‘But what do the police say?’
‘The police?’
‘About the stolen sculpture.’
‘Oh, nothing, they don’t actually know it was stolen, auntie Ada hasn’t told them.’ I slipped out of my sandals and gathered my legs on the sofa. ‘My feet are clean,’ I said, and as I twisted my body to face Karl from nearer the edge, he put his arm around me as though to protect me from falling.
‘Is it valuable?’ he asked.
‘Probably very, even though it’s little.’
And holding me still on my perch, he was asking me why with his eyebrows – if a valuable sculpture had been stolen, why hadn’t the police been told?
‘She always said it was a copy,’ I said, and the pinching on Karl’s forehead brought his eyebrows together again.
‘I’ve just thought of something,’ he said.
‘About the Giacometti?’
‘About your father’s funeral.’
‘If you don’t feel like coming…’
‘When a magician cuts someone in half with a saw, you can see at least part of the person being cut sticking out of the box – I think it’s usually the head and the feet – otherwise what’s the illusion, if you can’t be sure the box isn’t actually empty? But I don’t suppose they’re doing that with your dad – even if they wanted to, I’m sure you wouldn’t let them.’ Now his eyebrows had collapsed and made his eyes narrow.
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Monsieur Legerdemain did try to insist on a half-open coffin, but we told him that we hadn’t agreed to a freak show.’
‘Then he might as well use an empty coffin. Or better still he should leave your father’s coffin alone. I bet you he’s not even French.’
‘He’s from Aberystwyth in Wales. And you’re right, we shouldn’t be allowing even the pretence of cutting my father in half, and not because it wouldn’t be a convincing illusion. Grand finale or not, as soon as I get home I’m going to call him and tell him it’s off.’
‘Don’t be too surprised if he’s upset.’
‘He’ll make some grumbling noises, I’m sure. But actually I think he’ll be relieved.’ Already he had been unhappy at our refusal to consent to an open coffin, and even if he didn’t care about inflicting an indignity on his friend, the hideous little man from Aberystwyth cared about Monsieur Legerdemain’s reputation, which would hardly be enhanced by his sawing of a coffin into two in the absence of the scantiest illusion of a body. ‘Thank you,’ I said to Karl. ‘One more reason why I’m glad I came to see you.’ And with one sharp movement I leapt to my feet, unknotting myself like an acrobat. ‘But it’s late, auntie Ada might need me.’
‘So was it an original or was it a copy?’
‘The coffin?’
‘Your auntie Ada’s Giacometti.’
‘Oh, it was definitely an original. You know, from her Paris days.’ And to Karl’s inquisitive squint I replied by fluttering my lashes. ‘Her lover gave it to her as a gift.’
‘Your auntie Ada had a lover? In Paris?’
‘Her name was Jane,’ I said. ‘And then she fell in love with my mother.’
‘Jane did?’
‘Not Jane, auntie Ada.’
‘I suppose she might be hiding it,’ said Karl.
‘That she’d fallen in love with my mother?’
‘The Giacometti sculpture. It wouldn’t be too hard if it’s little.’
15
Betrayal
As I made my way back home from Cross Street, I found the streets unbearably busy. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, but it was rush hour, and from I didn’t know where a throng of clockwork people had emerged to walk in the direction of the Underground or to line up in bus stops as they all fought to make their way home. It struck me how sullen they seemed, and how solitary too, even while they formed part of a crowd. What kind of lives did they lead, all these smartly dressed people, what kind of homes were they returning to at the end of that part of their daily routine that required them to travel?
‘A rat race, that’s what it is, and if that’s how I’d been forced to live my life – if I’d gone to University and joined the civil service – maybe I’d have had a bigger house and a car, but I bet you I’d be dead by the time I was forty.’
‘And maybe Val would still be alive.’
‘Aye, Ada love, maybe she’d still be alive, but I’d never have known her, and you think that’s what Val would’ve wanted? At least for the little time we had, we knew what it meant to be happy, and that’s more than a lot of folk will get in a lifetime. What good would it have been, being alive, if I’d never met Val?’
