by Hilary Boyd
‘Yes, but maybe he is at home. Maybe he’s lying there, unable to get up, unable to call out, just praying someone will find him and get some help.’ An idea came to her. ‘We could ring the hospitals, see if he’s been admitted.’
David put his glasses down and reached over, put his large hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘The police know he’s our son. I’ve told them often enough. They’ll inform us if anything happens. They’ve been round to the flat a few times. But they can’t do anything.’
Helen felt her eyes fill and blinked hard. What was the use of crying yet more tears for something she could not change?
Chapter 25
Freddy pressed the front door of the Maltese flat and met resistance. It was cool on the dim landing, the polished stone stairs up to the first floor reassuringly swept clean and washed.
He remembered the darkness and the sense of anticipation from his childhood. In those days he and his mother had waited beside their small suitcase for the door to open and the pair of them to be engulfed in his grandmother’s fierce embrace. Small and wiry, barely eighteen years his mother’s senior – and looking almost younger than her daughter some days – Nanna Pina smelt briny from her daily swim, with a faint tang of sweat and the scent of olive oil, which she rubbed into her skin every night. As Freddy stood there now, his heart faltered with longing, the powerful need for his grandmother to open the door – despite her having been dead thirty-odd years – like an actual pain in his chest.
The door was jammed with junk mail. Freddy had to use the guidebook he’d bought in the airport to push underneath and free enough space to open it a fraction so that he could squeeze through. What he found inside was surprisingly unchanged. The shutters on the Maltese balcony – those colourful, enclosed wooden platforms that graced many houses in Malta, supported by brackets and lined with windows – were closed, so the place was cool and dark, the tiled floor dusty. No one, according to his father, had been in the place for a couple of years, although apparently he paid a pittance to the woman in the flat downstairs to keep it ticking over.
But the same kitchen table – cream-speckled Formica with spindly metal legs – stood in the middle of the room, and the green cupboards, paint faded and chipped, must be the ones he remembered. As were the olive, rust and cream-patterned tiles behind the work surface. The brown leather sofa was a newer addition. Pina had not owned a sofa, just two high-backed beige vinyl chairs with worn, padded arms and wood frames – Freddy remembered the vinyl sticking to his bare back when he came home, all sweaty, from the sea.
The place smelt musty and dank, and he quickly went over to open the shutters onto the street and the afternoon sun. Pina had left the flat to Freddy’s mother, and forgotten to change her will after Maria died, six years before she did. So the flat became the property of the man Pina hated more than life itself: Vinnie Slater. Freddy was twenty when Nanna Pina died, but he had never returned to the Maltese apartment after her death, the knowledge that it now belonged to his father souring the happy memories, rendering it no longer a place of safety, even though, by then, he had completely removed himself from Vinnie’s abusive clutches.
He walked through to the bedroom at the back of the small flat. His mother had shared his grandmother’s bed on their visits, Freddy sleeping on a camp bed in the kitchen. He could still smell the fusty canvas, feel the cold metal of the frame beneath his fingers. The bedroom also seemed unchanged. Pina’s mahogany-frame double bed, now stripped bare except for a heavy blue quilt, the bedside table, the cumbrous wardrobe, looked identical, although all his grandmother’s trinkets, which had littered every surface of the flat – small Maltese glass vases and paperweights with swirling coloured centres, white porcelain Maltese dogs with cutesy blue bows on their heads – were gone. Freddy had loved them.
He opened the wardrobe to find mouldy pillows and neatly folded linen, the edges yellowed with age and disuse. He closed the door again. Now he was in Nanna Pina’s apartment, he didn’t know what to do with himself. It had been his goal since the meltdown to escape and now he had. But he had no idea what to do with his freedom.
