The Madness of Grief

by Panayotis Cacoyannis

  ‘You should stay here in case she comes back.’

  I could feel my head shaking. ‘The last time you asked me to stay where I was…’

  ‘The notes,’ said Jack, and when I handed him mine, he returned it with the jewellery and his to the magic secret drawer in the headboard. ‘Don’t worry, she can’t have got far.’

  ‘She likes to walk when she’s upset, and I know the way she takes when she walks home.’

  ‘We should’ve caught up with her by now.’ Already we had walked along the Pentonville Road all the way to Kings Cross.

  ‘The streets are busy, maybe we missed her,’ said Jack.

  ‘There’s no way we could’ve missed her.’

  ‘It’s possible she took a different route, if she wanted us to leave her alone.’

  ‘She was tired, I think she must’ve taken the Underground,’ I said. ‘We should do the same.’ We were now at the bottom of York Way, by the side of Kings Cross Station, wasting time while I tried to decide what we should do.

  ‘That’s not a good idea,’ said Jack, after wiping his face on his sleeve. ‘She can’t be thinking straight, she’s upset, she hasn’t had a wink of sleep or anything to eat, and if she’s out in the streets in this heat…’

  ‘It’s not that hot yet, it’s early.’

  ‘It’s nine o’clock, that’s not really early. And if you’re right and she did take the Underground, she’ll be safely at home when we get there.’

  ‘Not if she does something silly, and if she does it’ll all be my fault.’

  My eyes had been so busy scanning both sides of the road that I hadn’t looked at Jack even once. But now he was in front of me, blocking my way.

  ‘Jane, that’s ridiculous. Stop being so melodramatic!’ His face seemed shrunk with irritation, his words like a belligerent command.

  ‘How can you say that after what happened last night?’ I walked almost through him as he flew to one side.

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. Let’s take the Underground if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Taxi!’ I had stepped into the road, and was waving to the driver to stop, but he already had a fare and after beeping me out of the way he drove on.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, you’re going to get yourself run over!’ Jack was barking at me now, but I stayed off the kerb with my right arm still half raised, waiting to flag down the first available taxi.

  ‘I need to get there as soon as I can, you can go back to the house if you want,’ I yelled over the noise of the traffic, taking two more steps into the road as much to get away from Jack as to make myself easier to see.

  ‘Get back onto the pavement at least, you’re being hysterical!’ Instead of trying to help me he was howling at me still, but I didn’t care, all I cared about right now was auntie Ada. I’d been mean and nasty and horrible to her, and if anything…

  ‘Jane, watch out!’ I heard the horn and then Jack’s voice and then the screech of wheels. I went rigid in the middle of the road as a car jerked to a halt right in front of me. The man next to the driver was half out of the window and screaming ugly words that made me scared.

  My legs had given way, but Jack already had his arm around my waist and I managed to follow him back to the pavement. ‘Jesus, Jane,’ he said. ‘Now come on, we’re taking the Underground. Can you walk?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Here, hold onto me.’ I put my arm through his and spread my fingers round it. ‘Does Ada live far from the station?’

  I shook my head to say no.

  ‘But first we need to get you some breakfast, just something quick at the station.’

  ‘I still have the money from last night,’ I said. ‘You must be hungry too.’

  ‘Starving.’ Jack was smiling at last. ‘And it won’t take long, I promise.’

  From now on I would do as he said. My tiredness and my stubbornness had nearly got me killed, and besides, Jack was right, auntie Ada was probably at home doing practical things. That had always been her way of getting on. By now she would have called the library and told them that she wasn’t going in, and there were many other arrangements to make. To get started on making them, she might already be on her way back to the house, making sure that Mr Magikoo got the memorable send-off he deserved.

  Auntie Ada’s was one of six flats in a two-storey building, on the top floor overlooking the street. There was only one bell, but it rang very loudly, and as long as she was in auntie Ada would hear it.

  As we turned left into Cyprus Street from Brecknock Road, I tightened my grip of Jack’s arm. A police car was just driving off, and one of auntie Ada’s neighbours was still at the door.

