Benjamin Black - Christine Falls

Claire in her housecoat was slumped on the couch in front of the television on which some dumb quiz show was playing-who gives a fuck what the capital of North Dakota is?-and he paused in passing by her and gave her shoulders a shake and told her to get up and start packing. She did not move, of course, and he had to come back and put his fist in front of her nose and shout at her. He was in the bedroom, throwing shirts into the old carpet bag that had once belonged to his daddy, when he felt her behind him-he had developed a sixth sense, and could feel her presence without looking, as if she was a ghost already-and turned to find her leaning in the doorway in that tired-out, drooping way that she did, the housecoat pulled shut and her arms folded so tight it was like this was the only way she had of holding herself together.

“There were people here today,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? What people?” He had not realized he had so many shirts and coats and pairs of jeans-where did it come from, all this stuff?

“They were asking about the baby,” Claire said.

He went still suddenly, and turned slowly to look at her. “What?” he said softly. He was holding in his hand a belt with a buckle shaped like a steer’s head with horns.

She told him, in that wispy voice she had developed lately, that sounded as if it was wearing out and would soon be just a sort of sighing, a sort of breathing, with no words. It was the Irish guy and the nurse. They had asked her about little Christine, and the accident, and what had happened. As she spoke she paused now and then to pick at stray bits of lint on the housecoat. She might have been talking about the weather. Once she stopped altogether and he had to give her a push to get her started up again. Christ, a clockwork ghost, that was what she was turning into! He would have gone at her with the belt except that she looked so strange, sort of not here, but lost somewhere inside herself.

He paced the room, gnawing on a knuckle. They would have to go tonight-they would have to go now! As if she sensed what he was thinking, Claire took note for the first time of the bag on the bed, the gaping drawers, and the closet doors standing open.

“Are you leaving me?” she said, sounding as if it would not much matter to her if he was.

“No,” he said, stopping in front of her with his hands on his hips and speaking slow so she would understand him, “I’m not leaving you, baby. You’re coming with me. We’re going west. Will Dakes is out there, he’s in Roswell, he’ll help us, help me find a job, maybe.” He moved closer to her and touched her face. “We can start a new life,” he said softly. “You could get another kid, another little Christine. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He was surprised how little, really, he minded her saying that to Cora about the doctor’s test, or telling the Irish guy about the accident-surprised, in fact, at how little he cared about any of that. The Irish guy, Rose Crawford, that nun and the priest, they were the past now. But he knew they would be coming for him, and soon, and that the two of them had to get away. Claire’s cheek was cold under his hand, as if there was no blood at all under the skin. Claire; his Claire. He had never felt so tenderly toward her as he did at that moment, there in the doorway, with the snow coming down outside and the light failing and the walnut tree in the window holding up its bare arms, and everything ending for them here.

HE WAS DRIVING TOO FAST. THE ROADS WERE SLICK UNDER THE SOFT new snow. Every time a cop car passed by heading into the city he expected it to swing around on two wheels and come bumping over the central divide after them with its blue light flashing and its siren going. The girl would be back at the house by now and would have told them her story, and he knew, of course, what a story it would be. He did not care. In two days they would be in New Mexico, and Will Dakes would file off the engine number and whatever else needed to be done, and the car would be sold and he and Claire would take the money and travel on, to Texas, maybe, or maybe they would go north, to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming. The wide world was before them. Out there, under those skies, Claire would forget the kid and would be her old self again, and they would begin to live, like they had never lived before. He saw through the swirls of snow the red light flashing ahead, at the crossing. It reminded him of the girl, of Phoebe, and he smiled to himself, feeling good remembering her sprawled under him on the back seat of the car, and he put his foot down. Yes, life was just starting, his real life, out where he belonged, in those wide-open spaces, on those plains, in that sweet air. The barrier was coming down, but they would make it. They would flash under it and on the other side there would be a new place, a new world, and they would be new people in it. He glanced at Claire beside him. She was feeling the same excitement, the same wild expectancy, he could see it in her face, in the way she was leaning forward with her neck thrust out and her eyes wide, and then they were on the tracks, and suddenly-what was she doing?-she reached out a hand sideways and snatched the wheel and wrenched it out of his grip, and the big car screeched and spun on the snow and the shiny steel rails and stopped, and the engine stopped, and everything stopped, except the train that was rushing toward them, its single eye glaring, and which at the last moment seemed to raise itself up as if it would take to the black air, shrieking and flaming, and fly, and fly.

PHOEBE HAD DISLIKED THIS ROOM FROM THE FIRST TIME SHE SAW IT. She knew Rose had meant well, putting her here, but it was more like a child’s nursery than a bedroom for a grown-up. She was tired-she was exhausted!-but she could not sleep. They had thought she would want them to stay with her, to sit by the bed holding her hand and looking down at her with their sorrowing, pitying eyes, and in the end she had pretended to be asleep so they would all go away and let her be by herself. Since Quirke had spoken to her in the hall she had wanted only to be alone, so she could think, and sort things out in her head. That was why she had gone to the garage to sit in the Buick, as she used to do when she was a child, hiding herself away in Daddy’s car.

Daddy.

SHE HAD HARDLY NOTICED ANDY STAFFORD WHEN HE CAME INTO THE garage. He was just the driver-why should she notice him? She thought he had probably come to polish the car, or check the oil or inflate the tires, or whatever it was that drivers did when they were not driving. She had not been afraid when he got behind the wheel and drove her away, or even when he turned the car off the road and went along the track to the edge of the dunes where the wind was blowing and she could hardly see anything through the snow. She should have spoken, should have said something, should have ordered him to turn back; he might have done as he was told, since that was what she presumed he had been trained to do. But she had said nothing, and then they had stopped and he was climbing into the back seat after her, and there was the knife…

WHEN HE LEFT HER IN THE VILLAGE SHE HAD NOT TELEPHONED THE house. There were many reasons why she would not, but the main one was simply that she would not have known what to say. There were no words she could think of to account for what had happened. So she had set off walking, down the main street and out of the village and along the road, despite the cold and the snow and the soreness between her legs. At the house it was Rose who had come to the door, pushing Deirdre the maid aside and taking her by the arm and leading her upstairs. Rose had needed only the simplest words-car, driver, dunes, knife-and at once she understood. She had made her drink a mouthful of brandy, and had told the maid to run a bath, and only when Phoebe was in the bath had she gone off to summon Sarah, and Mal, and Quirke, who was not there, who was never there.