‘I don’t think it’s the flirting Mrs Toon’s bothered about,’ he said. After all, it wasn’t just Mrs Toon who’d been giving him the funny looks. What about the tea ladies, the volunteers, the gardeners? He’d messed up, and now Astrid was paying for his mistakes. ‘I’m so sorry; I should never have told them what we were doing. You took Retrocognition seriously - and now they think you’ve flipped.’
‘It’s not that bad…,’
‘You’re confused by me. I’ve seen it before. It happens.’ He made an exasperated gesture. ‘When I’m finished at Addleston, when this job’s over, you’ll never have to see me again.’
‘Never?’ Her voice was uncertain.
All he wanted was to kiss her. One kiss, for pity’s sake. Like he always used to.
He could easily lose his temper with her, and push her down the stairs himself. It was he who had rushed up behind her that day and made her fall, stumbling and awkward, grazed and broken.
‘Charlie, are you all right?’
He blinked. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, was I…?’
‘I can’t tell if you’re here with me, or if you’re seeing something else…Your eyes are open, but I don’t know what’s going on…,’
‘It was Amelia. At the top of the steps. Harry was leaving her. It was mixed up again. Two things happening at once.’
‘It’s a bit alarming, when it comes over you like that.’
‘It doesn’t come with an early warning signal,’ he said. ‘Here I go everyone. Shield yourselves!’
‘All right,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. You forget I’m not used to seeing you do it. I’m still trying to understand how it works.’
‘You and me both. You’ll appreciate that I don’t always regard it as a ‘gift’. It’s more like an unwelcome possession that was once foisted on me, and now I don’t know where to keep it, or what I’m supposed to do with it.’
‘And you think I want to exploit it. But I’d never make you do anything against your will. Never.’
‘You can’t stop it. When it happens, it happens. Like then.’
‘Why? What did you see?’
‘I’m not sure. I need more to go on. I can see Harry and Amelia, but I don’t know where he went afterwards. And I don’t know what she did, once he’d gone. All I know is there’s a lot of pain.’ He pressed his hand against his chest. ‘Right there.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly. ‘You need more cues, things that will prompt you, I understand.’ She had news. ‘I’ve got another lead. There’s a Seagrave connection in America. I’ve got the name and address of someone in Peabody.’
‘Someone related to Mary Ellen?’
‘It’s a possibility. Only - we can’t do it in an official capacity. You’d have to do it off your own bat.’ She deliberately concentrated on her food, ‘I can’t come with you, much as I’d love to. I’m really busy with the new season, and I’m due for a meeting with my superiors regarding my so-called lax behaviour. They want me to justify my working methods, amongst other things.’
‘What other things?’
She skipped to the end in upbeat fashion. ‘I’ll let you know what the outcome is. I’ll tell you if and when Mrs Toon manages to finish me off.’
Her jokey tone didn’t disguise the gravity of the situation. ‘Is it that bad?’
‘It’s one of those periodic nuisances I have to deal with. It’ll blow over. But we
could always exchange notes when you get back. Catch up. Debrief.’
No wonder she was being circumspect, it was his fault she was in trouble. And now she was having to cut him loose in order to save herself.
Chapter Eighteen
When he arrived home that night he messaged his brother straight away. ‘Been researching Tunneys and Oswalds at Addleston House. Tragic love story unearthed between Amelia Tunney and Harry Bramall, a journalist. Repressed, kept apart, unable to be together. Might be able to follow up some info in the States. Would love to come over and see you at the same time? Dad says he’ll pay my fare. Doesn’t have to be for long, a week or so would do. How are you fixed?’
There was a brief delay before Andy texted back: ‘I’ll pay for the trip, don’t worry. Dad still thinks ‘credit’ means high praise. We’ll do the sights. See ya soon bub. A.’
*
A couple of weeks later, he was boarding the plane and bumbling hand luggage down the aisle. As a single passenger, he’d been allocated a random seat, and was now in the middle of the plane, in the centre of a row. Two elderly ladies immaculately dressed in two piece suits and tasteful jewellery took seats nearby, excitedly chattering about the New York delights to come: shopping and a Broadway musical.
