Playing for the Ashes (56 page)

He’d left her running her finger along the print for a story about the search for a car. He’d said, “I’ll be on deck. Give a shout if you need me,” and she’d made a vague murmur in response. He’d climbed the stairs, unfolded a fading canvas chair, plopped into it with a wince, and tried to think and not to think simultaneously. To think what to do. Not to think what he’d done.

He’d been mulling the possibilities and sun-soaking his weary muscles for an hour when he first spotted the police. They were on the deck of the Scannels’ barge, the one closest to the Warwick Avenue bridge. John Scannel stood in front of an easel. His wife posed, semi-recumbent and seven-eighths nude, on the roof of the barge’s cabin. Along the path, Scannel had already lined previous depictions of his wife’s ample curves for potential collectors to snap up for a bargain, and he’d no doubt harboured the mistaken hope that the two men who joined him were connoisseurs of the cubism he favoured.

Chris had watched, only idly attentive. But when Scannel looked in his direction and then leaned confidingly towards his visitors, Chris’s interest had quickened. From that point on, he observed the men’s progress from one barge to the next. He watched his neighbours talk, he imagined he heard them, and he listened to the nails pounding into his cof
fin
.

The police wouldn’t interview him, and he knew it. They would carry their report back to their superior, that bloke with the twenty-quid haircut and the bespoke suit. Then, no doubt, the inspector would come to call again. Only this time his questions would be specific. And if Chris wasn’t able to answer them convincingly, there’d be hell to pay everywhere, without a doubt.

The cops moved on. And on again. They finally climbed aboard the barge nearest to Chris’s, so close at this point that Chris could hear one of them clear his throat and the other rap quietly on the closed door of the cabin. The Bidwells inside—a drunken novelist and a self-deluding erstwhile mannequin who still believed that the cover of
Vogue
was within her reach if she only managed to drop two stone—wouldn’t be stirring for at least another hour. And once rudely awakened by the police or by anyone else for that matter, they’d be none too cooperative either. There was, at least, a mercy in that. Perhaps the Bidwells would inadvertently buy him some time. Because time was what he needed if he was successfully to negotiate the mire of the last four days and escape without sinking up to his neck.

He waited until he heard Henry Bidwell growling, “Wha’ the bloody…Whizzit, damn you?” from behind the cabin door. He didn’t wait to hear the cops’ reply. He picked up his mug of tea—scummed over and long since gone undrinkable—and said, “Beans, Toast,” to the dogs, who, like him, were taking advantage of the sun. They scrambled to their feet and clattered off the roof of the cabin. Their eager, cocked heads said, “Run? Walk? Eat? What?” and their whipping tails indicated their willingness to cooperate in whatever he suggested. “Below,” he said. Toast limped instead for the side of the barge. Ever the willing sheep, Beans followed. Chris said, “No. Not now. You’ve had one run already. Go to Livie.
Go
.” Despite Chris’s words, Toast put his one front paw on the side of the barge, preparatory to leaping out onto the steps, from there to the pathway, and from there, doubtless, to Regent’s Park. Chris said, “Hey,” sharply and pointed to the cabin. Toast thought it over and decided to obey. Beans followed. Chris brought up the rear.

Livie was where he’d left her, at the table in the galley. Their cereal bowls still sat among the banana peels, the teapot, the sugar, and a jug of milk. The Sunday newspaper was still spread out in front of her, open to the page she’d been perusing more than an hour earlier. And she still appeared to be perusing it, because her head was bent to it, her forehead rested in one hand, and the fingers of the other with their line of silver rings curved round the first word of the headline:
Cricket
. The only change, in fact, that Chris could see was the presence of Panda who had sprung to the table, finished off the milk and soggy cornflakes in one bowl, and was in the midst of lapping up the remains in the other. The cat crouched happily in front of it, eyes closed with bliss, tongue working furiously against the sure moment when she’d be caught.

“You!” Chris snapped. “Panda! Get off!”

Livie jerked spasmodically. Her hands
fle
w out, crashing against the dishes, and one bowl slid off the table while the other upended. Its remaining milk, bananas, and cereal spattered the cat’s front paws. Panda did not appear disconcerted. She set to licking.

“Sorry,” Chris said. He went for the dishes as the cat leapt soundlessly to the
flo
or and scooted down the corridor and out of punishment’s way. “Were you asleep?”

There was something peculiar about her face. Her eyes didn’t look focussed, and her lips were pale.

“You didn’t see Pan?” Chris said. “I don’t like her on the table, Livie. She goes after the dishes, and it’s not very—”

“Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” She smoothed her hand over the newspaper, brought it away smudged with ink, and began returning the pages to their original order. She gave much attention to this. She rearranged, she lined up the corners, she folded, she halved, she stacked. He watched her. Her right hand began to tremble, so she dropped it to her lap and went on with her left.

“I’ll see to that,” he said.

“Some of the pages got wet. From the milk. I’m sorry. You’ve not read it yet.”

“It’s okay, Livie. It’s just a paper. What’s it matter? I can get another if I need one.” He scooped up her bowl. She’d been mostly playing with her cereal earlier during breakfast and from what he could see, she’d never got beyond playing with it the morning long. Sodden cornflakes and ever-darkening banana slices marked the trajectory of the cereal bowl she’d upended. “Still not hungry?” he asked. “Shall I make you an egg? Would you like a sandwich? Or what about tofu? I could do a salad with that.”

“No.”

“Livie, you’ve got to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Hungry doesn’t matter. You know you’ve got to—”

“What? Keep up my strength?”

“For a start. Yes. It’s not a bad idea.”

“You don’t want that, Chris.”

