Текст книги "Forbidden"

Автор книги: Табита Сузума

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

After finally working my way round the entire edge of the plastic sheet, I give it a small tug and feel it shift under me, no longer attached to the mattress beneath. Positioning it in front of me, I use my teeth to make the first tear and begin to rip, bit by bit. By my rough calculations, three strips of sheet tied together should be just about long enough. The material is tough and my hands are aching, but I can’t risk just yanking at the sheet for fear of the sound of tearing being overheard. My nails are torn, my fingertips a bleeding mess by the time the material is separated into three equal pieces. But now all I have to do is wait for the guard to pass.

The footsteps begin to approach, and suddenly I am shaking. Shaking so hard I can hardly think. I can’t go through with it. I’m too much of a coward, too damn scared. My plan is ridiculous – I am going to get caught, I am going to fail. The bars look too loose. What if they break before I reach the window?

The footsteps begin to recede and I immediately start tying the strips together. The knots have to be tight, really tight – enough to take my full weight. Sweat pours off me, running into my eyes, blurring my vision. I have to hurry, hurry, hurry, but my hands won’t stop shaking. My body screams at me to stop, back down. My mind forces me to keep going. I have never been this afraid.

I miss. I keep missing. Despite the weight of the plastic material and the heavy knotted loop at the end, I cannot get it to catch on one of the spikes. I made the loop too small. I overestimated my ability to hit a target while panicking with unsteady hands. Finally, in mad desperation, I hurl it right up to the ceiling and, to my astonishment, the loop comes down to catch on a single outer spike, the knotted strips of sheet hanging down against the wall like a thick rope. I stare at it for a moment in total shock: it’s there, waiting to be climbed, my path to freedom. Heart pounding, I reach up to grasp the material as high as I can. Pulling myself up with my arms, I raise my legs, draw up my knees, cross my ankles to trap the material between my feet and begin to climb.

Reaching the top takes far longer than I’d anticipated. My palms are sweaty, my fingers weak from all the unpicking and tearing, and unlike school climbing ropes, the strips of sheet have almost no grip. As soon as I reach the top, I hook my arms round the bars, my feet scrabbling for a foothold against the bumpy, chipped wall. The toe of my shoe finds a small protrusion, and thanks to the grip of my trainers, I am able to cling on. Now for the moment of truth. Have the bars been loosened by my climb? Will a final, violent downward pull cause them to break away from the wall?

I haven’t time to inspect the rust around the fastenings now. Like a rock climber on a cliff’s edge, I cling to the bars with my hands and to the wall with my feet, every muscle in my body straining against the pull of gravity. If they catch me now, it’s all over. But still I hesitate. Will the bars break? Will they break? For one brief moment I feel the golden light of the dying sun touch my face through the dirty window. Beyond it lies freedom. Shut up in this airless box, I am able to catch a glimpse of the outdoors, the wind shaking the green trees in the distance. The thick glass is like an invisible wall, sealing me off from everything that is real and alive and necessary. At what point do you give up – decide enough is enough? There is only one answer really. Never.

The time has come: if I fail, they will hear me and either keep me under surveillance or transfer me to a more secure cell, so I’m acutely aware that this is my one and only chance. A terrified sob threatens to escape me. I’m losing it – someone will hear. But I don’t want to do this. I’m so afraid. So very afraid.

With my left arm still hooked over the bars, taking almost the full weight of my body – metal cutting into flesh, digging into bone – I release one hand to reach for the sheet hanging down below me. And then I realize this is it. The guard will be back down the corridor any minute now. I have no excuses any more. It’s time for me to set us all free. Despite the terror, the blinding white terror, I slip a second loop over my head. Tighten the noose. A harsh sob breaks the still air. And then I let go.

Willa’s big blue eyes, Willa’s dimpled-cheeked smile. Tiffin’s shaggy blond mane, Tiffin’s cheeky grin. Kit’s yells of excitement, Kit’s glow of pride. Maya’s face, Maya’s kisses, Maya’s love.

Maya, Maya, Maya . . .

EPILOGUE

Maya

I stare at myself in the mirror on my bedroom wall. I can see myself clearly, but it’s as if I’m not actually there. The reflection thrown back at me is that of another, an impersonator, a stranger. One who looks like me, yet appears so normal, so solid, so alive. My hair is neatly fastened back, but my face looks alarmingly familiar, my eyes are the same – wide, blue. My expression is impassive – calm, collected, almost serene. I look so shockingly ordinary, so devastatingly normal. Only my ashen skin, the deep shadows beneath my eyes, betray the sleepless nights, the hours and hours of darkness spent staring up at a familiar ceiling, my bed a cold tomb in which I now lie alone. The tranquillizers have long been binned, the threat of hospitalization dropped now that I’m managing to eat and drink again, now that I’ve regained my voice, found a way of making my muscles contract then relax in order to be able to move, stand, function. Things are almost back to normal: Mum has stopped trying to force-feed me, Dave has stopped covering for her to the authorities, and both have drifted back across town together after restoring some kind of order in the house and putting on a convincing show for Social Services. I have returned to the familiar role of care-provider, except that nothing is familiar to me any more, least of all myself.

