The gathering, p.2
The Gathering, page 2
Most troubling to her were the memories of her own behaviour towards her child. But I don’t need to think about that, she would tell herself. I’m a parent and there are no perfect parents. It’s the hardest job in the world. I did not always make the best choices in dealing with Jeanne, but no one does. I won’t think about it.
Late one evening with her mind exploring the incidents in Jeanne’s life that stood out most clearly, she remembered a visit from one of Jeanne’s preparatory school teachers. The teacher had told her that three bigger kids had been picking on a small Jewish child and Jeanne had come between them to protect her. One of the bigger kids had struck Jeanne, but she had not backed down. Other children said that Jeanne called them cowards and drove them away without even raising her voice.
It was while Martha was busy with this memory, taking pleasure in the recollection, that the unexpected happened. A key turned in the front door. She rose to face the hall. Apart from herself, only Jeanne had a key.
There was no voice from the door to tell her mother that she was home, only the sound of the door’s opening and closing, then being locked behind her. She came quietly into the living room where Martha was waiting. Her only luggage was a kit bag slung over one shoulder. She lowered the bag slowly to the floor and faced her mother.
Martha looked for answers in the face she knew so well. Jeanne was as calm as always, the smooth skin of her face and the steady, rarely blinking eyes revealing no emotion. All her life a procession of mental health professionals had tried to help Martha make sense of what she saw as her daughter’s aberrant behaviour. All had commented on the girl’s calmness and sooner or later, all had questioned her about her own behaviour while Jeanne was growing up. Why are these questions necessary, she had asked more than one of them. Jeanne is the patient, not me. That had raised a few eyebrows, but it had not stopped their questions. Many people had been concerned for Jeanne, but the girl herself had never shown any uncertainty.
And now here she was, after six weeks of absence and silence and all of her strange childhood, ending in the flight through the woods, and yet as far as Martha could see, she was unaffected by any of it.
“Martha,” her daughter asked, “are you well?”
Martha had rehearsed what she would say if her daughter returned, trying out various possibilities. She had settled on “Jeanne, I’m delighted to have you home again.” That had been the intention, but when faced with her daughter she could do no more than repeat her name, “Jeanne.” Then wait in silence for her daughter to speak.
“I’ve come for a visit. I hope I’m not too late.”
Too late for dinner, or too late for us? Martha wondered. “Of course you’re not too late,” she said, then, “have you eaten?”
Jeanne smiled warmly at her mother. “Such a motherly thing to ask. No, I haven’t eaten.”
Martha remembered her daughter’s love for pasta and before long they were seated across from each other at the kitchen table while the food warmed. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Martha said. “I only wish you would stay.”
Jeanne ignored her mother’s wishes. “Yes, I did want to see you again,” she said. Something in the way it was said, suggested that she could have ended the sentence with the words – one last time.
Martha did not dare ask, or even suggest such a possibility. There was something she felt she could ask though. “You’ve made new friends?”
“I have.”
“Good ones?”
“I believe so.”
What did that mean? Martha wondered, but did not dare probe any further. What she wanted was to keep Jeanne close, to shield her from whatever uncertain destiny awaited. Her own curiosity could wait for a later date, or no date at all.
They ate in silence. Where do you go when you leave me? Martha would have liked to ask. And must you go? Can you not stay here with me while doing what you want to do with your life?
But she had asked these questions on other occasions, and could not ask them again. To her mother Jeanne was more than unpredictable, she was unknowable. The wrong question might result in her leaving again, in a moment, without any indication of when she would return, or even if she ever would.
Jeanne’s bedroom at the top of the stairs was as she had left it. During and after all her disappearances it had remained so. Martha never touched its contents except to dust and vacuum. Neither woman ever said anything about it. Both understood that was Jeanne’s room and would always remain so, or for as long as either of them were there to keep custody of the house.
After the pasta and coffee had been consumed, Martha watched her daughter climb the stairs and close her bedroom door. After that there was no sound from her room, no late night call to a lover or a friend, no music, no television diversion or listening to a piece of internet wisdom. Martha stayed at the foot of the stairs while the minutes passed, before eventually switching off the lights and going to her own room.
The next morning Martha rose early as she did every morning and made a special breakfast. In her thinking, it was the celebration of her daughter’s return. Jeanne had not yet left her room. Martha lay her daughter’s cooked breakfast on a tray. It was a feast. Bacon and eggs, hash browns, pork sausages, beans in tomato sauce, and slices of rye because that was the bread Jeanne preferred.
She climbed the stairs and let herself into Jeanne’s bedroom by leaning on the door handle. Jeanne was standing at the side of the bed naked, her back to her mother. “My girl, I’m sorry.” In her confusion the tray rattled in Martha’s hands.
Jeanne turned. “It’s all right. I think you’ve seen me like this before.”
“You were little then.”