Slowly, he turned from dumping the limp cereal and the gelatinous bananas into the rubbish. He examined her pinched features and her pasty skin, and he wondered why she was choosing this moment to strike out at him.

True, his behaviour this morning had been deficient—his lie-in had been at her expense— but it wasn’t like Livie to accuse without facts at her fingertips. And she didn’t have facts. He’d been careful enough to see to that. “What’s going on?” he asked her.

“When my strength goes, I go as well.”

“And you think that’s what I want?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

He set the bowls in the sink. He returned to the table for the sugar and the milk jug. He placed them on the work top. He went back to her. He sat across the table. Her left hand was balled into a loose fist and he reached to cover it with his own, but she pulled away. Then he saw. For the first time, her right arm was fi brillating. The muscles were quivering from her wrist to her elbow up to her shoulder. A coolness passed over him at the sight, as if a cloud had not only covered the sun but also invaded the cabin as well, bringing with it the distinct sensation of heavy, dank air. Shit, he thought. And he told himself to keep his voice all business.

“How long has that been going on?” he asked.

“What?”

“You know.”

She moved her left hand and watched its fingers close round the bend of her right elbow, as if by the gaze of her eyes and the inadequate pressure she was able to apply, she could master the muscles. She kept her vision fi xed on her arm, on her fingers and their feeble attempt to obey whatever message her brain was sending them.

“Livie,” he said. “I want to know.”

“What’s it matter how long? What difference does it make?”

“I’m involved here, Livie.”

“But not for long.”

He read the many meanings behind her statement. They spoke of his future, her future, the decisions she’d made, and more than that, the real reason she’d made them. For the first time since she’d come into his life, Chris felt a surge of real fury. And as it rushed from his chest to the tips of his
fin
gers, his mental half seemed to leave his body, seemed to float towards the ceiling where it lingered, looking down on the two of them, tittering and saying, This is why, this is why, simpleton, fool.

“So you lied,” he said. “It had nothing to do with the barge at all. With the size of the doors. With needing a wheelchair.”

She moved her fingers from her elbow to her wrist.

“Did it?” he demanded. “That wasn’t why, was it?” He reached across the table to grab her, but she jerked away. “How long? Come on, Livie. How long has it been in your arm?”

She watched him for a moment, as wary as any one of the animals he’d rescued. She picked up her right hand with her left. She cradled them both against her chest. She said, “I can’t work any longer. I can’t cook. I can’t clean. I can’t even fuck.”

“How long?” he said.

“Not that the last has ever bothered you, has it?”

“Tell me.”

“I suppose I could give you some decent head if you’d let me. But the last time I tried, you weren’t having it, remember? From me, that is.”

“Shove that crap, Livie. What about the left arm? Is it there as well? Goddamn it, you can’t use a bloody wheelchair and you know it. So why the hell—”

“I’m not a member of the team. I’ve been replaced. It’s time I cleared out.”

“We’ve had this discussion before. I thought we worked through it.”

“We’ve had lots of discussions.”

“Then we’ll have one more, but it’ll be brief. You’re getting worse. You’ve known that for weeks. You don’t trust me to cope. That’s the case, isn’t it?”

The fingers of her left hand were working ineffectually against her right arm, which she’d dropped once again to her lap. Cramps were no doubt beginning to grip the muscles, but she no longer possessed the strength to soothe them. Her head dropped towards her right shoulder as if the movement would somehow relieve pain. Her features contorted, and she finally said, “Chris,” in a voice that fractured upon his name. “I’m so scared.”

In an instant, he felt his anger fade. She was thirty-two years old. She was face to face with her own mortality. She knew death was approaching. She also knew exactly how it would take her.

He pushed away from the table and went to her. He stood behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders, then dropped them so that he could clasp them together and rest them against her skeletal chest.

Like her, he knew how it would be. He’d gone to the library and rooted out every book, every scientific journal, every newspaper or magazine article that offered even a flicker of illumination. So he knew that the progress of degeneration began in the extremities and moved ruthlessly upward and inward like an invading army that took no prisoners. The hands and feet went
fir
st, the arms and the legs rapidly followed. When the disease finally reached her respiratory system, she would feel shortness of breath and the sensation of drowning. She could then choose between immediate suffocation or life on a ventilator, but in either case the end result was the same. One way or the other she was going to die. Either soon or sooner.

He bent and pressed his cheek to her chopped-up hair. Its scent was pungent with sweat. He should have washed it for her yesterday, but the visit from Scotland Yard had chased from his mind any thought that didn’t specifically relate to his own immediate, personal, and delitescent concerns. Rotter, he thought. Bastard. Swine. He wanted to say, “Don’t be scared. I’ll be with you. Right to the end,” but she’d already taken that option out of his hands. So instead, he whispered, “I’m scared as well.”

“But not with my cause.”

“No. Not with.”

He kissed her hair. Beneath his hands, he felt her chest heave. Then her body shuddered.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t know how to be.”

“We’ll work it out. We always have.”

“Not this time. It’s too late for that.” She didn’t add what he already knew. Dying made everything too little and too late. Instead she pulled her quivering arm firmly against her body. She straightened her shoulders and then her spine. “I need to go to Mother,” she said. “Will you take me there?”

“Now?”

“Now.”

CHAPTER
15

J
eannie Cooper poured boiling water over the P. G. Tips and watched the teabags bob to the surface like buoys. She took a spoon, stirred, and put the lid on the pot. She’d deliberately chosen the special tea-set this afternoon, the one with the pot shaped like a rabbit, with carrot cups and lettuce leaf saucers. It was the pot she always used when the kids were ill, to cheer them up and make them think of something besides an achy ear or a stomach gone peculiar.