People Die (16 page)
Authors: Kevin Wignall
It meant nothing to her though to be taking him there. She casually cleared some discarded clothes from the bed as she led him in, saying, “Take a seat,” as she threw them into a closet. There was a small armchair in one corner, a chair too in front of the desk where she had books open, half-finished homework, but he sat on one side of the large bed and took in the teenage clutter, the way the whole of her life was jumbled into that space.
His room at home was still similar in that respect, very much the room of the younger JJ but without the presence that had made it, like he’d died in his late teens and his parents had kept it as a shrine. His sister’s room was different, altered in some way or other every time she was home, a room that was still alive, the one too into which guests were put when space was running short, his nearly always left empty, frozen, waiting for him to return.
Jem was rummaging in the bottom of the closet, opening different boxes, standing up then with a large shoe box in her hands. She walked over and sat cross-legged farther up the bed from him, putting the box down between them.
He hadn’t noticed her taking her boots off, but they’d gone, the sight of her feet in blue woolen socks suddenly giving him a feeling of enticing intimacy, a subtle marker to show that things had changed imperceptibly. He’d been with her all morning, but he was in her personal space now, the place where she felt most at ease, sitting together on the bed where she slept, close enough that he could almost feel her presence, his mind subconsciously registering her scent.
She opened the box and then smiled at him before saying, “This is what I wanna show you.” She handed him a photograph, kept smiling as he looked down at it, like she couldn’t wait to see his response.
It was a photograph of two young guys, students, facing the camera with big full-of-life smiles, the pair of them lean and all clean-cut exuberance. The slightly taller of the two had his arm over the other’s shoulder but was pulling it in against his neck as if about to choke him, the smaller guy’s smile even bigger because of the horseplay. It was a good picture, poignant somehow, a moment of pure laughter captured intact.
It looked like it had been taken in the late sixties maybe, the time frame suggesting itself because the smaller guy was David Bostridge, an uncanny prediction of how Jack would look in just a few years.
JJ looked up and said, “Your dad?”
“No,” she said, like he didn’t get it, then qualified her reply, “I mean, yeah, but it’s not just Dad. It’s Dad and Ed, when they were at Dartmouth.” He looked at the picture again, seeing the resemblance now in the bone structure, despite the dark hair, the fresh face.
And more now as he looked at it he could see the closeness between the two of them, a bond apparent even in that snapped moment. It brought home to him, too, the magnitude of the place Holden had finally come to with that friend, the ceremonial sanctioning of his death.
Holden probably found it hard even to look at pictures like that now, the whole sweep of their friendship caught up in those youthful smiles, the knowledge of how it ended seeming hidden somehow in the grain of the photo, in the blurred sunlight. Even as it was, and for all his professionalism, there must undoubtedly have been times when Holden castigated himself for having done so little on Bostridge’s behalf, that he hadn’t tried to tip him off, that he hadn’t questioned Berg’s operation.
Jem began to talk as JJ looked at the picture. “I think my dad was happier there than any other time in his whole life. I mean, he was such a hero and everything, I’m sure nothing else ever lived up to it.” She was right; he had the look on his face of someone who knew it was his time, popularity worn lightly, a life lived easily. Maybe it was the feeling he’d been trying to recapture in Russia, a reminder for himself of who he’d once been.
“There are different kinds of happiness,” JJ said, looking up. “I know what you mean though.” He glanced briefly back at the picture and added, What about Ed? He looks pretty happy too.”
“Ed’s different. I think he’s had more, you know, balance. I’d guess he’s as happy now as when that picture was taken. Well, except for the business over Dad and everything, but then, those things happen, don’t they? It’s just life.” JJ nodded, not saying anything, and Jem took another picture out of the box, swapping it for the one of Holden and Bostridge. “My mom when she was my age.” He looked at it, a posed picture, a portrait maybe or a yearbook photo. Her hair was longer but she didn’t look like Jem, as he’d expected, and looked only vaguely like herself as she was now, a pretty girl but with none of the woman’s poise.
“Oh,” he said, registering his surprise. “I thought the two of you looked alike but Susan doesn’t look like you at all here.”
“She’s prettier,” Jem offered, her tone completely serious.
“Different, not prettier.” She smiled as if dismissing his flattery, a glimpse again of her age, the fact that, in spite of the obvious evidence, in spite of people telling her constantly, she still didn’t have the measure of her own beauty.
