Hide and Seek (26 page)

But I don’t know why I am surprised. This is not a stranger’s home. This is Sophie’s home. Sophie who murdered my father. Sophie who left me without guilt. I start to remember why I have come. Physically remember. The hammer feels more alive at my chest. Max’s music beats behind it in my heart.

“I have his music too,” I say. “In here.” I tap my chest. “And here.” I tap my head. Because I do. I can hear it. It’s getting pretty loud now. I start to hum the third movement, where I left off on the train. Sophie doesn’t join in at first. Then, with a wavering hum, she starts. We hum together, staring at each other. On, on the music goes. We stare, and we hum. We hum, and we stare. My lips and my brain buzz. We move closer, still humming. She reaches out a hand towards me. I stop humming. Her hand falls down. She turns away. The music continues in my head, softly though. Chords beating only quietly. Still, we haven’t got to the crescendo. There’s time, yet.

“So if you’ve no photos, you’ll have to tell me,” I say. “What was it like, chez nous? With Max?”

There is silence. I consider asking her again. She seems to have a problem with my questions. “I will always remember that afternoon,” she says, quietly. I hear tears again, in her voice. A good show, she is putting on. “I lost the man I was supposed to die with.”

I consider telling her it was her fault. But I think she knows that. And I’m not here to counsel her. I’m here to get real confirmation, from a living witness, of who I am. Who I was. With Max. And of course, the vengeance. I wonder how it will work, with the hammer. Will I unzip my coat, all of a sudden? Flourish it, while she faces me? Or wait until her back is turned? Like it has been turned so many times already. And yet the hammer is still in my jacket, untouched.

Sophie doesn’t seem willing to expand on her answer, so I help her out.

“I sat at his feet, by the piano, didn’t I, listening to his music? I can remember that now, I think.”

There’s a little shake of her head. I frown. What? She’s saying I have a false memory of all this?

Sophie turns and I see a sadness in her eyes. When she speaks, her voice is soft, almost sympathetic. “You were permanently waiting outside Max’s closed music room door in some one-sided game of hide and seek. But he wasn’t playing.”

“No,” I say, because she is wrong. I know, I know, I was at Max’s feet as he played his music. That’s why it is within me. It just took the first listen to release it back into my soul. “He loved me. His little son. He must have done. I sat with him, while he played.”

She says nothing for a moment, then speaks again. “Have you seen a four-year-old have a tantrum, Will?” she asks. “Do you have children?”

I shake my head. Not yet. But why is this relevant?

“Then let me tell you, watch out for their tantrums. Because they will flare up from nowhere. And then they’ll become a little bastard of a child, who has such a rage that they will do anything, anything. There is no real logic to their rage – they just want to destroy. And then you will have a storming, stamping, and strong, yes strong – ”

This is not relevant. I did not come here for childcare advice from her. To silence her, I hold up one hand. Without the hammer in it. This time. We must just focus on what is relevant.

“We would have toured the world together, me at his feet, listening to his music,” I tell her, even though she must already know what she robbed me of. The music is starting to build again in my head, both in tempo and volume.

Sophie’s sad eyes return. “Max wouldn’t have let you anywhere near his feet. He would have kicked you away as he reached for the pedals. He was a genius, you understand, not a ‘daddy’. His music came first. And second, third, fourth. I came in at around fifth. You – Well, at first, in hospital, you were beyond numbers. You were celestial. But when the music had to go on, you were just a distraction. I don’t think you even had a num— ”

And then she stops. She is staring. Staring and staring and staring. At my waist. I follow her gaze. Ah. The hammer has slid. The claw-head is plainly visible, poking out from under the bottom of my jacket. Well, there is no point hiding it any more, then. I hold the hammer-head and unzip the jacket. The easy-grip handle has twisted itself round in my pocket, keeping it from falling out of my jacket completely, but giving it just enough freedom to slide. I free the hammer and weigh it in my hands.

I look at Sophie. She is staring at the hammer, and backing away from me in slow, jerky movements. Then she reaches the counter and cannot move any further.

“You were saying?” I ask. “About numbers?”

She starts shaking her head wildly. “No,” she is murmuring to herself. “No.”

Fine. We’ll talk about something else. The piano. Because I could play it now, I know. The music is so loud in my head. I could just transcribe it from my brain.

“Where is it, Sophie?” I ask her.

