Jules
IT WAS HOT, the day of your funeral, heat shimmering over the water, the light too bright, the air too close, heavy with moisture. Lena and I walked to the church. She started out a few paces in front of me and the distance between us stretched; I’m no good in heels, she is a natural. She looked very elegant, very beautiful, much older than her fifteen years, in a black crêpe dress with a keyhole on the bodice. We walked in silence, the river snaking muddily past us, sullen and quiet. The warm air smelled of decay.
I felt afraid, as we turned the corner on the approach to the bridge, of who might be at the church. I was afraid that no one would turn up at all and that Lena and I would be forced to sit alone with nothing but you between us.
I kept my head down, I watched the road, I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to stumble on the uneven tarmac. My shirt (black and synthetic with a pussy bow at the throat, wrong for the weather) clung to my lower back. My eyes began to water. No matter, I thought, if my mascara runs. People will think I’ve been crying.
Lena still hasn’t cried. Or at least she hasn’t cried in front of me. Sometimes I think I hear her sobbing in the night, but she comes to breakfast clear-eyed and insouciant. She slips in and out of the house without a word. I hear her talking in a low voice in her room, but she ignores me, she shrinks from me when I approach, she snarls at my questions, she shuns my attention. She wants nothing to do with me. (I remember you coming into my room after Mum died, you wanted to talk, I sent you away. Is this the same? Is she doing the same thing? I can’t tell.)
As we approached the churchyard I noticed a woman sitting on a bench by the side of the road, who smiled at me with rotted teeth. I thought I could hear someone laughing, but it was just you, in my head.
Some of the women you wrote about are buried in that churchyard, some of your troublesome women. Were all of you troublesome? Libby was, of course. At fourteen years of age she seduced a thirty-four-year-old man, enticed him away from his loving wife and infant child. Aided by her aunt, the hag May Seeton, and the numerous devils that they conjured, Libby cajoled poor blameless Matthew into any number of unnatural acts. Troublesome indeed. Mary Marsh was said to have performed abortions. Anne Ward was a killer. But what about you, Nel? What had you done? Who were you troubling?
Libby is buried in the churchyard. You knew where she lay, her and the others, you showed me the stones, scraped away the moss so that we could read the words. You kept some of it – the moss, I mean – and you snuck into my room and put some under my pillow, then you told me that Libby had left it there. At night she walked the river bank, you told me; if you listened hard enough, you could hear her calling for her aunt, for May, to come and rescue her. But May never comes: she can’t. She isn’t in the graveyard. After they extracted her confession they hanged her in the town square; her body is buried in the woods outside the churchyard walls, nails driven through her legs so that she’ll never rise again.
At the crest of the bridge, Lena turned, just for a second, to look at me. Her expression – impatience, perhaps just a hint of pity – was so like yours that I shivered. I clenched my fists together and bit my lip: I cannot be afraid of her! She’s just a child.
My feet hurt. I could feel the prickle of sweat at my hairline, I wanted to rip the fabric of my shirt, I wanted to rip my skin. I could see a small crowd gathered in the car park in front of the church, they were turning now, turning towards us, watching our approach. I thought about how it would feel to pitch myself over the stone walls: terrifying, yes, but only for a short while. I could slip down into the mud and let the water close over my head; it would be such a relief to feel cold, to be unseen.
Inside, Lena and I sat side by side (a foot apart) in the front pew. The church was full. Somewhere behind us, a woman sobbed, on and on, as though her heart were broken. The vicar talked about your life, he listed your achievements, he spoke of your devotion to your daughter. I was mentioned in passing. I was the one who had given him the information, so I suppose I couldn’t complain that his speech felt perfunctory. I could have said something myself, perhaps I should have done, but I couldn’t think how I could talk about you without betraying something – you, or myself, or the truth.
The service finished abruptly, and before I knew it Lena was getting to her feet. I followed her along the aisle, the heat of attention turned towards us somehow threatening, not heartening. I tried not to see the faces around me, but I couldn’t help myself: the crying woman, her face crumpled and red, Sean Townsend, his eyes meeting mine, a young man with head bowed, a teenager laughing behind his fist. A violent man. I stopped suddenly, and the woman behind me stepped on my heel. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she muttered, manoeuvring past. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, my insides turning to liquid. It was him.
Older, yes, uglier, gone to seed, but unmistakable. A violent man. I waited for him to turn his eyes to me. I thought that if he did, one of two things would happen: I would cry or I would lunge at him. I waited, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Lena, watching her intently. My liquid insides turned to ice.
I followed blindly, pushing people out of my way. He stood to one side, his eyes still trained on Lena. He was watching her take off her shoes. Men watch girls who look like Lena in all sorts of ways: desire, hunger, distaste. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I didn’t need to. I knew what was in them.
I started towards him, a noise rising in my throat. People were looking at me, with pity or confusion, I didn’t care. I needed to get to him … And then he turned abruptly and walked away. He walked quickly down the pathway and out into the car park, and I stood, breath suddenly rushing to my lungs, adrenaline making my head swim. He climbed into a large green car, and was gone.
‘Jules? Are you all right?’ DS Morgan appeared at my side and placed a hand on my arm.
‘Did you see that man?’ I asked her. ‘Did you see him?’
‘Which man?’ she said, looking around her. ‘Who?’
‘He’s a violent man,’ I said.
She looked alarmed. ‘Where, Jules? Did someone do something … say something to you?’
‘No, I … no.’
‘Which man, Jules? Who are you talking about?’
My tongue was tied in reeds and my mouth was full of mud. I wanted to tell her, I wanted to say, I remember him. I know what he’s capable of.
‘Who did you see?’ she asked me.
‘Robbie,’ I said his name at last. ‘Robbie Cannon.’