I put my hand on his arm. It was like taking hold of the branch of a tree. He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t put his hand on mine either, like he had on that terrible morning a month ago when I’d heard about Sergio. ‘Surely this is something, something important? You’ll have to send some officers to Italy now won’t you?’
He looked at me again – his expression kind, but exhausted. ‘I’m sorry Maddie but one missing guy in Brighton isn’t the top of my department’s priorities. It’s not about people any more, it’s about figures, and unit-cost and SMART targets and best practice.’ He made a short, sharp sound of disgust and shook his head. ‘That’s what it all boils down to, box-ticking. Everyone who works in my team has a got a mountain of shit to work through – and hardly any of them has the time to stop and see each layer of that shit as a life, a person, a life changing event. It’s a number to work through, a box to tick, so they can get home in time to kiss their kids goodnight.’ He stopped then, abruptly, and pushed his hand through his thinning, but still wavy hair. Sorry Maddie,’ he said, laughing softly, ‘it’s not quite that bad, I’ve just had a bad, bad day. I do care about your brother, and I do want to find him, but to be honest, I can’t put any more resources into this unless we get more than that.’
I put my head in my hands. I felt suddenly very tired and disheartened. I’d let myself believe that this revelation was some kind of hand-over; that my work was done. And then I felt guilty at the thought; I wouldn’t get Dan back this easily. He wasn’t going to be rescued by some Knight in shining armour. At least, maybe I would have to be the knight in shining armour, whether I liked it or not.
‘It’s hard John; after everything, to be doing this on my own. It feels like it’s been just me for a very long time. And now – with a child, I’m more alone than ever. That’s one of the reasons I want Dan back so bad. He was always my compadré, my partner in crime.’
‘You may feel alone inside,’ said John, laying his hand on my back, ‘but it’s not how it really is. What about your Dad, Nicholas? And I bet you’ve got lots of friends, good friends who love you. Maybe, and I hope it’s true, your brother is alive and well, but you may never know. Has it crossed your mind that he might have wanted to disappear? And it’s all just smoke and mirrors? I’m not saying you should give up, that I’m going to give up – but there’s not much more I can do to help apart from speaking to Italian customs to try to find out more about what this Danilo McCarten did next – but make sure you get on with your own life too. Make that your priority.’ He got up and stamped his feet, looked at me a little guiltily. ‘I hope you find out what you need to, but look after yourself. Have a little walk, get something nice in for you dinner then get a good night’s sleep.’
I watched him walk back towards the station, his head slightly bowed, and was surprised to still feel the outline of his hand branded on my back.
After I’d descended through the tactile darkness, I found him curled up on the cushions on one of the window-seats, his head resting on the crook of his arm. The evening was pale and still, and the sea shone dully, like a piece of silver leather, through the window I sat down beside him.
‘You’ve found him Mummy.’
‘Who?’
‘Dan.’
‘Really? Do you think that’s him? The name on the flight list?’
He nodded resolutely then looked thoughtfully out of the window.
‘What was your best Christmas ever?’
‘I think it must have been when I was about seven. I was crazy about cheetahs,’
‘Are they the really fast ones with spots?’
‘That’s right. BBC2 did a series on them – you followed the lives of a cheetah family – from when they were cubs to when they had their own children. I fell in love with them. And when I woke up on Christmas morning, I could see this furry cheetah head poking out of the top of my stocking. I was so excited, but it was too early. Mum and dad had said that I could get up after six, but it was only quarter-to, so I lay there for fifteen minutes, staring at the Cheetah, my tummy doing excited somersaults.’
He raised his head onto his hand and looked at me intently. ‘So when you got it out, what was it like?’
‘He was beautiful. He was quite big and he had a brown leather nose. In fact, I think it might really have been a Leopard, but I didn’t ever let myself believe it. In fact I’ve still got him.’
‘I wish I had my own toy Cheetah.’
‘What would you choose? What would be your best Christmas present ever?’
