In a True Light

by John Harvey

  Sloane picked up a newspaper from one of the other tables and scanned the front page. ESCAPE FROM HELL read the headline. ‘Paras go in. Airlift of trapped Britons begins.’ In the central photograph an African youth, no more than fourteen or fifteen, lay on his side, eyes open, blood spilling from beneath his Nike shirt like paint spread too thick across pink and arid ground.

  Sloane realised he didn’t know from which country in Africa Dumar came.

  The dress shop on Kentish Town Road where Sloane’s mother had worked had long since been bulldozed aside to make room for offices, shoddy now in their seventies concrete and glass. Higher up the street the bookshop where he had spent his birthday money on the adventures of Biggles and his mother had bought him the Cadet edition of The Cruel Sea had been replaced. The Palace cinema was home now to the Community Health Council, the Gaisford a block of flats. Real Irishmen and women drank in fake Irish pubs. Posted everywhere, police flyers asked for information about a fatal shooting near the railway bridge, for witnesses to a skirmish in the local McDonald’s, two youths stabbed in the middle of an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon. Woolworths was still where Sloane remembered it, but now there were uniformed guards on duty just inside the doors.

  Immediately past the Tube station he turned right, then left, skirting the Brecknock to pass the basement flat he and his mother had moved into the year he started secondary school. Two rooms and a kitchen in which the radio always seemed to have been playing: Geraldo, Joe Loss, Ken Macintosh. His mother singing along, knowing all the words. His mother’s dressmaking dummy stood in the living room close by her sewing machine. Lengths of material, carefully pinned, lay draped across the Put-U-Up that folded out to become his bed. Letters from his father in America that she would read to him again and again.

  Summer evenings when clients called round for a fitting, he would be let out to run the streets, cadging cigarettes from his mates and passing round copies of Hank Jansen and Peter Cheyney, soiled and thumbed; calling after the girls from the council flats on the corner, daring them to play strip poker, lift their skirts.

  Now Sloane walked the length of the street where, in winter months, he had played football till light faded and his mother called him home. He crossed into a small children’s playground, deserted save for an au pair listening to her Walkman as she leafed through the pages of Hello!, and a fair-haired two-year-old jumping, again and again, from the bottom of the metal slide into the sandpit.

  Sloane sat on the furthest of three wooden benches and slipped the brown envelope from his pocket: photographs of a girl who might be his daughter spilled into his hands.

  Connie at twelve or thirteen, lower lip jutting out as she glared at the camera with teenage disdain; older and happier, dark-haired and smiling, she and Jane together by the sea, more like sisters than mother and daughter – Rimini 77, written on the back in Jane’s steeply angled hand. Images of Connie as a toddler, the same age, more or less, as the child who had now tired of the sandpit and was calling to be pushed on the swing: in some of these she is laughing, Connie, carefree; in others the pout is already in place, the fierce stare.

  Only one picture showed her as a young woman, mid-twenties, caught mid-stride crossing a slatted bridge in what is clearly Venice, the oval of her face pale against the blue and terracotta buildings behind.

  And one last, small and creased, a damp-haired baby, just born, slippery in her mother’s arms.

  Sloane spread the photographs out, chronologically, along the bench. Searching for what? Some semblance of himself? What he saw was a child growing into a woman: someone who, though capable of happiness, was angry, unhappy, straining to be away.

  ‘She was no good,’ Valentina had said, their last conversation before he had left Italy. ‘Connie. By the time she left to go to America she was already no good. Every week Jane would write, begging her to reply, tell her how she was. And when she did reply all she did, every time, ask for money. Money, money, money. When she came to stay it was the same. Worse. The last time she was here they have this big fight.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Stealing. Connie stealing money from the house, from her purse. From me, also. Oh, she had done that, I think, every time, but this was worse. Connie went mad and started hitting out and I try to – what is the word? – intervene. That is when she hit me across the face, call me bitch. Bitch and whore.’

