Desire Line (24 page)

My feelings finally hit the floor seeing the wreck of him and knowing I was about to do more harm. As if Sara between us and Eurwen between us wasn't enough. And I have his complete attention and he certainly has mine so I note the weather-beaten skin with masses of tiny haemorrhages across his cheeks and chin and, deep in their sockets, his eyes, dull as a photograph's. Nothing would ever change for the better behind there, they said. I'd meant to deliver my message straight out so the rest of the stay could be spent in its wake, sticking with him while the surface calmed— now the idea only brought my seasickness back and I stayed dumb. Driven away by the fire and still not saying my piece, I couldn't find a right position. Over by the window or lean against the wall? Wanting to keep to the promise I'd made myself – Don't make a production of it! – my fingers went up to a spot on my forehead where my father's scar ran. I must remind Josh Meredith of another young Japanese that came to his door once. ‘Are you busy?' I asked.

‘Na-a. Don't know the meaning of the word. Up the mountain the other day— no, yesterday. When I should've been tackling the garden. Old slacker, that's me.' His accent remains strong against the pull of Connemara. He points to a Windsor chair. ‘Sit.'

I can't.

One thing I could start with is the fate of the Avonside property we once shared. Had he seen the pictures? Beyond repair post-flooding, it's scheduled for demolition. Would he care? I couldn't make a guess and to put off giving even this information, I scan around as you do in two minds, catching up with Josh's way of life, or as much as the room displayed. Against the blank wall the first thing stands out is Josh's framed letter of commendation from Thames Valley Police. I knew it virtually by heart…
the assailant in Littlemore, South Oxford who threatened an elderly cashier with a baseball bat and what appeared to be a handgun
– it had been a replica gun which he had no way of knowing –
but as a result of the courage and professionalism of Officer Meredith a successful arrest was made whilst the safety of other members of
the public was never compromised.
He'd been very young with everything to lose and, stuck in a sort of policeman's hostel, he'd not even met his future wife yet. A brave man – just being beneath Josh's roof once made my chest swell with pride. I never said though and should've.

Imaginary conversations, always easiest. On the mantelpiece was the polished chunk of driftwood resembling a lizard we'd unearthed together, pulled free of sand and mud and carried home, filthier than the trophy ourselves. Meg screaming in mock horror — then laughter from my mother, who happened to be there. Suddenly Josh's room seemed even more crowded and I ran a finger along the lizard's head, anticipating its spines. ‘I remember finding this—' but that'd be the year I left Rhyl so we were in danger of wandering into quicksand again. Most of our joint memories were pretty raw. Hence not only no screen in here but no images up— and
wooden
chairs with the sofa pushed back to show the cracked flagged floor as though this was a cell. Just three books propped together on an otherwise empty window ledge were – I'd no need to check –
Chambers Concise English Dictionary
, a dog-eared
Pocket
Guide to the Trails of Mayo and Galway
and
A First
At Oxford
, an identical hardback copy to mine. But unsigned. He'd bought it on eBay for £140 the year Sara went rather than ask his father-in-law for a copy. I picked Sara's one and only book up like a visual aid. Bleached cover. Inside pristine. The seller's courtesy bookmark
Trinders, Chetwynd Cottage, Hay-on-Wye, UK, Dealers in Rare Editions, Manuscripts etc
lurked at the start. ‘Sorry to give no warning—'

His expression lacked energy not intelligence. ‘You're welcome any time. You know that.' The tone verged on suspicious and the eyes narrowed. Josh the detective. ‘Spit it out, then. Eurwen, is it?'

‘No. Not her.' Of course that's what he'd be afraid of. Bad news of Eurwen. Was there any other sort? I started again. ‘It's something else, some— thing. A shock. Yesterday I got a message from the Coroner's clerk in Rhuddlan that they've identified a body.' No sign yet he expected what was coming. ‘Well, part of one. They've found pieces of a skeleton that washed ashore on The Wave then got left. They haven't even started the clear-up in a lot of places so it could've just lain there but a man was down by the water and thought he recognised a human skull. It's taken a couple of weeks to identify because things are really disorganised. But they're sure. It's Sara.'

Not a blink. His mouth, a firm line once, was slashed with vertical wrinkles now. And stayed shut. He took it in and then his shoulders jerked up and fell back like somebody stabbed. But it's the complete freezing of the Josh mask I'll remember for a long time. ‘
Sara?
'– like he'd forgotten how to say her name, a barely known person's or a foreign word he lacked confidence with, Glenn Hughes attempting
Sayonara.
Then, ‘Why tell you?' came out hardly audible.

Because you're my grandfather? Because I'm her grandson?

I said nothing. He would've realised it didn't matter as he asked.

‘Right—' Comprehension was rushing in fast. ‘Part of a skeleton? Yes.' He raised a hand like a claw. But you could see the levels of understanding gone through while he glared at me and then, craning forward, it felt like
into
me. ‘Sara!'

Never at my best with Josh I stepped away, rattled. He'd always had this capacity, my grandfather, without knowing it to remind you what some men are
really
like. Sudden. Button-activated. Men other than Tomiko, I mean, or Geoffrey Severing, for that matter so it's not race or age, it's men
like Josh.
No use blaming the dead alone when considering Eurwen's personality. Look at the other parent. I'd seen him punch a door in Avonside so hard it warped out of true never to close again. Now he jumped the gap between us with all the old speed and wrenched the book off me. He clasped it to his chest. A low moan escaped through his clenched jaws, a long base note it must've hurt to make. With his face still rigid he circled the chairs and then extended it to knock against the sofa with his knee – an irritated retreat towards the fire – to the window again, like a beast pacing its cage. I became just another obstacle to avoid. The keening continued. Got louder. Something was building behind
his
façade, that was for sure. Louder again. Speech was impossible even if I could come up with a single sentence.

