by Stef Penney
I ask the woods, the water, the accommodating earth: “Is she here?”
35.
JJ
It has started raining again. I like the sound of water falling onto the roof here—it’s quieter than it was in the trailer. But at least here you can still hear outside noises. Like the rain and the fox that barks in the night. I’ve always liked the sound of foxes. They sound so desolate.
By the time it gets dark, my arm is on fire. Katie brings me some antiseptic and a bandage, and we put it on. She stays with me and wants to fool around a bit, and although in theory I want to, I feel really sick and I’m not that into it. I’m scared I’m actually going to be sick. I think she’s a bit pissed off. After a while she goes away. Maybe the antiseptic was too late; it doesn’t seem to have helped. Sometime later, I wake up and I’m alone. It’s completely dark. There was a cry, like someone screaming for help; that’s what woke me up. Maybe it was the old fox, or maybe it was a dream.
Maybe it was me.
My arm is pumping out heat like a stove. I lift it up, but it’s too dark to see anything. It feels like it’s made of lead. Pulsating with a dark red pain. I’m scared. Perhaps for the first time in all this, truly scared. My deepest fear rises to the surface and looks me in the face. It’s always the blood with us—what’s inside—that lets us down. I wonder—a dark fear I haven’t felt for a long time—whether I, too, have the disease. Perhaps this is it. Perhaps it’s been lying in wait all this time, choosing its moment to jump out and attack me. I feel weak, floppy, useless. What if I die here, in this stable? What will people say?
I’ve slid off the straw stack, and I’m on the floor again. No matter where or what I come from, I don’t want to die in a stable, with only a horse for company. Subadar looks around, mildly interested, recognizing my time in his stable has come to an end. I push myself upright—I feel really peculiar, like my arms are very long and my hands are very heavy—and wander over to the door. Luckily, the lock is just a Yale: I walk outside into the rain. I have to walk all the way around the stables to get to the house. It seems to take forever. The house is in front of me, but it doesn’t get any nearer. At some point I realize that I’m crying, sniveling like a baby. It’s disgusting, but I don’t seem to be able to stop. I seem to be walking sideways, like there’s a force field around the house to keep dirty Gypsies from coming any closer. In this way I stagger around to the front. Katie’s bedroom is at the front, but I can’t work out which of the many windows is hers. No lights are on. Then I wonder whether Katie is the best person to wake. I have a feeling she wouldn’t want her parents to know, however ill I got, so that she can keep me in the stables like she keeps her horse. Like her pet. And right now I need an adult.
I fight the force field for miles—all the way up to the front door. When I get there I’m panting. It’s taken hours. I lean my face against the deliciously cool glass panel with a silvery floral pattern and press the doorbell. I don’t care what they do to me, because it can’t be anywhere near as bad as what my blood is doing to me already. I don’t know how long I press it for, I don’t hear anything, but, eventually, a light comes on inside. I slump against the door, thinking that soon someone else will decide what to do. I don’t care who or what it is, but it won’t be me. There’s a voice yelling, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s too much effort to stand up straight again, especially when there’s a lovely cool door to lean against. When the door opens, I slide gracefully to the floor at the feet of the council leader. This time, I don’t have to pretend.
36.
Ray
Lulu sounds tired.
“How is Christo?”
A sigh.
“All right, I think. Kath’s with him now. I’ve just got home.”
“You heard about Ivo, then?”
“Yeah. Look, you should know, I’m . . . we’re all very grateful for what you’ve done for Christo. The specialist and so on, and all you did yesterday. And I’m sorry about Ivo and everything. Messing you around like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. As long as Christo’s all right, that’s the main thing.” “Well, thank you. I dare say he has his reasons, although I must say I don’t know what they are. I expect my brother gave you all that last night. ‘Poor old Ivo’ stuff.”
“Something like that. I felt sorry for him.”
“Don’t bother. He’s had it no worse than the rest of us.”
“I mean your brother. So much bad luck; it’s . . . almost unbelievable.”
There is an uncomfortable pause. I could kick myself: I keep forgetting that she, as his sister, has shared most of those griefs.
“Yeah, well . . . You seem to have made a hit with him.”
I experience a powerful and treacherous urge to tell her about the bones at the Black Patch. What would she say? I rein it in, with an effort.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .”
Silence.
She sounds like she’s wishing she hadn’t said that.
“Have dinner with me. Just as friends.”
Another long pause.
For God’s sake, Ray, when will you learn?
And then she says yes.
Things are looking up. Things are definitely looking up. Not only do I have a lead in my case, albeit a slender, tenuous thread of a lead, but Lulu has agreed to meet me for dinner. For a date. A Saturday-night date. As friends, admittedly, but it’s a step in the right direction. Not only that, but at half past five, it finally stops raining.
I walk down London Road, showered, shaved, in a new shirt I found in the wardrobe, as a jet climbs joyously overhead and a tentative sun shows itself through melting clouds, pale and uncertain, like a fever patient on the first day outside. At long last, it’s even warm.
