Missing Joseph (45 page)

The second part of the scrapbook, however, spoke of the cost of having lived that same history. It comprised a collection of newspaper clippings and magazine articles about automobile racing. Interspersed among these were photographs of men. For the first time, Juliet saw that
he died in a car crash, darling
had assumed heroic proportions in Maggie's imagination, and from Juliet's reticence on the subject had sprung a father whom Maggie could love. Her fathers were the winners at Indianapolis, at Monte Carlo, at Le Mans. They spun out in flames on a track in Italy, but they walked away with their heads held high. They lost wheels, they crashed, they broke open champagne and waved trophies in the air. They all shared the single quality of being alive.

Juliet closed the book and rested her hands on its cover. It was all about protection, she said inside her head to a Maggie who wasn't there. When you're a mother, Maggie, the last thing you can bear of all the things that you have to bear anyway is losing your child. You can bear just about anything else and you usually have to at one time or another—losing your possessions, your home, your job, your lover, your husband, even your way of life. But losing a child is what will break you. So you don't take risks that might lead to the loss because you're always aware that the one risk you take might be the one that will cause all the horrors in the world to sweep into your life.

You don't know this yet, darling, because you haven't experienced that moment when the twisting squeezing crush of your muscles and the urge to expel and to scream at once results in this small mass of humanity that squalls and breathes and comes to rest against your stomach, naked to your nakedness, dependent upon you, blind at that moment, hands instinctively trying to clutch. And once you close those fingers round one of your own…no, not even then…once you look at this life that you've created, you know you'll do anything, suffer anything, to protect it. Mostly for its own sake you protect, of course, because all it is really is living, breathing need. But partly you protect it for your own.

And that is the greatest of my sins, darling Maggie. I reversed the process and I lied in doing it because I couldn't face the immensity of loss. But I'll tell the truth now, here, and to you. What I did I did partly for you, my daughter. But what I did all those years ago, I did mostly for myself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I
DON'T THINK WE SHOULD STOP YET, Nick,” Maggie said as stoutly as she could manage. Her jaw hurt awfully from locking her teeth together to keep them from chattering, and the tips of her fingers were numb despite the fact that she'd kept her hands balled into her pockets for most of the journey. She was tired of walking and muscle-weary from leaping behind hedges, over walls, or into ditches whenever they heard the sound of a car. But it was still relatively early, although it was dark, and she knew that in darkness lay their best hope of escape.

They'd kept off the road whenever possible, heading southwest towards Blackpool. The going was rough on both farmland and moors, but Nick wouldn't hear of setting foot to pavement until they'd put Clitheroe a good five miles behind them. Even then, he wouldn't hear of taking the main road to Longridge where, the plan was, they would get a ride in a lorry to Blackpool. Instead, he said, they would stick to the twisty turny back lanes, skirting by farms, through hamlets, and over fields when necessary. The route he was taking made Longridge miles and miles farther away, but it was safer this way and she'd be glad they'd taken it. In Longridge, he said, no one would look at them twice. But until then, they had to keep off the road.

She didn't have a watch, but she knew it couldn't be much more than eight or half past. It seemed later, but that was because they were tired, it was cold, and the food Nick had managed to bring back to the car park from the town had long since been consumed. There had been little enough of it in the first place—what
could
one reasonably be expected to purchase with less than three pounds?—and while they'd divided it evenly between them and talked about making it last until morning, they'd eaten the crisps first, moved on to the apples to quench their thirst, and devoured the small package of biscuits to answer their craving for a sweet. Nick had been smoking steadily since that time to take the edge off his hunger. Maggie had tried to ignore her own, which had been easy enough to do since it was more than convenient to concentrate on the bitter cold instead. Her ears ached with it.

Nick was clambering over a drystone wall when Maggie said again, “It's too early to stop, Nick. We haven't gone nearly far enough. Where're you going, anyway?”

He pointed to three squares of yellow light some distance across the field in which he stood, on the other side of the wall. “Farm,” he said. “They'll have a barn. We can doss there.”

“In a
barn?
”

He brushed back his hair. “What'd you think, Mag? We don't have any money. We can't exactly get a room somewhere, can we?”

“But I thought…” She hesitated, squinting at the lights. What
had
she thought? Get away, run off, never again see anyone but Nick, stop thinking, stop wondering, find a place to hide.

He was waiting. He dug inside his jacket and brought out his Marlboros. He shook the pack against his hand. The last cigarette popped into his palm. He began to crumple the pack and Maggie said:

“P'rhaps you ought to save the last one. For later. You know.”

