by Jenni Ogden
“How would Danny have known that?”
“I told him. When Andrew and I were kids we used to scramble to the flattish bit about halfway up, but we were too scared to go to the top. I know the police report concluded that Danny slipped on the wet grass at the top, and fell, but if I’d let him stay in the house until morning, he’d still be alive. Even if he’d gone back to the States and we’d never got back together again, he and Lara would know each other. Perhaps she would know his parents and his brother. Perhaps she would know Danny’s grandmother. She would have loved Savannah. She would have her other family as well as us. She would know who she is.”
My confession made a hole in the wall between us and little by little it expanded. Even Lara gave me a quick hug every so often, almost as if she was trying it out. Poor kid had a lot to deal with. She saw a psychologist every week and I knew how hard that was. We weren’t let in on it, but hopefully it was helping her cope with her sadness and guilt about Tony. She continued to struggle with fatigue, a normal consequence of head injury, and neuropsychological tests showed that she still had problems with information processing and sustained attention. But the plan was to try her out at school, mornings only at first, when the new academic year began at the beginning of September. She was upset because she’d have to repeat Year 11; she’d missed too many classes as well as her GCSE exams. At least we’d managed to steer her away from leaving school altogether. She’d turned sixteen on the 15th July so officially she was an adult now—as she pointed out—and could legally leave school. We had convinced her to have two friends around for dinner to celebrate her birthday, and I think she enjoyed that, but she was exhausted the next day.
At the start of August I returned to work after nine weeks leave, but still banned from operating. The kids were on their summer break, Finbar spending every day at a cricket camp and three of Lara’s girlfriends keen to act as ‘baby sitters’ as Lara put it, taking turns to hang out with her at our house while Adam and I were at work. Peter was also back at the hospital, but had retired himself from surgery. A neurosurgeon from Finland had been seconded for nine months, as even the amazing Jim Mason had struggled to cover my surgical list as well as Peter’s.
Within days of my returning, Peter called me into his office and asked if I would stand in for him at the annual international neurosurgical training meeting, where training standards and requirements were examined and revised. It was an important meeting and my first reaction was one of excitement. Relief and gratitude as well that Peter had not given up on me; had chosen me over Jim Mason.
But by the time I got home that night I was less certain. It was ridiculous, I told myself. I’d been to numerous international meetings over the years; why should this be any different? It would only take me away from London for four days. But it was at the end of the school summer break and right before Lara started classes again. I knew what Adam would think: I was back to putting my career ahead of my family.
Was I? Wasn’t it important that I find my feet again? I’d got the feeling that this was an opportunity that wouldn’t be offered a second time; a chance for me to show I still had what it took to lead the department. It wasn’t unheard of for a director to have only light clinical duties so he—or she—could focus on management. Heavens, was I really thinking it might come to that?
There was another reason for my nervousness about broaching the subject with Adam. The meeting was in New Orleans.
I decided I would at least raise it as a possibility. I should have discussed it with Adam first, but I decided to treat Lara as the adult she almost was and include her from the beginning. She might be keen for me to go if I promised I’d at least see if Danny’s grandmother still lived in the same mansion, and try and talk to her. If it made Lara happy, that might pacify Adam.
I waited until we were in the middle of dinner. I had no appetite anyway. No one spoke as I argued my case. That’s what it felt like. As if I had to justify myself. They sat there, eating, as I talked. “I’d fly to New Orleans on Saturday and I’d have Sunday to find Savannah Leaumont’s house again and see if she’s there. Although she must be in her late eighties at least by now, so she mightn’t be, I suppose.” Lara and Adam had both stopped eating. “There’s a welcome dinner for the meeting participants on Sunday evening and the meeting is all day Monday and finishes at midday on Tuesday. I can fly back to London on Tuesday afternoon, two days before you two are back at school.”
“Surely there’s someone else who can do it?” Adam said.
“Dad, don’t be so negative,” Lara said. “Mum’s gotta go. Otherwise that bloody Jim what’s-his-name will lord it over her forever.”
