by Mark Morris
I think I just about carried it off. I managed to be – in my mind, at least – authoritative without actually saying anything specific. I told Jackie that she and Steve would have various forms to fill in, and that they’d have to be ‘assessed’, but that as Hope’s origins were unknown that shouldn’t be a difficult process, and that I’d do all in my power to make things as quick and painless as possible.
I was confident I could use the heart to ease proceedings along, to retroactively fix whatever paperwork might be required to give Hope an identity, and prevent her from being an enigma that the authorities might ask questions about in future years.
‘Will we have to be interviewed?’ Jackie asked. ‘I’ve been reading up about it and it sounds as though prospective parents need to be interviewed and to attend various counselling sessions before—’
I held up my hand. ‘Ordinarily, yes, that would be the case. But as I say, because of Hope’s extraordinary circumstances I’m confident we can circumnavigate all that, especially if Clover and I deal with the paperwork from our end and provide you with references, which we’re more than happy to do. Look, don’t trouble yourself with it at all, Jackie. Just leave it up to us and we’ll—’
At which point the welcoming chimes of the front-door buzzer rang through the house.
I excused myself and hurried into the hall, wondering if this was Clover, turning up late. If it was, there’d be no time to ask how she was feeling, or where she’d been. I’d simply have to fill her in quickly on what Jackie and I had been talking about so that she didn’t contradict what I’d said. To be honest, I’d been on tenterhooks all through lunch, wondering whether Hope or Kate might say something that would tear apart the web of lies I’d spun for Jackie, and prompt her to raise some awkward questions. Both Clover and I had broached the subject with Hope in the past and impressed upon her how important it was that she not talk about her previous life. Although Hope seemed to understand the need for secrecy, I’d been afraid that in the heat of the moment she’d let something slip. Luckily, though, neither of the girls had said anything I couldn’t have explained away.
I crossed the hallway and opened the front door. Standing on the step was a black guy wearing a blue cap and a blue jacket with a courier logo on the pocket. Propped against him, his hand resting lightly on its top edge, was a slim, rectangular parcel encased in strong brown cardboard; it looked like a giant credit card.
‘Mr Locke?’ he said, his voice so rich and deep he could have made a living doing voiceovers for TV ads.
‘Yes.’
‘This is for you. Sign here please.’
I signed for the parcel, carried it inside and propped it against the wall. I was curious, and slightly suspicious, but I didn’t get chance to open it until much later that evening, after Jackie and Hope had left and Kate had been fed, bathed, read a Mrs Pepperpot story and tucked up in bed.
I carried the parcel into what I had used to call the drawing room, and now simply called the front room, where a fire was burning in the grate. I examined the parcel carefully before opening it, but there was no return address. Using a Stanley knife, I slit the parcel along the top edge and flipped it up like the flap of a letterbox. Now I could see what looked like the top of a picture frame made of some shiny dark wood. What was this? Had somebody sent me a painting?
Taking hold of the top corners of the frame, I lifted it from its cardboard packaging. I propped the picture against the side of one of the armchairs and stepped back to look at it.
Immediately I felt a little jolt of shock in my stomach. ‘Fuck,’ I said.
It wasn’t a painting, it was a framed poster, and it was one that I had seen before. In yellow letters along the top were the words ‘London Hippodrome, Friday 10th December 1948’, and in larger yellow letters below that, forming an arch, ‘THE GREAT BARNABY’. Beneath the lettering was a brightly coloured illustration of a grinning, bearded man in a red eye mask with a top hat on his head. He was wearing white kid gloves and was juggling a variety of objects, one of which was the obsidian heart.
The last time I had seen this poster it had been hanging on the wall in Barnaby McCallum’s house. In the very room where I had killed him, in fact.
There was a cream envelope attached to the bottom of the picture, tucked between the edge of the frame and the glass. I plucked it out, opened it and read the carefully folded letter inside.
