The Orphans

by Annemarie Neary

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve just been fired.’ She feels her mouth begin to distort.

  Ro looks at her steadily. He makes no attempt to comfort her. ‘No tears for Mama,’ he says. ‘But a whole torrent for the job. Oh well.’

  It’s so unfair she feels like lashing out at him. And then she has another thought. And it’s the one that’s been lying there dormant under everything else. She should be telling the police that he’s here. She really should.

  ‘Have you spoken to Eddie?’ he asks.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to discuss my mother.’

  ‘She’s mine too, Ro.’

  ‘Well, you don’t believe in her, do you?’

  ‘For God’s sake, she’s not Santa Claus. You’ve invited yourself here, Ro, but you’re not telling me the truth. I know you’re not.’ She can’t bring herself to take it any further. He starts to scratch at that arm of his, and then he turns away from her.

  ‘You shouldn’t ask me questions you don’t want to know the answers to. You shouldn’t do that.’

  The horror she feels is really a kind of blankness. Everything has been erased. There is only this now. She needs more, she needs much much more, but she can’t bring herself to ask for it. ‘Hana and Ruby are at the shop,’ he says then. ‘I forgot to check the bread situation before they went.’

  The kitchen door opens, and there they are. Hana with bags of shopping, and Ruby clutching a little knitted alien. Hana’s eyes narrow, as if she sniffs a kind of failure off Jess, a weakness she can work on. Once the shopping has been unloaded, the fridge re-stocked, Jess hunkers down next to Ruby who hands her brick after brick to be built into something unspecified. And then Hana joins them and, because Hana knows the game better than Jess does, she wins when it comes to the wall. She wins full stop. The kitchen feels too small for the four of them, and Jess moves into the hallway. But that feels too eloquently appropriate, and so she goes up to her room.

  Upstairs, Charlie has left her flowers – three or four plastic-wrapped bunches of waxy lilies in a large white vase she hasn’t seen for months. Funeral flowers. She peels off the uncomfortable suit whose skirt has worn a red welt into her waistline, the tights, the silk shirt with the thin blue stripe; their jumble on the bedroom floor is like the remains of someone she used to be. She thinks of the witch who shrinks until all that’s left is a puddle. In the wardrobe, she finds jeans, trainers, a sweater. The person she is now. She takes the vase in her arms and carries it downstairs. She finds a bucket just outside the kitchen doors, transfers the lilies to it and leaves the vase in the kitchen sink. And she’s off out the door before anyone asks where she’s going.

  Outside, the sun is knifing across the Common and, on days like this, it looks like the kind of place where nothing bad could ever happen. She wonders again if she should get a dog, now that she’s to be at home. Don’t kids like dogs? Perhaps everything would be normal if she had a dog.

  She walks through one section of the Common, then another, and almost as far as a third. Right down a long road choked with traffic and back again. She goes as far as to call up Crowe’s number on her phone, but as she rehearses her spiel, she finds she still doesn’t know what to say. Ro would have told her about Curramona, if he had been there. He might be keeping something else from her, but she’s sure he would have told her that.

  She sits on a bench looking out on a playground as if she might decipher what kind of mother Sophie might have been from watching others. Her mobile rings as she’s sitting there and she is immediately guilty when she sees that it is Charlie and hears the tension in his voice and realises that she’d completely forgotten that he’d gone away. The sound of his voice causes her to feel such a mixture of relief, embarrassment, shame that she isn’t able to answer him at first.

  ‘Jess? You still there?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’ve been fired.’

  She wonders if she’ll be able to admit that to anyone else. It is hard enough to tell Charlie. She can’t bear to be thought less than she should have been. It seems to confirm the seriousness of their predicament when she hears the catch in his breath.

  She doesn’t fill the silence, and he has the grace to do that for her. He quickly corrects himself. ‘Well, I guess lemons, lemonade. At least Ruby will be delighted,’ as if Ruby is a senior colleague who needs to show approval. He is insisting on silver linings. No more rush-hour Tube journeys wedged into some bloke’s armpit, no more fucking clients. ‘We’ll manage, Jess. Good for you. You deserve a bit of me time.’

