‘I don’t know you,’ he whispered. He felt like
crying, but managed to hold back the unwelcome emotion. He stared at Richard Whitlock, faced him for the first time in months. And he saw a shadow in the face there, the shadow of a yellow-haired boy. His son. A boy who no longer smiled, just stared at him like a mask, eyes moving, but without expression. A dead face.
The tramp blinked at him, breath misting on the glass.
‘I don’t know you. I refuse to know you. I’m going to send you away …’
He banged the edge of the sink angrily and bruised his hand. The pain was its own catharsis and he laughed, then cried for a moment, cradling the aching flesh, turning from honesty to reality. ‘Jesus. What a mess. What a fucking mess.’
The phone trilled. He lurched into the bedroom and snatched the receiver from its cradle, hoping to hear Susan’s voice, but it was Mandy from the site. She sounded subdued.
‘What’s up? I’m not supposed to be working at the dig today. Day off.’
‘There’s someone here to see you. He’s a friend. Dr Goodman?’
Jack? Jack here? What was going on?
‘Send him over to the hotel, will you? I’ve got some equipment repair to do, and some developing.’ He glanced guiltily at the rolls of exposed film. If he cleared his head enough he would be able to remember the sequencing. There was no real difficulty save for his own laziness.
He bathed and shaved, and drank black coffee with wholemeal toast in the cramped breakfast room of the small hotel. The owner, a charming Ulsterwoman in her sixties, chatted to him with new enthusiasm, having treated him with the utmost wariness during the preceding days. Perhaps she thought he
was an eccentric photographer. Richard ate, smiled, talked, and gave her every reason to believe that he was a man of deep and changeable mood, and great artistic sensibility.
Goodman arrived soon after breakfast, but not before Richard had telephoned Susan in Ruckinghurst. Susan also was subdued, almost frightened, he thought, and sounded anything but enthusiastic when he said that he’d be driving home.
‘My work’s not finished, but I can’t help that. I’ve got to leave. I’ve been a fool, Susan. We both have, perhaps. But me particularly.’
‘A fool? What about? What have you been a fool about, Rick?’
‘Everything. Michael. Everything. And what else is there?’
‘Carol!’ the woman snapped furiously. ‘There’s Carol. And me. Remember me?’
‘Of course. Of
course
, Susan. I
know
that. I meant our family. Of course. I’ve been a fool about our family, and what Michael does, and what we’ve done to him …’
‘What
you’ve
done to him. Don’t you start wrapping me up in your web of deceit and hatred. God! What a bastard …’
Her voice, so dead, so tired, so full of repressed pain, became a barrier to conversation. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but the words became insults as he shaped them. They wouldn’t pass some internal censor that whispered to him: you’ll make things worse. Just shut up and leave her to think. Just shut up and go home.
‘Look. We have a lot of talking to do. I know that. I’m prepared for it. And I accept that you’re angry …’
‘You sound like some kid
who’s just learned his first lesson in “dealing with people”. You sound patronizing.’
‘I don’t mean to. I’m not feeling very well, and I have a lot of thinking to do.’
‘Good. Think hard. You have a long drive ahead of you, plenty of time to think
hard
. So do it. And think clearly.’
‘How’s Michael?’
‘Hiding, of course.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He’s hiding. We don’t see him any more.’
‘Where’s he hiding? What do you mean? In the pit?’
‘He’s always hidden in the pit. But this is worse. He’s hiding inside himself. I can’t see him any more, Richard. I just see the body. I can’t see the boy.’
He shook and felt sick for some moments after the call, but he had a worse shock when Goodman rang the bell at reception. Richard went to the small sitting room and found Goodman leafing through a magazine. The younger man was wearing dark glasses and seemed tense and cold.
‘Jack?’
‘We’re in trouble,’ Goodman said. And sagged, suddenly sitting down heavily into one of the armchairs in the room. He leaned back and took off his dark glasses and Richard looked away quickly. The man’s eyes were yellow and black with bruising. He watched Richard through slits in lids that were puffed with fluid. Without speaking he unbuttoned his raincoat and tugged his shirt from the trouser band, revealing a midriff of blue and purple abuse that made Richard feel queasy.
All Goodman said was, ‘As you can see, they’re a little impatient.’
