Freeing Grace (45 page)
‘I know. It’s nearly too much, isn’t it? It really hurts.’
He swallowed painfully, his throat overburdened. ‘Leila . . . just come home.’
I was the getaway driver.
Matt stretched out along the back seat, both arms across his face. Debs sat beside me with her eyes closed. I kept glancing at her. Now that she’d stopped pretending, she looked as pale as death.
‘D’you need anything?’ I asked. ‘Shall I stop at the chemist?’
She half opened her eyes. ‘No, drive on, James,’ she murmured drowsily.
The bell was clanging as we came to the level crossing, and its barriers were just going down. We seemed to sit there for about a year before the train came snorting self-importantly around the corner.
Ah, I thought, this looks like the fast train to London. The lawyers, and perhaps the judge too, would be all cosy in the buffet car, downing a hard-earned gin and discussing the case. I could imagine the silver-nailed woman in her black suit, smiling sardonically. ‘Something very fishy about the whole event, if you ask me.’
The last carriage shot past us with a deafening hiss, and the barriers clunked up.
A couple of miles down the road I heard Deborah whisper, ‘It was you.’
I did a double take. ‘What?’
‘You. You made your cryptic remark in the lift, then shot off. It was so
true
, what you said. Matt let poor Stuart get out of earshot, then he said, “Jake’s right.” ’
I didn’t comment. I was wondering whether it was really me, or whether Matt had already changed his mind.
‘So we went into a little huddle on the stairwell. I pretended to argue with him, but my heart wasn’t in it. I think he’d been battling with himself all morning, and Leila—with your help—showed him the way out. She truly,
desperately
wants Grace, and he no longer believes that we do. He says Grace will be lucky to have Leila fighting in her corner.’
‘Well, I think he’s got a point.’
‘Mm. I played devil’s advocate because I didn’t want to feel guilty later. I needed the decision to be made for the right reasons.’
‘And nothing to do with Rod.’
‘Yes. Yes, exactly. Matt reminded me about Perry’s note:
Now we are
ALL free.
That’s a very careful, very specific choice of words, don’t you think? Matt is convinced that Perry
intended
to spring the trap. That’s why he . . . you know. Did it.’ She trailed off into silence.
‘Matt’s a good father,’ I said. ‘He did the right thing. He let her go.’
And so was Perry, I thought. In the end, he was. He cut through the knot in the only way he could. He let them all go.
When she next spoke, even her voice was pale. ‘That woman, Leila . . . I think she will do a good job, if anyone can. She cared enough to break the rules. She was even prepared to have us hanging around her neck forever.’
Our road crawled into a tunnel of trees at the edge of Coptree Woods. Shadows slithered across Deborah’s face, and her eyes seemed to sink into their sockets.
‘I wish I could have got to know her,’ she said quietly. ‘I feel impoverished, because I never shall.’
It was after dark by the time we drew up at the house. I think we all felt strange about being back there. It radiated hopelessness, somehow.
There were lights on in the hall, and as we climbed wearily out of the car a lean figure appeared in the doorway. For a surreal moment I thought Perry had come out to meet us. Then I saw who it was.
‘Lucy,’ I called, taking a step towards her. As I moved closer, I heard a muffled cry before she hurtled across the gravel and collided with me.
Poor Lucy. She must have been waiting all afternoon, alone in that house. She must have been alone there when the darkness came. Perhaps she’d gone out onto the back lawn and found what the wasps had left behind. I put my arms around her, and she pressed her face against me. I could feel her shoulders shaking. We stood like that for a long time. To be honest, it made me feel better, too.
I stayed with them until after the funeral. They asked me to, and it seemed right. There was no need for me to hurry away any more. There would be no baby howling through the nights and absorbing all their time and love. So I was with them when the undertaker came to ask stupid questions about what sort of wood they wanted for the coffin, and which fabric for the lining. I was there when Stuart Forsyth arrived to discuss the will, and Deborah had to grovel to him for not telling the truth in court. I was there to take down the cot and stash it in the attic.
I was there when Matt and Deborah set out for their farewell visit with Grace.
Eventually, the coroner released Perry’s body. There was no suspicion that his death had been anything other than suicide. He’d been on antidepressants for years, living his half life: a wild black panther in a cage at the back of the zoo. He’d known exactly what he was doing, and made an efficient job of it. Well, you wouldn’t expect anything less of the man.
