by Robert Power
‘I knew that was going to happen,’ says Lottie, shielding her eyes from the sun.
‘So did I,’ says her friend, as if they are two goddesses sitting in the clouds, watching the mortals playing out their merry dance beneath them.
Down the hill and to their right, through the lush foliage, they can just make out the blue diving board at the end of the jetty at the Men’s Pond.
‘I remember when my dad first brought me here,’ says Lottie. ‘My pet hamster had just died and we buried him by the roots of this tree.’
She points to a fork at the base of the thick tree trunk.
‘Just there I think. I felt so guilty. As if it was me that killed it. Because maybe I never loved it enough. That’s how it felt, like it was all my fault.’
Trixie is setting the picnic things on a tartan rug. There is cheese and bread, fruit and water. She thinks for a minute, before passing Lottie a slice of cheese and a hunk of bread.
‘The way I see it,’ she says, biting into a crisp green apple, ‘we can take life too seriously, if we’re not careful. So that it becomes negative, stifling. Does nobody any good.’
A couple of cocker spaniels scurry by, circle the picnic blanket, and then head off down the hill at a gallop.
‘I know what you mean,’ says Lottie. ‘It can turn on you and you freeze. Like it’s all so much that you can’t do anything.’
‘Or be good for anyone else.’
Lottie looks down at the two boys standing at the edge of the water, the yacht bobbing about merrily in the middle of the pond. Beside them the taller figure of their father looks helplessly on.
‘Let’s not get like that, Trixie, you and me. Let’s not get lost.’
‘No, not you and me, Lottie. We won’t do it like that.’
Then they fall silent and set about buttering bread and cutting peaches into quarters. At the base of the copper-beech tree the roots twitch and spread their tendrils, seeking out water and nourishment from the dry red soil.
Caitlin stirs on her bed, roused from a shallow sleep. ‘What are these muffled words?’ she thinks. Then she remembers the radio.
‘… real name was Gregory Efimovich, the son of a carter. He was born in the Western Siberian hamlet of Pokrovskoe in 1872. Very much an ordinary child, but an extraordinary adult. As a young man he gained renown for his excesses and lecherous ways in the local inn. The nickname, to stick with him down the decades, meant “dissolute”….’
There is a crackling sound. The voices are distorted and the reception fades, as it has been doing from time to time. Some45thing to do with the weather, the muggy evenings, positive ions, the storm brewing from the west.
‘Adolf … strangler … ancient times … Ghengis Khan … Stalin and some may … suggest … Margaret Thatcher … ignominious company. But that might … loved by their mothers …’
The door opens and closes. Caitlin senses a presence. Eyebrows or no eyebrows?
‘… Rasputin’s first act of prophecy … only twelve, on his sick bed … fever after trying to save his own brother from drowning … astounded villagers … rightly accused Petr Androvich of stealing … horse of a poor carter …’
‘Do you want me to tune that thing for you?’ says a voice.
This is a new voice. A man. Standing in the half-light, by the wall. ‘Who is this?’ wonders Caitlin, ‘what does he want of me, asking his questions?’
‘Do you want me to tune the radio for you?’ says the man again.
She deliberately doesn’t move. He will see nothing but a bundle of blankets and the shape of a body. Legs. The rise and fall of hips. A shoulder, turned to the room. A wild shock of hair, unkempt, dull.
‘… Khlysty … two-hundred-years old sect … believed those possessed by God were beyond the laws of both Church and State … reached God at the point of sexual orgasm.’
Silence, except the crackle from the radio.
‘I remember seeing a Samuel Beckett play once at the Abbey in Dublin,’ says the man. ‘When I had time for such things. Before all this. The play opens. The narrator describes the room. From above. A pallet, he says it was called. That thing you’re lying on. And that’s all I remember of the description. There was a man waiting, listening to a radio. Pressed close to his ear. He held it the way a small child caresses a stuffed toy. He’s listening out. Never says a word. Waiting for someone. Expectant. If he fancies he hears something he moves the radio from his ear. And he listens carefully for any new sound. Listening for the rumble of a wave perhaps, though he’s miles from the sea.’
