by Stef Penney
“I never thought of that—no, never,” he says quietly. “Christo’s all I got. And I understand him, you know, knowing what it was like.”
“Yes, of course. You must know more about it than anyone.”
I’m fascinated by his survival. It’s truly extraordinary, when you think about it.
“Can I ask . . . Was it painful?”
He sighs. “Sometimes. Not all the time.”
“Were you just like him?”
“Not as bad.”
“So how old were you when you started to get better?”
“Fifteen . . . sixteen. Lot older than Chris.”
I sip my beer. Ivo washes potatoes in a steel bowl, then peels them, hunched over his work.
“Your father said you had uncles and brothers who died from the disease. You must have been incredibly lucky.”
“Yeah.”
“A medical marvel. The doctors will be interested to see why you got better.”
Ivo drops a potato back into the bowl, splashing himself.
He grunts.
“Has anyone else recovered, like you?”
There is a silence for a moment.
“I think one of my uncles—Dad’s uncles—got better. I didn’t know him. It was ages ago.”
“And it’s just men who suffer from it, is that right?”
Another pause. “I’m not sure. I think so.”
He’s mumbling into the saucepan, reluctant to talk about it.
“Well, I know Gavin’s very keen to get to the bottom of it.”
Ivo cuts the potatoes into chunks and drops them into boiling water. He turns around for the first time.
“I’m glad that you got him to see Christo. We all are. Really grateful.”
“Well, I’m sure once they know what it is, they’ll be able to help.”
He makes an attempt at a smile.
“I’ve just got to get something from Dad’s, okay?”
“Sure.”
I let out a deep breath when I’m alone. It’s an uphill struggle getting him to talk. Being asked about the disease is clearly painful for him, and the overwhelming impression I get is of extreme shyness. I open another packet of crisps and a second beer—Ivo doesn’t seem to be much of a drinker—and try to think how to work the conversation around to Rose.
Ivo comes back after a couple minutes and resumes his perch at the counter. We sip our beers in silence for a while.
“Nearly ready,” he says.
“I’m just going to nip outside,” I say.
In the clearing it’s getting dark, but there is a soft golden light in the sky. It’s still and humid. Under the trees a hush holds fast; there is no birdsong, no sounds from the other trailers. After a short wander, I find an earth toilet among the trees, sheltered by a green tarpaulin. It’s more than I was expecting. And Ivo’s left a metal churn of water outside his trailer for washing—he pointed this out as I left. My grandfather had the same arrangement. I pour the cold water over my hands, hoping that will do.
I am gone for about four minutes.
Is that when it happens?
When I go inside again, Ivo is already at the little table. He has poured two shots of dark rum, and two plates of food are laid out. I take my place. He lifts his glass in a toast.
“Well, here’s health.”
“Absolutely. Here’s health.”
I tap his glass and swallow the rum. Tears spring to my eyes—it’s over-proof, something cheap and naval. Ivo swallows his, screwing his eyes shut briefly as it hits.
We eat.
“It’s good,” I say, and really it isn’t bad. Ivo has switched off the light in the kitchen, and we sit in semidarkness. I suppose they have to save the generator for when it’s really necessary. He eats as if he is starving, head down. He dips a slice of bread into his stew, folds it into quarters, and stuffs it in his mouth. He’s almost finished with his plate when he speaks again.
“Had a sister, you know. Christina. She gave her life for me.”
I stare at him—presumably, what he intended.
“I thought she died in a road accident?”
Ivo shrugs. “If it wasn’t that, it would’ve been something else.” He sounds casual, as if he’s discussing the weather.
“I don’t understand.”
Ivo chews a piece of gristle and takes it out of his mouth, inspecting it. “Dad wanted a miracle. For me. But you have to pay for that, if you’re a Gypsy. It’s a life for a life, isn’t it? That’s what the Bible says.”
“Um, not in that way, I don’t think.”
“’S true though. That’s the way it turned out. Only one of us could live.”
“I suppose you . . . could see it like that, maybe . . .”
Ivo puts down his spoon and takes out a cigarette, lights it without looking at me. I look away, irritated. I’m feeling slightly sick, I now realize.
“Dad knew he would lose another child. He knew it. And . . . Ivo Janko was the last one. The only one with the name. And I have to pass it on.”
I register that this sounds a little odd. But I’m feeling a little odd. Not myself.
“Is this . . .”
I’m trying to think of the word Lulu used . . . what was it? Pri— something? I can’t quite grasp it. It’s annoying.
“What’s that thing . . . like karma? Pri . . . kada . . . No . . .”
Why is my heart beating so fast?
“Prikaza?”
He looks at me. A direct, curious look. His gaze, when he wants, is perfectly steady.
“You know. If you’ve done wrong, you are punished. Christina was punished. It’s not fair, is it? Sometimes, I think, would’ve been better if she’d . . . but the family . . . it’s dying.”
“You’re young. You could always . . . marry again.”
Is that a heartless thing to say? As though ashamed, I’m tremendously hot all of a sudden. I take a swig of beer to try to cool down. I have a nasty feeling some of it dribbles over my chin. Ivo looks down, so doesn’t see. He gives a sort of sigh.
