‘What’s he playing at?’ said Aldous.
‘Had he been drinking?’ said his wife.
‘Hard to tell. He looked very different. But then I haven’t seen him for a year.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘He looked smart, like you’ve described him. Jacket, shirt, tie . . .’
‘I don’t like this, Aldous. What’ll we do if he comes back?’
‘We’ll call the police. It’s simple.’
‘And have him put in prison for years? Supposing he is just being friendly, supposing all he wants to do is say hallo? Could you really put him in prison for that?’
‘He knows the rules, darling. If he’s sensible he won’t come back, or if he does, he’ll simply go away, like he did just now. If he tries anything else, if he tries breaking in, then it’s straight to the phone for the police.’
‘He wouldn’t do that. He’s not so stupid.’
The next day there was a telephone call from the police. The Cornish Police.
‘Yes, this is Penzance Police Station. We have a Mr Janus Jones here. He was caught on the train from London without a ticket. He has no money on him and says he has no means of getting home . . .’
What the hell, thought Aldous, did they want him to do about it? The policeman went on to point out the legal situation. Janus was liable for a fifty pound fine. They seemed to want Aldous to deal with it. The policeman seemed to suggest that Aldous should come down to collect his son, or make arrangements for him to travel back. Did they really think he was going to wire money to some Cornish branch of the Midland Bank so that Janus could stay in a hotel, pay his fine and travel back first-class on The Cornishman?
‘I’m sorry, he is not my responsibility,’ said Aldous, and put down the phone.
‘But if they find he’s got a criminal record, that he’s on probation, he could go back to prison.’
‘So the hell what?’ said Aldous. ‘If he wants to start playing the fool again while he’s on probation, what can he expect? He obviously hasn’t learnt his lesson has he? He’s not the changed man you so frequently claimed after all your little tea shop liaisons. The whole exercise has been a waste of time. He may have changed for a while, but the shock of prison is starting to wear off. He’s starting to forget all his resolutions and he’s reverting to his old ways. Phone calls from the police. It’s happening all over again.’
Aldous drained a glass of whisky.
There was that knock again the next day. The sharp, perky, rat-a-tat.
The cold comfort they’d derived from the knowledge that at least Janus was stranded three hundred miles away in Cornwall where he couldn’t bother them, was dispelled.
Colette answered the door this time.
‘We had a phone call from the police yesterday,’ she said, in her severest voice.
‘The Cornish police are the stupidest in the country,’ said Janus. ‘I’ve outwitted them all, just as I outwitted the Edinburgh police and the Somerset police.’
‘And did they know that you were just out of prison?’
‘No. They didn’t know anything.’
‘Don’t you think they might find out, eventually. These Cornish police will pass your name around, word will get back to your probation officer. You can’t fool people like that, Janus. They may appear stupid, but they have method. They have systems. Eventually they will catch up with you, and you’ll go to prison for not buying a train ticket.’
‘I couldn’t give two hoots mate,’ said Janus.
‘No, I didn’t think you could. In that case we’ll call the police if you come here again.’
‘You didn’t say that the other Saturday.’ Janus repeated this loudly for the benefit of his father, whom he could see standing halfway down the hall, ‘I said she didn’t say that the other Saturday! I don’t suppose you’ve told him have you. She let me in for the afternoon to play the piano! Now she’s toying with my emotions, like she’s always done. She lets me near then she pushes me away . . .’
Colette closed the door at this point. Janus’s speech continued at a third the volume, only partly discernible.
‘What’s he talking about?’ said Aldous.
‘Nothing,’ said Colette, ‘he’s just raving.’
‘I’m going to call the police,’ said Aldous, walking into the front room where the telephone was.
Colette hurried after him.
‘Wait a minute darling, I think he’s going now.’ She could see the tall figure of her son through the front room window, half-obscured by front garden foliage, as he strode away from the house. Aldous had lifted the receiver half way to his ear. He watched Janus as well. When he had gone he put the receiver down.
‘Next time,’ he said, ‘just one more chance.’
They both remained in the front room for a while, watching out of the window for their son’s return. Because of the thickness of the vegetation they couldn’t see far. They decided to go upstairs, Aldous using his spare key to gain access to Juliette’s room, which offered the only clear view from the front of the house. They suspected that Janus might be just lingering at the corner of the road, but from here they could see no sign of him in either direction. Colette went downstairs, sat in her chair and tried to read a book. Aldous remained in the front bedroom for a while, watching out of the window.
‘He’s probably on a train to some remote part of the country,’ said Colette when Aldous finally came downstairs. He made no comment but sat gloomily in a chair opposite his wife, picked a local paper from the heap on the table next to him and leafed through it.
‘I hate August,’ he said after a while. ‘Now that we don’t go on holiday with the kids, what’s the point of it?’
‘Perhaps we should have gone away somewhere,’ said Colette.
