Thorn in the Flesh (17 page)

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know whether what you say about my role as lecturer is true.’

‘In what way?’

Kate placed her cup on the saucer in the middle of the table and sat back in her chair.

‘What has happened to me has made me think about things differently,’ she said. ‘It’s as if other events, further back in my past, have meant I went along the educational route and began lecturing, pursuing an academic career without my ever having considered if it was the right path, or even if it was what I wanted to do. It was something that simply happened, almost of its own volition. Can you understand? Yes, it’s what I was good at, I know that. I’m not a fool. But sometimes you can be good at things without ever wondering why you do them. Isn’t there more to it than that? To me, it feels as if I’ve been living a half-life, somewhere in the wings waiting for reality to start and I’ve been doing this job until that happens. I don’t mean I don’t enjoy it. I do. I love teaching, and being involved in the department’s research programme, and I’m glad when the students do well. But I don’t know … I don’t know … I wonder if there should be something more.’

When she finished speaking, she knew it sounded so little, perhaps even petty. There was much in life that could not properly be expressed. She hoped her sudden wave of words had been filtered by her companion for what they were: a small symbol trying for the truth, rather than a damning of the role he’d nurtured her in. But when she dared to look again at him, he was nodding.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think we’re all searching for something more, though I’m not a professor of philosophy. I think it’s part of the human condition, no matter where we are or what has happened to us, and is something we should be happy to embrace. It may not be to do with work, Kate. Though, if it is, I would of course fully support you, as far as I’m able, in whatever field you chose to enter. I would also want you to know however that if you decide you would like to take up your academic career again, either with us or with anyone else for that matter, I will of course be prepared to back any application you might make.’

She stared at him.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

And then there didn’t seem anything else she could think of to say. They chatted for a while about more mundane matters: the department and how the year had gone; the new Vice-Chancellor’s appointment; Andrew’s latest grandchild; her own recent holiday.

After twenty minutes or so, he sighed, stretched himself and smiled at her. ‘I’d better go. I get into trouble if I’m late for tea. My son and his family are coming. Patricia will find some use for me in the kitchen, I’m sure.’

She walked with him to the door, his frame obscuring her view.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You have a letter. I didn’t hear it arrive, did you?’

She shook her head and looked down. On her doormat was a plain white envelope with her name scrawled across it. It had no stamp. For a moment time seemed to stop and the air grew heavy. When she didn’t move, her companion, bending with a little awkwardness, picked it up and handed it to her.

Still she said nothing and he gave her a puzzled look. ‘Kate? Is something wrong?’

‘No. Nothing. Really, I’m fine.’

She met his frown with as open a smile as she could muster and, after a few moments, he spoke again.

‘I’ll say goodbye for now then. But I hope you’ll think about what we’ve spoken about,’ he said. ‘And I hope I may call on you again, whatever you decide.’

‘Of course,’ she murmured.

Just before he left, Andrew patted her gently on the arm, although she could barely feel it.

‘You have to remember, you see,’ he said, ‘that sometimes we fall into what turns out to be right for us, simply by means of being best suited for it. It doesn’t mean that path will be easy, but it does mean it shouldn’t be abandoned without thought and time. Sometimes we find we’re already in the thick of the play without ever realising the curtain has been raised.’

Then he was gone, and she was left watching his tall, slightly stooped figure lolloping along the path, the letter in her hands burning into her skin.

Fingers trembling, she tore open the envelope and tugged the contents free. The message didn’t surprise her.

I know what you’ve done, you bitch
, it said.
And this time I’ll make you suffer. For real.

What did surprise her was her own reaction. And, with it, an underlying, unthinkable truth.

She leant against the door, closed her eyes, which felt hot and dry, and whispered, ‘So. You’re still alive then. Aren’t you?’

Chapter Eighteen

The first thing Kate saw when she walked out of Charing Cross tube station was the flux of people milling across the forecourt and street in front of her. She hesitated for a moment at the entrance, orientating herself and taking in the shouts, the laughter, the smell of stale bodies and drink. As she stood, she was pushed from behind and a further stream of flesh flowed past her and melted into the crowds.

Wednesday evening. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come, but it was her best chance of making contact.

For a few seconds, her feet might have turned round and moved against the tide, taken her back to where she came from. But, after what she’d admitted to herself, even that was no longer home.

So she drew her coat closer around her although it wasn’t cold. The rustle of the letters in the inner pocket made her shake her head and begin to walk forward again. Stepping onto the Strand was like stepping onto some vast and dangerous stage, filled with the dark shapes of bit-players whose lines she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Tonight she would have to make up her own lines.

