A Line of Blood (4 page)

Millicent rang. I cradled the phone to my ear. Screams and shouts of morning break, six hundred London children giving voice.

‘I was worried.’

‘Hey. Sorry.’ Her voice was strained.

‘Where are you?’

‘On my way. You at the school?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wait for me?’

‘I’d hoped to speak to him before they go in again.’

‘You’ve forgotten his name again, haven’t you?’ Her voice softened.

‘I know. Bad Dad.’

‘So, you going to wait for me, Bad Dad?’

‘OK. All right.’

I saw Max in a dissolute huddle of boys, all oversized shirts and falling-down trousers. I caught his eye and pointed to the school building. ‘See you in there,’ I mouthed. He nodded and turned away.

Millicent arrived five minutes after the school bell. She was pale, the contours of her face shifted by lack of sleep. She reached up and kissed me.

Even in heels, Millicent was short. When we’d first met, it had made me want to protect her. Now I hardly noticed. I held her, grateful that she was there. She held me just as tightly. Then she ended the embrace by tapping me on the back.

‘Where’ve you been?’ I said.

‘Out. Thinking. Sorry.’

It’s been like this since we lost Sarah. Millicent’s reaction – her ultimate reaction, after she had fallen apart – was to do the opposite of falling apart. She reconstructed herself. She became supercompetent. Make your play, she writes, then move on. Play and move on.

The classroom looked like a post-war public information film, but with more black and brown faces. Didactic posters covered the walls. The children sat in orderly rows, working in twos from textbooks. Three rows back sat Max with his friend Tarek. He looked up when we entered, but didn’t acknowledge us.

Mr Sharpe too looked like a man from another age. Dark-skinned, and with close-cropped hair, dressed in a faultlessly pressed suit: like a black country schoolmaster from a time when no country schoolmaster was black. His hair was brilliantine slick, his moustache pencil thin, his hands delicate and agile.

‘May we speak with you?’ Millicent said. ‘We’re Max’s parents. We wanted to explain the reason for his lateness.’

‘Of course.’

‘In private.’ She turned towards the corridor.

‘Actually, that isn’t really appropriate.’ He gestured towards the class. I looked around, and found Tarek and Max looking directly at me. Tarek whispered something to Max; they looked at the teacher and at us, and laughed.

‘Unless, of course, you can wait until lunch break. Twelve fifteen. Here.’

‘We’d like Max to be present.’

Mr Sharpe nodded, waved us from the room and closed the door behind us.

‘Uh huh,’ said Millicent. ‘That sure went well.’

We bought bad coffee from a bad café, drank it from bad Styrofoam cups on a low wall on the baddest of Crappy’s bad streets. I lit a cigarette, and we shared it like the bad boy and bad girl we weren’t and never would be.

Millicent inhaled deeply, holding back some of the smoke inside her mouth, catching it as it started to wisp upwards, then sucking it hungrily down into her primed lungs. Two hits in one draw: proper film noir smoking. Even after thirteen years of marriage it suggested something unknowable, some glamorous secret that I was never quite party to.

‘What is it, Alex?’

‘You. Smoking in the sun. Hello.’

That same image – Millicent, backlight and smoke. It repeats itself sometimes, and it catches me off guard. It’s no more than a sliver of who she is, a reminder of a moment before we began to share our imperfections with each other. The American girl I met in the pub.

‘So,’ said Millicent, ‘the radio thing.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have listened to it.’

‘No, I kind of get why you couldn’t do that, Alex.’ She laughed gently. ‘I
really
did not see that one coming.’

I laughed too, then stopped, brought up short by the flash frame of the neighbour that cut hard into my thoughts: the broken body in its broken bathtub, the blooded eye cold against the London heat. Water falling through space.

Three frames of the wrong kind of reality.

‘What is it, Alex, honey?’

Erase.
Breathe.

‘Alex, are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said.
Breathe.

Millicent looked concerned, put a hand on my arm.

‘I’m fine.’ I breathed.

‘You’re fine?’

‘I’m fine.’ I breathed again. ‘You said you didn’t suck, Millicent.’

‘No, I sucked a little, but I didn’t stink.’

‘They gave you flowers.’

‘It was an evening transmission. I guess they already bought them before the show.’

‘But they liked you. Come
on
.’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Yes, I guess they did like me. Because also they gave me this. Look.’ From her bag she produced an envelope.

