Unspoken (12 page)

‘Nadine,’ I say, hefting Flora on to my hip. She is too big to carry but I do anyway. ‘Look after yourself, won’t you.’ We link eyes, each understanding the preciousness of life.

‘Go and date the lovely Dr David until you’re full and satisfied. Stuff your face with him,’ Nadine orders, although I know it hurts her to say this. Perhaps she’s hoping that I’ll rebound so fast off David, I’ll end up right back in her brother’s arms. Maybe I’m hoping that too.

‘I will,’ I promise as we leave, and as I watch her wave us off, I see her mouth, ‘Be careful.’

Alcatraz
is sinking. The bilge pump isn’t working and the rot in the hull is worse than I thought. It only takes a hole the size of a nail for the water to enter my home. Half an hour each morning is needed to return it to the river, but today the pump spluttered and died.

It all sets me up for wanting a drink, but I ball my fists and pull on my overcoat. Instead of drinking, I tramp down to the boatyard to find out about getting
Alcatraz
fixed. Shame, I think, that the same can’t be done with my life.

‘Leave the keys with me,’ the yard owner says, agreeing to take a look at the damage before dusk. ‘I’ll get the pump going at the very least.’ He shakes his head, already familiar with my boat. ‘Not so sure about the rest of it, though.’

Satisfied that I won’t be spending the night underwater, I decide to drop in on Julia. It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision, partly to see the children, but I also want to find out how Mary is doing. Mostly, if I’m honest, it’s because I want to see Julia, to see how she is coping with everything, to stock up on another dose of my wife – even if it means spying on her through the window while I lurk outside in the dark. Besides, I want her to know that I still have a job; that I can still just call myself a lawyer. It’s not only smart doctors driving Range Rovers who are deserving of her respect.

I tramp across the fields in the frosty half-light, near to where Grace Covatta was found, and when I reach Northmire, to my disappointment I find that Julia’s car is gone.

Milo stands in the courtyard, lazily snapping at a chicken as it parades around his legs. He half-heartedly wags his tail as I stand outside the back door.

I go inside, using the spare key that I know is pushed under a pot of herbs. The kitchen is as I would expect. A stack of dishes sitting beside the deep sink, the remains of a fire, and the cats jigsawed together on the armchair so that it’s impossible to tell them apart.

‘Julia,’ I call, even though I know she’s not here. There is a certain ritual, a comfort even, in saying her name. Honey, I’m home.

In my head, she replies. She calls back to me with years of memories – mental snapshots of picnics, birthdays, sleepless nights with babies, first days at school, grazed knees, dirty laundry, fireside nights with a bottle of wine . . . It’s all there, on hold, in boxes, waiting to be unpacked.

‘Mary,’ I shout. It would be good to hear a mistaken reply, to be the one who got her talking again. Julia would thank me for that. But it seems, after looking around the house, that Mary is gone too.

It’s then that I know I’m being watched. Two pairs of eyes glint from behind the doorway that leads to the accommodation Mary reserves for her foster children.

‘Hello,’ I say with a smile. ‘What are you up to?’ Some of the kids Mary harbours are timid and unwilling to speak. Not these two. When they realise they’ve been spotted, they march right into the room, one dragging the other by the sleeve.

‘What are you doing in our house?’ The girl strides forward. Mary has obviously been doing a fine job if the girl already considers Northmire
our house
. She looks about seventeen, but beneath all the make-up and bravado I can see that she is a lot younger. There’s a twinkle in her eye, and her curled mouth, her skinny neck and her defiant expression suggest she’s up for trouble when it’s around. I can tell she’s had a tough life.

‘Looking for my wife, actually.’ The word rests on my tongue as if I only have a certain number of times left to say it. Technically, Julia and I are still married.

‘If you mean Julia, then they’ve gone off in the car,’ she continues, daring to come right up to me. She drags the boy by the arm. He is older and much bigger than the girl but I can see straight away that his thoughts are way behind hers.

