Upright Piano Player (24 page)

The storm had arrived earlier than predicted, a dry storm as it had turned out. At the first sight of lightning the priest had started counting out loud. He had got to eight before the thunder came—a deep rumble and then three sharp explosions, almost overhead.

“God’s artillery,” he had said, turning his chair to talk to them. “But we must sit tight. It would be a sin to abandon such food.”

He had been keen for company.

“I’m American, though my ancestors were a mixed lot. My mother had a place in Venice and I came to live with her when I retired from my ministry. I have been here several years. There are worse fates.”

“Where were you before?” Henry had asked.

“First in Washington and then in New York, where I had many disagreements with Cardinal Spellman.”

He had told them he was writing a memoir. He was planning
to call it
Thick
because one conservative bishop had once told him that the Vatican had a file this thick of his liberal transgressions. He had opened his hand to show a gap of five inches between his thumb and index finger.

“An apt title, wouldn’t you say?”

He had talked of the writers and painters he had known and seemed gratified that he had been criticized by his superiors for his friendships with the rich and famous.

“I love rich people no less fervently than the needy. My only guiding belief has been that the Church should never make anyone cry.”

When they got up to leave, he had asked them to “say a prayer for an old priest.”

Nessa had kissed him on both cheeks and proclaimed it the best dinner she had ever had in Venice—with the best company.

That Sunday, they had attended mass at the Chiesa delle Zitelle, a church not always open, and rarely used by tourists. Apart from themselves, the congregation had consisted of nineteen elderly women and just three men.

Henry had whispered to Nessa, “God gathers first those whom he loves best.”

She had replied, “It’s not God who gathers the men, it’s younger women.”

Henry settled back in his seat. Even in memory, Nessa could make him laugh. He closed his eyes and was soon asleep.

Henry did not have the look of a grieving man. Careless about eating since Nessa’s death, he had become trim and his daily walks on the beach had given him a tan. He felt indecently presentable. Even Mrs. Abraham, who had greeted him with tears, had been unable to resist saying, “You look well, anyhow.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table. In front of him, in neat stacks, were what seemed to be hundreds of letters. He could see that some of the envelopes were black-edged and on many he recognized the logo of Henry Cage & Partners.

“It looks as though I have a lot to do,” he said.

Mrs. Abraham had not thought it appropriate to tell Henry of the policeman’s visit while he was in Florida, but now she was impatient to tell him her news.

“He had a photograph of the garden and me opening the front door. It was taken by this girl who was with the man they think might be responsible for the vandalism.” The words tumbled from her.

“I didn’t think to tell you when I saw them taking the
pictures—must have been a few weeks ago—I mean people are always taking snaps of this street, aren’t they?” She paused for breath. “The detective wants you to ring him.”

Henry was amused to see that her face was flushed with excitement.

“Did Cummings have a picture of the man?”

“Yes, an old one, but it was him all right—smart-looking chap.”

“I’ll get in touch and see what it’s all about. Now, I’d better get this suitcase up the stairs.”

He was deliberately businesslike.

“If you want to get off early, Mrs. Abraham, that would suit me. I didn’t sleep on the flight, and could do with a rest. We’ll talk some more tomorrow morning.”

He was aware of her disappointment as he climbed the stairs. He should have stayed and talked to her. He had remembered to bring her an Order of Service from the funeral, but it was still in his suitcase. He stopped and turned to see her putting on her coat.

“Oh, I should tell you, Peggy, that Nessa wanted me to give you a check for £10,000—from her estate. I’ll let you have it when the lawyers are through.”

He thought she was going to collapse. Her hand went up to her mouth and she wobbled, but as he came down the stairs she shook her head and bolted through the front door.

Surprisingly, there had been no such request in Nessa’s will. Perhaps she knew I would take care of it, he thought.

He went to see Cummings early next morning at Chelsea police station. The interview was more frank than on previous occasions, but not completely so.

“I do recognize the man, yes. I had a run-in with him on millennium night. I was pushed into him by the crowd and he kicked and head-butted me.”

“And did you ever see him again?”

“Once, in the Sloane Square brasserie.”

“Did he see you?”

“He complained about me to the manager. He said I was staring at his girlfriend. I was asked to leave.”

“And did you?”

“I was embarrassed. It wasn’t true.”

The photograph of his house and front garden lay on the table between them. Cummings explained how he had come by it.

“I’m pretty sure he’s our man, Mr. Cage. His name is Colin Bateman. There’s a history of violence. Did Mrs. Abraham tell you he was outside your house again last week?”

“No—we haven’t had much chance to talk.”

“We had him in for a chat and I’ve warned him off, but that’s about all we can do. We can’t prove anything. A few weeks ago he hammered a masonry nail through a dog’s skull to even a score, but I can’t prove that either—his girlfriend was quick with an alibi. But sooner or later, he’ll slip up—they all do—and then we’ll have him.”

He was a decent man and Henry felt the need to reassure him.

“I’m sure you will, but I’ve decided to sell the house.

I’m going to live in Norfolk. My son and his wife live there already—and my grandson.”

Cummings noted the softening of Henry’s voice at the mention of a grandson.

“Well, in the meantime, let’s hope our man takes my warning to heart. I wish you a quick sale and a more peaceful life in the country.”

He stood up and held out his hand. The interview was over.

As Henry left, he felt for the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket. He had intended to hand over the Polaroids to Cummings, but the need had not arisen and he was thankful to be spared the embarrassment of an explanation.

