My head throbbed with this new information. I
wondered if he realized that he was calmly telling me that it would have been better if I’d never been born. A handy test could have screened me out long ago and then there’d have been one less problem for people to ignore.
‘We want to adopt,’ he continued, oblivious, ‘but it’s a wait. It’s taking its toll on Mel, she’s pretty fragile right now.’
It was time to leave. I stood up and left the cafe and walked out into the town. Rain was still threatening and goose pimples prickled on my arms. People hurried through the market square, not lingering at the stalls today. I stared around me, feeling lost and wondering where the bus station was. Melissa and Simon caught up with me quickly.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Simon asked.
‘I don’t know. I need to find a place to live.’
‘You can come back with us, if you like?’ Melissa’s offering pressed towards me and I remembered The Father presenting his fist like a favour too. I needed no such help.
‘No thanks. I’ll stay round here somewhere, but not back in the village.’ My voice was an icy blast in the humid, leaden air and she threw a worried look at her husband.
‘Do you have any money?’
I shook my head. Mel took my arm and pulled me to a halt beside her.
‘Listen, when your granny died I inherited everything.
She didn’t trust Roderick with it. I know she’d have wanted me to take care of you with that money.’
I looked at Melissa. Her eyes were Hephzi’s chocolate brown.
‘Will you take it? Take the money?’
She withdrew as much as she could that afternoon and promised more as soon as I was set up with a bank account. They dropped me back at Craig’s, the squeaking smear of the windscreen wipers beating out a rhythm of pain. Simon coughed and turned on the radio. There were no kisses goodbye and I watched their car putter off, smaller than before. I went round the back, my pockets stuffed with cash.
‘All right?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘What’d she say?’
‘He isn’t our father.’ Essentially that was all it amounted to, the rest was just padding.
‘Oh.’
‘I’m glad.’ I pointed out the obvious, just to hear the words aloud.
‘Yeah.’
‘And she gave me money. It was my gran’s, it’s not charity.’ I’d had enough of charity to last me forever and I would take only one more thing from Melissa, but that could wait a little while longer.
‘Good.’
‘Will you help me find a flat?’
‘Course.’
Before that happened though, I had one final matter to deal with. I’d saved the worst until last. I decided to tell Craig, just in case I didn’t return.
‘I’m going to go back again. Tomorrow. I’m going to his service in the morning.’
He stared at me and so I repeated myself.
‘You can’t do that, not on your own.’
‘Why not? You can’t stop me, Craig, I’m not afraid of him anyway.’
‘Well, I’m coming with you.’
‘I’m not going on some vigilante mission, you know,’ I warned.
‘I know. But I’m still coming.’
I felt calm as I walked towards the church the next morning, calmer than before anyway. This time I knew I would leave as and when I pleased and that no one could hold me against my will. The streets were full of Sunday peace and the fingers of fear which had once grasped my belly as I’d trodden this path home from college no longer wrung my insides. I saw Danny and Cheryl outside the church doors, waiting for us. Craig had insisted that they be there too. ‘Back-up,’ he’d said and, even though I’d shaken my head, I’d let him make the call.
Danny gave me a big hug, Cheryl too, and we stood for a moment outside holding each other. Then I pulled away and dragged open the heavy door.
The service had already started. I could hear his voice intoning the prayers and walked steadily towards it, my feet quiet on the stone floor. A few bodies sat scattered in the pews and I was struck by the smallness of them; his congregation had dwindled further still. It had gradually been depleting for years and his attempts to recruit new supporters had ceased to be effective some time ago. But there had always been more than this. Something must have happened. I spotted my mother’s bent back and bowed head; she sat in her usual position on the front bench. Mrs Sparks sat on the other side with her husband and I stood in the aisle for a moment deciding which seat to choose. The others were behind me, waiting to follow my lead. As I moved forward the man at the altar became aware of my presence and the prayer died on his lips as we caught one another’s eyes. His were the same penetrating blue they’d always been.
I held that gaze firmly and walked forward to take a seat just behind my mother, right where I could see him. I knew people were gawping now but I didn’t care; their stares fell off my skin like raindrops running from leaves. Danny, Cheryl and Craig sat behind me and I felt Danny’s hand rest for a moment on my shoulder.
This would be the last time I would ever see the man who had masqueraded as my father and I drew a deep sigh and turned my face up towards his.
He was expecting me to cower, he was waiting for that reaction, and I watched his snarl unfurl as his lips began to
move again. When I simply offered him my gaze in return, a gaze which only demanded the recognition of my right to exist, his voice faltered once more, and my mother swung her head round to see why. I let her look too, and she turned back quickly as he dropped his book and crouched on the floor to retrieve it. He stood again, rustled through the pages to try to find his place, then coughed and looked up. But his eyes came nowhere near mine. I watched him try to smile.
‘Forgive me,’ he continued, eventually, ‘let us pray.’ His words had never been more false.
A few people pulled themselves to their feet. They listened to the passage he read haltingly from the Bible and I felt sorry for the little old ladies and the devoted remnants of his flock as he joined in with their Amen. And then we waited for the sermon.
Whatever words he had prepared, no one ever knew. He stood there frozen in silence, his mouth fallen slack, as everybody stared and I heard them begin to whisper.
Then I stood and walked away, as slowly as I had come.
On Monday, with Craig’s help, I found somewhere far enough away for me to feel safe. It was small and clean. I could invite Cheryl and Danny there. Melissa sent the money for the deposit and then Craig helped me to move in. His mum gave me stuff she didn’t need and I planned to get the rest whenever. I didn’t require much.
