The Poison Tree (37 page)

It was the first time I had been to Hampstead station. It was deep-sunk, tiled, and almost empty, rather like Regent’s Park. Outside, it took me a while to get my bearings. The last time I had been here it had been blazing mid-July and lush; plucky little shoots of greenery had sprung from every crack and crevice in the pavement. Today, the rain fell at a perfect forty-five-degree angle and washed all color from the high street. There was no green anymore, only gray. I followed a sign guiding motorists toward the Royal Free Hospital and began an unpleasant trudge down the hill, wrestling with my new umbrella, which had a complicated catch mechanism. The shops’ windows were brightly lit and the sky was darkening, so catching a glimpse of myself in the reflective glass was unavoidable. I looked like a middle-aged woman, plump in the face, shapeless body, lank hair plastered to her head, outwitted by an umbrella. At South End Green, an old West Indian lady in a sheepskin coat and with shopping bags for shoes sat on a bench under the cenotaph, shrieking the names and dates of England’s monarchs.

I had spotted the landmark I had been trying to locate—the Magdala was just where we had left it. I turned my back to it, trying to recall the route our mad dash had taken. I grew confident when I took a right turn and found Keats House. I touched my thigh, remembering the bruise that had lingered there for weeks and the way Rex had soothed the faded yellow skin with his lips and hands. I wondered why I had thought the route such a warren at the time. My destination was only two streets removed from Heath Street.

The railings were free of their tangle of summer clothes, only a snake of clematis remaining. The red sports car was not parked on the driveway but a large SUV was, and light shone through opaque blinds at the front windows. I pressed the buzzer, grateful that they did not have closed-circuit television installed at the gate.

“I’ve got a courier delivery for Juliet Millar,” I said to the soft female voice that answered.

“Come in,” she replied. I was so surprised by the ease with which I had gained entry that I almost missed my opportunity, letting the gates part and then begin to close again before I slipped through them. I reached the front door at the exact moment that Jules opened it, her face lit with expectancy. Her expression changed when she saw me, not because she recognized me but because she realized she had been lied to.

“Jules! Please don’t shut the door. I need to talk to you,” I said. She attached the chain and left the door a few inches ajar. “We’ve met before. I’m Karen. I’m a friend of Biba’s.” I looked so different from the last time she had seen me, but her eyes narrowed with the effort of identification. “I’m—I was—Rex’s girlfriend.”

The door was shut in my face before it was reopened without the chain.

“Come in,” she said.

She looked even lovelier than I remembered her. Few women give meaning to the ridiculous epithet “fragrant,” but Jules did. Even in casual clothes, she looked better than most women do after hours in front of the mirror. Her blond hair hung in a smooth pane and she was swathed in an expensive garment of cashmere or mohair that had no identifiable beginning or end. I was acutely and uncomfortably aware of the contrast between us. Jules opened a door to a utility room and spread my dripping coat, rucksack, and boots over a radiator to dry. The layers of clothes I wore underneath were mostly dry and although I was hot, I did not remove them. I was not sure yet how long I would want to stay here, or how long this tentative welcome would last.

The only sound in the house was that of a radio coming from the kitchen. The children, although not of school age, were evidently elsewhere. Perhaps their father had taken them for a day out, either for a walk or to lunch. The thought of him lavishing attention on his second family while his first were God knows where made me rigid with anger.

I followed Jules through to a vast airy kitchen that occupied half the ground floor. Only the children’s paintings stopped it from looking like an operating room. The white counter ran the entire length of the room, white appliances dotted at one-meter intervals. The only color relief was a copy of Jules’s own book on a stand to the right of the empty sink.

She made coffee in a percolator; glad, I think, of the ritual and the opportunity to turn her back to me while she fussed with beans and milk and sugar. I was reminded of my first meeting with Nina: another kitchen, another pot of coffee, another young mother, another lifetime.

“So,” she said, far too brightly when the drink was in my hands. “How’ve you been?” I could not bear the agony of small talk. I had come here only because I knew of no other way to trace my friends.

“Where’s Rex?” I asked. “I mean, I know he’s in prison, but where exactly?”

