Off Script

by Graham Hurley

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then I got cancer.’ I touch my own head. ‘Up here. Bits of it are still there, as a matter of fact, though they say it might not kill me. A good friend once told me that life is full of the smaller mercies, and he’s right. Sometimes it’s enough just to be here, to have survived.’

  The friend, of course, was Pavel, but I’ve said far too much already. When Karen isn’t looking, I check my purse. I’ve got seventy pounds in notes and I tuck them under a mug on the table because I know she’ll refuse the money if I offer it. This woman has pride, as well as a great deal of resilience, and I sense we may have become friends. I certainly hope so. Before I leave, I ask about Jason’s surname.

  ‘Macreadie,’ she says. ‘After his dad.’

  ‘And is that yours, too?’

  ‘No. Like I said, we was never married.’

  I hold her gaze for a moment, and then I give her a hug. Under the football shirt, she’s skin and bone.

  ‘Come back if you want to,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry about the coffee.’

  On the way back to Exmouth, I take a detour off the motorway. I need, as my son would say, to decompress, to take stock, to re-run the last four hours and understand what it’s taught me. I also need to check on Pavel.

  I make the call from the garden of a pub in some nameless village in the depths of Somerset. When I get through to a nurse in the Stroke Unit, the news is far better than I’d expected. Pavel, it seems, is showing signs of life. My heart leaps.

  ‘He’s conscious. Just. And we think he might be hungry.’

  ‘Think? What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. He can’t speak. Not yet, anyway.’

  I nod. Not such great news.

  ‘Can he hear?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘You think he might?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Then tell him Enora loves him. And give him a big kiss. You’ll do that? You promise?’

  The nurse is male, the guy I met yesterday. He says I’m the talk of the unit. He’s been on to Amazon already. A DVD of The Hour of Our Passing is on its way.

  ‘Apparently there’s a sequence towards the end worth watching,’ he says. ‘According to Mr Kennaway.’

  Kennaway is the consultant I met yesterday.

  ‘I was much younger then.’ I’m laughing. ‘Just remember that.’

  I fetch a cappuccino from the pub and return to the garden. I have a loose-leaf pad in my bag, and I prop it on my knee, enjoying the thin bank holiday sunshine. Karen has a mobile but nothing else – no laptop, no PC, no email address – and if I want to keep in touch with her, then it has to be by post. The notion of words on paper, as it happens, is perfect. Lots of crossings-out, lots of time to think. I can type it up later and pop it in the post. Think 17a. Above the betting shop.

  Jason. He was still at primary school when he found his dad under the stairs and from that day on, according to Karen, he was a different boy. She said she did her best, and I believe her. She sat him down and tried to explain how difficult life must have been for his dad, what happened at Goose Green, what that kind of stuff does to you, to the insides of you, how brave he was to keep it all a secret, locked away, never discussed. When Jason asked about doctors, and getting better, Karen said it was hard, because soldiers were supposed to be the tough guys, but talking to this son of hers, hours and hours in his bedroom beside photographs of his precious dad, she knew that nothing was getting through.

  ‘He became someone else,’ she told me. ‘He became someone I didn’t know any more.’

  I scribble the phrase down. Someone you don’t know any more. Maybe the same applies to Carrie, I think. To Pavel. And to anyone else whom life trips up and then abandons. First some kind of trauma, then the splintered remains of the person you thought you were. Has it happened to me? Did Berndt, and then my tussle with the Grim Reaper, turn me into someone else? Take a hard look in the mirror, I think. And see what you find.

  I shake my head. This is about Karen, and about Jason, not me. The aftermath of Bradley’s death hit Karen hard. When a reporter knocked at her door, she sent him packing. When the Coroner’s officer requested an interview, she had a panic attack. At the inquest, an hour and a half she’ll never forget, she wept. Real women, she said, never cry in public. But she did. Buckets and buckets of tears. Horrible.

