In which Helen regains some sanity
Helen’s eyes meet Carla’s as Addison is helped to the ambulance by a paramedic, all of them quickly sporting damp patches on the shoulder after only a few minutes outside. The body is placed in a second ambulance after the police have done their job.
‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier.’ Helen knows that her blurting of the truth still stands between them, not in any way overtaken by this tragedy.
In the depth of Carla’s gaze, she reads a tacit acknowledgement that neither is wholly responsible for that incident. Both spoke out under the pressure of defending another: Carla, wanting to protect Addison from Natalie, betrayed Helen’s trust, and Helen, responding to the hurt child inside her, betrayed Carla. They are in essence three victims, and the most efficient route to picking up their lives is for Helen to allow their relationships to alter.
In a strange way, she is relieved. While she kept their secret, she was bound to them. Now things will have to change and she is freed to move on. As they are too, now that Steve is behind them.
Watching as Addison is made comfortable – although seemingly unaware of most of what is happening to him – she has the clearest image of the ageing head librarian, pottering about among the rows of shelving, always quoting, rarely speaking from his own thoughts, as though programmed to be the mouthpiece of any dead poet or writer wishing to be heard. She can hear him declaiming Byron now: Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not / Who would be free themselves must strike the blow.
Strike the blow, not wait to be struck. How obvious it is in the aftermath of her own angry beast slinking away. How suitable a summary of what they have done with Steve. They struck a blow for Dinah and with Steve’s death they have freed her.
‘I must go with him,’ Carla says simply as the paramedics start to close the back doors.
‘It’s okay. I’ll take Dinah home and wait till you come, if you give me the key.’
When the ambulance pulls away, the other Followers gather in the prayer room and begin a silent vigil for the Preacher. They have made no attempt to speak to Helen as she removed the pram from the narthex, though several gave Carla a brief hug or a caring clasp on the shoulder before she climbed in after Addison. Helen is not bothered; she has never been one of them and what they think is no longer of import.
She allowed herself to be willingly pulled by Carla and the baby into a life that was not her own. It was unequivocally satisfying and opened up a whole world of experience, but it was not freedom. It was, in substance, no different from being dragged upwards by Malcolm and his job. She has been at the mercy of her emotions for weeks – just as she was when she had to let Uncle John do what he did, in order to keep his affection.
The first blow she struck on impulse, wide of the mark, and Addison suffered for it. Now she must counter it with a second, healing strike – well aimed for everyone’s sake – to finish the job efficiently. She must hope that her skill is still intact.
