Sight Unseen

by Graham Hurley

  I falter at the next corner and give him a ring. God knows how but he knows it’s me. I give him Clem’s address. He knows at once how to find it. Carry on down the Fulham Road. Look for a pub called The Bargeman’s Arms. Next right and you’re there.

  ‘You OK?’ I say.

  ‘I’m fine. Better than fine. How could I be anything but?’

  ‘I’m glad.’ I’m on the move again, looking for the pub. ‘And thanks for the flower.’

  Clem’s house is at the far end of the mews. Malo takes a while to get to the door. At first glance, in the fading light, he looks terrible, and for a heart-stopping moment I’m wondering whether he’s been using again. Last year, when he came back from Stockholm, his drug of choice was Spice. My poor adolescent son had become a zombie and it took his ex-drug-baron father, in a wonderful plot twist, to sort him out.

  ‘Mum?’ Uncertain, he lets me in.

  The house is bigger than I expected. Bare, sanded floorboards. Framed posters, some of them Colombian, along the narrow hall. Fresh flowers exploding from herringbone bud vases. Nice. Malo ducks my attempt to give him a hug and leads the way to a room at the back that serves as a kitchen-diner. Photos of Clem and Malo have been stuck to a whiteboard on the wall above the breakfast bar. The happy couple posing against the Harley. Mad souvenirs from some party or other. A joyous shot of Clem on a tiny stage acknowledging unseen applause. A casting director once told me that God saved special faces for the camera. Clem, bless her, has one of those.

  Malo appears to be halfway through a bottle of Rioja. In the absence of an invitation, I find myself a glass from the draining board, reach for the bottle and settle on the spare stool.

  ‘So what next?’

  Malo blinks. His eyes are wet. At first I put it down to what’s happened, but then I realize that he’s drunk.

  He shrugs, stares down at his glass. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

  ‘I’m afraid you have to. There’s no option.’

  Lately, I’ve realized there’s a lot of H in my son. Like his father he hates being told what to do. I reach across to take his hand. He rocks back on the stool.

  ‘Don’t,’ he says.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just don’t.’

  I shrug. I’m hurt but it doesn’t pay to show it. I nod at the wine bottle.

  ‘Is that the first?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we need to handle this. We need to cope with it. And getting legless doesn’t help. I need to know exactly what happened. And I need to see your phone.’

  With some reluctance, Malo extracts a phone from his jeans pocket and slides it across to me. I’m still looking at him.

  ‘The message, please. And the photo.’

  Malo is looking at his hands. There’s a stand-off between us. Above the distant rumble of traffic I can hear the muted howl of an ambulance, the whump-whump of a far-away helicopter, and from next door the chatter of a radio. This is the clamorous heartbeat of a city I know all too well and yet here, in this small moment, I’m more aware of it than ever. We are all of us fragile. Think kidnap. Think cancer. Think Pavel Sieger. We can be taken when we least expect it because darkness, in the end, awaits us all.

  Morbid, I think. We have to be brave. We have to be bold. Thank God for H. He’d have none of this.

  ‘Please show me. That’s all I ask.’

  Finally Malo reaches for the phone. A couple of swipes and I’m looking at the starkest of messages. Mateo, Malo, we have your girl. She’s safe. For now. A million US dollars will get her back. Cash, please. You have until midnight Monday. If you contact the police, you’ll never see her whole again. Another message will follow. Start counting the money.

  I look up. Please comes as a surprise. Whole is chilling.

  ‘And the photo?’

  ‘Scroll down.’

  I do Malo’s bidding. I find a blue tattoo in the shape of a serrated cross. There are lines within it and a small circular motif in the middle. The surrounding skin, flawless, is a pale tan. The base of her spine, I think, in the small hollow just above her coccyx.

  ‘This belongs to Clem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s called a Chakana. The bit in the middle represents Cusco.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The capital of the Inca empire.’

  ‘She got it done in Colombia?’

