‘He’s in a bit of a state at the moment. That’s his description not mine. If you’ve got a sense of humour, he says you’re very welcome. Otherwise he won’t be offended if you bugger off.’
This raises a grin from Malo. I’m still looking at the sister.
‘So how is he?’
‘Lucky. Lucky to be in one piece. Lucky to be alive. You’ve seen the footage? Everyone else has. An incident like that we’d normally be counting the bodies. Remarkable.’ She holds my gaze. ‘He says you’re famous. A film actress? Is that true?’
‘No, not famous. Just …’ I smile. ‘Lucky.’
We head for Saucy’s private room. Malo, once again, is in the lead. He knocks lightly at the door and then stands aside to let me in. The room is smaller than I’ve been expecting. Saucy is lying prone, his head in a neck brace, one plastered arm secured to an overhead pulley. A vase brims with flowers on his bedside table and there are more blooms in a bucket on the floor. The TV at the foot of the bed is showing some panel game though I’m not certain that he’s in any position to watch. A plastic tube trails to a bag beneath the bed. The bag is yellow with urine.
Malo has spotted a line of teddy bears on the windowsill. Some of them have Union Jack waistcoats. The one beside Saucy’s pillow is wearing camouflage.
Saucy is aware of our presence but can’t move his head. There are cuts and abrasions on his face, and swelling has nearly closed one eye. The other inspects me as I step into his view.
‘Antibes,’ he says at once.
‘That’s right.’
‘Great night. One of the best. You?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘That wasn’t my question. Enjoy it? Remember it?’ He frowns. ‘Who’s that?’
He’s caught sight of Malo. I do the introductions.
‘Come here, son. Closer. The name again?’
‘Malo.’
‘Malo?’ Saucy’s eye is back on me. ‘Yours, you say?’
‘Mine,’ I confirm.
‘That makes you lucky, son. Luck is everything. And I’m the living proof.’
Malo gazes down at him. ‘That’s what the nurse said. We saw the clip on YouTube. Why so fast down that hill? You mind me asking?’
I’ve never seen Malo like this, so respectful, so coherent, so polite. Saucy is still staring up at him. His good eye seems to be watering. He starts to blink. Then he tries to move, wincing with the pain.
‘Kleenex, son. Fuck knows where. Left eye. Quick as you like.’
Malo finds the box of tissues and extracts a couple. He has the touch of a born carer, deft, firm, unembarrassed. I can’t be more proud of him. And more surprised.
‘Well done, son. How old are you?’
‘Seventeen.’
‘Good age. Brilliant age.’ He winces, trying to make himself more comfortable. ‘Live with your mum, do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dad?’
‘No.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miss him?’
Malo doesn’t answer. Saucy’s good hand crabs sideways across the whiteness of the sheet, looking for Malo.
‘Proud of your mum, are you? All the stuff she’s done? All them movies?’
Malo nods, says nothing, but he’s beaming with a naturalness I haven’t seen for years. I remember exactly the way Saucy made me feel at home on the boat in Antibes and he’s doing it again, in front of my eyes, as if he and Malo have been best mates all their lives. I came expecting, at the very least, awkward silences between us all. Instead I’ve become part of a love-in.
Malo still wants to know about the accident. How come the death dive into that final corner? Forty miles an hour. Had to be.
‘Dunno, son. You want the truth? I don’t remember any of it. First I knew was getting me into the chopper. Mustard, those blokes were. Thought I’d broken my neck.’ This little speech comes out in brief instalments with pauses for breath in between. Berndt broke a rib once, and spoke exactly the same way, passing a message between jolts of pain.
‘You don’t remember a bloke with a camera?’ Malo asks. ‘When you were flat out on the grass?’
‘No.’
‘But you were grinning. You were telling him you were OK.’
‘OK?’ Saucy tries to suppress a cackle of laughter. ‘You call this OK?’
‘No, but you did. It’s there. On YouTube. I saw it.’
