The Missing World (32 page)

Charlotte remembered the occasions on which she’d caught Jonathan gazing at Hazel. “He loves her. I mean, he may still be taking advantage, but he is crazy about her.”

“You say that as if it’s some kind of excuse.” He bounced from foot to foot. “I think we should go over there.”

She stared up at him. What exactly was he proposing? That she leave his cosy sofa to traipse over to Hazel’s, once again an unwanted guest? She recalled her glimpse of Jonathan earlier that evening: his grumpiness about the candles, his brusque payment. “If you don’t mind, I’ll sit this one out. Find my toothbrush and get settled. Do you have any blankets?”

“No,” he said, not meaning the blankets. “Black boys don’t prowl around alone at night, even in London. Please say you’ll come. All you need to do is walk to my van. I’ll do the rest.”

In the face of his urgency there was only one answer. “Can we have scrambled eggs when we get back?”

“Sure. And I’ll wash the pan.” He held out his hand, the palm nearly as pink as Bernie’s, in a gesture Charlotte recognised from American films. “Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, searching for her shoes.

Jonathan began to lob sentences through the tendrils of candle smoke. “We did make mistakes, Maud and me. You have to understand what it’s like. Hogarth claims the seizures have no single cause. Often, though, after we have a difficult conversation, you foam at the mouth. Surely you can see how that makes me feel.”

Hazel gave no sign, either by word or gesture, of seeing anything. He fanned away the smoke, trying desperately to think of additional arguments. A detail from an epilepsy pamphlet he’d read at the hospital came to mind. “You probably don’t realise that the seizures affect your short-term memory. You often lose a couple of hours preceding them. I did tell you, more than once, that we’d had our quarrels.”

It wasn’t working—she was getting up—but he rushed on. The main thing was not to mention the job, those letters. Blame himself for everything, not that. “Of course I should’ve told you about Suzanne, but you were so strident about women’s rights. It was as if my opinion, the man’s opinion, was irrelevant.”

At last he had her attention. She paused, crouching, to look at him. “You have a daughter.”

“Suzanne has—” he began and then, as she made a slight pushing motion, quickly said, “Yes.”

“And you’ve never met her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He drifted over to the cheese plant. Now was the moment to deliver his well-rehearsed anguish. “I’m not sure.” Do the
puzzled frown. “At first it was mostly my fault. I wasn’t very persistent. You and I were just getting to know each other, and I didn’t want anything to come between us. Then—”

“Don’t do that.”

He released the leaf, what remained of it, and dropped the green fragments into the pot. “When I did ask to see her, Suzanne wouldn’t let me. Either I had to be a full-time father or nothing. All she wanted was my money.” Hazel raised a hand to shield her yawn. “I can see how engrossing this is.”

“Jonathan, it’s hard to be interested, except in a pathological way, when my first reaction is to wonder whether this really happened. When you told me about Maud, I knew you were telling the truth. You blurted it out. Just now I could see you calculating every sentence. If what you’re saying about Suzanne is true, that’s rotten. Frankly, though, I wouldn’t bet a fiver either way.”

He ought to explode with righteous anger—that was what people did when falsely accused—but he could only listen, mesmerised, as she gathered momentum.

“I was describing to Charlotte the day we met at the library. You were wearing a shirt with tiny red and black checks and you asked me about India, about tutoring those rich kids. You told me about your bees. I loved how passionate you were, and that you didn’t take yourself too seriously. Later, over dinner, you talked about your dog, Fluffy.”

“Flopsy.”

“Flopsy. It never occurred to you that your parents had lied. I found that so—” she spread her fingers—“so touching. You know Plato’s theory, the original whole divided, the halves striving to be reunited. I had the idea that was us. I’d been living on impulse for nearly a decade, and you’d had your shoulder to the grindstone. You could teach me how to live the examined life, I thought, and I could teach you the reverse. It
seems funny now, but I blamed myself when our relationship started to unravel.”

If the brain has cells like a honeycomb, thought Jonathan, little wax chambers, row after row, waiting to be filled and capped, now his were brimming.

“Maybe,” she said, and finally she was looking at him, “you didn’t do anything with Suzanne I wouldn’t have done, but I would never have kept it secret.”