And then there is one of those moments. You know what I mean— when there is an inaudible click, and the universe holds its breath. When beauty descends unheralded, a moment of grace. For no reason that I can see, Staines is suddenly empty of traffic and I am quite alone. In the low sunlight the raindrops clinging to leaves and lampposts glow with a million tiny flames; iridescence blooms on the oily tarmac. I am surrounded by crystal and mother-of-pearl. The plane has soared out of sight. There’s no sound at all—no hum of traffic, no chirping of summer birds. No one shares the pavement to see this. The street is mine.
I take a long, deep breath—the air is soft and sweet, as though a perfumed battalion has just marched across the traffic lights. I want to shout, I want to stop, say hold it, wait, hold it . . .
That’s when I see her. Walking up the road toward me in her black, shiny coat, unmistakable as always, even a street’s length away. Sharper somehow and more definite than other people, as she always was. And now there are other people around—cars, too, released from their spell. Sounds return to normal levels. She’s on her own. I want to run, I want her to run, but neither of us do. She sees me and doesn’t break stride or falter or betray any shock whatsoever. I stand there by the lights as though I’ve grown roots.
She smiles a slightly weird smile.
“Hello, Ray.”
“Hello.”
It’s so annoying. It’s so unfair. I’m not even stalking her. I haven’t thought about her since the phone call to Lulu. For three whole hours. And now my heart has turned over and is cowering in my chest, because of some straight black hair, some purple eyeshadow; because she is Jen, my wife, and there never was anyone else.
“How are you?”
“All right. Yeah. Just . . . going to meet someone.”
I hadn’t meant to say anything, but I don’t seem to have control over my words.
“O-oh?”
She opens her eyes wide and weights the word, which makes her sound artificially interested and bright. Maybe she is jealous, after all. Maybe . . .
“I’ve been meaning to ring you, actually. My lawyer keeps calling me. Will you sign the papers?”
“Oh, God, yes . . . I’d . . .”
The divorce papers, of course. Jealous? What was I thinking?
“It’s been such a long time, Ray.”
I nod. Of course. I know it’s been a long time. I’ve felt every minute of it.
“Yeah. Sure, I’ll do it.”
I smile, or something like it. Really I want to throw up.
“Okay, well . . . Good to see you. You look . . . good.”
“Thanks. You, too . . .”
She walks on, her coat flashing in the sun, and turns the corner by Boots. Then she crosses the road and disappears into the post-shopping crowds. She doesn’t look back once. Not once.
How do I know? How do you think? Because I follow her. It takes me almost a minute to regain my balance when I finally come to my senses and stop, walking into a shop to lose myself.
I am dull and awkward all through dinner. If Lulu finds this puzzling after my earlier persistence, she doesn’t say so. I apologize, once before we order, once during the starter, and a third time over the steak, for being tired—I say I haven’t slept much in the last three days.
She says, “Makes two of us.”
There is a prawn cocktail in a pink sauce, and steak with another type of sauce, and white wine with the prawns and red wine with the steak, but I don’t taste much of anything. I do a terrible thing, the thing you should never do: I look at the woman sitting opposite me—the complicated, patient, generous, secretive woman on the other side of the table— and compare her to my soon-to-be-ex-wife. And these are the wretched, mean-minded things I think: she’s not as fashionable as Jen, not as well educated, not as tall. Undoubtedly, as a carer, she doesn’t earn as much. She’s not as forthright. She’s not as good-looking, if I’m objective. Of course she isn’t; she is herself. I should be ashamed. I am.
She seems to have made an effort. There is a subtle blackberry glint in her hair. She is wearing the shiny black boots with high heels. A pencil skirt that shows off her slim waist. Is this friendship dressing? I wonder if she considered the red shoes—rejected them because they are for him?
There is so much I don’t know about her; I don’t understand the first thing. So I try. I ask about her childhood, but she is reticent, as if sensing a certain forced note. I try to recapture the feeling I had earlier: I was so excited about meeting her. I was happy. This is what I wanted. What I want. I take a deep breath; try to remember the perfume, the mother-of-pearl.
“So how long have you been working for this guy in Richmond?”
“David? Oh, about two years.”
“You like it?”
“Yeah. It’s a good job, for what it is. After an old people’s home, you know . . . Sometimes I get a bit hacked off with his mother. She’s quite posh and, you know, used to bossing people about. But she’s wonderful with him, really. She gave up her job and everything . . .”
Her voice trails off, distracted. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed. Someone’s fork scrapes loudly against a plate: it’s mine.
“I don’t think I told you where I work.”
I don’t dare look up. I stall, chewing. I could lie. It would be fifty-fifty.
Maybe I could pull it off. But after what I have concluded, how could I be a person who lies? If I have regard for this woman, if I want to have any future with her—or with anyone—surely I have to tell the truth. Liars always get found out in the end.
“None of my family know where I work. Who I work for.”
She is frowning, the double crease appearing in her forehead. “Is this what you do? Find out all about the people you question? Is this part of your . . . investigations?”
She doesn’t actually seem that angry about it. But if I agreed now, that would be a lie, too.
“No. Um. Well, sometimes it is. But not in your case. You’re not a suspect or anything. I wanted to know more about you because I like you, and I . . . I followed you once, to Richmond.”