They burned him on the following Thursday. The undertaker warned us that the crematorium would be squeezing us in between two others. It’s a peak time, he said, as though everyone rushes to get their dying done before Christmas.
The army sent four massive young soldiers to act as pallbearers, and Matt and I helped them carry Perry into the chapel on our shoulders. The coffin was much heavier than I expected. I imagined Perry, the ultimate in dignity, jolting around in there. I was relieved when we were able to put him down.
It’s grim, you know, the carry-on down at the crematorium. They had this electric organ, and the sound it made was truly tacky, like something at a fairground. Lucy looked stunned. Deborah got sort of hysterical giggles, more sobs than anything. She managed to hide it behind the handkerchief I lent her. My mum always nagged me to carry a large, clean hanky at all times. ‘In case you meet a girl who’s crying,’ she’d say. I’d obediently made it a habit all these years although I’d never bumped into any crying girls. But now, at last, good old Mum was proved right. I made a mental note to tell her, next time I phoned.
When the coffin started sinking in slow motion into that terrible pit, to the jolly accompaniment of the hurdy-gurdy, it was like something out of
Star Wars.
I swear I could see smoke rising from the black depths, and then I needed my hanky back because my nose was running. Bloody hay fever.
The undertaker had hired some caterers, and we had an after-match bash in the church hall, which was all decorated with holly and tinsel ready for a Christmas disco. People who hadn’t seen Perry for years said nice things about him. Superb leader, brilliant in the field, admired and trusted by his men. You can imagine the kind of stuff.
I took Matt away early, though. We’d both had enough. We wanted to be home.
‘I’m so fucking
sick
of saying goodbye,’ he snarled, as we drove away from the crematorium.
I glanced at the muscled figure hunched in my passenger seat. He looked older than I felt. And he was just a kid. By rights he should have been rattling on about which girls he fancied, or which band had broken up, or how to download a ringtone. But he wasn’t. He was a son, mourning a father. And he was a father, mourning the child he’d lost. And he was grieving for the child’s mother, too.
I drove on, into the woods.
‘He was my dad,’ he said. ‘To them he was friggin’ Lawrence of Arabia. But he was just my dad. I should have been there for him. I should’ve . . .’
I pulled over, sliding to a halt in the mud. ‘He was a soldier,’ I said.
‘He weighed up the situation, and he came to a decision. It wasn’t your fault.’
Matt fumbled for the door handle and just about fell out. He slammed the door behind him, and the violence of it made rooks wheel above the trees. I hopped down and walked around to his side. He was leaning against the truck, both hands spread out on the roof.
‘I feel as though Grace died too,’ he said, gulping. ‘But there’s no grave to put flowers on.’
I rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘No, mate. She’s not dead. She’s still your daughter.’
‘Going to see her . . .’ He was battling for control. He pinched the top of his nose. Then he turned and sank down in the fallen leaves, his back against the front wheel. ‘Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Hardest thing. I had to say goodbye to my little girl with them watching me.’
He lost it completely then. He covered the back of his head with his hands, a boy soldier under mortar fire, and the great shoulders began to heave. I knelt on the damp earth beside him, and waited. It was peaceful, in the woods.
‘She was beautiful,’ he whispered.
‘Always will be, mate.’ I said. ‘Always will be.’
In those first few days after Perry died, Lucy stayed with us at Coptree. She was in a hell of a state. Couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat. Sometimes she’d just go and sit at Perry’s desk.
She spent hours holed up in Matt’s room too. I’d hear their voices, late into the night. One time, she came and perched on my bed. She talked, and cried, and my hankie came in useful again. She could hardly stand to be in the same room as Deborah: she still blamed her, at least partially, for Perry’s despair. Debs tried to talk to her, but met a stone wall. It all made for a bit of an atmosphere.
They had to blow up eventually, and it happened the morning after the funeral. Lucy was leaving. She planned to catch up on urgent work at Stanton’s, then spend Christmas with some old friends.When I came downstairs for breakfast, the war was already raging in the kitchen. I stood in the hall like a complete muppet, my hand on the door handle, wondering whether I should try to break it up.
