Darkside

He hoped Lucy Holly would remember lots more about her confrontation with Marvel when she made her statement. What she had told him on the phone was good enough, but he would draw more from her. Nuances, looks, implied threats. Reynolds wanted them all, like an egg collector wants to shake a rare bird through a tiny hole in a shell.

He put his notes and Lucy’s statement away in their folder, then turned on Mastermind.

* * *

Steven sat at the kitchen table with his hands around the first cup of tea he had ever accepted from Lucy Holly.

He was wearing a pair of Jonas’s trousers. She had told him where to find some in the bedroom cupboard. It had been strange opening the Hollys’ wardrobe, but no stranger than opening their front door. He’d tried several pairs before he found some newly washed jeans which were only too big, rather than ridiculous, and rolled them up, then cinched them with his school belt.

He’d put his trousers and underwear in the laundry basket, as she’d told him to, and gone back downstairs to the sound of the kettle whistling.

Now they sat on opposite sides of the table and Steven watched Mrs Holly pretending she was OK. He knew she wasn’t. He’d seen her hands shake while making tea and he’d seen her wince as she put her cup to her broken lip.

He had registered these things but had detached himself from thinking about them too hard. Instead he had become a vague little ball with a shiny shell, so that he could protect himself. He knew now that that was his job, and his alone.

She smiled faintly at him, so he moved his mouth in response.

‘You haven’t drunk your tea,’ she said.

It was no longer hot, but Steven drank it anyway – for her – and saw that this gift made her smile much better.

‘I want you to have this,’ she said, getting up and rummaging in a cupboard. She took out a tin and removed the lid with difficulty, then handed him a thick wad of £20 notes, so he took it, even though it made his stomach roll over. It made him think of his nan sellotaping names to her nick-nacks, so they’d all know who was getting what when she died.

Then Mrs Holly said ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ and hugged him so hard that it squeezed tears from his eyes, which slid down his nose and fell on to her blue sweater.

Halfway down the hill Steven stopped and took the notes out of his pocket and fanned them out. Even in the dark he could see there was about £600.

He drew his arm back and threw the notes hard into the night sky, where the biting wind whipped them away.

Then he put his head down and walked on through a blizzard of snow and money.

After Steven left, Lucy took the knife Jonas had given her, and inched slowly upstairs with it.

Steven had left the cupboard open and several pairs of Jonas’s uniform trousers on the bed. Leaning her sticks against the wall, Lucy started to fold them back into the wardrobe, the familiar effort of the task making her feel warm and calm.

An errant sob emptied her of the final breath of unexpected drama.

She didn’t blame him.

He had worked so hard, under such pressure, to keep her going. Nobody could have done a better job than Jonas. He was so strong, so patient.

The pills had been a bitter blow and her sense of having failed him was all-embracing. Her shame was almost unbearable. She couldn’t live properly and she hadn’t even been able to die properly.

And for a while she had almost believed she would never try again. Contacting Exit had only been insurance at first. So she would know better how to do it if things got unbearable. Brian Connor had talked through her options and it was a relief not to pretend that she would never consider it. But she tucked the thought away and kept going. Kept battling. Kept telling her mother she was feeling better all the time. Kept being the Lucy that everyone knew and loved.

And then Marvel had said that thing.

And she had understood how the world saw her. That at some indeterminate point she had ceased to be Lucy Holly – teacher, daughter, athlete, friend, wife, lover – and had become that thing. She couldn’t even think the words. She was amazed she had been able to get them out to Reynolds, and thought she must have been more angry than she’d ever been in her whole life to do so.

She hoped Jonas would come home soon. He was the only one who had never made her feel that way. She knew he’d hit her out of fear, and the pain of her split lip was nothing compared to the pain she knew he must feel at her planning to leave him alone. At the thought that she could want to leave him alone.

She ached with sadness and pressed a pair of his uniform trousers to her cheek, feeling her lashes brush the rough serge.

As she raised her head and lifted the trousers to put them away, Lucy noticed they were missing a button.

The Final Day

Jonas raised his face to the sky and felt the feathery snow turn slowly to needles of hot water on his skin. He opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself in the shower in the bathroom of Rose Cottage.