The Shape of Snakes (13 page)

I sighed. "Told you what? That I was pursuing something that was important to me? As I recall, the last time I used those words to you, you accused me of being a neurotic bitch and said if Annie's name was ever mentioned in your presence again, you'd divorce me."

He waved a despairing hand. "I didn't mean it."

"Yes, you did," I said flatly, "and if I'd been half as confident then as Tom and Luke are now, I'd have told you where to stuff your pathetic little divorce. I only stayed with you because I had nowhere else to go. My mother banned me from going home and none of my friends wanted a loony parked in their spare bedrooms."

"You said you wanted to stay."

"I was lying."

Sam lowered himself gingerly onto an unopened box of wine. "I thought this was all over a long time ago. I thought you'd forgotten about it."

"No."

"Jesus," he muttered, dropping his head into his hands and lapsing into a long silence. He roused himself finally. "Have you
ever
loved me?" he asked bitterly.

I wanted to tell him it was a childish question, that if he didn't know the answer after twenty-four years then nothing I could say would make a difference. Did he think anyone could live indefinitely with someone they didn't love?
Could he?
But outside on the terrace Tom's boom box roared into sudden life, causing the walls and floors of the old farmhouse to thump in sympathy, and I was spared the necessity of replying.

I went into the bathroom to change and left my rucksack on the bed for Sam to explore. It was a cowardly way to impart information but I didn't feel badly about it. As the old adage has it-you reap what you sow-and Sam's harvest was well overdue.
 

E-mail from Mrs. Julia Charles, formerly next-door
neighbor to the Ranelaghs at 3 Graham Road,
Richmond-now living in Toronto, Canada-dated 1999

M. R.

From: Julia Charles ([email protected])
Sent: 11 February 1999 18:50
To: M. Ranelagh
Subject: The Slater children!

You won't believe the trouble we've had just to locate one of the Slater children! Not the one you wanted, I fear-being the youngest (Danny)-but he may be the most amenable to persuading his mother to answer your letters! I won't bore you with full details of the swings and roundabouts-suffice it to say that Jennifer's preschool chum at number 6 (Linda Barry) kept in touch with another preschool chum (Amy Trent) who was at art school with Danny and still keeps in touch with him. We really did bust a gut to find Alan but got nowhere, I'm afraid. Word has it that he married six or seven years ago and is living somewhere in Isleworth, but I don't know how accurate that is. It might be worth trying international directory inquiries to see if there's an A. Slater in that area, but it's a common name and you may come up with several.

Anyway, Danny Slater is living somewhere in Brixton (no address or phone number) and teaching graphic design at a college there. The name and address of the college is: Freetown Community Center, Brixton, London. However, the really good news is that he has an e-mail [email protected] collects his messages regularly via an Internet cafe near Waterloo station. Jennifer's game to make the contact if Luke and Tom don't want to, but it would speed things up, I think, if you approach him direct. NB: Your idea to say it's an IT project using e-mail and Internet only is a good one and worked well with Linda and Amy.

So glad to hear Sam's on the mend. I know what a shock it must have been for you!

Speak soon, love Julia
 

Part of the e-mail correspondence between Luke
Ranelagh and Danny Slater during the first six months of 1999

DANNY SLATER

From: Luke Ranelagh ([email protected])
Sent: 22 February 1999 15:12
To: Danny Slater
Subject: Babes in bikinis

How about these? Mine's the blond babe on the right. Word pictures of Graham Road will do if you don't have access to a scanner. I'm an ex-pat, for Christ's sake! I have an aesthetic appreciation of all things English. Cheers. Luke.

LUKE RANELAGH

From: Danny Slater ([email protected])
Sent: 20 February 1999 20:50
To: Luke Ranelagh
Subject: IT Project-Database: Graham Road

Listen, mate, anyone who wants to build a database 'round a black hole like Graham Road needs his head examining. Okay, so you're on the other side of the world and you don't know shit about the UK. It's an excuse of sorts-and I guess I can accept it on that basis-but do me a favor and send me some pictures of babes in bikinis. I'm an artist, for Christ's sake! I have an aesthetic appreciation of beautiful women. Word pictures will do if you don't have access to a scanner. The truth is I am DESPERATE to forget I ever lived in Graham f*****g Road. If you'd met my mother you'd understand! Cheers. Danny.
 

