Текст книги "Vows of Silence "
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
“Did you lose your faith?”
“Never. I just became very, very angry.”
They walked back through the streets of the town, dodging posses of cyclists, in the gathering dusk. Jane felt she had begun the afternoon with a comparative stranger and ended it with someone she had come to know rather well. A friend.
They parted at the college entrance. She had to buy a couple of books. In Heffers, finding the shelves she needed, she stood in front of them unseeing, thinking about Peter Wakelin and about living and dying and keeping the dying alive.
They did not have the books she wanted in stock. At the counter, waiting to order, she picked up a new edition of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartetsand opened them at random.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
She did not buy the book because she had her own copy but it reminded her of how much meaning she had always found in the Four Quartets, how much there was between the lines, how the poems had sometimes seemed to enrich her as the Bible and the Odysseyhad.
She came out into the street which was bright and busy with lights and packed with students and shoppers, so that she kept having to walk in the road. Cambridge delighted her. Everything was here and she felt an uprush of gratitude for her work, the college, the new intellectual stimulus, new friends. After a series of stumbles the way ahead seemed smooth.
She wished she had not left Simon Serrailler any message.
Sixty-one
“Daddy’s been sick in the bathroom and now he’s crying,” Hannah had said, running down the stairs into the study after ten o’clock. Cat was replying to a long email from the practice manager. The fact that she was now off work to look after Chris did not mean she was out of touch and she knew that if she did let go it would be harder than ever to pick up the reins later. Whenever “later” was.
She had resettled Hannah in bed, cleaned up and gone into the bedroom.
“Chris?”
His head was turned away.
“Oh my love.”
His shoulders shook occasionally. She put her arms round them and held him against her.
“I know.”
“You bloody don’t know.”
“No.”
It was true. Whatever it felt like to watch him, to nurse him, to see him in pain and distress, it was different, separate, it was happening to him and not to her. Then he had mumbled something.
“What?”
He pushed her slightly.
“Chris?”
“I can’t see properly. It’s like a tunnel. I can see straight ahead but nothing else.”
“Since when?”
“Earlier. I don’t know. I woke up. It was then.” She said nothing because she could find no words. After half an hour she had given him a shot of morphine and stayed until he slept before going back to the computer. Oddly, she had finished the notes and sent them off with complete concentration before checking on a query from the junior locum about a patient he thought had Lyme disease—had Cat ever seen a case of it locally?—and reading several articles in the BMJ. Her mind was hungry for facts and medical information about anything other than brain tumours and work kept her occupied—kept her down stairs, she thought—though the door was ajar and part of her was tuned for any sound from Chris or, as always, the children.
When she came to it was half past one, and Chris was calling.
He was lying on his back, eyes open and shimmering with tears.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “You’d be better at it.”
She took his hand. “I can’t give you another shot just yet but I’ll get you a syringe pump first thing in the morning. You’ll be much more comfortable. I think we should have one of the Imogen House girls come in every day—they’re so much more used to the dosages and everything else.”
“Don’t send me in there.”
She was silent. He had always said that though he had been happy to send patients into the hospice, knew how well they were cared for, knew it was far better than the hospital, he would never want to go there. Cat had not understood and never argued.
“Cat?”
“No. If you want to stay here you’re staying here.”
“Do I have to have one of them come?”
“No. But if you could bear to, it would help. They really do know more than me about c”
“Dying.”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t do any good. Remember that in future. Forget the treatment, it doesn’t do any good.”
“Everyone’s different, you know.”
“Shit, who’s got this thing, you or me? Jesus, you’ve always got to know best, haven’t you? Only you don’t. This time I know fucking best.”
It was happening like this more and more, a sudden spurt of rage and vicious accusations directed at her. It was the tumour talking, she always had to remind herself, it was not Chris. But it was the hardest part. Twice he had turned on Sam and snarled, shouted angrily at Hannah, terrifying her. Seconds later he had fallen asleep or simply forgotten. When Hannah did not want to come and say goodbye to him before she went to school or kiss him goodnight, he was bewildered and upset.
