by John Boyne
She sighed loudly and I thought she was going to cry. ‘This is all my fault,’ she said, her French accent slipping back into place as she began mentally to dissociate herself from Cageley. ‘We should never have come here. We had plans. We should have seen them through.’
We. How long since I had heard her use that phrase? As much as I despised myself for it, I began to see a positive outcome to this: that things would go back the way they had been a couple of years before, back in Dover. We would leave together, live together, stay together, grow old together. I found myself pushing the thought of Jack to the back of my mind, like an inconvenience in my plans and, as much as I hated myself for it, I couldn’t help it. I bit my lip in frustration.
‘What is it?’ she asked, stopping and taking my hand in hers. I felt tears welling behind my eyes and bit down harder.
‘He’s ...’ I began, rubbing the heel of my hand to my eye quickly to wipe them away. ‘He’s my friend,’ I said simply, my voice catching slightly. ‘Jack ... he’s ... he’s my friend. Look what he did for me. And look what I did to him. I’m ... I’ve ...’ I collapsed in tears and fell to the ground, burying my head in my arms to prevent her from seeing me in this condition. The more I tried to stop, the stronger the convulsions grew until I was babbling a stream of nonsense and my mouth was contorted with misery.
‘Matthieu, Matthieu,’ she whispered, wrapping herself around me, holding me to her as I wept upon her shoulder. She shushed me and rocked me back and forth like a baby until eventually I could cry no more and pulled away from her, tugging my shirt from my trousers to dry my face with. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said but there was no conviction in her voice and I didn’t even need to utter the words ‘Of course it is’. I had destroyed Jack, my true friend, and he had saved me. And all I could think about was getting us all away from there and leaving him behind.
‘What kind of man am I?’ I asked her, hesitantly.
We walked back towards the house slowly. We knew not what awaited us there. There was a good chance that Dominique’s position would be safe for now but I feared what might happen when I arrived there. Sure enough, I saw Sir Alfred standing outside the front door with a constable. They stared at us as we came across the field, continuing to talk but not letting me out of their sight as I walked towards them. When we got to the point where we should turn off for both the stables and the kitchen, he shouted to me and I turned around; he beckoned me over. I sighed and looked at Dominique, taking both her hands in mine.
‘If we can leave here without any trouble,’ I said, ‘will you come with me?’
She looked at me, exasperated, and threw her eyes to the sky. ‘Where would we go?’ she asked.
‘London,’ I said. ‘Like we originally planned. You, me and Tomas. I have a little money saved. Do you?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘A little. Not much though.’
‘We can make things right,’ I said, unsure whether even I believed this. Sir Alfred called to me again and I turned to see him growing ever more agitated.
‘I don’t know ...’ she said, and again there was a shout. I released her and started to walk backwards towards Sir Alfred and the constable. ‘I’ll come here tonight,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to you then. I’ll meet you after midnight, all right?’
She gave an almost imperceptible nod before turning and walking away, her head bowed in sorrow.
Sir Alfred Pepys was broadly built and overweight, his face an overripe pumpkin sitting atop a body of pure obesity. He found it increasingly difficult to walk owing to arthritis and we rarely saw him around the grounds of Cageley House as he generally preferred to sit indoors, reading his books, drinking his wine and eating his livestock.
‘Come here, Matthieu,’ he said to me when I was only a few steps away from him. He grabbed me roughly by the arm and pushed me towards the constable, who looked me up and down several times with distaste. ‘Now, sir,’ he continued, looking at the younger man, ‘you’d better ask him your questions.’
‘What’s your name, lad?’ asked the constable, a middle-aged man with a heavy red beard and remarkable orange eyebrows. He took a pencil and pad from his pocket and licked the tip carefully before writing down my answers.
‘Matthieu Zéla,’ I said, spelling the name out for him immediately afterwards. He looked at me as if I was something he had recently spat up. He asked me what my position was at Cageley House and I told him that I was a stable lad.