Charlie unzipped his bag, retrieved his paperback and crushed sweets, and with some sharp elbow wriggling, managed to unravel the earphones from the packet and plug them into the correct repository – vainly hoping that in-flight entertainment would take his mind off his solitariness. It was easy for the cabin crew to over look his squished state, partially hidden by the corpulent American on one side and the fidgeting mother and child on the other.
‘Come with me,’ he’d said to Astrid in the tearoom. ‘We’ll go together.’
‘Would love to,’ she’d said, ‘but I can’t.’ How much of that was true and how much convenient excuse? Unfair of him even to ask.
The flight landed safely at JFK and he joined the back of a long queue for security checks. Once the official at the desk had stamped his passport and given it back to him with a bored sounding, ‘that’s yours,’ he was at last standing in Arrivals, where a familiar yet unfamiliar looking man was scouting around the teeming hordes for a glimpse of someone he recognized. ‘Andy!’ The plea was about as well projected as his feeble attempts at shot put had once been on the school field. Clunk, thud.
In the movies, family reunions were accompanied by tears and massive bear hugs. Charlie slipped his arm through his brother’s in an attempt to stop him from straying. Andy reacted in alarm at being manhandled, registered that it was his brother, knocked Charlie’s bag out of his hands and attempted a clumsy embrace, all in one movement.
‘What are you staring at?’ said Andy a few seconds later. ‘You checking I haven’t had a face lift?’
*
Mothers don’t just drop dead in the kitchen.
It was ten in the morning and he’d only just got up. His mother was lying on the tiled floor wearing her black and white star patterned pyjamas with white piping round the cuffs, and the precise shade of chipped nail varnish on her toes was Black Cherry by Rimmel. The faint bruising on her face and the pale bluish tinge to her lips and fingers soon told him it was no joke. She wasn’t pretending. She wasn’t asleep.
‘Why on earth have you done this now?’ he asked her. ‘I’m going to University in a month’s time.’
Poor Dad. Could he really leave him on his tod while he gallivanted off to university? Shouldn’t he try and put off going for a year, defer his place? Out of the question, said Dad. You’d only use a gap year as an excuse to mope about and feel miserable; you may as well go straight to university and lose yourself in academia.
He wasn’t the only one to make plans for the future. The coffin was barely in the ground before his elder brother announced his own departure. It might have been years in the fermenting, but Charlie definitely hadn’t expected his brother to up sticks and travel to the other side of the Atlantic. He’d expected him to move to North London, or possibly the Home Counties, a destination that was at least accessible by public transport.
‘Bit extreme isn’t it?’ Charlie had pointed out.
Andy left the following week, stressing there was no need for anyone to see him off at the airport, thank God, and he and Dad were left home, alone.
*
Andy checked his watch. ‘Eight thirty. You were delayed. I’ve been waiting since six.’
He strode out of the airport and across to the taxi rank where he expe
rtly hailed a cab, and the driver graciously stowed Charlie’s bag in the ‘trunk’.
They climbed into the back seat of the cab and the low slung vehicle bumped and rocked its way out of the airport and onto the New York roads.
An alien feeling of being somewhere new, where everything had swelled into marvellous, gigantic form, gave Charlie a thrilling sense of excitement. He was experiencing that wondrously fabled scene: the Manhattan Skyline at Night. Resembling a geological rock formation studded with quartz and crystal, the black tower blocks thrust upwards against a purple sky. River-reflected illuminations hung below the shore line like a chain of sparkling icicles. The suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge – a huge repeating motif – shone like skeins of twinkling black thread on a magnificent loom.
‘So where are we staying? Are we near the Park?’
‘Not quite. West Fifty seventh, it’s handy for Fifth, and Broadway and Times Square. We can do the sights together. If you want.’