She went into the kitchen. Mephisto was sprawled on the old sofa in a deep sleep and did not stir. The wind had got up. She poured a glass of milk and sat down. Something else was worrying her. She had been sleeping with Chris in their bed until tonight, but he had seemed increasingly disturbed by her and was awake or restless so that she wasn’t getting much sleep. The children had enough without having her tired and irritable. But how could she tell Chris that she was moving out? Perhaps she could indicate that she needed a good sleep “just tonight” and then “just another night” until it became permanent. The spare room was next door to theirs and she could leave both doors ajar.
But something practical and even necessary had a finality about it which she could not face. This was not only about her getting sleep. It was about nothing ever being normal again, about never sharing their bed again, about the end of everything. I have not been a good doctor, she thought now, because this is something that has never occurred to me and which not one single patient who has had to face it has ever talked to me about. Perhaps there is nothing to say, perhaps it is simply unbearable and impossible to put into words, tell someone else, express at all?
There was a sound. She went to the foot of the stairs and listened. Nothing. Then again.
Chris was sitting up, his arm stretched out to the bedside lamp which was lying on the floor. Seeing him, his head shaved on one side, his face and body thin, his eyes full of bewilderment, Cat thought, I cannot do this. I don’t know how to be here any longer. And was ashamed and angry with herself, as she restored the lamp, settled Chris down again as she would one of the children, smoothing his forehead, murmuring to him. He had not been fully awake or aware, the morphine was still having its effect.
She went into the children’s rooms. Felix, as ever, was sleeping on his face with his bottom in the air. Sam was curled neatly, his Alex Rider book open under his arm. Hannah’s duvet was on the floor. Cat replaced it and tucked her in. Whatever else was happening in the house, whatever had upset them during the day, they were all blessed with the certainty of sleep.
Her own body was tired but her brain was so wide awake it seemed to be sending out sparks. She settled on the sofa next to Mephisto, who squeezed his claws once or twice. A pile of books were on the floor beside her, books she had been trying to concentrate on for days. Even when she had been at her busiest stretches as a GP she had never left a novel unfinished or taken so long over one as she was now. She picked through them. The latest Ian Rankin. Ruth Rendell. But she couldn’t read about the dark side, violence and distress, nor care who had committed whatever the crimes might be. Barchester Towers. Martin Amis. Both loved, neither right. At the bottom was the huge, heavy novel Chris had bought her at the airport on the way home from Australia because, he had said, “Even you can’t say this one’s too short for the flight.” Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. But she had barely begun it when Felix had been sick and Hannah had been frightened of a bout of turbulence and then it had been food trays and sleep and more sickness, until she had put the novel away and read an old Dorothy L. Sayers someone had left in the magazine pouch of her seat.
“ Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians.”
She felt herself sink into the book as into a deep soft bed.
She came to when the cat uncurled himself, leapt softly onto the floor and went out through the catflap, letting in a brief draught of cold air. It was almost three and the house was creaking slightly here and there as the wind got under the floor boards and the roof tiles and around the window frames. Go to bed, she told herself. Now, or you’ll be fit for nothing tomorrow.
She shivered. Did not go to bed but instead picked up the phone which was beside her and pressed 3.
“Serrailler,” he said at once.
“I didn’t wake you then.”
“Hi. No, that was half an hour ago. Some jerk’s running round town in a stolen jeep firing an airgun out of the windows.”
“Nice.”
“Don’t worry, he’s nicked.”
“Why did they ring you?”
“They ring me if a car backfires at the moment. But that’s not why you’re ringing me. What’s wrong?”
“It’s three o’clock.”
“Bleak?”
“Very.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
It was less. He blew in with the wind and came straight to her, holding out his arms. She had no need to say anything. He would have understood if she had gone to sleep but she needed to talk and he simply listened to everything without interruption, passing her a handkerchief, making tea and always listening, listening.
In the end, she sat, drained of words and even of emotions, sipping the tea in exhaustion.
But then she said, remembering, “I’m sorry I got at you the other night. About Dad.”
He shrugged.
“Si, you have to take this on board. He’s happy. Judith is very good for him. Ma would have been pleased, you know. Amazed, but pleased.”
“I know. It isn’t that.”
“You think she’s taking Ma’s place.”
“It’s the house.”
“You care about the house more than about Dad?”
“I suppose I do. What a shit.”
“Yes.”
“None of it matters. Not beside this. How long will it go on?”
She shook her head. “Probably not as long as I expected. They gave him a few months at the beginning but they can never be sure and I guess they were wrong. Not their fault.”
“Why is he so set against the hospice?”
