The Stopped Heart (48 page)

Lottie said she wouldn't go.

You have to, Jazz said.

Don't have to.

Lottie, come on, you do.

Lottie rubbed at her eyes.

Don't want to. Not going. Not today.

Why not?

I don't know.

You do know. What is it? Tell me, Lottie!

Lottie lifted her eyes and looked at Jazz.

It's because I'm frightened, that's what it is.

Jazzy laughed.

Frightened? Whatever is there to be frightened of?

Lottie looked down at the ground. She seemed to be searching for something. At last she put her finger in her mouth.

Wolves. I'm afraid of wolves.

Don't be silly. There aren't any wolves.

Lottie coughed.

I'm afraid of Miss Sands.

Jazzy laughed.

No, you're not. No one's afraid of Miss Sands. She's the kindest teacher in the whole world.

Lottie made an angry face. She blew out some air.

Well, I'm afraid of Jesus, then.

You're not afraid of Jesus.

I am. He's a bad man.

Now Jazzy looked at me.

You shouldn't say a thing like that, Lottie. Not about our Lord. That's a wicked thing to say, isn't it, Eliza?

I went over to Lottie, bent down to her.

Why would you be afraid of Jesus, Lottikins? You know very well that Jesus loves all the little children.

Lottie bit her lip and looked at me.

Well, I don't want it.

What don't you want?

Don't want him to love me, not at all.

She hugged her arms to her chest as if she was cold. I put my hand to her head. I thought that she looked quite pale.

What's the matter? I said. Are you sick? Is something hurting?

She shut her eyes and then she opened them again.

Him. It's him. He's gonna hurt me.

She means Jesus, Jazzy said.

No! Lottie shouted. Not Jesus.

I took hold of Lottie's hand. It felt quite hot and alive. I didn't think she was sick.

Lottie, listen to me. No one's going to hurt you, I said.

She fixed her eyes on me then, and there was something about the look that turned my blood cold. Her eyes suddenly dark—too dark. No longer the eyes of a little girl, but full of dread and complication—a much older person's eyes.

She folded her arms.

If I fall out of the highest window in this house, Eliza, she said, will I be dead?

I gasped.

What? I said.

If I land on my head, will I? Because I really want to. I want to fall out of the window and be dead.

I stared at her. And I was about to tell her to stop all this talk of being hurt and being dead—and that she would certainly not die, not until she was a very old and fragile lady of at least a hundred and ten. But then our father came in and told the kiddies they had to hurry up and get to school and not keep Addie Sands waiting.

Now Lottie started to fret and wail. She stamped her foot.

Not going! Don't want to go! Don't want to!

Our father folded his arms.

Do you want a spanking?

Yes, Lottie said.

I tried to think.

I'll cut you a switch, I told her. From the elder. As a special treat. Would you like that? A magic switch that you can use to keep yourself safe.

Lottie hesitated.

I'd like it, she said. But I'm not going to school.

Our father looked at her.

You will if she cuts you a switch, he said. Otherwise you'll get a good hiding from me and I can tell you right now that you won't be happy about it.

Lottie said nothing. I went to the table and picked up the knife.

T
HE TREE IN THE LANE WAS SMALL, BUT IT WAS BLACK WITH
berries. Some people in the village believed it was uncanny—that a spray or a switch from its boughs could guard you like the most ferocious dog.

I didn't know what I believed, but as I chose a long, slim branch and moved in with my blade, I sensed a flick of movement from beyond the hedge and had a quick, chill certainty that someone was watching me. For a moment, I froze.

He's there, I thought. He's back.

I waited but I saw nothing, and at last the feeling eased, the air around me loosening and growing loud and bright. Clatter of birdsong. Sun on my face. I breathed again.

Turning, I saw that the man from London was there, setting up his apparatus. He had a shiny leather bag on a strap. Some wooden legs. The camera looked like something you would use to blow on the fire with. The boy who was meant to be helping wasn't doing much—just whistling away to himself and picking berries in the hedgerow.

