ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 10 страница

Much later, back at the house, Jackson – who had become a lot more free and easy with the remote control – let Patrick watch the repeat of the Grand National on BBC2.

Nobody died, and Patrick felt oddly pleased.

THE TUESDAY AFTER the funeral, Meg went back to the coma ward to finish reading The Da Vinci Code to Mrs Deal.

The day was unseasonably cold and wet, and it took some willpower to go, but kindness and responsibility were her crosses to bear.

Jean waved brightly at her from down the corridor, and Meg draped her jacket over Mrs Deal’s motionless legs and pulled up what she’d learned was the least obnoxious of the vinyl easy chairs.

The book sucked her into its vortex and two hours passed, when she’d only planned one. It seemed to have the same effect on Mrs Deal, who lay motionless the entire time, which Meg interpreted as rapt attention.

‘The End, ’ said Meg at last. She closed the book and put it in her lap, and blew out her cheeks as if she’d just run a mile. ‘How bloody brilliant was that? ’

Mrs Deal was speechless in her appreciation for Dan Brown.

And then she started tapping.

Jeeeesus Christmas, thought Meg. She needed to go home, have a hot bath and then eat a lot of chocolate ice cream in front of the telly.

‘Hi, ’ said Patrick.

‘Shit, you made me jump. ’

He didn’t say sorry or anything else, so Meg went on, ‘What are you doing here? ’

‘I came to say goodbye, ’ he said. ‘I’m going home. ’

‘Home home? ’

He frowned in confusion and repeated, ‘Home. ’

‘I mean, to Brecon? ’

‘Yes. ’

‘Oh. ’ Meg wasn’t sure how she felt. She would miss him, but she wasn’t quite sure how much there was to miss.

‘What will you do there? ’

‘I don’t know, ’ said Patrick.

‘Are you going to apply to another university? ’

‘I don’t know. ’

‘Will you come back to visit us? ’

‘I don’t think so. ’

Meg tried not to feel hurt. There was only so much you could expect from someone like Patrick. Still, he had come to say goodbye, which was surprisingly socially interactive of him.

‘How’s Lexi? ’ she asked.

‘She likes my bedroom, ’ he shrugged, and Meg was confused into silence.

Patrick looked past her. ‘Is that her? ’

‘This is Mrs Deal, ’ said Meg. ‘Come and say hello. ’

Patrick stepped forward a few tentative paces until he was at the foot of the bed. ‘Hello, ’ he said to the wall over her head.

‘She can’t speak. Come closer, so she can see you. ’

‘Can she see me? ’

‘Of course, ’ said Meg, even though she realized now that that was an assumption she had made just because Mrs Deal’s eyes were open.

Patrick edged closer.

‘Mrs Deal, this is Patrick. Remember I told you he was going to read to you? Well, he can’t now, but he’s come to say hi anyway. ’

‘Hi, ’ he said. He waited, then added, ‘Does she know I’m here? ’

‘Don’t be rude, ’ snapped Meg. ‘She can hear you! ’

‘OK, ’ he said. ‘Why is her finger twitching like that? ’

Meg was annoyed at his insensitivity. She was about to snap again, then she remembered that she’d asked the same question herself. She reddened at the memory. ‘It just does. She can’t help it. You don’t notice it after a while. ’

‘Oh, ’ said Patrick, and seemed to lose interest. He looked around the ward. ‘Is the girlfriend here? ’

‘You mean Angie? ’

‘Spicer’s girlfriend. ’

‘Yes, that’s Angie. She left, apparently. ’

‘Why? ’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she had to. Or maybe she just felt she had to. I feel very sorry for her. I mean, it wasn’t her fault, was it? She only ever did her best for the patients. ’

‘Eight and five, ’ said Patrick.

‘What? ’

He pointed at Mrs Deal’s fingers. ‘Eight and five, eight and five, see? Then she starts again. Eight and five. ’

Meg counted. Eight taps and then five. Eight and five. She had never noticed.

