The difference now seemed to be the naturalness of the smiles, of the silence. Firstly, the smiles weren't there all the time. If you met someone's eye, they smiled at you. And it was the kind of smile that reached the eyes. The silence was unstrained, natural. No one seemed to feel the need to fill it with small talk. It wasn't uncomfortable, it was accepting, warm. Bob rubbed his eyes. It had been an intense couple days. Maybe he was reading too much into a trailer-full of happy introverts. He finished his second mug of coffee and sighed.
Across the table from Bob, Mee belched contentedly. Even habitual dope-smokers still got the munchies and five loaded pancakes had certainly hit the spot. She, too, had noticed the silence. It was hard not to. But she found herself thinking about her Auntie back in Britain. Aunt Anita had first upset her Hindu grandparents by converting to Christianity, then scandalized them by becoming a Sister in a Carmelite monastery in East London. A nun in the family - or penguin, as she and her cousins used to call her, despite the fact that only the very oldest of the Sisters wore a habit. Aged 15, Meera had given in to curiosity and gone to visit Auntie Anita. She told her parents she was going shopping with friends. Second-generation Indian Londoners at that time were less suspicious of their children's acceptance of Western materialism than they would be by a sudden interest in Christianity.
Auntie Anita was Meera's favorite Aunt. She had achieved that honor by being able to listen without judging. Which meant Meera had kept telling her about her problems, all the way from injuries sustained by a toy unicorn, through school reports so awful that she doctored them before they reached her parents, all the way to that first boyfriend, a dreadlocked drug-dealer from a middle-class background called Edmund. She had always known him as Dog, until she found his passport. She had laughed, but Edmund hadn't. When Auntie Anita saw the bruises at the top of her arms (easy to hide), she advised calling the police, but she respected Meera's choice not to. A year later, Auntie had entered the convent as a novice. "I'm not dying," she told Meera, hugging her. Mee even hugged her back, crying. "Come visit," said Auntie.
Five months later, Mee had caught a bus and found the anonymous redbrick building tucked half a street away from a well-known soccer stadium. She had signed a visitor book in a room containing a formica-topped table covered in magazines like Woman's Own and Reader's Digest. Ten minutes later, Auntie Anita had swept into the room, kissed her and, taking her hand, given her 'the tour'. On Friday afternoons there was one room in the monastery - the refectory - where the sisters were permitted to talk between 2-5pm. The only time, barring emergencies, when the Sisters were permitted to speak. Auntie Anita put the kettle on.
"Three hours?" said Mee, disbelievingly. "Don't you go crazy the rest of the time?"
"That's the funny thing," said Auntie. "I thought I'd miss talking and for the first few months I really did. But I always preferred listening, really. 'Cause I'm so nosy." She pushed a mug of tea over to Meera and sat opposite her. She looked radiant, her eyes shining. Like a bride on her wedding day, Mee told her so.
"Well, that's what we are," said Auntie. "Brides of Christ."
Mee pulled a face and addressed the issue with the kind of implacable sarcasm only a teenager can pull off. "But no sex, and hardly any talking. Great marriage, that is. Sounds brilliant."
Auntie Anita refused to rise to the bait. "Well, I miss sex, certainly," she said, "I aways did enjoy it. Even after your uncle died there were a few memorable occasions."
"Auntie!" said Mee, protesting and reddening, putting her hands over her ears. I'm not listening to this filth. La la la la, I can't hear you."
Auntie Anita leaned forward and gently took Meera's hands away from her ears. "Don't be embarrassed," she said. "Sex can be wonderful at any age. But it's not the be all and end all. It was just one of the things I was prepared to give up, along with my privacy, owning any property, personal ambition -,"
"- and talking," said Mee.
"And talking," said Auntie Anita. "Which was the most difficult for me. At first. Because when I stopped talking, I had to listen to the rubbish swirling around my head every minute of every day. And it is such rubbish. Jealousy, envy, trivia, anger, hurt, guilt, shame, fantasies, memories, good and bad, all repeating themselves. To begin with, it was awful."
