The Missing World

by Margot Livesey

  He replaced the receiver and knelt down. With her arms flung wide, her legs outstretched, Hazel occupied most of the hall. Not for a moment, even to the most casual observer, could she have passed for dead. She was breathing heavily, right on the edge of snoring: little volleys, a pause, then another volley. Though she seemed comfortable on the floor, no way he’d leave her there. He squeezed her hand and, after a few seconds, unmistakably, she squeezed back.

  Only then, as he moved to make the bed ready, did it dawn on him that Charlotte was gone. While he was writing down the names of Hazel’s pills, she had crossed the hall, opened the door, stepped through it, closed the door. Seeing the unmade bed, he remembered her bending over him. Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid.… I fucked her, he thought. He tried, as he smoothed out the bottom sheet, to tell himself she had left of her own volition, popped out for more Lucozade. Who was he kidding? He’d done what everyone else had done, what he never intended to do: driven her away. For a moment he wondered if he should phone Mr. Early, then he understood: so long as she didn’t show up on his doorstep, Mr. Early wouldn’t give a toss.

  “Please, Hazel,” he whispered, “wake up soon.”

  She showed no signs of doing so, however, as he carefully carried her to the bed. After removing her shoes, he climbed in beside her, fully dressed, and endeavoured to put his arms around her—he wanted to begin at once, telling her everything—but Hazel tossed and moaned. Her elbow hit him on the side of the head. “Don’t, Jonathan,” she exclaimed. “Stop it!” and he was forced to retreat.

  Was that his mother calling? Frederick Lewis. Get in here! What was this blue thing? In the dim light, the hardness of the floor and his relationship to it, became apparent. He had spent the night beside the bed, using a blue T-shirt as a pillow. Cautiously he pulled himself up and peered over the edge of the mattress.

  Empty.

  In the kitchen, Hazel had taken over where Charlotte left off, washing dishes at the sink. “Good morning,” she said. “I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

  Freddie shook his head. Her hair was damp and her face, when she turned to greet him, had lost its brittle flush. She was wearing one of his sweatshirts. “How are you feeling?” he managed.

  “A little shaky. I had a seizure, didn’t I? I hope it wasn’t too awful. I could feel it coming, but there was nothing I could do. Then your damn dogs woke me up.”

  “Damn?” he said stupidly.

  “Collies and guide dogs are okay, but pets? Forget it. I can’t stand it that most dogs in Britain are better fed than most children in India. Would you like some tea?”

  “I’ll just go and wash.”

  She doesn’t like dogs, he thought dumbfounded as he squeezed toothpaste onto the brush. Hadn’t he, a couple of weeks ago, considered giving her a puppy? This was not going the way he’d imagined. He’d pictured himself up hours before Hazel, getting everything spick and span, then her waking up, sweet and befuddled. He’d bring her tea in bed, maybe oatmeal, and sit beside her to talk and hold her hand.

  Back in the kitchen she had set the table, made tea. “Toast?” she offered.

  “I’ll do it,” said Freddie. “You seem so …” He trailed off. Less than twelve hours ago this woman had been huddled in a bloody bed, ranting at her former lover, and here she was doing his washing up.

  “Yes,” said Hazel. “I’m surprised myself, after yesterday.” She sat down. “Tell me again what happened.”

  Simplifying where need be—Charlotte was a friend of a friend, and yes, she’d gone home; they’d been out late retrieving Arkansas—Freddie described the events leading up to her seizure. “And now,” he said, raising his mug to her, “we’re in sunny Dalston.”

  He hoped she might turn those amazing eyes upon him, give one of her brilliant smiles, but while it was true she was looking at him, her expression was closer to a frown. “I still don’t quite get why you and Charlotte climbed in through my bedroom window. I’m profoundly grateful, but it does seem odd, leaving a note in the middle of the night. Why not phone in the morning?”

  Helpless, Freddie gave a little shrug and got up to make more toast. Only with his back to her could he utter the crucial sentence with anything remotely like calmness. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

  “Thanks. Obviously I’ve got a lot to figure out.”