“I’m not sure. He’s always been very keen on it for his patients. I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to go there so much as that he does want to stay at home. We can manage that. The hospice does home support and Dickon Farley’s his doctor—I’m his wife but at this stage it doesn’t make much difference. Dickon will make the decisions, I’ll be on the spot. I won’t send him away. It’s a few weeks.”
“The kids?”
“They have to live with it c Sam and Hannah anyway. I can’t protect them from everything though we’ll make sure they don’t see him if they shouldn’t. But they know. I’ve talked to them about it. Sam listens and doesn’t say much, Hannah says a lot but she hasn’t listened and she hasn’t really taken it on board. It’ll be worse for her.”
“Worst of all for you.”
“Adam’s driving his mother down the day after tomorrow. I don’t want them to leave it too late but I suspect that actually she can’t face it. You know Chris’s mother—only looks on the bright side because only the bright side is allowed to exist. I can’t talk to her on the phone because she just insists it’s a matter of positive thinking. She’s a great one for positive thinking, my mother-in-law. I wish I were.”
“You’re a realist. You have to be. So am I. I have to be.”
“You’re up against it at the moment, aren’t you?”
“Yup. I wouldn’t admit it to many but he’s got the upper hand. He’s laughing at us, I can hear him.”
“What do you think?”
“He’ll make a mistake. They always do. He’ll make a mistake or he’ll flip and start running round the shopping centre with a gun and then turn it on himself. But not before there’s a massacre. Have you counted the number of times the media uses the word every time they report? They dredge up every American high school and small-town gun massacre in history and scare the daylights out of everyone. Apparently two weddings have hired private security—word has it one lot were armed though we don’t know that for sure. Another lot have postponed their wedding until it’s all over. Shops say they’ve never known such quiet Saturday afternoons and the Jug Fair didn’t help any. And all the time, I’m looking round, you know? I’m looking round trying to put myself into his head, thinking, would I have a go here, why wouldn’t I come and shoot someone there, what would I do next, who would I gun down this week? I can guess. We can all guess. But we can’t have a full armed response every time a popgun goes off.”
“I heard the royals have cancelled for the Barr wedding.”
“They’ve been advised to cancel but we haven’t had anything official. The Lord Lieutenant’s having apoplexy, his wife’s having a nervous breakdown, the Chief wishes they’d skip the wedding and go straight for the honeymoon.”
“Nothing will happen there.”
“Probably not, but thinking so doesn’t help lower the temperature.”
From upstairs they heard Chris shouting out at the same moment as Simon’s mobile rang.
Chris was standing up beside the bed and when Cat went into the room he said, “Please c”
“I’m here. What is it?”
But he simply sat and then lay down on the bed without replying and fell asleep. Cat pulled the duvet over him and left the room.
The kitchen was empty. She looked out and saw that Simon had driven away. Mephisto was still out. The wind was still blowing hard, stirring the edges of the yellow curtains and rattling the catflap.
She lay down on the sofa, knotted with misery and dread, and waited for first light.
Sixty-two
“This is a situation virtually without precedent,” the Chief said. “There have been shootings, of course there have—Dunblane. In the United States they are becoming commonplace. Lone gunmen open fire in a school playground or a college or a shopping mall, but in almost every instance they turn the gun on themselves. Not in this case.”
She looked round the table. Faces were grim. The media had returned in force. There had been half an hour about gun crime on the BBC with TV pictures of Lafferton. Awkward questions were being asked in high places. Simon wondered how long it would be before the rest of his SIFT team was called in. Could he head up both? Probably not.
“My—”
A knock. The door opened. Paula Devenish glared. The desk officer brought in a single sheet of paper, gave it to her and vanished.
The Chief Constable read. Closed her eyes for a second. Looked up.
“This,” she said, “is a message about next Saturday’s wedding. The Lord Lieutenant’s daughter.” She paused. “The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will be attending.”
There was an intake of breath. Someone muttered, “All we need.”
“Quite,” the Chief said.
“But I thought—”
“We all thought, John. We were told royal protection advice had been firmly not to come, and that the Prince of Wales had agreed.”
“Buggers.”
“Don’t say that,” someone else said, “PoW’s never bottled it before. He knows someone could take a potshot every time he goes out.”
“I’m going to apply for an extra unit from RP,” the Chief said. “I don’t see why all this should be down to us.”
