Mercy Seat (17 page)

We spent the early evening staring at the TV. Michael, maybe anxious at the tension in the air, cried miserably for hours in Jenny's arms until the effort sent him into a restless sleep.

At nine, Christine got up and took hold of a cotton
dress she'd left hanging behind the door. I'll get changed in the bedroom, she said to no one in particular, then went through and closed the door behind her.

Jenny looked at me and opened her mouth, but after a pause let it close again without saying a word.

I won't go if you don't want me to, I said. I'm not bothered.

Go, she said. It doesn't matter. We can't spend much longer sitting like this.

What happened earlier? I murmured, listening for the bedroom door. What's going on?

Nothing.

It didn't sound like nothing.

She looked over at the bedroom door, as if Christine might suddenly fling it open and confront her. We spoke about things, she said in a quiet monotone. She's more disturbed than I thought. She's in trouble, Luke. In her mind, I mean. She's so angry. I don't want her near Michael.

I stared at her and she turned away, and I knew she was ashamed. What are you talking about? What's it got to do with Michael?

I don't want her near any of us. Not until she's better. She's ill, Luke. She needs to get better. I can't help her. I thought I could help her because I'm her sister, but I can't. She doesn't want me and she doesn't want help. She wants… I don't know what she wants. I could feel it, she said, close to tears suddenly. I could feel it, and now I know.

What are you talking about? I said. What could you feel?

She shook her head. It doesn't matter. She has to leave
tomorrow. I've told her. That's that.

Christ, I said.

She closed her eyes, lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of her nose like she was stopping a bleed. We talked about it while you were upstairs.

I sank back into the sofa, not wanting Jenny to see my face. I dragged a lungful of air down, silently. Michael squirmed awake and that gave me time to think of some kind of response while she calmed him.

Jenny, just tell me what's going on.

Don't –

The door opened and Christine stepped through. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Bedroom's free, she said. I'll go up to the bathroom to finish my make-up.

I gave Jenny a last look, which she didn't meet, then nodded to Christine and went through to get changed.

On the walk to Kerrigan's house, as we made our way up behind Bethesda into narrow Victorian terraces and then up again to the broader, leafier streets in the northeast side of town, I asked Christine what had gone on that afternoon. For a while I thought she wouldn't answer, but when she did her voice was bright and confident, though there was a brittleness too which she couldn't quite cover.

I don't want to talk about it now. I want to enjoy the party. I just made Michael a bit frightened – it was an accident. Jennifer overreacted. That's what she always did. She flashed me a grim little smile.

How did you frighten him? I remembered the small stones again, lying there under his face in his sling, but couldn't begin to find the words to ask her about them. It was too late, I realised. It had been too late the moment I
found them.

I don't know. I moved too quickly, maybe, she said vaguely. I don't want to talk about it. Can I come with you in the van tomorrow?

Jenny said you're leaving.

I'm your guest now, remember, she said, and a familiar wave of despair came over me, making me pause for breath though the walking was easy. She waited for me to move again, studying my face. I've been thinking about what happened yesterday, she said.

What have you thought? My legs felt heavy as logs but I forced them to move forward again anyway. I reached out and took her hand but she just squeezed the fingers and let it go.

I like babies, she said, changing the subject. Jennifer wasn't fair.

She's just protective. Michael's her first child. She's bound to be nervous with him.

She wasn't fair. But it doesn't matter – she never was. I've been remembering that. I've been doing a lot of remembering. She looked around her like she wanted to get her bearings. Are we nearly there yet?

Just up this hill. I glanced sideways at her. She was stepping quick and smooth, back straight like it had been on the sofa earlier, eyes fixed dead ahead now.

Chris, why did you and Jenny quarrel? I said, and stopped, but she walked on, only slowing and turning back to check on me halfway along the row of big, detached houses.

Which number? she called.

I caught up with her and led the way through Kerrigan's gate and along his gravelled front path.

It's a lovely house, she said when we got to the porch.

