The Concrete Grove (16 page)

“Who’s there?” he whispered the words, afraid to speak them louder.

Then, fading into existence like a slow-dissolve image on a cinema screen, something took shape a few hundred yards down the track. It hovered in the air, twisting and bucking, filled with an energy that was both frightening and invigorating. It seemed to Tom that he was watching many hands, chopping, punching, and picking at the substance of the air, as if trying to use those small, condensed acts of violence to break through the barriers of reality.

“Who?” Again, it was a whisper. He didn’t want Lana to hear.

The hands darted like birds; they opened like wings and then folded shut again, forming solid fists that pummelled the air. Tom heard their impact in his mind, but he knew that the sound was not audible in the real world. Only in that place he had felt shifting beneath and around him, that one that was still trying to open up and pull him in.

He was trapped here, mute and helpless before those rampaging fists – the fists that were now moving closer to him, seeking him out, drawn to his anxiety.

It was like a pocket or envelope of air had closed around those barely visible fists, and they were trying to fight their way out. They were large, bony and monstrous: bigger than life, yet so much less than living. He saw now that there were scores of them, packed in tight like creatures caught up in gossamer netting.

Tom stood his ground. He was too terrified to move, to run. His feet had been swallowed by the earth, becoming part of the footing of the ancient wall at his side. The fists raged; they bristled with energy. If they touched him even once, Tom knew that he would be destroyed. His body would explode on impact.

Then they were gone. The pocket of air seemed to pop like a balloon, and nothing threatening was inside. The sky rose back to its natural position, and his legs were released from the ground’s hungry grip.

“Mum said the food’s ready.” Hailey stood at his side, one hand resting on his forearm. Her face was so pale that he thought he could see through it to the skull beneath. Something twitched inside the confines of her cranium, causing the bone to bulge outward: nothing but a vision that was leftover from his brush with that imaginary realm. He blinked and it was gone.

Tom was under no illusion that her presence had sent the chaotic hallucination on its way, and he could have fallen to his knees in thanks. Instead he followed her back to the cluster of rocks, where Lana sat smiling on the red and black blanket, an array of food set out before her on an improvised table of stone. The sheer banality of the sight helped him to put some distance between this moment and what he had seen – or what he
thought
he had seen.

“This stuff isn’t going to eat itself,” she said. Then a look of concern crossed her face. “Are you okay? You look... well, you look shocked. Or scared.”

Tom knelt down on the blanket, reached for a sandwich. “Sorry. I was just thinking – thinking about my late father.”

And then he was frightened all over again, because it was true: he had been thinking about his dead father, but without even realising he was doing so. Those fists – those images of violence – had been all that was left of the man, a representation of his will. His ghost, his phantom, was nothing more than a snatch of unfocused aggression, a flock of fists fighting against something unseen.

After they’d eaten – sandwiches with cheap fillings, freezer-shop-bought
vol-au-vonts
, mini sausage rolls, flattened cheese spheres wrapped in red plastic jackets – Hailey walked across the grass and then started to stroll along the side of the rampart. She bent over to pick up a stone, threw it, and then ran her hand along the weather-worn surface of the wall.

“She was a twin, you know.” Lana smiled, but her eyes were flat. “Her brother was stillborn. Thirty-seven seconds after I had Hailey, I delivered a little corpse.”

Tom didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent. He stared at Lana’s face, at the way her hair fell across her cheek and she kept pushing it out of the way; an unconscious gesture, but somehow sad and beautiful.

“I haven’t told anyone that,” she said, glancing at him, and then down at the ground. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you.” She shook her head. “Hailey doesn’t even know she almost had a brother.” She smiled again, and this time it was better, stronger, almost real.

“What’s wrong?” Tom waited for her to answer; there was no rush, they had all day. “What’s really bothering you?”

“I’m worried about her,” said Lana, turning to stare at her daughter’s back.

Tom moved round on the blanket so that he was sitting right next to her on the rock. He could feel the heat of her body, even through their fleecy jackets. A flash of sunlight lit the sky above them, and then dimmed but did not vanish. “Why? Is she still having those fainting spells?”

Lana shook her head. She lifted a hand and pushed the hair from out of her eyes. “No, she seems to have stopped those. But there’s something else, something wrong.”

Tom placed his hand on her knee.

She glanced at him and smiled, but the expression didn’t last. “I think she might be pregnant.”

“Ah… okay. Has she said anything?” He squeezed her knee, but this time she failed to respond.

“No, it’s nothing she’s actually said. But sometimes when I look at her, when she’s wearing thin clothing, her belly seems swollen. Then, the next time I look, it’s flat. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it isn’t right. It could be a tumour, or something. It might not be natural at all. I think I should take her to see a doctor, but if I tried I know she’d fight me.”

The landscape was silent; not even the birds sang. Not a living soul was visible. The sky trembled.

“This all sounds a bit strange,” said Tom, unsure of what she wanted him to say. “Her belly – you say it looks like she’s pregnant one day, and then the next it looks normal?”

“No,” said Lana. “Not normal. On those other days she looks too thin. Skinny. Like she’s starving to death. Her skin’s all dry, her breath smells, and she’s passing blood when she goes to the toilet. She says she’s never even been with a boy. I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t handle it if she was seriously ill.”

Tom remained silent. He wanted to help, to offer support, but this was something in which he had little experience. He’d never been a father; his marriage had not produced a child.

“I’m sorry.” She hitched closer again, so that her thigh brushed against his leg. “I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. All my troubles, my fucking woes.” She tried to laugh but it didn’t quite work: the sound was shrill, pitched almost at breaking point. “It’s just that everything seems to be turning bad, and I have nobody else to talk to.”