“Brixton,” she said. Naming Rex’s prison made his situation grimly real.

“And Biba. Where’s she?”

“She was here for a while,” said Jules. Her hands gripped her large shallow mug for comfort and reassurance as well as warmth. Three rings circled her ring finger: one plain band, one fat solitaire, and one encrusted with tiny stones. “We thought it best that we take her in after . . . what happened.”

“You thought it best, or Roger did?”

“Well, it was my idea. But I’m afraid it didn’t work out.”

“Why not?” The coffee was fierce. Just a couple of sips had given me a jittery, confrontational confidence.

“Biba can be very unpredictable,” Jules said with a sigh. “We had the children to think of. She took them out for a drive in the car.”

“That sounds quite nice,” I said.

“She was drunk, Karen. She crashed into the back of another car and when the police breathalyzed her she was three times over the limit. We couldn’t let her stay after that, no matter how much . . . trouble she was in.”

“Do you know where she’s living?” I asked. The thought loomed suddenly in my mind. No. She couldn’t be. “She’s not back at . . . ?”

“Oh! No. No, she didn’t go back at all apart from once to pick her things up after the police had . . . well, you know. Did you leave anything there? I’m afraid that most of the things we couldn’t identify went to thrift stores, or we just threw them away. I know that Biba has some of Rex’s things in storage, but . . . well. You can see why it’s hard for us to keep them.” A shy, proud smile came over her face and she couldn’t resist telling me what had happened to the house. “You wouldn’t recognize the old place now, actually. We’ve turned it into five flats. I was surprised how much I enjoyed property development. It really has been rewarding, I—” The insensitivity of her words became apparent to her and her cheeks flushed. Even her blush was ladylike, a neat petal of high color on each cheekbone.

“Do you know where she’s living?’ I repeated.

“We know where she went,” said Jules, implying that it wasn’t the same thing at all. “I’ve got an address somewhere. It’s been a few months since we saw her.” She turned her back to me and riffled through kitchen drawers and cabinets. A torn-out page from a notebook was eventually produced. Seeing Biba’s handwriting was as much of a shock as seeing her face would have been. The scrawled, one-line address had only half a postal code—NW1—and made no sense until I turned the page and saw the map that she had drawn, the long swoop of water and a doodle of a boat on a wave. I smiled to know exactly where she was and who she was with.

“This is very near,” I said. “It’s Camden Town. It’s just down the road, it’s a twenty-minute walk.”

“Biba and her father, all of us, we didn’t part on the best of terms,” said Jules. “Tell her that she’s welcome to visit whenever she likes.”

“Just not to live,” I couldn’t help snap back.

“No,” and she was steely now. “Not to live. I’ve got to think of my children. When you have your own you’ll understand.” She glanced down at my stomach, disguised under layers of wool and cotton, as she said this, but, like most people who are loath to offend a fat woman, she was far too polite to ask the obvious question.

My journey continued down Haverstock Hill away from Hampstead. At the top of the hill every pub I passed was advertising food on blackboards outside, and when I reached the bottom, they were all using music to entice drinkers in. The neighborhoods lowered with the gradient as I went from the stuccoed town houses of Belsize Park to the mansion flats of Chalk Farm and finally arrived at the cramped architectural chaos of Camden Town. I had begun to remember how to be a Londoner; effortlessly I sidestepped whispering drug dealers and parted shoals of wide-eyed students carrying Invicta backpacks. When I reached the Lock and descended the narrow steps that led to the canal, I was as low as I could go.

The towpath was hung with a fine mist quite distinct from the drizzle at street level. It was dark now and I followed the mist of my own breath as well as Biba’s vague directions. I headed west, away from the picturesque end of the canal where fairy lights dotted the trees and lanterns lit the walkway. I passed London Zoo, wrinkling my nose as the stench from the netted peaks of the aviary reached my nostrils. A leisure barge, crammed with half-drunk tourists on a dinner cruise, chugged in the opposite direction. I went dipping under dripping bridges where the people walked quickly and didn’t make eye contact. There were few other pedestrians in any case: just the odd dog walker, a lone cyclist, a duo of committed joggers, and the usual drinkers on benches.