Richard was devastated. ‘Christ, Jack. I’m sorry. Have you contacted the police?’
‘The police?’ Goodman laughed sourly, then added, ‘I like my legs exactly where they are, Richard. Attached to my hips. I find that a useful
arrangement.’
‘There’s no money, Jack. There’s nothing I can do. Michael’s talent faded and what has been “fetched” has been “fetched”, and there’s no way back. The boy is dry. I woke up this morning and realized what a bastard I’ve been. My head is clear for the first time in years. Something happened to me, Jack, something very bad, something from the animal world. A sort of mindless, instinctive hoarding behaviour. I used my son like a machine. I never thought about him at all. And I’m ashamed …’
‘Very touching,’ Goodman broke in. ‘Very touching I’m sure. We all made mistakes, Richard, not just you. I made mistakes too. Have you ever tried vomiting when your stomach muscles don’t work, by the way? Difficult. Especially when three crew-cut eighteen-year-olds in army boots are standing over you urinating. So I’m very touched. But we need to make some decisions here …’
‘There is no more money. There is no more treasure-trove …’
‘Then that’s very sad,’ Goodman said dully. ‘Because it means that soon there’ll be no more Michael.’
Richard’s shock was fleeting, but he was across the room and wrenching Goodman to his feet in a second. Goodman delivered a precise and painful blow to Richard’s chest, knocking the breath from him. Pig-like eyes in bruises blinked and a wet mouth twisted into anger. ‘Not from you. Not you. I’ve taken enough because of you. You keep your distance, Dr Whitlock. I’m ready to do some damage myself, and I’m not feeling particularly well disposed towards you at the moment.’
‘
What
about Michael?’ Richard hissed, holding his chest where the blow had landed. ‘What did you mean about Michael?’
Goodman picked up his shades and
covered his battered eyes. ‘They’re paying him a visit. They want to encourage him to open up a little more.’
‘Tell them the treasure is all gone. It was a limited find.’
‘Can’t do that. Sorry. When six very large black boots are conversing with your groin, truth does have its funny little way of coming out.’
Shocked, Richard stared at the bitter man for a moment, scarcely daring to believe what he had heard. ‘You told them? About apportation?’
‘I held out, Richard. I held out for a long time. Three, maybe four seconds. It suddenly seemed like a good idea to start being honest. They didn’t believe me at first, of course. But the idea of apportation was sufficiently interesting – or perhaps baffling, I think I saw a brow or two crease – that they thought they’d better tell their employers. So Michael will be getting a visit. And I suggest that you get home as fast as possible, and if possible, tell the boy to start dreaming, and dreaming hard. Of gold not stainless steel, and emeralds in preference to moonstones.’
Richard’s awareness of the other man expanded and he realized how shocked, how utterly defeated Goodman suddenly was.
‘I’m sorry, Jack. I’m really sorry.’
‘Me too.’
‘Thanks for coming. You could have called me by phone. Susan has the number here.’
‘I thought this would help convince you,’ Goodman said wearily, tapping his glasses. ‘Besides. This is my last stop in Britain. I fly out of Edinburgh tomorrow, and I shan’t be coming back for a while. Sorry to leave you to it, Richard. But I wouldn’t be any use to you. I’m too frightened.’
‘What about Françoise Jeury? Do they know that she knows? About Michael? Is she in
danger?’
‘I imagine. I don’t know. I just want to get away, to recover my pride, to mend my wounds …’
‘I might need to talk to you.’
‘I’m not abandoning you in that way. I’ll call you often. I understand that you might need to know what else I’ve said, what else is happening.’
Goodman buttoned his coat and walked stiffly from the hotel. Richard watched him limp to his car, then went upstairs and packed his bags in a hurry. He called Susan, unable to make the decision between panicking her or leaving her in ignorance. It seemed better just to warn her.
‘Don’t ask questions. Just get Michael away. Take him to your mother’s. Take him to the Hansons’. But get him out of the house.’
‘He’s at school.’
‘Then meet him. I’ll be home in eight or nine hours. Just trust me, Susan, for God’s sake! And get that boy into a safe house until I
get there.’
