‘Well, that’s not gone to plan, has it?’
Dom paused, blinked, looked down at Harry. ‘Tell me, Harry, how come I’m the enemy?’
Harry, as so often, when confronted by his father’s impatience, hunkered down behind his old defences: defiance and stubbornness. It left them trapped. For a few seconds they both said nothing. Further down the corridor a door banged. They both flinched.
‘Is this it, then?’ Harry asked.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You said “our last conversation”. Aren’t you going to come and see me when I’m inside?’
Dom looked at Harry and slowly shook his head. He seemed about to say something, but decided against it. There were more footsteps and voices out in the corridor – another defendant being brought down from the afternoon session. Possibly the last one? The officer reappeared at the cell door. Time for the wagons to come and take them away.
‘Of course I’ll come. You’re my son.’
It wasn’t the sort of statement for which there seemed an appropriate response. Harry stood up. Time to say ‘goodbye’. They faced each other.
‘Take care of yourself. Don’t let anyone push you around, but keep out of stuff as much as you can. It’s just a case of getting through it and coming out the other side. You’ll be okay. I’m sure you will. I’ll be up to see you as soon as I can.’ Then – if ever – a hug would have helped them both. Instead Dom stuck out his hand. And even in those last few seconds together, after all that had happened, his dad still couldn’t resist asserting his dominance. When they shook hands Dom’s grip was the firmer of the two.
Chapter 49
MARCUS NOTICED the burn on Fran’s hand when they were in the car. He didn’t mention it. It wasn’t fresh. The skin was already healing. But it must have hurt when she first did it; the skin on the top of your hand is thin. Fran drove silently, cautiously, changing up and down the gears with laborious thoroughness. The trip had been at his instigation. They needed something to mark the end of the court process. After the endless months of waiting, it was finally over, the case against Harry made, the victim statements submitted, the judge’s deliberations delivered, the sentence handed down. It was at an end. Harry was in prison. But Marcus knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, especially for Fran.
Fat splats of rain started hitting the windscreen. Fran switched on the wipers. The blades smeared back and forth across the windscreen, making the visibility intermittent. He should have noticed that she’d burnt her hand. He would’ve done in the past. But they were so rarely in the same room at the same time any more. They were losing track of each other, literally. What they needed was time together, if there was any chance that their relationship was going to heal. Hence this trip to a place where they were guaranteed not to be disturbed or observed. No one else they knew had cause to be in the cemetery on a wet Saturday morning. They parked and walked up the path side-by-side, the only noise the sound of the rain hitting their coats. Jess’s plot still struck a raw note amongst the mellowed dead.
They both knew Jess wasn’t really here, but it was all they had as a destination. They stood and stared at the block of expensive marble. White, with black lettering. Marcus had known he would struggle to think of the right thing to say. That was the way it was between them now. They couldn’t talk about Jess and, because there wasn’t anything but Jess, they barely talked to each other at all. His attempts at even everyday conversation seemed to irritate Fran. It was as if his ability to notice that they were out of milk, or that the car was due its MOT, revealed a lack of respect. Weeks back, when he’d been foolish enough to risk a comment about his Year 10 classes being difficult, it had been met with not just a blank stare, but a look of hostility. Fran’s furious mourning brooked no normality. That had to change. The court had punished Harry. It was enough for Marcus; it had to be, he couldn’t face any more grief.
They had to move forward. There was nothing else hanging over them – except the rest of their lives. Marcus desperately wanted things to change. He’d never felt this degree of loneliness before. It was like suffocating, a plastic bag wrapped round his head, while Fran sat and watched. Hence his hope that a quiet moment, facing the tangible evidence of their shared loss, might help to unite them.
The rain grew heavier, but neither of them moved. Marcus looked at Fran, willing her to look at him, but she blocked him and continued staring at the headstone. His commitment wavered. This had been a bad idea. A grave, in the rain, was not the place to start to rebuild.
She surprised him by speaking first. ‘Do you ever think about the recipients?’
Marcus knew instantly what she meant – the people who had received Jess’s heart, her lungs, her kidneys and other tissues. The Donation Service had sent them a letter thanking them and confirming the number of ‘procedures’ that had been made possible by Jess’s death, and their sanctioning of Jess’s decision to donate. The letter sat in the rack in the dining room. Proof of life beyond death.
‘Sometimes.’ Marcus rationed such thoughts. They were too painful.
Fran wiped rain from her cheek. ‘I try and imagine what it must be like to be on the other side of the equation…Being close to someone whose life has been transformed by what we allowed. I think about them getting the call to say that an organ has finally been found. The joy, the relief. How it must feel if it’s your child who gets the chance to survive. I always visualise someone young. Someone good. Someone deserving. Most often I think of a girl. Jess’s age, with her whole life ahead of her. I know that’s not likely to be true, but it’s what I imagine.’
Marcus watched the rain slide down the headstone, the drops catching in the chiselled cuts of Jess’s name and the dates of her birth and her death. ‘She would’ve been proud of us, I think. That we supported her decision and that we managed to go through with it. She wouldn’t have wanted to waste what she had to give.’
‘I know.’ Fran reached out and took his hand. ‘It’s the only good thing to come out of all this misery.’
He held her hand, gently, conscious of the burn. ‘Not just one good thing, Fran. Eight amazing things. Eight desperate people – and their families and all their friends. Hundreds of people’s lives transformed by our Jess.’ She turned into him and he put his arms around her, and they stood in the rain paying homage to their daughter.
Chapter 50
SAL WAS surprised to see Mo walk into the shop. Most eighteen-year-old boys didn’t have much call for DIY products.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ He didn’t say anything else.
‘Can I help you with something?’ She smiled to prompt him. His relationship with Tish puzzled and fascinated Sal. Chalk and cheese. But he was good for her, there was no denying that.
He gathered himself. ‘I wanted to ask your permission for something. I’d like to take Tish out for the day.’
The old fashioned formality of it made Sal want to laugh, but she smothered the instinct when she saw that he was serious. ‘Okay.’
‘It’s just…I’d like it to be on her actual birthday. That’s why I thought I should ask. I didn’t know what you might have planned. Tish hasn’t mentioned anything.’