My final request of Auntie Melissa was that she send me Granny’s photo album. It arrived wrapped in tissue paper with a kind note, repeating again how sorry Melissa was and inviting me to stay with them at Christmas or whenever I liked. I screwed it up and chucked it aside. Craig and I stared at the album together.
‘Go on, look inside,’ he said.
I turned the pages; they were as thin and easy to crease as I’d remembered. The past sprung up at me, newly made, and I examined the old pictures of Auntie Melissa and The Mother, pretty little babies, frilly in pink, chubby and cute. Granny looked so young, with a perm and lots of pink lipstick, laughing at whoever was taking her picture, with her daughters on her knee. Then I stared at pages I didn’t ever remember seeing before. There were more pictures of The Mother and Melissa; I guessed they
were about twelve or thirteen, and their arms were wrapped around one another as they stood in swimsuits on a beach, or sat straight and proud on horseback, or posed seriously in school uniform with my gran and the grandad I’d never met. Maria was quite pretty, in a quiet, wispy way, but she had a lovely smile. I didn’t recognize that girl as the mother who’d never been able to love me. I
glanced at the other pictures, ones of The Parents, stiff in wedding clothes, a few of Melissa at her graduation, and then more of the ones I’d ripped to smithereens when I was small. Granny must have made copies. I slammed the pages shut; I’d look at them later when I was alone.
As I walked Craig to the door, he paused just outside.
‘Here.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A good-luck present. Take it.’
I took the book: Shakespeare,
Twelfth Night
. I looked at him, puzzled.
‘You’ll like it. It has a happy ending. And look.’
He flicked open the book and inside the front cover something lay loose, a shiny piece of paper. I pulled it out and stared at it for a long, light moment. Hephzi’s face laughed up at me from the photograph, ecstatic with happiness and hope, her eyes more alive than I’d ever seen them.
‘Don’t you want this?’
‘I have others. I can reprint it anyway. I have loads of her. You can put it in the album.’
‘Oh.’ I wish he’d said so before.
‘I’ll send you more. Let me know your email address when you get sorted, OK?’
‘All right. Thanks. It’s beautiful.’
‘I know. She was.’ We hugged for a long time then and the next thing I knew he was off. I closed the door softly behind him, locked it tight and attached the safety chain. Holding my picture of Hephzi I knew I wouldn’t paste it in Granny’s album but that I would find a perfect frame somewhere, and place her where I could see her every day. I knew I would be all right here for now.
I never intended to go back and I suppose I needn’t have done so, even after the fire. But I wanted to check, I had to be sure they’d really gone.
It had been a few weeks since my trip to the church when I’d last faced Roderick Kinsman. Autumn had set in but the sun was shining and the air smelled fresh and the occasion could not dull the brightness of the day. It was over nine months since Hephzibah’s funeral and here I was, again.
There were few mourners. Just some church officials, and Mrs Sparks, who avoided my eye, and some locals who had come for a good nosy, hungry hens pecking through dirt in search of more seeds for a story which would grow later like weeds. Auntie Melissa and I stood near the back. I could have pitied my mother, but she didn’t deserve it and I looked on impassively as the new vicar searched for something to say about her. He found a few clichés: determined community worker, devoted wife, blah blah blah. At least he didn’t dare suggest that she’d been a beloved mother.
After the service the other people drifted off like dust and the new vicar approached me. He stumbled through
an apology of sorts and I listened and nodded; he was not to blame, after all. Eventually I was left alone with my aunt. Perhaps I didn’t speak enough to her then, as far as I could tell there wasn’t any point, but I think I managed to be quite polite. She didn’t look that bothered about her sister, although I’d spotted her dabbing at her eyes during the service. Keeping up appearances obviously runs in the family.
Some people still chose to believe that the fire was an accident, faulty wiring or something like that. It’s funny how the truth can be so evasive – a will-o-the-wisp, receding even as you inch ever closer towards it. Not even the arrest of their vicar was quite enough to alter their reality.
But I was glad that Roderick had survived his own fire. It was strange that the flames hadn’t licked him up, as he’d intended, and allowed him to escape what he knew was coming. I was glad he languished in prison awaiting trial, even if it did mean I had to reveal the scars which he’d burned into my heart, the wounds which had finally begun to heal.
‘You’ll talk now, Rebecca, won’t you?’ the policewoman had said when she’d come to tell me the news, and I’d nodded my assent. That story was the past, but I accepted that it could still be told while I worked on the future. Hephzi would have wanted me to speak up for her and I’d always been brave enough for both of us.
I didn’t let them bury what was left of The Mother with
Hephzi. Instead we burned the scraps that remained after the conflagration and I chucked the urn holding her ashes into the nearest bin I could find. After that there wasn’t much more to do. I walked up the road and looked around me, seeing the village with fresh eyes, and whispered my goodbyes to the places as I passed them: the college, the shop, the library I’d always yearned to visit, the chemist where Hephzi had stolen, Mrs Sparks’ house. Before I left I returned to the mess that now stood where the vicarage had once loomed. Everything else had been eaten by the flames but the tree, our tree, still stood. A little blackened, a little hurt, but still strong and proud. A gust of wind rustled its leaves and a few spiralled to the ground as it swayed its sorrow at my departure. I think it wished me luck as well.
From across the road a man on his moped waved, then revved his bike and shot away. I would see him again. There would be time for that and for other things too. Just for now I was glad to be on my own.
And so I walked away from the rubble of the past. I saw that the day was bright and the sun was stronger than autumn ought to have allowed. It caught on the stone of the houses in the distance and warmed them gold. Black was a bruise but blue was the sky and, as the future opened its arms, I stepped forward and smiled.