It was a solicitor’s letter, and the message was short and to the point. It read:
Dear Mr Locke
Mr McCallum stipulated in his will that you should be sent this particular item on this particular date. He said that you would find it useful.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Coulthard esq.
TWENTY-TWO
WONDER WOMAN
‘Hey,’ I said softly as Lyn slowly, and with obvious pain, turned her head to look at me. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fantastic,’ she replied, in a tone of such quiet and self-aware irony that I couldn’t help grinning.
In truth, she looked dreadful, even worse than I’d been expecting. This, though, was only because the bruising had come out on her face, which meant that instead of looking her usual pale self her skin was now an interesting canvas of yellow, green and blue-black blotches. Her eyes were the worst, the pouchy black flesh beneath them making them seem even more sunken than usual.
‘So how does it feel to be an action hero?’
‘Painful.’
‘You saved my life, you know. You were brilliant.’
She probably would have shrugged if, as she had told me on the phone, it didn’t send shooting pains through her body every time she moved. Instead she merely grimaced. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was overcome with rage. I’d never felt so angry before. All I really remember thinking was that I didn’t want him to win.’
I nodded at the bandage, which still encircled her shaved skull like a turban. ‘How’s the head now?’
‘Throbs all the time. It’s just about bearable if I stay still and keep taking the tablets.’ She gestured wearily at the chair beside her bed. ‘Aren’t you going to sit down?’
‘There’s a reason why I’m still hovering by the door. I’ve brought someone to see you. But I didn’t want to spring it on you. I wanted to find out whether you were up to it first.’
She closed her eyes briefly, and I saw that her eyelids were purple-black too. ‘I’m not sure I am, Alex. I’m not really up to visitors.’
‘You might be up to this one. She’s waited a long time to see her mummy.’
Lyn’s eyes snapped back open. And now they didn’t look sunken at all. They looked wide and full of disbelief. Then abruptly they went shiny and wet, and suddenly tears were running down her bruised cheeks.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
She blinked and made an attempt to wipe her tears away with a trembling hand – the one that wasn’t encased in a pot that stretched from her fingers to above her elbow.
‘Kate?’ she whispered. ‘She’s really here?’
‘She is. Shall I bring her in?’
Her eyes flickered towards the door. Her mouth moved, but at first no words came out.
Then: ‘Yes.’ It was little more than an expulsion of air. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Give me a minute,’ I said.
I wanted to give Lyn a minute too. A minute to compose herself, to get used to the idea of seeing the daughter she’d never knowingly seen. I’d taken Kate along on my visits to Darby Hall in the early days, back when she was a baby. But Lyn had been too far gone to acknowledge her then – too far gone to acknowledge me more often than not. For the first eight or nine months of Kate’s life I’d persevered, hoping that her presence might spark something in Lyn, might prompt a breakthrough in her condition. But it never did, and as soon as Kate began to become aware of her surroundings, and started showing signs of distress at her mother’s erratic behaviour, I stopped taking her with me. Since then I’d taken
along only photographs, and although Lyn had occasionally taken the photos from me and stared at them, I’d never been entirely sure whether she’d been fully aware they were pictures of our daughter.
‘That’s Kate,’ I’d say. ‘Kate, our daughter.’ And sometimes she’d snap, ‘Yes, I know it is. I’m not stupid!’ At other times she’d repeat the name as though it was a word she’d never heard before. And sometimes she wouldn’t even respond at all; she’d just stare blankly at the photo until I removed it from between her fingers.
One time she looked at me and frowned and said, ‘I don’t have a daughter.’
‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Kate. And that’s a picture of her.’
Abruptly she’d become frightened, shrinking back into her chair. Then she’d become violent, screwing up the picture and throwing it at me.
‘I don’t have a daughter!’ she screamed. ‘I’ve never had a daughter! You’re trying to trick me! Go away! GO AWAY!’