Tom held her hand. It was warm, despite the chill. “Listen, I’m here for you. I don’t know what it is, but we have a connection here. I’m married, you have your own responsibilities, yet we’re drawn together. Or am I reading this all the wrong way, and you just need someone to lean on? I can be that, too… if that’s all you want.”

She shook her head. The movement was vigorous, as if she were trying to convince more than just Tom of her motives. “No, that’s not all I want. I need someone to hold me in the night, to make love to me and make me remember that I’m a woman and not just a single mother, a statistic struggling to cope. I need… I
need
. That’s all.”

Her hand ran along his thigh, moving into his lap to cup him there. She squeezed, softly at first and then harder, and Tom felt like he was about to burst apart at the seams.

“I think I need
you
, Tom.” Her eyes were wet, but she did not cry. Her neck blushed red; her cheeks took on a little of that colour.

“We’ll work something out. I promise. Because I think I need you, too.”

They both looked over at Hailey at the same time, as if she had called out to them.

The girl was standing motionless, turned slightly away from them but with the side of her face still visible, about a hundred metres along the wall. Her hand was outstretched, the palm held flat, and a tiny red and gold bird was perched at its centre. Hailey’s lips were moving, as if she were talking to the creature. Then, as they both watched in silence, the brightly-hued bird rose and hovered inches above Hailey’s hand before skimming off across the top of the wall, where it disappeared into the shuddering dimness beyond.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

L
ATER, AS HE
drove away from the Grove, Tom thought about what a strange day this had been. Nothing had seemed to go right on the surface of things – the junkie trying to rip off his own face, the tense mood once the three of them had finally reached Hadrian’s Wall, the revelations regarding Hailey’s problems, and that odd, insightful moment with what had looked for all the world like a hummingbird – but underneath all this, he felt that it had all been so perfect he wanted to wrap up his memories of the day and lock them away inside a little box.

He had wanted nothing more than to stay for a while at Lana’s place, but Hailey’s mood had soured once they got out of the car and he thought it best to leave them, to give mother and daughter some time together. It was getting late anyway: they’d remained at the site longer than expected, leaving reluctantly only when the sun began to set. And he had promised Eileen Danby – the neighbour who was keeping an eye on Helen for the day – that he wouldn’t be back too late. He had already broken that promise, just like all the others he had broken simply by spending the day with Lana.

He drove slowly through Far Grove, trying to prolong his time away from home, but deep down inside he knew that wherever he went and however long he stayed away, he would always have to return to his wife. It was his duty, his penance. His entire life had been lived in the shadow thrown by an obstacle he could never quite define, and now he was facing the punishment for so many lost years and wasted chances. There wasn’t even anyone to blame, not really. Because That Man had not been a monster, just another human being making mistakes like everyone else.

He turned into their street and parked the car on the drive. Then he sat behind the wheel for a while, filled with a dark regret. He stared at his hands on the steering wheel. They looked old, wrinkled. He imagined that in a few years’ time liver spots would appear, marking the onslaught of death.

The radio was playing a song by Otis Redding, and despite the hi-tempo beat the tune filled Tom with a sense of regret. Why could he not have met Lana, or someone like her, when he was still young enough and sharp enough and
free
enough to take advantage of the opportunity? Why had it happened now, when he was already resigned to spending the remainder of his years looking after a wife he hated?

Hate. It was such a strong world… but in rare honest moments, like this one, he knew it to be true.

“They call me Mr. Pitiful,” he said, smiling, looking for humour in a situation where there was none. His eyes, when he looked at his face in the rear-view mirror, were dull and flat and lifeless, like pennies thrown in a pond to rust, corroded by dreams so heavy that they could not be lifted from the bottom.

He got out of the car and walked slowly along the drive. The lights were on downstairs – Eileen, the neighbour, must still be in there, watching over Helen as she lay sweating in her bed. He paused outside the front door, wishing that he could turn back, run away, and head off into some movie-scene sunset. Then he opened the door and walked inside.

“Tom?” Eileen Danby appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a mug and her face was drawn, tired.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Tom, taking off his coat. “I hit some bad traffic.”

“It’s okay.” Eileen smiled, and when she did so her tired, heavy face lost at least a decade. He recalled that many years ago, before her husband had left her, she was an attractive woman. “No, it’s not that. I don’t mind. It’s Helen… she’s had a bit of a bad time.”

Tom glanced towards Helen’s room. The door had been left ajar. The handle looked like a weapon, but before he could puzzle over this thought and where it had come from, Eileen was speaking again. “She got a little paranoid.” She tightened her grip on the mug, wrapping her fingers around a faded comedy decal of Bugs Bunny dressed as a French Maid. “She seems to think that you’ve been doing something wrong, or visiting a place you shouldn’t.”

Tom’s stomach seemed to drop into his knees.

“I couldn’t really be sure what she meant. Her voice, her words. It was all just gibberish.” She smiled sadly.

Tom looked down at the floor, at his walking boots. Dried mud was spattered on the toughened toe caps. “I’ve been with a client. We went for a walk near where he lives, had lunch in a nice rural pub. There’s nothing else.” He felt like crying. He always felt like crying.

“I know that, Tom – God knows, you’ve been loyal to her, caring for her when a lot of men might have walked away. You’re a good man, a saint. I know how tough it must be for you.”

He felt like grabbing her by the shoulders and screaming into her startled face:
I’m not a good man, I’m a bastard. I’ve been thinking about nothing else but fucking another woman all day!

He nodded. “Thank you, Eileen. I really appreciate that.”

She took a few steps closer and reached out, one hand still clutching the mug and the other grabbing his hand, groping it before finding purchase. “A
very
good man.” Her fingers were hot and clammy.