Furnace (23 page)

She was nodding but her gaze was penetrating now, maybe puzzled, Leyden thought, or maybe critical. He shifted again in his tiny seat, wishing he’d never let the conversation happen.

But if you’d been right for one another, then marrying young wouldn’t have mattered. She placed her milkshake on the table between them like a checkmate.

Leyden regarded her. Well. She was kind to me at a bad time in my life, he said. That can mean a lot to you when you’re young. Too much, probably. He shrugged. Anyway, people make
mistakes. And people
change
, he said, glad to have thought suddenly of that final, conclusive truth.

She screwed her face into a quick sceptical grimace, then relaxed it. After a long pause she said, I think it’s good that Matty and me have broken up for a while now. We’ll be
stronger because of it when we get back together. With her fingertips she shifted the tall paper beaker of milk across the table in small zigzags. Matty thinks so too. He said he never wants to do
to me what you did to his mother.

Leyden winced. So that’s it, he thought. That’s what it’s all about. Back to the boy. Of course – it should have been obvious to him. Well, I don’t know, he said.
But we ought to get moving.

Outside, the rain had eased and as he walked between the rows of parked cars to the van Leyden felt grateful for the fine, needling coolness it brought to his face. Ahead of him he recognised
the shaved head of the tattooed man. He was covered by his jacket now and was getting into a white van like theirs. A sudden cold slap of wind made Leyden shiver and he jogged the last yards,
hearing her footsteps keep pace on the wet tarmac behind.

In the cab of the van he sat still for a few moments, gathering his thoughts while she rearranged her hair again, this time freeing it from its knot but then tying it back into a long, slack
pony-tail. She half turned her head, eyeing him. I had alopecia when I was little. All my hair fell out. She was slicking her hands over her scalp now, over the tight wet strands.

Oh, he said.

It used to come away in clumps. I’d be playing with my hair and stop to look and my hands would be full of all this long black hair. You never feel it coming out. She smiled oddly at him.
I screamed the first time it happened.

For a moment he met her gaze then turned back to face the windscreen, feeling suddenly too tired for words. But he had to speak, he supposed. What was the cure? he said at last.

She shrugged, still smoothing around her skull. It was just nerves – it went away in the end. She yawned. Did you see the man at the table next to us? With the tattoos?

Leyden nodded, finding himself yawning also, triggered by the girl.
Shut up
, he needed to tell her, but of course he couldnt.
Shut up now
,
please
,
and for Christ’s
sake just let me drive.
He sighed.

It’s really weird. Matty told me a story just last week about someone exactly like that – a skinhead, really violent and racist and everything. His minister told him about it.

His minister?

At his church.

Leyden closed his eyes. Oh, Christ. What church? What minister? He listened to her voice tumbling on, light and life in her face for the first time that day, and wished he could get out into the
cool rain; maybe lie under it; let it wash down and drown out all this embarrassing nonsense. Through a kind of daze he followed her story about a tattooed young skinhead cut out of a car wreck by
a black fireman. The fireman saw his Nazi tattoos and witnessed to him about Jesus, she was saying, while he was cutting him out. He had to keep him talking to keep him alive, this black fireman.
He was the only survivor – she’d forgotten to say that, at the start. And he was a minister now, in London, she was telling him, using his tattoos as a witness. He could have had them
removed but he used them as a witness, now.

Leyden grunted. There was silence for a while. Finally he slotted the key into the ignition.

You don’t believe in any of that, do you? she said.

He felt himself frown.

I’m not saved either. But at least I’ve got an open mind. How can you explain what happens to people like that otherwise? If there isn’t a saviour?

Leyden opened his mouth but said nothing. Why was she provoking him like this? Every time she opened her mouth, another trial, another challenge. Some kind of displacement, maybe. Anger at
Matthew. Yes. It had to be that.

But you don’t know, do you? Just because
you
dont believe doesnt mean there isnt anything to believe. Maybe there is a saviour.

