‘Iolanthe wanted to take a pill but you told her she was too far along?’ Anna asked.
Dr Jones smoked and said nothing.
‘And she didn’t want an operation?’
Dr Jones didn’t meet her eye.
‘But you gave her somewhere else to go?’
Dr Jones frowned.
‘So she just went away again still pregnant and still not wanting the baby?’
Dr Jones looked over at Aloysius.
‘Yes?’ he asked.
Dr Jones looked at Anna and then looked again at Aloysius.
‘What? The baby was going to be the wrong colour?’ Anna asked.
‘I’m still not the father!’ Aloysius said.
‘Nobody thinks that you’re the father,’ Anna told him, quite sharply. She turned back to Dr Jones. ‘Do you know where she is?’
Carla leaned across the table and touched the doctor’s arm. ‘You’ve said enough. They’re going now.’ Anna and Aloysius stood at her command but as they did so Dr Jones started to speak.
‘She would have had to have the procedure very late on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning. She would have had a day or so in bed to rest but then there was a risk of her bleeding while she was onstage. I told her to take the normal precautions. But she panicked. She was panicked by the whole thing. She was in a state of extreme distress.
‘She gave me six or seven reasons why she couldn’t carry on. Said someone had mentioned something, someone knew something. She was going to lose her job. She didn’t have the money, couldn’t afford it. She thought the baby might be dark-skinned. She was alone, had no one with her for support. She didn’t want to be a mother. She’d been drinking heavily for the past few months, she’d taken drugs. She thought the baby might be damaged. She was … distraught and confused and hysterical. I hate that word. But she was … beyond reason.
‘I tried to help but she didn’t want to hear what I had to tell her. In the end I suggested that she take some time and think it over; that she could come back and see me whenever she needed. I … I didn’t mean to let her down. But I’m a doctor. I have a duty to tell the truth.’
Carla put an arm around Dr Jones’ shoulders. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she told her, ‘but you need to stop. They’re going now.’
Dr Jones peeled herself away from Carla and walked into the kitchen. Anna and Aloysius let themselves out and walked back in silence onto Streatham Hill.
A Library for Naval Men
Wednesday, 10 November
Nathaniel watched the birds on the lawn. Right now there was a pair of red-breasted orioles, an American redstart and a tiny green and black bird that he was hoping was an Acadian flycatcher. He wheeled himself to the corner by the window where he was allowed to keep his books and papers and drew his Birds of America from its case. On the desk beside it lay the pamphlet of poems by Tao Yuanming he had been trying and failing to read.
I wasn’t fitted for the common crowd
My more basic nature drew me to the hills
And yet I fell into the worldly net
Which held me fast for thirteen years.
Twice a year Briggs would send a parcel of books to the Naval Library, odd texts and beautiful editions that he had found on his days off and sent home for safekeeping. Always at the top of the bundle would be a little note for Nathaniel.
How you keeping, Nat? Ever read The Odyssey? Try it now. B
Or:
You would be amazed by the things I found in Seoul. Not much Korean lit. here in English. Try the Chinese poets next? Briggs
Nathaniel remembered his green and black bird and pushed himself onto his hands to see the grass. But he had forgotten about it for too long and now it was gone.
Ever since the accident in Japan he had struggled to concentrate on any one thing for too long. He had to write his errands down on the backs of his hands. He read poetry and newspapers because he couldn’t keep his memory together long enough to finish up a book.
He chastised himself for forgetting and then took solace in flicking through the thick pages of Audubon prints. He loved most the birds that he would never see: the flamingos and the spoonbills and the great auk on her rock. He had joined the Navy to see the world and everything it had within it. His brief spell in Japan had been wondrous and terrifying to a boy of eighteen, but he had only been there twenty days before his Jeep turned over. He had arrived in the spring of ’46, when the fields were bright with flowers and there was still blossom on the trees. His ship was carrying troops and food packages, and khaki-covered bodies flowed from the mass of vessels like lines of a spider’s web, each one stretching back beyond the sea to home.
Commander Briggs had spoken to them that first night when they were all safely ashore.
‘The hatred of the past five years has no place here today. You have come to a country on its knees. A thousand children will die out there tonight without the food we bring. We are here to feed a nation because those children didn’t choose to bomb our men. Those children didn’t kill or maim; they didn’t try to cut our legs from under us; they didn’t torture us in camps. The vast majority of the people out there are blameless and we must minister to them as if they were our fellow Americans. We have taken their cities and their roads; their emperor is prostrate before us. In Nagasaki and Hiroshima they are dying still, hundreds more every day. Know when to be humble; know when to be compassionate.’
‘Shit, Green,’ said Franco, the oldest of their unit, ‘who does he think he is: Jesus Christ himself? Kill the lot of ’em, I say, murderous, slit-eyed cunts.’
Nathaniel hated Franco and he loved Briggs but he never really knew whose Navy it was he’d joined. Everyone seemed to have a different idea of what they were for and yet they were all – supposedly – following the same orders. He had planned to grow up in Japan. He had planned to grow up in the Navy. But instead he broke in half within a month.
