The Small Hand Read online

  AFTERWARDS, I WAS to remember that delightful sense of anticipation at the thought of New York, my last carefree, guilt-free, blithe moment. Aren’t there always those moments, just before the blow falls that changes things for ever?

  I went into the house behind Benedicte, who was saying that it was strange the lights were not on, that Hugo must be having a drink with the footballers, though he did not usually linger after a match. It had been a pleasant autumn day but there was a chill on the air as we had come up the path, as if there might even be a frost that night, and now I sensed that the house itself was unusually cold.

  ‘What is …’ I heard Benedicte’s voice falter, as she went into the sitting room. ‘Oh no … has there been a burglar in here?’

  I went quickly into the room. The French windows that led to the garden were wide open. Benedicte was switching on the lamps, but as we looked round it was clear that nothing had been disturbed or, so far as we could see, taken.

  ‘You stay here,’ I said. ‘I’ll check.’

  I went round the entire house at a run but every room was as usual, doors closed, orderly, empty.

  ‘Adam?’ Her voice sounded odd.

  ‘Nothing and nobody there. It’s all OK. Maybe you forgot to close them when we went out.’

  ‘I didn’t open them. Nobody opened them.’

  ‘Hugo?’

  ‘Hugo had gone to school.’

  ‘Well, maybe he came back. Forgot his kit or – something.’

  ‘He took his kit and why would he open these doors even if he had not?’

  ‘He’ll tell us when he gets back. I can’t think of any other explanation, can you?’

  There was something in her face, some look of dread or anxiety. I led her into the kitchen and opened a bottle of red wine, poured us both a large glass.

  ‘What can I do to help with supper? Potatoes to peel, something to get from the freezer?’

  Benedicte was always well organised, she would have everything planned out, even if the time we would eat was uncertain.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. I could see from her face that she was anxious. ‘Some potatoes to wash and put in the oven. Baked potatoes. Sausage casserole. I thought …’

  I went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘You haven’t been burgled,’ I said. ‘No one has been in here. Don’t worry. Hugo will be back any minute. He can look round as well if you like. But nobody’s here.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  We made preparations for supper and then took our drinks into the sitting room. I had closed and bolted the windows and drawn the heavy curtains. Benedicte switched on the gas fire. We talked a little. I read some of the paper, she went back to check the oven. Everything was as usual.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Adam?’

  She did not look worried then. Only puzzled.

  ‘That was someone from school. They wanted Hugo.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Gordon Newitt.’

  I did not understand.

  ‘The Head of Sports. He wanted Hugo. I said he was probably still having a drink with the team. But he said Hugo wasn’t refereeing anything this afternoon. There was only one match and that was away. He wasn’t there.’

  She came further into the room and sat down suddenly. ‘He wasn’t refereeing any match.’ She said it again in a dull voice, but her expression was still one of bewilderment, as if she were trying to make sense of what she had heard.

  It may sound unbelievable to say that it was then that I knew, at that precise moment. That I knew everything, as if it had been given to me whole and entire and in every detail. I knew.

  But then what I knew shattered into fragments again and I heard myself saying that the sports master had surely got it wrong, that perhaps Hugo had swapped places with someone without saying so, or that he might have gone elsewhere and confused his diary, hadn’t had time to tell us, that …

  I heard my own voice babbling uselessly on, saw Benedicte watching my face, as if she would read there what had really happened, where Hugo was.

  And then there was a long and terrible moment of silence before I got up.

  ‘I think I should ring the police,’ I said.

  Twenty-one

  here is not much more of the story to tell. Hugo’s body was found at first light the following morning, some way downriver. He had no injuries and the post-mortem revealed only that he had died by drowning, but not that there had been any natural reason why he should have fallen into the water – after a sudden stroke or heart attack while walking close to the edge. There was no note in the house left for his wife, no hint of any reason why he had lied about being out at the football match. We learned that he had been in school teaching on the Saturday morning, as usual and as he had said he would be. Around twelve-forty, several people had spotted him walking down the high street in the direction of home. After that, no one had seen him at all.

  The towpath at that time of year is quiet but there is still the occasional dog-walker or runner. Not that afternoon.

  Had he simply tripped or slipped, Benedicte asked again and again. The towpath was dry – they had had no rain for weeks, but he could have stumbled on a tree root.

  It was a dreadful time. I stayed until Katerina arrived home from Cambridge and on the Monday morning I had to take Benedicte to identify Hugo’s body formally.

