Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

The rocking continued. The chair on which Roberta sat groaned with her weight.

“I have a job, as well. I work at a place called Testament House. You know that place, don’t you? It’s where runaways go to live sometimes. I do all sorts of work there, but I like counselling the kids the best. They say I’m easy to talk to.” She paused. “Bobby, won’t you talk to me?”

The girl’s breathing sounded drugged, her heavy head hung to one side. She might have been asleep.

“I like London. I never thought I would, but I do. I expect it’s because that’s where my dreams are. I…I’d like to have a baby. That’s one of my dreams. And I’d…I think I’d like to write a book. There are all sorts of stories inside me, and I want to write them down. Like the Brontës. Remember how we read the Brontës? They had dreams as well, didn’t they? I think it’s important to have dreams.”

“It’s not going to work,” Jonah Clarence said brusquely. The moment his wife had left the room, he had seen the trap, had understood that her entry into her sister’s presence was a return to a past in which he had played no part, from which he could not save her. “How long does she have to stay in there?”

“As long as she wants.” Lynley’s voice was cool. “It’s in Gillian’s hands.”

“But anything can happen. Doesn’t she understand that?” Jonah wanted to jump up, fling open the door, and drag his wife away. It was as if her mere presence in the room- trapped with the horrible, whale-like creature that was her sister-were enough to contaminate and destroy her forever. “ Nell! ” he said fi ercely.

“I want to talk to you about the night I left, Bobby,” Gillian went on, her eyes on her sister’s face, waiting for the slightest fl icker that would indicate comprehension and recognition, that would allow her words to stop. “I don’t know if you remember it. It was the night after my sixteenth birthday. I…” It was too much. She couldn’t. She fought onward. “I stole money from Papa. Did he tell you that? I knew where he kept it, the extra money for the house, so I took it. It was wrong, I know that, but I…I needed to leave. I needed to go away for a while. You know that, don’t you?” And then again, seeking reassurance, “ Don’t you?”

Was the rocking faster now, or was it so only in the imagination of the watchers?

“I went to York. It took me all night. I walked and hitchhiked. I just had that rucksack, you know the one I used to carry my school books in, so I only had one change of clothes with me. I don’t know what I was thinking about, running away like that. It seems crazy now, doesn’t it?” Gillian smiled briefly at her sister. She could feel her heart hammering. It was becoming quite diffi cult to breathe. “I got to York at dawn. I’ll never forget the sight of the morning light hitting the Minster. It was beautiful. I wanted to stay there forever.” She stopped, put her hands firmly into her lap. The deep scratches showed. It couldn’t be helped. “I stayed in York that entire day. I was so frightened, Bobby. I’d never even been away from home for a night by myself, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on to London. I thought it might be easier if I went back to the farm. But I…I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“What’s the point of this?” Jonah Clarence demanded. “How is all this supposed to help Roberta?”

Wary, Lynley glanced at him, but the man settled himself again. His face was rigid, every muscle tight.

“So I caught the train that night. There were so many stops, and at every one of them, I thought that I would be questioned. I thought that Papa might have sent the police after me, or come after me himself. But nothing happened. Until I got to King’s Cross.”

“You don’t need to tell her about the pimp,” Jonah whispered. “What’s the point?”

“There was a nice man at King’s Cross who bought me something to eat. I was so grateful to him. He was such a gentleman, I thought. But while I was eating and he was telling me about a house he had where I could live, another man came into the cafeteria. He saw us. He came up and said, ‘She’s coming with me.’ I thought he was a policeman, that he would make me go home again. I started to cry. I hung on to my friend. But he shook me off and ran out of the station.” She paused, caught in the memory of that night. “This new man was very different. His clothes were old, a bit shabby. But his voice was kind. He said his name was George Clarence, that he was a minister, and that the other man had wanted to take me to Soho to…to take me to Soho,” she repeated firmly. “He said he had a house in Camden Town where I could stay.”

Jonah remembered it all so vividly: the ancient rucksack, the frightened girl, the scuffed shoes and tattered jeans she wore. He remembered his father’s arrival and the conversation between his parents. The words “pimp from Soho…didn’t even understand… looks like she hasn’t slept at all…” echoed in his mind. He remembered watching her from the breakfast table where he’d been dividing his time between scrambled eggs and cramming for a literature test. She wouldn’t look at anyone. Not then.

“Mr. Clarence was very good to me, Bobby. I was like part of his family. I…I married his son Jonah. You’d love Jonah. He’s so gentle. So good. When I’m with him, I feel as if nothing could ever…nothing ever again,” she concluded.

It was enough. It was what she had come to do. Gillian looked at the psychiatrist beseechingly, waiting for direction from him, for his nod of dismissal. He merely watched her from behind the protection of his spectacles. They winked in the light. His face told her nothing, but his eyes were very kind.

“There. That’s it. It’s done nothing,” Jonah concluded decisively. “You’ve brought her up here to this all for nothing. I’m taking her home.” He began to get to his feet.

“Sit down,” Lynley said, his voice making it clear that the other man had no choice in the matter.

“Bobby, talk to me,” Gillian begged. “They say you killed Papa. But I know that you couldn’t have. You didn’t look like…There was no reason . I know it. Tell me there was no reason. He took us to church, he read to us, he made up games we could play. Bobby, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“It’s important to you that I didn’t kill him, isn’t it?” Dr. Samuels said quietly. His voice was like a feather floating gently in the air between them.

“Yes,” Gillian responded immediately, although her eyes were on her sister. “I put the key under your pillow, Bobby. You were awake! I talked to you! I said ‘Use it tomorrow’ and you understood. Don’t tell me you didn’t understand. I know you did.”

“I was too young. I didn’t understand,” the doctor said.

“You had to understand! I told you I’d put a message in the Guardian , that it would say Nell Graham , remember? We loved that book, didn’t we? She was so brave and strong. It was the way we both wanted to be.”

“But I wasn’t strong, was I?” the doctor queried.

“You were! You didn’t look like…You were supposed to come to Harrogate! The message told you to come to Harrogate, Bobby! You were sixteen. You could have come!”

“I wasn’t like you at sixteen, Gillian. How could I have been?” The psychiatrist hadn’t moved in his chair. His eyes travelled between the two sisters, waiting for a sign, reading the underlying messages in body movements, posture, and tone of voice.

“You didn’t have to be! You weren’t supposed to be! All you had to do was come to Harrogate. Not to London, just to Harrogate. I would have taken you from there. But when you didn’t come, I thought-I believed- that you were all right. That nothing…that you were fine. You weren’t like Mummy. You were fi ne.”