“You could have more children.”
Ivo looks up then, his eyes wounded. His mouth opens, but he doesn’t speak. My tongue feels thick, but I struggle on.
“You could . . . the odds . . .”
Why am I so hot? My heart is hammering. My face is burning—it must be red. I pass my right hand over my forehead. It feels heavy and uncontrollable.
“Ray? Ray?”
My hand slaps down on the table with a crash, as though it has a point to make. I stare at it in horror. I suddenly realize there is something crawling toward me, just visible in the corner of my eye.
“Could I . . . have some water?”
“Are you all right, Ray?”
Ivo is leaning toward me, looming over me. The last thing I remember is his look of concern. A look that is almost . . . tender.
41.
St. Luke’s Hospital
Hen and Madeleine have come to see me. They bring grapes and flowers; both are her idea. I know it’s nice of her, but I wish she hadn’t bothered. Around Madeleine I need all my energy not to feel hopelessly oafish and inferior. Lying in bed in a paper smock, with a thick tongue and a dead arm, I haven’t a chance.
“How are you, Ray?”
“Erm, not bad, really.”
“It’s so good to see you looking better. We’ve been so worried.” She looks at Hen. “You gave us a real scare.”
I have to resist the urge to apologize.
“Still, you’re all right now, they said.” Hen leans forward, shaking my good arm. “You seem so much better than the other day.”
“Yeah. Have you been to the site?”
“The site?”
“The Janko site. You need to speak to Ivo.”
Hen and Madeleine exchange glances.
“Don’t worry about work. It’s all under control.”
He looks almost smug. He doesn’t know. This is not his fault—I didn’t tell him.
>
“There’s something I have to tell you . . .” I look meaningfully at my partner. “I’m sorry, Madeleine, could you . . . ?”
“Oh.” Madeleine gets up. “Of course. I’ll go and get a coffee.”
She smiles brightly on her way out. Hen sighs.
“She came all this way to see you, you know. Could you be a bit more . . . civilized?”
I’m startled. “Sorry. It’s important.”
“So important it can’t wait fifteen minutes?”
He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Ivo poisoned me.”
“What?”
“Did you talk to the doctors? Did they tell you? I have been poisoned with ergot and, um, and henbane. How do you think that happened?”
Hen looks at the floor.
“What do you think I was doing in a wood in the middle of nowhere?”
“Okay, tell me what happened.”
I tell him what I remember. Or rather, I tell him what’s relevant—not about seeing Lulu, and our conversation, or meeting Jen, for that matter. He frowns when I tell him about the find at the Black Patch.
“When were you going to tell me about this?”
“It was Saturday. You know—weekend. I thought Monday would be soon enough. But on Sunday I went down to see the Jankos.”
Hen looks more and more disapproving. I suppose I should have told him that, too. But then, he would only have stopped me.
“Then Ivo invited me for dinner. And here I am.”
“You didn’t tell him about the human remains?”
That was what I had gone there to do. But the thing is, I don’t remember saying anything about it.
“Um . . . I don’t know.”
“So . . . why do you think he poisoned you?”
“I must have told him. To see what sort of reaction there would be.”
Hen sighs.
“Leaving aside your judgment about all this . . . You’re presuming that he already had the poisonous plants to hand . . . Or did he go off into the woods and collect them while you were there?”
“He could have. I went to buy beers . . .”
I stop, because I know I didn’t say anything to him before I went to the pub. Unless my memory, in returning, is playing me false.
“The police said you had the plants in your car.”
I stare at him, genuinely puzzled.
“There were traces of henbane in your car.”
“How could that be? Unless Ivo put it there . . .”
Hen looks stern.
“I don’t know, Ray. Maybe you put it there.”
“Me? Why on earth would I do that?”
I still don’t understand what he’s getting at. He shrugs.
“I know things have been difficult, with Jen and the divorce . . .”
He won’t meet my eyes.
I push myself upright.
“You think I was trying to top myself ! For God’s sake, Hen!”
He looks at me, his eyes wounded and unwilling.
“You have seemed odd recently. Jen told me about bumping into you on Saturday and asking you to sign the divorce papers. Said you looked . . . well, poleaxed was the word she used.”
“Yeah, so? Things are better now than they have been for a long time. The case is cracking . . . and as for her, yes, I was finding it tough, but now it’s okay . . . I think I’ve met someone else.”
Hen nods, fidgets with his watch. He smiles again with that horrible, painful kindness.
“Is this Lulu Janko?”
I don’t want to say yes, and I don’t want to say no. I shrug.
“I spoke to her, too.”
He says this flatly.
“What? And?”
“She rang the office. She told me about your dinner the night before . . . all this happened. I got the impression that you’d taken a bit of a knock.”
He sounds embarrassed.
Really? I think. Fucking . . . really!
“Hen, for God’s sake, I did not do this to myself. If we are going to continue this conversation, you have to believe that.”
He looks at me and nods slowly.
