The Missing World (18 page)

“Well, if you do decide you need a second opinion, I’m quite nicely connected, medically speaking.”

“Mrs. Craig.” He was amazed his voice could emerge from his choked throat. “Would you come and look at the study ceiling?”

For a few seconds he thought she was going to give him a cool glance and say no thanks, but she wiped her hands and got to her feet. Upstairs, he closed the study door. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he whispered. “You come here without so much as a by your leave, you press Hazel to talk, you suggest her doctor isn’t good enough.”

“Jonathan.”

Looking down, he saw he had seized her shoulders and was shaking her back and forth. “Hazel loves me,” he said, letting go.

Mrs. Craig made her humming sound. “No one’s saying
you haven’t been terrific. From all accounts you saved her life. But that doesn’t mean—”

He pushed past her, out of the room. I wouldn’t save you first from a burning house, he thought. I wouldn’t even save you last. Without knowing how, he was down in the hall, and face to face with Hazel.

“I need to lie down,” she said. “Will you help me?”

The high-pitched squeal tapering to a breathless moan was Virginia, Freddie guessed, sounding off as usual. Over the last two weeks it had become increasingly hard to forget that he shared his apartment with five other creatures. At first he’d responded to every yip and whimper, and on several occasions had caught Agnes about to crush one of her tiny offspring. Was this also part of the Jungian archetype, he wondered, the mother as Medusa, or Moloch? But as the puppies grew, they learned to avoid Agnes and he in turn learned to ignore their outbursts and indeed remembered all the reasons he wasn’t wild about dogs: smelly, demanding, omnivorous.

Virginia squealed again and fell silent. There might, he calculated, be as much as forty-five minutes before her siblings woke, demanding breakfast. Felicity, however, asleep beside him, was less predictable. At any moment she might bob up, ready for vigorous conversation. Fingers crossed, he turned towards her, hoping the small puffs of her breathing would carry him away from this apartment and the imperatives of the day. Imperatives … imperious … and then his father was teaching him to drive in the high-school parking lot. “Mirror, signal, manoeuvre, dummy,” his father kept saying, but no matter how hard Freddie tried, he couldn’t manage. “I’m doing my best, Dad,” he pleaded. “So why are you always broke?” said his father.

Something tickled his nose. Opening his eyes, he found his
irascible parent replaced by Felicity, offering tea. “Thanks, sweetie. How long have you been up?”

“Two minutes.” She slipped back into bed. “It’s like a zoo in there. Yesterday I was thinking we could use some of the proceeds from the puppies to go to Paris for Easter.”

“Neat. I’d love to be at Sacré-Coeur on Good Friday.”

Felicity had long ceased to comment on his churchgoing, but now protested that she’d been thinking
pain au chocolat
and the Louvre, not choirboys and incense. “I never have grasped how you can go to mass and still be such a bad Catholic.”

“Everyone’s a bad something,” said Freddie, pleased with the notion. “Kevin’s a lousy anarchist, locking his door and hoarding personal property. You’re a wobbly feminist, struggling with women in the workplace. Trevor’s an inept Romeo, living with his mum.”

“My difficulties at work have nothing to do with a failure of feminism,” said Felicity, and began to describe the hotel in Montmartre where she’d stayed a few years ago.

A little hammer went tap, tap on Freddie’s skull. Wake up, it said. Pay attention. Bitter experience had gradually taught him that what he regarded as pleasant conversation—we could do this, we could do that—was for Felicity a blueprint for the future. “Let me talk to Trev about selling the pups. We can’t go anywhere until I get rid of them.”

With perfect timing, fresh cries rose from the kitchen. “My turn for crowd control,” said Freddie. Next door, the dogs were piled into one corner of the pen. Meanwhile, Agnes was ignoring them, as usual, and nudging her dish.

“Bad boy.” He grabbed Connecticut and set him in the centre of the pen, separated the other three, and continued to the bathroom. While brushing his teeth, he caught himself, unawares, thinking of Hazel. Do you have seizures, she’d asked, her amazing eyes opening even wider. Maybe he should give her
one of the puppies, for company. The day he was due to fix her roof had brought some of the worst weather of the year, rain and driving wind. Even Mr. Littleton had been cordial about rescheduling. Now, drying his hands, Freddie pictured a glowing head. He was ready, at last, for Mr. Early’s roof. No big deal, just replacing a couple of slates. He could hardly remember why he’d gotten so bent out of shape.

