No, you.
But Christopher is Billy. He knows that now. Billy is the bigger of the two, and when Ben’s punch floors him, he sits up quickly and locks his arms around Ben’s knees. Ben falls backwards onto the gravel. They roll, first one on top, then the other. At a certain point, Billy grabs the oily rope from the canalside and pulls it around Ben’s neck.
If I’ve imagined the rest, I must also imagine this. It requires little effort – these images barely leave my mind. Billy pulls hard on the rope. Ben thrashes for his life, fails, is tossed into the water.
‘I killed the real Martin to become Martin,’ Billy said to me as night became day. ‘I baptised myself with the canal water. I named myself Martin. But I can’t be Martin, can I? Not now. Not now.’ He wept.
‘It’s OK, my darling,’ I told him.
But it was not OK.
And even then, I could not have imagined what he had done next.
* * *
Christopher had run from the canal, crying and pitiful. He ran all the way back to the Wilsons, his only intention to pick up his car and drive home. And there outside the pub was Rebecca. She was hovering by the door, he said, as if she dared not go in.
‘Rebecca?’ It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He said that if he could have kept his mouth shut, he could have hidden his face, got into the car and driven away. But he did call her name and she did turn. She turned and she saw him and she recognised him.
‘Billy!’ A name he did not want. A mother he did not want.
‘Why have you come here?’ He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. Her arm was a stick – it made him sick to touch it, like touching a skeleton.
‘Billy! Stop it. You’re hurting me.’
He let her go.
‘You’re too late,’ he said. ‘Billy had to go.’
She laughed; her bottom teeth were pitted black. ‘I might have had a drink,’ she said, ‘but I’d know you anywhere. Don’t you remember me? I used to visit you but you never let on, did you?’
‘I’m not Billy.’
Out of her bag she took her purse. Out of her purse she took a white envelope, folded in two. Out of the envelope she took a letter. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Tell me that’s not your ma.’
He saw it before he could see it. He knew that didn’t make sense but that’s the way it was – he knew, as he had known things all his life. He saw the letter and knew that all the lies ended with it. In the top right-hand corner, Margaret and Jack’s address in Hestham Avenue, Morecambe. Force of habit, the habit of a well-trained typist who liked to do things right.
Dear Rebecca,
Please be assured that we will look after Billy and take good care of him. We have no children of our own and this baby boy is God’s greatest blessing. It must be a difficult time for you but one day we hope you will look back and know it was for the best.
We will call him Christopher, like St Christopher.
We wish you all God’s love,
Jack and Margaret Harris
The writing was Margaret’s, of course – her careful cursive hand. She had been moved to write to this poor woman, a woman she did not know. Surely there was no kinder act in this world? A promise between women, between strangers: to love a child in the other’s stead. Margaret, whom he had judged, with no right to do such a thing. His parents, whom he had failed, for no better reason than a lack of words. But some things are not easy to say. They did not tell him the truth of his birth; he did not tell them about Phyllis. Why? Because he could not find the words. He had left them in silence, the worst possible form of cruelty. He was beyond forgiveness. He was a monster.
‘Don’t cry, Billy.’ Rebecca took hold of the letter and pulled it from his hands. ‘She was a good woman to write that. It’s been a comfort to me over the years, has that.’
He heard the slur in her voice, smelled the alcohol coming out of her every pore. She took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
‘Do you smoke, Billy?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t smoked since university.
‘Do you want a cigarette?’
‘Yes.’
She passed him her own and lit another. Despite the revulsion that churned his guts, he sucked where her foul mouth had been. The tobacco made him retch. He threw the cigarette to the ground.
She blew smoke away from him. ‘Do you remember me?’
He nodded. ‘From the road. You wore a blue headscarf. You asked if I was Billy.’
‘So you do know me! And you looked for me, didn’t you? And you found me.’ The glee in her gruff smoker’s voice made him feel sick.
‘I found you,’ he said.
‘I remember. And you’re doing so well for yourself. Going to be a teacher, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ He did not stop to wonder how she knew this, not then.
‘I’m glad your life worked out for you, Billy, love.’
‘I’m not—’
‘My life didn’t pan out so well.’ Through the slurs, he was aware as he had been in her awful flat of her well-spoken diction, what remained of it, her vowels and consonants committing themselves half to her origins, half to her wretched existence now. She was not as well spoken as her father, but even so, he could hear him in her voice, and now, looking at her, could see something of him in her brow, her mouth. Something of his grandfather, the man he had met. Something of himself. Her hair, of course, was black. Dyed, he suspected, but dyed to match what it had been. She was his mother. He hated her.
‘Get in the car,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you home.’
‘Buy me a drink?’ She cocked her head towards the pub and smiled her awful smile. ‘Little drink for your ma?’
‘I’ll pick some up on the way.’
‘Good boy.’
They got into the car. Rebecca directed him into town, to the Threshers next to Blockbuster on Church Street.
‘Get cider,’ she said. ‘That’s what I have anyway. Get what you want for yourself.’
He left her in the car. In the off-licence, he bought a two-litre bottle of Strongbow and a half-litre of whisky. In the car, he passed her the smaller bottle.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘This should keep you going till we get to your place.’
‘You’re a good boy,’ she said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind helping me out once you knew the truth.’
Teeth gritted, he drove, while Rebecca talked. She had been put into the convent at eighteen. Her parents had left her there. She was three years older than Phyllis had been. He didn’t care.
‘I would never have given you up, Billy.’
‘Stop calling me Billy.’
‘I would never have given you up.’ She swigged at the whisky. The smell of it filled the car. ‘They made me. I didn’t even know you’d gone till after. Never even got to say goodbye.’ She sniffed. ‘That’s cruel.’
He did not look at her. ‘Your father seemed like a nice chap.’