Jeanne smiled, her usual calm and controlled expression, but softened by the slightest trace of amusement. She seemed smaller to her mother than she had been, her figure slight but surprisingly muscular, her skin white and unblemished. It was not her figure or her face that drew Martha’s attention though. On the inside of her left thigh, the well-padded pouch of a holster nestled just above the knee. And above the holster was a tattoo she had never seen before. Martha knew nothing about fire arms, but the revolver in the pouch seemed very small. Nevertheless, she realised, its purpose would be the same as any other. “My dear, why are you carrying that?”
“These are difficult times.” Jeanne spoke without undue emphasis. “A young woman needs protection.”
“I’ve never...”
Jeanne interrupted. “Times have changed.”
A thought she would rather have avoided, rose in Martha’s mind. “Have you ever been threatened?”
Jeanne studied her mother’s face. The trace of amusement was still present. “While I am here, let us talk about pleasant things.”
And there was the suggestion again – “while I am here” – that they were not going to be together long. Martha did not want to ask but a new question came, unbidden. “Have you ever fired it?”
“On the practice range.”
“Not anywhere else?”
“No.”
Jeanne reached out to her mother and turned her gently towards the door. “Please take my breakfast downstairs and I will join you in just a minute. Perhaps we can enjoy breakfast together outside, under your lovely trellis.”
As Martha turned away her eyes focussed on the tattoo. She made no comment and asked no questions. She descended the stairs carefully and started taking out the breakfast things. Before she was finished Jeanne had joined her to help with the last few items.
The two women sat opposite each other, eating the breakfast, but not hurrying. Martha had no idea what her daughter might be thinking and was afraid to ask. It was Jeanne who spoke first. “I am truly pleased to be with you again. I know life has taken us in different directions and we have not always been comfortable with each other, but I am aware that you are the only one who has always sided with me, all my life. Perhaps under different circumstances and in another time we may have been allies.”
“Surely we are allies now.” Martha struggled to get the words out.
“Nothing is perfect in life. I think you told me that once. We must do what we can. I have taken your words seriously. I am making things as perfect as I can.”
“Surely there is room for me in your life.”
“There are things that have to be done, matters that need attention, a whole world in which I must play a role. I have met people who feel as I do and seek the same ends.”
All Martha understood was that there was no room for her in her daughter’s vision of the future. To Jeanne she was not one of the people who sought the same ends, whatever they were. “What do you want in life?” she asked, fearing that what Jeanne said would make no difference. If she were told she would probably not understand.
“I want perfection. I want strength. I want to be surrounded and supported by others like myself.”
“What about love?”
Jeanne laughed softly.
The morning passed with Jeanne in her room. Is she here for the last time? Martha wondered. Her daughter was so different to anyone she had ever met and yet so certain of the rightness of the direction she was taking that Martha had no experience by which to judge her actions. In truth she could not even anticipate her actions.
In early afternoon Jeanne left the way she had come, on foot through the woods. This time Martha made no attempt to follow. Her last words to her daughter were “I will be here as long as I live. You know that. If you need me or if there is ever anything I can do for you, just come back.”
“I know,” the girl said. “But please do not ask the police to search for me again, or try to find me yourself.”
Then she passed through the back gate and into the trees, where her mother caught just a glimpse of her once, twice, perhaps three times, before she was gone.
Martha wept. That tattoo, she thought. Its shape and possibly its meaning remained indelibly in her thoughts. Oh God, that tattoo. Why did it have to be like that?
FOUR
In case the electronics failed, the prison doors and gates, that were all electronically controlled, were also manned by guards. The prison’s public relations chief walked a step ahead of Beloved Childe who was wearing a dark shapeless overcoat that reached to below her knees. He had been trying to explain the prison to her, but fell silent after she told him it was not necessary and that she had studied far more prisons than he had ever visited. He left her at the door of the prison director’s office. She stepped past him without glancing in his direction.
The director was already on his feet when she entered. “Ms Childe,” he said. “I would have been pleased to meet you under any other circumstances.”
“Good day.” Beloved shook his extended hand. “Am I intruding?” It was said with a coquettish flick of her hair he would not be able to miss.
“Please sit down,” the director said. He waited for her to be seated before he also sat down. “In a way I suppose you are intruding. You know I was against your coming.”
“I do.”
“Do you know why?”
Now is the time to get him on my side, Beloved thought. “I believe I do. I understand you are against me coming here, not because I am a woman. But you are against my visit because you feel this prisoner will be receiving special treatment, one might say special treatment he does not deserve.”
“Exactly. Do you not agree?”
“Of course I agree.”
The director, who had been sitting stiffly upright, eased back into his chair. Like most men in management positions, friendly agreement with an attractive and obviously intelligent young woman was inclined to put him at ease. That she had also written a best-selling book about her experiences dealing with prison inmates gave her considerable stature in the eyes of a corrections officer like himself. “Well,” he said.
