by Flynn Berry
* * *
—
THEY WENT to a Greek taverna on their first date. Mum was still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to the Lanesborough, she hadn’t been home yet. They ate stuffed grape leaves and cannelloni and drank carafes of red wine. She added the taverna to his list of enthusiasms, which included cold-water swimming, motorcycles, and Belgian Malinois, a breed of very large dog.
They talked about their friends and families. He started to tell a story from when he was a teenager, and she waited for him to annoy her, to sound pleased with himself for having done something that wasn’t particularly difficult, like drinking a lot, or being sick in an inconvenient place, or failing an exam.
Instead, as Colin imitated himself as a drunk seventeen-year-old, scooping broken glass from his windscreen off the road, she laughed. He wasn’t vain, it seemed, or smug, only warm and straightforward. He finished his story and began shoveling up the last of the cannelloni.
She tried to summon up some sour thoughts about him, the kind that had come so easily with Henry. Your hair needs a cut, she thought, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t dismantle him, like she had others.
He wasn’t perfect, though. Impatient, definitely. And greedy. For food, demonstrably, and other things—drinks, cigarettes, sex. Experience. Not for money, though, if his flat was any indication.
• • •
The way Mum described his flat surprised me. My grandparents had a lot of money, I wouldn’t have guessed my father ever lived in a place like that. The flat was above a tattoo parlor on Dean Street. With the windows open, they could hear the ink gun. It was small, with uneven floorboards, rusting taps, drawers that neither fully shut nor opened, but had plenty of sunlight, and was right in the center of things.
She liked a poster he had on his wall of a cyclist on his bike during the Giro d’Italia, eating a bowl of pasta. I think about that poster often. It seems so innocent, like proof that there wasn’t always something wrong with him.
3
ON FARRINGDON ROAD, I reach in my bag for my keys, my wallet, convinced I’ve forgotten something. I left the gas on, I didn’t feed the dog, or lock the door. The bus isn’t in sight, I might have time to run back and check.
We’re having a meeting, though, about hiring a new practice manager, and I can’t be late. I look back across Clerkenwell towards my house, as though I’ll be able to tell if something’s wrong inside it from here. The bus arrives, and I join the queue to board.
Soon we’re crossing the canal. A mile west is Camden Lock, but here the canal is quiet. The narrow boats are moored in ice, and some of them have pine wreaths hanging from their prows.
For the length of the ride, I hold my phone in my hand, to hear if the detective calls. It’s Monday now, it’s been four days, they must be close to arresting him. I leave the bus at Junction Road in Archway and walk past the newsagent’s, the betting shop, the lap-dancing club. In the next window, a man reclines in a chair while a barber brings a straight razor up his neck.
Cold air cuts through the thin fabric of my jumper, and I zip my coat. I check my phone again. There is a man in Windhoek, the police are going to see him, he might be my father. I don’t know how to work out the likelihood. It’s supposed to be a beautiful city, which makes the odds stronger. He would have chosen somewhere pleasant.
When I arrive, Laila is outside the practice, pulling a chain through her bike. I wait for her to finish closing the lock. She says, “Pint later?”
“Can’t tonight. Wednesday?”
She nods. It will be over by then, another false alarm. The police will have frightened an innocent man, and I’ll be in the Old Crown with Laila. She hands me her helmet while she pulls off her yellow cycling smock, then we climb the steps.
Our practice is in an ugly midcentury building with stained carpets and leaking radiators. I’m pleased at how little this bothers me. My father would hate it, I’m nothing like him.
Rahul and Harriet are in the staff kitchen fixing coffee. None of them know who I really am. We changed our names afterwards, Mum, my brother, and I, before moving to Scotland. We chose our surname, Alden, from the roads on an Ordnance Survey map. My brother used to be called Christopher, and I still sometimes call him that by accident, if I’m tired or distracted. He calls me by my old name sometimes too, but not by mistake. He was only a baby when we moved, he grew up with our new names. I think he does it deliberately, since he knows I miss it.
I look around the staff room, at Rahul laughing, Harriet shaking her head, Laurence coming in the door. Which of you would sell a story about me? If my father is found and stands trial, my name will come out. All of them will be approached. They’ll be offered ten thousand, twenty thousand pounds.
A tabloid once offered me a hundred thousand pounds for an interview and promised not to reveal my new identity. I was doing my foundation year at St. George’s Hospital and barely had enough money for food and rent. I’d give half to charity, and spend the other half on a mint-green Vespa, a winter coat, a year of groceries, the lease on a less grim flat. It was so difficult to turn it down.
Everyone at the practice would be tempted, too. But we’ve spent so much time together. I’ve known Rahul’s sons since they were born, I was at Harriet’s wedding last month. I think they would refuse the press, but they’d talk about it at home and with their friends.
Anton arrives and we follow him into the meeting room. I’ve thought about telling Laila, but I’ve waited too long, she’d be hurt that I hadn’t before in all these years. The only friend who knows is Nell, though she’ll never tell anyone.
