The Lives She Left Behind (38 page)

‘You don’t have the power to stop him. He just has to persuade a magistrate.’ She glanced at him. ‘There’s a chance Gally could cast some light on this. It looks
like our only way forward but I haven’t a clue how to persuade Meehan to listen to anything she might come up with.’

When Rachel had left for Yeovil, Ferney had gone back to the barn. He approached it carefully but the tractor and the mechanic had gone. He was going through Gally’s
rucksack, looking for anything that might have her address in it, when a soft series of notes began to sound. A mobile phone was ringing in the side pouch.

He pulled it out. The screen said ‘Lucy’. A voice said, ‘Jo? Is that you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Who are
you
?’

‘I’m a friend of hers. She left her phone here.’

‘Where’s here?’

‘Pen Selwood. It’s a village in—’

‘Oh my goodness, is that Ferney?’

Ferney wondered if he should admit it, but there was something in her tone that sounded more like relief than suspicion. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh, that’s amazing. She was out of her mind and then we took her to the seaside and that seemed to help, then I showed her your photo and that helped even more, and then she started
telling us all about some man called Guy who seemed to matter. Then her mother came and took us all away in the car and she went peculiar again and now she’s taken her off to some clinic and
I think they’re going to do something terrible to her brain and—’

‘What clinic? Where?’

‘It’s near Newton Abbot and it’s called the Maple Tree Clinic and there’s a doctor there who’s going to force her to have some sort of horrible treatment so
you’ve got to do something about it.’ She paused. ‘You will, won’t you? She wanted me to find you. That’s so lucky. I thought she might still have the phone with her
– that’s why I called it. Listen, I’m sorry I was nasty to you but she’s talked about you now and I believe you and I think it’s just the most beautiful story and
you’ve got to help her. You will, won’t you?’

‘Go back a bit,’ Ferney said. ‘You were at this place by the seaside and you said she got better. Where was it?’

‘Um, just up from Torcross? In Start Bay?’

That meant nothing to him, nothing that would explain why she had started talking about Sir Guy. ‘I don’t know it.’

‘It’s near Dartmouth?’

‘No.’

‘The beach is called Slapton Sands.’

And then it made sense to him and he felt his spirits lift because all at once, he could see the shape of it. ‘And Slapton village, is that about a mile or so inland from there?’ he
asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘Is there still a big chapel in Slapton – a chantry?’

‘There’s a big old tower and she knew it. She said you were there for the opening.’

‘All right, Lucy. Listen to me. What have they said they’re going to do to Gally?’

‘To
Gally
?’ Lucy tried the name on for size. ‘To Gally. Okay. Her mum said they would have to section her. That was the word. We can’t let them do that but I
don’t know how to stop them.’

Ferney was waiting when Rachel brought Mike back from Yeovil. He was keyed up and scarcely able to wait for them to get inside the house.

‘They let you go?’ he asked as Mike walked into the kitchen. The teacher was withdrawn, grey-faced, hardly even aware that this boy was intruding in his house. He seemed to find it
hard to answer.

‘I got him out but we’ve only got twenty-four hours’ grace,’ said the lawyer. ‘We’re back in there at five o’ clock tomorrow come hell or high water,
and that’s our last chance. I’m pretty sure they’re going to charge him. We need Gally. We need to understand the poison she used.’

‘And I need you,’ Ferney said. ‘Gally’s in trouble.’ He explained the phone call from Lucy. ‘So here’s the deal. You help me and I’ll help you.
You stop them doing whatever they’re planning to do, this sectioning thing, and I’ll talk to her. I’ll take her back to it to see if she can help.’

‘Calm down,’ said Rachel. ‘Sectioning doesn’t mean cutting into her brain, it just means using a section of the Mental Health Act to keep her in there against her
will.’

‘And doing what to her?’

‘Drug treatment, electroconvulsive therapy – that sort of thing.’

