Joseph paused and glared at her before answering. ‘It’s much more complicated than that.’
‘Well, she’s not pregnant—so if that’s your only reason for marrying her…then you don’t need to now.’
‘How do you know she’s not pregnant?’
Velda shrugged. ‘She told her friend, Rachel.’
Joseph emitted a mock laugh. ‘And let me guess, Rachel told her sister, who told your sister, who told you—that it?’ Joseph demanded.
‘Why does it matter how I found out? What matters is she’s lying and she’s only saying it so that you marry her…and not…’ Velda’s words ran dry in her mouth.
‘You? Jesus, Velda. And what—you thought we’d get married instead? We’ve not been together for months now—long before Audrey even came along.’
‘Three weeks before Audrey came along—apparently.’
‘So what, you’re saying that I was dating her behind your back?’ he fumed. ‘Have you heard yourself, Velda? This is—what, thirty minutes before my wedding? I guess you want me to thank you? Well, thanks for the information.’
Hot, unstoppable tears began to moisten Velda’s eyes as she searched for something that she could say to prevent, change or soften the inevitable that was about to occur, but every scenario ended the same: the demise of their relationship.
The tears finally broke free at the same time as Joseph’s bedroom door was flung wide open.
‘Time to go, buddy,’ David said. ‘You okay, Velda?’
Velda managed to shake her head, then she made a run for the open door.
‘See you at the wedding,’ Joseph called after her.
She ran out of the house, but instead of turning back towards her own place, she headed out in the opposite direction. She hastily removed her shoes, discarding them where they fell, and ran. The demons were speaking more loudly now, pushing her past the point where her lungs ached for air and begged her to slow down.
She stopped and stared. The intricate thoughts that were woven through her mind suddenly began to separate, like a rope being unravelled into its individual strands. Just in front of her was the Golden Gate Bridge. The place where her mother had committed suicide four years previously.
Velda walked towards the bridge, her mind beginning to clear.
Chapter Five
11th January 1976, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, USA
The Chipman house—a ten-minute walk away on Ocean Avenue—was a place that Jack had seldom visited, despite knowing Laura and Michael for five years since they had moved to Hyannis Port from Alberta in Canada. The house was, by anyone’s standards, in need of some heavy-duty maintenance, which was why, he guessed, Laura and Michael rarely invited him over. Right now, Jack thought, as he approached the front door, it looked like the perfect location for a horror movie. He pressed the doorbell and waited, half expecting the door to creak slowly open and some fiendish butler to gawk out at him.
However, the door was noiselessly opened by Laura and Michael’s father. He stood with a wide grin, an otherwise imposing figure in dishevelled shabby clothes and with a monstrously long and tangled beard.
‘Mr Chipman,’ Jack began, ‘Laura said that you—’
‘Yes, yes, wait there,’ Mr Chipman cut in. He disappeared momentarily into the gloom of the house, returning moments later carrying a bunch of keys. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where are we going?’ Jack asked.
‘To find Hope,’ he replied, leading the way around the back of the house to his 1940s green Chrysler Saratoga. ‘Get in.’
Despite the bizarreness of the situation, Jack obeyed and sat beside Mr Chipman, not relishing the stench of fried food and engine oil that permeated the old car.
‘So, Laura tells me that you hate your job at the grocery store—that right?’ Mr Chipman quizzed, as he began their journey.
‘Yeah,’ Jack admitted. It was somehow okay for him to vocalise the truth to Laura and Michael, but, for some reason it felt like an admission of failure when he said it to someone of his parents’ generation. ‘It’s not going so well.’
Mr Chipman nodded, gently tugged on his beard and continued pushing the car northwards, through the snow-ploughed roads towards Barnstable. Quite where he could be taking him and what kind of employment he might be offered totally baffled Jack.
‘And what is it you’d like to do, exactly?’ Mr Chipman asked.
There was a question. Jack looked out of his window for a moment and thought. ‘History. People.’
Mr Chipman chuckled. ‘Good answer.’
Jack was confused; it had been a terrible answer. True, but terrible.
Mr Chipman changed the subject. He spoke about Laura and Michael. He spoke about the weather. He spoke about politics. Then he suddenly swung the car off-road and switched off the ignition.
Jack looked around them. They were parked beside a low stone wall, partially covered by giant drifts of snow. He craned his neck and spotted some graves. They were outside a cemetery.
Mr Chipman stared at Jack for a moment, then smiled, as if Jack should somehow be able to intuit the reason for their being here. ‘Follow me.’
Jack climbed from the car and spotted a simple white plaque on a wooden frame. Lothrop Hill Cemetery. It still made no sense.
Jack followed in Mr Chipman’s footsteps as they tramped through ankle-deep dunes of snow, through the open gate and into the cemetery. Rectangles of faded grey headstones broke through the blanket of otherwise unblemished white. A northern cardinal, stark red, was sitting atop one of the graves, watching as they slogged further into the grounds.
Mr Chipman suddenly came to a halt and crossed his arms.
Jack spotted the curious expression on his face that left him with the distinct impression that there was something that he clearly wasn’t getting. Jack searched around him, certain that he was missing something obvious. Then he spotted it. A grave with a familiar name. Hope Chipman. Finding Hope; now he understood. Sort of. Jack