He decided to walk home via Blacklands Terrace and the John Sandoe bookshop, just off the King’s Road. Like all the bookshops he loved, it was a miracle of compression. Books were everywhere. On the staircase to the paperbacks room, stacks of books were kept on the treads, leaving little room for going up or down. (It was rumored that no one with a shoe size of over ten had ever made it up there.)

The shop seemed to order only books that Henry wanted to read and he quickened his step, eager to see what treasures were on the tables. The store was busy and he browsed for half an hour, careful as he moved from one pile of books to another not to hurry the customer next to him. Good manners are a given in bookshops. “I don’t suppose you have a copy of …” The tone is invariably considerate. Between a book’s covers there may be passion, bile, mayhem, or murder, but in the quiet spaces where it awaits its fate (either acceptance
or indifference) all is calm. For Henry, bookshops had always been restorative, and buoyed by his visit he bought Thom Gunn’s latest book of poems and left.

It was just after 2:00 and the King’s Road was busy. A young woman cut across him and darted through the open doors of Body Shop. He recognized her as the head-butter’s girlfriend and from her haste he imagined she was late back from lunch. He followed her into the shop only to see her disappear through the staff door. He waited, affecting an interest in a display of exfoliating sponges. The packaging informed him that they had been “ingeniously recycled from plastic bottles.” When he looked up, she was back in the shop, standing behind the till, wearing a black Body Shop T-shirt. He could not help noticing how beautifully her breasts conformed to the images he had in his inside pocket. He turned and walked towards her.

Unlike his parents, Hal believed in heaven.

One morning before class, Miss Martha had told him that his grandma had been in so much pain that God had wanted her in heaven where he could take care of her. This had seemed sensible to Hal. In his world, the grown-ups looked after the children and God looked after the grown-ups.

After school, he had asked his mother if she, too, thought that Grandma was in heaven.

“Perhaps she is.”

Jane had been anxious to comfort her son, but true to her own atheism, unwilling to be more than noncommittal. She would have liked to tell Hal the truth: that his grandmother had been ill and had died, that he would never see her again—anywhere.

Tom thought such honesty needlessly brutal and had cut in with a warning glance.

“Of course she’s in heaven—definitely.”

But it had been too late. Hal knew what his mother’s “perhaps” meant. It meant we might not go to the beach. It meant he might not have an ice cream. It meant that Grandma might not be in heaven.

When he thought about it, he was troubled. Miss Martha was a teacher, so he ought to believe her, but he also knew that his mother did not lie. It was very confusing—if Grandma Nessa was not in heaven, then where was she?

Over the next few days he was quieter than usual, content to curl up on his father’s lap after school. At the weekend, for the first time in months, he wet his bed.

In the past, Tom had always known how to help his son through the spasms of sadness that occasionally laid him low. At two, the boy’s grief had been easy to spot and simple to remedy. When thwarted, Hal would fall to the floor, facedown and mute, a tiny package of frozen misery. Sometimes Tom would lie beside him, saying nothing, prone as the boy himself, waiting it out. Before long, Hal would turn on his side and pull his father’s hair, a signal that the sulk was over.

At other times, Tom would step over his son and disappear into the kitchen, saying he had things to do. Inevitably, he made a noise, several noises, in fact. The double click of two tumblers hitting the kitchen counter, the cushioned clatter of the refrigerator door being opened and closed, and then the hiss of escaping bubbles as Tom pulled the tab on a can of cola. Wonder of wonders, Hal would be back on his feet, grinning at the kitchen door.

But this present sadness was different—different, too, from the misery of sickness. Tom had seen Hal passive and bewildered by fever; had lain with him throughout the night, gratuitously inhaling the vapor rub on his son’s pillow. These things he had known, and known how to handle, but what ailed his son now was loss and he did not know how to help.

The bed-wetting stopped, but Hal’s vitality did not return. Tom and Jane tried diversions.

At the Burnhams’ for Sunday lunch, they had asked one of Hal’s cousins to bring his new puppy, a white Parsons terrier with one eye ringed in black. The dog’s cheerfulness was contagious. Its floppy running had made Hal laugh, but in the car going home he was pensive.

“When is Grandpa Henry coming?”

“Next weekend. He’s driving up to see the new house.”

He decided he would ask his grandfather about Nessa. He would know where she was.

Henry arrived on Saturday, one day after Nessa’s trunks. He had asked Tom to drive over to White Horse Farm and take delivery. In the boot of the Mercedes, Henry had packed a rolled-up futon, a sleeping bag, and the small video-playing television from his bedroom in London. He planned to open the trunks, play some of the tapes, and sleep one night in the empty house. He stopped at the supermarket in Swaffham and bought what he needed for his short stay.

It was late June and the garden was in its full glory. He saw that Tom had been over to cut the grass. It all looked perfect. In years to come, he would discover that White Horse Farm was blessed. Lying in a shallow valley and sheltered by woods to the northeast, it escaped the worst of the winter winds and summer came early. It was a garden where roses thrived and fruit always ripened. By September, the vines on the south-facing walls would be heavy with grapes. But even on that first morning, before he had absorbed the full extent of his luck, he knew that leaving London for this house would be no hardship.

He found the keys where Tom had left them in the barn and decided to walk the boundaries before going inside. From the vegetable garden, part of an upper lawn that had once been a tennis court, Henry paused to look down at the house, sprawling like a contented cat in the morning sunshine. It seemed a far cry from the King’s Road.