His face registers a pleasant surprise.
“Yes, a sweet girl. Most children fear me.”
The skin on my face burns and the heat spreads like a fever down my neck, flooding across my shoulders. Fear: he has named the word, the theme of this meeting. I sense a code unravelling. Fear seven years ago, the fear of a coward about to turn murderer. Fear now, the fear of a man whose true nature is about to be revealed to all and sundry. In a few more exchanges, the idea of money will be brought up, perhaps obliquely, through some reference to insurance or purchasing security.
My dislike of Smith has returned now, finding a white-hot focus in the ghost of a smirk now hovering over his mouth. He has become that mean animal again, insinuating his way into the core of my discomfort. His smallness is no longer an excuse. I want to swat him like a fly.
“Why?” I ask. “Why have you been looking for me?”
The question drains the timid smile from his lips. He looks concerned, and shifts painfully, causing something to creak, either a crutch or a wooden leg.
“It's difficult to express,” he murmurs, eyes searching the carpet. He glances up at me and a nervous grin passes across his face, descending into something like an appeal. He passes his right hand through the hollow V of his crutch's upper portion. He sways, balancing, dipping the hand into the pocket of his jacket, drawing out a letter. “So difficult to express, I put it in writing.” He gives the letter a mock-whimsical smile then transfers the same look to me.
So this is how it's done, I think: an allusion to the shameful secret then the sudden appearance of a prop, in this case a letter. He doesn't want to send it, he'll say. He's been trying to find a way to avoid having it delivered, but beggars can't be choosers. He wonders whether it might be to our mutual advantage to come to some kind of arrangement.
Although nausea swirls inside me, it's almost a relief to get to this stage. This is the enemy I've been dreading all these years. This is the secret that's been consuming me. And the scale of disaster seems curiously reduced and rather prosaic; just two men standing awkwardly in an office. Do your worst, the words from last night, repeat in my brain. I think of how I might phrase this in a manner that conforms to the code: I am already insured, thank you, or I'll take my chances, but I'm distracted by a scuffing noise on the stairs and a series of soft footfalls. Someone, perhaps more than one person, is climbing towards us. Now I've an urgent need to get this man from my office. In the theatre I've witnessed scenes in which the third party is drawn in by the blackmailer to play an innocent role in a three-way exchange, always to the excruciating discomfort of the blackmailer's victim.
“I don't want to read your letter,” I say. “Please leave my office.”
It's the moment of truth, the moment when I'm most likely to receive the threat directly. A boulder of sickness heaves inside me, tugging at every wiry nerve. I have to bend and grip the desk for support. But the unexpected happens. Smith's head begins to turn, one crutch skimming along the carpet, the other sinking anchor-like into its depths. The letter still flaps like a dead seagull from his fingers as his shoulders dip in revolution. The lifeless feet turn, sliding, dragging, towards the open door.
Was there some threat upon his face that I missed, some glimmer of triumph to come? His expression on turning was one of deep regret, as though the plans upon which he must embark are painful to him as well as me. Are all blackmailers so compassionate towards their victims? Or is Smith just a remarkably good actor?
The crutches, the baggy charcoal suit, the ghostly white of the letter, the thin hands with their pronounced blue veins, move into the dim light beyond the doorway, and apart from the crook of an elbow, disappear from view, as he manages to partly close the door behind him.
Then there comes a voice so bizarrely out of place in the setting that I believe Smith must be a ventriloquist and that his sad exit is merely the comedic faux-pathos before the delivery of a killer punchline. “It's Mr. Smith!” are the words that come in the unmistakable voice of my daughter, Lucy.
T
he sight of the young veteran, so easily recognizable from Elsa's description, floods me with sudden hope. His thin, sensitive face and his delicate frame are like rays of sunlight through storm clouds parting. Lucy's greetingâunguarded, joyfulâmerely confirms a sense that his visit to my husband is somehow vital to his reclamation. The fact that Mr. Smith smiles happily at Lucy as he adjusts his crutches and prepares to descend the staircase proves that Simon must have received him cordially. Where his hand grips the crutch support there flaps a letter. Could this be terms of his employment, or perhaps a reference to be presented at some other, more suitable workplace? The door behind Mr. Smith is not quite closed, another indication of ease and normality. The happy flutter between the veteran and my daughter, who reaches the landing just ahead of Elsa and I, is contagious. So Elsa was right after all, and in more respects than she knew. The physically broken and the mentally crushed meet like pieces in a jigsaw, promising to mend the ugly rent which has for so long marred our sky.
