The Gardens of the Dead (27 page)

The man
walked quickly away between the trestle tables and the moochers, tracked by
Riley’s contempt. When he was out of view, Riley went through the motions (his
mind returning at intervals to the sight of Nancy winded by the counter). He
selected a vase from his table marked for sale at ‘£15’. He wrapped it in
newspaper and put it in a crate — for transfer to the shop in Bow Then he
opened a pad labelled ‘Van Sales’. He made out a receipt to record a fictional
transaction: ‘One Vase.

£30
received in Cash.’ Carefully he detached the original from the blue duplicate
beneath. Ordinarily this would go to the customer, but since there wasn’t one,
Riley tore it to pieces. He then opened another pad marked Acquisitions’ and
wrote out a second receipt — for an imaginary purchase: ‘One vase. £15 paid in
Cash.’

When he’d
finished, Riley dropped the pads into a cardboard box at his feet. He looked at
them, at the bones of his system. Not since his childhood had he felt so
strongly the desire to run away: from the voices, the billboards, the sheer
filth of his existence. But he’d learned long, long ago, there was a most
unusual pleasure that came with the staying.

Prosser
ambled along a path puffing smoke. He was pretending to stretch his fat legs,
to get some heat into his toes. In fact, he was trying to work out what had
taken place before his eyes … just as Riley that morning — feeling queasy —
had tried to make sense of Nancy.

3

‘Don’t use wise words
falsely’ quoted Father Andrew.

Anselm
had rung Larkwood to forewarn the Prior that a fax would shortly arrive for
Cyril’s kind attention — it was an unlikely outcome, admittedly but it was
important not to hold a man to his past. In the background he’d heard a bell,
and, feeling abruptly homesick, Anselm had opened his heart: he didn’t know
what to say to George Bradshaw; he was ailing with a strain of guilt. And that
had provoked the familiar quotation from a Desert Father.

Anselm
put the receiver down. Thoughtfully mouthing the phrase, he returned to the
ward, where a nurse informed him that George was not only awake, but in a chair
and anxious to meet him.

Anselm
paused at the entrance. From a tinny radio, Bunny Berigan was playing ‘I Can’t
Get Started’. The trumpet soared while Anselm examined the bandaged feet and
dinted legs. Then Bun gave it voice:

I’ve flown around
the world in a plane,

I’ve settled
revolutions in Spain,

The North Pole I
have charted,

But still I can’t
get started with you.

Remembering Emily Bradshaw
in Mitcham, Anselm entered the ward.

George
had been conducting, but instantly he rose, his wrists quivering on the
armrests as they took the strain. ‘Elizabeth said you’d come,’ he exclaimed,
hand outstretched. ‘Funny thing is’ — he laughed quietly at the coming joke — ‘I
can’t remember why.’

Anselm
smiled thinly and he flinched at the old man’s grip. Mumbling how nice it was
to see him, he sat on the edge of the bed, still wondering how to approach what
had to be said. He couldn’t look at George, any more than Mr Hillsden had been
unable to look at Anselm. Something tied them together, though, because they
were both held spellbound by Bunny Berigan’s trumpet solo.

‘Even
Louis Armstrong wouldn’t touch that number,’ observed Anselm, at the end of the
song. It was hardly wise, but at least it wasn’t false.

George
gave Anselm a friendly shove, as if they were pals sharing half a pint of mild.
‘These days,’ he said, ‘I’ve no choice about what I remember. Tomorrow, if we meet,
don’t expect to pick up where you left off. Begin all over again. With me, I’m
afraid, you’re always starting afresh … That’s not so bad, is it?’

Anselm
raised his eyes, suddenly aware that a kind of pardon had been given to him.
George’s thoughts seemed to mark his face like stippling on a reef, as though
one might understand him by watching. There were no barriers left: the surface
was the depth. Anselm was staring at George — right into him — and there was no
anger, no resentment, no pride, just a certain shining quality, which might be
the brightness of the light … and yet, which might not. Fumbling for
confidence, he said, ‘Mr Bradshaw, about the trial, I asked you a very
particular question.’