Mee sipped her tea and watched her auntie. Her body language was different somehow. Mee realized what had changed. Auntie Anita was almost completely still. She wasn't fidgeting, wasn't finding something to do. She was just sitting there. Comfortable.
"So I listened to my personal radio station," said Auntie Anita. "Day in and day out. And gradually I became aware of the silence behind it. Like the static behind a bad radio signal, I found silence behind mine. And it was the same silence that drew me here in the first place."
"And that's God, is it?" said Mee.
"To me, yes," said Auntie. "Others might call it something else, that's fine, but this is where God is for me and this is where I need to be."
Then she had shown Mee around the convent, a scrupulously clean, cold brick building with Victorian flagstones underfoot and dark green walls. The bedrooms - unnervingly called 'cells' - were tiny; a bed with a thin mattress, a washbasin, a desk and hard chair. A cross above the bed and what looked like a Russian Icon on the wall seemed to be the only decoration, until Mee looked closer and found a tiny framed photo of herself on the corner of the desk. Anita saw her looking and stroked her cheek with the back of her hand.
When Mee had said goodbye and walked back to the bus stop, she was almost overwhelmed by the frenetic activity and noise of the outside world. And as she watched the workers hurrying home, the cars honking in five solid lanes of gridlock, the blasts of music from open shop doorways, the billboards everywhere encouraging her to fit in by spending money on the right accessories, she had a sudden urge to run back to the convent. She had gone to see Auntie Anita because she missed her, but Mee had thought she was running away from the world, from real problems. Now she wasn't so sure. She sat at the back of the bus, rolled a fat spliff and stopped thinking about it.
"Another pancake?" said Jackie, bringing Mee's attention back to the present. Mee was full, but meals hadn't been regular lately and these pancakes were really good.
"Go on, then," she said, holding her plate up. Her lips twitched. It was almost a smile. Around the table, everyone else had finished eating. Some were drinking coffee or water, some were just sitting. Comfortable. As if here was where they were, there was nowhere else to be and that was that. Like Auntie Anita.
The sixth pancake turned out to be the limit. Mee looked at the women around them. The man was there, too, but he seemed to blend in. They all seemed to blend in, actually, with their khaki clothes. And their ready smiles. And their stillness.
A tall woman at the far end of the table stood up. She walked to the door. Lo followed her.
"I'm Diane," said the tall woman. "Welcome to the Order. Would you like to see the garden?"
Chapter 26
17 Years Previously
St. Benet's Children's Home, New York
Seb spent eighteen days in the hospital after picking up an infection from the knife wound in his stomach. Father O'Hanoran told him later it had been touch and go for a few days, with Seb drifting in and out of consciousness, his face nearly as white as the starched pillowcase underneath. Seb guessed it must have been during that time that he thought he saw Melissa standing at the end of the bed. She didn't say anything, just smiled sadly at him. It couldn't have been her, there was no black eye, but Seb accepted the fever-born hallucination gratefully as his body healed. He knew his body would heal, of course, once they moved him from the ICU to a small ward. His mind was a different matter. As he moved into a more normal pattern of waking and sleeping, he found it impossible to rest properly. The first thing he thought of on waking, and the image that entered his mind as soon as he began to settle down to sleep was Jack Carnavon's pink-frothed lips as he exhaled for the last time. The awful, un
avoidable, finality of death.
The police came during the second week, as soon as the doctors decided he was stable. Two NYPD officers, one a short Irishman in his fifties with no neck, the other a young, pretty black woman who said very little but looked at him throughout the interview with a keen, intelligent gaze. She looked like someone you wouldn't get away with lying to. Seb hoped his edited version of the truth would get past her scrutiny. He had read that liars usually over-elaborate, give too many details, remember the order in which events unfolded too accurately. There was no real danger of that in Seb's case, as his mind had evidently made the decision to recall parts of the fight with Jack in pin-point, laser-sharp slow-mo, while allowing other chunks of time to evaporate completely. Seb had decided to leave Melissa out of the story entirely. She needed to move on, and making a statement to the police about what Jack had done to her wouldn't help. At least, that was what Seb figured.