  ‘Parsons Green. There’s a tattoo studio down there. We went together a couple of weeks ago.’ He lifts the back of his T-shirt and pulls down an inch or two of jean. I can see a corner of the tatt but not much else.

  ‘You got one, too?’

  Malo nods. For the first time there’s a hint of animation in his voice. He drops the waistband of his 501s a little further until I can see the whole thing. Malo fingers it the way you might test wet paint.

  ‘One each – me and Clem,’ Malo says. ‘The unbreakable bond.’

  I nod. The implication is all the sweeter for what’s just happened.

  ‘And this next message?’

  ‘I’m still waiting.’

  ‘So what about the money?’

  ‘I’ve talked to Dad. He’s in touch with Mateo. He says there won’t be a problem.’

  ‘A million dollars? By Monday?’

  ‘That’s what they want.’

  His head is down again. He’s readjusted his jeans and his T-shirt, and his whole body has slumped. This, I know, is a message for me. Shit happens. We have no choice. A million dollars might even be cheap at the price.

  I sit back a moment, shifting my weight on the stool. If I was still a smoker, this would be the perfect time for a cigarette.

  ‘Have you talked to Mateo yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you think that might be a good idea?’

  Malo says he doesn’t know. There’s a note of hopelessness, or perhaps despair, in his voice. He’s abandoned the breakfast bar and is peering into the fridge. He’s thinner than his father, with none of H’s chunkiness, but as his face fills out it’s impossible not to recognize the features they share: the set of the chin, the steadiness of the gaze, and a strange reflexive habit of tipping their heads back when things get tough, as if inviting people to leave the room. Just now it’s a gesture, of course, and I sense we both understand that. My poor boy is lost.

  Malo is still only eighteen. This last year living down at Flixcombe with his father has done him a great deal of good, not least because H has given him real responsibilities. To our mutual surprise, and some delight, Malo has responded brilliantly to these challenges, but when I see him like this it’s impossible not to remember the way things were.

  My then-husband, Berndt Andressen, was a Swedish scriptwriter of rare genius. We married within months of meeting and shared a decade and a half together. At first it was wonderful. Berndt quarried the darkness of his imagination for bizarre twists on familiar tropes and practically invented Scandi noir. I, meanwhile, was dancing up the foothills of minor celebrity, which felt great at the time. Our Malo, on the other hand, was stumbling through early adolescence, bewildered by the frequent absence of a mum and a dad who seemed to be separate stars in their own far-away galaxies, impossibly glamorous, impossibly remote.

  We got him out on location as often as we could, mistaking lavish weekends and casual introductions to big-name stars for parenthood when all the poor boy really wanted was the three of us round the table for Sunday lunch. When Berndt and I finally called time on the marriage in an orgy of insult and violence, Malo was nowhere to be seen. By then I’d somehow imagined that he had a tribe of mates he could hang out with but this assumption proved wrong. My darling boy, like his deluded parents, was hopelessly adrift, and I sometimes wonder whether he’s ever really forgiven me. Guilt on my part? Of course. By the bucketload. A lingering resentment on his? Who knows?

  Ma
lo is back at the breakfast bar with two spoons and an open tin of tuna. This appears to be supper. When I suggest we pop round the corner for something more interesting, he shakes his head. He wants to be here when the next message comes, whenever that is. He’s no idea what these people are going to say and he doesn’t trust himself in company. Being alone isn’t a problem. In fact, just now, he prefers it. Clem, he says, would feel exactly the same.

  This is my cue to leave but I linger for a moment or two. One suggestion. Just one.

  ‘You could come home with me,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll leave you alone. We needn’t even talk if you’d prefer not to. I just need to know you’re …’ I shrug. ‘OK.’

  He looks up at me, the faintest smile on his face. There’s darkness under his eyes. He looks ill.

  ‘Your place?’ A slow shake of the head. ‘Are you serious?’

