Nick's Blues

by John Harvey

  And all around them no one cared.

  “Do you really want to go back and look at the photos?” Ellen asked after a while.

  Nick shook his head. “No. Do you?”

  “So how did it go?” His mum asked when he got home. “Have a nice time?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said quickly. “Okay.”

  And disappeared into his room.

  twenty three

  Sunday morning Nick got up early. The camera he’d borrowed from Christopher, who’d got it from his father, was an old Canon EOS with a zoom lens. Nick had fiddled about with the lens before and ended up hardly ever using it, but now, after seeing the Walker Evans, he thought it might have its uses.

  Get in close.

  Look. Look up.

  Before they Disappear.

  He started at the Toll Gate Café, the sign above the door. Focussed on the letters, first one, then two, then more. Finally decided on Rest with the t not quite in the frame.

  On the pavement near the tube station, a whole lot of different Irish papers were on display, and, mingled amongst them, Le Monde and several others in Italian and Spanish and what Nick thought was probably Arabic.

  Walking along Fortess Road, he noticed workmen had pulled away the boards above the Internet Café, revealing partially faded white letters. FRENCH & ENGLISH CONFECTIONERS. How long they’d been there, he’d no idea. He’d certainly never seen them before.

  Cutting through, he took some pictures of graffiti on the bridge over the railway, before finding himself staring at what he must have walked past half a hundred times before but never really noticed. Across the courtyard from the pub, high on the side wall of what was now a hair salon, the name of the shop’s previous owners had been painted directly onto the brick, and, listed underneath, the things that they’d sold.

  K & M LARN

  FANCY WORK

  OVERALLS

  BLOUSES

  CORSETS

  GLOVES

  HOSIERY

  LACES

  RIBBONS

  HABERDASHERY

  FLANNELS

  FLANNELETTES

  CALICOES

  UNDERCLOTHING

  MAIDS’ DRESSES

  CAPS & APRONS

  Here and there, the lettering had faded into the brickwork to the point that it was unreadable without the rest of the word to make sense. When had they first been put there, Nick wondered? A hundred years ago? Possibly more. And the words themselves. What on earth was haberdashery, for instance? And what were calicoes?

  The Flannelettes sounded like one of those sixties girl groups on the cheap compilation CDs his mum brought back sometimes from the petrol station where she worked.

  Standing there, zooming in and out, really getting into it, he took shot after shot until he realised with surprise the film was finished and he didn’t have another.

  He was close enough to Christopher’s to call round there, but Sunday morning he knew Chris would still be stewing in his bed and wouldn’t appreciate being knocked awake.

  He got home just as his mum was emerging from the bathroom, bleary-eyed, tatty old dressing gown pulled tight around her.

  “Where’ve you been this early?”

  She moved past him, intent on filling the kettle, making a cup of tea.

  “Mum, lend us some money.”

  “What for?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Mum…”

  After rummaging round in her bag, she came up with some change and a five pound note. “Until I can get to a machine, that’s all I’ve got.”

  “Should’ve taken it easy last night then, eh?”

  “What do you know about what I did or didn’t do last night?”

  “Nothing,” Nick said. The longer his mum’s private life remained private the better. Once in a while when she went out with her friends on a Saturday, he’d be vaguely aware of her returning home at three or so in the morning. Once he got up at five to go for a pee and came face to face with her sneaking in through the front door.

  The fiver was still in Dawn’s hand.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Nick said.

  “I know you will.”

  “So come on then, give it over.”

  “If it’s condoms…”

  “What? You gonna lend me yours?”

  “Don’t be so damned cheeky.”

  “What is it with you, anyway? You got condoms on the brain?”

  “Fat lot of good they’d do you there.”

  “Funny! Highly satirical. Been watching Have I Got News For You? again?”

  “I just don’t want you getting some girl into trouble, that’s all.”

  “I tell you what, mum. You look after your sex life, I’ll look after mine.”

  Dawn laughed. “That includes washing your own sheets then, does it?”

  “Okay,” Nick said, turning away to hide his face. “Keep your money.”

  “Here. You want it? Here.”

  Leaving the note on the table, she turned back towards the kettle. “Fancy a cup of tea before you go wherever it is you’re going?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Nick pocketed the fiver, picked up the camera and left.

  When the man in shop from whom he bought the film showed an interest and asked him what he was doing, he asked Nick if he’d ever looked at the rear of the buildings at the far side of the roundabout, near the entrance to the Fields.

  Nick had not.

  “You know where that greasy spoon used to be? All tarted up now.”

  Nick nodded.

  “Round the back of there.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll go and look now.”

  Through the overlapping branches, he could just make out the writing on the wall, in danger of disappearing into the reddish brick.