  ‘Jane, thank God you came!’

  ‘What’s wrong, has something happened to auntie Ada? Is that why the police were here?’

  ‘Yes, I mean no. Ada’s upset but she’s fine. Her flat was broken into but apparently nothing’s been taken.’

  ‘Her flat was broken into?’

  ‘And today of all days, well, not broken into exactly, no evidence of breaking in, the police said, so Ada thinks she might have left her door open, which would hardly be surprising. Jane, love, Ada told me, I’m so sorry about your father.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Come in, come in, where are my manners. He must’ve come in through this door, it was an easy lock to pick, the police said, definitely we should change it, and then, bingo, Ada’s door was open, although her locks are also not so difficult to pick, so who knows... And he was still in the flat, but he ran off as soon as Ada walked in on him, pushed her out of the way and disappeared like a shot down the stairs. You can imagine how frightened she was, he had this black balaclava on, and all Ada could see were his eyes.’

  ‘A black balaclava?’ I had heard the words but they hadn’t quite sunk in, and I repeated them as if to have them contradicted. Could so much really have happened in such a short time?

  ‘She ran downstairs trembling, and I locked my door first and then I called the police.’

  ‘We should check on Ada,’ said Jack.

  ‘Jack, this is Miss Williams.’

  ‘Florence, please,’ said Miss Williams. ‘Your aunt was very lucky, the police said, these people are usually ruthless. And when they took her back upstairs, she couldn’t see that anything was missing, the silly balaclava man had run off empty-handed. We were both very lucky, it’s a small block of flats and no one else was in, God only knows what might’ve happened if he’d panicked. And if I’d heard any commotion on the stairs, probably I would’ve opened my door, I’d have been curious, you see, the place is normally so quiet. But first thing I heard was Ada banging on my door. Big, burly man, she said, and he’d slipped down those stairs without a sound.’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Williams, ‘it’s my fault for rabbiting on. Jack’s right, you should go on upstairs straight away, Ada said she needed a lie-down but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you, poor thing’s had the shock of her life. And make sure she has a nice cup of tea, nothing like a cup of tea to calm your nerves.’ She was shouting by then, we were already more than halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Make sure she knows it’s you when you knock,’ said Jack. ‘She’s probably still feeling shaken.’

  ‘You’re so sweet,’ I said, and I reached up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. And just before I knocked on auntie Ada’s closed door, ‘Auntie Ada, it’s me, Jane.’ I was about to knock again when I heard auntie Ada unlatching the door from inside. ‘Oh my God, auntie Ada, are you okay?’ I threw myself at her and squeezed my arms around her, but auntie Ada’s stayed limp by her sides.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said stiffly. ‘No need to make a fuss.’

  ‘Of course we need to make a fuss, Miss Williams just told us what happened. I mean a man with a black balaclava? Inside your flat?’

  ‘Jane, dear, when you get to my age…’

  ‘But it must’ve been awful fo
r you.’

  ‘Yes, well, Florence likes to exaggerate.’

  ‘She’s ordered us to make you a cup of tea,’ said Jack.

  ‘Then you better come in.’

  The most striking thing about auntie Ada’s flat was the wallpaper. Dating from the ’50s, its busy abstract pattern had faded, giving it a muted watercolour feel that matched the flat’s predominant theme.

  ‘Nice place, Ada,’ said Jack. ‘Very traditional.’

  ‘You mean old-fashioned,’ said auntie Ada.

  ‘But timelessly tasteful.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do, I do… although… where’s the famous sofa?’

  Auntie Ada looked at him vacantly.

  ‘You know, the one I’ve been sleeping on most frequently.’

  As Jack and an unamused auntie Ada sank into opposite armchairs I went to the kitchen to make tea.

