Exposure

by Talitha Stevenson

  'Oh, Al, I used to think he was sorry he chose me—you know, I thought he must feel if only he'd waited a bit he might have had June. I can tell you it ate me up for a while, that did. But I know he loved me now. You can't argue with sixty-odd years, can you?'

  'No.' He shook his head slowly. 'How can you be so reasonable? Ivy, you say you always wished Geoff would tell me...'

  Her face seemed to crumple with pain. 'It's true, love. I did always wish that. Part of me won't never forgive him.'

  'But if you felt it so strongly, why didn't you make him? He respected you, Ivy. You'd forgiven him so much. He would have listened to you.'

  'Me?' she said. 'Oh, no, love. You've got it all wrong. See, your mum and Geoff—they had no idea I knew.'

  Alistair leant back in his chair as if a huge blow to the chest had pushed him there. 'What?'

  'No, love. Not to this day.'

  'I ... I don't understand,' he said.

  But he did understand. She had not wanted to spoil what she had, and her humility was such that she had simply weathered it through and hoped the affair would end.

  But to be in her rival's company so much—to continue to be his mother's closest friend? To suffer Geoff referring to them affectionately as his 'girls'?

  But once a thing was said it could not be unsaid. He knew the awful truth of this as well as anyone. He took in Ivy's kind old face, the watery eyes still brimming with humour and affection—inexplicable affection—for him, her husband's illegitimate child. 'You loved me like a son,' Alistair said.

  'You were the closest I got, love. There was Martin, I suppose, but for me it was always you. My queer little Alistair with his book and his big frown.' She looked at him with heartbreaking tenderness and then she laid her hand on her stomach. 'I couldn't give him a child, you see. I was no good in there.'

  'Ivy, you can't blame yourself, surely.'

  'No. Not really. Not any more.'

  'Geoff could never have blamed you.'

  'No. He never did. And, anyway, it's you I owe my sorries to, really.'

  'Me? Why? You were always wonderful to me. All your encouragement, all those birthday cakes...'

  'Yes,' she said, laughing, 'you loved a Victoria sponge with lemon icing. Bit of jam and butter cream in the middle.'

  'Yes, Ivy, I did,' he said, almost too moved to speak. 'How can you possibly think you owe me an apology?'

  'For keeping you from your father, love. You see, I had a choice, and I thought it came down to my marriage or your father. And I chose not to rock the boat. I was scared if it came out in the open he'd leave me, that I'd force it to happen. You'd have known, love—d'you understand? But—oh, I don't know, I used to think they'd go off to London. God knows. You think love just disappears when you're young, don't you?, but it lasts for ever, really, like it gets in your bones. Oh, Al, I thought they'd leave me and take you away and go and be a family somewhere like I could never give him. I thought I'd lose him and June and you if I said anything.'

  'Ivy,' he put his arms out and held her frail body, 'it was for them to tell me,' he said. 'It was for them. Not you.' They moved apart, and as she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, which she always had in her sleeve, he said, 'But I don't think I'll ever understand how Mum could keep it secret. Not when I was old enough to keep quiet.' He looked out of the window at the little back garden.' Would I have kept quiet? I suppose I would ... Oh, how could she live with all that deception? How could she tell all those stories to her own child?'

  Ivy had a soft smile on her face. He knew what she was thinking.

  'Like mother, like son?' he said. 'I suppose you're right.'

  'Al, you was born with a funny lot in life. We never could really understand you. That brain of yours—it was your greatest blessing but it made you ever so different. I was forever saying that to Geoff, and he used to worry over it no end.'

  'Did he?'

  'Yes! Oh, yes, he did, love. He wasn't much of a reader. He used to say he had nothing for you, that all he had was his sweets. And you grew out of them so quick.'

  'Oh, no, Ivy you're wrong. He was wrong'.

  Alistair thought of the countless times he had gone to 'help' Geoff in the newsagent's on a Saturday or after school. Geoff had let him play at stacking the shelves or laying out the newspapers or the birthday cards. Geoff had been just as tender as Ivy was when he helped her to make a cake, with a little bowl of spare mixture to stir just as she did.

