‘Elliot, sit down.’
But I’m on my feet now. I can’t stop. I want to, but I can’t. All this life. All this other life.
‘…No way out…need to call the tiler…not been any good since Brazil…shouldn’t…oh…no…’
My eyes have found a man alone at a table in the corner. I feel a lurching sensation and struggle out, squirming. His shallows are black, terrible oily things with memories I want no part of.
‘No…no no no no…’
I fall back against the counter. All eyes are on me. His eyes. But I don’t want to dive, not in him, no, not this one because I know what’s beneath. He looks up at me quizzically, a little smile on his face. I want to get away, but it’s too late. My lifeline slips away and I’m down, down, down…
…down into terrible squalor. A camera, shaking in his hand, sweaty, the room is hot, the windows shut, blinds shut, sheets twisted, a bright bedside lamp and the child is crying now but that’s fine, that’s what they want, that’s what he wants…
‘Elliot!’
Zoe slaps my face. I find myself outside, spitting on the pavement, trying to get that terrible taste from my mouth.
‘What the hell happened?’
It’s bright, cold. The street is in full flow, traffic, noise and human movement all around. The images still play in my mind. Terrible memories of brutal lust.
‘I couldn’t control it! I lost it, that man, that bastard, he…’
I feel Morag’s cool hand on my cheek.
‘Elliot, could you see everyone in there?’
The question startles me.
‘Of course.’ My breathing slows. The images steadily fade. ‘Couldn’t you?’
She gives me a strange, fearful look and shakes her head.
‘Only some.’
I look around at the busy street. Every face is open, like the bodies of frogs on the vivisection table, pulled apart for me to inspect.
‘I don’t want this. I don’t want to see any of this. Tell me how to make it stop, please.’
Morag is holding the photograph.
‘You have to try to remember. That’s how it stops.’
‘What? Remember what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, you fucking lunatic!’
Spittle flies from my mouth, and two girls swaggering past lurch in horror. I pull down the brim of my cap before I catch their eye. When they’re gone, I turn to Zoe.
‘Enough with the riddles. Tell me what you want me to remember.’
‘We can’t.’
I shake my head, backing away.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t know what you want from me.’
Zoe turns to Morag.
‘I told you. It’s not working.’
‘It will. It has to.’
Just then, Heathcliff, who has been lurking behind them, suddenly growls and steps forward, whipping the photograph from Morag’s hand with surprising speed and marching straight for me. I retreat, but my back is already against the café’s greasy glass. With a withering look, he turns the photograph and taps it twice.
‘Oh, good idea, Heathcliff,’ says Morag. ‘Maybe if we find out more about this photograph then it’ll jog your memory.’
Heathcliff shoves the photograph in my hand.
‘Well?’ says Zoe.
I look bitterly at the scrawled names.
St. Agnes School, Marshfields-upon-sea, Ex.. …I. Grace, P. Jones, V. Peters, S. Mordant…
‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’
SCHMIDT
Cornwall, 1940
IN THE MORNING JAMES found Billy asleep in a tight bundle of sheets and a blanket beneath the window. The storm had swept away north over the Lasswick crags, and grey light now seeped through the curtains. Rupert and Lucy were already up. Their beds were unmade and still imprinted with the shapes of their bodies, like signatures — James’ a far-reaching sprawl; Lucy’s a tiny ball near her pillow. James leaned down and placed a hand on his brother’s brow. He stirred but his eyes stayed shut.
‘I had dreams again,’ he said. ‘Bad ones.’
James wormed beneath the blankets, next to his brother.
‘I keep telling you. It’s all those stories you tell. They get stuck in your head and become rotten. That’s what happens when you make things up; your head goes rotten and sour and you have bad dreams. That’s what Dad said.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Can’t you remember?’
‘Not always.’ Billy bit his lip against the lie.
‘He said you need to be a good boy, and good boys don’t lie.’
Suddenly a door slammed outside, followed by the sound of boots, men’s voices and an engine starting. James stood and peered out at the yard, where Mr Sutton was standing by the truck. He shouted something at Mrs Sutton, who was at the door, broom held fiercely in her hand. Then he jumped in and the truck turned out of the yard and away down the lane.
James remained at the window, frozen, heart thumping. They had found him. They were going to get him from the forest. Perhaps Lucy had told them in panic. They would be in trouble. He suddenly wished the man dead.
The front door slammed shut. Billy stood up too, rubbing his eyes.
‘What’s happening?’ he said. ‘James? What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said James, steadying his brother.
They heard feet running up the stairs behind. Then the door burst open and Rupert stood there panting. Lucy leaped into the room a few seconds later.
‘Da’s gone to Brathwaite’s farm with Uncle Davey to help a ewe,’ she whispered, loudly.
‘He won’t be back till afternoon,’ said Rupert.
They did chores in the house, keeping a watchful eye on Mrs Sutton. When she left to get eggs, they dropped their brushes and dusters and found blankets in the top room. Then they took the remains of the previous night’s soup, some bread and a jug of water and carried it as quickly as they could out of the kitchen and across the yard. They saw Poppy at the gate, wagging her tail, but something drew her attention to the barn and she darted away.
