The Missing World (27 page)

“But I promised. I told her if she needed help, I’d be there, anytime.”

“You’re not a fucking boy scout, Freddie. You already have a promise—” she tapped her chest—“to me.”

Just like him, to have said something and forgotten. He tried to think of recent vows. At Christmas, he dimly recalled, they’d discussed her moving in. Where would you work, he’d asked. At the kitchen table, Felicity said. When he pointed out how awkward that would be, they’d gone back and forth about practicalities until Felicity concluded it was probably best for her dissertation if she remained in Bethnal Green. But promises? He didn’t remember any promises.

Now she put down her knife and fork and leaned across the table. “I hate ultimatums. But if you go ahead with this woman, our relationship will change.”

“Hazel, her name is Hazel.” He had the same desperate feeling he’d had at Lourdes when there weren’t enough stretcher bearers and he didn’t know who to help first.

She stood up with an expression that contained so many others that he couldn’t begin to list them. His mind was working furiously—wait, he wanted to say, don’t go—but his mouth remained closed. Felicity watched him for a few seconds longer. Then she put on her jacket, picked up her bag, and walked out of the restaurant, her silence more frightening than any outburst.

Jonathan’s first thought, when he saw Mrs. Craig on the doorstep, was that the roof was acting up. He knew he should have waited for Trevor; idiotic to think a Yank could tell the difference between Welsh slate and Spanish.

“Sorry to disturb you,” she was saying. “I wondered how Hazel was doing.”

“A little better every day.”

Mrs. Craig smiled and nodded until it dawned on him that she was in fact asking to see Hazel. He was about to offer the usual excuses—ill, tired—when he thought, what the hell. After all, he never saw her these days. Since their last conversation and her subsequent seizure, they divided the house between them like strangers.

In the dark bedroom she didn’t answer his hello, but peering around the door he caught the glint of her eyes. “Mrs. Craig is here.”

“Oh, good.” She reached for the light.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, he rummaged for the herbal tea Mrs. Craig had firmly requested and chose blackberry over camomile because the box was prettier. Upstairs, she was sitting cross-legged on the bed. As he came in, she and Hazel both stopped talking. For a moment he was tempted to pull up a chair. Why should he let them drive him away? Then, moving a magazine to make room for the tray, he caught sight of the monitor, lying next to Hazel. Surreptitiously he switched it on, flicking the volume to high.

“Call if you need me,” he said, and hurried downstairs to retrieve the listening device from the mantelpiece.

“How do you feel?” Mrs. Craig was saying. “You look rather—” a sweet sound interrupted her words, as if a tuning fork had been struck—“frayed around the edges.”

“That day I met you in the street, afterwards I had a seizure. A bad one.”

Their voices emerged from the monitor only a little mossy. He positioned himself in the armchair below the bedroom. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? He’d always yearned to know what Hazel said and did in his absence, the unseen tree in the forest seen at last.

“Oh, I am sorry.” He suddenly appreciated Mrs. Craig’s excellent diction. “How are you now?”

“Terrible. It was the first time I’d been out alone since the accident. I wanted so badly to prove I could manage.”

“And you did. Like everything else, though, you have to begin slowly. Where were you going?”

“Anywhere. I couldn’t bear to be under the same roof as Jonathan a minute longer. My skin crawls when he comes near me.”

Crawls, he thought. He stared at the aerial roots of the cheese plant, dry, hairy, searching for something they would never find.

“I have a tricky question to ask you.”

What was the old busybody after? He should never have let her in. Anxious not to miss a syllable, he raised the monitor to his ear. Then Hazel must’ve made some gesture of assent. “You know the man who fixed our roofs, Freddie Adams? He’s worried that you’re living here because of some kind of confusion.”

Freddie, thought Jonathan, but his spurt of indignation was lost in Hazel’s reply. “He’s right,” she said. “I just found out that I’d moved into my own flat before the accident.”

Was Mrs. Craig nodding, trying to interrupt? At any rate, Hazel rushed on. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is. For weeks I’ve had the feeling things weren’t quite right between Jonathan and me, but no one would come clean. It was driving me mad.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a poor friend. He didn’t make me feel very welcome when I came to tea.”

He fought the impulse to run upstairs crying “Fire! Fire!,” drag Mrs. Craig from the room, and hurl her into the street. I already told Hazel the worst part, he reminded himself.

