Candleland

by Martyn Waites

  Andy opened his mouth to give a retort, but the sudden appearance of a skateboarding teenager forced him into some fancy manoeuvring. The car’s pitch and roll elicited a groan and a grumble from the back seat.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” said Larkin. “The Kraken wakes.”

  “Nearly there, mate,” Andy cabbied over his shoulder to the slowly rousing Moir. “No worries.”

  The policeman ignored him and looked out the window only half awake, numbly taking in the sights as if he’d been drugged, kidnapped and woken up in a foreign continent.

  Twenty minutes later the car was pulling up at its destination; one in a street of large houses. Victorian or Edwardian, blonde brick, three storeys high with original sash windows and stained, leaded door inserts. It was situated opposite a block of Sixties flats in what Larkin took to be quite an affluent area behind Clapham North tube station.

  “Nice place,” said Larkin, meaning it.

  “Thanks,” Andy replied, an air of pride in his voice.

  Getting out of the car, Larkin was still slightly mystified. Andy hadn’t told them who they’d be staying with or who owned the house. Larkin had asked him but he wouldn’t give a straight answer. He tried again.

  “You’ll see,” was the only answer he received.

  Moir came round enough to swing himself out of the car and make his way to the house while Larkin took the bags from the boot. Larkin saw the front door being opened by a female figure who hugged Andy and kissed him on the cheek, then beckoned the others in.

  The woman, Larkin noticed as he got nearer, was in her mid to late forties, possibly, since the only indicator of age was the slight collection of lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her long, hennaed hair was pulled from her face, falling down her back. The velvet scoop-necked top and long, flowing batik skirt showed off her firm, full figure. She looked like the kind who had been pretty as a girl and had matured into a deeply attractive woman. Even Moir, who a moment ago had been comatose, was taking interest.

  “Hi,” she smiled, extending her hand, “I’m Faye.”

  “Stephen Larkin.”

  “I thought so. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Really?” Larkin was taken aback. “Andy’s never mentioned you before.”

  Her smile became wry. “I doubt he would. Come in.”

  Larkin entered. The hall was large and tall, with a wide staircase going up to the first floor. What appeared to be a study was on the right and old panelled doors led off to the main downstairs rooms on the left. Under the stairs was another door, presumably leading to the cellar, Larkin surmised, and beyond that, the kitchen. As far as Larkin could tell, the house had all its original features with anything additional in keeping. This hadn’t been done in an obvious, heritage way, just a comfortable functional, homely way.

  “Come through,” said Faye over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen. “Leave the bags, we’ll sort them in a while.” Moir shut the front door and they all followed Faye.

  The kitchen, with its centrally placed, old, scarred pine table, cooker and dressers, seemed, on first glance, the obvious heart of the house. On the stove were steaming pots.

  “I thought you boys would be hungry after such a long trip. Sit yourselves down.”

  “Thanks,” said Larkin. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble.”

  “No trouble,” replied Faye. She gave a quick, bright smile. Maybe too quick. “Nice to have people in the house. Someone to cook for. Sort that out, Andy.” She handed him a corkscrew and he trotted over to the wine rack, selected a couple of reds, found glasses, opened and poured.

  “Cheers,” said Faye. Larkin and Moir mumbled in response, Andy replied loudly, “Cheers, yourself.”

  “I hope you all find what you’re looking for.” She drank, they followed.

  Larkin and Moir sat down, Larkin looking at him. All the life seemed to have been drained from the man. Moir stared at the table, not so much avoiding eye contact as oblivious to it.

  Poor bastard, thought Larkin. Now that you’re here you don’t know if you want answers or not. Or even if you’ll find them. Then an unbidden thought came into Larkin’s head: Neither do I. He took another slug of wine, shook his head. One thing at a time, he thought, one thing at a time.

  Faye then went on to tell them to treat her house as their own, and that they were welcome to stay as long as they liked. “As long as it takes,” she said. “As I said, it’s nice to have the company.” They thanked her, solemnly.

  The meal was served – pasta, meatballs, salad – and they all ate and drank heartily, like hungry, condemned men. Conversation was light, superficial and strained, Moir casting a massive, inhibiting shadow.