The taxi pulled up outside the Days Inn Manhattan, a large, flat fronted hotel, its windows lit up like a station. A very public, municipal building, business-like and reliable. ‘Is this it?’
‘Yup. This is our home for the next coupla nights.’
He liked the way his brother said ‘nights’, as if daytime was less important and they’d be hoovering up the sidewalks, sucking the Manhattan culture like thick milkshake through a straw.
The honks from the car horns, the wail of the sirens, the orange carpets, the room service phone by the bed, the feeling that he never wanted to go to sleep ever again, sensation after sensation, crowded his mind. Meantime he flaked out on the bed nearest the bathroom. If he’d had bourbon and a cigarette to hand, he’d have reached for them.
‘You didn’t have to spend money on a hotel,’ he said. ‘You could have put me on your sofa, or on the floor. I wouldn’t have minded.’
‘I thought as you currently have no income I’d treat you. Right, do you want to unpack first or go get some dinner?’
His brother seemed to be struggling with his vowel sounds; flip flopping between American and British, unable to decide whether to accentuate his stateside accent or stick with the native. His mother’s American accent had been watered down after years of conversing with Dad and her English friends and the only hint that she was from overseas would be when a peculiar American phrase or saying crept in. ‘Be with you in a minute – I’m just taking care of business,’ she might say, making it sound as though she was a mafia don, when really she was just intending hanging the washing out – or laundry as she called it.
‘Where do you wanna go?’ Andy asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know, the Hard Rock Café?’
‘No way. Too many tourists and you’d have to stand in line till four in the morning. There’s a place close by. You wanna walk, or you wanna get a cab?’
‘Let’s walk. Unless it’s not safe at night? Is it safe at night?’
‘Relax, would you? I’m not taking you to a crack den.’
*
The eatery was a self-consciously retro replica of an American Diner, all chrome tables and bright ice cream colours. The walls were covered in black and white prints of Hollywood superstars - James Dean, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra.
‘How’s Dad?’ said Andy.
‘Good, thanks.’
The last time the two of them had eaten out like this, was for their mother’s fortieth birthday. Tea at the Ritz. All gilt and mirrors, Gail had complained the lighting was unflattering to her skin tone.
‘Much as I love junk food,’ Charlie said, attempting to fix his jaw around a massive chilli- burger, ‘you could have taken me to a real restaurant.’
‘Okay!’ Andy brushed off the complaint and stabbed idly at his fries, ‘tell me all about Addleston. How’d you get on?’
‘It was great. I had a nice time, met some nice people.’
‘What happened, then? Tell me the reason you had to come all the way here.’
‘Research. I told you. I have to get to a place called Peabody. There’s a woman called Aggy Seagrave there, she has some connection with Addleston and our letters.’
‘What about Astrid?’
‘What about her?’
‘Why isn’t she with you?’
‘She couldn’t get away.’
Andy narrowed his eyes. ‘You sure she didn’t flip out?’
‘Actually, no. Some people accept me the way I am.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one. Didn’t take off. Could have. Should have. Phtt.’ Charlie stabbed his knife in the top of his sesame seed bun.
The neon sign behind Andy’s head was turning his hair red. ‘Basically, what you’re saying is – leaving aside your aberrant condition – she didn’t take you very seriously, and you’ve come all the way across the Atlantic to prove yourself?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And have you given any more thought about what you could do with this commodity?’
‘Commodity?’ Charlie repeated. ‘It’s just me, the way I am… commodity?’
‘Unless you’ve got some other burning issue in your life to get fired up about? Do you? Have a cause? Maybe you’ve got an anti-capitalist march to join, or a tent city to erect? Isn’t that what dropouts do?’
‘I’m not a dropout! I’m unemployed. Well – kind of.’
‘Unemployable more like. I mean,’ Andy went on, ‘once this job is over, you’ll still have that hole in your life. You’ll need to fill it with something.’
‘Thanks. You’ve really cheered me up. You could charge for advice like that.’
‘In this city,’ said Andy, ‘I could.’
