The Judas Scar (11 page)

Luke leant forward and rested a hand lightly on hers. ‘We knew each other, of course, from the dormitory, from lessons, but hadn’t really spoken much. Then one day, Will found me tied to a homemade cross,’ he said. ‘Two scaffolding planks stolen from a building site.’ He placed his knife and fork on his plate so they were perfectly straight beside each other. ‘A group of boys made it using rope and bungees, then grabbed me after supper. They tied me to it and left me on the lawn outside the headmaster’s house.’ He spoke with no emotion, his face blank, intonation flat; he could just as easily have been discussing the weather forecast.

‘That’s appalling,’ breathed Harmony. She looked at Will who shook his head slightly, his eyes closed.

Luke ran a hand through his hair. ‘The headmaster came out and found me and told me to stop mucking around and get back up to the dormitory, and when my housemaster asked why I was late I was to tell him I’d been playing silly buggers and would need a caning.’ Luke then stretched his arms out as if on a cross and started to laugh. The noise was disconcerting against the uneasy silence in the room. ‘So there I was, hands and feet tied to this thing, lying on my back with this man shouting at me to get up.’ Tears of laughter began to form in the corners of his eyes.

Harmony shifted in her seat. She glanced at Will and saw his face set in a grimace as he pushed a piece of steak fat towards the edge of his plate with the tip of his knife.

‘Then Will appears,’ Luke continued, his laughter fading, ‘and untied me. He asked my first name. I remember that so clearly.’ He looked at Will. ‘We all called each other by our surnames so him wanting to know my real name felt special.’ Luke smiled and looked back at Harmony. ‘Will was my hero. From that moment onwards I’d have done anything for him.’

Will looked up at the ceiling and she noticed a hint of exasperation or perhaps impatience in his expression. ‘A hero?’ he said. ‘For Christ’s sake, I was just a boy who thought another boy tied to a couple of planks of wood could do with some help. I didn’t do anything. I just untied the sodding ropes!’

‘Will, I think—’

‘For crying out loud, Harmony. Please stop it will you? Just leave it alone.’

C H A P T E R    E I G H T

The steak sat like concrete in the pit of Will’s stomach. He remembered the panic that had coursed through him as he’d fought with the ropes and bungee cords, knots so tight he worried he’d never get into them. All the time his heart pummelled his chest, all the time ready to run if the boys or the headmaster showed up. How could Luke talk about it now with such casual disregard? Will flinched as he recalled Luke’s pale skin marked with bruises from where the older boys had held him down, his trousers stained dark with urine, the tear tracks that cut through the dirt on his pinched cheeks, and how, as Will battled with those hellish knots, Luke had gazed up at him as if he was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

‘All I was going to say is I can’t believe those boys would do something like that,’ Harmony said with lilting sympathy that stung Will.

‘Alastair Farrow’s an accountant now,’ Luke said, matter-of-factly.

‘Alastair Farrow?’ Harmony asked.

‘One of the boys who tied me to the cross.’

Will’s gut twisted as anxiety flooded him and a hatred he tried to keep at bay sprung up in him.

‘I found him on Facebook,’ Luke went on. ‘He has a wife and two children.’

Will closed his eyes and swallowed. Then he shook his head and looked at Luke. ‘Why are you here?’ he said. ‘What do you want? I don’t understand. Do I owe you an apology? Because if that’s what you’re here for, you can have it.’

‘I don’t want that.’

‘Then what?’ he shouted suddenly, banging his hand against the table. ‘What is it you
want
?’

‘Will, don’t,’ said Harmony.

‘I should go,’ Luke said, wiping his hands on his napkin and standing.

‘Yes, I think you should.’ Will pushed back from the table and strode out of the room.

He went into the garden and breathed deeply. He had to be stronger. He couldn’t let this get to him. He sat on the edge of the terrace, elbows resting on his knees, his chin in his hands. He shouldn’t have confronted him like that. He shouldn’t have lost control. He shuddered at the memory of Luke tied to the cross, as he remembered the look of adoration in his desperate eyes, as he remembered what followed.

A few minutes later Harmony appeared beside him and sat down, her body pressed up against his. At first neither spoke. Then she put her hand on his leg and stroked him.

‘He’s gone,’ she said.

He looked down and nodded slightly.

