And may God have mercy upon your soul. They were the only words that stayed. She closed her eyes and they filled her. She repeated them silently hour after hour, on her knees before the crucifix, high upon the wall. She was buried in the words, unconscious. God have mercy. God. And at night sometimes she saw in dreams those women again rocking backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards before the glass-eyed imp at the temple fair. She remembered the push of the crowd behind her on the steps. Namu myoho renge kyo. The words of the chant came back, useless to her here before an iron-hearted God. The bulging eyes of the red-skinned imp grew and grew in the flickering light, and the women rose, writhing and shrieking in agony. Namu myoho renge kyo. The screams echoed through her dreams. She awoke and opened her eyes. Sweat poured from her in the icy room, her body was rigid with stress.
She could not think, she could not feel. There was only the image of the children, her loss, their loss that, beyond the stigma, would warp and stunt their lives. She folded her hands and escaped again. Her sins were of a different and irrelevant order from those determined by her friends. God have mercy. God. She remembered again, then, Benten’s temple on the crest of Enoshima, where within a dusty mirror she had for a moment glimpsed her own face, the reflection of that self it was said must be lost before eternity could be entered; a self now certainly lost. If she could she would have laughed.
Jack Easely stood before her. She had not heard him enter. ‘Read this,’ he said. He put the paper in her hand. He was gentle, his voice kind. It was an effort now to move her head, to look at him. Her eyes would not focus, could make no sense of words. Jack Easely retrieved the paper.
‘Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul,’ he read, ‘has received a dispatch from Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister in Tokyo to the effect that he has had under consideration the subject of the sentence of death passed in Her Majesty’s Court here on 1 February 1897 on Amy Jane Redmore for the murder of her husband and that in view of the Imperial Proclamation of His Majesty the Emperor dated 31 January granting, in memory of the late Empress Dowager, to all Japanese subjects under sentence on that day a remission of punishment, it appears proper that a similar measure of grace should be extended to the criminal in this case, whose trial in a court sitting in Her Majesty’s dominions had been proceeding for some days before and was about to be brought to a conclusion at the time of His Majesty’s Proclamation. Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister has accordingly decided not to direct that the sentence of death be carried into execution and, in virtue of the powers conferred upon him by the Order of the Council 1865 and otherwise, has directed in lieu of suffering capital punishment Mrs Redmore shall be imprisoned, with hard labour, for life.’
‘Do you understand?’ he asked gently. ‘You will be returned to England to serve sentence. There is every hope of a successful appeal. Already there is agitation for you in influential circles. This case has been closely followed in England.’
She nodded. Soon he went, his duty done.
There were sounds outside in the corridor, footsteps passing, fading. A voice. The slam of a door. The noises had resonance. The voice came again, vital; it laughed. In the depths of the building there was a crash of crockery. Amy listened, as if for the first time, to the life beyond the door. Her mind was full only of the children, images suddenly flooding her, moving the warmth of tears through her stiff body again. There was Tom, so long ago, that Christmas after Matthew died, running into a snowy garden to hold his mouth open to the sky, licking the falling snow from his lips as if it were manna. And Cathy, dressing herself proudly for the first time, refusing Rachel’s help, her dress back to front, her bloomers twisted, joining Amy’s delighted laughter. There was no need to shut out the love now, no need to deny the images released to her again. Cathy, Tom. She whispered their names.
When at last she left the chair, it was nearly dark. She stood before the mirror, bleak and tiny on a shelf along the wall. She stared at her own face for a long while. It was not the face she had looked at last. Within her own destruction seemed a strange rebirth. She was free of all she had prayed to be free of, returned to her life, upon a far and unknown shore. She knew now she was a woman Matthew Armitage would look at and respect. Within her face were those lines she had once traced upon his, of the difficult disease of living. And suddenly, it no longer seemed of importance that she should have the respect of Matthew Armitage or that of any man, ever. She turned from the window and looked out anew upon a darkening world. In the road the lamps were lighting.