After the meeting, I have forty-five minutes for paperwork. I sort through radiology results, blood reports, and urine tests from the hospital, marking them as normal or abnormal, noting who needs to be contacted about their results. I read through discharge summaries, call the hospital to set up more tests for three of my patients, and send another’s medical history to an allergist. I sort through the messages from pharmacists, social workers, and district nurses, working out which need responses now and which can wait for a few hours, and then it’s eight thirty and I’m opening the door to my consulting room.
My first patient has bronchitis. Then I see a boy with an ear infection, and a new mother who’s been having pain while breastfeeding. The next patient is my first new one this morning, a forty-eight-year-old man who says he’s been feeling tired. We talk about the fatigue, and I take down his history. I start to ask about his family’s history, which is when he says his sister died three months ago. “Oh,” I say. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” His face slackens, and we sit together until he’s able to talk again. I’m late from then on, though everyone seems remarkably tolerant this morning.
None of my patients can learn about my family. I know what it’s like. I remember the schoolyard, after the other girls found out. We’re adults now, but the basic responses would be the same. Some of them might not want me as their doctor anymore.
I’ve only told one boyfriend, when I was at university. We were at a café in Edinburgh, at a table outside in the sunshine. I don’t know why I started on it. We’d spent every night of the last week together, my defenses were down.
He laughed at first, and then, as I went on, he stiffened. The waiter arrived with our breakfast. Two lattes and a plate of cornettos filled with apricot marmalade. I started to eat, he didn’t. The pastry broke apart, the marmalade pooling on my plate. I continued to talk between mouthfuls. At one point, marmalade dripped down my thumb, and I licked it off. He looked at me with distaste, as though I wasn’t allowed that gesture anymore.
After work, I walk to get the Northern line instead of the bus home. On the platform, I search for my father on the Interpol site. His name appears on their fugitive list, along with old pictures of him and a police sketch of how he may have aged. I study it, even though I’ve had the profile memorized for years.
<
br /> I haven’t told my brother about the sighting. Robbie doesn’t need to know unless it turns out to be true, he wouldn’t cope well with the disappointment.
The train still isn’t in sight, but I can hear it in the tunnel, and I step to the platform edge. The rails start to shiver, like hundreds of needles are falling on them.
I change at Euston, and stay on the tube until Victoria. As the train glides into the station, I stand at the doors, facing my reflection—tired face, bangs, the rest of my dark hair up in a knot.
I haven’t been back to our old house often. It’s not hard to avoid, on a quiet street in Belgravia. I stop at the top of the road and look down the row of terraced houses. Nothing about it seems to have changed. Hooked streetlamps, tall white homes, each with a black number painted by the door. I walk past ours. Someone else lives there now. The property always sells quickly, despite its history.
The entrance is raised from the street by a few steps, and below the steps is a window into the basement. The kitchen is at its back, with doors opening onto the rear garden.
I walk to the pub on the corner, the Blacksmith’s Arms. It has the same row of copper lamps above its window, the same hanging sign.
That night, twenty-six years ago, the door opened, and a woman ran into the pub. The room fell silent as she stood panting on the threshold. The woman was wearing a dress and stockings, and she was covered in blood.
Her throat and chest were glazed red. She was wearing a headband, and it and her pale hair were stained. Wet handprints tracked over her dress, and parts of the fabric were soaked through, plastered to her stomach tight enough to show her gasping. When she opened her mouth, her teeth were stained black, and blood rolled down her chin.
No one in the pub moved. She tried to speak but couldn’t. She started again.
• • •
During the attack, my father reached his hand into Mum’s throat. At the time, it hurt so much that she thought he’d punctured it, she was feeling for the wound on her neck in the ambulance.
She fought him. He almost killed her, but she got away, and ran to the pub on our corner. She didn’t know then what my father had already done.
Emma had been living with us for nine months. After our father left, Mum hired her to help look after us. They looked similar. They were both slim, with fair hair, though Emma’s was light brown and Mum’s was ash blond.
One of the lights in the kitchen was out. My father wouldn’t have been able to see the woman clearly before he started to beat her.
I want to know when he realized he’d made a mistake. And why he didn’t stop.
He must have some guilt over Emma. He’d planned to kill Mum, not her. I wonder what he has done to atone. If he has confessed to a priest, wherever he is. I think he would enjoy the process of expiation. I expect he would think that he could be forgiven, that really he already has been.
• • •
My father’s friends said that Mum was wrong. The hallway had been dark, she’d received blows to her head, she was in shock. She couldn’t have seen the man’s face. My father was innocent, they said, and a burglar, maybe, or one of Emma’s former boyfriends had broken into the house.
Or, they said, Mum wasn’t confused, she was lying, and had staged the attack to frame my father. They were about to begin divorce proceedings, she might have lost the house, custody, access to his money. “She wasn’t stable,” said James, in an interview with the Telegraph. “You have to understand that. None of us ever knew why he was with her.”
