The Possession of Mr Cave (17 page)

The Georgian houses rolled past the window as we climbed
the Mount, towards the hospital. The quiet we were sharing
seemed to be marginally civil, the calm after that earlier
tempest.

The illusion was broken with the silence.

'How are you feeling?' I asked you.

'Why would a fascist care about feelings?' you said, pulling
a thread on your bandage.

'I'm not a fascist, Bryony. I'm a father.'

'Mussolini was a father,' you said.

'I had to tell you the truth about that boy,' I said. 'What
else could I do?'

'It's not the truth,' you said, and the threat of tears stopped
me from pressing further.

We arrived in the ward to see her flirting with that young
doctor.

When he left, to make room for us by her bedside, Cynthia
looked at you and winked and made a facial expression rich
with silent innuendo. I remember you laughing and I remember
feeling strangely jealous of Cynthia, for being able to charm
you with such natural ease.

'He'd make quite a Heathcliff, wouldn't he?' she told
you, chuckling. And then in a more sombre, private tone:
'About the same age as your grandfather when I met him.
Poor Howard.'

She looked around the ward and swallowed something
back. Memories glazed her eyes. Poor Cynthia. All those
hours she had spent in that same hospital with your grandfather,
talking to oncologists or sitting by his bedside after
another futile operation. Doing the crossword with him in
whatever broadsheet she had managed to get hold of in the
shop, as the cancer crept through and colonised every part
of him.

I am sinking again, aren't I? Going backwards when I need
to go forwards and explain myself. Perhaps I am reluctant
to tell you yet another shameful fact. To reveal another
betrayal. Yet I must. I had been in your room, that day, while
you were at school. I had gone through all your drawers and
bags. I found that framed photograph he had given you the
night of Clifford's Tower. The belated birthday present. The
picture he, or someone, had taken of Reuben. Your brother's
face, smiling, no hand over his birthmark, looking down
with an anonymous blue sky behind.

'Oh, Reuben, I'm sorry,' I told the picture. And after the
guilt came the anger. How dare Denny use your brother to
try and win you over?

I placed the picture back in your bag and tried to access
your computer. I was bombarded with grey boxes and no entry
signs. It was like navigating my way through the City of
Perpetual Mist.

Eventually I conceded defeat and switched it off. Then,
as I headed out of your room, I felt a sudden impulse to
check the pockets of the coat you weren't wearing that day.
The grey flannel one I had bought you last autumn. And
it was there. On a neatly folded piece of paper. Denny's
address, written in his own vulgar handwriting. That
random combination of upper and lower case. Those ugly,
ill-formed letters. I imagined your poor pen in his hand,
as incongruously placed as Fay Wray in King Kong's fist.

I copied the address and I felt like I already knew it, as
though it was the only possible place he could live.

If it was Reuben making me feel this, he stayed back, in
the shadows. A fleeting image of council houses curving into
the distance and then nothing.

So, on with it, Terence. On with it. Yes, standing in the hospital,
looking down at Cynthia's sad and unmade face. She looked
so odd, without her dark-painted lips and eyes. Unfinished.
Like a preparatory sketch for an oil painting. Two of her
hideous am dram chums arrived. The toby jug and his wife.
At their appearance the nurse returned to tell Cynthia she
could have no more than three visitors at a time. And me,
hoodwinking you as you had so often hoodwinked me: 'Right,
we'd better be off then, Bryony.'

It worked. Your eyes stared sternly at me.

'I want to stay. I want to talk to Cynthia.'

And the toby jug, piping in: 'It's all right, Tel. I can wait
outside.'

'No. No, don't do that,' I said, perhaps too hurriedly, as I
walked away. 'I need to get back and see to something. But
Bryony can stay here if she wants. It's fine, Cynthia. Honestly.
I'll be back in an hour.'

Five minutes after I had left the hospital I was driving onto
the Greensand Estate, passing the post-war semi-detached
council houses. The homes for heroes that seemed to glow
in the pink evening light, blushing at their present occupants.
I turned left, down Leverston Road, where the newer houses
shrank in line with governmental commitment. Terraced rows
of pebble-dashed squalor, complete with their vulgar window
ornaments, crosses of St George and monotonous despair.

I had seen it earlier, in that blink of an eye.

Number 35. I pulled over and sat for a moment with the
engine off. The house was on the end of a terrace and looked
like all the others, except for the closed curtains. Had you
been there? The thought repelled me. Maybe you had been
up to his room.

I got out of the car and walked down the thin path, passing
the bare and abandoned patch of lawn. I knocked on the door
and then noticed the bell. No one answered. I tried again and
stood back, to see if there was anyone peeping through the
curtains. I thought about returning to the car and waiting for
him, or for his father. I was determined not to leave until I
had to. After all, I had time. I knew you wouldn't leave Cynthia
until I returned.