Even without a bigger house and a car, my father was dead before he was forty. And although it seemed absurd, the living second-guessing what the dead would’ve wanted, I knew that my father couldn’t have been wrong, that the last thing my mother would have wanted was a different life without him.
At last I had stepped out of the main road and the crowds, and instead of what had passed and belonged to the past, which would always be a part of who I was, I tried to turn my mind towards the future. Jack, auntie Ada and Karl, and to some degree Frau Angela too - the details may not have yet been settled, but life would go on and be good.
Karl had promised he was definitely coming to the funeral tomorrow. He would be at the house before 11, to travel with us to the Hypnos Crematorium. Auntie Ada had insisted on the largest limousine, and I was glad that there would now at least be four of us to only half fill it.
‘Miss? Excuse me, miss?’
‘Jane, is it? Can we have a word, love? It’s important, me and Barry were friends of your dad’s.’
Although I hadn’t stopped, they were almost touching me, a fat middle-aged man in a worn out fedora, shabby, sweaty and short of breath, talking to me with a half-smoked cigarette sticking out of his mouth, and on the other side his much younger sidekick, a mafia-looking type with joined up eyebrows and combed back thick black hair held together with brilliantine, and if I wasn’t mistaken a camera over his shoulder – he had briefly overtaken me, and I had caught just a glimpse of it.
‘There’s really no need to be frightened, we’re respectable professionals,’ panted the fat middle-aged one.
‘That’s right, love, and we need to check some facts with you, that’s all,’ his brilliantined sidekick explained.
My pace had quickened automatically as soon as they had spoken, and I pushed my elbows out to keep their intrusion at bay, but the mafia type was constantly half turning as he took one step in front of me before falling back, and with the fat one on my heels my movements were encumbered by my fear of tripping over either one or the other, or possibly even both of them at once.
‘It’s in your own self-interest to talk to us,’ the fat middle-aged one snapped at me bad-temperedly.
‘If I’ve learned one thing in this job, it’s that there’s more than one side to every story, and me and Barry are giving you the chance to tell us yours.’
‘Go away!’ I barked at them, violently swinging my elbows and catching just the fat one in the ribs.
He gave a whining shriek and swore with words I didn’t understand, and when he pushed into my back with his shoulder, I had to slow down to recover my step, but then I sprinted a short distance, and as I turned around to face them I stopped. They collided with each other to avoid me, and came to a sudden halt when the sidekick pulled the fat one two steps back.
‘If you don’t leave me alone I’m going to scream!’ I had spread out my arms and was yelling already.
‘This hostility, love, I’d say that it’s uncalled for.’ While the fat one huffed and puffed, the sidekick did the talking, and I could see the camera clearly. ‘Come on now, calm yourself down, all we’re trying to do is have a word. A word to your advantage, I might add.’
‘I know what you are, you’re hacks.’
Now the fat one sniggered, but he cut himself short to spit on the ground before lighting up another cigare
tte.
‘Respectable professionals, love, that’s what we are, just like Barry said. Here, let me give you my card. See, Mr Colin Webb, full-time employee of The Daily Fox, it says so right there.’ And when I swiped the card out of his hand, ‘But, Barry, we’re so rude, we’ve not even had the decency to offer young Miss Hareman our condolences, it’s no wonder she’s taken offence.’
‘Go away!’ I said again, turning on my heels to stomp off in the direction of the house.
‘Will the elusive Miss Mia-Mia be attending the funeral tomorrow, we hear she was particularly close to the dear departed Mr Magikoo, rather sordidly so we’ve been told, given Miss Mia-Mia’s little secret. Well, I say little, but we wouldn’t really know, would we, Barry?’
At the obscene sound of their chuckling, I turned around with the intention of swearing, but before I had time to I was stunned by the blast of the camera’s flashbulb.
‘Gotcha! And may I say how pretty you are too.’
I was rubbing my eyes, on the verge of bursting into tears. So now I knew exactly what “hacks” were.
