The Gardens of the Dead (39 page)

‘When
things go wrong in your life,’ intoned Mrs Dixon, ‘you look for someone to
blame. And you always settle on someone who’s
different.
Graham was
different, in every way and all of them small.’

According
to his teacher, Graham was clever. He asked questions that didn’t have easy
answers. He shrank from the rougher games, preferring to collect things — all manner
of rubbish that he thought interesting, like pebbles and bottle tops. His arms
and legs were thin. When he tried to help with the shopping, it was always too
heavy. It showed up the sheer difference between him and Walter. And on one
fateful, drunken day Walter mocked him, just as those sober men had mocked
Walter.

‘No son
of mine would collect bottle tops,’ said Walter, swaying.

‘But I
am
your son,’ snapped Graham defiantly.

‘No you’re
not.’

‘What?’

‘You
heard.’

‘That
was how he found out,’ said Mrs Dixon. ‘He seized hold of me, wanting to know
who his father was, his real name, what had happened, why he’d never been told …
endless questions … It was as though Walter’s rage — all of it — had
infected him. From that day Graham refused to call Walter his father. He
dropped Steadman and became Riley. And the rage I’d seen … It simply
vanished.’

While
Mrs Dixon was speaking, Anselm began to recover a fraction of the insight that
had struck him and gone. He remembered the conversation with Elizabeth about
the death of his mother, knowing that she’d been harvesting his experience. He
said to Mrs Dixon, ‘What happened to Walter?’

‘We
were at the top of the stairs,’ she replied, as if she were dictating a
statement to the police. Her eyes were to the front, her back straight. ‘There’d
been a lot of shouting. He swung out but keeled over on the step and went down,
like a tree. I fell back, trying to keep my balance, so I didn’t see; I just
heard him tumbling down, and then, after a second or so, a bang. When I looked,
there was a large heap on the floor. I called the ambulance and they took him
away but he was dead.’

‘I’m
sorry,’ muttered Anselm.

‘Don’t
be,’ she replied. ‘I was relieved … glad that he was gone.

Staring
ahead once more, Mrs Dixon resumed what she’d planned to say: the opening up of
a lie. Again, she seemed to be recording a deposition.

A week
or two later a policeman knocked on the door. He knew Walter. He knew about his
temper and the violence. He told me the doctor had found a long wound on the
head. He examined the stairs. He took measurements of a tread, and its edge. I
said nothing about the bang that I’d heard after the fall, that Graham had been
downstairs, that the poker was missing. In due course, the police concluded it
had been an accident. My son, however, had stopped eating. He was sick. One
night, I held his hands in mine and asked if he’d seen the poker. He pulled
himself free, hid behind a pillow, and said, “I’ve thrown it in the Four
Lodges.” The next day he was gone. He was seventeen. I haven’t seen him since.
Everyone said it was because he’d lost his dad.’

Bunhill
Fields is a wonderful place, thought Anselm, wanting to flee those stairs, that
hallway The Pieman must have taken shape among its shadows and blood: a name
coined from other people’s contempt, an engrossment of rage and abuse, tame to
Riley but towering over those whom he would terrorise. Elizabeth had walked
along the same corridors, among the same shadows. Anselm felt her presence. She’d
worn a delicate perfume that didn’t seem to fade. She was always very
clean,
in strictly tailored clothes, with sharply cut hair.

Elizabeth
blamed herself for Graham’s running away for Walter’s treatment of him. And Mrs
Dixon, against herself, blamed Elizabeth: not with a single word, but with a
host of manners. On a cold night Elizabeth made a fire. Looking for the poker,
she asked her mother where it might be.

‘Graham
threw it away.’

‘Why?’

Mrs
Dixon didn’t answer the question directly She let the silence do it for her. A
month later Elizabeth disappeared. Everyone said it was because she’d lost her
dad and her brother.

Anselm
knew what had happened next. Sister Dorothy had come to the house of Mrs
Steadman. Her decision to do what Elizabeth wanted had been instantaneous and
heartbreaking. Mother and daughter, without saying so, had agreed to hush up a
murder. You can’t do that sort of thing under the same roof.

