Mr Lawton had said that because Nancy saw the connections between things. It was insulting, she’d thought, because he was implying she’d wasted her life, when all she’d done was work for him and marry Graham Riley.
‘We’ve had a meeting.’
Babycham had been fiery and protective and a friend — her oldest friend, in fact. There’d been a meeting of the clerical staff and everyone was ready to support her. ‘Run for it, girl,’ she’d said.
‘I once had a son.’
Mr Johnson had steamed like a tea bag on the draining board and Nancy had listened with a hand over her mouth. She’d been desperate to know what had happened, but her friend in the goggles had never been able to put words on it.
‘Our son was killed by a bad man.’
Emily Bradshaw had said that to Nancy not knowing who she was; just as Nancy had spoken to George Bradshaw not knowing who he was. She’d listened to neither of them. She’d run out of Aspen Bank chased by the sound of tapping on the window.
‘Maybe your constancy will save him. But what about you?’
That kind man had refused to give up. He’d circled the house, knowing she was inside. He’d come with a cake from Greggs. He’d left his phone number.
They’d all come — even Mr Wyecliffe, with his quip about tossed coins and their tails — but Nancy hadn’t seen any of the connections. No, it was worse than that, far worse. She had seen them. And she’d turned away in the name of trust.
‘My life rests on a heap of lies,’ said Nancy She felt no emotion whatsoever, though she was crying all the same. Her soul was like an arm gone dead, as when you wake up at night and find this heavy thing, limp by your side. All you can do is wait for the tingling to come and bring it back to life.
Nancy knelt down and started counting the bricks, to see how many more were needed.
17
Nick paused at the bottom of the slope. It was almost dark and extremely cold. In the distance he could see the Thames like a black vein. Above it and beyond glowed the lights of south London. To the west stood the motor works, immense and silent. Directly before him, like pools of oil, were the Four Lodges. On the other side, stamped against the skyline, sat Riley He was utterly still; his breath appeared as a coarse mist.
Skirting the water’s edge, Nick suffered a primal desire to run away He subdued it, because the hunched figure had scared his father and possessed his mother. He stopped by the end of a pool, well back from Riley but close enough to hear his words.
A low voice came out of a small fog. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you about me?’
‘No.’
Riley’s elbows were on his thighs. His face and body were completely blacked out. ‘Who gave you the photograph?’
Nick angled his head, trying to see into the dark shape ahead of him, the moving arms. The questions seemed planned, as if they were a test.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Did you post it?’
‘No.’
After a few moments Nick heard something fall to the ground near Riley’s feet with a thump. A long exhalation of mist came from the lowered head. The voice became curious and quieter. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven.’
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I’m a doctor.’
A doctor …’ It was as though he’d never met one, but had heard of them from magazines and television programmes. ‘What’s your father called?’
‘Charles.’
‘What does he do?’
A banker.’
A banker …’ They were another species from the same glossy pages, off the same screen. Riley stood up and purposefully crossed the five yards between them. As he passed Nick he slowed, saying, ‘Forget about the Pieman.’
Nick turned on his heel, watching the stooped figure tread quickly along the lodge bank, towards the path. ‘Where are you going?’ he called stupidly.
‘Brighton.’
Nick stumbled after him, unable to see where he was going, aware only of a sheet of glinting black water to his left. He grabbed Riley’s shoulder, sensing the sheer physical difference between them. Nick was a big man, towering over a bantam. ‘Tell me what I came here to find out.’
‘No.’ Riley pulled free with a swing of his elbow.
‘Who was he?’
‘Go home … just go home; go back to your patients.’ Riley began to trot, heading up the slope, towards the night sky.
Nick gave up. He cast an eye around Riley’s chosen meeting place: at the cold marshes, the scattering of small lights, and, upstream, the brooding hulks. A spasm of rage made him rebel against this embodiment of his mother’s conscience — at the thought that she felt responsible for Riley’s twisted actions.
‘Before you came along, she was happy’ he bellowed. ‘You shattered what was left of her life.’ His voice bounced off the motor works, falling quiet as if the air had soaked it up.
Riley seemed to strike a wall. Slowly he turned around, and came back along the brick ledge beside the water. When he was close, he halted, treading the ground, his head bent and angled. Gusts of fog escaped his mouth as if he’d just run a race.
‘Let me tell you something you don’t know’ He seemed to be struggling, as if a shred of pork were jammed between two teeth. A faint light touched his face, and Nick finally glimpsed his features, judging the man to be not just ill, but profoundly sick. ‘Before she met your father,’ said Riley as if he were forcing out the words, ‘before she got her chance, she was on the street. I might have kept the money … but she earned it.’ Riley looked up with pity, a far-off emotion gathering like water on limestone. Quietly almost gently he said, ‘She was no better than me.’
Riley stepped back and groaned.
All at once a bright light struck Nick’s face. Terrified, he raised his hands … Slowly he let his arms drop. Stunned, feeling light-headed and sick, Nick glared back at the unseen presence behind the torch. Riley must have been observing him intently because he didn’t cut the beam, and, for a very long time, he didn’t move. Then, after a snap, it was dark again.
The last that Nick saw of Riley was of a sunken head, and limp arms against the sky on the brow of a slope.
18
‘When the university term was about to begin,’ said Sister Dorothy ‘I drove Elizabeth to Durham. We strolled down a cobbled lane near the cathedral and she stepped into a charity shop and bought a picture. I thought it was the frame, but I was wrong.
As in many religious houses, the living room seemed to have been furnished exclusively from the type of place where Elizabeth had bought her picture. A mismatch of chairs were grouped around a fifties glass-top table. At its centre, having a status somewhere between that of a relic and an ornament (said Sister Dorothy), was an ashtray that had once been used by a pope. The carpet was hard, without a pile, creating the durable look of a car showroom.
‘We found a bench on Palace Green,’ said Sister Dorothy pushing stray silver hair beneath her pakol. ‘There was a market with people milling all around, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the three people in the picture. Rather sadly she began to imagine who they were, and what their stories might have been. I joined in. Elizabeth came up with the mad inventor dreaming of a smoke detector, and I added the wife, with her one joke about a fire extinguisher. We both laughed … among all these real people, with real lives.’ She sipped a glass of milk, resting it on her lap and the tartan blanket around her legs. ‘And what of the little madam in the middle? I said. Elizabeth touched the girl’s hair … as if she might reach through the glass to the ribbons … and she said, “She’s got the whole of her life ahead of her.” Even then, I didn’t see what she was planning. It was only when we reached the gates of her college that she told me her decision … that we could never meet again.’ Sister Dorothy sighed. ‘She wanted a fresh start. The story we’d made up would become hers, because she could live with its tragedy She would take the girl’s life and make something wonderful of it … Those were Elizabeth’s words … something wonderful.’