Saucy nods and closes his eyes. Time, I sense, is strictly limited. I move Malo gently out of the way and take his place beside the bed. When Saucy opens his eye again he’s looking at me.
‘Enora, yeah?’ His hand finds mine. It’s warm.
‘Enora,’ I confirm.
‘Pretty name. Pretty lady.’ He gives my hand a squeeze. ‘Nothing changes, eh? Me, the mad one. You, class act. In life, you get what you deserve. God bless you both.’
He closes his eyes again. He’s obviously exhausted but when I try and free my hand and mutter something about letting him get some sleep he won’t let me go.
‘Why did you come?’
‘We came to see how you were.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think you need to rest. It may take a while but I’m sure everything will be OK in the end.’
‘That’s what they all say. So why did you really come?’
‘It’s complicated. And cheeky.’
‘I like cheeky.’
I explain about the mine charity, about the killing fields in Angola, about the film Berndt made, and finally about all Saucy’s work for Front Line. This suggests he’s into good causes.
‘You want money?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
‘A hundred thousand.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘I know.’
He nods. He wants to see Malo again. I step aside. Malo takes his hand uninvited, asks him whether he needs more tissues. Saucy says no and then mumbles something neither of us catch. Malo squats beside the bed, gets as close as he can, his ear inches from Saucy’s mouth. Another mumble. Malo is staring at him. Then he gets up. He wants a pen and something to write on. I find an envelope in my bag, and a biro. Malo scribbles something and tucks it beneath Saucy’s pillow.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Saucy whispers.
I return to his bedside. Saucy wants me to kiss him goodbye and then fuck off. His lips are dry. He hangs on to me for a moment with his good hand. He tells me to come back any time and bring the boy. Then he waves us both away.
Only in the lift returning to the ground floor do I ask what Malo had written on the envelope.
‘My birthday,’ he says. ‘He wanted to know when I was born.’
TEN
Malo and I take the train back to London. Our fifteen minutes at Saucy’s bedside have shaken me. Not because of his physical state, which was worse than I’d anticipated, nor because he remembered so much of our previous encounter, but because of his reaction to Malo. Watching them both in that airless private room, I began to wonder for the first time about my son’s real paternity. The black curly hair. The broad set of shoulders. The waywardness. The refusal to listen to anyone else. And now the unspoken kinship between them. They seemed to bond in an instant in ways that only shared genes can explain. Father and son? Christ.
Malo can’t possibly be having the same thoughts because he knows nothing about what happened at Antibes but nonetheless he can’t stop talking about this new man in his life. How brave he is. How gutsy. How easy to talk to. How real. All of this is true and it puzzles my son because I realize how much he mistrusts wealth.
As a family, we always took money for granted. Both Berndt and I were earning loads. Yet the more comfortable our lives became the faster everything began to fall apart. I’ve often thought about this in the small hours – how our separate careers spun us into deepest space, leaving Malo alone in the family home. Success, I told myself, did that because success gave us money, lots
of money, and money – in turn – bought us a life of infinite choices that turned out – for my poor son – to be no life at all. His mum packing her bags for yet another five weeks on some far-flung location. His father beyond reach, caged by post-production problems, by funding issues, by scripts in development. No wonder the poor soul turned to drugs.
Drugs. We’ve left Winchester and the train is suddenly roaring through a tunnel. In the half-darkness, I’m watching my son. If I’m right about Saucy, if he really is Malo’s dad, then I’m looking at a situation rich in irony. Hayden Prentice, tearaway and apprentice drug baron, the Pompey hooligan who would learn the dark crafts of accountancy and turn bucketloads of cocaine into a legitimate fortune. Malo Andressen, conceived one drunken night in Antibes, marooned in late adolescence with no one to count on but his neighbourhood drug dealer. If Berndt were here, I think, he’d be reaching for his note pad already. Brilliant idea. Thick with possibilities.
