The Invisible Ones (43 page)

She glances at me.

“You know. Stuff. Just in case.”

“Ready for emergencies?” (What on earth am I talking about?)

“That sort of thing.”

Her shoes tap-scrape on the concrete path. I could listen to that sound forever.

“I should apologize to you properly.”

She speaks while looking over the gravestones.

“No . . . Why?”

She throws the spent butt behind a gravestone—Ann Mendoza, d. 1923—and digs another cigarette out of her bag.

“I’ve been feeling so awful. About telling Ivo—you know. It was stupid of me. I wanted to . . . I can’t believe he’d do such a thing. Well, I can now—I can believe anything. But that he’d hurt you like that . . .”

“I was the one who behaved awfully. You have nothing to feel bad about. I told him anyway, so it didn’t make any difference.”

Sometimes, it is better to lie.

“I was so worried. I thought you were going to die.”

I close my eyes to savor it. The sweetest sentence I have ever heard. The tapping stops. When I open my eyes, she is looking at me.

“Well, I didn’t die.”

She sighs, the small frown lodged between her brows.

“No.”

“Lulu!”

The sound of footsteps hurrying nearer.

It’s Sandra, cruelly walking toward us in her tight black suit, her eyes red with crying. She stops about twenty yards away and keeps her eyes averted from my face.

“Hello, Mr. Lovell. Mum’s on at me, Lu. Are you coming with us or what? Everyone’s gone.”

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

She turns to me, at the same time backing away. I feel I’ve taken the wrong step yet again, the distance between us increasing.

She smiles, a bland, public smile.

“Bye. Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah . . . Good to see you.”

I start to follow her back toward the main gate until I realize from her nervous pace that she wants to appear before her family alone.

“I’ll ring . . . Shall I?”

I don’t say it very loud, more to myself than anything. I don’t know if she hears. Her head dips; I hope it’s a nod, but I’m not sure, and in another second she has turned a corner and disappeared. I come to a desultory halt among the gravestones. The laconic chatter of the mourners has died away. I am the only living person left.

58.

JJ

Now everyone has gone. We are all packed up, ready to pull out. Gran and Granddad are going to a site in Kent, where some of his relatives live. For the time being, anyway. Mum and I are going to camp at Auntie Lulu’s until our house is ready—it’s going to be only a couple weeks. Mum has found a buyer for the trailer. Christo is going to stay in the hospital until then. Next week I go to my new school, up in London. I can’t imagine what my life is going to be like from now on.

We cleared out Great-uncle’s trailer. The Crown Derby and a few things, like the fancy silver photograph frames, went to an antiques shop. I helped Granddad load some of the other stuff into his lorry— everyday crockery, the metal cans, knives and forks, all the heavy things, stuff that won’t burn, all that . . . and late that night we drove to a bridge over the Itchen, and threw the stuff in. No one was around. You just throw it in and it sinks, and then it’s gone.

There’s only one thing left to do here, and we’ve left it till the last minute, because the farmer who owns the site can’t know about it.

Everything left that belonged to Great-uncle—his clothes, records, radio, bedding, all those things . . . even photographs, although Mum picked out a few to keep in a drawer—everything else of his is in the
trailer, just as when he was there. Granddad goes inside and pours petrol over everything. Then he comes out and shuts the door. I can hardly breathe, in case something goes wrong. I think I’m going to be sick.

He gets in the lorry and pulls out, pulling their number-one trailer. Gran drives the Land Rover pulling number two. And Mum and me are in her van with our trailer hooked up. The first time it’s moved for months. We drive slowly down the lane, and there’s no sign of anything. My heart’s racing like a mad thing. I wonder if I’m going to have a heart attack.

When we’re a mile down the road, Granddad slows to a halt. It’s dark, so you can’t see much, but I gradually notice that there is smoke rising above the trees—thin and pale against the dark blue sky at first but growing thicker and blacker. Like the last time.

With a roar, Granddad drives off. We follow.

59.

Ray

She said, “Shhh.”

She said nothing else.

I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t see. Because she covered my eyes, to be sure.

But I could smell; I could taste.

Smoke in my nostrils.

Ash in my mouth.

She must have kissed me.

Ridiculous, helpless desire swirled through me. Euphoric blurring; scopolamine fireworks—I assume that’s what they were. But I know she was real. It is a memory, not a delusion. She elicited my stuttering confession. But this is where it falls apart, this memory: in fog and fear. A sudden picture in my head, and the sound of Tene Janko’s voice: the ninth child, Poreskoro, dog and cat, male and female, neither one thing nor the other. And that is not a memory, of course, because how could it be?

So this is all I have left. Like a stupid, loyal dog, I persist in this one thing: I go to the children’s hospital every week, when Christo has his physiotherapy. Sometimes I sit in my car, if I can park opposite the entrance, or I go inside, sit in reception where I can keep an eye on the door, and
wonder whether the birds in the mural opposite are meant to be parrots or swallows. Fortunately, there is only the one public entrance: double doors with reinforced glass, they glide open automatically, to make it easier for wheelchairs to enter. Sometimes I chat to parents. All the time keeping an eye on the one door that he’d have to come in by. Only patience will do it, because there’s no one else left to ask.

I will do this every week for as long as it takes. The next ten years, if I have to, because of what he has taken from his family. From all of us, including me. For assaulting me and leaving me in the dark. For my right arm, still suffering pins and needles, which occasionally, still, altogether fails to function. As long as it takes, Ivo.

Today, Sandra sees me as she brings Christo in. She nods to me. Normally, that is all the interaction we have—she disappears into the physiotherapy unit and I don’t see either of them again until it’s time to leave. But today, to my surprise, she comes back into the main reception area and sits down beside me.