  ‘You hit her back?’

  Valentina shook her head. ‘I wish I had.’

  ‘And Jane?’

  ‘Jane told her to apologise or leave. Connie said she would sooner die. Call us both terrible names. After that, Jane wrote and told her it is best she not come again. She did not write back. Silence. For years. Then when Jane became ill, she wrote to her again, try to heal things over. The letters came back marked “Moved Away, No Longer at this Address”.’

  ‘How did she take that?’

  ‘Bad, of course. Terrible. Many tears.’

  ‘And you?’

  Valentina looked at him for several moments before answering. ‘For myself, I was glad. But for Jane, no, I am sad. She is her daughter; she want to see her again before she dies. Not leave all of this bad feeling between them. Bad blood.’ Valentina pushed the envelope containing photographs and the details of Connie’s last known address into his hand. ‘Now it is for you to honour your promise, make things right.’

  Sloane held her gaze. ‘Just like the promises you’ll make sure are kept.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  Rising, Sloane shook his head. ‘I think you do, Valentina. I think you do.’

  The temperature had dropped enough for Sloane to fasten the buttons on his coat. A pair of magpies aside, he now had the playground to himself. Slowly he spread the photographs once more along the bench. All those years in which he had become resigned to living, to being alone, no ties, and now … He slipped the photographs from sight, not knowing what he wanted to believe. Through the hum of traffic, the radio playing from an open window, he could almost hear his mother’s voice, calling him home.

  Dumar was waiting for him near the entrance to his street, a bottle of whisky inside his coat. ‘I thought we would drink a toast,’ he said as Sloane ushered him inside, ‘to the memory of your friend who died.’

  Sloane switched on a light, rinsed glasses and held them while Dumar poured. ‘Your friend …’ Dumar began.

  ‘Jane.’

  ‘She lived a good life?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Good. To Jane.’

  They drank and refilled their glasses.

  ‘You will stay here now?’ Dumar asked.

  Sloane shook his head and explained briefly the reasons why.

  ‘This girl,’ Dumar said, ‘this woman, Connie – you don’t know whether to believe she is your daughter or not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you find her, then you will know.’

  ‘How? How will I be sure?’

  Dumar smiled. ‘Because of what you will feel. When you see her. Feel in the blood.’

  For a while, neither man spoke; the whisky bottle passed back and forth.

  ‘You have children, don’t you?’ Sloane asked eventually. ‘In Africa. I think that’s what you said.’

  ‘Two. Two boys. My daughter is studying here now, England. Manchester. I will bring my sons too. When I can.’

  ‘But they’re okay?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘I saw that picture in the paper, the fighting …’

  ‘Sierra Leone. My family are from Mali, many, many miles away.’

  ‘And safe.’

  ‘Yes, safe. For now.’ Dumar drained his glass. Hesitated. ‘Eight years ago there was a revolution in my country. Many died. My older sons were fighting, a hundred miles to the north. My daughter and I were already here. One day my wife and our two youngest children went to the nearest town for supplies. She travelled with three or four other families in convoy. For safety. The
y were ambushed on their way back. My wife was killed outright.’

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘A few scratches, nothing more.’

  ‘Thank God for that at least.’

  ‘Thank God.’ Dumar’s voice so quiet now it seemed to float on the stillness of the air. ‘Less than a month later they caught a fever, first one and then the other. They were seven and nine. They died and there was no one to bury them. No mother. No father.’

  For several moments Sloane didn’t seem able to breathe. Didn’t know what to say. ‘Dumar, I’m so sorry,’ the only paltry words he could finally manage.

  ‘You know,’ Dumar said, rising, ‘those people who tried to break in here, they were not the only ones to hang round while you were away.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘There were two men, asking questions. I think they were police.’

  ‘You’re not sure. I mean, they didn’t say?’

  Dumar shook his head. ‘Everywhere they are the same, your country, mine. You learn to know them.’ He rested a large hand on Sloane’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘My friend, take care.’