  Auntie Ada was distant but otherwise remarkably composed for a woman who had just been confronted by an intruder. But after losing her brother in dramatic circumstances just the night before, and then protecting him by lying to the police only to learn from a note addressed to me that her confidences were betrayed and her secrets revealed, it was perhaps no wonder that balaclava man’s moment had been a damp squib. We were none of us functioning normally. Bereavement with all its collateral feelings (hurt, anger, distress), intensified by hunger and sleep deprivation, could not but have taken its toll. After my deliberate act of unkindness had caused auntie Ada to flee, I had nearly got myself run over trying to get here. And Jack, who had yelled at me and then saved my life, was now complimenting auntie Ada on her taste, seemingly as unmoved by balaclava man as she was.

  But his compliments had failed to break the ice. When I carried the tea back to the living room, while Jack cracked jokes at chatty Florence’s expense, auntie Ada was staring at the floor while she twiddled her thumbs in her lap. I poured the tea and sat with my cup on the footstool next to Jack.

  ‘Auntie Ada, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Mm, what was that, dear?’ Auntie Ada had answered too loudly, scraping her stare off the floor and darting it at me as though she had been snapped out of a daydream.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘What I did was unforgivable.’

  ‘What you did?’ Auntie Ada pinched her brow so hard that her eyes had almost shut.

  ‘I shouldn’t have read out daddy’s note.’

  ‘No, dear, you shouldn’t have. That’s why I left the room. The note your father left you was between you and him.’

  ‘I thought you were upset by what he wrote.’

  ‘I haven’t got the foggiest what he wrote. My dear Jane, that’s all I heard.’

  ‘But we were worried, auntie Ada. You could’ve just asked me to stop.’

  ‘I had no right to ask you to stop. But I had every right not to want to be there.’

  ‘And the brooch?’

  ‘The brooch, dear?’

  ‘I found it on the floor after you left.’

  ‘Then I suppose I must’ve dropped it.’

  I didn’t know what else to say. Were we condemned to a permanent conspiracy of silence in which the secrets of the past, which had been unspoken but were now being denied, in effect became lies? Perhaps the truth really was overrated; I kept remembering it had already cost my father his life. Auntie Ada’s past was her own, and if she found it too hard to acknowledge, who was I to say that it shouldn’t stay hidden? Wasn’t this what my father had meant by the impurities of sadness?

  ‘I feel like I shouldn’t be here,’ said Jack. ‘I’m nothing to you, Ada, you might want to talk to Jane alone.’

  ‘To talk to Jane alone about what?’

  ‘Things that don’t concern me.’

  ‘Auntie Ada, would you rather Jack left us alone?’

  ‘Jack’s family now, he’s as welcome here as you are, I’m sure it’s what George would’ve wanted.’

  ‘Thank you, Ada.’

  I had a taste of my tea. I took the jug of milk out of the tray and stirred a little more into my cup. Then auntie Ada picked up hers and took short consecutive sips.

  ‘Breakfast, auntie Ada, have you had any?’

  ‘I’ve had no time for breakfast.’

  ‘I could make you some porridge,’ I said, but auntie Ada swept away the talk of food.

  ‘Florence said the burglar left completely empty-handed,’ said Jack.

  ‘Look around you,’ said auntie Ada. ‘There’s nothing here a thief would want.’

  ‘Oh my God, auntie Ada, where’s the Giacometti sculpture?’ A thief would want a Giacometti sculpture, at least if he knew what it was, which a random balaclava man probably wouldn’t. The train of thought had made me turn to the spot on the mantelpiece, between the reproduction carriage clock and the Staffordshire vase, where the Giacometti sculpture had stood ever since I could remember. And today it wasn’t there.

  Just as automatically, at the mention of the Giacometti sculpture, auntie Ada’s gaze had also shot directly to the very same spot, but then it was immediately averted. ‘What Giacometti sculpture?’

  ‘The one you had right there, on the mantelpiece,’ I said, pointing with my finger at the missing matchstick figure on a plaster plinth.

  ‘If you mean the copy I overpaid ten francs for, I’ve thrown it away. I was dusting and I dropped it on the floor and it broke.’

  ‘But you can’t have,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the arthritis, I’m afraid. It’s made me rather clumsy.’

  I knew she was lying, but I wasn’t sure exactly about what. Auntie Ada had walked in on a burglar who had thankfully fled. And now her Giacometti sculpture was missing. The pretence had gone too far.