The man looked at me with his head to one side. He had a bushy mustache but not much hair on his head and there were dark shadows under his eyes.

Want to have your picture taken? he said.

I shook my head. He looked surprised.

You don't?

No, thanks, I said.

He touched his mustache, which was yellow at the edges.

Well then, can you fetch your brothers and sisters? I want a picture with some kiddies up against this hedge. They let me do it the other day, he added.

Did they? I said.

He smiled.

Larking around in the wheelbarrow, they were. I got some good ones, didn't I, Tommy? He looked at the boy, who nodded, his mouth full of berries. Tell them it's the man with the camera, he said.

I hesitated.

They've got to go to Sunday school.

The man smiled. I saw that his teeth were yellow too.

Tell them I'll give them a ha'penny. A ha'penny each.

They don't want money, I said.

He kept on smiling.

Well, I won't keep them and that's a promise. They know the score. Just a minute or two of standing still for me, that's all it is.

He clearly expected me to do it, because he put the leather bag down in the grass and folded his arms and stood there in the lane waiting. I thought it wouldn't do any harm to entice them all—and especially Lottie—out into the sunshine. So I went back in and asked who'd like to have their picture taken.

Me! said Jazz.

And me! said Charlie and Minnie together—and Minnie picked up her skipping rope and rushed around getting her boots on, while Honey made a small undecided noise and sat down on the floor and drummed her feet.

Well, you'll have to get a move on, won't you? our father said.

I handed Lottie the switch I'd cut.

Here you are, I said. Here it is. Your sword.

She looked at me as if I was trying to hand her a snake.

Take it, I said. I told you, it will keep you safe.

She said nothing, but she reached out her hand and she took it. She hit the table with it briefly, once, as if testing its powers. And I waited, thinking she would start to make another big old fuss about going outside, but she didn't. Her eyes were dark but her face was very calm. She seemed to have changed her mind about everything. Maybe the switch had done it. She turned and went out into the sunny lane with the others.

I watched as they all stood in front of the yew hedge by the gate, the twins holding hands next to Jazzy, Lottie and Honey standing on the other side. They waited while the man fussed around with his camera, twiddling the knobs and moving the cloth and the boy turned cartwheels in the dust to amuse them.

At last he was ready.

Where's that baby off to? he said, as Honey started to wander off out of the picture toward me.

I caught her up in my arms and carried her back and set her down next to Charlie, who tried to catch hold of her but she wouldn't let him. She stretched out her hands and started to turn around and around on the spot, laughing and making herself dizzy.

The man didn't seem to mind. He asked me again if I wouldn't like to be in the picture after all? I said no.

Suit yourself, he said. Now then: everyone keep very still—and look at the camera!

Honey didn't keep still. But the twins did: they stared at him, their faces frozen, Minnie clutching her rope in one hand and Charlie's hand in the other. Lottie kept still too, but she didn't
look at the camera. She didn't do anything. She seemed to be somewhere else entirely—gazing down with a quiet and solemn face at the branch of elder in her hand.

All right, said the man. Here we go—

He put his head under the cloth and, just as he did so, Jazz swung her legs over the top of the gate and turned herself upside down. Her hair hanging in the dust. Minnie gave a little squeal and Honey hiccupped.

The man laughed and punched something under the cloth.

Eureka! he said. There it is.

Is it over? Minnie cried.

It's over, I said.

The man pulled his head out.

That was a saucy trick, young lady, he said to Jazz as she jumped off the gate and pulled down her dress and shook the dust out of her hair. But you could see that he didn't mind that much; in fact, he seemed quite excited about it.

I handed Honey's bonnet to Jazz.

Now hurry off to school, I told them. All of you, I mean it—run along as quick as you can. Miss Sands is waiting.