Back in the bedroom, Felicity glanced up from her tome about the Pankhursts. “What are you doing?” she said, as he stepped into his underwear.

“Off to work. Another day, another dollar.”

“You’re joking.”

He started to make a speech about not letting Trevor down; after all, he recommended most of Freddie’s customers. Felicity was still staring, unconvinced. As a girl, she once told him, she’d wanted to be a detective.

“The truth is”—he pulled on a T-shirt—“it’s either haul ass or starve. My father’s a softy but, barring World War III, he’s maxed out. Besides, my being broke is messing everything up. We don’t have fun like we used to.”

This was what he hated about love. You barely had to breathe the word before you were wriggling like a snake in the grass. The worst part was, it worked. Felicity was nodding, trying not to smile. “I’ll feed our investment,” she said.

Only when he heard the shuffle of slippers and saw Mr. Early standing in the doorway, radiant and bleary in an orange silk bathrobe, did Freddie realise that a phone call might have been a good move. The urge to action had been so strong he’d assumed Mr. Early felt it too. “I could come back later,” he said, picking up his toolbox.

But Mr. Early after a slow start—“Goodness, Freddie,” he fumbled with the sash of his robe—was looking more cheerful.
“No, no, I’m delighted to see you. For some reason I’m having a spate of unannounced callers these days.” He led the way inside, not to the room of heads but to the kitchen. “I’m making porridge. Would you like some?”

“If there’s enough.”

Soon they were both sitting at the table, Freddie in the sturdy chair meant for guests, eating porridge with milk and brown sugar and drinking tea. “Typhoo,” said Mr. Early. “I don’t believe in anything fancy first thing. Forgive my being a simpleton, but to what do I owe this honour? Rain seems likely, and last week, when it was much pleasanter, you adamantly refused to come.”

Beneath his benign blue gaze, Freddie struggled for an answer on the wavering line between truth and falsehood. “When I was here last time something happened”—well, that was true—“and ever since I’ve had a hard time leaving the couch. It was too dopey to tell you, so I kept making ridiculous excuses.” He reached for the milk. “Sorry.”

“You did seem a trifle out of sorts.” Mr. Early ate a spoonful of porridge. “Jane came to collect some heads one night and reported that a man was watching the house. From her brief description, forgive me, I wondered if it might be you.”

“Darn, and I thought I was invisible.” He caught himself. “I hope I didn’t scare her. Or worry you.”

“Not worry, exactly. Puzzle. Here you were, always claiming to be about to fix my roof, never actually doing so, and at the same time making nocturnal expeditions to spy on my house. Well, it is eccentric to say the least.”

Heavens to Betsy. Freddie stared at the remains of his porridge. Confronted by this account of his own behaviour, he was struck dumb. If he’d acted like this in Cincinnati, he’d be in the morgue.

“Let me tell you a story.” Mr. Early gave his spoon a final
lick. “I’m feeling avuncular today. Years ago, in a repertory theatre, two young designers were jockeying for position. They’d each been asked to produce designs for Max Frisch’s
Andorra
—an odd play about anti-Semitism and chauvinism, not often done these days. The director was based in London, and a day was chosen for him to visit the theatre, hold auditions, and decide between the designs.

“The morning of his visit, both the young men rose, washed at least minimally, dressed in their trendiest clothes, and prepared to leave for the theatre. But one of them discovered that the door of his room wouldn’t open. It was on the fourth floor of a boarding house. Needless to say, no phone. He banged and shouted in vain. His room overlooked the garden. Eventually he lay down and fell asleep. When he woke up and tried the door again, it opened.”

“And?” said Freddie. “I hope he ran all the way to the theatre, collared the director with his brilliant designs, and got the job.”

“Alas, no. The designer who kept the appointment was given the commission. I was one of those young men, though probably not the one you think. I hate the idea you might resort to illegal methods out of some feeling that you can’t ask for what you want.”

As he spoke, Mr. Early reached for their bowls and, before Freddie could question him, stepped out to the kitchen. But which one was he? At first Freddie assumed he was the poor stooge on the bed; after all, he seemed to know his every move. Then, given his cautionary words, he thought he was the crook. So if Freddie thought he was the crook, did that mean he was the good guy? But if he really thought about it, he would’ve figured Mr. Early for the good guy all the way, which of course meant he was the bad guy.