Turning on the gas – supplied from a canister under the sink – he washed out the kettle, boiled some water, found a lidded metal tin with some dusty teabags and made himself a cup of tea, which tasted surprisingly good. He knew he had to clean the place, get a sleeping bag and pillow – the ones in the wardrobe were beyond salvation – buy something to eat. But instead he lay down on the sofa and fell fast asleep, the relief of finally being there making his body sink into the cushions as if he were a dead weight.
When he woke it was dark, the flat sinister in the shadows, as if it resented Freddy’s intrusion on its solitude. He switched on the overhead light, but it shed a dim, sickly glow and the bulb in the fringed table lamp was gone. Freddy sat down again on the sofa, his mouth dry, his head spinning. He was struck by such an overpowering wave of desolation that his whole body went still with it, even his heart slowing almost to nothing, his breath shallow in his lungs. But he didn’t dare breathe deeply, in case the feeling, given oxygen, got worse and became even more painful.
He jumped up and went to wash in the sink, sluicing cold water over his head and rubbing his hands hard across his face and hair. Then he grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa, patted his pockets to check for his money, took the key off the small ledge by the front door and ran down the stairs, out into the Maltese night.
Although it was gone ten, there were people everywhere in Spinola Bay. It was now, to Freddy’s consternation, a booming tourist area, construction cranes on every horizon with gleaming new hotels and half-built concrete structures as far as the eye could see. A very different place from the quiet seaside town he’d visited as a boy, the cafés and restaurants along the front packed with holidaymakers, bright lights and loud music.
Breathing a sigh of relief, nonetheless, to be among people again, Freddy slowed his pace, closing his eyes briefly, and laughed at himself for being frightened of his own shadow. He inhaled the familiar smell of the sea, saw the colourful luzzi – traditional fishing boats – bobbing on the dark water and the lights of Sliema to the south. Nanna Pina had loved those boats and they often ate their lunch of fresh bread spread with rich kunserva (Maltese tomato paste), an orange to peel, on a rickety waterside bench in the hot sun, as they watched them weave in and out of the small bay.
There was a strong breeze tonight, chilly on his skin, but many of the outside tables were occupied. Cold with tiredness, Freddy chose one of the cafés looking onto the harbour, picked an inside table out of the wind and ordered a double gin and tonic. He would buy some kunserva, he thought, make himself a lunch like Nanna Pina had. His mouth watered as he remembered the feel of the soft white bread, the tangy sweetness of tomato on his tongue.
But however much his thoughts returned to his beloved grandmother, Freddy could not banish the nerve-jangling sound of his father’s voice. He hadn’t spoken to Vinnie Slater for, he reckoned, nearly twelve years, and then only to tell him to fuck off. He would not have broken that record if he hadn’t been desperate. The only contact had been the curt message his father left every Christmas Eve: ‘Happy Christmas, son. You know where I am.’ But he had stopped listening, just deleting the most recent unheard.
So each time Freddy had thought about the flat in Malta he had dismissed it, because of the necessity of contacting his father. But he’d run out of options. The place would cost him nothing and was far and away the best place to hide for a few weeks, get his strength back and avoid the fury of his creditors until things had calmed down – or he’d found money somewhere.
Three times he rang his father’s number. Three times he clicked off before it was answered. But the third time, Vinnie called back.
‘Who is this?’ the gravelly voice demanded.
For a moment Freddy didn’t reply, then he said, ‘It’s Fred, Dad.’ His fath
er never called him ‘Freddy’ and yelled at his mother if he heard her use it. ‘Makes him sound like a fucking posh jessie,’ Vinnie would say.
Now he expected sniping, the usual coldness at least. And even though the voice sounded old, whispery almost, Freddy shuddered.
But Vinnie said, ‘Fred?’ almost hopefully. ‘Is that you, son?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
There was a long silence.
‘Where are you?’ Vinnie asked.
‘In London.’
‘Oh . . .’ The old man sounded disappointed, and Freddy heard the click of a lighter, the draw of a cigarette, the rasp of a chronic cough. ‘Long time . . .’