‘One last chance, love, would you care to add a comment to our version of your daddy’s goings-on, yes or no?’ And when I made no answer, ‘I guess that’s a no, then. So we’ll bid you goodbye and we’ll definitely see you tomorrow. We’re looking forward to it already, aren’t we, Barry?’
Barry gave an affirmative wheeze full of self-satisfaction.
Magnified by shock, my fury had initially been all-consuming, but as it began not so much to subside as to become assimilated by my nervous system, gradually one after the other all the mental and physical constituents of my consciousness were being restored, not in any orderly or logical sequence, but rather in a random and disorganised mêlée. When at last I had uprooted myself from that spot in the middle of the road where I had stood stock-still as though frozen, when I had opened the front door to the house and then slammed it shut behind me, and when slowly the hysterical woman in the hallway had taken the form of auntie Ada, only then did my mind begin to formulate thoughts that were asking impossible questions: Who? How? Why?
‘Jane? Oh, my dear, dear child, it’s those bastards, they’ve been hounding you too, I did everything I could to put them off, I even threatened them with the police if they tried to harass you, “she’s a child,” I said, “and she’s just lost her father, I beg you to show some compassion,” but they’re obviously ruthless, like a pair of savage hounds scenting blood. And now look what they’ve done to my poor little angel, how, how can human beings be so callous? But what am I thinking, just wittering on instead of getting you a chair to sit down on, you’re pale as a ghost and trembling like a leaf, some water, a cold glass of water, I’m sure that’s what you need, if you hold onto my arm…’
When auntie Ada went to touch me I recoiled, making fists of my hands and bringing them together to press against my breast. ‘Jack,’ I said, and it was as if by the effort of speaking my lungs had been filled with fresh air.
Auntie Ada brought her fingers to her mouth as she took a step back. ‘Jack, dear?’ she winced.
‘Has he called?’
‘Has he called?’
I tried to control my confusion, and to rein in my assumptions.
‘I’m sorry, auntie Ada, are you okay?’
‘No, I should think I’m not, those men said horrible things about George. And it’ll all be on the front page of their filthy little rag tomorrow morning. The day of his funeral and they’re making him a laughing stock, and worse, much worse!’
‘So you talked to them.’
‘Talked to them? But I’ve already told you… Let’s at least sit down… please, I need to sit down, first those men, then you arrive in this terrible state, snapping at me like you think it’s all my fault…’
‘I’m not snapping at you, auntie Ada.’
‘Oh, you are, dear, you are, but it’s all right, I know you’re in shock…’
‘Come on, let’s get you off your feet and I’ll fetch us both some water.’ I had taken auntie Ada by the arm and was leading the way.
‘Oh, please, dear, not your father’s chair… there’s more air in the kitchen, I’m sure.’
In the cold light of the kitchen auntie Ada looked a mess. She had collapsed onto a chair, fidgeting until she dug into the table with her elbows, anchoring herself into a more fixed position by holding her head with her hands. When I had filled two glasses from the water jug in the refrigerator, I sat beside her. After pushing one in front of auntie Ada, I drank mine in one gulp.
‘You were right,’ I said, ‘I was thirsty.’ I even attempted a smile, but auntie Ada had her stare somewhere else.
‘I’ve already told you,’ she resumed in a drone, when I tried to make her look at me by touching her arm. ‘I begged them to leave us in peace, I told them you were only a child and if they came anywhere near you I’d call the police…’
‘But did you talk to them?’ I asked again.
‘All I did was try to protect you, but they were brazen, they just laughed in my face, what they wanted was to run through all those dreadful accusations and have me confirm them.’ She paused, and her head became tilted as she shot her eyes upwards through mine. ‘They’ve branded your father a deviant and a pervert – not just a homosexual, as if that wasn’t enough, but one who preyed on vulnerable boys and liked them wearing dresses. And yes, Jack’s been calling, there’s a number there for you to call him back on. Although really…’
‘Really what, auntie Ada?’
‘Well we know, don’t we, what he’s likely to say.’
‘Does he know about those dreadful men?’
