‘You look like something from a film,’ she says.
She has already left by the time he thinks to ask her which film. And even if he knew the film, he’d want to know which part. The boy who walked into the path of the lorry? Or the lorry driver who didn’t stop? The abandoned boy? Or the shadow moving in the inky trees?
12
On his way to find Nefertiti in the café on the Common, he encounters a couple with matching quiffs who have let their dogs off the leash. Their Afghan hounds, all long-haired seventies chic, lollop across the golden gravel between the café and the bandstand. His father’s lot were doggy people – beagles and lurchers. As a boy, he’d imagined being companion to a St Bernard, digging people out of avalanches and offering them brandy from a little barrel slung around the dog’s neck. Thanks to Ladybird, he’s a bit of an expert when it comes to dogs. He glances back, and the seventies dogs are chasing one another, round and round the bandstand like a circus act.
A pigeon lands in front of him, harrying a discarded muffin. He only knows the obvious birds. Crows and magpies and pigeons. And sparrows of course. He doesn’t know what a chaffinch looks like, or how it sounds. But there were birds on that beach, or in the trees at least. He’s sure there were birds, flumping up into the trees.
In the café on the Common, it is summer in Sicily. Bottles of greenish olive oil, filled on the premises, tourist posters of shimmering seas, a pyramid of oranges ripe for squeezing. A bearded man in glasses peers into the chill cabinet where home-made cannoli filled with pistachio cream are lined up like fat slugs. Ro glances around for Nefertiti, but she isn’t there. At the counter, a kid is being held up to the glass to select from speckled cupcakes, iced in half a dozen colours. Ro looks out at the bandstand and conjures birds he has no name for, then imagines them swooping and pecking with sharpened beaks at Eddie, at that U-shaped patch of scalp.
The doors from the kitchen swing open and there is Nefertiti – the black swipe of her eyes, the thick ropes of hair coiled up on the back of her head, the thin arms tattooed with thick rings of pigment and weighted down with bangles. When she spots him she stands back a little, does a double take, then has a chew on the little stud in her upper lip.
‘What’s up?’ She sounds offhand, and there is a cough in her voice.
‘Big news,’ he says. ‘I think I’ve found my mother.’
Her wiry little tattooed arms are working away on stretching circles of mozzarella and salami over puffy oblongs of ciabatta, twisting and clanking and tapping at the coffee machine that is steaming and frothing by her side.
‘Uh-huh?’ she says.
He knows she doesn’t believe him, which is a pity. He has imagined Nefertiti taking care of his captive mother. She would be good at that.
‘You around later, Nef?’ he says.
She does that double take of hers again. ‘Amanda, remember? But yeah, I suppose I could be around.’
And with the surge of satisfaction that gives him, there are the beginnings of a plan.
He plugs himself into Jon Hopkins as he walks back towards Jess’s house. But Jon isn’t in tune with how he’s feeling now, with this new mellow vibe. To match this heart of his gone green, he finds some piano music. Chopin, to make him float. And as he passes under the great avenue of chestnuts, his heart rises like freshly baked bread and he imagines himself a stork, not a sparrow. If he were a stork, with a sash in his beak, this is where he would take his mother. He would carry her up into the high branches, make a nest there for her. He would keep her safe from predators, out of reach of the grubby little world. And as he feels his better self begin to soar again, he doesn’t try to quash it. Up he floats, up and up, until the whole Common is a flat pattern of itself. There are Velux windows glinting blindly up at him, neat squares of feng shui gravel around lily-padded ponds.
He is still light-headed when he returns to earth, still filled with bliss. He is just about to turn into Riverton Street when a man steps in front of him, and stretches out a hand in greeting.
‘Sparrow Considine?’
‘What’s it to you?’
The man falls into step beside him. ‘Mervyn Price, Daily Post. I was hoping for a word or two?’
‘Fuck. Off. That do?’
‘We’ve had a chat with Jess. It would be nice to chat to you. About the passport, your mum, what it’s like to be one of the Orphans. Your take on it all.’