  ‘Me time? What planet are you on, Charlie? Do you think the tooth fairy paid the mortgage, or was that the fairy godmother?’

  ‘All it takes is a bit of luck with the CFDs, and we’ll be fine. I’ll go large on sterling. Just wait and see.’

  ‘Whatever fantasy you’re clinging on to, we’re still going to need my salary.’

  He has now riled her in various different ways in just a few sentences. But he doesn’t stop there. ‘You know how you’ve always wanted her to have a proper mother? Now’s your chance. You’ll be freeing up a bit of Hana’s time, too, so maybe she could take on a bit more admin. She’d still be good to have around.’

  She cuts him off; she can always blame the Common and the terrible reception. No sooner has she dispatched Charlie than Sarah calls. ‘I heard, Jess. One of the PAs called to tell me. God, that’s grim. I’m so, so, sorry.’

  She is almost expecting Sarah to be ringing to apologise for letting her take on more work than she should have done, which is unreasonable of course, ridiculous.

  ‘Look, I hope you don’t think this is a bit presumptuous, but I emailed Delia. She’s absolutely furious about what happened. But, you know how it is, she’s not in the office right now. She’ll have to talk to Miles and to HR so … In the meantime, I’ve been in touch with a friend of mine who might be able to help. Just in case things don’t work out with, well just in case. Sally has an agency. She’s only just starting out but she’s really good. I filled her in on your experience and she’s pretty sure …’

  And Jess decides that’s what she’ll do. She will keep moving forward. But because she is not ready to speak to Charlie again, she switches off her phone and walks herself into a state of calm. By the time she heads back home, it is dusk. The sky seems backlit, mobile. It is like an exquisite silk – fierce blue, shot with purple – bordered by a frieze of silhouetted trees. Earlier, the Common felt as if it had drawn right in around her. Now, with a meeting set up for tomorrow afternoon, it has stretched back out again.

  The next afternoon, Jess leaves the house dressed for work in her navy suit like one of those Japanese salarymen who can’t forsake the briefcase. She is only gone half an hour when the knock comes at the door. Hana is in the back garden with the child, and Ro stands there for a moment in the hallway, the stairs streaming up behind him, a rhomboid of multi-jewelled light cast through the stained-glass panels and onto the tiled floor. Whoever it is ding dongs one, two, three, four times.

  ‘Lazy pig, Sparrowman,’ Hana shouts in at him from the garden. ‘Open door.’

  Eddie is leaning against the wall, his elbow propped against it. He doesn’t step forward from the mat, not immediately, and Ro just waits. Once Eddie has made his move, Ro follows him into the kitchen. He concentrates on the back of Eddie’s head, and the straggle of grey-gold hair surrounding a bald patch the colour of day-old pasta.

  ‘She isn’t here,’ Ro says, but Eddie keeps on walking.

  ‘It’s you I’ve come to see,’ Eddie says. He doesn’t bother with preliminaries. Doesn’t even sit down. ‘I’ve come to knock things on the head,’ he says, which is an unfortunate turn of phrase, all things considered. ‘This is not an easy thing to say, Sparrow, but there’s no happy ending here. I’m surprised you don’t see that. Chances are a dealer killed your parents. They killed your dad, we already know that – or at least that’s the working assum
ption. And I’m telling you now, those guys don’t believe in leaving witnesses.’

  He feels like laughing in the man’s face, but Eddie isn’t laughing.

  ‘Look, there’s any number of scenarios when it comes to that passport. Lost, stolen, sold.’

  ‘So how does it wind up in Curramona, then?’

  ‘Life is full of strange coincidences.’

  ‘Oh come on!’

  ‘You really think your mother wouldn’t have been in touch with you if she’d survived?’ He knows he’s on to something here, Ro can tell, and he moves to press home his advantage. ‘Your mother would never have walked away from you and Jess. It’s impossible.’

  Ro feels a prickling high in his sinuses and his ears are ringing with the effort it takes to hold back the tears. He could cry a salty sea right now. He could cry like he used to when they first came back to England, when he’d felt like he was the one doing the abandoning, leaving his parents a million miles away.

  ‘All Will really cared about was his fix. Sorry, man. That’s just how it was.’