A basic routine has resumed: getting up, showering, dressing, shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, trying to keep Tiffin and Willa and even Kit as busy as possible. They cling to me like limpets – most nights all four of us end up together in what used to be our mother’s bed. Even Kit has regressed to a frightened child, although his valiant efforts to help and support me make my heart ache. As we huddle together beneath the duvet in the big double bed, sometimes they want to talk; mostly they want to cry and I comfort them as best I can, even though I know nothing can ever be enough, no words can ever make up for what happened, for what I put them through.

During the day there is so much to do: speak to their teachers about returning to school, go to our sessions with the counsellor, check in with the social worker, make sure they are clean, fed and healthy . . . I am forced to keep a checklist, remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing at each point during the day – when to get up, when to have meals, when to start bedtime . . . I have to break down each chore into little steps, otherwise I find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen with a saucepan in one hand, completely overwhelmed, lost, with no idea why I’m standing there or what I’m supposed to do next. I start sentences I cannot finish, ask Kit to do me a favour and then forget what it was. He tries to help me, tries to take over and do everything, but then I worry that he is doing too much, that he too will have some sort of breakdown, and so I beg him to stop. But at the same time I realize he needs to keep busy and feel he is helping and that I need him to.

Since the day it happened, the day the news came, every minute has been agony in its simplest, strongest form, like forcing my hand into a furnace and counting down the seconds knowing they will never end, wondering how I can possibly endure another one, and then another after that, astonished that despite the torture I keep breathing, I keep moving, even though I know by doing so the pain will never go away. But I kept my hand in life’s furnace for a single reason only – the children. I covered for our mother, I lied for our mother, I even told the children exactly what to say before Social Services arrived – but that was when I still had the arrogance, the ridiculous, shameful arrogance to believe that they would still be better off with me than taken away and placed in care.

Now I know different. Even though I have slowly reestablished some sort of routine, some semblance of calm, I have turned into a robot and can barely look after myself, let alone three traumatized children. They deserve a proper home with a proper family who will keep them together and be able to counsel and support them. They deserve to start afresh – embark on a new life where the people who care for them follow society’s norms, where loved ones don’t leave, or fall apart, or die. They deserve so much better. No doubt they always have.

I do honestly believe all this now. It took me a few days to convince myself fully, but eventually I realized that I had no choice: there was actually no decision to make, no option but to accept the facts. I do not have the strength to continue like this, I cannot go on another day: the only way to cope with such crushing guilt is to convince myself that, for their own sakes, the children will be better off elsewhere. I will not allow myself to think that I too am abandoning them.

My reflection hasn’t changed. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing here, but I’m aware that some time has passed because I am starting to feel very cold again. This is a familiar sign that I have ground to a halt, come to the end of the current step and forgotten how to make the transition to the next. But maybe this time my delay is deliberate. The next step will be the hardest of all.

The dress I bought for the occasion is actually quite pretty without being too formal. The navy jacket makes it look suitably smart. Blue because it is Lochan’s favourite colour. Was Lochan’s favourite colour. I bite my lip and blood wells up on the surface. Crying is apparently good for the children – someone told me that, I don’t remember who – but I’ve learned that for me, as with everything I do now, there is no point to it. Nothing can relieve the pain. Not crying, laughing, screaming, begging. Nothing can change the past. Nothing can bring him back. The dead remain dead.

Lochan would have laughed at my clothes. He never saw me so poshly dressed. He would have joked I looked like a city banker. But then he would have stopped laughing and told me that actually I looked beautiful. He would have chuckled at the sight of Kit in such a smart suit, suddenly seeming so much older than his thirteen years. He would have teased us for buying Tiffin a suit too, but would have liked the brightly coloured football tie, Tiffin’s own personal touch. He would have struggled to laugh at Willa’s choice of outfit though. I think the sight of her in her treasured violet ‘princess dress’ that we got her for Christmas would have brought him close to tears.

It has taken so long – nearly a month because of the autopsy, the inquest and all the rest – but finally the time has come. Our mother decided not to attend, so it will just be the four of us in the pretty church up on Millwood Hill – its cool, shady interior empty, echoey and quiet. Just the four of us and the coffin. Reverend Dawes will think Lochan Whitely had no friends, but he’ll be wrong – he had me, he had all of us . . . He will think Lochan wasn’t loved, but he was, more deeply than most people are in a lifetime . . .