I rounded a corner to find that the canal disappeared into a yawning tunnel, and cursed myself for having missed the boat I was looking for. Then I saw it: the last but one in a row of moored barges that had lined my way. A red boat, perhaps the tattiest I had yet seen, the name
Aminah
painted on the side in a washed-out yellow italic script. Where the other barges had old geranium pots and little hedges on their roofs, this one had a precarious topple of wooden pallets and boxes. The gap between barge and bank was wide. The only way to get on and off would be a kind of
grand jeté,
which I wasn’t about to attempt. A light burned in its sunken little window. I stopped, suddenly shy. If this was the last stage of my paper chase, I was nervous after so long apart from her. After a few moments’ cold hesitation, I called his name, not hers.

“Arouna?” I shouted into the night. “Arouna! Hello?”

He appeared not from within but from somewhere on the deck, as silent and dark as a shadow who had suddenly discovered the ability to peel away from the darkness and make himself flesh. Only his eyes and earrings shone as he squinted at me.

“Hello, Arouna,” I said gently. “Remember me?”

He heaved up his massive bulk and I wondered how such a big man could live on such a tiny boat. He must have to leave home every time he wanted to stand up. He wore a puffer jacket over his muumuu and a pair of tracksuit bottoms peeked out from underneath it.

“Yes!” he said, teeth exposed in triumph after a moment of intense concentration. “I remember you. You’re a friend of Biba’s, and so a friend of mine, too. Come in, come in.” The hands he held out wore fingerless gloves. Gripping his wrists, I felt confident enough to put one foot on the stern of the little boat and make the leap across. The force of the pack on my back tipped me face-first into his chest. He laughed and kissed me on each cheek before turning me around and relieving me of its weight. A few wooden slats, more ladder than staircase, led down into the living quarters, which glowed red and gold and pink with tapestries and throws. A small oil stove intensified the smell of damp. Evidence of Nina filled the tiny space—there were silver, beaded things all over the place, photographs of her and the children—but there was none of the cigarette smoke or sandalwood perfume or even just the clothes that would indicate Biba’s presence. This entire boat wasn’t big enough to accommodate Biba’s wardrobe, let alone house her and Arouna.

“You poor child,” he said. “You look tired. Have a drink with me.”

He brought out a Moroccan tea set with its tiny glasses and my heart sank. I was already tired and wired with caffeine and even the thought of sipping at strong tea laced with sugar made me shaky and irritable. I could not have disguised my delight when he pulled out not tea leaves but a bottle of brandy. He poured a swig into two tea glasses and offered one to me. Arouna knocked his back in one and laughed at the sour expression my face pulled.

“I need that after a day at my stall,” he said, and refilled my glass. I decided to wait awhile to let the effects of the first one take hold. He took both my hands in his. “Now then. I think you’re here because you want to see your friend.” I nodded. “She’s gonna be happy to see you, Karen.”

“You remembered my name!” I said.

“Of course. She talks about you all the time.”

“Is she here?” My voice cracked as I got the words out and my eyes threatened to water.

“Not anymore.” Real tears of disappointment came and I gulped at my brandy. Arouna smoothed them away with a garlicky thumb. “Don’t cry, girl. She’s not far away.”

“Thank you. I really, really appreciate this.” I meant the brandy as well as the news.

“She did stay for a while. I looked after her for Nina.”

“Have you heard from Nina lately?” Not for the first time, I wished that Nina were there. She was the only person in the world to whom I could tell my story.

“She calls every few weeks. She’s still on the move. I’ll go out when she settles down for good. She’s in India at the moment. Gaia was three last week but Nina said not to send her a present. They’ll have moved on by the time it gets there.” He said this patiently and without bitterness.

“Is Biba in touch with Nina?”

“They are always in touch, those women. They find each other across the world if they have to. But listen. You need to know where she is, yes? She’s staying in an apartment. The council gave it to my friend and she’s looking after it while he’s traveling. The barge is too damp for her. This isn’t a healthy place to live.”