It's all split into student flats. All the houses round here are.

The big front door was off the latch. Music was thumping from somewhere inside. I swung the door open and she stepped past me into the hall.

We followed the music to Kerrigan's sitting room. It was dimly lit and the air was loaded with smoke. About a dozen figures were sprawled around the floor – mainly students but a few older guests too. One of them, a lean, toothy, crop-headed man who I recognised as one of Jenny's old tutors, lifted a can of lager to acknowledge me. I'd spoken to him once or twice at parties like this, in the months after Jenny's graduation. I picked my way over to him and Christine followed behind. He was sat in front of one of the tall speakers and as I took a place next to him I could feel the bass vibrating at the back of my head. It was impossible to speak, which suited me. He reached behind him for two cans and offered them to us. I took one but Christine shook her head and sat staring at the bodies scattered around her.

Kerrigan was nowhere to be seen, but after a few minutes I looked up to see him coming through the door with a couple of bottles of wine. For a few moments he stood surveying the scene, grinning into the warm fog, his eyes passing over me blank as washers. A girl said something to him as she passed by, leaving the room, and he nodded, put the bottles on the floor and came straight towards us. I lifted a hand to greet him, but all he wanted to do was turn the music a little lower and when he did catch my eye he looked surprised to see me, but nodded and smiled. Luke, he barked above the music, you know
Graham? He gestured to the man beside me and I nodded. Good, he said. He glanced at Christine, then swayed off toward a cluster of students in the far corner.

Now that I'd been reminded of his name I turned to Graham. How are things? I shouted.

He turned the music lower still. Sorry, he said. I recognise the face, but…

Luke, I said. I met you a couple of times with Jenny. She was in a few of your classes. A couple of years back.

He nodded. That's right. Sorry. I think I've seen you round the library, too?

Probably, I said. I use it now and again. I'm doing some courses with the OU.

Ah, he said. He took a nip from a skinny rollup he'd been cradling between his bony knees. So how's Jenny getting on? She's got a baby now, I heard.

Yes. They're both doing fine.

Do you see her often?

I laughed. We're married, I said, raising my voice to carry over the crashing opening riff to a new song.

Christ! he said. Sorry! He peered at me more closely and took another drag. You don't look old enough, he laughed.

I turned to Christine but she was gone and when I scanned the room for her I could only make out the same knots of people that had been there when we came in. I drained my can, got up and signalled to Graham that I was off to get more beer. He gave me a thumbs up, looking bored now and ready to drink all he could get his hands on.

She was in the kitchen – a huge cold room at the back of the flat – sitting at Kerrigan's farmhouse table with Kerrigan himself. Behind them a few students were perched on stools around the tall fridge, passing a couple
of wine boxes from knee to knee, plastic cup to plastic cup. I helped myself to a brace of four-packs from the fridge, then stood beside her at the table. She looked up at me, stony-faced, as if I were a stranger. I could sense Kerrigan's eyes on me, and his mild irritation, and despite the coolness of the kitchen my scalp started to prick with sweat.

What? she said.

I fixed my eyes on Kerrigan, trying to block her from my mind so I could maybe salvage the situation. Sorry to butt in. Jenny said to say hello.

I'm sorry she couldn't come, he said. Would've been good to see her. It's been a while. He looked at the beers in my hand and I was suddenly conscious of not having brought anything.

Well. Catch you later, I said.

Yeah.

I made my way to Graham again and dropped beside him, handing him one of the packs.

Cheers, he said. I found rum, he went on, and showed me a halflitre he'd hidden behind the speaker.

Last time I was here I stole his good whisky, I said.

His body rocked approvingly.

