Owning Jacob - SA (17 page)

'It's nothing to do with me,' she'd said, indifferently. 'He's John's kid, not mine.'

"But you're his wife. Can't you-?'

"No, I can't,' she'd cut in. 'So why don't you just fuck off?' It took an effort not to shout at her. I'm not going to just give up.' i He could hear her breathing. You would if you'd any sense,'

she'd said, ending the conversation.

But he couldn't The alternative was to let each month put more distance between himself and Jacob. The boy was only six, and autistic He didn't make the normal associations, might not remember a relationship with someone from a half-forgotten life. And then Ben's last memories of his marriage to Sarah, the family he'd thought he'd had, would be proved ultimately worthless, would turn to dust and blow away.

He stopped playing with his beer and took a drink of it instead. 'I just don't know what else I can do,' he said, setting down the glass. 'Kale's already made up his mind, and I can't see him having a spontaneous change of heart.' The cigar sent aromatic smoke around Colin's head. 'Is there anyone else you could speak to? Somebody like a neighbour or friend, who could act as an intermediary. Talk some sense into them.'

'I don't think so,' Ben said. But even as he spoke he'd already thought of someone.

It was the first Saturday he had taken off in weeks, since the hangover hel after the night with Zoe. He woke early and cooked himself scrambled eggs and gril ed tomatoes. He ate them at the kitchen table, which seemed too big now he was the only person who sat at it. Afterwards he was stil hungry, so he had a dish of cereal. He'd noticed he was tasting his food more since he had cut down on the joints.

He would have set off straightaway, except for the feeling that he ought to visit the cemetery. He'd only been once since the funeral, but that didn't bother him. He didn't feel the need to stand over a patch of ground when he carried thoughts of Sarah around with him every day. That morning, though, he

' It an impulse to go.

The wind held a hint of rain as he made his way to the I

grave. Sarah had told him that she wanted to be buried during a drunken 'when I die' conversation one night. Ben had said he wanted to be cremated except for his penis, which she could save as a keepsake. The memory of her laughter was carried away on the wind before he had a chance to smile.

The grave was part of a row of other new ones. There was no stone yet because the ground had to be left to settle.

The grass was growing over it nicely, though, which pleased him. He put the flowers he'd brought in one of the two earthenware vases at the grave's head. Someone, her parents probably, had recently left another bunch. They were nearly dead, but he left them where they were because he didn't want to risk upsetting her mother by throwing them away.

He felt a twinge of conscience that he hadn't been in touch since the whole mess with Jacob had come out. He hadn't wanted to make things worse, but enough time had passed now to soften what had happened. Wiping his hands dry, he told Sarah that he would make the effort, but reminded her that her mother was a difficult cow, so he couldn't promise anything.

He stood remembering while the wind plucked at him, then went back to his car.

Irthlington was ten miles north of Tunford. Ben came off the motorway at the same junction and fol owed the same route for a while before turning off. The road signs led him past an industrial estate and then back out into a brief splash of green countryside before the town began.

The house was on a short terraced row with a corner shop at one end and a rubble-511ed space bordered by a tal wire fence at the other. Inside it were yel ow JCBs and workmen's huts, quiet and deserted for the weekend. A lot of the houses were boarded up, waiting their turn at demolition. Others were obviously stil tenanted. The number Ben ivas looking for had neat flowered curtains and a colourful vindow box on the downstairs sil . H parked outside and climbed from his car before he had chance to have second thoughts about what he was doing.

He didn't know what he hoped to gain by visiting Jeanette Kale's parents. He had no reason to think they would have any more time for him than Kale. Kale had lost a wife, they'd lost a daughter, and Ben was the nearest thing to a scapegoat they had. When he'd seen them interviewed on TV, though, Ron and Mary Paterson hadn't seemed bitter. He thought they might be prepared to listen to him, if nothing else.

It wasn't much to hang a Saturday morning on, but it was al he had Ei. The Patersons had moved out of London after their

' grandson went missing. Ben had traced them by going through the recent newspaper reports in the library until he found a reference to the town where 'baby Steven's' grandparents now lived. Then he had gone through the telephone directory until he found their address. He'd considered phoning before making the journey, but in the end he'd decided not to.

