Silent Children (21 page)

"Hey, it's okay. No harm done that I know of."

"No such thing as bad publicity, don't they say?"

"I guess."

Perhaps Leslie should have kept the observation to herself. He was obviously more bothered than he wanted her and Ian to know. She folded the newspaper on the kitchen table to conceal the headline and the reappearance of the picture of Jack on the stairs. "At least it won't have spoiled your book, will it?"

"I figure it's still safe in here," he said, knuckling his forehead so sharply that she winced. "That's where I live."

"With us too, I hope."

"See, Rupe's mother didn't care if she wrecked your book. That makes her a bitch, and the wheelie woman's one as well."

"Ian, I do think you could put away some of your vocabulary for a while if not for good. It doesn't hurt to choose your words even if it takes more time, does it, Jack? I'm sure that's part of being a writer."

"It's helped me so far.'"

"There, Ian, advice from a professional."

"If you can use a tad more, try writing that story you wrote again before you forget it. It'll be a second draft, and real writers do those. Want to promise me you will?"

"I'll try."

"If anyone's to blame for the lady in the wheelchair keeping after us, I must be. I didn't handle her too well the time we met."

"Stop feeling guilty, Jack. You've no reason I can see."

"It's sweet of you to say so." Looking as though he might have reached for her if Ian hadn't been there, Jack stood up. "Guess I'll take a shower and try to wash away my sins."

That was so deadpan it hardly sounded like a joke. He'd already been preoccupied when he had come downstairs in his dressing gown—his robe, she supposed he would call it—for a cup of the English breakfast tea he'd grown fond of, and she wished she hadn't left the newspaper in sight, though he would have had to deal with the report sooner or later. She hoped he had now. She was clearing away her and Ian's breakfast plates—Jack hadn't wanted anything to eat—when the phone rang.

Ian sprinted to it, but his eagerness lasted only until he'd answered it. "Some man for Jack."

"Run up and tell him."

She hadn't meant quite so immediately that he didn't take time to ask the caller to hold on. She dumped the plates and utensils in the sink and hurried to pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

"You'll be what's your name again?"

It wasn't only how blurred the slow male voice was that threw her, it was its resentment of having to turn its answer into a question. "You tell me," she said.

"Doesn't matter. Is Jack Lamb there?"

"There's some man on the phone," Ian was shouting over the cloudburst of the shower as Leslie made an effort to meet rudeness with politeness. "My son's just letting him know you're calling."

"Knows who I am then, does he?"

"My son? He does if you told him."

"Then he doesn't."

"Phone," Ian yelled, "some man," and before Leslie had time to word a retort to the person referred to, the bathroom door flew open, revealing Jack in the process of wrapping himself in a towel. "Who is it?" he demanded.

"No idea, and frankly I can do without knowing. He doesn't seem to want anyone except maybe you to know. He's all yours, or I can cut him off."

"No," Jack said, "no, don't do that." Having secured the towel around himself, he ran down to her, leaving a moist footstep on each stair. "Jack Lamb," he said, turning the receiver and his head toward the wall.

Leslie returned to the kitchen while Ian took the chance to brush his teeth. "What name is that?" she heard Jack say, and "Right" and "Not yet" and "Not one of those either" and "Working on it" and "Sure, if you want." She saw him scribbling on the pad beside the phone before he said "I'll be in touch."

"Anything good?" she risked asking.

"Nothing bad, I guess." He tore the page off the pad and found nowhere to put it. "I wouldn't know how much to trust the guy, though, if he's as drunk as he sounded this early."

"But it wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be."

"I don't—how do you mean?"

"He wasn't as bad as I made him sound."

"Got you. Maybe not. He was an agent wanting to know if I had one in Britain and if I had a publisher yet. For, you know, the book he heard I'm working on, though don't ask me where he heard I was."

"It's got to be encouraging to find you're in demand, hasn't it? It could be the start of a revival. We can hope."

"You think?" For a moment he seemed about to say more, and then a shiver brought his knees together. The hall didn't strike her as cold or draughty, though of course she wasn't wearing only a towel. "I'd better get my shower," he said.

