The Missing World (36 page)

Again he had that eerie sense of not having actually spoken; his words seemed to reach no one. For a distracted second he stared, uncomprehendingly, at a tattered red object on the floor. The tampon. All that blood, the blood that was meant to bring them together, squandered. “Hazel, I don’t know what’s going on here, but tell your friends they’re making a mistake.”

“You’re the one making the mistake,” the roofer said over his shoulder.

“How did you get in?” Jonathan couldn’t help asking.

“Ladder.”

“You raped me,” said Hazel. Under cover of the duvet she’d pulled on her pyjama bottoms. At the head of the bed she and Charlotte sat side by side, facing him, like judges.

“Hazel, we were making love. The pills make you paranoid—I told you, Hogarth told you, they might—and you started to panic, but you wanted me, you’ve always wanted me.”

“No.” She was clutching the duvet. “You want me. Maud is the one who wants you.” Charlotte nodded, as if somehow privy to the whole story.

“You know, at the hospital,” Hazel continued, “when I didn’t recognise my parents? I could still tell they were important in my life, that I loved them. I can’t remember what went wrong between us, but that doesn’t matter anymore.”

She fell silent. For a few, hopeful seconds he thought she might be having a seizure. He watched her eyes, the muscles in her neck. Please, god, let it come.

Then her hands stopped thrashing, and when she spoke
again her voice was steady. “For weeks I’ve had this stranger wandering through my brain. He’s pale, with colourless eyes and lank hair. He wears a dark suit and a white shirt, like a student or a waiter. Every time I pick up a book, or eat an apple, or try to sleep or look out of the window, he shows up. I’ve done my best not to recognise him, to send him away—why should I want to smash up my whole life?—but he won’t leave. The truth is, I
don’t
love you. That’s all that matters. And you know it, too. Why else would you keep me here against my will?”

Before he could answer, she turned away. “Get him out of here,” she said. “Please, Freddie.”

If I live to be a hundred, he thought, I will never forget this moment. Over Littleton’s head he watched Hazel and saw her blue eyes, their white haloes, staring at this man, this creature, he had in his grasp. And Charlotte beside her, mirroring, underlining, her expressions like a chorus.

This had to be one of the strangest nights of his life. First the scene with Felicity, then coming to leave a note for Hazel and hearing her screams through the mailbox. He’d run for the ladder, set it up at her bedroom window, which was ajar, thanks to the British obsession with fresh air. All he had to do was slide it open and scramble inside. Luckily, Charlotte had followed. Without her, the whole situation might’ve gone ballistic.

He tightened his grip on Littleton and started to frogmarch him towards the door. He resisted for a couple of steps, then seemed almost eager to get out of the room.

Charlotte led them into the spare room and closed the door. The men were alone. Freddie faltered. What could he do with a naked white guy? Tie him to the bed? Littleton also seemed confused. This time when he asked to be released, he even said “please.” Freddie let him go and stepped back.

Littleton just stood there, arms at his sides, cock limp. How hairy he was, a river of hair from chest to groin and, beneath the hair, the flesh tinged with blue. He’s cold, thought Freddie, and was about to suggest clothes when Littleton had the same idea. He grabbed a robe from the end of the bed, a navy-blue terry-cloth number, pulled it on, and meticulously knotted the belt.

The garment seemed to restore him to his true asshole self. “I want you out of my house,” he said. “Immediately.”

For a few minutes, caught up in the strangeness of the events, Freddie had forgotten to be angry. Now rage spurted into his throat. This man had imprisoned Hazel, had hurt her. He stepped forward and punched Littleton in the jaw. Though the blow was inept, his junior-high boxing lessons twenty years past, he felt bone beneath his knuckles. Littleton reeled back onto the bed.

Freddie was bending over him, arm raised for a second punch, fist tingling, when he heard, through the closed door, the women going into the bathroom. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured, not sure if he was swearing or praying. He’s turning me into him. Since the night Roy Harper hurtled through the air, Freddie had fled confrontation, used his strength to play the peacemaker and done his best to live without harm. Until now.

He had to get away from this monster. He rushed out into the hall, slamming the door behind him as if to seal off some deadly contagion, and clung to the bannister, shaking. Now what? If only he could see Hazel.

