‘He said it was better for me. Better for my mum. Better for my dad.’
‘Better for him?’ Anselm wasn’t being wry; he wanted to know if Tabley had dared to bring himself into the equation.
‘He didn’t say.’
Justin hadn’t shaved; he was scratching his jaw as if he might claw the bristles out. His eyes were on the imaginary scree far below. The rocks where his life was lived out. Where he crouched and hid and cut himself. He seemed to be looking at Fraser’s dismembered body.
‘How old were you?’ asked Anselm.
‘Eleven.’ Justin sniffed, embarrassed.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘How could I? His photo was on the wall. He’d married my parents. My little brother was named after him.’
Dominic raised his eyes as if his father had picked up that knife again. Justin didn’t need any more prompting. He was already talking about the now familiar pattern of accidents, apologies and power. It could have been Harry speaking, but it was Justin. He was unravelling their shared history. Nothing would be left but the loom. And Anselm leaned back, exhausted, knowing this was the moment Edmund Littlemore and George Carrington had been waiting for. This was the end result of Dunstan’s dying bid to catch a kind of war criminal. Anselm barely listened. He absented himself, thinking of the night sky, because Justin wasn’t really speaking to him; he wasn’t even speaking to his father; he was speaking to his brother, the one who’d been spared a lifetime’s self-disgust, and so much more. The one who’d met Emily and settled down. The one who’d grown to enjoy a good book in the evening.
‘He started becoming really friendly with you,’ said Justin, as if angling to see behind one of those sharp stones. ‘And I just knew it was a warning so I said, “Please don’t touch him.”’
And with that plea, a boy had come to an unspoken agreement with a man of God: that he could do whatever he liked to Justin, as long as he left Dominic alone.
‘He’d say sorry,’ said Justin, sniffing again. ‘Sorry for what he’d done and for what he’d made me do. He’d cry, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. Because I was disgusting … but he’d be holding onto my hand. That’s how I knew he’d be back. We both knew he’d be back.’
That’s when he started wearing the mask from Sierra Leone. While Maisie was out giving evening classes and Martin was in Saigon and Dominic was asleep next door, the Chief would come into Justin’s room as if they’d been playing in the garden. It wasn’t Tabley, not really; and it wasn’t Justin either. In time the Chief stopped saying sorry. It was as though neither of them was involved.
Anselm came to Justin’s assistance because there was too much to say, too much for Dominic to understand. It would take time; an awful lot of time. ‘When did it come to an end, Justin?’
‘When Tabley was transferred to Newcastle.’ At last he looked up. ‘I was fourteen.’
‘Three years?’
‘Yes. And then he shook my hand.’
‘Shook your hand?’ echoed Dominic.
‘Yeah. As if we’d been through hell together. Said he’d asked to be moved as far away from London as possible. Said he wanted a fresh start. Said you didn’t always have to talk about everything.’
In fairness, Sagittarius is one of the harder ones to find, thought Anselm. You have to look for a ‘teapot’, with the Milky Way coming out of the spout – the Milky Way is the steam – and once you see it, the whole sky takes on a new meaning. But it’s not easy. There’s no obvious link between an archer and a teapot. For a long time Anselm had seen nothing but the steam.
‘Why didn’t you say something to me?’ asked Dominic.
‘You were only eight. It didn’t seem right. And anyway, I think you’ve forgotten.’
‘Forgotten what?’
‘I kept telling you to stop asking Tabley to play the monster in the garden. You were the only one who liked it.’
Dominic had to move. He stood up as if there were insects crawling over his skin. He plucked at his shirt and jerked his head, listening to Justin talk as he’d never talked before. He could have been describing the weather. How he’d tried to escape the guilt until, twenty odd years later, somewhere between narcotic rapture and prescribed medication, he’d told his father enough of what had happened to make any further hiding a waste of time.
‘Heroin?’ repeated Dominic, leaning his head against the wall.