‘You’re right! What does that mean? ’

Patrick shrugged. ‘I don’t know. ’

‘That’s helpful. ’

‘Not really, ’ said Patrick. Then, after a short pause while they both stared at Mrs Deal’s hand, he went on, ‘It could mean lots of things. Or nothing. Thirteen. Or eighty-five. Or it could be simple code, like for the alphabet. The eighth letter is H and the fifth is E. ’

They both looked down at Mrs Deal’s still finger and waited. Meg giggled nervously. ‘Watch, I bet she won’t do it now! ’

But she did.

Eight and then five.

And then sixteen.

‘There goes your theory! ’ laughed Meg.

‘P, ’ said Patrick.

‘HEP, ’ said Meg. ‘Help? ’

Patrick ignored her. Mrs Deal was tapping again. For a long time without a break.

‘U, ’ said Patrick.

‘HEPU? ’ Meg screwed up her face. ‘What does that mean? ’

‘Get a pen, ’ said Patrick. ‘It’s starting again. ’

Meg took a pen from her bag and wrote on the rear inside cover of The Da Vinci Code.

Mrs Deal tapped and Patrick called out the letters and Meg wrote them down in one neat stream of randomness.

Finally Mrs Deal’s finger rested. They waited but there was no more.

Patrick looked over Meg’s shoulder as they ran their eyes across the letters, looking for natural breaks.

They both saw it at the same time, and Meg felt a weird tingle lift the hairs on the back of her neck, all the way up to her ears.

‘HE PUSHED ME, ’ said Patrick.

Monica didn’t like the crib either. She agreed with Tracy that the traditional wooden bars were too masculine, and then agreed with her again about the one with the fairy-tale canopy.

‘I mean, ’ she said, ‘you’re having a girl, not a monkey! ’

Tracy giggled, but thought that that was pretty rich, coming from someone who had brought nothing but a pair of home-knitted bootees and a bottle of Asti Spumante to her baby shower. She didn’t say anything though, because although six friends had said they’d come, Monica had been the only one who’d actually turned up. Also because Monica had been quite adamant that Tracy would have a baby that weighed no more than seven pounds, ‘because that’s all you look like you’ve gained’.

‘It’s scientific, ’ she’d added, stubbing out her cigarette with authority, and Tracy had had another cupcake.

Monica did too. There were dozens of them, all with pink icing and little silver balls. Raymond had agreed that she could have the shower at his house. She told him it was because it was closer for everyone, but really it was so she could show off.

‘Maybe you could swap it, ’ said Monica.

‘What? The baby? ’

They shrieked with laughter; Asti was fizzy as hell.

‘The crib. I bet Mothercare would take it back and he’d never even notice. ’

‘I’m not sure about that, ’ said Tracy. ‘He notices everything. ’

That was true. Badly squeezed toothpaste and drips on the toilet seat were prime among them.

Monica shook her head, dismissing all men with a wave of a cupcake. ‘Oh, they never notice stuff like that. He probably just went in and bought the first one he saw. ’

‘You think so? ’

‘I know so. ’

After Monica left, Tracy vacuumed the rug around where her feet had been, and thought about the crib.

She didn’t plan to have another baby, so this was her only chance of a fairy-tale canopy. She’d always regret it if she didn’t get exactly what she wanted.

She went through the bathroom bin and found the price ticket. £ 895. Incredible.

Then she called Mothercare and asked whether she could exchange the crib for the fairy-tale one.

The lady on the phone was as nice as pie. She checked the prices and said that the crib with the canopy was actually only £ 650, so there would be a refund as well, as long as Tracy had the receipt.

‘Oh, I don’t, ’ said Tracy. ‘My husband has that. I don’t want to ask him for it because I don’t want him to know I’m exchanging the crib he bought. ’

‘I totally understand, ’ said the nice lady, ‘but I’m afraid in that case it would just have to be a straight swap. ’

Tracy was a bit cheesed off about that. Bloody Mothercare, making money on the deal! Still, she really wanted the fairy-tale crib, so said that that would be OK.

The lady only needed the code off the price tag, but when Tracy gave it to her there was a long pause, while there were the clicks of a computer keyboard and a few puzzled little sounds.

