‘Look,’ I said again, suddenly itching to be away, to take some action, no matter what, to find David and carry him away to safety so that he need never see what sort of father I had given him. ‘I’m going now. Here’s the number of the police-station.’ I wrote it down. ‘And here—’ (before he could ask, so that he would not suspect my treachery) ‘—is my number at home.’ I wrote down another number, a long country number, every digit of which was an invention.
‘I want your address, too,’ he said. He was bending over my shoulder, avidly, greedily looking at the figures appearing behind my pencil. I wrote down, ‘Fir Top Cottage, Lynch Hill, Wenningham, Suffolk.’ This, too, was total invention, and I was amazed at myself for writing it straight off without having to stop and think—it just came. I could only pray he wouldn’t check the moment I was out of the house.
At the door I turned, reluctantly, and we touched hands. There was a cold stickiness to both which made their meeting highly unpleasant.
‘A bientôt,’ he said, with a lopsided smile that I remembered from long ago, a caricature now, distorted by the changes around it. Suddenly just as I was about to withdraw my hand, he gripped it and pulled me close to him. Again I had a horrible feeling he was going to kiss me, though why he should I couldn’t imagine; but he only peered into my eyes, holding me by hand and elbow.
‘I wouldn’t let you out of my sight if I thought you were going to disappear again,’ he said gratingly.
‘Of course I’m not,’ I said airily.
His eyes shifted narrowly from one of mine to the other, trying to read my thoughts, but fortunately he had never known me well enough to be able to. Toby would have known in a moment. I wondered if Andy would.
‘David’s the only thing of any value left in my life,’ he said. ‘I’m going to help you find him. And when we do . . .’
He left the rest unsaid, but I knew. He would never let up on his claim to David now. I felt a shiver go up my neck as I forced myself to go on calmly meeting his eyes. They were the eyes of a drunkard, a failure, and a fanatic. I found myself, for one wicked moment, wishing with all my heart that he would—disappear, even from the distant fringes of our lives, that his shadow over us would be lifted forever; and by that, what I was really wishing was that he would die. This wish was very clear, very strong, and quite unequivocal, really, though I dressed it up in my head. I drew my arm out of his hold and said: ‘Well, when we do, then’ll be the time to talk about the future. You’ll ring the police-station if you think of anything, or if . . .? I won’t be going home tonight.’
He nodded, still watching me like a hawk watches a snake which is trying to wriggle away. He glanced at the address in his hand, and back at me. He suspected—I knew it.
‘Till later, then,’ I said, and walked steadily away from him up the weedy path. Then, because I felt my back view must give me away through some communicable wish to break into a run, I turned at the gate and said jokingly, ‘Why don’t you tidy up your garden?’
‘Why don’t I tidy up my life? First things first.’
I remembered the L-shaped room.
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Does David like gardening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe we could tidy it together.’
Over my dead body.
I raised a false and treacherous smile, waved lightly and walked away.
Chapter 3
THE police car was parked in front of Andy’s, so I paused at the window to say to the policewoman, ‘Sorry, no good—’ before heading for Andy’s car, which attracted me like a refuge. But the policewoman called me back.
‘I’ll just go and have a word with him.’
‘No! Please. Don’t go. It’s pointless.’ She frowned, and I gabbled on. ‘How could David find this address? It’s all quite pointless, it always was. Anyway I’ve left your number. Please, let’s get back to the station and see if there’s any news.’
‘If there had been, I’d have heard on the car radio.’
‘Well anyway, let’s go.’
She looked at me piercingly. I met her eyes with all the earnest appeal I could muster. Behind her I could see Jo leaning forward anxiously. I realised I’d been in there a long time and that the strain for Jo must have been intense. I managed to smile at her, but not out of pure kindness; I wanted to stop her getting out of the car and going with the policewoman to question Terry.
The policewoman was already on the pavement beside me. ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly. ‘Why don’t you want me to speak to him? You never know—it might help in some way—’
I couldn’t look her in the face. I just shook my head. She hesitated a moment and then patted my arm briskly. ‘Wait in the other car,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’ Then she walked away.
Without the slightest warning, I burst into tears. Jo jumped out of one car and Andy out of the other, and they enveloped me, and helped me back into Andy’s car where they climbed in on either side of me with an instinctive protectiveness which touched me to more tears.
