by Karen Perry
A look of mild consternation crossed her face.
“When he met you last weekend,” I went on. “He was quite excited, in fact, although he’d kill me for saying as much. But you know he’d love the chance to exhibit again at the Sitric.”
The look on her face stopped me. Consternation had changed to genuine confusion and she was shaking her head slowly.
“You must be mistaken, Robin. I haven’t seen Harry in ages. In fact, it’s a good two years, at least, since we last met.”
“Oh,” I said, momentarily thrown. “Well, perhaps it was someone else from the Sitric Gallery that he was referring to. There’s another girl who works there—Sally or Sarah? I forget!”
I laughed, yet still she looked at me strangely.
“The Sitric Gallery has closed,” she said softly.
“What?”
“Another victim of the recession,” she continued with a little mirthless laugh. “No one has money to spend on art anymore.”
My mind raced. The Sitric had closed? My thoughts whirred back over what Harry had said—Tanya from the Sitric. The day of the march. I was sure that was whom he had mentioned.
“Well,” she said, shrugging. “It was nice to see you. And please give Harry my best. Perhaps, when things pick up, our paths might cross again.”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. “Good luck.”
As I walked away, picking my way carefully through the snow, I thought about Harry, about what he had said, and wondered why he had lied. And if he hadn’t seen Tanya the day of the march, then whom had he seen, and why did he not want to tell me?
Perhaps I was mistaken. I told myself that it was possible he had meant someone else from a different gallery and I had just misheard or misinterpreted his remarks. But even as I turned the thought over in my mind, I knew it wasn’t true. He had lied to me. And I remembered how he’d been that day—agitated, distracted—and the memory stayed with me on the long, slow walk back to the office, creasing itself into a little furrow of worry: one more to add to the rest.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HARRY
I woke up to “Fairytale of New York” playing on the radio. That was it. As soon as you heard “Fairytale,” you knew Christmas was on its way. I felt rough. I felt like the scumbag in the song. The strung-out tones were fitting. Nothing like Shane MacGowan singing how he could have been someone on a bleak Monday morning in December to make you think of taking to the drink again. Hair of the dog was on my mind.
Beside me, the bed was stone cold. Robin must have been up for a while. I stumbled into the bathroom and got the water going. Standing under the shower with the jets of water spraying painfully across my face, I thought of what my life had come to, the point in the path that I was at. I thought of my work, the opportunities that were opening up to me now with this trip I was about to take. I was off to London for a meeting with a gallery about a show I might do, a follow-on from The Tangier Manifesto. A part two, if you like. I was nervous but excited, too, conscious of all the possibilities swirling about me. I thought of Robin and the baby growing inside her. I thought of this old house and the future that lay within it. All of these things flitted across the corridors of my mind. But a shadow was cast over them. The shadow of the boy I had seen. His face rose up amid the steam of the hot water, and I turned away from it, flicking off the water and stepping out of the tub. I did not shave, just dressed quickly, grabbed a few things, and threw them into an overnight bag.
Robin called up the stairs to me:
“Harry? Are you ready?”
“Yep,” I said, taking the stairs two at a time, pressed by a sudden need to get going.
“I’ll drop you at the airport.”
“What? In this snow?”
“It’s not too bad. We can go for breakfast in the airport before your flight.”
“Okay. If you’re sure?”
She gave me a warm smile of reassurance, then skipped past me to the van. As I locked up, I could hear her turning the engine over, bringing it to life.
“Tickets? Passport? Wallet?” she said as I got in beside her.
“Check, check, and check.”
She seemed so breezy that morning. An air of optimism hovered around her, giving off warmth on that cold, cold day. I felt so grateful for it in that moment that it was enough to dispel all my thoughts about the boy, about what I had seen or what I thought I had seen. Delusions, that’s what they were, brought on by guilt or fatigue or a combination of both.
