Annie's Promise (46 page)

Gracie told Annie that the kids were at a drug rehabilitation unit in Holland, that Davy had been a heroin addict for some months, that Sarah was with him and now she couldn’t speak either but crumpled against Annie, who held her, holding her tightly against the horror of it all.

Georgie stayed to arrange Bet’s funeral whilst they flew to Holland, then hired a car to take them to the clinic. The doctor ushered them into his room and told them that the treatment had begun, the methadone would be decreased, the withdrawal would begin but not before they had spoken to their child.

Annie waited with the doctor as Tom and Gracie went into Davy’s room.

‘Where is Sarah?’ she asked, understanding now why her daughter had needed her, hating herself for denying her.

‘She’s gone, I’m afraid.’

Annie looked at him, not understanding. ‘Gone where?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t know. You must talk to Davy.’

Tom called her in some time later and she sat with her nephew, her brother and his wife and listened to Davy tell them of Carl and the drugs, of the psychedelic pictures he had painted and the cover-up they had carried out, of Cornwall, of the phone call, how Carl had said that Annie wouldn’t come because there was another strike. How she and Tom had only come down after the pictures because they wanted them to carry out market research. How Teresa had slept with Carl and Sarah had found them.

Tom raged at Carl, standing at the window, banging his fist on the sill while Gracie held her son’s hand and Annie sat silent, thinking of their trip down, the inflatable chairs.

‘Where is she now?’

Davy ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I sent her away. I wanted to go home, I wanted me family here. I wanted time to think. I just wanted her away from me. I didn’t mean her to go for ever.’

Annie said, ‘Do you believe we didn’t care?’

‘I did for a while, but then I didn’t know what to think, or feel. And there was Carl, you see, always talking. We didn’t know anything by the end. She doesn’t even now. She’s on her own out there and she’s frightened of being on her own. I sent her away because I had to be alone. I’m sorry, Auntie Annie. I’m just so sorry.’

Annie walked in the garden of the clinic, looking up at the windows which were yellow in the low light of winter. The trees were leafless. Sarah, how could you use this boy as you did? she raged, anger tearing at her, you selfish little brat. How could you keep him down in London, in Cornwall when we could have helped? Davy’s right, he needs to be on his own without you. She turned from the sun and looked out
across the miles of marsh, her arms folded tight, until the anger died and then she wept, the sound harsh and loud because her daughter was out there, all alone and neither of those kids from Wassingham had stood a chance against Carl. And finally she wept because over all the years she must have failed her daughter.

Sarah walked along the busy road, her rucksack rubbing on her shoulders. She didn’t know where she was going, she was just putting one foot in front of the other, walking away from them all, hating them all for the love she had given them, when they had given her none.

She walked until dusk and then a red van with huge marigolds painted on its sides stopped.

‘D’you want a lift?’ the young man drawled. He wore a band on his forehead, his hair was long, his smile lazy.

Why not?

The rear doors opened and hands pulled her in.

Tom stayed on at the clinic when Gracie and Annie returned for the funeral. He wouldn’t leave his son, and it was right that he shouldn’t, Annie thought. Betsy would have approved.

The days were dark and Christmas came and went. Sarah’s sitar stood in her bedroom, waiting for her return. Annie and Georgie alerted all their export contacts, sending photographs of their daughter, telling police who said there was very little they could do, but what could be done, would be.

It didn’t help, nothing helped their anguish, the sense of loss, the sense of self-blame, and so they worked. What else was there, Georgie said. ‘Do we drive all over Europe, looking?’

‘Yes,’ Annie said, hunched by the fire.

‘No, she could come here and find us gone.’

‘Gracie would tell us.’

They took the ferry and spent a month driving round
looking, thinking they had found her, stopping girls who were not her, ringing home to see if she had phoned.

In February Gracie said, ‘There’s a card here from her. She read it out to them. “I’m alive. Don’t look for me, I’m with friends.” ’

They drove home, read the card, Italy. They alerted their contacts but Gracie was needed in Holland and so they stayed, installing an answering machine in the house, and one at the office for when they were not there. They hired detectives in Italy and then they waited but there was no lifting of the darkness.

Tom brought Davy home in the second week of February. Annie held him in her arms, smiling, hating him for being home, for being safe, but only for a moment, knowing that she loved this boy as if he were her own son.