Suddenly he remembered the ladder. A task, a little fresh air might do the trick. “Littleton,” he called, “I need to go get something. If you try to lock me out, I’ll call the cops from Mrs. Craig’s and smash a window. You got that?”

Silence.

Freddie eyed the door. Should he look inside? No, he never
wanted to see that man again. Besides, what could he do in two minutes? He called to Charlotte, telling her where he was going. “Okay,” came her muffled reply from the bathroom.

He blocked the front door open, and felt better as soon as he stepped into the street. Quietly, he unhooked the ladder and carried it round the house. He was strapping it on top of the van when a yelp caught his ear. Opening the door he smelled pee—Arkansas had been making good use of the
Standard
—and the yelping crescendoed. When Freddie picked him up, the puppy’s whole body was shivering. Why can’t I do one single thing, he thought, without messing up? But as he hurried back across the street he noticed an amazing fact: he
was
doing something. For better or worse, he had left the couch.

Jonathan sat up to make sure the footsteps really were descending the stairs. Safely alone, he sank back on the bed. An hour ago, half an hour ago, all had been well in his world; Hazel his, the wedding in a matter of days, his mistakes forgiven, his job secure, his hives mostly flourishing. And now … His jaw throbbed. Even the walls seemed whiter and barer by the second. How had his life come to such a pass that a man was fixing his roof one week, bursting into his bedroom the next? When Adams released him, his impulse had been to knee him in the balls, but an instinctive calculation had warned him that he was giving away at least three inches and a couple of stone on the roofer.

He squeezed his fists against his eyes, conjuring a warm darkness. Steady, lad, steady. Nothing was irrevocably lost, only one evening in a lifetime of evenings. First get dressed, then evict the trespassers, settle Hazel down and make sure she got a good night’s sleep. Wasn’t there some Valium at the back of the bathroom cupboard? His clothes lay at the end of the bed, where he’d neatly folded them an eternity ago. Still he did not
move. You’re wrong, whispered the bees. I don’t think it’s going to work, said Maud. Colourless eyes, lank hair … but that was not to be borne.

The sound of the front door made him jump. Like a character in a farce, he scrambled into his clothes: underwear, trousers, socks, shirt, pullover, shoes. Now to get rid of these scum. If they weren’t gone in five minutes, he would phone the police.

In the hall, the roofer was talking to Charlotte. “I was worried he’d catch cold,” he was saying. “Maybe you can find a T-shirt or something to wrap him in.”

“He’ll cheer Hazel up,” Charlotte said. Then she caught sight of him. “Mr. Littleton.”

“Good evening.” Absurdly, he found himself nodding as if to invited guests. “I must ask you both to leave.”

“Not a problem,” said Adams. Beneath his accent, Jonathan heard the note of contempt. “We’ll be out of here as soon as Hazel’s ready.”

“Let me make myself absolutely clear. In five minutes I’ll call the police.” His mouth was moving automatically, but his mind was babbling: was the fucker seriously suggesting that Hazel was going with them?

Charlotte reached for whatever the roofer held in his arms and returned to the bedroom. Jonathan took a step forward and, catching the roofer’s eye, stayed put. All the brightly lit shame of the last few minutes came back to him. This man had seen him as no one ever had, save his lovers. But no, Adams was the wrongdoer, he and Charlotte. He scratched his palms. From the bedroom came voices and—was it possible?—laughter.

He glanced over, wondering if the American had heard it too. “I’ve never been very keen on your native land,” he said, “but it does have a certain appeal that if you behaved like this over there, you’d be dead on the floor.”

“Or you would, though I’m totally anti-NRA.”

Jonathan stared at his study door. Why hadn’t he phoned the police while he was alone? It was like the letters about Hazel’s job. He always overlooked something.

Adams intercepted his gaze. “Go right ahead,” he said, waving towards the study. “From our point of view, the sooner the cops get here, the better.”

Before Jonathan could reach the phone, however, the bedroom door opened and, astonishingly, a small black puppy emerged. Charlotte followed, and Hazel, dressed in the clothes she’d worn earlier.

She neither looked nor did not look at him. He didn’t even have the reassuring sense of being ignored. Rather, he had ceased to exist. “Hazel. What’s happening? What’s going on?”