‘I’m not sure that’s one of our models, ’ the woman said slowly.

‘It’s got Mothercare on the ticket. ’

‘Has it? Hold on. ’ More clicking and soft, internal noises.

‘Ah yes, here it is, ’ said the woman. ‘But it’s not current stock. I’m afraid that means we wouldn’t be able to exchange it, after all. ’

‘He only bought it two weeks ago, ’ said Tracy.

‘From which branch? ’

‘Yours, I suppose. We only live a few miles away. ’

More clicking.

‘I’ve just checked, madam, and that particular crib hasn’t been stocked in any of our stores for at least two years. ’

‘That’s impossible, ’ said Tracy crossly. ‘He bought it two weeks ago! ’

‘Are you sure? ’

‘I think I’d notice a bloody great wooden cage in my house if it had been there any longer! ’

That wasn’t strictly true; she didn’t live here, after all. There was a garage she’d never been in, and a hatch to an attic at the top of the stairs. But it sounded true, and that was the main thing.

There was a longish silence at the other end of the line. ‘Perhaps he bought it elsewhere? Secondhand? ’

‘He wouldn’t buy it secondhand! ’ spat Tracy. ‘He’s rich. ’

‘Well, ’ said the lady coolly, ‘he didn’t buy it from us in the past two years, and it is no longer current stock, so I’m afraid I can’t help you. ’

‘Fine! ’ said Tracy and slammed down the phone.

‘Fucking bitch! ’ she yelled at the vacuum cleaner, then she frowned hard at the ticket on the crib.

Raymond was rich. He had a big house and an expensive car, and Tracy had found his bank statements while he was in the shower. He didn’t need to buy anything secondhand. The crib still had the tags on it. It must be new!

Maybe he’d hidden it from her for a while, as a surprise. Raymond didn’t like surprises, but maybe he’d made an exception. Maybe he’d bought it as soon as he’d found out she was pregnant. Maybe there was an Aladdin’s cave of gifts for her up in the attic, waiting to be dispensed.

He was a dark horse.

She should just ask him, really, but Raymond was not the kind of man you could just ask. He didn’t get angry, but he did get quiet, which was worse.

Tracy glanced at the mantel clock; he wouldn’t be home for an hour. Plenty of time to see what she could find.

She giggled and finished what was left of the Asti, which was only a gulp. Then she went upstairs carefully, holding on to the banister. The stairs were steep, and Jordan/Jamelia/Jaden unbalanced her even at the best of times.

She found the pole that Mr Deal – Raymond – kept behind the bathroom door. It was heavy and wooden and the brass hook on the end was tiny and had to go into what seemed to be an even tinier brass ring on the attic hatch. The pole waved and wobbled in her hand. Stupid thing!

She knew she was snooping and that that was a bad thing to do, but if Raymond didn’t want her asking questions, he shouldn’t be so mysterious! Buying her a crib that was two years out of date. Getting baby clothes without her. And all the wrong colour, when they knew they were having a girl. What was wrong with him?

She got impatient and off-balance, and the hook banged the wall and tore the paper.

‘Shit, ’ she said. Mr Deal’s house was very, very neat and tidy, and he would be sure to notice a six-inch gash and peeling paper right there on the landing. He’d be terribly cross. She’d have to stick it back on before he got home.

Suddenly an hour didn’t seem like a long time at all.

She took twenty minutes to find glue, then she couldn’t reach the tear, and so she got a chair from the second bedroom and placed it on the landing.

That’s where Mr Deal found her when he got home, glueing her own stupid fingers to the wallpaper as she teetered like a beach ball on the delicate chair that was far too close to the top of the long, winding staircase.

And he was cross.

Terribly.

PART FOUR

PATRICK CALLED HIS mother to tell her he was coming home, but she wasn’t there. He left a message instead, with the time of the train, so she could come and pick him up from Merthyr.

On the ride home, he sat at a table and unpacked the mobile phone Meg had given him on the station platform.

‘For emergencies, ’ she’d said.

‘But I don’t have any emergencies, ’ he’d said.