The telephone call shocked Susan. Richard’s voice had sounded … anguished. There was no other word for it. He had also sounded like the old Richard, all violence gone, the self-pitying, paranoid whine vanished. So she had been disturbed at first, but the simple implication of menace to the family had frightened her. She had been shocked.
She rang Jenny at once, and received a second blow. Jenny sounded strained and unhappy about the idea of Michael and Carol lodging with them.
‘Why? They’ve been there before.’
The edge in Jenny’s voice was transparent. ‘They’ve been dumped on us before, you mean.’
‘What?’
‘Oh God. I’m sorry, Susan. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for …’
‘You
called
it, though. What do you mean? Dumped.’
Jenny drew breath at the end of the phone and then – being Jenny – laid it on the line. She and Geoff felt they were being used, used as a depository for the Whitlock children, used as messengers, childminders, catch-alls, and – while they were always prepared to do favours for friends – for heaven’s sake: most of the time Carol was being left with them as a convenience to distracted parents. There was little or no thanks. Carol was unhappy about spending nights away from
home. And there was such a degree of thoughtlessness in the way Susan treated her kids that perhaps it would be better … well, better to
not
put them out at night for a while.
And anyway …
‘Anyway? Anyway? What other little lessons, Jenny?’
‘Were you aware that my boys beat up – to use an Americanism – beat
up
on your son?’
Susan felt her head reel. ‘No. No, I wasn’t.’
‘Good God, Sue. Don’t you ever listen to what anybody tells you? My sons
hate
your son. I’m sorry, love. I’m just a “Mother”. I can’t do anything about the bullying at the heart of these young animals. Tony and Michael fight all the time. When Michael stays here he’s mostly in a state of apprehension. I try, with Tony. I tell him to behave. But after dark … well, what they get up to is nobody’s business. I know I should have said something to you before, but you’re so … inaccessible, Sue. Doesn’t Michael ever talk to you about this?’
Susan shook her head, then said aloud, ‘No. No, he never does. I thought they were all friends. I thought they all got on.’
‘One day they will. When they’re men. But not at the moment. Listen, Sue, it really wouldn’t be a good idea to have Michael here. And for God’s sake, Sue – be a little more aware of your kids!’
‘Christ!’
She slammed down the phone. It rang again, but she ignored it. She felt threatened. It was bright and sunny outside, although the rain that was lashing Scotland was moving south.
‘Michael …’
She didn’t know what to do.
The phone rang again, and this time Susan answered it. Jenny was concerned but unapologetic. Susan
said, forget it. I’m sorry. I’ll not burden you. I’ve got a problem. No, you can’t help. Forget it.
She locked the doors and windows. She put up the metal grilles that Richard had installed years ago, when mud had appeared in Michael’s room, mud from Michael’s birth-mother, they had thought … It made her smile to remember their confusion. How little they had realized what wealth, followed by what anguish, that mud-flinging would herald.
She rang the school and insisted that neither Michael nor Carol be allowed out of class before she herself came to pick them up. This was agreed, and she felt more relaxed. Then, overwhelmed by a sense of unreality, of having let time pass without focusing, of just having
drifted
for so long, she went upstairs, picked the lock on Michael’s door (really just using her own key, since Michael insisted that his room was his sanctuary) and sat down on the bed, sobbing quietly for a while, staring at the ripped fragments of poster and picture on the walls.
Michael’s room was an empty place, now. It was slept in, yes, but where once it had been lived in, now it was barren. It was shredded, shattered, partial. Fragments of a childhood were here, and shards of a life that had begun to grow but had been disturbed by the hardening of a power, a power that had made this room the source of riches. In tears, Susan picked the unread books from the shelves, leafed through them. There were crayons and pencils, papers and designs, but nothing ever changed … nothing had changed for a year. It was as if Michael came into this place and just died. No life possessed the room, just the sleeping body of a boy. To bed, to sleep, rising, leaving. In the interim, just a frozen body, staring into space.
There was one change, she saw: a drawing by Carol, pinned on the wall above his bed where he might stare at it before switching off his lamp. It showed a small, thatched hut, surrounded by
stones, with white chalk balls and a tethered dog. Funny, she had never noticed this before, but then, this was only the first time in ages that she had entered the sanctuary to feel for the
boy
, and not to search for artefacts.