Why so sure? The question spins through me as I reach the upper floor and hold to the unvarnished banister for support. The voice warns of overtiredness and stress, the strange heady feeling that has followed me from the station. While the three of us walked the river footpath to the tannery, I basked in the incongruous sunlight, feeling all manner of lost emotions, joy in the rolling green waters, vicarious anticipation at the widening banks that would be met downstream by waves, by the oncoming mixture of freshwater and brine, and finally the stirring of North Sea breezes.
I recognize the superstitious weave of my thoughts and I know my vulnerability. I can too easily fall victim to unreasonable hope. But there is convergence of circumstances now, as neatly patterned and symmetrical as a snow crystal: our own desperate make-or-break journey into Ipswich; my decision to bring Lucyâan intuition against common sense, as all true intuitions must by definition be; my illogical faith in this step into the unknown; and perhaps, most striking of all, the knowledge that this is indeed the darkest hour and therefore by definition has to be followed by a dawn. The old truism must come through now that it is most needed. Despised and cursed, no doubt, by all for whom it has failed, the saying must earn its keep now or lose the currency it has enjoyed through the ages.
“How nice to see you again, Mr. Smith,” says Elsa, her voice subdued, as always, as though wishing not to be overheard, yet incorporating a depth of sincerity.
“We've been walking by the river,” interrupts Lucy, “watching the geese.” The ease of this little group, Lucy's return to the simplicity of childhood, and the chance, however slight, that any moment Simon might join us, transformed into his former pre-war self, makes me giddy and sentimental. I half-turn for a second to warn away the blur of tears.
“Everyone should be outside, enjoying nature on a day like this,” Mr. Smith says. I'm struck by the soft melancholy of his voice, the way it merges into my own more hopeful mood as purple and violet might merge on a painter's palette.
“Would you take Tommy, Mr. Smith?” Lucy says, handing her rag doll to the veteran. “He's sick.”
“If he's sick, Lucy, he should be with someone kind like you,” he replies, stooping as far as he can on his crutches, slender fingers touching the toy briefly but not taking possession. “Actually, I was going to ask if you'd do something for me.”
“What?” asks Lucy, snapping eagerly to attention and saluting. Mr. Smith glances at Elsa first, then at me. His look communicates compassion and pain in equal measure, and I suddenly wonder how much he knows about us.
He balances his elbow on the crutch's inner stanchion and extends the hand with the letter towards Lucy. “Would you take this and, when your father is in a particularly good mood, will you give it to him and say it is from a friend?”
The office door flies open and Simon appears. Everything has changed, the mood scattered like paper in a gale. My husband's eyes are startling, showing too much white within rims that are swollen red. The stench of stale whisky invades the narrow space. I glance at Elsa, notice her hands twisting together in front of her waist, and wonder if I, too, should be concerned. Simon moves forward, and with a snatch so sudden the gasp of displaced air hangs in its wake, grabs the letter in transit. Lucy's fingers curl like young leaves in a frosty wind.
Simon lurches forward again. Hands, white and red at the knuckle, sink into the lapels of Mr. Smith's dark grey jacket. He lifts the veteran from the ground, buoying his frail body and dangling his lifeless shoes, heaving him over the few paces towards the top of the stairs. Along the way, one crutch falls first upon the banister and then upon the floor. The other lodges high between the struggling men like an ineffective cordon unable to part the combatants but refusing to drop from the fight.
Lucy screams, the first human sound to pierce the rustling quiet, and everything seems to collapse into the hole it makes.
“Mr. Jenson, stop!” cries Elsa.
“Simon!” I gasp, trying to take her lead but as I have not breathed since the door swung open, the noise doesn't carry far.
Turning, I grip the banister and gaze as Simon holds Mr. Smith's white face close to his, then, arms like dual pistons, extends and releases so that the veteran takes flight, sailing into the mouth of the descending stairway. It's an action of such terrifying recklessness, my senses are suspended. Insulated thoughts work through explanations distinct from the obvious one of murderous rageâan elongated practical joke perhaps, a scene from a drama to be performed at Christmas.