He smiled too and said, “You don’t dare believe it, and maybe that’s a good thing too, but you
are
beautiful.” Her smile almost broke into a laugh but she blushed slightly too. “And now I’ve embarrassed you. I’m sorry.”
are
beautiful.” Her smile almost broke into a laugh but she blushed slightly too. “And now I’ve embarrassed you. I’m sorry.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said, reassuring him. She hesitated then, her mouth poised like she wanted to say something else, the thought unformed though, as if she couldn’t put the words together in the right order. He thought of saying something but waited silently instead, eager to know where she was heading, and then the phone rang next to her bed. Jem ignored it at first, looking visibly frustrated as she finally leaned over and picked it up.
“Hello?” Her tone shifted as she added, “Hey.” Whatever she’d been thinking about those few seconds before had slipped back into the depths, JJ left tantalized by the thought of where the conversation might have gone. Perhaps it was best that it was lost though, and that she was smiling now to the sound of the voice at the other end of the phone, a voice he guessed was Freddie’s.
He put the photo back on top of the other in the box and stood; Jem looked troubled in response. “Hold on,” she said into the phone and looked up at him. “You don’t have to leave. I mean, I don’t mind if you stay.” She looked frustrated again that the phone call had interrupted them.
He smiled apologetically and said, “No, I should make a move. Thanks though. I’ve enjoyed today.”
“Me too.” He made his way out, Jem continuing into the phone, “Oh, JJ, you know. I was like, showing him old photos and stuff.” It seemed strange that it had meant only that to her, looking at old photos, a sentiment on her part that was painful to think about, because it meant that all of what he thought had developed between them in the previous hours was corrupted, all the sense of connection, of belonging, of finding someone important.
He doubted anyway that his company had meant as much to her as hers had to him. Because he was left wired by it, a feeling he’d left behind long ago, back in those old photos he’d looked at with Jools, maybe even before. It was as if being with her had reminded him temporarily of who he’d once been, reminded, not as he had been with Jools, by memories, but by finding it still within him.
For a while there, sitting with Jem on her bed, already familiar, it had been like the previous ten years had never happened. That was the remarkable thing about her, that in her company his own history seemed erased, of no importance, and yet it was a history in which she herself was inextricably linked, part of the fabric in a way she’d never know.
14
Susan knocked on his door a little later. JJ offered her a seat but Susan preferred to stand, saying she wouldn’t keep him. There was a slight awkwardness like JJ was already falling somewhere between being a guest and being a friend.
The feeling was reinforced as she said, “I don’t want to press you and, really, you might be tired of us already, I’d quite understand. Only, I’ve invited a few friends over for dinner this evening, partly, well, mainly because Ed was here. And now he’s torn off down to Washington. But if you’d like to come, you’d be more than welcome. I mean, if you don’t mind making up the numbers?”
“Not at all, and on the contrary, I’m surprised you’re not tired of me. I feel like a gate-crasher.”
She smiled as if he’d suggested something ridiculous. “Good,” she said, mentally checking it off. “By the way, Jem mentioned that you’d walked with her this morning, to David’s grave and everything. I just wanted to ... well, to thank you I suppose. I mean, sometimes I worry; I don’t think she connects with many people, so it’s nice when she does. It’s nice that you made the effort.”
“It was no effort,” said JJ, smiling then, “and maybe it’s good that she’s choosy about who she mixes with.”
Susan smiled too, slightly scornful, and said, “That’s exactly what Ed says. You people, you all think alike, all paranoid.” Not as paranoid as some, he thought, not as paranoid as Berg for example. But then for the moment, with Holden in Washington sorting things out, Berg seemed to matter less than ever.
Dinner passed the evening. Susan’s friends were curious about him, about Switzerland, one couple eager to know how Tom Furst was doing in London. Susan looked pleased to have him there too, falling just short of showing him off in front of them.
He was disappointed, though, that the kids weren’t there, a vague feeling that what they were doing was probably more interesting, riper with opportunity, out there in the experimental shallows of life. And, in truth, it was just Jem that he missed, an almost teenage petulance on his part that she preferred to be elsewhere, that perhaps the friendship they’d struck up that day counted even less for her than he’d thought.