‘And that’s better, is it? She doesn’t need it. She needs me to explain to her what’s happening, that’s all.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Rachel. Her phone rang. ‘Oh lord,’ she said, looking at the screen. ‘It’s my office.’ She put it to her ear. ‘Hello?
Yes, Pauline, I know. I’m sorry but you’ll have to cancel her. Yes, I’ll be out tomorrow morning – at least I expect so. I may have to go to Devon.’ She listened
again. ‘Well, just tell Leo not to bother his little head about that. It’s my client, not his. I’ll sort out who pays the bill later. No, tell him I’m quite capable of
handling it and anyway, he hasn’t been charged yet.’ She listened again. ‘Then tell him he can stuff himself,’ she said and put the phone in her pocket. She looked at them.
‘Okay. It’s time for some very plain speaking. I am going to suspend what’s left of my disbelief. I just need to know I’ve got this right. Ferney, you died here. Gally gave
birth the same day. She gave birth to a girl who was your child, Mike? You two called your daughter Rosie but when she was still tiny, you realised she was Ferney? Am I right so far?’

Mike could only nod. Rachel went on. ‘Rosie began to show signs of great distress. When she turned two, she started self-harming. Ferney, you’ve more or less told me that she –
you – let’s just say Rosie for simplicity – was being driven mad by the whole thing? The mess of being the wrong sex and the wrong relationship?’ She saw there were tears in
Ferney’s eyes.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I seem to be the only one capable of speech around here so I’ll just carry on, shall I? In the end, Gally decided to stick to some old agreement that
you two had and she killed herself and Rosie so that the two of you could come back for another go – a sort of “better luck next time” kind of deal. A bit harsh on Mike to say the
least.’

‘She’s not harsh,’ whispered Ferney.

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. You think it would have been easier the other way, do you?’ He flung out his arm, finger pointed at Mike. ‘You think it would have been easier for him to live
with
me
as his daughter? Me going mad with it? What would you have done?’

‘Not that.’

‘You don’t know that.’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Yes. That’s what happened but she couldn’t find another way.’

Rachel stared at him. ‘I don’t know what to say to that,’ she said. ‘Anyway, we have to persuade Gally to remember enough about how she did it to get Mike off the hook.
After all, we do know that whatever she mixed up must have taken effect a lot quicker than the police are now suggesting. That is the very slender hope on which everything now rests and because it
seems to be the only game in town, I’m going to take a huge professional risk and pick you up at eight o’clock tomorrow morning so that we can go down to Devon and see what she has to
say.’ She looked hard at Ferney. ‘So yes, we need you with us. You are going to help, aren’t you?’

‘On condition that you help me get her back here, safe, into this house, to be with me. That’s the way it has to be.’

‘That’s blackmail and it’s an absurd thing to ask.’

‘It’s not up to you, it’s up to Mike.’

Rachel looked at Mike, who closed his eyes. ‘Mike’s helped you all he can,’ she said flatly. ‘He’s in a lot of trouble because of you. You should give something
back.’ Then in a moment of inspiration, she added, ‘That’s what Gally would say, isn’t it?’

Ferney’s head dipped in the suggestion of a nod and she stared at him but he said nothing else.

‘I don’t think we can do anything more right now. I’ve got to go. Lulie needs her supper. Ferney, are you going home?’

‘I’ve left home. I’ve told them. I wrote a note.’

‘Won’t they be straight round here?’

‘Oh sure. They care so much they’ve gone to Doncaster for the racing. Don’t worry, I’ve got somewhere to go.’

‘Really?’ But she was distracted, thinking of time and Lulie and school finishing, so she took him at face value as he pedalled away.

She had only been gone five minutes when Ferney came back, rapped on the door and came in before Mike had a chance to get to it.

‘We’ve got some things to sort out,’ he said, standing in the kitchen.

‘Oh?’

‘You think you have rights to Gally.’

‘She’s my wife.’

‘She was your wife. She’s not now.’

‘Maybe what matters is what she thinks about this, not you,’ said Mike.

‘She’s feeling guilty about you,’ Ferney admitted. ‘That makes it worse. She needs my support every second of every day to see her through this. She needs life to be
simple – her and me.’

‘I can look after her. I did before. You could let us have this time. What have I got? Thirty more years if I’m lucky? You’ll have her again after that, for ever and ever
according to you.’

