by Baker, John
That was when the knock on the door happened. It was a policeman’s knock. It would have been recognized all over the world. Elsewhere it might have been the KGB, the Stasi or the Securitate. But whatever it was called, it meant the same thing. It meant that your life was going to take a turn for the worse. That whatever control you thought you had was going to need a radical reassessment.
Russell Harvey looked at Marie for a moment. His eyes searched the room as if there might be a way out.
‘Shall I answer it?’ she asked.
When she opened the door, it was to two plain-clothes officers (there was a uniform standing by the car on the road), Detective Superintendent Rossiter and his female assistant, Detective Sergeant Hardwicke. Rossiter was the youngest detective superintendent in the country, and probably the most conceited. Marie had come across him on previous cases, but he never showed an inkling of recognition, merely flared his nostrils and steamed on to the object of his quest.
The WDS, Hardwicke, was fresh out of uniform, intent on impressing her governor, and had her eyes set, ultimately, on the Police Staff College in Bramshill.
‘You been thinking of taking a holiday in the Mediterranean?’ Rossiter asked Russell Harvey as soon as he entered the kitchen.
Harvey looked past the policeman, at Marie. He was shaking from head to foot. Marie didn’t know if he’d heard Rossiter, but he couldn’t answer.
WDS Hardwicke waved a piece of paper in Russell’s direction. ‘We have a warrant to search the premises,’ she said. ‘There’s a squad of officers on their way, be here in a couple of minutes.’
‘Why?’ was the only syllable that Russell Harvey had. ‘I want you to come down to the station with us,’ Rossiter told him. ‘We’ve got a car outside.’
Russell opened his mouth, but nothing more came out. ‘Go with them,’ Marie said. ‘I’ll get you a solicitor.’ Hardwicke took Russell by the arm and led him out of the house. The uniform opened the rear door of the car for them.
Rossiter looked quickly around the room. ‘Absolutely stinks in here,’ he said. As he left the house a police van with a group of six men in coveralls arrived.
‘She’s wearing this dress, I’ve never seen anything like it, and the guy who picks her up in the taxi is blind.’
‘The taxi driver?’ asked Celia.
‘No, not the taxi driver, the escort, the guy she’s going to the opera with.’
Marie let them carry on talking. Once Sam and Celia got going it was usually worth listening to. She sat at her desk and doodled with a 4B pencil, watched as a caricature of Russell Harvey appeared. A guy with hopelessness stamped all the way through him.
Celia laughed. ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘A blind taxi driver. Whatever will I think of next?’ She shook her red hair. ‘What was he like? The escort?’
‘Short guy, thick-set, middle-aged. Nothing to write home about. But the point I’m getting at, he’s blind. She’s dressed to take your breath away, and she’s going out with a guy who can’t see her.’
‘But she can’t see him either,’ said Celia.
‘So what? Who wants to see him? The guy’s nothing. If he walked past the window, you wouldn’t notice. But her! Jesus, she’s like a jewel. You get an eyeful of her and you don’t know if it’s night or day. You’re reeling around, feels like you’ve got your shoes on the wrong feet.’
Celia exchanged a glance with Marie, then snapped back to Sam. ‘She rang this morning.’
‘Is she all right? Does she want me to ring back?’
‘She didn’t mention you.’
He looked disappointed, like he’d been robbed of a dimension. Then he took in the sly smile on Celia’s face. He turned to Marie and saw that she, too, was not going into a depression.
‘Oh, you two,’ he said. ‘Christ, you say guys are all clammed up and they don’t know how to relate to their emotions. You want us to hang loose and not get so uptight about everything, then as soon as we relax you start taking the piss.’
‘Thing is,’ said Marie, ‘what you have to be able to do is to hang loose and let all your emotions spill out, but you have to be able to laugh as well.’
‘And do the washing,’ said Celia. ‘Clean the lavatory.’
‘That’ll come later,’ Sam said. ‘At the moment I’m in my stunned period.’