It made sense that it should be like that anyway. Because as much common ground as there had seemed between them, he wasn’t a teenager and she was still unformed, browsing through life. It was strange, though, that he felt more of an impostor among Susan’s friends than he had sitting on Jem’s bed with her, looking at photos of her parents, talking like equals.
Jack put his head around the door later to say he was back and was called in then to face a barrage of compliments; he backed off again as quickly as possible. Soon after, JJ made his own excuses and left, realizing Holden would most likely be back the next day, wanting to have had a good night’s sleep in case it was bad news. Even good news would mean that he could move on, just as he was almost taking to being there, finding reasons to stay, getting used to the routine.
He was even becoming a part of the routine. Kathryn introduced some of the new guests at breakfast the next morning like he was an old-timer. JJ took his tea and papers alone in the lounge afterward, missing the presence of Lenny and Dee with their inane dissection of the world’s news. Even the sky was overcast as if in response to their absence.
He’d been there only twenty minutes though when Jem came in. “Hey,” she said, and then, “mind if I join you?”
“Of course not. Would you like tea? I can get another cup.”
“No, don’t, I’ll go.” She walked through to the dining room and came back a moment later with a cup and saucer, saying as she poured her tea, “Jack and Mom have gone to church. I wasn’t up in time.”
“Do you go every week?”
“No, but I like to go.” She thought about it for a second and added, “I like that I can just, kind of, think of nothing, you know? I like that.” JJ nodded his understanding and then, changing the subject she said, “How long are you staying here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, the various possibilities of what would happen next already played out in his mind. “Tomorrow, maybe the day after.”
She looked disappointed, in her eyes, her mouth, in every muscle of her face, a faintly visible contraction of disappointment. “Will you come back?” she asked.
“I think so.” She smiled in response, open and unguarded, eliciting a smile from him too. “You know, when I arrived the other day, I wasn’t at all sure about this place, the other guests, the village. But it’s grown on me, and it’s hard to believe how comfortable I’ve felt with all of you. And all because I know Tom.”
“That wouldn’t have counted for much if we hadn’t liked you.” He acknowledged the point and she asked, “So like, when do you think you’ll be back?” He’d said yes to his earlier question, but now she was asking for specifics, forcing him to consider how likely it was that he really would come back. It seemed doubtful somehow but he wanted to imagine some future return, wanted to imagine seeing her. He didn’t want to disappoint her either, have her think that she’d opened up the previous day to someone who really was a stranger, someone she’d never see again. So he said, “Every time I’m in New York,” inventing an imaginary work schedule that brought him over regularly, saying then, “possibly the end of next month. I tend to be here every couple of months anyway.”
She nodded, but her concentration seemed to get caught by something else, like there was a producer screaming instructions into her earpiece, and then without warning she asked, as if it had been troubling her, “Were you in love with her? The girl you broke up with?” She responded quickly to his expression, adding, “I’m sorry, that’s really rude of me.”
He smiled, brushing it off as he said, “No, it was the sudden change of subject that threw me, not the question.”
“Oh,” she said and laughed then, realizing what she’d done. He laughed too, intrigued though that it had been on her mind, and a few seconds later he said, “To answer your question, no, I wasn’t. We liked each other a lot, but we weren’t in love.”
“Have you ever? I don’t think you said.”
“Been in love?” She nodded. “Oh yeah, a long time ago though.” He thought about it but could see in her face that she wanted more, adding with an indulgent smile, “Let me see, her name was Emily, we were at college, it was good while it lasted. What more can I say?”
“What happened? I mean, why did it end?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose we changed. See, I liked to think she finished it, because I was still in love with her even after it was over. But apparently she was still in love with me too. Yet it got to a stage where we could barely sit in the same room together. I don’t know, it was just messy, and we were young. She’s married now, they’re both teachers. They have two children.”
Jem sat in silence for a moment, looking almost saddened, adding then in a distracted aside, “Do you still think about her?” For a couple of years he had, all the time, but not now; he wasn’t sure he even remembered what it was to think about someone like that.
“Occasionally,” he said, “in passing, but I stopped being in love with her a long time ago too, and there’s been no one else since.”
“You’ll fall in love again though,” she said, pitched halfway between question and statement, like she needed reassurance.