“Nah.” He crushed the pack and dropped it. He lit up as she picked her way up the loose stones and over the wall. She rescued the pack from the weeds and carefully smoothed it, folded it, and put it into her pocket.

“Trail,” she said in explanation. “If they're looking for us, we don't want to leave a trail, do we? If they're looking.”

He nodded. “Right. Come on, then.” He grabbed her hand and headed in the direction of the lights.

“But why're we stopping now?” she asked once again. “It's too early, don't you think?”

He looked at the night sky, at the position of the moon. “Perhaps,” he said and smoked thoughtfully for a moment. “Look. We'll rest up here a while and doss somewhere else later. Aren't you feeling clapped out? Don't you want to have a sit?”

She did. Only she was also feeling that if she sat anywhere, she might not be able to get back up. Her school shoes weren't the best for walking, and she thought that once her head sent her feet the false message that their evening's walk was at an end, her feet mightn't cooperate in setting off again in an hour or so.

“I don't know…” She shivered.

“And you need to warm up,” he said decisively and began to lead her towards the lights.

The field they walked across was pasture, the ground uneven. It was littered with sheep droppings that looked like shadows against the frost. Maggie stepped into a pile of these, felt her shoe slither among them, and nearly went down. Nick righted her with a “Mag, you got to watch for the muck,” and then he added with a laugh, “Lucky they don't have cows here.” He clasped her arm and offered her a share of his cigarette. She took it politely, sucked in on it, and blew the smoke through her nose.

“You c'n have the rest,” she said.

He seemed glad to do so. He picked up their pace to cross the pasture but slowed abruptly as they neared the other side. A large flock of sheep were huddled together against the pasture's far wall, like mounds of dirty snow in the darkness. Nick said in a low voice something that seemed to be, “Hey, ah, ishhhh,” as they slowly closed in on the flock's perimeter. He extended his hand before him. As if in response, the animals jostled one another to allow Nick and Maggie passage, but they neither panicked, bleated, nor began to move off.

“You know what to do,” Maggie said and felt a tingle behind her eyes. “Nick, why d'you always know just what to do?”

“It's only sheep, Mag.”

“But you know. I love that about you, Nick. You know the right thing.”

He looked towards the farmhouse. It stood beyond a paddock and another set of walls. “I know with sheep,” he said.

“Not only sheep,” she said. “Truly.”

He crouched next to the wall, easing a ewe to one side. Maggie crouched next to him. He rolled his cigarette between his fingers and after a moment drew a long breath as if to speak. She waited for his words, then said herself, “What?” He shook his head. His hair fell forward across his forehead and cheek and he concentrated solely on finishing his cigarette. Maggie clasped his arm and leaned against him. It was pleasant here, with the wool and the breath of the animals to warm them. She could almost think of staying the night in this very spot. She raised her head.

“Stars,” she said. “I always wished I could name them. But all I ever could find was the North Star because it's brightest. It's…” She twisted round. “It should be…” She frowned. If Longridge was to the west of Clitheroe, with just the smallest jog to the south, the North Star should be…Where was its bright shining?

“Nick,” she said slowly, “I can't find the North Star. Are we lost?”

“Lost?”

“I think we're going in the wrong direction because the North Star isn't where—”

“We can't go by the stars, Mag. We have to go by the land.”

“What d'you mean? How d'you know what direction you're heading in if you go by the land?”

“Because I know. Because I've lived here forever. We can't go climbing up and down fells in the middle of the night which is what we'd be doing if we headed direct west. We have to go round them.”

“But—”

He crushed his cigarette against the sole of his shoe. He stood. “Come on.” He climbed the wall and reached back over to hold her hand as she did the same. He said, “We've got to be quiet now. There'll be dogs.”

They slipped across the paddock in near silence, the only noise coming from their shoe soles crackling against the frost-covered ground. At the last wall, Nick hunched over, raised his head slowly, and examined the area. Maggie watched him from below, hunkered against the wall, gripping her knees.

“Barn's on the far side of the yard,” he said. “Looks like solid muck, though. It's going to be messy. Hold on to me tight.”

“Any dogs?”

“I can't see. But they'll be about.”

“But Nick, if they bark or chase us, what'll—”

“Don't worry. Come on.”

He climbed over. She followed, scraping her knee across the very top stone and feeling the corresponding rip in her tights. She gave a little mewl when she felt the quick heat of abrasion against her skin. But to feel a scratch was baby business at this point. She allowed herself neither a wince nor a hobble as she dropped to the ground. It was thick with bracken along the edge of the wall, but rutted and muck-filled as it gave onto the farmyard itself. Once they left the protective cushion of the bracken, each step they took
smick-smacked
loudly with suction. Maggie felt her feet sinking into the muck, felt the muck seeping over the sides of her shoes. She shuddered. She was whispering, “Nick, my feet keep getting stuck,” when the dogs appeared.