  “So,” Larkin asked of Faye, “how d’you know Andy?”

  A look passed between Andy and Faye, bookended by conspiratorial smiles.

  “Oh, we go way back. Don’t we, Andy?”

  “We do.”

  “You see,” said Faye, leaning forward, the candlelight from the table defining her cleavage in a most flattering and, to Larkin, highly desirable way, “I’m Andy’s mother.”

  Larkin almost dropped his fork. Even Moir phased into the present long enough to allow his jaw to slacken. Faye and Andy smiled, enjoying the confusion.

  “Well, Andy mate,” said Larkin, mentally retracting his earlier thoughts about Faye’s breasts, “I didn’t think you were capable of surprising me any more, but I’ve been proved wrong.”

  Andy raised his glass in salute, a broad grin on his face. Ice well and truly broken, the meal, and the conversation, began to pick up.

  “So what’s the story, if you don’t mind me asking?” said Larkin.

  “Doesn’t Andy tell you anything?” asked Faye.

  “Not as much as I thought he did.”

  Faye smiled again. “Well, if he doesn’t mind –” Andy shrugged “– and you two don’t mind listening –” Larkin nodded, Moir raised his eyebrows. “OK then.” Draining her glass then refilling it, she began to fill in the missing bits of Andy’s life story.

  She fell pregnant with Andy when she was very young. “Too young, really. Andy’s father and I were just a couple of sheltered kids out in the back of beyond. We didn’t have much of a clue what we were doing. Still, Andy’s father was very sweet about it. It was a small village and he wanted to protect me, so he thought the gentlemanly thing to do was marry me. So he did. And it was hell. There we were, playing at being grown-ups, trying to bring up a kid when we’d only just left school.” She took a drink of wine. “Anyway, to cut a tedious story short, Andy’s father’s family weren’t short of a bob or two so they paid me off and brought Andy up themselves.” She smiled. “I think they were relieved, really. Gentry, you see. Gentleman farmers. They despise commoners like me,” she said with a laugh.

  “Right bunch of humourless tossers,” chimed in Andy.

  “Don’t be bitter, Andy, they can’t help it.” Andy gave a deferential shrug. Faye continued. She told how it had hurt to leave her baby, but she knew he’d be well looked after. “And I went travelling. Europe, India, that’s what we did at the time. Anyway, potted history. I eventually ended up in London, enrolled in art school, fell in love with one of my tutors, married him, moved in here.”

  Faye’s eyes fell on a painting on the wall. Larkin followed her gaze. An abstract in rich crimson and blue hues, the muted light of the candles gave it intensity and depth. Larkin glanced around. It wasn’t the only painting there. The walls were full of them and, Larkin noticed for the first time, they were all original.

  “He was an artist and a sculptor,” Faye continued, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the memories she could see painted into the canvas. “The paintings were all his. The sculpture and ceramics are both of ours. His are the good ones,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  Larkin smiled and looked around the table. He had to admit he was having a good time. He was starting to relax in his temporary new home. Th
ey all were, by the looks of things. Andy was enjoying himself, but he very rarely didn’t. Then Faye. For all her good looks and stimulating nature, she carried an air of loneliness about her. She seemed genuinely pleased to have company. He looked at Moir. Even he appeared less preoccupied, his mouth giving an occasional twitch at the corners. It was such a simple thing: food, drink, company, conversation. Simple, but it looked like something none of them had had too much of recently. Good, thought Larkin. They needed this tonight. Because tomorrow was going to be a different matter.

  “So,” Faye continued, “once I got settled here Andy started to come and visit. School holidays and such.” She laughed. “I tried to do the motherly bit, make up for lost time, teach him things about art and culture, but he wasn’t interested. All he wanted to do was talk in that ridiculous assumed accent and pretend he was streetwise.”

  Andy reddened.

  “Still does,” said Larkin. The harder they laughed, the redder Andy became.

  “So where’s your husband tonight, then?” asked Larkin. Andy shot him a look that was picked up by the others, causing the laughter to thin.

