The Kindness (24 page)

Behind the closed steel doors of the operating theatre the surgeon’s knife, a morning slot. Time came and went. Blurred. Morning slot. Mourning slot. Julia kneeling in the chapel, refusing to come with him. He walked alone out of the hospital, anything to make the hours pass. A woman was feeding pigeons in the square: the whirr of their wings the soundtrack to a bad omen. Sirens blared and buses made the ground judder.

He wandered into the nearest convenience store to try and distract himself from what they were doing to Mira in the operating theatre. Time was elastic. Esther Fry, Nurse Emma, the one with kind eyes in PICU, Mr Goolden, Martin the anaesthetist. He heard them all say the dreaded words as he scanned the aisles, looking for a magic potion, a panacea, not hot dogs in tins. He picked up and put down several packets, tubs from the cold section. What was it all for? None of it seemed edible. The shelves were stacked high above his head. He reached for a bottle of Mira’s favourite pear juice and a bright-blue glass bottle fell and smashed on the floor at his feet. He looked down at his shoes, the pale-tan brogues that he liked more than any others, and inwardly sobbed when he saw the dark splashes across the leather. Another bad sign. The hospital voices continued floating around him, offering their deepest sympathy.

In front of him a check-out boy in a plaid shirt stood gaping like a goldfish. Another, no more quick-witted, joined his side. Towards them a woman in a wheelchair headed determinedly for the puddle of blue glass. Still the gawpers did nothing, except to ask: ‘How did it happen?’ He grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, steering its occupant swiftly away from the broken glass, along the aisle and down the ramp at the door. It could’ve been Mira in her pushchair. But then the woman was croaking at him: ‘Let me go, you idiot. I haven’t paid for my shopping.’

He takes the footpath out to the Mill. He can’t remember the last time he ran anywhere. He stops at a kissing gate, leans against it panting. Zeph whines at him to come through, a corsage of goosegrass, burrs and buttercups stuck to his ruff.

He has to trespass through Lordy’s fields to go unobserved past Katie’s house. She’ll be home by now, her boys will be leaping at her, pinching her flesh. He sneaks like a fugitive with his head bent beneath the line of Lordy’s brutally trimmed hedges and manages to tear his T-shirt on barbed wire climbing out on to the road. The sun flashes on to the tarmac, turning it tacky beneath his shoes. He keeps Zeph to heel though there’s no traffic about today, not even tractors. He passes three people walking from church. They all want to stop and talk about the dead princess and he wonders if he should start affecting some sort of distress.

Up ahead on the verge Raph’s van hoves into view, the familiar purple and brown slats. He’s suddenly very thirsty. His tongue is furry. There’s no sign of Raph, not even the charcoal bed of his fire. He tries the door of the van, but it’s locked. He hears a shout and turns to see a plump woman in jeans striding towards him along the verge, waving an arm. ‘What do you want?’ She scowls at him from pink cheeks, her hair is tied back in a rough ponytail of grey-blonde that could do with a wash. She has the newspapers clutched to her chest, the dead princess splashed across the front. He sees teeth, jewels, a blue dress with a modicum of royal cleavage. Now there’s movement behind him. The door of the van bursts opens and Raph lollops down the steps and clumps him on the back.

There it is: that well-worn smile. There, an arm around his shoulders, a hug: ‘Well, well, Julian, here you are.’

Raph is stouter than Julian remembers, a definite belly showing through his thin T-shirt, his curls grizzled and flattened beneath an incongruous green cap with a leaping fish and
Tunbridge Wells Anglers
embroidered in yellow.

The woman stands beside him. ‘This is my wife,’ Raph says as she thrusts the newspapers at him. ‘This is Nell.’

He grasps Julian’s hand between both of his, eyes glittering from the sunburst of his smile. ‘It’s good to see you . . .’ And to Nell: ‘This is the boy I told you about. Julian. The . . . man, how old are you now?’

‘I’ll be thirty next year. And you? Still travelling, I see . . .’

‘I left the Convoy, we just come in August for our holidays . . .’ Raph reaches an arm to pull Nell into their conversation: ‘Don’t we, love.’ She smiles up at him, her fat pink cheeks now cherubic.

