The Jump (20 page)

Ellie stood at her kitchen window watching the sunrise. From here you could see the light bleeding over the water before you saw the sun, hidden by the rocky outcrop to the east. The rays splayed up the Forth, diffracted through the criss-cross grid of the rail bridge, reaching across the amber surface of the firth to the road bridge. Cars and vans glinted as they caught the light, bouncing the energy outwards, dispersing the power of the sun to everyone.

There was a knock at the door.

She sighed. Alison had called the police after all. It was a risk, Ellie knew. She’d hoped Alison would take this opportunity to start again, but no, they were going to get dragged through the squalor of what they’d done. She would protect the children, though, would never involve them, even if it meant going to prison for the rest of her life. She didn’t care about that. She thought of Ben upstairs in bed. She would protect him too if she could. If anyone took the blame for all this, please let it be her alone.

She went to the door and opened it.

Sam stood there with a Tesco carrier bag under his arm.

‘I brought Logan’s clothes back,’ he said.

Ellie looked down the street and ushered him inside.

‘You shouldn’t have come.’

His face fell and she touched his arm.

‘But I’m glad you did,’ she said. ‘Come through.’

Sam stood in the middle of the kitchen just like that first time, the start of this. The boy she saved from the bridge.

‘Sit down,’ she said.

He handed her the bag.

‘You didn’t have to return these,’ she said.

He pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I wanted to. They’re too small for me anyway.’

She made tea and placed a mug in front of him. He was sitting with his back to the window, looking away from her, eyes flitting round the room. He wasn’t distressed, like that first time, more in control. But he was still shy, still felt awkward around a middle-aged woman who wasn’t his mother.

‘You really shouldn’t be here,’ she said. ‘If the police find out.’

Sam smiled. ‘The police don’t give a shit.’

‘We can’t be complacent. What if they followed you, or were watching the house?’

Sam shook his head. ‘They don’t want to find him. He was up to all sorts of shit, apparently. Taking protection money, misplacing evidence, selling drugs. The young cop told me on the sly. He enjoyed it, thought he was shocking me, telling me bad things about my dad, like I gave a shit. He even suggested Dad had been sexually assaulting women in custody.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie said.

‘Don’t be.’

Ellie examined his face. ‘He’s still your dad.’

Sam gave her a look. ‘He was, you mean.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘Don’t ever feel proud about what we did. Don’t turn into that person.’

‘But he was evil.’

Ellie thought about that. ‘I’m not sure evil exists, not like you mean.’

‘Of course it does.’

‘He did bad things,’ Ellie said. ‘Very bad things. But we all make mistakes.’

Sam frowned. ‘Don’t make excuses for him.’

‘I’m not,’ Ellie said.

She blew on her tea. Maybe it was easier if they thought of Jack as evil, it justified what they did. But she couldn’t swallow that, she couldn’t believe it was right to take someone’s life. She couldn’t accept it was impossible for him to change. Given the right circumstances, Jack might’ve turned his life around. But Sam didn’t need to hear that. He was seventeen and he’d helped to kill his own dad, the last thing he needed was Ellie throwing moral ambiguity around. It was easier to think they killed an evil man, then maybe at least some of them could get to sleep at night without pills.

Sam gulped at his tea like he had a thirst.

‘How’s Libby?’ Ellie said.

He lowered his mug. ‘OK, I think.’

‘She’s been through the most,’ Ellie said. ‘Don’t forget that. She’ll need her big brother more than ever.’

‘We had a chat a few hours ago,’ Sam said, nodding. ‘I think she’s going to be OK.’

‘You were chatting in the middle of the night?’

Sam nodded. ‘It was weird, Mum woke us both up. Said she wanted to let us know she loved us very much, that she was going to take care of us, all that guff. Kept hugging. Especially Libby.’

‘How did Libby take that?’

‘Not great.’ Sam rolled some stiffness out his neck. ‘Mum seems different somehow.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Like she knows Dad isn’t coming back. She kept talking about a new life, the three of us, a fresh start, all that rubbish.’

Ellie smiled. ‘They’re clichés because they’re true.’

‘I suppose.’ Sam took a final gulp of tea and stood up. ‘I better go.’

It was too soon. Ellie didn’t want him to leave, she was getting used to having him around.

He shuffled on the spot, looked out the window, at the cooker, down at the table.

‘Thank you,’ he said, raising his face. ‘For saving my life.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘But I want to say it.’

Ellie looked at him, this beautiful boy who belonged to someone else. She got up and put her arms round him, felt his long, thin arms go around her waist. She rubbed at his back and placed her cheek against his chest so she could hear his heart. Just a human heartbeat, there were billions of them on the planet, but this one meant everything to her.

After a few moments she felt him squirming free. She released him and placed a hand on his face. She went on tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. She registered the look of surprise on his face but didn’t care, then stepped back, raising a hand as if to say he was free to go, to get on with his life.

‘Take care, Sam,’ she said.

He nodded and smiled, taking a step towards the door.

‘I will.’

She saw him to the door and watched him walk down the path, on to the street, his loping gait, rolling shoulders, typical teenage boy. He didn’t look back.

She closed the door and turned.

Ben was at the top of the stairs in his pyjamas, face bleary and hair ruffled.

‘Was that Sam?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Just returning Logan’s clothes.’

Ben rubbed at his scalp. ‘Everything OK up the road?’

‘I think so,’ Ellie said. ‘Put some clothes on, I want us to go for a walk together.’

