Soon (20 page)

‘Actually, I think Johnnie really likes the nanny.'

‘He does. Roza says she hates Tulei because she's religious. But it's really because Johnnie loves her.'

‘Oh?' Simon kept his tone cautious, polite.

David drew in a deep breath of smoke. ‘Roza wants to be loved.'

‘She
is
loved.'

David looked sideways at him, amused. ‘Of course she is. But she doesn't know it. She wasn't loved by her mother, maybe she doesn't know what it feels like.'

‘That's too complicated for me.'

‘Roza's not complicated. Roza is a simple organism.'

Simon smiled. ‘Jesus.'

‘What?'

‘You're the only person who could say such a thing. Roza seems
unbelievably
complicated to me.'

‘Roza is very easy to understand.'

‘For you.'

‘For me, yes.'

‘You're obviously a genius,' Simon said.

‘Well, yes, that's true.' He grinned.

‘She's in a . . . good mood tonight,' Simon said.

David seemed to read his mind. ‘Cahane's a sharp bastard but he doesn't understand her at all. He can't read why she does what she does. He's just glazed and charmed and pussy-whipped, the poor prick. What he doesn't realise is that everything Roza does is directed at me.'

Simon scuffed the sand with his shoe.

David smiled. ‘I know what you're thinking. What confidence.'

‘I suppose you're right,' Simon said. He looked up. ‘No, I think that might be right.'

‘Tonight she's feeling uncertain.'

‘What about?'

‘Me.'

‘Oh. Really?'

‘There's no harm if Roza sometimes feels uncertain.'

‘I see. I wonder if she's also . . .' He hesitated again.

David drew on his cigarette. ‘Preoccupied about Elke? Roza wants to be loved. Roza wants to be
sure
she's loved.'

They walked a short way along the dunes while David smoked another cigarette. Ray and Shaun followed. The beach was deserted apart from a couple of joggers down at the shoreline and nobody came their way. The sand was soft and squeaked underfoot and the tide was high, breaking far up the beach in long sweeps of foamy water, receding with a hiss over the shells. Simon wondered whether there was a brutal simplicity about David that allowed him to deal with a person as complicated as Roza. Could he manage her because he just didn't see the complexities? Or was it that he was equally subtle, and a match for her? Simon couldn't fathom the Hallwrights' relationship; he wasn't, after all, very good at understanding relationships, he was a technocrat, better at solving physical problems than intangible ones. David had changed. He used to be wary around some people; the Ellisons used to make him nervous, and Roza did too. Not any more.

On a rocky bit of the path through the dunes David slipped and caught hold of Simon's arm. Simon steadied him. He said, ‘I don't really understand what you meant about Roza.'

David paused, turning the cigarette packet in his fingers. ‘Well, here's a theory. Roza's mother didn't love her. Roza loves people fiercely, but if you tell her she's loved back, she doesn't necessarily believe it, because she doesn't know what it feels like. So she goes looking for, I don't know what, an approximation of love. Something to overwhelm her, quell her.'

‘I see,' Simon said, uncertain.

David looked intently at him. ‘I grew up without parents.'

‘Yes.'

‘But have you seen the polls? The
people
love me.'

Simon thought for a moment. He said, cautious, ‘I didn't know Roza actually wanted to fire Tulei?'

‘Oh yes, because Johnnie loves her, you see. I stand between the nanny and the firing squad. Roza hates Tulei.
Hates
her.'

Cold Blood

There was a burst of laughter from the group downstairs. Simon dipped his head and waited.

At dawn the Green Lady rode out of the forest on her black horse and climbed to the roof of the castle. Smoke rose from the Idiots' Village, and across the forest came the drone of the Idiots' early morning prayer to the Great Wedgie. Soon and Starfish and the Dead White Cat had a secret; they had managed to lock the High Priestess Germphobia into the pantry, where at least, Soon pointed out to Starfish, who was racked with guilt, their fat tormentor wouldn't go hungry or thirsty until she was discovered. “What about her . . . ablutions?” Starfish whispered, at which Soon sniggered, the Village Idiot said, “Ha ha”, and even Starfish looked guiltily amused.

