The Judas Scar (16 page)

‘No, I didn’t lie. I—’

‘The bloody cat should be out-bloody-side!’

‘It’s all right,’ his mother said calmly. Will looked at her, and she opened her eyes wide at him, trying to communicate, nodding with purpose. ‘William’s sorry, aren’t you, William?’ She continued to nod at him slowly. ‘He’ll take the cat back to the shed.’

Will shook his head. ‘But it’s too—’

‘Won’t you, William?’ Her voice barked at him with a level of sharpness he seldom heard. She stared at him, willing him to take her lead. ‘It’s best that cats live outside, and she likes her shed.’

Will glanced at his father who seemed to have relaxed a little. He’d stopped shaking Socks and she had stopped twisting and turning, and hung in his hand like a rag doll instead.

‘I’m sorry I bought her inside.’

His father held the cat up to his face and looked at her. ‘I saw a rat again a couple of days ago. If this thing doesn’t get rid of them it’s gone. You hear me?’ He gave the cat a final shake, and then, from nowhere, Socks put her ears back and hissed at him, swiping at his face, her claws bared.

His father yelled and before Will could do anything he’d hurled Socks at the wall. The thump of the impact of cat against wall reverberated around them. Will screamed and ran to Socks, but his father clamped his hand on Will’s shoulder and yanked him out of the way. He watched in horror as his cat lay on the landing, dazed and struggling to get to her feet. His father lifted his foot. Will screamed.

His mother ran up to his father and rested an arm on his. ‘No, Phillip. Don’t.’ His eyes rounded on his wife and Will noticed three faint scratches streaking his top lip.

‘How dare you tell me what to do!’

Then he raised his foot and powered it into Socks, sending her tumbling down the stairs. Will ran to the banister to see her bouncing down the last step. He pushed past his father and leapt down the stairs two at a time and fell to his knees at the bottom. There was a thin trail of blood from the cat’s nose and her eyes were open and staring. She was totally still, not breathing, unresponsive when he touched her.

‘You’ve killed her,’ he said, as his father came down the stairs.

‘You killed my cat.’

His father wiped at the scratches on his lip with a handkerchief. ‘I didn’t kill it. You did. If you’d kept it in the shed, like you agreed to, it would still be alive.’ And then he walked away from them, into the living room and switched the television back on.

Will picked up his cat, her body limp and lifeless in his arms.

‘I’ll get our coats,’ said his mother without emotion. ‘We’ll bury her.’

But the ground had been too hard for either he or his mother to dig, so they wrapped Socks in newspaper and left her in the shed. The following day a noise woke him in the garden. It was only just light and the world was frozen. He knelt on his bed and stared out of his window, his breath blooming and fading on the icy pane. His mother was standing in her boots and a heavy grey overcoat prodding a fire in the galvanised incinerator. Will watched her bend down and pick up the roll of newspaper with Socks inside. She dropped it into the fire, then put the lid on. When she turned around Will saw she was crying. He’d never seen her cry before.

Will got out of the car and went around to open the door for Frank. ‘Do you want me to sleep on the sofa tonight, Frank? I’m not sure you should be alone.’

‘Bless you. I’m fine, though. I’ve got Pie to look after me.’

Will took him inside, and while Frank got ready for bed he made him hot chocolate and then carried it up to his room. He was already in bed with Pie curled up beside him.

‘Did I do enough?’ Frank asked.

‘Yes,’ Will answered. He placed the hot mug on the table beside the bed. ‘You did everything you could. There was nothing more you could have done.’

Frank nodded and stroked Pie. The cat arched his back and stretched his paws out in front of him. ‘He’ll miss Pinwheel,’ Frank said sadly, stroking him again.

‘He’s got you,’ said Will. ‘And Eric. You’ll call if you need me, won’t you? I don’t mind what time.’

‘Thank you, William. I couldn’t have done that on my own.’

As Will drove home his head was full of his cat and what his father had done to her. It made him sick to think of her, so vulnerable and dependent on him. How could Harmony expect him to have a child? It terrified him. Just the thought of being responsible for a baby made him feel weak. He was incapable of looking after anything, he always had been. That would never change.

