Missing Joseph Part 31

"About what?"

"St. Joseph?"

"Now there's a subject for ample consideration."

"I told you I wasn't any good at this. I don't have a memory for conversation. Ask me what he wore, what he looked like, the colour of his hair, the shape of his mouth. But don't ask me to tell you what he said. Even if I could remember every word, I'd never be able to delve for hidden meanings. I'm no good at verbal delving. I'm no good at any delving. I meet someone. We talk. I like him or I don't. I think: This is someone who might be a friend. And that's the end of it. I don't expect him to turn up dead when I come to call, so I don't remember every detail of our first encounter. Do you? Would you?"

"Only if I'm conversing with a beautiful woman. And even then I find I'm distracted by details having nothing to do with what she has to say."

She eyed him. "What sort of details?"

He c.o.c.ked his head thoughtfully and examined her face. "The mouth."

"The mouth?"

"I find women's mouths a study. I've been readying myself for the last several years to posit a scientific theory on them." He settled back against the bench and regarded the ducks. He could feel her bristling. He contained a smile.

"Well, I won't even ask what the theory is. You want me to. I can tell by your expression. So I won't."

"Just as well."

"Good." She wriggled next to him, duplicating his position on the bench. She held out her feet and scrutinised the tops of her boots. She clicked her heels together. She did the same with her toes. She said, "Oh all right. d.a.m.n it. Tell me. Tell me."

"Is there a correlation between size and significance of utterance?" he asked solemnly.

"You're joking."

"Not at all. Have you never noticed that women with small mouths invariably have little of importance to say?"

"What s.e.xist rubbish."

"Take Virginia Woolf as an example. Now there was a woman with a generous mouth."

"Simon!"

"Look at Antonia Fraser, Margaret Drabble, Jane Goodall-"

"Margaret Thatcher?"

"Well, there are always exceptions. But the general rule, and I argue that the facts will uphold it absolutely, is that the correlation exists. I intend to research it."

"How?"

"Personally. In fact, I thought I'd begin with you. Size, shape, dimension, pliability, sensuality..." He kissed her. "Why is it I've a feeling you're the best of the lot?"

She smiled. "I don't think your mother beat you enough when you were a child."

"We're even then. I know for a fact that your father never laid a hand upon you." He got to his feet and extended his hand to her. She slipped hers into the crook of his arm. "How does a brandy sound?"

She declared it sounded fine, and they began to retrace their steps up the lane. Much like Winslough, just beyond the village the open land rose and fell in gentle hills parcelled out in farms. Where the farms ended, the moors began. Sheep grazed here. Among them, the occasional border collie moved. The occasional farmer worked.

Deborah paused on the threshold of the pub. St. James, holding the door for her, turned back to find her staring at the moors and tapping the knuckle of her index finger contemplatively against her chin.

"What is it?"

"Walking. Simon, he said he liked to walk on the moors. He liked to be outside when he had to make a decision. That's why he wanted to go to the park. St. James's Park. He'd planned to feed the sparrows from the bridge. And he knew about the bridge. Simon, he must have been there before."

St. James smiled and drew her into the doorway of the pub.

"D'you think it's important?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"D'you think perhaps he had a reason for talking about the Hebrews wanting to stone that woman? Because we know he was married. We know his wife met with an accident...Simon!"

"Now you're delving," he said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"THE headmistress sent for her and..."

"...see his car?" "It was about her mum." Maggie hesitated on the school steps when she realised that more than one speculative glance was being directed her way. She'd always liked the time between the last lesson and the departure of the school bus. It presented the best opportunity to gossip with the pupils who lived in other villages and in the town. But she'd never considered that the giggles and whispers that accompanied the afternoon chit-chat might one day be about her.

Everything had seemed outwardly normal at first. Pupils were gathered on the tarmac in front of the school in their usual fashion. Some were lingering by the school bus. Others were lounging against cars. Girls were combing their hair and comparing shades of contraband lipstick. Boys were sparring with each other or trying to look cool. When Maggie came through the doors, threaded her way down the steps, and searched the a.s.sembly for Josie or Nick, her mind was engaged with the questions the London detective had asked her. She didn't even stop to wonder about it when a ripple of whispers slid through the crowd. She'd been feeling rather dirty ever since the conversation in Mrs. Crone's study, and she couldn't exactly understand why. So her mind was taken up with turning over every possible reason as if each were a stone, and she was mostly conscious of waiting to see if a slug of previously unconscious guilt would slither away from exposure to the light.

