Innocence (23 page)

Scowling, Malachi presses the intercom again, but there is no reply. In the distance I can hear the roar of a tractor engine and wonder if there is a farm hidden behind that small forest of pines.

But it’s not a tractor, it’s a mud-splattered Land Rover, throwing up stones as it speeds down the drive. It skids to a halt a few meters from the other side of the gates. A woman about Malachi’s age sits at the wheel, her long blonde hair tied in a messy ponytail. She winds down her window and stares at us, at me, in shock.

She looks so familiar, my chest tightens and I can hardly breathe. I wonder if I’m going to have a heart attack. I feel the barely there touch of Malachi’s arm press protectively against my back. Out the corner of my eye, I see him almost imperceptibly shake his head. This isn’t Isabella.

“I know you, don’t I?” she says to Malachi.

Her voice is all proper, clear as the summer sky.

He nods, but it’s pretty unenthusiastic.

“We met in some poky café in Manchester, didn’t we? I think I called you something unpleasant,” she carries on.

“A pathetic waster.”

She frowns. “I’m sorry about that.”

“This is Christopher,” he says.

There is a kind of defiance in his tone that makes my chest expand again, my breath flow freely.

Now his arm is a much stronger presence, his hand curled around my hip, under my T-shirt, pulling me tight against his side.

Her eyes widen, and she looks as though she is battling with something inside herself, her expression a mixture of sorrow and relief.

After a few seconds, she seems to collect herself and opens the car door, hopping down onto the gravel in her riding boots. The jodhpurs and riding jacket she’s wearing look as mud splattered as the Land Rover. She presses a button on the other side of the gate, and with a groan the gates start to swing inward.

As soon as there is enough room, she slips through the gap and holds out her hand to me.

“I’m Honey. Honey St. Clare.” She’s so tiny, and her hand looks so thin and delicate, I’m afraid I might crush it. “Christopher?”

She tilts her head to try and meet my eyes. Behind me, Malachi is gripping me so tightly, I wonder if she can see.

“I’m Isabella’s sister…. Your aunt,” she whispers, giving up with the hand. Her eyes fill with tears, and instead she puts a hand up to my cheek, her touch cool. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

“H
AVE
YOU
traveled far?” Honey asks me gently.

I don’t trust myself to talk, so I just shrug, looking at the ground, watching our shadows disappear into the shadows of the trees, the way the light changes around us second by second.

A part of me wants to study her as she’s studying me, but another part of me wants to push her away, get back in the car, and drive until we’ve left this place far behind.

A part of me wants to stop what’s been started. But I can’t.

“Look, why don’t we go to the Dorchester in town, and we can talk properly?” she says, stepping back.

Her skin is flawless, without even a trace of makeup. I wonder if Isabella looks so good, if she’s older or younger, if there are other brothers and sisters.

I have no idea how to tackle the idea of this family expanding dizzily in front of me.

“Why can’t we come in?” Malachi asks, that edge to his voice again, that challenge.

“I think it’s best if we talk first, okay?”

“Is Isabella here?”

“Look, why don’t you follow me into town? It’s not far, and I’ll explain.”

Taking a deep breath, Malachi drops his arm from my waist.

“What’s the point in driving to the Dorchester? We passed a café five minutes down the road. We can talk there,” he says.

Seeming reluctant, Honey nods.

We get back in the car. Malachi reverses out of the way to let Honey drive in front.

“You don’t like her,” I state. I can see the way his shoulders are tensed, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

“I expect the feeling is mutual.”

The Land Rover takes off at speed down the narrow country lane, Malachi barely able to keep it in sight.

“What’s the Dorchester?” I ask.

“Some posh hotel,” he mutters.

It’s a name I’ve heard of, and I’m not sure why Malachi didn’t want to go there. Maybe it was too far away.

“When did you meet her?” I ask, wondering why she had been so hostile to him all those years ago, but Malachi doesn’t respond. From the focused look on his face, I’m not sure he’s heard me.