‘My take?’
And there she is, Mags Madden. Back again and whispering in his ear, ‘Have a little take,’ so that he can no longer hear what the journalist is saying. All he can do is follow the flap of the man’s mouth as he witters on. When he sees the second man, standing at the bus stop with a camera in his hand, Ro flips. He raises his boot and back-heels the fellow nearest to him in the thin skin of his calf. He lurches towards the other man, grabbing at the camera, but its owner is too quick. He is still click click clicking as Ro legs it towards the house.
Inside the door, Hana has her hand over her mouth. She has seen it all, and is laughing.
‘Temper, temper,’ she says.
Ruby looks at him as if he’s mad. Her eyes are round, stargazy. She glances at Hana for reassurance, and Hana pulls a face at her. ‘Silly Mr Boo Boo Man,’ she says.
Ruby laughs, a trilling baby laugh. Not often you hear mirth of that quality. And then she lunges for one of her plush bunnies, and Ro is forgotten.
‘You need a drink?’ Hana says. ‘Because I know I do. I don’t want association with these things. It is way too much trouble for me.’
He ignores all that, and heads for the kitchen cupboards in search of booze.
‘Wrong way, Sparrowman,’ Hana says. ‘In dining-room sideboard there is vodka, gin, whisky. Whatever you like.’
Hana asks for a large vodka with a dash of Red Bull. Ro has a gin. He doesn’t even like gin, but the bitterness soothes him.
Ruby seems to be taking to him. He feeds her a cookie and she loves him for it. It strikes him then how easy it would be to steal the child’s heart away from all the people who want only what is good for her. Ro doesn’t believe in what is good for him, and never did. He believes in pleasure and results. Ruby has an instinct for those things, too, and they are getting on wonderfully well.
While Hana puts her feet up, Ro turns Jess’s drawing room into the set from Teletubbies with a huge mound of cushions in the centre of the room. He and Ruby stagger-tumble in and out among them, and he lets her bring her scooter into the house so that they can be Laa-Laa and Po until Ruby exhausts herself and nestles between two of the cushions.
‘Fuck this place and this job,’ Hana says, as she pours herself another generous two fingers. ‘Tonight you will have to put yourself to bed, Roobs. That right, Rooby Roobs?’
Ruby grabs her own bottle and sucks on it solemnly, her eyes passing back and forth between Ro and Hana. And then she fingers the little fleece blanket beside her. Her eyes stop moving then, and she looks like she is entering a kind of trance.
‘She is pooh nappy,’ Hana says. ‘I can tell.’
‘Well I’m not changing her,’ Ro says, and suddenly this seems like the funniest thing in the world. They both start to laugh, and Hana takes the gin bottle from him and tops up both their glasses.
‘I wonder when Jess will be back,’ he says.
‘Don’t worry about Jess,’ says Hana. ‘You think Jess is going to do anything if she finds me having a little drink? You must be kidding. Even without job, she needs me, Sparrow. She can’t do Ruby all by herself. Can she, Roobs? No. Mama no good. No. Mama bad mama bear.’
And even through the fug of gin, a chill passes through him when Ruby shakes her head along.
‘That’s right, baby,’ Hana says to Ruby. ‘Mama no good at all.’
They don’t move Ruby out into the garden until Ro decides that he wants a cigarette. Hana points to the little walled terrace between the kitchen extension and the French doors of the dining room. ‘That’s where her “D
ad” goes,’ she says and throws her head back and laughs. ‘I’m sure you can go there too. If you like.’
‘I’m good,’ Ro says. He strikes a match and cups his hand to save the flame.
Jess is twenty minutes early for the meeting with the agency. She is not familiar with the area near City Hall, where a whole new quarter seems to have sprouted up when she wasn’t looking. She finds a Prêt and sits there with a double espresso, scrolling through her depleted inbox as she waits for the clock to grind around to four. The job is as close to ideal as she could hope to find. Right level of experience, partnership potential, in-depth knowledge of the sector required. There aren’t many candidates around who have done as much energy M&A as Jess has. If there is a perfect job, come at just the right moment, this is it.
