by Guy Burt
It takes us less than an hour to find the wreck.
The hermit’s car is lodged at an angle in a patch of scrub, some way off a deserted farm track. It looks as though it has come off the road a little way back, and rolled to where it now is; the bushes behind it are torn and broken. It is a good eight feet below the level of the road surface; the earth has been eroded a small way so that a lip of concrete stands proud at the very edge of the road. Jamie, further along, finds a place where this lip has been scratched and broken away.
‘It must have come off here,’ he shouts back to us.
Anna and I stand looking at the car. It is tipped over to one side, but not too much; the bushes seem to have cushioned it. The driver’s side door is open. The near wing of the car is buckled and scratched, but even so, it isn’t as wrecked as I have expected. Jamie returns and joins us.
‘So he did crash,’ he says.
‘Mm,’ Anna says. ‘Let’s get closer.’
We have almost missed seeing the car. From the road the bushes, and the drop and the way the land lies hide it quite effectively; it is only because we are looking that we spot it. Now, we scramble down the sharp incline, scraping up little avalanches of pebbles and dust, and work our way through the rocky debris in the bottom of the gully until we’re round by the side of the car.
‘It looks quite old,’ Jamie says. The car is grey – something else that has helped make it difficult to spot against the stone of the valley floor – and relatively small. Anna pushes her way through the bushes, ignoring the scratches she gets on her arms, until she can look inside.
‘What do you see?’ Jamie says, starting after her.
‘There’s all blood on the seat,’ she says. ‘Lots of it. And a kind of bandage. No, it’s a hanky. It’s got blood on it, too.’
Jamie and I join her, and peer at the interior. ‘Yuk,’ I say.
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s why he’s so ill,’ Anna says. ‘You’re not supposed to lose a lot of blood. It makes you weak.’
‘I wonder where he cut himself,’ I say, looking. Anna goes still, and then turns sharply to me.
‘What?’
I say, ‘I wonder where he cut himself. Cos he said he cut his leg in the crash.’
‘Yeah,’ Anna says. ‘That’s right.’ Her voice is funny again, as if she’s talking to herself. She stares around the inside of the car. ‘Jamie? Can you see anywhere?’
Jamie looks. ‘No. Maybe he cut it on the door, getting out.’
‘But the blood’s all on the seat. It’s not on the door.’
I say, ‘This is like detective work.’
‘Forensic detective work,’ Jamie nods. ‘Like on TV.’
Anna ignores us. ‘Where did he cut himself? He said he cut himself.’
We all look into the car, puzzled.
‘I thought it would be wrecked,’ I say. ‘All mangled.’
Anna nods. ‘But it’s not, is it? Not really. I mean, if it’d come off the big road, then it would’ve been. It would’ve been squashed up and probably on fire. But here it’s like it just – came off the road and rolled down into the bushes here. It’s not even run into anything, much. It’s not a real crash, not really.’
She sounds to me as if she’s thinking aloud, as if she’s searching for something that makes sense of it all. I say, ‘He said the world turned upside down.’
Anna nods. ‘Yeah. I remember. And the windows aren’t even broken.’
Her frown deepens. Jamie looks around him, and shrugs.
‘Well? What now?’
Anna starts to wade through the scrub to the front of the car. ‘I’m going to look in the other side,’ she says. Jamie and I watch her through the open door as she gets round to the passenger side. She tugs on the door there and it comes open a little way, and then snags on a bush. Anna gets her foot onto the bush and stamps it down until she can heave the door open properly. She leans into the car, glances at us, and grins.
‘Be careful,’ Jamie says. ‘It’s moving a bit.’
He’s right; the body of the car rocks soggily against the bushes that are under it as Anna supports herself on the door sill.
‘I want to look in here,’ she says, reaching for the glove compartment. She twists the catch and the compartment falls open. There’s a pause.
‘What is it?’ I say.
‘Nothing,’ she says, sounding disappointed. ‘Wait a minute.’ She heaves herself bodily into the car, and the whole vehicle lurches over as she does so.
‘Careful!’ Jamie shouts.
‘I’m all right,’ Anna says crossly. ‘Shut up.’