They set up a silk printing division in the factory and it was this that filled Davy’s hours, the hours that were empty now that heroin had left him. And Davy knew, as he lay at night in his room, or talked to others at Narcotics Anonymous in Newcastle that he loved Sarah, always had, always would, but that he had needed the time without her to understand that. But could he ever forgive himself for sending her away? Would she ever come back?

Sarah sat in the front seat with Fred, the US draft dodger, as they drove into Venice, smoking the joint the others had made up in the back.

‘So, where’re we staying then – is it somewhere your mother fixed up?’

Fred nodded, edging the van in through an archway, his headlights reflecting back in the mist. ‘The things mothers do for their kids.’

Sarah shrugged. ‘Don’t knock it, she’s taken good care of you, at least you’re not being blown to pieces in that little bit of “trouble”.’ She blew her smoke up into the air, running her hands through her short hair, cut by Sally last night.

‘Short, really short,’ Sarah had commanded.

She felt it now, two inches left. They left the van, took a water bus, then walked down alleyways until they entered a courtyard. Ahead of them were double doors standing ajar. They heaved their stuff into the building. There was a smell of damp, and the plaster was crumbling on the walls.

‘Not a palace but who cares? Good old Mom.’ Fred led the way into a room on the right. ‘Marco,’ he called. ‘Marco.’

Sarah followed him. ‘Who’s Marco?’

‘He’s the guy who looks after it for Mom.’

Sarah looked round at the heavy furniture, the carpets on the walls. Ravi’s flat had carpets on the walls. Did his clinic? She shrugged, not caring. She was happy with her friends – why want anything else?

‘You own it?’

‘Sure, lots of Italians in America. We’re some.’ He bent and kissed her mouth, she kissed him back, liking the taste of him, that was all.

They slept on an unaired bed that night and he kept her warm.

They painted the next day, sitting in coats in San Marco Square and the glowing gold and white, the gold and grey of the façade took her breath away and her fingers moved, her mind worked.

‘Kinda good,’ Fred said, ‘But like I said, you’ve got to have some soul there too.’

Sarah shrugged. She had no soul any more.

They drank wine that night which they bought in Venice, and spaghetti cooked by Marco. They sucked at the strands and the bolognese stained their shirts, their chins, and she wouldn’t think of how it had once stained Davy’s. He had sent her away.

They all took LSD and spun in the colours and the extension of consciousness and then lay in bed in the morning, all of them, and later played their guitars in the afternoon sunlight which was thin and cold, but what did it matter?

Tom left Wassingham for Newcastle a month after he had
returned with Davy. There was a chill wind and snow lay on the ground. Would the winter ever be over, would the waiting ever end? He parked his car and walked up the steps into reception.

‘I have an appointment with my brother,’ he said, shrugging out of his coat.

She spoke into the intercom. Don came to the door of his office, his hair sleeker, greyer, his smile cold. ‘Come in, this is an unusual pleasure.’

Tom shook the hand that was offered, holding it for a moment. It was soft and flabby. Davy’s was still so thin.

Don returned to his desk, gesturing towards the chair Tom stood by.

‘Such a sad day when we said goodbye to Betsy. We were all most affected.’

Tom nodded, sitting quite still. He wanted to smash his fist into that face again and again.

‘Yes, it was a great loss, especially at that time, with Davy as he was, and Sarah gone.’

Don nodded gravely, his hands steepled, his fingers against his lips. ‘Yes, it’s been a very bad time for you all.’

Tom nodded. ‘It has been the worst time of our lives and it’s far from over. You see, we don’t know where Sarah is, we don’t know what condition she’s in. It’s not fair, Don. Annie’s had more than enough in her life.’ His voice was level.

Don nodded. ‘Ah yes, indeed, but life isn’t fair – these things happen, especially with children who … well you know, headstrong children.’

Again Tom looked at that face, so empty, so cold. ‘Sometimes things are helped though, aren’t they, Don?’ His voice was still level, his eyes steady as he held his brother’s gaze. ‘I know who Sam Davis’s backer was.’

Don’s eyes weren’t empty now, they were scared and his arms had slipped from the chair. He said nothing.