  SIX

  A message awaits me at home. It comes from Pavel. My finger hovers over the reply button on my answerphone. Why hasn’t he tried my mobile?

  It turns out he wanted to spare my blushes. I’ve told him enough about my marriage to Berndt, about Malo, and about my son’s real father for Pavel to recognize that he’s stepped into a minefield. On the phone, in the privacy of my flat, I ask him what that feels like.

  ‘It feels good,’ he says. ‘We should open the movie right here.’

  The concept makes me laugh. Where, in Pavel’s world, does fact – in that favourite showbiz phrase – bleed into fiction?

  ‘Everywhere. Nowhere. My kind of truth is subjective, has been for years. If you go blind, life becomes a radio show. You get the hints, the clues, the dialogue, the arc of the story, but the faces, the visual stuff, the stuff that does it for most people, is for you to decide. I’ve never asked you what H looks like. The same goes for your son. Have you ever wondered why?’

  It’s true. He hasn’t. And neither have I volunteered any real clues.

  ‘So tell me,’ I say. ‘What does your H look like?’

  ‘He looks like what I want him to look like. Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday would do nicely.’

  ‘H is a bit taller,’ I say at once. ‘And better looking. I get it, though. You start with the voice and all the background clues I gave you and whatever else you’ve picked up and then glue it all together.’

  ‘Exactly. But there’s a problem here, as you’re about to explain.’

  ‘Really?’ I’m staring at the phone. This was supposed to be a conversation, not a seminar. ‘So what am I missing?’

  ‘I went blind two and a half years ago. I have a library of mental images but the world moves on.’

  ‘That’s called fashion and you’re very lucky it passes you by.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ There’s a moment of silence. It feels deeply companionable. Then I ask him about Stargazer lilies.

  ‘I love them. Always have done. And in case you’re wondering, I can remember exactly what they look like. I’m also guessing you buy bed linen in dark colours.’

  ‘I do. You’re right.’

  ‘Dark blue pillow slips?’

  ‘Yes. This week.’

  ‘And last week?’

  ‘Burgundy red.’

  ‘Excellent. That makes me a lucky man. The pinkness of the lily against the blue of the pillow. Did it work for you?’

  ‘It did. Though I’m not sure about H.’

  There’s another silence, longer this time. Then Pavel is back on the phone. There’s something new in his voice and I can’t work out exactly what it is. Caution, maybe.

  ‘He was there in your bedroom?’

  ‘He went looking.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he can’t cope with someone else in my life.’

  ‘That would be me.’

  ‘It would. And now he knows it.’

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘To be frank, I have no idea. He’s a jealous man. He wants – needs – all of me. You sensed that. You told me. He can also be violent. If you have a problem with any of this, you only have to say.’

  Yet another silence. Then a sound I first misinterpret as interference on the line but it turns out to be a chuckle. Pavel appears to be amused.

  ‘This script is writing itself,’ he says. ‘I love it.’

  For the second time in this conversation I feel the lightest prickle of anxiety at the freedoms this man seems so happy to take. Blindness, especially early on, must be terrifying. You’d feel so lost, so isolated, so vulnerable, so exposed to events. But then comes the compensations – those delicious, fortifying moments when your imagination revs up and becomes, in effect, another pair of eyes. You’d feel utterly liberated. You’d no longer be governed by what was real. You’d live almost entirely in your head. In the true sense of the word, you’d slip the leash and become a nomad. Nice, I thought, shutting my eyes.

  Pavel wants to know more about Malo, about the message from the kidnappers, about Clem. Light has a colour temperature, he points out. It has to do with intensity and wavelengths. It’s the same with relationships. You know these two people very well. Are Clem and Malo seriously close?

  The answer to that has to be a big fat yes. I tell him my son is besotted. I describe the two tattoos, his and hers. Malo wants to shackle himself to this slender, vivid, lovely girl. He wants her for ever and ever and if it takes a million dollars to make that happen, then so be it.

