by Graham Joyce
“You’re just going to accept everything she says? No word about what really happened?”
“At the minute, yes. Exactly that. Sometimes in this life you have to understand that we don’t need to know everything.”
Chastened, Peter looked away. “I’ve just come from Richie’s. Don’t you think we owe him something? We made a big mistake over that. He even served a stretch for that bit o’ dope they found at his house.”
“Whose fault was that?”
“Mine, partly.”
“We’ll come to Richie when we’re ready. In the meantime, you’ll shut it and you’ll treat her with kid gloves until she gets better.”
“Will I?”
“In this house you fucking well will. Now, I don’t want another word on the subject. How are the kids?”
THE TELEVISION WAS FLICKERING in the corner without anyone paying it much attention. Tara came down swathed in a towel robe, for some reason still wearing her dark glasses, her hair wet, smelling of shampoo. She took a place on the sofa, drying the ends of her hair with a towel.
“Peter, I’m going to have to see Richie at some point,” she said. “I wondered if you could arrange it.”
“There’s no hurry for that,” Mary said.
“All in good time,” said Dell.
“No, it needs to be done. He’ll know I’m back,” she said, looking at Peter. “I owe him the same explanation I’ve given you.”
“He’ll be in no hurry,” said Dell. “It was a long time ago.”
Tara stood up. “Mum and Dad have done up my room,” she said. “Come on, Peter, I want to show it to you.”
“I’ll come up with you,” Mary said.
But Tara gently pressed her back into her chair. “No, Mum. I want to show him. You two stay here.”
Peter rose to follow Tara upstairs, but not before Mary had shot him a warning look that seemed to carry a whiff of cordite. When they got up to the room, Tara closed the door and invited Peter to sit down on the bed.
“Do you remember what this room was like when I left?” she said.
“Pretty much.”
“No, exactly. Do you remember what it was like, exactly?”
“More or less.”
She went over to the wall adjacent to the window. “Remember what was here?”
“Poster?”
“Good try. It was a giant butterfly. Blue. There was a poster over here. What was it?”
“U2.”
“You’re guessing. I didn’t like them. It was a poster from the film The Lost Boys, with a pledge of undying devotion to the Kiefer Sutherland character. But I also had a poster of The Cure; and over here was a double-decker ghetto blaster, and I kept a Walkman over there; thin floaty scarves draped here, stacks of cheap bangles on a pole. Hair irons, you know, straighteners and crimpers by the wall sockets; could have burned down the house. Doc Martens over there with fluorescent laces, I loved them. The knackered hi-fi you gave me. And lots of leather belts to be worn with white granddad shirts, and there was a trilby hat hanging behind the door and another hat, a fedora with a blue felt band that I got from Richie, and over there a corkboard with dried roses pinned to it and scraps of paper with snatches of poetry, and I could tell you what was written on each scrap.”
“What’s your point? That you can remember your own things better than I could?”
“The carpet, which has now been replaced, had a spot here where I spilled some india ink; the curtains were unpicked at the hem and stuck with pins because I hadn’t finished the job of trying to make them longer. I could go on effortlessly. My point is, all this stuff, all this stuff was my life, and to me it was here almost like yesterday.”
“So? You’ve got a good memory.”
“We’ll go into your room next. We’ll see who has the best memory of your stuff.”
“Thought about all this, haven’t you?”
“You betcha!”
You betcha! was one of Tara’s favorite expressions before she disappeared. She said it early and often.
She sat down on the bed next to Peter and took his hand. “I want you to know a couple of things before you jump to conclusions. Firstly, I know that Mum and Dad think I’m mentally ill and that’s why they are being gentle with me. I also know that you think I’m either mentally ill or I’m lying my head off. That’s fine: I didn’t expect you to respond in any other way, and I’m sure I would be the same if the roles were reversed.