  'All those times in his shop,' he said, lost for words, getting none of it across.

  'He loved having you there, Al,' Ivy said.

  To think Geoff had quietly given him pear drops and ruffled his hair, never mentioned the fact that they were father and son. The portrait of restraint was too agonizing to contemplate.

  'Ivy, do you understand why I left? I'm not absolutely sure if I do myself. There was the snobbishness, of course, that was a big part of it, but I think there was anger too. I always knew there were secrets, that Mum was lying to me. My own mother, Ivy. I know I'm no better, but I'm just trying to explain myself. I suppose I just—I couldn't forgive her. Maybe I even wanted to punish her. Do you understand that? Do you understand how I got started off on a path and then there was no turning back?'

  'Your wife...'

  'Yes? Her name's Rosalind, Ivy.'

  'Rosalind thought your mother had already died, didn't she? That's what I guessed when I telephoned.'

  'Yes. You were right. I told her Mum died when we got engaged. It's unforgivable, I know it's unforgivable, but there was just no going back, Ivy. I suppose I made a choice, too: my mother and you and Geoff, or my marriage and my new life.'

  'And you chose not to rock the boat,' she said.

  'Yes.'

  And now I've capsized it, he thought.

  He put his head into his hands and began to cry. He could feel her stroking his back the way a mother strokes a little baby with colic. 'There there,' she was saying. 'There there, love.'

  His mind was making wild leaps. That evening with Karen Jennings: it had been a gross infidelity to Rosalind, but had it in some way been an act of fidelity to himself? Had he really brought about this crisis deliberately, in the name of uncovering the truth?

  But he knew even as he formulated this thought that if only he could believe it, he might have a shred of self-respect. He would have liked to think he had proved, at last, incapable of tolerating lies. He would rather have been anything other than the smooth, impervious creature he had embodied all these years. He wanted to think that, with some weird logic, some manic instinct, in that bedroom with Karen he had committed his body to the destruction of lies, just as he did when he leapt up in court.

  But he could not think this. The night with Karen had been a game of Russian roulette. And he had meant to survive—with the joy of recklessness in his blood for a bit, a recklessness he had curbed all his life. He had meant to carry the sensation about as a souvenir, as a little trophy for his ego. He knew that if it hadn't been for Karen's indiscretion, if it hadn't been for the attack, if it hadn't been for Ivy's telephone call, he would never have brought out the truth himself. He was too cowardly and too long accustomed to speaking in half-truths.

  It struck him then that he had fed his daughter on an indigestible mixture of adulation, derived in part from self-love, from corrective speeches aimed at his own undernourished ego, and on crudely veiled misogyny to which poor Sophie could hardly mount a defence. It was no wonder her body had wasted away. If anyone was physically reactive to lies, it was his darling daughter. 'I think I need to lie down,' he said.

  'You've had a big shock.'

  'Yes.'

  He let Ivy lead him into her sitting room where she kept her bed now to save her hips on the stairs. He let her plump up the pillows behind his head and draw a blanket over him. She laid her hand on his hair. 'I always wished you was my son,' she said. 'Life's like that, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' he said, 'it is.'

  'I'm not sur
prised you were angry with us all, Alistair.'

  'No, Ivy. I was never angry with you,' he said. 'Never with you.'

  He listened to her sit down in her chair and fold her hands in her lap. Quietly, quietly, the early-evening light filled the window and even the sound of the little ticking clock was muffled by the presence of peace.

  Chapter 20

  Bogdan's brother, Vuk, could get passports, National Insurance numbers, household bills, bachelor's degrees, speed, dope, coke, crack, smack, cars, stereos, mobile phones and guns. He and Bogdan were sitting in the kitchen at Kwik-Kabs, watching the news and eating baked potatoes from SpudWorld.

  Goran put three hundred pounds on the table in front of Vuk. They all spoke in Serbian.

  Vuk said, 'So, how come you've got the money for this but you can't pay me in full for your passport yet?'