With these old and troubling memories churning in the back of my mind, I went out into the corridor, where Kate was sitting on a chrome chair with grey leather upholstery, swinging her legs. Sitting next to her was the nurse who’d attended me when I’d first woken up here after four days of unconsciousness. She was tall with rust-coloured curly hair and her name was Patsy. The two of them were bent over a copy of Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, which Kate had brought from home. Kate was reading it and Patsy was chuckling at the illustrations and making encouraging noises.
They both looked up when I stepped into the corridor. Patsy raised her eyebrows and I smiled and nodded.
‘Well, I’d better get back to making people better,’ Patsy said as she stood up. ‘Bye, Kate. See you again soon.’
‘Bye,’ Kate said.
As Patsy walked away, I knelt down in front of Kate’s chair. ‘Hey, pudding. I’ve talked to Mummy and she’s very excited about seeing you.’
Kate nodded and put her thumb in her mouth. A sure sign she was nervous.
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘Mummy’s poorly, but she’s getting better. But just to let you know, she’s been in an accident, so she looks a bit… well, bashed about. You know when you fall and bang your knee and get a bruise?’
Kate nodded, her eyes big behind her pink-framed spectacles.
‘Well, Mummy banged her head when she had her accident, which means she’s got bruises on her face and bandages wrapped round her head.’
Kate removed her thumb from her mouth with a wet pop. ‘Like Jack when he falls down and breaks his crown?’
‘Yes, just like Jack.’
‘Can she breathe?’ Kate asked.
‘Yes, the bandages are just round her head, not her face, so she can breathe and talk and everything. But when Mummy had her accident she also hurt her arm and her ribs here too’ – I patted my side – ‘so you mustn’t jump on her, okay, because that’ll really hurt her.’
‘Okay.’
‘And do you know why Mummy had an accident?’
‘No.’
‘It was because she was being very brave, and she was stopping a very bad man from doing a very bad thing.’
‘Like Wonder Woman?’
‘Just like Wonder Woman.’
‘Wow,’ Kate said.
‘So you see, your mummy’s very brave, and she loves you very much, and she hasn’t seen you for a very long time, so she might get a bit…’
‘Emotional?’
I blinked in surprise. ‘Yes, emotional. Good word.’
Kate looked thoughtful. Then she asked, ‘What does emotional mean?’
She looked so earnest that I suppressed the laugh that rose up in me; I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of her. ‘It means she might cry a little bit. But that won’t mean she’s sad. Sometimes people cry because they’re happy.’
Kate thought about this, then nodded. ‘Okay.’
I straightened up and took her hand, then led her over to the door to Lyn’s room. I was about to push it open when Kate popped her thumb into her mouth again. I whispered, ‘Don’t suck your thumb, honey. You don’t want Mummy to think you’re a baby, do you?’
Kate shook her head solemnly and removed her thumb from her mouth.
We went in.
Lyn was sitting up in bed, her eyes fixed on us with such intensity that it was instantly unsettling. The expression on her face was a combination of hope, fearfulness and desperation, as if even now she couldn’t quite believe I wasn’t playing a trick on her. As soon as she saw Kate, though, her mask crumbled, her face becoming a mass of tics and twitches, her chin dimpling and trembling, her mouth writhing in an effort to form words.
‘Oh, my,’ she whispered finally, each word a warble of emotion, ‘oh, my…’
I glanced down at Kate. She was clinging to my hand and half-hiding behind my leg, staring at Lyn warily.
I could hardly blame her, but I said softly, ‘It’s okay, honey. This is your mummy. Remember what we said about being emotional? Do you want to say hello?’
She didn’t reply, but she didn’t resist either. She allowed me to lead her to the bed.
Clearly aware of the unsettling effect she was having, I was relieved to see that Lyn was already making an effort to rein in her emotions. As we crossed the room, Kate moving slowly, hesitantly, Lyn swiped more tears from her face and took several deep breaths. By the time I sat on the chair beside the bed, Kate immediately clambering onto my knee for comfort, she’d regained most of her composure, though I could see her hands were still trembling.