  Faye made eye contact only with her wine glass. “Jeavon, my husband, died suddenly. Car crash.” Silence. She looked up, eyes glinting from the candlelight. “I got a job teaching art and ceramics at South London Uni. I was going to sell this place at first, get rid of all the stuff, but then I decided not to. I liked being surrounded by Jeavon’s things, it made me feel … close to him somehow.” She looked into her wine, playing with the stem of the glass.

  Faye looked up, smiled. “But let’s not dwell on that. This is a house that should have people in it, that’s what I decided. I usually rent to students, but I’m inbetween lodgers at the moment so you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Treat this place as your home. I mean that.”

  Larkin and Moir thanked her.

  “So,” said Faye, “what are your plans?”

  Moir spoke in a shaky voice. “We’re goin’ lookin’ tomorrow …”

  Larkin glanced at him, saw that was all they would be getting. He took over. “Yeah,” he said, “we’ll start with the agency Henry employed to trace his daughter and take it from there. After that, who knows? Go round the charities, hostels, drop-in centres, that sort of thing. Ask around, show some photos. Keep our eyes peeled, perhaps even flypost some pictures of her …” Larkin shrugged. “I doubt anyone will want to talk to us. We’ll have to do what we can to win people’s trust. Anything to find her.”

  “Good luck. I hope you do. It’s a big place.”

  “We’ll give it our best,” said Andy.

  “Er …”

  All heads turned. Moir was about to speak. “I, er think I’ll turn in. Tired. busy day.” He stood up, gripping the table with trembling hands, and looked to Faye. “Could you …?”

  She smiled and led him through the door, going upstairs to show him to his room.

  “Bit of a fuckin’ state, isn’t he?” said Andy when Moir was safely out of earshot.

  “Yeah,” agreed Larkin, “I think we’d better leave him here tomorrow. He’s more of a liability than anything else.”

  Andy nodded.

  “Hey,” said Larkin smiling, “you kept quiet about your mother.”

  Andy shrugged. “What was I supposed to say? Yeah, she gave birth to me, an’ that, but I don’t think of her as me mother. More like an aunt, or somethin’, a sister. She’s just Faye.”

  “She’s lovely.” Larkin smiled.

  “Yeah,” Andy said, his face stern. “I know. An’ don’t you go gettin’ ideas.”

  Larkin smiled, knowing it would annoy Andy. “But you don’t think of her as your mother. More as your sister.”

  “Yeah, an’ I wouldn’t want me sister gettin’ involved with you neither,” he said grumpily.

  Faye chose that moment to reappear. “I put him in one of the attic rooms, poor man,” she said, resuming her place at the table. “Early for him to be be going to bed.”

  “I think he’s got something in his bag to help him sleep,” said Larkin.

  “Ah,” replied Faye, understanding dawning on her. “So,” she said, pouring herself some more wine, “what are you two planning for the night?”

  “Dunno,” replied Andy. He looked between Larkin and Faye. “Fancy a pint Stevie?”

  “Yeah,” said Larkin. “I used to know this area quite well. There’s a pub round the corner … the Coach and Horses, is it? Nice place. Comfortable, I seem to remember. Let’s go there.” He looked at Andy. “What’s that smirk for?”

  “You’ll see. Come on.”

  “What about you, Faye?” Larkin looked at her. The candlelight radiance made her look ten years younger. At least. He was undeniably attracted to her. “You coming?”

  She smiled. “I’ve got a bit of reading to do. Have fun and I’ll see you both later.”

  More than three hours passed before Larkin let himself back into the house with Andy’s key. He had soon found out why Andy had been smiling. The Coach and Horses with its carpeting, warming fire and polished brass had gone. In its place was a bar known by a single vowel sound with bare walls, a huge MTV screen and furniture out of Architectural Salvage R Us. It was aiming for cool but bordering on hypothermia. Larkin took one look at the skinny young girl behind the bar, her studied disinterest bordering on vapidity, and refused to drink there. Andy, laughing and calling him an old fart, followed him out and down the road.

