The Hearts and Lives of Men (30 page)

The village school didn’t ask too many questions—had the roll fallen by one single pupil, the school was in danger of closing, and at the very sight of Nell, headmasterly eyes beamed with pleasure. The matter of the birth certificate was somehow overlooked, and into Class 2 went little Nell Beachey, Clive and Polly’s child. Polly never joined the PTA, of course. There was somehow so little time, such was the flow of stolen goods through the farm, then, in the heyday of the antiques-conscious seventies.

Keep your fingers off the furniture

Your mind on your toys

And keep your pretty eyes to your own little self,

When the grownups have their fun

Whispering with the boys—

That’s the time for little children to be deaf and dumb.

—Polly would sing to the tune of “Seven Little Girls, Sitting in the Backseat, A-hugging and A-kissing with Fred,” the better to entertain and teach little Nell, as she washed her in the big white bathtub with lion claws, or sang her to sleep in the high iron bed with the soft broken mattress, and the blankets—dusty and thin but plentiful, which were so useful for wrapping furniture, saving it from knocks and hiding its detail from prying eyes. Nell would watch Polly gravely, relearning trust, and new rules. Here food came haphazardly, never on time, but if you were hungry you just took it yourself, from the cupboard or the fridge, and nobody slapped you, or shouted, or frightened you. If you wanted socks for school, you had better find them yourself because nobody else would, and wash them too, if you wanted them clean. Well, that was all right, though going to school in wet socks could be uncomfortable. She could always run away again if anything happened she really didn’t like. It had worked once, it could work again.

“Do smile,” Polly would entreat her. “Go on, it’s a joke!” not knowing that
not
to smile had become for Nell almost a luxury. But soon she didn’t have to be persuaded; she smiled at everyone, not out of the need to survive, but because she felt like it, and skipped here and there when she could just as easily have walked—always a good sign—and forgot altogether about running away. This was home. She wondered who her real parents were; she knew better than to ask. No one encouraged questions at Faraway Farm. You just
were
—you just accepted. There were sadnesses in her mind: sometimes she probed them in the same way she wiggled her loose baby-teeth with her tongue, which was both silly, because it hurt, but sensible, because it loosened them and the sooner they were out the better, making eating apples difficult for a time, but the new ones were growing in white, large and strong. There was Rose, who wet the bed; she missed her, and how would Rose manage without her? There was a man and two women, all with wrinkles, in a strange large dark shadowy place; she remembered making toast in front of a fire. She’d make toast for Polly and Clive, and sometimes their friends, if they were still there at breakfast. (She’d collect the empty wine bottles and stack them and say, “Thirteen!” gravely, and “My goodness!” and make everyone laugh.) She didn’t like to think too much of the fire: it suddenly got out of control in her mind and was everywhere, a kind of crashing banging wall behind which the three nice old people disappeared. Before that all there was a sort of gentle singing sound, which made her sad and happy at the same time, but she knew was good. That was where she belonged, far away and long ago, and lost forever. Somehow a sea sparkled below, and the sky arched above, and wind blew on her face, and everything was beautiful. Heaven, she supposed.

In the meantime, there was reading, writing, tables, friends, talk and play at school. The rediscovery of a calm yet eventful world. She was shy, quiet and good at first.

“What a bright little girl,” said Miss Payne, her teacher, to Polly. “What a credit to you!” and Polly beamed. She became naughtier and livelier as time went on, of course. Never nasty, never ganging up, never one of the tormentors, or the tormented; the peacemaker, whose friend everyone wanted to be. School was fun, and simple, and she could see it was the way forward. She had a little pocket-radio—not cheap, no, fallen off the back of a truck, given to her by one of Clive’s friends—and sometimes she’d listen to the talk shows and puzzle over them, and try to work out what was going on in the outside world; not easy at all! When she’d had enough she’d turn to the music program and listen to songs. There was no television at Faraway Farm, not from principle, but because reception was so bad on account of the hills; all you could ever get was a fuzz. So she read, and talked, and skipped, and drew, and presently was happy.

Clive and Polly were excused a good deal on Nell’s account. If they could produce so pleasant a child, they couldn’t be too bad. And she was talented, too. She did the painting competition on the back of the Weetabix box when she was nine, and came in first in the Under-Tens.

