Finding Davey (21 page)

They watched television, the first KV episode. Buster waited for his evening patrol of Avery Fields, and looking at Lottie as if reminding her to get her things and leave Bray to it.

Lottie said eventually, “It seems different. Don’t you think?” They had it on video, to watch repeatedly.

“You mean the music?” Each episode began with an Albinoni
adagio
, one of Bray’s favourites. “Davey likes it.”

“No. The pace of the episode.” Lottie knew him enough by now to say, “What, Bray?”

“TV firms and stations keep merging.”

“It’s out in the USA this week.”

Lottie felt nervous. This was the first time she’d even thought of staying over. Nothing sexual, just in the spare bedroom. Geoffrey’s and Shirley’s adjoining dwelling was vacant. It seemed the natural thing. To herself, maybe, but what about Bray? Who’d said nothing to her. No, leave things as they were.

“We’re on edge. So much happening.”

It was true. The TV launch had been surprisingly muted. Bray almost expected other commuters to look at
him anew, the morning after the KV programme was aired. He felt flat, lost, and couldn’t help thinking, is that it? Nobody in the workshop said a thing. How could they when they didn’t know? Illogical, of course. Nobody knew, except Lottie and George Corkhill. Not even Geoff. Fine, the printer’s people had been excited, and an inch appeared in the
East Anglian Daily Times
, nothing to do with Bray anyway, and that had been that.

To Lottie everything felt exactly right. She was relieved, knowing just what sorts of shambles could sometimes occur. The reviews were favourable. An agency sent newspaper cuttings via Corkhill’s. The children’s stories about KV’s population of odd characters in strange hats were to be broadcast in unknowable TV networks, children’s television of course, but that was the idea.

“I’m getting KV talked up in a women’s magazine,” she said. “I’m manipulating the media.” She gave a laugh to distract him from morality.

“More old friends?”

Quickly she inspected him for bitterness and was relieved to find none. The last thing she wanted was Bray to think she was taking over.

“Of course,” she said evenly. “It’d happen anyway.” She added, “Bray, if I do something that’s not right, please tell me.”

He ahemed, reluctant to speak. “You’ve done things I couldn’t even contemplate. Like that accountant.”

She laughed. “You were so apprehensive. You said, ‘A bank? In Burnley?’ And sat in silence on the train!”

“And like when…”

“Kylee?”

He always smiled when speaking of the girl. “At first she was like someone from outer space.” He gave her a shy
glance. “And you talked in parables. I understood nothing. Now look at us. I grumble about networking with the best of them. Two days ago on the train I made a joke about lancing overflow buffers and nicking surfo mail.”

“Is the competition worrying you?”

He sobered, so she’d guessed right. “It’s all too soon.”

“In six weeks, Kylee is teeing it up with two processors. I hired her, meaning Maddy’s, to do a software programme for Gilson Mather. And,” Lottie couldn’t help adding mischievously, “she’s included parameters that might help us. Did you know the TV links have been offered sponsors?”

“Sponsors?” Bray exclaimed in alarm. “Advertise?”

“It is rather complicated,” she admitted. Time to wash up the supper things and then go home. Six o’clock, the children’s programmes ended. “It’s vital in the USA, not so vital here. Sponsorship is easy money, which helps. Selling is fierce.”

“What do we do?”

She already knew the answer. It was always the same. “Go for maximal exposure, Bray. The contract must guarantee it. It’s more lawyers, but so?”

“Geoffrey and Shirley are thinking of trying for another child.” Lottie held her silence. “Inevitable really.”

“Davey will love it, Bray, you’ll see. I’ll hurl those dishes through the water and head off.”

For a moment she thought Bray was about to make some suggestion, but he only said that he’d clear up. He bussed her on the cheek as usual at the door. Buster stood on the step as Bray waved her off.

She watched Bray in the driving mirror. He was actually scared. Since the first KV book came out there had been no other significant step. Until now, and the consequences
were unknowable. The final answer lay somewhere up ahead. Bray was terrified it would be the wrong one.

The pace was accelerating. Articles almost every day about the animators, soon the TV ratings, children’s books, and little plastic figures being made by concession people, the transatlantic TV launch. Lottie’s concocted biography of the distant Sharlene S Trayer had come out in a mag, only lip service, thank heavens.

