by Graham Joyce
“No. I haven’t.”
“Has he been suckin’ a lemon?” Richie asked Amber.
“Can I go on your computer now, Jack?” Amber asked.
Jack nodded mournfully, and Amber skipped upstairs and out of sight.
“Tell you what. Get the kettle on. Make your uncle Richie a cup of tea. Nice and strong. I’ll stick around till your mum gets back.”
Jack knew he was doomed. He saw no way out. With a mournful but resigned face he filled the electric kettle and took out a mug and a box of teabags. Richie watched him carefully; studying him.
“Quiet type, aincha, Jack?”
“Yeh.”
“Yeh. Nothing wrong with that. Too many people saying too many foolish things, isn’t it, Jack?”
“Yeh.”
“Yeh.” Richie rubbed his chin. “I’d agree with that. Why do you keep looking at the door?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You keep looking at the door as if you’re expecting someone to come through it.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Ask me how many sugars I take in my tea, then.”
“How many.”
“Three. And no milk.”
Jack opened the cupboard door, and, so shielded from Richie’s suspicious gaze, he screwed his eyes tightly shut. Then he opened them again, closed the cupboard door, and though he fought against it mightily, some demon inside him made him glance again at the door. This time there was someone there: he could see a figure approaching through the frosted glass. The doorbell rang. Jack stared at the kettle.
“Gonna get that?” Richie asked.
“Yeh.” He didn’t move.
“Like, now, or maybe an hour after they’ve gone?”
Jack blew out his cheeks.
“What’s going on?”
“Would you,” Jack said, “that is, would you just make out like you’re my dad for a couple of minutes?”
“What?”
“It’s just these cat people. Bringing a cat. It’s nothing. It’s just a cat. They need to see the house is okay. You could do that. You can tell ’em the house is okay. You could do that easily.”
“You want me to pretend to be your old man?”
“Just for a minute.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Immoral.”
The kettle billowed steam. Jack blew his cheeks out a second time. The doorbell rang out a second time.
“You get the kettle,” Richie said. “I’ll get the door.”
Jack held his head in his hands as the kettle switched itself off and Richie answered the door. Richie was seen to step outside and Jack heard muffled conversation. Then Richie came in again, with a short, stocky man in a tan leather jacket. The man had a tic; he blinked too frequently.
“I’ll show you round the house,” Richie was saying. “As you can see we have the dogs but they’re highly trained not to catch and skin squirrels. The kids are less well trained—this is Jack, whom I think you’ve met—but we will civilize ’em one day. The kids, that is. Though it’s a losing battle, isn’t it? Got kids of your own? No? Lucky you. You know which side your bread’s buttered. These kids are good with animals; they know the dogs’ names and everything, come and have a look at the garden where we’ll guarantee a steady supply of live rats to keep that cat entertained …” Richie led the visitor outside, keeping up a steady brow-beating monologue.
Jack watched the two men walk out into the garden. Richie was spreading his arms wide, making the visitor laugh. They stood facing each other. When Richie put his hands in his pockets, the man did the same. They stood square on. Richie was still doing all the talking.
After a few minutes they came back into the kitchen. By now they had somehow got on to the subject of music. Richie was smoking the air with the names of blues musicians, and invoking the titles of obscure albums, all the while leading the visitor through the house and back out through the front door.
Several minutes later, Richie appeared carrying a cardboard box with air holes. He looked at Jack without blinking and handed him the box. “I just had to give that bloke fifty notes.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Jack said.
“You bet you will.”
“I’ve got it in my bedroom.”
Jack lit up the stairs and returned instantly with the cash: five ten-pound notes that for some reason Jack had rolled into straws. Richie took the notes, unrolled them, counted them pointedly, and slipped them into his back pocket. “Where’s my tea?”
“Coming up.”
“Listen, you’re not using the pelts, are you?”
“What?”
“The pelts. Not making gloves out of them or whatever it is you teenagers do. I’ve read about this sort of thing.”
