Day Four (44 page)

Her alarm beeps. Almost time for his piano lesson. She breathes in, then pads up the stairs. Desiree and Marcus have made sure his days are filled with activities: Young Einstein classes, swimming lessons, French. Desiree let slip that a woman used to come in once a week to teach him Tagalog, ‘so that he wouldn’t lose touch with his culture’; she didn’t say why the lessons had stopped. The piano teacher, a brittle Eastern European woman, who Tracey finds almost as intimidating as Joshua, is the only person she’s met so far who isn’t affected by the boy’s weirdness.

‘Hi, Joshua! Almost time for your piano lesson.’ She hates the overly bright voice she uses when she speaks to him. ‘You ready to get going?’

He gives her one of his,
what are you, stupid?
looks. He’s already dressed, sitting on the bed, waiting for her. She’s tried to articulate what it is about him she finds so repellent. It’s not just that he never smiles; there’s a weight to him, as if he’s always silently judging her. The neighbourhood kids are also wary around him. She’s tried to connect with the other au pairs and nannies, the little club that gathers every day around the benches in the park, but they won’t let her in. She knows she shouldn’t take it personally. It’s not her, it’s the fear of their charges being sucked into a playdate with Joshua. Whenever they go to the park, he always ends up playing by himself. Although he never really plays – just watches, with that slightly sardonic twist of his mouth.

On her third day here, it had all got too much and Marcus caught her crying in the kitchen. He confided that up until he was three, Joshua had screamed almost continually. It had stopped overnight; as if a switch had been thrown inside him. Marcus laughed humourlessly, and said he didn’t know what was worse, the non-stop crying or how he was now. Tracey gets the impression that he’s been avoiding her since then.

She ushers Joshua out of the front door, and it begins to drizzle the second they step onto the top step. ‘What a nasty day!’ she chirrups. He stands absolutely still while she puts on his gloves. ‘You warm enough, Joshua?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shall we get going then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

It starts spitting with more force as they reach the pavement. Autumn in New York. The sky heavy and low. She hasn’t even been across the bridge to Manhattan; the skyline taunts her. The boy’s hand is a small, repellent lump of wood in her hand. Back when she’d mistaken his reticence for shyness, she’d chattered away to him every time they left the house: ‘Look! A dog,’ or, ‘One day we must go to the museum,’ but now she doesn’t bother. They walk the five blocks to Fulton in silence, the leaves slick and slimy under her cheap boots.

At the crossing, they wait for the ‘walk’ signal to flash and then hurry across with the rest of the people eager to get out of the rain. They pass a boutique, the clothes costing more than a month’s salary, and a deli stocked with cheese wheels.

‘Nearly there!’ she sing-songs, wishing she could just fire up her music and forget about him. Tracey usually waits in the Starbucks on the main drag while he has his lesson, which is pretty much turning into the highlight of her week. They turn the corner. A woman in high black boots and an oversized knitted cap placed artfully over bobbed hair, weaves around them, giving Joshua an ‘aw, aren’t you cute’ look. And he does look cute in his Baby Gap boots and Paddington Bear overcoat. The woman moves to cross the road, raising a lofty hand to forestall the truck moving towards her. Tracey feels a twinge of envy, wishing she had the kind of confidence it takes to hold up traffic. The truck slams on its brakes to let the woman cross, but she hasn’t counted on the motorbike behind it. An engine revs as it speeds up to zip around the truck. It happens, like these things always do, in slow motion. The motorbike brakes sharply, attempts to swerve around the woman, wobbles, then tips and slides, knocking the woman’s feet from under her. For a split second the woman’s eyes lock with Tracey’s –
this can’t be happening –
and then:
fwump
.

Tracey grips Joshua’s hand and drags him back. ‘Don’t look,’ she screams. ‘Don’t look.’

She tries not to, but she can’t help fixating on the mess where the woman’s head should be, and . . . and . . . there’s something spattered on the pavement. She hustles Joshua over to the Starbucks and drops to her knees in front of him, the damp pavement soaking through the knees of her jeans. The coffee-shop window is filling up with rubberneckers; several are pushing their way through the door, looking through their gel-phones’ screens, filming the carnage.

She brushes rain from the front of Joshua’s parka. The kid’s face remains slack. ‘Joshua. Are you okay?’

He nods. She takes his gloved hands in hers, scrambles for something to say, ends up burbling: ‘The lady who fell is just sleeping. The ambulance will come in a minute and she’s going to be fine, you’ll see.’

He gives her a look of such contempt, she drops his hands and finds herself wiping hers on her jeans.
Just a kid, he’s just a kid
. ‘She’s not sleeping,’ he says. ‘She’s dead.’

‘We don’t know that for sure, Joshua.’

‘Yes we do. But don’t worry,’ he says, with a lazy grin. ‘Know this. There
is
no death.’ And then he laughs.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks go to my fabulous editor Anne Perry and agent extraordinaire Oli Munson for their endless patience and support: you both rock. Lauren Beukes, Kate Sinclair, Alan Kelly, Paige Nick, Helen Moffett and Alan and Carol Walters kindly read the novel in its fledgling stage and offered fantastic comments, advice and arse-kicking when it was most needed. Thank you all.

I’m also in debt to Ben Summers, Becky Brown, Vickie Dillon, Hélène Ferey, Jennifer Custer, Veronique Norton, Jason Bartholomew, Conrad Williams, Oliver Johnson, Reagan Arthur and the hard-working publicity and production teams at Hodder & Stoughton and Little, Brown.

The majority of people who generously gave me insider info about the cruise industry and/or information about all matters maritime requested not to be named here for various reasons (primarily because they work for the cruise industry). You know who you are and I’m extremely grateful for your time and kindness. All mistakes are mine.

Charlie Martins and Savannah Lotz patiently bore the brunt of reading endless drafts and endured being kept awake by the grind of the coffee machine at 3 a.m. As always: thank you for having my back.