Mercy of St Jude (25 page)

Joe threw Callum a questioning glance. Callum nodded.

“Couple of years ago, I came up on him behind the house…”

Joe reddened.

“And?” Mercedes demanded. “What was he doing?”

“And…he was rooting at himself, his drawers half down around his ugly fat arse.”

“Oh?” Her lips were tight.

“Anyway, I walked up on him and he ran out the woods stuffing himself together. Then I saw you up in your bedroom, and the light was on, and it was pitch black outside.” Joe blushed again. “It was before I fixed that shade on your window.” Mercedes glared at Callum. “I should have known. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Merce, I didn't think—”

“Callum was all for telling you,” Joe cut in, “but I said you were too young to be hearing that dirt. Then the bastard went away so it didn't matter.”

Mercedes stared at Joe as if he was out of his mind. “Didn't matter!” A small, strangled cry escaped her lips. Callum had never seen her look so hopeless.

He noticed Judith watching them. Faking a smile, he made a show of rubbing his hands together. “Time for the big news, eh Merce?”

They all stared blankly at him, including Mercedes.

“Merce is going to stay and go to work at Judith's uncle's place,” he announced.

There was a prolonged moment of silence, a moment when he wasn't sure if he'd said the right thing at all, or if he'd said it loud enough for all to hear. But soon it seemed to register and work as a further distraction. Joe was full of questions again. They fumbled through as best they could until a child's cry interrupted. Joe hurried off. Judith sat rigid in her chair, pushing at the excess skin around her cuticles, her eyes focused on the rusted swing suspended from a branch of the yard's only tree.

Eventually Joe trudged back in and dropped down onto the couch. Mercedes placed her hand on his. They sat for a while, hands together, not speaking.

Callum nodded at Judith, who immediately rose. “I'll wait for you in the car. Goodbye Joe.” She pulled on her gloves and hurried down the steps.

Joe hugged Mercedes. Both had tears in their eyes. Callum watched, helpless in the knowledge that there was so little he could do for either of them and nothing they could do for each other. They were all powerless in this great city, incapable of saving themselves or one another from the pain to come.

Just as they reached the car, Mercedes caught hold of Callum's arm to stop him. “If Joe hadn't kept you from telling me, would I be here now?”

He shook his head. “It's not Joe's fault, Merce.”

She stared at him for a moment, then got in the car and closed the door.

With plans to leave for the hotel early in the morning, Mercedes went to bed right after supper. Callum would have done the same but Judith insisted on having tea, so they could talk, she said. As the water boiled, he looked around at their impeccable kitchen. The aluminium bread bin shone on the counter. The chrome of their barely used stove reflected off the new refrigerator, the hum of its motor constant in the background. Lace curtains framed the sink's bay window, providing by day a view out into the pretty back garden. At night, the view turned inwards, into their brightly lit, sparkling kitchen.

“Good Housekeeping” perfection.

He tried to keep the conversation light, away from provocative subjects like Joe or Mercedes or unplanned pregnancies, but Judith kept niggling away. She seemed determined to burrow down and root out whatever it was he might not be saying.

Sure enough, without meaning to, Callum found himself talking about adopting the baby.

Judith's nostrils flared. “Are you insane?”

“It was just a suggestion. I shouldn't have brought it up.”

“If you think I'm going to raise that baby you're out of your mind. This is your sister's problem, not ours. I think we're doing a hell of a lot more already than she should expect. She ought to be grateful instead of trying to foist her little bastard on us.”

“Judith!” He glanced upwards. “It's just an idea. She don't even know how serious I am.”

“Serious? How can you be when we haven't even discussed it?”

Callum couldn't believe he'd been so stupid as to raise the issue. In fact, he didn't fully remember how it had come up.

But it was like that with Judith. She somehow managed to get him to say things he was only thinking. Sometimes he was hardly aware he was thinking them. Even when he'd proposed to her, the next day he couldn't remember the words he'd used for the most important question of his life.

“It's just…well, we've been trying for a while and no luck, so I thought maybe this is how we're supposed to be parents.

Can't we even talk about it?”

“I hardly think we need to run out and take somebody else's cast-off just yet.”

“But we're married going on a year. Surely something would have happened by now if it was going to.” He took down the teapot from the shelf by the stove.

“What's the rush to be saddled with children?”

“Saddled with children? But we decided—”

“What did we decide? You said God meant for us to be making babies.”

“That's not how it was. You agreed. You said fine, we should have a family.”

Judith took a tea bag from the canister. “I didn't mean right this minute, did I?”

“I don't get it. We've been going about it, and you're still not pregnant.” Even as he spoke, some insight nagged at him, just beyond his grasp.

Turning her face away, she muttered something about it not being the right time.

There was an escalating ache at the back of his skull. “Every month I wait for the news and nothing happens, and then I feel worse, thinking I can't give you a baby.”

“Now, Callum, it's not that simple and you know it. I want children. I do. But we need to get established first. All the good families do it this way.”

“Do what? Lie to each other?” Anger had replaced his earlier confusion. “It's not that easy to not get pregnant - just look at my poor sister. How did you do it?”

“I didn't do anything. Neither did you, not when it wasn't the right time.”

“Like you got them headaches at the right time, or is it the wrong time?”

Judith busied herself with getting down the cups, avoiding an answer.

“Headaches so bad I couldn't even sleep in my own bed.” There was a whistling noise as steam shot up from the kettle.

“My headaches are real. They come and I can't do anything about them.”

