The Missing World (9 page)

Pushing back his sleeves, Jonathan remembered the unusually bleak day of his visit to Evelyn McLusky. Standing in the front garden of her unmodernised four-bedroom house off the Ball’s Pond Road, water trickling down his collar, his shoes soaked, he had stared at her tattered lace curtains and thought his life could sink no lower. Then the door opened and, briefly, he was startled out of his gloom. Mrs. McLusky was made up as if for a nightclub: mascara, rouge, lipstick were all in evidence and oddly at variance with her flowery apron, almost identical to one his mother had worn. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I’m afraid things are in a bit of a state.”

Her accent was unexpectedly foreign: Eastern European? Greek? She led him down a dank corridor. While she put the kettle on, Jonathan glanced around the kitchen. A single lightbulb glinted off the yellowing paint. In one corner was an old-fashioned porcelain sink and next to it, on a sideboard, an electric kettle and a two-ring cooker. Apart from the calendar on the wall, nothing in the room looked less than thirty years old.

He took the forms from his briefcase. Ah, now it came back to him. Mrs. McLusky was trying to sweep into the twentieth century on the strength of a burst pipe, claiming not just for the plumbing but also for rewiring and a new floor. The estimates totalled nearly fifteen hundred pounds.

“Could I take a look at the damage?” he had said.

“Here.” On the far side of the table several floorboards had been ripped up, one broken. Between the joists ran three pipes. Jonathan bent down. “My son-in-law, Laurie, said he’d fix it after your visit. Now I go next door with a bucket for water, like the old days.”

Her voice was anxious, but that was true of almost everyone he dealt with. People had so little idea of what their insurance covered that invariably they behaved as if they had something
to hide. The hole was on top of the middle pipe, an unlikely place to spring a leak. Across the room her apron fluttered as she moved back and forth, making the tea.

What do you do when people lie to you? Hazel had asked. If I can prove it, deny their claim. But what about when you’re actually talking to them? I nod, I take notes. So you don’t even give them a chance, she said.

The memory of these words, plus the apron, had prompted him to comment to Mrs. McLusky, “A lot of damage for one little hole. Like that poem: for want of a nail a kingdom was lost.”

Two painful spots, not exactly matching the circles of rouge, appeared in her cheeks. She mumbled something about Laurie, and Jonathan, unable to bear her embarrassment, said there was no accounting for elderly plumbing.

Now, reluctantly, he bent his eyes to the blue paper.

Dear Mr. Littleton,

I am writing to say I am sorry. The house is old and Ivan took care of it. He was very handy. Could mend almost anything with a coat-hanger. Now he is gone, I muddle along. Really things are not too bad. The place will see me out.

Her writing, childish in its rounded clarity, reminded him of his boyhood letters
—Thank you very much for the book token / handkerchief/model train. It’s exactly what I wanted
—the same phrases for every gift. Mrs. McLusky went on to say she was withdrawing her claim.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Yours faithfully, Evelyn McLusky (Mrs.)

He was staring at her signature when from behind him came the sound of George clearing his throat. “Hazel,” he said hoarsely, “I’m your father, your dad, and this is your mother.”

“And I’m Maud, your old friend.”

In a shower of papers Jonathan leapt from the chair. For a moment, the struggle not to hurl himself on George rooted him to the sunlit floor. Mad, idiotic, to have trusted the old fucker. Slowly he took a step towards the bed, another. Would the memory of her parents bring back all the terrible memories as well?

He reached the foot of the bed in time to see her gentle smile. “I knew I knew you,” she said, as if this were a triumph and her forgetting a mere triviality. She turned to Maud. “Your hair looks different.”

“How do you feel?”

Hazel, frowning, seemed to take an internal inventory. “Some orange juice would be nice,” she concluded, “if it’s not too much trouble.” She shifted against the pillows, searching the room.

Jonathan held tight to the bedrail and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, the darkness sparkled.

Then he heard his name, a question. “Jonathan?” Still he kept his eyes sealed, in the vain hope that that thin membrane might shield him from Hazel’s wrath.