Sister Theresa sat in the corner, knitting. Every time Seb had opened his eyes during his recovery, one of the Sisters had been there, bringing him drinks, talking to him, reading or praying the rosary. Sister Theresa looked up at him as the two officers came in. He caught her glance. He wondered what she thought of him now.
The Irish cop was called Mahoney. "Yeah, just like the guy in that Police Academy movie," he said, "only not funny. Not funny at all." He shook his head slowly as if to emphasize his lack of comedic ability. He pulled a notebook out of his pocket and sat down, dragging a chair to the head of Seb's bed. He nodded at his partner, who took out a small voice recorder and placed it on the bedside table.
"Sergeant Dalney," she said, after pressing record and noting the date and time. "Witness is Sebastian Varden, aged fifteen." She looked at him and smiled. A professional, polite smile, no warmth. "Now, Sebastian, we are here for a statement about what happened on the evening of Wednesday 23rd September at St. Benet's. You are not under any suspicion at this point, we just need to present your evidence to the coroner. You've been through a traumatic event, we appreciate that, but we need you to co-operate fully. This will mean answering some questions that may be difficult for you."
"It's ok," said Seb. He took a drink of water. Dalney sat a bit further back form the bed and made very few further comments.
"Why were you in the attic?" said Mahoney, flicking through his notebook to find a blank page.
"I was tired, wanted to read rather than watch a movie," said Seb. "Jack had taken my book, so I needed to find him. I went up to the dorm -"
"And-," Mahoney flicked back two or three pages, "Steven Corser told you where Jack was. So, tell us, what was the fight about?"
Most of the interview was straightforward. Stevie had obviously already been interviewed, as Seb's description of Jack as volatile, violent and scary was barely challenged. If anything, Mahoney seemed bored, going through the motions. Seb thought they might have taken fingerprints from the knife and found only Jack's. He told them the fight was about him not accepting Jack as the boss, said he'd challenged him, called him a bully, said he was just a coward. He admitted making the first move. He told them the truth about pushing Jack and dislocating his shoulder, he mentioned the cut on the back of Jack's leg. Mahoney kept flicking back in his notes and checking. Seb told him that after being stabbed in the stomach, he had fallen. That was when Jack had come after him, said he was going to kill him. He stuck to the truth about what happened next. He described Jack trying to stab his throat, how he pushed Jack's hands away. Then how Jack had rolled away from him and he had seen the knife in Jack's stomach. How he pulled it out. The way the blood spurted.
"And what did you do? Said Mahoney.
"I called to Stevie to get some help," said Seb.
"Right after Jack pulled the knife out of his stomach?" said Mahoney. Seb hesitated. He was aware of Dalney shifting forward slightly in her chair. Mahoney still held the notebook but wasn't looking at it. The sunlight was edging across the room and had caught his badge, making spots of reflected light dance on the ceiling.
"I passed out for a while," said Seb, frowning. "But I called out as soon as I could."
Dalney spoke then. "Was Jack Carnavon still alive when you called for help, Sebastian?" In the pause that followed her question, the only sound was the gentle clack of Sister Theresa's knitting needles.
"I think so," said Seb, finally. "But I can't be completely sure. I'm sorry."
Mahoney was already closing his notebook. He stood up and glanced over at his partner. Dalney hadn't moved, her clear brown eyes still focused on Seb.
"Carnavon was a mean piece of work, one of the worst," she said. "And he was trying to kill you. No one would blame you for waiting a while before calling." She leaned forward a fraction. "Is that what happened, Sebastian?"
Seb looked up at the ceiling. The light had edged in a little further and tiny motes of dust danced under the smoke alarm.
"No," he said. "I passed out. When I woke up, I shouted for Stevie." Office Dalney hesitated, then blinked slowly and stood up. She joined Mahoney at the door.
"Bad things happen, kid," said Mahoney. "Don't beat yourself up about it." As the door closed behind them, Seb noticed that Sister Theresa had finally stopped knitting.