I tried not to choke on my pasta. Lara was practically hissing with indignation. Or perhaps something else.
“I can go with her. It’s karma, don’t you see? You said that when I was better we could do something special for my sixteenth birthday, and this is perfect. Mum and I can both meet my great grandmother.”
“Don’t get carried away. You can’t just show up like that. The poor old lady might have a heart attack,” Adam said. But he sounded just a little amused.
“Nah. She’ll be blown away that she’s found us. I’ve read about her. She’s as tough as…as those ginger biscuits Finbar makes.”
Finbar poked his tongue out at her.
“Perhaps I should see her first, just to make sure. Then we can all go to New Orleans later,” I said, not daring to look at Adam.
“Please Mums, please? We could go a few days earlier so you and I could do lots of stuff together before you had to go to your meeting. We could go to blues clubs. You love blues.”
Oh, it was so long since she’d spoken to me as if she cared. I knew she was being manipulative, but it was a start. Could I take her? Even if finding Savannah turned out to be impossible, even a disaster, it might bring Lara and I close again. I’d risk anything for that.
Part II
KATRINA
New Orleans, August 2005
Chapter 14
Ninety degrees, humidity seventy-five percent, and only eleven in the morning. My antiperspirant had given up before Lara and I had ventured out the door. The hotel had changed not one iota, and its air conditioning still didn’t work. By the time we’d walked from Frenchmen along Decatur Street, looking for Danny's Piano Bar, strings of hair were sticking to my neck and my cotton dress wept beneath my armpits. Lara, in her shorts and T-shirt, looked every bit as hot. At least the clumsy plaster cast on her arm was gone, cut off four days before our flight. It had mended well and she was so diligent with her arm strengthening exercises that it shouldn’t take long for her arm to stop looking like a white stick. No surprise that she’d got her way and we’d left London on Wednesday. We’d have six full days in New Orleans before our flight home on Tuesday evening, giving Lara 34 hours to recover from her jet lag before the new school year started on September 1st.
From the moment I booked our flights, Lara fizzed with anticipation. I fizzed with apprehension. Adam would never forgive me if Lara found it too much. Perhaps she would be too tired to start school so soon after we returned, but did it really matter? She’d been away for almost three months so another day wasn’t going to make any difference.
I sighed. This wasn’t getting me any brownie points with Adam. It hadn’t helped when I’d decided to book us into the quaint 1850s Creole Townhouse in the French Quarter where I’d stayed so long ago. Lara was adamant that she didn’t want to hang around in the fancy hotel where the neurosurgeons were staying. Adam thought she’d be safer there, lying about at the cookie-cutter pool while I was in my meeting, and not roaming unsupervised around the seamy French Quarter.
Damn Adam. Lara was already letting me in a bit. If this trip gave her back to me it would be worth any amount of Adam grimness. He’d get over it once we were home. And deep inside I felt that if my family were happy and normal again, my anxiety and panic attacks would disappear.
Lara was meandering
along in front of me as we wove our way through the bustling market and the narrow cobbled streets, one of which was once the home of Danny’s Piano Bar. We hadn’t found the jazz club on Google, so likely it had some other name and purpose now. Lara was constantly stopping, peering into cluttered shop windows, fascinated, as I had been that first time, by the exuberance of it all. Now she had her hands cupped around her face as she tried to see through the thick glass of a small shop. I looked up at the sign as I reached her. ‘Voodoo Magic’ it said. I touched a patch of faded blue exposed by the red paint peeling from the door. This was it, I was almost certain.
Pulling Lara back from the window I nodded at her, my eyebrows raised as I pointed to the Voodoo Magic sign.
“Danny’s Piano Bar?” she said.
I nodded again and she grabbed my hand. We both peered in the window. The usual skulls and other tourist junk, and a large sign proclaiming that psychic readings were available for forty dollars, no appointment necessary. “Let’s get a reading,” Lara said in a whisper.
“You don’t believe in all that stuff?”
