The Hiding Place (20 page)

~

We stand on Park Place Bridge, next to a low wall covered with moss. I want to touch it, because I know the feel, spongy then wet underneath, but I daren’t do this because
I’m still wearing my new white gloves. I’ve had mittens before, but never gloves. My mother has padded out the fingers of the left one with pipe cleaners wrapped with wool. It’s
wonderful; I can bend them into any shape I like. My hand looks normal, nearly.

Deep breaths, Dol, my mother says, Get some air in those lungs.

She turns her head at the sound of a car. She looks very beautiful with her new Auburn rinse in her hair and the creamy pearl earrings she borrowed from Eva. Her outfit is a
thick brocade of blue with shiny stripes running through it, her handbag is white and hooked over her arm. After a while, she rests it on the wall. Below is the river.

Mam, I say, You know Fran’s rabbit?

Yeah, she goes, cautious.

Did Dadda cook it?

She doesn’t answer my question. She’s looking at the river; she’s thinking.

I saw him kill it, I say, staring straight up at her face.

Don’t be silly, Dol.

Where is it then, Mam? Where’s it gone?

I’m beginning to whine. My mother won’t take her eyes off the water.

It escaped last night, she says, turning her head from me so her words are lost to the wind,

. . . Daft sister forgot to put the catch on.

This is a lie. My mother is a liar. I
saw
Rose lock the cage door, and I
saw
my father with his hand inside the rabbit. I saw it with my own eyes. I can’t
believe anything now.

~

Martineau swings Eva under his arm and spins her, spins her, makes to set her free and then imprisons her again. Her mouth is wide, she laughs and breathes him in; close up, a
scent of leather, the gold flecks in his eyes; flung back, the room, all twirling lights and colour. Dizzy, Eva folds her fingers round the edge of his lapel, puts a hand flat on his chest. Where
the heat is.

Steady, Tino, you’ll have me over! she cries.

Martineau looks down at her and smiles, then glances over her head to the far end of the hall. She watches him as he watches something else. His smile fades and falls. Eva feels
his heart jump under his shirt. She turns to follow his gaze, sees two men cutting swiftly through the couples on the dance-floor. The first is Paolo, the best man, but now she knows him from
another place – the picture in
True Crime
.

Pippo’s brother? she asks, only half a question. Martineau puts his hand over hers and presses it against his chest.

I’ve not seen him before, he says, his eyes still fixed on the men, But the one behind him is Joe Medora.

Eva looks about for Mary, tries to pull away but Martineau holds her fast.

I’ve got to find Mary, she says, She’ll want to see him.

Too late, says Martineau, directing Eva with a slight nod. They both watch as Frankie joins the men, his hat held low at his side and his coat slung over his arm. All three disappear into the
crowd.

~

Mary rummages in her handbag, holding it at an angle to catch the fading light. She pulls out a slim bottle of clear liquid, unscrews the cap and takes a long drink from the
neck. The sky falls into grey. The street-lamps go new red, then orange. She takes another swig, coughs against the lip of the bottle. The cars swing under the bridge, headlights slip across brick,
sweep over her, move on. Mary pulls a stray lock of hair from the corner of her mouth, curls it around her ear. She pictures the best man. She speaks very low.

Paolo.

Paolo, with the shadow falling in a slice across his brow. She sees the black and white of
True Crime
fill with colour. Do You Recognize This Man?

Oh yes, she says, I Recognize That Man.

~

The men walk in single file to the rear of the hall. Paolo carries his overcoat hooked on his shoulder, his finger bent like a beckoning below his ear. Joe follows with head
down until he reaches the little side door that leads into the alley. He holds it open for Frankie, who pauses halfway, feeling the cool air of escape on his face. He looks back into the crowded
room. Rose is chasing Fran around the edge of the stage, she catches the back of her dress so they both fall giggling into a couple on the dance-floor. Frankie sees Celesta in the distance, talking
to someone he hopes is Mary. He would like a last look at her. He stands on tiptoe, his eyes squinting past the lights and the bodies and the thickening cigar smoke, but the woman with Celesta is
obscured by Pippo’s back.

Frank, says Joe quietly, Let’s go.

Frankie squeezes through the door, follows the two men into the alley.

~

Dol, you stay right here, okay? Don’t move! Promise?