The Green Lady turned to look at them. Her eye fell on Suzie, the Dead White Cat. “Are you dead?” she asked him.

“Yes,” the Dead White Cat replied.

“Yet you live.”

“I am rare,” said the Cat with dignity. “I move between worlds.”

“How useful,” the Green Lady said, and the Cat bowed.

“Have faith, Green Lady,” the Dead White Cat said. “Soonica will return.” And the Red Herring added: “He who laughs last laughs longest.”

Somewhere in a room below, the Weta and the Praying Mantis began playing an eerie tune. Over the forest the clouds were black and full of rain.

The Green Lady took off her veil and spoke. There was rustling in the air, and the clouds formed a swirling black cone above the forest. There was colour glittering in the cloud, and Soon saw that it was made of dragonflies. The Green Lady's cape had a sheen like dragonflies' wings. Her voice was as smooth as oil, but men shuddered at her words . . .

‘There. End of the chapter. Sleep tight.'

‘Make Soon talk.'

‘No, no more.'

The boy sat up. ‘I want Elke.'

‘She's with Karen. Now stop talking or I'll have to beat you.'

In the hall, Simon said, ‘You still want to go out to the lake?'

Johnnie shouted, ‘Make Soon talk!'

‘Shut up!' Roza shouted back.

Tuleimoka opened her door, frowning. She said, ‘I'll look after him.' Behind her, a hushed television voice said, ‘Wanda. You're such a beautiful person. But we need you to let that beauty
show
.'

Roza didn't look at her.

‘Tulei!' Johnnie wailed from his room. Roza clicked her tongue and walked off.

Simon followed. In the hallway she stopped and put her hand on his chest, was about to speak but turned away. His heart sped up; he hurried after her.

She turned again, ‘I'm not quite sure how Karen could object to Elke spending time up here. With her brother.'

Simon protested, ‘Karen doesn't object. Far from it. She's delighted. It's Elke who changes her mind all the time. We never know where we are with her.'

‘Really.'

‘We're always struggling to keep up.'

‘It must be hard work.' Her eyes were fixed on him. ‘I'm grateful for what you've done for my daughter.'

‘No. It's been great. We love her.' He felt trapped. Every answer he gave implied possessiveness when he wanted to convey the opposite.

Roza said, ‘You must feel you love her most.'

‘Me?'

Her tone was odd. ‘An adopted daughter must be different from a real daughter. For a man. It must be . . . unsettling.'

‘I don't know what you mean. There's no difference.'

Her expression hardened. ‘If Johnnie wanted his sister around, it would be wrong for anyone to stand in the way. Wouldn't it.'

‘I said to Karen, it's up to Elke. She's eighteen.'

‘So you've discussed it.'

‘We have various ongoing discussions, as parents.'

‘As parents. Of course.' Her smile was unnerving.

‘Adoptive parents,' he added awkwardly.

They rejoined the company. Karen was telling Marcus to put his phone away and stop texting. Simon sat next to her and said, quiet, ‘Why did Elke haul all her gear back to the Little House?'

Karen was irritated. ‘I don't know. She wanted to.'

‘You didn't put pressure on her?'

‘How could I do that?'

‘You don't think it might be good for everyone if she goes back for the last few nights?'

‘Why does it matter where she sleeps?'

‘Well, you were completely preoccupied with the question until you got your own way.'

‘Oh what rubbish. It's so petty, such a non-issue. And it's up to Elke.'

He pressed a cold glass against his sunburnt cheek and muttered, ‘You don't think you're cutting off your nose to spite your face?'

‘Eh? What? Speak up.'

‘If you try to win every battle you might lose the bigger one.'

