Wish You Were Here

31

ELLIE SITS BY Holn Cliffs. And Jack sits, looking towards her but not knowing it, and seeing again for a moment that white gate at Jebb, though not his now washed-away hand-prints.

Everything is mad now, everything is off its hinges. He’d gone to bury Tom, but now all the things that had once been dead and buried had come back again, and there was only one way forward, he was sure of that. Even Tom himself hadn’t been really buried. He was with him now, in this cottage, he was sure of that too, even if he hadn’t seen him. It was Tom’s trick, Tom’s choice, to appear or not, he knew that by now. Tom might be standing even now at his shoulder. A sniper.

If Ellie had come with him, if she’d only come with him, then perhaps between the two of them they might have buried Tom properly. As they’d been trying to bury him, not properly, for years. Then none of this might be happening. But Tom wasn’t the only one, it seemed to him now, that they’d tried to bury not properly. And he’d gone and said so.

Everything is off its hinges. But his mind is quite clear and steady and decided. As if some last forbidding gate has now been simply opened for him. All he has to do is walk through, and shut it.

Breakfast was spread over the table. It still is. The smell of bacon reaches him even now.

‘In his tea, Ell. In his breakfast. In his fucking bacon and eggs.’

He knew that he was off his rocker, right off it. But it was the only way he could get to do — calmly and coolly — what he had to do. The trouble was that Ellie had been here. If she hadn’t been, he could have done it already, last night. He could have got the gun. But Ellie was here. But, still, that was all right. It was better, even. He’d seen that it was only proper that Ellie was here. It removed one important complication. He’d slept on it — beside her, though hardly aware of her, so deeply and committedly had he slept. He hadn’t had a single dream. Then he’d thought it out further, lying in bed, while he’d heard her in the kitchen below. There had to be an explosion. An explosion before the explosion — what a policeman might call a ‘domestic situation’.

He hadn’t reckoned on Ellie’s doing, and doing so quickly, what often happens in such situations: storming off. And with a threat, a further complication, on her lips.

‘I’m not saying he didn’t die of what he did. I’m just saying you speeded the process up.’

‘You’re off your rocker, Jack.’

But he knew that. He had to be. Ellie was looking at him as she’d never looked at him before, but he supposed it must be the same the other way round.

‘It’s not true, then?’

‘How dare you?’

‘It’s not true?’

‘Jack. Jack — come back to me. Of course it’s not true. Of course it’s not fucking true. It’s about as true as me saying you killed your dad.’

He hadn’t expected that. He wasn’t sure if it further complicated or only clarified the situation. If it was even the nub of the matter.

‘He shot himself, Ell.’

‘Exactly. As true — as fucking mad — as me saying you got the gun and did it yourself.’

He stared at Ellie. She thought that might settle it. Tit for tat. She thought that might end this whole situation. All this would be a joke.

And how could he be mad, if he was so clear-headed?

‘Well, if it comes to it, how do you know I didn’t? How do you know I didn’t?’

It was a subject they stayed clear of, his father’s death. As if to enter it might mean reliving it. But hadn’t he been doing just that recently? Wasn’t he doing it even now?

‘Of course you didn’t.’ Ellie gave a strange, dry, quivery laugh.

‘How do you know?’

‘Jack — is this all to do with Tom?’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. I know you.’

But she was looking at him as though she was no longer certain on that last point. And whatever Ellie knew, she didn’t know and couldn’t know what had only ever been in his head.

Even Jack himself couldn’t be sure of how it really was.

That it wasn’t the shot that woke him. He’d been awake, perhaps for some time, before the shot. Had he even heard his father creeping — as once he’d heard Tom creeping — from the house? In his terrible dream in Okehampton he’d even heard the little squeak, from below, of the gun cabinet. Was it a dream? Or the dream of a dream that he’d had that night, before, in fact, the shot had woken him? Or was it simply how it had been?

In his dream, in any case, he hadn’t heard the shot. There wasn’t yet any shot. He’d heard his father’s movements downstairs. He’d heard the kitchen door open, even the blunt scuff of Wellington boots on the frozen mud in the yard. And before he’d dressed and gone downstairs himself, before he’d hurried down Barton Field, a torch in his hand and his heart in his throat, he’d stood on the landing and seen the left-open door of the Big Bedroom, and gone in.