“My God, I thought long and hard before telling you what I told you. I knew the risks. I knew you would be angry, or that you would think I was sick. I considered developing my travel-round-the-world story, but I also knew that although it would be more acceptable I would get caught out pretty quick because I haven’t been anywhere in my life except one single other place. So I decided to tell the truth, whatever the consequences.
“Now it has also occurred to me that I might be lying to myself, for deep, dark psychological reasons. People do that, don’t they?
“I want you to consider this. What have I got to gain by telling you this story? It would be simpler to say that I ran away. I would cause myself a lot less trouble if I said that. I could work through the anger and the abuse that would follow. But by telling you this I’ve put myself at great risk. I don’t expect you to believe it, Peter. Do you understand? I neither expect you to nor do I need you to. I have told you a story that I don’t expect you or anyone else to believe for a single second.”
“Well,” Peter said. “We’re eye to eye on that.”
“Peter, I’m in deep trouble. Deep trouble. What I do need is help. What I’m telling you here is the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I’ve been away six months and I came back as soon as I could and when I got back everything had changed. It had all changed so incredibly I didn’t even dare come home. I spied on this house and slept rough for three days. I didn’t talk to anyone. I had no money. Look at this five-pound note with the Duke of Wellington on it. I’d had it in my pocket but you can’t spend it anywhere ’cos it’s not legal tender anymore. I was starving and I almost froze to death but I couldn’t knock on the door because I was terrified. Terrified! Mum and Dad had grown old. But I quickly realized there were only three people in the world who could help me. My mum, my dad, and my brother. I have nowhere else to go. Will you help me, Peter? Will you?”
Peter stared at Tara. She was still the teenage girl. But he could see care lines in her, too. She was holding the withdrawn bank note out for him to take, as if it might purchase his belief. It was almost possible to believe in what she was saying, and to see there a sixteen-year-old girl, with her slender half-starved frame; but then a blink would bring him back to his senses.
“I will help you. But you would have to do what I say.”
She nodded.
“Would you be prepared to see someone?”
She nodded again. “I saw this coming. But yes.”
He took her hand. “Okay. We’ll go downstairs and we’ll keep the peace. It’s been very hard for those two.”
“I know.” Tara started to cry.
Peter hugged her tight. “Welcome home, Tara. Welcome home.”
THEY WENT DOWNSTAIRS, AND Mary in particular was happy to see them appear to be on good terms, though Dell raised his eyebrows at him. Mary asked Peter if he wanted something to eat.
“Not hungry, thanks, Mum.”
“Have just a sandwich.”
“No, thanks.”
“I can make you a nice ham sandwich. Ham and mustard.”
“No, really.”
“Cheese? There’s some nice cheddar.”
“Honestly, no.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Okay! I give in! I’ll have a bloody sandwich!”
“You don’t have to have one,” Mary said, “if you don’t want one.”
“Some people feed you with love,” Tara said, “and some people love you with food.”
When Dell followed Ma
ry out to the kitchen Peter told Tara all about Richie, about what transpired with the police after her disappearance, about what had happened between them. She was distressed to hear that Peter and Richie had never spoken again after the incident with the smashed guitar, and that Richie had spent a short time in prison after being sentenced for dealing in cannabis. She told Peter that she desperately wanted to meet with Richie if it was going to be possible and he agreed to try to set up a meeting.
Tara also agreed that Peter could arrange for her to see a doctor. They decided, for the time being, not to tell Mary and Dell about this.
Peter left the house, but not before kissing Tara and his mother. He also kissed Dell, something that would not have been done twenty years earlier.
WHEN HE GOT HOME, Peter saw an elderly neighbor out on the street and looking somewhat forlorn. It was Mrs. Larwood, a frail and gray-haired figure who lived across the road. Peter had helped her once when she had slipped on some ice. She was a sweet lady who had baked him a cake in gratitude for the small things he had done to help her; though the girls were unkind and said she was a witch. Because she looked distressed, he stopped his truck.