The agent is a woman in her late thirties. A former lawyer, she seems relaxed, almost carefree, and Jess can’t help wondering whether this might be a less stressful way to earn a living. But the salary wouldn’t be enough to service the huge mortgage they have on Riverton Street, so there’s no point going there. Jess tries not to seem too anxious about salary, but even the small hints she gives that she is looking to be paid at least as well as she was before, that decent partnership prospects are vital, are translated by the woman on the other side of the desk into questions of competency and suitability.
‘I’m sure you’ll be up to the role. After all, it’s still going to be contracts, more or less. When you boil it all down, what isn’t?’
The agent sits back in her chair, moving her head a little as if to get a better purchase on Jess’s face. She taps her hands on the desk in front of her and her rings clink. And, even though her rational mind recognises the extreme unlikelihood of the woman having any idea that she is one of the Orphans, Jess is gripped by a kind of panic. She is the new girl at school again, and someone has left offerings on her desk – an eraser in the shape of a teddy bear, a packet of Skittles, alms for the Orphan. She reaches forward for the jug of water and it pours too freely, jerking the water out in splashes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Stressful time.’
The agent doesn’t react, but her eyes do. Jess decides that she must have read the Daily Post, and is matching name to name, face to face. The thought that someone she has never seen before, whose name is Sally Something, and whom she will likely never see again, might already know about the single incident that defined her childhood is devastating. She feels undermined, exposed.
‘If you’d like to take a moment.’
The woman is perfectly nice, if that’s the word. But there is an uncomfortable prickling of sweat on Jess’s forehead. Her mouth seems to have dried out, and she can feel her confidence start to drain away.
Sally Something has her face to one side as if waiting for an answer to a question she hasn’t asked yet. But Jess is suddenly incapable of speech, because the only thing she could possibly say right now is yes, I do, I miss her. I have always missed her. I am only a scrap of the person I should be. She manages to make an excuse about feeling unwell before sidling out of the room, but she has lost a golden chance here, and she knows it.
As she crosses the Common it feels as if there is a wind behind her, pushing her on and on, as if there’s some urgency she hasn’t discovered yet. She is sharp with anxiety, because she needs a job, and soon. The lump sum from the trust was enough to pay the deposit and it allowed them to do the place up, but that’s gone now and the mortgage soaks up most of what she earns. Her mobile rings, a number she doesn’t recognise. Crowe sounds more formal today, more official.
‘I’ll talk to Ro, Officer,’ she says, and she can hear her voice hoarsen as she says it. ‘Just as soon as I can contact him.’ She clears her throat and starts again because she has never lied to a policeman before. She has hardly ever lied, full stop. ‘My mother disappeared twenty-five years ago. I mean, it’s not as if this is urgent.’
‘Urgent means different things to different people,’ he says. ‘I’m sure what seems urgent to your clients makes not the slightest bit of difference to me.’
‘Getting back to see my kid,’ she says. ‘That’s urgent to me. Today, right now, that’s what urgent means. Ro, well, Ro will show up when he does.’ She hasn’t actually said she hasn’t seen him. She keeps telling herself that.
‘I’m going to have to make myself a bit clearer here, I can see that. The Irish, you see. They’d like a word with your brother. Because Ms Madden didn’t just keel over, you see. There’s evidence of an assault.’
‘Ro doesn’t go to Ireland. He’s got no reason to.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. You knew there was a sighting of your mother recently?’
‘I don’t pay attention to sightings. There’s always some nutter.’
‘Well, you’re right, of course. But this time? She was seen right near where you used to go on holiday. Right near where the Madden woman lived.’ And now she’s on alert, and dread sweeps round her like an old grey curtain. ‘Local thing, really, though it did hit an inside column in one of the nationals. Irish Independent? Know it?’