“Well indeed,” Beloved said. In truth though, she had no interest in what the director thought about her visit or why. Her only interest was in the prisoner she had come to see. “I believe in your opinion that for the governor to send me to deal with this particular prisoner is wrong. You feel that, although he is the governor’s nephew, he should receive the same treatment as everyone else.”
“Exactly.”
“You feel it is not appropriate for the governor to be arranging private treatment for favoured prisoners. Or for me to be walking through your prison for that purpose.”
“Wait. Hold on there.” The director held up both hands and turned his head aside, as if warding off an attack. “The first half of that is right. I don’t believe in favouring any prisoner. As for you walking through our prison, among all these men, we can handle that.”
Beloved nodded. “Well, may I suggest I meet him in an empty office and we can do the whole thing very discreetly.”
“We have interview rooms.”
“One of them will do, nicely.”
“Are you carrying a fire arm, Ms Childe?”
“No.”
“I’ll have him sent for.” The director was starting to rise. One finger was pressing a button on his intercom.
There was an aspect to Beloved’s prison visits that was always a problem. “While I see him I need your men to stay outside,” she said. Having spoken, she waited for his response.
The director froze halfway between sitting and standing. “You’re here because he is uncontrollable, and his uncle is worried about him. If he were mine, I’d be worried too. He’s injured two guards in the last week. We take no chances with him. You are his last hope of staying out of solitary for a very long time. All my staff want him there.” He looked pointedly at her, wanting to be sure she fully understood his meaning. “But you say you want to be alone with him?”
“I’ll sign anything you give me, accepting responsibility for my safety.” She was speaking seriously and looking directly at him. There was nothing coquettish in her manner now. “I’ll be grateful if your men stay outside the door.”
“We’ll watch through the monitors, but I’m not in favour of this.”
But you will do it anyway, she thought, not because you believe in it, but because the governor sent me.
Beloved heard the scuffling and struggling of four guards and the inmate, as they brought Jordan Carey, nephew of the governor and convicted road rage killer, down the passage from the cells. A senior guard appeared in the doorway. “I’m not removing his shackles, Ma’am. I can’t do that.”
Before she could answer he was gone and the door was thrown open hard, banging against the wall behind it. The struggling knot of men came through the door and fell in confusion against the room’s only table, sending it crashing to the floor. Beloved had risen and stepped back to be away from the knot of struggling bodies. For a moment Carey burst free of his captors, but was immediately thrown back against a wall. Through eyes that had the wildness of a cornered animal he stared at Beloved, who was watching him from the opposite wall. She spoke before the guards could take further action. “All right, gentlemen, thank you. You may leave us now.”
At the sight of Beloved, Carey’s furious struggle had stopped abruptly. She had shed the dark overcoat. What Carey saw was the result of a careful production that had taken more than two hours that morning. The faintest bronze gave her face a glow that offset the very pale blue of her eyes. Blonde hair, its colour carefully chosen to augment the effect of face, eyes and skin, curled to her shoulders. Her trouser suit was white, but with a thread of pink that seemed to come and go throughout the pattern. The blouse she wore under her jacket was a tint of pink, no more than a hint of the colour. It was buttoned to the notch of her throat. The voice Carey and the guards heard was effortlessly clear and carried a surprising degree of authority. A face, figure and clothing that fitted someone perhaps ten years younger than her thirty years, were combined with a clear voice and a way of speaking of a powerful, confident woman. Anyone dealing with her could be excused for wondering whether she was the innocent that she first appeared to be or something else entirely. “You may leave, gentlemen. Thank you very much.”
The guards looked at Carey where he was held securely against the wall, then at Beloved. Slowly, one man at a time, they released the pressure that was holding him there. “The lady wants it that way,” one of them said.
“Ma’am, this is not a good idea,” another voice said.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Beloved said again, and this time there was no doubt who was in authority.
The door closed behind them and Beloved met Carey’s eyes, still flashing with inner fury. “Who the hell are you? What is this?”
“My name is Beloved. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased? Fuck. What’s there to be pleased about?”
“I am pleased to meet you though.” She nodded slightly as she spoke.
Beloved’s smile, warm and friendly without any hint of flirtatiousness, the gentle tone of her voice, the sound of authority it carried, the innocent look given her by the design of her outfit, and the way she looked unwaveringly into his eyes: together they had a compelling effect on the prisoner.
“I’m still shackled and cuffed. I can’t shake hands.” Carey sounded almost plaintive. Some part of his anger had already dissipated.
Beloved hesitated only a moment, then opened the room’s door and spoke to the men in the passage. “Please remove Mr Carey’s cuffs and shackles.” She waited just a moment before speaking again. “Please, gentlemen.”
Whatever the guards felt, this woman was there at the insistence of the governor. That was a fact you could not argue with. Two of them came back into the room and removed both cuffs and shackles. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Ma’am,” one of them whispered as he passed her.