And I watched them go, all five of them, trailing off down the lane in the bright and dusty air. Minnie jumping and hopping with the skipping rope, Charlie kicking along beside her, waiting for his turn. Honey—tired and fretful—at last starting to cry and having to be picked up by Jazz, who managed to go along with her wedged on her hip the way our mother did. And last of all, Lottie, with that face full of shadows, carrying the switch in both hands and swishing and smacking it against the hedge with all the strength that she could muster.

Just above my head, I heard a warbler, its bright liquid sound pouring down from somewhere in the elder.

And I called out to Lottie and I waved, but she did not look at me. She did not once look up. She did nothing. She did not wave.

A
MAN
'
S BODY IS FOUND ON THE RAILWAY LINE BETWEEN
M
ELTON
and Woodbridge, and for a brief and terrible half hour while the police struggle to identify him, Deborah prepares herself for the worst.

But that's before she gets the e-mail. A lengthy and rapturous and barely punctuated e-mail from Eddie, sent from an undisclosed location, describing exactly how hard and unexpectedly he fell for Lisa, how deeply sorry he is to have let Deborah down like this, to have caused her all this pain, how very much he did not want to hurt her, how he would have done almost anything to spare her this.

He was the last person in the world, he says, who would have expected to fall in love with a sixteen-year-old. But he did and it is what it is and he is madly, crazily in love and the fact is he's happier than he's ever been in his whole life. And no, he can't explain it or justify it, but neither does he think he could have done anything to stop it from happening.

The heart wants what it wants, he tells Deborah in the e-mail. And he hopes she won't mind him telling her all this, but he respects her far too much just to leave without saying anything. He feels that the very least he owes her is some kind of an explanation. He thanks her for all the happiness she has given him and he will never forget her and he wishes her well and he hopes she will find it in her heart one day to forgive him.

Graham has to sit down when he hears the news.

“Lisa! But he didn't even know Lisa! They'd met—what?—once? Maybe twice?”

Ruby tells them that Eddie and Lisa have been messaging each other for a while.

“Messaging? What, you mean on the Internet? You e-mail someone for a few weeks and it's the basis on which to elope?”

“They haven't eloped,” Ruby says.

“What, then? What do you call this?”

Ruby makes a face. “I guess they just wanted to spend some time together, didn't they?”

“What, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and a fortysomething married man?”

“Lisa's leaving school. And she says he's thirty-eight.”

“All right,” Graham says. “But more than twice her age. And she's a complete idiot if she wants to leave school at sixteen.”

Ruby says nothing. Mary looks at her.

“Did you know about this? Did you know that they were planning it?”

Ruby frowns.

“I don't think they were planning it. Lisa just got very pissed off with her parents the other day and they just suddenly felt like they'd do it, that's all.”

Graham almost laughs.

“Great. Let's all do anything we suddenly feel like doing, shall we?”

But Mary looks at Ruby, her stomach beginning to churn.

“They felt like it? You mean, they just decided it on the spur of the moment, or what?”

“I don't know. I don't know when they decided it. Why? Does it matter? Why is it important?”

“It's not important,” Mary says, though to her it suddenly is, very important. “I just wondered how long they'd been planning it, that's all.”

“They met up a couple of times in London,” Ruby says. “And she did try to tell her mum and dad about it but they wouldn't
even listen and then they banned her from seeing him and that's when they decided to do it.”

“My God.” Graham shakes his head. “I actually thought Eddie was a decent kind of person. I honestly thought he was better than that.”

“So she used us?” Mary says, feeling her cheeks growing hot. “That's why she wanted to come here? To see him?”

Ruby puts a hand out to stroke the dog.

“I don't know. Maybe. What else was she meant to do?”

“Wonderful,” Graham says. “What a very mature way to get back at your parents. So this was what it was all about, then? The fight?”

Ruby shrugs.

“They were idiots, weren't they? Her parents are just so fucking uptight. I told you, they wouldn't even let her see him. That's all she was asking, just to be allowed to meet up for a drink or something. It's their own fault. If they'd just let her see him, then none of this would have happened.”