by Simon Lelic
‘We could … find Evan,’ Jack goes on. ‘Couldn’t we? Because he has to have seen your father. He must have, if only to collect his money.’
I’ve been wondering about Evan myself. It’s occurred to me that the police, if it’s true they’ve spoken to my father, might already have found the estate agent too. But if they had they would have done something. Surely. And I don’t doubt that whatever bribe my father offered Evan, it would have come with some inducement to disappear.
‘How much do you think your father paid him? Like … thousands, right? Five grand, would you say? Ten?’
‘I doubt it was that much. If there’s one thing I learned from watching my father, it’s that people generally cost less than you might think.’
It makes no difference either way now what Evan’s conscience was worth but my response only seems to dishearten Jack further. ‘But we could find him,’ he insists. ‘Don’t you think? And the police could get him to talk. Couldn’t they?’
I try to nod but it comes out sideways. ‘We could try.’
‘Jesus, Syd!’ All of a sudden Jack is on his feet. ‘Why are you so …’ He rattles his head. ‘So bloody calm? At the police station you were about ready to throw a chair!’
And you’ve gone the other way, I don’t point out.
‘I’m not calm, Jack. I’m just …’ I close my eyes and it’s a struggle to open them again. ‘I’m tired. That’s all. Just … tired.’
It’s an understatement. Jack’s right: at the police station I was a mass of furious energy but it’s taken it out of me. The morning we’ve had. The fucking year. And I know I’m going to have to recover my strength quickly but right now I can’t see how that’s going to happen. I imagine this is how footballers feel when they trudge off the field three goals down at half-time. Or actors, spent after the opening scenes and resting themselves in the intermission before the grand finale.
Jack’s got that look again, the one I noticed before. Suspicious, resentful: like he’s on the brink of saying something hurtful and isn’t even trying this time to haul himself back.
‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say. But that’s done it. So much for feeling tired. The accusation is like a shot of adrenaline.
‘When we were talking to Inspector Leigh. There was something you were holding back.’
‘You said it yourself, Jack. I wasn’t holding back at all. If anything I was doing the opposite.’
‘That’s not what I mean. What I mean is you were hiding something. You know this isn’t over. What happens next, Syd? What’s your father planning from here?’
‘How should I know what my father’s planning? Jesus, Jack.’
‘This doesn’t end with me, Syd. It can’t. There’s something else your father wants. You know there is.’
‘It doesn’t matter what he wants,’ I say. ‘He can’t get it. Not now.’
‘Why not? Nothing’s changed. The police aren’t going to stop him. You didn’t even ask them for help.’
‘Weren’t you listening, Jack? That’s basically all I was doing!’
‘For protection, is what I mean! You’re in danger, Syd. Why won’t you just admit it? Why won’t you even admit it to me?’
‘Because I genuinely don’t think I am!’ I say and even to my ear I sound half convincing.
Jack responds with a disgusted little snort. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Have it your way.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you don’t trust me. Clearly.’
‘I do, Jack! I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known!’
‘The way you trusted me about Amira?’
I stall, my mouth dangling uselessly. It is: this, what’s been happening to us, it’s becoming real. It’s what I was afraid would happen, the thing I was terrified we wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘I do trust you, Jack,’ I say again. ‘What I need is for you to trust me.’
I think for a moment I’m getting through to him. But then Jack scoffs, evades my eye. ‘Yeah, well,’ he says. ‘I’m finding it pretty bloody hard to trust anyone right now.’
I take a step towards him. ‘Jack, please …’
He shakes me off when I try to touch him. ‘And that’s the other thing,’ he says. ‘How could you not know your father was out on parole?’
I recoil from the non sequitur. ‘What?’
‘Didn’t you think to check?’
For a second or two I’m standing open-mouthed. ‘No, I didn’t bloody check. I left my father, Jack. I ran away. I didn’t give a shit where my father was after that, just so long as he was nowhere near me.’
It’s an opening and Jack can’t resist. ‘And look how that’s turned out for you.’
I feel a searing beneath my skin. You fucking prick, I want to say. Even now, in spite of everything. It takes every ounce of my self-control to hold it in.
Jack, to his credit, flushes with shame. Less creditable, he tries to hide it.
‘I’m thinking of calling my parents,’ he announces. He says it like he’s daring me to object. I would of course, ordinarily. Jack’s relationship with his parents is a source of tension between us we do our best to pretend isn’t there. He thinks I think he should treat them with the same indifference with which they treat him; that he should disown them, effectively; detach himself. I don’t. I just want him to care less what they think of him. To not see every slight and subtle put-down they inflict on him as something he’s brought upon himself.
Jack’s watching for my reaction. ‘That’s a good idea,’ I answer. ‘I think you should.’
‘What?’
‘I think you should. You heard the inspector. We can’t afford a solicitor, Jack. Not a good one.’
The implication is unmistakable. It’s as close as either one of us has got to stating openly that Jack is likely to go to jail.
Jack is too stunned for an instant to respond. Again, I want to hold him. Again, I know I can’t.