‘Sit down,’ said the boy. ‘Sit down and listen to me.’ Great age filled him out and Mike did as he was told. ‘You think we’ve got all the time in the world,
do you? What a world it’s turning into. You’ve got only one life sentence in it. I may have it for as long as it lasts and that’s supposed to be some sort of blessing, is it?
Every day, that looks like a worse and worse deal. You can be vaguely sorry that the ice will melt and the sea will rise and the summer will boil us and the winter will freeze us and we will have
to fight over the food that’s withering in the fields and water that’s draining away. You can be sad for a future world and you know you will never see it and you won’t have to
deal with it, but I will and she will. Have you thought about that? We won’t have the convenient escape of death. And you would deny us the chance to have one more good life together, would
you? Even without all that it’s harder and harder, not knowing how long it will take us to find each other, not knowing if we’ll be the right age and if the police and the whole
snooping world will let us be together.’

‘The right age? You think I’m too old for her? You know very well age has got nothing to do with it. She’s not really sixteen. I don’t think I’m too old for
her.’

‘Too old?’ said Ferney incredulously. ‘I’m not saying you’re too old for her. I’m saying you’re far, far too young.’

That was when Mike finally got it, and in that moment something inside him shifted from hopeless hope to plain hopelessness. He sighed and nodded and let go of his flawed claim. ‘All right
then,’ he said in the weariest of voices. ‘I see.’

The boy stared at him and Mike stared back. ‘Look after her,’ he said. ‘That’s what matters. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes.’

‘So am I.’ He went to look in the cupboard. ‘There’s eggs and beans. That’s about it.’

‘I’d prefer beans and eggs, if that’s all right with you.’

Mike gave a surprised laugh and something eased in the atmosphere between them.

When they had finished eating, he went to take Ferney’s plate and stopped. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, picking up the ancient label lying on the table where Rachel had left
it.

‘I think it’s off the old picture.’

‘Which one?’

‘The one I left to Gally in my will.’

Mike shook his head and put it back down.

It wasn’t like having a guest in the house, more like a visit from the landlord. Mike was woken in the morning by a series of bangs and went downstairs to find Ferney
standing on a chair in the kitchen inspecting the ceiling with a hammer in his hand.

‘There’s a wedge in that beam, do you see?’ he said. ‘It works loose and you get a shake in the floorboards upstairs. Just needs knocking back in once in a
while.’

‘How long is a while?’

‘Twenty years maybe.’

‘But the builders did all that when we came.’

‘They freshened up her make-up,’ said Ferney, ‘but she’s still got the same old bones,’ and that didn’t disturb Mike. He felt as if something that had
loosened the previous evening had shifted further out of the way in the night. The boy was busy round the kitchen, cooking him scrambled eggs without asking, and he didn’t even mind that.

Rachel collected them at eight on the dot. ‘I emailed the clinic an hour ago,’ she said. ‘I told them I was a lawyer, coming to represent their patient Jo
Driscoll, and I wanted to visit her this morning. We’ll see what happens.’

They drove out of the village and picked up speed on the main road. No one spoke but five miles on, Mike sensed Ferney was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. He turned round to look at him,
‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Leaving here is harder than I expected.’

‘You’ve done it before.’

‘Not since all this got going again. It’s different now.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’ said Rachel.

‘Just for a minute.’

She pulled into the next lay-by and they got out. Ferney stood looking back the way they had come.

‘What does it feel like?’ Mike asked.

‘Like a rubber band that might snap if I pull it too hard. I think it’s like this when we first come back. We need to stay in the village for a while to feel safe, but there’s
no choice, is there? Think what it’s like for Gally. We’ve got to go.’

Another car drew in behind them. It had L-plates on.

‘I need to keep a tight grip on who I am,’ Ferney said. ‘That’s all.’

A boy of eighteen or nineteen got out of the passenger’s side. ‘I don’t know, Dad,’ he said.

His father, an older version of him, was walking round to swap places. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You can do it.’

‘There’s a lot of cars today. Can’t we go back to the little roads?’

‘Look, Adam,’ said his father, ‘you have to tackle the big ones sometimes. If it gets too hard, you just pull in and I’ll take over. I won’t let you get into any
trouble.’

They watched as the car kangarooed out into a gap in the traffic and ground away in a low gear.

‘So what shall we do?’ asked Mike. ‘Give up or go on?’ and Ferney didn’t answer. He just gazed up the road where the other car had disappeared.