cheek. His father had bequeathed his own beautiful mouth to his son and the sight of it was a tug at his mother’s heart every day.