‘What will your mother say when she finds us gone?’ said James.
‘I’ll tell her we had to finish the shed for Da.’
‘But we already finished it last night.’
‘She doesn’t know that. Women look after the inside; men look after the outside. That’s how it’s supposed to be.’
‘Hey,’ piped Lucy, craning her head over the stack of blankets she was carrying. ‘Then why do I have to help you clean the chicken shed?’
‘You’re not a woman, Lucy,’ said Rupert.
‘I am so!’
‘You’re a girl. There’s a difference.’
‘Well...then, you’re not a man!’
She harrumphed and ran ahead into the field.
The sun was bright and the grass fresh with frost. It was hard to imagine there having been anything like the storm they had heard from the house, but as they neared the river they saw branches strewn about by the bank, and three torn stumps, white and raw, and the trees to which they had once been attached now lying on the ground.
The river itself was swollen with rain. They crossed it gingerly, taking it in turns to hold the soup pot and throwing blankets between them until they were safely across. The forest seemed different to how it had been the day before, with bushes pulled up and branches at odd angles. Without Poppy to guide them it was hard to find their way back to the same spot, and they spent a half hour struggling to find something familiar in the dense pack of wood. Eventually Rupert stopped.
‘We’re going round in circles,’ he said, looking about. ‘Let’s face it; we don’t know where he is. We’ll have to turn back before we get lost completely.’
‘We can’t give up now,’ said Lucy. ‘He must be somewhere.’
‘It’s no good, Lucy’ he said. ‘It’s no good. We tried. Come on, river’s back this way.’
He turned to go, but Lucy jumped in front of
him, protesting. James turned to Billy, who was staring into the forest.
‘Come on, Billy. This was stupid. We don’t want to get in any more trouble.’
Billy said nothing.
‘Billy, come on.’
Billy held out a finger.
‘There,’ he said. He was pointing at a particularly dark canopy of trees.
‘What?’ said James.
‘It’s there.’
James looked. There in the shadows was the bramble bush, and out of it grew the familiar gnarled trunk of the tree through which the man had fallen.
They scrambled into the clearing, and there was the man as they had left him. It was a shock to see him in the clearer light. His face was paler then it had been, and his body seemed more still than before. The parachute lay stiff across him, feathered with frost.
‘He’s dead,’ breathed Rupert. ‘He has to be dead.’
‘No,’ said Billy. ‘No, he’s not.’
He walked across to where the man’s head lay and crouched down. Then he took off his satchel, brought out the jug of water and uncorked it, holding it to the man’s mouth.
‘Billy, be careful,’ said James.
The man didn’t move. Billy nudged his cracked lips with the rim of the jug, but they remained as they were, without a twitch.
‘Wake up,’ he said. He pushed the man’s chest, but there was no response. He trickled a little water over the man’s cheek so that some fell into his mouth, but it fell from the other side and down onto the ground, untasted.
James stepped forward.
‘Billy, I think…’
Before he could finish, Lucy stomped out in front of him.
‘Wake up,’ she demanded, leaning down over the frozen parachute.
‘Lucy…’ warned Rupert.
But she cupped her hands around her mouth and filled every cubic inch of her tiny lungs with frozen forest air.
‘Wake uuuuuuuup!’ she bellowed.
Her voice echoed around the tree canopies, accompanied by the urgent wing-flutter of birds departing the branches above them. But the man stayed still and silent without a flinch.
James leaned down and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
‘Billy, we have to go,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
At the sound of his voice, the man’s eyes suddenly shot open and he sat up. Billy and James fell back onto the floor, screaming and kicking away from him. Lucy squealed and ran back to Rupert, and the four of them huddled against the brambles as the man sat staring wildly ahead, gasping and shivering. His beard shivered with ice as he came to his senses and his breathing slowed. He looked around, and once again his eyes landed on James. His breathing stopped for a moment, as if something had stuck in his throat. Then it continued. The man blinked.
‘Sie,’ he said, with a voice like nails. ‘Ich erkenne Sie.’
‘What did he say?’ said James. ‘Why is he looking at me like that?’
The man gulped and looked down at the parachute, inspecting his arms and hands. He coughed and grasped his throat. He looked between the children.
‘Durst,’ he croaked. ‘Ich habe Durst.’
He looked down and pointed to the jug in Billy’s hands, the contents of which had mostly been spilled in fright. Then he motioned to his mouth.
‘Please, thirsty,’ he said. ‘Wasser, water, bitte, bitte.’
Billy got to his feet.
‘Be careful,’ said James. The man gave a thin smile and held out a hand as if to calm him. Billy passed him the jug, and as he drank the dribble of water and sat against the tree, he kept his eyes on James. James wanted to look away, but something stopped him. It was not a threatening look, but the look a father might give his child from a doorway as he watched him play. It was as if the man knew something about James that James did not yet know himself.
He placed a finger to his chest and spoke, carefully.
‘My name is Markus. Markus Schmidt.’
‘You speak English?’ said Rupert.