“It’s nothing like that. Honestly.”
“Jesus, lighten up, will you, Jack? It’s a joke!”
“Right,” Jack said. “Hahaha. Right.”
WHEN GENEVIEVE ARRIVED BACK from the trip to the optician’s with Josie, she seemed pleased to find Richie there. Jack took advantage of the moment of greeting to slip out unnoticed with his box full of cat. He already had the red collar in his pocket. All he had to do was slip it round the neck of the new cat and deliver the creature to Mrs. Larwood.
He opened the box, and the cat, formerly known as Frosty, blinked at him, sneezed at the light, and purred. Jack fixed the red collar around its neck.
It occurred to him that he could just release the cat in Mrs. Larwood’s backyard. He believed it might be better if she thought the cat had simply returned. But he suspected there was a danger of the cat wandering before shortsighted Mrs. Larwood discovered him, and so he chose instead to ring her doorbell and present her with the box.
The bolts and chains drew back. Jack held his breath. Mrs. Larwood stood at the door blinking at him, not unlike the cat itself.
“Someone found him,” he said, proffering the box.
Mrs. Larwood gasped, took the box, turned, and set it on the stairs. She opened the flaps with trembling fingers. “Oh, oh, oh,” she said. The cat purred at her and leapt into her arms, curling its tail around her wrist and settling into the crook of her arm as if it had never been away. “Look at you!” she said. “Look at you.” Then she looked at Jack from behind the damp cataracts of her eyes and said, “Where?”
“Someone saw one of my leaflets.”
“Are you hungry?” she said to the cat. “I’ll bet you are. I’ll bet you are. Let me give you some milk. Come in Jack, come in.”
Jack ventured just inside the door. Mrs. Larwood disappeared into the kitchen. He heard the fridge door open After a moment she returned to the hallway.
“He’s lapping that milk up, Jack! Lapping it up!”
“Good.”
“Would you like some tea? And some cake?”
“No.” Jack said too hurriedly. “No, thanks. I have to shoot off.”
Mrs. Larwood stepped past him and closed the door. “No, don’t shoot off. Come and look at the way this milk is being lapped up! You wouldn’t believe it!”
Jack pawed at his own face before following Mrs. Larwood into the kitchen. Sure enough, the cat lapped and lapped at the milk. The pair of them stared down at the creature in silence. It seemed like it didn’t want to stop.
“Look at that!” Mrs. Larwood said. “Just look at that.”
“I have to go,” Jack said.
Mrs. Larwood seemed not to hear him at first. Then she went out of the kitchen and came back with the cat-carrying box. She stooped and gently lifted the cat, putting him back in the box and closing the flaps.
“He’s lovely,” she said, offering the box back to Jack. “But he’s not my cat. Of course, you knew that, didn’t you, Jack?”
“Mrs. Larwood—”
“It’s very sweet of you. You must have gone to a lot of trouble to find one that looks quite similar. Now, I know I’m old; I’m also half blind; but I’m n
ot completely stupid. I’d be a very foolish old woman if I didn’t know my own cat.”
“I didn’t—”
“The collar, though, did belong to my cat. Which means that my cat is dead somewhere, and it also means that you know that but didn’t want to tell me.”
Jack first colored and then found hot, stinging tears of shame springing from his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“How old are you, Jack? Thirteen, is it?”
He nodded, wiping his eyes.
“I’m going to tell you something. You didn’t want me to know that my cat was dead. You were trying to protect me. Your instincts were good. But it would have been better if you’d told me, then I would have been able to put it behind me. Pets die. People die. I know enough about life to know that when something like that happens, you can’t put the clocks back. Do you understand me, Jack?”
He nodded.
“You’re a good lad. Now, take this box. And say to me, ‘Mrs. Larwood, your cat died but I’ve found you a lovely new cat.’ ”
Jack could barely speak. He had a stone in his throat. “Mrs. Larwood,” he croaked, “your cat died but I’ve found you a lovely new cat.”
