The Wise Friend, page 24
Perhaps the pause conveyed his disbelief that I should ask. “We’ll stay together,” he said.
I couldn’t risk enquiring whether she’d said so, a question likely to antagonise him further. Before I could think of a safer response he said “How are you doing, dad?”
“Just working on my latest task.”
“I mean have you sorted out your shit.”
“I believe I will have soon.”
As I hoped this might satisfy or at any rate silence him, I heard a doorbell ring beyond him. “She’s here now,” he said.
I could have thought our conversation had summoned her to put an end to it. “We’ll talk more soon,” I said.
This was far from the promise it resembled. It felt more like an omen of the unavoidable. Pocketing my phone, I grabbed my car keys from the desk. I’d learned what I needed to know – that Bella would be at Julia’s – and could only hope she wouldn’t sense my purpose.
The suburbs, the underwater tunnel where the rush hour had already begun, the city centre on the far side full of queues of traffic, the relative release the motorway eventually provided, adding my car to the race home – I was much less aware of any of this than of the glances I kept having to give the mirror. There was never any sign of an intruder, but had there been until just before she’d sent my parents to their deaths? Perhaps my thoughts weren’t quite enough to bring her, unless she couldn’t find an excuse to absent herself from where she was. Only my own nervousness had undermined my driving by the time I reached Julia’s house.
The shadow of the tall building dulled the colours of the tagged flowers in the front garden. When I opened the gate the latch gave a clank loud enough for a doorbell. It could easily have alerted someone, but the house was so quiet that except for seeing Julia’s car on the road I might have imagined the place was deserted. More likely someone was lying in wait, since I felt observed. I had barely rung the bell when the door was snatched open. I thought Bella might have sprung the trap, but Julia confronted me. “We’re about to have dinner, Patrick.”
It was plainly not an invitation, although I could have taken the aroma of Asian spices for one. No doubt she’d made a vegan feast on Bella’s behalf. I saw her have a second thought, which didn’t lead to hospitality. “Who are you going to pretend to be now?” she said.
“Me.” This was both a statement and a protest at the question. “I’m not the one who—”
Before I could finish she turned her back on me to call “It’s your father, Roy.”
The announcement sounded no more welcoming than her initial greeting had. The kitchen door opened at the end of the hall, and Bella was first to appear, carrying two glasses. Roy was behind her with another glass and a creaking plastic bottle of red juice. He looked no happier to see me than Julia and his companion did, though Bella’s face outdid theirs for blankness. “What do you want, dad?” he said.
“I don’t know why people keep asking me that sort of thing. The answer has to be the same until it’s done.”
“I’ll ask you as well,” Julia said.
“I need to speak to everybody while I have you all together.”
Julia’s face withdrew even more expression, and then she stepped back. “I need to do that too,” she said. “Come in but don’t expect to stay long.”
Roy looked not far from dismayed as I crossed the threshold, while Bella betrayed a smile too faint to admit defiance. “Just put those on the table,” Julia told them. “We’ll go in the front room.”
Cacti were arranged in the order of their dwarfish stature along an ornamental mantelpiece as roughly stony as a desert. Cushions importing patterns from Mexico squatted on a pair of chairs and on the couch, where they framed a stack of gallery catalogues and studies of Thelma’s work. When Roy and Bella took the couch I wondered if they meant to join hands on top of the books. I sat on the chair Julia had left unoccupied, opposite an extravagant television screen like a blackboard waiting for a lesson to be chalked on it. “Just say what you told me before, Roy,” his mother said.
His grimace almost shut his answer in. “Which?”
“Did you ring the archive to ask if a book had been found?”
“I didn’t. I said.”
“That’s absolutely true,” I said. “I did.”
“And you claimed to be Roy.”
Now that I understood her accusation of pretending, I liked it even less. “I did nothing of the kind.”
“Hannah says you led her to believe you were.”
“No, she assumed it and I hadn’t time to put her right. I needed to find out about the book.”
“You mean you were afraid she wouldn’t tell you if you owned up. I hope you’re satisfied with the result of your performance. We still have no idea where the book is.”
“I can tell you someone does, and you shouldn’t be accusing me.”
Was I hoping Bella would own up to some reaction? Her expression – faintly puzzled and concerned, as the ignorant might expect her to look – didn’t change. I was appalled by how unnatural her pose appeared to me, not to mention her very presence, and how natural to Roy and his mother. They saw a girl sitting next to her boyfriend, but I could still feel how my fingers had sunk into her flesh. I was so busy trying not to shudder that I failed to realise how fiercely I was staring at her until Roy said “Dad, stop doing that.”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“Harassing Bell. You said you wouldn’t any more. You did yesterday as well.”
Julia turned to face me, simultaneously leaning back as though recoiling from the sight. “What did your father do?”
“Took me looking for Bell’s house and didn’t even ask her first. That’s all right because we never found it, because he got the place wrong.”
“I didn’t, Roy. If you think back—”
“Then you went there to make me think Bell’s been playing tricks on me. That’s the truth and I was trying not to say,” he said as though I’d forced him to accuse me in front of Bella and his mother. “You tried to make it look like she’d been in that old hotel and all you did was show me you had.”