“Where is what?” she whispers.

“The piano. Max’s piano.”

A little light goes on in her eyes.

“It’s, um, it’s out here,” she says. Keeping her eyes fixed on the hammer, she slides past me, into the hall. I follow her, then overtake, blocking the front door. It can’t, after all, be out there. She comes to a halt.

“Where, Sophie?”

I imagine its soft sleekness beneath my fingers. The wooden lid lifting to give way to keys, the keys I will bang, bang, bang in those final chords. Where Max’s fingers have also played.

She leads me from room to room, like she’s looking for it. Or for something. She is clasping her hands, sometimes to her head, scurrying around.

But if you have a piano, Max’s piano, you know where it is.

“Why is there no piano, Sophie?” I ask her.

She runs ahead of me, back towards the kitchen. I know it’s not in there. We’ve been there. When I reach the room, Sophie is standing with her hand on the phone. She takes it away when she sees me. Her eyes go back to the hammer.

I give the hammer a little waggle. Her eyes widen.

“Sophie – Max’s piano?”

She doesn't make eye contact with me. Just the hammer.

“I sold it,” she whispers.

“You sold it?” The hammering that has been in the background of my brain gets louder. The blood is building. “Why would you sell it?”

“To pay for drugs,” she says, a little louder. She manages to tear her eyes away from the hammer. She looks me in the eyes.

Now it is my turn to stare. Drugs?

Sophie drops her gaze again. “I went through a bad time,” she mumbles.

I shake my head. I can’t think. The hammering in my ears, of the blood, it is getting louder. Da-da-dum. Sophie sold the piano to pay for drugs? Da-da-DUM. This woman, not content with murdering my father, she sold his piano, got high? Da-DA-DUM. A murderer and a druggie? And now she wants my pity? DA-DA-DUM. She cannot have it. That is not what I came for. What did I come for? The blood is pumping so loudly in my ears, I can hardly think. I raise the hammer, to put my hands to my ears, to stop the thumping. Sophie screams and it rings in my ears. Then I realise it’s not her scream, it is an actual ring, of a phone. Sophie snatches up the phone. She doesn’t even wait to ask who it is, she just shouts into it.

“Help me, help me – he has a hammer! I think he’s going to kill me!”

Yes, that’s right. Of course. That’s why I’m here. The pulsating blood in my ears becomes more comprehensible. I recognise the usual tempo, the usual beat. Of Max. YA-DA-DA, YA-DA-DA, YA-DA-DA. I lift the hammer high.

“Help – ” Sophie screams.

And over her scream, the final three chords strike. We have our crescendo. Then everything is quiet.

Chapter Ten

-Will-

But no, not quite all quiet. Because there are voices. Or rather a voice. I hear Ellie. She is coming out of the phone, that has been left dangling down from its hook.

“Sophie! Will!” her disembodied voice is shouting. “Will, are you there?”

I pick up the receiver.

“Ellie?” I ask.

“Will, Will, you mustn’t kill her. You mustn’t kill Sophie. She didn’t kill Max – you did. Do you understand? It wasn’t her, it was you!”

What?

Me kill Max? Kill my father?

For a moment, the world crumbles, and images, visions I can’t quite see begin to spin in my head.

“Will, I’ve seen the transcript of the inquest. It wasn’t her, it was you.”

A chill starts to creep through me. A chill, then nausea.

I look at my mother, hammer-struck, on the floor. Blood, coming from her head.

Have I…? Is this…? The second time I have killed one of my parents with a hammer? I shake my head. It can’t be right. Ellie must be playing tricks on me.

Ellie keeps talking. “It’s all there, Will. In the inquest. Sophie said she had asked Max to fix the sink. It was leaking. So he was lying flat on the kitchen floor. You wanted him to be talking to you, apparently, not fixing the sink. Sophie came into the room to find you having one of your tantrums. You were hitting Max on the head with a hammer. One, two, three times before she could stop you. Finally she slapped you, and you stopped.”

The hammer, the shouts, the slaps. The black and white tiles. And the water, explained. The confiscated hammer from the toolkit Gillian and John gave us, rationalised. The images that whirled too fast for my brain to comprehend a few moments ago turn slower and slower, like a child’s spinning top coming to a rest.

It can’t be.

But it can.

No. No. This is not me. This is not the identity I wanted.