Caitlin opens her eyes. Wide. As if from a deep sleep. She recognizes this voice. Something about the ‘rumble of a wave’ jolts her memory. She stares straight ahead.
There is the sound of footsteps on the floor. The man moves to the table. The scrape of the single chair. The sound of him sitting. He tunes the radio. She hears him listening.
‘Rasputin’s wife bore him four children, one died in infancy. In those days he supported his family through farming. But all this changed when he received a vision from the Virgin Mary and a legion of angels. This experience convinced Rasputin that God had big plans for him. He began preaching and healing in his village. But Father Petr, the local orthodox priest, branded him the anti-Christ. Bored by the small-mindedness of village life, Rasputin spread his wings and travelled. He put into practice his belief in redemption through sin. He drank and fornicated his way across the country. In one infamous incident in Kazan, he fell out of a drinking hole, whipping a prostitute the length of the high street. None of this hindered his progress. Indeed, once ensconced in the protection of the Romanovs, he would seduce reluctant bedfellows with the admonition that sin must be accomplished, temptation yielded to, in order for us to repent. No one could ever accuse Rasputin of not practising what he preached, as his rape of a nun shortly after arriving in Saint Petersburg testifies.’
‘It’s Gerard!’ thinks Caitlin, without moving a muscle, without turning from where she lies. ‘The man who came to me in Brighton, with his talk of conspiracy and tidal waves.’
On the wall in front of her eyes she sees the rise and fall of the sea. A bank of black water the size of a house collecting on the horizon, drawing breath, then rumbling across the seas, blotting out the light. She strokes the side of her face, away from where she senses the man sits. If she speaks she fancies her face will crack, opening wounds never to heal.
‘… of paedophilia. But the Tsar and Tsarina would hear nothing of it. This man might be called the Holy Devil, eat fish soup with his hands, never change his clothes nor wash his body, boast of his sexual exploits, but to the Romanovs he was a saviour, a gift from God. Where medicine had failed, Rasputin was able to halt the flow of blood from the body of their haemophiliac son Alexis.’
‘No one is only good, or only bad,’ says Gerard. ‘Take this man on the radio. This monk. Do you know he was a pacifist who tried to dissuade the Tsar from entering Russia into the Great War? He was a peasant who knew peasants were sent to the front to die. That’s why he wanted to keep Russia out of the war. To save the lives of innocent, guileless peasants. And Hitler, he risked his life in that same war to save a friend from being blown apart by a grenade.’
Gerard turns the volume down on the radio.
‘What is the saying about there being a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us? Think of the Titanic.’
Caitlin stays still, giving nothing away. She sniffs. Gerard obviously takes this as a sign of interest. An acknowledgement of his presence, a primeval language.
‘Well, plenty of those lifeboats were empty enough,’ he continues. ‘Some not even half full. They all saw the bodies in the water. Freezing, minutes away from death. Hands aloft, hoping against hope. Only one or two went back to save a few souls. Risking capsizing, maybe, but something told those people they had to do good. Could not live out their lives with the alternative.’
Caitlin carefully places her finger in the cres
cent cavity in the wall. She wants to scream out. She wants him to stop all this talking. She wants this man to tell her what he is here for. But she says nothing.
‘You must understand what I’m saying,’ continues Gerard. ‘We all do things we are unhappy with. We all do things we would rather hide away. Keep locked in the past. Machiavelli got the balance right. When the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de Medici his name was, asked him to outline the perfect structure for a stable State, Niccolo Machiavelli realized ruthlessness was necessary for the greater good. Kill your enemies to ensure lasting peace. A man advocating peace. And look at the press he got. But then we know all about that, Caitlin, don’t we?’
Gerard runs his fingers through his thick black hair, takes a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and polishes his glasses.
‘That’s really what I’m here to talk to you about,’ says Gerard, still shining the lens of his spectacles. ‘Brighton, that is.’
Still she says nothing.
‘I think I’ll turn on the light. Illuminate the matter.’
She hears his footsteps moving away.
‘Don’t, please don’t,’ the sound of a woman’s voice, outside her head, urgent. It shocks her. The sound of it. ‘I don’t want the light on. Not now.’