She knew the hunt kept him sane. For it, Bray had his own faith. Her hopes were few, yet she’d provided essential expertise he lacked. The determination was Bray’s, sure, but she contributed know-how.

And the combination was producing something. Bray wouldn’t cut corners, she would. He worried about propriety, she didn’t. Bray was honest. Lottie would trample on toes, see if she cared. She was in it with him, and that was that.

Forty minutes later she reached her darkened home and put the car away. She did little for the rest of the evening except have a hot bath and watch a sitcom. She felt too languid to bother with the hall phone’s red light. She could get up earlier. It was probably George Corkhill’s secretary in a panic over typeface. A vegetable drink, and she went to bed.

“Ah, this is Jim Stazio. Give me a call?”

The voice was gruff yet tinny. Two messages, same words.

Lottie checked the clock. Nine o’clock was what, in America? Crossly she examined her old school atlas for the USA’s maddening time zones, and decided to wait until the afternoon before phoning back. In a temper she went straight out and bought a pricey massive atlas. All morning she did her filing.

It came on to rain at noon. She stopped for a skimpy lunch break – lentil soup, cream crackers, tea – and two p.m. got Jim Stazio.

“Thing is, Lottie, I got a sort list. It’s kinda long.”

“Of suspects?”

“Can’t say suspects till they’re apprehended, y’foller? Libel being what it is.”

Then what was the point? “Is posting out of the question? E-mail, fax?”

“Co-rrect. Where a felon operates from, excuse me saying it, the
product
is sold in another state. Maybe resides in a third state. Know what I’m saying? I’ve eighteen states.”

“And a state could be as big as a couple of European countries.”

“You got it.”

“Have you edited the list?”

“Y’mean cut it down? Sort of. I got a friend to take out criminals who’re been penned or don’t figure. Leaves eleven pages.”

“Meaning out of reach?”

“Three hundred supposed agencies, a score or so states.” He sighed. “Four thousand operatives, maybe.”

“Should I come for the list? If it would help us.”

“Fly over?” He gave that some thought.

“Tell you what. Reason I called so urgent, I didn’t want you wasting Bray’s money.” She heard the rustle of papers. “Needle in a haystack, trying to list them in order of likely, ahm, Florida activity. Understand me?”

“Very well,” she said. “Please don’t be offended, but did you incur any expenses?”

“Coupla beers is all.” He chuckled. “And I’m drinking anyway.”

In the afternoon she savagely pruned the roses in her small garden. So you have a list of criminals in your hand,
knowing
that one had committed the most dreadful crime, and are powerless. Where was the justice in that? You couldn’t even read the list over the phone for God’s sake. The world was mad.

She over-pruned her favourite hybrid tea, a Queen Elizabeth, so she drove to the library in a temper and failed to find any of the four books she wanted. She was given a parking ticket. Worse, the traffic warden wasn’t in sight. She couldn’t even have a stand-up row with the moron.

That night she threw caution to the winds and phoned Bray, asking his answer machine outright if she might stay over one day next week, to catch up.

That night she slept badly.

One alternative was to buy a computer system matching Bray’s for her own home, which would be ridiculous. Lying awake, she told herself there would then be three – Bray, herself, and Kylee. The irate girl, despite her Halstead venue, was still demonically active interrupting Lottie’s e-mail system. Heaven knows who was paying for Kylee’s computer time. She surfed with complete abandon. Twice she had lifted e-mails Lottie had not yet handled, making contemptuous comments to Lottie on Bray’s screen and insolently mailing “Get on with it, Grannie.” Lottie had smiled for Bray’s benefit, but seethed.

About four o’clock in the morning she decided she had done the right thing. Then she overslept, arriving late at Gilson Mather’s. A terrible headache finished the day. Bray was staying to teach Loggo and Suzanne to make miniature block planes. She travelled home alone wondering what on earth she thought she was up to at her age.

Clint did well in some grade tests, not in others. His art was so uncertain his scores had to be averaged, unlike other kids. Math was fair, English comprehension good.

“Clint is so wayward,” Donna Curme told Mom. “He seems content. He’s coping.”