‘Who is he, Baby?’ he finally asks. His words are as deliberate as the slow blinks forming in his eyes. His cheek twitches involuntarily. He smells sour and his clothes are stained.

‘Who are you, then?’ the girl demands. ‘You can’t just come barging in.’

‘Like I said, I’m looking for my wife, Julia. She’s the one taking care of you while Mary is sick—’

‘Yes, we know who Julia is.’ The girl rolls her eyes. ‘I could call the police, you know.’ Her posture is defensive and she uses the boy as part shield and part weapon, holding him out at arm’s length while verbally challenging me. This, I suspect, is how they’ve behaved all their lives.

‘My name is Murray,’ I tell them. I push the cats off the chair and sit in their warm patch. ‘What are your names, then?’ I know already, of course, from Julia, although we haven’t met formally.

Waiting for them to respond, I pick up yesterday’s local newspaper from the floor and briefly consider that the foster kids could be the cause of Mary’s mutism. They would be a hard pair to manage, I can see that much, but with Mary’s experience, it’s unlikely that she couldn’t cope. Over the years she’s had a lot worse than this. And that’s exactly what worries me about her current state. She is as strong as iron. Why has she crumpled?

‘I’m Gradin and this is Baby,’ the boy says.

‘My name’s Brenna,’ the girl says and then slaps Gradin’s head. ‘Don’t call me that, right?’

I smile and casually turn the pages of the newspaper, glancing at the columns, pretending to take no notice of the bickering pair. Then one story grabs my attention and I am only vaguely aware of the kids squabbling over food in the refrigerator.

Vicious Attack Leaves Teen in Coma
.

I scan the short article. A small picture of Grace Covatta in her school uniform sits squarely beneath the words.

I stare at the ceiling and imagine what Grace’s parents must be going through. I can’t. There would have been forms to sign – forms allowing the doctors to put their daughter into a sleep from which she may never wake. I think of the hundreds of nights I have watched Alex and Flora sleeping peacefully in their beds. These days, I am not there for them.

As darkness spreads across the countryside, I am suddenly filled with a worry for my family. An attacker is still stalking the area.

‘When is Julia back?’ I demand of Brenna. ‘Where have they all gone?’ I am out of the chair and standing close to her. She recoils even though I haven’t been drinking yet.

‘I dunno. To the hospital or to see a doctor or something. That man was with them.’ Brenna has a mouthful of cheese and isn’t particularly fazed by my outburst.

‘What man?’ I back off, not wanting to scare her. But I already know who she means. I know that David is with Julia and my children, and for some reason, while it should at least make me feel better about them being safe, it doesn’t. They should be with me.

 

When things changed between us, Julia was seventeen. I went to meet her at the station, watching as her train grumbled to a halt. It was pouring down; a musty and humid rain, lightly fragranced by the wet earth. She jumped on to the platform with her coat slung over her arm. Her face was fresh and eager, seeking me out. Beads of water collected on her neck and wound beneath her collar. She carried an overnight bag and she couldn’t help the grin when she saw me waiting.

‘Hi,’ she said sweetly, coyly. She ran up to me and dumped the bag at my feet. She was squinting through the rain, allowing me to kiss her on the cheek as she wriggled into her coat. It was a pretty peach colour, like her skin, and never before had I wanted to wrap someone up so much with my love; to promise to take care of them for ever.

‘Let’s go,’ I said nervously, slinging Julia’s bag over my shoulder. These feelings were new for each of us, even though our silent passion had been there ever since we could remember in one way or another. It was only a chance telephone call that had us admitting it, our words tumbling down the line, bumping into each other. It was the end of the way I had always known Julia but the beginning of the way I wanted her.

In fact, that phone call was more about what
wasn’t
said; the hidden meaning in our conversation that taught us it was acceptable to feel like this; that loving, truly loving, the person you’ve grown up with, been a big brother to for seventeen years, was OK. Julia suddenly slid into a fresh compartment in my mind – girlfriend, lover, future wife. After all, it wasn’t like we were blood relations. It was allowed.

