The Loney Part 40

'But have you heard what they're saying now?'

'What's that?'

'That this poor child was shot.'

'It was on the news this morning, yes.'

'And they reckon it was some time ago. Thirty or forty years. Back in the 1970s.'

'Yes?'

'When we were there.'

'So?'

His hands were trembling slightly as he brought them to his face again.

'I've been having this memory,' he said. 'They sometimes come back to me out of the blue but I don't always know what they mean.'

'Memories about the pilgrimage?'

'I suppose they must be.'

'Like what?'

'A beach. A girl. An old house with ravens.'

'Rooks. That was Moorings.'

'Moorings, yes that's right. And I vaguely recall going to the shrine, but that might just have been Mummer putting things into my head. She was always talking about it, wasn't she?'

'Yes.'

It was all she talked about.

'And there are other things, brother, things that are just feelings or images. A door. A tower. Being trapped and frightened. And ...'

'And what, Hanny?'

He looked at me, blinked back a few tears.

'Well, this is it. This is the memory I've been having since I saw Coldbarrow on the news.'

'A memory of what?'

'A noise close and loud. And something thumping against my shoulder.'

He looked at me.

'Like a gunshot, brother. Like I'd fired a gun.'

'What are you saying, Hanny? That you think you did it? That you killed this child?'

'I don't know.'

'Why would you? It makes no sense.'

'I know it doesn't.'

'It's a trick of the mind, Hanny,' I said. 'We were always playing soldiers on the beach. That's what you're remembering.'

'But it seems so real.'

'Well it isn't. It can't be.'

His head sagged.

'What happened to me, brother? I've prayed so many times for Him to show me, but there's nothing but shadows.'

'You were healed by G.o.d. Isn't that what you believe?'

'Yes, but ...'

'Isn't that what everyone believes?'

'Of course ...'

'Isn't that what brings them to the church every day, Hanny?'

'No, no,' he said, raising his voice a little. 'Something else happened that Easter.'

'What?'

He breathed out and sat back in the chair, nervously thumbing his bottom lip.

'I've never really talked about it, brother, not even with Caroline, and I suppose I've tried to push it down inside me, but if I ever think about the pilgrimage, there's always something else there in the background.'

'Something else?'

'Behind all the euphoria.'

'What?'

'A terrible guilt, brother.'

I shook my head and touched him on the shoulder.

'I feel as though I'm going to drown in it sometimes,' he said and his eyes glistened again.

'It's not real, Hanny.'

'But why would I feel like that, brother, unless I'd done something wrong?'

'I don't know. Perhaps you don't feel as though you deserved to be cured. I understand it's quite common in people who have been saved or rescued from something. Don't they call it survivor guilt?'

'Maybe.'

'Look, I may not believe in what you believe, Hanny, and perhaps that's my loss, but wherever it's come from, even I can see that you've not wasted the opportunity you've been given. You're important to people. You've brought so much happiness into their lives. Mummer, Farther. Everyone at the church. If anyone deserved to be released from the prison you were in it was you Hanny. Don't throw all that away now. You're a good man.'

'If only Mummer and Farther were still around.'

'I know.'

'I just wish I could remember more,' he said.

'You don't need to. I can remember everything as it was. I'll speak for you if the police come.'

'Will you?'

'Of course.'

'I'm sorry to have to rely on you, brother, but I just can't remember anything clearly.'

'Do you trust me?'

'Yes, yes of course I do.'

'Then you needn't be troubled anymore.'

He wept now and I put my arms around him.

'Those nights I spent outside the house,' I said. 'I didn't mean to scare you or worry you. I just wanted you to know that I was there.'

'I'm sorry.'

'I'm not ill.'

'No, no, I know that now.'

Jim knocked on the door again. I heard him coughing and rattling his keys.

'We'd better go,' I said.

'Yes, alright.'

'Once Jim sets his mind on something there's no getting around it.'

He looked me square in the eyes. 'Thank you, brother.'

'What for?'

'Watching over me.'

'That's all I've ever wanted to do, Hanny.'

'I'm sorry that I didn't let you.'

'It doesn't matter now,' I said.

Jim let us out and then closed the main doors behind us.

'Did you come in the car?' I asked as we wound scarves and fitted gloves at the top of the steps.

'No, I couldn't face the traffic. I got the tube.'

'I'll come with you some of the way then.'

Hanny looked at me.

'Why not stay on and come back to the house?' he said.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' he said. 'I'm sure.'

'What about Caroline?'

'I'll talk to her. She'll understand.'

It had stopped snowing and had gone dark. The sky was clear and full of hard stars. Everything had been whitened and thickened and there was a crust of ice over the drifts. Road signs were buried and street edges dissolved. Hanny went down the steps and hesitated at the bottom.

'I think I've lost my bearings, brother,' he said, looking back up at me with a smile.

'This way,' I said and took his arm and led him along the road to the station.

We sat opposite one another on the tube, my faint reflection hanging next to his face. We couldn't have looked more different (I have become a little gaunt around the cheeks these last few years, a little thin on top) but we were brothers none the less. Bonded by the business of security and survival.

Like Father Bernard said, there are only versions of the truth. And it's the strong, the better strategists who manage them.

Who were the police going to believe fired the rifle? Hanny? Pastor Smith? The dumb boy healed by G.o.d? My gentle, middle aged brother sitting across from me, swaying with the rhythm of the train?

No, they would believe what I would tell them. That we were nowhere near Thessaly when it happened. That we were running back across to the mainland, stumbling through the water channels in the fog, when a single gunshot echoed around The Loney, and was lost in the silence of the sands.

end.