George
raised a hand. ‘I’m no longer troubled by anything I can remember,’ he said
simply ‘I’ve let it fall away … like a stone in the Thames.’ He patted Anselm’s
arm, signalling the end of that particular conversation.

Anselm
was disorientated, for this broken man spoke an idiom whose meaning he could barely
follow (he’d had a similar problem with a traffic policeman in
Czechoslovakia). On the one hand, the forgiveness had been given quickly and
comprehensively; but on the other, it had come from a spirit of detachment that
Anselm had never met before, save in some of the older monks at Larkwood.
Anselm had no time to ponder either mystery because George had already moved on.

‘We
went after Riley and I got hold of the works, like Elizabeth told me to.’

‘Yes.’

‘And
she discovered what he was doing — it was there, in the numbers, plain to be
seen. Once she’d cracked it she went to see him.’

‘Who?’

‘Riley.’

This
was not something Anselm had anticipated. ‘What happened?’

‘She
died,’ replied George. ‘I’m not saying he did anything, it’s just that death
follows him around.’

Tentatively
Anselm said, ‘Did she explain Riley’s scheme to you?’

‘Several
times.’

‘Do you
recall what she said?’

There
was no doubt about it: George’s facial expressions revealed his thoughts. And
at this moment it was evident that he considered Anselm to be rather slow ‘What
do you think?’

‘No,’
replied Anselm apologetically.

‘Exactly’
George, however, was not especially troubled. ‘Elizabeth wrote it down. It’s in
my jacket.’

Gently
Anselm explained what had happened to George’s clothing, and, therefore, the
letter, but the old fellow just made an ‘Ah’. That, it seemed, was just another
stone in the river. Anselm was astonished. He said, as though to comfort
himself, ‘But there’s still hope. Inspector Cartwright received all the
business records through the post.’ He was struck by an idea. ‘Did you send
them?’

‘I can’t
remember.’

Anselm
fetched up a grin. ‘Of course not. Sorry.’

‘I
doubt if I posted anything, somehow’ George rubbed a finger into his brow,
trying to knead a splintered thought to the surface. It wouldn’t come. He
shrugged at the deep itch and said, ‘Can the Inspector understand them?’

‘No.’

‘Ah.’

‘But
someone with an eye for these things will be considering them shortly’

‘Very
good.’

‘You’ve
done your part,’ said Anselm, wanting to give something back to this man who’d
given so much. ‘Now you can rest.’

George
raised his legs, looking down at the bandaged feet. ‘I lost my shoes, somehow,
and I got terribly wet and cold.’ He became confused, his mind in suspension;
he seemed to have heard a noise, like a scratching behind the wall. Quietly he
said to himself, ‘No … no … It’s gone.’

Later
in the day Anselm would ring Inspector Cartwright to recount the conversation
that revealed how little George knew, and how much. But first, there was
something else to be done. He reached deep into the oldest part of anyone’s
memory, saying, ‘Would you like to go home, George?’

4

Nick Glendinning sat in
the sitting room at St John’s Wood twirling a piece of paper between his
fingers. Written on it was the telephone number of the woman who’d asked about ‘her
lad’, the woman who’d probably received his mother’s last words. She hadn’t
rung Charles, or the police or the medical services. She’d rung this stranger.
What had she said, before dying?

At
first, Nick told himself that Father Anselm was handling Elizabeth’s final
dispensations — she’d planned it that way — so he tried to forget the question:
he signed up as a locum, and he tried to assume a normal life — until it dawned
on him that he’d stumbled on another secret, his mother’s last; and that
whatever she’d said was more important than the key or anything retained in its
box. This realisation haunted him. It made him pick up the telephone.

‘My
name is Nicholas Glendinning,’ he said. ‘I understand you know my mother.’

He
pressed the receiver against his ear, to stop his hand from shaking. All he
could make out was laboured breathing.

‘Can I
meet you?’ said Nick, pressing harder.

The air
whistled in his ear. ‘Did she tell you about me?’

‘No.’

‘What
do you want?’

‘To
talk about my mother.’