  ‘Shackle himself? Or have her shackled to him?’

  ‘Both. Either. Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it does. Malo’s his father’s son. His dad wants you all day every day. Tell me that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.’

  ‘You’re right. It does.’

  ‘So what’s it like for Clem?’

  ‘You think this is her doing?’ I’m staring at the phone. ‘You think she’s gone on the run? Made a bid for freedom? You’re telling me this is all some kind of scam on her part?’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything. I’m simply listening.’

  Listening. Blind men, I tell myself, rely on their ears as well as their imaginations. Life is all navigation. They need to see in the dark, survive in the dark, thrive in the dark. Pavel is probably half-bat.

  I share this thought with him, along with a number of others. I enjoyed last night. A lot. I’ve always suspected that laughter is the best aphrodisiac but the delicacy of a certain kind of touch – deft, tender, knowing – takes you to some very unexpected places. I’m smiling. I can see the bony whiteness of his body in the throw of light from the candle. I know I should be thinking very hard about getting Clem back in one piece but I have a sudden, overwhelming desire to get very drunk and take Pavel to bed again.

  I know more or less where he lives because he’s told me but I’ve never been there. I need the exact address. He gives me a house number in a street off Chiswick High Road.

  ‘There’s an all-night Londis on the corner,’ he says. ‘And there’s a lovely Portuguese white on offer at the moment. Ask for the Albariño.’ He laughs. ‘And don’t forget an umbrella.’

  I open my eyes at last. The world floods back in. I check my watch. Nearly ten. It’s Friday night, for God’s sake, and I’ll do anything to draw the curtains on an awful day. Two bottles. At least.

  ‘Half an hour,’ I tell him. ‘Max.’

  SEVEN

  Milost, Pavel’s dog, meets me at the door, which is slightly ajar. She knows my smell by now and we’re definitely friends. The name they gave her at the Guide Dog kennels was Grace. Milost, Pavel tells me, is Czech for ‘grace’, another curtsey to the allure of Prague. If you’ll never see the city again, at least you can stroke the dog and dream a little. Milost. Malo. Cute.

  I take the liberty of stepping in from the rain and Pavel meets me in the hall, a smile on his face. I know he’s been living here for more than a decade because he’s told me so. That means he was sighted when he made all those little decisions about déco
r, and colours and wall hangings that help tell other people who we are, and I’m eager to lay hands on some of these clues. The living space downstairs has been knocked through, which would have been very sensible if you were half-expecting to go blind, and I find myself in a big white space dominated by a grand piano in the very middle of the room.

  On the walls hang a number of paintings that look original and may have come from the same hand. A couple are portraits, one almost certainly of Pavel. It’s been done in oils, the paint thickly textured, the background rendered in ominous shades of the darkest brown. The way Pavel’s face is shadowed reminds me of Rembrandt, and the artist has done a fine job in catching the expression Pavel saves for moments when he senses that something – a line of dialogue in a draft script, a mouthful of restaurant food – has taken him by surprise. It’s a coming together of delight and curiosity, two blessings that might help him through the eternity of darkness to come.

  ‘She’s been a friend of mine for years,’ Pavel says. ‘The landscapes are more recent. She knows my taste exactly. She describes a stretch of coast or a particular view and if I approve then she goes off and sorts it. She paints to order. I’m a spoiled boy.’

  ‘But you can’t see them. Any of them. Apart from the earlier work.’

  ‘You’re right. But they’re friends in my house. She also favours oils and that makes me doubly lucky.’

  ‘Doubly?’

  ‘Number one that I came across her work in the first place. Number two that I can touch them. Landscapes, if you try hard enough to understand them, have a texture. Here …’

  He sets course for the biggest of the pictures, a study of a long harbour wall in what looks like the depths of winter. It’s a study in greys and murky yellows and dark viscous greens that exactly captures the swirl of water around the granite quay. The weather is unforgiving. A single tiny figure, hooded, faceless, battles the wind.