  “I have extra keys,” he persisted, “and money. I could fetch your things when I pick up the puppy.”

  The toast popped, and he carried the slices by their edges back to the table.

  “I have to be careful today,” said Hazel. “The seizures often come in waves. What I’d like to do is make a few phone calls: Mrs. Craig, my tenant, Charlotte. With any luck I’ll be able to move back into my flat fairly soon, and I was hoping Charlotte might stay for a week or—”

  He would never have predicted that the ringing of a phone could be so welcome. “Freddie,” said a voice he recognised but couldn’t place, “how’s Hazel?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Craig. Am I ringing too early?”

  “Not at all. Hazel’s fine.”

  “Well, that’s the main thing.” She made her humming sound. “Listen, I have something sad to tell you. Your puppy fell down the stairs at Jonathan’s—who knows how—and broke its neck.”

  Still holding the phone, avoiding the place where Hazel had collapsed the night before, Freddie sank to the floor. The little hands were back, stroking his arms and legs beneath his clothes, reminding him. I am a bad person, he thought. Forget America, forget the accident. I was cruel to Felicity, I used Charlotte, I hit Littleton, I did my best to deceive Hazel, to sneak into her affections, like a wolf into the fold. He stared at the floorboards, scarred and riven with dirt, the knots watching him. He could remember now, he was almost certain, stumbling over something as he rushed down the stairs. Dogs, he thought. India. She’s a stranger.

  Soft sounds came from the receiver. “I have a corner of the garden,” Mrs. Craig was saying, “where several of my cats and their victims cohabit.”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I hope I’ll see you soon at the Golden Road. Can I have a word with Hazel?”

  He rose raggedly to summon her. “Oh, good,” she said. They changed places.

  Freddie remained standing inside the doorway. A few feet in one direction, Hazel spoke cheerfully into the phone; a few feet in another, Agnes was squinting at him over her empty bowl. Fire on the mountain, said her cocked ears. Famine, famine. Wash the floor, he thought, feed the dogs, finish my toast. He took a step back, another, then across the threshold and out of the room.

  Hazel didn’t look up as he appeared in the hall. “I have my pills,” she was saying. “Charlotte brought them.”

  Freddie kept moving. He passed the black bags, lined up against the wall. His destination came into view: the faded pink upholstery of the couch.

  Jonathan was putting the sheets in the dustbin when the doorbell rang. In another country, another century, he might have hung them from the window to advertise the triumph of love over virginity. Now he stuffed the bloody banners in among the fish wrappings and coffee grounds. On his way to the door, he stopped to wash his hands, using dishwashing liquid, rinsed and dried them. The only person he wanted to see would not be standing on the doorstep. What else mattered?

  “Do you live here?”

  A man of about his own height, wearing a shabby green cardigan and brown trousers, regarded him sternly. Over his shoulder Jonathan saw the cheese plant, still unclaimed. Hazel’s mother had polished the leaves, one by one, and they glinted in the bright light. “Yes,” he said.

  “Lee Davies. Could I have a word with you?”

  “Concerning?” Who the fuck was this? An angry client? But they could never get his home address. An irate neighbour? Maybe the bees had stung someone. He got ready to apologise and offer a gift of honey. Mr. Davies—his face, anyway—seemed un
scathed. With his straight dark hair falling in a fringe, rather narrow eyes, and high cheekbones, he had an Oriental aspect.

  “Concerning my son.”

  He stepped forward, and Jonathan yielded. In the hall he hesitated between the kitchen and the living-room before leading him into the former. They would sit at the table, as if conducting an interview, rather than pretending the friendliness of armchairs. He moved the newspaper, gestured the man to take a seat. “I have to leave for work in a few minutes.”

  “He’s in hospital,” Mr. Davies said. “My son is in hospital. He didn’t come home last night. He wanders a lot, round and round, but he’s always home by eleven.” What was disturbing, Jonathan realised, was that the man’s face didn’t move, save for his mouth; his eyes and forehead remained immobile. “Finally I went searching for him. It took nearly two hours—I passed him once on the other side of the street, without seeing him—but at last I found him, a few yards from here.”