  Eddie glances at the breakfast bar, then opts for a seat at the table instead. He sits without being invited, as if it’s just as much his place as Ro’s. ‘But it’s not really to do with the kind of people they were. You know? Maybe they would have pulled through. If she’d managed to get him back to England, put him into rehab, he could be here today. Some prick in Lloyd’s, whatever. I suspect whoever killed your father, killed her too. In fact, I’d say her body is somewhere near that beach, and they just haven’t found it yet.’

  He is talking as if this is about someone neither of them knows, and that angers Ro. But Eddie doesn’t seem to notice, or even care.

  ‘There’s always the possibility that she drowned. There are currents there, rip tides. It’s treacherous. Why do you think you were the only people at that end of the beach? It’s not safe to swim there.’

  ‘She didn’t swim. I was there.’

  ‘Oh come on, Sparrow. You were just a nipper. You had no idea what you saw or didn’t see. Believe me, I tried to get some sense out of you. Not a clue. So actually, forget what I said earlier. I guess maybe it was to do with who they were, you know? A little bit. That recklessness they had. And my best guess is they were down on that isolated end of the beach because that’s where Will could get his fix.’

  Ro feels bludgeoned by it all. Because he can’t seem to find the certainties he had just ten minutes ago. He starts casting around for them, but there are only shreds now.

  ‘I saw it on her arm,’ he says. ‘The tattoo.’

  Eddie knows right away who he’s talking about. ‘Maya’s from Sweden, Sparrow. And she doesn’t have a tattoo.’

  Ro laughs at that, and his spittle sprays the surface in front of him. ‘Not any more, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Never did.’

  ‘Go on then. Just ask her. See what she says.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you, man? You want to ask her about some imaginary tattoo, then do it yourself.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Eddie. I will.’

  And Eddie looks at him for a moment, really looks, as if he might be beginning to take him seriously for a change. But it doesn’t last. He thinks he’s won the argument now and he’s off on his favourite subject again, how they all were in Goa. ‘So you mustn’t blame those people who were hanging out with your parents for leaving when the shit hit the fan. They didn’t want to get mixed up with the authorities. That’s the kind of thing they’d run away from. They thought they were in paradise, man. You know? We all thought that. We didn’t want to be told about the flaws, the dangers. We just didn’t want to know. All we wanted was somewhere that was perfect. And you know what? Even if we’d found nirvana, we’d have ruined it. Your parents, they had no sense really – even less than I did myself. They were so First World, such spoilt brats.’

  Ro has almost stopped listening when, out of nowhere, the suggestion comes to him. He has no basis for it, not really. It’s just a guess.

  ‘But you were there, Eddie, weren’t you? You were on the beach that day, too. I’m sure I saw you. After they went missing. That was you, moving in the trees.’ He can’t interpret the look on Eddie’s face.

  ‘Hell, man. You were a kid. What would you know? You’ve probably imagined a dozen different scenarios. That’s cool, I get the need for imagination when a kid is trying to make sense of a bum deal. But don’t put me there because I wasn’t.’

  Ro has never seen Eddie shaken before, but he is certain now that he has hit the nail on the head. ‘Was Maya there, too?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘When did you and Maya meet?’

  Eddie shrugs, as if to indicate that they are old souls, that it’s a crass question, that in relationships like theirs there are no beginnings, and then he turns away. ‘Your parents are dead, Sparrow. You should let them be.’

  Apart from the incident with Mags, which was down to sheer provocation and not his fault at all, and excepting the woman in the alleyway (also provocation), and a couple of other times out of sheer necessity, Ro has never attacked anyone. He would not wound or cut or thump. He would not slice or hammer or flay. He would not kick or punch or bite. But Eddie gives him violent impulses. There, on the other side of the breakfast bar, this man is helping himself to coffee from Jess’s machine. Ro can see what he’s trying to do. He is trying to neutralise them both. Feeding honey to one and jam to the other to put them off the track. Telling lies to both. He wants to take the hippie by the throat and make him admit that, however he has managed it, he has stolen his mother and remade her as someone else.

  ‘Maya and I got together much later. A marriage on, in fact. Sometimes it takes a while to find your soulmate. Don’t worry, Sparrow. Your time will come.’