I turn away, too many thoughts filling my head as it is. In the backseat, Maisie has her head rested dolefully on the edge of my guitar. I reach over and stroke her nose until Malachi pulls up sharply and I’m jerked back. We’ve reached the café.

It’s a trucker’s café at the junction of a busy road. The decor is in the style of a retro American diner, with pinball machines, a Wurlitzer, and every surface shining with chrome to warp our reflections.

There is some disagreement between Malachi and Honey over who is paying, and I walk to a booth by the window and sit down. I guess Malachi has won when Honey comes to sit next to me.

She smells of the outside, of animals, but not in an awful way—just mud and straw, leather and horsehair.

“I’d just finished at the stables when I heard the intercom go,” she says, noticing the way I glance at her clothing. “It’s a good job I did too. If Mum or Dad had answered, this could have gotten very complicated, very quickly.”

“I’m not here to
complicate
your life, I’m just here to find my mother,” I say quietly.

“Oh, Christopher, no, that’s not what I meant! I’m glad you’re here!” Her hand lightly touches my arm. I can barely feel it. “It’s that Mum and Dad have no idea you and your brother even exist. And I want to tell them before they see you, so they can welcome you properly. Where is James?”

At the mention of Jay, I wince.

Thankfully, at that moment I see Malachi walking towards us, drinks balanced on a bright chrome tray.

Placing the tray on the table, he sits down opposite and presses his ankle against mine. I blink at him gratefully. I can’t seem to get enough of this easy affection, whatever it means. I feel starved of it, hungry for more.

“It’s why I’m here,” I say when my voice feels steady enough, the physical contact with Malachi helping. “Jay—James—is in hospital. He’s in a coma.”

Pulling my tea toward me on the tray, I proceed to empty sachet after sachet of sugar into the mug. I only notice Honey is crying when she picks up a napkin to wipe her eyes.

“What happened?” she asks hoarsely.

“There was an accident. He was drunk, and he fell off a bridge into a river. He wasn’t breathing for a long time.” I can’t speak above a whisper, and I’m aware of both Malachi and Honey leaning in closer to hear me.

Malachi’s fingers twitch as they lie on the tabletop, and for perhaps one awful and at the same time wonderful moment, I wonder if he’s about to take my hand, here in front of everyone, to reassure me. But he doesn’t.

“Isabella needs to know.” Malachi’s voice is cold. “And not because it’s her right, but because she has a responsibility. And it’s Christopher’s right to tell her.”

Stirring a small back coffee, Honey nods. She looks shaken more than anything.

“I looked for you both, you know.”

I glance up, not convinced at first she’s talking about me.

“I searched and searched but I didn’t have much to go on—two possibly blond boys, three years apart in age, living on a boat. Do you know how many miles of waterway there are in the north of England alone? I hired private investigators, reported you as missing persons, I even bought a barge and traveled the canals around Manchester, everything I could think of.”

“Money doesn’t solve every problem, then, eh?” Malachi glowers into his cup.

“No, obviously not! But the money was at my disposal, so I used it. It would have been stupid not to!”

There is some subtext going on between them I don’t have the energy to figure out.

“Why didn’t you just ask Isabella where they were when she left them? Surely that would have been far easier?” Malachi snaps.

I’m glad the force of his glare is not directed at me.

But Honey is not intimidated. She’s too sure of herself.

“That is what I wanted to talk to you about,” she says.

She puts down her coffee and searches my face, looking at me as though it pains her physically to do it.

“Isabella wasn’t right when she came home. Mum and Dad assumed something terrible had happened to her—she was so young when she ran away from home—and they were just so grateful to have her back again, they didn’t push for details.”

“So why didn’t
you
tell them?” Malachi just about spits.

“Because she denied it. When I spoke to her, she denied everything she had told me over the five years or so we had been in contact. She’d never let me see the children, meet the man she was living with. The only certainty I had that any of it had happened came from meeting you.”

She glances at Malachi. “When we met in that café, you spoke fondly of Isabella’s children. You cared for them, and that was all the proof I had that their existence was the truth. But it was enough, and I knew if I found Christopher and James, she wouldn’t be able to deny anything!”