C H A P T E R    T H I R T E E N

Harmony watched the clock limp around to six to signal the end of another unproductive day at work. She leant forward and wearily turned off her computer then packed her papers into her bag in the vain hope that she would manage to get some work done at home. Will hadn’t called since Tuesday evening. Before then he’d been calling every few hours, and in the end she’d texted to ask him to give her the space she needed. She’d hesitated before sending it; she knew she couldn’t hide from him forever, but she was still so angry and hurt, so full of regret. She felt utterly betrayed by him.

‘See you tomorrow, Alice,’ she said to the department PA, who was cleaning her gold-rimmed glasses on the sleeve of her cardigan.

‘Will do. You make sure you try and get an early night tonight.’ She smiled kindly. ‘You look exhausted.’

No wonder I look exhausted, Harmony thought. Trying to sleep in George’s narrow bed, surrounded by Lego constructions and
Star Wars
figures with her mind racing was near impossible. She walked down the stairwell and into the building’s reception area. In the main entrance lobby she saw a man sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper. As she neared him, he lowered the paper and looked up at her and smiled. Her heart skipped a beat.

It was Luke.

‘Oh my God, hello,’ she said, unable to mask her surprise.

She walked over to him and he stood up, still smiling broadly. There was an awkward hesitation during which she wondered if they were supposed to kiss or shake hands. In the end she did neither.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I had a meeting in Knightsbridge that finished early and it’s too late to go back to the office now, so I thought I’d pop in and say hello.’ He paused then smiled again. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

She blushed and glanced at the man behind the reception desk who was casually flicking through a car magazine. ‘It’s nice to see you too,’ she said looking back at him. ‘How did you know I was here? I mean, how did you know where I worked?’

‘You said. At lunch.’

‘Yes. I suppose I did. But sometimes I work from home, or have meetings off-site.’

‘Well, I asked this gentleman if you were in today and he rang up to your office,’ he said with wry amusement. ‘Nothing more sinister than that; you don’t have to look so worried. I passed Imperial in the cab on my way to the meeting and then remembered that you worked opposite and thought it might be nice to go for a drink.’

She tried to smile.

‘So have you got an hour or do you have to race home?’

‘No, I can’t stay. I should get back.’

He leant closer to her. ‘I’d like you to come.’ She caught the smell of him, fresh with a hint of aftershave over a natural mustiness that quickened her pulse. ‘And it’s Friday tomorrow. It’s nearly the weekend. An after-work drink to celebrate?’

‘I’m staying at my sister’s. She’s expecting me back.’

‘Your sister’s?’

Harmony didn’t say anything.

‘Look, I’m here now – just a quick drink.’

She hesitated and looked at her watch. It was ten past six; it would be chaos at Sophie’s when she got there, the boys would be midway through eating, they’d be fighting, the television would be blaring, then Sophie would be trying to get them to do their homework, shouting as all three did their best to avoid doing it.

Luke saw her indecision and seemed to take that as a yes.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘There’s a great restaurant a few minutes’ walk away. It’s smart but very laid back. You’ll like it.’

‘I can’t stay for dinner.’

Luke laughed. ‘Don’t panic. Just a drink.’ He smiled and gestured for her to walk in front of him.

What are you doing? a voice in her head demanded as they walked down the steps and turned left onto Exhibition Road. Go back to Sophie’s, ring Will, sort your life out. Oh, ignore her, said another voice. It’s fine. It’s a drink. God knows, you could do with one.

As they walked she was conscious of him glancing at her every now and then. She wondered if people assumed he was her husband as he guided her through the crowds, close beside her, every now and then touching her shoulder. She turned to give him a casual, friendly smile to reassure herself she was doing nothing illicit. He nodded and smiled back – a simple, easy smile. Nothing untoward at all. You’re being silly, she told herself. What’s wrong with you around this man?

‘Here we are,’ said Luke. The restaurant was on a side street, with a few tables set out on the pavement, menus, glass jars of golden olive oil and small white bowls of sea salt on each one.