I'm not sure how long I sat there drinking – hours on end, it seemed. Far on in the night I remember another lecturer who Jenny had once introduced me to – a square, tough-faced American woman called Dr Case – stumping over to Graham and complaining about the amount of dope being smoked in the room. She didn't recognise me, so I just sat further back alongside the speaker, closed my eyes and listened to the white noise of the party swilling around me. I was helping Graham with the rum by then and at some point I remember crawling slowly past
Graham's raised knees, pulling myself upright alongside an armchair and falling onto the couple who were locked blind together in it. The next thing I remember is stumbling into an empty bedroom and sitting on a wooden-backed chair in the dark, hoping absurdly that Christine would come and find me there.

Finally, in a daze of resentment and jealousy, I made my way back to the kitchen. The party seemed to have thinned out and there were only two people there now, a young woman and an older man, slumped facing each other across the debris of glasses, empty cans and ashtrays littering the table. They were smoking and talking earnestly in low tones, the man shaking his head slowly and continuously.

Do you know where Bill is? I broke in.

Who? the girl demanded, annoyed at being interrupted.

Bill Kerrigan. You know, the guy whose party it is.

No. I don't know him. Anyway, what fucking party, eh?

He was here in the kitchen but he's gone, the man said, slurring. He went into the garden with some other people. He'll be in with the music and stuff, now, maybe. I don't know.

The garden was empty, but the cold night air cleared my head a little and I stayed outside for a few minutes, breathing it in and looking up at the stars between heavy, dragging clouds. A thin grey cat pressed itself against my shin, startling me. It mewed, staring up at my face, then padded across the big, untidy lawn and disappeared in the shadows.

Back inside I found them in the sitting room, not far from where I'd been slumped against the wall earlier.
They'd stopped talking now and Christine looked tired and distracted. All the anger in me lifted away and it was all I could do to stop myself crossing the room sitting abject at her feet in relief. Instead I edged my way around the wall towards them.

She turned when I tapped her shoulder and gave me a thin smile. Where have you been? I'd like to go soon, she said.

I nodded. There was no music in the room now, just scattered, drunken conversation. The woman who'd spoken to Kerrigan earlier and told him to turn the music down was picking her way over outstretched legs and prone bodies, gathering bottles and crushed cans into a black plastic sack. One of his flatmates, I guessed. Kerrigan watched her, motionless, his dark eyes hooded and solemn-looking.

Where did it come from, the Sea of Light?
I heard somebody chant, and turned to see Graham reading to three prone students from a slim book he must have found on one of the shelves. He repeated the line in Welsh, then went on with the rest of the poem, translating in fragments as the mood took him; something about a huntsman in the rushes between two fields, a field of grass and a field of flowers.

Kerrigan got up from the floor and staggered out to the hall. In the quiet I heard the bathroom door close and the lock snap to.

Let's go now, Christine said. Before he comes back.

The rain began almost as soon as we left the house – cold, fat, Atlantic drops. I don't know when Christine arrived at the decision to make for the rocks and the sea instead of Bethesda – maybe there and then as we hunched under the rain, or maybe while she'd sat and watched the night
go by in a swirl of strangers and empty talk, or maybe she'd been planning it all along, for days – but at some point I realised she'd quickened her pace and was heading away from the orange lights of the promenade, toward the dark of the headland.

No – the other way, I called. I was still quite drunk, though the walk had begun to sober me, and when she didn't turn I jogged after her numbly, splashing through puddles, hardly feeling the ground under my feet. I was desperate, almost to the point of weeping, to get back to warmth, familiarity, and the blankness of sleep.

She waited until I'd caught up then said simply: Come with me. Will you?

Where are you going?

Just come with me. We won't be long.

I don't know if I should have turned away and let her go. Would she have given up and followed me? I doubt it. Would she have ever come back again? How could I tell? And of course I'll never know, though I've asked myself the question a thousand times since, when I've woken from dreams in the small hours, almost smelling the rain and sea.

I followed her down to the shingle where the tide was sweeping black and slow, drowning the patter of the rain with its drag and hiss. She stooped to peel away her canvas shoes and carried them barefoot, one in each hand, picking her way carefully onto the smooth rocks above the swilling water. I was frightened for her now, and staying with her as much from a dull, protective instinct as from fascination.