by Stuart Evers
He picked up the bag of kerosene and matches and walked the path. The key was snug in the lock and opened the door with a soft click, wood shushing over deep carpet as he pushed. Inside it was hushed, cool. A video recorder spooling. A television guide open on the sofa, programmes underlined, programmes ringed. The bathroom door ajar, the extractor silent, the stillness of it all. He sat at the desk. There were papers and correspondence. He would have read the letter here. It had got into his sanctuary.
Anya had ended it and his father had dismissed him. Sometime in 1988, the second summer of love. It was a litany, the letter. His failings as father and as man, all laid out, all the vitriol. Anya said that you exist to be hated. You wish for love, but you do not deserve it, I am ashamed to be your son, ashamed to share your name. You only have one son, now, father. One son. And look at the state of him.
Simon looked through the papers, wondering if the letter was there, still steaming in the stacks. There was no sign of it. Nothing. Simon stood and drank Bob’s Scotch from the bottle. He cut out a line on the desk and then another. Above the desk was a dreadful portrait of his father’s wife. Art as personalized number plate. All of this better-looking burned.
He walked along the stacks of tapes, the miles of cassettes, the neat handwriting, the chronological and thematic ordering. All this plastic to burn, tape bubbling, casing blistering, nothing left, nothing to salvage, atomizing into an acrid cloud billowing upwards. He took the kerosene and matches from his bag. He put them on the desk. He drank more Scotch and watched the light-sensitive lamps come on outside. The garden green and sculpted.
He ties off, shoots and lies down. The sounds from the cafeteria, the smells. He remembers the feeling. An ice line from neck to sternum, sitting in that annexe, a life surrounding him. He felt as executioner. He could take everything from his father. Every last thing. All that tilting at immortality, gone.
He remembers the moment of temptation. Imagining how it would actually feel to burn the place down. It had never been the plan. Just to seed the idea that he was capable of it. Just to leave the kerosene and the matches. To say: look at what I could do. But at that moment, in the annexe, the temptation. The devil on both shoulders. You will be caught, but do it anyway. You will be committing the ultimate betrayal, but do it anyway. You could run from the blaze laughing. Naked even. Yes. Naked and laughing, the annexe afire. You could run out naked and shouting, get yourself committed. You could drink more Scotch. All of his Scotch and fan the flames.
He looked at the clock. He checked his watch. He checked the clock again. He picked up the desk telephone and dialled his father’s number.
‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Dad, it’s me.’
He could hear voices and shouting. The signal was poor and Bob sounded very far away, a small man at the bottom of a well.
‘Simon?’
‘Dad, I’ve done something, Dad.’
‘What? What’s that?’
‘I couldn’t do it, Dad.’
‘What couldn’t you do? Simon, what’s going on?’
Simon started to cry. Good tears, well cried. Right on cue. The runner closed in on Bob as he talked into the mobile telephone. Bob was pacing the corridor outside the dressing room. The runner took the notebooks from the open briefcase and walked away.
‘I’m sitting here and I just couldn’t, I didn’t know what to do,’ Simon said. He looked at his watch. Three minutes. He barely understood what he had been saying. He had been crying. He mentioned Anya. Yes. He mentioned Anya. He did not apologize. He’s certain of that. He never apologized. Three minutes thirty and he hung up the phone. He drank the last of his Scotch and picked up the empty bag. He headed home with the annexe door wide, wide open.
A courier came the following day. Simon signed the chit and handed over the money in an envelope. Pick up and drop off. He took the notebooks and sat on the sofa. The untouchable books. Hidden on high shelves, dialled into wall safes, locked inside attaché cases. He liked the way they felt in his hand. The solidity of them. All the colours of ink, all the cartoons and doodles. He did not laugh. No laughter. Page after page, line after line, not one single laugh. It became a test of endurance. Two volumes to get through. He succeeded. A day or so and not a laugh.
His father’s loss was on the television, in the news-papers. The heist of the century. The headline writers loved it. Bob was distraught, he made an appeal, as if a child was missing. It was the funniest thing Simon had ever seen him do. It still makes him laugh. Ten grand for the books. A reward! Ten grand for their safe return. Not for ten million. No. Not for a billion.