  The other places they tried were, if anything, even worse. The Falcon now had yellow canopies stuck to it and was known by an Egyptian symbol. The Railway Tavern, which used to be a retreat for old men to play dominoes, had been redecorated in primary colours by either a retarded toddler or a sixth form art student.

  It was a long time since Larkin had been to London, in particular south London, and he had expected change, but not this much. Clapham High Street was somewhere he’d once known very well. He’d lived around there. Now he found that familiarity alien, disorientating, like something from a dream he couldn’t quite remember correctly. It was all there, but not in the right places. It made him realise that whole swathes of his past had gone, disappeared. Of course there were parts that clung to him, stuff he doubted he’d ever shake, but equally there were things that were lost forever. The thought reminded him of Moir’s daughter, Karen. People, like memories, can just slip out of sight, vanish through the cracks, never come back.

  They passed a new chrome and steel construct that on first glance appeared to be a landing pad for alien spaceships but on closer inspection turned out to be a new Sainsbury’s, and headed into the old town, specifically the Prince Of Wales. It was comforting to see that this place hadn’t changed much. With the same collection of artifacts, antiques and junk stuck to every available piece of wall or ceiling, it resembled Steptoe’s yard with a bar in the middle.

  They drank and talked there for a while until Andy struck up a conversation with a girl he claimed he used to know. Her friend was more interested in the barman than Larkin so, recognising an exit cue when he saw one, he drank up and left.

  Walking back, he had thought of Sophie. There were places round here that had been special haunts for the both of them. He had found Newcastle to have its share of ghosts when he had moved back up there, and London was just the same. Of course, being melancholically half cut didn’t help much.

  As he entered the house he noticed light spilling under the door to the living room. Following it, he opened the door and saw Faye sitting in an armchair, book on her lap, wearing an oversized, white terrycloth bathrobe and damp hair. The only illumination in the room came from a reading lamp positioned to her right. When she heard the door go, she had swung her right hand over the side of the chair as if hiding something. There was no need because Larkin knew a spliff when he smelt one. She also had a large, empty glass resting on the floor by her foot.

  “Hi,” she said, slurring. “Good night?”

  “OK,” he replied. He
stayed in the doorway and took in the scene. The room, and by extension the house, looked suddenly big, empty and cold. Faye’s reading light wasn’t throwing out any warmth, it just emphasised the shadows and the darkness unreached by effulgence. The distance between light and dark, warm and cold. In the centre sat Faye looking vulnerable, alone. And smashed.

  “Where’s Andy?” asked Faye, swivelling her head round.

  Larkin explained what had happened.

  “Same old Andy,” she said and laughed. “Nothing changes, does it?”

  Larkin didn’t reply.

  “Help yourself to a drink, if you like.” She held up her hand. “Or d’you want some of this?” She gestured with the spliff.

  “No thanks, I don’t any more. But don’t let me stop you.”

  She smiled and gestured upstairs. “I won’t get done for this, will I?”

  Larkin laughed. “I doubt it.”

  “Get a drink and I’ll have a refill. G and T please” She held out her glass and he made his way to the kitchen. He made the same for himself and on returning found that Faye had curled herself into a corner in one of the room’s enormous sofas. Her legs were strong and shapely and Larkin could see the curve of her breasts through the gap in her robe. He sat down next to her.

  “Cheers,” he said. They both drank.

  “So,” she said, fixing him with a stoned yet penetratingly direct stare, “Stephen Larkin. Andy’s told me so much about you.”

  “You said earlier.” Larkin laughed. “Nothing good, I hope.”

  She laughed too, a surprisingly strong, confident sound. “Accurate, I think. A journalist. A bruised romantic wearing the mask of a cynic. A believer in truth.”

  Larkin snorted. “Andy said all that?”

  “Not in as many words. I added the embellishment.” She looked into her drink. “He also told me that you’d lost people close to you,” she said, looking right into his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “How long?” she asked quietly.

  Larkin sighed. This was something he never talked about. But … he didn’t know. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was just time to talk. Or perhaps it was Faye. He was certainly attracted to her, but she was a stranger to him. And sometimes it was easier to open up with total strangers. Especially ones who had suffered a similar loss, who might understand.