  Her life fell apart. Selling cable TV contracts was out of the question: she could barely sign her own name. The debts kept mounting, new demands through the post every day, and after a visit to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau she decided to file for bankruptcy. Thanks to Bradley, she didn’t have a penny to her name. The car had gone. Her savings account was empty. Her landlord, previously sympathetic, had lost patience. By Easter, she and Jason were living in a boarding house in the back streets of the town that was a safety net for Social Services. Two beds in a cupboard of a room, junkies for near-neighbours, cereal for breakfast, and whatever she could afford on her weekly benefits for the microwave at night.

  At this point, she got a handwritten note, forwarded from the flat she’d shared with Bradley. She had trouble reading it, but it turned out to come from the manager of the betting shop where Bradley had spent most of her earnings. He had two rooms upstairs and she and her son could have one of them. It wasn’t much but it would be hers for as long as she wanted it. More to the point, she wouldn’t have to pay a penny.

  ‘No one’s a saint in this life,’ she told me. ‘But that man came close. He felt guilty, of course. He should have stopped Brad, he should have reported him, barred him, whatever, but he didn’t. In a way I don’t blame him. Everyone has to make a living. But the thing that got to me was the offer of that room. Me and Jason did the sums. With child benefit, and housing benefit, and whatever work I could find, we could start all over. Jason was about to go to big school. Losing Brad like that still hurt but I thought we might get over it.’

  Wrong. Jason, rather earlier than Malo, went off the rails. He began to obsess about the Falklands War. He read everything he could lay his hands on about the battle for Goose Green. When Karen had saved enough for a second-hand laptop, he watched videos, played war games, locked himself away in a little bubble of grief, and violence, and loss. He had no friends. He was at first clueless about girls and then said he hated them. What mattered was his dad.

  Karen was finding this hard to take. The precious room above the betting shop became, she said, a kind of prison cell. Every time she tried to talk to her son, or even look at him, she thought of his father. Jason, she said, was out of reach, banged up with himself, lost. Like his dad, he might as well have been dead.

  Jason left on his fourteenth birthday. At first Karen thought he might still be in town. She walked the streets, checked on his favourite haunts, talked to kids his own age who might know where he’d gone. None of the kids knew, and neither did any of them much care. One of them said Jason was a weirdo, a numpty, and Karen told him to wash his mouth out.

  At his school, the staff were more helpful. One of the teachers, a youngish man who taught science, said he wasn’t surprised. He’d made the time to have a couple of conversations with Jason. The boy had been flagged for special attention after Karen had told the head of school about Bradley’s death, and the science teacher, who’d had experience in this field, recognized that Jason had turned his back on the world. He doesn’t concentrate, doesn’t see the point, he’d told Karen. He might as well not be here.

  Karen went to the police. They had a procedure for missing persons, especially anyone young and vulnerable. The word ‘vulnerable’, she said, described her son to a T. The police sat her down and took details. She’d brought a couple of recent photos, just in case, and they said they’d make copies and send the originals back. They never did but it was a comfort to know there were thousands of cops out there, keeping an eye open. But nothing happened. No sightings. No drunken midnight phone calls. Not even a postcard. Jason had decamped
to outer space. One day, if he really needed her, she told herself he would make his way home. He knew the address. He had a key. He knew he’d always be welcome. In the meantime, she’d do her best with a twenty-year-old telly and her precious cat.

  In the weeks following Jason’s disappearance, she’d lay awake at nights, desperate to hear the turn of the key in the door, and his footsteps on the stairs, but as time went by even this memento of his passing disappeared. She slept like a baby, and when she thought about Jason at all, she persuaded herself he was happy.

  What I couldn’t tease from Karen’s account were the basics. Was Jason OK with the small print of being out there? Could he read a timetable? Feed and clothe himself? Avoid the attentions of unwanted strangers? Handle himself in difficult situations? To all these questions, Karen said yes. Jason, she said, was a survivor. Naïve? Yes. Full of fantasy shit? Often. Kind? Sometimes. Gullible? Alas, yes. ‘He’s easily impressed,’ she told me, ‘especially by certain kinds of men. That’s why he worshipped Brad.’ Even when Karen presented him with the evidence – all those fucking bills – he refused to believe that his precious dad might be responsible.