Mr. Smith's hands grasp at air as he falls. Lucy turns, hands over her ears, into Elsa's dress, burying her face there. The remaining crutch touches down in the stairs then skitters downwards like a rolling pin, lodging itself between banister rails eight or nine steps down. Its owner lands after it, his back hitting a step with an audible thud, legs splayed uselessly, an upturned trouser leg revealing not a calf, but two metal-clamped poles. Mr. Smith rolls once, then, pink-faced and breathing hard, holds on to a rail like a man clinging to a lifesaver. He blinks a few times either in relief he did not fall farther, or in evaluation of the pain that will announce itself only after the shock has passed.
At the top of the stairs, chest heaving, shoulders bent, the letter crumpled in his hand, Simon stares down upon the veteran. Elsaâmy daughter's face still lost in her dressâmoves around him silently. She leads Lucy down, step by step, to do what I'm not sure, but part of me is grateful for her composure, glad some action other than violence can take place in this polluted space. An awakening impulse also wishes it was me and longs for the warmth of my daughter's body. When Elsa comes to Mr. Smith, she reaches down with one hand, the other remaining around Lucy's shoulder, dislodges the crutch from the railing, and hands it to him.
A small group of Simon's men gather below now and stare uncomprehendingly at the sight. Most are young; one murmurs to another. Gentle, courteous Mr. Coombs at the back seems most disturbed, the lines on his face etched deeper than usual, his eyes narrowing as though to prevent the unwelcome sight from entering his brain.
Elsa pauses on the step for a moment, appears to say something comforting to the veteran, then continues down the stairs with Lucy, the two of them moving like ghosts just before the dawn, their quiet intent unsullied by sound. They pass Mr. Coombs and his men, who have just begun to disperse, and move towards the exit and out of sight. Well done, Elsa, I think. Well done for looking after Lucy's best interests. But a hint of disquiet hangs between the words even as they take form. There is something else, something I can't name.
Stranded on the landing with my wheezing, gasping husband, I feel alone, exposed and quite unable to look at him. I have brought about this disaster. Ever since I mentioned Mr. Smith in the Beehive, my husband has been spiralling into the abyss. Insane as his behaviour might be, I could have prevented it easily by merely staying within my bounds. I have failed in the test that I set for myself. I cannot be the wife of a war veteran. If I could crawl from this place and reverse into my childhood, I would do things differently. This time I would ignore the youth with the shy smile who used to watch Charles and I at play. He has become a dangerous stranger now, a throbbing knot of neuroses and violent impulses over which I am quite powerless. He is a tumour I would have removed.
It's a relief when he moves abruptly and begins to clump down the stairs. My heart jolts as he nears Mr. Smithâis he going to finish the job?âbut relaxes as he passes within a whisker of the veteran who has paused in his efforts to haul himself to his feet using the stair-rail and crutch. I watch Simon descend to the factory floor, crumpled letter still in hand, and walk in an arc towards the door, a few furtive glances from his diligent workers briefly straying in his direction. Until he disappears from view, I focus on Simon's bald patch, which has spread like a biblical curse since 1916. It is the only part of his skin that is visible to me and I can't guess at his expression.
I bend slowly and pick up the first of the crutches to fall. Wary of the looks that will inevitably follow me when I take the same route from the building, I make my way as steadily as I can down the stairs to Mr. Smith.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, the inadequacy of the words stinging my lips.
Mr. Smith takes the crutch and, removing his hand from the stair rail, balances himself sideways on the stairs facing me.
“It doesn't matter.”
I search his eyes for signs of irony but find that the statement stands, sincere and honest. And of course it makes sense. What's a tumble down the stairs to a bomb that permanently maims? What's an embarrassing scene to years trapped underground with the pound and roar of mortars in your ears? Under the straightforward, modest gaze of the veteran, I find myself shrinking again, dwarfed once more by experiences I can't begin to understand. All this time I believed I was at the end of my tether, but I am merely the new soldier who thinks of desertion at the very first rumble of gunfire.