'What you after?'

I was halfway back to the car when I heard the woman's
voice. I turned to see her. Dark-haired and pale, like her son,
with a face that might once have been beautiful. She wore
jeans and a baggy T-shirt that hung off her shoulder, like a
little girl playing grown-ups. There was the vaguest sense I
had seen her before.

'Hello,' I said. 'I just wondered if your son was home?
Dennis. Denny. I'd like a word with him if I could.'

She offered a kind of limp smile. She was drunk, I realised.
'And what word is that?
Useless
?'

'Listen, I need to speak to him. Do you know where
he is?'

She shrugged and looked around at all the other houses,
even up at the sky.

'Then can I speak to you?'

The smile became a frown. 'Who are you? The police?'

'No, no I'm not. I'm Terence. Terence Cave. Your son used
to know mine. Reuben.'

'Oh,' she said, in a hyperbolic gasp. 'Oh. That poor lad
that –'

'Yes,' I said, shielding myself from her boozy sympathy.
'That was him.'

A group of young ruffians walked past kicking a football
between them.

'Go on then,' she said, leaving the door open for me to
follow. 'So long as y'ain't a copper you can come in.'

I walked into the narrow hallway and was loosely gestured
through to the living room, which apart from the smell of
cigarette smoke and the empty cereal bowl seemed unlived
in. There was a crumpled carrier bag, as well, lying next to
the chair, and some envelopes on the mantelpiece. Near
those envelopes there were two small desolate pictures. A
framed photograph of a boy who didn't look that much
older than Denny, dressed in a soldier's uniform. And
another, an older one, of a different man. A man with a
dark moustache. He had his arm around a woman, sitting
in another house.

'What are you requiring with Dennis?' The question broke
my thoughts, and I turned to her again, to those eyes that
kept widening then narrowing again, as if trying to fix me in
one spot.

'It's quite a delicate issue, actually,' I said.

'Fire ahead,' she said, miming a pistol with her fingers.

'Well, the thing is, it's about my daughter. You see, I think
she and Dennis might be forming some kind of a –'

'You can sit down, you know,' she said. 'So long as you're
delicate.' She laughed, and I had the feeling I was either being
mocked or flirted with, but I was not sure which.

'Thank you.' I placed myself down on the sofa, and felt
myself weakening, losing my purpose.

'Would you like a drink of tea?' She pronounced each word
carefully, like a senile aristocrat.

'No, I'm fine.'

She went into the kitchen. 'I'm going to get myself a
refreshing drink of Coke. My mouth gets very dry . . .'

I heard her pouring out what sounded like two drinks, with
a pause between, but she returned with only one.

'Go on,' she said, and closed her eyes for a long sip.

I looked at her and for a moment I forgot myself. The
bare shoulder, the loose hair, the drunken smile. All these
were weapons sent by an invisible enemy, working against
what I'd come for. (Bryony, I must tell you never to confuse
love with desire. There is the craving of the flesh and there
is the craving of the heart, and to conflate the two is akin
to mistaking a monkey for an eagle.)

I closed my eyes, and gained focus. 'Denny was there the
night Reuben, my son, died.'

'Oh, it was well terrible what happened,' she said, in her
true voice.

'Did he tell you about it?'

'No.' This disclosure was hardly a surprise. Indeed, it
merely confirmed my worst suspicions. Your brother's death
had evidently meant nothing to Denny. 'A copper came round
to see him.'

I nodded, and caught myself glancing at the small mole on
her naked shoulder.

'Your son and my daughter are seeing a lot of each other.
Did you know about this?'

She laughed, nervously. 'Poor gal.'

'What do you –'

I looked over at her mantelpiece. At the envelopes, coloured
the dull brown of state authority. I saw her name, 'Lorraine
Hart'. It came back to me. 'Denny 'Hammerblow' Hart'.

Hart. Hart. Hart.

And then I saw it.

I looked again at the photo of the couple, sitting in a different
house. The woman was her. Younger, happier, more sober, but
definitely her. But it was the man's face that troubled me. The
moustache. The warm, deceptive smile. Those eyes.

'Where's his father?' I asked.

She laughed at this. It was hard, drunken laughter. Laughter
to cover the cracks of raw emotion.

'His dad's away.'

'Away?'

'At Ranby.'

The word was a slap in the face. 'At Ranby
Prison
?'

She nodded, without shame. This was getting worse. I had
the feeling of descent, as I sat there. The very real sensation
of being lowered into an abyss.

My stomach flipped. Panic thudded my chest. 'Andrew Hart.'

I whispered it aloud, and saw it in my mind, the way I
had seen it at the time, in local-newspaper font. And those
eyes I knew so much better than the face, staring out at me
from that photograph. The name swirled around me. I needed
to get out, I needed to get out of that vile little house. 'You
were there, weren't you?' I asked her. 'In court.'