"Tell Ian I'm just nipping next door," Leslie called after him and, having watched his increasingly—not to say enticingly—bare legs ascend the stairs, let herself out of the house.

The
Advertiser
was protruding from Janet's and Vern's letterbox. She dragged the paper out and stooped to peer through the slot. The hall and the stairs and the three closed doors were as they should be. She released the metal flap and heard an echo of its clank somewhere within. As she straightened up she became aware that a woman who'd parked a red Volkswagen halfway along Jericho Close had halted at her gate.

She was wearing a long autumnally brown dress too voluminous for her thin neck and thinner limbs. Beneath sparse curls the colours of metal beginning to rust, her small face looked drawn together by concern. She came to some decision and advanced, sandals clacking beneath her heels, toward the door Leslie had left open. "Excuse me, can I help?" Leslie called over the fence.

"Don't trouble. I know where I'm going."

"So do I," Leslie said, mildly enough. "To my house."

Even when Leslie strode down the path and up her own, the woman seemed less than convinced. "Tell me what you want by all means," Leslie said, "and who you are would be nice."

"Are you sure you live here?"

"I'm sure of a few things, and that's one of them." Leslie was running out of patience, having expended too much on the man who'd phoned Jack. "Now it's my turn to get some answers, so if you'd like—"

"You're Mrs. Ames."

"That's me, but I knew it already, believe it or not. What I'm asking you—"

"You wouldn't say you were unless you really were." The woman held out her hands and then curled her fingers toward herself, and Leslie couldn't tell if they were recoiling or indicating their owner until the woman said with no more than a hint of defensiveness "I'm Adele Woollie."

Leslie didn't quite gasp, but she had to press her lips together. Harder to deal with than the revelation was the way Mrs. Woollie seemed to be implying Leslie would be sympathetic to her because they had something in common. Even if that was only notoriety, Leslie wasn't anxious to admit sharing it with her. "So what do you want?" she said.

Mrs. Woollie tried to square her thin shoulders, a gesture that gave her the appearance of being manipulated like a puppet. "My son."

For a headachy moment Leslie thought she was referring to the child who'd been buried under the kitchen, and had to remind herself that victim hadn't been a boy. "Well, you aren't going to find—"

It wasn't Jack who cut her off, because he was only calling to Ian "I'm through with the bathroom"; it was how Mrs. Woollie's face changed as she heard his voice. Don't say it, Leslie willed her. I won't believe you if you do. It's ridiculous. It's impossible. It's too much.

"That's him," Mrs. Woollie said.

As Jack withdrew his face from the cone of hot water his thoughts came clear. He had to tell Leslie who he was. Even once he'd turned off the shower and stepped out of the bath his skin was still crawling, not with trickles of water but with the memory of his dread that the man who'd phoned a few minutes ago would prove to be his father. Any caller might be, and suppose Leslie guessed? However she might take the truth when Jack revealed it, having it betrayed would be worse. He'd hidden it for fear of harming their relationship, but he valued her so much that he wouldn't feel deserving of her if he failed to tell.

His novels had been attempts to deal with his past, though he hadn't known they were while writing them. The book he planned to write could have been a bolder step in the process or a way of persuading himself that his father had nothing to do with him. Telling Leslie was the key to admitting the truth to himself, and so inevitable it calmed him.

"I'm through with the bathroom," he called as he made for his room, and wondered how Ian would react to his confession. He heard the front door shut as Leslie returned to the house. He dressed himself quickly and lightly, and was halfway down the stairs before his eagerness allowed him to hear another woman's voice. As he hesitated, less than prepared to chat to a stranger, Leslie looked out of the front room. "Jack, can you come in here?"

"Sure."

His response sounded more willing than he was, particularly since her face was as good as blank. He hadn't begun to interpret it when she turned her back. If her visitor was unwelcome, perhaps Leslie wanted help. He ran down and was nearly in the room when he faltered, one foot in the hall.