He sits up in bed and takes some water; his father is standing in the corner of the room.
‘I have no regrets,’ Simon says. ‘Don’t think I do.’
Bob pats his forehead with a pocket square.
‘I’m not one for regrets, but I have one or two,’ Bob said. ‘I mean I bitterly regret that at seventy-four I can no longer have regular sex. These days I have to walk all the way to number eighty-nine.’
Simon lies on the slender bed, laughs silently.
5
The wine’s pale burn in shimmer glass; the shatter glass of breaking waves. Bob and Jaq wintering in Barbados. Their favourite restaurant. He was standing by the large barbecue grill, the smoke beneath and the char on top of steaks and shrimp. Wine in hand, talking to the chef. The chef in the chef’s hat, white teeth, dark skin – so long as they laugh, what do I care? – laughed and the boy waiters laughed with him, laughed at jokes old before their grandparents were born. The chef turned the meat and turned the shrimp and Bob was telling a joke about the Chinese. The maître d’ waited for the punchline and, as the chef laughed, whispered in Bob’s ear. Bob followed the maître d’ to the telephone. His agent had the number, a few others. A boat horn blew, deep and baleful, a perfect summer’s sound.
‘Hi, Bob.’
‘Pete?’
‘I don’t quite know how to tell you this.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘The thing is, Bob. They found them. The notebooks. Someone’s come forward. I’m at the police station now.’
‘Have you seen them? Are they—?’
‘They’re yours, no question.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘There’s more to it than that though, Bob. Much more to it.’
Above him the clouds, sparse, and further out, the boat-horn sound of summer. What to say? Peter was speaking. He saw Jaq at the table, alone and looking out to sea. His chair pulled out, a waiter dancing past it. He listened to Peter and told him what to do. What he thought was best, what was best for Bob.
6
He gets money, he goes to the bar, he has a beer and he scores. This day, every day. This day he checks his balance. This day his balance is not as healthy as he had hoped. It puts the hex on him for the morning and he walks rather than goes back to the small plain room. He walks and there’s too much spooling in his head. Too many things seen and unseen, faces poking out from behind bushes, legs and arms familiar but tanned. He walks until the bone itch is too much and then he is so far from home he feels he needs to shoot right there, but doesn’t. Manages to keep the shakes and inner shits from taking over. Back to the room. Tak tak tak of voices, clanks of pans.
‘Let’s talk about shame,’ Anya says in the bed. ‘Is there any shame possible in this world? Any true shame? Does anything matter enough to feel shame about? You’ve read the Romantics. To feel shame, you need that surfeit of emotion. We feel guilty, we sense regret, but shame? Isn’t this something we have lost?’
The needle is still in his arm, wagging. Shame, yes. Redemption, yes.
In a charity-shop suit, in the lobby of the police station, hair swept back into a lank ponytail. The specific smell of civic buildings: the same plants, same disinfectant, same chairs and tables. Simon sitting waiting for DC Watt. There are posters on a noticeboard. Message: you will be caught. Message: do report this. Message: we do believe yo
u.
‘Mr Connelly?’ And so to.
He was taken into an interview room. Green walls, a blind, a tape recorder. The PC in uniform offered him coffee, which Simon declined. The suit smelled musty, but better than his own stink. He took the notebooks from the bag and put them on the table. The story. Run through.
Well, you see, I volunteer at a charity shop. You know, the Oxfam in Lambeth – true this – and we have deliveries all the time. People come in, yeah. They come in and they leave the stuff by the door. So I was sorting the stuff out and I came across this box of books and other stuff and I saw these two notebooks. And I was going to throw them out, because who’d want some old notebooks, and then I looked inside and I saw. And I remembered. And I remembered the reward.