Harmony leant forward and picked a daisy from between the blades of unkempt grass and began to pull off each petal one by one. He imagined her chanting a childish rhyme:
Will he talk? Won’t he? Will he talk? Won’t he … ?

Will pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. When he’d collected himself he took a deep breath and blew sharply out as he tried to find the words he needed to tell her what he was feeling. It was so hard. It had all happened so long ago, but right now it felt like yesterday and the emotions were incredibly raw.

‘The bullying was pretty bad,’ Will said. The sound of his voice surprised him, as if his words had barged out of his subconscious without his consent.

Harmony moved to face him and rested her hands on his knee.

‘Luke was one of those boys who should have stayed quiet, kept his head below the parapet, but he had this temper on him. Christ,’ Will shook his head, ‘he went mental sometimes, you know, if people teased him. And they found it hilarious so they teased him about everything – about his dad being a vicar, about his clothes, being small, his name, anything and everything – and each time he’d fly off the handle. It was like some vicious circle, the more he reacted, the more they went for him.’

Will was quiet for a moment or two remembering the speed with which Luke’s anger would ignite. Sometimes the slightest jibe would set him off – screeching, stamping his feet, slamming his fists into walls.

‘I was with him when he broke a window once. A boy in the year above sniggered as we walked past, about nothing much as far as I could tell, and before I knew what was going on Luke grabbed this boy’s text book, tore it in half and threw it through a window, breaking the glass. Two prefects had to hold him down until he finally calmed.’ Will had watched, first in horror as Luke raged and then with relief as the anger left him like an exorcised spirit, his balled fists relaxing, his breathing slowing to normal, eyes refocusing.

‘I should have kept away from him. Being a friend of Luke was social suicide, but I was there, I saw them, those bastards tying him to that fucking cross, all of them laughing and jeering, like a pack of dogs on a rabbit. When … ’ Will paused to draw a steadying breath.

‘When they left I was about to go to him but then the headmaster turned up. He started shouting at him to stop mucking about, told him to get back to prep, didn’t untie him. It was the unfairest thing I’d ever seen.’ Will remembered his horror when he saw the look of spite on Drysdale’s face, leering down at the child on the manicured lawn, half-naked, piss-soaked, defenceless. ‘When I got over to him he was so scared he could barely breathe.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered.

Will kicked at the ground with the heel of his shoe. ‘Word got out it was me who helped him and then I became fair game.’

‘What you did was the right thing to do.’

Will didn’t reply. Yes, of course, she was right; at the time it was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, but if he could go back in time he knew he wouldn’t do it again. He’d have left him tied to that cross so that they never became friends, never pushed their bleeding palms together, never went up to the old oak tree on that crisp October afternoon.

‘It sounds like you took quite a risk helping him. And being his friend.’

‘Yes,’ said Will. Then he sighed. ‘But, you know, he was great. He made that first year more fun. We clicked. He was incredibly bright, which didn’t help, of course. Even the masters seemed to hate him for that, hated how he mucked around in class then got full marks in everything. You could see it drove them mad. And he was funny. Really funny.’ Will gave an involuntary smile as he allowed himself to remember the fun he and Luke had. ‘We had a laugh together. He was different to everyone else; there was something unpredictable about him. I envied him in many ways, liked how he didn’t follow the crowd and how he didn’t believe rules applied to him. He was ballsy.’ Will looked at Harmony. ‘He did amazing impersonations of our masters. He used to have me in stitches.’

Will smiled again as he remembered the genius of Luke’s impressions. He’d have Will bent double and almost sick from laughing at Drysdale and his Magnificent Exploding Cane sketch or his Prof. Thomas the Chemical Car Crash, pretending to break test tubes and set the lab alight with a Bunsen burner as he bumbled blindly around. He even managed to turn his face puce like Mr Franks, their Glaswegian RE master, about to lose it because of forgotten homework.

‘You forgot your PREP?!!’ Luke would screech, mimicking Mr Franks perfectly, his skin turning redder and puffing up like a toad.

‘If you FORGOT your PREP then we MUST all ASSUUUUME, including sweet Jesus HIMSELF, that you HAVE mushy PEAS for BRRAINNNES. You. Are. An. IMBECEEEELE!!!’ And then Luke would fall to the floor writhing and twitching, chanting ‘mushy peas, mushy peas, mushy peas’ over and over while Will creased up with laughter, tears streaming down his aching cheeks.