  'It's not my money.'

  'Isn't that the best kind?'

  'No. I'm getting this for a friend. I owe him a favour. He helped me and my girlfriend out.'

  'OK. OK. Shit, I don't want to know about your life, really,' Vuk said. He reached into a sports bag on the chair beside him and took out a handgun. 'There you go.'

  Goran picked it up and put it into his bag, which said 'Scunthorne School for Girls' on either side. On one side, Sophie, aged twelve, had scratched out what she saw as the superfluous letters in the school name and coloured in the essential four with red nail polish. The eagle on the crest had a huge biro spliff in its mouth. Goran had forgotten to ask Luke for a bag and this was the only one he had been able to find in the annexe.

  'Thanks, Vuk,' he said.

  'Sure. You have a nice day at school.'

  Bogdan swallowed a large mouthful of potato. 'Goran, you're not going to keep that in the car while you do your shift, I hope. I have enough to fucking worry about if one of you lot crash. I don't need guns in the glove compartment, too.'

  'No, I'm giving it to the guy now. I'm meeting him right now.'

  Bogdan consulted his watch. 'You've got fifteen minutes till your shift starts, man.'

  'I'm meeting him just round the corner.'

  Bogdan nodded a kind of dismissal to him and turned to his brother.' I love it that they call this guy a socialist,' he said, pointing his fork at Tony Blair, who smiled amiably in a garden beside President Bush.

  Goran met Luke in a side-street off the Goldhawk Road. On either side there were neat, two-storey houses. Their iron gates opened on to little gardens that led to bright front doors. Many of the houses had bicycles chained outside them and some had cats stretched out in the sun on their doorsteps. Luke stood halfway down the road, beside his car. As Goran approached, Luke's face seemed increasingly amazed—as if, half remembering various elaborate school pranks that had never quite come off, he had been certain of failure.

  Now, as he watched Goran walk towards him, he was struggling to believe his eyes. 'You got it?' he said.

  Goran shrugged. 'Of course.'

  'OK. Right. You did.'

  'You did not think I can get this? It is like buying a newspaper. Expensive newspaper.'

  'No, of course I did. I knew you could get it,' Luke said. He put out his hand—it was shaking a little—and Goran gave him the bag.

  Luke stared at it, feeling disoriented and curiously afraid that this was all being filmed for reality TV. But he persisted: 'Did you keep fifty for yourself?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. Look, thank you for doing this, Goran.'

  There was little to say. On many occasions, Goran had noticed how the presence of a gun brought an end to all conversation. 'Well, I must work now, Luke.'

  'OK. So, I'll see you when you get back, then,' Luke said.

  Why will you see us? Goran thought. Can't you just leave us in peace? Why do you always need to come and visit us? We love each other, we want to be alone. Can't you get on with your rich boy's life on your own? He stared at Luke almost hoping these angry thoughts were getting through in spite of the bright smile and gritted teeth behind which he had learnt to catch them.

  Luke had also hesitated. He was afraid of going off alone in sole possession of the gun. There was still the sense that he and Goran were 'in it together' as they stood there in the side-street. He tried to think of something to say and then he remembered. 'Mila said she had something for me. A surprise, she said.'

  Goran's heart winced, like an oyster under lemon juice. 'Surprise?'

  'A present of some kind. I thought you would know.'

  'No. I do not know.'

  'Oh. Well, see you later, then.'

  'Yes,' Goran said.

  When he got back, Luke found the house empty. His mother had said she would be away all day at her Home From Home meeting and even his father had gone out. Perhaps he had a physio appointment or something, Luke thought.

  He went up to his bedroom and opened the bag. The gun was small and neat, and just the right weight in his hand; it met an unconscious sensual expectation, like the thunk of an expensive car door. He laid it softly on the bed beside him, then relit the joint he had been smoking earlier. The crushed-up ZylamaproneTM gave it a bizarre flavour and seemed to diminish the nice, dozy effect so that, if anything, he felt invigorated. But it wasn't a bad sensation. In fact, it was quietly wonderful. He blew out the smoke in clouds into the sunny air, and found that the more he thought about it, the more he was becoming aware of a structure of certainty behind his anxiety. In a sense it was as if his fears were just a torn flag, poignantly sun-bleached and flapping, perhaps, but none the less fixed to a good, solid post. Perhaps, he thought, there were such things as right and wrong, after all; perhaps good did triumph over evil. And at least he was daring to dream.