Mary sees them on the street; Frankie, Joe Medora, Paolo, moving quickly. She turns, clacks under the bridge towards them. They pause at a car parked at the kerb, open the doors
and duck inside.

Joe! – shouts Mary – Frankie! Joe!

She is running. The bottle in her hand sends a spray of liquid into the air, once, twice, a crystal shower in the headlights of a car at her back. A noise comes out of her as if
she’s falling down a well,

Joe!

echoing off the roof of the bridge,

Marina! My girl!

Up ahead, Joe Medora’s car pulls away.

Frankie peers through the little rear window, sees Mary with her hair blowing around her head and her blue dress shining as she runs, the bottle in her hand curving in an arc as she throws it
into the night. Even though he knows she can’t possibly see him, Frankie raises his hand – to say goodbye, to say he’s going, to say his ship came in – raises his left hand,
the one with the ring on it.

missing

I could have waited for ever. She didn’t come back. Some five-year-olds would fear the worst; that she had been hit by a car, abducted by aliens, spirited away by ghosts.
But I knew my mother – I
knew
– just like my father, she too had run away. When it began to rain, I moved under a tree. I stood so quiet in the darkness that Eva nearly missed
me. She saw my mother’s handbag, abandoned on the flat edge of the bridge, the narrow gap in the wall just big enough for a body to slip through, the skidder of mud running in a tramline down
the bank. Eva as I’d never known her, dashing backwards and forwards along the low wall, shouting our names over the black water,

Mary! Dolores!

Cupping her hands over her eyes like a sailor looking for land,

Oh Christ! Mary!

I can’t stand under a tree now without the memory of it; the circle of earth with the roots proud and deadly as tripwire; raindrops in a softness all around me; car headlights skinning the
bridge, and Eva tracing her body against the mossy stone. When she finally saw me, she stopped shouting and leaned a hand on the wall. She took a deep breath, tried to smile.

Hello, Petal, she said quietly, her eyes taking me in, All this muck – Slippy!

and began to scrape the point of her stiletto heel against the stone. Then, casually,

Where’s that mam of yours gone, eh, Dol?

so that everything would seem ordinary. So that I wouldn’t be afraid.

~

When I imagine what Eva looks like now, I get a picture of Linda Harris – she’s taken over the reference section while I’m having what the library calls
Compassionate Leave. Linda’s tall and acid blonde. She must be near retirement age. Her boyfriend’s called Mehmet – I like ’em dark, she says, as if I’m genetically
programmed to understand. Perhaps it’s her taste in men that reminds me of Eva. Perhaps it’s simply the charm bracelet she always wears.

I need to put Eva and Martineau on my list. It’s in my holdall – upstairs still with the bag of presents I’ve bought for my sisters. What do you buy for strangers? Not perfume
or scarves or jewellery. I got chocolates, a basket of candied fruit, an African violet wrapped in a cellophane sleeve. They look like stuff you see on a petrol station forecourt.

I try the switch at the bottom of the stairs, hoping for a light to come on at the top of the landing; of course, it doesn’t work. The kitchen has a naked bulb in the centre of the ceiling
which is much too bright. It emphasizes all the things this kitchen should not be. Empty. Silent. Uninhabited. The living room is in darkness, but even with the curtains drawn, there’s a
feeble orange glow in the room from the street-lamp just outside our house. I can see the dim outline of a single bed under the window. My mother must have had it brought down towards the end. It
looks like my father’s bed, from the Box Room. It’s still made up. There is a dent in the pillow where my mother’s head had rested, and a wider flattened circle near the foot of
the bed where Mrs Riley sat and fidgeted the tea-towel in her hands. At the time I didn’t want to touch it, but I cross the darkened room now to inspect it: pure white, with its red boast of
‘Irish Linen’ running round the outside. Folded up tight into a long sausage shape. A sensation riddles through me; a feeling that everything is in the wrong place. Someone who
didn’t know this home has been through it, putting objects where they think they go. Either that, or my mother simply forgot where things belonged.