“Mrs. Larwood. Everything okay?”
Mrs. Larwood took a moment to focus on him. She had cloudy cataracts on her eyes and her sight was poor. She’d lost her cat. She hadn’t seen it in a couple of days. It was a ginger, she reminded him, with a pretty red collar. She wondered if it had got trapped in someone’s outbuildings. Peter promised to check his workshop and the attached buildings. She was grateful and turned back to her home.
Peter drove on and then had a second thought. He carefully reversed his truck and wound down his window a second time.
“Have you got a photo, Mrs. Larwood? Of your cat?”
“Yes.”
“Let me have it and I’ll get one of the kids to run off some leaflets from the computer. We can stick ’em on the lampposts in the neighborhood; then people will all check their buildings.”
“That would be so good! You’re so kind to me!”
“It’s nothing. Dig out the photo and I’ll send one of the kids over to get it.”
“Thank you, Peter! Thank you so much!”
“Good night, Mrs. Larwood.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The modern superstition is that we’re free of superstition.
ANONYMOUS
Being a farrier was hard trade, but it was a very good business for making social contacts. Peter shod the horses of the local justice of the peace, the wife of the constituency member of Parliament, the daughter of the CEO of the local council, and a lot more people connected with the great and the good. What’s more, he found that when these people discovered that he had a university degree, their attitude toward him changed. Their tone of voice softened; they relaxed; they didn’t grin quite so much.
Unknown to them, Peter charged wildly different prices, depending on whether he liked his customer, or if they were members of the hunt, or according to what he thought they could afford. If anyone ever questioned his fees, which they rarely did, he happily referred them to another farrier who charged much lower rates. Then, if they asked why those rates were lower, which they inevitably did, he simply raised his eyebrows and made no comment, allowing the questioning party to conclude that low rates meant shoddy work. This technique lost him no customers at all in a dozen years.
But one man he never overcharged was his local GP, a man called Dr. Bullock, a handsome and tall Londoner from the East End who practiced without fear or favor and without air or grace. Bullock had two sweet daughters who wanted ponies, and knowing nothing about horses he’d not been too proud to ask Peter for help. Peter knew exactly where to get ponies and what to look out for and how much to pay; and for all this information the doctor was grateful. He in turn had made himself available at all antisocial hours for Peter and his family, especially when the children were very small. One time a shard of hot metal had bounced back from the anvil and lodged in the corner of Peter’s eye. Still bleeding, he’d driven not to the hospital but to Bullock’s office, where the doctor abandoned a patient, took out the hot shard on the spot, patched Peter up, and sent him home.
The two men got along fine and often went for a pint together at The Green Man. It was in this setting over a pint that Peter decided to ask Bullock’s advice about a psychiatrist for Tara. Bullock told him it wasn’t like finding a good horse. “And you can’t even look in their mouths,” Bullock said. “It’s a fucking minefield finding a good shrink.” Bullock said he could easily refer Tara to a psychiatrist but that they would have to wait for some time for an appointment on the public health service. Unless she’d just attacked someone with a chain saw. If Peter wanted to pay privately, Bullock knew a good practitioner who lived locally. He was a bit cranky, Bullock warned, and semi-retired; but he had a very strong reputation as a no-nonsense shrink and one who wouldn’t draw out the consultation in the interest of fees.
So two days later, Peter drove Tara to the house of Mr. Vivian Underwood in the Leicestershire village of Thringstone.
The land lay on a massive geological fault, to which the village had given its name. The coalfields ended and butted up against folded volcanic rock. The day they learned this in school was the day they learned to say that everything was Thringstone’s fault.
Peter stopped the car outside a three-story Victorian palisaded villa, half covered in rampant ivy. The house boasted a massive gable. The front of the building faced north, untouched by the sun’s rays.
“Looks a bit gloomy,” Tara said, showing no signs of wanting to get out of the car.
Peter sniffed. He looked the house up and down. It did have a Gothic aspect. “It’s fine.”