‘You see, Don,’ Tom’s voice was still quiet, level. ‘You see, I talked to my son as he groaned and wept and pleaded in
the clinic for the drug Carl gave him. I listened to him in the weeks leading up to his discharge. I came home and looked up the names of the consortium because I knew that I’d heard the name of Sam Davis before.’

Tom sat quite still, watching as Don wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. His hands were trembling. ‘I went to see Sam.’ Tom’s voice was conversational as he rose and walked round the desk and stood close to Don. ‘He told me that you had found out from Annie where the kids were staying. Sam moved Carl in. You gave your orders – that on the pretext of creating Sarah as a solo artist he was to break up the family by any means possible. Sam knew Carl was a drug dealer. You knew too.’

Tom put his hand on Don’s shoulder. ‘I want to kill you, Don.’ His voice was still level. ‘I want to tear you limb from limb so that you suffer all the pain that can be suffered. I can’t though, can I, Don?’

Don looked up at him, leaning back into the chair. ‘You see,’ Tom continued, ‘we live in a civilised society where people don’t ruin other peoples lives, or do they? What would you say, bonny lad?’

Tom shook Don’s shoulder. ‘What would you say, I said?’ His voice was no longer level but full of hatred.

‘I didn’t know he’d get them on drugs. I was never told what was happening.’ Don was rearing back, his head arched away, waiting for the force of Tom’s blow.

Tom removed his hand, wiped it with his handkerchief, which he dropped in the bin.

‘I remember others saying that – was it in 1946?’ he said, standing with his back to the window. ‘The thing is, Don, I don’t know what to do with you because I can hardly believe it, even of you. You did know he’d get them on drugs, didn’t you – now it’s important that you answer me properly.’

The phone on the desk rang. Tom moved quickly, put his hand on it. ‘Tell your secretary on that thing,’ he waved to the intercom, ‘to hold all calls until further notice.’

He waited while Don did so, his voice cracked and dry.

‘So tell me now, Don, you did know, didn’t you?’

Don patted his mouth again, looking round the room, then back at Tom. ‘All right, I knew it was a possibility I suppose.’

‘Just for the hell of it, was it, Don? Or to get back at us finally, since you hadn’t killed the business. Kill the kids, kill the hearts of the parents? Hatred is a terrible thing. I should know. I feel it now.’

Tom sat down again, leaning forward. ‘Did you know Teresa was with Sarah and Davy on their last night in England? She rang them, went to the club with them, went back with Davy and Carl. Did you know that Sarah found them having sex together?’

He stared at his brother as the handkerchief fell from Don’s hand. ‘She was high on pot. Where is she now Don? Still in London?’

Don gripped the table. ‘It’s not true, she’s a good girl.’

‘Oh it is true. I can get you the written statement if you like. Carl’s in prison now. He wrote it for me. I thought I’d show it to Maud.’

Tom stood and walked to the door. ‘Don’t you come near us again. Don’t you come near any of us again and see to your own family, Don, not ours.’

‘The statement,’ Don gasped. ‘Maud.’

‘I don’t know what I’ll do yet, Don. I really don’t know.’

He drove to Wassingham and walked into Annie’s kitchen where she sat by the range, her eyes sunken. She smiled when she saw him. ‘You look like Rudolph,’ she said. ‘You could lead an army to safety in the dark with that nose.’

He stooped and kissed her. You could lead an army anywhere with your courage, he thought.

He handed her Carl’s statement, watching as she pushed her hair back from her face, put on her glasses and read, waiting until she had finished before saying, ‘I’ve been to see him.’

He told her all that had been said. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he ended.

‘Nothing. Too much damage has already been done. But I hate him with all my heart because our children didn’t stand a chance and we couldn’t protect them, Tom, or we didn’t, I don’t know which it is.’

Sarah and Fred took the public boat to Torcello at the end of March, feeling the sun on their backs, their sketch pads and lunch in the bags they carried. They skirted the long brick wall of the island of San Michele, the white chapel and the blue-grey cypresses and she took out her crayons and matched up the colours, merging them, overlapping them.

They passed Murano, saw the Grand Canal, then shingle, then glass factories and she sketched the shape of those, matching the colours again, falling and rising with the boat, taking no notice of the passengers, of Fred.