‘I was pretty good at taking shit, kept my cool, didn’t react, and by the end of the year they’d eased up on me.’ He glanced at her and kicked at the ground again. ‘Bullies try and get under your skin. I found that if I built walls it helped. It’s probably why I don’t talk about any of it. As far as I was concerned, if I let them get to me I’d let them win. I also made sure I wasn’t seen out and about with Luke too much. We’d hang out on our own in the woods behind the school instead. There was this den place we made, hidden away in the woods. We went there. Sometimes in the refectory I sat with other boys to eat.’ Will felt a sudden swell of guilt as he heard those words out loud, recalling Luke’s downcast eyes, resigned and abandoned, while Will sat with other boys in his year, boys he didn’t like, but boys he could be seen with without risk. Luke took it on the chin. He never mentioned it, never asked to join them. It was as if he was just pleased to take whatever companionship Will was willing to give him, as if he deserved no more.

‘Will?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you ask if he wanted you to say sorry?’ she asked softly.

Will’s stomach knotted.

‘Maybe talking about it will help,’ she said. ‘You can tell me. I’m your wife and I want you to trust me. I hate the thought that you have secrets from me.’

‘I can trust you. I do. My … ’ He paused, searching his head for the right word. ‘… reticence to talk about it has nothing to do with you.’ He heard her sigh and took hold of her hand in an attempt to reassure her.

‘He doesn’t seem angry or upset with you,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any bad feelings towards you at all. He seems fine.’

Will put his arms around her and buried his face in the warm, sweet-smelling curve of her neck, breathing her in as if she were a drug. His skin prickled. He lifted his head and kissed her. He wanted to lie her back, and on the terrace in the dying warmth of the day, make love to her. He wanted to lose himself in her – his desire, their sex, blotting Luke and everything that came with him from his head.

They sat like that for a while until eventually she made a move to stand. ‘We should go in; it’ll be dark soon.’

Harmony cleared the unfinished supper away and scraped the food into the bin while Will scrambled some eggs, which they ate leaning against the kitchen worktop. In bed, she pushed herself into him, her back to his chest, his arms enfolding her so he felt she was part of him. He kissed her shoulder, gently lingering, parted his lips and brushed the tip of his tongue across her skin, the slightly salty taste arousing him, the desire he’d felt in the garden returned.

‘You taste beautiful,’ he whispered.

He ran his hand along her arm and over her breast, kissed the sweep of her shoulder. She turned to kiss him back. When she touched him, he moaned quietly. She stroked her hand upwards and over his stomach and chest, then ran her fingers over his lips. He opened his mouth and bit her gently. She pushed a finger into his mouth and he closed his lips around her, running his tongue around the tip. They made love for the first time in a while. It was comforting and safe, each of them knowing their role to perfection, instinctively doing what the other liked, the familiar, satisfying sex of a twenty-year marriage. He adored her body – every curve, each imperfection, scar and mole. The touch of her skin excited him, and the smell of her, the real smell of her beneath the creams and lotions.

Afterwards they lay beside each other with their fingers lightly laced.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

His stomach churned as nerves gathered. ‘Harmony,’ he paused, feeling the words begin to knot in his throat. ‘It’s about this baby thing.’

‘Baby thing?’ she repeated, with a small laugh. ‘Is it a thing?’

He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her in the light coming in from the hallway. ‘Nothing’s changed, Harmony. I wish I felt differently, but I don’t. I … I still don’t want a child.’

‘But why? You’ve never explained why.’

The words of the poem he’d memorised at fifteen echoed in his head, as poignant now as they’d been when he first read them. It was the first time a poem had touched him, the words chiming as if the writer inhabited Will’s own headspace, the headspace of a boy with no relationship with his father, who had been taken from his mother, his childhood blighted at home and at school. He’d found the poem while trying to find something by Wilfred Owen for a World War One history essay. It was by a man he hadn’t heard of before. A poet called Larkin. Standing alone in the library that smelt of old books and furniture polish, he read the words over and over, angrily swiping at the tears they provoked. The words were simple, accessible, not clothed in the old-fashioned pompousness of the poets he was usually forced to read. Man hands on misery, father to son. It was there in black and white, the truest thing he’d read. Don’t have children, Larkin told him. Don’t ever have children.