The
breathing grew calm. ‘I’d like that very much.’

Having
noted the address, Nick rose and swivelled on his heels. Framed by the doorway
was his father. His arms were almost raised. He looked like one of those
entertainers in Covent Garden who don’t move until you give them some money.

They
looked at each other, both utterly still. Abruptly Charles grimaced and flicked
a finger in the air, as if he’d remembered what he was looking for. Then he
quickly shuffled upstairs.

Nick sat on the sofa
adjacent to a low table in the Shoreditch flat. The old woman was dressed in a
yellow floral dress as if she were off to church or a summer garden party She
wore earrings, a necklace and creaking leather shoes. The room was
conspicuously tidy but very cold, even though a radiator clicked with activity.
She’d had the windows open, and an air freshener had been used. Nick found the
assembly of images and sensations unequivocally surreal. He could not imagine
his mother traipsing up that filthy stairwell, or sitting here, before this
apparition with silver hair and tragic eyes.

‘I don’t
even know your name,’ he said awkwardly.

‘Mrs
Dixon,’ she said, clearing her throat at the same time. ‘Refreshment?’

‘Yes,
please.’

The low
table was covered with a white cloth. It had been laid for a small reception.
Mrs Dixon poured tea into ancient china cups. ‘Milk or lemon?’

‘Milk,
thank you.

A whole
ritual unfolded, as if he were a vicar, or the squire. She offered Nick sugar,
a teaspoon from the Isle of Man and a jammy dodger from a cake stand.

‘Your
mother was my friend,’ she said proudly ‘The Council sent her along when I got
lonely’

‘The
Council’ had evidently explained that she was dead. The flat vowel in ‘lonely’
disclosed that Mrs Dixon was not a Londoner. Her accent had been softened, but
the northern intonation in that one word was unmistakable. Before Nick could
think of what to say Mrs Dixon spoke again.

‘She
came here every week, on a Friday and we talked … mainly about me, and my
family’ Delicately Mrs Dixon raised her cup. ‘She was full of questions, but it
did me good to get things off my chest. It’s not good to keep things in, that’s
what I say.

‘Absolutely.’

‘You’re
a doctor, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well
done,’ she exclaimed.

Nick
sipped his tea, wondering how soon he might reasonably make his exit. But Mrs
Dixon’s confidence had grown. There was something predatory about her delight.
A biscuit?’ she said, pointing at the stand.

‘Thank
you.’

Mrs
Dixon settled back in her chair, her teacup and saucer resting in the middle of
her chest. Looking over the top, she said, ‘I told her so much about myself,
but I never asked about her … Do you mind telling me a little?’

‘What
would you like to hear?’ asked Nick.

‘Well …
anything really. Something that explains where she came from … Like I did,
with her.’

Nick
surrendered to the circumstances, as his mother must have done, when she’d
first realised what she’d let herself in for. Mrs Dixon’s question, however,
was so broad that he didn’t know where to begin. And then he thought of the
photograph.

‘We
have this family portrait at home,’ he said thoughtfully ‘It shows my mother as
a child with her parents.’

The
picture was in the sitting room at St John’s Wood. As a boy Nick used to study
the sepia faces of the solemn man and his proud, buxom wife. They were stiff
and unsmiling, in a happy sort of way obedient to the formality of their time.
His neck was bound in a wing collar, and she was packed into a polka dot dress.
Elizabeth was in the middle, her long hair scraped back and held by ribbons. An
affectionate hand from her father had strayed onto her knee, unnoticed by the
cameraman. There was a clock in the background and a tall dresser. Elizabeth
used to say that her self-understanding — where she’d come from, who she’d
become, her dispositions and their provenance — had been captured in that one
photograph, with one explosion from the flash. It was her way of explaining to
Nick why as he’d grown older, she’d become more reserved; and why there was a
melancholy even in her smile. As a teenager, her quietness, her lack of bounce,
had sometimes irritated him and, being a teenager, he’d told her. It made him
sad, now, to think he could ever have held her to account, given the tragedy
that overran that prim family in the photograph.