I can see her leaning over the seat back, checking the floor at the rear of the car.
‘Anything?’
‘No.’
When she gets out, the car settles itself drunkenly. Jamie and I look at Anna through the two open doors.
‘I thought there’d be something,’ she says vaguely.
Jamie looks uncomfortable. ‘We ought to go back,’ he says.
‘Yeah. But I thought there’d be something,’ she says again.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
Jamie glances at his feet. Then he looks up again, and says, ‘There’s the boot. We could try that.’
Anna blinks. ‘Oh – of course.’
We fight our way through the tangled bushes to the back of the car. The rear wheels are off the ground. I duck down and look underneath; there is a biggish rock hidden under there, and I realize that it must be this which is taking the car’s weight. The bushes are just supporting it at the sides, stopping it from tipping too far one way or the other.
Jamie runs his hands along the boot looking for the catch.
‘I can’t find it,’ he says.
‘Maybe it’s one of the ones that open from inside the car,’ Anna says. ‘We have one like that. Alex? Go and look.’
‘What for?’
She pushes past me. ‘Never mind. I’ll do it.’
I see her reach into the car once again, and after a moment or two, the lid of the boot jumps up.
‘Got it!’ Jamie calls.
We have to pull ourselves up a little to see inside, and the car tilts and rocks alarmingly. Anna says, ‘I see something. It’s a case.’
‘Get it out,’ I say.
‘We shouldn’t,’ Jamie says, sounding worried. ‘It’s stealing.’
‘Balls,’ Anna says through clenched teeth, her head in the boot and her feet dangling some inches off the ground. ‘I’ve got it.’
She drags the case out and swings it down to the ground.
‘It’s heavy,’ she says.
‘It’s not a suitcase,’ Jamie says.
He’s right. The case is black, and has two silver clasps. It’s not very big; about half as large as one of the cases my parents have under the bed in their room. There is a handle. It reminds me at once of something, and in a second I have it.
‘It’s an instrument case,’ I say. ‘Like yours – only bigger.’
Jamie looks at it, and then nods. ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s the same kind of thing.’
Anna is struggling with the clasps. ‘I can’t get it open,’ she says. ‘You try.’
Jamie kneels down. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘It’s locked.’
‘What kind of instrument do you think it is?’ I say.
‘I don’t know. Maybe something like a trumpet or a trombone.’
‘It looks too big for a trumpet,’ I say.
‘It’s really heavy,’ Anna says again. The three of us look at each other.
‘He must have the key,’ Jamie says. Anna is casting about her as if looking for something among the bushes.
‘We can ask him,’ I say. ‘Maybe he’ll play something for us when he’s better.’
Anna turns back to the case with a sharp, fist-sized rock in her hand. Before Jamie can stop her, she swings it down onto one of the clasps. There’s a clink and a little puff of dust. The clas
p buckles.
‘Christ!’ Jamie says. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Anna, it’s not ours,’ I say, suddenly nervous.
‘Shut up.’ She hits it again and again. Jamie and I look on helplessly. Then the clasp springs apart, little pieces of it scattering in the sunlight.
‘There,’ she says, and turns to the other one. Clink. Clink.
Jamie says, ‘Stop it, Anna.’
‘No.’
‘We’ll get in trouble.’
‘Shut up.’
The second clasp comes apart and Anna stops. She turns the case so it’s resting properly on its side, and opens it up. We all crowd around it, and our shadows merge together as we lean in.
It takes me a moment to understand what is in the case. Jamie’s breathing catches for a second, and I know he knows too.
Anna says, ‘Fucking hell.’ There is awe in her voice, and excitement, and something else which I can’t identify. She doesn’t sound scared. She sounds – alive. ‘Fucking – hell,’ she says again, quietly, shaking her head slightly.
She glances at Jamie and me, and her eyes are bright and glittering and alive. To my amazement, a grin spreads over her face. ‘What should we do now?’ she says.
Chapter Nine
We have ice-cream and cokes in a side-street Gelaterìa. There are little cast-iron tables set out in the street behind a ragged cordon of shrubs growing in old lead troughs. Anna gets ice-cream on her fingers and licks them. She looks almost guilty, and I laugh.
