‘It’s you. From the park.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, as if I was only just remembering at that moment. ‘That was you. I’m the new history teacher.’
‘How funny.’
‘Yes.’
Her smile is also a frown, as though I confuse her. I have lived long enough to know this look. And fear it.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hello there,’ she says, with a slight French accent. I think of the forest. My mother singing. I close my eyes and see a sycamore seed spiralling beneath a hard blue sky.
I feel a familiar sense of claustrophobia. Confinement. As if this world is never big enough to hide in.
And that is it.
I have to keep walking, as if I can also walk away from what she might be thinking.
After my first day teaching, I sit at home next to Abraham with his head on my lap. He is asleep, lost in dog dreams. He flinches and twitches, like a stuttering image, stuck between two moments. He whimpers a little. I wonder what memories he is reliving. I put my hand on him, stroking to soothe him. Slowly, the movement stops. He makes no sound but that of his breath.
‘It’s all right,’ I whisper. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right . . .’
I close my eyes and I see the towering form of William Manning as clear as if he is in the room.
Suffolk, England, 1599
William Manning stared at the darkening sky, his expression severe. There was something theatrical about him, as if this was just a show. This was very much the nature of the times – this era of Marlowe and Jonson and Shakespeare – everything was theatre. Even justice. Even death. Especially that. We were nearly ten miles from Edwardstone but the whole village was there. You might imagine that in the sixteenth century witch trials were a regular occurrence. They were not, not really. They were a rare entertainment, and people came from miles around to watch and jeer and feel safe in a world where evil could be explained and found and killed.
Manning spoke to me, but also the crowd. He was an actor. He could have been one of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
‘Your fate will be decided by your mother. If she drowns, her innocence shall be shown, and you shall live. If she lives, and survives the stool, then you – as the progeny of a witch – will be sent to the gallows alongside your mother and dealt with there. Do you understand?’
I stood by my mother, on the grassy bank of the River Lark, with my legs and wrists in irons, just as hers were. She – dressed again – was shaking and shivering like a wet cat despite the warm day. I wanted to talk to her, to comfort her, but knew any communication between us would be seen as a plot or a plan to conjure malevolent forces.
Only when they pulled her closer to the riverbank, closer to the stool, did words burst out of my mouth.
‘I’m sorry, Mother.’
‘It’s not your fault, Estienne. It’s not your fault. I am sorry. It is mine. We should never have come here. We should never have come to this place.’
‘Mother, I love you.’
‘I love you too, Estienne,’ she said, a sudden defiance bursting fast out of her, even as she cried. ‘I love you too. You must be strong. You are strong, as your father was. I want you to promise: you must stay alive. Whatever happens. You must stay alive. Do you understand me? You are special. God made you this way for a purpose. You must find your purpose. Do you promise to live?’
‘I promise, Mother. I promise, I promise, I promise . . .’
I watched as they fastened her into the wooden chair. She pressed her legs together, not wanting to part her knees, as a last futile defence. So two men took a leg each and pulled her into position, pressing her back against the seat. She wriggled and screamed as the metal strap was fixed across the seat.
I didn’t watch as they raised her in the air. But when she reached the highest point Manning told the wild-haired man holding the rope to halt.
‘Wait, wait there . . .’
And it was then I looked and saw my mother against that hard blue sky. Her head dropped and she looked down at me, and I can still see those terrified eyes all these centuries later.
‘Start the ordeal,’ said Manning, who had walked to the edge of the riverbank.
‘No!’
I closed my eyes and heard the noise of the chair touching the water. And then I reopened my eyes. I watched her disappear, become a blur of green and brown, and then nothing at all. A rush of air bubbles rose to the river’s surface. William Manning held his hand up and open, the whole time, telling the man who held that horribly slack rope to keep her under.
I looked at that large meaty red hand, a brute’s hand, praying for the fingers to close. Of course, whatever happened, she would die. And yet still – even as my own life hung in the balance – I wanted her to emerge from the water alive. I wanted her to speak again. I couldn’t imagine a world without her voice.
When they hoisted the chair and her dripping dead body out of the water there was an answer left as a secret in the river. Had she pushed the air out of her in panic or deliberately? Had she sacrificed her life for mine? I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ever know.
But she had died, because of me. And I stayed alive, because of her. And for years I regretted the promise I had made.
PART TWO
The Man Who Was America
London, now
Here I am.
I am in the car park. I have finished my second day at Oakfield School and am now in the process of unlocking my bicycle, which is attached to a metal fence next to the staff car park. I ride a bike because I have never trusted cars. I’ve ridden a bike now for a hundred years and I think they are one of the truly great human inventions.
Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes change isn’t for the better. Modern toilets with a flush are definitely a change for the better. Self-service checkouts are definitely not. Sometimes things are a change for the better and the worse at the same time, like the internet. Or the electric keyboard. Or pre-chopped garlic. Or the theory of relativity.
And a life is like that. There’s no need to fear change, or necessarily welcome it, not when you don’t have anything to lose. Change is just what life is. It is the only constant I know.
I see Camille head to her car. The woman who I had seen in the park. And the corridor, yesterday, where we hadn’t said much. But I had felt claustrophobic and needed to walk away.
But now, there is no escape. She reaches her car. Puts the key in her lock as I struggle with mine. Our eyes meet.
‘Hi there.’
‘Oh, hi.’
‘The history guy.’
The history guy.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just having a bit of trouble with the key.’
‘You can have a lift if you want.’
‘No,’ I say, a bit too quickly. ‘I’m . . . it’s . . .’
(It doesn’t matter how long you live. Small talk remains equally complex.)
‘Nice to meet you again. I’m Camille. Camille Guerin. I’m French. I mean, that’s my subject. Was also my nationality, too, though who lets nationality define them? Apart from idiots.’
I don’t know why, but I say, recklessly, ‘I was born in France.’ This goes against my CV, and Daphne is mere metres away. What am I doing? Why do I want her to know this?
Another teacher – someone I hadn’t been introduced to yet – walks out and Camille says ‘See you tomorrow’ to them and they return it.