‘Battle? What battle?'

Near them, Ed Miles said, ‘Calls were flying back and forth. They're lucky they pulled it off; the thing was a shambles. We'll get Vince on a conference call tomorrow. If he denies it, tell him we'll get hold of his phone records.'

Karen said to Juliet, ‘I spoke to Trish today. She's doing amazingly well.'

‘She has incredible strength.'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Look, she's amazing. Isn't she, Simon?'

But Simon was looking at Ed.

What had he been doing? In his panic over Weeks he'd been caught up in a kind of magical thinking; getting rid of phones when call records must exist independently of the phones themselves. Like a simpleton, he'd believed that if he threw a phone in the sea, the records would simply disappear. What else had he got wrong?

He had a bleak sense of his own isolation, as if he'd been pushed into a parallel universe, forever separated from the group.

Beside him, David said, ‘Dean had me doing squats and lunges on the beach. I looked like the Minister of Silly Walks. I was thinking, I hope no one's in the bushes with a camera.' He nudged Simon, who said mechanically, ‘I suppose the soft sand . . .'

How incriminating could the phone records be? All they showed was brief communication: Weeks wanting information. There'd been no texts between them, and there couldn't be a record of the content of conversations, unless one of them had been under surveillance.

‘What do you think?' David asked.

Roza and David had both turned to him.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.'

He excused himself early and went to bed. That night he dreamed he was on the beach in the early morning, before it was properly light. It was stormy. He stood on the sand in the warm, black, howling dawn and saw two figures walking at the water's edge. He pushed towards them against the wind, trying to make out who they were. He was filled with terrible anxiety; he yearned to speak to someone, to relieve his loneliness and ask for help. They stopped and turned and he saw it was Roza and Elke. He wanted to reach them but he heard Karen's voice and woke. It was hot, the sun was already shining through the wooden blinds and he would only just have time to drive into the city.

Looking down at his notes, he waited for the moment to break in. His patient continued, ‘We've been married twenty years. Suddenly he's going, “Leave the boy outside on the pavement.” That was so he didn't have to see me when he came to pick up our son. He's getting a flat. He's got this twenty-three-year-old. I mean, he's forty-six, and he's got this twenty-three-year-old — and what's she, by the way, some kind of incest victim, some creepy daddy's girl? — and he's telling me everything by text. We were married twenty years and my husband dumped me
by text
.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘How about that, Simon?'

‘Yes.'

Silence.

He pressed a thumb to his temple. ‘On a brighter note . . . your results are good. The symptoms are calming down. No more pain?'

‘Sorry. This isn't relevant.'

‘No, not at all. I mean, yes . . . I hope things are getting a bit brighter for you.'

‘He came back, right. It was over, he said. It was all a mistake. He was sorry. He wanted to carry on like it never happened.'

‘Well, that's great. Now, I'm going to give you a prescription . . .'

‘And then he decided we should go on holiday, and about one day into the week he said he'd changed his mind. I don't know how I got through the week. Our son said, “He's treating you like shit. This has to stop.” When we got back to the city I snapped. I laid into him, tore strips off him, insulted him to the core. I told him he was worthless, that I'd married beneath me, that he should go. So he disappeared again.'

Simon looked at his watch.

‘I left the kids with my parents and went to Sydney. I said to my father, “It's over. I'll just have to write him off.” Then, when we'd all resolved to carry on without him, he came back again, apologising and swearing he'd made a terrible mistake and that he would stop behaving badly. And he has. He even wrote letters apologising to me, to my family. He's been a model husband.'

‘Great. Excellent.'

‘But what I wonder, Simon, is this: how do you take up again with someone when you know they're capable of that? I mean, he didn't just get caught having an affair and go, oh I'm sorry, I won't do it again. He decided he was going to eliminate me from his life. It's like he was going to have me killed. And then he couldn't go through with it. But he
wanted
to.'