We’re out of the tunnel. Fitful sunshine. Fields of sheep. And a blur of faces as we race through one of the smaller stations. I’m trying very hard to remember exactly what happened that night in Antibes. Saucy and I definitely had sex because I could smell it the next morning. And it’s true, too, that I’d abandoned birth control after some bad experiences with both the pill and a sequence of coils. Busy and distracted as ever, I’d doubtless planned to sort myself out once life gave me the chance. Then Berndt happened and I was only too glad to leave the consulting room with the test results and take the glad tidings home. Poor Malo, I think. Poor bloody child. Not Berndt’s fault at all. But mine.
The next couple of days, I’m not well. It starts with a headache, a distant growl of thunder to begin with but quickly building into something that feels like a full-blown migraine. Nauseous and irritable, I give up eating and take to my bed. I throw up a number of times, a process that becomes ever more painful as my stomach empties, and I do my best to sleep. Dark thoughts lurk beyond the edges of the throbbing pain. Might this signal the return of the tumour?
Malo, bless him, does his best to comfort me. He brings tea and a slice or two of dry toast. Both help a little, as does a conversation on the subject of his smoking habits. I feel too horrible to bother dancing round the point and simply propose a deal. I’ll tolerate him having the odd spliff but it has to be within our four walls, and it has to be ordinary cannabis. Thanks to the internet, I’m now one of Holland Park’s experts on the evils of Spice. I know it’s powerful, quickly addictive, relatively cheap, and easy to get hold of. Four reasons, I tell him, to never use it again.
‘What do you want?’ He’s looking at my upturned palm on the duvet.
‘I want you to give me whatever you’ve got.’
‘You mean the Spice?’
‘Yes, and I want you to promise me you won’t use it again.’
He nods. He understands. He says it’s going to be difficult.
‘Of course it’s going to be difficult. That’s why they invented this stuff in the first place. The choice is simple. You can put yourself at their mercy or not. If it’s the former, you can go back to Sweden and waste your life there. If it’s the latter, we can work something out.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like staying here. Like getting some kind of life together. It’s called looking out for each other. You could phone your dad for advice but I’m not sure he’d know what you were talking about.’
The dig at Berndt raises a smile. Malo ducks his head and picks at a loose thread in the stitching around the duvet.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says at last.
‘Good sign. Tell me more.’
‘Did you fuck him?’
‘Your dad? Of course I fucked him.’
‘I meant Saucy.’
‘Saucy?’
‘Saucy. I was watching you both in the hospital. He acted like he was used to fucking you.’
‘What does that look like?’
‘Like he owned you. Like you were his.’
‘Then the answer’s no.’
‘Never?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘When then?’ He’s abandoned the duvet. His eyes meet mine.
‘A while back.’
‘Like when?’
I’m reluctant to go much further but then it occurs to me that I might never get this opportunity again. My bursting head may take me back to hospital, back to the operating theatre, and to whatever may – or may not – lie beyond it. So far, Malo hasn’t said a word about kicking his drug habit. One false move, one tiny miscalculation, and I might never see him again. For a brief moment I’m back beside the video phone in the hall, watching my ghost of a son batter himself senseless with another lungful of Spice.
‘You know it’s a prison drug, don’t you?’
‘You’re changing the subject.’
‘I don’t care. That’s where it comes from. It feeds off a captive market. It feeds off boredom and despair. You really think you’re not better than that?’
Malo shakes his head, refuses to answer. When I finally manage to coax a reply he says that boredom and despair pretty much covers it. He’s been banged up for years. With us.
My head hits the pillow. My hand claws wildly over the edge of the bed.
‘You want the bucket again?’
‘Please.’
Malo has it there in seconds. It smells lemony from the disinfectant he used last time he cleaned it. He helps me pull myself upright in the bed and then lean sideways as I retch a thin stream of yellow bile. It tastes foul. I’m gasping for breath. I’ve rarely felt worse.