That first step on the bridge, the thrum of the traffic shuddering through her feet, like a homecoming. She kept walking, Ben at her side. It was rush hour, cars and vans, trucks and buses filling all four lanes, thudding past in a blur, a mass of metal and plastic, humanity on the move. Ellie slid her hand along the railing, the vibrations of the bridge running up her arm. A couple of cyclists overtook them heading to Fife, as Ellie felt Ben’s hand slip into hers. She turned and saw him smile. They walked on without speaking, the roar all around them, a gust of wind trying to throw them off balance. It was squally out on the firth, if it settled a little it could be a decent day for sailing.

Ellie’s pace slowed as she approached the middle of the bridge. She felt Ben’s hand tighten in her own. He hadn’t been up here since Logan jumped, didn’t see the point. They had their own ways of dealing but maybe that was changing, maybe there was a way forward together.

She stopped when she reached the spot, hesitated, then turned.

‘Is this it?’ Ben said, raising his voice over the noise.

He’d seen the footage, but only once. Said he never wanted to see it again, then weeks later confessed that he regretted ever watching it, couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Ellie nodded. ‘This is it.’

Ben watched the cars storming past. ‘It’s so exposed.’

They both looked out to sea. The sun was up, no clouds. The colours of everything seemed ultra-sharp, like the world had finally been pulled into focus. Ellie felt as if she could almost see the rusty paint flaking off the rail bridge from here.

Ben turned and looked back at the Ferry. He was squinting, searching for their house. His face relaxed when he spotted it. He looked straight down at the drop.

‘Jesus,’ he said, lifting his head back up. He turned to Ellie. ‘I still can’t believe he did it, you know. I expect him to walk through the front door every day. I wake up in the morning and think he’s going to need shaking out of his bed again.’

‘I know,’ Ellie said.

They both had their hands flat on the railing. She moved hers until it was touching his.

‘Nothing helps, does it?’ Ben said.

Ellie shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why do we try?’

‘What else can we do?’

Ben looked down. ‘Jump?’ He turned to her. He wasn’t serious, but a tiny part of him meant it, she understood that.

‘We aren’t brave enough,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t go through with it.’

Ben stared at her for a long moment, their eyes locked.

‘He was a brave boy,’ he said. ‘Our boy.’

Tears filled his eyes. Ellie felt the same coming to her.

‘We have to keep living, don’t we?’ she said.

Ben wiped at the wetness on his cheeks. ‘Yes.’

They were both silent for a while, hands touching on the railing. Ellie wondered if there were any of Logan’s atoms here, on the railing, perhaps a single molecule of him rubbed off on the bridge before he went over. Or not even a part of his body, a fleck of rubber from the sole of his trainer, a thread from his hoodie.

She’d come here every day looking for a second chance. Finding Sam wasn’t what she had in mind, but it was something. She’d tried to help. She felt needed for the first time since Logan died, and it felt good. She was in charge of her life again, responsible for others. She had no idea how to recapture that control.

She turned to Ben.

‘I’ll stop coming up here if you stop with the conspiracy theories,’ she said.

Ben didn’t speak, kept looking at the water.

Ellie followed his gaze and spotted something. She imagined for a moment it was a porpoise, a sign from the universe, but she couldn’t make it out.

‘I’ll try,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll try.’

Swim until you can’t see land.

The song ran through her mind again as she pushed her arms through the soupy water, kicking her legs, feeling the burn from yesterday in her thighs and arms, the tension in every muscle. Her breathing settled as she got used to the rhythm of the strokes, and she began to feel at home in the water.

She wasn’t aiming for anywhere, just heading into the Forth, powering through the choppy waves, feeling the ebb and flow, the tug of the tide underneath. The beat of her heart was a drum in her ears, the gulp of her breathing, in out, in out. As her head lifted to the side she could see the road bridge towering over her, legs in the water, its span defying gravity, the grey towers reaching to heaven.

She dived under and pushed downwards. She imagined seeing the wreck of the Porpoise drifting slowly back up, its mast magically upright again, breaking the surface and reaching skywards, signalling its existence to the world. She imagined Jack coming back to life, wriggling free of his bonds, slipping the knots used to weigh him down, laughing as he propelled himself towards land to tell his story.

She stroked and kicked, ever downwards.

She imagined a splash above her, the thunk of a body hitting the water and plummeting past her. Logan, her little baby, come to join her on the ocean floor. She pictured him reaching the bottom of his dive then opening his eyes, his body still intact, smiling at her then swimming over, embracing her, pulling her with him to the surface.

She couldn’t see anything around her any more, she was deep enough that the sunlight didn’t penetrate.

She stopped swimming for a long moment.

Then she pushed upwards, shoving herself towards the surface, flexing her feet like a propeller, making her body as sleek and streamlined as possible. Her lungs ached and she longed to breathe, but she held her mouth clamped shut as she came closer to the surface. She could see it now, the light glimmering up there, the sun beaming down on the planet, and she craved to be part of that world, to stand on the shore and soak up the energy like a lizard on a rock. She stroked and kicked, stroked and kicked, the shimmer of the surface closer and closer, her lungs burning, the oxygen in her blood thinning and dispersing, her muscles screaming.

She broke the surface and gasped in air, felt the molecules enter her lungs. As long as she kept breathing she was a part of the universe. She took a deliberate mouthful of water, swallowed it, imagining atoms from Logan’s ashes slipping down her throat, being absorbed into her blood, her heart, her bones.

She looked at the shore. She was a long way out, but she could make it back. On the beach in front of their house she could see Ben holding a towel. He had a hand shading his eyes, searching for her.

She threw an arm into the air.

Waving not drowning.

Then she began swimming back to shore.

Also by Doug Johnstone