by John Harvey
‘Don’t see why not.’
‘Okay. And an omelette. Plain. No fries, no coleslaw, no garnish. Nothing.’
‘You want a plate?’ the waitress asked, straight-faced.
Connie stared at her hard.
‘How ’bout you?’ the waitress said to Sloane, unperturbed. ‘You want to eat?’
Sloane shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘More coffee?’
He shook his head again and the waitress moved away.
‘My mother,’ Connie said. ‘I really don’t have a whole lot of time.’
Sloane told her what he knew about Jane’s illness, how she had been when he had seen her, not embellishing, telling it as straightforwardly as he could, the days, the hours before Connie’s mother died.
By the time he had finished, Connie’s omelette lay there on the plate, losing heat. Sloane drank the last of the water from his glass.
‘You know,’ Connie finally said, ‘it’s a funny thing. There you are sitting watching TV news, Ted Koppel or whoever, I don’t remember, and suddenly there’s this painting on the screen, one of those abstract things, and a voice going on about early fame and later obscurity and just before her picture comes up I realise it’s my mother they’re talking about and she’s dead, and then before I can start to take it all in, it’s sports and football and I’m left sitting there, thinking what the fuck, what the fuck?’
‘She wanted to see you,’ Sloane said, ‘more than anything, I think.’
As if she were no longer listening, Connie cut away a piece of omelette with her fork and lifted it to her mouth, and Sloane had to resist a sudden urge to reach across and shake her, make her pay attention.
‘Do you care?’ he said, his voice sharp and hard.
‘What?’
‘Do you care? About any of this?’
She raised her head towards his, slow-eyed and insolent, and he wanted to slap her.
‘She loved you, you know that. She really did.’
‘You don’t have to shout,’ Connie said.
When Sloane moved abruptly she flinched. Squeezing past the end of the table, he went quickly to the rest room at the back and leaned his head forward against the speckled glass of the mirror, angry with himself for getting so worked up, surprised at the ease with which she had got under his skin.
When he got back to the table, Connie was sitting angled in the corner, resting partly against the seat back, partly against the wall. Her plate had been cleared away and she had a cup of tea in her hand.
‘You okay?’ she asked, a lot of the bitterness gone from her voice.
‘Yes, thanks. Fine.’
‘I thought maybe you’d gone to throw up.’
Sloane shook his head. Turning in his seat, he signalled to the waitress for more coffee and when it came, Connie said, ‘You and my mother, I mean, what was the deal? You never said.’
‘I knew her,’ Sloane said. ‘A long time ago. Here in New York, as a matter of fact.’
‘You knew her?’ Connie asked.
‘Yes.’
Connie narrowed her eyes. ‘You mean you were screwing her. That is what you mean, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘What d’you mean, you suppose? You either were or you weren’t.’
‘Okay, then. Yes.’
Connie had the same sardonic glint back in her eyes. ‘You’re a little old to be coy, Sloane, you know that? And besides, from what I hear about that crowd, everyone else would have been screwing her, why not you?’ She stopped short, recognising the look that passed across his face and laughed. ‘It still hurts, doesn’t it? After all this time. The thought that there might have been somebody else. And you were the one sounding off about jealousy, how it was such a bad thing.’
Sloane drank his coffee, avoided her amused gaze.
Connie looked at her watch. ‘Why don’t we get down to it?’ she said. ‘The rest of it.’
‘What rest?’
‘The money. I mean, if I’m forgiven, everything’s lovey-dovey, then I’m back in the will. That’s right, isn’t it? Whatever there is, my share, I’ve got it coming.’
‘There will be money,’ Sloane said. ‘There isn’t yet.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mother’s estate, it’s mostly in the form of paintings to be sold. Auctioned. The bulk of what’s raised goes to set up a foundation in her name, scholarships for young artists, that kind of thing. Anything that’s left, it gets divided between Valentina and yourself.’
‘All that could take years,’ Connie said in disgust.