“Of course,” said JJ, casually, giving it little enough thought to believe in it himself for the moment, “I’m sure I will.” That seemed to satisfy her, whatever track it was she’d been following, and she changed the subject again, talking about the movie she’d seen with Freddie the previous night, going back to his house, a quick biography of the Sales family, subjects meshing into each other, questions to JJ as they occurred to her, the conversation open-ended like one they’d continue in the times ahead of them.
A couple of times as they talked he thought back to those questions about love, questions that had come across as crucially important to her, as though she had some deep concern for his emotional welfare. And it took him a while to realize that the questions hadn’t been about him at all but had been a sounding board for whatever was going on in her own life, between her and Freddie or whoever else.
Yet she’d have been right to be concerned about him, because all of his emotions had been smothered, mechanized, things he expressed through memory rather than reflex. And maybe that was why he was drawn to people like the girl in Moscow, Jem herself, because they were beyond reach, and it was easier for him to keep feelings like that at a distance.
The remainder of the tea had long gone cold in their cups when Jem’s eyes skipped to the door and she said, “Hey, Ed.” She jumped up and kissed him on the cheek, telling him to sit down with JJ while she got some coffee. JJ asked him about his journey, biding his time till she came back. She asked the same questions then before leaving without ceremony, taking the tea things with her.
Once they were alone Ed let a lazy satisfied smile creep across his face and said, “Korzhakov and Mavrodi were Naumenko’s men; we’re in business.”
JJ’s head cleared, coming around quickly to the real business of his being there, to what he did, the half of him that Jem hadn’t unearthed. “So what’s next?” he asked.
“Naumenko’s in Athens. I’ve taken the liberty of getting you a ticket for tomorrow.”
“Me? Why not you?” A voice started in his head, a voice which had first sounded in the bookstore with Tom, and if it was a setup this would be the perfect sting. His gut though was telling him that Holden was okay, and that no one, not even Berg, would engineer a setup that elaborate anyway. He still didn’t like the idea of a face-to-face with Naumenko, but he knew that was how those people worked and Ed was already explaining why it had to be him.
“I don’t know if Naumenko would believe me. Like I said, he never forgave me for David so he might not trust my intentions here. You on the other hand”—Ed nodded like he was impressed by his own reasoning—“you’ll have him eating out of your hand. I know the man, and I know your reputation, and he’ll admire you even more for having the balls to just walk in there.”
“Who says I have the balls?” JJ said, smiling, adding a second later, “Okay I’ll go, but I’ll book my own ticket.”
Ed raised his eyebrows and said, “You can trust me, you know, JJ.” He looked hurt that JJ was suspicious, even now, but it was a sentiment that probably didn’t go much beneath the surface.
“I know I can; it’s just a superstition of mine.” It was partly trust, even with Holden, but it was partly superstition too, a feeling that it would be bad luck to take an air ticket from someone else. And thinking of it now brought back a memory of Aurianne again, telling him how safe air travel was, how much more likely it was to be killed some other way, any other way.
Even so, he’d buy his own ticket, and this time in remembering Aurianne he thought of Jem too, the brief flowering of friendship he’d found here with her in these couple of days, a simple reawakening of what it meant to be with a person and feel wired because of it.
It was enough to make him want to come back here as he’d said he would, to follow some of Holden’s advice and find part of his future with them, people whose past he’d also partly written. He doubted it would happen like that though, suspected that in the end he’d find himself unable to take that path, opting for the obvious one instead.
He’d go to Athens, sort things out with Naumenko, get his life back into operational mode. And for all his week of introspection he’d probably just slip back into the shadows like he normally did, taking the easiest route, just as he had two years before, leaving the girl behind in the sleet darkness, avoiding the truths she might have had to impart, returning to what he already knew.
Suddenly Ed cut in on his train of thought, tentatively, as if waking him. “JJ, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” He looked like he meant it too; perhaps the wound of Bostridge’s death was showing itself again, the fear that he might be sending someone else to his death.
“I know I don’t,” JJ said casually, “but it’s what I do. It means no more to me than”—he tried to think of something and said finally—“than boarding a plane.”
“But you’ll still buy your own ticket,” Ed said, smiling, JJ smiling too in acknowledgment.
“I’ll still buy my own ticket.” That was it, as if deciding when to fly determined everything else that followed, as if the difference between life and death was all a matter of choosing the right airline, the right flight, the right destination. It was how people kept going, by believing it was all that simple.
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