CHAPTER 14
The shower was cold, of course. No electricity, no hot water. Jess squirmed and shrieked as the chilly water tormented her body’s senses and she hopped animatedly from foot to foot in the bath, twisting and turning in an attempt to mitigate the discomfort.
Mercifully, the weather was fine and the house temperature ambient, so she soon got herself dry and slipped into her new outdoor gear: white tee shirt and black cargo pants. There was no means of making a hot drink nor any chance of toasting some stale bread, so she simply had a glass of water and returned upstairs to pack her rucksack. She didn’t expect the men in black coats to return until Friday, but she could take no chances. She had to get out of the house as soon as possible, to slip away while no one was looking.
She emptied the contents of yesterday’s shopping onto the bed: sleeping bag, two more tee shirts, another pair of trousers, three pairs of heavy socks, underwear and a micro fleece. Gas canister and microburner, knife, fork, spoon and tin cup, small torch and matches, tea bags and a few sachets of packet soup. She also had a medium-sized towel, a face flannel and a plastic bag containing items from the bathroom: toothpaste and toothbrush, hairbrush, soap, a small bottle of shampoo and a half used roll-on deodorant. It wasn’t much, the bare minimum, but she felt somehow liberated by the lack of possessions; and in any event, she had to carry all of them on her back for the foreseeable future, so the lighter the better.
She gathered up the rucksack, self-inflating mattress, an unopened shoebox and her red waterproof jacket, and lugged them all downstairs to the sitting room.
Like everything else, her walking boots were brand new and she hoped they would not take too long to break in, but then they weren’t expensive and so probably softer than the better-quality ones she could not afford. She slipped her feet into the boots and laced them up tightly, finished closing up her rucksack and strapped the mattress to the top. Finally, she put on her red jacket, loaded up the rucksack on her back and slung the circular pop-up tent, her new home, over her shoulder.
It was time. She had everything she needed, except for one thing. In the kitchen, she picked up the framed photo of Leila, ripped off the back and extracted the torn photograph from the frame, placing it in the inside pocket of her jacket.
She didn’t stop to check the house. Everything there now belonged to someone else, and even if there was anything she might like to keep, she couldn’t carry it. Anyway, she didn’t want any memories; everything she now owned was brand new and she was either wearing it or carrying it. The only constant in her life would be Leila, and she would never give her up.
Jess opened the front door for the last time and stepped out onto the path, turning instinctively to close and lock the door. Then she stopped. What was she doing? Why was she locking the door? She shook her head to clear the mist that was fogging her thoughts and retracted the key from the lock. She pushed the door open again and with a flick of the wrist, tossed the keys into the house where they landed with a clatter on the thin, rough carpet. You want your house? she thought. Come and get it. She turned and strode off down the path.
As ever, Joan was out front, bent over plucking the odd weed from the gaps in the paving slabs, and she bobbed up from behind the fence as Jess walked by, as if she had been waiting to ambush her.
“Hello, dear. How’s your dad?” she asked, and Jess felt she could not simply ignore the old dear.
“He’s fine, thanks,” she said. Joan nodded, looking curiously at the rucksack on her back.
“You off on holiday, then?” she said, inquisitive as ever.
“Er, yes,” said Jess. There was some truth in it.
“Oh well, have a nice time. Going anywhere nice?” Jess fidgeted about on her feet; she just wanted to get away.
“I’m not sure. Just going away,” she replied, but she knew it sounded odd. Joan frowned.
“Oh, okay. See you when you get back.” Jess smiled at her, turned and left through the gate, disappearing from view.
Joan turned back but saw Jess’s front door, left wide open, and then she spun around again to raise the alarm, to call her back, but she had gone.
***
The morning sun was warm and the birdsong loud and varied in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church. Jess’s rucksack and equipment lay propped up against a wizened old pine tree as she knelt in front of a small plaque set into a stone base, a bunch of wild flowers she had picked from the meadow in her hand. She had been there for a few minutes and was not quite sure why she had come. Another thing for her to do for the last time.