‘I can put you in touch with Valentina …’
But Connie was already on her feet.
‘Here,’ Sloane said, ‘take this.’ He pulled an envelope from his pocket. ‘That’s all the details, you should get in touch, let her have an address for you at least.’
Connie screwed up the envelope and pushed it down into the pocket of her coat. Sloane dropped some bills on the table and followed her out.
On the street, Connie pulled her collar up around her neck.
‘Which way you headed?’ Sloane asked.
‘Uptown. You?’
‘Down.’
‘I’m gonna walk over to Third,’ Connie said. ‘Catch a cab.’
‘Right.’
For a long moment neither one moved.
‘Your father,’ Sloane said, ‘are you in touch?’
‘Difficult, when I don’t know who he is.’
‘Jane, she never said?’
‘When I was growing up I used to go on and on at her. She wouldn’t answer. In the end I just stopped asking.’
‘And now?’
Connie looked at him with tired eyes. ‘Now who cares? Who the holy fuck cares!’
Hands in pockets, rejection like a swallowed stone inside him, Sloane watched her walk away.
Waking after too few hours’ sleep, Sloane remembered what Connie’s first words in the diner had reminded him of – the installation at the Rachel Zander Gallery, the recorded voice, slightly distorted, repeating over and over, He’ll kill us if he gets the chance.
At ten thirty he called Rachel, to be told she had flown to London on business the day before. Inside twenty-four hours that was where Sloane would be himself. He had done what he could, what he had promised. There was nothing, he had convinced himself, to detain him further in New York.
28
It was raining. Long, slanting lines which blurred the outlines of the airport buildings and turned the runways into slick grey ribbons, water ghosting the surface like a skin. Sloane lugged his baggage along line after line of interconnecting corridors, up escalators and down stairs, until finally he joined the slow line through passport control and then the empty customs hall, out into the press of faces, anxious relatives and friends, bored drivers holding names high across their chests. The Heathrow Express was crowded and stalled for ten minutes outside Paddington Station while the backlog of trains, distressed by the weather, untangled itself. The queue of taxis was impossible and Sloane took the Tube, elbowing his way against the current of commuters as he changed platforms at King’s Cross.
The distance between Kentish Town station and home was enough for him to be soaked through several layers of clothing and, once inside the door, he stripped off everything and let it lie in a bundle where it fell, dried himself with a towel and pulled clean, dry clothes from the old mahogany chest of drawers. At the sink he rinsed a glass and tipped in several fingers of whisky, half of which he drank at a swallow. A few new spiders’ webs aside, a suggestion of damp in the bricks below one of the upstairs windows, the interior seemed secure, unchanged.
By late morning the rain had stopped and the sky was a sudden, unsuspected blue. Walking round the corner to the café, Sloane found himself shivering in the freshness of the air.
Dumar greeted him with his rich laugh and threw an arm round his shoulders, almost knocking him down. ‘Great to see you. Even looking l
ike you do.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Tired, cold, about to come down with something bad.’
‘Thanks,’ Sloane said, attempting a grin.
Dumar was already ladling soup into a bowl, hacking off a hunk of bread. ‘Sit. Eat. Then go home and rest. I will come later.’
Sloane needed no second bidding. The soup warmed him and he ate it greedily, aware for the first time of his hunger. Some thirty minutes later he lay down on his own bed and, within moments, was fast asleep.
He was still sleeping, sheets and pillow damp with sweat, when Dumar arrived. Disorientated and bleary-eyed, he started to apologise, but Dumar brushed him aside. ‘This I will leave on your stove to heat. I still have a few things to fetch.’ This was a large earthenware pot, a tagine of chicken and chickpeas, flavoured with cinnamon and cumin.
Sloane threw cold water on his face, combed his matted hair, cleaned his teeth; rummaged for clean clothes. The smells coming from across the room were enough to revive his appetite, bring him back to some kind of normality. Dumar returned with a small tape player, bread and wine and aspirin, a pot of cream which he stirred into the stew.
