The Boy Who Fell to Earth (18 page)

‘You retrieved my iPod!’ exclaimed Merlin ecstatically. His smile lit up like neon.

‘Yeah, and your phone, clothes and camera.’ Archie lowered his voice a few decibels. ‘I decided to leave the cardigan.’ He winked at me. ‘Happy Birthday, kiddo!’ Archie then popped a can of beer and took a good long swig. He picked up his guitar, snuggled the curve of the wood across his knee and started to play a medley of Beatles hits, successfully silencing my ex-mother-in-law once more.

Merlin was soon happier than a germ in a jacuzzi. My heart
stopped
knocking about in my chest, my breath slowed down and I began to regain my senses.

‘It’s just as well you’re here, Archie!’ Phoebe enthused. ‘I’m so glad you came to stay. Merlin and Lucy really need a man around the house.’

I struggled with a hundred emotions. I too felt overwhelmingly grateful for Archie’s protective stance for my fatherless son, but was also profoundly disapproving of his bad influence. ‘What? Phoebe, no! Archie’s not staying. Who said so?!’

But as Phoebe and her husband Danny backslapped Archie, singing his praises, in between harmonizing along to his guitar medleys, nobody took note of the fact that it was not what
I
wanted. ‘No, no, he really can’t stay,’ I reiterated. ‘… Is anyone listening to me?’ I felt as though I were having a heart attack in a game of charades. ‘I mean it!’ … But I was speaking to thin air.

11

Train of Thought

IT WASN’T JUST
that Archie stepped over the line. He didn’t seem to understand that there even was one.

Despite the man’s tomato-slicing tutorials and paedophile-pounding, ‘He’s got to go’ became my refrain all through the summer. ‘He’s a lazy bum, a total sponger and comes home half-drunk every night.’

‘Well, he’s obviously trying to soothe his broken heart,’ Phoebe volunteered, ever willing to see the good in people.

‘The only reason he comes home half drunk is because he’s run out of money at the bar.’

‘He told me his money transfer from Australia has been held up.’

We were at the post office, queuing up to have my intrepid mother’s mail redirected. We hadn’t heard much from her, except for a postcard explaining that she was now crewing a tall ship in Vanuatu, buddying less able-bodied crew members in exchange for another sailing holiday. ‘Girls, I adore ship life. The endless opportunity for semen jokes!’ she
wrote.
And then, three weeks later, another postcard saying that she was now washing elephants at a wildlife rescue centre in Thailand: ‘Always have your photograph taken beside an elephant. It makes you look soooo much slimmer and, of course, much less wrinkly!’ she advised.

‘I’ve fed and housed the man for weeks now, and he still shows no sign of getting a job or making his “
album
”,’ I complained to Phoebe as the line shuffled forward. ‘He did a one-man show at the pub the other night and, believe me, there were more people on stage than in the audience.’

‘But he’s so good with Merlin. Hot flush, hot flush.’ My 47-year-old sister leant back on the post-office wall and fanned herself frantically. ‘Ugh! I’m having my own weather.’

I passed her my chilled bottle of mineral water, which she held to her perspiring forehead. ‘I don’t suppose
you’d
take him in?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Are you kidding?’ she said, her face beetroot red. ‘In my hormonal state? I’d either fuck him, eat him or kill him.’

After a quick Thai meal with my sister I drove home, steeling myself for battle. It was time to turn into Attila the Landlord and eject my interloper. I slid the key into the lock of my darkened house with slight trepidation. Usually Merlin would be playing air guitar with Archie to Pink Floyd or Rolling Stones tracks. The silence was ominous and the darkness eerie.

‘Merlin?’ I called out, my voice giving a good impression of a Viennese choirboy, octave-wise.

‘Shhhh!’ The deep-throated, hushed admonition came from the living room. ‘And don’t turn on the lights.’

I brailled down the hall towards the voice. ‘What the hell’s going on? Has the fuse blown? Gosh, if only I knew a
handyman
anywhere
in the near vicinity,’ I drawled flippantly.

‘It ain’t the fuse.’

‘Then why are you sitting in the dark?’

‘I don’t want the neighbours to know that I wasn’t invited to the openin’ of the new Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame.’

‘You know the
neighbours
?’

‘Course.’ Archie nodded casually. ‘I always leave their parties before midnight too … So people think I have to get up early in the mornin’, you know. Because I’m workin’ on somethin’.’

