She nodded, and after a second finally thought of a subject that was weighty and worthy enough for discussion, Joshua’s schooling, talking about how well he was doing. ‘Straight As in most of his subject, a couple of Bs, and nothing… nothing below that. We both got good reason to be proud of him there, Larry.’
Joshua beamed awkwardly, flushing slightly.
Larry nodded, looking away from the boy, back to Francine. ‘Yeah, you’ve done a good job with him there, Franny. Even though often it hasn’t been easy.’ Last chance for him to tell Franny how proud he was of her, keeping a stable home wrapped around Joshua, despite the odds.
Larry talked directly with Joshua for a moment about school, asking him which subjects he preferred, even though he already half-knew from their e-mails back and forth: preferred English and History to Maths and Science. Liked languages too, particularly French. Preferred Tolkein to Rowling, though of recent he’d turned more to some of the older classics: Dumas, Dickens, Lord of the Flies and Tom Sawyer. ‘Fantasy is okay, but they tell me a bit more about how real life is. Or was.’
‘That’s good…. that’s good.’ Larry nodded sagely. Practically retelling his own words when he’d first recommended the books in e-mails months back. Josh’s way of telling him that he’d taken the advice and was reading them. Telling him before it was too late.
That trivia barrier broken without them hardly realizing it, Francine talked about her work in the shoe shop, that if she could find another job with the same friendly hours that paid better, she’d take it like a shot. Larry appreciating that in fact it wasn’t that trivial, because the hours were linked to her being able to meet Josh from school. Sacrifice. Larry deciding then to lighten things by telling her about Roddy’s last Crosby routine, Franny holding one hand by her mouth as she laughed, as if she shouldn’t be laughing in a place like this, and especially not at this time; an anxious glance towards the guard outside through the open viewing hatch, worried what he would think. But Larry thinking, it was so good to see her laughing. So good. Hardly in fact able to remember the last time he’d seen her smile or laugh; brief, fragmented flashes of their wedding day and Joshua being born making the years since seem all the more lost, wasted.
Larry hastily pushed the thought away. ‘Though I told Roddy straight that it wasn’t half as funny as seeing him struggle to save the day in front of that crab-faced woman at the BOP hearing. He was back-paddling faster than a duck facing ten Chinese chefs… until that Ayliss guy turned up to save his neck. Or mine, as it so happens.’ Larry shook his head, grimacing. ‘If I miss anything from this place, then it’d be Roddy. And maybe the library a bit, too.’
Ayliss. Saving neck. But as much as they’d all desperately tip-toed around the subject, talking about anything but, suddenly it was back before them. Larry’s death. Only thirty-two hours away now. The shadow of it hanging so close that it was stifling, suffocating. Inescapable. With the mention of Ayliss, Franny’s eyes darting rapidly as if unwilling to accept the inevitability of that shadow, she leapt for what she saw as a possible escape route.
‘I heard that new lawyer of yours, Ayliss, on a radio phone-in a few days back after Candaret turned down your pardon… and he said he wasn’t giving up yet. Not by a long shot. Said that he truly believed you were innocent and in fact had someone visiting the prison over the next few days that would hopefully, once and for all, prove it.’
‘Yeah.’ Larry nodded, smiling dryly. Jac hamming it up as Ayliss, trying to get a doubt bandwagon rolling. Never say die. ‘A psychiatrist.’ Larry explained about Ormdern’s two sessions and what they’d hoped to find either with his old pool game or lack of detail recalled about the Roche house. He shook his head as he finished. ‘But in the end, they didn’t hit on anything. Not enough, anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Though apparently Ayliss is still out there, chasing down, from what he tells me, “some vital final leads uncovered from the sessions”.’
Francine reached out and gently clasped one of his hands. ‘So there’s still some hope left. Still someone out there fighting for you.’
He clasped back at her hand, realizing in that moment that, like her smile and laugh, she’d touched him more in this past half hour than she had in eleven years. He grimaced tightly. ‘Franny, I don’t think it’s right to fool ourselves that he’ll suddenly pull a rabbit out the hat. He’s probably saying all that just to make me feel good, keep my hopes up. Candaret said no, and in the end those sessions didn’t dig up anything. I might just have to accept that that’s it.’
‘But surely, Larry, if he’s still out there trying, then — ’
Larry squeezed tighter at her hand. ‘It’s okay, Franny… it’s okay. I’ve accepted it. Because, you know, at…’ He looked down awkwardly, the right words suddenly elusive. ‘At some stage… I’ve got to. It’s just not right clinging on till the last moment with false hope, when I should be trying to make peace with — ’ He was about to say “my God”, but changed tack at the last second; it de-personalized too much from Fran and Josh. ‘With myself in my own mind. And that inner peace is real important to me right now, so I can say the things to you and Josh that need to be said.’ He kept hold of her hand, though more gently now. ‘I want to thank you first off for bringing Josh up straight and true when, like I said before, God knows often it couldn’t have been easy with me not there through all the years. And I don’t even have to ask you to promise me to keep doing that good job, because I know you will. And to say that… that I always loved you… even though I often had a strange way of showing it back then.’ Francine, eyes glistening heavier with tears, shaking her head as if to say, No, no… you don’t need to say this to me now, or perhaps feeling awkward at hearing it, not wishing it to be the last thing she heard from him, remembered him by; and him eager to get the words out before his resolve went, say what he should have said years ago, but never did because he was too blind or proud or foolish or stubborn, knowing that if he didn’t say it now, he never would. ‘And I… I probably never did stop loving you. And to say that… that…’ But as hard as it had been to say everything so far, this was by far the hardest. ‘I’m… I’m sorry. So sorry for having done what I did. Let you and Josh down.’
Francine crumbled then, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. Joshua’s eyes too were glassy, both of them still clinging to that hope mentioned of Ayliss still trying to save him, not wanting to accept what was happening, not wanting to hear from Larry what sounded now like a goodbye speech, their pleading eyes screaming at him, ‘You might have accepted what’s happening, found peace with yourself, but we haven’t. We haven’t! And as much as one part of Larry was glad that he’d said what he had — in fact what he should have said eleven or twelve years ago — another part of him cursed ever having met Jac McElroy. For filling him with hope, caring again.
Before that, he’d had it all pretty well worked out: his family had all but given up on him, so in turn him giving up on them and what little there was left in this life for him wasn’t that difficult. Seemed almost the next natural progressive step, as did turning to God. Though he did truly believe, it wasn’t just a second option, a crutch because God was the only person left in this world who he felt hadn’t deserted him.
But one effect it had, though it hadn’t dawned on him until later, was that when he turned more to God and away from worldly life, love and caring — most of it already stripped from him in any case — when he made that final turn away, nobody really noticed. As if he was already a shadow, and so that final slipping away was barely visible. And at that moment he also half-died, and the daily grind and horrors and isolation of Libreville over the years steadily chipped away at that other half until there was practically nothing left.