Caroline glanced away.
A pot of tea sat in the centre of a small table, neatly placed within the edges of an embroidered circle of birds and horses. Two cups. Like the teapot they were once fine porcelain, now crackle-glazed, their floral pattern faded. Caroline thought her grandmother might have had the same set once upon a time. Her hostess sat and waved that she should do the same. Caroline hoped the woman—her name was Aishe, Caroline reminded herself—would speak first, but she knew it was her place to do so. She, Caroline, even if not the sinner, bore the sins of her child.
Finding her throat closed, she put a hand in her coat pocket and pulled out the photo, laying it on the cloth between them.
Aishe ignored it, instead pouring tea. The liquorice aroma was strong, the liquid deepest black. Only when she had pushed the cup across the cloth to Caroline’s side of the table did the woman let her eyes stray to the small, sad square of paper.
A little boy smiled up at them. He had black eyes and coal-scuttle curls; his skin was olive and he wore a patched red sweater, worn cord trousers too large for him and boots. He held the reins of a shaggy-looking pony and his joy was like a bolt of sunshine. Aishe’s hand hovered over the snapshot, one finger lowered tantalisingly close to the boy’s face, but at the last minute not touching it. She sat back, resigned, weary, and looked expectantly at her guest. Still she did not speak.
Caroline, never good with silence, scootched forward. She pushed the edges of the photo with the tips of her nails, as if to draw the woman’s attention to it—to make her consider it more seriously.
“Yours,” she pushed out of her mouth. “This is yours.”
Aishe shook her head, lids dropping heavily.
“Yes, it’s your son.” Caroline’s tone was sharp, a touch of desperation, a need to convince the other of what she was saying.
“No.” The word, when it rumbled out, showcased how deep her voice was. Caroline sat back; she couldn’t recall ever hearing her speak, not during the whole of the trial. But surely…surely she must have. The no-longer-mother had given evidence, hadn’t she?
“No?” she asked.
“No,” repeated Aishe. “Not mine. Not anymore.”
Caroline shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for your son, but this photograph is yours. Please, please don’t bother us again.”
“Drink. It will help.”
Against her will, Caroline did, sipping at the black brew.
“Your son,” said Aishe, “has something inside him. Something wrong.”
“You think he’s possessed?” Caroline scoffed. She’d been brought up in a home where religion was politely ignored except at Easter and Christmas, and she’d raised Simon the same way. Geoffrey was an atheist.
“So are all who do such things. The thing inside makes them so.” Aishe wrapped her hands around her own cup, ignoring its handle and drinking deeply.
“So…so you say it’s not Simon’s fault?” As Caroline wondered at this offer of absolution, the other woman laughed.
“We still have a choice—free will. We always have the power to say yes or no. Your son has something inside him, yes; but he chose to give in to it.”
Caroline felt the words like a slap. She put the teacup down, her shaking hands clattered it on the saucer. She stood.
“I am sorry. Sorry about your son.” She made her way to the door, fumbled with the handle until it gave and let the cold sunlight in. She had her feet on the top step before she heard Aishe’s last words.
“He’s not mine anymore.”
Caroline stumbled but kept her balance. She tried to leave the rapidly shrinking laager with dignity, but the weight of eyes returning to her and the ringing of the woman’s voice in her ears was a goad. In the end she ran. Ran out of the camp, up the hill and then started down the other side, losing her footing and slipping and sliding on her arse to the bottom. She was up again in a second, running with a limp this time, tears freezing on her cheeks as she hurried towards the rickety gate and the drunken fence and what seemed like safety only in the vaguest of ways.
“Hello, Caroline.”
She’d made it to the entry to the back garden but found she couldn’t go in. Found her hand wouldn’t move to push the gate open, that her feet refused to turn. So, she’d kept going, wandered a while, tried to lose herself in the woods. Stumbling through a stream that sluggishly dribbled along its wintery path, she’d fallen, torn the left knee of her trousers and the skin beneath. Eventually, she’d come out near the local shop and made her limping way home until her front door loomed large. Just as she pushed the wrought iron front gate (unlike the back gate the one in the front yard was respectable—it could be seen), that voice called softly from a car she hadn’t recognised.
“Hello, Caroline,” he said again as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat.
Geoffrey was still tall, but he’d become very thin. And not been-to-the-gym-got-himself-in-shape-thin either. Skeletal thin; not eating thin; heartsick thin and it was almost enough to give her a little thrill of pleasure, to see he was still suffering.
“What the hell do you want?” She felt suddenly focused. The pain in her knee, which had been dull at best, burst into vibrant throbbing life. Anger flowed through her veins like molten silver. She was very much alert, alive and she owed it all to the rage Geoffrey conjured in her.
He seemed to realise it and his steps faltered. “I…I came to see you. And Simon.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t let yourself in, made yourself at home,” she snarled, gloved hands clutching at the gate.
“You took my key away.”
She’d forgotten that. It had been the same day she’d taken his name off the joint accounts, and cut up his credit card. The same day she’d watched him stuff as many clothes as he could into a big bag on wheels and listened to it thump down the stairs. The same day he’d come home from the hospital and spent a grand total of forty-five minutes packing up the bits of his fifteen-year marriage he wanted to keep. He took no photos, no keepsakes; just his thirty-two pairs of argyle socks and his collection of cotton boxers, his jeans, sneakers and sweaters and polo shirts. He’d left his suits and his business shirts and the three pairs of leather shoes, which had given off a stench when Caroline burned them all in the back yard later that afternoon, watching the flames flare and glare and crackle and burst.
Now he was back with a “Hello, Caroline” as if they were meeting for coffee.
“And anyway, I knocked. I knocked a lot. I could hear music and someone moving around inside—is it Simon? It must be Simon—I kept up with the coverage, so I know he’s home—but no one answered the door. So I thought I’d wait.”
“Simon doesn’t answer the door. He doesn’t go out anymore, Geoffrey,” she said in a tone that told him these were important things to know. “Our son doesn’t have a life anymore.”
She bit her tongue and stopped herself from adding: We don’t have a son anymore.
“I thought…I thought I’d like to see him.”
“You thought? You thought?” Her voice began to rise. Soon only dogs will be able to hear me. She had to bite down on the giggles that threatened. “When did you start thinking, Geoffrey, about anyone but yourself?”