“Why don’t we all go and see where she lives right now? Or you can tell us why you wouldn’t like it, Bella.”
“We’ll do no such thing,” Julia declared. “When are you going to give this up, Patrick? I’ve told you to stop and now Roy has. Carry on if you want to lose him.”
“If that’s what it has to take. However much it has to.” I was struggling not to let my dismay at the prospect hinder me. “How about you, Bella?” I said. “Are you feeling harassed?”
“I feel the same as Roy.”
“Don’t say you have no feelings of your own, or is that part of how you’re made? I’m sure you’ve convinced Roy you have some.”
“Patrick, I think it’s time for you to leave.” Before I could reply Julia added “And I think you’d better stay away.”
“Mum’s right, dad.”
“Surely you won’t let everyone do your talking for you, Bella. You had plenty to say to me.”
Roy kept his unhappy stare on me as he said “What does he mean, Bell?”
For the first time she seemed disconcerted, and I experienced a surge of vicious satisfaction. “Patrick,” Julia said, “for the second and last time—”
I held Bella’s resolutely innocent gaze with mine. “Give her a chance to speak. You can see she wants to be heard.”
Perhaps this provoked her, unless it simply left her no option except to respond. “All right, I feel harassed. I didn’t want to say.”
“There’s your answer, Patrick, and now will you please—”
“What don’t they know about, Bella?”
Julia had let her recover herself. “You’ll have to explain that, Patrick.”
“You haven’t told them what I meant before.”
“I should think you ought to know that best of anyone.”
“Come on, Bell,” Roy said and looked at her at last. “If you know, you tell us.”
With a wistfulness that turned my mouth sour Bella said “Has he made you suspicious of me?”
“If he says you know what he’s on about I expect you do, unless he’s mad.”
I saw her consider suggesting some version of this, but then she reached for her bag. “Since you’re insisting, you can hear for yourself.”
I couldn’t believe I’d guessed her intention until she produced the phone – my aunt’s phone. Before I could identify it aloud I was silenced by my own voice. “You know who this is and why. Let me have an answer.”
“That’s harassment if ever I heard some,” Julia said. “An answer to what, may we ask?”
“To a lot of things that need one. What do you say, Bella?”
“I assumed you just meant I should call you back. And to save Patrick the trouble of pointing it out, this phone used to belong to his aunt. I had it from my father.”
Though she was forgetting to sound Roy’s age, nobody else appeared to have noticed. “Father,” I said with no tone at all.
“Yes, Patrick,” Julia said, “her father. What are you trying to imply?”
“I was wondering if we’re ever going to meet him.”
“I’d say there’s increasingly less reason why you should.”
“Are you making other people speak for you again, Bella?”
She met this with a sad look that I was dismayed to think might be enough for Roy and his mother. I was about to provoke more of a response when Roy said “Bell…”
His hesitation suggested doubt, and I found I was holding my breath. “What do you want to say, Roy?” she said.
“How could your dad have got that phone? Dad’s aunt wouldn’t have given it to him, would she?”
“I wasn’t suggesting she did. He acquired it after, you’ll forgive me, Patrick, after she’d no more use for it.”
How much longer would it take her listeners to notice that Bella’s speech had stopped pretending to be youthful? I hoped Roy was about to comment along those lines, but he said “Still doesn’t make sense.”
As I nearly shut my eyes to contain a surge of hope Julia said “Roy, you shouldn’t let your father come between you.”
“I’m not. I’m only thinking.” The hand he extended towards Bella resembled a plea. “How come it wasn’t broken when she fell?” he said.
“Because she was so preoccupied she left it at home.”
When he failed to question this I said “How would you know that?”
“I don’t believe I did. I should think we can guess that’s what may have happened.”
“Or her father could have told her, Patrick.”
I saw Roy accept at least one explanation. I had to carry out my plan, however devastating the result would be. I was taking quite a breath when Julia said “Dinnertime now or it’ll be ruined.”
As we competed to be first at standing up I said “I suppose I’m not included.”
“I’m afraid that’s very much the case.”
“Then I hope you’re better soon, Roy. I’m worried, and I expect your mother must be.”
“It’s just a cold,” Julia said as Roy hid the evidence of a cough behind a hand. “How these men do suffer, Bella. I’ve seen you survive worse, Patrick.”
I was dismayed by her insistence on the commonplace, but hadn’t I previously tried that myself? Caution left me as I said “And let’s hope your condition improves, Bella.”
She and Roy and his mother stared at me, and Bella looked no less uncomprehending than they did. “What one’s that?” Roy said.
“The problem with her back.”
“She hasn’t got a problem.” With a little less conviction Roy said “Have you, Bell?”
“I wouldn’t say so. I hope you won’t give me any, Patrick.”
The disguised threat only provoked me to tell Roy “You don’t know her as well as you should. She mustn’t have needed to let you that close.”
“I believe you were leaving, Patrick,” Julia said in a voice that had stiffened with control.
“Give us a minute, mum,” Roy said and confronted me. “What aren’t I supposed to know?”
“Why don’t you show them, Bella?”