He looked up and frowned, the cogs of his brain almost audibly turning. ‘A train.’ He said, finally and resolutely. ‘I’d like a beautiful big dark green steam train…and a puppy’
I was seeing my son more and more regularly, sometimes as often as three or four times a week. Although I didn’t know what these ‘dreams’ meant (if indeed they even were dreams) they were very precious to me. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel the slightest compunction to tell anybody about them. To have done so would have felt strangely obscene – gynaecological almost. On a gut level, I did believe that they were something more than vanity or wish fulfilment. The world had become a more mysterious and unpredictable place since Italy, and particularly since meeting Nonna again. Her uncanny insights had unsettled me on a deep, seismic level; and many of my assumptions had disappeared; leaving me on precarious, but infinitely more fascinating ground.
My nesting instinct also seemed to come earlier than most, because over the couple of weeks during the run up to Christmas, everything in my flat was sorted, dusted, washed, polished, folded and filed. Nothing escaped scrubbing, including the insides of my kitchen cupboards and the tops of the skirting-boards. By the time I was finished, there were six big bin-bags full of my past waiting on the step with a fiver’s Christmas tip for the bin men. As I drove away with dad in his old bottle-green Lancia, I felt the peculiar sense of satisfaction that follows physical work. And there was another feeling too, a feeling of embarkation. Of hope, reacting to a sudden impulse I reached over and squeezed dad’s arm.
‘I know Dan’s still alive Dad. Somehow I know he’s going to meet his nephew.’
His cheek moved slightly, suggesting a small smile. ‘I hope so Maddie. I really hope so.’
‘You know I’ve found something out. I haven’t told you yet because I didn’t want to build you up – but I think you ought to know.’
He looked over then, briefly, cautiously, ‘What is it?’
‘It looks like Dan went to Italy. The police have got to check it out first, the name’s slightly different, but it looks like he might have changed his name by deed poll.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Dad crunched the gears clumsily into reverse.
‘I don’t know, I really don’t, but it’s something, it’s a start isn’t it?’
Dad appeared in the doorway with a tray precariously laden with drinks and a big tin of Quality Street. On the TV Chris Evans was flirting with some young female celebrity I didn’t recognise. He was wearing a jumper with a Reindeer on.
Nick sighed and dramatically threw his head back onto the sofa. ‘I’ve been struck dead by the mundanity of the BBC’s Christmas Eve broadcasting.’
I smiled. ‘Come on Nick, where’s your stamina, it’s only once a year.’
‘You always do try to see the bright-side Maddie, well, except when you’re clinically depressed of course.’
I laughed and stuck two fingers up at him.
‘Now now, that’s not very ladylike.’
Dad cleared a space on the table and plonked down the tray. ‘Who’s for another drink?’ Nicholas held up his empty glass, the rims of his eyes had gone red.
Dad poured a finger of Brandy in his glass. ‘You ok?’
‘Yeh, you know. Just thinking about Dan. What he’s doing right now. If he’s ok.’
Dad took Nick’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m sure he is, we’d feel it if he wasn’t. Maddie love, do you want a brandy?’
Dad gently poured three quarters of an inch into my glass. ‘What do you mean ‘Australian rules’? Is that something to do with cricket?’
‘No! It’s to do with units of alcohol. In England it’s a measly three units a week maximum. In Australia it’s ten.’
‘So let me guess Maddie dear,’ said Nicholas dryly, ‘you’re going Antipodean?’
‘Yep.’
‘It’s all that sun…’ Said Dad, sitting down carefully next to Jip, his old Jack Russell, who looked up at him, disgruntled, one side of his mouth squashed up by hours of sleep. ‘…makes them more cheerful. Everyone's getting too precious about kids these days. No mud, no cows milk, no air, no peanuts, those horrible reins, as if you’re dragging a dog about. Life is mess and danger. Got to let them find that out at some stage!’
‘But maybe not when they’re babies Dad eh?’
He shrugged and laughed. ‘Ignore me Maddie. I’m a grumpy old goat these days. But as we’re on the subject of kids, there is something important I wanted to talk to you about.’