‘It doesn’t taste the same,’ she says.
‘The same as what?’
‘The same as it used to. At Toni’s.’ She pauses, tries the ice-cream with a spoon this time. ‘No. It’s better, I think, but it doesn’t taste the same.’
‘Well, that’s true. Does it bother you?’
‘No. It’s only ice-cream.’
I watch her as she eats, and occasionally, to hide the fact that I’m watching, I take a spoonful of my own ice-cream and eat it. I hardly notice the taste and whether it has changed. I am too caught up with seeing her: the way she lifts the spoon, the way she pokes her teeth with her tongue when they get too cold, the way she focuses so entirely on this one simple thing. When the bowl is empty, she puts the spoon down and takes a sip of Coke, and notices me looking at her.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘You were looking at me.’
‘So?’
‘Well – stop it!’
‘Shan’t,’ I say. Her eyes glitter and she grins.
‘You haven’t finished your ice-cream.’
‘You can have some if you like,’ I say.
‘OK.’ She steals spoonfuls, her eyes darting up every so often to see if she can catch me looking at her again. After a time, she says, ‘It’s been a long time since I had ice-cream.’
‘I know. Me too.’
‘I mean – ice-cream like this.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t know what I mean. I mean – it’s been ages, and I – Christ. I don’t know what I mean.’
‘I missed you,’ I say.
‘Yeah? Really?’ She glances across the street at some people walking by in the shadow of the building opposite.
‘It’s strange, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like no time’s passed at all – like you just went away for the weekend or something, and now you’re back. And other times, it’s like it’s been years.’
‘It has been years,’ she says.
‘Yeah, I know it has.’
She fiddles with her spoon. ‘Alex …’
I wait for her to go on, but she’s silent. ‘What?’ I say.
‘It’s just that – the way you talk? It makes it sound like we’re just the same people as we were. Like everything’s the same as it was.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I mean – I know things aren’t the same. But at least we’re here, and we’re the same.’
‘No.’ She shakes her head emphatically. ‘That’s it. I’m not the same person. That was five years ago. I’ve changed a lot since then. Christ – it’s not even five years, not really. When was the last time we really talked? Ten, twelve years ago? We were children then. I’m someone different now.’
I’m not sure what to say; there is a kind of edge to her voice that surprises me, as if she’s trying to tell me something and I’m not understanding. I say, ‘Everyone grows up, Anna. Me too.’
A quick grimace flickers across her face, as if I’ve said the wrong thing. Then she smiles slightly, and says, ‘Yeah. I suppose.’ She drinks the last of her Coke, and adds, ‘Look at us. Alex the famous artist. Who’d have thought that?’
I laugh a little. ‘Not famous yet.’
‘Yeah, but you will be,’ she says dismissively.
I am uncomfortable with this. I say, ‘What about you? What’s it going to be? Politician? Political historian? Some kind of academic?’ Even as I say it, I know it’s impossible – not the Anna I know, anyway.
‘Maybe.’
‘Haven’t you decided yet?’
She glances across the street again; I turn instinctively to see what she’s looking at, but there’s no-one there. She says, ‘Oh, there’s plenty of time to decide. The thesis is going to take another year at least.’
‘You’ll have to tell me about it some time.’
‘Oh, sure. But it’s pretty dry stuff.’
‘I’d listen.’
‘I know you would. Thanks.’
‘I’d be interested, too.’
‘Do you really think so?’ she says.
‘Why not?’
A slight smile twitches the corner of her mouth, and I can’t tell whether she’s teasing or not when she says, ‘Well, you seem so buried in the past. All this stuff you like has already happened, hasn’t it? What I’m trying to deal with is what’s happening now.’
I finish my Coke. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m only interested in the past?’
She’s quiet for a moment. ‘Sometimes.’
I sit, looking at her, trying to work out whether she’s teasing me or whether she means it. At last, when the silence is starting to be uncomfortable, I search for something to say, and it just comes out.
‘Why didn’t you come to his funeral?’