Lucy was insisting she was going to take Perry’s ashes and bury them in her mother’s plot, and have Perry’s name added to the headstone, and Deborah was saying no, Lucy most certainly
wasn’t
going to do that, they were going to scatter him in a gale like he’d wanted. Lucy started shouting that no, Perry would want to be with Victoria, because she was the love of his life and Deborah was just a fancy whore who’d betrayed him and driven him to suicide; he and Victoria, she said, must be together in death.
Then I heard Deborah laughing—she sounded a bit mad to me—and she yelled, ‘How sweet! Like bloody Heathcliff and Cathy!’
All of a sudden, the door handle was wrenched from my hand—just about dislocated my wrist—and Lucy came shooting out and barged into me, nearly knocking me over.
‘I’m going,’ she gasped. She wouldn’t look at me.
I turned to pick up her bag from where she’d left it in the hall, but she growled, ‘I can carry that myself,’ and stormed past me and outside.
I followed her. It was cold and perfectly still. The lilac tree looked as though it had frozen to death. She’d stopped beside her car, staring up at the clouds with bloodshot eyes.
‘Sorry, Jake. Sorry.’
I looked up too. The sky was pallid and heavy. ‘He was tired of being ill, Luce. He wanted it to end, for his own sake and everybody else’s.’
‘But she still could have lifted him out of it. If she’d loved him enough.’
‘Forgive her. She did her best.’
‘But if I don’t blame her, I have to blame myself . . . And even
him.
How could he do this to me? How could he? He didn’t even say goodbye.’
‘Nobody’s to blame,’ I said firmly. But I was thinking about how I’d left Perry alone, poured his whisky down the sink.
She buried her face in the wool of my jersey, and her voice was muffled. ‘I can’t cope, Jake. I can’t see my way through, I can’t imagine how life can go on . . . This is too big for me.’
After a few minutes she dragged a tissue out of her sleeve, blew her nose, and smiled wanly at her own distress. She was far too pale.
‘Better go,’ she whispered shakily.
‘You shouldn’t drive,’ I fussed, but she shook her head.
‘I’m okay now,’ she said. ‘Really, I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll say sorry to Deborah, and we’ll talk . . . but not today.’
I opened her car door for her.
‘Thanks, Jake.’ She laid a hand on my hair. ‘Each one of us owes you thanks, including Dad. I saw you weeping for him at the crematorium. That’s something I never thought I’d see.’
‘Hay fever. All the lilies.’
‘Ah, of
course
it was. You’ve even led the prodigal son back onto the path of righteousness. I can’t think how you managed that.’ She kissed me solemnly on both cheeks, slid into the car and started the engine. I shut her door.
‘So. Tell me. Which of us were you in love with?’ she asked, through the open window. ‘Which of the four of us?’
Smiling, I shook my head. ‘All of you.’
And in a way, it was the truth.
‘But what about
her
? The viper?’
‘Deborah Harrison is . . . how did you put it? The most dishonest and manipulative woman I have ever met.’
I wasn’t expecting her to believe me, and she didn’t.
‘You’re not fooling anyone.’ A tear meandered its way wearily down her face. She reached out a knuckle to nudge my cheek. ‘Poor Jake. She got you, didn’t she? After all these years, Jake Kelly finally got bitten. There’s no antidote.’
I didn’t argue with her.
She wiped her face and laughed sadly. ‘Go home, Jake. Go home. Go and buy that vineyard. There aren’t any snakes in New Zealand, are there?’
She let out the clutch, and I stood back as she swept regally by in a spray of mud and gravel. I watched her car as it disappeared between the trees. My friend, Lucy.
Go home, Jake.
I didn’t know Deborah was beside me until she spoke. ‘I don’t think Perry would want to end up in an army cemetery, do you?’
‘Probably not.’
Just above us a group of seagulls swirled around, mewing like cats. Debs squinted up at them. ‘But what do I know? I’m just a fancy whore.’
‘True.’
‘Well, thank God that’s all over. We’ve got past the dreaded funeral.’ She linked her arm through mine and we began to stroll down the lane, away from the house, like two old twerps in a National Trust garden.
‘Coptree without Perry,’ she said with a strange little laugh. ‘He had extraordinary power. The place seems insipid without his presence.’