“He’s a beauty,” Mrs. Larwood said, taking the box from Jack all over again.
“Mrs. Larwood, Mrs. Larwood, do you want to know how your cat died?”
“No, Jack. I’ll do my best to look after this one just as well as the other one. Now run along, and we’ll say no more about this.”
PETER’S DAY WAS DONE. He had just parked his van in the driveway at The Old Forge when his phone rang. It was Iqbal, the dentist. He had some information that he thought might interest Peter. He told Peter that a brand-new technique had just been developed by scientists at the University of California in the United States. DNA analysis of methylation patterns could accurately read a person’s age to within five years. The reading could be done by taking saliva samples.
Iqbal had no idea what Peter would have to do, beyond getting Tara to give up a saliva sample. But the science was now in place, he enthused. The mystery—or part of the mystery—could be solved.
Peter thanked Iqbal. He rang off and, still sitting in his van, called his sister.
“We need some of your spit, Tara.”
“My spit.”
“Yes, your spit. Science has caught up with you.” He told her all about the wonderful scientific breakthrough. “Would you be okay with that? If we found a way to get it tested, I mean.”
There was a pause before Tara said she wouldn’t mind. “My spit,” she said again. Her voice was inscrutable.
Peter sat in his car thinking about it for a while after he’d ended the call. Then he got out of the car, locked it, and went inside, where he found Genevieve and Richie sitting in the living room. They were talking very quietly.
JACK CROSSED THE STREET, relief and shame tearing at him in equal measure. He noticed that his dad’s truck was parked in the driveway and when he got inside he found Richie and his mum and dad speaking in hushed voices in the living room. There was an atmosphere, some kind of adult drama, the character of which he couldn’t grasp. He left them to it. He checked himself in the mirror and thought his eyes looked red, so he washed his face, dried himself hurriedly, and came back down again.
He slipped quietly into the living room, where the adults were talking. His dad looked up at him, blinked heavily, then, with eyebrows raised, looked back at Richie.
“It’s all right,” Richie said.
Jack quickly realized that Richie was giving permission for Jack to stay while they talked. Jack settled on the end of the sofa.
“How long has it been there?” Genevieve asked, in a slightly croaky voice.
“I didn’t notice it until just before Christmas,” Richie said. “But the scan suggested it has been growing there a long time. That’s what the quack said, anyway. He says it’s big. Says I shouldn’t be here by rights.”
“And it’s definitely malignant?” Peter said. Jack looked at his father. He thought his dad’s face looked ashen.
“So they say. It’s a malignant tumor, all right. Still growing. Just bad luck, isn’t it?”
“So, so, so how long have they given you?” Peter stammered.
“Six months, tops.”
“Can’t they operate?” Genevieve said, shaking her head.
“Apparently not. They grade your tumors. I got a high grade. Which is more than I ever did at school.” Richie looked at Jack and winked. “Here, I wrote it on a bit of paper. I can’t even pronounce what I’ve got. Something about getting a medal.” He fiddled in his pocket and withdrew a scrap of notepaper. “Here. Medullo-blastoma. Of the cerebellum. More common in kids than adults. Now they want to drill a hole in my head and take some tissue samples. I don’t fancy that much.”
“It’s a biopsy,” Genevieve said. “They have to.”
“There’s even a complication with that. I can’t remember the details.”
“Jesus,” Peter said. “Have you told Tara?”
“No. We’ve only just got back together and things have been going great. And I don’t know what I’m gonna tell her.”
And they all sat for some minutes in silence. Jack didn’t move a muscle. He felt he shouldn’t even blink.
Then Richie said, “Funny thing is I was going to give up smoking. You know, health thing. Not much point of that now, is there?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
There is neither explanation nor teaching in the true wonder tale.
A. S. BYATT
I’m so glad you came,” Mrs. Larwood said. “I didn’t think you would, after I’d wasted your time on the last visit.”