The New York Office of Chief Medical Officer ruled there was insufficient evidence to implicate any other party in the matter of Jack Carnavon's death. Since Jack had no traceable family and any reporters following up the story were unable to get past the perpetually cheerful but incredibly vague Sister Margaret who handled all their enquiries, the incident was quickly forgotten. Or rather, it was forgotten outside the walls of St. Benet's. Inside, the boys got over the initial shock and took an unspoken decision to act as if it had never happened. Seb received a few handshakes or brief hugs from boys who managed to find him alone, but en masse everyone behaved as if Jack Carnavon had never set foot in the building.
Seb had no way of knowing what anyone else was thinking or feeling, but for him, the weeks following his return from hospital were the worst of his young life. He knew he wasn't a murderer, but it didn't stop him feeling like one. It was unlikely that Jack would have survived had he called for help immediately, but it wasn't impossible. And, more importantly, the responsibility would have been taken away from him if he had shouted for Stevie. It was the only thing he could have done that might have prevented Jack's death. He had chosen not to do it. And in the philosophy school book he kept going back to, turning to the same page every time, like a tongue worrying the exposed nerve of a rotten tooth, he kept reading the same quote over and over.
"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury." John Stuart Mill.
Seb decided to talk to Father O.
Father O'Hanoran was an energetic man in his early sixties. He taught English at the school attached to St. Benet's, and was passionate about literature and poetry. His enthusiasm for his subject was such that it had an effect even on those boys who were barely literate when first arriving. Almost everyone taught by him would come to the realization, in later life, that they had been one of a lucky few to experience an exceptional teacher. Apart from his passion for his subject, he also had an undefinable quality - a kind of inner stillness - which bled out into the atmosphere around him. If he set a piece of written work to be completed in the classroom, he would first describe what it was he wanted, then he would sit down and wait for his pupils to complete the task. He didn't read while he waited, he didn't grade papers, he didn't daydream. He was just there. Present. And just his being there-ness had a palpable effect on the class. Difficult concepts seemed to become transparent, sentences flowed almost of their own volition, inspiration seemed available even to those who admitted freely to lacking much imagination. He was a pebble thrown into a pond - the ripples would reach you whether you were expecting them or not.
Seb knocked on his office door late one Saturday.
"Enter," said t
he familiar voice from within. Seb pushed open the door and negotiated the piles of books to find the desk at the far end of the room. The desk was made of heavy, polished mahogany, although it was impossible to see the wood as every square inch was covered in books or papers. The man behind the desk was reading poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins. Father O was the only person Seb had met who read poetry for pleasure. About a year previously, shyly at first, Seb had started doing the same thing.
Father O put the book down and gestured toward the chair opposite. Seb sat, unsure how to begin. The priest removed his reading glasses and rubbed his face, sighing. He pointed at the book.
"Burnt every poem he had written when he entered the priesthood," he said. "He wrote some beautiful stuff later, don't get me wrong, but why would he want to deny his past? He wouldn't have been the man he was without the experiences he wrote about when he was young. None of us would be." He looked up at Seb. "It's ok," he said. "Tell me."
So Seb told him. Everything. He didn't give Melissa's name and Father O didn't ask, but he told him what Jack had done. He told him what Jack had promised he would do next. He told him what had really happened to Stevie. He told him how Jack had stabbed him in the trunk room. Not just stabbed him, but dragged the knife across his stomach, trying to inflict as much damage as possible. He told him how he had defended himself against Jack's final attack. And, finally, he told him how he had let Jack Carnavon die there, in front of him, waiting until he was sure the boy was dead before calling for help.
Father O'Hanoran's expression didn't change throughout. He listened intently, compassionately, but didn't offer any platitudes or words of condemnation. He just let Seb talk. Seb felt his burden of guilt increase rather than lift as he finally told the truth. Father O was a good man. What did Seb expect from him? Forgiveness? He couldn't even forgive himself. How could he expect it from anyone else? Finally, he ran out of things to say. He had laid out his guilt. Now he waited.
World Walker 1: The World Walker Page 20