Criminals

by Margot Livesey

  “Same story really,” Chae said. “Waiting for the trauma to recede. Today we took a walk round the building. She’s reached the stage when she needs things to do. I’m trying to find a way for her to start weaving again, maybe a hand loom.”

  “Does she remember anything?”

  “Not consciously, but she often wakes up in a state. Two days ago I wore a red tee shirt, and she threw a complete wobbly.” He signalled to overtake a bus and gave Ewan a quick glance. “I never should’ve written that damned book.”

  “There are lots of things we should never have done.” Chae’s guilt left his own vast supply absolutely undiminished.

  At the hospital he met with Mollie’s doctor. She’s the opposite of motherly, Chae had warned, but Ewan was pleased to find himself in the presence of a tall, angular woman who reminded him of his statistics tutor at university. “Your sister is responding, Mr. Munro,” she said, “but slowly. She’s travelling in a far country, and in my opinion we should respect her reluctance to return. She needs to grow stronger before she’ll be ready to come to terms with recent events and her part in them. I’d suggest you not mention the baby but otherwise talk to her as you always have.”

  “Actually,” said Ewan, twitching his shirt cuffs, “I’ve never been very good at talking.”

  “Then this is your chance to improve.” She looked at him with the same severe expression his tutor had worn when he confessed to not understanding standard deviation. “Don’t think of yourself. Think of her, and tell her the truth as best you can.”

  Upstairs in her small white room, Mollie was still staring straight ahead. She gave no sign of recognition when he came in. “Mollie,” he said, “it’s me, Ewan. How are you?”

  She turned to look at him, and her gaze snagged on his paisley tie. She reached out to touch it. “What’s this—a noose of flowers? I don’t like seeing you with a noose around your neck.”

  “I can take it off. See, it’s quite easy.” He unknotted his tie and slipped it into his pocket. Mollie’s eyes followed his movements. Her lips parted, and he thought she would ask to see the tie again, but with a visible effort of will, she closed them.

  “I spoke to Bridget yesterday,” Ewan said. “She sends you her love. As soon as you’re better, she wants you to visit her in Boston.”

  “No, not there. Not Boston. Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. Very busy as usual.”

  “So I didn’t give her cancer?”

  “Cancer?” said Ewan, bewildered. “Of course not. You can’t give someone cancer. It’s not that kind of illness.” He passed on Bridget’s news: she’d just printed the program for a conference of women scientists and was running fifteen miles a week.

  “Fifteen miles,” Mollie exclaimed. “I bet it’s not hilly like round here.”

  Ewan’s first impulse, to contradict Chae and the doctor, subsided. What Mollie said might be odd or nonsensical, but the terrible stoniness, the utter lack of affect, was gone.

  She reached for the glass beside her bed, sipped some water, and gave a little sigh. “You know what Olivia told me? Everything in life is to do with plumbing. That’s how they enter and leave our houses, through those hidden pipes.” She pointed, with obvious pleasure, to the washbasin in the corner of the room. “Mother came to me last night.”

  “She did?” Ewan said. Then he wondered, was this lying? Should he contradict her? The doctor had not prepared him for these dilemmas.

  “I don’t mean our mother,” said Mollie sharply. “I mean mine. She was fine. She said that orange-haired woman wasn’t good for you.”

  “Vanessa?” he suggested.

  “Vanessa,” she agreed.

  By the time he left the hospital it was after eight and already dark. Chae had invited him to stay, but Ewan had taken a room in a bed-and-breakfast, claiming it was more convenient. The truth was he could not bear the thought of being at Mill of Fortune. Now he walked the main street of the town, searching for a place to eat. He was trying to recall which pub served evening meals, when he heard footsteps and saw a young man in a red jacket coming towards him. For a moment, in the dim light, he thought it was Grace’s father. A few more steps and the illusion vanished. This man had fair hair and a scraggly beard. As he passed, he bade Ewan a soft good evening.

  Ewan ate lukewarm shepherd’s pie at the Melville and went back to his tiny room. With its single bed, basin, and chair, there was nothing to do save go to bed. Once there, he turned to The Dark Forest. Mollie had told him everything he needed to know, but he was loath to leave the book unfinished. He skimmed through Leo’s departure from Larch House and moved on to the last chapter.

