Redemption aka A Conspiracy of Faith

19

If he were to pick out one of his abilities that never failed him, it was being able to detect a false look.

When, in his childhood, the family gathered at the table and so disingenuously recited the Lord’s Prayer, he could always tell when his father had beaten his mother. There were no visible marks, for he was clever enough never to hit anyone in the face. There was the congregation to think about. And his mother remained at heel, always with that inscrutable, sanctimonious look on her face, keeping an eye out to make sure the children remembered their manners and ate the apportioned number of potatoes with the apportioned amount of meat. But behind the calmness in her eyes were fear and hatred and utter despair.

He saw it clearly.

Sometimes, albeit more seldom, he would see the same false innocence in the eyes of his father, who nearly always wore the same expression. The routine meting out of corporal punishment was not in itself sufficient to dilate the icy, piercing pupils of the pastor.

So he knew all about falseness in a person’s eye. And this was what he saw now.

At the very moment he walked into the room he detected a strangeness in the way his wife looked at him. She was smiling, certainly, yet this was a smile that trembled, and her gaze came to a halt in the empty space in front of his face.

Had she not clasped the child to her bosom as she sat there on the floor, he might have thought she was tired or had a headache, but there she was with the child in her arms and a distant look in her eye.

Something wasn’t right.

“Hi,” he said, inhaling the conglomerate of scents in the room. There was an aromatic undertone in the familiar smell of home, something that wasn’t usually there. A faint odor of complication, and of boundaries that had been overstepped.

“Any chance of a cup of tea?” he asked, and stroked his hand across her cheek. It was warm, as if she were running a temperature.

“And how are you today, young man?” He took the child in his arms and looked into his eyes. They were clear and happy and tired. The smile came instantly. “He seems to be all right now,” he said.

“Yes, he is. But he was full of cold yesterday, then suddenly this morning he was right as rain. You know how they are.” She gave a hint of a smile, and it too seemed strange.

It was as if she had aged during the few days he had been away.

He kept his promise. Made love to her as intensely as the week before. But this time it took longer than usual. Longer for her to succumb and separate body from mind.

Afterward, he drew her into his arms and allowed her to rest against his frame. It was her habit to play absently with the hairs on his chest, stroke his neck with her slender, sensual fingers. But this time she did none of this. All she did was concentrate on keeping her breathing steady, and otherwise she was silent.

That was why he asked her so directly. “There’s a man’s bike in the driveway. Do you know where it came from?”

She pretended to be sleeping.

It wouldn’t matter what she said.

A couple of hours later, he lay with his arms behind his head, watching the dawn of another March day, the lazy light seeping across the ceiling, meticulously enlarging the room surface by surface.

His mind was at rest now. There was a problem, but he would deal with it once and for all.

When she woke up, he would strip away her lies, layer by layer.

The interrogation proper did not begin until after she had put the child down in his playpen. It was just as she had expected.

For four years they had lived together without ever challenging the trust that existed between them, but now the time had come.

“The bike’s locked, so it can’t have been stolen,” he said, sending her a look that was too neutral by far. “Someone left it there on purpose, wouldn’t you say?”

She thrust out her lower lip and gave a shrug. How was she supposed to know? But her husband wasn’t looking.

She felt the treachery of perspiration under her arms. In a moment, her forehead would begin to glisten.

“I’m sure we could find out who owns it, if we wanted,” he said, and peered at her, his head lowered.

“Do you think so?” She tried to seem surprised rather than taken unawares. Then she put her hand to her forehead as though something were bothering her. Yes, it was damp now.

He stared at her intently. The kitchen was too small all of a sudden.

“How would we do that?” she went on.

“We could ask the neighbors. They might have seen someone leave it there.”

She breathed in deeply. She knew with certainty he would stop short of that.

“Yes, I suppose we could,” she replied. “But don’t you think whoever left it there will come back for it at some point? We could put it out by the road.”

He leaned back slightly. More relaxed now. She, however, was not. She drew her hand across her forehead again.

“You’re sweating,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

She pursed her lips and expelled air. Keep calm, she told herself. “I think I might be running a temperature. I must have caught something from Benjamin.”

He nodded, then tilted his head. “By the way, where did you find the charger for your phone?”

She took another bread roll and split it in two. “In the basket in the hall, with all the hats and gloves in it.” Now she felt herself to be on more solid ground. If only she could stay there.

“In the basket?”

“I didn’t know where to put it after I finished, so I just put it back again.”

He stood up without a word. In a moment, he would sit down again and ask what on earth a phone charger had been doing in the basket in the hall. And she would say that most likely it had been there for ages.

And then she realized her mistake.

The bike in the driveway outside ruined the story. He would link the two things together. That was the way he was.

She stared into the living room where Benjamin stood rattling the bars of his playpen as though he were an animal fighting to get out.

She felt the same way.

The charger looked small in her husband’s hand. As if he could crush it with one squeeze. “Where’s this from?” he demanded.

“I thought it was yours,” she answered.

He said nothing. So he took his with him on his trips.

“You might as well tell me,” he said. “I know you’re lying.”

She tried to look indignant. It wasn’t difficult. “What do you mean? What are you talking about? If it’s not yours, then someone must have left it behind. In which case it’s probably been there since the christening.”

But she was trapped.

“The christening? That was eighteen months ago. The christening!” Clearly, he found the idea ridiculous. Only he wasn’t laughing. “There were a dozen guests at most. Old biddies, mainly. None of them stayed the night, and not many were likely to own a mobile phone. And even if they did, why would they bring a charger with them to a christening? It doesn’t make sense.”

She felt an urge to protest, but he raised his hand to stop her.

“You’re lying.” He gestured toward the bike in the driveway. “It’s his charger, isn’t it? When was he here last?”

The reaction came promptly from the sweat glands of her armpits.

He gripped her arm, and his hand was clammy. She had been in two minds about the contents of the packing cases upstairs, but what decided her was this grip on her arm, as tight and forceful as a vise. And now he’s going to hit me, she thought to herself. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned away when she failed to answer, slamming the door shut behind him, and after that nothing more happened.

She stood up, hoping to catch a glimpse of his fleeting figure outside. As soon as she felt certain he was gone, she would take Benjamin with her and make her getaway. Down the garden to the hedge at the bottom, find the gap the previous owners’ kids had made, and squeeze through. They would be at Kenneth’s within five minutes. Her husband would never know where they had gone.

After that, she would have to take things from there.

But the fleeting figure outside never appeared. Instead came a heavy thud from upstairs.

“Oh, God,” she breathed. “What’s he doing?”

She glanced into the living room at her bouncing, laughing child. Could they make it to the hedge without her husband noticing? Were the upstairs windows still open? Was he standing at one of them, watching to see what she did next?

She chewed on her upper lip and looked up at the ceiling. What was he doing up there?

Then she picked up her bag and took all the housekeeping money from the tin. She was too afraid to go into the hallway to get Benjamin’s romper and her jacket. They would just have to make do. And hope that Kenneth wasn’t out.

“Come on, darling,” she said, picking up her child. Once the patio door was open, it would take them less than ten seconds to get to the hedge. The question was whether the gap was still there. She had seen it last year.

It had been big enough then.