A thin woman in a large brown dress, her reddish curls interwoven with grey and close to baring glimpses of her scalp, was sitting in the farther armchair. He almost knew her, and then he did, when her small face seemed to expand with happiness as she jumped up and held out her arms. "John, it
is
you," she cried. "I should have known the first time you were in the paper."

He couldn't step forward, he couldn't retreat. His hands rose as though they were being hauled toward her, then found nothing to do while she rushed to him. He had to put his arms around her and accept her protracted wizened kiss as he saw how much care had settled on her face and grasped how much weight she'd lost. She hugged him as if she might never let go, and eventually stood back so as to appraise him. "Hi," he said.

"Is that all you can say to your mother?" She looked ready to deal him at least a playful slap. "He sounds just like an American, doesn't he," she declared instead, and held him at arm's length as a preamble to an augmented hug and kiss. When those were over she said "All done. They're all the same, boys, aren't they, however old they are. Sit down before you fall down if your mother's such a shock."

He hadn't sat when Leslie said in a voice as expressionless as her face "Would you like me to leave you alone?"

"No," Jack blurted. "No need."

"I don't know if Mrs. Ames wanted me to see you. I hope she doesn't think I'm the least bit like you know who."

"I shouldn't wonder," Leslie said. "That's what you're suggesting."

"Of course you should, you wouldn't be human if you didn't, but I hope you'll see I'm not. Do you know what I'll never forgive Woollie for? What he did to those kiddies, obviously that, but on top of that the way he used my residents, pretending he was helping them when he was banking nobody'd believe them if they saw anything. And when some of them did, it set them right back after all the care I'd taken of them."

"So to sum up, you're glad he's gone."

"That's as true for me as I'm positive it is for this big chap."

"In that case you really must sit down, both of you."

Jack had to sit in the middle of the couch, feeling isolated and scrutinised. He was trying to find words for at least some of the explanation Leslie deserved when his mother clapped her hands, either calling for attention or applauding in advance. "Well, John, you've certainly done all right for yourself."

Even if she didn't mean Leslie, Leslie might assume she did. He attempted a deprecating laugh as his mother said "I always knew he would. He's been good with words ever since he was at school."

"I've noticed," Leslie said.

"Have you read him?"

"I've been doing that, oh yes."

When his apologetic look brought no response from Leslie, he said to his mother "How about you? What are you up to these days?"

"The same as I'll be till I have to be put in a home myself. Looking after people who need it because they haven't got a hospital to go to. You'd know that if you'd been to see me."

"I would have soon."

"You didn't come to find me at home, then."

The question disguised as a statement sounded unsettlingly like a trap his father might have set for him. "No," Jack admitted.

"You wouldn't have found me, because I've only got a flat now. More than enough for a widow living by herself."

Presumably her pause was intended as another gentle rebuke, but it reminded Jack that only he knew his father was alive. The truth was searching for a way out of his mouth when his mother said "I'm still running the same place, though. They let me after all my residents vouched for me."

"You'd expect them to," Leslie said.

"Nobody knows me better except Woollie and maybe John, or he will if he wants to. You haven't said how long you've been home, John."

"Not too long. Here, only a few weeks."

"I got that from the paper. Where were you before Mrs. Ames took you in?"

He'd done all the taking in, Jack thought, but said "Staying with friends."

"For quite a while, was that?"

"Couple of months."

"They must be good friends to have you that long. Should I know them?"

"No," Jack said, wishing he hadn't persisted with the story. "Some guys I met stateside."

He sensed that Leslie realised how careful he was being with his words. He felt as if both women were interrogating him, and he couldn't help yearning for just about anything that would give him a break. "You could have stayed with me, you know," his mother said. "There's room even for a big lump like you."

"Right," Jack said, though not at once. He'd heard Ian emerge from the bathroom. When his chest began to ache, he became aware of holding his breath while Ian let his weight drop from one stair to the next all the way down. The boy wandered into the room and halted with a quick shy grin. "No need to be frightened, son," he was told. "I'm just his mother."