She stood up. “Thank you, everyone. Simon, can I have a word c?”
They went along the corridor to his office.
“Frankly, I’m terrified. Not something I readily admit to. I know this is a private visit but we are going to organise ourselves as if it were high profile. Gold Command.” The Chief looked at him. “You’ve got plenty on with this entire case but no one knows it better. Problem?”
“It’s personal and family, but yes. I’m concerned that I may need to be available for my sister at short notice c her husband has a brain tumour—he’s very ill.”
“I’m sorry, Simon. That’s a pig, my father died of one, so I know. But the fact is, it’s your brother-in-law, not your wife or child. I can’t let you off.”
Tough, he thought. Tough as ever. Station word had always been that the Chief was tougher than a man because she had more to prove. That might have been true ten years ago but now Paula Devenish was one of several female chief constables. She was still reckoned to be the toughest among them.
“I’ll fix a meeting with royal protection and whoever else as a matter of urgency. I’ll let you know. Any more news on the fairground accident?”
“Fatalities stand at nine—the ones still in hospital are all out of danger.”
“Good,” she said briskly.
Simon went to get a coffee. The royal visit was the least of it. There would be a lot of tedious meetings, the wedding would go ahead, nothing untoward would happen because, whoever he was, the gunman had a brain. He would know that the cathedral would be bristling with armed police.
Patience, Simon thought, closing his office door. It was only a matter of patience and good, careful policing and of playing a waiting game. Sooner or later the man would make a single mistake which would give them their chance. A mistake, a bit of luck, making sure their backs were covered, double-checking everything c the tedious stuff. Most of his police life went to prove that he was right. The rest, the serial killers, the major dramas—they were rare.
But in any case, he knew that at the moment he needed the shelter of routine. For most of the day, the thought of Cat and Chris was not at the back but near the forefront of his mind. That was a question of waiting too. The worst sort of waiting.
Sixty-three
“I bought some fish from the new place in the Lanes—apparently they get a delivery straight from Grimsby every morning so it couldn’t be fresher. Would you like it just plain grilled?”
“What is it?”
“Dover sole.”
“Oh, Lizzie, what a treat, you are good.”
“No, it’s fun. You know I like cooking—sometimes.”
“I feel completely useless.”
“Right. Can’t stop you feeling what you wanna feel.”
Helen laughed and winced.
“Hurt?”
“Laughing does. Sneezing does. Coughing does. Moving does. Breathing does. If I keep off those it’s fine.”
“Well, you can’t have any more painkillers until half past five so you’ll have to practise mental diversion.”
“I didn’t realise I’d brought you up to be so hard.”
“Yup, you did. Tea?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Helen was propped up on the sofa with the French windows open onto the garden. It had been a beautiful day to come out of hospital, she thought, a beautiful day to be thankful that you were alive when you could so easily have been c
“Lizzie, how many people have died now?”
“Morbid.”
“No. I want to know. I was incredibly lucky—how lucky was I?”
“Nine people, and four with serious injuries. But out of danger. So yeah, lucky. Too true.”
A squirrel leapt into the ash tree at the bottom of the garden, scrambled down the trunk and bounded across the grass. Beautiful, Helen thought. That is the most beautiful squirrel I have ever seen and the tree is the most beautiful and the sun is shining more beautifully than it has ever shone. I have done nothing to deserve life just as the others did not deserve death. But I am going to revel in it and every moment I am awake I am going to be grateful for it. Her ribs hurt. Her shoulders hurt. Her neck was excruciatingly painful if she tried to turn it so much as a millimetre and none of it mattered, it could be borne. It was the pain of getting better and how different that must be from any other pain—the pain of getting worse.
She remembered very little of the accident. It was like a film flickering through her mind from time to time, in which parts had been removed and parts elided with others so that the time was muddled and the scenes made no sense. She remembered the noise of screaming. The lurch as they tipped or fell. She remembered the feel of the man’s strong grip on her wrist as he found her and then his face. “OK, love,” he kept saying, “you’re OK.”
How Phil had simply crawled out and walked away virtually unscathed was another matter for wonder, though she had not known about that until she was at the hospital and he had turned up with Lizzie. He had not taken a day off but been in school as usual first thing the next morning.
