‘You can leave everything behind,’ the Major said, ‘but it’ll cost you more than you’ve already paid.’
He’d come to the court off his own bat, or so it had seemed. He wore his cap as if he were on parade. For the first time, Riley noticed the old shine on the cloth, and the frayed lapels. The trial was about to begin. The witnesses were lined up. The barristers were dressed in all that black. The Major had drawn him into a tiny conference room. Guilt had been assumed, which cleared the air like disinfectant.
Riley played the fish. ‘Why should I do that?’
‘For yourself,’ he said, as if that were something worthwhile. And so that you can stop hurting everyone around you.’
Riley glanced over his shoulder. The conference room had large, misty windows from floor to ceiling. On the other side he could see Wyecliffe. He was like a man at prayer.
‘You can still turn around,’ the Major continued, full of entreaty. Anything else is an illusion. If you do, I’ll help you. I doubt if anyone else has the inclination.’
Riley laughed in a way that embarrassed him, because his voice squeaked. He saw the lips of the Major harden; the red indentation of a cornet mouthpiece blanched and vanished. He said, ‘I needed saving then, not now’
That was meant to strike a nerve, but it didn’t. The Major was more switched on than Riley had supposed.
‘We always need saving now,’ he said. ‘Just stop running.’
Riley shrank more from the repelling compassion than the idea. ‘I did. And I turned. Now I do the chasing.’
That hit the spot. The sight of the Major’s loathing thrilled him. But the man in uniform still wouldn’t give up – Riley could see it in his eyes – he was holding out for redeeming features; what Wyecliffe called ‘mitigating circumstances’ for why Riley did what he did. And Riley thought, There weren’t any But the Major wouldn’t have it. He refused to believe that anyone could be rotten at the core – that a man might even want it. But who else was to blame? Riley’s mother? Walter? None of them. Riley was sick to the back teeth of sympathy that gobbled up his identity. The making of allowances – it was daylight robbery. Of course, the family stuff could be used to his advantage in a court, if he’d only plead, if he’d only grovel. But hold it there -Riley felt pride burn the lining of some canal in his guts – I have self-respect. I’m me. In the end, I’m pretty much self-made. He suffered a spasm of sour excitement: this was the one thing no one could harm or take away: the core of himself, the inedible part. A bitter fruit had grown from the dirt of his choices. No one – and he meant no one – was going to give that back to his mother.
‘If you plead guilty,’ the Major said mechanically ‘I might be able to say something on your behalf.’
Riley glanced at his cap-badge motto, ‘Blood and Fire’, as he’d done when they’d first met. Back then, the Major’s compassion had made Riley panic. What had happened? He felt nothing now He simply observed the man’s hopes and intentions. On the face of it, he’d come to wangle a confession out of Riley urged on, no doubt, by Wyecliffe, who was standing outside, biting his nails. But the Major had his own reasons. He believed in the Lord of how things ought to be, of how they might yet turn out. Riley stood, bringing the interview to a close. He looked down from on high, with a remote, godless pity. The old soldier didn’t seem to hear the tune of his own march: you couldn’t save a man against his will.
Riley walked out of that tiny room and never saw the Major again. Within minutes, he was in the dock. It was only then, sitting in that box, flanked by guards, that he realised he’d made another choice; that he could still have put his hands up without blaming anyone but himself. It was an example of his actions being one step ahead of his thinking. He hadn’t given a second thought to pleading guilty because, in a feverish way he was looking forward to the trial, to what might happen. No one could possibly know it, but Riley had set up a reunion, and he didn’t want to miss it, even though for him, personally the court process was an unimaginable ordeal. He wanted to see what George would do when he saw Riley’s advocate.
Riley was not disappointed. The trial ended exactly as he had expected, but not in the way he’d foreseen. That David/George trick had been baffling.’ If Riley had been the Major, he’d have thanked God.
On the day of the acquittal, Riley pulled Nancy into the sitting room. He’d sobered up, so to speak. The fever had passed, and he saw with terrible clarity that Nancy had been an observer for years. And when it had been spelled out, she’d fled from the courtroom, just like George.
‘Do you trust me?’ He stood in front of her, holding her arms, as if she might slap him.
‘I do.’
Nancy’s eyes revealed a hard decision. Their light was gone, as if a screen had fallen to stop a smash-and-grab. She seemed older and cut off from him – giving away to Riley that they’d never really been attached.
I do. It was like getting married all over again. It was a second chance.
On the strength of that vow Riley put Quilling Road up for sale. Then he drove to a place he hadn’t seen since the age of eleven: Hornchurch Marshes. He walked down a path of flattened grass until he reached four rectangular ponds, laid out neatly like a window, with a frame made of bricks. It was known as the Four Lodges. His breath grew tight, hurting his chest. Nothing had changed. He wept uncontrollably looking at the men on stools and the clouds of midges.