The clock on the wall. White face, red sweeping second hand. Three grand by nine p.m. Eleven-thirty-six. In the a.m. This was shame. Ah yes, Anya, this was shame. His own fault. Brought on himself. A bad weekend. A bad couple of weeks. A bad month. On tick. Good for it. Always good for it. Not good for it. No more overdraft, no more credit. Bad debts to bad people. Not supposed to happen. Not to me. Others yes. Not to me. And the voice: there is always. No. Yes. The last thing. The only thing worth owning. The only things left not in hock. They were the very last things left. Not for £10 million, no. Not for a million, but for £10,000. For 10, of which he’d see only 7.
Two men entered the room. DC Watt and Sergeant Hoggart. They sat down. They pressed record on the tape recorder. They stated their names, job titles, and time. Eleven thirty-nine.
‘Are these them?’ Watt said. Simon nodded.
‘I’m going to need to get these verified,’ he said. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not at all, I’m in no hurry,’ he said.
They wrapped the books in evidence bags. Simon took cigarettes from his pocket.
‘Do you mind?’ he said.
‘Not at all,’ said DC Watt. ‘Here.’ He passed a small metal ashtray.
‘So’ – a look down to the notes in front of him, check the name that does not need checking – ‘Mr Connelly. Looks like you had quite a find yesterday.’
‘It was something, yes,’ Simon said. ‘I still can’t quite believe it.’
‘Would you mind explaining to me,’ Watt said. ‘I know you’ve already given a statement, but I’d like to hear it from you. If you wouldn’t mind.’
Eleven forty-six. Simon told the same story. Same words. Without inflection. Without impatience.
‘Do you know?’ Watt said to Sergeant Hoggart. ‘You’ll like this, you like a quiz, don’t you, Frank? Do you know the one thing a newspaper isn’t allowed to print in an advertisement for lost items?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ Frank said. ‘But here’s a guess: “no questions asked”?’
Watts thumbed at Frank.
‘He’s a clever bastard this one, clever as you like. He’s right too. You can’t just say no questions asked. Because it’s like . . . I dunno, dealing with terrorists and hostage-takers: you’re encouraging others to do the same. Commit the same crime. Theft for example.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘Questions need to be asked, that’s all. Questions need to be answered.’
‘I’m not sure how much more help I can be,’ Simon said. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’
There was a knock on the door. A lift of the blind. Eleven fifty-one. DC Watt stood. The uniform at the door whispered something to him. The blind rose again and fell.
‘I’ll be right back,’ Watt said. Sergeant Hoggart paused the tape. Simon stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Is this going to go on much longer?
‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ Hoggart said. Learned from a parent that voice, learned from a teacher. Simon looked at the clock. Shame. To lose this. To lose everything for so little.
‘Would you like a coffee, sir?’
‘No, I’d just like to know what is going on, please.’
‘Won’t be long now.’
The door opened. The blind opened and closed again. DC Watt came in holding a bag. Holdall, brown leather.
‘Thank you for your patience, Mr Connelly,’ Watt said. He slid the bag on the table. Tapped it with his right hand.
‘All yours, Mr Connelly. Your reward.’
Simon stood and looked at the bag of money.
The needle is still in his arm, wagging. Shame, yes. Redemption, yes.
Watt looked at him, Simon looked at the bag. Three grand to pay off and then seven clear. Seven grand. Seven grand not to put up his nose. Seven grand to save. Seven grand to build up. Seven grand. A pitiful amount. Seven grand. If there were no threats. If it wasn’t so far down the line. Seven grand. But something, yes. Something to begin with.
‘Thank you,’ he said. He walked to the door, the door held open by Watt. Watt smiling.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Watt said. ‘Your father sends his love.’
Ah yes. Timing. A joke is all in the timing. Shame, yes. Redemption, yes. The inevitable reunion. Yes. His father in the corner. His father dabbing a pocket square to his forehead.
‘It’s hard to deal with death when it’s someone close to you,’ he says. ‘You don’t know whether to prop them up or let them fall.’
His father waits for the laughter. His father waits for his applause. Days later. Yes, days. Door kicked open. The needle still in his arm. Stiff. Let fall.