He was still tossing around the alternatives when Mr. Early sat down again. “Dare I enquire about my roof?”

“About your roof, I’ve been a doofus. The only time it felt okay going out was after dark, and one night I came here.”

“And what changed?” said Mr. Early. “If you can talk about it without retiring to the sofa for a fortnight.”

“Agnes had her puppies. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a sucker for animals, but somehow the whole business made the sky seem empty. And”—he fingered the milk jug—“I met a woman.”

“Cupid’s dart?”

“No, I have a girlfriend. This is something else.” But what? Salvation? A reprise of Lourdes? “I don’t know her very well,” he ended lamely. “Can I do the dishes?”

“Dishwasher. Right now, what would raise my spirits is for you to have a go at the roof while I take a bath. If you’re finished by lunchtime, I’ll make you a sandwich. How’s that for a deal? Breakfast and lunch, plus forty-seven pounds and a free confession.”

“You’re a peach.”

As they stood up, Mr. Early said, “At the risk of being horribly impertinent, let me offer yet another word of advice. Guile is not your strong suit. You may think you’re invisible, but you’re the reverse.”

“Crown Derby?” Freddie pointed at the milk jug.

“Worcester. They stole the pattern.”

On the hall table Freddie saw the letter addressed to Donald Early, Esquire, still unopened.

chapter 10

“He says I’m getting better, but I always feel worse after seeing him.” Kneeling on the floor, surrounded by playing cards, Hazel pressed her fingers to her temples as she described Hogarth’s endless, probing questions. “I wish,” she concluded mysteriously, “I had a brother or a sister.”

Jonathan knelt on the other side of the cards. Above them, the Cassiopeia-shaped crack zigzagged across the ceiling. “You always used to say that you were glad we were both only children, that it meant we understood the peculiar pressure of our parents’ undivided attention.” Surely no harm, he thought, in one innocent memory.

“The trouble is, friends can disappear.” Hazel let her hands fall. “That’s what I’ve realised. I mean, look at Maud and me. We’ve been best friends for nearly six years, but if something came between us, if we quarrelled, we’d never see each other again.” She turned over an eight of hearts, frowned, reached for another card.

Jonathan kept very still. She couldn’t know what he and Maud had done on this very carpet only a few nights ago; just
for a moment, though, he felt as if his head were transparent. Hazel had simply gazed in with her wide blue eyes and seen everything. Then he realised she was speaking again, asking him something. “Sorry?”

She repeated her request: to invite Steve and Diane for supper. “I didn’t do so well with Mrs. Craig, but I have to keep trying.”

“I’ll give them a call,” he said, and added that he thought Katie might have chickenpox.

When he had come downstairs that evening, long after Mrs. Craig let herself out, a note lay beneath the beetroot jar.

Jonathan,

Sorry if I tired Hazel. Do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m at home most days. Remember, Hazel isn’t alone in the world.

Sanctimonious bitch, he’d muttered, and, turning on the cooker, held the note to the flame. Now, watching Hazel uncover the eight of spades, he cursed Mrs. Craig all over again. This was what always happened. Everything was fine between him and Hazel until something, someone intruded from the outside world; then difficulties sprang up like varroa mites, devouring the sweetness between them.

“Poor Katie,” Hazel said and, to her cards, “Pathetic.” She flipped them face down and swished them into a pack. Although the drugs made her fingers clumsy, her knack for shuffling had returned. “I had this idea,” she went on, “we could make a timeline for the last three years. If you give me the main facts, I can learn them, like swotting for exams. And other people, Maud, Steve, and Diane, people at work—” she faltered—“will help to fill in the blanks.”

Instantly he was on his feet, muttering about the hives, and out of the room. He had never left her alone; now, not bothering with the smoker or the veil, he strode through the kitchen and out of the back door. His blood rushed with doubts. He’d been living in a fairy tale of second chances. Things were surfacing beyond his control.
Hazel
was surfacing. He stood beside the hives, too miserable even to bend down and listen. Instead he found himself remembering Suzanne. How carefully she’d helped him check the supers for extra queens, how good she was about straining the honey. One of his hives that year was particularly docile. On an early date he drew out a frame and showed her how to stroke the bees, gently passing her hand over their many downy backs as if they formed a single beast. Do they enjoy it, she asked. Who can tell, he said. For the first time he wondered if he might have treated her badly. To be honest, he had known all along that she was in love with him.