“He’s gone, Mum. I’ve left him there. I expect they’ll sort something out.” She was apologetic about that, but there would be no recriminations, at least none that she would hear about. “There’s nothing more I can do. I’ve got nothing left.” The spoken admission sounded strange, but it was true, she thought. I have nothing left.
There was never the possibility of her being able to pay for a funeral for Joe. She simply couldn’t afford it, and neither could he. And in any event, she had done her duty.
She loved her mother and she had carried out her wishes, however misguided they may have seemed. She thought back to that time, her mother weakened to the point of extinction by an illness the doctors could not diagnose, pleading with her daughter to take care of her husband, her father. The man her mother had once loved but who had turned into a monster, lashing out at everything and everyone, wreaking havoc in their lives, destroying them as he slowly destroyed himself. He didn’t deserve compassion or consideration or care, he just deserved to die.
She never understood why her mother should be insensitive to her daughter’s feelings, so insistent that she be left with the responsibility of looking after him. Jess could only imagine that her mother prayed that there could be some reconciliation for them, some contrition on his part, some return to the way it was, even though she herself would not be alive to see it. To the end Madge remained in denial about her husband, her childhood sweetheart, vainly expecting that one day everything would be all right again, the way it was. Forgiven and forgotten. The doctors couldn’t say for certain what took her, but after Madge had slipped away, it all became clear to Jess. Madge had died of a broken heart.
“I have to go now. I probably won’t be back. Love you, Mum,” she said, and gently placed the already wilting flowers in front of the plaque.
***
She stood on the road bridge, arms resting on the parapet overlooking the river, and stared into the distance where the water meandered its way eastwards out of town. She had no idea which way she was headed nor where she would end up, but for some reason the flow of the river appealed to her senses.
There would be fewer people to meet along the riverbank and no cars to bother her. She wanted to get out of town and into the countryside. She wanted to breathe air free of traffic fumes and noisy trucks, hear the birds and the trees rustling in the breeze. Above all she wanted to be alone, and there was more chance of her being alone on the river than anywhere else.
Also, she thought, the river was on a journey to somewhere or other and would not stop till it got there, and that much they had in common. She felt a wave of exhilaration. There was no one to tell her what to do. No one to control, threaten or intimidate her anymore. The men in black coats would never find her, the credit card companies would write off their debts, as would the electricity company, and the bank would sell the house and perhaps even get their money back; and she would be forgotten. The men in black coats had already been repaid three times over, so they wouldn’t waste time tracking her down once they realised she had disappeared. And they could then turn their attention to another victim, and so it would go on. After a while, no one would even remember she had existed. One of the forgotten people.
She walked along the bridge, the traffic loud and pervasive on the road beside her, and when she got to one end, descended to the riverside footpath via some stone steps and a long, winding ramp. But as she reached the water’s edge, her new-found anonymity and serenity were suddenly shattered by the sound of the mobile phone ringing in her jacket pocket. She was momentarily confused. Why did I bring this with me? There’s no way of charging it and it’s the only thing in the world that links me to my previous life. Habit. That’s why. She had slipped it into her pocket instinctively, the way she always did. That was her old life. She thought about ignoring it. After all, it would not be a well-wisher.
She fished it out of her pocket and stopped in her tracks to look at the screen as the phone continued to wail ever louder. “St James Nursing” it said on the display. Of course. When she left there the other night, she said she would start making arrangements. She had lied and felt badly about it, but then what else could she say? She had no intention of making arrangements, no money with which to make them. No doubt they would be apologetic about bothering her, but they had another corpse on their hands and wanted it taken away, not least to release the bed for the next patient.
The phone in her hand connected to the home where her father’s body lay, a gossamer thread linking her to a life she wanted to forget. She started walking again and with a flick of the wrist, tossed the still-ringing phone into the river, barely missing a pair of ducks who quacked and flapped their wings in protest at the sudden assault.
The phone hit the water with a loud plop and fell silent. She was now officially off-grid. She strode off down the riverbank path and into her new world.