Luke held open the door and allowed her to walk into the restaurant first. She knew of the place, but she had never been before. It was expensive, the haunt of minor celebrities, MPs and glamorous, designer-clad twenty-somethings. A waiter with jet-black hair and doleful eyes welcomed them, nodding his head in exaggerated hospitality, his greeting almost unintelligible beneath a thick Spanish accent. The main restaurant was dark and cosy but steps at the far end led down to an airy conservatory-style area. There were murals on the walls of curling vegetation and oversized flowers. Harmony felt like a screw in a box of nails beside the sophisticated men and women talking and laughing animatedly, dressed in expensive clothes with glistening hair, a world away from her knee-length black skirt and ponytail secured neatly at the nape of her neck. The opulence unsettled her, made her feel insignificant, insecure. Until her mum died they’d lived in the cramped second-floor flat on the Park Green estate in Reading. Her abiding memory of the place was the threadbare carpet with its garish Seventies pattern of black flowers on a red background. When their mother became too weak to get out of bed, she’d ask them every now and then to ‘tidy the carpet’, and the two girls would get down on their hands and knees and colour in any new patches of wear with black felt-tip pens.

‘I don’t see why we have to do this,’ Harmony would grumble as she lay flat on her tummy, legs kicked up behind her, searching for hessian strands to blacken. ‘I mean, it’s not as if anyone ever comes to visit. You’d think the Queen or Princess What’s-her-name was coming for tea.’

‘Anne,’ her sister said, as she busily coloured.

‘Yes, her, Princess Anne, the one with the hair. She’s not coming though, nobody comes, only the nurse, and I doubt she can even see the floor, her stomach’s so massive.’

‘Mum’s dying, Harmony. She wants lots of different things, like soup instead of beans on toast, and three sugars in her tea, and if she wants the carpet coloured in then that’s what we’ll do.’ She pointed at the floor beneath Harmony’s elbow. ‘You missed a bit.’

‘Table for two?’ the waiter asked Luke in his Spanish lilt.

‘We’re not eating,’ Luke said. ‘We’ve just come for a drink.’

‘Certainly, sir. Would you like to sit at the bar?’ He gestured to the other side of the room where there was a dark wood bar with mirrors behind and a row of empty leather stools.

Harmony asked the barman what white wines he had by the glass. He recommended a white Rioja with enthusiasm. She thought of Will, who wasn’t fond of Spanish whites.

‘That sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘A large glass of the Rioja.’

‘And I’ll have a beer,’ Luke said.

They were quiet as the barman prepared their drinks. Harmony shifted in her seat, glancing up at Luke to give an embarrassed smile as she tried to think of something to talk about. The barman put their drinks and a dish of almonds on the bar in front of them.

‘Thank you,’ Luke said. Then he lifted his drink to her. ‘Cheers.’ Harmony clinked her glass against his. She noticed how long and slim his fingers were, his nails cut short and clean. They reminded her of her father’s fingers, or at least how her mother had described her father’s fingers – long and graceful like a concert pianist’s.

‘Your dad had the most beautiful hands,’ she heard her mother saying.

Luke smiled at her, his eyes burning through her to the point where she had to look away. As she did, she noticed the woman on a table nearby staring at Luke while the man she was with stared at his newspaper. When she realised Harmony was looking she glanced away, the skin on the back of her neck reddening as she stirred her drink.

‘So are you and Will okay?’ he said, taking a small handful of almonds.

‘Will and I?’

He nodded and put an almond in his mouth.

‘Yes,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘Yes, of course. Why?’

‘Things were … ’ he hesitated, ‘strained the other night, and you said you’re staying at your sister’s. And there’s also something about you today. You seem … ’ he paused. ‘Sad.’

Harmony was aware of her body tensing. She lifted her chin and shifted her weight on the stool. ‘That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. I’m staying with my sister for a few days; we’re close and I haven’t seen her for ages.’

‘I see. I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. Forgive me.’

She was about to agree but something stopped her. She sighed.

‘No, you’re right.’ She picked at the edge of the scallop-edged drinks mat that sat beneath her wine glass. ‘We’re having a few problems. It’s been a difficult six months.’ She hesitated and glanced up at him.

‘I lost a baby and it’s making life hard to deal with for both of us for different reasons.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Losing a child is devastating, I know what it feels like.’

‘You do?’ she said.

‘Yes.’ His brow furrowed and he swallowed. ‘You and Will must be going through all sorts of emotions.’

A lump rose in her throat. ‘I am. I’m not sure he is.’ She tried to banish the memory of Will telling her he was relieved when the baby died. ‘Actually, do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’