I took it from her.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘A contract.’

‘A letter of engagement. They emailed it to me. At four thirty this morning.’

‘You can’t have sucked at all, Millicent.’

‘They’re on summer schedule. They need cover. Tuesdays eight to ten. Four weeks.’

‘Wow,’ I said again.

‘Yeah, wow,’ she said. ‘That’s good, right?’

‘It’s brilliant, and you know it.’

My America.

We sat grinning at each other on our low wall.

Manifest destiny.

The meeting with Mr Sharpe lasted ten minutes. Max spent the first five looking out of the classroom window. When I described my fear that what he had seen might have traumatised him,
must
have traumatised him, Max looked round at me, then at Mr Sharpe. Then he yawned and went back to looking out of the window.

Mr Sharpe listened closely. When I had nothing more to say, he sat, drumming his fingers lightly on his desk, looking from Millicent to me, and back again. He opened a notebook that had been lying on the desk.

‘So, Mrs … I’m sorry,
Ms
Weitzman.’

‘Millicent.’

‘Hmm. Quite so. You asked that Max be present at this meeting. May I ask why?’

‘You wanted to be here,’ I said, ‘didn’t you, Max-Man?’

‘Yes,’ said Max, still looking out of the window.

‘And why was that, Max?’ asked Mr Sharpe, closing his notebook and placing it carefully back on the desk.

‘I don’t know, Mr Sharpe.’

‘Do you have anything to add to what your father has told me?’

‘No, Mr Sharpe.’

‘All right, Max. Run along and join your friends, then.’

Max left the room, closing the classroom door with exaggerated care. Millicent and I exchanged a look.
Run along?
Still, there was something strangely comforting about this odd little man with his easy paternalism and his brilliantined hair.

Through the wired glass I saw Max linger for a moment, then he disappeared down the corridor.

‘So, Millicent and …’

‘Alex.’

‘Millicent and Alex. Quite. Max seems well-adjusted, well-parented, if I may use that expression. You may be sure that I shall keep an eye open for any sign of the trauma that concerns you.’

‘That’s most kind of you, Mr Sharpe,’ said Millicent.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I found myself saying. ‘Really very kind indeed.’ The man’s formality was catching.

Mr Sharpe smiled a benign smile. ‘Of course, it’s summer break soon, and Max will be leaving us in a few short weeks. Was there anything else?’

‘Not unless there’s anything you would like us to address at home,’ I said, surprised that he hadn’t mentioned Max’s swearing.

‘No, as I said, a well-brought-up boy. Nice circle of friends, never in trouble. Studious, but not a prig. Neither a victim nor a bully. He listens in class, he does his homework, he reads well. He will settle well into secondary school life; I have no doubt of it. I’m not really sure what more I can say.’

‘Well parented, you said?’ asked Millicent.

‘Yes, a credit to you and your husband.’

‘He doesn’t seem in any way odd to you?’

‘Dear me, no. Why?’

We didn’t see Max as we left the school.

‘Shouldn’t that man be a country schoolmaster somewhere in the middle of the 1950s?’ I said.

‘I kind of liked him,’ said Millicent.

‘Me too. Strange that Max likes him so much, though.’

‘Kids don’t like teachers who want to hang out; they don’t like for adults to talk about hip hop and social networking. They want to know where the line is, and what will happen when they cross that line. Especially boys. They’re kind of hardwired conservative at that age.’

‘But how does that work here in Crappy?’

‘So many questions, Alex. Aren’t you tired?’

Seventy hours of footage sitting on my computer. Five days to view it.

Across the road from the neighbour’s house an ambulance stood parked. Three police cars boxed in the parked cars on our side of the street.

The door of the house on the other side of ours opened. Mr Ashani, all flower baskets and civic pride. His house was freshly painted, his cream slacks smartly pleated; his smile had God on its side.

‘Mr and Mrs Mercer,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘We see too little of each other.’

‘Hey, how are you, Mr Ashani?’ said Millicent, offering up her cheek.

‘French style,’ said Mr Ashani. ‘Nice.’ He kissed her briskly, once on each cheek, then held out his hand to me. I tried to grip it as firmly as he gripped mine. ‘Nice,’ he said again. His right eye had the first faint suggestion of cataract clouding its surface, but his skin was flawless. I had once asked him his age, and he had laughed. ‘Oh, you mean the old black-don’t-crack thing, sir?’ I should have asked him again, but I was afraid of appearing rude, or worse.