She was used to feeling guilty. She kept on sinning, she tried to convince herself she wasn't sinning, she even excused the worst of her behaviour by telling herself it was Mummy's fault. Nick loves me, Mummy, even if you don't. See how he loves me? See? See?

In reply, her mother had never used look-at-everything-I've-done-for-you-Margaret in the sort of play upon conscience that Pam Rice's mother tried with no effect. She never talked in terms of deep disappointment as Josie reported her mother had done on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, prior to this very day, her mother had been the consistent, major source of Maggie's guilt: She was disappointing Mummy; she was causing Mummy's anger; she was adding torture to Mummy's pain. Maggie knew all this without having to hear it. She had always been extremely adept at reading reactions on her mother's face.

Which was why Maggie had come to realise last night precisely how much power she had in this war with her mother. She had power to punish, to hurt, to warn, to avenge...the list stretched on to forever. She wanted to feel triumphant in the knowledge that she'd wrested the ship's wheel of her life away from her mother's controlling hands. But the truth was, she felt troubled about it. So when she arrived home late the previous night-outwardly proud of the purple love bruises which Nick had sucked to the surface of her neck-the flames of pleasure Maggie had expected to warm her at Mummy's frantic worry were instantly extinguished at the sight of her face. She made no reproach. She just came to the door of the darkened sitting room, and she gazed upon her as if from a place where she couldn't be reached. She looked a hundred years old.

Maggie had said, "Mummy?"

Mummy had placed her fingers on Maggie's chin, had turned it gently to expose the bruises, had then released her and climbed the stairs. Maggie heard her door click shut softly behind her. It was a sound that hurt more than the slap she deserved.

She was bad. She knew it. Even when she felt warmest and closest to Nick, even when he loved her with his hands and his mouth, when he was pressing It to her, holding her, opening her, saying Maggie, Mag, Mag, she was black and she was bad. She was filled with blame. She was becoming every day more used to the shame of her behaviour, except that she had never expected to be made to feel it over her friendship with Mr. Sage.

What she felt was like the p.r.i.c.kles from nettle leaves. But they scratched at her spirit instead of her skin. She kept hearing the detective ask about secrets, and that made her feel dry and itchy inside. Mr. Sage had said, You're a good girl, Maggie, don't ever forget that, believe it completely. He said, We get confused, we lose our way, but we can always find our way back to G.o.d through our prayers. G.o.d listens, he said, G.o.d forgives everything. Whatever we do, Maggie, G.o.d will forgive.

He was comfort itself, was Mr. Sage. He was understanding. He was goodness and love.

Maggie had never betrayed the confi dence of their times together. She had held them precious. And now she was faced with the London detective's suspicions that what was most special about her friendship with the vicar was also what had led to his death.

This was the slug that writhed beneath the last stone of implication she turned over in her mind. The fault was hers. And if that was the case, then Mummy had known all along what she was doing when she fed the vicar dinner that night.

No. Maggie argued the point with herself. Mummy couldn't have known she was feeding him hemlock. She took care of people. She didn't hurt them. She made unguents and poultices. She mixed special teas. She brewed decoctions, infusions, and tinctures. Everything she did was to help, not to harm.

Then the whispers of her schoolmates rising round her made delicate fissures in the sh.e.l.l of her thoughts.

"She poisoned the bloke."

"...didn't get away with it after all."

"The police came from London."

"...devil-worshippers, I heard and..."

Maggie was startled into sudden comprehension. Dozens of eyes were on her. Faces were bright with speculation. She clutched her rucksack of schoolbooks to her chest and looked about for a friend. Her head felt weightless, oddly and suddenly divorced from her body. All at once it was the most important thing in the world to pretend she didn't realise what they were talking about.

"Seen Nick?" she asked. Her lips felt chapped. "Seen Josie?"

A fox-faced girl with a large pimple on the side of her nose became the group spokesman. "They don't want to hang about with you, Maggie. They're not so dim they can't see the risk."