At first they’d been happy to stay at home for the summer while their family went their disparate ways. They’d enjoyed the peace and calm, the quietness of their usually crowded house. But now it had been going on for too long. James and Marilyn had been away for nearly two months. Julian and Myra had been away almost six weeks. Boris and Juliette had been gone a fortnight. Their isolation made them feel how alone they were in the world without their family. They had no friends.
Janus returned late, just as Aldous and Colette were beginning to feel sure that there would be no more disturbances that day. The familiar rat-a-tat came at twilight, when the long August day had finally, with great reluctance, begun to wane.
‘Don’t answer,’ said Colette. They were still in the kitchen.
They remained still for a while.
The knock came again.
‘It’s no good,’ said Aldous, ‘if we pretend not to be in, he might try breaking in, or come round the back and see us sitting here through the window.’
Another sharp knock, much louder than before.
Aldous finally got out of his chair and went to the front door.
‘Just clear off,’ Aldous said after opening the door.
‘I want to play my piano,’ said Janus. This time his voice clearly registered that he was drunk.
‘Just clear off. I’ll call the police.’
Aldous shut the door but Janus put a foot in it. Aldous pushed harder. Janus yelped as his foot was squashed, then put his shoulder to the door. Aldous did likewise, but found himself sliding slowly backwards, inch by inch.
‘Colette! Help!’
Colette came out, saw her husband almost horizontal in his effort to keep Janus out, and she ran to add her little strength to the task. They could hear Janus grunting and sighing with the exertion. No words were exchanged. It seemed now that everything came down to muscular toil. Two against one. It only needed one party to flinch for a second and the door would either lock shut or swing open. Aldous found a breathy voice.
‘Just go Janus. Please.’ He had to breathe between each word, ‘We won’t call the police now if you just go.’
It was a pleading voice. A frightened voice. A voice h
e’d never used before.
Finally, just as Aldous and Colette felt themselves being pushed irredeemably back, Janus paused to reposition himself, and in that instant the door clicked shut. Aldous and Colette collapsed on the doormat, Colette face down on the floor, grimacing with exhaustion. Aldous was on his back propped against the door, taking deep breaths. Then the door shuddered as something exploded against it. There was a dripping noise. Then another tremendous crash.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘The milk bottles,’ said Colette.
There were three full milk bottles on the step. They still hadn’t got round to lowering their order, and they were taking in far more milk than they needed. Sometimes they forgot it, and the milk stayed there all day. Now Janus was hurling the bottles, one by one, at the front door. They heard leonine roars before each one landed. Aldous and Colette crawled on their hands and knees down the hall to escape the showers of glass that would come if one broke the window. When they got far enough to see clearly, they saw that one had actually hit the window, but miraculously it had withstood the impact. There was milk dripping all the way down it.
Then came a different type of impact. Quick footsteps, a yell, then a powerful, house-shaking crash, accompanied by a groaning sort of cry. Then again, and again. From the front room window they could see what was happening. Janus was simply hurling himself at the front door. He was walking calmly and methodically to the far end of the path, then running and leaping, like a long jumper, launching himself like a missile at the front door.
Aldous picked up the phone. He was beginning to dial when Colette gave a cry. Aldous turned and she beckoned him to look out of the window. Janus was lying in a heap on the path, near the doorstep.
‘He slipped,’ said Colette, ‘on the pyracantha berries. He bashed his face on the step.’
‘Leave him,’ called Aldous, as Colette ran to the front door and opened it. Aldous followed, intending to pull his wife back into the house. By the time she reached him, Janus was slowly lifting himself up. Blood was streaming down his face from a deep cut above his left eye.
‘I’ll tell them you did this,’ he said, smiling at Colette through a web of blood. He turned and walked swiftly away.
There was a smeared pool of pink blood on the path. Neighbours were watching from lit porches and windows. A few minutes later a police car arrived, having been called by one of these neighbours. Aldous was sweeping away the shards of broken glass from the front path.
‘We can’t really arrest him unless we actually find him within the prohibited area,’ said the policeman after he’d heard and taken note of all the details, ‘so if he does come back you need to contact us straight away. In the meantime we’ll keep a patrol car on the lookout in the surrounding streets.’
‘He was so close,’ said Colette through her tears afterwards, ‘so close to getting it right. He was just inches away from a normal, useful life. Now he’ll almost certainly be going back to prison, and for how long this time? He could get three or four years. He’ll be nearly forty.’
‘Forget him,’ said Aldous as they made their bed in the front room settee, ‘we’ve lost him. We lost him a long time ago.’
It was one of those rare occasions when Aldous referred to Janus as their joint offspring, and not just Colette’s son.
Colette didn’t sleep that night. She decided not to take any sleeping pills. She wanted to be conscious and alert in case Janus returned. If she took her usual handful of Nembutals she would doze through any commotion, no matter what the volume. So instead she lay awake. At first she tried reading Bleak House, the book she’d never finished reading to Janus Brian, but her mind couldn’t cope with the long sentences. She couldn’t get to the end of one without her concentration drifting off towards her son. Instead she closed the book and lay back, watching the twitches in the tree shadows that filled the room – the acacia, the pyracantha, the holly. The nearby street lamp created this theatre of shadows, branch upon branch bisecting, forking, diverging, ramifying. At night the front room looked like an anatomical diagram – the arteries and veins of the heart, its capillaries and valves all mapped out in black on the walls.