“Jonathan I can understand,” she was saying, “in some
warped way. The person who baffles me is Maud. She stonewalls, says she has no idea what I’m talking about. That I mustn’t excite myself. Please, will you tell me what you know?”

In her clear voice Mrs. Craig embarked on her version of their history. Hazel moving in, delicious meals, interesting excursions, articles gradually accepted. “Your job brought out the worst in Jonathan. You used to complain that he’d interrogate you if you were even a few minutes late. Once you said it was like living with a detective.”

That damn humming.

“And last spring you found out about Suzanne.”

“The Suzanne who lived here before me?”

“Exactly. They broke up when she got pregnant and she had the child on her own. Apparently Jonathan hadn’t bothered to tell you. That was what upset you, that he didn’t seem to think it was important.”

During a long pause, he twisted the volume into a roar of static, out of which Mrs. Craig’s voice leapt—“Don’t upset yourself”—followed by hushing sounds.

“And then I moved out,” Hazel said hoarsely.

“In the autumn. I’m not sure why.”

“Jonathan said it was because he was busy, overworked.”

“Maybe. You were so angry you could hardly speak.”

For a few seconds, the blood seething through his veins, he didn’t notice the absence of voices. He fiddled with the volume, turned the power on and off, all to no effect. He was halfway up the stairs when the bedroom door opened.

“Jonathan,” Mrs. Craig said brightly. “I was coming to see if we could get some more tea.”

She knows I was listening. “How’s Hazel?”

“A little tired.” She smiled. “I won’t stay much longer.”

No, she doesn’t.

She returned to the bedroom and he retreated to the
kitchen. Now who’s paranoid, he thought. When had that bitch been interested in anything besides auras and massage? And, of course, her garden, a haven for his bees.

“Camomile compresses are marvellous for that,” she was saying as he carried the tea into the room.

Bending to retrieve the empty mugs, he spotted the monitor face down on the floor. No danger. One of them had accidentally knocked it off the bed. He’d been imagining they were as clever as he was. Boldly, he turned to Hazel. “Have you invited Mrs. Craig to the wedding?”

“She was just telling me,” Mrs. Craig said. “If I can rearrange things, I’d love to come.” She explained she’d offered Hazel half a dozen massages as a present—“Most beneficial for restoring inner balance”—and Hazel announced she was going for the first session tomorrow.

He flung out of the room. Suzanne, for christ’s sake, she knew about Suzanne. He’d hoped never to utter that name again, but mightn’t it be for the best, one less secret between him and Hazel? And now he knew what to emphasise, his deep feelings about having a daughter, the anguish of the decision, etc., etc. Downstairs rain was streaking the kitchen door, pattering on the leaves of the elderberry tree. Damn, he thought; then, why not? Being in the house was intolerable, and the bees could survive a sprinkle. Retrieving the veil and smoker, he stepped into the garden.

At the hives, he lit the smoker and gave two puffs into the the nearest hive. He was debating a third when it occurred to him that he hadn’t heard a word about the wedding through the monitor. Distracted, he pried off the lid. Before he could blink, he was stung twice, on the nose and the chin. Checking his hair, he pulled on the veil and gave several fierce puffs. In recent years he’d prided himself on using as little smoke as possible. Now the bees seemed to guess his rage. Even after the second
dose they continued to erupt, trying to penetrate the veil. When two more managed to sting him, he pumped smoke into the hive. At last they quieted; he began searching the wax sheets for the long cells indicating an extra queen, but his hands were shaking so severely, the stings ached so sharply, the rain fell so drearily, that soon he gave up and returned indoors.

Since Walter’s departure, Sunday was Charlotte’s least favourite day of the week, most of her normal haunts closed and British family life in full swing. But at Bernie’s, it was noticeably less of a dog and could even be mildly pleasant. This afternoon they’d gone for a walk along the canal and she’d served a high tea of macaroni cheese, which the rug-rats devoured. Now they were in bed, Bernie was ironing, and she was sitting on the sofa, skimming an article about the Redgraves—she’d once been in a play with Corin—when Bernie made an announcement. “I’ve been waiting all day.” Her iron hissed over a blouse. “Rory’s moving back in.”

“Oh.” Charlotte clutched the newspaper. “Great.”

“I thought you’d be pleased. You were the one who kept telling me to take him back.”