‘Patrick! How can you—’

Then she’d realized it was a joke, and laughed.

Still, he didn’t want it or like it.

‘Will you call me? ’ she said, as the train squealed in.

‘I don’t know, ’ he answered.

‘OK, ’ she said, with a strange look on her face.

Now Patrick read the manual, just for something to do.

Outside, the glittering Taff wound under the tracks, and the city dissolved quickly to green. Castell Coch came and went in the morning sunlight, and then the Valleys started for real – the rows of grey and brown stone cottages, set into the sides of the mountains that were sometimes rock and sometimes coal and all coated in careful grass and dotted with sheep.

‘Is it a BlackBerry? ’ said one of the two twelve-year-olds who’d got on at Taffs Well.

‘No, it’s a phone, ’ said Patrick and the boys grinned at each other.

One twisted his head sideways and peered at the picture on the front of the manual. ‘It’s not even a smartphone, ’ he said.

‘It’s fucking shit, ’ said the other.

Patrick put down the manual and said, ‘Three weeks ago, I sawed off a man’s head. ’

The boys said nothing else, and got off at the next stop.

Patrick was at Quakers Yard before the stupidly complex manual told him how to make a call, and close to Troedyrhiw before he found out how to use the loudspeaker facility so that the phone didn’t fry his brain.

He dialled Meg’s beautiful number.

‘I’m calling you, ’ he shouted from a safe distance.

‘I can hear that, ’ she laughed. ‘Thank you. ’

‘OK! ’ he yelled. ‘Goodbye! ’

His mother was not at the station to meet him, so he waited on the wooden bench outside for an hour.

Still she didn’t come, so he used his new phone to call the house, but there was still no answer, and this time it didn’t even switch to the machine, so he couldn’t leave another message.

He waited for another hour and went across the road to buy himself a burger, then ate it and waited some more. Not having a bicycle was like not having legs.

Around three p. m. he got a bus to Brecon and then a taxi home.

Not quite home. The meter clocked up the exact amount Patrick had left in his jeans when they were three-quarters of a mile from the house, so he asked the driver to drop him off, then walked the rest of the way. His suitcase was no fuller than when he’d left home, but that was full enough to be awkward, so he left it inside a field gate, up against the hedge, and walked on without it.

The Fiesta was not in the driveway and the back door was locked.

Patrick walked around the house, peering into the windows, and then fetched the spare key from the hook on the apple tree and let himself in.

It was April, but the old stone house still felt cold.

The cat ran into the kitchen to greet him, then stopped when it saw who it was, and sat down to lick its own arse instead.

Patrick noticed that the cat’s bowl was full to the brim with food, as was the one next to it – and the one next to that, and the water bowl was also full to overflowing.

He went upstairs to check her bedroom. There was no sign of her. No indication of where she was.

Back in the hallway he noticed the answerphone was unplugged from the wall. He plugged it back in. There were no new messages, even though he had left one just this morning. That meant his mother had listened to his message after he’d called from the station. She’d known he’d be arriving at midday. Had he missed her at the station somehow? He didn’t see how that could have happened.

He made a fire in the kitchen, and then a sandwich. The bread was stale, so he took the sandwich apart and toasted it instead. That meant he had to eat the cheese and chutney by itself and search through the cupboard for something that started with a late ‘T’ instead of anything after ‘B’. There was a can of tuna, and he forked that between the two slices.

Then he made a cup of tea. When he picked up the kettle to fill it, he realized it was still lukewarm.

It was only when he sat down at the table to eat that Patrick noticed the letter propped between the salt and pepper.

It had his name on the envelope, so he opened it and read it.

Patrick,

Welcome home. I am sorry I am not there but things have been very difficult for me and I cannot go on like this.

My will is at the offices of JMP Legal in Church Street. The house is not paid off but the mortgage is not big because of your father’s life insurance, and if you get a job you should be able to stay there if you want.

I hope you can forgive me, as I have forgiven you, but I cannot face the future if it is to be the same as the past.

Whatever you do, please take care of the cat.

Love

Mum.