‘Maybe … maybe it would be better if you went and saw them,’ I say. ‘Sit down and talk to them properly. Tell them it’s my fault, obviously.’ I try a smile.
Jack, instead of smiling back, opts to take affront. ‘Go to Dorset, you mean? Now?’
‘Better that than asking them up.’ What I mean is they’ll respond better if Jack is the one to make the pilgrimage. They don’t like coming to London at the best of times. And now Jack and I have moved in together, they’ve turned not visiting into a point of principle.
‘No way, Syd. There’s no way I’m leaving you alone.’
It’s what I knew he’d say. It’s the old Jack – my Jack – shining through, at a time each of us needs him to the least.
‘Jack, listen.’ This time I forcibly take his hands. ‘This isn’t about me any more. This, what happens next: it’s all about you. And you need to protect yourself. Your parents can help, Jack. In a way I can’t.’
He’s frowning again. Thinking, churning. He frees his hands from mine.
‘It sounds like you’re trying to get rid of me,’ he says.
I shut my eyes again, open my mouth to respond. But I don’t speak.
‘Syd? Did you hear me? I mean, forget about your father. It’s like you don’t want me here. Like you want me out of the way.’
‘I heard you, Jack. I …’
But it’s all I can say. Partly it’s that tiredness creeping back. At the pretending, I realize. The misdirection. Also, I’ve lied to Jack so much already. I can’t bring myself to lie to him again.
Sydney
In the end it doesn’t matter anyway. They come for Jack that very evening.
‘Jack Laurence Walsh? I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Sean Payne. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
It’s like in thos
e TV dramas, word for word. Inspector Leigh delivers the little speech in a monotone, not sounding her usual self at all. This should be her moment of triumph but instead she looks like someone beaten. I suspect she likes Jack and that because of that this has become one of those cases that do nothing to boost her professional pride.
‘Syd?’ Jack says as they put him in handcuffs. Just that, just my name. It’s not a plea, though, not to my ears. To me it sounds like an accusation.
I reach for him but I don’t get to touch him before they’re leading him from our doorway and out on to the street. I’m crying, I realize. I can’t help it. With my sleeve drawn over my palm I cover my mouth. Neither Inspector Leigh nor her colleague – a man roughly the size of a wardrobe – makes eye contact with me. They behave as though I’m not there. I follow them out anyway, barefooted, and it feels like I’m wading against a current.
‘Jack? Oh Jack, I’m so sorry.’
I don’t think he hears me. Inspector Leigh has her hand on Jack’s crown and she’s manoeuvring him into the back seat of the police car. The glass is tinted and when the door slams Jack is stolen from my view.
And that’s when, for the first time, I look around.
It’s still light outside so I can see the neighbours who are watching. One or two outside on their steps, even more peering out from behind glass. But it’s not the neighbours who catch my attention. It’s the man across the street, seated on the bonnet of his car. He wears a suit. His shoes are buffed. And though his face is partly in shadow I can tell his lips caress a smile. But my father also has an odd little tell, one he’s never been very good at hiding. It’s just a gesture: his index finger on his right hand rubbing circles around the tip of his thumb. It means he wants something. That he’s growing impatient. And I know when I see it that he’s angry, and that this game of ours is coming to a head.
Sydney
I’m four. Maybe slightly older. It’s not the start of it but it’s the start of me remembering. I’m lying in bed, my feet pointing towards the door. It’s dark in my bedroom or it would be but for the light reaching in from the landing. I’ve had a nightmare and I’ve been crying, shouting out for my mother. She’s there, at the threshold, but standing in front of her – blocking her entrance – is my father. He’s in his pyjamas, my mother beside him in her nightie, and it’s clear I’ve roused them both from sleep.
My mother has her hand on my father’s forearm. It slides up, down, like she’s comforting him, like the way sometimes she comforts me when I’m feeling ill. From his forearm it moves over to his chest and here it rests for a moment, presses itself flat. All the time my mother’s whispering in my father’s ear, her eyes darting occasionally – anxiously – towards me. One of her knees is bent, her foot poised like a ballerina’s. She looks so pretty and I can’t understand why my father, instead of looking at her, is staring so intently at me. In his hands he’s holding one of his belts. It’s black, made of leather, and the buckle winks at me when it catches the light.
My mother’s hand begins to walk its way down, her fingers working like tiny little legs. Incy wincy spider, I’m thinking between snivels, which when my mother does it on me never fails to make me giggle. My father isn’t giggling, though. He’s looking at me the way he does when I’m eating and I know I’m making too much mess.
My mother starts working at the buttons of my father’s pyjama top. She seems to be struggling with them and I’m thinking that maybe they’re stuck and that’s why she’s helping him in the first place. She helps me too, if one of my dresses is inside out or I’m having trouble with the foot end of my tights. Except my father doesn’t seem to want my mother’s help. He wriggles a shoulder and when that doesn’t work he turns and hits her. Not angrily. The same way he’d swat a mosquito. My mother yelps. She doesn’t fall down but she staggers and her face when she takes her hand away is all wet and blotchy. My father doesn’t appear to notice. He’s looking at me again. He takes a step into my room and without switching on the light he shuts my mother outside on the landing.