Tara came into the house and Mrs. Larwood closed the door behind her. “It’s understandable,” Tara said. “Though I was starting to guess.”
“Will you sit down?”
“Only if you promise not to give me tea and cake. I’ve agreed with Jack that your cake must be the worst cake going.”
Mrs. Larwood laughed and promised she would make tea but wouldn’t offer any cake. “Can I say something about the dark glasses, my dear? You’ll find you don’t need them and after a while it all returns to normal. Your sight, that is. You can stop squinting after a while. And that terrible feeling of grit in your eyes, that goes away, too.”
Tara took off her sunglasses and thumbed her eyes. She let the glasses rest on the table.
“Though I can’t give you any assurances that there isn’t any long-lasting damage. I’ve got cataracts. I’ve had operations on them that have failed to help. I’ll never know if that’s just from old age or if it’s because I damaged my eyes. And sometimes I think I’d like to see it again. That special light.”
Tara pressed the palms of her hands to her face. “You don’t know what a relief it is to find someone who has been there. Someone who doesn’t think that I’m either lying or insane.”
“I certainly do know what a relief it is. You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to about it, too.”
“Really?”
Mrs. Larwood sat down and peered at Tara through the gluey cataracts of her oyster-gray eyes. They were cataracts that had on them a shimmer, almost mother-of-pearl. “Yes, really. I very quickly learned to shut my mouth about what had happened. They locked me up for a year.”
“No!”
Mrs. Larwood nodded. “Oh, yes. Do you know that place they call the Pastures? Up on Forest Lane? It was 1952, and when I came back I tried to stop being honest but it was too late. I was put in that place with a lot of lunatics. It’s a wonder I didn’t actually go insane just from staying there—I could tell you some stories. Anyway, I calculated that I’d better tell them I’d run off with a chap who later abandoned me. They were much happier with that. They gave me electric-shock therapy, to cure me of running away with chaps ever again. I lost great chunks of my memory. But I never forgot what happened in the Outwoods, or where I went, or who was there.”
&
nbsp; “In the Outwoods? Is that where it happened with you?”
“Yes. As soon as Jack told me about you and the Outwoods, I guessed what had happened. As for the Outwoods,” she said, “I told Jack I wouldn’t go there in a month of Sundays. And I meant it.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” Tara said.
“I am. Very much.”
“I’ve been back up only recently. There’s nothing to harm you.”
“Oh, you don’t understand. I’m not afraid of what’s up at the Outwoods. I’m afraid of myself. I’m afraid of wanting to go back. Wanting to go back there.”
The kettle whistled and she got up to make the tea. She returned with a teapot, and china cups, and a little milk jug and a sugar bowl, and, despite her promises, with a slice of the same ginger cake she had offered Jack and Tara before, dreamily setting them down on the table. “I’m old and I’ve had my time. But if the opportunity presented itself I know I’d go back in a shot.”
“I can understand that. It’s still an open temptation for me, too.”
“Then perhaps it’s a temptation you should give in to.”
“I can’t, Mrs. Larwood. I’ve made a kind of promise.”
Mrs. Larwood shook her head. The two women stared into their empty china cups as if seeing inside them tumultuous visions and apparitions. Mrs. Larwood brought them both out of the reverie by slapping the table with the palm of her hand. “And such sluts the women were there! Sluts!”
“Well, yes. The men, too.”
“You can’t blame the men if the women have their legs open all the time. What do you expect? Sluts and slatterns. When I was there the houses were filthy, no one did a hand’s stir, and the men never got anything done, either. They had no electricity or gas or anything like that, and this is what it comes to if the women have their legs open noon and night.”
“Well. I kept myself to myself while I was there.”
“Did you?” Mrs. Larwood said. “I can’t exactly say the same.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and giggled. “I joined in. I mean, how could you resist? ”
“Somehow I did.”
“Perhaps you’re stronger-minded than I was. Though I must say I missed all that after I came back. The men here were pretty useless in that regard.”