“You know”—he took a step towards her—“for all your principles about tolerance, you aren’t very forgiving. No one gets a second chance. Not me, not your parents, not even my parents with their stupid fib. Anything dodgy, you run for the high moral ground.”

“What do you mean?”

For a moment, the interest in her voice made him want to laugh. Wouldn’t ninety-nine people out of a hundred rather talk about their own bad behaviour than another person’s virtues? “You said our relationship unravelled.” She gave a small nod; he did like her hair longer. “If I had to pick a single occasion when matters took a wrong turn, it would be the night you proposed to me and I panicked. I’ve regretted that a million times, I’ve apologised from here to Timbuktu, but you never listened. I had my chance. I blew it. End of story.”

“Boris told me the same thing, that I hold grudges.” She stopped, and from the way she cocked her head he knew she was chasing some distant memory. “No.” She sighed and moved towards the door.

“Now we have a second chance.” Two halves, she’d said, seeking a whole. “That’s what your illness has given us, the ultimate second chance.”

She was doing what she always did, walking away.

For the second time that evening, he grabbed a woman’s wrist. Hers was thinner than Maud’s.

“I met Daniel today.”

“Daniel?”

“My tenant.”

His palms itched, his eyeballs no longer seemed to fit. In his grasp, Hazel’s bones squeezed together. “You can’t imagine”—her voice wavered—“how strange it was to be in this flat and see my books, my pictures, my desk, the sort of washing-up liquid I always buy, and to have not the faintest recollection of ever setting foot there.

“When I try to recover the past,” she went on, “where most people have a window, I have a wall.”

Suddenly he found himself remembering that snowy evening, her eyes rolling back in her head as she walked, endlessly, into the living-room wall. And then he was holding her, shaking, trying to contain her despair and his own jubilation. The letters were gone, dead and gone. His arms were around her, and she was neither crying nor shouting nor pushing him away. Soon, nothing could come between them.

Charlotte regarded the van’s uninterrupted windscreen with pleasure. She could not remember the last time she’d ridden in the front of a vehicle and so high up. “Here we go,” said Freddie, but for a minute or two the engine coughed and hesitated. When it finally caught, he turned to her. To thank her again, or give her a hug? No, something about a seat belt.

She was still disentangling the loop of material as he leaned across, his arm pressing gently against her chest, to straighten the belt and snap the buckle into place. I’ve only known him for an hour, she reminded herself. But could compatability be measured chronologically? Bernie had thrown her out after more than thirty years, and Walter bolted after five.

“You should have air bags,” she said. “Why do you have a van? How old are you?”

He was back-and-forthing to get out from between the adjacent cars. “To carry my tools. I fix roofs. Didn’t I tell you that’s how I met Hazel? They had a problem with the flashing on the back party wall.” He edged into the street. “Thirty-five.”

After the van’s balky start, their progress was remarkably smooth. As they turned onto the main road, Charlotte had a pleasing sense of Freddie beside her, shifting gears at precisely the right moment. “I’m thirty-three,” she said. “Do you have a girlfriend?” A pub where she’d once done a Pinter play flashed by. Something warm lay beneath her fingers; glancing down, she discovered her hand resting on Freddie’s thigh.

“I did. Felicity, but I have the feeling she’s history. Or I am. She’s the one who stole the puppy.”

“If she ditched you, I think you’re history. Am I asking too many questions?”

They slowed down at a red light. “Too bloody right,” he attempted in cockney, then switched to American. “Well, we’re roommates, so can I ask you a question?”

Here it comes, she thought, whisking away her hand: the dreary interrogation. How long are you staying? When’s the last time you acted? Where’s your boyfriend? The road ahead was jammed with cars. People going home from a night on the town, seeing
Les Miz
or
An Inspector Calls
, and what was she doing? Trundling along on some tedious errand, with an American stranger. Even his shambolic flat was less reassuring now that she knew this Felicity was responsible. “I suppose,” she muttered.

“I just wondered about Hazel, whether she ever mentioned me?”

Was it possible, she thought, that Freddie had a pash? He shifted down, and she dismissed the notion. He was like her, worried about Hazel, caught up in the drama of her amnesia. As if neither of them need notice, she put her hand back on his
thigh. “Not that I recall, but there’s no reason why she should. Either I’m reading to her or we’re working on her memory. You know she and Jonathan are getting married in a couple of weeks?”