‘You’ve been invited to my
neighbours
’ houses for
parties
?’ I said, amazed. ‘I don’t even know the names of those yummy mummies. And anyway, why
aren’t
you working on something?’

‘Work, ah, yes … work fascinates me,’ Archie said, wistfully. ‘I can look at it for bloody hours.’

‘So I see,’ I snapped, noting the pile of washing-up in the sink and stacks of empty plates on the table. Oblivious to our conversation, Merlin was contentedly surfing on his laptop … probably breaking into some Nassau secret site for which he’d be arrested, extradited and sent to an upstate maximum-security prison for the rest of his natural life, knowing my luck.

‘Hard work doesn’t make you a better person. It’s total bullshit. Hard work has killed millions of people. Indolence is the way to go.’

‘Archie, what are you? Fifty-two, three? Fifty-six maybe? Your life is not a rehearsal … Although, in your profession, you could definitely have done with a few.’

‘It’s not that I’m eschewin’ gainful employment, toots. It’s just takin’ time for me to break into the British music scene.’

‘Along with only about 3 million other people.’ I flicked on the light, flooding the room with harsh yellow neon.

Archie flinched at the sudden illumination. ‘Better than just karaoke-in’ your way through life. Like you.’

‘Archie, I’m telling you this because you’ve been nice to my son and I appreciate that. You need another game plan besides sitting on a private plane demanding only yellow smarties and pink poodles and Jack Daniels, because that’s Never Going To Happen.’

‘No animal products are used in the manufacture of Jack Daniels, you know. It’s practically a friggin’ health drink.’ Archie took a swig from the bottle he was holding then leaned forward to salt his plate of chips.

‘Save your breath, Archibald. You’ll need it to inflate your next girlfriend. You need to get a job so you can find your own place to live. And, can I just give you a word of advice? In England, it’s generally considered tacky to take an Esky to a job interview.’ I impounded his bottle of whisky. ‘And get your hair cut. It’s simply sitting there on your head like roadkill.’

’Exactly what kind of job ja have in mind?’ he asked, slouching further back on to the couch. ‘An office job, no doubt. A tie is a noose a man hangs himself with.’

‘Any job will do. Windexing the sneeze hood over the salad bar. Pouring drinks in a wine bar …’

‘Come on. Is it a credible hypothesis that a rock star would work in a wine bar, for Chrissake? I won a gong for one album … Well, I would have, if the lead singer from Navel Fluff hadn’t got an embolism. That bastard.’

I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but shook my head at him with pity. ‘The only award you’d ever win is at Crufts – the dog show. Because you are an animal.’

‘Obviously, in your eyes, I’m nobody. But, as Nobody is perfect, you forgive me, right?’ Archie chortled, before
adding
plaintively, ‘For your cousin Kimmy’s sake, you should just let me stay here till my money comes in. You were quite matey when you were kids, right? Hey, I could be your toyboy. Now there’s an attractive idea. Especially when you’re wearin’ such a tight T-shirt and no bra. Five people killed in Lambeth from high-velocity nipples!’ he deadpanned. ‘Boom chicka wah wah.’

With immense irritability, I shrugged on a cardigan. ‘Archibald,’ I said icily, ‘I would rather extract my own fillings with a pair of pliers than go anywhere near you.’

‘Baby, I taste so good you’ll want the recipe.’ Archie, whom I only really recognized perpendicular, now stood up and moved towards me with a panther-like pace, his weathered boots ringing out on the wooden floor. ‘Why don’t you come out to the pub with me for a drink? Goin’ out with me is like makin’ love. When it’s good, it’s very good and when it’s bad … it’s even better.’

‘You’re not getting this, are you?
I’d rather have tent pegs hammered into my nostrils
.’

Archie cocked one leg behind him, resting his foot flat against the wall, and eyed me slowly up and down. ‘Why doan cha go slip into somethin’ a little more comfy … J’know, you’ve got such a great figure. If you didn’t have that bitter and twisted, totally cynical “All men are bastards” look in your eye so bloody common to single mothers, you could have been a model.’

I moved rapidly towards the stairs. ‘Spoken like a true chauvinist. Do you know what chauvinists are, Archie?’ I flung the comment over one shoulder. ‘Mother nature’s way of promoting celibacy. You’re moving out. Tomorrow. Kimmy or no Kimmy. Blood is thicker than water, but not whisky.’ I took the stairs two at a time, slammed my bedroom door and
lay
on my bed, exhausted. What with work hassles and Merlin and my unwanted house guest, I would have loved to take up Archie’s offer of slipping into something more comfortable, preferably a coma.