So what did you expect Yori?

Laps and laps of the room. Still loud but maybe not louder. A good sign?

While I was debating whether to go and find the bottle of spirits he kept in a kitchen cupboard and one glass – and I've never wanted to be able to join a man in a drink so much – the moan just stopped with him facing away. He let out a noisy sigh. I waited. He'd demand every detail of the notification, I'd convinced myself. Which was why ready inside the jacket I'd hung up lay the hard copy describing the finding, the identity solving and then the pathologist's first thoughts, such as they were. Basically it was a list of things that couldn't be determined. But ‘Yeah, well,' Josh said, ‘everybody knew she must be dead.' He came and knelt down in front of the fire, seeming to realise what he had hold of, the book with Sara's black and white portrait uppermost. I'd often examined it myself, Sara at her best, the possibilities still all there in a face being swept of masses of hair known to be copper.

They stared at each other, Josh and the wife who'd walked out nearly three decades ago, although that woman had been forty and the hair less amazing by then— like the possibilities. Then he seemed to examine the book for condition, pondering, a potential purchaser, and ran a fingertip down the sinuous Pythian Press logo.

Another moment and Josh began to dismantle
A First.

The frontispiece is easy— the glue and stitching aren't any real match for him. Then he finds he can tear out thicker and thicker sections at a time and post wads of paper into spaces between smouldering logs till they flare up. I've never seen a book destroyed before. It's shocking— especially this book. But all I do is watch. Rip, feed. Rip, rip, feed. Soon Josh is puffing and wrestles with the thing. The point comes when he gets worse at it, tearing pages in half rather than removing them properly. A thick, well-made book— but he sticks to it until only the cover remains. The dust jacket is crumpled into a ball and he almost bowls it in. The binding breaks with a crack and the end boards are thrust on either side of the blaze so that for a few seconds they contain ashes with the blue and green flames of the inks running through them. Then the colours burn off and there go the last flakes of Sara's work. He gives a satisfied
huh!

Still breathing heavily, ‘So you've told
her
,' he said as though we'd just agreed it. ‘You've told Eurwen?'

I went for the overdue alcohol and found a nearly full bottle of Bushmills— and went again to boil the kettle, giving him time, I pretended, and lurked in Josh's kitchen which would strike anybody as surprisingly sleek after the low wonky living room. The MultiCook shone, the steel table gleamed, also the stools pushed under— though the unopened blister pack of 
 
lecer next to the sink was out of date. I put it away. On the counter top a lone ripe banana sat in a glazed platter, itself new-looking, a bit holiday present-ish, maybe a bit Meg Upton? They'd come to Ireland as a couple not long after Eurwen and I left his house, and had managed to stay like that for a while. A fresh start even if a late one for Josh. What went wrong wasn't a subject my grandfather was ever going to discuss. But the cheap pottery looked North African— and Meg had always craved the sun. It
could
be her choice and I scraped a bit of relief up from that. Someone other than me was out there sharing responsibility.

I came back and he'd stayed down. The fabric pulled tight over his protruding vertebrae was depressing— enough to make me want to put my hand out to feel for some muscle, a token of the old vigour. I sat on the nearest seat instead, actually afraid for him. He was seventy-five years of age and looked every one of them, stooped and passive. The hearth seemed mesmerising through the amber contents of his glass— until he tipped it down.

‘I'm very sorry, Josh.'

‘Something else?'

‘Something—?' I was up again to get him a refill.

‘To say.'

‘Only it's confirmed. It
is
her. They couldn't have done it without—' what should I choose here? What wouldn't give extra pain? Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Severing, M.A. (Oxon), D.Phil, F.R.S.Hist.S., O.B.E? ‘Without Geoffrey,' I said. Geoffrey being Geoffrey, he and Fleur had archived his daughter in numerous databases, nothing left to chance. I waited for a reaction to the hated name but there wasn't one. ‘Before he died he filled a safety deposit box with—'

‘Medical records, images of course, DNA from her hairbrush, from him and Eurwen— and from a woman called Charity Weiksner.'

‘Yes, she's—'

‘The half-sister. That year he had in Chicago, the old bastard!' Josh finished for us, his face ruddy. ‘Christ, what a family! They made her how she was. She was— she was really—' he gave up on that. ‘His first wife, Sara's mother, she killed herself with pills, you know?'

‘Now I do.'

‘We'd have been all right, otherwise. I reckon. Me and her.'

I said nothing. Whenever I'd tried to picture them together I failed, a good reason to stop.
No one
ever talked about Sara, not the way a normal family would, trying to mix love and respect for her memory with a hurt that never got any less— nice stories, funny ones, the sad. Then as years passed maybe even the odd negative one to make her seem real. A vital Severing constituent left one day and never returned. From where? What was happening with her now? They must all have had their theories. But till three weeks ago who could choose a tense to speak in? Sara was or is? It was beyond even Fleur, the family commentator, negotiator and general smoother out. I came to realise Geoffrey Severing
thought
about not much else, though. He carried on playing himself the way public persons do. Upgraded his technology. Met other old professors in The Lamb and Flag on St Giles. He still published on his pet subject, how the Industrial Revolution had failed at delivering civil progress to keep up with the technology. It kept him in demand till his death at ninety. But talking up Social Luddism (
his
phrase) or pottering in Pryorsfield's garden, say, or listening to Fleur's arthriticy Prelude in C on the piano or even to me, his mind raced round the same tight circuit, exhausted between hope, grief and loathing his son-in-law.