Memory of Love (9781101603024) (17 page)

20.

It was a very successful evening. I made soup out of what I had: a few potatoes, tomatoes, onions and spinach. And I made an improvised unleavened bread to go with it.

George had returned home briefly, and came back with his hair wet and a couple of bottles of wine.

We set the table on the deck, although it was completely dark, and Ika helped, lighting lots of little candles. I brought out some blankets, and went back to the kitchen and opened my laptop. I clicked on the folder where I had collected the music Ika and I had discovered together.

‘Peace Piece'.

The music flowed softly through the open window and out onto the deck.

I turned off the light in the kitchen and through the window the deck appeared almost magical, lit only by the flickering candles. Ika was sitting beside George. I couldn't see what it was that had caught their interest, but they sat bent over the table, their heads close together. In the faint yellow light the scene looked like a painting. I stood still, watching, enveloped in the soft music.

I returned to the deck and sat down opposite them. Every now and then I sneaked a look at Ika. It seemed as if he had grown. As if he had made a leap in his development since the last time I saw him. He smiled quick little smiles but he never quite looked at me. He ate with his usual good appetite.

‘Very tasty soup,' George said as he put down his spoon. Ika nodded and it felt like a great compliment. I cleared the table. All I had to offer for dessert was a few peaches and a small piece of cheese, which I placed on a plate and took outside.

Eventually Ika wandered over to the hammock and climbed into it. George covered him with a blanket.

We sat at the table all evening. When the music stopped we could hear the invisible sea in the darkness beyond the house.

Then George said: ‘I don't know if Claire mentioned that I am an approved temporary caregiver. An unusual one, I suppose, since I am not a family, I'm just me. But over the years I have accepted quite a few emergency placements. Often of non-English-speaking children. My first language is German, but I speak a few others too. That's how it started. They needed someone who spoke German.'

I nodded.

‘If you think it's a good idea, I can offer to care for Ika during the investigation. It will not be a sacrifice at all – I have become attached to him too. And it seems like he has accepted me. It's not a given that they will place him with me; there might be another caregiver that they think more suitable. But I can certainly offer. If you like.'

‘That sounds absolutely perfect,' I said. ‘I can't think of a better solution.'

‘Agreed, then,' he said. He got up and slowly walked over to the deck railing, and stood looking out into the darkness.

‘You have a wonderful home,' he said with his back to me.

An involuntary quick laugh escaped me.

‘This?' I was incredulous.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘It feels alive. It's a little messy . . .'

He turned and looked at me.

‘Sorry.'

I laughed again. ‘But it is!' I said.

‘Sure, it's messy. And it's not in the best condition. But it's alive. My home is a mausoleum.'

I was stunned.

‘My home died with my wife,' he said quietly. ‘Since then, there has been no life whatsoever there. I have cleaned it and cared for it, the way you look after a grave. With love and grief. But life hasn't come into it. Rather the opposite. It's Lidia's home, not mine.'

‘Strange,' I said after a little while. ‘That's how I think about my home. That all it is, is a monument to what I have lost. To me, there is no life here at all. At least there wasn't till Ika entered my life. My home was just a refuge. I was thinking about that earlier. How I have neglected my home. Or rather, how I have never even created one. Yours, I find very much alive.'

George turned back and leaned over the railing.

‘Everything looks different from the outside. You can be completely mistaken. Or perhaps we can only see things through our own eyes. Perhaps nothing is absolute, and everything fills different needs for different people. The same house can be a refuge or a prison, depending on who is seeing it.'

He wandered over to the hammock and stood for a while looking down at the sleeping Ika.

‘I think it's time for us to say thank you and make our way home,' he said.

We both helped, lifting Ika and wrapping him in the blanket. Then George held him in his arms. I looked at them and for a fraction of a second I felt a stab of envy. As if I wanted it to be me that George was carrying in his arms. Carrying away from here to somewhere else, somewhere warm and safe.

We stood facing each other, and George looked at me with a thoughtful expression. But in the flickering half-light it was difficult to guess what he was thinking. And I certainly hoped it was impossible for him to tell what I was thinking.

I turned and led the way around the house, shining a torch to guide us. I opened the back door of George's car and he carefully placed Ika on the seat.

‘Thank you, Marion, it's been a great end to an interesting day,' he said.

‘Thank
you
,' I said. ‘Thank you for everything.'

There was a pause and the silence seemed to spread and keep us where we were, facing each other and with the light from the torch a bright reflecting pool on the sand at our feet.