‘Oh, Jane, how could he not know about those dreadful men? He’s the “vulnerable boy” they’re saying your father preyed on. Where else could they have got that if not from Jack himself?’
‘So you’re accusing him.’ Sitting opposite auntie Ada, I had again spread out my arms and was pinching the sides of the table.
‘Go on, call him if you like.’
‘Has he told you that he knows about those men?’
‘He was pretending to be upset about something, but I wouldn’t ask him what, and I’m not sure he’d have said if I had. He knows I’m not as gullible as you are.’
‘You’ve always mistrusted him, first when he was Mia-Mia and then when he was Jack.’
‘Mia-Mia was the reason…’
‘But she wasn’t, auntie Ada.’
‘It’s a coincidence, then. She decides that she’s a boy and that same night your father is dead.’
‘Jack’s not a boy, he’s a man; he was always a man. I told you what happened. It was daddy who pretended, not Jack. And Jack tried to please him by doing things he hated, like visiting his brother’s bed-and-breakfast in Torquay, which was really some hell in Shepherd’s Bush, where they tried to…’
‘Please, stop it, I don’t want to know!’ Auntie Ada had lifted her head even higher and was shaking it in tandem with her hands. ‘I don’t, I don’t. I’ve heard enough disgusting stories from those men.’
‘But the truth wasn’t disgusting, isn’t that what matters, auntie Ada? And daddy’s gone, no one can hurt him.’
‘There were other calls too.’ Auntie Ada’s snarl was ugly, almost unhinged. Her mouth was twisted, and her narrowed eyes shimmered like liquid incisions seeping poison. ‘There won’t be any magic show tomorrow, everyone’s pulled out.’ She was tugging at clumps of her hair as though to impress on me the tragedy of what she was saying. And leaning forward on her elbows, ‘Everyone’s pulled out,’ she repeated. ‘It’ll probably be just you and me.’
‘Who’s “everyone”?’
‘Let’s see now,’ answered auntie Ada, with the same distorted glee. ‘The Weekly Magic News won’t be coming. Somehow they got wind of The Daily Fox story and the Editor called to express his regret, but at least he was polite. Two minutes later there was a call from Monsieur Legerdemain, who I must say was exceptionally French
in his rudeness. “Your brother, Madame… the man I had believed to be my friend… to think that only yesterday I was rehearsing with his coffin… that I almost cut a sodomite in half! Your brother was quite simply disgusting, Madame.” A view that he assured me was unanimously shared by his colleagues.’
‘I don’t suppose you tried to defend him.’
‘Defend him, dear? From what, exactly?’
‘From all the lies,’ I said.
‘And which part of the story do we think is untrue?’
Momentarily I felt at a loss. But in the next breath I understood the violence of auntie Ada’s abrupt transformation all too clearly. Under shock, I had pushed my suspicions to the back of my mind, but already they were percolating through, throbbing at my temples with a vehemence to match auntie Ada’s. There were only two possibilities: either Jack had betrayed my father’s secrets and his own in exchange for financial reward, which I found too hard to believe, or an overwhelming residue of bitterness had reduced auntie Ada to a smallness which I wanted to refuse to believe.
But the evidence was there, and all of it was stacked against auntie Ada: the notes had made her jealous; she had lied about the Giacometti, perhaps inventing balaclava man as a means of attracting attention. She had never stopped blaming my father: for what had happened to my mother; for permanently taking her for granted; for daring to become involved with Mia-Mia; for making her responsible for me, and then expecting her to share me with Jack; for revealing her secrets, and perhaps most of all for being dead – who knows how the madness of grief might have made her behave? I had seen her with my own eyes talking to the sergeant.
‘Karl’s coming too,’ I remembered, as though numbers made the slightest bit of difference.
‘Karl? Are you sure? But I thought…’
‘That was all just a big misunderstanding,’ I said, ‘so he’s coming here tomorrow at 11, and I’m sure Jack will be here as well.’
‘You haven’t called him yet,’ said auntie Ada. ‘And you should warn Karl what to expect if he’s coming.’
‘We’re not lepers, auntie Ada.’
The Madness of Grief Page 19