A murmur of approval lapped round the girl like a small wave, then receded in kind. The faces seemed to move closer to Maggie.

She held her rucksack tighter. A book's sharp corner dug into her hand. She knew they were teasing-didn't one's mates always like to tease whenever they could?-and she drew herself taller to meet the challenge. "Right," she said with a smile as if she herself approved of whatever joke they were trying to make. "Quite. Come on. Where's Josie? Where's Nick?"

"They've gone off already," Fox-face said.

"But the bus..." It was sitting where it always sat, waiting for departure, just a few yards away, inside the gate. There were faces at the windows, but from the steps of the school, Maggie couldn't tell if her friends were among them.

"They made their own arrangements. During lunch. When they knew."

"Knew what?"

"Who you were with."

"I wasn't with anyone."

"Oh right. Whatever you say. You lie about as good as your mum."

Maggie tried to swallow, but her tongue got stuck on the roof of her mouth. She took a step towards the bus. The group let her go but closed ranks right behind her. She could hear them talking as if to each other, but all of it intended for her.

"They went off in a car, did you know?"

"Nick and Josie?"

"And that girl who's been after him. You know who I mean."

Teasing. They were teasing. Maggie walked faster. But the schoolbus seemed farther and farther away. There was a shimmer of light dancing in front of it. It started as a beam and turned into bright speckles.

"He'll stay clear of her now."

"If he's got any brains. Who wouldn't?"

"It's true. If her mum doesn't take a fancy to her mates, she just invites them for dinner."

"Like that fairy story. Have an apple, dearie? It'll help you sleep."

Laughter.

"Only you won't wake up real soon."

Laughter. Laughter. The bus was too far.

"Here, eat this. I cooked it up special. Just for you."

"Now, don't be shy about second helpings. I can see you're just dying for more."

Maggie felt a hot ember at the back of her throat. The bus glimmered, got small, became the size of her shoe. The air closed round it and swallowed it up. Only the wrought iron gates of the school were left.

"It's my own recipe. Parsnip pie, I call it. People say it's dead good."

Beyond the gates lay the street- "They call me Crippen, but don't let that put you off your dinner."

-and escape. Maggie began to run.

She was pounding towards the centre of town when she heard him calling her. She kept going, dashing up to the high street and then across it, tearing towards the car park at the base of the hill. What she was planning to do there, she couldn't have said. It was only important to get away.

Her heart was slamming into her chest. She had a folding and pulling pain in her side. She skidded on a patch of slick pavement and wobbled, but she caught herself against a lamppost and ran on.

"Watch yourself, luv," warned a farmer who was getting out of his Escort next to the kerb.

"Maggie!" shouted someone else.

She heard herself sob. She saw the street blur. She kept rushing forwards.

She pa.s.sed the bank, the post office, some shops, a tea room. She dodged a young woman pushing a pram. She heard the thud of footsteps behind her, and then another shout of her name. She gulped away tears and plunged on.

Fear pumped energy and speed through her body. They were following her, she thought. They were laughing and pointing. They were only waiting for the opportunity to encircle her and begin the whispers all over again: What her mum did...do you know, do you know...Maggie and the vicar...a vicar?...that bloke?...Cor, he was old enough to be...

No! Drop the thought, trample it, bury it, shove it away. Maggie hurtled down the pavement. She didn't stop until a blue sign hanging from a squat brick building brought her up short. She wouldn't have seen it at all had she not lifted her head to make her eyes stop watering. And even then the word swam, but she could still make it out. Police. She stumbled to a halt against a rubbish bin. The sign seemed to grow larger. The word glittered and throbbed.

She shrank away from it, half crouched on the pavement, trying to breathe and trying not to cry. Her hands were numb. Her fingers were tangled in the straps of her rucksack. Her ears felt so cold that steel spikes of pain were shooting down her neck. It was the end of the day, the temperature was dropping, and never in her life had she felt so alone.

She didn't, she didn't, she didn't, Maggie thought.

But somewhere shouted a chorus: She did.

"Maggie!"

She cried out. She tried to make herself small, like a mouse. She hid her face in her arms and slid down the side of the rubbish bin until she was sitting on the pavement, balling herself up as if reducing her size somehow served as a form of protection.