“I might. Anyway, perhaps whoever does the readings will know Savannah?” Lara had taken to calling Danny’s grandmother Savannah as if they were already best friends.
I grinned at her. A spot of crystal gazing could hardly be any worse than all the therapy we’d endured. I pushed open the door, jumping when the life-sized witch hanging behind it let out a loud cackle. Plastic skeletons and gruesome masks dangled from the low ceiling, and a shadowy figure, engrossed in a book, was sitting behind a large desk weighed down by more books.
“Hullo,” Lara said.
“Hi. What can I do for you?” The figure spoke in that slow drawl I was becoming re-accustomed to. A witch in the flesh. Lots of hair, wild and gray. Piercing blue eyes peered at us over half-moon glasses perched on a long nose.
“We were wondering about getting a reading,” I said.
“And we thought you might know about Danny’s Piano Bar,” Lara added, no mucking around. “Mum thinks it used to be here.”
“Gracious, that’s going back a-ways. We’ve been here for, I don’t know, maybe sixteen years. When did you last visit?”
“August, 1988, it was. So I guess it was sold not long after that,” I said.
“Fancy you remembering exactly when you were here. It must have been a pretty special occasion, eh?” The witch’s eyebrows got lost in her hair.
“You could say that. I don’t suppose you know what happened to the owner?”
“Old lady Leaumont. I haven’t heard that she’s passed over, so I guess she’s still with us. But she must be close to going over to the other side. Her son still runs a few nightclubs around town, and as far as I know they’re doin’ OK.” Her tone was curious. “So what’s your connection with her?”
I gave Lara a sharp nudge. “None, really. I met her years ago, and I knew her grandson. He used to sing here.”
“Danny Leaumont, gravel for the soul.” The woman chuckled. “I’ve still got some old posters with that on it somewhere. He was a sexy fella, all right. And they say he could sing up a storm.” She peered at us, her eyes glittering. “I see him sometimes on dark, stormy nights. And hear him.”
Lara gulped. “What do you mean you see him?”
I knew what her answer would be. She knew how to snare tourists.
“I live up above,” the witch replied, flicking her head upwards. “Like I said, Danny takes a walk from time to time. Whatever happened to him didn’t give him any rest. He’s prowling around looking for peace, poor soul.”
I stared at her, almost believing her. Would it be worth asking anything else about the Leaumonts? Sensible answers seemed unlikely.
“Cat got your tongues?” the witch asked. “I s’pose you think I’m talking twaddle. Sounds like you come from England. Folks from there don’t know nothin’ ’bout spirits.”
“I’m sorry if I seem disbelieving,” I said. “I’ve never had anything to do with spirits. I wasn’t sure whether you were serious or just having us on.”
“You can’t see spirits if you don’t believe in them. They’re not going to waste their time with the likes of you.” She winked.
“I believe you,” said Lara.
“Ah. Would you like to see the poster?”
“Oh yes, yes, I’d love to,” Lara said, and my pulse sped up. “Does it have a picture of Danny?”
“It does, in all his flame-haired glory.”
I closed my eyes at the thought of seeing his face again. When I opened them the witch had risen from her chair. She towered above us, a beanstalk of a woman.
“We should introduce ourselves,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Georgia Grayson, and as you guessed I live in England, although I always thought I had a Kiwi accent. And this is my daughter, Lara.”
The hand that grasped mine felt dry and bony. “Glad to meet you, Georgia, especially if you’re a Kiwi. They’re more my cuppa tea; not in Bush’s pocket like the Brits.” She cackled. “I’m Amanda Wilhelmina Katrina Thelma Damer, but my friends—here or on t’other side—call me Kat.”
I laughed. “Hi, Kat. I like your name, and by the sound of it, your politics.”
“Good. Now that we’ve got the essentials sorted, why don’t you pour yourselves a brew while I look for this poster?” She nodded towards an electric coffee maker, its glass carafe half full of strong black coffee. The aroma reminded me that I hadn’t fed my addiction since we disembarked from the plane.