Two birds lay prostrate on a hill of earth. Their eyes closed, their heads slack. The duck hawks paused in the act of ripping apart their prey and met the gaze of the reader, tails and wings aloft, talons splayed.
He’d been given the Audubon by a lieutenant commander who’d taught here for a while in ’59. Like most of the officers who worked at the Academy, Lieutenant Commander Johnson had assumed that Nathaniel was simple and had given him the lovely book of birds much as one would reward a ten-year-old boy for trying hard at maths. Even his boss at the library, Henry Morgan, treated him like an invalid. ‘Nat? Tell me, Nat, do you think you’d be up to taking these papers back to the archives? You don’t need to file them, I’m sure I can do it later.’ ‘Nat, do you mind, Nat, are you busy? I’ve just got the smallest number of books need taking across to the main counter.’
Nathaniel was never busy. He was lucky if they gave him three tasks to do each day. But they paid him twelve dollars a week and gave him a room on the ground floor which had been a supply closet before Commander Briggs had told them to take out the shelves and fit it with a bed and a washbasin and space for his wheelchair at night. Commander Briggs remembered him from before he’d lost his legs. He knew that Nathaniel was the same man he’d always been.
It was four o’clock. Nat went into the little kitchenette, pulled himself higher against the counter and moved the kettle to the sink. He lowered himself back into the chair, wheeled himself to the edge of the sink and pulled himself up again to turn on the water. He slid the kettle towards the stove and then lowered himself down into the chair to wheel himself along to where the stove was connected to the wall. His arms feeling the strain, he pulled himself up again, picked up the matches, lit one one-handed and started the gas. As he pulled the kettle onto the stove the phone rang in the office. Nat dropped back down into his chair and manoeuvred himself out of the tiny kitchen.
‘Naval Academy Library. Nathaniel Green speaking. How can I help?’
‘Nathaniel Green?’
‘Yes.’
‘My goodness. I
’ve been ringing round for two hours and now here you are!’
‘Here I am indeed. How can I help?’
‘Sorry. My name is Barnaby Hayes. I’m a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police in London. Are you free to talk for five minutes or so?’
Nathaniel’s mind went to the kettle on the stove but it would take a few minutes to boil. ‘Of course. Always happy to help the police.’
‘I’m terribly grateful. Now I need to ask: are you related to a lady by the name of Iolanthe Green?’
Nathaniel dropped the phone to his chest so that Hayes could not hear his breathing. He wanted to hang up but the policeman knew where he worked, was obviously looking for him. What on earth had Lanny said? He brought the receiver back to his mouth. Somewhere very distant a man in London was saying something to him but he couldn’t hear what it was.
‘Excuse me, Detective Sergeant Hayes, but has something happened to Iolanthe Green?’
‘Well, yes. I’m sorry to have to tell you but Iolanthe Green has gone missing. I’m in charge of finding her. You were aware that she was in London?’
‘No. I didn’t know she was in London.’
‘Mr Green, is Iolanthe your sister?’
Silence again. Nathaniel stroked the cover of his Birds of America with its beautiful print of crossed feathers. He thought again about the Acadian flycatcher. It probably hadn’t been one of those at all. He wouldn’t have been that lucky.
‘Mr Green?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The day of her disappearance Iolanthe gave an interview to The Times in which she said that she had had a brother named Nathaniel Green. I also know that Miss Green sometimes deposits money in savings accounts in that name. One of them being in Boston, the other in Annapolis. So I’m right in thinking that she is your sister, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, sir, you are.’
‘Are you in regular contact with your sister, Mr Green?’
‘No, sir, I’m not.’
‘Can you explain to me why Miss Green would claim that you were killed in a car accident in 1946?’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘No, she told The Times. It was part of the interview.’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Nathaniel spoke more to himself than to anyone else.
‘Had you fallen out with your sister, Mr Green? Because I can’t quite understand how she could have claimed these things about you and yet was depositing money into your savings accounts.’
‘We didn’t fall out exactly. We had a parting of the ways. I was injured, very severely, in a car crash in Japan in ’46. Iolanthe had already lost our father and our mother and she assumed the worst. She’d been making plans for a new life in New York. She wanted to go on the stage. So when I was shipped home ten months later without … the use of my legs, Iolanthe had already upped and left.
‘We came to an agreement, whereby I would let her live out her plans and she would offer me a bit of financial support if she ever made anything of herself. She didn’t come back to Boston and I muddled along. When my commander came home on leave he checked up on me and saw that I wasn’t able to find employment so he pulled some strings at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and found me a job and a room and I’ve been here ever since.’
‘When did you last see Iolanthe?’
‘1947. She came back to Boston to sort out the sale of our mother’s house. I was still living there but I couldn’t cover the mortgage so Iolanthe decided to sell. She used the money to set herself up and I put my share into my savings account.’
‘So your parents owned their own home?’
‘Well, no sir, not exactly. My mother was a cook. She was left the house by her employer when he died.’
‘And what did your father do?’
‘Oh, this and that. My mother was the steady one.’
