The room was small and plain, but it was clean. I set the holdall on the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress for a while, breathing in and out, trying to relax. But the more I relaxed, the worse I started to feel; as the adrenalin ebbed away, it took the numbness with it. I got up again and went to the bathroom. Alex had stopped outside a pharmacy before we got to the train station so I could pick up some medical supplies. The smell of the bandages, of the antiseptic cream, of peeling away the plasters, suddenly reminded me of Derryn’s years as a nurse. Then a memory formed: of her attending to my face three weeks after she’d come to join me in South Africa. I’d fallen into some masonry in a desperate run from a Soweto shootout.
‘It’s a Steri-Strip today,’ she’d said, placing the transparent plaster over a cut close to my eye. ‘I don’t want it to be a coffin tomorrow.’
My eyes fell to my newly bandaged fingers, and — finally — to my body. Cling film was still wrapped around it, blood pooling at the sides, crawling around from my back in thick, maroon tendrils. I couldn’t see the lacerations themselves; wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. One thing I did know, though, was that I didn’t have the courage to start removing the cling film.
Not yet.
Once I was cleaned up, I went back to the bed, dropped on to my stomach and faced the door. And twelve, restless hours later, I woke again.
49
It was 13 December, eleven days after she’d first come to me, when I headed to Mary’s for the final time. It was late afternoon by the time I got there. I drove, but with difficulty, sitting forward the whole way. My back was still stiff from sleep, and I could feel the cling film loosening. By the time I got out of the car, pain was crackling along my spine.
I slowly moved up the path and on to the porch. Snow had collected in thick mounds at the front. Christmas lights winked in the windows of the house. Mary answered after a couple of knocks, lit by the fading dusk sky.
‘David.’
‘Hello, Mary.’
‘Come in,’ she said, backing away from the door.
She looked at me, at the cuts and bruises I’d patched up. I inched past her, my body aching.
‘Your face…’ she said.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ I lied.
‘What happened?’
‘I got into a fight.’
‘With who?’
I looked at her, but didn’t reply. She nodded, as if she understood that I didn’t want to talk about it. At least not yet.
‘Let me fix you something to drink,’ she said.
She disappeared into the kitchen. I made my way to the windows at the back of the living room. They looked out over the garden. The snow was perfect. No footprints. No bird tracks. No fallen leaves. It was like no one had ever been out there.
Mary came through with two cups of coffee, and we sat on the sofas.
‘Where’s Malcolm?’
‘Upstairs,’ she said.
‘How is he?’
She paused. ‘Not good.’
On the table in front of her I placed the envelope she had given to me with the rest of her money in it. She looked down at it, studied it, but didn’t reach for it. Instead, her eyes flicked back to me.
‘You don’t need any more?’
‘No, Mary,’ I said. ‘We’re finished now.’
There was little emotion in her face. I wondered whether she’d already talked herself into believing it had all been a mistake.
‘Finished?’ she said.
‘He was in Scotland.’
‘Alex?’
‘Alex.’
She took a moment, her mouth opening a little. All the doubt, all the times she’d told herself she must have been seeing things, fell away. Her eyes started to fill with tears.
‘What was he doing in Scotland?’
‘I don’t know,’ I lied.
‘Is he still there?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘No,’ I lied again, and when I could bring myself to look at her, I suddenly wasn’t sure this was the right path, despite Alex having asked me to play it this way. ‘I think he wants to see you, but I think he’s also confused.’
‘He can come back home,’ she pleaded.
No, he can’t. I looked at her, a single tear breaking free.
‘Why doesn’t he come home?’
I didn’t answer. It had to be like this. Alex had to decide when the time was right. He had to find his own way back in. They all had to find a way back into a world that had forgotten they existed. A world that had given them nothing the first time. It would be easier for Alex in many ways, despite the baggage he carried with him. He had something to grasp on to, memories he’d never let go. For some of the others, what awaited them was simply a blank. No memories of their first lives. No life to fit back into. Perhaps no chance at starting again.
‘After he left home, he went to France,’ I said, hoping that would be something. ‘That’s where he went before he came back.’
‘Why did he go there?’
I looked at her and thought of Al, of Malcolm, of the way he had shut Alex out. Kept secrets from him. From the family. I guessed his brother was also unknown to Mary. It was up to Alex to bring that to her, not me.
‘Why did he go there, David?’ she asked again.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, but couldn’t look at her when I said it.
She broke down and started crying into the sleeve of her cardigan, using her arm to cover her face. Eventually, she calmed a little and I looked at her. She was staring into space. I saw what I might do to her with these lies, but I’d given Alex my word.
Briefly, I thought of another lie; a way to comfort her. It was a lie about the friend of mine who just decided one day that he needed to break away — even if it was just for a short time — to clear his head and decide what he wanted. But I didn’t feed her that one. The deeper I dug, the further away from safety I got. And I didn’t want to get caught out. Not like the people on the farm, making mistakes that cost them their most precious, most necessary commodity. Secrecy.
50
Mary led me to the basement and we talked in there for a while, like we had before. The wind had found a way in somewhere, making a sound like a child blowing into a bottle. The place was still a mess. The cardboard boxes were still stacked high like pillars, wood and metal still strewn across the floor. There were books in one corner, stacked twenty or thirty high. A lawnmower. More cardboard boxes. Some old walking sticks, different colours and weights, probably all Malcolm’s.
Mary was quiet. I knew she was fighting back tears. It felt wrong to leave, so I offered to sit with her for a while. The last time anyone had sat down and really talked to her was probably before Malcolm got ill. Since then she’d had to fight every demon herself.
‘What did Alex do in France?’ she asked.
‘Just worked some jobs there.’
‘Good jobs?’
I smiled. ‘He’d probably say not.’
She nodded. Rubbed her palms together. Her hands were small, the nails bitten. To her side was a cup of coffee. She reached down to it and placed her fingers over the top, as if trying to warm herself up.
‘How can he still be alive?’
I knew she’d ask. I just didn’t want to answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘All I know is that he misses you, and he will phone you. He’s just spent a long time on the outside, and now he has to make the step back inside.’