I nodded a little sleepily; the brandy was working quickly on my new substance-free blood. I felt deeply safe and content in Dad’s cosy living room, and only dreamily aware of the dark cold world outside. I suddenly felt a wave of nauseous anxiety about Dan. This often happened if I found myself slipping into happiness, a kind of guilt trigger, finely set. Was he safe and warm? I found the idea of his vulnerability almost unbearable.
When I was about seven, on my first trip to London we went to see the Christmas Lights. Down one of those impressive streets in the square mile – all wrought-iron railings and Georgian facades, I saw a stray kitten. It popped its head out of some bushes and meowed. I went to stroke it – then recoiled. Its right eye was swollen to the size of a golf ball, criss-crossed with stretched veins. I never forgot that kitten. It expressed so many things in that instant; the pathos of deformity, the extremities of physical pain, the stark loneliness of London and its cold, glamorous nights. Also it came to embody my sense of guilt; the childish revulsion that had stopped me from providing a tiny act of kindness.
‘Maddie, wake up darling, I’ve got something important I need to say.’
I realised I’d actually dropped off for a moment and forced myself into consciousness.
‘It’s stupid my sticking here, in this big house with no-one else, so I thought, you and I could do a swap. I’ll sign the house over to you, and you can sign the flat over to me. Then you get the benefit of the extra capital too, and I don’t have to pay so much inheritance tax, what do you think?’
‘God Dad, are you sure? This place is worth double what mine is.’
‘I’m totally sure Maddie. There’s no real reason is there for me to stick on here other than habit.’
‘What about Mum? I don’t mean…I just thought you might want the memories?’
‘No sweetheart. They’re all in here anyway,’ he touched his chest. ‘After all, a kid needs a garden. How’s he or she going to grow up strong without a tree to climb and some bushes to hide in?’
‘But why don’t I just sell the flat and live with you here?’
‘Because, my dear daughter, apart from the fact I’d like to be nearer the sea, I also relish my independence. And one day you’ll meet someone and want the place to yourself. So there it is. Just say yes.’
I went over and showered the top of his warm bald head with kisses. ‘Thank you, it’s the best Christmas present ever.’ The phone rang and Dad extricated himself, gently squeezing my hand before he released it.
‘Hello. Oh hi Detective Nickelby, yes, she’s here, I’ll pass you over.’ He gave me a meaningful look and passed the handset to me. I took it and sat back down, my heart beating hard against my ribs.
‘Hi John.’
‘It’s nothing major,’ he said quickly, sensing my anxiety, ‘but we’ve got some information from Rome airport.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry but it doesn’t look like Dan’s in Italy. Danilo McCarten only stayed for a few days then flew on to Slovenia.’
‘Do you know what he did while he was in Italy? Where he went?’
‘I’m sorry no, he must have been using the cash he took out before he left the country so there’s no bank or payment trails to follow.’
‘Can’t you fly an officer over now? Get them to ask questions at the airport – the taxi drivers, stuff like that?’
Dad was watching me intently. I shook my head and shrugged. He shrank visibly into his chair.’
‘I’m sorry, we can’t sanction that. The evidence is that he pretty much flew straight on to Slovenia and the trail goes dead there. Still no credit card use, hotel booking, anything.’
‘But surely that can’t be it. You can’t just stop there?!’ I was getting tearful then despite myself, the back of my throat started to burn.’
‘He’s an adult, he can go where he like when he likes, he doesn’t have to get anyone’s agreement…’
‘I know that, don’t patronise me, you have no idea what we’re going through…’
‘I’m not patronising you,’ John sounded impassioned, it was the first time he’d lost his composure. ‘please Maddie, you can’t think that. All I’m saying is that if he wants to disappear, really wants to disappear, there’s very little any of us can do about it.’
A week later in the cold clear light of New Year’s Day, I headed into town to get a few things for the house in the sales. When Mum died she left Dan and me some of her savings, a modest amount, but enough to pay my mortgage while I was in Italy. I’d even managed to save some money from my stay in Terranima. I don’t think I spent more than about a hundred Euros the whole time I was there. Rent, food and utilities had all been provided free. It had been the only time in my adult life that money seemed to have looked after itself, but I couldn’t go on forever without working. I would have to register for my statutory maternity pay, and maybe have language students in the spare rooms in Dad’s house (or rather my house as I needed to get used to thinking of it).