‘Hello, Kate,’ Lyn said softly. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Kate’s head was pressed into my chest, but she gave a single nod.
‘I’m your mummy,’ Lyn said, a splintery, breathless laugh escaping her. ‘I’m afraid I look a bit of a fright, don’t I?’
Kate raised her head and murmured something I didn’t catch.
‘Sorry, sweetie.’ Lyn’s voice was soft. ‘What did you say?’
Though still quiet, Kate’s words were clearer this time. ‘Daddy says you’re like Wonder Woman.’
Lyn looked surprised. She glanced at me. ‘Did he? Why did he say that?’
‘Because you were brave. Because you got hurt fighting a very bad man.’
‘Well,’ Lyn said. ‘I suppose that’s true.’
Kate squinted at her. ‘Are you really my mummy?’
‘I am,’ Lyn said.
‘Are you going to live with us?’
Lyn hesitated. She glanced at me again, as if for guidance. I smiled and shrugged.
‘Well,’ Lyn said. ‘Maybe. One day. When I’m properly better. Who knows?’
‘I’d like you to live with us,’ Kate said. ‘If you lived with us, me and Daddy could look after you and make you better, couldn’t we?’ Despite her gargantuan effort to keep her emotions in check, Lyn’s eyes suddenly filled with tears again. They brimmed over her lower lids and began to run down her bruised cheeks.
In a husky whisper she said, ‘I’d like that very much. I’d like it more than anything else in the world.’
TWENTY-THREE
MOVING ON
Could Lyn come and live with us? Would it work? Was it possible, after all we’d been through, to some day be the perfect, loving family I’d always hoped but never believed we’d be? Were there such things as happy endings?
I didn’t know. And neither did I know how Clover, if she ever reappeared, would fit into this hypothetically idyllic scenario. There was nothing between us but friendship, but would Lyn see it that way? Perhaps more to the point, was there still the chance of a romantic relationship between Lyn and me? It had been so long since I’d contemplated such a thing that I’d all but abandoned hope that what we’d once had could ever be rekindled. I’d been madly in love with Lyn before the Dark Man had got to her, but however much her condition had improved recently, that Lyn was long gone; she was a completely different person now. And so was I.
; I couldn’t sleep. I’d been repressing my thoughts since leaving the hospital earlier that day, had devoted all my time and attention in the interim to Kate – we’d been to the zoo in Regents Park, and then for a meal at Zizzi’s restaurant in Charlotte Street. But as soon as Kate had collapsed into bed, exhausted from her long day, the thoughts had resurfaced again, had begun to buzz and dart in my head like a nest of angry wasps.
It was now 2:30 in the morning, and I was in the ‘parlour’, cradling a glass of Southern Comfort and staring into the flames of the fire I’d built to keep out the autumn cold. It reminded me of the night in the cottage in Wales when I’d been too excited to sleep after first being reunited with Kate – except this time Clover wouldn’t be turning up to keep me company.
Where was she? Why hadn’t she answered any of the messages I’d left her? It occurred to me to wonder whether I was behind this latest disappearance – whether, for some reason, my older self had engineered it. Or was Clover simply giving Kate and me some space, as she claimed? Or was there something more to it? Could it be that, despite previous denials, she had stronger feelings for me than friendship and had gone away to think things through, consider her options?
I’d thought that getting Kate back would solve all my problems, that if only my daughter and I could be reunited, I’d be happy forever, and everything else would seem less than trivial. But happiness was a myth. None of us could ever be truly happy. There would always be some maggot somewhere, nibbling away at the apple.
I diverted my attention from the fire, and looked at the framed poster of The Great Barnaby, which I’d propped against the armchair on the opposite side of the hearth. There’d been no follow up to the gift, nothing to indicate why it had been sent to me or what I should do with it. I kept staring at the image of the masked, juggling man, at the yellow lettering above him. I held the heart in my hand and stared at the poster until it became meaningless, a melange of shapes and colours.