The Toby Jug sits precariously on the front ring of the cooker, and the painted plate with a view of Tenby has been put in the middle of the kitchen table. A circle of patterned Vymura marks the
space on the wall where it used to hang. The ornamental brass bell which should be on the fireplace with the photographs of Celesta is now on the dresser. It isn’t brass, I realize:
it’s lacquered tin. I hold it up and shake, but the bell makes no sound – someone has removed the clapper. I used to get it down off the mantelpiece and clang it. You’ll drive me
mad, my mother would say, snatching it from me and putting it out of reach. The bell seemed huge then, but now I realize that it’s small and light, there’s nothing to it. And nothing is
out of reach any more.

I find a biro in the Toby Jug. I try to write ‘Eva’ on my arm, but it doesn’t work: I get a scrape of white and then a dusty blob of red ink smears itself across my skin. It
reminds me of Fran, and painfully, of Luca. I think instead about Salvatore; whether I remembered to put him on my list of the missing.

A crowd has gathered on the street: not just the wedding guests, but young men on their way to the Carib Club, and red-faced drinkers hoping for a lock-in at The Bute. The
night girls edge out of their doorways to get a look at the bride. Celesta has changed into her going-away outfit, but no one can see her new cream two-piece; Pippo insists on cloaking her with a
startling knitted cape – his mother’s gift.

It’s red and bloody yellow, Pip! she whispers angrily in his ear, Bloody stripes! I look like Speedy Gonzalez!

Pippo smiles as he wraps her up. Celesta nudges him aside and yanks open the taxi door.

Where’s Mam? she shouts into the crowd. Rose shrugs. She drags Celesta’s suitcase across the pavement until Salvatore bends down and takes it from her. He carries the case a little
way, then he too drags it until he reaches the back of the waiting car. He lets the driver struggle it into the boot.

Typical! Where’s Dad? cries Celesta, peering into the mass of smiling faces. Pippo slides in beside her on the back seat. His mother leans in at the window. In the darkness of the cab,
Celesta can only see the whiskers, lines and open space of the old woman’s mouth as she puts her head through the gap to kiss Pippo. Fierce sucking kisses. Fierce whispering,

Ciao, Philippo, figlio mio, sangue mio! Mio . . . Mio . . .

To Celesta it sounds like a prayer.

What’s she going on about? she says. But Pippo ignores her. He winds up the window as the taxi pulls off. Martineau steps through the crush of waving arms and the stinging shower of rice,
to touch Salvatore on the shoulder.

~

Two streets away, at the Salvation Army Hostel, another crowd has gathered. Mary sits on the pavement with her back against the wall. She can’t remember what she’s
done with her handbag; she’s lost a shoe.

What’s your name, love? asks a voice above her. She looks up at the faces: all men, all old men.

Mary Bernadette Jessop, she says, in a voice from childhood. But she knows that isn’t right. She thinks her name might be in her handbag, written on a slip of paper in case she got lost,
or in blue biro on the silky inside pocket. She can see the name in her head but her lips can’t say it. Mary closes her eyes. She would like to weep, but she doesn’t, and when a young
girl in a bonnet comes down the steps and tries to talk to her, Mary feels a silence wrapping itself around her like a shroud. The girl knows her; Mary brings her children here on Sundays when
there’s no food at home. She takes her hand and leads her up the steps. Mary will go with anyone now. She doesn’t care who.

Inside, the hostel is busy. A line of men sit on a long red bench, smoking, aiming soup at their mouths, sleeping upright; an elderly woman walks around the edges of the room, talking to a dog
under her coat. Two drunks hold a tug of war over the ownership of a blanket. Mary’s teeth chatter. She sits on the far end of the bench with the young girl on her right, feeling the
smoothness of the girl’s palm shiny on hers. The light is so bright, it hurts to look up. Everyone has the same blue-white tinge to their skin. Mary stares at the walls, where the Sunday
School Children have an exhibition.

Our Day Out to Leckwith Fields

is written in large loops on an orange banner; below is a series of drawings – trees with thick brown branches and tiny green buds; one with an autumn theme, the leaves
tipping gently from the sky into a pile at the bottom of the picture. Mary concentrates on the fallen leaves. I want to be under that, she thinks, dreaming of lying down in the earth, the joy of
just melting away. I want to
be
that.

~  ~  ~

The Moonlight, says Salvatore, They’ll be there for sure. Martineau shakes his head, but turns the car round anyway. He knows that Joe won’t hang about – especially now
he’s shown his face at the wedding – he’ll be out of town again as soon as he’s finished his business.