4
A FEW WEEKS after they started dating, my father invited Mum away for the weekend to meet his friends. James was waiting to collect them at the village train station in Sussex, leaning against a battered Land Rover, polishing his glasses on his shirt. “Hello,” he said. “You must be Faye.”
She laughed. She thought he was putting on a cut-glass accent to be funny. He frowned, and she said, “Yes, yes, nice to meet you.”
They drove through the village, past a church, a few houses, and onto a narrow lane between hedgerows. The lane wasn’t wide enough for two cars to pass, but James didn’t brake at the curves. They drove past a herd of sheep, their coats marked with red paint. The paint was meant to show ownership, but made the sheep look like they’d been shot.
Colin said, “How has it been so far?”
“Sam’s already made someone leave.” He’s still doing the accent, thought Faye. That might in fact be his voice.
“Who?”
“Michael. Sam made a joke about his girlfriend. She stayed.”
Branches scraped her door. A passing car had to veer into the hedge to avoid them, and the driver sounded his horn. It began to rain. They drove through woodland until James stopped at a gate mounted with two stone lions. Once they were through the gate, Faye looked back to watch it close. They started down a long drive with acres of land on either side. Ahead of them, a house appeared and disappeared as the wipers crossed the windscreen.
She’d never seen a house like this. Or, actually, she had. Her class had been on a school visit to Chatsworth once. This was nearly as large, and made of the same yellow stone. My friend’s house in Sussex, he’d said, and she’d pictured something suburban and small. Faye hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and followed Colin to the door. Wet gravel rolled under her feet, and the trees on the lawn thrashed in the wind. High above them, water streamed from the flat roof and fell for a long time, past carved windows and pillars, before reaching the ground.
Faye stood dripping in the front hall. There was a pile of luggage against the wall, and cases of wine. She’d brought a bottle of wine too, though from a petrol station.
The front door opened behind them, and Faye turned to see a woman in a pale trench coat. “Where did you go?” asked James.
“We ran out of tonic,” she said. “Hi, Colin.” They kissed on the cheek. She had glossy, clean blond hair and a neat, delicate face. Faye stepped forward and the woman said, “Hello, I’m Rose.”
“Thank you for inviting me.”
Rose turned to the men and said, “Can you get the cases from my car?” To Faye, she said, “We’re eating in an hour. Want to drop your bags upstairs?” Faye followed her up a wide staircase and into a large guest room. She couldn’t think of anything to say, though she wanted to make a good impression. Colin had told her that Rose was like his sister, and had been with James since they were all fourteen.
After Rose left the room, Faye turned out the lights so she could see through the window. Acres of dark lawn, then woods, and a hill in the distance. No other houses. She could make out the shape of a barn, and a swimming pool. The pool had its underwater lights on, and they dimmed and brightened as the water slid back and forth in the rain.
She studied the small woodcut of the house above the dresser. Ashdown, said the frame. She tested the duvet. She opened the bottle of neroli oil next to the bed—never heard of it, she thought—and sniffed. Then she went into the bathroom, which had a Victorian slipper tub in front of a window, took off her wet coat and socks, and turned on the taps.
From the hot bath, she could hear the cold rain falling on the property. She was still in the bath when Colin came in. He kissed her, then went into the bedroom to rummage through his bag. From the bath, she said, “Colin. Did you grow up in a house like this?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have their accent.”
“I used to.”
He’d told her he went to boarding school, but she’d assumed on a scholarship. She couldn’t remember what had made her think so. His flat, maybe. He’d told her a bit about his parents, too, and now she had to revise her image of them. It was an effort, changing out the backdrop of all the stories he’d told her about his childhood, and it didn’t really work. She couldn’t picture him at four or eleven or fifteen, in a house like this. That would be a completely d
ifferent person.
She used her foot to add more hot water to the bath. He probably went to one of those schools. Harrow, or Rugby, or Westminster. “Colin. Where did you go to school?”
“Eton.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Did you like it?”
“Yes. Very much.” He came to stand in the doorway.
“What was it like?”
“It was fun. Did you like your school?”
“No,” she said.
He started to tell her about Eton, but part of her still expected him to say he was joking. “I’m surprised we weren’t expelled,” he said. “We once took all the furniture from the headmaster’s room and assembled it on the lawn.”
“Did you?” she said. Two boys had been expelled from her school. They’d torched the science block.
In the other room, Colin’s belt clattered to the floor as he stepped out of his trousers. He’d told her his father taught history. Which he did, but as a sort of hobby, apparently, not for the salary. She’d thought Colin was confident because he’d been thrown into a different world at boarding school. Not a different world at all, as it turned out. His.
They ate dinner in a formal dining room. Nine of them at a long table, with candelabras and full place settings, most of which they didn’t use. Rose set pans of lasagna down the center of the table. The room was noisy with conversation, and Faye talked mostly to Rose, who was not at an auction house, as she’d guessed, but a barrister. And funnier than she’d expected, more acerbic.
After dinner, they left their dirty plates on the table. Faye had noticed women around the house, in blue linen shirts. She lifted her plate to carry into the kitchen, and Colin said, “Leave it, it’s fine.”