“Will you read to me?”

chapter 5

Charlotte was lying in bed, which meant lying on the futon she’d discovered leaning against a wall in Priory Park Road last Halloween, and persuaded a surly Irish cabbie to squeeze into his taxi. The futon in turn lay on the six months of newspaper that layered her living-room floor. These, as Charlotte liked to remind herself, were not merely a source of current events but excellent insulation. In fact, until she found the futon, she had slept directly on top of the papers, between two quilts. Her old boyfriend, Walter, had taken the bed when he moved out, and nearly everything else besides. Charlotte had come home at midnight—she was playing Mrs. Linde, Nora’s friend, in
A Doll’s House
—to find the flat empty except for her clothes and books, heaped carelessly on the floor. Walter had left nothing, no note, only a pair of crumpled black socks and his keys.

Charlotte had stood in the empty rooms, beyond feeling, looking at the outlines, marked in light and shadow, dirt and cleanliness, of the vanished furniture. She’d come into the wrong flat; it was an elaborate joke; this was not happening at all. She hurried out again and took a taxi to Soho. Walter frequented a number of after-hours clubs around Dean Street, and
she had gone from one to another, upstairs and down, none of them were ever at street level, asking for him in what she hoped was a casual manner. People welcomed her, bought her drinks, talked about her current show, and no one vouchsafed one iota of information about Walter. Her sole glimpse came from Jerry, the bartender of the dark green upstairs room that had served as Francis Bacon’s local. He leaned over and patted her cheek—by this time she was quite drunk—and said, “Charlotte, love, you ought to be home getting your beauty sleep. Take my word for it, Walter isn’t out on the town tonight.”

But there was no question of going home. Drink by drink Charlotte had refurnished the rooms, reinstalled the bed and the table, hung Walter’s clothes in the wardrobe, put his toothbrush back in the bathroom. As long as she stayed away, he was there and nothing had changed. She spent twenty-four hours on the streets and, when she showed up at the theatre the following evening, gave one of the best performances of her life.

Walter, it transpired, had moved in with an American actress, a tall blond bimbo without an ounce of talent or a penny to her name. Somehow, though, she brought him luck. During his years with Charlotte he had landed a series of thankless parts, from Malcolm in the Scottish play to the other husband in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A month after leaving her, he appeared in a comedy which allowed him to display a sly sexiness, previously concealed, and by the autumn he was playing second lead in a West End hit. Charlotte had perfected a look of keen interest when people insisted on telling her how well he was doing.

Now, since the dustbin men woke her with their clatter, she burrowed into the futon, trying to figure out yet again exactly when Walter had decided to leave. Was it the previous week, when they were discussing holidays; or the week before, when they’d gone to Habitat to buy towels; or a few days earlier, when
she heard him on the phone promising their friend Alex they’d both be at her wedding with bells on? As usual, she was unable to detect the slightest fissure in their relationship. Walter had seemed his normal, irascible self until the moment she left for the theatre. It still gave her vertigo to consider how adroitly he had lied: his best performance ever. What could she do with these unblemished, fraudulent memories except trample them underfoot?

Pulling the covers higher, she turned determinedly to planning her day. Get up, dress warmly; the weather had grown bitter. Then she must go to the office on Oxford Street to pay the phone bill; a threatening red form had arrived in Tuesday’s post. She remembered her father brandishing such letters over the breakfast table and explaining that this was not where the expression “red-letter day” came from. But what was the origin? Something to do with saints, she thought. She must ask Bernie.

Once again she had blundered; these days her sister was no safer a topic than Walter. Hastily, Charlotte retreated to the minor anguish of the bill. The pressing question was not the mechanics of payment but the means. The hole in the wall had twice refused her money and on the next attempt would probably seize her card. She’d bought a lottery ticket yesterday, but since a tenner last October she’d had no luck with that. A stupid system, Jonah at the corner shop claimed, too impersonal. Charlotte would agree, while pointing out that the lottery did support the arts; more theatre, she’d say, more parts for me. And Jonah would flip back his braids and praise her numbers. When you win, he said, we will move to Jamaica, meaning, Charlotte knew, not just the two of them but his wife, his three children, his parents, his parents-in-law, and his brother’s family. You will like Kingston, he added.

