by Stef Penney
“They’ve all got girls’ names,” I say, stating the obvious.
“Ships always do,” he says, “I think.”
Here, at least, it’s true; painted on each stern in white capitals is a name and capacity: amy—to carry two. chrissie—to carry three. violet—to carry six. isobel—to carry four.
“They’re nice, aren’t they?” I say.
“Yeah.”
The water gleams like dirty satin. It’s as clear as coffee—it could be six inches deep, or six feet, you can’t tell. I find a stick next to the path and poke it into the water. I don’t feel the bottom, but it’s not a very long stick. Strings of duckweed cling to it when I pull it out. I push the side of one of the boats (chrissie—to carry three) so that it rocks; the water slops and sucks underneath.
“Oy! You, there! You hiring?”
The man’s voice is aggressive. Mr. Lovell turns around.
“No.”
“Then don’t interfere with the boats!”
“Sorry!”
Mr. Lovell lifts his left hand in a friendly wave. I imagine punching the man, then think that might be a bit over the top. I give him a hard stare instead but drop my stick. He flicks his cigarette in my direction.
“Don’t think anyone’s going to be hiring, with him around!”
“No.”
“They’re nice, though, aren’t they?” I say again, and immediately feel like a spaz.
“Yeah. Why don’t we go for a row, anyway?”
I look at Mr. Lovell, worried. I haven’t got any money, and I’ve got only one arm that works.
“Er . . . I don’t think . . .”
I wave my bandaged arm.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Some other time, then.”
He gives an awkward little laugh, as though realizing that there isn’t ever going to be another time. Why would there be? Why would he ever want to see this stupid, spazzy kid again?
We start to walk around the water’s edge.
“How’s Christo? Is he back with you yet?”
“No. My uncle’s gone up to London to be with him. Maybe he’ll stay up there.” I clear my throat. It sounds really loud. “He went up there on Monday, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The day after you saw him.”
He stops and stares hard at me. I seem to have caught his attention at last.
“So what’s the news on Christo? Do they know what’s wrong with him yet?”
“I don’t think so. Apparently, they’re doing lots of tests. It takes a long time to get results.”
“I’m sure. You know, your uncle ran off when we were at the specialist’s. Just vanished—all because they asked him for a blood sample.”
“Oh.”
The image of red on white flickers into my mind. I feel myself blushing.
“Did you know he has a needle phobia?”
“No.”
“At least he’s with him now. In London.”
“Yeah.”
“Where does he stay—is it with your great-aunt?”
I look at him blankly.
“Who?”
“Your Aunt Lulu—she must be your great-aunt—Lulu . . . Luella.”
“Oh. I suppose, yeah. I don’t know, really.”
Mr. Lovell looks around—there’s a kiosk on the other side of the pond that sells ice cream and cups of tea.
“Should’ve brought some money with me. We could have had an ice cream.”
I’ve noticed that Mr. Lovell holds his right hand in a strange way—it just hangs at his side. I ask him about it.
“I couldn’t move at all when they found me, so this is an improvement.”
“That’s awful.”
“Not much fun. They say it will recover, like the rest of me. But it’s taking its time.”
This just gets worse. He might have died, from the sound of it.
“Mr. Lovell . . . Do you know what a chovihano is?”
“I’ve heard of them. Sort of a Gypsy healer, isn’t it? Herbs and stuff.” “Yeah. Well . . . I saw him once, doing an . . . an exorcism thing. On Christo. Trying to make him better.”
“Who did?”
“Uncle Ivo.”
There is a pause. He continues to walk, not looking at me.
“You’re saying Ivo is a . . . chovihano?”
“Yeah. Well, that’s what he said. And it’s all herbs and stuff. He knows about herbs and . . . poisonous plants and things.”
My heart thunders as the word “poisonous” blurts out of my mouth. My cheeks feel hot.
I definitely have his attention. I know he’s looking at me, although I don’t want to look at him.
“What makes you say this, JJ? Do you think there’s a reason why he would have wanted to hurt me?”
There must be loads of reasons—to do with Rose, and my mum, and secret women. Maybe . . . even—why didn’t I think of this before?— Rose is the secret woman. Which would mean that it’s not Mum . . . but I’m not sure this makes any kind of sense.
“I don’t know.”
“There must be something.”
“I think he’s . . . You won’t tell anyone—my mum or anyone?” I look up now—he shakes his head.
“I think he has secrets . . .”
“What sort of secrets?”
“Maybe . . . I dunno. I think he’s got a . . . a secret girlfriend.”
“Oh. Really?”
He walks for a while, as if he’s thinking.
“Do you know who it is?”
I shake my head. I feel really stupid now. I was going to tell him what I found in the cupboard in his trailer, but now I can’t. I can’t say the words. And how can I tell him it might be my mum? I scrape the toe of my shoe along the concrete path, dragging up moss.
“Do you think he had a secret girlfriend when he was married to Rose?”
Mr. Lovell doesn’t seem to be laughing at me. I think he’s serious. It’s never occurred to me, that possibility, although, now that I think of it, why not?
“I don’t know. Great-uncle’s the only one who might know.”