Only the seat belt saved Charlotte from meeting the windscreen. She found herself staring down at a white mini.

“Married?” said Freddie.

“Good you made me wear the belt.” She pointed at the dumpy car. “Don’t worry. We didn’t hit them.”

The mini bounded forward, apparently unaware of its narrow escape, and again they were moving.

“What do you mean, ‘married’?”

“That thing people of the opposite sex do at the Town Hall when they exchange rings.” She giggled. “Though maybe the flat will change that. Hazel was pretty upset.”

“Shit.”

Looking around, Charlotte saw they’d missed their turn. “We can do a U-turn at the lights,” she said soothingly. Although at this point, her initial reluctance to leave the sofa had vanished; she would happily drive all night. They could go to Scarborough, where she’d once done a summer season, and watch the sun rise from the clifftops. Only two hundred miles.

But Freddie was already signalling, apologising. “I’ve had a peculiar day,” he said. They passed a school, a stark playground, and here was Hazel’s street of neat two-storey houses and leafless trees. Why did that woman ditch you, she was about to say, as he pulled over. Later.

The engine was still creaking when a spaniel came down the street, trotting so purposefully from one pool of lamplight to the next that the appearance of a woman in a raincoat, holding the lead, was a foregone conclusion. Head down, she passed within a yard of the van, oblivious to its occupants. “Strange,” Charlotte said, “she didn’t see us.”

Freddie agreed. “I’ve noticed that before,” he said. “In a pub, you can get someone to turn around with a quick look. Once you’re in a car, you can stare to your heart’s content. Thanks for doing this,” he added. “You must be bushed.”

“As a matter of interest, what are we doing?”

“I want to walk by, check out the house, make sure nothing weird is going on. I know—” he tapped his temple—“you’re thinking the craziness is located right here. But I’m positive Hazel’s in trouble. She shouldn’t be marrying this guy, not when she’s sick. Whatever I can do to help, I want to. Does that sound totally insane?”

“It sounds—” if only she’d known someone like this last year—“nice.”

They climbed out of the van and eased the doors shut. Upright in the cold air, Charlotte realised she was still a little drunk and whispered as much to Freddie. “No problem,” he whispered back.

Gone were the candles, though she could make out their white shadows in the window, and so were all the downstairs lights. Upstairs, a diffuse glow indicated a lamp. They walked slowly along the opposite side of the road and back again. They were standing by a tree two doors down when a clicking sound heralded the spaniel and its walker. This time, as she drew near, the woman glanced at them apprehensively and hurried along.

Freddie’s cheerful “Good night” had her almost jogging. “You see,” he said, shaking his head, “why I needed your company.”

Charlotte pointed over at the house. “It looks like they’ve gone to bed.”

“Where do they sleep?”

“Jonathan’s in the spare room, that window there. Hazel’s room overlooks the garden.”

“Let’s check out back.”

Before she could argue, Freddie led her through the gate and round the bay. Waiting for him to open the side door, somehow he knew where the key was, she had a pang. This was actually trespassing, whereas they could stand in the street all night long. Not quite, she thought, remembering the evening she’d run into Walter at that party. She had left the room, it was true, but then she had gone back in and asked Ginny to get his address. Tell him I have some post for him, she’d said. Five minutes later, Ginny handed her a slip of paper and Charlotte took a taxi to the house, somewhere near Clapham Common, and waited on his garden wall. Mercifully, not every detail returned. She could hear Walter shouting, still picture the waiflike policewoman who had told her to try hot milk and a bath.

Out of the darkness, something grazed her cheek. She gasped.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” As she pushed the branch aside, she imagined herself once again on Freddie’s sofa, a puppy in her lap, describing her encounter with the law. He might tease her or sympathise or call Walter a son-of-a-bitch, but for reasons she couldn’t define, Charlotte knew he would think none the worse of her.

“That window?” he asked.

“Yes.” Only a few days ago she’d stood there with Hazel arguing the pros and cons of memory. She turned, looking for the sculptures, and spotted them at the bottom of the garden. Of course, she thought, walking over the grass, not sculptures, beehives, three of them. Those red marks on Jonathan’s face the other day were stings. She put her hand on the nearest hive to feel the warmth.