She fished the bill from beneath her pillow and checked again: within seven days, the unyielding capitals announced, her phone would be disconnected and she would be liable for both the account and a reconnection charge. Quickly she stuffed the envelope back out of sight and reviewed her prospects for a loan.

Cedric, in his expensive leather jacket, strutted into view. From her first glimpse of him, behind the bar of the Trumpet, Charlotte had recognised a fellow thespian; an actor, she assumed. But no, Cedric said, tossing back his thick, dark hair, he was going to be a designer/director. Over several slow evenings they’d grown thick as thieves. He couldn’t get enough of her gossip and advice; she’d even introduced him to the stage manager at the local theatre. Last Wednesday, though, when she’d dropped by the pub, he had seemed less than overjoyed. Bringing him back here one frosty night, shortly after New Year, had been a mistake, Charlotte thought. And then she’d let slip—well, he was pressing her—that she was no longer on speaking terms with her agent. No, forget Cedric; he was strictly pleasure.

Maybe Brian was a better bet. They had studied acting at RADA together but, surprisingly early on, he had recognised his own lack of talent and become an estate agent. I do one-man shows, he boasted, about built-in wardrobes and forty-foot gardens. On numerous occasions Charlotte had acted as hostess for him and got him into plays for free. Wasn’t all that worth something? Yes, but probably no more than the long weekend she’d spent at his flat last month when her electricity was cut off.

What with one thing and another, it was nearly noon before she left the house. Nothing on the skip today, and no money for the bus. She set out, walking briskly past the Trumpet and the
bakery only to be halted at the newsagent’s by the date on a paper; she was meant to do something today. Lunch, or a drink? Suddenly she recalled the audition her friend Ginny had arranged, a Jacobean drama at a theatre above a pub in Richmond. I told the director you’d be ideal, Ginny had said, for the housekeeper. A compliment to my acting, Charlotte thought; after all, who knew less about housework? And she had fully intended to go, had even plucked her eyebrows last night. But the auditions had begun at ten down in Richmond, and the housekeeper’s part must already be long gone.

“Excuse me,” said a voice, and Charlotte ceded the pavement to a woman with a double pram. Never mind; the venue was tiny and the play sounded dull as ditch water. As for what to say to Ginny, perhaps she could claim the bus had broken down. No, Ginny would see that as yet more evidence of hopelessness. Trust Charlotte to choose a decrepit bus.

She was looking in the window of a travel agent—skiing in the Pyrenees versus scuba diving in the Canaries—when inspiration struck. Just as she was leaving for the audition, Struan had phoned—remember, he’d been a year ahead of them at RADA—to talk about a film he was producing, set in Gloucestershire. Charlotte was one of the first people he’d thought of for the second female lead. Or maybe a cameo, she nodded at the Canaries. She didn’t want to make Ginny jealous.

Happily elaborating, she scarcely noticed as the clutter of Kilburn High Road gave way to the reticence of Maida Vale. Even the sign
PADDINGTON
2
MILES
, which normally made her want to sink down on the nearest doorstep, today carried a different message. Wasn’t Paddington where one caught the Gloucester train? She passed two women in chadors cleaning a car and turned into the Marylebone Road. She saw the cameras rolling, herself delivering heart-rending scenes in a single take, improvising speeches that reduced the director to tears.

Not until she was standing in line for the salad bar at the Baker Street Pizza Hut—all you can eat four ninety-five—did she remember the phone bill smouldering at the bottom of her bag. Perhaps she ought to go and write them a cheque just before five, when it couldn’t clear that day. Then tomorrow she’d have a talk with the bank manager about her famous financial overhaul, how she was going to rent out her flat and live with her sister until Struan’s film got under way. Or maybe—she helped herself to beetroot—something would come through at the Royal Court.

She was sitting at a window table, eating as slowly as possible, when someone said her name. A slender, extremely good-looking boy was bearing down on her. Now who is this? Charlotte thought, beaming at him and surreptitiously adjusting her scarf.

“Jason,” he said helpfully. “We worked together at Books Etc. a couple of years ago during the Christmas rush.”

“Of course.” How nice to be recognised. That’ll show you, Bernie. “We used to divide the customers between us. You serviced the twin sets and pearls while I took the toy boys.”