‘Oh Christ, oh Christ—’ Jo kept saying. She was wringing her hands and banging them against her knees, her face twisted and screwed up childishly. Andy held me silently. At last I put my hand over Jo’s rigid ones and said, ‘Stop it, Jo, it’s not David now, it’s Terry, and that’s not your fault.’ She looked at me piteously. ‘He’s so awful!’ I almost shouted. ‘David must never see him—you must never see him,’ I added, turning to Andy. ‘Promise me you’ll never try to see him!—Although I swear he wasn’t like that then. I didn’t even know him at first. Horrible—’
I shivered. And suddenly I remembered a time, at least twenty-five years ago, when my father, unwontedly convivial and prankish at one of our family Christmas gatherings, had sneaked off with my Great Aunt Addy and got dressed up as an old tramp. She’d used her face-powder to whiten his hair and eyebrows, her mascara to blacken his teeth, her grey eye-shadow to put sick hollows under his cheek-bones and round his eyes. She had displayed a greater talent than she ever had when applying make-up to her own face. When he was all ready, dressed in some terrible old clothes he’d found somewhere and a battered hat, he crept outside and rang the doorbell. Addy came in to the dining-room and announced that a poor old tramp was outside asking for a bite of Christmas dinner and might she bring him in for a drink because he looked quite ill . . . Then in he shuffled, and we were all completely fooled, even me; we had him sitting at the table eating the remains of the turkey before something about his ears suddenly caught my attention . . . I was only about ten at the time and the shock was like a heavy blow to the heart, because it was him, my daddy, and yet it was a poor toothless seedy-looking old tramp at the same time. I seemed to foresee what might happen to him, or any of us—poverty, illness, destitution, misery . . . I remember jumping up from my place and screaming and screaming and screaming. Only Addy’s strong arms and soft bosom at last stifled my sobs. She hid my eyes and soothed me with a string of unprintable curses for her own insensitive stupidity, while my uncles and aunts recovered from their amazement and hastily restored my father to normal with crumpled table-napkins and bright cries of ‘It’s all right, sweetie, look, it’s Daddy again, it’s only your old Daddy!’ But Addy understood, and never forgave herself, as she told me years later . . .
And now Terry had given me the same sort of shock, with the same double-image Dorian Grey effect . . . Perhaps Andy felt this about Chris, when he despoiled the snapshot in an angry effort to give me his likeness, superimposing another, subjective image . . . As Andy held me and stroked my hair, I felt a current of sympathy passing between us. For a moment he was Addy; he was my father, and John, and even Toby, who’d once kissed my tears as Andy was doing now. He was everybody in my life whom I’d ever loved for the comfort they gave. What was it I had thought of, in Israel, about why Andy was not more strongly bound to me? Because we’d never been through any deep troubles together? In that case, this horror we were living throu
gh should rectify that if it did nothing else. I put my arms round him and tried to catch my breath against the after-sobs and steady myself.
Andy said, ‘We’ll find him, darling. We will find him. And never mind that—whatever you found in there, that’s over and done with.’
I tried to believe him.
After a short time, the policewoman came out of Terry’s house, closing the door and the gate behind her with sharp little bangs echoing the irritation and distaste on her face. She came to the window of our car just as I was putting away my compact after an attempt to blot off some of the damage.
‘Nothing to be gained there, as you said,’ she remarked. ‘Back to the station, then.’
‘Could I ride with you?’ I asked.
Jo stayed in Andy’s car and I got in the back of the police car next to Amanda.
‘Wouldn’t you rather sit in front?’ asked the policewoman.
‘No thanks,’ I answered. I knew, suddenly, why I had wanted to ride in this car.
The car lurched forward and began to speed downhill. I had my eyes on Amanda. She was staring out of the window fixedly. Her whole body was held taut.
‘Amanda,’ I said.
She jerked her shoulders but didn’t turn round.
‘Amm, I’m talking to you.’
I pulled her round to face me sharply and held her by theupper arms.
‘I want to ask you something. Have you ever been really frightened? I don’t mean now, when you think I might shake you or smack you. I mean really frightened.’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘It was only for a moment, when I was riding Ant and she was galloping towards a hedge and I thought I wouldn’t be able to stop her and she’d jump.’
‘Do you remember how it felt, that fear?’
‘All my insides were like hot jelly.’
‘I have that feeling now. It goes on and on. Your mother has it, only worse in a way because she thinks it was her fault.’
‘What was?’
‘Don’t you know what we’re talking about, Amanda?’
‘David?’ she asked cautiously, after a moment.
‘Did you see your mother crying before? Coming from the airport?’
She lowered her head and tried to fiddle with her dress, but I caught her hands quite brutally and held them still.
‘I’ve never seen her cry like that. Have you ever seen her cry like that?’
She shook her head. All I could see of it was the pink clean parting and the straight blonde hair pulled away on either side.
‘Don’t you love her?’
One nod, the parting arrowing towards her knee.
‘Then how can you stand to see her so unhappy when you could stop it?’
Her head came up and her eyes, wide open again but now filled with tears, fixed themselves on mine. She looked quite wild and desperate. She bit her lips together until they disappeared. I wanted to let my hands shake her and shake her; but I stopped them.
‘Listen Amanda. I know you promised not to tell. I know you must never break a promise. But some things are even more important. Please, darling! He’s only little, he’s younger than you and he’s not as brave. Maybe he thought he knew what to do and where to go, but do you think you’d like to be lost in London if things didn’t go the way you expected? Maybe at this very moment he’s thinking to himself somewhere, “If only Amm would tell them so that they could come and find me!” You’ve seen how big London is, your Mummy’s told you how dangerous it is. Can’t you imagine being lost in it somewhere and not knowing what to do?’
‘But he does know what to do!’