  ‘Daddy told us the story, auntie Ada. The sculpture was genuine, it wasn’t a copy.’

  ‘You’re confusing me with all your questions, have you come here to call me a liar?’

  ‘Daddy said in his note that I should decide what I should or shouldn’t tell you I know. Well, I know how much you love me, and I know you know I love you just as much. But I also know the story of the sculpture.’

  ‘Then I suppose you must know about Jane.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to…’ Jack started to get up, but auntie Ada’s raised hand had him back in his seat.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We know about Jane. But hadn’t you already guessed that when you said last night that everything was true?’

  ‘I meant about your mother’s accident. George had no business telling you anything else.’

  ‘He also told us how horrible he’d been to you as a child.’

  ‘None of that was his fault.’ Auntie Ada sat back in her armchair and brought the fingers of her two hands together.

  ‘And he told us…’ I hesitated, partly trying to remember and partly to decide what not to tell.

  ‘George surprised me…’ Auntie Ada hesitated too, as though temporarily lost in memories she had suppressed for too long. And then, looking up from the tip of the arch she had made with her hands, ‘He was a good man, your father.’

  ‘I know he was.’

  ‘And all I ever did was bear grudges.’

  ‘That wasn’t all you did, auntie Ada.’

  ‘But it’s too late for everything now.’ Again her head was bowed, and it looked like the worst of the past was about to get the better of her.

  There was not enough distance. Some of the worst of the past had only just happened, but an unstoppable avalanche was keeping us all on the run, looking over our shoulders at ghosts.

  ‘Ada, would you like a glass of water?’ Jack was leaning forward in his chair, his hands already bent on its arms.

  ‘It was supposed to go to you. And now it’s gone.’

  ‘But you told the police that nothing was missing,’ I said.

  ‘I hadn’t realised that anything was, not until you mentioned the sculpture. I mean, how could he have known? None of it makes sense. For the first time
in my life I leave my door open, and when a burglar comes in he takes only that. It’s like that’s what he came for, but it can’t have been, no one knew about the sculpture except George. And it looked like nothing, just a small, insignificant thing. That man was a thug, not an art connoisseur. If I’d known it’s what he had in his holdall, I’m not sure what I’d have done, not because it was a Giacometti but because it was precious to me, the only thing I had to remind me of Jane.’

  ‘I thought there were also some letters,’ I said.

  ‘Letters aren’t really things.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure that the burglar was a man?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Oh,’ said auntie Ada. ‘I just assumed he was, but no, I can’t say that I’m absolutely sure. Strange that the police never thought to ask me that, I mean I never heard him speak and I never saw any part of him other than his eyes… blue I think they were, but they might’ve been green, I can’t say I felt like staring into them for any length of time.’

  ‘So you didn’t see his hands,’ said Jack.

  ‘That’s another thing,’ said auntie Ada, ‘middle of summer and he was wearing gloves.’

  ‘Fingerprints,’ said Jack.

  ‘But he was definitely big under that coat, had his arms around that holdall, clinging on to it like his life depended on not letting go, so I couldn’t even tell you if he had breasts. Yes, I’m pretty sure it was a man, for what it’s worth. Unless of course it was a woman.’

  ‘What did the police say?’ I asked.

  ‘That I was lucky I wasn’t hurt, and lucky that nothing was taken.’

  ‘And is that it, they’re not even going to look for him?’

  ‘Jane, dear, I don’t want them to look for him. How would I explain the sculpture if they found him?’

  ‘But don’t you want it back?’

  ‘It’s never really mattered what I want…’ She pursed her lips and made an effort to swallow. ‘It’s only a thing, why rake up the past for the sake of a thing?’

  ‘It’s an incredibly valuable thing,’ said Jack.

  ‘Oh, what difference does it make if it was valuable.’

  ‘It could’ve got you killed,’ I said.

  ‘But it didn’t, and now it can’t, so good riddance I say,’ said auntie Ada. ‘It would’ve made a nice inheritance for you, I know…’