After the short service we will return home and comfort each other. After a while I will go upstairs and write the letters – one to each of them, explaining why, telling them how much I love them, that I’m so, so very sorry. Reassuring them that they will be well looked after by another family, trying to convince them, as I did myself, that they will be much better off without me, much better off starting over. Then the rest will be easy, selfish but easy – it has been carefully planned for over a week now. Obviously I can’t possibly remain in the house for the children to find, so I will go to my refuge in Ashmoore Park, the place I called Paradise, which I once shared with Lochan. Except this time I shall not return.

The kitchen knife I’ve been keeping beneath the stack of papers in my desk drawer will be hidden beneath my coat. I will lie down on the damp grass, stare up at the star-studded sky and then raise the knife. I know exactly what to do so that it will be over quickly, so quickly – the same way I hope it was for Lochan. Lochie. The boy I once loved. The boy I still love. The boy I will continue to love, even when my part in this world is over too. He sacrificed his life to spare me a prison sentence. He thought I could look after the children. He thought I was the strong one – strong enough to go on without him. He thought he knew me. But he was wrong.

Willa bursts into the room, making me start. Kit has brushed her long, golden hair, wiped her face and hands clean after breakfast. Her baby face is still so sweet and trusting, it pains me to look at her. I wonder whether, when she is my age, she will still look like me. I hope someone will show her a picture. I hope someone will let her know how much she was loved – by Lochan, by me – even though she won’t be able to remember it for herself. Out of the three of them, she is the most likely to make a full recovery, the most likely to forget, and I hope she does. Perhaps, if they allow her to keep at least one photo, some part of it will jog her memory. Perhaps she will remember a game we used to play or the funny voices I used to do for the different characters in her books at bedtime.

She hesitates in the doorway, unsure whether to advance or retreat, clearly desperate to tell me something but afraid to do so.

‘What is it, my darling? You look so beautiful in your dress. Are you ready to go?’

She stares at me, unblinking, as if trying to gauge my reaction, then slowly shakes her head, her big eyes filling with tears.

I kneel down and hold out my arms and she launches herself into them, her small hands pressed against her eyes.

‘I d-don’t want to – I don’t want to go! I don’t! I don’t want to go say goodbye to Lochie!’

I pull her close, her small body sobbing softly against mine, and kiss her wet cheek, stroke her hair, rock her back and forth against me.

‘I know you don’t, Willa. I don’t want to either. None of us do. But we need to, we need to say goodbye. It doesn’t mean we can’t visit his grave in the churchyard, it doesn’t mean we can’t still think about him and talk about him whenever we want.’

‘But I don’t want to go, Maya!’ she cries, her sobbing voice almost pleading. ‘I’m not going to say goodbye, I don’t want him to go! I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!’ She starts to struggle against me, trying to pull away, desperate to escape the ordeal, the finality of it all.

I wrap my arms tightly around her and attempt to hold her still. ‘Willa, listen to me, listen to me. Lochie wants you to come and say goodbye to him. He really wants that a lot. He loves you so much – you know that. You’re his favourite little girl in the whole world. He knows you’re very sad and very angry right now, but he really hopes one day you won’t feel so bad any more.’

Her struggles become more half-hearted, her body weakening as her tears increase.

‘W-what else does he want?’

Frantically I try to come up with something. For you to someday find a way to forgive him. For you to forget the pain he caused you even if it means you have to forget him. For you to go on to live a life of unimaginable joy . . .

‘Well – he always loved your drawings, remember? I’m sure he’d really like it if you made him something. Maybe a card with a special picture. You could write a message inside if you want to – or otherwise just your name. We’ll cover it in special transparent plastic, so that even if it rains, it won’t get wet. And then you could take it to him when you go and visit his grave.’

‘But if he’s asleep for ever and ever, how will he even know it’s there? How will he even see it?’

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. ‘I don’t know, Willa. I honestly don’t know. But he might – he might see it, he might know. So, just in case he does—’

‘O-OK.’ She draws back slightly, her face still pink and tear-stained, but with a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes. ‘I think he will see it, Maya,’ she tells me, as if begging me to agree. ‘I think he will. Don’t you?’

I nod slowly, biting down hard. ‘I think he will too.’

Willa gives a small gulp and a sniff, but I can tell her mind is already on the work of art she is going to create. She leaves my arms and moves off towards the door but then, as if suddenly remembering something, turns back.

‘So what about you then?’

I feel myself tense. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘What about you?’ she repeats. ‘What are you going to give him?’

‘Oh – maybe some flowers or something. I’m not artistic like you. I don’t think he’d want one of my drawings.’

Willa gives me a long look. ‘I don’t think Lochie would want you to give him flowers. I think he’d want you to do something special-er.’