‘You never get over what’s happened,’ said Justin. ‘It’s there all the time. It surfaces when you least expect it, when you’re about to have a great time, when you’ve met someone special, when you’re sitting in the dark. It comes back. Like a pointing finger. Kitchener’s. Only it’s not “Your Country Needs You”. It’s “You Are Dirt”. “You’re shop-soiled”.’
Dominic couldn’t turn away from the wall. Justin was explaining how, having told his dad, he thought things would be different. He’d shifted some of the weight by sharing the secret. He’d started the Bowline. But that had been a distraction, really, something that took him outside of himself. A finger can’t point at you when you’re too busy to walk slowly down the street; too busy to read a good book; too busy to meet someone special. He’d tried to salvage something from the experience: he’d used it, once or twice, to reach people who couldn’t be reached. People like Fraser.
‘He told me I should have left him lying on the tracks … so I told him my story, told him I knew what it was like to die and stay alive. And then he told me he’d been abused, too. That he’d been handed round the staff in a care home. I believed him … I thought I understood him better than anyone …’ For a moment Justin’s eyes glazed; and Anselm knew he was back on the bridge, being taunted. He’d faced his worst nightmare. Fraser had farmed the experience of his victims to give himself credibility … taken their tears and resistance to kindle some pity; and Justin, quick to believe and slow to question, hadn’t only been fooled, he’d given him another opportunity. He’d placed him at the heart of his own family.
‘I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,’ whispered Dominic, his forehead still against the wall. ‘I can’t begin to understand what you’ve felt all these years … but you brought Fraser into my home.’
‘I thought he could be trusted … I thought he was a—’
‘You did nothing, Justin. Harry told you what that bastard had done to him and you did nothing. Why didn’t you at least get rid of him?’
‘I tried, but he wouldn’t leave. He refused. He was keeping an eye on Harry, making sure he didn’t speak—’
‘But you’re the one who told Harry to keep quiet. Why? For the sake of the family? It doesn’t make any sense. You’ve pulled the family apart.’
Justin glanced at his father, and Martin’s hands rose as if to cover his mouth. His intimations were taking shape. ‘I can’t help you any more, son. You have to explain yourself. Too many people have been hurt. We don’t understand … Why didn’t you expose Fraser?’
‘After I’d kicked his teeth in he vowed it would never happen again.’
‘So what?’ snapped Dominic, coming away from the wall.
‘He said if I didn’t keep quiet … if I didn’t help him keep Harry quiet … then he’d tell the BBC, he’d tell everybody in the street, he’d tell the police, he’d—’
‘I don’t give a damn who he threatened to tell. I’d tell the BBC. I’d go to the police.’
‘That’s not what stopped me, Dominic. He threatened to tell Mum.’
Dominic frowned. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? You put your hand over Harry’s mouth because you didn’t want Mum to know about Tabley?’ He moved to the chair vacated by Maisie, sitting on the edge, glaring at his brother. ‘That’s what you call keeping us together? Putting my son through hell? Because Mum adored Tabley?’
‘No, Dominic. I don’t. It’s what I call being trapped, doing what you don’t want to do because you’re so confused you can’t see straight, because you can’t sleep at night
, because you daren’t get up in the morning, because if Fraser had said anything, it wasn’t only about Tabley and it wasn’t only about me. It was about Mum herself.’
‘What do you mean?’
Justin faltered – and in that instant, Anselm realised that Justin had lied. And with great skill. He’d said he couldn’t speak out because of Tabley’s standing: his photo was on the wall, he’d married his parents … Dominic had been named after him. But under Dominic’s questioning this unchallenged explanation now crumbled. Justin showed a spark of protest but then – amazingly – it simply vanished, like a blown-out flame. He spoke through a kind of haze: ‘I told her, Dominic. Right at the start. I told her everything. Dad was in Cambodia and I went to Mum and I told her what had happened and I asked her to stop him. But she didn’t believe me. I’d told all this to Fraser. He was threatening to tell her she was to blame … tell everyone. Not just family. The press. The police. The court. Anyone who’d listen.’