Over the phone it would have been too easy for them to say no.

He knocked on the door. It was grimy from the dust thrown up by the destruction of its neighbours, but the underlying blue paint was sound. They're not going to be in, he thought, but was proved wrong by a muffled 'It's not locked'.

He went inside. The door opened straight into the kitchen.

The wal s were covered with a yel ow floral paper. In the doorway a smal rubber mat covered the brown-and-cream swirl-patterned carpet. A sturdy drop-leaf table stood against the wal facing him, a potted geranium in its centre. There was a smel of old cooking, not rancid like the Kales', but one that spoke of Yorkshire puddings and roast meats. It reminded Ben of his childhood visits to his grandparents.

An elderly man was standing by the sink. He wore brown pleated trousers and a white vest. A peeled hard-boiled egg was in one hand, while the other was cupped underneath it to catch the crumbs. He looked at Ben without saying anything, flecks of yolk around his mouth. Ben recognised him from the TV as Jeanette Kale's father. He felt suddenly embarrassed at seeing him like that, knowing he wasn't whoever the man had been expecting.

He hovered in the doorway, uncertainly. 'I'm sorry, I heard you say it wasn't locked. I'm Ben Murray-'

'I know who you are.' Paterson turned back to the sink and went on eating the egg. He pushed it into his mouth and delicately brushed his lips with his fingers.

I'm sorry if I caught you by surprise.' Ben somehow felt he was the one at a disadvantage.

Smal dewlaps of flesh swung under Paterson's arms as he wiped his hands on a towel. He had the fleshy build of a once-powerful man overtaken by time. He hung the towel on a hook by the sink. "What do you want?' Ben was already sure it was a wasted journey. 'I'd like to talk to you and your wife. About Jacob.' If he says 'Steven' I'l turn around and jo.

'What about him?' The man's look was neither hostile nor encouraging. It compel ed Ben to be direct. 'John Kale won't let me see him.

I wondered if you could help.' Paterson turned back to the sink. 'There's nothing we can do to help you.'

'I thought you could perhaps talk to him. Explain that I'm not trying to take Jacob from him. I just … I just want to see him every now and again.' Jacob's grandfather shook his head without looking around.

Ben remained by the open front door, unable to bring himself to leave but not knowing what else there was to say. A mechanical whine came from a doorway on the other side of the kitchen.

Paterson glanced at him, then went out The noise grew louder,

an electric motor of some kind. It stopped and he heard voices.

There were other sounds he couldn't identify, and then the door at the far end was pushed back. A woman in a wheelchair came through with Paterson pushing it, and Ben realised the whine had been from a chairlift.

Mary Paterson was stick thin, with hair that must once have been red but was now turning orange from the grey in it. Her eyes were beady and dark, like a bird's as she regarded Ben.

'Shut the door,' she said.

They sat around the drop-leaf table, drinking tea. A plate of digestive biscuits had been put out next to the geranium.

Ben had taken one out of politeness and then found his hand straying back of its own accord until the plate was half empty.

He didn't even like digestives.

'She left him, you see,' Mary said. She was stil in her wheelchair, lower than either Ben or her husband, who sat in the hard-backed dining chairs. She looked like a wrinkled child.

'She came back to live with us a few months after Steven - after Jacob,' she corrected herself, annoyed at the slip, '... after Jacob went missing. We'd moved back up here by then. We'd only gone down to London to be near my sister, when Ron took his early redundancy. But after what happened at the hospital … Wel , you tel yourself it isn't your fault, but if Jeanette hadn't come down to stay with us …' She left the sentence unfinished. 'John never said as much, but we always felt he blamed us. Partly, anyway. And then when she left him and came home that was the final straw.

I don't think he ever forgave us for that.'

'But Jacob's your grandson. Surely you're entitled to see him.' She looked across at her husband. A wordless message seemed to pass between them. 'So are you. But with John Kale that doesn't make a lot of difference, does it?' Ben didn't know whether he was pleased to have found someone else against whom Kale was exercising his unreasonableness, or frustrated that another avenue had come to a dead end. Sympathy for the Patersons overruled either. 'What has Kale said?'