Chapter Nineteen
Initial impressions of the city in daytime were easy to summarise: Yellow. High. Wide. The Karman Line where earth’s atmosphere ends and outer space takes over couldn’t have been much higher. Glimpsed views of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings where they jostled amongst the massed ranks of the endless skyscrapers; the sheer length of the roads; the parade of flashing lights, the preponderance of the American flag; the underground steam heating system, all contributed to a complete sensory overload.
‘My neck hurts,’ Charlie said, chin pointing skywards. Everything was on such a massive scale he couldn’t focus properly. Feeble human eyes were inadequate for the job; his peripheral vision gave up in protest.
‘You get used to it,’ said Andy.
‘What’s that smell? That sweet, sickly odour?’
‘McDonalds? Air pollution? Cinnamon bagels?’
Only a few weeks earlier he had been working in a quintessentially English country house, in a quintessentially English village, and now here he was in super-sized New York City, in the heart of Manhattan, queuing for entrance to the Empire State Building.
‘A once in a lifetime experience,’ said Andy when they finally reached the viewing stage. ‘It’s one of those occasions when you look back and think: I know I did it, but I can’t quite believe it.’
Charlie peered over the edge at the bristling city and the river. The grid system, with every junction mirroring the one before, a regular pattern of tight corners and avenues stretching to infinity, was a marvel of planning, even if the view from on high was slightly hazy.
‘Let’s go the whole hog. Do what tourists are meant to do. Take a bus tour of the sights, visit the Metropolitan, look at the Statue of Liberty, pop into Tiffany’s, hang out, drink cawfee, whatever.’
‘Buy an I heart NY mug?’
It was an amazing experience, no doubt about that, but when it was all over and they went their separate ways…
‘How about showing me your office?’
‘Boring,’ said Andy. ‘You’d hate it.’
‘Ever thought of coming home?’ Charlie asked. ‘To me, to Dad?’
‘This is my home.’
‘But we miss you. Both of us.’
Andy gestured expansively. ‘We’re here now, aren�
�t we? Together?’
‘A few days only,’ Charlie protested, ‘in a hotel.’
‘Oh, you sound so much like Dad when you say things like that. Boiling everything down to hard facts. The essential kernel of truth!’
Andy was right. It was exactly the kind of thing he’d say. But it was no excuse to turn the conversation into a rant. ‘I’ll tell you something for nothing Charlie, I certainly don’t miss the gloomy, morose moods, the horrible impracticalities, the insensitivities! Having to do things his way! So anal. Never allowing anything to get messed up or moved out of place. Tuts, sighs, rolling of eyes, disagreements over what cupboards things belonged in, having to put your shoes in a straight line, your books the right way up on the shelf, your clothes colour coordinated in the wardrobe! And you were the same! ‘Mum, Andy won’t keep the purple sweets and the blue ones separate! Action Man doesn’t go in the same box as the toys, the paper doesn’t live in the drawer with the pens, and beads don’t go with pegs.’
Charlie didn’t buy it. There had to be more to it than that. Why else would his brother choose to live an ocean apart from his family for over half a decade, with only a few badly worded emails and texts for contact?
The teetering dread that Charlie remembered from childhood was scooping again at his insides; an awful, watchful feeling ingrained on his psyche. Something bad was about to happen. ‘You could have taken me with you.’
‘Oh Charlie, self-pity is not very attractive, you know.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘But you always were self-absorbed.’
The insult wasn’t new, but Charlie hadn’t heard it for a while. He considered whether or not to allow it to burrow deep inside and make its parasitic presence a permanent feature in his life. He was much stronger these days, able to withstand so much more, able to parry attacks before they did too much damage.
Mr and Mrs Gilchrist, I have a few concerns regarding your son’s behaviour. He keeps saying he’s ‘seeing’ things. He sits apart from the other children, on his own. He won’t play with them, doesn’t seem able to empathise with them or communicate on their level. Doesn’t share. Disinclined to talk much. Dare I say it… is there trouble at home?
Secrets of the Past Page 13