“But his grades.” Mom wished Pop hadn’t had to go back east. He should have been here for this.

“Education isn’t numbers,” Donna said firmly. She had this out a dozen times every Parents’ Evening. “Clint’s a great reader, and his team – you know Leeta and Carlson – are up front in several.”

“You ought to concentrate on his weak subjects.”

Donna sighed inwardly at Mom’s accusation. “There’s a balance, and he’s picking up.”

“You marked his science down.”

“In technical bits he just goes miles away. I suppose it’s his accident.”

“Accident?” Mom cried in alarm, then caught herself. “I thought you meant he’d had some fall.”

Donna felt emboldened enough to let curiosity show. “Was it very bad?”

“Yes,” Mom said abruptly, and closed the interview. She wondered if it was time to suggest that Madam Nosey Bitch Curme’s contract should be terminated.

Clint was waiting by the classroom door with Leeta and Carlson and their parents. When Mom left Donna Curme there was talk about the foreign languages beginning the following month. Spanish was a possibility, but Mom knew Pop favoured Russian. They walked down to their cars. Mom now had her own car.

“Mom,” Clint asked, laughing at Carlson’s antics on the sidewalk. “My accident. Was the first doctor old, with colours on his coat?”

“Why do you ask, honey?” Mom swung the automobile out of the driveway.

“I think he was.” Clint turned to see Carlson, who was pretending to kick a soccer ball. “Carlson’s good at soccer. Leeta plays too.”

“So are you, honey!” Mom said quickly.

“I’m not. I can’t slide like Carlson. He’s great.”

They settled into the journey, got held up at the Hubberson interchange but were home in ten minutes. Clint liked watching the stores go by.

“The old doctor played soccer with me. I said I was no good. He laughed.”

“He did?”

“He said I was…great. He said he’d never been any good.”

Mom panicked but controlled her anxiety as they went in. She felt she ought to call Doctor and see if it was anything. Doctor hadn’t mentioned football.

“That was real kind,” she said, staying firm. “It was when you were getting better. I remember him now.”

Clint asked, “What was his name?”

“Doctor Kildare,” she said desperately. “Wasn’t he great?”

Clint dashed to get cookies and orange Manuela always fixed. Mom called after him, be careful racing everywhere like that, then she went to make her calls.

Splendid
, Clint thought in the kitchen. The old man in the coloured coat thing said
You are splendid
when he wasn’t. And he wasn’t called Doctor Kildare. He wasn’t Doctor at all and Mom said he was.

Manuela ruffled Clint’s hair.

“Dreaming again? Always never here, you! Help me
make pancakes. Special for Mom, special for Pop, and none for you!”

It was Manuela’s joke. Clint liked Manuela.

The dilemma was impossible to solve. Bray felt alone, which was strange. He and Lottie had begun sleeping together. Actually not sleeping, but making love on his couch during the late evening, after which Lottie would start the yawning drive to home. No great distance, but as traffic worsened and roads began their winter floods she became fractious. Bray found he was testy. Gilson Mather’s part-time college students had poor results, and resits meant rescheduling for two simultaneous courses. His work suffered. He had to stay late, and several times Lottie found herself going home alone instead of with Bray.

They came close to falling out. Lottie’s resolve wilted. Her doggedness, caught from Bray, weakened. She rehearsed a scenario in which, after making love before his livingroom fire, she gently told Bray to find somebody else more in tune with his single-minded obsession.

The anniversary of the loss of Davey once had seemed so far off. Now, it grew imperceptibly on the horizon. Bray was a thinking man. Sooner or later he would make a decision. Why not sooner, with a little prompting from the
lady he – surely by now – loved?

Frankly, it was time they settled down together in a shared life. Time was cruel when old age supervened. Happiness wasn’t the creation of shrines, rituals without purpose. Joy was to live in peace. There would be memories, some joyous, some pure heartbreak. But she too had had her share of sorrow and sillinesses.

The difference with Bray was that nothing must get in the way of finding his little grandson. Poor Geoffrey’s world had crashed. Shirley had disintegrated. For Bray, though, all life was measured against his sombre recruitment. Whatever happened, one question dominated Bray: Does this person, thing, help me or not?

