‘Yes, I am still a little groggy. Yes, it is painful.
‘He swerved. Something in the road. I didn’t see what …
‘The next thing I knew, I was here …
‘Yes. Kind-hearted, my John. Probably a pheasant or something. My poor John …
‘I …
‘Oh …
‘Oh …
‘Oh. Oh. Oh …
‘Water, yes …
‘I can’t talk about that. No. Please don’t make me. How do you know? I loved him. He was my world! My everything. You don’t understand. NO …’
‘No, I’ll talk about the other thing. I can’t really tell you much …’
‘I didn’t see the other two, but I saw her up there. The 322barmaid at the North End. I was going for a walk. Because … I’m sorry …’
‘No. I can go on …
‘I didn’t see the women who were hurt, but I saw Hannah. She was up there arguing with someone. Another woman, I think. In one of those pink waterproof coats. A lot of people have them. There was a sale …
‘I didn’t see the other one’s face. Her back was to me. I couldn’t see who it was …
‘They were shouting. Fighting, I think. I didn’t see anything else. No. I had to get home, I … you see …’
She whispered her answers. The words made their way out soft as a butterfly’s wing, her breath fluttery.
The nurse stopped the interview when Mary-Jane had a violent coughing fit. The police left.
She didn’t tell them what she saw next. She saw Hannah.
Until she didn’t—
Mary-Jane had walked up to the North End to throw herself into the sea. It was her only way out. But the two women were already up there. They were arguing – the one in the pink coat and Hannah.
Shouts. Crashing waves below. The roar of the wind. A tussle. Then Hannah caught sight of her. It distracted her for a second. She looked right at Mary-Jane like she could see deep into her soul, opened her mouth as if to say something, and that was when the other one lunged at her. 323
Mary-Jane heard the scream; hears it still.
Hannah clubbed with a hammer, a fight … and … then she disappeared.
The shock hit Mary-Jane so hard her knees buckled, and she plonked down onto a mound of vivid green grass, gasping. She couldn’t make sense of what she’d just witnessed.
It was her fault. If Hannah hadn’t turned to her…
And what if that woman came for her? Mary-Jane scooted round on her bum, fear scalding her throat. She managed to crawl on her hands and knees round the west side of the rocks, shaky, slowly hauling herself upright into the buffeting wind, and then she ran as fast as she could, until, somehow, gasping, heaving, she got back to level ground, rushing, blinded by the rain which suddenly unleashed in epic quantities, blowing horizontally, lashing her until she was inhaling rain, drowning in rain. She pushed on and on until she slammed the cottage door behind her.
And as she stood by the heater to warm herself up, trembling, horrified, she realised she had not wanted to die after all. She had run for her life.
But she couldn’t believe what she saw. Impossible. It was a scene sent to punish her for her own wicked thoughts, the torment of the devil, a dumb show, a morality play. It wasn’t real. It can’t have been.
But, even if it had been real, what could she do? She told herself she could never risk going to the police. If the authorities got involved, her secret, John’s secret, might come to light. Her thinking was a little unhinged.
There in her beautiful home Mary-Jane silently sobbed. She had contemplated suicide, and this torment was her just 324reward. There was no escape from the top of the cliffs. There was no respite from her many sins. She was skewered by guilt and shame. The pain in her body was nothing compared to that. She deserved her body’s torment.
She was disgusted with herself. And the baby inside her would be a deformed monster and it would all be her fault and her just punishment.
And she had stupidly, recklessly confessed to the nurse, Kelly. The man she loved, had always loved, was her brother.
But now they know anyway. Somehow the police know. And she and John had been so careful.
This is her punishment too. Because she can never return to that beautiful island. She couldn’t face anyone there now. Somehow they will all know, and they will all talk about her behind her back forever. And by now their mother must know too, so she can’t go home either. She and John escaped here to get away from the gossip that had already started back there.
And she couldn’t tell the police; she could never tell anyone what happened the morning of the accident, after she and John had crossed the sea in the helicopter and picked up the hire car and had the argument about the baby, about the abortion leaflet – which he’d stolen from her! going through her private things! – and he was shouting at her, despising her, blaming her for contemplating that terrible sin, and she had no voice to answer back, because John always knew best, knew everything, so she grabbed the steering wheel and pulled hard and they spun across the road, the windscreen glaring, and that’s the last thing she remembered.
Until now. 325
*
Late that night, after the police and the nurse leave her to her broken bones and internal injuries, the IV-line tug-tug-tugging at her hand, and the noise and bustle all around her, there is a pause. And she feels such relief. And this is the worst of her sins.
The relief.
John saw the baby inside her as a gift, a confirmation that God had given their union His blessing.
But she knew the new life rooted inside her was no blessing. It was an obscenity.
And while she grieves for him, the man she loved, with all her heart and all her body, while she will miss him day and night, forever and ever, the thing she will never be able to tell anyone is that she is glad there is no more John. And she is glad there is no more baby. She is free.