The words burst out of her. I let her go. She shrank back in the corner and I sat looking at her, my arms trembling with recent tension. With a fraction of my attention I noticed the policewoman, seated in front beside the driver, leaning avidly over the back of the seat.
‘What was the plan, Amanda? Tell me.’
She was crying properly now. How seldom one saw her cry! Not like David, who cried about everything. I turned up her wet red face in my hands, and she gazed at me mutely, her mouth wide open to let the huge jagged sobs out.
‘Tell me!’ And now I did shake her, and more tears spurted out, shook free of her face and splashed my dress and hers.
It came out in a cataract.
‘He’s talked about it for ages—how he’d find him when he grew up—and I said, why wait, you could find him any time you liked, only he’s a baby and he said you’d never let him—so we made a plan, and he told you to go to Israel, and then we got Mummy to take us to London. He took that picture from the magazine, we’d cut it out and kept it and we used to look at it and make up stories about him . . .’
She stopped for breath. The policewoman must have signalled the driver because the car had pulled in to the side and everything was still, except for the other traffic tearing past down the hill.
‘Go on! How was he going to find him?’
‘He was so silly, he thought his Daddy would be in a cinema, or that the studios would be near the cinema somewhere, but I told him someone would have to take him there, so he said he’d go to John’s house and John would take him.’
‘John!’
‘Yes. He copied his address out of your address book. He said he’d get a taxi there, well actually that was my idea, he wanted to go by bus but we didn’t know which one went there. So I expect that’s what he did.’
‘But in God’s name, you silly children, did neither of you know that John was going to Israel with me?’
She sat stock-still, staring at me. ‘You never told us that,’ she said.
Chapter 4
THE house was much as I remembered it, only a bit more dilapidated, if possible. It was one of those big houses in Paddington which has come down in the world, and will soon, in due order of Councils and Re-development, come down altogether, presumably ejecting its nests of occupants from its collapsing ruins, squeezing them out to scamper desperately in all directions like little creatures when the last island of the meadow goes under the mower. Certainly the building was as full of clustered life as any rabbit warren; it already overflowed onto the steps and pavement in the form of children (all black) and a few adults who stepped over them as over inanimate impediments, scarcely glancing down at the small intent figures playing jacks or chalking on the steps and threshold.
When the police-car arrived, however, there was an immediate reaction. The children stopped whatever they were doing. Some merely stared. Others got up and melted away into the dark oblong of the front door. Still others, either secure in their innocence or in the covertness of their villainy, came to the edge of the pavement and crowded up to the car, making it difficult to get out. Their closest attention was divided between the policewoman, who seemed to command more nudges and sneers than respect, and Amanda, who, in her crisp, dressed-up, blonde WASPishness, formed a focal-point of antagonistic fascination for them. She dried her final tears hurriedly, sat up straight, and gazed back at them disdainfully. Out of her haughty eyes I seemed to see Jo’s buried prejudices (which I had never seen a sign of, but which John had perceived) corkscrewing out like twisted laser-beams—well-concealed fear behind an assured superiority. Very few of them stood up to it; the rest withered before it, and by the time we’d got out and were crossing the pavement, only two little ones were left, held mainly by curiosity.
Of the row of bells which had once graced the heavy sub-Regency portico, only one was left; the rest were sockets. We pressed the survivor, but even through the open door, no peal sounded. And nobody came. The policewoman banged on the door with a knocker which actually fell off in her hand; she looked at it in some disgust, laid it carefully on a crumbling ledge, and stepped across the swaybacked stone threshold into the house.
I hadn’t been there for some months, but the feel of the house came back to me. It was full of sounds of life so shut-away behind doors that they were little more audible than a pulse,
or rather a lot of pulses. The house was still, yet it vibrated with people’s movement and breathing and speech. The hall was floored in broken marble tiles, many of which had come out, leaving oblong or diamond-shaped holes which were full of crushed cement and dirt. The walls had been painted orange, and then scratched and drawn on and rubbed. The wide entrance was choked with push-chairs, a pram, two bicycles (one a brand new Chopper) and several shopping baskets on wheels. The stairs were worn down like the doorstep; as we climbed them, we felt as if we might fall backwards.
The policewoman led the way, followed by me, holding Amanda’s hand. We were trailed by two little black whispers, and I felt curious eyes watching us from the stairwell and the porch behind us. I wished Andy were here, but he must have gone straight back to the station. I wished John were here, too, waiting in his great gay shambles of a room up four flights of these concave stairs . . . Then I could be sure of finding David, safe in his protective custody . . .
‘Who are you looking for?’
We all stopped, startled. A little coloured woman had suddenly appeared out of a door at the top of the first two flights, and was barring our way with one hand on her bony hip. She wore old-fashioned slimline slacks, the kind with the elastic under the foot, a pink Marks and Spencer’s polo-necked sweater, and an overall. She had a scarf tied round her head. There was, despite all this, a look of a fierce little Pygmy warrior defending his village; the broom in her hand took on the aspect of a spear for a moment, and I felt the same atavistic fear of her as I had felt of John, the first time I had seen him.