  Sloane bought all the broadsheet newspapers, an orange, two apples and a bottle of water, and headed back along Prince of Wales Road. The car was parked at the corner of the street, windows wound part-way down. The man on the passenger side got out first, dropping his half-smoked cigarette on to the road and stubbing it out. The driver glanced at Sloane across the roof of the car before turning the key in the lock. Careful, soberly suited men, hair cut fashionably short. Dumar had been right, you could recognise them anywhere. And this pair Sloane had met before. Dutton, that’s what the tall one was called, he remembered now. Dutton and his cohort with the Welsh accent decently suppressed was Boyd. Detective sergeant and detective constable respectively.

  ‘We should have been here a good few days ago,’ Dutton said. ‘Would have been, pressing business aside. Welcome you home.’

  ‘One of the few ways in which our present prison system falls down,’ Boyd said, ‘preparation for the outside world. Acclimatisation, I believe that’s the word.’

  ‘When we did call by,’ Dutton said, disapproving, ‘it was only to find you’d gone away.’

  ‘Left town.’

  ‘And country.’

  ‘Compassionate, we believe. The reason for your travel. Your friend from the café explained. Just the barest details, of course.’

  A van turned the corner, heading for the entrance to the Imperial Works, and the three of them were forced to take to the pavement, abandoning the road.

  ‘The thing is,’ Dutton said, reaching into his pocket for another cigarette, ‘since we were the ones made the initial arrest, worked up the case, well, we feel responsible. I don’t think that’s putting it too strong.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘Parsons,’ Dutton said. ‘You went to see him almost as soon as you came out.’

  Sloane shook his head and sighed. The fact that he’d done his time, how much was that ever going to count for with them? It had been Parsons the Squad had really been after and in their eyes they’d failed. That they didn’t like. Not one little bit.

  ‘Rumour has it,’ Dutton said, ‘Parsons and yourself, you had something of a falling out. Harsh words, blows. Not to say damage to a rare work of art.’

  ‘As well it wasn’t anything more substantial than a Giacometti,’ Boyd said. ‘That’s substantial in a purely physical sense, of course, nothing in the way of an artistic judgement intended.’

  Christ, Sloane thought, all this bollocks and I’ve got a plane to catch.

  ‘What it is,’ Dutton said, ‘with things between Parsons and yourself no longer seemingly so hunky-dory, well, we wondered if you were any closer to going on record about that business with the Vuillard. Parsons’s involvement, that is.’

  ‘Was he involved?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘A pity’, Dutton said, ‘that you should take that attitude. Short-sighted, in fact.’ He angled his face aside and released a coil of smoke.

  Sloane checked his watch. ‘I’ve an appointment, in town. Sorry you’ve been wasting your time.’

  ‘Is that what we’ve been doing?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You’re not planning any more trips?’ Dutton asked. ‘Not leaving the country again, for instance?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Good. Because we really should keep in touch.’

  Sloane nodded slightly and left the pair of them where they sat. Within an hour he would be on the Airport Express from Paddington to Heathrow, bound from there for New York.

  11

  Sloane swopped seats with a disgruntled Swede whose legs needed the aisle even more than he. Settled in against the window, he gazed past the tip of the wing and looked down on a brief hatchwork of runways, toy trees, the neat clutter of suburban homes; before the plane banked again he glimpsed the upper reaches of the Thames curving steeply through flat fields and then they were in cloud. Blistery grey becoming soft, impossible nursery white.

  When you find her, then you will know.

  Taking his wallet from his pocket, he slid the smallest of the photographs into his palm. The way the dark hair wedged to a point above the centre of her forehead, fingers of one hand reaching for her mouth; the hint of worry in her already blue eyes. Connie. Sloane pushed the picture from sight. Head sideways, he closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

  Only when the plane lurched Sloane awake did he realise he had truly slept. Turbulence over, the cabin crew made their way along the aisles with offers of refreshment, bottles of red wine just above ice cold, free booze; he lowered his tray table to accommodate a miniature meal nestling in foil and plastic, each item signally failing to live up to its lavish description on the printed menu.