'Not a thing.' Ron Paterson broke a biscuit in half over his plate, then in half again. He had put on a shirt, explaining that he had thought Ben was a friend of his when he'd knocked on the door, a widower he went shopping with every Saturday.

He noticed what he was doing to the biscuit and put it down.

We haven't spoken to him. Only that woman. She told me not to bother phoning again.' His lips set in a stern line.

Troul-mouthed little tart.'

'Ron,' his wife warned. His nodded acknowledgment was also an apology. She turned to Ben. 'We've written, but we haven't had any reply. Not that we expected one. But you stil hope, don't you?' Not any more, Ben thought. If Kale wouldn't even let Jacob's grandparents see him, there was no chance for him. 'It isn't any of my business, but why did Jeanette leave him?' Again they shared a silent look of communication. 'He'd changed/ she said. 'He'd always been a quiet type. Deep. But after Stev … after Jacob disappeared he wasn't the same.

No disrespect intended, but it shattered him. Shattered them both, but in a different way. He got harder.' She frowned, shaking her head. 'No, not harder exactly, that's not right. But like he didn't care. And Jeanette … wel , she never real y got over it.

You'd have thought they'd have helped each other, but it went the opposite way. Perhaps Jeanette was as much to blame as John, I couldn't say. But she needed someone to support her, to help her through it. And he didn't do that. I suppose it was his way of coping with what had happened, but he just got more wrapped up in himself. More intense. They'd come I

around to see us, and he'd sit for hours, staring at nothing, not saying a word. And most of the time he was away anyway> you know, serving overseas. Jeanette was left by herself down in Aldershot So in the end she came back home.' Ben dreaded the next question, but it had to be asked.

'Kale said … he told me that it was my wife's fault that Jeanette died. What did he mean?' She didn't answer. Her husband folded his hands together on the table. His knuckles were white. She reached out and patted them. Her own hands were swol en and deformed.

'He meant she kil ed herself.' She drew in a deep breath that had only a hint of tremor in it It seemed to inflate her bony frame. 'But I don't know.' She gave her husband's hands a squeeze before removing hers from them. 'I don't know.

They say she walked out into the traffic without looking, but whether she meant to, or just didn't think …' She shook her head. 'John had been around the day before. He was on leave.

Compassionate leave.' She gave a humourless laugh at the thought 'He turned up and said she was going home with him. Like that No asking, no talking. Just straight out with it Ron told him she wasn't doing anything she didn't want to, and … and John knocked him down.' She glanced at her husband. His hands were clenched tighter than ever. He spoke without looking at either of them. 'If I'd been ten years younger he wouldn't have done it. Soldier or not' His voice was gravel y with emotion. His wife's hands twitched on her lap, as if she were about to touch him again. This time she didn't 7ohn walked out after that without another word,' sheŒ went on. 'The fol owing morning Jeanette went for a walk,Œ and the next we heard she was dead.' Oh Sarah, what did you do?

"We haven't seen John since then, except at the funeral,' Mary said. 'And he didn't speak to us there. So I don't think there's much we can do to help you. I'm sorry.'

M-5 Ben couldn't look at either of them. 'He blames me,' he said. The and my wife. He blames us for Jacob being autistic' He felt as though the words had been cut out of him. He had to go on to fil the silence that fol owed. 'The doctors say it isn't caused by anything like that, being taken from his mother, but he stil thinks it's our fault.' He heard Mary Paterson's chair creak as she stirred. 'I think sometimes things just happen. It doesn't do any good trying to guess why.'

'I'm sorry,' Ben said, and it was only after he'd said it that he realised it was the first time he had apologised for what Sarah had done.

"You've got nothing to apologise for.' She sounded weary.

"You weren't to know. And your wife … Losing a child does strange things to you. Your wife did what she did because of it, and our Jeanette did what she did. One way or another you never get over it.' That was as much absolution as Ben could hope for. He wanted to thank her, but when he looked across he saw her face was drawn and pale.

"You'l have to excuse me now,' she said. Her voice was slurred with fatigue. 'Ron…' In response her husband stood up and silently pushed her out of the room. Ben heard the chairlift start up, then her husband returned. His face was stoic.