Some of his scheme was successful. KV books were in every bookshop she passed nowadays, thanks to her and that odious brat Kylee. The weird figures were on television, in magazines, and Lottie was sick of the damned things. Comedians mimicked their whispy shrieks and came on wearing strange hats. Even fashion houses made witty statements using skimpy models in purple leaves.

She and Bray were in trouble. She decided, another month then have it out. Time was passing for her as for everybody. She hadn’t lost sympathy, certainly not, but there was a limit. She’d given herself unstintingly. Was she heartless to ask him to be realistic? Women were practical, men weren’t. She would make Bray face the issue. It would hurt both of them, and God knows Bray would wilt.

A thought sickened her: Bray wouldn’t accept an ultimatum. If she laid it on the line – so many Americanisms, the influence of gruff Jim Stazio’s laconic chats – Bray would simply sit silent, hear her out, then let her go with one of his regretful nods.

And that would be that.

Yet what other options did she have? It was a new kind of fear, different from those she’d previously experienced.

To his surprise Bray saw George Corkhill in Mr Winsarls’s office during midmorning break. Lottie wasn’t in today, a particular disappointment. He’d felt something fading lately. Normality surely wasn’t too much to expect. He entered, said his greetings.

“We’re looking so pleased with ourselves, Mr Charleston,” Mr Winsarls greeted him, “because our volumes are out!”

“A good job, Bray,” the printer said modestly, unable to keep pride from his voice.

“They look admirable. You’ve done brilliantly, George.”

Several copies of the two-volume history of Gilson Mather lay on the owner’s desk. Size, colour, paper, they could not have been more impressive. Bray almost blurted out that they looked really professional. He carefully turned the pages, nodding with approval at particular items. The plates, photographs, his diagrams, every feature was pleasing. He spent too long checking down the list of contributors and owners.

“Lottie will be thrilled, Bray.”

“Has she seen them?”

“We sent a boxed set yesterday.”

Mr Winsarls said, “I’m planning a celebration. No more postponements, Bray! Requests are coming in!”

“It’s splendid, Mr Winsarls. Who’d have imagined?”

Mr Winsarls coughed into his hand, and judged the moment. “The point is, Bray, somebody’s got to come.”

“Come?”

“With me, to the USA. We spoke of it? I’d better go.
Several antique firms want to participate in lectures. It’s free publicity, in a world market. I’ve got a valuations man. I’m wondering about a historian for background.”

Mr Winsarls linked his fingers with a glance George’s way.

“The question, Bray, is whether you feel you’re ready to come. The alternative,” he went swiftly on, “is we take two craftsmen, with a couple from other old London firms.”

“Would they come, Mr Winsarls?” the printer asked, wanting to support Bray.

“Like a shot. We’d hire them.”

“Is that ideal?” George, still in there batting for Bray.

“Not really. Our firm’s principal craftsman is straight in the tradition.” Mr Winsarls spun his captain’s chair and spoke directly. “You’d be the living representative of three centuries, Bray.”

“The rubber chicken circuit!” George tried to lighten the atmosphere.

Mr Winsarls said seriously, “Twenty-three invitations – antique fairs, auction houses, college courses, museums, galleries. Nobody could have foreseen it, Bray.”

The second volume was in Bray’s hands. He felt its inordinate weight. It was a beautiful summary of the firm’s achievements. Several sections had been ponderously dictated by himself, his experience of the most beautiful material on earth.

“When?”

“The sooner the better, I’d say, depending.”

Bray thought. The children in the USA had term breaks. He had the dates painstakingly noted. Jim Stazio had provided the information.

His forlorn hope seemed suddenly too slender. Here it was, come at last with its terrible allure. Almost certain
failure, yet, deep in that cavernous pit, a lone glimmer of hope. He’d laboured to reach this moment. He looked up.

“I agree, Mr Winsarls. It’s time. I’ll go.”

“Three months?”

“A travelling circus!” George said, smiling.

Mr Winsarls enthused, “You could do it on your own, Mr Charleston.”

Politely, Bray told Mr Winsarls that he was looking forward to it, thanked George for the work he’d done, and went back to work holding the railing.