Maybe, then, he said at last, losing all patience. I don’t know. But even if there
is
, he spat, his voice rising helplessly, what the hell would
he
know? What the hell would
Matthew
know about it? He twisted to stare her down.

She shrank back into her corner but forced an angry smile. That’s a terrible thing to say, she said quietly. And don’t shout at me.

He breathed a miserable, embarrassed laugh and a gust of wind swept the car park, quivering the van. He waited a minute or so, letting his head clear. Sorry, he said, and started the engine.
Turning to her, he saw she was close to tears.

Matty said you were a bully. And a coward. Her voice was strangled but she swallowed hard and carried on. I always thought that was a mean thing to say. But now I think he was right.

Leyden frowned. I don’t care what he thinks, he said firmly. I don’t even know what he means. Listen, he said, he’s thrown all kinds of shit at me over the years and it
doesn’t stick any more. He paused for a while, staring out at the car park. The skinhead in his white van was still there a few rows ahead of them. He hadn’t even started his engine.
What was he waiting for? Leyden turned to face her. And it doesn’t matter to me what
you
think, he finished.

Her eyes narrowed a fraction and a flicker of gratification passed through Leyden like a current. Well it’s obvious what
you
think. Its obvious you think Im stupid because Im too
young to know any better. But maybe youre the stupid one because youre too old.

Too old for what? Despite himself he began to laugh.

To listen to anybody else! It was her turn to play fierce now, he realised, and his laugh set into a grim smile.

I don’t know. Whatever, he said. Then, studying her again, and curious suddenly, how old
are
you, anyway? he asked.

She took an old, wadded tissue from her jeans pocket and blew her nose wetly. Sixteen, she said through cupped hands.

What?

Nearly seventeen.

Leyden blinked as if shaking off sleep, a sharp thrill of alarm twisting his stomach. Christ! he said.

So? she challenged, but without confidence.

I didn’t know that. He breathed in and out once, slowly. If I’d known that I’d never have let you move in with him. Sixteen! Christ! he said again.

She snorted but shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

How can you be at university? I thought you met Matthew there?

I never said I was. I said I was a student. I’m doing my Highers at Telford.

Highers! He shook his head, a tight, angry grin locking the muscles of his face.

It doesn’t matter.

It matters to me!

It’s none of your business.

None of my business? He shook his head, a strange, excited outrage uncoiling inside him. You lived under my roof like a married woman, all these months, he said, hearing his voice rise in pitch
again, and you’re just a kid… just a wee
schoolgirl
for Christs sakes.

I’m not a child! And you can let me out if all you can do is shout at me again. She braced herself against the door, but made no attempt to open it.

He took a deep breath, trembling, shocked at his own arousal. Now that the first hot flare of prurience was dying away he had a sudden sensation of absolute clarity. Everything she’d said
that day, every absurd statement, every gesture and inflection seemed to replay in an instant behind his eyes. Just a kid. Of course. All the bizarre mystical arrogance – just precociousness.
Just childishness after all. A kind of helplessness really, he thought, and felt a sharp pang of superiority and pity towards the frail, cornered creature at his side. An acute consciousness of his
male, adult bulk swelled within him, a sense of his heavy flesh and bone, full grown; all its stolid, controlling power. Well, he said, and looked her in the eye. Do your parents know? What do they
think about it? He opened his mouth to question her again but stopped himself, not trusting his voice to conceal his triumphalism now.

There’s only my father, she said flatly.

Oh, he said, and paused. So what does he think?

She leaned her head against the window and didn’t answer.

I know what I’d think, he breathed, and shook his head.

By the time they rejoined the motorway she was sobbing freely and as he listened to each long, shuddering release it occurred to Leyden that in the wake of his new mastery over
her, what he felt wasn’t anger or disapproval, nor just simple pity for the way he’d made her feel now, but something more like foreboding; like dread. What were these passions
she’d stirred up in him? How had she known how to do it? And
why
do it, anyway? He understood women very poorly, he knew. How long had it been since hed even spoken to a woman in
anything other than a professional or indifferent way? Apart from a few half-hearted flirtations at work, and one awful, drunken humiliation more years than he cared to number. Five or six, maybe.
Nowadays, he rarely bothered making the effort to go out for anything other than his chess club and occasional concerts. Jesus, what was wrong with him? But was he lonely? Was he frustrated? No.
Never. And what the hell was wrong with self-sufficiency, anyway? What was wrong with some quiet, adult dignity, in circumstances like his? What had caused this whole scene now, if it wasnt his own
damned sons overheated, adolescent fever for every kind of intimacy?