She feels her face, runs the tips of her fingers across the patchwork of shiny, scaled, scabbed, raw skin of her face.
‘Please, I don’t want to have the light on.’
She hears him standing, and then moving to sit down by the table.
‘Okay, if you say so,’ he says, clearly glad to hear her speak. ‘How are you?’
A tear wells in her throat, but she swallows hard.
‘What do you think? How do you think I am? In this place.’
‘I have some things for you. Some cream, for your skin.’
She says nothing. Caitlin has no intention of thanking this man. Not any of them.
‘Nothing more’s going to happen to you,’ says Gerard. ‘I’ve come to let you know you’ll be free soon. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has got what they wanted out of this. Even those two young Kerry boys have been released. There was not a scrap of evidence to pin on them.’
‘And Sammy, what about Sammy?’ asks Caitlin, a tear rolling down the side of her face at the mention of his name.
‘I don’t know anything about him,’ replies Gerard, placing something on the table, his footsteps moving towards the door. ‘That was never part of my job. If I knew I would tell you. But I don’t.’
Caitlin shifts her position slightly. Her hip is sore from the pressure. She thinks of Sammy. That last night in the bar with Liam and Michael. The look of anguish on his face as the men placed the hood over her head. And of Anthony, her brother. She knows he is being blackmailed in some way to save her. Otherwise why would she have been made to record all those messages to him?
The wall in front of her face is dark. She presses close against it, licks the crevice with the tip of her tongue. The bitter taste. The consistency is of porcelain, cold and smooth. A scar in the surface of the wall. Its skin penetrated, but now healed, sealed over. Clean.
‘Where is the cream?’ she asks of the darkness.
‘It’s on the table. In the bag,’ replies Gerard.
‘Go away. Leave me alone.’
‘I’ve said all I need to say. You’ll be away from here soon enough.’
She hears the turn of the lock, the opening of the door. A shaft of light from the corridor enters the room. She catches the fragment of a conversation. Gerard and another man. The door closes and is locked. She strains to hear the sound of receding footsteps.
She lies still for a while longer. She is past wondering who is dealing with who. Why Gerard should turn up here. Why she was accused of conspiracy with a man conspiring with everyone. None of this seems to matter to her. The thoughts and questions pass through her mind like sycamore seeds on the wind. Caitlin hauls herself up from the bed, places her bare, swollen feet awkwardly on the floor. She totters towards the table, her arms outstretched as if sleepwalking. A plastic bag sits next to the radio where Gerard has left it. She tips its contents onto the table. Some clementines, fennel toothpaste, a new toothbrush, conditioning shampoo, bath soap, chocolate. And a tube of cream, the same steroids she kept in her wash bag for twenty years, for emergencies.
She sits by the table, unscrews the top of the tube and squeezes the cream onto her fingers. Lovingly she rubs it into her cheeks, filling in the crevices, soothing the poor sad skin. She massages her face, her eyelids, behind her ears. She stretches her jaw, feeling elasticity in her skin for the first time in weeks. It is fed, it is soothed. Healing is taking place. She turns up the volume on the radio, breaks a square from the bar of chocolate and places it on her tongue. The radio is playing evensong. An organ and a choir.
‘… of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
whose trust ever childlike no cares could destroy,
be there at our waking and give us we pray,
your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.’
16
Postcard home
When I wake, I realize I have slept like a babe. No dream to remember. No demons gnawing on the bedpost. I think back to the Meeting of the previous evening and recall my tears, the feelings and stories I shared with the two men and the honesty and the relief. Lying in my bed I enjoy a sense of ease, in spite of all that has gone before and the daunting task ahead. It’s as if I accept what is happening around me. It is what it is. I lie back on the bed and decide to do nothing until something has to be done.
The Novotel Hotel where I am staying is in the embassy district of Bogotá, as quiet and urbane as it comes. The hotel is clinical and nondescript in that peculiarly Swiss style. I could be anywhere. A kind of gentle exhaustion has taken a firm grip and my mind has shut down for now. If I even try to piece together the events of the past weeks or the twist of recent days, my mind protests and refuses to cooperate. We agree a truce, a temporary armistice, freeze-framing the action, at least for the time being. It’s as much as I can do to order room service and watch CNN on the television. It’s been weeks since I’ve taken any interest in what has been going on in the world. The news is still the news. It seems to have been going on in spite of my distancing myself from it. Wars and rumours of wars, famines and natural disasters, scandals and scaremongering, sporting triumphs and weather reports. Nothing much has changed. I flick through the channels and then land back on CNN.