She crossed the road and turned left, making her way towards the church at the corner of Trafalgar Square. Groups of people strolled past her, laughing, talking, on their way out to a good time, or perhaps on their way home. It was nearly 7pm. As she neared the Square, she could see the statue of Nelson towering over the noise and traffic, the space and squalor. Scattering of people in ones or twos – not the social groups of a minute or so before – clung to the sides of the pavement and the shadows on the walls. As she passed, one or two of them fell silent and she thought they might have been watching her progress, though none made a move to follow.

At the gap in the steps she slipped through and down into the darkness of St Martin’s crypt. She spoke to the first young woman she saw and, after the conversation, stumbled out into the evening again, this time heading left to Adelaide Street. A few minutes later, she found herself in the centre for homeless young people, squeezed into an office so small it might have been created from a cupboard and sitting opposite a thin middle-aged man with tired brown eyes and a cautious smile, who introduced himself only as Les.

‘How can I help you?’ he said. ‘As you can see, we’re very busy.’

Kate nodded. She could hear shouts in the corridor outside, a series of curses, some muttered and some less restrained, and heavy footsteps passing, followed by the low tones of someone speaking calmly. From further away, she heard the sound of someone else – a woman – laughing. The man smiled.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Even though it’s a weekday night, this is how it is. Now, how can I help?’

‘I’m looking for my son,’ she said.

She told him the story. Simply the bare outlines, nothing of the hum of emotion beneath. It didn’t seem right to fill out the bones of her history here, both because he was a stranger and because the other stories this man must hear, day after day, would be far more horrifying.

It didn’t take long but, as she brought out the photograph of Stephen that the investigator had given to her and passed it across the desk, Les interrupted her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, glancing at the photograph and then up again at her. ‘We do have a duty to protect client confidentiality here. There’s really nothing I can tell you.’

Kate felt her shoulders tighten. Les continued to look at her. She couldn’t tell if he recognised Stephen’s picture or not. His features remained as they had been.

She took a harsh breath. ‘I see. I imagine you think I could be anyone coming to you with this story, which might or might not be true. But I don’t have anything else to make you believe me. The story is simply as it is.’

Kate gazed round the room. She saw a dirty bookshelf packed with what looked like manuals of some kind, a shabby plant and a curled picture of a fair-haired woman holding a baby. Les’s wife or girlfriend, she presumed. She opened her mouth but no words came out. Swallowing, she found her eyes were burning and she didn’t dare blink. From nowhere a box of tissues appeared and she grabbed one, clutching it between her fingers and dabbing at the wetness on her face. Her shoulder was patted and she was aware that Les was saying words which sounded comforting but which she was unable to understand.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said when she was able to speak again. ‘Of course, I should have thought it through before coming here. I don’t mean to put you in a difficult position.’

‘You don’t. I shouldn’t have been quite so abrupt about it. They tell me I’m better as a manager here than one of the advisers, though I like to think that’s not true.’

Les talked of nothing for a few minutes, and Kate was glad of the distraction. When she was ready, she got up to go, but almost stumbled as she stood. His hand on her shoulder saved her from falling.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked her. ‘Please believe me when I say I really wish I could help, but I can’t.’

‘Yes. Yes,’ she said, interrupting him and wanting nothing more than to get away. ‘I’m all right. And I do understand. I just … need some air.’

Outside, she leant against the wall of the centre for a few moments and tried to calm her thoughts. Somebody brushed past her and she looked up, expecting whoever it had been to have already moved on. They hadn’t. In front of her stood a young man in his late twenties with dark blond spiky hair and gold chains on his wrist. Next to him was an African girl dressed entirely in denim.

‘Go on then,’ the African girl said to the young man, nudging him. ‘Do it.’

Kate’s heart thudded as the fear of being mugged swept over her, but the man merely shrugged, spat once on the ground and said, ‘Did you come about Song then?’

‘I’m sorry? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Song. You know, Song Man. Or that’s what they used to call him here.
Stephen
.’

The sound of her son’s name made Kate blink. ‘How do you know why I came? Who told you?’

The man laughed. ‘Les thinks he’s so clever, but we overhear stuff, you know? You never know when it might …’

‘… come in handy, like,’ the girl finished the sentence. ‘And I think it’ll come in handy today, won’t it?’

The slyness of her smile spoke volumes.

‘Do you know something about St… Song Man then?’ Kate asked her, leaning close enough to whisper. ‘Because if you do, I can pay you.’

‘How much?’

Kate named a price. The girl hesitated, but the young man pushed forward. He brought with him the stale stink of cigarette smoke.