‘You want me to phone someone?’ He sounds on the edge of panic. ‘You need help?’
‘You,’ I mutter. ‘I need you.’
He cradles my head, asks me whether I want to be sick again. When I say no he goes to the bathroom for a flannel and a towel. If my son does nothing else with his life he’s going to make a fine carer. A second trip to the bathroom produces a toothbrush and some mouthwash.
‘Use the bucket to spit in,’ he says.
I do his bidding. Slowly the bitter taste of bile goes away. My face washed, my mouth rinsed, I feel a whole lot better. I pat his thin arm, a gesture of appreciation.
‘I fucked him once, if you really want to know.’
‘Saucy?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘The night before I met your father.’
‘And him? You fucked him too?’
‘I did. Lots and lots of times. We got married soon after.’
‘And Saucy?’
‘I never saw him again. Until just now.’
‘He never tried to get in touch?’
‘Never.’
‘And you?’
‘I was in love.’
Malo shifts his weight on the bed. I sense he finds the phrase uncomfortable, or maybe it’s the very idea. So far it hasn’t served him well.
‘Does Dad know about Saucy?’
‘Christ, no.’
‘So what does he mean to you? Saucy?’
It’s a very good question. Only days ago, before we made the trip down to Dorchester, I’d have said nothing, zilch, nada. A night on the piss. An exchange of body fluids. Barely even a memory. Now, though, I’m not so sure. Seeing Saucy and my son together was a revelation. They were a perfect fit.
Malo spares me pursuing this line of thought any further. His face is very close. He thinks that Hayden Prentice could be his real dad. Might that be possible?
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It might. And what’s more, I think Saucy knows it. That’s why he asked you about your birthday. He’s good with figures, Saucy. The night we had sex we were both on a boat in Antibes. He might remember the date. All he has to do then is add nine months.’
‘Seventeenth of February?’
‘Exactly. I was in Cannes the third week in the previous May. The dates work perfectly.’
‘So it could be true? Is that what you’re saying?’
/>
‘Yes.’
Malo doesn’t say a word. He’s looking thoughtful. Then he grins and gets off the bed.
‘Where are you going?’
He doesn’t reply. I hear his footsteps outside in the hall before he disappears into his bedroom. When he returns he presents me with a smallish cube wrapped in silver foil and a sealed plastic sachet containing fine shreds the colour of dry sand. This is a fairy tale, I tell myself. I want to believe it but I dread disappointment.
‘Spice?’ I’m looking at the sachet. Malo nods. ‘And this stuff?’
‘Resin. That’s the lot. That’s all I’ve got. And now it’s yours.’
I gaze at him, shaking my head in wonderment. Then I open the sachet and empty the contents into the bucket. The crumbled resin comes next, the residue sticky on my fingertips. I spit in the bucket for good measure and ask Malo to do the same. He complies without protest, and then watches me give the bucket a final shake. Then I nod at the door.
‘Lots of water and down the loo,’ I tell him. ‘No cheating.’
I listen to him doing what he’s been told. The flush of the lavatory never sounded sweeter. Then he’s back in the bedroom, looking down at me.
‘What now?’ he says.
Good question.
Mitch phones later, around six. Much better now, I thank him for leaving us alone.
‘Us?’
‘Me and my son. His name’s Malo. I may have mentioned him.’
‘You’re OK?’
‘I’m good.’
‘And Prentice? You’re going to pay him a visit?’
‘We saw him a couple of days ago. Things have been a bit tricky since.’
‘So how was he?’
I tell Mitch what we found down in Dorchester. I keep it brief. Saucy, in the view of people who know about such things, is lucky to be alive.
‘He recognized you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Made you welcome?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. He’s in a bad place. He’s a mess.’
I don’t tell him about my pitch for money for the mine charity. Nor do I describe his fascination with Malo. For once I’m bossing this conversation, no longer at the mercy of events, and the feeling is indescribably wonderful. Then, all too typically, I make a major mistake.
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