They announced themselves by yapping first. Then three border collies tore across the farmyard from the out-buildings, barking wildly and baring their teeth. Nick shoved Maggie behind him. The dogs slithered to a stop less than six feet away, snapping, snarling, and ready to spring.

Nick held out his hand.

Maggie whispered, “Nick! No!” and watched the farm-house fearfully, waiting for the door to crash open and the farmer himself to come storming out. He'd be shouting and red in the face and angry. He'd phone the police. They were trespassing after all.

The dogs began to howl.

“Nick!”

Nick squatted. He said, “Hey-o, come on, you funny blokes. You can't scare me,” and he whistled to them softly.

It was just like magic. The dogs quieted, stepped forward, sniffed his hand, and within an instant became old friends. Nick petted them in turn, laughing quietly, tugging at their ears. “You won't hurt us, will you, funny old blokes?” In answer, they wagged their tails and one of them licked Nick's face. When Nick stood, they surrounded him happily and acted as escort into the yard.

Maggie looked round at the dogs in wonder as she carefully sloshed through the mud. “How'd you
do
that? Nick!”

He took her hand. “It's only dogs, Mag.”

The old stone barn was a section of one elongated building, and it stood across the yard from the house. It directly abutted a narrow cottage on whose first floor a curtained window was lit. This had probably been the original farm building, a granary with a cart-shed beneath it. The granary had been converted sometime in the past to house a worker and his family, and its living quarters were gained by means of a stairway that led up to a cracked red door above which a sole bulb was now glowing. Beneath, lay the cart-shed with its single unglazed window and its gaping arch of a door.

Nick looked from the cart-shed to the barn. The latter was enormous, an ancient cow-house that was falling into disuse. Moonlight illumined its sagging roofline, its uneven row of pitching eyes on the upper storey, and its large wooden doors with their gaps and their warping. As the dogs sniffed round their shoes and as Maggie hugged herself against the cold and waited for him to lead her onward, Nick appeared to evaluate the possibilities and finally slogged through a heavier patch of muck towards the cart-shed.

“Aren't there people up there?” Maggie whispered, pointing to the quarters above it.

“I s'pose. We'll just have to be real quiet. It'll be warmer in here. The barn's too big and it's facing the wind. Come on.”

He led her beneath the stairway where the arched door gave entrance into the cart-shed. Inside, the light from above the labourer's front door at the top of the stairs provided a meagre, match-strength illumination through the cart-shed's single window. The dogs followed them, milling about what was apparently their sleeping quarters, for several chewed-up blankets lay in a corner on the stone floor and the dogs went there eventually, where they sniffed, pawed, and sank into the pungent wool.

The cold outside seemed to magnify in the stone walls and floor of the shed. Maggie tried to comfort herself with the thought that it was just like where the baby Jesus was born—except there hadn't been any dogs there as far as she could recall from her limited knowledge of Christmas stories—but odd squeakings and rustlings from the deep pockets of darkness in the corners of the shed made her uneasy.

She could see that the shed was used for storage. There were big burlap sacks piled along one wall, dirty buckets, tools she couldn't have named, a bicycle, a wooden rocking chair with its wicker seat missing, and a toilet lying on its side. Against the far wall stood a dusty chest of drawers, and Nick went to this. He shimmied open the top drawer and said, with some excitement in his voice, “Hey, look at this, Mag. We've had ourselves some luck.”

She picked her way through the debris on the floor. Out of the drawer he was taking a blanket. And then another. They were both large and fluffy. They seemed perfectly clean. Nick shoved the drawer partially closed. The wood howled. The dogs lifted their heads. Maggie held her breath and listened for a betraying movement in the labourer's quarters above them. Dimly, she could hear someone talking—a man, then a woman, followed by dramatic music and the sound of gunfire—but no one came in search of them.

“The telly,” Nick said. “We're safe.”

He cleared a space on the floor, spread the first blanket down, doubling it up to serve as both cushion against the stones and insulation against the cold, and beckoned her to join him. The second he wrapped round them, saying, “This'll work for now. Feel warmer, Mag?” and drew her close.

She
did
feel warmer at once, although she fingered the blanket and smelled the fresh lavender scent of it with a twinge of doubt. She said, “Why do they keep their blankets out here? They'll get messed up, won't they? Won't they get rotten or something?”

“Who cares? It's our luck and their loss, isn't it? Here. Lie down. Nice, that, isn't it? Warmer, Mag?”