“So if I didn’t do it, and I didn’t, the plants must have got into something at Ivo’s—either deliberately or, possibly, by accident.”
“But you don’t know that you told him about the remains at the Black Patch. He may not know even now.”
“Then you need to find out.”
He nods.
“There’s another thing. I went back to the Black Patch on Sunday, and it was underwater. All work suspended. But that was days ago.”
“Okay. I’ll go up there.”
I feel relief flooding into me.
“I think we’re finally getting somewhere.”
Hen looks at me. He looks nervous.
“What?”
He shifts in the chair, which squeaks under him.
“A couple of days ago I got a phone call. In response to our ad.” “What ad?”
“The hooker—the ad about Rose.”
“And?”
“A man who wouldn’t give his name says he can give us information about where she is now.”
I stare at him. I wonder for a wild moment if he’s making it up, but he looks completely serious.
“A crank.”
“Could be, and maybe not. He’s not after a reward.”
“He says. So what’s he waiting for?”
“A face-to-face meeting.”
“I’ll be out tomorrow. We can . . .”
“No, you won’t. Anyway, he said he wanted to think about it some more first—he asked lots of questions about who was looking for her, and why.”
“He is after money.”
“Anyway, I’ve got to wait for his phone call.”
“Sounds like crap.”
Hen shrugs, smiling.
When he finally gets up to go find Madeleine, Hen looks down at me with a small smile.
“Of course, Raymond, you know what your problem is?”
I can think of hundreds of problems that I lay claim to. I don’t know which particular one he is talking about.
“You’re a snob.”
“What? Me?”
I start laughing.
“My father was a Gypsy postman!”
“You treat Madeleine differently because her background is different from yours. She didn’t have to claw her way up from the gutter, so you think she’s had it easy.”
I gape at him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But I do. And he knows I know.
“She’s married to me, remember. And she stuck with me, through all my crap. She had to struggle.”
I blink several times.
“I put up with your offensive poshness.”
Hen grins.
“I’ll see you.”
“Don’t forget the Black Patch.”
“I won’t. It’s one lead, that’s all. Like the phone call. Might come to nothing.”
I know it. I do. But at the same time, you get hunches about things. You get them, and they don’t go away.
42.
JJ
Nurse Emma told me I could go and see him. I knock softly on the door, thinking maybe he didn’t recognize me because he doesn’t remember me—that would be embarrassing. But I’m here to find things out, so it doesn’t really matter.
He smiles as soon as he turns around.
“Hello, JJ. I thought I saw you before. Then I thought, maybe I was hallucinating.”
“Um, no. I was here. Nurse Emma said you were feeling better.”
“Yes, I am, thanks. Come in.”
He gestures to my left arm, which is still heavily bandaged.
“You’ve been in the wars. What happened to you?”
“Oh . . . I fell on a piece of glass. It got infected. Blood poisoning. ’S fine now, nearly.”
“Oh. Good.”
“How are you?”
“Gett
ing better. I think they’ll let me out in a couple of days. Can’t wait. Drives you crazy being stuck in here, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Can you go for a walk?”
“Sounds like an excellent idea.”
We go outside, and I turn toward the lake on the edge of the gardens. It’s the nicest thing around here, although that isn’t saying that much. I have to slow my pace to match his.
“Funny us both being here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Quite a coincidence.”
“So . . . what happened to you?”
“Food poisoning.”
“Oh. You don’t normally end up in hospital with that, do you?”
“No. This was a . . . an unusual form of it.”
“What did you eat?”
“That’s the funny thing. I can’t remember.”
“So how long have you been here?”
“Oh, a few days.”
This is harder than I thought.
“I came in on Saturday night. Were you here then?”
“Um . . . no. They tell me I was brought in on Monday.” “Monday?”
I stare at him. He looks back, a bit surprised at my tone of voice. Monday. The day after he was with Ivo. I look at the water, glittering between the trees. There seems to be something stuck in my throat.
“Do you live round here, then?”
“No. I went to see your relatives, actually, on the Sunday. Had something to eat with them, too. Maybe they nobbled me!”
He gives a short laugh, to show it’s a joke. I try to laugh, too.
I can’t think of anything else to say.
The lake is actually more of a pond than a lake, and it doesn’t get prettier the nearer you get. It smells a bit, to tell the truth. The edges are hard and straight, bordered by a concrete path. Green-and-yellow scum is gathered at one end. It’s not like the lake in France, which was fresh and clean. It occurs to me that I’m not like the JJ who was in France, either. That person seemed happy and young and unsuspecting—a bit of an idiot, really. We amble up the path to where the boats are moored. There is a little hut where a man leans on the bottom half of a stable door, a fag in his mouth, hatred in his eyes. Next to him is a sandwich board that says, “Boats £1 an hour.” He looks like he’s guarding them against anyone who might dare hire one. But today, there are no takers. The boats are nice old ones, made of wood planks covered with thick glossy varnish the color of honey. They barely move in the soft lapping water. They don’t seem to go with the straight-edged pond and the foamy scum. I wonder where they have come from; they belong somewhere more beautiful.