There are scenes of panic from somewhere I vaguely recognize. The soundtrack is of machine-guns, but this is not a movie. Then I realize it’s Ascavar’s compound and it seems there’s a siege taking place. I sit up in bed, all remnants of sleep swamped by adrenaline. The pictures show the outside of the compound, leading from the main road. Military vehicles and police cars are everywhere. Soldiers and police are positioned every five yards or so, all clad in body armour, all sporting high-velocity weapons. There is a huge hole in the compound wall, presumably from an orchestrated blast, and an armoured car is ploughing through the gap. The camera angle shifts ninety degrees and an earnest looking news reporter appears in the frame.
‘The siege continues at the Bogotá residence of Carlos Ascavar, the well-known leader of the Medellin drugs cartel. The authorities have been tracking his activities for some time now. In the early hours an attempt was made to arrest him in connection with the brutal murder of a female accomplice, whose body was discovered last month in the Salle Fernandez barrio east of the capital. While resisting arrest, gunshots were fired and the siege you witness behind me commenced. It is not clear who fired the first shots, but we are now some four hours into a serious stand-off involving the Colombian police and military. So far, unconfirmed reports are coming through of two police fatalities.’
The reporter ducks involuntarily as the deafening sounds of an explosion rock the neighbourhood.
‘As you can see and hear,’ continues the reporter, smiling at his own abil
ity to regain his composure, ‘this battle is far from over and is likely to go to the wire. This is Sandy Brockhurst for CNN News.’
I sit staring at the scenes, trying to take it all in, when the telephone by the side of my bed rings. It makes me jump. I look at it for a second or two, not sure what, if anything, is safe.
Tentatively, I pick up the receiver.
‘Hello,’ says the strangely familiar voice at the other end.
‘Hello, who is that?’ I answer slowly, my eyes still on the TV.
‘It’s me, Mary Foster.’
‘Of course, who else?’ I reply, almost amused. After all, this is the voice that started this whole merry-go-round spinning.
There is another huge explosion from the TV, sending the camera into a whirl.
‘Ah,’ says Mary, ‘so you’re in the picture. That’s what I called you to talk about.’
Sounds of mortar fire on the TV, billows of smoke, soldiers storming through holes in walls.
‘Anthony … are you there?’
‘Er … yes,’ I say, not quite sure where there is.
‘Listen, everything is just fine,’ says Mary in a soft and reassuring voice. ‘It’ll all be over by this evening. Get some rest and then meet me at seven in Saint Dominic’s Square.’
‘Where?’ I say, still mesmerised by the real action movie on the television screen.
‘Saint Dominic’s Square,’ she repeats slowly. ‘Just take a taxi, the driver will know where it is. Seven o’clock. I’ll meet you there. There’s a bench by the fountain. Did you hear me, Anthony? Okay?’
‘Yes,’ I say, like an automaton, ‘Saint Dominic’s Square. The bench by the fountain. Seven o’clock.’
‘Good,’ says the voice, ‘just relax. I’ll see you there.’
Then the phone goes quiet, just as a rattle of machine-gun fire makes Sandy duck once more.
Caitlin sits in the solitary chair listening to opera on the radio. Beside her is a bag containing her few possessions and the usual change of clothes. She looks over to the opposite corner, to the space where for so many days and nights she has lain like a corpse. The thin mattress has been rolled up and the wooden pallet propped against the wall. She stands up and walks through the empty space where her bed has been. Her own personal resurrection. She leans down and finds the small crescent moon she carved with her fingernail. She presses her lips to the plaster. Then there’s a new sound. It’s not the boiler. It’s not the door shutting. It’s the click of fingers, and the One without Eyebrows is standing in the doorway, the boulder rolled from the entrance, beckoning her to leave the tomb.