  CATERING

  FOR

  BEANFEASTS

  PARTIES

  CLUBS

  Beanfeasts, Nick thought, what a great word. He grinned at the thought of a hundred or so helpings of baked beans on toast and all the farting that would follow. Forget windmills, harness that lot and there’d be power enough to keep the electricity supply going for weeks.

  Then again, maybe it meant something else.

  He was just turning away when he saw Melanie — or someone he thought was Melanie — walking across the grass in the direction of the ponds. Head down, collar up, moving slowly. Trudging, that was the word. Something about the way she was walking made him call her name, but if she heard it she gave no sign.

  Nick shrugged and passed between the metal barriers and back on to the main road. The smell of breakfasts cooking from the café made him long for a bacon sandwich, but he didn’t think there was change enough from his five pound note, not for that and something to drink to wash it down.

  He’d go home instead and raid the fridge. See what he could find.

  Dawn was in the living room, vacuum cleaner going full blast, the radio still on in the kitchen.

  “… police are still trying to trace the whereabouts of the mother of a one-day old baby, abandoned yesterday evening outside The Whittington Hospital on Highgate Hill. The baby, a boy weighing just under five pounds, is being cared for by staff at the hospital, who have named him Angus.”

  Cold spread along Nick’s arms like a wave.

  Pushing past his mum, almost tripping over the lead from the Hoover, he switched on the TV and searched for the remote, which, as usual, had slipped down between the cushions on the settee.

  “What’s got into you all of a sudden?” Dawn asked.

  Ignoring her, Nick flicked to CFax, continuing till he found the appropriate page.

  ‘Baby Angus, the boy abandoned by his mother in the grounds of The Whittington Hospital in north London, was pronounced fit and healthy by staff this morning.

  ‘A member of the public has reported seeing a young woman hurrying away from the spot where the baby was found. She
is described as white, in her teens or possibly early twenties, and quite heavily-built.

  ‘Detective Inspector James Mulwhinney, of Islington police, has appealed to the mother to contact either the Islington Child Protection Unit or the police as soon as possible.

  ‘“I must emphasise,” Inspector Mulwhinney said, “that our primary consideration at this time is the health and welfare of the mother, who may be in urgent need of medical attention.”’

  Phone numbers for the Child Protection Unit and the Islington police came up on the screen as Nick hurried back out of the room.

  “Nick. Nicky. For heaven’s sake what’s going on?”

  The slamming of the front door was her only reply.

  twenty four

  Nick ran when he could, walked when he couldn’t. Midway along the first path leading into the Fields, he leaned forward against a bench to catch his breath. The soreness, where his ribs were far from fully healed, was intense.

  A young woman, it had said, heavily-built. “Our primary consideration at this time is the health and welfare of the mother, who may be in urgent need of medical attention.”

  Whatever happened would more than likely have already happened.

  No need to run.

  And yet, following the path as it curved towards the first pond, he broke into a slow, steady jog, remembering Melanie as she had stood red-eyed at his door: “I just… just wanted someone to talk to.”

  The door closing in her face.

  The water on the surface of the pond was calm, no dogs splashing noisily after frisbees or pieces of wood, no clamour of ducks as toddlers threw them hunks of bread. Out near the centre, two swans described a slow circle, a brace of darker-feathered cygnets close between. Once Nick had seen an adult swan, enraged, see off a dog which had swum too close to its young, the swan’s wings thrashing the water furiously as it chased the intruder away.

  At the next open pond there was more activity: men fishing, four or five at intervals; women pushing three-wheeled buggies along the gravelled path; near the far end, a father and child, a boy or girl, Nick couldn’t tell, were sailing a small boat with orange sails.

  What had he expected?

  Melanie’s coat floating, sodden, on top of the water where she had jumped in?

  It wasn’t everyone’s solution, every person’s escape.

  Beyond the couple with the sailboat, he saw someone sitting on the grass, head bowed, arms tight around her knees. The shape was right, but as he got nearer, Nick could see it was someone else.

  He was beginning to feel foolish.

  Why not go home, phone one of those numbers? The Child Protection Unit. Or better still, do nothing. After all, it wasn’t really his concern.

  The sun showed through streaks of cloud as he climbed the angled path towards Parliament Hill, kites in different shapes and sizes moving against the sky, the largest, in the shape of a dragon’s head, soaring as it caught the wind.

  Nick stood for a while and watched. Below him, on the other side of the hill, was the running track where, on sports day, he had run his first hundred metres and almost won; alongside it, the playground where his father had first pushed him on the swings and where, falling from the climbing frame, he had bloodied both his knees. His father…

  Walking down, he saw her, Melanie, sitting inside the shell of the bandstand, her back against the iron railing.

  She scarcely moved when he came towards her. Only when he was standing in front of her did she look up and then quickly back down.

  “Melanie,” Nick said. “Are you okay?”