An overwhelming impulse to remonstrate with the girl, to justify his chosen life –
chosen
, dammit! was building like a blockage in his throat. He fought it back, unclenching his
jaw, knowing the need was misplaced. She wouldnt have any idea what he was talking about. The very thought was grotesque; chaotic. But it was there: the urge.

And what had she meant by calling him a bully and a coward? What had Matthew meant by it? Years of learning to harden his heart against all that kind of blame and bitterness from the boy; why
was it cutting into him now? Why a coward? A bully? He’d never hit the boy. Not once. Even through all the worst times when by Christ he would have been justified. More than justified! Who
had he ever bullied in fact? One child, maybe. A cheeky, backward young boy he had lost all patience with in his probationary year of teaching. Just as the marriage was starting to fall apart, of
course. No coincidence there, and he was green then, too, in his dealings with kids. Years of bank work had done nothing to prepare him for a classroom rustling with sniggers and whispers. He
hadn’t struck the brat, but kept him back and hurt him, yes, one day after class. Took hold of his collar hard and shook him off his feet like a pup, or a rat. Sheer luck it never came to
light. But Matthew, no. Matthew he’d never hurt – Matthew who’d so often deserved it.

With an effort he woke himself from his trance. He was speeding and could remember nothing of the last few miles of road. Slowing the van he tried to relax his bunched, aching shoulders. It was
sadness, not violence inside him, he thought, not danger. Dull, lumpen misery, and guilt for things he hadn’t meant and things he couldn’t change, like a great tumour on his heart. And
who except Matthew would damn him for that? He opened his window and for a while let the cold sodden air rush into the cabin. Greedily he breathed it in, smelling the soaked earth, the open,
indifferent land outside, letting his self-pity subside. Then he remembered her thin, bare arms and closed the glass again.

Sorry, he said, but there was no answer.

An early, raw twilight was closing in on the narrow roads as they made the last stretch of the journey along the coast. After crying bitterly but briefly Emma had turned the
radio on then slept for a long while, or at least pretended to. On waking she seemed calm again, even friendly, much to Leyden’s surprise. She seemed content to chat to him, all provocation
gone from her voice, pointing out the ways to ancient standing stones, the road to a fishing village abandoned since the war. Leyden made an effort to seem attentive, grateful for the changed
atmosphere, but it was difficult to concentrate on her words or even his own thoughts. Now that she was speaking again the overwhelming gloom he’d felt earlier had returned, had found him out
and taken hold of him like a tide around a tired swimmer, though he couldn’t say why. Each time the great, grey shifting slabs of the North Sea hove into view he felt his heart lurch and
chill as if his road ended out there amongst them.

Just inside Kettick he paused at traffic lights. At the crossing a small girl, oblivious to the rain, was swinging an empty plastic carrier bag out in front of her to catch and be pulled by the
gusting wind. He could hear her shrieks each time she was yanked forwards. Other than the child the street ahead seemed empty.

You need to take the next left, Emma said. She was watching the girl too, but without expression. We’re nearly there now, she added.

Soon they entered an ugly, unkempt cul-de-sac where the sandstone Victorian buildings of the High Street gave way to a cluster of modern, concrete-clad flats. There, she said, and pointed to one
of the doorways. You can park right up close. My dad’s too old to help with the unloading, she warned.

That’s fine, Leyden muttered. He bumped the van up onto the pavement near the entrance then killed the engine.

She smoothed a hand over her hair. I’ll go up and tell him we’re here. Then I’ll come and help.

Okay.

She hesitated a moment. He’ll want you to stay for a while, to meet you.