She knows it.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this because it’s not my case, but you need to understand how serious this is now. The night Mags Madden died, a local taxi man brought some bloke – young, with an English accent – out to the house. He remembered the fare because the house is a bit of a wreck. Odd place to visit, and all that. I suppose I just wanted to know if that young English bloke might be Sparrow. I suppose you might want to know that too. Because if Sparrow comes and talks to me before this all gets out of hand – if we can clear this up – then I’d like that and I know you’d like that too.’
She manages to bring herself to thank him.
‘I want to help. I’m on the same side. Just remember that. So, you’ll get in touch now, Jess, won’t you? Just as soon as you’ve spoken to your brother.’
As she walks the familiar route along the edge of the Common, she follows a long, meandering crack spooling down the centre of the path. It must always have been there, but she’s never noticed it before. It’s as if the earth has undergone a shift that has only just become apparent. In the distance, she can hear the mechanical drone and thump of drum and bass. Nearing Riverton Street, the volume seems to rise. As she turns into the street, Reg from opposite is standing at his gate, hands on hips, scanning the top windows of her house. He gestures to her, and she nods, but the only word she catches is ‘racket’. Meanwhile, two kids she doesn’t recognise are standing in the middle of the street, headbanging along to the music.
She smartens her step and slams the gate shut behind her. The air inside her house is sweet with smoke and booze. Ro is stretched out on the floor, propped up against the big leather beanbag she bought for Charlie last year. At first he doesn’t answer and then he looks up at Hana and they collapse in giggles like a pair of naughty children.
Jess feels patronised, then suddenly panicky. ‘Where’s Ruby?’ she says.
Ro looks more substantial than he’d seemed that first night, when he was just a flickering shape in the candlelit garden. Maybe she wasn’t looking properly then, or perhaps was remembering him from before. He’d seemed like a child then, but he is a presence now. His shoulders have a heft to them. Even his face seems less ethereal. His eyes, always a little vague, are pinprick sharp and greener than she remembered. And when she notices that he is wearing Charlie’s jumper, it makes her furious to think of Ro in their room, rifling through their things.
‘I said, where’s Ruby?’ She’s having trouble controlling her voice, and it sounds high-pitched, comical.
‘She’s in the garden, yeah?’
‘On her own?’
‘Because of smoke,’ Hana says. ‘Be cool. It’s safe. She has her Wendy house. She is happy in her Wendy house for twenty minutes, more. We check her. If she falls over, if she gets upset, she calls me. No problem.’
‘You can’t leave a toddler alone in a garden.’
Ro sits up, and it’s almost as though he’s joining them for the first time. ‘What’s wrong?’ he says.
She doesn’t scream or shout. That’s never been her way. She just turns to Hana. ‘You can go now,’ she says.
‘What you mean, go?’
‘Just leave, please.’
Jess doesn’t wait for an answer. She rushes into the garden where her daughter is sitting on the damp grass and playing with a whole regiment of the miniature plastic toys she has forbidden Hana to buy.
As soon as she lifts Ruby, who feels warm and wet, the child bursts into tears. So often, when presented with the option, Ruby has reached for Hana, glaring at Jess as if she is an intruder. But this time she clings to Jess, reclaiming her. And through her fury, Jess welcomes that. She presses the child to her and carries her in from the garden while Hana hovers at the door. Ruby blanks her nanny, gripping her knitted alien even tighter than before. Jess is surprised to see a tear poised on the very edge of Hana’s lower eyelid, held in check by a clot of mascara. She doubts its authenticity, but it is satisfying all the same. The upper hand feels good; she should have taken it months ago.
‘It shouldn’t take you long to pack. I’ll be waiting down here to see you out the door.’
‘The thing is,’ Hana starts, her eyes flickering as she swipes a finger under them. ‘It was no big deal. You can punish me, if you like. But it was nothing. You can have, if you want.’
Jess doesn’t ask her to explain. The inference is just about ambiguous enough to be ignored. Besides, her mind is on Ro now, and all those unanswered questions. She clutches Ruby to her like a warm, wet doll. Closes her eyes and glides her cheek across the child’s silky hair.
The Orphans Page 17