She shifted to try and get comfortable. The squirrel was back, nibbling at a conker among the fallen leaves which Tom had promised but failed to sweep up. It didn’t matter. Nothing so small could possibly matter ever again.
She closed her eyes and dozed and was wakened by the sound of the doors being closed. Phil looked round. “Good to sleep,” he said. “Lizzie’s in charge next door. How do you feel?”
“Stiff. Sore. Very happy.”
He came over and sat beside her. “Are you going to be able to get upstairs all right later?”
“Oh yes. I can’t sleep on a sofa, that’s what invalids do. How was your day?”
“Busy. I had a bit of running round to do.”
“They should be keeping you on light duties—I said you should have a week off.”
“I know.”
“Why running round?”
“I had to go into town. Shopping. Bought you this.”
The door opened on Lizzie bearing a tray so she put the package to one side while they set up a table and cloth and helped her to sit up. Moving to an upright position was painful enough to make her catch her breath. Four cushions at her back. Her left arm was in a sling.
Eating was slow but the fish was the best food she had ever eaten, the vegetables perfectly cooked, the bread and butter manna. She wondered if the painkillers were making her high but knew that it was relief, the high of having cheated death. She had said prayers of thanks in her head several times. Phil would laugh. “No such things as miracles,” he had said.
Perhaps it didn’t matter.
She had thought she was hungry and Lizzie had given her only a small piece of fish but she couldn’t manage it all. Some reflex made her throat close as she tried to swallow, though she knew there was nothing wrong. She drank tea, ate some bread and butter, expressed great thanks, refused a date slice. Felt faint with exhaustion.
And then Phil handed her the package again. It was the size of a box of chocolates. She hoped it was not. Chocolate was not what she needed.
But inside an empty chocolate box was another box and, inside that, another and another and then the smallest box.
“Will you marry me?” Phil said.
Helen began to cry.
An hour later she was still crying but upstairs in bed. Phil had gone home. Lizzie was lying on top of the duvet beside her.
“I can’t stop grinning,” she said.
“So I see.”
“If it hadn’t been for me pushing you onto the Internet c”
“True. You’ll have to wear pink satin, you know.”
The front door slammed.
“He won’t,” Lizzie said.
“God, don’t make me laugh please, it’s so painful.”
“Mum?”
“We’re here, talking about pink satin. Where have you been?”
“Giving out leaflets.”
Lizzie groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. She steered clear of what she called Tom’s religious mania but when he went into bars and cafés or shops handing out Jesus leaflets she wanted to curl up with embarrassment.
“Shut up. You OK, Mum? Sure they ought to have let you out?”
“Quite sure. Very sure. And I’m fine, thanks, love, never better. Sleepy and sore and never better.”
Tom looked at Lizzie.
“It’s OK, it’s not the drugs, she’s just going to get married. Isn’t it great? He brought a ring all hidden inside lots of boxes, I think it was the most romantic thing in the world, I’m really jealous.”
Tom stood half in the room. He did not look at either of them. He looked straight ahead. He seemed hardly to breathe.
“Great news, Tom,” Lizzie said.
Nothing.
“Tom? Don’t stand like that, come here.”
Nothing.
“Oh God, if you’re going to be childish c” Lizzie got off the bed and started towards him. “If you are, then bugger off before you upset her. You make me really angry, Tom.”
But as she neared him he turned away. He went across the landing, back down the stairs.
“Lizzie, don’t, leave him, it’s fine, he’ll be fine.”
“Tosser!” Lizzie yelled.
But the front door banged shut over the sound of her voice.
Sixty-four
“Tell out, my soul, the glories of his word!
Firm is his promise, and his mercy sure.
Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord
To children’s children and for evermore!”
“Alleluia!”
“Alleluia!”
“Praise Jesus’ name!”
“Praise the name of Christ Jesus!”
The band struck up, two guitars, two flutes, the electronic keyboard, and Combo on the drums. Tom had backed out. He usually took part playing something but tonight he couldn’t face it. He stood towards the back.
“Allelluia, Ay-men!”
The pastor raised his arms. Tom closed his eyes as they began to sing again, sing and wave their arms and sway, row after row. He could feel the woman next to him swaying against him.
“Jesus, sweet Lord,” she moaned.
He opened his eyes. There was a woman with two young boys in the row in front but where the backs of the boys were, one with a blue fleece, one with a red, he saw only his mother’s face, lit up with happiness, hers and Lizzie’s. Lizzie was grinning at him.
