It was a subject they stayed clear of, his father’s death.
As if to enter it might mean reliving it. But hadn’t he been doing just that recently? Wasn’t he doing it even now?
“Of course you didn’t.” El ie gave a strange, dry, quivery laugh.
“How do you know?”
“Jack—is this al to do with Tom?”
“How do you know?”
“I know. I know you.”
But she was looking at him as though she was no longer certain on that last point. And whatever El ie knew, she didn’t know and couldn’t know what had only ever been in his head.
Even Jack himself couldn’t be sure of how it real y was.
THAT IT WASN’T THE SHOT that woke him. He’d been awake, perhaps for some time, before the shot. Had he even heard his father creeping—as once he’d heard Tom creeping—
from the house? In his terrible dream in Okehampton he’d even heard the little squeak, from below, of the gun cabinet.
Was it a dream? Or the dream of a dream that he’d had that night, before, in fact, the shot had woken him? Or was it simply how it had been?
In his dream, in any case, he hadn’t heard the shot. There wasn’t yet any shot. He’d heard his father’s movements downstairs. He’d heard the kitchen door open, even the blunt scuff of Wel ington boots on the frozen mud in the yard. And before he’d dressed and gone downstairs himself, before he’d hurried down Barton Field, a torch in his hand and his heart in his throat, he’d stood on the landing and seen the left-open door of the Big Bedroom, and gone in.
He wasn’t sleep-walking, surely. He hadn’t switched on any lights, but he’d seen, even so, that extra blanket on the bed. Yes, there was a moon by then and, despite the cold, the curtains hadn’t been closed—or else they’d been only recently pul ed back. So he was able to see, with just the aid of the moon, the tartan pattern of the blanket.
But more than that. He’d gone into the room—or in his dream he had. And he’d stood by the window, where his father, perhaps, would have stood only moments before, and seen what his father would have seen: the moon, over the oak and the frost-gripped val ey. But more than that.
He’d been just in time to see—or he’d seen in his dream—
from above and behind, his father’s tal black form, his whole body first, then just his shoulders and head, disappearing as he descended the upper section of Barton Field. The moon was almost ful and its light was coming brightly off the frost. So it was even possible to see his father’s inky, night-time shadow slipping out of sight, rippling down the slope after him, and to see the footprints, like black burn holes in white cloth, that he left behind.
Even to see what he was carrying.
And Jack hadn’t moved. He’d stood there at the window
—as he’d stand, years later, at a white-painted gate—
thinking: Shal I? Shan’t I? Thinking: Wil he? Won’t he? Can I? Can’t I?
He couldn’t have said (it was like other passages of time that night) how long he’d stood there, as if hypnotised, as if in his mind—but wasn’t he dreaming anyway?—he might stil have been back in bed and asleep, not knowing that any of this was real y happening. Til the sound of the shot—
but had he even seen, from the window, the quick poke of light?—had woken him, out of al dreams, into truth.
But El ie couldn’t have known any of this.
“HOW DO YOU KNOW I didn’t, El ? How do you know I didn’t march him down that field and make it look as though he’d done it himself?”
It was no surprise, though he hadn’t reckoned on it, that at that point she’d simply got up, grabbed her handbag and fished in it quickly to make sure she had her car keys. Did she look frightened? Of him—for him? No, she looked furious. She looked a little mad herself. If he’d already got hold of the gun he might have stopped her, he might have brought this thing to an end, there and then, as intended.
But she was standing between him and the door, and how could he have got the gun and loaded it without her getting away first?
He should have got the gun to begin with. He should have crept down the stairs, as his dad had crept down the stairs, and somehow got the gun from the cabinet and loaded it (both barrels) before she’d even cal ed up that she was putting breakfast on. He should have just appeared in the doorway, in his dressing gown, with the gun. But he knew he couldn’t have done it like that, without any explosion first.
So it was good, in fact—he thought now—that it had al blown up and she’d gone.
She’d clutched her car keys. For a moment they’d stared at each other, not like two people who’d known each other al their lives, but like two nameless enemies who’d come face to face in a clearing. Jack understood that to prevent El ie leaving he’d have to use physical force, his big weight, against her. But he’d never done that, in al the time he’d known her, and couldn’t do it now. Even though, if he’d had the gun—
“Where are you going, El ?”
Outside, the clouds were thickening, but the rain hadn’t begun.
“Where am I going? Where am I going? Ha! I’m going to Newport police station. I’m going to tel them what you’ve just told me. I’m going to tel them what you are.” And she looked like she meant it. She real y did. She looked like she was going to fetch the police.
She walked out. Slammed the door. The wal seemed to shake. He heard the Cherokee snarl off. Rain started to pepper the window. He’d thought: this had caught him out, this had upset plans. Then he thought: no it hadn’t. After a little while, after hearing only the wind and the rain, after switching off the gril section of the cooker, where several rashers of bacon stil waited, warm, wel -crisped and untouched, he went to the gun cabinet. He got the gun, he got the box of cartridges. When had he last fired this gun?
There’d been every reason to get rid of it. There’d been every reason not to. The last thing his father had touched.
He went up to the bedroom and put the loaded gun on the bed. Put some cartridges from the box in his pocket.
This was actual y better, this was good. He was prepared now, he was calm. The weather had gone wild, but he was calm. And, whether she’d do or not what she’d said she’d do, El ie, he was sure of it, would soon have to come circling back. There was even a sort of justice to it. As if her journey was just a smal er, tighter version of his.
32
THE ROBINSONS HAD BOUGHT Jebb Farmhouse over ten years before Jack stood by the white gate bearing that name, and it was the Robinsons, Clare and Toby, who’d made the extensive and costly renovations, few of which Jack was to see, since he didn’t go beyond the gate, but which entailed having the drive (it had ceased to be the
“track” and become the “drive”) properly surfaced—which Jack did see—and the gate itself.
There had been the purchase, and there had been the renovations. Their investment had turned into an investment of time as wel as money. After a lengthy planning and permissions stage, the building work—including a new extension (which they cal ed the guest wing), a total overhaul of the original house, the demolition of the outbuildings, the construction of a double garage and the laying out of the gardens, turning-area and drive—took, al told, wel over two years. So that their actual period of occupancy and enjoyment had real y been only seven years, and then mostly in the summers.