The Burning Air (29 page)

The first page had borne the insignia of Saxby Council Social Services. Rowan had tried to remain neutral as he read the boy’s wretched story. It had read like a synopsis from Dickens. He had lived alone with, and been homeschooled by, a mother herself a veteran of state care. At twenty-one, Heather Kellaway had spent six months in a psychiatric hospital near Oxford, where she had been a student of English literature and at which university her parents had both been dons. She had suffered a complete nervous breakdown after her tutor was accused, tried, and acquitted of her rape. Her parents had disowned her immediately. The university did not send Heather down, but she did not gain her degree: eight and a half months after the alleged rape, Darcy was born. Heather had followed a distant cousin to Saxby with the newborn Darcy, who had barely left her side since. The boy was described as intelligent, with a reading age of eighteen, but nervous and introverted, and more than usually dependent on his mother. Someone had scrawled in the margin, “And vice versa—possible young carer status?”

It pained Rowan now to remember how he had closed the file and left the library unswayed. He had felt compassion for the boy, of course he had, but what could one do?

Even after Felix was attacked, Rowan had not regretted sticking firmly to the principle of meritocracy. He had told himself time and again that one simply could not let emotion come into it; it would be like grading an examination according to a pupil’s manners rather than his ability. Part of him was even confident that he had done the right thing in rejecting the application. If Kellaway had been admitted to the school, would they have been able to tame him or would he have been a force for destruction within the institution? It was impossible to say, and hindsight always knew best.

The fact remained that, in the 1996 intake, the Mawson-Luxmore had gone to the most accomplished child. Arthur Li had been a virtuoso violinist, the kind of instinctive musician one saw only once in a generation. He had deserved the scholarship. A sleeping memory was shaken awake: Arthur had left the Cath for the conservatoire at the Guildhall two years into his time at the school. He was currently with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He would have been fine wherever he ended up.

Now, his grandson a murderer and his children’s worlds shattered, Rowan’s regret was bitter.

He turned onto his side. The old bed rocked and she came rolling toward him just as she had in life, though the soft, warm flesh that had always soothed him to sleep was now encased, small and cold and hard. He pressed the chilly urn to his lips, suffered the anodyne kiss of metal.

“Oh, Lydia,” he said. “What have we done?”

It was the first time he had ever cried in front of her.

57

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013

R
OWAN AWOKE WITH a jolt and a drumming heart after less than two hours’ sleep. As soon as his eyes were open he began to hurl himself on the jagged shards of what had happened.

Had it really been he who had ordered his family to hide a man’s death from the world? Last night’s solid conviction that the best way to protect Jake was to hide the truth from the police had lost its substance. Perhaps it was not too late to involve the law, to get everything out in the open, to retrieve some kind of truth? But no; the lies, the buried body . . . this was a border that could be crossed only once, and in one direction. He had dragged his family into an abominable other world in which they must make a new home. An all-over ache pinned him to the bed; it was as though his bones were fusing into one giant mass, leaving him immobile. It was with great effort, and a series of clicks and cracks, that he rose. The darkness outside had not quite lifted, yet in a way, the night seemed longer ago than his childhood.

Sophie’s and Tara’s bedroom doors were open and the beds empty. Felix’s remained closed. There was still the problem of what to do with Kerry. What would Felix say to her when they woke? What would anyone say today? What had been said already between the conspiracy of mothers downstairs?

Rowan’s empty stomach gave a warning growl as the warm, nutty smell of fresh coffee curling up the stairs made him salivate. He was astonished to find that the animal reflexes of thirst and hunger were still working.

Everyone was in the kitchen but Felix and Kerry. The children were a reminder of the world as it had been the day before. The boys were lined up at the table eating cereal and Edie in her high chair, oblivious to her nocturnal adventures. Sophie and Tara were always talking about how sensitive children were to changes in adult moods, but his grandchildren made nonsense of that theory. It was as though the adults occupied a stratosphere of guilt and grief and fear while, below them, the children continued to breathe the same innocent air as yesterday. The contrast was almost unbearable. Sophie looked in need of a hundred-year sleep. Will looked in need of a shave and a drink. Tara looked in need of a blood transfusion.