Robin had turned her head to back out the driveway when I saw the expression on her face change, the frown forming on her forehead. I turned, too, and saw the long snout of the old Jag pulling up, blocking our exit. I heard the creak of a hand brake and watched as the door opened and Spencer stepped out, fag clamped in his mouth, loose strands of uncombed hair lifting in the breeze.
“Great,” Robin declared in a flat tone as he raised a hand in salute.
“I’ll get rid of him,” I said.
She looked at me with a weary expression. “If only it were that simple.”
He was at the driver’s window now, tapping on the glass. Dutifully, she wound it down. I could smell his breath cutting across her, bitter and sharp.
“Where are you off to?”
“Airport.”
“Come on. I’ll give you a lift.”
He turned and stalked back to the Jag, not waiting for an answer.
Robin stared at her knuckles, her hands still gripping the steering wheel.
“Sorry, love,” I said, and I kissed her good-bye. She sighed. “I’ll make it up to you. Forget breakfast at the airport—I’ll take you out somewhere nice when I’m back.”
Robin didn’t respond. I climbed out of the car, feeling like I had let her down again, and stepped into Spencer’s. He had on a camel’s hair coat. Peeking beneath the lapels was a flash of black silk: he was still wearing his robe. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he had not slept in a month.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
“What? Course I am,” he said, holding up a Breathalyzer. “I have the system sussed.”
He drove so I had to clutch the door handle. My foot pressed to brake more than once. But we made it with time to spare.
“I have talked with McDonagh, my mate in the Guards, and he has managed to source the CCTV for the hours in question. It’s all digitized these days.”
“Oh. Right. Excellent.”
“The man owed me a favor, so here, my friend, are half a dozen DVDs.”
I looked at the stack of them, bound with an elastic band, and a tide of embarrassment and regret washed over me. Why had I asked him for these? What purpose could they possibly serve? At that moment, my suspicions seemed so patently absurd, let alone my desire for some amateur sleuthing.
“These were not easy to come by, favor or no. Seems like they are hot property. Austerity measures, protests. Forget The Tangier Manifesto, that’s what you should call your next show.”
“Austerity Measures?”
“Bingo.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Listen, you’ll have to analyze those discs yourself. McDonagh may have owed me one big favor, but he was not about to look through three hundred hours of people walking up and down O’Connell Street.”
“Three hundred hours?”
“Give or take. There’s, like, three or four cameras, so … I don’t know, you do the math.”
“Right you are. Thanks again. You’re a mensch.”
“I’ve been called worse.” He parked. “Look, are you going to buy me a drink or what?”
“What about the car?”
“I’ll leave it. And…”
“And what?”
“Say it was stolen or something, I don’t know.”
I checked in, and we went to the nearest bar.
“So?” Spencer said, an expectant look on his face.
“What?”
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck this is all ab
out?” He pointed at the discs, then reached for his pint.
I knew I couldn’t tell him. Mostly, because I was embarrassed—afraid, perhaps, of the conclusions he might draw from my behavior, the references he might make to all the trouble in my past. Besides, he had not known Dillon. Not really. He had visited Tangier once, shortly after the birth, and we had spent a memorable weekend wetting the baby’s head. He had been the only friend to make it over, and he’d seemed genuinely happy for us. After that, he’d doted on Dillon but from afar, sending gifts and cards. He hadn’t been anything as official as a godfather, but he’d held a special status for Dillon. He’d been “Uncle Spencer.”
Before I had a chance to dodge the question, Spencer butted in: “You know there’s more than fifty fucking CCTV cameras in the city center? Not to mention the rest of the country. Big Brother is watching you.”
“You said it.”
“What about our civil rights?”
“Spencer, you don’t give a fuck about civil rights.”
“How do you know? How do you know I don’t care about my civil rights?”
“You are just looking to pick a fight.”
He glared at me as if I had insulted his mother.
“You’re contrary today,” I added.
“No, I’m not.”
