Elizabeth came back about two weeks later. She stood beneath the arch into Trespass Place and waved. George got up and followed her to Marco’s. By the same window they ate more toast and drank more hot chocolate.
Elizabeth said, ‘Do you remember Mrs Riley?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nancy is her name. She listened to the prosecution opening and then left the court, rather like you.’
George remembered the hat — yellow with black spots —pulled down as if it were a steel helmet.
Elizabeth explained that Riley’s solicitor, Mr Wyecliffe, was a highly intelligent man. She had asked him to interview Nancy with a view to obtaining a witness statement upon Riley’s good character. The difficulty was that no one knew what Nancy might say under cross-examination. Ultimately it was agreed that Nancy would not go into the witness box: she would only reveal Riley’s anger towards women.
George said, ‘She’s crackers.’
‘She trusts him, that’s all,’ said Elizabeth reprovingly ‘Maybe she sees a trace of something, a remnant of what’s been lost.’
Neither of them spoke for a while.
‘When I first saw you under that fire escape,’ mused Elizabeth innocently ‘I didn’t recognise you.
‘I’ve been sleeping rough for years. It changes you.’
‘Even in daylight you looked different,’ she continued. ‘Something’s gone, something you can’t catch and put in your notebook. Riley wouldn’t recognise you either, if you bumped into him.’
George looked up quickly.
‘He’s still a criminal, as he always was,’ she said, collecting toast crumbs with a manicured finger. ‘Nancy is the way to proving it. Maybe we can all make amends. How does that sound to you?’
When Elizabeth had gone, George went back to Trespass Place and wrote it all down in book thirty-five. There’d be one more volume before he got his head kicked in.
George sat beneath the fire escape, his goggles in his hair, reading his account of that meeting It was the beginning of a calculated scheme — although Elizabeth’s plans were already formed. They just required his cooperation. From the moment he’d written down her invitation it was as though every ill that had come to pass since the trial might all be transformed by a greater conclusion. Elizabeth had said, ‘If we get the ending right, we’ll change everything, right back to the beginning. It’s almost magic. A monk told me.’
The monk who hadn’t turned up, thought George, looking towards the arch at the end of the courtyard. He hadn’t slept for days now. Giddily he counted the scratches on the wall. Then he hauled himself upright, positioned his goggles and tramped into the sunshine. His shoes were split and the laces frayed. They fell off as he walked. On Old Paradise Street, he slumped forward onto the pavement, one leg in the gutter. He heard the tread of feet: frantic high heels, the measured clip of some army type, the squelch of trainers. Some slowed, some stopped, some spoke; but the river of feet moved on, drawn towards a sea of pressing obligations.
Among the flowing George heard the steps of someone familiar, a dawdling coming close … a pat-patting of small red sandals. He was dreaming. The ankles came into view: white skin upon fine bones; blue veins summoned by a wind that lifted off the waves. The boy’s copper hair danced. George lifted a hand off the pavement, reaching out, and said, ‘Oh, John.’
The waking dream unfolded. It was like watching a family video.
George took his son by the hand on Southport Pier. It was a blustery day with gulls thrown around as though attached to the railings by string. Occasionally they dropped like stones, but landed lightly on discarded crusts of bread. George found a bench, and John clambered beside him, banging one of his knees.
‘What’s for lunch, Dad?’
George pulled a tin from the plastic bag prepared by Emily ‘Salmon.’
‘That’s a treat, Dad.’
‘You’re right there, son.
They sat side by side, watched by the passers-by George kicked his shoes off and wiggled his toes. John pedalled the air.
The cold sun tilted towards the west. George checked his watch: it was time to get back to the hotel. Emily was waiting. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said despondently He didn’t want these moments of happiness to end.
John refused to budge.
‘We have to go.
John leaned away arms entwining round part of the bench.
George pulled him free and roughed his hair. The boy stomped ahead, along the silver timbers. His voice flew on the wind, ‘I like Southport, Dad.’
‘We’ll come again, son.
Blind George rolled over onto his back and said, ‘But we didn’t, did we?’
A passer-by knelt down and placed his hand under George’s head. It was a young man. His hair was gelled and spiked like a sea urchin. He wore a T-shirt with WINGS written on it. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘You’ve no shoes.’
‘I must have left them at Southport.’
The young man sat down and took off his trainers. ‘Put these on.
George couldn’t speak or protest. He just watched this prickly helper struggle to fit the shoes onto his feet. They were white with bright red stripes. Seconds later the figure walked briskly away as if he were embarrassed. Written across the back of his T-shirt were the words: WORLD TOUR.
I wonder where he’s off to now, thought George. He jogged back to Trespass Place — with sporty things like that on each hoof, he’d have looked stupid walking.
10
Nick drove to Larkwood Priory in his mother’s lemon-yellow VW Beetle. Her red valise lay on the passenger seat. By late afternoon, after several wrong turns, he came upon a line of oak trees straggling towards a set of colossal gates. They were jammed open. Above an incline topped by rhododendrons he saw a spire and patchwork tiles.
The reception desk was unoccupied, although a phone was off the hook. A tinny voice came out of it yelling, ‘Hello?’ Nick peeked down a corridor but jumped when a hand touched his shoulder.
‘Were you ever in the scouts?’
The monk was ageless and aged, dressed in a black habit and a white scapular. A length of frayed plastic twine was tied with a bow round a thin waist. His cranium, while angular, seemed soft as sponge, with a haze of shaved white fluff.
‘I was a Sixer,’ said Nick proudly.
‘When I was a lad,’ said the monk, hooking his thumbs onto the belt, ‘Baden-Powell told me a secret about the relief of Mafeking.’
‘Really?’
The telephone shouted, ‘Hello?’
The monk looked at the receiver as if it were an unusual fruit and put it back on the console. ‘The Boers were at the gates, armed to the teeth.’
A gentle cough robbed Nick of the disclosure. ‘Thank you, Sylvester.’
Father Anselm led Nick outdoors. The monk seemed much younger than the barrister he remembered. As with Baden-Powell’s confidant, a life of denial appeared to have disarranged the normal ageing process. He was probably in his forties. They’d met a few times in the corridors of his mother’s chambers. A slight hesitation in his gait made him look shy and boyish, as if he were on his way to the podium to pick up the diligence prize after all the clever children had returned to their seats. Short, ruffled hair and round glasses magnified a look of permanent surprise. His black habit was frayed; the white scapular flapped like a long serviette.
‘My mother kept a secret,’ said Nick. They faced each other across a table in a herb garden. He placed his mother’s case between them. ‘She wanted to reveal it to me. When I turned to listen it was too late.’
The monk took off his glasses like some patients remove their trousers. He seemed strangely vulnerable.
‘By chance,’ said Nick, ‘I found a key hidden in this book.’
He passed over The Following of Christ. ‘I’m afraid the scrawl is mine. Biro practice when I was five or so.’