  No reply and he knew, as soon as the words had left his mouth, what a stupid question it was. But he couldn’t think what else to say.

  He squatted down and waited until she looked at him again.

  Her skin was pale and bagged around the eyes and the eyes themselves were dark and dull. Her coat seemed damp in patches, bits of twig and leaf clinging to it here and there as if maybe she had pushed her way into the undergrowth beyond the trees.

  “Let me get you something,” Nick said.

  “No.”

  There was a café near the bandstand; he and Christopher and Scott used to go there all the time, until one day, without reason, they’d stopped and starting going somewhere else. The pizza place.

  “Something to eat. A cup of tea.”

  “I couldn’t eat.”

  “Cup of tea then.”

  “All right.”

  He had money enough left for two teas and a packet of biscuits in case she changed her mind about eating. He hurried back, fearful that she might have gone, but she was still in the same position.

  A small boy was climbing round the other side of the bandstand now, negotiating the spaces between the railings with care, his mother watching closely lest he should fall.

  Nick set down the cups on the floor and sat at Melanie’s side.

  From his pocket he took several packets of sugar and a small plastic spoon.

  “How many? One? Two?”

  “Three.”

  They sat for a while and sipped their tea. The small boy was replaced by an inquisitive dog.

  “The baby…” Nick began.

  “Don’t,” Melanie said.

  “I just wanted…”

  “Don’t.”

  Nick offered Melanie a biscuit and when she shook her head, he took one himself and dunked it in the tea. The dog came sniffing close and Nick aimed a kick to keep it away.

  Someone had once told him that you only heard birds early in the mornings and late in the afternoons. What he could hear now was the sound of traffic, distant on the main road, the occasional voices from outside the café, Melanie’s breathing as she sat, her arm not quite touching his.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said suddenly, her voice hushed but rough, as if her throat were sore. “I tried to tell my mum, I mean when I knew. No way I could have told my dad, no way. He’d have killed me. I know. And my mum, I just don’t know what she’d have done. Panicked most likely and told him anyway. Forced me to have an abortion, I don’t know. So I just carried on, tried to pretend it wasn’t happening I suppose. And then… no, no, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want to hear all this. You don’t have to.”

  “No,” Nick said. “Go on. I do.”

  Slowly she looked at him. “Why are you saying that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She picked up her tea but didn’t drink it. “I was in the bathroom. My mum was out. I knew something was going to happen. All this water… and then these pains. I locked the door and at first I sat on the toilet, I didn’t know what to do, and then I got into the bath. I…”

  She stopped, tears welling up, and Nick squeezed her arm.

  “I thought I can’t, I can’t. I couldn’t believe the pain. Shouting and screaming, I don’t know why someone in the other flats didn’t hear me and then, suddenly, there he was. Small and red and all wrinkled and at first I didn’t want to touch him, couldn’t bring myself to, but that was only a moment, a couple of moments, and then I picked him up and as soon as I did he started crying and opened his eyes and looked at me…”

  “Sshh,” Nick said. “It’s okay.”

  “I knew I had to get a knife, to cut, you know, the cord, and I left all this… all this blood and stuff all over the kitchen floor. I ran the tap over the scissors until it was boiling hot and then I cut it and he was still crying so I wrapped him up in these towels, they were clean, just washed, and found this holdall and I took him… I could hardly walk, it hurt, but I took him to the hospital. I thought it would be best for him and I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  She grabbed his hand and gripped it tight.

  The last of her words had been almost lost in tears.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Nick said over and over, praying no one would come near.

  After a while, Melanie released his hand and wiped the sleeve of her coat across her face.

  “Nick, I�
��ve done a terrible thing, haven’t I? A wicked thing.”

  “No,” Nick said. “I don’t think so.”

  And a little while later Nick got to his feet and said, “If you want to go home or to the hospital or whatever, I’ll come with you. If you want.”

  Melanie shook her head. “I think I’d like to just stay here. For a bit longer.”

  “Okay,” Nick said, and sat back down beside her.

  ***

  Later, in his own room that evening, when the fuss, most of it, had died down, and Nick was stretched out on his bed, eyes closed, he heard his father’s voice.

  “You did well, son, today. Made it right, right as you could. I like to think I’d’ve done the same.”

  Of course, when he opened his eyes there was no one there.

  twenty five

  “So what happened then?” Ellen asked. “To Melanie?”

  It was almost a week later, and they were sitting by one of the round windows at the front of the Toll Gate Café. The prints of Nick’s photographs were on the table, but that wasn’t what they were talking about.

  “She agreed to come back with me,” Nick said. “Eventually. Talk to my mum. She wouldn’t go near her own. Not then. Mum persuaded her to go to the hospital.”

  “And was she all right?”

  “I think so. They kept her in overnight, I don’t know, tests or something, observation, I’m not sure. But, yeah, I think she was okay.”