By the end of the call, we knew we had to see each other. Desperate didn’t describe how we felt. So there we were, walking along the platform at King’s Cross station, wondering what would happen next – a silent continuation of our telephone admission, only this time it wasn’t just our words that were tangling.

Already, my arm was slung around Julia’s waist, as indeed it had been in the past. But this time was different; this time we both knew it meant going back to the tiny flat I shared with three friends, setting Julia’s bag in my room, turning down the sheets of my bed, shyly undressing each other, making love without a word, without a sound, without anything except a release of everything that had built up between us over the years, while praying that my flatmates wouldn’t hear. Our feelings, however explosive, would have to remain silent.

Afterwards, we went to see a movie and ate ice cream. We held hands, only it was different now. Gone were the days of walking her back from the school bus or leading her back to Northmire with a cut knee. When we held hands now, our fingers interlocked to match the synchronised beat of our hearts. It was real. It was serious. We were both grown up, or at least thought we were.

Julia returned to Witherly that Sunday night. A small kiss on her lips – held perfectly still until the stationmaster blew the whistle – sealed our love until next time. I waved her off, back to her mother and her grandparents, who were expecting to hear all about Julia’s exciting trip to the city.

She didn’t tell them that there were no sights; that the only thing she saw was the inside of my bedroom or the sweat dripping down my back or a movie theatre packed with couples soaking up a French love story. Julia went back to her studies, but from that moment on we knew we would always be together.

When she got pregnant the next summer, we married before Alex was much more than a gentle arc on her smooth belly. When he was born, we weren’t much more than children ourselves.

 

I set about preparing Brenna and Gradin a meal – or rather, insist that they make the food under my strict supervision. It keeps them out of trouble and helps pass the time until Julia returns from the hospital or wherever it is she’s gone with the kids and Dr Nice. It’s that or hit the bottle.

When headlights flash a wide beam through the window and my heart unclenches a fraction, Gradin sinks his hands into a bowl of pastry. I made him scrub his fingernails, which were stuffed with a strange mix of rust-coloured paste, and now he is kneading the flour and fat in readiness to drape over the steak and kidney combination that Brenna is frying up on the range.

‘Something smells good.’ But it is not Julia’s voice that accompanies the measure of cold air when the door is opened. David Carlyle is breathing in our cooking as if he has returned home for his evening meal. Across the kitchen, we lock stares, and only when Julia pushes through the taut link do I look away.

She is exhausted, pale, fragile. Beautiful.

‘Nice work,’ I say to Gradin as he hammers the pastry with the wooden pin. I’m waiting for Julia’s voice to channel through the tension; questioning what on earth I am doing. ‘But try it like this.’ I show him how to press and roll, back and forth, but when I leave him to try again, he takes to bashing through the lump of pastry as if it’s a rat running across the table. When I tell him to stop, he doesn’t. He just carries on pounding and pounding until the table wobbles and Julia intervenes with a firm demand for him to stop.

‘Murray, what’s going on?’ She looks at me as if I am answerable for Gradin’s outburst. The boy is obviously troubled. Mary shuffles past him and takes her seat beside the range. Julia shakes her head wearily. Then, ‘Why are you here?’ Her tone is accusing, impatient, frazzled.

‘I came to see . . .’ I pause, trying not to sound hurt. ‘I came to visit the kids. Perhaps take them out for a walk.’

Julia glances out of the window. She shakes her head and her eyebrows peel into thin, incredulous curves. ‘It’s dark, Murray. And Flora has the sniffles.’

I glance at my little girl to see that she has already curled up on her grandmother’s lap; each of them silent and content in their own way. I hate explaining my presence in front of Dr Nice. ‘When I got here, these two were alone and bored and in need of company. We’ve been cooking.’