Callum moved the kettle to another burner. “Then tell me why Ruth said she never knew you to have headaches.”

She whirled on him. “How dare you question my sister!”

Callum replied in as cool a voice as hers had been heated. “I was rubbing a stiff neck one day and Ruth asked what was wrong. I'd slept on the couch after you had one of them nights when you had such a pain in the head you couldn't stand the bed moving at all. She was right surprised when I told her how often you got the headaches.”

“You bastard! What right—?”

“They'd be hard to hide though, wouldn't they, sick as they make you?” He rubbed his temple. “I said as much to her, but she said the last time you went to bed sick was after some big party at the Wilkinson's. And to think I was worried that it might be married life that was causing it, that I was asking too much, or too often.”

“Don't be crass. So I didn't want a family right away. What's wrong with that? Look at your brother. They're only together because she got pregnant. Well, their daughter is paying the price. That child will never see her second birthday.”

“What's that got to do with Sheilagh being sick?”

Sweat coated her forehead. Her eyes looked slightly crazed.

“Maybe God is punishing them, giving them a weakling for a child.”

“How can you say things like that?”

“With your family? Look at your sister. A little whore to the nearest boy. Well, I won't have her bastard as my own. She's not foisting that on me, the little slut.”

Callum's hand rose. For the first time in his life he was ready to strike a woman.

Mercedes ran into the room. “Stop! Please, stop fighting.

I'm causing so much trouble and you're so good to me.”

Instantly sorry, he lowered his hand. “Merce, come on. You know it's not your fault. None of this was your doing.”

“Not her fault?” Judith asked, disbelief scorching every syllable. “Whose fault is it if it's not hers?”

Mercedes had gone white as paper.

“I just mean mistakes happen,” Callum stammered. “You know?” he pleaded.

Judith was still full of fight. “I never made this mistake. We had a wedding night, remember? Maybe your sister should have closed her legs and waited her turn.”

Her anger was contagious. “What the hell would you know about waiting your turn?” Callum stormed back. “You never had to wait for nothing your whole life with your rich old man always there to hand it to you.”

“Yeah, well what about you? You were happy enough to take this house.”

“Stop it,” Mercedes cried. “I'm going tomorrow, and I'll be having this baby next winter. He'll be going to a family who wants him, where both parents want him.”

“Merce, wait. Please, just wait a minute.”

“Good night, Callum. And thank you, the both of you.” She went back upstairs.

In the suddenly silent kitchen, Callum glared at Judith. “This isn't over.” He put the unused teapot back on the shelf. “But I'm going to sleep now and so should you. We got a long day ahead of us.”

For the first time in their marriage, he was the one who chose to sleep apart; in fact, he had a vicious headache. Yet as bone-weary as he was, sleep refused him. He was still awake long after the echo of Judith's footsteps up the stairs had faded into the still New York night.

14

Callum watched from the porch as Mercedes curled into a corner of the back seat, her head all but disappearing into the collar of her coat. When he turned around, Judith was holding out his keys. Dark shadows underlined her eyes.

“I'm not going, Callum.” Her fingers dug deep into the skin of her brow.

“Judith, please.” He took the keys and held onto her hand. “You arranged it all.”

She snatched her hand away and took a gold band from her pocket. “Tell her to wear this, see if she can fool anybody. And from now on, you can just leave me out of the whole filthy business. I want nothing more to do with it.”

Callum's hand closed around the ring. “Fine. If that's the way you want it.”

Without another word he put on his coat and walked to the car, motioning for Mercedes to move to the front. As they drove off, she glanced back at the house.

“She's got a headache.” He passed her the ring. “She gave you this.”

Mercedes stared at it for a moment, then silently slipped it on her finger.

Gradually, they left the city, and Judith, behind. It was a peaceful drive, a quiet reprieve for which Callum was grateful. Their conversation remained simple - the weather, scenery. Mercedes seemed almost relaxed for the first time since her arrival. Too soon, they arrived at the hotel, a large white building surrounded by rows of small white cabins nestled in the trees.

Mrs. Waterman, one of the cooks, took charge of Mercedes.

From the glances of some of the kitchen staff, Callum sensed that his sister's reason for being there was hardly a secret, despite Judith's wedding band.

Mercedes' room was barely large enough to hold a single bed and chest of drawers, but it was clean and had a good-sized window that looked out over the parking lot and into the woods beyond. With her few belongings, they soon had her settled in.

“I guess I should be going,” said Callum. “I'll be back though, soon, and often.”

“Thanks, Callum. I'll be okay, really I will.”

Mercedes hugged him tight. He held on for an extra few seconds. For the second time in as many months, he felt he was abandoning her, leaving her to deal with the inconceivable reality that her life had become. But they both knew he couldn't stay.

He let her go and stepped back. “If you need anything, you'll call me, right?”

She stood in the doorway trying to smile. “I will. Go on home now.”

Callum watched as the door closed behind her. Mercedes was on her own, again.

The best he could do was visit, which he did whenever possible, even if he could only stay an hour. Judith protested that, between work and trips to the hotel, he was hardly ever home.

She needed him too, she said. They had to try to get close again, she told him, to get back to where they were before his sister came. Callum agreed but he would not negotiate when it came to seeing Mercedes. To make up for it, he did everything he could to make Judith happy. He brought her flowers regularly, he cooked and cleaned more than he ever had, he attended society events without protest. Judith either noticed the effort he was making or realized the futility of complaining because she soon stopped. In fact, she rarely mentioned his sister's name.