The man nodded. Then he turned his finger towards James. James shuffled his feet and glanced at the others. He did not know whether you were supposed to tell injured German airmen your real name or, if you were, how you ought to say it. Eventually, he supposed that it didn’t matter either way. The man was injured and they were on home soil. It was the airman, Schmidt, who was in trouble, not him. He cleared his throat, and never forgot what happened next.
‘Cooper,’ he said, but as he said it, he watched with growing horror in the flickering light as the man curled his lips silently around that very same word.
Cooper.
James froze. It seemed that he had mouthed it before he had even said it himself.
A trick of the light, he told himself. He went on, slower this time.
‘James Cooper.’
There again — the two words mirrored by the man’s lips. He swung his head to the others, but they had not seen it.
‘What…?’ he began, but the man had already turned to Lucy. He smiled.
‘And you, princess?’
‘Lucy Sutton,’ said Lucy with a strange, wobbly curtsy. ‘And this is Rupert, my brother.’
‘I’m Billy,’ said Billy. ‘James is my brother.’
‘Brother,’ said Schmidt, turning to James again with that same look of understanding. A sudden spasm swept through him, and he pointed at the blankets in Lucy’s hand.
‘For…me?’ he said, trying to control the shudders that had overcome his torso. Lucy jumped, as if to attention, then ran forward and dropped them next to the parachute. He gathered them, wrapped them around his shoulders, and sat forwards, hunched and rocking, losing himself again.
Rupert took the pot he had been carrying and plonked it on the floor in front of Schmidt. The soup still had some warmth from the stove, and its steam filled the air around him. Schmidt immediately took off the lid and began to take great gulps from it, spluttering and choking it down until there was nothing left. Billy handed him the bread, which he used to mop up the scraps.
‘Thank you,’ he said, as he let the pot fall to the ground. ‘Thank you.’
He steadied himself to stand, but when he moved his face crumpled and he fell back against the tree. The children jumped back. Breathing hard, the man, with shaking hands, lifted the frozen parachute from his lap and looked tentatively beneath it. He closed his eyes at what he saw and let the sheet fall back where it lay. Then he lay back against the tree, huddled in the blankets. His mouth seemed to be moving, muttering something.
The children stood for a while, unsure of what to do. Finally, Rupert spoke.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Do you remember anything?’
Markus Schmidt opened his eyes.
‘Yes.’ He looked between the four children, then up at the canopy and the trees beyond it. ‘I remember everything.’
In the distance came the sound of an engine.
‘Da!’ said Rupert, grabbing James’ arm. ‘We have to get back. Come on.’
‘We’ll get you some more,’ said Billy. ‘Water, food. More. We’ll bring more.’
The man nodded, but he was looking only at James.
James backed away, pulling Billy with him, until they were out of the brambles, running through the forest, back to the farm. When they returned, Rupert was made to follow Mr Sutton into the front room, where they heard loud noises, and from which Rupert emerged soon after, face a furious red, pinched and wet with tears.
AFRAID TO BE IGNORED
Marshfields, Present Day
I STARE OUT AT the bleak coastal strip that leads from the lifeless (I am relieved to discover) town of Marshfields. It’s the sort of place those who were born there never leave, and those who were not never visit. Marshfields exists only for the people of Marshfields.
We are parked in Zoe’s van while she investigates the school. Heathcliff snores in the back, and Morag is watching me. I can tell.
‘You should call someone,’ she says.<
br />
I turn from my dull reverie, and Morag nods at the newspaper on the dashboard, the front page of which features the now familiar likeness of me stuffing a cheeseburger into my mouth, beneath the headline:
MISSING CHILDS
RUTHLESS PRESENTER NOT SEEN FOR THREE DAYS
I am uncertain of which is worse: the thought of that dreadful photograph (unflattering does not do it justice; my jowls flap like a pensioner’s triceps) gracing twenty million breakfast tables, or the choice of words. ‘Ruthless presenter’. To be reduced to two words when I have done so much seems so unbearably cruel.
‘I don’t want to talk to anyone. Not yet.’
‘Nobody? There’s nobody that wants to know where you are?’
‘Apart from the entire country, you mean?’
‘I mean someone who’s missing you, someone who’s worried about you.’
I watch the tide assaulting pebbles on the shoreline, and the gulls crashing in the surf. Patti drifts into my consciousness. Then I remember Callum.
‘No.’
Morag returns to her quiet scrutiny.
‘What’s your lifeline?’ she says at last.
‘What?’
‘The image you use to get back.’
‘A paper plane.’
‘From when you were a child?’
‘Something like that.’
‘That makes sense. Everything’s rooted in childhood. Can you remember being a child?’
‘Of course I can.’
‘But can you really remember?’
‘I could, but I don’t want to.’
‘Why not?’
I sigh.
‘Because my mother was mad and my father never gave me the time of day, all right? Not that it’s any of your business.’
I fold my arms and watch two gulls beyond the tide, hovering in a midair brawl over a fish. Morag says nothing, and when I turn she wears an unusual expression — distracted, confused, as if my words have disarmed her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says at last.
I shrug.
‘No need to be. I’m not a child anymore.’
The Other Lives Page 14