Jake’s face was the picture next to “anguish” in the dictionary. His smooth brow was corrupted with a series of wavy lines and his mouth was set in a brittle straight line.

Guilt had diffused into all of them, making them strangers to themselves yet more intimate with one another than any family, no matter how close, should ever be. Rowan knew that the days, weeks, and months to come would be a new chapter in the family’s history. He would do everything in his power to ensure that growth, not decay, was the outcome of this mess. And his first words in this brave new world?

“Good morning.”

“Morning, Grandpa,” chorused Sophie’s boys. Tara managed a weak hello.

Rowan could not bring himself to ask his usual questions about how well everyone had slept. He was frightened by the sudden conviction that if he did, it would set the tone for the rest of time, and that a series of shallow interactions would replace their relationships.

“Jake’s got a hangover,” said Leo with solemn respect for this most grown-up and masculine of states. “We’ve all got to be good around him.”

Jake gave Rowan an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

Outside, light finally filtered through the lingering mist.

“Time to go outside!” said Leo, rising to his tiptoes to retrieve the back door key from its hook. If Rowan had known he was tall enough to reach it, he would have hidden it. A yard into the garden, Leo came to a halt so sudden that Toby ran smack into the back of him.

“Oh, Grandpa! What’s happened to the trenches?”

“We filled them in last night. I noticed that they weren’t safe.”

Leo glared at the adults. “No way! I hadn’t got to the end of the last game. I was going to win it. Can’t we dig them out just for the rest of the day, and then we’ll do it back again?”

“Maybe we could play MacBride cricket instead,” said Toby. “Are you up for it, Jake?”

“I don’t feel like it,” he said in a voice that sounded as though it hadn’t been used for years.

“Oh,
Jake
. Why’d you have to get a hangover? Maybe we can get Matt up to play?”

Jake started to tremble, and looked to Tara for help. Tara’s eyes passed the buck to Rowan, but it was intercepted by Sophie.

“Matt’s gone back to London,” she said briskly. “For business.”

“How come his car is still outside, then? And what’s it doing all the way over in the trees?”

The car. Of course it would be visible now that darkness had lifted. What would they do about that? Leave it to rust in the garage that only they ever used? Bury it, drive it into a lake?
Burn
the blasted thing? Rowan wanted nothing more to do with fire.

Sophie drew in a deep breath before replying. “He got a taxi, very early, before you were all up.”

“A
taxi
?” said Leo, as though he had just been told that Matt had chartered a private jet. He turned to Toby. “See, I
told
you he was rich. We’ll have to play MacBride cricket just us.”

Toby reached behind the kitchen door. “Where’s the bat gone? Is it in the garden? Leo, did you leave it in the garden again? That’s Grandpa’s bat, you can’t just chuck it on the ground and leave it there.”

“I
didn’t
!” said Leo. “I haven’t touched it.”

This time Will stepped in. “It’ll turn up. These things always do.” Rowan wondered if the burden of explanation would be passed around the family forever.

Leo kicked a lump of clay across the ragged lawn. “No trenches, Jake’s wrecked, no Matt, no bat. Today’s
rubbish.
”

Charlie’s little voice rang across the garden with a cry of
“Treasure!”

Toby and Leo cast off their boredom and ran to join him. Will, whose face had curdled like milk, hurried to supervise his sons as they scrabbled for the loose change that had fallen from Matt’s pockets. Rowan swept the garden, fully expecting to see a phone, a discarded shoe, some unimagined object that could explain and incriminate.

“Dad, do you reckon it’s Roman?” said Leo, holding up a muddy disk.

“Yeah, right, because Roman money would totally have a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on it,” said Toby.

“Shut
up
. I reckon we should dig up the whole garden, see if there’s any buried treasure. Jake, do you want to get involved?”

“I told you,” said Will. “Go easy on Jake today.”

Jake joined Rowan and leaned back against the outside of the barn. To the innocent observer it might have looked like a classic tough-guy posture but to Rowan it looked as though Jake depended on the wall to keep him upright.