He wasn’t sleep-walking, surely. He hadn’t switched on any lights, but he’d seen, even so, that extra blanket on the bed. Yes, there was a moon by then and, despite the cold, the curtains hadn’t been closed — or else they’d been only recently pulled back. So he was able to see, with just the aid of the moon, the tartan pattern of the blanket.

But more than that. He’d gone into the room — or in his dream he had. And he’d stood by the window, where his father, perhaps, would have stood only moments before, and seen what his father would have seen: the moon, over the oak and the frost-gripped valley. But more than that. He’d been just in time to see — or he’d seen in his dream — from above and behind, his father’s tall black form, his whole body first, then just his shoulders and head, disappearing as he descended the upper section of Barton Field. The moon was almost full and its light was coming brightly off the frost. So it was even possible to see his father’s inky, night-time shadow slipping out of sight, rippling down the slope after him, and to see the footprints, like black burn holes in white cloth, that he left behind.

Even to see what he was carrying.

And Jack hadn’t moved. He’d stood there at the window — as he’d stand, years later, at a white-painted gate — thinking: Shall I? Shan’t I? Thinking: Will he? Won’t he? Can I? Can’t I?

He couldn’t have said (it was like other passages of time that night) how long he’d stood there, as if hypnotised, as if in his mind — but wasn’t he dreaming anyway? — he might still have been back in bed and asleep, not knowing that any of this was really happening. Till the sound of the shot — but had he even seen, from the window, the quick poke of light? — had woken him, out of all dreams, into truth.

But Ellie couldn’t have known any of this.

‘How do you know I didn’t, Ell? How do you know I didn’t march him down that field and make it look as though he’d done it himself?’

It was no surprise, though he hadn’t reckoned on it, that at that point she’d simply got up, grabbed her handbag and fished in it quickly to make sure she had her car keys. Did she look frightened? Of him — for him? No, she looked furious. She looked a little mad herself. If he’d already got hold of the gun he might have stopped her, he might have brought this thing to an end, there and then, as intended. But she was standing between him and the door, and how could he have got the gun and loaded it without her getting away first?

He should have got the gun to begin with. He should have crept down the stairs, as his dad had crept down the stairs, and somehow got the gun from the cabinet and loaded it (both barrels) before she’d even called up that she was putting breakfast on. He should have just appeared in the doorway, in his dressing gown, with the gun. But he knew he couldn’t have done it like that, without any explosion first.

So it was good, in fact — he thought now — that it had all blown up and she’d gone.

She’d clutched her car keys. For a moment they’d stared at each other, not like two people who’d known each other all their lives, but like two nameless enemies who’d come face to face in a clearing. Jack understood that to prevent Ellie leaving he’d have to use physical force, his big weight, against her. But he’d never done that, in all the time he’d known her, and couldn’t do it now. Even though, if he’d had the gun—

‘Where are you going, Ell?’

Outside, the clouds were thickening, but the rain hadn’t begun.

‘Where am I going? Where am I going? Ha! I’m going to Newport police station. I’m going to tell them what you’ve just told me. I’m going to tell them what you are.’

And she looked like she meant it. She really did. She looked like she was going to fetch the police.

She walked out. Slammed the door. The wall seemed to shake. He heard the Cherokee snarl off. Rain started to pepper the window. He’d thought: this had caught him out, this had upset plans. Then he thought: no it hadn’t. After a little while, after hearing only the wind and the rain, after switching off the grill section of the cooker, where several rashers of bacon still waited, warm, well-crisped and untouched, he went to the gun cabinet. He got the gun, he got the box of cartridges. When had he last fired this gun? There’d been every reason to get rid of it. There’d been every reason not to. The last thing his father had touched.

He went up to the bedroom and put the loaded gun on the bed. Put some cartridges from the box in his pocket. This was actually better, this was good. He was prepared now, he was calm. The weather had gone wild, but he was calm. And, whether she’d do or not what she’d said she’d do, Ellie, he was sure of it, would soon have to come circling back. There was even a sort of justice to it. As if her journey was just a smaller, tighter version of his.