‘I next
saw my daughter a year ago,’ said Mrs Dixon, without emotion, enunciating her
words. ‘She traced me through my national insurance number, because I had
remarried … to a wonderful man, who would have been a wonderful father to
anyone’s children.’ Mrs Dixon swallowed hard and carried on with the job in
hand.

Elizabeth
had learned of her heart condition, and that it was hereditary. Mrs Dixon
underwent the tests with a Doctor Okoye, who pronounced her clear. Big, strapping
Walter, it seemed, had been a fundamentally weak man. But that was not why
Elizabeth had come.

‘She
told me that Graham had built a new life,’ said Mrs Dixon, ‘but not a nice one.’

Not for
the first time in his life, Anselm marvelled at the word ‘nice’, and the
wonderful uses to which it was frequently put.

‘She
told me that the only way to save him was to bring him to court to answer for
the murder of her father. It wasn’t revenge she wanted, I knew that. She was
talking about … what was right. But I refused.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
if it was anyone’s fault, it wasn’t Graham’s, or Elizabeth’s, it was mine. I
failed to protect him. I thought that if I stick by Walter, then maybe he’ll
change back to who he’d been who he
was
with Elizabeth — that his anger
might boil dry; that he might wake up and see Graham as … different, yes, but
not a threat. I’m the one who put that poker in Graham’s hand. All I ever said
to him was that Walter has tempers.’

The
quietness of Bunhill Fields filled the pause. Nothing moved, not even the
trees, which were so full of life. For once, it seemed strange.

‘Elizabeth
came each week, trying to persuade me. I refused. Then, on the day she died, I
received her last call and her last words.’

‘The
time of the lie is over,’ Anselm said to himself. To this he added the final
message for Inspector Cartwright, uttered seconds before: Leave it to Anselm.

‘Mrs
Dixon,’ said Anselm, ‘as I’m sure you know’ — he watched her nodding, because
Elizabeth had already told her —’I will have to inform the police. They will
interview you. Graham will be tried for murder. You, too, may well be charged,
because of your silence. Do you realise this?’

‘Yes,’
she replied, as if she were already in court.

Anselm
regarded her with compassion and said, ‘Why did you change your mind?’

‘Because,’
said Mrs Dixon defiantly proudly ‘I have met my grandson, Nicholas. And I do
not want his life to rest on a lie —on a false understanding of who he is and
where he comes from — as Graham’s did. One day he might learn the truth about
his family I do not think he would thank his mother for the story she dreamed
up in its place. It is, of course, what she wanted, what she’d asked of me. I
didn’t appreciate why until I saw Nicholas … He looks just like Walter.’

Anselm took Mrs Dixon’s
arm, and they walked slowly like mother and son, along the lanes of Bunhill
Fields. In their shared quiet, he thought of Riley’s early life, and of murder,
undetected and forgotten, and what it might do to a man. And he thought of
Bunyan, whose youth had been marred by four chief sins: dancing, ringing the
bells of the parish church, playing tipcat and reading the history of Sir
Bevis of Southampton.

6

For the fourth day in a
row, George ordered a full English breakfast (with Cumberland sausage). Nancy
opted for the kipper (from Craster), explaining, ‘You only live once,’ which
was very true. They sat in a bay window of the Royal Guesthouse, looking at
the waves trimmed with foam. Far off, daft gulls dipped and rose like kites. It
would be another windy wonderful day.

The
entries in George’s notebook would have told him that Nancy had withdrawn
thirty-six thousand, four hundred and twenty pounds and fifty-two pence from
the Riley bank account; that facing rooms had been booked in Brighton for a
week (meals included); that she had bought a two-for-the-price-of-one packet of
envelopes from Woolworths. However, he didn’t need to remind himself of their
comical project, any more than he needed to be told of Nancy’s horror and guilt
over all that Riley had done, or of her remorse for the murder of John. It was,
as they say written on her face. She was not to blame, by any stretch of the
imagination. And yet, on their first night, over Hereford beef with Yorkshire
pudding, Nancy had said, ‘I share the fault, because I share the disgrace’ — a
stinging phrase which revealed that Nancy accused herself because she’d known
what her husband was like, and she’d turned away.