  Then, only days ago, she’d answered the door to find the manager from the betting shop standing there. This was the man who’d sorted out the room for her. He had a copy of the Daily Mail and he showed her a photo on one of the inside pages.

  ‘That’s Jason,’ he’d said. ‘I swear it is.’

  She’d taken a look and agreed. ‘My son. Definitely.’

  She’d gone to the police that morning. It turned out they didn’t even have his right name. She didn’t know Exmouth, or a woman called Carrie Tollman, and when the policewoman described what had happened, she’d just shaken her head. ‘Not my boy,’ she’d told them. ‘Never Jason. He’d never do a thing like that. He’d never harm a fly. There has to be some mistake. Try looking elsewhere.’

  The police had given her a special number. Should Jason get in touch, she was to try and find out where he was calling from, and then phone them at once. She’d told them she couldn’t imagine Jason making the effort to lift the phone, but she’d do her best. At this point in our conversation, she’d reached out and tugged me closer.

  ‘Imagine him phoning,’ she’d said. ‘Do you really think I’d grass him up?’

  I thought not. No mother would.

  ‘That’s right. No mum would. I’d make him tell me where he is, then I’d go and meet him. No police, nothing. Just him and me. Like the old days.’

  Now, sitting in the sunshine in the pub garden, I flick through the notes I’ve made. When I get back to the apartment, I’ll type up a long letter to Karen, promising every kind of support I can. That way, at the very least, she might not feel entirely alone. Then, my coffee drained, I add a final thought to my notes. Karen already has my mobile number. If her son does, by any chance, get in touch, might she let me know?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When I get to Exeter, I detour to the hospital. Pavel is asleep when I make it up to the Stroke Unit but I know at once that he’s on the mend. ‘Mend’, of course, is wildly optimistic but the fact that I can see him breathing, the sheet visibly rising and falling over his chest, and that a faint pink tinge has reappeared in his face, is the reassurance I’ve been praying for. He’s deeply asleep, and he resists all my attempts to rouse him, but he’s very definitely back with us.

  The nurse I talked to earlier has gone off shift, but he’s left me a note with the unit’s secretary.

  Delivered your message verbatim, the note reads. Might have raised a smile.

  Sweet. I fold the note, a despatch from the front line in this strange war, and I’m on the point of leaving when I have another thought. Something is still troubling me and I suspect only Pavel has the answer. So maybe now is the time to leave him a message of my own.

  I return to his bedside and bend to his ear. ‘Carrie had a phone number for Moonie’s mother,’ I whisper. ‘How did that ever happen?’

  I’m back in the apartment by half past six. Felip has returned from his friend’s place and is very happy for me to use his printer. He also wants to know where he stands. This is Felip’s way of asking whether he’s still employed, still has a room of his own in the apartment, and I tell him yes. I’m making this up, doubtless for my benefit as well as Felip’s, but I tell him that Pavel is beginning to surface, that all his vital signs are good, and that the staff can’t wait to get rid of him. Felip, who knows a thing or two about the raw physical business of looking after Pavel, is delighted.

  I type my letter to Karen and print it out. Felip has noticed a movie showing in the local cinema and is nice enough to ask whether I’d like to come with him. The movie is American. A mother loses her son to the world of drugs and violence in a mid-western city and sets out to avenge his death. I decline.

  ‘It’s got great reviews,’ Felip insists. ‘It’s supposed to be really good.’

  I say I’m grateful for the offer but the answer’s still no. A girl, I tell him, can bear just so much excitement in her life.

  With Pavel gone, I’m settling in for a catch-up evening on iPlayer when the phone begins to ring.

  ‘Long time …’ It’s Deko.

  ‘A day or so,’ I say at once. ‘Who’s counting?’

  ‘Me, if that’s a straight question. I’ve been having a think about our little trip. Drink?’

  Our little trip? To my shame, I’ve forgotten about Douarnenez, and even the memory of our soiree aboard Amen has begun to fade.

  ‘A drink would be perfect,’ I tell him.

  ‘A pub or chez moi? Your call.’