My phone rang. It was Diane. She knew about the Golden Clock gallery in London, but I did not really want her involved. I did not want her on the scent, representing me as if she owned me. The more distance I had from her, the better. I let the phone keep ringing. Spencer picked it up and saw Diane’s name. He pressed the Reject button. “The less said, the better.”
I agreed.
More beers arrived.
“You’re in a generous spirit,” I said.
“It’s my Christmas cheer.” He picked my phone up again and logged on to the web comic Wheel Spinning Hamster Dead. “That’s us, my friend. That’s Ireland.”
“Yeah, that’s hilarious, Spence. Really charming stuff,” I said.
“There’s no app for loneliness,” he quipped.
“You’re jealous you don’t have an iPhone,” I said, but the truth was, I couldn’t afford it myself. Money was tight. My overdraft had an overdraft. We had been given a house, but it was a poisoned chalice of sorts. The place’s upkeep threatened to wring us dry. It had leaks and drafts. This was broken, that was malfunctioning. I’d never say this to Robin, but we had inherited a wreck. “It’ll make a good home,” she’d said. “It’ll serve us well. Why can’t you be more excited?” I know I sound like a miserable sod, but it was the sense of not having earned it, or made it ourselves, that sat uneasily with me. We’d even taken out a mortgage to buy Mark’s half, to do the place up; taken out a mortgage on a house that had been given to us. Utter madness. And yet, mortgages, phones, none of it mattered—not right then. The glimmer of possibility still flickered and shone. Hope, I suppose you might call it.
“You realize all the music you own is from the 1980s?”
“Yeah?”
“You sad fucker. Your music-listening life ended in 1989.”
“Well, they are the vintage years.”
“Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw. Please.”
“The Cure, The Smiths.”
“Lloyd Cole.”
“Fucking love Lloyd Cole.”
“Lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam.”
“Story of my life.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two figures—a woman and a child—and I spun in my chair to look at them. But the boy was younger than he should be, only about three or four, and the woman was different too, the wrong hair color, the wrong height.
I turned back and saw Spencer staring at me.
“What is with you today, bud?” he asked, looking me square in the face.
“Nothing.”
“You’re twitchy as hell.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Every time someone walks past, you’re swinging around in your seat. Are you expecting someone?”
“No!” I said, indignant and flustered. “Here, finish this for me. I’ve got to head out.”
* * *
The flight boarded after a delay. The holdup had something to do with de-icing the runway and the wingtips. If you thought too much about it all, you’d never go anywhere. I got onto the plane and sat down beside a woman whose first greeting to me was: “Cold enough for you?”
Her perfume was so strong I could taste it. Even the gin and tonic I ordered did not help. Across the aisle, a man was coping with a crying child. He dipped the child’s pacifier into his drink and popped it into the child’s mouth. The child stopped crying. The man saw me watching, smiled, and gave me a wink. I turned away. It seemed that everywhere I looked, there were children. I couldn’t escape from them.
By the time I made it to London, it was too late for the meeting. I rang Daphne, and we rescheduled for the next afternoon. I had the half-formed notion to take in some of the sights, a museum maybe, or a walk down by Waterloo Station. But drinking so early in the day had left a fug of inertia within me, so instead, after checking into my hotel, I lay on my big boat of a bed, flicked on the telly, and spent a mindless twenty minutes watching Nigella Lawson spoon one creamy concoction after another into her mouth. Spencer’s DVDs sat on the bedside table. I tried to ignore them, but I felt their presence nonetheless, drawing me to them like a scab demanding to be picked. It was a bad idea and I knew it, but after a while I turned the TV off, switched on my computer, and fed the first DVD into the slot.
At first, I watched with halfhearted amusement. The images were grainy and of poor quality. I paged through a magazine, aware of the flickering movements across the screen, my attention snagging occasionally before it drifted away again. I’ll turn it off in a minute, I said to myself, but the minutes became hours, and soon I found myself ejecting a disc only to replace it with another. Trapped by boredom or torpor, my magazine discarded, I let myself get sucked into that screen and the images it conveyed.