“Have you ever seen anyone like that visit him?”
“N . . . no.”
I think of that night, looking into my own trailer. Him and her. I take a breath. Then let it out. I can’t say it.
“Have you ever heard anyone in your family talk about a plant called henbane . . . or ergot?”
“No.”
My voice comes out in a stupid squeak, like an eight-year-old’s.
“Of course, they can’t say for definite how it happened. It could be that someone gathering herbs just made a mistake. It happens.”
“Yeah, course.”
“Ivo wasn’t ill on Monday? He went up to London?” “That’s what Mum said.”
“And no one else in your family has been ill?”
“No. They’re all fine. They’ve all been to see me. Except him.”
We’re almost back to where we started now, approaching the boat- hire hut from the other side. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, but I don’t know how to. All I can think is that Ivo poisoned him. He can’t have made a mistake, because if he had, he would have made himself ill, too, wouldn’t he? And if Ivo poisoned Mr. Lovell—if he could have done that, then maybe he killed Rose, too. Maybe that’s why he poisoned him, because he was afraid of being found out . . .
We both speak at the same time:
“What are you going to do?”
“Maybe we should go back.”
We stare at each other.
“I’ll find out what happened. That’s what I’m going to do. It may not be what it seems. Try not to worry about it.”
My mind fills with millions of questions until it’s a hopeless jam. I feel terror, a sort of dizziness, and a terrible feeling of guilt, all at once.
“I don’t know . . .”
Mr. Lovell looks at me.
“You haven’t told me anything I wouldn’t have found ou
t in the next day or two, anyway. I appreciate what you’ve said. It’s not always easy.”
“But what about Christo? What will happen to him if . . . ?”
I’m ashamed to say that tears spill down my face; hot saltwater runs into my mouth before I can swipe it away.
“Don’t start worrying yet. Let’s just see what happens.”
We walk in silence back to the hospital. I can feel his eyes on me most of the way. He seems like a nice man, decent; I think he’s a good person, but even though he’s an adult, I can tell that he doesn’t know what to say any more than I do.
43.
Ray
Hen didn’t find Ivo. Not at the site, where the family claimed he was up in London with Christo, and not at the hospital, where staff thought it strange that the boy’s father hadn’t been to see him since the beginning of the week. He went to see Lulu, suspecting that she might be sheltering him. After his visit, he was convinced she wasn’t. He told the police his suspicions, knowing there was little chance of their taking an interest on the basis of so little evidence. After three days of fruitless inquiries, it seemed that Ivo Janko, just like his wife before him, had performed a remarkably successful vanishing act.
I wonder if the whole site will be empty, and the Jankos melted away, in his wake. I wonder whether, that being the case, I could prove they were ever there. But the paddock, when Hen drives me down the day after I am released from the hospital, looks much as it ever did. All the trailers are still here, parked at their old, odd angles, including Ivo’s.
“Wouldn’t you rather I waited?”
Hen agreed to be my chauffeur only after I threatened to drive myself, which, considering my right hand is still useless, is just as well.
“No, come back in an hour or so.”
A few days ago, Tene told Hen that Ivo was up in London. Apparently, he was all innocence and charm. Since then, his confidence is gone.
“Mr. Janko?”
“Mr. Lovell. How are you?”
“I know you heard about my spell in hospital.”
“I was sorry to hear that, Mr. Lovell. I hope you are fully recovered.” “Well, nearly. It was a nasty form of food poisoning. It seems I must have picked it up while I was here last Sunday gone. I wanted to check if anyone else had suffered as well. Particularly . . . if Ivo is okay.”
“Ivo’s up in London. We haven’t seen him for a while. I think he’s all right.”
“And you were all right, then?”
“I didn’t eat with you, Mr. Lovell.”
He keeps looking just past my face—apparently, unwilling to meet my eyes.
“When was the last time you saw Ivo?”
“He went up on . . . Monday or Tuesday, I think. To be near the boy.” He sucks the last drop out of his cigarette and squashes it into the pile of butts in the ashtray. The whole place has a slightly grubby, unkempt air, the windows no longer as sparkling, the Crown Derby not quite as bright.
“But he hasn’t. My partner checked with the hospital. They haven’t seen him for days. Ivo hasn’t been in to see Christo at all.”
“That can’t be. They’re making a mistake.”
Tene speaks to the table. His hands are clasped on his knees, but he keeps locking and interlocking his fingers.
“He would never leave the boy.”
“Hen thought the same thing. So he kept going back. In the unit that Christo is in, you can’t sneak in and out—someone on the staff is always there. There’s only one entrance. They would’ve seen him. He hasn’t been there.”
“Then something must have happened. He’ll be back.”
“Bit odd, isn’t it? I thought his world revolved around Christo.”
Tene Janko looks at me now, his face drawn.
“I know my son. He would never leave him.”
“But he has left him, Mr. Janko. For nearly a week.”
His eyes search the corners of the ceiling, then the corners of the floor.
“Then something must have happened to him. Maybe something bad.” “Like with Rose?”
Tene sucks in a breath and glares. “You are taking my words and twisting them. I am talking about Ivo!”
“Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? First Rose disappears without trace. Now Ivo.”