  And then he smiles. And the way he pronounces that childhood nickname turns it into an insult, plain and simple. There is a wooden mallet in the ceramic pot at Ro’s right elbow. Tenderise. He thinks of the bald patch, the yellowish scalp. He runs his finger on the diamond-sculpted head. That would do the job all right. But he’s not that much of a fool. He’s not a fucking idiot. ‘I hear you’re a bit of a celebrity round here. Got a reputation, Eddie. Eddie’s Ice Cream – great draw for the kiddies, right?’

  Oh yes, Ro thinks. The tongue is mightier by far.

  Eddie sits there, all puffed up with pride, and waits for the kind of flattery he gets from Jess. ‘Mango, coconut, pistachio. Make it all ourselves,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t believe the hoops you have to jump through. Health and safety, all that.’

  ‘A word in the wrong ear at the right time could ruin a business like that.’

  He stops then, and is very still. ‘What are you saying, Sparrow?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Some people will believe anything you choose to feed them. Two days in Goa when anything might have happened. Not that anything did, of course. But it might have done, Eddie. It might.’

  Eddie has never struck him as a violent person before, or not especially. But Ro feels sure that if he keeps on pushing, he will expose a nerve in Eddie that will drive him from that side of the kitchen island over to this. And he wants to push, push, push so he can see what Eddie is, so he can have that much revealed at least.

  ‘Next thing, there could be mothers warning kiddies off your ice cream. Stay away from Ed’s, they’ll say.’

  Eddie is on his feet now. As he heads towards the door it’s clear that he’s not biting. He turns to face Ro. ‘They keep upping the hygiene regs, but I’ve got that cracked now. As for anything else, Sparrow, don’t ever feel that lies will soothe your pain.’

  And it’s frustrating to have an adversary who is so at home under his own skin.

  ‘Do you live together then, yourself and—’ He isn’t keen on using the made-up name.

  ‘Maya?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Eddie shakes his head at that, more in mock sorrow than in anger. ‘We live together, yes.’

/>   And he wants to ask if he could meet her privately – just the two of them. But why should Eddie be the one who decides if a man has access to his mother?

  Eddie walks over to the bifold doors that open onto Jess’s gravelled garden. He stands there a moment and raises his hand to Hana, or pretends to – Ro can’t see from where he’s sitting. And then he turns back into the room.

  ‘She’s done well,’ he says, ‘your sister. Jess isn’t always trying to remake the world. She’s a realist. I’d take a leaf.’

  It isn’t clear whether he’s making a recommendation or just referring to himself. He turns then and walks towards the door. ‘People have second passports all the time,’ he says. ‘It’s no big deal. Her birth name, so what? She had a perfect right to that name. And even if someone did use it to get into the country, so what to that, too? Maybe they realised it made sense to chuck it afterwards, just in case. Who knows how it might have found its way home?’ He turns around then to face Ro. ‘Whatever, man. I wish you peace.’

  Ro watches Eddie walk the length of the dark stretch of corridor between the kitchen and the gleaming hall, sauntering along as if he’s got a right to be there. But of course it’s all an act. Eddie came here when he knew that Jess would be out. He came to put the lid on Ro’s suspicions. Unless, of course, Jess is in on it all, keeping him like a mushroom in the dark as she’s always done. How he wishes he could switch people off and find their resting face, the place where the truth lies, before they get a chance to rearrange it. How to disable his mother long enough? How to keep her there until she gives the answers?

  Ro takes the meat mallet from its jug and tests it against the back of his hand. The wooden spikes feel medieval. He lifts it like a hammer, just an inch or two, then lets it fall onto the back of his hand. The pain is not exactly pleasurable, but it does produce a sense of reality. He will try to keep that in mind. He will try to preserve the clarity of the look she gave him at the party, which was a look of recognition, he is sure. Now that he’s found the cottage, he can see a way through. But, parked right in the middle of the Common in a red van, there is a problem. Eddie. He will have to find a way to get rid of Eddie. He barely realises that Hana has come back in from the garden, holding the baby by the hand. She edges past him, her eyes fixed on the mallet.