  • • •

  Soon after my trip to the States I landed a part in What the Butler Saw and, in the frenzy of rehearsals, mostly forgot my recent adventures. I would’ve forgotten entirely if Maudie hadn’t bombarded me with letters. Two nights after we opened—mixed reviews—I came home to find yet another 100% recycled billet doux on the doormat. I left it lying there and went to the kitchen for a beer. I hadn’t answered any of her letters, and after reading one that began, “Leo, the last few weeks have been the most important of my life. Loving you, I feel alive again,” I had stopped even opening them. As I drank my beer, I worried matters were getting out of hand. In Boston I had daydreamed of seducing Maudie and having Roman find out but now I just wanted to put the whole episode behind me. I was wondering if I should call her to explain—I could already imagine my contrite speech: carried away by your beauty, etc., owe it to Roman, etc.—when the phone rang. I went to answer, expecting one of my theatre friends. We often talk late after shows.

  “She knew,” said my brother’s voice.

  “Roman, what are you talking about?” I said feebly. With Maudie’s unopened letter a few yards away, I thought he was saying he knew. My mind whirred uselessly. Was there any possible excuse for screwing his wife?

  “I got a letter from Aunt Helen today. Listen. ‘I liked your little brother. He had me fooled for five minutes but as soon as we sat down for tea and he asked for lemon instead of milk, I realised what was going on. Still he gave me a good run for my money.’ She goes on to say she’s changing her will—but not how.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry.” In my amazement I forgot my earlier fears. How could Helen have known and I not noticed? I remembered the odd scene in Art Savage’s office when she was so full of beans. Then I remembered my Edinburgh shopping spree. Jesus. “The sly old bag,” I said. “I never had a clue.”

  “Well, clearly she was a much better actor than you.”

  “This was your great idea,” I protested. “We just didn’t take enough account of our audience. We’d have fooled a younger person. Only an octogenarian would remember for ten years how you take your tea. Maybe she’ll make you her heir anyway. The part of her letter you just read didn’t sound angry, more like she got a kick out of the whole thing.”

  “Oh shut up, Leo. We’re talking about half a million dollars.” Before I could say more, he slammed down the phone.

  What happened next, I learned from Maudie. Roman had been ranting—I was an idiot in general, and he was an idiot to have trusted me—and she had chosen this moment to announce she was in love with me and was leaving him. It must have been a wild scene. As for me, after that phone call, Maudie was the last thing on my mind. All I could think of was Roman opening his credit card bill.

  The following morning I had an audition for a commercial—fish fingers; they said no after thirty seconds—and went directly from the studio to the theatre. When I arrived home at eleven that night, Maudie was sitting on the stairs.

  “Jesus, Maudie,” I said. “What are you doing here?” For answer she flung her arms around me and burst into tears. Several minutes passed before she calmed down enough for me to get the door open. In the kitchen I poured her a glass of water and we sat down. She blurted out what had happened.

  “I thought he was going to lock me up to stop me leaving,”
she said, “but when I told him I was pregnant, he didn’t dare.”

  Of course it was all in her letters. I asked how she could be sure so soon, and she pulled up her tunic. “See.” She pointed with her free hand. “See the veins, how blue they are.”

  From a hasty look they did seem awfully blue. I stood up and wandered round the kitchen, trying to figure out my lines. I could feel Maudie watching me, her face still wet with tears. This was much harder than the speech I’d imagined the night before.

  At last I sat down again and reached for her hands. “Maudie,” I said, “you have to forgive me. I can’t do this. Roman loves you. I could never get over taking you away from him. He would always be between us.”

  “No, the baby would be between us. Leo, don’t you understand? We love each other. That’s why I got pregnant the first time we made love.”

  “You got pregnant because I was careless,” I said. And that was just the start. She argued true love; I argued jet lag, lust, inebriation. At two in the morning I threw her out, shouting that she was my brother’s whore. She pounded on the door until I threatened to call the police.

  From the safety of my living room window, I watched her wander down the street, a small, disconsolate figure. After she turned the corner, I got a beer and sat down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Maudie. It was a cold night and she didn’t even know London, for Christ’s sake. Finally I stood up, drained my beer, and fetched my jacket. My flat is half a mile from King’s Cross Station, and that was where I headed. It seemed the logical destination. I went in the side entrance and saw only the usual drunks. I came out at the front. A single taxi was idling by the bus stop, and there, on the far side of the Euston Road, was Maudie.