‘As in,’ Celia said, ‘you were stunned by Angeles Falco, or you were stunned by my cruel joke?’
‘Christ, I was talking about a dress,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, she’s got walk-in wardrobes. Clothes, shoes, you know what I mean, threads with labels, Armani, all that stuff.’
‘Ah, threads,’ said Marie.
‘Yeah, threads.’
‘Dresses. You were talking about dresses.’
‘Screw you,’ he said. ‘Screw both of you.’ Which, for some reason, started them cackling like a flock of geese.
‘Russell Harvey’s been arrested,’ Marie told them when Celia had made coffee and Sam had finished licking his wounds. ‘Rossiter picked him up this morning, took him to the Fulford Road nick. They’re searching his house.’
‘You think he’s in the clear?’ Sam asked.
Marie nodded. ‘He didn’t do it. The man’s shredded. Isabel was the only decent thing in his life.’
‘The guy I chased last night was a different build,’ Sam said. ‘Must’ve been six foot tall, slim and fast.’
‘That’s not Russell,’ said Marie. ‘He’s like the guys you see in photographs of internment camps, someone who hasn’t seen a decent meal for months. He couldn’t move fast. I can’t imagine him running, he’d fall over.’
‘So what’s Rossiter up to?’
‘Going through the motions. Maybe they want a fall-guy, in which case Russell Harvey was made for the job. The state he was in, he’ll tell them whatever they want to hear.’
‘In the meantime,’ Sam said, ‘I want Angeles Falco out of her house. We can’t cover the back and front at the same time, and the guy who was in her garden last night will be making a return visit.’
‘Where are you thinking of putting her?’ asked Marie. Sam shrugged, ran his hand over his chin, producing the bristle sound.
‘I’ve got a spare room at my place,’ said Celia.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘maybe it would be better if someone moved in with her.’
‘I wonder who that’s gonna be?’ said Marie.
16
When Geordie woke up in the morning his eyes were stuck together with testosterone. Janet was sitting with her back against the pillow, playing with Echo between her legs. He put his chin on Janet’s thigh and made faces at his daughter. ‘I’m sleeping badly at the moment,’ he said. ‘And I know I’m sleeping badly because when I’m sleeping I still have the feeling that I’m asleep. But when somebody’s really asleep they don’t feel like they’re asleep. They only know that they’ve been asleep when they wake up.’
Janet laughed. ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who could wake up and say something like that. You’re a fugitive from the law of averages.’
‘That’s because I grapple with life,’ Geordie said without a hint of irony. ‘Most people accept what happens, but I think about things. I can’t help it. You do too. It’s a feature in this family.’
‘And these are the things that occupy you today, as soon as you open your eyes: doubt and the nature of sleep?’
‘Yeah. And Echo as well. I’m always thinking about her, because she’s in front of me all the time. Every time I look at her something’s changed. Like it’s teething at the moment, and you know how it’s giving her gyp. I wondered if we should slip her a tot of vodka. You know what I mean, mix it with honey. Knock her out till the morning. What d’you think?’
‘Jesus, Geordie. You can’t do that. You’ll turn her into an alcoholic. Trudie knows this herbalist woman, I was going to ask her for something.’
‘Maybe that’s what happened to Sam?’ Geordie said. ‘His mother gave him whisky when h
e was a baby.’
‘We’re not going to do that to Echo, though,’ said Janet, talking to the child. ‘Are we, my darling?’
Geordie shook his head. He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Yeah. That’s not the way to go. Just a brown thought.’
Venus had laid five kittens during the night. She’d dropped them into the padded basket that Janet had prepared for her and they were suckling noisily when Geordie went down to make breakfast. He watched them rooting away, finding the nipples by smell and touch, as yet unable to see. He tried to think of people who might want a kitten but couldn’t think of anyone. ‘Five,’ he said to Venus. ‘Christ, what’re we gonna do with that lot? You’ll have to farm them out among your relatives. They can’t stay here.’