The knock came late, about two o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t Janus’s knock. Instead it was a single thud of metal, guillotining the endless thread of Aldous’s snoring.
They listened for the confirming second knock. It came soon, and louder.
‘It’s not Janus,’ said Colette, as Aldous stirred.
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s not his knock.’
Aldous knew this as well.
He crept out of bed and walked over to the window.
‘There’s a police car outside.’
Suddenly the two were animated by a panicky urgency. They struggled to find clothes and half-dress, stumbling in the semi-darkness before, after further loud knocks, making it to the front door.
‘It’s about your son.’
There were two policemen on the doorstep, both young, both rather nervous looking.
‘What’s he done now?’ said Aldous, wearily.
‘Do you mind if we come in?’ one of the policemen asked.
‘He’s dead isn’t he?’ said Colette in a toneless voice.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Aldous.
The policeman refused to answer Colette directly. It was as though he didn’t want to deviate from a script he’d carefully rehearsed to himself.
‘I’m afraid your son has been involved in an accident.’
‘Accident?’ said Aldous, ‘What sort . . . Is he all right?’
The policeman looked at Colette with an expression she wasn’t able to decipher until much later. It was a look of fear.
‘I’m afraid . . .’ he hesitated once more, then let it out, ‘I’m afraid he is dead, Mrs Jones.’
‘I told you,’ said Colette, almost satisfied. Her face was clenched, tight as a fist. She moved about the hall uncertainly, as though looking for a hidden exit.
‘Dead,’ said Aldous, reproducing exactly the policeman’s grim intonation of the word.
‘What sort of accident?’ said Colette.
‘His body has been found on the railway line, just outside Windhover Hill Station. We believe he was struck by a train at approximately half past twelve this morning. The driver tried to stop but he didn’t have time. It took us quite a long time to find the body, it was thrown so far . . .’ He paused, wondering if he was offering more information than was wanted. Aldous’s wince told him that perhaps he was, ‘ . . . and in the dark, with all the bushes . . . you understand, otherwise we would have been here sooner . . .’
‘Are you sure it’s him?’ said Aldous.
The policeman nodded.
‘There was documentation on the body giving his name and address. We contacted this address . . .’ the policeman showed Aldous the typed address of the probationers’ hostel, ‘but he hasn’t been there for several days. The warden there was able to give us your address. Would you like my colleague to make you some tea?’
This question passed unheard. The other policeman having looked hopefully expectant of having something useful to do, now looked deflated.
‘There is still the question of formal identification,’ the policeman continued. ‘Although we don’t believe that there is any doubt that it was your son that was killed this morning, a formal identification has to be carried out for legal reasons . . .’
‘I want to do it,’ said Colette, ‘I want to see him.’
How cold the house was. Bitterly, wintry coldness filling the house. Was it really summer. There must be ice on the windows.
‘Sometimes we think it is best to spare parents this duty – it can be very distressing. Is there anyone else, a family friend or other relative?’
‘No, there isn’t anyone else,’ said Colette.
‘In view of the circumstances of your son’s death, and the particular injuries he’s suffered, we can use a family d
octor to carry out the formal identification . . .’
‘No. I want to do it . . .’
‘Because in some cases, a visual identification can’t be relied upon.’
‘You think I wouldn’t recognize my own son?’
‘In cases of severe injury, only medical or dental records can provide accurate identification . . .’
Colette understood. She reconsidered.
‘Perhaps it would be best not to,’ said Aldous, as Colette slowly and gently put her face to rest in her hands.
Janus was later identified by his teeth.
26
Aldous and Colette spent a day and a night alone. For much of the time they sat in the kitchen, huddled together, Colette crying into Aldous’s body as he encircled her. Their isolation became palpable. It was as though Janus had died to reveal this one fact – they were utterly alone in the world.
By chance, however, Julian and Myra returned to Fernlight Avenue the next day. They’d run out of money and energy and had spent the night before sleeping on the platforms of the Gare du Nord. Their arrival – dirty, hungry, happy, brimming with stories to tell of their six weeks away, brought an end to this most intense period of loneliness. Colette stopped crying for the first time in a day, and was a little perturbed when Julian reacted so oddly to the news of his brother’s death. He didn’t quite dance a celebratory jig, but there was no trace of sorrow in his face either. Rather, there was excitement. Awe. It was as though he’d been told of some unimaginable political event – the re-unification of Germany, or the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Twelve hours later Juliette and Boris were back from France. They showed more sensitivity to the news. Juliette even managed a few sobs. By sheer chance James arrived back two days later. It was as though Janus’s death had broadcast homing waves from the epicentre of the railway. James had found the rigours of anthropological fieldwork harsher than he’d expected and had quarrelled with Marilyn. So the house was soon full, when only a few days before it had been hideously empty.
I’ll Go To Bed At Noon Page 43