Patrick sat and thought about the letter while he chewed slowly on his sandwich. He didn’t like it. Something bad came off it in waves, like a smell. There was definitely a message in it. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded as if she wasn’t coming back. And all that stuff about the will made it seem like she was dead, but that couldn’t be true because nobody knew when they were going to die.

It irked him that he couldn’t quite work it out, but at the same time he felt a strange urgency. So he left the second half of his sandwich, and took the letter round to Weird Nick.

Weird Nick shook his head and said, ‘Shit, Patrick! This is a suicide note! ’

‘Is it? ’ said Patrick doubtfully.

‘Yes it is, ’ said Weird Nick. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, mate, but your mother’s been behaving like a total nutter. A few weeks back she tried to burn down the shed! I had to put the fire out with the garden hose, and we’re on a meter. ’

‘Why would she do that? ’

‘Who knows? ’ said Weird Nick, shaking the note like a farewell handkerchief. ‘But this is serious, Patrick. She’s going to kill herself. ’

‘She told me she tried to do that once before. ’

‘When? ’

‘The day my dad died. ’

‘Yeah? Well, that proves it. How did she try then? ’

‘She said she was going to jump off Penyfan, ’ said Patrick. ‘And the Fiesta is gone. ’

‘We need to get to Penyfan right now! ’ said Weird Nick decisively. Then he said, ‘Shit! I’m not allowed to drive my mum’s car. ’

‘I don’t understand why she wants to kill herself, ’ said Patrick.

‘It doesn’t matter why, does it? ’

Patrick looked Weird Nick in the eye for the first time in his life. ‘Why is all that matters, ’ he said.

Patrick’s mind started to bubble – battling once more with the implications of everything he knew. How the puzzle pieces fitted together. He turned suddenly and walked briskly back towards his own garden.

‘Hold on! ’ said Weird Nick. ‘Patrick! Where are you going? I’ve only got slippers on. ’

Patrick didn’t wait for him.

He only knew three things for sure that had changed since he was last home. His mother had written a suicide note. He had told her he was coming home. She had tried to burn down the shed. He could see no correlation between the three things, but he felt that somehow they must be connected.

He could see the scorched wood at the corner of the shed as he crossed the gravel – a dark scar that must tell a story, just as surely as a blocked artery, swollen meninges, a bitten finger.

He touched the burnt wood, feeling how it crumbled and flaked under his fingers, leaving them black as coal.

Behind him he heard someone coming across the gravel and assumed it was Weird Nick.

The fire had taken a good bite out of the bottom of the shed before being extinguished with Weird Nick’s mother’s very expensive water. Patrick knelt in the weed-cushioned gravel and looked through the hole it had made. In the warm spring afternoon, his eyes took a while to adjust to the dark cavern that was the inside of the shed.

There wasn’t much to see. The weeds continued from the outside to the inside, across the cracked concrete floor of the shed, as if there had never been a barrier there. Against the far wall he could see cobwebs draped like curtains.

He lay down to get a better view. Between the burnt wood and the cobwebs, Patrick could just make out a wheel of a car.

He stood up. ‘There’s a car in there. ’

‘Fuck, ’ said Weird Nick softly. ‘Is it her? ’

‘I don’t know, ’ said Patrick. His voice sounded the same, but the urgency inside him was growing with every breath he took.

He jogged to the ruined greenhouse. Among the debris were things he remembered from his childhood; things that had always been there, between the glass and the grass and the cement gone hard in its bags.

One of them was an old, rusted hatchet.

He grabbed it and ran back across the gravel, and didn’t even slow down before driving the hatchet into the wooden door.

‘Shit, Patrick! ’ said Weird Nick, shielding his head from the splinters, but Patrick ignored him, using the hatchet like a hammer, and when he’d made a hole that was big enough, tearing at the planks with his bare hands. The wood was old and rotten and soon he tore off the latch itself, and one door creaked crookedly open just a few inches on a rusted hinge.

‘Patrick, wait! ’

Patrick did, panting and suddenly frightened, while Weird Nick stepped gingerly forward and opened the door.

