Furnace. Muriel Gray
Читать онлайн книгу.
paused, staring at him with an expression that was difficult to read, then spoke gently. ‘Well let me give you this. Please.’
She went to a drawer in an elegant sideboard, took out a small yellow pamphlet, crossed the room and handed it to him.
Josh took it and looked down at its cover. It showed a poor drawing of a family, a mother and father straight out of the Brady Bunch, all big collars and bad seventies haircuts, and two apple-cheeked children encircled by their parents’ arms. At the back of the family, the figure of Christ was holding his shepherd’s crook out and beaming great rays of light over them. Large-seriphed type declared, ‘Jesus, the head of the family of man. His love heals all.’
He looked up at Nelly McFarlane in dismay. She had almost lost all trace of uncertainty and dismay, but now adopted the brain-damaged expression of the born-again Christian, beaming at him as though she had given him some delightful gift.
‘Are you a believer, Mr Spiller?’
He looked at the pamphlet again to avoid her eyes. ‘No. I’m afraid not.’
‘Please read it anyway. It might help you. Jesus wants to help the unbeliever not only to be at peace, to be healed, but also to come to Him and embrace the word of God.’
Pace was looking at the table, his hands still clasped, and it was impossible for Josh to see if it was out of embarrassment or piety. The woman turned her attention back to the silent sheriff.
‘Should I go round there, do you think, John?’
‘She’s been taken to the clinic, Nelly. She’s pretty shook up. I reckon you should wait a piece.’
She nodded, then turned back to Josh.
‘May I pray for you, Mr Spiller?’
Josh felt awkward and silly. ‘Sure. Thank you.’
‘Then I will. I’ll pray very hard. You must be in terrible pain.’
He nodded and then looked to Pace, telegraphing that he was desperate to leave. The sheriff read the face of his companion and stood up. Josh did likewise.
‘Anyhows, Nelly, I’m real sorry to intrude, but like I say I thought you should know. Hope it’s helped Mr Spiller here, too, knowing that it’s something that’s goin’ to get fixed.’
Nelly McFarlane stood up, moved quickly round the table and grasped Josh’s arm. He recoiled, but her touch was not the horror he had dreaded. Her hand was warm and soft.
‘You can be sure of that, Mr Spiller. Barriers are going up on that sidewalk if I have to build them myself. But for the moment, while the pain of this is still crippling you, try and let Christ into your life. He can help too.’
Josh nodded dumbly and shifted his feet. She scanned his face for a few more moments then led them into the hall. At the door Josh unzipped his jacket pocket to put away the pamphlet, and as he did so the handbill that Pace had given him poked out of the corner. She saw it, smiled and pointed with a slender finger, clipped clean nails without varnish. The finger of a neat, God-fearing mother. Not the painted nails of a terrifying harpy.
‘Guess you hoped I’d be a slice more glamorous if you saw that picture before we met, Mr Spiller. Sorry you caught me in Grandma mode.’
Josh managed a weak smile.
‘You look just fine.’
She responded with the coquettish grin of a woman flattered. ‘Well I just throw that old pink suit on when I need to look like I mean business. This is me really.’ She lifted the sides of her denim skirt like a little girl.
Josh gave an embarrassed upward nod of acknowledgement. The sheriff shook her hand, asked to be remembered to Jim, and they walked back to the car. She watched them go then quietly pushed the door shut.
Josh was silent for the first few minutes of the return journey, gazing out at the passing houses and their uniform blankets of velvet gardens. Pace broke the silence.
‘Well?’
Josh remained quiet, thinking. Agonizing.
Pace looked sideways at him.
‘That your murderer?’
Josh hesitated. It was still so real. But of course it couldn’t be. That woman, that ordinary woman wasn’t capable of anything more than boring the nuts off you at a church social. There was no other explanation. He was ill. He hadn’t slept. He’d made it up.
‘I guess not.’ Josh continued to stare out of the car, then turned to his driver. ‘Why are you being so kind?’
‘You think I’m being kind?’
‘Yeah. I do. I reckon some of your deputies would be mighty pleased to see me strung up.’
Pace drummed the wheel with a finger, his eyes still forward.
‘You made a mistake forgettin’ to log, Josh, but we both know the accident weren’t your fault. Now there’s already one person dead. We can’t change that. But I’m damned if I want you freakin’ out on the highway out there and have me come and scrape up some more mess. I seen men confused and lost about a lot less than you been through.’
Pace sighed through his nose and then spoke again wearily as though this kind of bizarre incident happened on a daily basis.
‘Now. Want to change your statement?’
Josh chewed at a fingernail. ‘That necessary?’
When Pace replied, his tone was one of irritation. The concerned policeman was disappearing: he sounded like a man who had proved a point and needed to get about his business.
‘Sure it’s necessary. You change your mind about what happened, you have to change your statement.’
Josh said nothing, but they drove back to the sheriff’s office in the silent understanding that the favour was over and it was time to clean up. The problem was he had no idea what he would say in a new statement. How could he say the stroller rolled with the wind, when he didn’t see that? He’d seen it being pushed. He had. He closed his eyes and the picture was still there.
Suddenly Josh wanted Elizabeth very badly. He wanted to be held in her arms, have her run her hands over the shaved nape of his neck the way she did, and smell the clean, sweet smell of her body. He needed her to tell him it was going to be okay. Only it wasn’t okay. A baby was dead and he was losing his mind. Panic rose in his throat again, and he turned his attention to the sanitized landscape of Furnace’s tidy houses to help battle it back.
Moments later he was back in the small room they had left less than half an hour ago, walking with his eyes fixed firmly on the man’s back to avoid even the tiny task of thinking about where to take his next step.
He was lost and dazed and the emotions were so alien to him that he reeled from them. Once, lounging on the sofa at home, he and Elizabeth had been watching that dumb TV game-show where the glazed-eyed contestants begin by describing their own characters. She’d laughed and made him do the same. He recalled pulling a serious face and adopting a joke manly voice to say,
‘Hi. I’m Josh Spiller and I get things done. I take control.’ Would he say that today and still expect her to laugh? The truth wouldn’t make either of them laugh. Try ‘Hi. I’m Josh Spiller. Things happen. I run away.’ Right now he was seriously out of control and there was nowhere to run. He sat back in the shaky wooden chair and let his arms flop heavily onto the table.
The deputy who’d taken the statement returned, bringing with him a pile of paperwork, arranged himself at the table and looked to the sheriff for instruction. Pace nodded and the man smoothed a new piece of paper with his hand, held his pen expectantly and looked to Josh.
‘You want me to read you back your first statement and amend it, or just start from new?’
Josh looked at him with dull eyes, still