‘Yeah.’ Freddy was wrong-footed. It felt, for the first time, as if his father actually cared. He immediately regretted calling, an uneasy certainty dawning that he might be sucked back into Vinnie’s life if he didn’t hang up right now – a prospect that filled him with dread. But he needed the key to the apartment in Malta.
Then there was an intake of breath and the voice recovered some of its strength. ‘What do you want? You must want something to be ringing.’
‘Need to get away for a month or so. Is Nanna’s flat free?’ Freddy refused to recognize his father’s ownership of the Maltese property. His grandmother would be rolling in her grave to think that Vinnie had got his hands on it.
Vinnie didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, ‘Nobody’s been in for a while . . . years, maybe. It’ll be a mess.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Can I have the key?’ Freddy couldn’t keep the impatience out of his voice.
‘Must be in some sort of trouble, needing to spend time in a dump like that. What have you gone and done, eh?’ The words were followed by a spiteful laugh, which set off another bout of coughing, so savage this time it sounded to Freddy as if his father’s lungs must be turned inside out.
‘Can you send me the key, Dad? Please.’
Vinnie harrumphed. ‘And here was me getting all excited at the prospect of seeing my long-lost son again.’
Ignoring his sarcasm, Freddy repeated his request, trying to summon a modicum of politeness.
‘The woman on the ground floor has one. Name’s Sinjura Vella – Mrs Vella. If she’s not in, the spare’s in an envelope in the back office of that Irish place on the corner. Can’t remember the bloody name but it’s the only one on the street. Bloke called Johnny looked after it, if he’s still around.’
‘Thanks.’
He was about to hang up, when his father said, ‘I’m not so well. Emphysema, they tell me, those bastard croakers. Visit me soon, son . . . There’s things need to be said.’
Now, sitting in the bar nursing his second double, Freddy wondered what he would feel if his father died without having seen him again. Relief, he’d always assumed, having wished him dead since he was a child. Also anger, maybe, at the lost opportunity to confront Vinnie with his past sins, to make him squirm, to force him to apologize at last. But that presupposed his father had a conscience, that he was fully aware of the cruelty he’d meted out to his wife and son and was sorry. Could he, Freddy, find the words, in the face of the person who’d terrorized his childhood, to say what he wanted? He wasn’t so sure. But seeing Vinnie Slater again, just to test the theory, did not feel like an option right now.
Shaking off thoughts of his father, he got up from the table around midnight and began the short walk back to the apartment, in a side street off the seafront. He felt a sudden return of his optimism, and as he walked he made a firm promise to himself: I will polish up the flat, buy some books, swim in the pool in Balluta Bay every day, get some proper sleep, eat healthily. He heard an echo of Lily in his words and smiled to himself. And absolutely no fucking gambling of any kind. I’ll make her proud of me again.
Chapter 26
Today was a glorious early May morning and the four walls of her sister and brother-in-law’s house felt like a prison, making Lily gasp for fresh air and freedom. As she walked towards the canal, the warm sun on her face, she felt a sweet, tingling energy rise through her body, which made her want to run like a child. Things will work out, she told herself, the first positive thought she’d had in the month since Freddy had left.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she was glad to hear her friend’s voice.
‘How are you?’ Prem asked.
‘Not bad this morning. It’s so beautiful here. I wish you could come and walk in the sunshine with me.’
‘I wish I could too. I hate London in the spring.’ There was a pause. ‘So, tell me, what’s going on?’
‘Not a lot. Helen’s keeps fretting about me finding a job. But I needed her nagging. And they’ve both been very tolerant, having me around like this.’
‘Remember you can always come to us if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’m learning to type online and then I’ll find a job. Not sure what, but Helen seems to think there’ll be something.’
‘Fantastic. I’m so proud of you, getting your life back on track like this.’
Lily didn’t comment, already offended by the implication that her problems were behind her.
‘I hope that loser husband of yours has left you alone.’
‘Yup.’
‘That’s a relief.’