  We drove to the hospital in silence. She had been very brave and resolute, determined not to break down, and she was determined now, but she said she was afraid that she would collapse when she had to see him. That was why she wanted me with her.

  I was as shocked as she was, but I had twice before had to identify bodies of the dead, including that of our father, so I did not feel any sort of fear that morning, merely a great sadness.

  It was only when I looked at the still, cold body of my brother lying there that a great wave of realisation and horror broke over me. The expression on his face was blank, as it always becomes eventually, no matter what it may have been at the moment of death. It is the blank of eternal sleep.

  And then I glanced at his hands. The left one was resting normally, in a relaxed position on the covering sheet. But the right one was not relaxed. Hugo’s right hand was folded over, almost clenched. It looked as if it had been holding something tightly.

  Of course I knew and then I understood it all, understood that the small hand which had relinquished mine for the last time had not given up, the boy had not gone away but, having failed with me, had moved to Hugo and begun to take his hand, and so draw him, clutching hard, towards the nearest water. I had not given in. I had saved myself, or been saved, though how I did not know then and I still do not know. I had not yielded to the small hand. My brother had, and died, like the boy, by drowning.

  I TOLD BENEDICTE none of this. We left the hospital in silence and by late that afternoon Katerina had arrived home. I left them together, partly because I felt that was what they wanted and needed but would never say, partly because I was desperate to get away. I would return for the funeral, of course, but that was not for ten days.

  I drove fast away from the town and the river, desperate to put it far behind me.

  I felt guilty that I had survived. I was appalled by what I knew had happened to Hugo, even though in the absence of any evidence to the contrary the coroner would record a verdict of accidental death. I would have to live with what I knew and I wondered if many others had been haunted in the same way, those who had once visited the White House garden and felt the touch of the small hand. I surely had not been the first, but I prayed that Hugo had been the last and that now the ghost of the wretched drowned boy could rest in peace.

  Twenty-two

  thought that was an end to it. I thought there would be no more to tell. But there is more, another small piece of knowledge I was given and which I can never give back, can never un-know. Another, far worse thing which I must live with, for there is nothing, nothing at all, I can do with it.
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  When I got back home, I found a letter. It had been posted on the Saturday morning and it was addressed in my brother’s hand and for a split second as I looked at the writing I forgot that he was dead but was fleetingly puzzled that he should be writing to me, on paper with pen and ink, not telephoning or sending a quick email.

  But then, of course, I remembered. I realised. My hand shook as I opened the envelope, sitting at my desk beside the window on that late afternoon of a gathering sky.

  Adam,

  You need to know this. I have never been able to tell you, though there have been times in these past days and weeks when I have been close to it. But in the end, I could not. Perhaps you knew I had something to say to you. Perhaps not.

  Now, having decided I can live with it no longer, I must tell you.

  Please remember that we were children. I was a child. At eleven years old one is still a child. I tell myself so.

  The boy drowned because I pushed him into that pool. No one else was there for a moment. No one saw what happened. You came to find me and I grabbed your hand and pulled you away, up the steps and through the archway in that high hedge that has loomed so darkly through my nightmares ever since.

  No one knew. It was late in the afternoon, people were leaving the gardens. We were last. I pulled you across the grass until we found Mother and then we left too.

  Nothing happened for some years. I pushed it down into my unconscious, as people do with such terrible secrets. Nothing happened until my breakdown, which began suddenly and perhaps half by chance, after I read some story in the paper about a child who had drowned in a similar pool.

  I had the same urges you suffered, to throw myself into water. The only difference seems to have been that I did not have to endure the grip of the small hand as you did. Not until it abandoned you – perhaps I should say ‘gave up on you’ – and came to me, not many weeks ago. I knew then that I should be unable to resist it, that I would have to do what it wanted, go with it. Of course I have to. It was my fault. I am guilty. You did nothing. You knew nothing.

  I am sorry for this, for what I am telling you, for leaving everyone, for putting my family through what I know will be great pain. One thing, please. I beg you never to tell Benedicte or Katerina, however much you may want to unburden yourself. They will have enough to carry. Please keep this last secret between the two of us.

  You are reading this in the knowledge that I have paid my debt and please God that is enough. That is an end to it all. The small ghost and I are at peace. The last hand that other small hand will take hold of will be mine.

  With my love

  Hugo

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two