Raph whistles through his teeth. ‘But you. Nearly thirty, you say, that makes me feel ancient. Just before you disappeared you were crazy about a woman. A
married
older woman, if I remember right . . .’

‘Julia.’

Nell interrupts: ‘It’s in all the papers. I feel quite shaken . . .’

It’s strange. Raph doesn’t light a fire, but Nell brings out a camping stove and boils a kettle with a whistling spout. She stirs honey into herbal tea for Raph who, for some reason, she keeps calling Kevin. Raph folds out three floral deckchairs and Nell passes him a tin of Ambrosia rice pudding and a can opener. She catches the look on Julian’s face. ‘Bland’s the best we can do for Kev’s ulcer.’

‘I reckon they bumped her off, don’t you?’ says Raph, blowing on his tea. Nell climbs into the van for the radio news and he turns to Julian, wincing as he swallows a glug of too-hot camomile. ‘So then, this Julia. Did you marry her?’

Nell pokes her head out at them: ‘Ugh, how bloody gothic can this get? The bodyguard is alive but they’re saying he’s lost his tongue.’

Julian struggles for words: ‘No. But we . . .’ and his body starts to shake and there’s nothing Raph or Nell with her soft enfolding arms can do to make him stop. ‘We had a child. A girl. Mira.’

A couple of pages from Nell’s papers have scattered along the verge. The dead princess turns her face to the grass. Nell soaks a towel in lavender. She lays it on his face. Breathe.

Nineteen

In the end is the beginning. Julian is at the river. A metallic strip of brightness runs the course, hemmed by ragged shadows. Michael’s words come back to him, the warmth of his hand on his cheek. ‘Now’s your chance. Take it.’

He stands on the bank looking down. The broad glassy sheen covers hidden currents. Jenna’s snake swims into his mind, her hand making the shape of its head rising up from the water, her long swaying wrist pointing it at him until he saw its eyes scintillating and heard its hiss.

There’s not a cloud in the sky, the river shimmers with pearl and the concentric ripples of tiny insects, the sun beats the crown of his head. He finds his breath. The words are forming, writing themselves. He yanks his T-shirt straight over his head and rids himself of his trainers and jeans. He strides to the edge, the grass springy beneath his feet, and a sudden surge of energy sends him knifing into the water.

He is powerful. His arms break open the river like wings through air. In the end is where he’ll find the beginning. It’s effortless. The current is practically carrying him along. The darkness of the tunnel of thorns doesn’t bother him. Weeds slip by; he feels their caresses on his stomach, their fingers slipping from his legs.

Snakes and Ladders. Hours and hours of it to help Mira pass the time. Her test results were taking for ever, but everything looked good. The histology report. No anaplasia. With each shake of the dice Mira was hitting nothing but ladders, her stitches healing well. Esther Fry stopped on her rounds to study Mira’s notes, corkscrew curls bobbing as she scanned the pages. ‘It looks like someone will be going home soon. Just a few more days,’ she said, and his spirits rose as she grinned at him and he noticed for the first time that she was really quite pretty.

He set off to Firdaws. At last it was time to prepare for Mira’s homecoming. He broke every speed limit to hit Woodford before the shops shut, making a list as he drove. Food, loo paper, baby shampoo, the stuff for the bath that stopped her skin itching. He wanted flowers for the table. Katie had called to say that he should get lightbulbs because the electrician had blown every fuse in the place rewiring Mira’s room.

The mist was rising from the river, a cold wind bit at him from around the house as he dragged the shopping from the car. He was stooped over from the drive with a throbbing pain in his neck, dog tired and aching all over.

It felt cold in the house and the fire someone – probably Katie – had laid in the inglenook sent only a plume of sour smoke up the chimney. He couldn’t face going out for dry wood. In the kitchen it took a mighty effort to heft open the lid of the Rayburn. Sweat started to bubble his forehead though he was shiveringly cold. It took everything he had to bend his creaking joints to open the bottom door and riddle the ashes.

He thought maybe he was dying. He crawled up the stairs and fell into bed in his clothes and that was the last he remembered. He woke with his throat too sore to shout and Katie watching him, her legs curled beneath her in the bedroom chair.