Nathaniel was vaguely aware of the kettle whistling behind him. His mind wandered back to the book of birds. He opened it to a random page. An American hen hurried through the brush with her young at her feet.
‘Mr Green, are you still there?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Oh. I thought we might have been cut off. Was the inheritance from the sale of your mother’s house substantial?’
‘No, sir. I’m afraid that after the death … after my mother’s employer died we had to re-mortgage the house twice. When Iolanthe sold it there was only a little bit of money left in it. We got about six hundred dollars each.’
‘But if you’d been left six hundred dollars why did the Navy feel the need to offer you a room and a job a year later?’
For the first time in the course of the conversation, Nathaniel raised his voice. ‘Because nobody would employ me, sir. I couldn’t get a job. I have no legs. Iolanthe assumed – she’s not a monster, sir – Iolanthe assumed that I would be okay because I had a bit of money. But I had no way of replenishing that money. I needed someone to employ me.’
‘Of course. I didn’t mean to … I apologise for what may seem like very intrusive questions, but I really do want to discover what has happened to your sister. What part of Ireland were your parents from?’
‘What part? Somewhere around Dublin I guess. I don’t really know. I’ve never been.’
‘They weren’t from County Cork, then?’
‘Is that where Iolanthe said they were from? She was always better at family stuff.’
‘Were you ever aware of your sister being in a relationship? Did she have a boyfriend? A fiancé? Someone she was serious about?’
‘If she did I wouldn’t have known. I knew she did a film because it came and played in the cinema here. And I knew she was doing okay because she was generous with her deposits. But that’s about it.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what are your savings accounts for, exactly? Do you have a grand plan?’
‘I live how I live by the charity of the Navy and at some point I have to expect that that charity will end. I make plans for a time when I will depend only on myself, on the money I have managed to collect. I am warding off my future poverty, sir, that’s all.’
‘I see. Thank you, Nathaniel. I’m very grateful for your honesty in this matter. I can assure you that we are doing everything we can to find your sister.’
Behind Nathaniel the kettle was screaming wildly, fit to burst.
‘Is there a suggestion that she may have been hurt, Detective Sergeant Hayes?’
‘No, sir. We have no reason to believe that she’s been hurt. But we don’t really understand what’s become of her. If she’s a runaway, she may well come back eventually. I’m hoping we can track her down sooner rather than later.’
‘If you find her, will you call me and let me know? She’s really the only family I have.’
‘Of course, Mr Green. Of course we’ll let you know. Oh, wait, one more thing. The names Maria and Yolanda Green … Can you tell me who they are?’
‘Well, Maria was our mother’s name, sir.’
‘And Yolanda?’
‘I really couldn’t say, sir.’
‘You’re aware that Yolanda and Iolanthe are the same name in different forms … I was wondering if your sister had ever gone by the name Yolanda.’
‘Not to my knowledge, sir. She’s always been Iolanthe to me.’
‘Right. Well, okay. Thank you very much, Mr Green. I’ll be in touch when I have some news for you. Goodbye.’
In the quiet and the darkness of his office in London, Barnaby put the phone down and felt a surge of satisfaction. If nothing else, he could follow the money. He looked at his watch. It was quarter past nine. He’d missed supper now and bedtime with Gracie and he hadn’t even rung home to say he’d be late. Orla had long ago stopped checking up on him. She just assumed he wouldn’t turn up for anything. All the same, it was liver and bacon for tea and it would be horrible cold. Maybe he would eat something here instead.
He searched the drawers of his desk for food, then gave up and went through Detective Serg
eant Potts’ drawers instead. Potts lived for his chocolate. A pristine pack of digestive biscuits sat in the top drawer alongside a bar of Fruit and Nut, a packet of Munchies and two bars of 5 Centre. His fingers hovered over the 5 Centres but then he made the healthy choice and pinched the digestives instead.
Four thousand miles away Nathaniel had burned his fingers on the shaking kettle and was holding them in cold water. When the pain subsided a little he made himself a cup of black tea with sugar and wheeled it back to the desk.
Like the Layers of an Onion
Wednesday, 10 November
Anna and Aloysius stood outside his house. He had offered to accompany her back to her flat in town but Anna felt this displayed an unnecessary level of gallantry. Now that they came to say goodbye neither of them seemed terribly keen to part. Anna wavered on the pavement occasionally asking questions, sometimes of herself and sometimes of Aloysius.
‘Perhaps she’s absolutely fine. If the baby was going to be illegitimate and half-caste maybe she thought it best to run away and start again.’
Aloysius stood and listened, his breath misting the air in front of him, his nose slowly losing all feeling. Anna danced around in an effort to keep warm. ‘Or she went somewhere seedy to get help and something else completely happened to her.’
Aloysius glanced, a little longingly, at the crescent window of his room on the top floor. As much as he liked Anna, as much as he was intrigued by the chase, he would be so much happier if they were warm right now.
‘Or maybe, maybe she had the procedure and then that engendered a kind of breakdown. What a depressing thought,’ Anna said as she bounced up and down on the spot on the edge of the kerb. She didn’t seem very depressed. She actually seemed quite exhilarated by the whole thing.
Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars Page 9