Lily said nothing.
‘Lily?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have I upset you? I’m sorry, but Freddy is a loser. And a bastard, for that matter.’
Lily bit her lip. ‘Can we not talk about him?’
Now it was Prem’s turn to be silent.
‘How’s the shop?’ Lily asked through gritted teeth.
‘You still have feelings for him, I understand that,’ Prem said, not answering her question. ‘I’m only nervous he’ll try to worm his way back into your life.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lily said, more curtly than she intended.
‘I have upset you, darling. It’s just you have a very kind heart.’
‘You make it sound like a defect.’
‘No, of course it’s not.’
Lily heard her sigh. She didn’t know what to say. It felt as if their lifetime of friendship was in jeopardy: they would never agree about Freddy. ‘I’m going into the supermarket,’ she lied, ‘so we might lose connection.’
‘Okay, darling.’ Her friend sounded resigned. ‘Listen, give me a ring and make a date to come and stay, will you? I miss you.’
‘I miss you too,’ Lily said, and this time she wasn’t lying.
Shaken by her conversation, Lily walked on, south along the towpath towards the centre of the city. Even though everything she had once taken for granted about Freddy was in question – his love for her, his integrity, his whereabouts, his intentions, even his sanity – the one thing that was solid, unwavering and not open to question, was that she loved Freddy March. It was what had sustained her in those first weeks in Oxford as she battled with loneliness and fear for her future.
He will not let me down, she chanted doggedly to herself as she walked, in the face of the relentless bile directed towards him by Prem and, indeed, everyone else. But she had quickly realized there was no point in defending Freddy or her position with regard to him. She knew Prem was only trying to protect her, and she appreciated that, but her friend didn’t know Freddy the way she did.
Now, almost in defiance, she allowed herself to remember his dark eyes when he told her what had gone wrong, so full of sadness and guilt that they could hardly meet hers. She remembered the feel of his skin under her fingers, the way his hair curled away from his forehead so delicately, the dip in his collarbone where she had planted so many kisses. She could smell him, standing there by the still water of the canal, smell him as if he actually lay in her arms, and it made her cry that he might be gone for ever.
*
David’s workshop was a golden, dusty heaven when Lily, still discomposed by Prem’s call and tired from her day-long walk and aimless potter in the city centre, dropped by in the early evening. The sun was setting across the meadow behind the small barn, the light pouring through the large, wide-open doors and picking up the tiny flecks of sawdust that swirled through the still air, redolent with the piny scent of new wood.
Her brother-in law was at the large, solid workbench that sat in the middle of the barn, planing, with smooth, rhythmic strokes, a chunk of timber. Fine, milky ribbons of wood curled up from the heavy steel instrument, then dropped softly onto the workbench. The walls were hung about with tools of all sorts, including every gradation of saw, hammer, screwdriver, chisel, and pairs of muffler headphones. There were deep wooden trays filled with widgets, on top of which rested a number of steel rules, a mug, and receipts stuck on a metal spike.
Stacks of timber and unprocessed logs took up much of the space to the right of the workbench, along with the halffinished skeletons of furniture, and on a whiteboard against the far wall, under the pallid glow of a strip light, were displayed complicated-looking diagrams in black felt-tip. The cork board beside it was pinned with overlapping drawings, not just of chairs and tables but of trees, animals, figures – some naked. Lily hadn’t known David could draw so well. Everything was coated with a fine wood-dust, but although the workshop looked messy to the untutored eye, she sensed there was order in the chaos.
David looked up as her shadow fell across the room and grinned. Letting go of the wooden knob of the plane, he waved her inside, brushing away the straggling strands of hair that had fallen over his face as he bent to his task. ‘You found me.’
‘Nice place.’ Suddenly she felt shy as she stood there. They rarely met without the prickly presence of her sister and she had never visited the workshop before.
‘Yes.’ He looked around, as if seeing the space for the first time. ‘I’m lucky.’