  ‘Chez toi.’ I reach for the remote and turn the TV off. ‘Give me an hour.’

  I go to Deko’s front door this time. It’s huge and very old and has just been repainted a glossy shade of black. He answers my knock and we hold each other for a moment before I step inside. Already, I can smell the oriental sweetness of coconut, ginger, garlic, and – I fancy – a million other delights.

  ‘I thought you might be hungry.’ He shepherds me inside. ‘Body and soul? Keeping them together? Isn’t that the phrase?’

  ‘My body, your soul.’ It’s the best I can manage. Once again, this man has swept me off my feet. His hair is wet, I assume from a recent shower, and he smells divine.

  ‘I’d have brought wine,’ I say, following him towards the stairs, ‘if only I’d known.’

  ‘We’ve got beer. Tiger or Chang. Jenever for starters. We start in Amsterdam and head east. How are you?’

  I start to tell him the good news about Pavel, but his phone begins to ring and he grunts an apology as he takes the call. By the time he’s finished the conversation, we’re at the top of the house. The weather, like Pavel, is definitely on the mend. White battlements of fluffy cloud hang over the hills beyond the river but otherwise there’s every prospect of a perfect sunset.

  ‘He’s going to make it – Pavel.’ I’m still lingering at the window. ‘I saw him a couple of hours ago.’

  Deko is standing behind me. His sheer physical presence is overwhelming. I want him to touch me again. Badly. And I suspect he knows this.

  ‘So, shall we celebrate?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Wherever.’

  I turn around and nod at the long crescent of sofa. Moments later, our clothes are an untidy heap on the floor. Aroused already, he leads me to the sofa. I tell him to lie down, close his eyes. Then I ask him what in the world would please him most.

  ‘You know. I know you know. Ask any man.’

  He’s right. Berndt was exactly the same. I kneel beside the sofa, kiss him softly on his ear, take the tiny diamond stud in my mouth, explore the hardness of the gem with my tongue.

  ‘You said Antwerp.’

  ‘I did. Never speak with your mouth full.’

  ‘That’s later.’ I pause a moment, struck by another thought. ‘You were cooking.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Nothing on the s
tove?’

  ‘It’s done. Take your time.’

  ‘I will. So, tell me about the diamond district. Tell me about those days. You’re an infant. You’ve run away to sea. What’s the most romantic cargo you delivered? Back then?’

  ‘Cat litter. To Le Havre. The Scandinavians pulp everything. Never be a tree in Finland or you’ll end up getting shat on.’

  ‘You know about French cats?’ I’m laughing. ‘They’re ruthless, totally unforgiving, and you’re talking to someone who knows.’

  ‘Even the females?’

  ‘Especially the females. You told me you fell in love, Mr Deko, with a woman from Shelly Beach. Pavel told me about Shelly Beach. He went there as a kid. He told me it reminded me of the barrios in São Paulo.’

  ‘He’s been to Brazil? Seen all that stuff?’

  ‘Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. Was it the truth? Something he’d made up? Who’s asking? Who cares?’ My busy tongue has found one of Deko’s nipples now. ‘Was she good in bed? This woman from the barrio?’

  ‘She was very good.’

  ‘As good as me?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Right answer, Mr Deko. You want the main course now? Just say no.’

  ‘No.’

  My knees are beginning to hurt. I get up and climb on to the sofa. Deko opens his knees, making a space for me between his legs.

  ‘En pleine forme.’ I’m gazing down at him. ‘How do you manage to stay so trim?’

  ‘I used to climb a lot,’ he says. ‘I was good at it but there was always something missing.’

  ‘So what do you do now?’

  ‘I box.’

  ‘Box? You mean you fight? You’re serious?’

  ‘I am,’ he says. ‘You want the full conversation?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ I’ve got to his rib cage now and when I lay my ear flat on his chest, I can hear the beating of his heart – thump, thump, low, steady, regular, irrepressible.

  ‘Boxing’s the best because it’s full of incentive,’ he says. ‘Unless you want to get seriously hurt, you have to stay fit. And to stay fit, you have to exercise. Your friend might call that a virtuous circle, and he’d be right.’