What Have I Done? (25 page)

She stood silently for some minutes as Mark jabbed at the flames with a long branch. As she focussed, she could make out an empty tissue box, the front cover of an old cardboard file and some peanut shells. As she continued to stare, her eye was drawn to some lettering that jumped out at her from the burning matter and punctured her vision. It was just a few letters that weren’t immediately decipherable:
g… u… d… i… gudi
.

Kathryn knew at once to what those four letters referred:
Tales from Malgudi! Oh no! Oh no!
Her breath quickened as her heart thudded inside her rib cage. She began to shake. She screwed her eyes into slits to better withstand the acrid smoke, and, taking one step closer, she looked deep inside the flames.

They were all there:
Tom Jones, Portrait in Sepia, The God of Small Things.
All of them. She pictured her husband tearing through the house, a whirling dervish in search of all her concealed treasures, saw him gathering them into his crooked arms and tearing down the stairs in his haste to throw them onto the flames. Would it have brought him joy to know that
he was destroying her secrets? Yes, yes, she knew that it would.

Her mouth hung open. Putting her hand to her forehead, she looked at Mark, who returned her gaze with an unwavering, expressionless stare.

All of her books that she had hidden about the house – her friends, her distractions, her joy. He had found them and he was burning them. The discovery may not have been made today; he may have known about them for some time and had simply been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to execute his plan.

That moment was clearly now and her books were nearly gone; seconds of life remained in one or two untouched words. He was burning her novels.
Burning her books… Burning her books…
It didn’t matter how many times she repeated the horror inside her head, it didn’t make it any less distressing.

Kathryn dropped her basket, indifferent to the lemon drizzle cake that spilled onto the grass and the bottle of juice that skittered off the path, coming to rest under a shrub. She sank to her knees, unaware that dirt and soil were seeping through her skirt and discolouring her knees. She looked again at her husband, but no words came. There were no words, nothing to adequately convey what she was feeling or that would make him understand. She wanted to use words like bereft, anguish, sorrow and heartache. She knew, however, that to him they would feel like an exaggeration, a taunt, and so she could not speak them, not with it being only a couple of hours until bedtime.

It was while she sat mourning the loss of her books and her only means of escape that something else caught her eye. Sticking out from the corner of the fire was a rounded wooden knob. It was about a centimetre in diameter. Once her eyes had identified it, she quickly spotted the split legs of another and the head of another and another…

Kathryn slumped forward until her head was on the soil. She beat the ground with clenched fists, then ripped at the grass with her fingers. The sound she emitted was part cat mewl and part wail, animalistic and desperate.

‘No! No! No! Please, no!’

He had burnt her grandmother’s pegs, severing the last tangible link she had with her mother and grandmother. He had destroyed part of her history and part of Lydia’s future, removing the only things that made her whole pitiful laundry routine bearable. These little dolly shapes were her one diversion from the abuse she suffered. Whilst pegging out her bed linen, these little wooden objects enabled her to think of her grandma and of summer days in childhood, of homemade cakes and garden picnics and not the fact that she had once again been forced to remove the evidence of her husband’s torture.

Tears slid from her eyes and down into her open mouth. She sobbed without restraint. Kathryn had mastered the art of crying silently and discreetly and could even cry on the inside, allowing tears to slip down the back of her nose and throat without breaking her smile. Today this was not possible; her distress was overwhelming and all consuming.

She cried loudly as she fought for breath. Burying her dirt-covered face in her hands, she sobbed and sobbed. Every time she peeked between her fingers and glimpsed the glowing, charred remains of the little wooden splints, her tears would flow again. He had burnt her grandmother’s pegs…

She continued to sit statue-like on the dewy grass long after the flames had disappeared. In their place was a pile of smoking charcoal. Occasionally a small defiant flame would fizz and flare, but this display was always short-lived and feeble.

Kathryn became aware that it was growing dark and that she was dreadfully uncomfortable, damp, aching and covered
in dirt. It hadn’t occurred to her to finish off supper or attend to her chores; she could only focus on her distress. Standing slowly, she looked into the kitchen window and into the face of her husband, who stood on the other side of the pane with a glass of wine in his hand.

Her soot-smeared face was streaked with the paths of tears that had long since dried, leaving only tracks of salty residue. Slowly Mark’s mouth twisted into a smile and his eyes creased accordingly. He was smiling at her, but she couldn’t even pretend. She couldn’t find her happy face or her happy voice. She felt broken, broken and beyond repair.

Next morning, Kathryn felt surprisingly numb. Each time she closed her eyes, the nightmare of her burnt pegs leapt into focus. She could picture nothing else; the images consumed her every thought. She felt strangely disconnected from her surroundings and stacked the breakfast things into the dishwasher slowly.

‘You okay, Mum?’ Her son’s tone was one of concern.

Kathryn couldn’t find any words of response or her happy smile, so she simply nodded.

The chapel was busy; each boarding house occupied its usual pew. Invited parents in their finery crammed into the
narrow seats, each mummy trying to out-yummy the next. Pinstriped dads shook hands and slapped each other’s backs in congratulations at all that they had achieved: a smart suit, flash car, expensive watch and gorgeous wife. Game, set and match.

Governors and staff were dotted among the congregation, wearing their dusty graduation gowns and university colours with pride. The organ music boomed and invigorated, giving everyone who sat staring at the ornate domed ceiling a feeling of self-importance and belonging: our history, our tradition, our money well spent.

Kathryn felt all eyes scan the headmaster and his wife as they settled into their seats. She had to resist the temptation to stand and shout at the appraising eyes, ‘
Yes, I know I am wearing the blue jersey and pleated skirt again, but truth be known it’s my “chapel outfit” and you will all be seeing it for at least this year and probably the greater part of next.
’ She was wrong; no one at chapel that day would see this outfit again.