“I am pleased. It’s just …” She folded the paper so that the pages all lined up. “I’ve got used to the four of us, being an aunt. I’ll miss that.” And it was true. Day by day, her old freedoms seemed less alluring. For the last few weeks she’d been helping Oliver with his class play, a pageant about the early Britons, and she’d taught Melissa to waltz and fox-trot. She was even daydreaming about staying longer, perhaps until the autumn, which would give her a chance to really get back on her feet. Though Bernie was a pain, she wasn’t an automaton. She had desires, fears; she simply repressed them better than most people.

“We’ll miss you too.” Bernie reached down to draw a new
red garment, Melissa’s, from the basket. “How soon do you think you can leave?”

“Leave?” Her first thought, absurd in retrospect, was that she’d forgotten to pick up something from the shops.

A little cloud of steam rose as Bernie tackled a sleeve. “Well, we’re pretty squeezed here, and once Rory’s back he can collect the kids, all of that.”

“You mean you want me to move out? But what about our agreement? That piece of paper you made us sign. I rented my flat until the end of June.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. Suddenly she wondered if Bernie had been at the pills; that would explain her steady ironing, her icy demeanour. It isn’t that she doesn’t care about me, Charlotte thought. I’m far away, a small object on a distant planet.

“Yes,” said Bernie, “we did have an agreement, including a default clause. I think it was your suggestion that, with sufficient notice, we could change our minds.”

Surely not, but Bernie was setting the iron on end, going over to the desk and—amazingly—producing the paper. She sat down beside Charlotte and pointed out the sentence:
We are both at liberty to alter these arrangements as long as we give the other proper notice
.

“But where will I go?”

“You’ve got loads of friends.” Bernie patted her arm. “I’m sorry. I’ve liked having you here, but the kids need their father. I hate for them to shuttle back and forth, even for an extra day.”

Here it was, thought Charlotte, shrugging off her hand: the invincible argument, always more important than anything or anyone else. God damn the rug-rats.

Only as she neared the garage at the end of Mr. Early’s street did Charlotte wonder if she should have phoned. But how ridiculous now that she was a hundred yards away. Besides, two
in the afternoon was a perfectly respectable hour for a visit, not as if she were trying to scrounge a meal; and she’d bought a bunch of half-price tulips. Reassured, she lifted the dolphin knocker. A damp smell rose from the small front garden. Spring, she thought, stepping back down the mosaic path. From the gate she saw lights in the upstairs room where, a few weeks ago, she and Mr. Early had sat by the fire. A piano was playing. She cocked her head, trying to ascertain the source, and lost it to a passing car. Two boys strode by. “In Corinthians,” the taller one was saying, “God offers …” Charlotte gazed after them. For as long as she’d lived in London, a poster in the tube had advertised a church near the Elephant and Castle; she could picture the curly-haired woman and the boy in a suit both finding religion.

She knocked a second time, more vigorously, and retreated again to the gate. As she took the final step, a dark shape flitted by the window. Any moment the door would swing open with a flurry of apologies—I was on the phone, I was frying an egg—and she would launch into her speech: personal assistant, housekeeper, dogsbody. Surely he had room for her. After all, she was giving nearly a week’s notice.
If you could move out by this weekend
, Bernie’s note on the kitchen table had said.

No light, no footsteps. Once more she raised the knocker—a single, timid tap—and then, without waiting, she laid the tulips on the step and ran down the street.

Not until she was on the 43 bus, breathing hard, did Charlotte allow herself to consider that her eyes might have been playing tricks; no one had stood at the window. What she’d seen was the shadow of a cloud, the huff of a curtain, but not a person, and certainly not Mr. Early refusing her entrance. His warm welcome last time, the whisky, the midnight feast, showed how absurd that was. No, like Bernie, he simply left the lights and a radio on for security.

But where now? She tried to summon the image of a single person who would be unequivocally pleased to see her. Melissa galumphed across the playground: Auntie Charlie, Auntie Charlie. Worse than useless. The Trumpet was out of the question and so was Ginny, who would either want her to buck up or point out what a fool she’d been. Brian? With luck he’d be in his office, trying to sell some hapless person a flat in Bermondsey. She could go and drink watery Nescafé and tell him theatre gossip between his important phone calls, but that wasn’t going to ease her mood, let alone solve her own housing crisis. The bus was nearly at the Angel when she thought of Jason.