Turning away from her abruptly, I walk over to the window and peer up at the cloudless sky, pretending to check for rain. ‘Tell you what – why don’t you go and start making the card? I’ll be down in a minute and then we can all set off together. And remember, on the way home we’re going to have cakes at—’

‘That’s not fair!’ Willa shouts suddenly. ‘Lochie loves you! He wants you to do something for him too!’

She runs out of the room and I hear the familiar sound of her feet thudding down the stairs. Anxiously I follow her to the end of the corridor, but when I hear her ask Kit to help her find the felt-tips, I relax.

I return to my room. Back to the mirror I can’t seem to leave. If I keep looking at myself, I can persuade myself I’m still here, at least for today. I have to be here today, for the children, for Lochie. I have to turn off the mechanical switch just for these next few hours. I have to let myself feel, just for now, just for the funeral. But now that my mind is thawing, coming back to life, the pain begins to rise again, and Willa’s words won’t leave me alone. Why did she get so angry? Does she somehow sense that I’ve given up? Does she think that because Lochie’s gone, I no longer care what he might have wanted from us, for us?

I suddenly grip the sides of the mirror for support. I am on dangerous ground – this is a train of thought I cannot afford to follow. Willa loved Lochan as much as I did, yet she is not hiding behind an anaesthetic; she is hurting as much as I am, yet she is finding ways to cope, even though she’s only five. Right now she isn’t thinking about herself and her own grief, but about Lochie, about what she can do for him. The least I can do is ask myself the same question: if Lochie could see me now, what would he be asking for?

But of course I know the answer already. I’ve known the answer all along. Which is why I’ve carefully avoided thinking about it until now . . . I watch the eyes of the girl in the mirror fill with tears. No, Lochie, I tell him desperately. No! Please, please. You can’t ask me for that, you can’t. I can’t do it, not without you. It’s too hard. It’s too hard. It’s too painful! I loved you too much!

Can a person as kind as Lochie ever be loved too much? Was our love really destined to cause so much unhappiness, so much destruction and despair? In the end, was it wrong after all? If I am still here, doesn’t that mean I have the chance to keep our love alive? Doesn’t that mean I still have the opportunity to make something good come out of all this rather than unending tragedy?

He gave up his life to rescue mine, to rescue the children. That was what he wanted, that was his choice, that was the price he was willing to pay for me to continue living, for me to have a life worth living. If I die too, his ultimate sacrifice will have been in vain.

I sway forward so that my forehead presses against the cold glass. I close my eyes and start to cry, silent tears tracking down my cheeks. Lochie, I can go to prison for you, I can die for you. But the one thing I know you want, I can’t do. I can’t go on living for you.

‘Maya, we need to leave. We’re going to be late!’ Kit’s voice calls up from the hall. They’re all waiting, waiting to say goodbye, to take the first step towards letting go. If I am to live, I will have to start letting go too. Let go of Lochie. How can I possibly ever do that?

I look at my face one more time. I look into the eyes Lochie used to call as blue as the ocean. Just a few moments ago I told myself that he never really knew me if he thought, even for a second, that I could survive without him. But what if I’m the one who is wrong? Lochie died to save us, to save the family, to save me. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d thought, even for a moment, that I wasn’t strong enough to go on without him. Perhaps, just perhaps, at the end of the day, he is right and I am wrong. Perhaps I never knew myself as well as he knew me.

I walk slowly towards my desk and pull open the drawer. I slide my hand under the piles of paper and close my fingers around the knife’s handle. I pick it up, its sharp edge glinting in the sun. I hold it under my jacket and go downstairs. In the kitchen, I open the cutlery drawer and place it right at the very back, out of sight. Then I push the drawer firmly closed.

A violent sob escapes me. As I press the back of my wrist against my mouth, my lips meet the cool silver. Lochan’s present to me. Now it’s my turn. Closing my eyes against the tears, I take a long, deep breath and whisper, ‘OK, I’ll try. That’s all I can promise you right now, Lochie, but I’ll try.’

As we leave the house, everyone is fussing and squabbling. Willa has lost her butterfly clip, Tiffin claims his tie is choking him, Kit complains that Willa’s moaning will make us all late . . . We file out through the broken gate and onto the street, all dressed up in the smartest clothes we have ever owned. Willa and Tiffin both want to hold my hand. Kit hangs back. I suggest he takes Willa’s so that we can swing her between us. He obliges, and as we launch her high into the air, the wind whips back her long dress, revealing a pair of bright pink knickers. As she clamours for us to do it again, Kit’s eyes meet mine with an amused smile.

We walk down the middle of the road holding hands, the pavement far too narrow for all four of us together. A warm breeze brushes across our faces, carrying the smell of honeysuckle from a front garden. The midday sun beams down from a bright blue sky, the light shimmering between the leaves, scattering us with golden confetti.

‘Hey!’ Tiffin exclaims, his voice ringing with surprise. ‘It’s nearly summer!’