He had walked for an hour around the roads, in and out of cul-de-sacs, down avenues full of houses. Car in the drive, lights in the windows. Car in the drive. Lights in the windows. On and on. He had come out near the Hill and thought he might climb up there but it was pitch black and he had no torch. He had walked back, veered off, not wanting to go home, walked halfway into the town but changed his mind and walked back again. He didn’t want to meet anyone, couldn’t talk. What he wanted to do was cry. He wasn’t angry with his mother, though he didn’t understand her, but maybe it was the shock of the accident, maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe? He was sad and upset. Phil Russell. OK, so he, Tom, was off to the States, leaving home, and would have little to do with him, but the knowledge that Phil Russell was his stepfather, had married his mother and was filling her mind and heart full of atheistic poison, sneering at the Bible, turning her against it with clever intellectual talk, making her feel a fool, probably stopping her going to the cathedral singers c He knew in his heart that God was asking him to stop this thing, that Jesus was relying on him to bring his mother to salvation and Tom wanted to, but on his own it seemed impossible.
“You are not on your own, Tom,” a voice said in his heart. “Behold, I am with you always, even to the ending of the world.”
He smiled. The fleeces of the two small boys glowed.
“For my sake,” the voice said, “is there not more rejoicing over one lamb which was lost and is now found c”
“Yea, Lord,” he said, “bless your name. I know it’s down to me, I know what you’re asking me to do. It’s just c”
“Nothing is too difficult for God. Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened to you.”
The woman next to him clutched his arm and the room was filled with the babble of people speaking in tongues. She spoke in tongues. Her eyes were rolling. Tom tried to move her hand gently from his arm but her grip was too strong.
“Amma jambagrisalamoralamma fornamo jammay jammay canfalabedei.”
Tom opened his own mouth, trying to remember what he had been taught by the pastor after his baptism.
Relax, take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and focus your mind on the God and the Lord who love you immeasurably. Thank them for having filled you with the Holy Spirit, take another breath, and let it rip—speak forth words of praise, thanksgiving, and worship. And that is exactly what you will be speaking. And be BOLD—the words you are hearing are the proof that Jesus is alive and well—and that so will you be—forever! It cost him his life for you to be able to praise and worship God in this wonderful way, so get into it!
He closed his eyes again but by now the pastor was back on his feet, waving his Bible and calling out to them to hear the words of Jesus.
“‘Come to me, all ye that labour and are carrying a heavy burden. I will give you rest.’”
“Which of you here works hard to pay the rent, to fuel the mortgage, to feed the little ones, to buy the clothes, to run the car? Which of you gets up before light and trudges off to a job they don’t much care for and stays at it all day and trudges back home in the evening, tired out? Which of you here? I guess all of you here, those of you of an age to be in work. And those too young, well, I guess you go to school, don’t you, you sit through your classes and do your homework, day after day. You carry a heavy burden. Now what does the Lord Jesus say? Does he say I will give you a load of riches so you can stop work and fly to Florida and lie by a pool all day? Does he say, OK, I’ll see to it that you quit school and have fun all day and never have to learn a spelling or a chemistry formula ever again, Ay-men? No, he does NOT. What he says is, “I will give you rest,” but does this mean idleness. It does NOT! Was Jesus idle? Were the disciples idle? No, they were NOT. The words of Jesus need to be thought through. Rest. I will give you rest c”
Feet shuffled. Someone sneezed violently. The boy in the blue fleece pinched the boy in the red one. The woman next to him leaned against Tom. He moved away and she leaned further. She smelled of fish.
He hung about the chapel after they had all left, until the pastor came out from the side room to tidy up.
“Tom? Sorry not to have you up there playing for us tonight—everything all right?”
He came nearer, looked closely. Sat down beside him.
“You don’t look good. You hear the words of God just now? ‘Come to me all ye that are burdened’? Whatever’s wrong, boy, take the words to heart.”
“I’m trying. It’s just—difficult.”
“I’m here for you if you want to talk, but if not, try Jesus. He’s always there for you.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“So c I’ll just get on with the clearing up, you do what you decide to do, Tom. We’re both of us right next to you.”
“Thanks.”
He bent his head. The floorboards were scuffed and dirt-stained. Thousands of feet, he thought, thousands of feet.