Under the vodka-glaze there was no recognition.

'You pathetic woman,' I shouted, and felt a brief but intense
pain inside my head. 'You were there. In court.'

Her smile died. 'Who are you? Here, don't talk to me like
that, you nutbag. Gerrout me . . . house.'

I stood up and spoke slowly. 'Tell your son to stay away
from my daughter. Tell him not to come near her. Tell him –'

Things began to grow dark. I was sliding again, away
from myself, and another of Reuben's memories invaded my
mind.

I was with Denny, coming back to this house, and smelt the
sick as soon as we were through the door.

'Mam?' Denny called.

We put down our bags and went into the main room.

'Mam?'

The radio was on, blaring out from the kitchen.

'Mam?'

She was lying on the sofa like something had flung her
there. Denny shook her.

'Mam, wake up, wake up.'

He looked at the carrier bag where the sweet stench was
coming from. There was some on the carpet, too, where she
had missed. Two empty bottles of Imperial Vodka lay half
covered under her denim jacket.

'Mam, wake up!'

Her eyes moved under their lids, unborn creatures about
to hatch.

There was nothing for a moment but the singing on the radio.

If you get caught between the moon and New York City
The best that you can do
The best that you can do
Is fall in love
.

And then she laughed and her eyes closed and Denny turned
to me, to Reuben, and said, 'I'm sorry.'

*

'Tell him –' I couldn't finish my sentence. 'Get away,' I whispered.
'Reuben, get away.'

Denny's mother looked at me with wide, sobered eyes. I
turned round, and walked out of that place. I saw the ruffians
kicking their football against the Volvo, and shooed them
away, ignoring their wild shouts and gestures as I drove off.

I was halfway back to the hospital when I saw him running,
heading back to the estate. I had just turned the headlights
on, and there he was, shining like a vision, pressing his sweat-glossed
limbs forward up the hill. I pulled over, high on the
pavement, and parked in his path.

'Stop,' I told him, winding down the window. 'We need to
talk. About Bryony.'

He obeyed my command, his hands on his hips, and caught
his breath. 'What?' he said. 'What do you want?'

I had to be quick about my business, as I couldn't risk any
interference from Reuben. I could still feel him, you see,
rummaging through the infected house of my mind as he
searched for a way to switch off the lights.

I had a new plan. A new plan formed by the desperate
knowledge I had just discovered.

'I can give you three thousand pounds,' I told Denny. 'Three
thousand pounds for you to leave her alone.'

He looked at me with unbelieving eyes. 'What?'

I reiterated, as I felt the tingles at the back of my brain.
'Three. Thousand. Pounds. If you never see her again. I can
get you the money tomorrow.'

He rubbed his hand through his damp black hair. 'Are
you real?'

'Yes,' I told him. 'I'm real.' And I was real. I was as real
as the patched-up tarmac he stood on. I would have paid
double that amount. I would have sold the shop and its
contents. I would have sold my own kidneys for him to leave
you alone.

'You don't have a clue, do you?' he said, shaking his head
with incredulity.

'About what?'

'I love her. I love her more than owt.'

Reuben was leaving. There was no pain, no tingling of the
cerebellum. I was clear, restored. My anger had a purity. It
was all my own.

'I know all about you, Denny Hart. I know all about your
father. I know all about the poor girl whose life you ruined.
The whole shoddy lot. Now, I am telling you to stay away
from Bryony. I'm telling you to take the money and stay
away.'

He was still shaking his head as he whispered his torturous
words. 'I love her and she loves me, do you get that?'

A woman walked by in a wax jacket, dragged along by an
eager springer spaniel. 'No, Barney, come on,' she said, as the
dog leaned its nose towards Denny's salted skin.

'You don't love her,' I said, when the dog-walker had passed.
'You have no understanding of love. Love is a blessing of the
mind, not a craving of the body. How old are you?'

'Fifteen.'

'Exactly. Fifteen. In a month you won't feel anything for
her. You'll have moved on. She is a vulnerable girl. She has
lost her twin brother and she looks for anything . . . anyone . . .
to fill that gap. You just happened to come along and occupy
a certain space. She'll move on, even if you don't. She'll leave
you soon enough. You might as well take my offer.'

He frowned, drawing his eyes and nose and mouth closer
together, like rallied troops. I thought, for a moment, he
was going to drag me out of the car-window and pummel
my flesh.

'Reuben were right about you,' he said.

'What?' I said. 'What did you say? How dare you bring
Reuben into this. If it wasn't for you, Reuben would still be
alive and you'd have to search the canalways of Britain to find
a bargepole long enough for Bryony to touch you with. You
destroyed his life, and I'm not going to let you destroy hers
as well. Look at you. Look at you. Look at you.'