  In spite of the late hour there was plenty of traffic. As I stood watching, a white car pulled up. I saw her bend down to talk to the driver. Then she lurched into the street. The white car screeched away and another car narrowly missed her. A lorry driver shouted something. I caught the word “bitch.” Somehow she reached the island in the middle unscathed.

  While Maudie waited for the light to change, a scene like the one she had just escaped was enacted on my side of the street. A woman in a skirt scarcely wider than my belt was hailed by a motorist. She too bent down to the window. In this case negotiations were successful, she climbed in and the car sped away. Maudie continued across the road. She passed within a few yards of where I stood and I fell in behind her. Inside the station she made her way to the line of phones. I saw her rummage through her pockets for change and begin to dial.

  Please, let her be calling Roman, I thought. Please. And as if my thoughts had reached her, she stopped dialling, put the phone down and ran her hands through her hair. She picked up the receiver and began again.

  • • •

  As Ewan closed the novel he heard from the hall the sound of a toilet flushing and then, from the wall behind his head, water running into a basin. Plumbing, he thought, the source of wisdom. How perfect that Aunt Helen had known all along. Not for her Isaac’s gullibility. For want of a lemon, a kingdom was lost. But at least Maudie had the baby. Or she would, if she didn’t get hit by a car, if she didn’t have an abortion, if she didn’t meet someone like Kenneth, or—Ewan paused—like himself. If indeed she dodged all the arrows Fate lets loose upon her human subjects.

  And for the first time since that night at Mill of Fortune, he was able to reach back across the dreadful moment when Grace had slipped from Mollie’s grasp. What he pictured was not her dimpled smile, nor her imperious needs, but their first few minutes together on the bus, when he had tucked her downy head beneath his chin and they had both fallen asleep.

  • • •

  The police, after filing an accident report, decided not to press charges. For their very different reasons, neither Joan, Kenneth, nor Mollie would offer testimony, and they remained unimpressed by Ewan’s protestations that he was to blame for everything. He did find a local sergeant who, like Coyle, agreed he had behaved badly, dabbling in kidnapping, possibly child abuse, but nobody was interested in bringing a case against him, partly because of Kenneth’s mysterious involvement, partly because Grace showed every sign of making a full recovery. “Think yourself lucky,” the sergeant said. “If that baby had snuffed it, you’d be mopping out your cell right now.” Ewan nodded, but the sense of how easily his luck, and everyone else’s, might have been otherwise still made him tremble. After some discussion, he and Chae had decided to offer Joan money through a solicitor. Not compensation, not payment, but simply in order to free her of financial worries during this difficult period. The solicitor suggested two thousand pounds as an adequate sum. Reluctantly Ewan agreed; he wished it were more.

  In the weeks that followed, the people whose lives Grace had briefly knotted together went their separate ways. Mollie continued to travel in her own strange country. Chae waited at Mill of Fortune for her return. Ewan visited her most weekends and passed on Bridget’s good wishes without mentioning Boston. Vanessa left Marlowe’s for what were termed personal reasons and went to New York. Joan spent many hours chanting to a little statue of Shiva; she no longer spoke or responded to English. Her mother had accepted the money on her behalf, and as soon as Grace was well enough they moved to Preston to live with Lalit. Kenneth bought a secondhand car with the thousand pounds, worked at the swimming pool, got himself fired, and spent the summer picking raspberries. Like Ewan, he blamed himself for Grace’s accident, but his angle of reproach was different. What he could not get over was his gormlessness in bringing Joan to Mill of Fortune. Although he had no further need of phones, he continued to frequent The Blind Beggar. Regulars there soon became familiar with his lament that Joan’s maternal crap had kiboshed his whole scheme.

  My thanks to the MacDowell Colony for two residencies during which much of this novel was written. Also to Gerald Jonas, whose book Stuttering: The Disorder of Many Theories (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976) gave me certain insights.—ML

  ALSO BY MARGOT LIVESEY

  Learning by Heart

  Homework

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Margot Livesey grew up in Scotland. She now lives in Boston and London.