“No! You’re wrong. He never hurt Rose! One day you will realize that.” “I hope so, I really do. The thing is . . . at the Black Patch, at Watley . . .” I say this very softly. He closes his eyes in pain—or is it just a slow blink?
“At the Black Patch, where you used to stop, they have found the remains of a young woman. They were buried over by the trees, to the right as you come from the road. About four feet down. It’s the right age . . . the right period. Police forensics are doing tests at the moment, to find out what killed her.”
This isn’t strictly true, but given time, it will be.
“Well, it’s not Rose! Mr. Lovell, what we told you was the truth . . . None of us hurt her. She ran away. And no one has stopped at Watley for more than ten years. She was never there, as far as I know, and she isn’t there now.”
He sounds sincere—and it just makes me angry.
“I was poisoned with henbane—on Sunday, while I ate with your son! How do you explain that? How, exactly, do you suggest that happened?” Tene is shaking his head, his eyes sorrowful.
“I don’t know, Mr. Lovell, I don’t know. He must have made a mistake.”
“I could have died!”
“Mr. Lovell. I am truly sorry, but if it happened here, it wasn’t deliberate.”
I stare at Tene in frustration. I have two problems—the first is that, almost against my will, I believe him. I was sure that I would see something in his face at the mention of the remains, but, although I’m sure that something about the Black Patch bothers him, I don’t think it’s anything to do with Rose. I have to think that if Ivo acted against me—or against Rose, all those years ago—then he did so alone. The second problem is that, despite myself, I like him. And I feel sorry for him. I know that can cloud your judgment.
“I know you’re angry, Mr. Lovell, and I don’t blame you, but that doesn’t mean we are bad people. We aren’t. We are the ones who get hurt, over and over again. Is it because we’re Gypsies? I don’t know. But we are cursed. What did we do to deserve this? You think I’m making myths? I have lost so many of mine I no longer care what anyone says. I lost my uncles, my brothers . . . my own little boys, my dear wife . . . I lost my only daughter, my daughter-in-law . . . And now, it seems, my last child, my one remaining child . . . is gone. What can I say? What can I care about now?”
His voice is low, but he could have been shouting. I feel disarmed. I grope around for my point, my argument, but it seems a blunt, cruel weapon.
“The Black Patch . . .”
“The Black Patch! People make mistakes, Mr. Lovell.” There is a trace of spittle at the corner of his mouth. “I made a mistake! I am sorry to have misled you, if that is what you think.”
“And Ivo disappears—when the remains of a young woman come to light, and I am poisoned? Are they all mistakes?”
“I don’t say that I understand everything in the world. I doubt you do. Do you understand why my family is cursed with this affliction?”
His eyes are glittering with unshed tears.
“Do you know where your son is, Mr. Janko?”
Tene blinks again, and this time the tear runs down his cheek, into his mustache. “No.”
I feel like a murderer.
. . .
Outside, I turn my face up to the sun. I feel exhausted. With a nagging hunch that I have missed something important. I knock on the door of the trailer where JJ lives. Sandra answers, sheltering her eyes against the sunlight. She doesn’t move from the doorway, but she smiles.
“Hello, Mr. Lovell. It’s good to see you up and about again. JJ told us you were in hospital.”
“Yes, thank you. I was just wondering how JJ is. How’s his arm now?” “He’s
fine. Right as rain, really. He’s not here right now. Out with friends.”
“Oh. Good. He’s a bright boy, isn’t he? Thoughtful.”
“Got his head in the clouds, you mean.”
“You must be proud of him.”
She smiles but looks embarrassed. Praise draws the evil eye.
I study her face in sections: pale, grainy skin; dark brown eyes with slightly drooping eyelids; a way of tucking her fluffy, sandy hair impatiently behind one ear. I’m trying to trigger jolts of familiarity, memories of the other night . . . but I experience none. And she shows no signs of awkwardness or embarrassment at my presence.
“I don’t suppose you know where I could find Ivo?”
“He’s up in London; that’s all I know.” She doesn’t look as though she’s hiding anything. “You could try his aunt Lulu. I think he was going to stay with her again. I’ve got her address back here somewhere . . .”
I don’t tell her I already have it. She steps back and gestures for me to come in. I stand in the doorway, looking around. Her trailer is tidy and clean, and pleasantly old-fashioned. Dark oak-veneer walls. The windows are spotless; the chair covers are a plain bright green.
“This is nice,” I say, meaning it.
“Thank you . . . Here we are.”
She opens an address book and copies down an address in careful capitals.
“He might be staying with her.”
She passes me a piece of paper that appears to be torn from one of her son’s exercise books.
“Thank you. Or maybe he’s at his girlfriend’s?”
I say it as casually as I can manage, but I don’t think the way I say it makes any difference. Her pale lips blanch; her eyes shrink: black holes in ash. Her lips work soundlessly for a second.
“Ivo hasn’t got a girlfriend.”
“Oh? I thought . . . Someone said something . . .”
“No, I . . . No. We would have known. I would know.”
She tries to smile but looks stricken.
Oh, I think. Oh . . .
“Oh, well . . . Must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, I suppose.”