“He went off to his recording studio as if everything was fine,” I hear Ellie continue. “Then two hours later, he died. From an epidural haematoma, caused by the hammer-blows. Will, I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Sophie. You still have a mother.”

Oh Christ. Oh God. I am a man who killed his father. And… I look over at Sophie. Now my mother. Have I? The nausea that started to build now rises up and bile fills then spills from my mouth at the thought of what I did, what I’ve done. To my mother. To my innocent mother.

“It’s too late,” I say to Sophie. Because if she’d phoned one moment sooner, then I wouldn’t have done this. I wouldn’t be a man who killed both his parents. If Sophie is dead, that is.

“Will, what do you mean it’s too late? Will, what’s happened? Please!”

I can hear the anxiety in her voice. It is so intense she might as well be in the room with me. I press my head against the phone as if I’m pressing my head against hers. That dark-brown hair against my own. But she isn’t here. It is just me. Alone. Or not alone.

“Will, talk to me? Are you there?”

But what can I say? What can I say to my pregnant wife? How can I begin to say what is here, now, in this room? The vomit and the blood and the – pain. Oh it’s just, it’s just, just… Hammering… In me. Like Max’s… Oh God, I can’t even think of it. That music. I throw up again.

“Will, please tell me you haven’t killed her. Please tell me you haven’t killed both your parents.”

I look at Sophie, crumpled on the floor. Her eyelids are flickering. I lick my lips.

“I don’t think so,” I manage. “I think she is alive.”

I hear an ‘Oh dear God’ down the end of the line.

“I’d better go,” I say. “And call an ambulance.”

I am about to hang up, but she screams “Wait!” at me.

“What?” I ask.

“I’ve given birth. Leo is – ”

“Ellie, what, that’s not possible,” I say. Who took reality away? “You’re not due for – ”

“Just listen to me, Will. I gave birth. He was early.”

“Is he – ?” I don’t want to frame the words.

“Just. He is just alive. But I don’t know if he’ll stay alive. Will, if you want to meet your son, you have to come to St Thomas’ Hospital now.”

Chapter Eleven

-Will-

I join Sophie on the floor. I don’t have a choice. My legs will not hold me. I killed my father. I have a son. Who may be dying. As may my mother. Who I killed. There are too many thoughts. My head, it will split, like Sophie’s. I look at her. I need to sort her out. I need to make her not die. I assess the damage. She is bleeding profusely from her head. But head wounds, they always bleed a lot. It doesn’t necessarily mean she is badly hurt. The crater in her skull probably does mean that though. Shit. I need to stop the bleeding, I need to keep her conscious, and I need to get her to hospital.

“Sophie, Sophie, can you hear me?” I ask, as I grab a kitchen towel and moisten it.

“You killed him,” she mumbles.

“I know, I know, I killed him,” I say. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I almost prostrate myself upon her. But no, that won’t help. I must focus on reality, now. I go to press the towel against Sophie’s skull. But no. Shit, no. It is an open wound. I’ve penetrated the skull.

“Sophie, Sophie, Mummy,” I say, because she can be that now. “Do you have a first aid kit? Do you have any gauze?”

She starts to shake her head. I stop her. “No first aid kit.”

Shit. “OK, we need an ambulance. Do you even – how do I get an ambulance here?”

“15.”

“What?”

“Dial 15.”

So I do, I dial 15, and I manage some Franglais, or rather they manage some English. Not enough to tell them how it happened though. Just that they need to come. Now.

“Call Alain,” she says.

“Who?”

“Alain. Call Alain.” She dictates a number. I just about catch it. “He must know, now. I cannot hide any more.”

She’s burbling. She must be drifting out of consciousness. I call Alain. I don’t know who he is, but I know who I am.

“Alain, I’m with Sophie,” I say when he answers. “I’m her son. There’s been an accident.”

“Her son?” he asks, in a heavy French accent.

“Her son,” I confirm. “I’ve called an ambulance. You must come, to her apartment.” I hang up. There is too much to do here to worry about who this Alain is, and why he is so surprised Sophie has a son. Because now I have a son. And a wife. And I need to go to them.

“Mummy,” I say. There is a faint ‘Hmm?’ from her. I check her breathing. It is faint. I should be doing CPR. I roll up my sleeves to start. But I also need to preserve myself. For Ellie’s sake. For my son’s sake.