‘Come on, Izzy,’ he said. ‘Any money’s good. We’ve got to get married sometime, right? Anyway if we hang around here for too long, Les’ll find out. And then what? We better be quick. Get back inside before they miss us.’

Without hesitation, Kate thrust the money she’d offered into his hands.

‘Tell me what you know about my son,’ she said.

In the next few minutes, Izzy and the young man – whose name was Barney – told her things she had never known. Stephen had last come to the centre about six or seven months ago. Just before Christmas. Which was a shame, they told her, as he always did well in the panto, but he’d turned up too late to act in it. He had a good singing voice too, hence the nickname. The star turn in the centre drama classes, when things were going right for him. She’d never imagined that. Did he get it from her? She’d always loved the theatre. Anyway, on that night, he’d eaten a hot meal in the café, spoken to one of the volunteers, had a bath and a change of clothes and then disappeared again. He hadn’t been back.

‘What was he like?’ she asked them. ‘Was he a friend of yours?’

Izzy laughed. ‘No way! There’s no way of being friends with that one. He’d turn and tear you up at the slightest thing, he would. A wild one. You had to watch your back. Sometimes he was so high on God knows what that they wouldn’t even let him in here. Sorry to say that, with you being his mother and all, but it’s true.’

‘Don’t be,’ Kate said, ‘I’ve had enough in my life of not looking at the bad things, of assuming everything is all right. I’m sick of it. I want the truth.’

‘He was better last year,’ Barney said with a shrug. ‘For a bit. But then that last time, just before Christmas, well, you could tell something was eating him. He wouldn’t let anyone near him. Not even the bloke that did the plays. And then he went, like we said. I know the centre asked around. They always do, yeah? But he’s gone. Another town, maybe, or …’

‘… or he might be dead?’ Kate finished Barney’s words.

‘Yeah, and good riddance if he is,’ Izzy chipped in. ‘I ain’t gonna cry over
that
.’

Ignoring her, Kate swallowed, the noise her throat made louder than the beating of her heart.

‘I don’t believe he’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘No, I know he isn’t.’

After Barney and Izzy had gone, the air around her seemed to close in, growing ever hotter. She leaned back, trying to regulate her breathing and, for the first time, felt in her body how fragile she was. Nothing but a combination of blood and bone and muscle, all held in by a thin layer of skin, the whole of herself regulated by the unknown machinations of the brain. Why was she here? What was it she’d hoped to achieve? One act of terrible violence and the continuing threat of a man she thought was her son had catapulted her into this insane search for him. Why couldn’t she leave well alone? But no, something in her body, her being, was compelling her to do this, for her own safety’s sake, and she wasn’t strong enough to fight it. She would see it through, however much pain and guilt the end might bring. A sudden longing for the easy friendship of Nicky overtook her and she rubbed her hands up over her face and through her hair.

The door to the centre opened and she blinked back tears, trying to put on a calm façade in case it was Les asking what she was still doing here. But it wasn’t. The smell, at the very least, should have told her that. Unwashed flesh and alcohol.

An old man was leaning on the threshold. His white, wispy hair was combed forward over his head, failing to disguise the large, quivering lump that disfigured his left eye. He was dressed in a stained grey tee-shirt and torn brown trousers which didn’t fit him. On his arm, he carried what looked like an old blanket encrusted with dirt and dark smears. Despite herself, she flinched and took two steps sideways, away from him. The man grinned, a disconnected grin that showed rotten teeth and blackness. Suddenly, shockingly, he reached out and grabbed her arm.

‘Let me go,’ she tried in vain to push him away and glanced around for help. Nobody caught her eye. ‘Let me
go
.’

He didn’t appear to have heard her. Instead, he shook his head, a movement which made the cyst on his face tremble even more.

‘You
listen
,’ he said, his voice high-pitched and as if unaccustomed to use. ‘You want Song, I know
him
. Might have something
for
you, eh? You meet me. Tonight.
Ten
o’clock. Square outside, big
square
, see?’

And then he stumbled away, quicker than she’d anticipated and before she could form any kind of reply. After a second or so, she ran after him, his smell still lingering in the air, but he’d vanished into the different groups of people chatting and laughing and, by the time she’d pushed her way through, as gently as possible, he was nowhere to be seen. What had he meant? What did he know of her son? Was it more than Barney and Izzy had told her? And what did he mean:
big square
? Trafalgar Square? Yes, it must be that. He couldn’t mean anything else.

For a few minutes she stood alone in the noise and fumes of the city street. Watching the people go by, she knew where she’d be at 10pm.