‘It’s OK, Patrick, ’ he said. ‘It’s not her. ’

‘What is it then? ’ Patrick stepped forward to look into the shed – and stared in disbelief. ‘It’s our old car. ’

It was.

Under a thick layer of dust was the old blue Volkswagen. In an instant, Patrick remembered how deep the back seat was – so deep that he’d have to kneel if he wanted to see out of the windows, and covered with a comforting velour. A back seat for sleeping, as he loved to do. He remembered how his mother had seemed so small in the plush driver’s seat, and how his father would laugh at her and pat her on the head and make her laugh too. He remembered his father opening the bonnet and showing him the plugs and the air filter and where to top up the radiator. He could do it right now; it was so fresh in his head.

But he didn’t remember the damage.

The front edge of the bonnet was crumpled, the radiator grille smashed, the VW badge popped out, leaving only a black circle in its place. And in the middle of the bonnet was another dent – a shallow pan impressed in the metal, as if someone had taken a medicine ball and dropped it there.

Patrick stared at it.

For no reason at all, he thought of his mother’s stinging hand on his backside when she’d caught him testing the lock on the shed door.

No means no, Patrick!

Was the car in here then?

Why would she hide it?

People hide things because they don’t want anyone to know about them.

His mother’s words. Telling him something as surely as the dead man had. In a slow fog, Patrick reached out and touched the distorted metal – ran his thumb along the steel creases, with their seams of rust.

‘It’s been in a crash, ’ said Weird Nick.

And that was all it took – to hear the truth spoken aloud.

With a lurch of his insides that actually made him sway, Patrick saw his father’s hips crush the front edge, his legs smash the radiator grille, his head bounce off the place that looked as though it had been punched by a monster fist.

A strangled shout escaped him and he clapped his hand over his mouth in surprise.

His mother had killed his father.

But why?

Because Weird Nick’s mother was out, they took her car, even though they weren’t allowed, and even though neither of them had ever driven on the roads.

Patrick drove because Weird Nick said that it was his emergency and that his mother would therefore be more likely to forgive Patrick if anything happened to her car.

Patrick didn’t follow the logic but assumed his neighbour must be right. He was more concerned that the word ‘emergency’ had made him realize he’d left Meg’s phone on the kitchen table next to his tuna sandwich. He wished he had them both.

Driving Weird Nick’s mother’s car was nothing like Grand Theft Auto. Patrick steered and braked and pressed the clutch whenever Weird Nick said so, and Weird Nick changed gears, looked both ways at junctions, and kept an eye out for small children running into the road in the villages, and sheep thereafter.

At times they reached speeds of thirty miles an hour.

‘I hope we’re not too late, ’ said Weird Nick.

Patrick remembered, ‘The kettle was still a bit warm. She can’t have been gone for long. ’

They lurched to a halt beside the Fiesta, which was parked opposite the Storey Arms at the base of Penyfan. It was only then that Weird Nick realized he was still wearing slippers, and was therefore ill equipped to climb the highest peak in South Wales.

‘I’m such an idiot! ’ he wailed.

Patrick didn’t answer pointless statements. Instead he just got out of the car, jogged across the road and started up the slope alone.

AT A SHADE under three thousand feet, Penyfan was little more than a very steep hill, really, but it still took some climbing. It was also deceptive. It started broad and shallow, with an inviting footpath passing through gentle fields, bathed in sunshine. A family might ascend, with small children; maybe Nana in a wheelchair!

But soon there was a stile, and then a mean descent into a cheating valley, before the real rise began again from below the original starting point.

By halfway up, the slope was a proper incline that required the bowing of the head, the lifting of the knees and the sending back of children and the elderly, while the drop on either side of the stony footpath grew closer and closer, until it seemed that to stray too far from the path might be a rash thing to do.

Here the winds gusted hard, cooling any sun and blowing one briefly raised leg across the other in an effort to trip the unwary walker.

Halfway up there was a monument to a five-year-old boy who had died of exposure on the spot, having wandered away from a local farm and tragically walked up, instead of down.