‘You have a fever,’ Dumar said. ‘Take two of these, then eat. We will talk later.’
It was not so long before Sloane was wiping a piece of bread around the inside of his plate and, having set Ali Farka Toure’s ‘Niafunke’ rolling, Dumar was in the process of rolling the biggest joint Sloane had seen since the days of Cheech and Chong.
Dumar grinned. ‘A feast.’ The grin became a laugh. ‘When I was at school we used to read these old books, very old. Patched together with tape and glue. Greyfriars, you know?’
Sloane shook his head.
‘British public school. Harry Wharton. Tom Merry. Billy Bunter, the Owl of the Remove. Oh, crikey! Ow! Yarooh! Midnight feasts in the dorm.’ He took a toke from the joint and passed it across to Sloane.
‘And that’s what you thought England would be like?’ Sloane said. ‘Greyfriars writ large?’
‘Not really, no. These were stories, old stories. I knew things would have changed.’
Sloane shook his head. ‘Not so much. Harry Wharton, was that his name? Merry. Others like them. They’re all here. All the same.’
Dumar took the joint between his fingers, drew smoke down deep into his lungs. African voices rang, slow and hypnotic, around the room. ‘Mali Dje’. Spiky guitar, dejembe and conga drum.
‘Tell me about your journey,’ Dumar said. ‘Your daughter, you found her?’
‘Maybe.’
‘How can you be not sure?’
Sloane leaned forward. ‘Connie, I found. Jane’s daughter, certainly. That doesn’t mean she’s mine.’
‘You talked with her?’
‘I tried.’
Dumar laughed and shook his head. ‘What? You thought she would throw herself into your arms? Be grateful after all these years?’
‘No, no. I don’t know.’
‘But she rejected you, is that what happened?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Perhaps you were expecting too much.’
Sloane pointed an accusing finger. ‘You were the one. You. When you see her you will know. Well, that’s crap, because I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.’
‘Ah,’ Dumar said, angling back his head so that the smoke drifted upwards, ‘maybe deep down you do. Simply you are too frightened to say it is so.’
‘And that’s bollocks, too.’
Dumar’s smile spread wide across his face.
‘What?’ Sloane asked.
Dumar shook his head.
‘What?’
‘Remember,’ Dumar said. ‘If she is not your daughter she is somebody else’s.’
‘So?’
‘So she may need your help.’
‘Oh, no. Someone else’s responsibility, not mine.’
‘Perhaps.’ Dumar’s eyes were bright and alive.
‘Christ, Dumar! What d’you think I am? Some avenging bloody angel? Some knight on a white fucking horse?’
Dumar smiled. ‘We will see.’
Time passed. The bottle of wine was two-thirds empty. Dumar passed round another joint.
‘My daughter …’ For several moments Dumar rested his face in his hands. ‘You know she is here in England. At the university. Manchester.’
Sloane nodded.
‘The police, last week they came to see her in her room. Demanded papers, proof of identity, passport, visa. Asked questions.’
‘What about?’
‘Her family.’
‘About you?’
‘About me.’
‘But everything was okay? Her passport and everything, it was all okay?’
‘They said there may be irregularities. With her visa. Told her to report to the police station. Took her papers away.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. When she arrives as told, she is given an envelope, her passport, everything is inside. No one says a word. No explanation.’
‘And since then?’
Dumar shook his head. ‘Also nothing.’
Sloane didn’t know what else to say. The music drifted on. When the wine was gone and the joint smoked down, Dumar rose, not quite steadily, to his feet and collected what was his. ‘I will see you tomorrow.’
An hour later Sloane woke, cramped and stiff, and realised he had fallen asleep where he was. He drank some water, swallowed two more aspirins and went to bed.