I’ve drunk only a glass and a half of wine. Tonight, it acts as a truth serum.
Lulu looks astonished, as well she might, as if she’s trying to make up her mind whether to be outraged or . . . or what? Flattered? Hardly.
“You followed me to Richmond? When?”
“Er, a couple of weeks ago.”
She swallows with a jerk of her head, as though her throat has closed up with disgust.
“Why didn’t you just ask me where I worked?”
I’m taken aback. Why did that never occur to me?
“I don’t know. Because . . . because it’s what I do, I suppose. I’m used to it.”
A shadow crosses her face.
“And what did you do when you got there?”
I could lie. I could lie. But then I’d be a liar.
“I . . . saw you go into the house.”
There’s still time to back out. Still time to salvage something from the evening—my reputation, perhaps. Her dignity. A future.
“I got out of the car, went round into the back garden, and watched you for a while.”
Her face is, if that’s possible, whiter than ever. Her tongue flickers over her lips as if she’s desperate for water.
“And what did you see?”
My throat is strangely tense and hard. Perhaps my voice won’t come out, and I’ll have an excuse.
I could say nothing.
I could say, “Nothing.”
“I saw . . . you and a man in a wheelchair in a sitting room. With a fire going. An older woman—I assumed his mother—coming in and going out. You were wearing red high-heeled shoes. I noticed you’d had them mended. The soles, I mean. And . . . I saw you on the chair—with him.”
She looks past me, frozen.
“And then I left.”
She leans back in her chair—away from me—her face closing up, eyes like needles. Her cheekbones sharpen. Everything becomes pinched. I think she’s trying not to cry. Oh, please, God, I think. I will be destroyed if she cries.
Her voice comes out like the rasp of a saw.
“Why did you ask me here tonight? Why are you telling me this? If you’re such a fucking pervert, why tell me about it? Does that give you a kick, too?”
I shake my head. One of the things about telling the truth—you are desperate to be believed.
“No, it doesn’t. I was curious about what you do. I wasn’t expecting . . . I like you. I really like you. It was because of that, and I . . . I’m really sorry; it was stupid and wrong. I don’t want to lie to you. I will never lie to you.”
She gets up, scraping back her chair, pressing her lips firmly down on her horror or her disgust, whatever it is she is feeling. I am despondent, but no more so than earlier. In fact, if anything, less.
“You’re so full of shit! What gives you the right to spy on me? You’re the big detective, so you can do whatever you like? You think you’re God, poking your nose in where you have no business? You think you have the fucking right?”
She spits the words out. I have never heard her enunciate so clearly.
I open my mouth, meaning to say no, but I can’t in all honesty deny it. Instead, I say, “It was my birthday.”
Her mouth stops open in the act of drawing breath. She laughs a little, a jerky, graceless explosion of disbelief.
“You need help.”
“Yes. I expect so.”
A waiter hovers in the background, frozen with horrified curiosity. Neither of us says anything for I don’t know how long. Incredibly, she doesn’t continue to go. Incredibly, she sits down again. And with that, she wins.
She picks up her glass and takes a big swallow of wine. Then she picks up her bag and takes out cigarettes and a lighter. I watch, not daring to say anything else, wondering what’s coming next. The waiter collects our plates, eyes firmly on the table.
“So . . . what did you think, when you saw us?”
“I don’t know. No, I do. I was disappointed . . . No, yes, hurt.”
She stares at me through the smoke.
“You thought it was a service he pays f
or?”
“No! No. I was jealous. And ashamed. Mainly jealous.”
She seems to think about this for a minute.
“Not surprised?”
“Yes. Although . . . I’d never thought about it before. He’s . . . still a handsome guy.”
“ ‘Still a handsome guy’? Yeah. A rich one, too. Rich . . . helpless, isn’t that what you mean?”
“I don’t . . . I didn’t . . .”
Not lying is hard. I’m not sure what was in my mind that night. “Nothing about you is what I expected.”
She rolls her eyes at that, shakes her head. She smokes in silence for a minute, and then she grinds the cigarette out in the cut-glass ashtray. A waiter brings our dessert.
“I’d like to tell you something else. About the investigation. About Rose. Something has come up, partly due to your help. We may have found something. Nothing definite at the moment, but . . .”
“Really? Is she all right?”
“Where she disappeared . . . human remains have been found.”
Lulu’s eyes grow enormous. Her hand goes to her throat.
“And they’re hers?”
“We don’t know yet. It’s possible. It’s . . . We’ll find out soon enough.” She is obviously deeply shocked. She shakes her head slightly and shifts in her chair. Miserably, she says, “Why are you telling me?”
“I don’t know, really. I feel I owe you something. That’s all I have to give, at the moment.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t.” She means Rose. She means her family, killing her. And then, “You mean at the Black Patch? It was there?”
We sit in silence for a couple minutes. Neither of us touches our dessert, even though it’s included. I’m exhausted. I want to crawl into a corner under a table and lie down. I shouldn’t have told her anything, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Why tell me? Am I supposed to tell my nephew about this now? Tell Tene? God . . .”
I shake my head.
“I’m not trying to put you in a difficult position. I can see that I have. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking very clearly at the moment.”