Dominic was shaking his head, smiling insanely. Martin’s arms had dropped apart and he was looking at the ceiling as if he’d been crucified.
‘You told Mum?’ echoed Dominic. ‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That’s not possible. She must have said something.’
‘She didn’t.’
Dominic tried again. ‘She must have reacted … She must have done something.’
Justin seemed to look back at that now distant moment. And for a second or so, he turned into that frightened, trusting boy. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I forgot. She went into the kitchen and made some tea.’
48
Robert’s mother had left the flickering candles behind and brought Robert into the sitting room. She’d turned on a lamp stand, sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion beside her.
‘Come on, sit down.’
Robert had obeyed and his mother had reached over and taken a hand to hold in her lap. She’d been calm, stroking his skin. A memory of childhood had returned to Robert like a delicious smell: he’d been wounded by Sharon Hogan and his mother had smoothed away the pain with her own stories of heartbreak; how girls only hurt the ones they love.
‘I want you to be brave, Robert,’ she’d said. ‘I want you to try and understand that very complicated situations can arise in life and we don’t necessarily know how to handle them; all we can do is our best, and our best can never be good enough.’
Robert had accepted the preamble. By the time she’d finished chapter and verse, so to speak, his universe had changed irrevocably. For better or for worse? He sat by the lamp stand, arguing the merits.
‘I’d planned to leave,’ she said, running her thumb along a vein in Robert’s hand.
‘I’d arranged to go to Bristol. The police had got reports of someone looking like Andrew, so I’d found a flat and a job and I’d bought a railway ticket. A couple of days before I was due to go a young girl came to the door. She was lovely. Dark brown eyes the size of saucers. Long auburn hair with a braid. But she was very confused. Far too young to be a mother. You see, in her arms was a baby. A little boy.’ Her thumb pressed hard into Robert’s skin. ‘She wanted to keep him but she couldn’t. She was still at school, she had no support at home, and she hadn’t seen Andrew for months. Hadn’t told him that she was expecting because she hadn’t known herself. Social Services were involved and they’d talked of adoption. But the beautiful girl with the auburn hair had another idea.’
Robert closed his eyes, feeling his other hand being taken and pressed on top of the other. She’d done that, too, when he was small. She’d clasped his two hands together between hers, like she was doing now. He’d always thought it was her way of trying to hold all of him at once.
‘I’m not your mother, Robert. I’m your grandmother. And the man you deeply loved was not your father. He was your grandfather. Your father is Andrew. And he came back looking for you when he found out about your birth. But it was too late, by then … at least, that’s what we’d thought. Because you’d grown. Your grandfather had changed – he really had; he wasn’t the same man; he was a gentle, good and a sorry man. And you adored him. You ran to him whenever you saw him. You brought him stones off the ground and shells off the beach. He’d been to you what he’d longed to be with his own son. You were twelve.’ Robert’s grandmother released her grip, but he didn’t pull away. She was touching him lightly, accepting that he was grown now, that she had no hold on him. ‘Andrew went to Muriel using a false name. Cleaned her windows for years. And when he got to know her, he told her who he really was. Muriel came to me. We met secretly. And then we told Alan. But we couldn’t think of a way to tell you. Because Andrew couldn’t replace the man you thought was your father … your dad … he could only destroy what had grown slowly over the years between you – and so he let you go so that you could have what he longed to give you himself, what he’d never had … a happy childhood.’
Robert lost track of his grandmother’s words. Because, in a strange way, he knew the rest. He knew so much. He knew why his ‘mother’ had been crisp with her husband. He knew why his ‘father’ had always looked vaguely worried and anxious to please. He knew – especially because his grandmother hadn’t said it – that the great transformation had come too late for them as a couple: that she’d probably forgiven him, or tried to – seeing him so changed – only to find she could never love him again; she’d lost too much; love had gone its way trying to find Andrew.