“It’s like they’re targeting the questions at me,” said Jake. His voice was rigid, as if he was worried that any emotion might creep in. “I know they don’t know, but you’d think they did. Is it going to be like this forever? Because I don’t think I can cope, Grandpa.”

The dam having broken last night, now the effort of holding back tears was like holding up a car with one hand. With great self-consciousness, Rowan employed a phrase he had heard the boys use. “We’ve got your back.”

“Yeah, you say that, but . . .
fuck,
” said Jake, rubbing his eyes, and then immediately: “Sorry.” He was apologizing for the language, and Rowan took that as proof of Jake’s essential decency, which almost transmuted into a kind of innocence.

“You didn’t have a choice,” said Rowan. “Anyone would have done it. You saved your cousin’s life.”

“I saved Edie’s life the first time I hit him,” said Jake. “When I whacked him the second time, that was because of what he did to my mum.”

“Are you sure?” said Rowan, recalling how quickly the second blow had been delivered, unable to countenance any further depth to Jake’s guilt. “I’m not sure you were thinking in those terms. It seemed to me that it was much more reflexive, much more defensive, than you’re giving yourself credit for.” Jake’s face was impossible to read. Rowan had no idea whether he was making things worse or better. “Maybe the stuff about your mum, you’re just thinking that now you’ve had a few hours to mull it over.”

“Well, she blames herself for all of it, for letting him . . .” Jake’s lips began to wobble.

“Grandpa!” shouted Leo. “I’ve found a two-pound coin!”

“I’m talking to Jake,” said Rowan, more sternly than he intended to. Leo’s face creased in an effort to understand why he was being told off, then he turned on his heel. “Oh, Leo, I . . .” Rowan remonstrated with himself: the last thing he needed was to upset the little ones. Jake picked up on it.

“No, you go after him, go and play with them. I need to go and look after Mum anyway.”

Rowan clapped Jake on the shoulder. “If you ever want to talk . . .” But Jake had shrugged him off.

In a perfect footprint (whose?), Rowan found a five-pence piece that he handed to Leo, who bit into it as though testing for forgery. Something else was palpable through the sole of Rowan’s boot and he toed at the loose earth to investigate. Rich colors were dulled beneath a dusting of soil. It looked like one of the painted eggs the children hunted at Easter. He stooped to retrieve it and found that it wasn’t an egg, but a little wooden doll, the Russian stacking kind—what were they called, babushkas? He left the boys to it, came back into the kitchen, and rinsed the doll under the tap.

“Is this Edie’s?” he said to Sophie, who flicked a glance at it and shrugged. “It is now. Watch she doesn’t choke on that.”

Edie examined the doll and then gummed at its head. Rowan watched her closely as he poured himself a coffee.

“Well,
she’s
clearly fine.” He nodded at the baby. “But what about you?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m waiting for the anesthetic to wear off. I think we all are. I had a good chat with Tara before you came down. We’ve agreed that we’ll treat today just as something to be survived, and then tonight, when the kids are in bed, we’ll talk this through properly. Try to come up with some kind of, I don’t know, strategy, for helping Jake. And each other. How are you, Dad?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Edie reached up to him. “Let me take her for a bit.”

“But I can’t—”

Rowan felt he would collapse and weep if he did not feel the weight of the child in his arms. He infused is voice with all the leftover authority he had. “Sophie, come on, it’s
me
. You’ve got to let someone else hold her one day.”

Sophie’s brisk smile could not disguise the reluctance with which she let Edie go.

Rowan took Edie into the sitting room, played with her on the sofa. He no longer cared who knew of the delight he took in the sheer warm physical fact of her. Each hair on her head was a miracle, as was each tiny new tooth. She offered the little wooden doll, now coated in spittle, to Rowan. He set it down on the side table.

Upstairs, there was a rumble of footsteps and Felix appeared on the landing in his pajama bottoms, pulling on his dressing gown as he went.

“Where is she?” he said. “Where’s Kerry? Is she in the kitchen?”

Rowan’s heart screeched to a halt. “I thought she was in with you.”

Felix’s widening eye formed perfect concentric circles of pupil, iris, white.

“She was gone when I got up.
Shit
. Where is she, Dad?”