Her look was maintaining its innocence. “I’ve nothing to show.”
“Then show them that.”
As I willed her to betray understanding, she turned up her empty hands. “How can I show nothing?”
“You can hide how you are the same way you’ve hidden other things, can’t you? Only you forgot to hide it from me.”
Julia strode to throw the door wide and stood by it, glaring at me as Roy demanded “What are you saying she hid? When could she even have?”
“I’ve already said, her back. Your shoulders aren’t quite what they should be, are they, Bella? Not entirely formed.”
“Is that how I am, Roy? What would you say?”
I thought this might be less an appeal than a concealed spell or a means of reviving the effects of one, especially since Roy said “I think you’re pretty perfect.”
“No need just to think,” I said. “You can touch them and find out. Nobody will mind.”
Julia made to protest but then aimed just her glare at me as Roy leaned across the stack of books about my aunt to stroke Bella’s left shoulder. When he reached further, the stack tottered, slipping awry. He drew his hand across both shoulders before straightening up. His face looked reluctant to admit an expression. “What is that, Bell? It wasn’t there last time.”
I saw Bella realise as I did that their visits to occult sites had heightened his perceptions. Perhaps she’d been able to block them until now, and her careless invitation had let them in. “I’m sorry if you find me wanting,” she said.
“Happy now, Patrick?” Julia said. “Do you think you’ve gone far enough?”
I feared I might not have, though Bella’s protest hadn’t been quite immediate enough to hide a hint of discomposure. “I don’t care. You’re still you,” Roy told her, but then the hand he’d reached out gestured as if desperate to grasp the air. “Only how did he know?”
“It was the last time you came to me, wasn’t it, Bella?” I saw no point in stopping short now. “Last night in my bedroom,” I said.
“Get out, Patrick,” Julia said. “Get out this minute.”
I watched Roy’s hand sink as though its fingers had grown leaden and slump on the topmost book. Bella widened her eyes to display their depths of innocence, but the charm failed to work. The increased sensitivity she’d conferred on Roy was working against her, and I could tell he sensed some of her falseness. “Yes, get out,” he said.
“Roy, you said you wouldn’t let your father turn you against me.”
“He hasn’t,” Roy said and gave her a feverish stare. “You have.”
“Roy, think of all we’ve done together. Think how close we’ve grown. Are you really going to believe him when—”
“It’s just I don’t believe you any more.”
“I think you should both leave,” Julia said. “I’d appreciate your doing so at once.”
To my hysterical astonishment, Bella tried appealing to her, a move I found grotesquely inhuman. “Who do you mean, Julia?”
“Are you seriously asking that? Not Roy. Not my poor son.”
For a moment I thought Bella would refuse to leave, lingering until some aspect of her presence overwhelmed everyone in the room. Then she gave a shrug that I imagined flexing the hollows in her shoulders and sauntered past Julia into the hall. I thought it best to keep an eye on her, but I hadn’t reached the hall when I heard her open the front door. As I made for it, Julia stayed alongside. “You’ve excelled yourself, Patrick. I wouldn’t have thought even you could be that jealous,” she said, and with further loathing “I wonder if you broke the law.”
She shut the door as soon as I was out of the house. No doubt she’d seen Bella waiting beyond the gate. I was determined not to be daunted by the sight – by the small face concentrated around those great eyes like emblems of a secret close to revelation, or a threat withholding its words. “Shall I take you back where you live?” I said.
“I’ve no need of you, Patrick. You’ll wish I had.” She turned away in the direction of the abandoned hotel, and I made for my car. As it unlocked with a chorus of clicks I heard her voice at my back. “Expect me any time,” it said. She sounded close enough to touch, but when I glanced around, the street was as empty as death.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Constant Visitor
By the time I reached home my hands ached from gripping the wheel, and my neck had grown stiff from twisting my head around whenever a glance in the mirror failed to suffice. I was afraid the absence of any unwelcome reflection needn’t mean I was alone in the car. Each time I found myself surrounded by traffic, panic closed in too, a fear that I might be distracted from driving and cause a crash as my father had. When I left the motorway at last I felt just as vulnerable at every junction, fearful I’d be tricked into losing control, crossing the line in front of an oncoming vehicle or lurching past a red light. I hoped the tunnel could offer some respite, but it felt like being buried too far underground for miles. Knowing the river was overhead for much of the length of the tunnel didn’t help. Surely even Bella couldn’t cause it to be flooded, which simply meant she had some other fate in store for me. I kept telling myself I’d needed to act as I had in order to protect Roy, but until I did I’d failed to grasp how I would be alone with whatever I’d brought on myself.
The whole of my apartment felt as if it housed a threat, even once I’d switched on all the lights. The emptiness of every room needn’t mean any of them would remain deserted when I turned my back. Although the bathroom mirror showed nobody behind me, I couldn’t help glancing around, for the reflection had started to feel like a trick. I was glad to leave it behind, even if this meant retreating to my bedroom. At least the quilt lay too flat to be concealing an intruder, and I was trying to persuade myself that I should do my best to sleep when I noticed a faint trail glistening on the pillow.