I looked round at the jaded faces of people on the street and realised it was the first New Year’s Day of my adult life that I had embarked on without a hangover. It was amazing to think that I now had a beautiful home for myself and my son. I’d even told him about it the night before – the room he could have with it’s pointed dormer window that looked out over the whole of Brighton; the garden that was edged by a six-foot high flint wall, beyond which was a playing field and then Downland – truly a house on the brink of the city.
As I walked up the path, laden with bags, Dad came out to help me. He seemed a little agitated. I followed him with a growing sense of foreboding. He flustered and fussed down the hall then coughed a little cough before nudging the kitchen door open. As he did so there was a loud but convivial roar of voices and a confused explosion of party poppers and corks. I froze, slack-jawed and draped in paper streamers. I felt terrified, and completely ill-equipped to deal with a big social situation. This wasn’t supposed to happen. These people - even though I had known many of them for decades, shared my most intimate secrets with – were from another world, another life. Couldn’t they see that I was someone else now? Didn’t they know that I was gravely and irrevocably changed? Many hadn’t seen me since my depression. Was this my coming out party? The sulphurous smell of spent poppers was nauseating. An old college friend, Abi, came over to me, frowning.
‘Sorry sweetheart,’ she said brusquely but not unkindly, ‘this must all be a bit of a shock! Here, I’ve made you a bucks-fizz. Why don’t we take it upstairs and you can change into some glad-rags. Put yourself in the party mood!’ She ushered me smoothly and professionally up the stairs and into my old bedroom. As soon as we were there she held me tightly, almost desperately, breathing hotly into my neck. ‘It’s so good to
see you Maddie, and looking so well!’ I pushed her away gently and retreated.
‘This is a freak show, Abi.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Everyone hears that I’m OK now and hey presto it's party time. ‘It’s all right everyone- she’s not crazy any more. Good old Maddie’s back. You can’t just do that Chris, YOU CAN’T.’ I hadn’t meant to shout.
She blinked in surprise. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Maddie. We’re your friends, we wanted to celebrate your being home, and your wonderful news. Everyone’s brought presents for the baby. Everyone.’
I slumped onto the bed and put my head in my hands.
‘Christ Maddie, for a warm person you can be such a fucking cold-fish at times! You haven’t allowed us to be part of your life for over a year now. We didn’t even know you were in Italy until your Dad told Simon. Have you not noticed how many messages I’ve left on your answer-machine, the emails, the texts?’
I couldn’t look at her. I wanted to speak, to say sorry, but I was frozen, a tsunami of conflicting emotions passing through me.
‘Do you honestly think we’ve all just flocked back because you’re over your depression? Do you really think that we were embarrassed or ashamed of you? Darren, who’s been secretly in love with you for years? Or Emma who pulled you out of the path of a car once when you were drunk and staggered out into the street? Or Lucy whose Mum died the same year as yours? Or Niall who got you your first gardening job? Or me? Who…who…’ she sat next to me on the bed, I managed to peel my head out of my hands and look at her, her small glossy blond head was jerking with sobs. I reached out and put my hand on her back but felt impotent with shame. Had my depression turned me into a monster? Didn’t I realise how lucky I was to have such loyal and loving friends?
I willed myself to speak. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I started to cry with her – I felt hot and mortified. ‘This is what depression does to you, it turns you inside yourself, makes you unbearably self-centred. Like an alcoholic. If you have an ounce of self-awareness you realise that every time you’re with someone you love you make them miserable, because they know there’s nothing they can really do to help. And yet they try – oh god they try and they try.’ There was a small surging feeling in my abdomen. I imagined my baby turning. It focussed me and helped me stop crying. ‘The guilt of being depressed is almost as bad as the depression itself. That’s why I had to go away. And then – coming back because of Dan, losing Sergio. It was the same thing again – worrying that I had nothing to talk to people about other than fear or loss; that I couldn’t have gone through the last year without totally changing. That maybe no-one would recognise their friend any more.’
The Soul Room Page 9