“You really think he’s going to come back?”

“Sometime. Yes.”

“You’re very,
um . . .”

“Stubborn?”

“You could say that.”

“How is Christo getting on?”

“They think they know what’s wrong with him now.”

“Oh?”

“It’s called Barth syndrome.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s very rare. They don’t know much about it.”

“Can they do anything?”

“They can’t cure it. Not yet. But they can make him healthier. They said, on the whole, it’s good news.”

“Well, that’s the first step. So . . . that’s what’s been affecting your family?”

“It’s inherited, yeah.”

She makes a face. I wonder if she’s been tested for it, or if that’s even possible.

“How are you getting on, all of you? You’re settling down now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. We’ve got our house—we’ve moved out from Lulu’s, finally.”

“Oh. Right . . . How is she?”

Sandra looks sidelong at me, a little sly. I wonder how much she knows. “She’s all right. She’s got a new job.”

I feel my heart knock against my ribs.

“She rather liked . . . that other one, didn’t she?”

Sandra doesn’t react, so I assume she wasn’t privy to the ins and outs of the job in Richmond.

“Where’s she working now?”

“In an old people’s home in Sutton.”

“Ah.”

We stare ahead in silence for a few moments.

“Could I get you a coffee, Mrs. . . . er, Mrs. Smith?”

I get drinks from the machine in the lobby and go back to my post. Sandra smiles as she takes the cup.

“My son’s very interested in what you do.”

“Oh? Well, he’s a bright kid. I’m sure he could do all sorts of things.”

“He keeps talking about you. It would be really nice if you could talk to him one day. Tell him about your schooling and stuff, you know. He’s got to make all these decisions about exams and things. I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Of course. Happy to.”

“I didn’t have much schooling myself.”

She sips her chocolate.

“Ow. They’re always too hot, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they are . . . Would you tell me about Christina?”

“Christina? My cousin? God, why?”

“Because she . . . seems such a mystery. There wasn’t a funeral, is that right?”

“It’s not a mystery. She died abroad. And Tene was on his own with Ivo. You know . . .”

She shrugs: What can you do? These things happen.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Must have been before I had JJ. We were good pals, when we were little. Even though she was younger than me, she was braver. Fearless, you know. But then Tene took them all off on the road—we didn’t see much of them after that.”

“How old were you then?”

“When we were friends? Oh, about eight.”

“What happened?”

She shrugs.

“Were you friends with Ivo, too, when you were little?”

“Yeah, but he was younger, and poorly, and he always had to stay at home. And when Christina passed . . . Tene and Ivo just vanished. He couldn’t bear to see anyone, I think. I didn’t see them again until the wedding . . . I mean, it was years.”

“Years since you’d seen Tene and Ivo?”

“Since anyone had.”

“Even Kath—even your mum? She didn’t see them, either?”

“No. I don’t know if they fell out or something . . .”

“What year did Christina die?”

“In 1974. JJ was nearly two. It was then Mum and Dad got in touch with me again. I think it gave them a shock—you know, we were all sort of used to the disease, but it made them see that people die of other things, too.”

“So . . . you and Ivo became close friends, when you lived together?”

“We were We were cousins.”

She sounds defensive.

“Were you surprised he didn’t marry again?”

I know I’m getting near the knuckle. She won’t look at me.

“Why are you asking all these questions?”

“I suppose I want to understand him.”

She lets out a snort of contempt.

“Forget it! No one understood Ivo when he was here!”

“Not even you?”

“’Specially not me.”

Her voice has dropped to nothing. She’s picking at her empty cup, tearing the edge and bending the strips into tiny battlements.

“You were fond of him.”

I try to say it as gently as possible. Still, I think I’ve gone too far, and she isn’t going to reply.

Then, at length, she says, very quietly, “He wasn’t interested. When you said he had a girlfriend, I thought . . . maybe that’s why.”

“Do you think he could have kept that a secret from you all?”

She sighs and leans back in her chair.

“Why not? That’s what he was like, you know . . .” She holds up her hand, palm outward. “Wouldn’t let you in.”

She glances at me, her face weary. The look of one dupe to another. It sounds like Rose, all over again. Ivo and his secrets.

“Anyway, he’s gone now. End of story.”

She gets up, rather heavily, and throws her empty cup into the bin.

60.

Ray

Autumn is starting to bite. The belated, short-lived warmth has fled; the trees have begun to turn in the park outside the hospital. I cross the road and notice the first fallen leaves, pressed into the tarmac under my feet.

As usual, it’s early in the morning when I arrive. I don’t want there to be any chance of missing him—although it’s a while before appointments begin. Today, for the first time, it’s Lulu who brings Christo to the hospital. I haven’t seen her since the funeral, not because I didn’t want to but because my lack of answers demonstrates an unbearable—to me— incompetence. She looks just the same . . . No, she looks better. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. I imagine that Sandra told her about my being here. I allow myself, just briefly, to wonder if that’s why she’s come.

After leaving Christo with the therapist, she walks back into the reception area. She seems tense, I think. But then so must I.

“Hello, Ray,” she says.

“Hello. How are you?”

“All right, yeah . . . You?”

“Can’t complain. How’s Christo?”

“Good. They seem pleased with him. He says things now and again, you know.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s good. And they’ve made a diagnosis, Sandra told me.”

“Yeah. Although it’s not too bright.”

“At least you know what it is. It’s always better to know what you’re dealing with, isn’t it?”

Lulu thinks for a minute, and then says, “I suppose so.”

She’s sitting beside me, so I can’t get a proper look at her. She keeps her eyes on the middle distance, watching two kids eye each other up across the climbing frame.