7
He can remember everything. A whole life, all of it. Every moment, every detail; every breath, every beat. Everything, all the way back to the moment of his birth. Sitting in the annexe, under lamplight, of this he is momentarily certain. The whole of his life. A whole life in a straight line from birth to death. How simple, how easy it seems, sitting in the annexe, under the lamplight. How simple and clear.
A video recorder begins to pull and wind; another stops spooling. He turns off the machines. All of them. He does not remember everything. He was not there. How could he remember? And now, he cannot even remember his son’s face.
He turns seven pages and the third line is in blue ink, written while on a flight to Barbados. I came home to find my son taking drugs – all my best ones, too. He remembers the Lambeth flat. The photographs of the Thai hotel room. His letter. He remembers the absence. The phone call from Peter. What Peter said. He remembers Peter asking him what he wanted to do. Saying: are you sure? Peter saying: I can see him from here, from behind the blind. He remembers saying let him have it all, all £10,000. The bankbook, returned to Bob later. He remembers looking at it, up and down. He remembers the single deposit, cash £7,000, the day after the reward was paid. He remembers the way the money sat for years. The gradual accrual of interest, and then the first withdrawal. He remembers a large withdrawal, the flight, and then the same amount withdrawn every subsequent day. He remembers what he instructed Peter to tell the police. He remembers clearly what he told Peter. Give him the money, Peter. Give him the money and tell him this. Tell him his father sends his love.
CHARTER YEAR, 1972
She had been told, tucked up, kissed goodbye: expected to rest. He had given her earplugs, placed them in the palm of her hand. Sleep, he’d said. You need it. Sleep. They were on the bedside table, sticky-ended with wax, slightly crushed. Her heart was audible when she wore them, an uncomfortable sound, so she’d taken them out just as soon as he’d inched the bedroom door shut.
Yvette’s eyes were closed, better to concentrate on the pram-wheels scraping the hallway floor, his duffel coat being taken from the hat rack, the controlled rattle of the door chain, her child’s choking sobs. She opened them as the front door quietly closed and, in her nightdress, hurried to the front-room window.
She leant against the sill and looked up the road, him and the pram under lamppost halos. The road was steep, winding; bungalows neatly spaced along it. She missed stairs. She missed height. And now she missed Owen, and their child.
While Owen tried to soothe Dylan, tried to stop his const
ant screams with movement, she stayed by the window, waiting. She would not sleep. Could not: with the screams or without. It was more for him. For Owen. To make him feel he was doing something. On his return, she would pretend she’d slept. See him and the pram walking down the gradient, and then hurry to bed. He would come to the room and she would perform. It was an accomplished act: a stretching yawn, a quarter roll to the other side of the bed, an unnecessary ‘What time is it?’
There were pills in the house. Bottles of them, brown like beer. The doctor urged her to take them. Sometimes she weighed them in her hand, but always put them back under their cotton wool. There were natural remedies too; herbal tonics and St John’s wort. These she had taken in quantity, but their effectiveness was minimal. This wasn’t something she liked to admit. She told Owen that she was fine. Just tired. Be better with rest.
He would come home from work in the car and busy himself with their son. He’d kiss her and ask her seriously about her day. She’d talk about Dylan: his bowel movements, his sleep patterns, his brief moments of quiet. And Owen would say, ‘But what about you? How have you been?’ At this she’d seethe, make claws of hands. His understanding, his kindness, his patience! And she would say, ‘Fine. I’m fine, my love.’
His smile would be perfect. It told her flatly of her own, singular failures. She watched the road for a long time, then saw Owen at the top of the hill. She took herself back to bed, quickly stepping through the house.
A car had pulled up outside their bungalow. Owen had seen it overtake them at the top of the hill and surprisingly stop. Its interior light was on, the engine idling. Dylan was finally asleep in the pram and Owen was careful to keep a steady speed on the way down, avoiding ruts in the pavement, the occasional patches of ice. When he reached the third lamppost, he recognized the car. It was a Jaguar, an older model: racing green, creamy leather seats. He quickly pushed the pram past the car, the door opening as he passed.