‘I see what you mean.' Another pause, the distant roar of a plane, Clarice walking heavy-footed past the door. Simon thought about it. He'd had an affair, but leaving Karen? Telling her (by text!) he was going off with a twenty-three-year-old? He'd met his patient's husband, when he'd been engaged as their private obstetrician. Loud, muscular, a bit of a swagger. A tough guy, cold-blooded . . .

‘Issues of trust, I imagine,' he said. ‘Now I want you to make an appointment with the physiotherapist.'

‘One funny thing, Simon. Houses.'

‘Houses?' He laid down his pen.

‘At every stage of this crisis, I dreamed about houses. When he was leaving, I dreamed about broken-down, ruined houses. When he'd gone I dreamed the children and I were trying to find our way into a lovely house, but we were locked out. And when he came back and said he was sorry and grovelled and started to behave like he really meant it I dreamed about the most incredible, vast, beautiful mansion, a paradise . . .

‘I'm sorry, Simon, are you all right?'

‘Just popping out for a sandwich.'

He swivelled in his chair, nodded at Clarice: yes, whatever. A line of birds sat on the power line outside his window, black musical notes against the white sky. In the park a woman ran to catch a small child as it toddled towards the road.

He'd seen off the last patient. She was reluctant, standing at his door, folding the prescription into tiny pieces. Breaking the rule (keep it impersonal or you'll be here all day), he said, ‘I heard a bit of advice. It was for disaster victims, after an earthquake.'

‘Oh yes. What was that then?'

‘Increase your tolerance to uncertainty.'

She went on folding and folding the piece of paper. ‘That's not bad,' she said finally, rolled her eyes, gave him a smile and went away.

He was due at a seminar being held for a visiting Swedish professor of physiotherapy. Running late, he cabbed across town, scrambled out and dropped a folder of notes on the pavement, slinging money at the driver while a doorman gathered up a slew of brightly coloured diagrams of the female pelvic floor.

The visiting professor was on a stage flanked by pot plants, finishing the first half of her presentation. Glamorous, thin to the point of emaciation, severe, she was the mentor for physiotherapists in the field, a visiting star (you could download her books and exercise videos from the internet) and there was an earnest and reverent atmosphere as she wound up her spiel and started to take questions.

Her microphone squawked. A break was announced. Simon headed for coffee and was joined by Pete Brown from the hospital who said, ‘Did you read what Silvio Berlusconi called Angela Merkel?'

‘No.'

‘An unfuckable lardarse.'

Simon pressed a hand to his temple. ‘God. With his orgies and that. He's like a Roman emperor.'

‘And then there's Sarkozy, married to a supermodel. The unfuckable lardarse must have a terrible time dealing with those guys.'

Simon, checking his cell phone for messages, signalled for him to shut up. Pete was always too loud.

Pete leaned near. ‘Physios. They're like nurses and midwives. They carry on like we don't know anything, and they think you can achieve anything with muscles. They're like a cult. What do you think of the Professor of Pelvic Floor? She's going to levitate after this. She could probably kill you with her . . .'

‘Hello, how are you? Can I introduce you to Professor Kaisla Jansson.'

They turned and shook her small, cool hand. Her glance lingered on Brown, who'd slicked back his hair and was looking handsome and louche, if slightly raddled. He had his stock of personal charms: the novel he'd been writing for a decade, his ‘troubled' marriage, his fondness for poetry and cannabis. The Professor of Pelvic Floor inspected him and coolly smiled.

‘You were speaking of the EU?'

‘We were!'

Simon's phone started shrilling. Distracted, he apologised and moved away, answered without checking the caller. A mistake.

‘Dr Lampton, it's Marie Da Silva.'

Anxiety came down on him like a grille. He looked for a place away from the crowd. ‘Ms Da Silva. What can I do for you?'

‘We're outside, need to pop up for a minute.'

‘I'm in a seminar.'