He looked down at his sweat-soaked T-shirt, and the body
it clung to. A flicker of doubt passed over his primitive face.
For a moment, at least, he knew I was right. He knew you
were a million miles above him. He knew he deserved your
love no more than a raven deserved to pluck a star from
the sky.

The moment passed. 'You don't get it. I love her. We was
made for each other.'

'And what cheap –'

A sudden sensation of dizziness, coupled by the usual tingles,
the buzzing, the flies, caused my sentence to disappear inside
a fog of unknowing. Reuben was back, stronger, trying to
blank me out.

Denny had no idea what was happening and kept wading
through his own delusions. 'I can look after her. After I finish
school I'm going to get a job. I can make her happy. I know
it. I've got it planned. I can –'

'No,' I said, fighting Reuben as much as Denny's words.
'No. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. You'll leave her. You'll take the
money and you'll leave her or I'll make her leave you. That's
the proposition. Do you understand me, you ignorant –'

Denny had shaken his head and was already jogging away,
taking the road with him. Everything retreated as the darkness
tried to press in. I blinked it away, held it back, as the
boy jogged on.

'I can do it,' I called after him, as he climbed that slow
slope. 'I can make her leave you. It will be easy. You just watch.
She will know who you are, Dennis Hart.'

We were driving back on that same stretch of road. The
grandeur it always held seemed suddenly lost, as though it
were a mere replica, a movie set. You were in the back, as was
your custom these days, gazing out at a pavement Denny had
passed over only thirty minutes before.

I told you – slowly, clearly, with careful spacing – the truth
I had discovered that evening. Of course, I didn't tell you
precisely how I had uncovered that information, as that was
something you didn't need to know. What you needed to
know was what I gave you. Who he was. His point of origin.
The rotten tree that dropped the rotten apple. The father
whose eyes had pierced my nightmares for nearly fifteen
years.

'So, do you understand me? Do you hear what I am saying?
Andrew Hart was the man who killed your mother. Do I
need to tell you anything else about that boy for you to see
sense?'

You said nothing. I watched the shadows pass your face as
you kept staring. Not a flicker. Not a frown. Your thoughts
were a buried book I had forgotten how to unearth.

We arrived home.

You went upstairs.

You tapped away on a computer I wished I'd never bought
and I stood there, in the living room, aware of that yanking
absence that seemed to be shared by the old furniture, and by
your smiling portrait on the wall. I longed for the cat to rub
its head against my legs. I longed to hear your cello. I longed
to see Reuben – the real, living Reuben – slouched on the
sofa. I longed for your mother to tell me it was going to be
all right. I craved a thousand things I couldn't bring back and
stood there as the room tilted and the present moment, like
the memory itself, faded away.

All evening I listened, all evening I stayed there with that
blasted thing against my ear, waiting for you to call him.
You never did. Nor did you telephone Imogen, as you had
always done before whenever I aggravated you. In fact, you
never spoke a word. No, you spoke one word. 'God.' The
one we are always left with, when all the others have run
out.

There was nothing else, just your angry breath, and I grew
tired. I lay back against the bed and placed the speaker beside
me on the pillow as my eyes grew heavy.

'Dad?' It was the quietest voice I had ever heard, coming
out of the speaker. He said something else, something I couldn't
quite comprehend. Let me? Help me? Set me?

'Reuben?' I asked, but I was dropping now, deeper, deeper,
into the dark.

I was inside your room, by your bed, but I had no recollection
of either how I came to be there or how long I had
been standing. My eyes were fully adjusted to the dark, to
the infinite degrees of shade dictated by the soft golden light
beyond the curtain. Light that stretched across the park to
reach you. His light.

It was the sound of my own breathing that had restored
me to myself. That faint nasal whistle indicative of my sinus
trouble. I hadn't woken you, though. You lay there, lost in
unknowing sleep, your neck exposed above the sheets and
blanket, your head arched back, sideways on the pillow,
looking so proud, so defiant, ruling the empire of your dreams.

My heart galloped. What was I doing there? Had I sleepwalked,
or had it been him? I did not and could not know.
Yet on the furthest fringe of my own awareness, at the precise
moment of restoration, I had the last effects of the feeling
that had sent my heart into this ridiculous frenzy. A strange
unnameable emotion with the blinding intensity of love and
hate but that was in fact neither, or was such a confusion of
the two that it couldn't be labelled strictly as one or the other.
The emotion seemed intricately associated with the sight of
your neck, of its slender form gaining shape in the darkness.
My swan. My poor, darling swan.

That Keatsian urge. That urge of artists and restorers of old
furniture. That contradictory instinct, that chisel-and-thread
impulse to break and repair.

Creations and destroyings all at once,
Fill'd the hollows of my brain.

The feeling retreated fast, like the tide of an unplugged
ocean, and I couldn't assess it further.

*