By the next afternoon, I had packed up all Archie’s various possessions and dumped his guitar, amp and rucksack on the front steps. Phoebe had come over as back-up.

‘I know the guy’s complexion is rough hewn and craggy. But there’s something attractive about that kind of lived-in face,’ Phoebe mused in a whisper, as we surreptitiously observed him pack up his CDs.

‘Lived-in! That’s a face which should be closed down for demolition.’

Archie sauntered into the kitchen towards us, looking pretty much exactly the way he had when he had first crashed into my life. ‘G’day, Phoebe. So you heard the bad news?’

‘Let me guess. Angela Merkel and
Playboy
magazine have agreed terms?’ she suggested playfully.

‘That your sis is kickin’ me out,’ he said sadly. ‘I’d love to have a heart-to-heart with her about it, but what would
she
use?’

I rolled my eyes with pantomime theatricality. ‘I’d love to respond but I left my spontaneous barbed ripostes in my other handbag. Sorry.’

Archie ignored me and bent over my sister’s hand and kissed it tenderly. ‘It’s been great meetin’ you though, Pheebs … I’ll just wait to say goodbye to Merlin.’

I checked my watch. ‘Really? Must you? He’s at the British Museum,’ I told my sister. ‘He’s started going there every Saturday. But he’ll be home at 4.30 on the dot. He’s incredibly
punctual.’
A wave of relief washed over me. In an hour or so the intruder would be out of my life and then, once again, there’d just be Merlin and me …

It was half past five when I realized Merlin was missing. I’d been so distracted fumigating my spare room that I hadn’t noticed the time. Merlin knew the train route. I’d escorted him at least ten times, until it was ingrained in his brain. When he’d turned sixteen, I’d allowed him to travel on his own. He had his mobile phone. And money for a taxi if anything went wrong. I punched his number on my speed dial. No answer. I rang the British Museum and convinced them to page him. I contacted the police. But the officer said that they didn’t investigate missing teenagers for at least a week. He might be a runaway. Were there troubles at home? The thought of my gullible son out there in the rollercoaster world, full of dangers and strangers, made my stomach heave sourly.

At 6.30 I rang the transport police and explained about my son’s Asperger’s. They offered to put out a description to their station workers, but in a city like London it was needle-in-a-haystack territory. By now, panic was fluttering in my chest like a moth. Had he been mugged down some ruinous alley? Kidnapped by another paedophile? Had he fallen on to the tracks? My throat was on fire with misery. Archie asked for the route Merlin took to the museum and set off on foot.

At 7 p.m., I gunned the car and big-dippered over local speed bumps to get to the tube station. No sign of my son. I churned the streets, double-parking during dashes into Merlin’s favourite haunts – a couple of cafés, a bookshop, HMV on Oxford Street … As the minutes crawled by, my heart hammered against my ribcage.

I rang Phoebe, who was waiting at my house in case Merlin had turned up. No news. At 8 p.m. I steered my car away from the museum towards the British Library, a place he also frequented. The city seethed with people. When the rain fell they hurried faster, like caged mice. As I drove through the drizzle, the wiper blades made frantic arcs, then, as I cut the engine, staggered to a halt, like two collapsing marathon runners. Darting on foot through the trundling buses, I inhaled the diesel belches of taxis, then slalomed through the throng pouring in and out of King’s Cross tube station. But still no Merlin. I even searched St Pancras station, as he’d recently told me that it had enjoyed a ‘much better career than Euston’.

Back in the car, in my confusion and panic I took some wrong turns and ended up careening through the City. Buildings needled the sky like giant syringes. At 9.45, I left the glittering pincushion of central London for Lambeth.

By the time I got home, my nerves were shrieking like unoiled hinges on a derelict barn door. In between rain showers I took to pacing up and down the road. All I could hear was the sound of puddles sploshing and hissing from passing car tyres. By 10.30, my mind was clattering. By eleven, I was about to call Jeremy for the first time in ten years. Then Archie and Merlin sidled into view.

I flung myself at my son and held him to me. ‘Are you okay?’ I quavered. I clung to him, paralysed by love. A brittle sob of exhaustion escaped my lips. Fear, danger and elation-fought for emotional supremacy. Finally, a wave of outrage rose in my chest. ‘Merlin! Where have you been? Why didn’t you call?’