When
breakfast was over they prepared some envelopes, put on their coats and set
about the business of the day. They strolled along the esplanade towards the
Palace of Fun.

‘How
about that one?’ asked Nancy.

George
nodded.

Coming
towards them was a young girl, pushing a pram against the grain of the wind.
Her knuckles were blue. Judging by the noise, the child was not happy.

‘Excuse
me,’ said George, ‘we represent a secret society whose object is the benefit of
humanity.’

The
girl’s eyes flicked from George to Nancy and back to George again. She said, ‘Sorry,
I don’t need anything.’

‘I’m
afraid the steering committee does not agree,’ said George severely ‘Here’s a
thousand pounds.’

Nancy
pulled an envelope from her handbag, and held it out. The young mother stared,
as if it were a warrant from the bailiff.

‘The
only condition is this,’ said George, suddenly kind, ‘under no circumstances
are you to spend it
wisely.
We wish you a very good day’

And
with that, the delegates crossed the main road, heading towards the forecourt
of Brighton Pier. Near the entrance, a Salvation Army brass band was playing
carols. The cornets and trombones glittered in a semi-circle, pointing down
slightly Nancy approached them respectfully walking round the arc of bonnets,
caps and polished shoes.

‘Hark
the Herald Angels Sing’ … the words rode on the back of the hymn, melancholy
and joyful.

George
mumbled the rest of the verse, gazing at the turrets of a dome and two flags
fluttering against a clean blue sky Suddenly Nancy was at his side.
Ceremonially they walked onto the long quay as if it were a nave, as though the
world itself were a cathedral of unutterable magnificence.

George’s
spirit soared higher and higher with the brazen gulls. There were no clouds, no
shadows, just the harsh seaside light. The wind carried the smell of sand and
bladderwrack, shells and salt.

‘Peace
on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.’ Nancy handed out
ten-pound notes as they walked along, as if they were flyers for Unimaginable
Warehouse Bargains. People stopped and stared. An old woman in black with bowed
legs waddled towards them, head down like a bull, her hair harnessed by a net.

‘Excuse
me,’ said George, ‘here’s five hundred pounds for your trouble.’

‘Are
you mad?’ she replied, straining to get her neck upright.

‘I was,
but am no more.’

She
glanced around warily ‘Is this
Candid Camera?’

‘Indeed
not, madam,’ said George, like a magician. ‘This is real life.’

‘Thank
you, but no.’ Her head went down and off she went, burrowing through the wind
to the town.

At his
side Nancy was laughing. She pulled off her yellow hat with its black spots,
and forced a hand through her hair. Breathing deeply she closed her eyes and
threw back her head. Her nose was bright red at the end.

‘Let it
be known,’ cried George, raising his arms like Charlton Heston, ‘that for one
week a kind of justice ruled on Brighton Pier.’

‘Joyful
all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies’ … the sound was fading.
As they walked on distributing their leaflets, George glanced over his
shoulder: he could still see the caps, the bonnets and the glitter of
instruments.

‘… Glory
to the new-born King.’

In the Palace of Fun,
Nancy bought tickets for the dodgem cars. The till was wrapped in tinsel and a
Christmas tree was chained to a bracket. A girl in the booth wore a Santa hat
and she called the management when George gave her two hundred pounds. The
police turned up and particulars were taken. When everyone in a suit or uniform
was happy — actually not so happy — George and Nancy climbed into a rather
small Rolls-Royce. With a crackling of sparks, the music started and they were
off.

Driving
always made George thoughtful, and present circumstances proved no exception.
Nancy had pushed her husband into Limehouse Cut; George had witnessed the fall,
and made a note of the details that night on the train (first class). With a
glass of champagne in one hand, and a pen in the other, Nancy added an
important postscript to explain that Riley’s point of entry had been adjacent
to a boat, moored by the canal wall. George, however, was still troubled on his
friend’s account: what would she do when all the money was gone?