Ralph came in the front door, pushing it back on its hinges so it smashed against the wall. All of the kittens stopped sucking and Venus wrapped herself around them protectively.
‘What’s that?’ Janet shouted down the stairs, concern in her voice.
‘It’s OK, it’s only Ralph,’ Geordie shouted back. And then to Ralph, ‘I thought you was bringing a bus in, man. What’s all the banging for?’
‘I just got the sack,’ Ralph said. ‘I took the truck back and the guy’d got out of bed the wrong side. He’s giving me, “Where’ve you been with the truck, I called the cops; thought you’d stolen it,” all that shit. I told him, “Fuck are you giving me all this for, this time in the morning. I’ve brought it back, haven’t I? Only a couple of days late.”
‘But he can’t stop and he’s giving me all this mouth about how he’s losing money and the truck’s so filthy he can’t put it on the road. In the end I told him to go fuck his mother and he’s got my cards ready, the bastard. So I’m out of work. What’s to eat? My belly thinks my throat’s cut. And don’t even mention that muesli stuff, I’m not a bleedin’ bird.’
When Janet and Echo came down Ralph was adding a tin of tomatoes to the eggs and sausages in the frying pan. ‘Here’s the ladies,’ Ralph said, making his eyes as big as they’d go. ‘You want some of this,’ he said to Janet, pointing at the pan. ‘Build you up so you can feed the nipper.’
Janet shook her head. Geordie knew she’d got the sausages for tonight’s dinner and she was pissed off because she’d have to go and get them all over again. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got to go to the shops.’
Echo got restless and hungry before breakfast was over and Janet had to start feeding her while she was still eating her muesli. Geordie got up from the table and made coffee for Ralph and himself and mint tea for Janet. He brought the cups to the table and was about to sit down again when the whole thing blew up. Janet got to her feet, pulling Echo off her breast and letting her T-shirt fall back down. Echo screamed. Janet stormed out of the room and up the stairs shouting about how she couldn’t feed her own child in her own house without being ogled by some filthy bastard.
In the kitchen it was so quiet Geordie could hear himself breathing. He looked over the table at Ralph and Ralph lifted his shoulders and made a face, as if to say, ‘What happened there, then?’
‘Did you say something?’ Geordie asked.
‘Not a dicky-bird.’
‘I’d better see what’s up.’ He left his chair and made for the stairs.
‘It’ll be hormones,’ Ralph said. ‘Even money.’
In the bedroom Janet was trying to get Echo to feed again but the child was too distressed. Janet’s face was streaked with tears. Geordie sat next to her on the bed. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s Ralph,’ she said. ‘I can’t feed Echo down there while he’s trying to cop a look all the time. It’s impossible.’
‘Look at what?’
‘Jesus, Geordie, my tits. What d’you think he’s looking at? Sitting there eating everybody’s dinner and watching me feed Echo with his mouth open, drooling tomato juice.’
‘I’ll get some more sausages. I already said that.’
‘Why should you get them? Why can’t he get them?’
‘He’s lost his job. I don’t know if he’s got any money.’
‘So we have to keep him as well?’
‘You think he was ogling you, Janet?’
‘I’m telling you. He’s a sleaze. When I’m feeding Echo I want to be natural and relaxed. That’s the only way it works. If I get tense the milk doesn’t flow, you know that. If it carries on like this, I’ll dry up and we’ll have to start bottle feeding.’
‘I’ll talk to Ralph,’ Geordie said. ‘See if I can sort it out.’
Ralph was in the sitting room in front of the television. He was sitting on the base of his spine with his legs spread out in front of him. Geordie told him what Janet had said. ‘I was watching her, yes,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t ogling, there wasn’t any sex in it. Jesus, Geordie, she’s my brother’s wife. What d’you take me for?’
‘It upsets her if you watch her like that.’
‘Yeah, OK, that’s cool. I can understand that. I was watching Echo, really, seeing how she was feeding, but I won’t do it. I’ll look the other way.’