  He picked up the pistol. Stefan, his aunt Suzannah's first husband, had taught him how to shoot clays so he was not entirely unused to guns. He and Stefan had used large shotguns, though, whereas this one was the size of a man's hand. Luke remembered Goran pointing Mila's hand at him as if he was aiming to fire it. Goran was an angry person, he thought. Mila always wanted to laugh and joke around, doing impressions of him, but Goran had no sense of humour about himself. She so obviously found this boring—she rolled her eyes and made faces—that Luke wondered why Goran didn't make more of an effort. He had become withdrawn over the last week or so and Luke didn't like the way he spoke to Mila sometimes, when Luke and she had been laughing and Mila scruffed up Goran's hair and nudged him—only to help him join in. He could be almost aggressive with her, telling her to shut up and sit down.

  Still, there were more important things to think about. Obviously he was not going to kill anyone. Obviously not. He knew that for sure. What he wanted to do was scare Turnbull a bit, to see that bright TV signal interrupted and flickering. This would be a fragment of justice in itself but, more importantly, it would expose Jamie to a few moments of character-forming silence—just like those Luke had experienced when Ludo's car swung gently towards the tree and smashed. Maybe he would appreciate what he had done to Luke's life. Maybe he would cry and beg and Arianne would see what a little coward her new boyfriend was. They needed a shock, because shocks made you re-evaluate—they made you see what was important. Everyone said that. People saw 'the light' and became saints. It had happened all the time in the old days, in his mother's books from school. Everyone knew that St Augustine had been a drunken philanderer, Mary Magdalen was a prostitute, and the good thief—well, he had plainly been a thief.

  Luke wondered if he should tidy his room in case Arianne came back with him straight away.

  He did not go out that night. Why bother with chance when he had the absolute certainty of seeing her the next night at the opening of Lapis-Lazuli?

  Rosalind's car pulled up in front of the house at about a quarter to nine. Her meeting must have gone on longer than she had expected. Shortly after she came in and called up to him, 'I'm back, darling,' the doorbell rang and Luke heard his aunt Suzannah's voice in the hallway. Hadn't his aunt come round for supper just a
few days ago? He did not relish the idea of another helping of the weird tension between Suzannah and his father, but he was so ravenously hungry that he was already running down the stairs.

  He could hear his aunt and mother in the kitchen: 'I don't know, I'm excited about it, Suze. I really am. I know it's not exactly world peace, but everyone said it's our best brochure so far and it was all my work.'

  'Well, good.'

  'Thank you.'

  'No, I really mean it,' Suzannah said.

  Luke went in. They had opened a bottle of white wine and a large packet of crisps was spilling out on the table. He thought it was very unlike his mother not to have put them into a bowl. 'What's going on?' he said.

  'Nothing, darling. Suzannah and I are having a gossip. Do you want some wine?'

  'Yes, please.'

  'Grab a glass, then,' she said.

  He went over to the cupboard. 'What's for supper?'

  'Good old traditional Indian takeaway,' Suzannah told him. 'I have forbidden your mother to cook.'

  'I didn't take much persuading. I'm whacked.'

  'But ... Dad doesn't like curry,' Luke said, a little frightened.

  'Well, it's lucky he's not here, then, isn't it?' Suzannah said.

  'Why? Where is he?'

  Rosalind put a handful of crisps into her mouth. 'Dover again,' she said, crunching. 'Some loose end at the house.'

  'It was all done, I thought. What else was there?'

  The doorbell rang and Rosalind stood up. 'God knows, darling. He sounded absolutely fine on the phone, though. Anyway, that'll be supper. I'm starving—Jocelyn's dieting so we were all given little salads.'