A Place of Hiding

Margaret thought he might have said that at first and saved them both from a frightening scene, not to mention saved the front garden as well. She said, “I’m very happy to hear that, Mr. Moullin. It’s only fair to Adrian—”

“But it’s Cyn’s money, isn’t it,” Henry Moullin went on, dashing her hopes as effectively as he’d dashed to pieces the creations of shell and cement that surrounded them. “If Cyn wants the payoff...” He trudged to the shovel where it lay on the path to the door. He picked it up. He did the same to a rake and a dustpan. Once he had them, however, he gazed round, as if unsure what he’d been doing with them in the first place. He looked at Margaret and she saw that his eyes were bloodlined with grief. He said, “He comes here. I go there. We work side by side for years. And it’s: You’re a real artist, Henry. You aren’t meant to do greenhouse work all your life. It’s: Break out and break away from it, man. I believe in you. I’ll help you a bit. Let me take you on. Nothing ventured, nothing ever God damn gained. And I believed him, see. I wanted it. More than this life here. For my girls, I wanted it, yes, for my girls. But for me as well. Where’s the sin in that?”

“No sin,” Margaret said. “We all want the best for our children, don’t we? I do, too. That’s why I’m here, because of Adrian. My son and Guy’s. Because of what was done to him. He was cheated out of his due, Mr. Moullin. You do see how wrong that is, don’t you?”

“We were all cheated,” Henry Moullin said. “Your ex-husband was good at that. He spent years setting every one of us up, biding his time with us all. Not a man to take, our Mr. Brouard, not a man to operate wrong side of the law. Wrong side of what was moral, see. Wrong side of what was dutiful and right. He had us lapping milk from his hands without our knowing he’d put poison in it.”

“Don’t you want to be part of making that right?” Margaret said. “You can, you know. You can talk to your daughter, you can explain. We wouldn’t ask Cynthia to give up all the money he’s left her. We’d only want to make things even, a reflection of who is Guy’s blood and who isn’t.”

“That’s what you want?” Henry Moullin said. “That’s what you think will balance the scales? You’re just like him, then, aren’t you, Missus?

Think money makes up for every sin. But it doesn’t, and it never will.”

“You won’t talk to her, then? You won’t explain? We’re going to have to take this to another level?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Henry Moullin asked. “There is no talking to my girl any longer. There is no explaining left to be done.”

He turned and carried his tools the way he’d come with the shovel just a few minutes earlier. He disappeared round the side of the house. Margaret stood for a moment, unmoving on the path, and found herself for the first time in her life at a loss for words. She felt nearly overwhelmed by the strength of the hate that Henry Moullin left behind him. It was like a current that pulled her into a tide from which there was only the barest hope of escape.

Where she least expected to find it, she felt a kinship with this disheveled man. She understood what he was going through. One’s children were one’s own, belonging to no one else in quite the same way they belonged to you. They were not the same as one’s spouse, one’s parents, one’s siblings, one’s partners, or one’s mates. One’s children were of one’s body and soul. No intruder easily broke the bond that was created from that kind of substance.

But if an intruder attempted or, God forbid, succeeded...?

No one knew better than Margaret Chamberlain the extent someone might go to in order to preserve a relationship one had with his child.





Chapter 13