Geordie went to the shop for the sausages. If you have to believe your wife or your brother, who d’you believe? No contest, he said to himself, you believe Janet. On the other hand you don’t want to call your brother a liar, get him all pissed off as well. And you specially don’t want to do that if you’ve been separated from your brother for most of your life, been dreaming about meeting up with him again. When you’ve finally got him back and there’s so much stuff to catch up on, the last thing you want is for him to disappear again. Get on a ship and sail away.
He got the sausages but instead of taking them home he went round to Sam’s house, see if the great man’s brain could come up with a solution. ‘All I know,’ Sam said, ‘it’s almost impossible to live in a family when someone else comes in from outside. It happens sometimes, can work real nice, but usually it’s a disaster.’
‘Thanks a heap.’
‘I’m just telling you what I think. What d’you think?’
‘Dunno.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I don’t know what’ll happen. Ralph could be here for ever, or he could disappear again. I doubt he’ll go away, but that’s all I can say about it. The only reality is doubt. Who said that? That the only thing you need never doubt is doubt itself? You can worry about God and your family, your friends, whether the world’s round, if you’re gonna get cancer and die before you’re thirty. All those things are up for grabs, but doubt is a constant; you need never doubt it. Who was it? Who said it?’
‘Must’ve been a philosopher,’ said Sam. ‘Descartes? Sound anything like him?’
‘Day cart? Leave it out, Sam.’
17
Janet felt like one of those figures in a Lowry landscape. Pushing Echo’s pram into the wind, her slim body at a forty-degree angle, she didn’t know where she was going. Geordie was out playing detectives with Sam. His brother Ralph had been watching her ever since Geordie left the house.
When he’d begun his surveillance of her, and his innuendo, the day after his arrival in the house, Janet had laughed and told him to go away. But his answer had been to step up the action into a higher gear. ‘Man needs woman,’ he’d said this morning. ‘It’s as simple as that. Like the poet said, man needs woman.’
He eyed the line of her rump, the outline of her breasts, and edged up closer as she bent to stuff Echo’s clothes into the washing machine.
She closed the door of the washing machine, put Echo in the pram and left the house. She went back for a coat and slammed the front door so hard the glass in the top panel shattered into hard rain.
After Echo’s birth, when they’d been discharged from the hospital, Janet had thought everything in her life would settle down to normality at last. With Geordie and Echo she’d found the family that had always been missing, and the kind of togetherness that she’d longed f
or seemed to be turning into a reality.
But now Ralph had turned up. There was always a Ralph waiting just around the corner. Someone who’d never give you a second look in other circumstances, but when you least wanted him he’d be there with his tongue hanging out.
She didn’t know how to handle the situation. Geordie was so overwhelmed by the fact that his brother had found him. So happy to have discovered a link to the past. If she told Geordie that Ralph was angling to get her into bed after he’d been in the house less than fifteen hours, what would happen?
They’d fight, that’s what would happen.
It didn’t matter who won or lost, Geordie would be hurt. He’d re-learn all over again that there was nothing to insulate him against the pain of existence. Just when you think that things are taking a turn for the better, you find that the devil’s got you by the tail. Geordie would learn the lesson well enough, because he already knew it. He’d withdraw a little more into the thin shell that shielded him against the world. There’d be one more thing that he wouldn’t want to talk about.
Janet was the only person in the world who knew Geordie. Lots of people thought they knew him: Sam, Celia, Marie, JD. Ralph thought he knew Geordie even though they hadn’t met for more than a decade. But Geordie wasn’t as easy as he appeared. He made himself into a clown to disguise his disappointment with the world. He pretended to be stupid, because it disarmed people.
But he was no more vulnerable than anyone else. He had spent several years on the street after the children’s home, and he’d survived. He’d lived with people who had frozen to death in shop doorways, with others who had been raped and sodomized. He’d seen friends die with AIDS-related illnesses while they were still in their teens.