‘There you are,’ she said as he tried to piece together fevered fragments: the shame of Katie helping him out of his clothes (‘Don’t worry, Jude, nothing I haven’t seen before.’). Katie easing him up the pillow to spoon some sickly syrup into his mouth, a few sips of warm water with honey and lemon, smoothing his brow with a cool flannel that dripped down his neck and made him shiver and ache.

‘Do you think you could manage some soup?’ Behind her through a gap in the curtains an evening sky was melting into dusk. This didn’t make sense.

He hauled himself upright. ‘How long have I been lying here? What time is it?’

‘You had a hell of a temperature when I found you. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.’ She stood from the chair, smoothing her dress. ‘I only came to bring lightbulbs because I knew you’d forget. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard you groan.’

He was rubbing sleep from his eyes. Her dress was blue with white piping around the collar, her hair scraped back from her face. He’d been confused, woken several times with his heart banging, thinking he was in Lion Ward and she was a nurse.

She sat on the side of his bed, her green eyes were shining. ‘I unplugged the phone up here so you wouldn’t be disturbed.’

‘But how long have I been here?’

‘You’ve slept through two days. Julia’s been calling but I didn’t want to wake you.’

He threw back the covers. ‘What did she say? Has Mira been discharged?’ He was out of bed, hands madly scratching a scalp made itchy from dry sweat and frustration, and with his hair on end was pulling a clean shirt from its hanger.

‘Stop, Julian. Don’t be an idiot. You’re probably infectious.’

His pyjama bottoms were tangled around his feet, reducing him to a frantic sackrace.

Katie blocked his path: ‘Julia said you weren’t to come.’

He ignored her and found clean jeans in the drawer, his hands shaking with relief, not sickness. He swept past her and ran downstairs, found his shoes and Heino’s keys, got in his car and drove.

Lamb’s Conduit Street was quiet when he arrived. Streetlamps, shadows, a lone pulsing orange light to warn of the repair work to the pavement. He climbed the stairs from the street and slipped inside, careful not to wake the old man. His heart was beating with joy, the tock of the grandfather clock in the hall the only other sound. In the sitting room a lamp glowed dimly beside the piano, its lid raised for a ghost. He pulled off his shoes, tiptoed over. The light glanced from the lone silver frame and he searched for Karl in his mother’s portrait, found him unmistakably in her smile. Her dark hair swept back and a gown of black velvet exposed the graceful slope of her shoulders, and from her neck a small gold sun hung on its fine chain. Her name was engraved along the bottom of the frame, her full name, not its diminutive. His heart missed a beat: Eliana. He extinguished the lamp. The door to Julia’s room was ajar.

Slowly, quietly, he pushed it wide. It was darker than the sitting room and his eyes were slow to adjust. There was a whistling snore as he padded in his socks to the window to pull the curtain and let a slice of streetlight into the room.

He turned. The light fell like a knife.

Julia, hair spread across her pillow, lay facing the curve of Mira’s back, one arm held her in its crook, the other . . . Light glanced from the edges of their limbs. There were shoulders, elbows, hands. Mira enclosed between them. Safe, cocooned. Them.

He let the curtain drop. Karl didn’t stir, his chin rested on the top of Mira’s head. Mira’s hand lay like a starfish on his shoulder. Together, they slept on.

Whatever noise came out of Julian’s mouth was enough to wake Julia, he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t be sick. Karl murmured something as Julia rose from the bed, her Medusa hair twisting across the lace straps of that unknown nightgown and the words that fell from her mouth turned him to stone.

LAMB'S CONDUIT STREET

August 2002

Twenty

Mira’s eyes are closed, her hair sways back and forth across her face like weeds. Her thin slippery limbs are silvered by reflections. She lies quite still. Julia perches with a towel, staring down through the water until she can stand it no more.

‘Mira! Sweetie! Come up!’

Mira remains cruelly motionless, light dappling her skin. Julia sits on the edge of the laundry bin hating every second. Mira’s holding her nose with one hand, the other floats palm upturned and Julia is in no doubt that she’s all too aware of the effect she’s having. Mira’s chest is veined with blue, her eyelids too, minute silver bubbles cling to her skin.