“What do you mean ‘she wasn’t right’?” I ask quietly, pushing the spilled granules of sugar into a tiny pile with my finger.

“She’d had some sort of breakdown, and she was very depressed…. She wasn’t the person she had been before she ran away.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know what you’re expecting, Christopher….”

“I want to know.”

“She never got over that breakdown. Half the time I’m not even sure she knows where she is.”

“What are you saying?” I am flooded with a terrible sense of despair. “She won’t even know who I am?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Honey says softly, shaking her head.

My heart is beating strong and steady. The chrome of the tray is cool against my hand.

I think I’m okay.

But all at once the need to get out of there hits me like the shockwave after an explosion.

Scrabbling out of the seat, I climb over Honey’s slender form and break into a run down the aisle to the doors.

Behind me I hear Malachi swear loudly.

We’re right at the side of a busy intersection of roads. The air is full of noise and fumes, and there is too much light, too much brightness.

I don’t know if I want to run or collapse.

Her indifference to our existence would be much worse than her hate of it.

That terrible sense of wanting some repayment for past hurts, of being
owed
something to compensate for the injustice of everything, is crushing me.

Let it go,
something inside me whispers.

But I’m not sure I can. I’ve held on to this pain for so long, I’m scared if I let it go, there will not be enough of me left.

There is a phone box in the car park. I step inside it and shut the door, relieved when the noise of the world retreats a little. Malachi is there barely a second later, his distress and worry for once easy to read. He roots around in the pocket of his jeans and holds out a handful of change beyond the glass of the door. It’s as if he knows before I do that the one person I want to speak to right now is Dad.

It’s the strangest feeling, but I just need to hear his voice—the one voice that has been constant all these years, even as we’ve battled and come head-to-head. He’s still my dad. And I’ve been angry with him, and I’ve disappointed him, but I know he’s not indifferent to me—he’ll never be indifferent to me.

I open the door, and gratefully take Malachi’s change. Holding the phone against my ear with one hand, I feed the coins slowly into the coin slot. I know the number for the hospital off by heart now.

But the nurse I speak to doesn’t sound impressed.

“Is this concerning a patient?”

“Not directly… but….” I press my head against the glass. “We don’t have a phone at home, and I know my dad is there. I just want a minute to talk to him. Just one minute, and I promise I won’t ask you to do this again.”

I imagine the nurse thinking over my words, maybe rolling her eyes, but I sense she’s going to let me talk to him before she tells me she will.

“Make sure you’re quick,” she says firmly.

I hear her put the handset down and get up. I imagine Dad’s shock at the idea of me calling him. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him on the phone.

“Christopher? Where are you? Why aren’t you here?” he says in a rush.

I don’t expect so many questions. I don’t expect Dad to sound so excited.

“I went to find Mum,” I sob, my tears shocking me.

“What? Oh, Christopher!” He must hear me crying. “We can talk about it later. You should be here, son. You should be here with Jay. Can you get here? Where are you?”

I wipe my eyes with my sleeve. Malachi is leaning against the glass next to me. I push open the door to let him in, promptly leaning myself against him, wanting him to fold his arms around me and make everything else disappear. Honey is still sitting in the café, and she looks over to us. I don’t think she knows what to do.

“I don’t know. I’m in Oxford. What’s going on?”

“Didn’t they tell you?” Dad’s voice breaks as he speaks. I’ve never heard him so emotional. “Jay has woken up.”

The whole day tilts on its head—everything. I look up at Malachi, impossible hope ballooning inside my chest. I should be there, not here. “When? Is he okay? Is he speaking?”

“You need to be here, Christopher.” For the first time in my life, I hear uncertainty in Dad’s tone, and I start to panic.

“What’s wrong? Is he okay?” Tell me he’s okay. Tell me he’s himself.

In a split second, my hope has turned to dread for what this accident has cost Jay.

“He’s okay. He’s awake, and he’s okay.”

Dad tries to reassure me, but I know something is not right.

“I’ll be there,” I say. “I’ll be there as quick as I can.”