‘I sent him photographs of you, school reports, everything. He knows you as well as anyone. He came to school plays, sports days, concerts. You’ve never noticed him because he’s always been there. Never too close, never too far away. He’s got a collection of cuttings – everything you’ve ever written in the Chronicle and the Guardian. He’s often followed you from work, or passed you in the street on your way home. He’s stood in queues. He’s waited in the rain never knowing if you’d turn up where you sometimes go. You’ve never been out of his mind since the day he found Sandra, your mother, and she told him where you were.’ His grandmother ran a hand through his hair. ‘He knows you as if he’d never been away. After your grandfather died, Alan gave him a job on the Chronicle. The idea was that he’d get to know you just like he’d got to know Muriel, to build something without the burden of the past, without any shocks or confusion … something natural and normal. To bridge the distance slowly until the time was right … but within a week you got the job on the Guardian.’ Robert’s grandmother smiled gently, at home in her new role. ‘Get to know him, Robert. He’ll help you come to understand your grandfather. And he’ll help you understand yourself, too, because that’s part of what it is to have a father … They know and understand things that no one else can.’
Yet again, she’d left herself out of the reckoning. Robert took his hands back. He wasn’t simply disorientated, he was deeply ashamed. For most of his life he’d judged this incredible woman to be remote, never appreciating the sacrifice she’d made. He’d punished her, even as a boy, calling her ‘Mother’ rather than ‘Mum’. As a man, he’d taunted her. He’d wounded her. He’d made her pay. He’d rewarded his ‘dad’.
‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t know what to call her. ‘Mum’ was off the menu.
‘So am I, Robert. Let’s accept each other’s mistakes, however grave, however stupid, however thoughtless. There is no other way forward.’
After standing up, she smoothed her skirt and went back to join her son. She’d made some pitte dolci di Pasqua Sweet Easter turnovers. Robert’s favourite. He’d seen them on a plate by a bottle of moscato.
Robert thought he might just leave. He could step outside and they wouldn’t even know he’d gone until they heard the door clip shut. He could head back to Tooting and get smashed. He could take his time to get used to this new and frightening world. Or he could go and join his family for dessert. That was the long and the short of it. He gazed around the room. All trace of his grandfather had gone. Nothing remaine
d. Save the memory of a man who’d loved him. And even he was strangely remote, like a retreating ghost. When Robert felt quite alone, he took a deep breath and turned off the light. His dad was waiting for him – on the other side of a half-open door.
49
Martin found the bottle of Bunratty potcheen, bought during the fateful holiday in Kerry and never opened. According to the gnarled vendor, it was ‘the treasured spirit of life and a cure for all ills’. He’d winked and laughed, wrapping the ancient medicine in old newspaper. Martin filled four small glasses and then retired to a corner chair, listening – like Anselm – to Justin’s continued unravelling. Ultimately, Anselm thought the process completely mysterious. After thirty years of silence, you’d have thought the weave would be too tight; that there’d be a need for tugging and tearing; but no: paradoxically, the threads were loose. All it had taken was for the most important one to snap.
Dominic couldn’t understand his brother’s experience, how he’d managed to conceal what had happened, and Justin tried to explain: how silence gets more and more powerful over time; how it becomes almost physically impossible to open your mouth; how showing what you feel – an ordinary response for Dominic – was a forbidding and dangerous task for Justin. You learned to live in a prison, in solitary, where you can’t cause any harm. And by the time Justin cracked up in his early thirties, there was no way out of the building, because, by then, Tabley was a household name: he’d become a sort of Mother Teresa around the docklands. Maisie had considered him a saint. She’d lobbied for the MBE. She’d written to the cardinal saying Tabley should be made a papal knight. How on earth could Justin stand up against all that? Who was he to bring an admired man down for something that had happened twenty years before?
‘But you must have done something?’ Dominic was looking at his father; but his father just closed his eyes: this was Justin’s moment.
The Silent Ones Page 24