They had to climb ten whitewashed steps to get to the front door. Peter rang the bell and identified himself through an intercom. Eventually an elderly woman with a severe case of dowager’s hump opened the door. Peter had to fight to avoid turning to look at Tara. The old woman said nothing in response to Peter’s greeting, simply closing the door behind them and leading them up a flight of highly polished stairs, trailing her tiny hand along the stout wooden banister. There was a sizable landing with small tables containing glass museum-style cases, each case exhibiting a curio. One case had a pair of eastern silk shoes with curled and tasseled toes; another contained a stuffed weasel; another a ceremonial knife.
“You’re joking,” Tara whispered.
Peter ignored her as this silent acolyte of the mind’s mysteries opened a door to a large room. It was a kind of library, but with one or two more glass museum cases. The floorboards of the room were polished to the same high standard as the stairs and a threadbare Oriental rug lay across the middle. Vivian Underwood stood at the far end of the room by an ornate fireplace in which a cheap gas fire had been installed and was burning cheerfully, struggling to warm what was a very large room. Underwood had an impressive shock of white hair. He was dressed in a brocade smoking jacket, and his leather slippers revealed bare, white, bony ankles. He was smoking a miraculously thin cigar.
“You’re the short notice,” he said, biting on his cigar. He had a booming style of speaking. “I wanted an afternoon nap but then I remembered I promised that Bullock I’d see you. He’s a good sort and he said you were, too. That goes a long way. I smoke. Got a problem with that?”
“No,” said Peter.
“Not really,” said Tara.
“Good, because if you have got a problem with it I can’t see you. Can’t smoke, can’t see. You can’t smoke anywhere these days. That’s why I gave up and organized my practice from home. You can drive a bloody car pell-mell with a high risk of slaughtering a thousand little children a year but you can’t smoke in case they get a whiff of your tobacco. What sort of a country is that?” He looked at Peter, as if Peter were responsible for all this legislation. “Who are you?”
“I’m Tara’s brother.”
Underwood marched over to Peter and put an arm round his
shoulder, turning him around and in one deft move propelling him back through the open door. “Well, Tara’s brother, nice to meet you but you’re surplus to requirements and you’ll find a comfortable waiting room along the hall. Thank you.” He closed the door before Peter had time to recover.
Tara had to stifle a giggle.
“We don’t want brothers listening to us, do we, Tara?”
“I suppose not.”
“Take a seat.”
Tara glanced round. There were several seats. “Which one?”
“You decide, and I’ll pretend I haven’t already drawn some conclusions about you by the chair you choose.”
Tara looked around the room. There was a writing desk with an executive chair behind it and a hard-backed armchair opposite. The huge desk was clear but for three impressive objects: an opulent, marbled ornamental pen-and-inkwell set; a large antique hourglass of beautiful blown glass and cinnamon-colored sand in a heavy oak frame; and a big yellow bath-time plastic duck. Other choices of seats were a rather battered but comfortable-looking leather sofa against the wall; two matching armchairs lodged by the fire; and two more upholstered hard chairs drawn up by the window and illuminated by streaming sunlight. She chose one of these.
Underwood picked out a legal notepad from his desk drawer and sat in the chair adjacent to Tara. He produced a beautiful onyx fountain pen from the folds of his smoking jacket and began writing. “Full name.”
“Tara Lucy Martin.”
“Mrs., Miss, or Ms.?”
“Miss.”
“Date of birth.”
Tara told him. He stopped writing and looked up.
“That would make you thirty-six.”
“Correct.”
“I’d say you were in your late teens. Or early twenties. At the very most.”
Tara looked at Underwood and didn’t blink. He shook his head, as if saying he wasn’t prepared to speak. The silence endured until Tara said, “I’m not yet seventeen.”
Underwood took a puff on his cigar. “You’d better tell me what this is all about.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“Who says you are?”