George stroked my arm, then turned abruptly and jumped into the car.

‘See you tomorrow,' he said through the rolled-down window.

I stood and watched as he drove away. I watched until the rear lights became two red pinpricks in the compact darkness.

Then I turned off the torch and waited until my eyes had adjusted to the dark.

I walked past my house and on down to the beach, and sat on the cool sand.

Here, I realised that the darkness was not absolute. From up there on the deck the sea had been one with the surrounding darkness. But now I saw a multitude of shifting grey hues, as manifold as the most colourful landscape.

They do not stay in the motel in Kawhia. By the time they arrive it is after midnight. The town seems asleep and the eating places are closed.

Instead, they drive to a camping ground on the waterfront and manage to negotiate a space for the four-wheel drive overnight, and three days for Marion's car.

Michael opens the back door of the four-wheel drive, jumps up and sits, his legs hanging off the edge. He pulls her up beside him. They sit side by side and dine on baked beans out of tins with melting peanut slabs for dessert. It is a still, warm evening.

‘Are you okay sleeping here tonight?' he asks, indicating the space where they are sitting. ‘Sorry, but I think it's the easiest. I often do when it's late and it seems like too much of an effort to put up the tent. If you like, I am happy to sleep on the front seats and you can have this to yourself.'

He smiles and begins to clear the space behind them. Then he jumps down and walks around the side of the car and pulls forwards the backrest of the back seat, almost doubling the sleeping space. He unrolls a mattress across the floor, but it covers barely half.

‘Sorry, it's not the most comfortable, I guess,' he says. ‘Feel free to rummage through my things and see if you find anything useful to pad it a bit.'

When they are finished they have created a good-sized sleeping space that looks quite inviting. They sit on top of the bedding sipping lukewarm vodka, smoking.

‘I don't know what to ask about you,' he says.

‘Well, you asked me to come on this trip. That's all you need to ask, I think. For the rest you can observe and develop your own impression . . .'

‘Isn't that what people do when they have just met? Ask each other the most basic questions? I mean, for all I know you could be a serial murderer. I know nothing about you and have just invited you to share my bed.'

She laughs, again surprised at the ease with which it emerges.

‘Ah, well. What does it matter? If I am a serial murderer I'm not likely to tell, am I? And if you ask me how old I am I will definitely lie,' she says.

‘How old are you?' he asks.

There is a slight pause before she answers.

‘Thirty-six,' she replies.

‘There you go, that's not a lie, is it?'

She shakes her head.

‘No.'

‘And are you a serial murderer?'

‘No,' she says, laughing again. It's extraordinary how it seizes her, this strange light joy.

He leans back, resting on his elbows.

‘Tell me what you love,' he says.

She has no answer to this question. He looks at her intently, as if her response were important. He is serious now, no longer joking and smiling. Something is biting her legs and she pulls them up and folds them under her.

‘Sandflies,' he says when she scratches her ankles. He sits up and reaches inside his backpack. ‘Here, take this.'

He throws her a bottle of insect repellent.

‘I haven't forgotten the question,' she says as she applies the repellent to her feet and legs. ‘I just don't know how to answer. You tell me – what do you love?'

He lies back on the pillows that they have created out of clothes, hands clasped behind his head.

‘Love is supposed to be very different from like, isn't it? A different magnitude altogether. The way I see it, love is a mental state. An elevated state where things become . . . well, more intense. Different from all other states. It's like you get a completely different perspective on everything. It hits you and lifts you up, and there is nothing you can do about it. It invades you like a bug, I suppose. And when you are afflicted it colours everything. And in some cases it can never be cured.'

He sits up, resting on his elbows again.

‘Your turn!'

‘I don't know . . . For me it has been more about protecting myself from love. Treading cautiously, I guess, and staying in control. Making sure I didn't catch it, perhaps.'

She frowns as if she has heard her own words and is bothered by them.

He turns on his side, resting his head in his cupped hand, looking at her.

‘Well then, tell me about what you like instead.'

She thinks he is trying to make her comfortable, free her from having to expound on what she has said.

‘No, I'd like to explain how I feel about love,' she says. ‘I think I agree with you, really.'

She turns her gaze towards the solid darkness outside.

‘It's just that I don't know much about it. To continue your metaphor, it's as if I was vaccinated against it a long time ago. I am quite simply immune.'

‘I don't think that's possible,' he says. ‘There's no vaccine against this bug. You've just not been exposed to the infection. If that is what it is.'