‘So you work alongside this Jack Holby, do you?’ he asked me and I nodded. ‘What sort of lad do you take him for then?’
‘The very best sort,’ I said, standing erect before him, as if speaking Jack’s name meant that I should offer some sign of respect. ‘A good friend, a hard worker, a peaceful fellow. Ambitious too.’
‘Peaceful, eh?’ said Sir Alfred. ‘He weren’t so peaceful when he broke my son’s jaw and ribs, were he?’
‘That was provoked,’ I said, and for a moment I thought he was going to swing for me himself before the constable intervened. He asked for my side of what had taken place the previous afternoon and naturally I lied, claiming that Nat had swung the first punch and that Jack had been merely defending himself. ‘The fact that Nat wouldn’t have a chance of taking Jack is his own fault,’ I insisted. ‘He should have thought of it before he started it.’
The constable nodded and I waited for Sir Alfred to tell me to get off his estate immediately and never show my face there again, but he didn’t. Incredibly, he asked me whether I thought I could manage the horses on my own for the time being, even suggested that there’d be a little more money in it for me if I did, and I shrugged and said that it would be all right.
‘I’ll have to get someone else eventually of course,’ said Sir Alfred, scratching his beard thoughtfully. ‘To replace Holby, I mean. We won’t see him back here again.’ Although I already knew this, my heart sank a little at its confirmation. I decided to try to help Jack a little, even at this late stage.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll probably never see him again. He’s probably halfway to Scotland by now.’
‘Scotland?’ asked the constable, laughing. ‘Why would he be in Scotland?’
‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘I just imagine he’ll go as far away from here as possible. Start again. You’ll never catch him, you know.’ They looked at each other and smirked. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’
‘Your friend Jack Holby is nowhere near Scotland,’ said the constable, leaning towards me so that I could smell the foul stench of his breath. ‘We captured him late last night. He’s in a cell in the village awaiting trial for grievous bodily harm. He’ll be spending the next few years of his life in prison, my friend.’
Dominique and I met as arranged late that night. ‘Everyone’s talking about Jack,’ she told me. ‘Sir Alfred says he’s going to be spending at least five years in jail for what he did.’
‘Five years?’ I asked, appalled. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘They say it could be six months before Nat can speak again. And they’ll have to wait until his jaw heals to start fitting him for false teeth. The doctors are afraid the lower half of his face will collapse in upon itself in the meantime.’
I felt a rush of sickness inside me. Even Nat Pepys hadn’t deserved such a fate. It looked as if everyone had lost out – Jack had lost his liberty, Nat had lost his health, I had lost a friend. I was still blaming myself, and hated to think what Jack himself must think of me as he sat stewing in his prison cell.
‘So have you thought about it?’ I asked her eventually. ‘About leaving?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes, I’ll leave with you. But we can’t leave Jack like this, can we?’
‘I’m working on it,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ll think of something.’
‘What about Tomas?’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, is he coming with us too?’
I stared at her in surprise. ‘Of course
he is,’ I said. ‘You don’t think I’d leave him here, do you?’
‘Not by choice,’ she replied. ‘But have you spoken to him about it? Have you asked him what he wants to do?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, maybe you should,’ she continued. ‘He seems happy here. He’s going to school. The Ambertons practically think of him as their own. And, anyway, things will be difficult enough for us in London without having to worry about a -’
‘I can’t leave him here!’ I said, amazed that she would even suggest it. ‘He’s my responsibility.’
‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully.
‘I’m the only family he’s got and he needs me. I can’t just desert him.’
‘Even if this is the best place for him? Think about it, Matthieu. Where are we going to go when we leave here?’
‘London. All the way this time.’
‘All right then. Well, London doesn’t come cheap. We have a little money, sure. But how long will it last us? What if we don’t find work? What if we end up in the same position we were back in Dover? Do you really want Tomas roaming the streets of London getting into who knows what kind of trouble?’