  Christ. The Tourette’s boy. Jonathan had forgotten all about him. Keep calm, he told himself. Steady. He just wants information, witnesses. “I’m sorry. Of course I’ve seen your son walking around—I always say hello—but not last night. There are some punks round here, glue sniffers. Maybe one of them decided to have a laugh. I hope he’ll be better soon.”

  “He told me,” said Mr. Davies, still unmoving, still in the same tone, “the man with the plant had hurt him.”

  For a giddy moment Jonathan thought Mr. Davies might be about to kill him. And then that he might be about to kill Mr. Davies. “But … I …”

  Mr. Davies, however, was speaking again. “His kidneys are bruised, and there’s some internal bleeding, but they think he should be all right in a week or two. Physically, at least.” He sat back with his arms folded. “If you touch him again,” he said conversationally, “you’ll be sorry.”

  He stood up and, as if completing an everyday household task, emptied the dish rack filled with the plates and glasses from last night’s dinner onto the floor. In a cascade of glass and china and cutlery he walked out of the room.

  • • •

  Jonathan reached for Hazel’s calendar where it lay on the table. Many of the days were marked in her untidy handwriting—names, hospital appointments, groceries, medicines—but in the odd blank spaces he began to write: Call George and Nora. Call Bernadette. Call Adams. Talk to Mrs. Craig. Buy sheets. Clean kitchen.

  All along he’d been looking in the wrong direction, trying to make time stand still, to re-create the past, but everything in life taught the opposite. A single hive changed from year to year; at the height of summer a bee lived a scant six weeks, its wings torn apart by constant nectar gathering, whereas in winter it might survive for as long as four months.

  Suddenly, as if the thought of winter had alerted him, he noticed how cold the room had grown. Ignoring the fragments underfoot, he went to investigate and discovered that Mr. Davies had left the front door wide open. His first instinct was to slam it shut, but something made him pause. Standing on the threshold, Jonathan searched the street for what it was that had altered in the familiar landscape. The cheese plant was gone. In the brief interval between Mr. Davies’s arrival and now, the plant had been carried off, he could only assume, to a good home.

  He stepped back and closed the door, slid the chain into place, and, taking the keys from his pocket, applied both the upper and lower mortice locks. The bolts slid home with a solid, satisfying stiffness. He was tired of people coming and going without permission.

  Back in the kitchen he fetched the dustpan from beneath the sink and—even in the midst of such disarray he was pleased by his practicality—pulled on his beekeeper’s gloves. One by one he picked up the shards of china and glass. First Hazel’s plate, then his, first Hazel’s glass, then his. After collecting everything he could see, he bent to check for the wink of glass and caught the last splinters. There. He carried the dustpan outside to empty on top of the sheets, then clapped his gloves together. The sparrows fussed out of the elderberry tree.

  Inside he crossed out Call George and Nora. Call Bernadette. Call Adams. Talk to Mrs. Craig. Irrelevant, all irrelevant. Only one thing was necessary now, the thing he should’ve done first, and would have if it hadn’t been for the seizures, the hospital, her parents and Maud, his own deep confusion about second chances and, he had to admit, a certain shame about his slip-up of last autumn. Talk to Hazel, he wrote.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the MacDowell Colony were generous in giving me time and money to work on this book.

  My heartfelt thanks to the friends who made suggestions on the manuscript at various stages: Tom Bahr, Jennifer Clarvoe, Carol Frost, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ann Shuttleworth. Susan Brison, Kathleen Hill, and Camille Smith offered invaluable advice. Once again I am profoundly indebted to Andrea Barrett.

  I am grateful to Amanda Urban for her dazzling expertise and Gary Fisketjon for his fabulous editing.

  My thoughts about memory and forgetting were shaped by some wonderful books, especially The Human Brain by Susan Greenfield, Memory’s Ghost by Philip J. Hilts, The Mind of a Mnemonist by A. R. Luria, The Anatomy of Memory by James McConkey, Searching for Memory by Daniel L. Schacter, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence, The Art of Memory by Frances Yates, and of course the Confessions of St. Augustine.