One shot showed the Liffey. Three men rocked back and forth in a boat, waving banners. I had missed that one on the day. But there it was. I made instant coffee with the small kettle in the corner of the room. I kicked off my boots and propped the computer on a pillow. Hours passed, and the footage became a blur, people milling this way and that. Talking, moving on. It grew tedious.
The computer was like a hot rock on the bed. Wary of burning the hard drive out, I turned it off and took a break. I had watched hours of footage and I was tired, but that didn’t stop me from going out. A beer at the hotel bar and then out to wander. I didn’t really know where I was going, but it was a chance to get out and clear my head. The city was under a veil of snow. Solitary walkers passed in lonely silhouette as they crossed the deserted parks. Black cabs moved slowly over a tide of slush. I wandered from bar to bar, images of the demonstration streaming through my head, before I looped back to the hotel with pains in my calves and knees from walking so carefully, and sank dog-tired into bed.
* * *
I woke to the sound of my laptop humming. It blazed on the bed beside me as my head pounded. In the bathroom I gargled with mouthwash, then swallowed painkillers. No stomach for breakfast, I took my bag and walked toward Soho.
I was miles too early for the meeting, but I couldn’t spend another second in that hotel room. I needed to get away from my laptop and those DVDs. They contained nothing but images to feed my already overextended delusion. It was unhealthy. I had to clear my head, to focus on the future. The past held only heartache.
With a view to killing some time, I wandered into the British Museum and found myself straying into the Egyptian exhibit. The painkillers had worked to a degree, but my head felt fuzzy, clotted with too many thoughts. I tried to concentrate on what I was viewing, but there was too much coming at me, elbowing for room in my crowded brain. I walked around in a daze, untouched, unmoved, until I came across the mummy of a child, from Hawara, Egypt, and
stopped suddenly, riveted.
The mummy had been discovered in an excavation of a Roman cemetery near the pyramid at Hawara toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was elaborately wrapped, and there was a portrait of the child sketched into the outer layers of the wrappings. Over the torso of the mummy, a shroud had been painted with various scenes of the Egyptian religious tradition. The sky goddess Nut was at the top. I read the placard and learned that the child was the offspring of a woman whose mummy was housed in the Cairo Museum. Something about that caused an unexpected stab of pain. The child in London, the parent in Cairo. Separated, even in death.
I gazed at the mummy for a long time. For a while I could not understand why it commanded my attention, why it caused my heart to quicken. The placard said the portrait had been done in tempera on linen. The large eyes and dark hair were spellbinding. And then it dawned on me: it was the portrait of the boy’s face that took my breath away. It was astonishing. The boy’s face was so similar to Dillon’s that I felt as if someone were playing a cruel joke on me. The universe, the cosmos, what was it saying to me? I don’t know. But maybe not; maybe it was a reassuring message. I wanted to reach through the glass and touch the child’s fragile bindings.
I looked about myself, as if to say, Do you see this, do you see the boy prince from Hawara?
He is my son.
I felt elated. My mind raced. My hands shook. I caught sight of my reflection in the glass case and saw tears coursing down my cheeks.
I read the placard again, hungrily this time, scouring it for information, for some kind of pointer or clue. I don’t think it was any coincidence that the man who’d discovered this child mummy, a man called Petrie, had described Egypt as “a house on fire, so rapid was the destruction.” A house on fire. If that wasn’t a sign, then what was it? It was all coming together. Petrie also wrote; “I believe the true line of research lies in the noting and comparison of the smallest details.”
The smallest details. I thought of the DVDs I had slipped into my bag, and felt them drawing me back to them like a magnet.
I was ready to give up on the gallery when Daphne texted a confirmation through to my phone.