But there, we’re running ahead of ourselves. That’s something to come, something to look forward to. For the time being, reader, we will leave Nell safely and happily at Faraway Farm, growing nicely, if haphazardly cared for.

L
ET’S TURN OUR ATTENTION
back to Arthur Hockney, whom we last saw baby-sitting for Helen, on the night she didn’t come home. Arthur Hockney had spent many wretched nights in his life, of course! This is the fate of the insurance investigator. He had all but frozen in the Antarctic on the site of an aircrash, been practically frightened to death by sharks on a minute coral island where a tanker had been scuttled, been tortured almost out of his wits by the gang who’d kidnapped Shergar. But if you asked him what the worse night of his life was (barring the night his parents died) he’d have said, simply, The night I baby-sat for Helen Cornbrook, and she didn’t come home.

What unrequited love can do to a man! Did Helen know Arthur loved her? Probably, though he’d never said so. The relationship between them was professional: she employed Arthur to search for Nell. All the same (unless they’re your divorce solicitor) it is useful to have your employees in love with you. They charge less and work harder, though they sometimes, it’s true, abruptly hand in their notice for no apparent reason.

And of course there was the sheer surprise of it. Helen, during the years when all but she and Arthur believed Nell was dead, had said many a harsh and unkind word about Clifford. If you have lost a man’s love, even if by reason of your own faithless nature, it is only natural for you to practice despising and hating him, to make the loss seem not so important. It is the business of saving face, and lessening the grief, I am sure, which makes divorced people so virulent about and spiteful to each other, to the distress and shock of their friends. Helen was no exception, and Arthur, though well-versed in the ways of criminals, in the minds of men who will cheat, lie and kill for their own profit and advancement, knew next to nothing about the heart of a woman. How a woman who hates and insults a man one week can be loving and admiring him the next. Amazing!

The evening Arthur came to visit Helen to report his progress in the search for Nell, and found her second husband Simon away, and the phone rang out of the blue and it was Clifford, asking Helen out to dinner, he did not expect her to say yes. He did not expect her to ask him to baby-sit, let alone to find himself saying “yes.”

He did not expect her to stay out all night. He did not expect to be so distressed and angry and jealous as the hours ticked away. He did not expect the pain in his chest, which he thought at first must be illness but presently realized was the effect of a broken heart. He felt not just wretched, but a fool as well. Indeed, it was the worst night of his life. And then, when it became apparent that Helen was going to remarry Clifford, actually remarry the man who had caused her so much distress, he vowed to give up the Nell Wexford case, place it in its special “lost child” file.

And yet. And yet. Forget Helen, forget Clifford, forget his own emotions—here there was still a mystery, and it was in Arthur’s nature to solve mysteries. One day, on impulse, he went once more to visit Mrs. Blotton. Three years now since the two million pounds compensation had been paid. Over four years since the accident which had allegedly killed Erich Blotton and little Nell. Time enough, thought Arthur Hockney, for Erich Blotton to believe he could safely return from the dead, if that had been his intention.

Mrs. Blotton was living in the same small, safe house in the same tree-lined suburban road (its numbers ran to 208) as she had before her windfall. She was wearing, Arthur could swear, the same old tweed skirt and thin red jumper as when he’d seen her four years earlier. She was as thin, plain and nervous as ever. He couldn’t tell, as ever, whether her nervousness sprang from guilt, or from the fact that he, Arthur, was so black.

“You again!” she said, but she let him into her neat, shabby front room. “What do you want? My husband’s dead and gone. And even if he were alive, why should he come back to me?”

“Because of the money,” said Arthur.

She laughed a thin little laugh.

“Oh yes,” she said, “if money could fetch anyone back from the grave, it would be Erich Blotton. But there isn’t much left. I see to that. I give it away. In dribs and drabs to make it last. It’s my occupation. It gets me out of the house.”

“You have a kind heart,” he said.

That pleased her. She made him a cup of tea.

“You blacks!” she said. “Taking over! You’re everywhere now. Up and down this very street. Well, you can get used to anything.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Nothing personal,” she said.