  Once this had been cleared away he stretched his legs past the Swede and pulled his duffel bag down from the overhead locker. Of the four newspapers he had bought, two had no mention of Jane Graham’s death and one carried a short news item together with a colour reproduction of a tall, slim painting that hung in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris. Sloane wondered if the picture editor had chosen it because he could fit it into a single column’s width.

  The Independent alone carried a full obituary, illustrated by a photograph of Jane in what he guessed were her forties, head and shoulders, smiling, and another of an early painting which, in black and white, looked like a morass of blotches and squiggles, little more. He had already read the text so many times, parts of it were committed to memory. Draining the glass of his second whisky, he read it again.

  Jane Graham, who has died of leukaemia at the age of seventy-three, was one of the foremost painters of the New York School. Identified with the Second Generation of Abstract Expressionists, a diverse group over which the brooding presence of Jackson Pollock cast a huge shadow, and which included disciples of Mark Rothko on the one hand and de Kooning and Kline on the other, Graham’s style leaned towards the more painterly approach of the latter.

  From the mid-fifties her canvases, which had previously echoed the busy surfaces of Pollock, one of her strongest early influences, took on a degree of spareness and calm and displayed an increasing interest in the effects on colour of natural light.

  ‘Pollock,’ he remembered Jane saying, ‘that great oaf. That ox in plaid shirts and cowboy boots. The first time I saw him, one of the bars down on Tenth Street, he pushed his hand up my skirt, feeling for my crotch. He was drunk, of course, looking to get laid, looking for a fight. Either way, there was usually someone ready to oblige.’

  Pollock had died the year before Sloane had arrived in New York, having driven the Oldsmobile containing himself, his mistress and her best friend off the road and into a tree. All Sloane knew were the stories: the paintings and the stories. The paintings, the best of them, he loved. They were why he had wanted to come to New York.

  ‘I was at the opening of his wife’s show at the
Stable Gallery,’ Jane had told him. ‘Lee Krasner, you know. She was nervous as hell about how he’d be, whether he’d even show. Half hoping, I think, he’d get drunk somewhere, stay away. Anyway, in he comes, wearing a suit and tie, stone cold sober, charming, couldn’t be nicer. Half an hour later he’s got me pinned up against the wall in a corner, asking me if I’d go out back with him and fuck. Tried to persuade me that somehow I’d be a better painter if I did. The asshole.’

  She’d told him this story the third occasion they’d met and Sloane remembered thinking he’d never heard a woman say fuck before; not in the course of normal conversation.

  Born in St Paul, Minnesota, Graham studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and with Hans Hofmann, taking up residency in Greenwich Village in the early nineteen fifties. Here, she quickly immersed herself in the then thriving bohemian lifestyle, which brought together artists and poets, playwrights, musicians and experimental film makers in a heady, often volatile brew centring on the Cedar Tavern on 8th Street and University Place.

  When Sloane had first arrived in New York, pitchforked into the middle of that turbulent world, he was cocky, uncertain, garrulous, almost obsessively silent, ricocheting between the arrogance of eighteen-year-old self-confidence and crippling self-doubt.

  Stuart Hazel, a painter Sloane had known in Chicago, offered him floor space in a cold-water loft below Houston, a former garment factory between East Broadway and Delancey. Whitewashed walls, bare boards, a partitioned-off kitchen the roaches roamed at will. ‘Six months, okay? Whatever you can let me have towards the rent, that’s okay. But after that, you’re on your own.’

  Hazel, who chain smoked and listened to the classical music station while he worked, had already exhibited in a co-op gallery on West 4th Street and been well reviewed in ARTnews. There were rumours, mostly spread by Hazel himself, of a solo show on 10th Street, the Tanager or the Hansa. He was certain he had it made.