‘Waiting for the dead man?’ said Mr Ashani.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, not at all.’

Mr Ashani laughed, coughed a little, and laughed again.

‘Not you, Mr Mercer.’ He nodded towards the ambulance. The crew had the doors open in the London heat, listening to the radio, drinking water from aluminium bottles.

‘I asked them, you see, but they told me nothing. The police have been there two hours. I saw men with metal cases and there were flashes coming from the house. They would not do this if this man were still alive, surely?’

‘You think they’re taking photographs?’ I said.

‘Can you think of any other reason for the flashes, sir?’ he said. ‘We must pray that this is not the beginning of a wave of crime.’

‘No crime was committed, Mr Ashani.’

‘No, my dear?’

‘It appears to be a suicide,’ said Millicent, her voice quiet.

‘No,’ he said. A look of horror passed across his face. ‘What a vile and cowardly thing that would be. We must hope that you are mistaken. We must hope that this is a murder.’

‘Mr Ashani, I can’t believe you would say that.’

‘It is not my wish to offend you, Mrs Mercer.’

‘A man is lying dead in there, Mr Ashani. Surely he deserves our sympathy – your sympathy – however he died.’

Mr Ashani considered this. ‘No, Mrs Mercer,’ he said. ‘No, suicide is the greatest of crimes. To turn one’s back on redemption, to despair in such a way … It is … That you cannot see this … I am at a loss …’

He began to walk back towards his house.

Millicent made to walk after him. ‘Mr Ashani. Please.’

He turned, then very deliberately walked back towards us.

‘I do not wish you to think me cruel,’ he said, ‘but the word on this is very precise, my dear. And besides, this man was not a moral man.’

I tried to move into Millicent’s line of sight. I wanted her to change the subject.

‘Mr Ashani,’ said Millicent, ‘I respect your view, of course I do, but we disagree.’

Mr Ashani began to speak very quietly, his voice grave. ‘With murder there is at least the hope of salvation. The soul of the victim may ascend to heaven, and the murderer may reflect on his crime and repent.’ He turned to me, smiled the most reasonable of smiles. ‘You see this, sir, do you not?’

I gave what I hope was a smile of respect. Mr Ashani nodded, as if I had confirmed his point, turned back to Millicent. ‘With suicide, Mrs Mercer, a soul is forever lost to God. Forever. To choose suicide is to mark your card for damnation. No, Mrs Mercer, no, we must pray that this is a murder.’

I looked at Millicent.
Change the subject …

OK.
Millicent looked back at me.
All right.

‘Mr Ashani,’ she said, ‘my husband and I have been arguing over how old you are.’

He smiled. ‘How old do you think I am?’

‘So our guess was somewhere between fifty …’

‘Fifty? Excellent.’ He laughed.

‘And I guess, and I hope you won’t be offended, but we really didn’t know …’ She screwed up her eyes slightly, touched his hand to show that she meant no harm. ‘Well, we thought upper limit seventy.’

‘Upper limit? That’s your upper limit?’

Millicent nodded. ‘Maybe sixty-seven?’

‘I’m
seventy
-seven,’ he said, clearly delighted. ‘Fit as the day is young.’

‘My husband worries, you know, Mr Ashani. He thinks maybe you’ll think badly of us for not being able to guess. You have such perfect skin.’

‘No, my dear. No, I am not offended. Other things offend me, perhaps, but not that.’

‘You see,’ she said as I closed the front door behind us, ‘he doesn’t think you’re a racist for not knowing his age.’

‘What did he mean by other things?’

‘Well, I guess maybe he
could
think that you are a little racist because you don’t engage with his ideas … I mean with anyone else you would just jump right in there, but Mr Ashani gets to believe what he wants about God and suicide and murder, unchallenged by you.’

‘He’s old.’

‘Right … I’m sure that’s why you don’t engage with his views. And why you never invite him round. The guy likes an argument. You can see that.’

‘You think I’m racist?’ And suddenly I could see that she was laughing. ‘So now racism is funny?’

A dull thud, as if someone in the dead neighbour’s house had dropped a sledge hammer. Time stopped. Millicent winced. The air in the room was all dust and heat. Millicent laughed, as if embarrassed by her reaction. Time restarted.