“Never is,” he said, though his parents would be ashamed of him, that he should grit his teeth against insult, and do nothing to change or improve the world. The truth was, and he knew it, that he, a brave man in the physical sense, was a moral coward. Put him before a maddened criminal trying to drive an ax into his head and he functioned; put him on a platform and ask him to address a public meeting, and his heart beat hard, his hands trembled, and his tongue was tied. He disgraced himself and the cause he espoused. Faced with Mrs. Blotton’s racism, born of stupidity, neuroses, and ignorance, he did nothing to persuade or educate her, and was ashamed of himself.

Mrs. Blotton, in the meantime, volunteered the fact that she gave the money to children’s homes. She’d always been upset at what her husband did for a living, but what could she do? A wife’s loyalty was to her husband. But all the same—child-snatching! Mostly for fathers, because it was the fathers who had the money, while the mothers had the children. However, that was all over now. She was glad to have a visitor, even one like Arthur. It wasn’t often she had the chance to chat. To be frank, she was quite lonely. Just the cat. And not much of a cat either. Scraggy, gutter-thing. She’d have bought a Persian with some of the money, only the neighbors would have stolen it and skinned it and turned it into stew and sold the skin.

“Why don’t you leave, go to the South of France, live it up a little? You’re a millionaire.”

“Hush!” She hated the word; she was terrified of being robbed. And how could she possibly get to the South of France? What would she do when got there? And who with? She didn’t make friends easily. No, better just stay quiet and give the money away. Besides, she didn’t want to leave the house empty; someone would only break in and mess it up. She lay awake at night, thinking about it, thinking of what her husband had done. Of course he was dead. He’s been paid out for smoking. What was smoking but suicide? Well, God had gotten in there first. And for snatching the little Wexford girl. What was her name? Nell? Now there was a real tragedy. She’d like to adopt a little girl, but who would let her? A middle-aged widow! Or even try fostering. She’d like to make amends.

She’d come across a child in one of the Assessment Centers who’d really taken her fancy. Ellen Root. About the same age as the Wexford child. Not much to look at; they kept shaving her head. She’d asked if she could take her home, but they wouldn’t let her. The child was backward, so they said. She didn’t believe it. She knew French when she heard it. They, being ignorant, just thought the child was babbling.

“French?” asked Arthur. “She was speaking French? Where is she now?”

“She’s disappeared,” said Mrs. Blotton, and Arthur thought, “That’s it! That’s her!” inasmuch as a child who disappears once, twice, will disappear thrice. It’s a kind of life habit, a tendency, if you like. But Ellen Root? Eleanor Wexford became Ellen Root? It was unthinkable!

“For a black man,” said Mrs. Blotton, “you’re not so bad. Do you smoke?”

“No,” said Arthur.

“Well,” said Mrs. Blotton, forgivingly, “that’s something. I suppose it takes all sorts to make a world.”

“I daresay it does, Mrs. Blotton.”

To his surprise, she shook his hand when he left, and smiled, and he saw she had a sort of charm. Perhaps his parents would not think too badly of him, for his way of life. The notion that he should follow in their footsteps, he suddenly saw, had been his, rather than theirs: a product of his guilt, that he should be alive, and they so suddenly and violently dead. He could never bring their murderers to justice, yet his life’s work lay in the righting of wrongs. That was surely enough. He left No. 208 with a livelier step and a lighter heart, noticing that even here, down this bleak suburban road, birds sang in the bushes, and roses burgeoned, and cats sat on windowsills and stared, with round judgmental eyes which, for once, seemed to approve and not condemn.

A
RTHUR HOCKNEY LEFT MRS
. Blotton and went forthwith to see the Eastlake Assessment Center.

He found a low modern building in concrete and glass, the concrete stained with damp and graffiti, and the glass dirty and in places broken. The Center was fairly new, but it had had time to become dilapidated, in that peculiarly sad way that neglected modern buildings have, as if longing to return as quickly as possible to the raw material from which they so ill-judgedly sprang.

Arthur knocked on the peeling door. He heard no sound of children at play, no laughter. He wondered why. Mrs. Blotton had referred to Ellen Root as having her head shaved. Who, in this day and age, shaved the heads of little girls?