I don’t call out after that when I have nightmares. After that it’s not the nightmares I’m most afraid of.
I’m seven. I should be happy. I did a dance at school and everyone loved it but halfway through my father got up and walked out. He isn’t waiting outside for the rest of us. When we get there the car is missing from the place we parked it and my mum and sister and I have no choice except to walk. It’s raining so by the time we get home we’re soaked. Also my sister is crying because normally if we were going that far my mother would have pushed her in the buggy.
He’s sitting on the sofa in the lounge. When my mother sees his face she starts to say something but with a hand-flick he dismisses her from the room. He tells me to come inside and shut the door.
‘I hope you’re proud of yourself,’ he says to me.
‘Daddy, I …’
‘You looked proud. Up on that stage. Prancing the way you were. Preening.’
I don’t know what preening means. And prancing, I thought, was something horses did.
‘Fetch your things.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t say what. Fetch your things.’
‘But … what things? I mean … which things? Daddy I don’t under–’
‘Fetch. Your. Things.’
He must mean my ballet things. My changing bag. I set it down in the hallway when we came in.
‘Open it,’ he tells me when I get back. ‘Your dress, your shoes, take them out.’
I don’t have a dress. What I have is a leotard and a skirt but I don’t tell him in case the truth makes him angrier.
‘Where should I …’
I glance around for somewhere to put them and that’s when I notice the scissors. They live in the kitchen usually. Now they’re lying on the coffee table.
‘Use those.’
I frown. At the scissors, at my ballet costume, at my father.
‘What?’
My father slams a fist on the coffee table and I’m so startled I drop everything I’m holding.
‘Don’t. Say. What! The scissors. Use them. Start with the ribbons.’
There are ribbons instead of elastic on my ballet shoes. When my mother first gave them to me they were the part I was thrilled about the most. My father knows this. He was there when I took them from the bag.
‘But …’
His fist impacts once again on the coffee table. The boom this time jostles out my tears.
‘One more word, young lady. If one more word comes out of your mouth before you start cutting, I’m going to use those scissors on you.’
I should be happy. That’s what I’m thinking as I pick up the scissors. My mother, my teachers, they all promised me that dancing would make me happy. And your father, they said: he’ll be so proud. When I remember that I cut willingly. It’s a struggle in the end to make myself stop.
I’m nine. My jaw is swollen and my father is beside me feeding me soup. It’s Heinz tomato, my favourite, and the taste of it is making me want to hurl.
‘You’re spilling it, Maggie,’ my father says. The soup is down my front and on the table and has probably dripped on to the floor.
‘Maggie? You’re spilling it.’
He keeps saying it and he keeps spooning. There’s no point telling him I can’t open my mouth wide enough or that the spoon – a tablespoon – is too big. He knows about the spoon because he chose it and he knows about my jaw because he was the one who threw the punch. And anyway I think he thinks it’s funny. He’ll keep forcing me to try to eat even when it gets to the point I start to splutter and I have soup bleeding through my nose.
‘Open wide,’ he says. I feel the metal of the spoon scraping against the enamel of my teeth.
My mother, with her back turned, is very slowly washing up saucepans.
My sister is seated just across from me. She has a bowl of soup too. She’s allowed to feed herself, though, and the tablecloth where she
is seated is spotless. She isn’t looking at me but I can tell she’s watching.
I’m twelve, maybe eleven. My father looks up from behind his desk and sees me staring at him from the doorway of his office. I’d turn and hurry away except my father holds up a finger. I only paused in the first place because I was so astonished to see him counting so much money.
‘Daddy …’
The finger again. Quicker, sharper.
The money is in stacks. I can’t tell what notes they are but even if they’re only fivers you could probably buy a car with the amount my father has in front of him. Two cars, and two chauffeurs to drive them.
‘Daddy, I’m sorry, the door was open, I …’
I’m not helping myself. It’s like a reflex, though. There must be something I can say to him, I’ve often thought. Some magical combination of words that, uttered at the right moment, will work like a spell. They’ll stop him in his tracks. His grimace will fade and his fist will fall and whatever evil enchantment it is that has a hold of him will give way to a light that comes on behind his eyes. Yet all I can ever come up with is some lame-arsed version of I’m sorry. I’m sorry, however you say it, is no abracadabra. You’d think by now I would have learned.
He stacks the stacks and carries the pile to his little safe. He keys the code (six digits, my birthday, which must be like a joke), slots the money inside, then pulls out a battered metal box. Shutting the safe before he turns, he carries the metal box back to his desk.
‘Come inside. Close the door.’
I hesitate then do as he says. I don’t want to but disobeying, I know, will only make things worse.
‘Daddy, I …’
‘Sit down.’
There is a chair on the door side of the desk – a chair for visitors – and I park myself cautiously on the edge of the seat.
‘Were you spying, Maggie?’
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished formulating the question. ‘No, Daddy, I swear! I just … I didn’t …’
That finger again. Instantly it renders me mute.