A flash of some emotion crosses her face, and is stifled. She looks away from me again, across the street; and when she turns back, her face is composed and serious. All the playfulness – the delight in the ice-cream, the shyness at being looked at – is gone, and she stares at me like an adult talking to a child.
‘You know why. I couldn’t. I wanted to, Alex, but I couldn’t. I had – something else. I told you all this.’
‘It was important,’ I hear myself say. I can’t understand why I’m saying these things.
‘I know it was. Death is always important.’ She shakes her head, as if she’s said something stupid. ‘I mean, I understand. I wish I could have been there. But there was just no way.’
‘What was it? Some family thing or something?’
‘Yes,’ she says, shortly. Then, ‘Look, Alex. It wasn’t as if I’d even seen him for two years. Just that time here, when you two were on that trip thing. And that was only a week.’ Her voice is meditative now, as if she’s only half aware that she’s talking to me. ‘I mean, sometimes you have to make decisions that aren’t easy, you know? Sometimes it’s difficult. But you have to decide because that’s what life’s all about, and some deaths are more important than others.’
‘What?’
She blinks, looks at me quizzically.
I say, ‘What does that mean? “Some deaths are more important than others”?’
She shakes her head with a kind of weariness. ‘Nothing. Nothing. Just something going round in my head.’ She stands up. ‘Would you get the bill? I’m just going to – wash my face, something.’
‘Are you OK?’ I say.
‘Yeah. I’m fine.’ She hesitates, and the
n adds, ‘I know you don’t understand why I wasn’t there. I wish I could explain it better, so you’d get it. But you just have to believe me. It was important, and there wasn’t any other way.’
I nod. ‘I do believe you,’ I say. ‘I just wish it had been different.’
‘I know. But just leave it now, OK? It’s in the past, so let it lie. Let’s think about something else.’
I nod again. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘OK.’
* * *
Lena is in the kitchen when I arrive home. I am out of breath from the journey down the valley – I have run as much of the way as I am able. Jamie, running with me, controls his impatience when I get winded and have to slow down. I have been watching him, and have seen the nervousness in him. When we reach the place where the farm track joins the road to our houses, he pauses for a moment.
‘How much money do you have?’ he says.
‘Not much.’ It’s true; I’ve spent most of my pocket money on sweets.
‘Well, get what you can. You remember the rest of the stuff?’
I nod; Anna’s instructions are still very clear in my head.
‘OK then. See you by your gate in five minutes.’
‘Right,’ I say, almost overwhelmed with the gravity of the tasks in front of us. Jamie sprints down to his driveway and vanishes inside, while I run more slowly down to my own house.
‘You look tired,’ Lena says critically when I appear in the kitchen doorway. ‘Have you been playing?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Hide-and-seek. Don’t tell anyone I’m here.’
She smiles. ‘I won’t.’
‘Where’s Mummy?’
‘She’s having a rest. Don’t disturb her, now.’
‘OK,’ I say, carefully keeping my voice neutral. My father is away in Salerno today, and with Mummy asleep, there will be no trouble getting to the bathroom unnoticed. ‘Bye,’ I say to Lena, and slip out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
In the bathroom there is a mirrored cabinet over the sink. There is another one like it in the bathroom just off my parents’ bedroom, stuffed with packets and bottles and shaving stuff and soap. This one in the main bathroom has pills for headaches and plasters for cut knees. There is a cupboard under the sink here, too. One side of it has loo paper. The other side, which nobody ever opens much, has some old towels and linen, and a little first-aid kit with a red cross on a white square. Keeping my footsteps quiet on the creaky passage floor, I get to the bathroom. I remember carefully what Anna has told me. I lift out the pile of old linen and work my way through it until I find a pillowcase. I put the rest back, and then put the first-aid kit inside the pillowcase, which is like a little sack. I open up the mirrored cabinet and stare helplessly at the contents. There are lots of little pill bottles and plaster boxes and unidentifiable things in here. I take down aspirin, which I recognize – I can read the word easily – and several of the others at random. Hidden at the back is a roll of white gauze, like a bandage. I know we want something like that, so I take it, with a quick flush of pride at having come across something so useful. Anna will be pleased.