I thought about it. What she said made sense, I knew it did, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine not having him there. He’s always been there. Like I said, I’m the only family he’s got.’
‘Don’t you mean he’s the only family you’ve got?’ she asked quietly and I looked across at her in the dark. No, I thought. There’s you too.
‘I’ll speak to him as soon as I can,’ I said. ‘We’ll make our plans then. I’ve got something to do tomorrow though.’ Dominique looked at me quizzically and I shrugged. ‘I’m going to the jail to visit Jack,’ I said. ‘I’m going to work out a way to solve this problem or I won’t leave. I can’t be responsible for destroying the next five years of his life.’
She sighed and shook her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder about you,’ she said after a long silence. ‘You can’t see that the answers to all our problems are staring you right in the face, can you?’
I shrugged. ‘What?’ I asked.
‘All these things we’re discussing. Getting out of Cageley. Getting to London. Starting afresh. You and I. And Tomas. The solution is there, only you don’t want to open your eyes and see it.’ I stared at her, waiting for this magical answer, unsure what she could mean, although somewhere at the back of my mind I suspected that I already did. ‘Jack,’ she said eventually, a fingertip trailing down my skin from my throat to the point halfway down my chest where my shirt was buttoned. The touch of her hand upon my cool skin distracted me, and I glanced downwards, surprised by what she was doing, so long had it been since I had received any kind of human contact from anyone, let alone her. ‘He was leaving, wasn’t he?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, the word catching in my throat. She leaned closer towards me and her whispered words filled my ear.
‘And how was he going to survive up there, Matthieu?’ I said nothing and eventually she removed her hand and took a step backwards. I stood quietly, rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle until she was gone. As she disappeared back into the darkness of the night, her final words rang in my ears and I couldn’t help but be seduced by them. ‘Five years is a long time to be in jail,’ she said.
Chapter 23
Off Pinks
My first foray into the world of television entertainment came not in the 1990s with the opening of our satellite broadcasting station, but in the late 1940s when I was living in Hollywood, not far from the house where I had first met Constance earlier in the century. I had moved to Hawaii after the stock market crash of 1929 and lived there quite comfortably until just after the war, when I grew weary of the life of a sloth and felt in need of a fresh challenge. To whit, I returned to California with my young wife Stina, whom I had met on the islands, and set up home in a pleasant, south-facing bungalow near the hills.
It wasn’t just for my sake that I decided to leave Hawaii; Stina’s three brothers had been killed in the closing months of the war and their loss had devastated her. We lived in the same village where they had grown up and she began to hallucinate, imagining them at every street corner or public bar, convinced that their ghosts had returned to say aloha. I consulted a doctor who suggested that a change of scenery might be appropriate, and I decided to take her to the very antithesis of the quiet, tranquil world which she had always known and introduce her to a town whose glamour and pretension were second to none.
We had met in 1940 at a public meeting to denounce F.D.R.’s apparent plans to bring the United States into the war. I was present as an interested observer; having been through several wars myself, not to mention having seen a couple of my nephews lose their lives in the fighting, I knew the devastation that they could inflict on people. At the time I was opposed to the United States becoming involved with what I perceived to be a little local difficulty on the European front; naturally, with the benefit of hindsight one can see that the only correct action was to take part, but my opinions at the time were echoed by the willowy girl on the platform who was speaking as I entered the hall. She appeared to me to be no more than fifteen years of age. Her skin was of a smooth caramelised brown and her long dark hair hung down thickly on either side of her head. My first thought was that she would be an extraordinarily beautiful woman if her looks did not change too much when the ravages of adolescence had their way. Then, of course, I wondered how a child could hold the audience in such thrall and I realised that I had underestimated her. In truth, she was almost twenty years old, a good deal younger than I – even if my age had mirrored my appearance – but I was mesmerised by her, despite my tendency to be attracted to ladies who have passed out of their immediate youth and into the flush of early middle age.