He stepped towards her, arms outstretched. Her face, he could see, was still flushed with lovemaking. One of the buttons of her cardigan was in the wrong hole. “What’s going on?” he repeated. “Hazel, I love you. Talk to me.”

She kept walking towards the top of the stairs, and it was Charlotte who turned to face him. “Mr. Littleton, Jonathan, you don’t seem to understand—”

Reaching to shove the bitch aside, he collided with the roofer. “Hazel, stop, wait,” he shouted, fists whirling, legs kicking, head butting. And she was drawing farther away as she and Charlotte hurried down the stairs. Adams blocked his path. Jonathan hit him in the shoulder, he kicked his shins, yet Adams stood there like a wall. Then, as Jonathan aimed for his diaphragm, the roofer jumped.

Once again Jonathan found himself helpless in his grasp. But just for a second, he thought, the fucker’s bloody terrified, which made no sense at all. “Let me go, you stupid bastard,” he screamed.

A blast of cold air rushed over them. A moment later Charlotte called, “Freddie, we’re set.”

With a jolt, Jonathan was free, sprawled on the landing outside his study.

Adams was going down the stairs, two or three at a time. Jonathan leapt to his feet to rush after him and, halfway down, tripped and nearly tore the bannister out of the post. He’d fallen over the puppy. Launched by the toe of his shoe, the small black animal tumbled down the remaining stairs. He stepped over it and dashed into the street, in time to see a van, ladders on top, turn the corner.

When he came back into the house, Mrs. Craig was seated on the bottom stair, cradling the dog. “I’m afraid it’s dead, poor beast. May it travel safely.” She made a humming sound and raised the small body three times, as if commending it to some unseen being. Then she looked up at Jonathan. “I couldn’t help hearing the noise,” she said, “and the door was open.”

As she went to close it, he leaned against the wall. The cold of the bare plaster pressing through his shirt and pullover was the only sign he was still alive.

Back on the stair Mrs. Craig began to speak. “You know how I hum? Some people find it irritating. I learned it from my mother. She died when I was two and a half. It’s the single most important event in my life, and however hard I try I can’t remember her, not the tiniest thing. Yet I hum like her. I have her hands. I inherited her love of gardening, her inability to keep accounts.” She paused as if to review a much longer list.

“Hazel didn’t really forget,” she went on. “Even though she lost the words, she still had the attitudes, the postures. I felt that today when I was doing her massage. You thought you
could win her in the body, but that was always the first place you were going to lose her.”

“Did you call those two?”

“Freddie and his friend? No. I think they just came by on a hunch. Freddie got it into his head that Hazel needed help. That’s all he’s trying to do, believe it or not: help her.”

She rose to her feet. “I’ll take him, shall I?” she said, lifting the puppy. “That way you won’t have to see Freddie again.” As she opened the door, she gave him a final glance. “I’d suggest an extremely stiff drink.”

Jonathan could not have said how he got from the hall to the living-room, or how long he rested his forehead against the cold windowpane. When he returned with a glass of Scotch, he wandered over to the cheese plant. Suddenly he remembered that snowy night, driving to rescue Hazel, how he’d hit something—a dog or cat—and driven on. And he was right to do so. Every second had counted, if he was to save her. Later, at the hospital, he’d seen the neat, white feet of the dead man. He bent down and poured a dribble of Scotch into the soil around the plant. I like dogs, he thought absurdly. With amazement he saw that the clock on the mantelpiece said twenty past ten; the way he felt, it ought to be two in the morning.

Setting his glass aside, pulling with one hand, steadying the stem with the other, he began to tug the pot towards the door. On the wooden floor of the hall, it was noisier but easier. Outside, on the cement, it made a grinding sound—loud enough, his mother would’ve said, to wake the dead.

He pushed it against the gatepost. Should he fashion a sign:
TAKE ME
? Surely that was obvious. A couple of leaves were damaged, but basically the plant looked as it had always done: loathsome. He was standing there, amazed by its ugliness, when a figure stopped beside him. The Tourette’s boy.

“Would you like the plant?” he asked. “I’m giving it away.”

“No,” the boy said. “Thank you. It’s too big for …”

The rest of his reply vanished as he bowled off down the pavement. Thirty yards away he stopped and did his little circle dance. If he were a bee, thought Jonathan, that would mean nectar near the hive. Go forage.