Chapter Seventy-Six
Dexter braves the wilds of Little Belmont to see Jane a few days later. The late May weather has turned clement again and they are able to sit outside in the kitchen garden, accompanied by a lone bumblebee floating purposefully around the lavender, and the four dogs in various states of repose.
“They’re still looking for Jasper,” Dexter says.
“Yes,” Jane replies, a note of uncertainty in her own voice. “I feel very strongly they won’t find him.”
“What makes you say that?”
Jane sighs. “I think it will have been too much for him. I think he will have, as you young people say, un-alived himself.”
Dexter winces. “You reckon?”
“I do. And actually, if he didn’t do it directly after he tried to kill Daisy in the woods that day, he’d have done it when all the secrets came out.”
“And maybe he’ll never be found?”
“Indeed. Maybe not.”
She sighs again, racked with a deep sense of dissatisfaction.
Something is not right. Something is missing.
But that, she thinks to herself, is for the police to ascertain now.
Her role here is done; it’s over. It’s time for her to step away and focus on her own existence and so she turns to her stepson and says, “I’m selling it. ”
“Selling what?”
“This.” She gestures at the rambling mass behind and in front of her. “The whole thing. I spoke to Sturrets in the village this morning. Chloe said it could go for two mill, if I’m prepared to wait for a wealthy buyer who’s not looking for a bargain, one point five if I just want rid of it.”
“God, is that all?”
“What? Oh my goodness, you spoiled little goose!”
“Well, it’s not that much, is it? Not for all this? My apartment’s not worth much less than that.”
“Yes, and that’s because you live in one of the nicest streets in London.
But this house… its value is arbitrary really.
It’s worth what someone thinks they can make out of it because nobody will want it like this.
They will want it fixed and changed and added to and that will cost so much money and take so much time, and you can’t expect a buyer to be both brave and stupid.
So I’ll take what someone is prepared to give me, and then I can…
Jesus…” She exhales on the second syllable. “… escape.”
“Escape?”
“Yes. That woman. Jessamine. She stayed. And why did she stay? Why didn’t she escape the first chance she got?
I know that’s what most people would think—but I get it, I really do get it.
Trauma can tie you down, hold you in one position.
You think you’ve moved, you think you’re somewhere else, but you’re not; you’re still there, pinned down in every single moment of it, and it’s easier, somehow, to stay close to the scenes of those moments, not to tug too hard at the pins, to surrender, not struggle—and I can’t explain it any better than that.
Jasper took the opposite approach—he pulled all of those pins out and dealt with the searing pain and then stumbled out into the world bleeding and in agony and…
urgh.” She lets her head drop. “But there is a middle ground. Leaving slowly. And really, I’ve been leaving slowly for the last thirty-five years.
Taking the pins out, one by one. And now I’m ready. It feels right.”
“But where will you go?”
“Somewhere quiet and boring in London. With a park nearby and a big garden for the dogs, and nice neighbors and maybe a trendy little coffee shop at the top of the road and somewhere to buy bread and milk, and a tube station. And yeah, just something boring. Something nice. Something to be proud of. You know.”
Dexter puts his hand over hers and squeezes it. “On the Northern Line?” he asks hopefully.
“Yes,” she says. “On the Northern Line!”
“And then we could start the agency?”
“Yes! Trevally and Stepson?”
“Or, even better,” says Dexter, throwing her a soft smile, “how about Trevally and Son?”
Jane sighs and squeezes his hand, a solitary, foolish tear spilling from her eye. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you.”
They take the dogs for a walk later. At the spot in the woods where Jane had first seen Hugo, she stops and points.
“This is where it all started,” she says.
“Just there. That little dog appearing. My God. A small white dog and then…” She makes an explosion with her hands and shudders gently. There is no need for words.
“What happened to Hugo?” he asks.
“Stuart has him. But I’ve told him that if he needs me to, I’ll take him.”
“Me too,” says Dexter. “I’ll take him.”
“We can share him.”
“Yes, we can share him.” Dexter smiles. “And what will happen to Daisy?”
Jane smiles now. “She’s staying with the lovely man.”
“The lovely handsome man? Who lives on the Northern Line.”
He gives Jane a playful punch, which she ignores. Men, she thinks, even lovely handsome ones, are not on her radar right now and won’t be for quite some time. “Yes,” she says. “Spencer and George are putting her up.”
“That’s nice,” he says. Then he winces and says, “But still, she’s all alone?”
“She’s all alone. Yes. Nineteen years old, and all alone.”
Dexter throws her a knowing look. “Just like you were?” he says.
“Yes,” says Jane. “Like I was. Except,” she adds, “she has Stuart. And Stuart, to be entirely frank, is ten times more than I ever had.”
The dogs circle them then, waiting for sticks to be found and thrown, and for a few minutes Jane and Dexter lose themselves in the pure, undarkened joy of watching the dogs run back and forth, the skitter of their paws, the heat of their breath, the brightness of their eyes.