Stina was heartily opposed to everything to do with the war. She called Churchill a despot and Roosevelt an incompetent. She claimed that, even as she spoke, a war cabinet was being assembled in the White House to drag the country into a needless struggle with a third-rate power – Germany – who were simply seeking retribution for the ills of the Versailles treaty twenty years before. She spoke passionately but her words focused more on her conviction to her anti-war principles than a clear understanding of why this particular war was in any way different from others. Still, she impressed me and I made sure to speak to her afterwards and congratulate her on the effectiveness of her public speaking.
‘Your accent?’ she asked me. ‘I don’t recognise it. Where are you from?’
‘I was born in France,’ I explained. ‘But I’ve been travelling around most of my life. I dare say it has become a hotch-potch of dialects by now.’
‘You consider yourself French though?’
I thought about it; it was not something I had ever really considered at all, as if after all these years my nationality had become incidental to the very fact of my existence. ‘I expect so,’ I said. ‘I mean, I was born there and spent most of my childhood and youth there. But I’ve only been back a few times since.’
‘You don’t like France, then?’ she asked, looking surprised. I have noticed throughout my life the romantic view that many people have of the French and their homeland; the decision to live away from it is one which confuses some. Usually those who have never actually lived there themselves.
‘Let’s just say that every time I go back there I seem to land myself in trouble,’ I said, anxious to change the subject. ‘And you? You have always lived in Hawaii?’
She nodded. ‘Always,’ she said. ‘My parents are dead but my brothers and I ... we cannot imagine leaving here. It is home.’
I sighed. ‘I’ve never really found one of those,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that I’d recognise one even if I did.’
‘You’re still young,’ she said, laughing, which was an ironic statement on several levels. ‘There’s still time.’
Stina’s brothers were gentlemen and, as I got to know her, I became fond of
their company as well and spent many happy evenings in their home playing cards, listening to Macal, her eldest brother, play the guitar at which he was quite expert, or simply sitting on the porch drinking fruit juices or local wines into the night. Although they were initially put off by the age gap between us, or at least their perception of the age gap between us, we became friends quite quickly as they were intelligent young men and could see that I had no malicious intent or unpleasant designs upon their sister. On the contrary, our romance blossomed naturally and when we eventually decided to marry they were happy for us and fought for the privilege of giving her away.
Our wedding night was our first night together for Stina would never have consented to anything else, and out of respect for her and her brothers I never broached the question after the first refusal. We chose to honeymoon on the islands, for we were happy there, taking a kayak with us to tour the cluster of paradises which were scattered around the ocean. It was a glorious time, the closest thing I have ever known to an unspoilt Eden on this earth.
Then the war did come to America, and more particularly to Hawaii with the attack on Pearl Harbor and, despite the familial opposition to the war, each of Stina’s three brothers enlisted themselves as privates within the United States Army. Stina was devastated, but more than that she was furious with them, believing that they were betraying every principle which they had ever held close. On the contrary, they explained individually, they still believed that the war was wrong and that Americans should not have to become involved, but since they were involved and since Japan had already struck inside their borders, and so close to their own home at that, the only right thing to do was to join the army. Oppose the principle, but answer the call to arms anyway. Nothing could make them change their minds; Stina begged me to make them stay but I barely tried, knowing that they were men of principle and that once they had made up their minds to do something – particularly something which caused them so much inner conflict – there would be no turning them around. And so they went, and so they were killed one by one before the war itself came to a close. Stina did not lose her mind entirely. The hallucinations, while troubling and upsetting to her, were not symbols of a crumbling intellect or diseased brain. Rather, they were images of her grief and she knew that even as she saw them standing there before her, they were not real and were simply painful reminders of a happier time with which she had to find a way to come to terms. And so it was decided. We would take a break from Hawaii and settle in California, where I would return to work and she would maintain a house; there was some talk of children but this came to nothing; we would live the opposite life to the only one she had ever known and the one with which I had become happy over the previous twenty years, and we would see whether this did not return us to the previous state of happiness in which we had once revelled.