Kat was shuffling around in the back of the room, scrabbling about in an old chest. She let out a yodel as she pulled out a cardboard tube and brought it over to the desk, extracting a roll of glossy paper. As she rolled it out, Lara caught the top to prevent it curling back on itself. Kat held down the bottom, and together we gazed at it in silence.
Then Kat spoke, her voice tinged with sadness. “That’s him. He’s the one who walks sometimes. He’s got a face that’s hard to forget, all right.”
I could feel her eyes on me, and tried to get control of my emotions.
“Are you OK Mum?”
I swallowed as Lara touched my arm, her other hand still on the poster. “Yes,” I said. “It’s just a bit of a shock to see him again, so real and alive.” My eyes devoured him, his body contorted around the song he was singing, his hair vivid red against the shadowy background. Green eyes flashed at us from half closed lids, and his mouth seemed to kiss the microphone he cradled in his hands.
“Here,” said Kat, pulling out a chair, “Sit down. You look as pale as a ghost.”
I sank down gratefully, but couldn’t take my eyes from Danny. Lara was still standing, and I heard her quick breaths.
“I couldn’t remember his face any more.” I felt the sting behind my eyes.
“You loved him.” Kat’s voice was soft.
“A long time ago, very much. I had forgotten how much until now.”
“Would you like to keep the poster?”
“Could we? I’d be happy to pay whatever you wanted for it.”
“Now that’s an offer hard to refuse,” Kat said. “I can see I could take all you have, and then some. But you can have it for nothing. I’m thinking that if you take him away, he might stop haunting this place, and I could get a good night’s sleep again.”
“Are you sure? This is worth a lot to us.”
“I’m quite sure. Instead, you can tell me what happened to him. I’ve always wondered why he was so unhappy. When I bought this building, the real estate agent told me that the old lady was selling it because her grandson had died in a tragic accident, and this place held too many memories. Apparently it was called Danny’s Piano Bar after him. But you probably knew that.”
“Yes.” I watched as Lara slowly rolled up the poster, Danny's body disappearing bit by bit. First his signature bare feet and skinny jeans; then the sea-green shirt covering the slim body that I’d loved so thoroughly; the sensual lips that had all the women in his audience c
rossing their legs; the laughing green eyes that could see into my soul; and finally, the crazy crown of his flaming hair.
When I returned to the present, Kat had picked up my cup and was looking into it intently.
“What’s the matter with my cup?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Kat said. “I’m reading your coffee grounds.”
I laughed. “You’re what? I’ve heard of reading tea leaves, but coffee grounds?”
“It’s what you leave in them that’s important; not whether you leave them in tea or coffee. Now quiet, while I concentrate.”
“Read Lara’s cup. She’s a believer.”
“No,” said Lara. “Read Mum’s first.” I looked at her, holding her father’s picture, her eyes filled with tears.
I nodded at Kat. The witch’s reading would give Lara a chance to get herself together. It might even make her laugh. The minutes ticked by, and Kat muttered and frowned as she studied the cup. Then raising her head she said solemnly, “Are you prepared to hear what the spirits have to say?”
“I am,” I replied, pressing my lips together. “Is this the forty dollar reading or do I get a better rate?”
“This is not a time to be flippant. And this is not my reading; I’m only the medium. This comes from elsewhere.”
“What do you mean, elsewhere?”
“Only you can know what spirit you’ve been conjuring up. It is not for me to know your darkest thoughts.”
“Right. So what does this spirit say?”
Kat pulled up a stool and sat facing me. Gazing into the coffee cup she began to speak, her voice strangely different—somehow huskier, and with her southern drawl barely apparent. “You’ve had great success in life and made money and friends, loved and lost and loved again, a beautiful daughter has been born to you, and you’ve traveled from your true home to live across the sea. But something inside you is deeply disturbed, deeply unhappy. You are embarking on a long journey to places even farther from home to seek answers.” She paused, her body rocking forward. “I see a wild and fearsome challenge coming… it will test you like you’ve never been tested before… you must decide whether to face it or run away… ”