29
Sloane slept badly, troubled by dreams. His covers were tangled, his sweat-soaked pillow thrown to the floor. At six he got up, head spinning, tipped whisky into a glass of warm milk and took it back to bed. When he woke again it was past noon and the worst of his fever seemed to have passed. His head no longer ached. Carefully, taking his time, he washed and dressed.
The day was mild, the sky a mottled grey. After a couple of slow turns round the park he thought it made sense to try and eat. But the door to the café was locked and inside the chairs were still stacked on the tables in pairs. Of Dumar there was no sign, no note fixed to the door. The windows of the flat above where he lived were closed, the curtains partly drawn.
Sloane asked the first few passers-by if they knew anything, but all they did was shrug and shake their heads. ‘These people,’ one said, ‘you know what they’re like. Nomads, ain’t they? Here today, scarpered the next.’
It wasn’t what Sloane believed.
He made more enquiries in the neighbourhood, the greengrocer’s and the butcher’s on the high street which Dumar used, the cash-and-carry where he bought basic supplies. No one had seen him that morning; no one knew where he had gone. What next, Sloane thought? Phone round the hospitals? Go to the police?
Dumar’s daughter was standing outside the café when he turned back into the street and, without ever having met her or seen a photograph, he knew immediately who she was. Medium height, slender build, she was wearing loose trousers, silver-grey with dark bands above and below the knee, a multi-coloured top with baggy sleeves, a thin patterned scarf loose at the neck, her dark hair braided with strips of ribbon, purple and gold. Silver rings on her fingers. Adidas trainers on her feet.
‘You looking for your dad?’ Sloane asked.
She tilted back her head a little, looked at him warily but unafraid.
‘You are Dumar’s daughter?’ Sloane said.
‘Yes.’
‘From university?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘My name’s Sloane,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Your dad and I, we’re friends.’
‘Olivia.’ Her voice was clear, her grip firm and strong. ‘I think he mentioned you.’ She was what, Sloane wondered? Twenty? Twenty-one?
‘I phoned him last night,’ Olivia said.
‘He was with me.’
‘I didn’t know. I wanted to tell him I was coming down to London today, arrange to meet.’
‘When I got here an ho
ur or so ago,’ Sloane said, ‘the place was like this.’
‘And you don’t know where my father is?’
Sloane shook his head.
‘He didn’t say anything last night?’
‘See you tomorrow, that’s all.’
The concern was clear on Olivia’s face.
‘The flat,’ Sloane said. ‘You don’t have a key?’
‘No.’
‘How about his girlfriend, couldn’t he be with her?’
‘Angie. Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Could we phone?’
‘It’s not so far from here. Why don’t we go round and see?’
Angie lived in a two-room conversion on the upper floor of a mid-Victorian terraced house adrift of the Caledonian Road, dormer windows let into the roof front and back. She proved to be welcoming, concerned, clearly fond of Olivia, a fondness that seemed warmly returned. She was possibly fifty, Sloane thought, silver-haired and slender-hipped, amply bosomed. There were posters of Pablo Neruda and Miriam Makeba on her walls, plants vying for space with books on every flat surface, a rather expensive-looking laptop and matching printer on a corner table.
Angie made tea while they talked, quick to seize on the unwelcome visit Olivia had had from the police, wondering if there couldn’t be some connection with her father’s disappearance.
‘I don’t see how,’ Olivia said. ‘As far as I know he’s never had that kind of trouble before. Immigration. He’s been here a long time, yeah. Got his own business, bank account, credit cards.’
‘Then he’s untouchable?’ Sloane asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Angie said.
Olivia looked at the floor.
At Angie’s suggestion they telephoned all the hospitals in the area, checking both admissions and accident and emergency, and then the police stations at Holmes Road and Haverstock Hill.
Nothing.
When they left almost an hour later, Olivia and Angie promised to keep in touch and contact one another the moment they heard anything at all.
There was still no sign of life at the café, so they went round the corner to Sloane’s place. Standing in the centre of the big room Olivia nodded her head approvingly. ‘It’s like one of them lofts, right?’