Kathryn glanced over at the masters sitting with jutting chins and narrowed eyes in their allocated seats. She knew that at least three of them would be dozing within minutes, using the ruse of deep prayer and concentration with eyes closed to catch up on sleep. They fooled no one, least of all the children, who would point and nudge at the lolling heads.

Kathryn had almost given up on the God to whom they all paid homage, but it was important that she attended nonetheless. Not to do so would be bad manners and she did enjoy the beautiful surroundings, the singing and the sight of her children, whom she watched surreptitiously from across the aisle. She wondered if every mother felt the same swell of love and pride when they studied the perfect faces of the humans they had created.

Unaware that they were being scrutinised, Lydia and
Dominic looked relaxed and natural. Dominic twitched his nose involuntarily; a tiny act that transported Kathryn back to when he was a baby. It amazed her that this boy-man was only ever a minor flinch away from the baby she had held in her arms. If she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, she could still invoke his newborn scent, a unique and intoxicating combination of baked bread and new human. Lydia had smelt quite different: fresher, with an almost citrusy tang, like a warm lemon muffin.

Kathryn watched Lydia put the nail of her index finger into her mouth and start nibbling. It made her wince. Lydia had the beautiful hands of an artist: long, tapering fingers and almond-shaped nails. It was a long-standing family joke that if she sat on her hands she would be unable to communicate; she was so expressive with them, using her palms and fingers to illustrate and emphasise every point.

Dominic sat with his fingers interlaced in his lap. His gaze was steady in the direction of the chaplain. A casual observer might think that he was transfixed by the words being dispensed from the lectern, but Kathryn knew different. From her privileged vantage point she could see that Emily Grant was sitting slightly to the right of the chaplain and was busy returning her boyfriend’s gaze with not so subtle nods, gestures and raised eyebrows. Kathryn smiled to herself, feeling like a secret had inadvertently been shared with her.

The chaplain, Tim Cattermole, was warming to his theme. He grasped both sides of the lectern, as if to add extra gravitas to his words.

‘“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Boys and girls, staff and parents, I would like you to think about that quote from the Bible while
I give my address today, the theme of which is “protection”. I want to talk about our duty to protect all that is precious and important to us, including our wonderful school and all that is in it, but also the need to protect each other, to keep each other safe from harm…’

He spoke at length about how bullies and people that harm others were the opposite of protectors, how they were in fact ‘destroyers’ of all that was good and worth protecting. Most of it went over Kathryn’s head, for she was greatly distracted by a single thought that rang out like a clear note, high and visible above everything else – that the right thing to do was ‘
to prosper you and not to harm you
’. Tim Cattermole was spot on: she should not be harmed, she should not be harmed any more; this was not why she had been created, not what her parents had raised her for, not why she had been blessed with children. Enough was enough. Kathryn Brooker did not want to be harmed any more.

She closed her eyes as the chaplain’s words rose up and danced about the keystones of the arches, waking the slumbering carvings and gargoyles. For the first time in a very long time, she prayed. ‘
Help me, please help me. I am so lonely, I am alone. I am lonely and alone amongst all of these people; I am always alone. Wherever I am and whoever I am with, I am always alone. I am asking for strength because I want to give up. I don’t think that I can do this any more. Help me, please help me
…’

In a moment of epiphany, Tim Cattermole’s words pierced her prayer and spoke directly to her. He was quoting the answer, he was giving her the solution, he was answering her prayer:

‘Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death.’

The words replayed in her head until she had little choice but to give them consideration.

After chapel, the great and the good gathered in the refectory for drinks. Kathryn was in no mood for jovial interaction with strangers, but as usual she had little choice. Mark was chatting to Dom and a group of his peers, holding court, making friends. Kathryn caught the tail end of Luca’s story.

‘… the nasty little poof.’

She correctly concluded that the boy under discussion was Jack Hollister, who had recently left school after being outed on the web by his tutor group. She had found the whole episode disgusting.

‘I don’t think you should be talking about anyone in those terms, Luca. It isn’t very nice.’

The group stared in surprise at the unusually opinionated Mrs Bedmaker.

When the last of the assembled parents and masters had scoffed enough plonk and vol-au-vents, Kathryn and Mark found themselves alone.

‘Thank you for your valuable input on the Hollister boy incident earlier, darling. Your insights will I’m sure prove most enlightening to the boys as they venture forth into the world. I find it odd that you felt the need to comment at all. It can’t be news to you that the world is indeed “not very nice” and my personal view is that he is better away from a school of this calibre. We have no need of his sort here.’

‘His sort?’ Kathryn could not keep the horror from her voice.

‘Yes, his sort. Do I need to remind you that I am an educator and therefore fully aware of exactly what a subversive influence in a small group can do? For future reference, if I need advice on what polish to use or the best way to get the dishes really
clean, I’ll ask you, but in the meantime kindly don’t offer your views on matters about which you have absolutely no knowledge and that I or anyone else have absolutely no interest in hearing. Is that clear?’

Mark smiled throughout his lecture, but the tone in which it was delivered left Kathryn in little doubt that she was in deep trouble. Before she had a chance to respond, the kids popped their heads around the refectory door.

‘Can we please go home? Some of us have lives outside of school!’

‘God, kids, can’t we have a little smooch without being hounded by you two?’

‘Oh, gross, Dad!’ Dominic shook his head.

Kathryn stared at her husband. His capacity to lie and smirk in unison knew no bounds.

Once the chaplain had been congratulated, the choir thanked and the pupils dismissed, the Brookers walked along the path back to their house. Dominic and Lydia strode ahead, loosening their chapel-smart ties and rolling down their socks, impatient to shake off ‘geek’ and become ‘cool’.