Extracts from an educational psychologist's report on
Alan Slater, 32 Graham Road, Richmond. Requested
by his head teacher-re: permanent exclusion from
school-dated April 1979

...Alan' shows a pattern of bullying behavior. He employs his strength to intimidate others through unprovoked violence, and uses abusive language toward children of different ethnic groups. He has a history of discipline problems and reacts aggressively toward teachers who attempt to control him-particularly the females ... His academic performance across all subjects is poor and this has resulted in feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. He regards himself as isolated from his peer group and becomes enraged by seemingly minor slights. He feels rejected by family, peers and teachers, and seeks further rejection through disruptive behavior in order to provide himself with a reason for why no one likes him. There is evidence of violence at home. He speaks about his hatred of his father and refers to his mother as "a vicious bitch." He has a close bond with Michael Percy, a near neighbor and classmate, whom he regards as similarly disaffected...

...In conclusion, I have real concerns about Alan's dangerous sense of alienation, which may already have led to criminal behavior. I believe rapid intervention is required to prevent matters from becoming worse. There are problems at home and at school, but permanent exclusion is not a solution. He requires intensive "special needs" teaching to improve his self-esteem, and he should be encouraged to form strong and positive bonds with adults-either inside the school environment or in the broader community. He needs to feel valued: Only then will he have the necessary motivation to correct his aggressive and antisocial attitudes...

*8*

I found Luke, my elder son, straddled across a chair in the kitchen. "Your man's outside smoking a spliff," he shouted into my ear over the cacophony of sound from the terrace. "I told him not to make it too obvious in case Dad saw him, so he's lurking behind a hedge at the bottom of the terrace steps." He handed me a can of lager, then stood up to steer me toward the French windows. "He's a bit of a whinger," he warned. "Keeps saying we must be loaded to afford a place like this, then goes on and on about how he's never had any luck in his life."

I nodded.

"So Where's Dad?"

"Upstairs," I shouted back.

Luke smiled guiltily. "He's not still angry about his Cloudy Bay, is he?"

"No, but he's going ballistic about the noise."

"Okay." He pushed his way through the crowd and turned the volume down to bearable proportions. When he came back he had a wiry, dark-haired man in tow, about age twenty-five, with a nervous frown on his face. "Danny Slater," he said, introducing us. "He's one of the guys who's been giving me gen on Graham Road ... teaches art at a community center in Brixton. He's on Portland for the summer learning to carve stone at a workshop in Tout Quarry. I couldn't believe it when we end up in a house just a stone's throw away ... seemed like a good opportunity to get acquainted."

Luke spoke for Danny's benefit rather than mine. It was hardly tactful, as he'd pointed out several times, to spend months making friends with a bloke, only for him to guess the first time you meet him that there was a hidden agenda behind the friendship and that the reason you're living less than ten miles from his holiday hideaway is because you want to get close to his parents. "I'd be sodding mad if it happened to me," he'd told me firmly, "so we take a bit of trouble. Okay? I like him ... he's cool ... and his e-mails are funny."

Did I feel guilty about making an ally of my son? Yes. Did I remember Dr. Elias's words of warning about Sam's sense of betrayal when he found out? Yes. Would it have stopped me using Luke?
No
. I had enough faith in my husband to believe he would never blame his children for something they had done for their mother.

This patient ... is obsessive ... manipulative ... and ... frightening...
 

Danny wasn't the most attractive young man I'd ever seen, but I put on my best smile and shook his hand warmly as Luke took his leave and wandered over to the barbecue. "You won't remember me," I said, "but my husband and I used to live at number 5 Graham Road. You can't have been more than three or four at the time, but I knew your elder brother very well ... Alan ... I was his English teacher at King Alfred's."

He shook his head. "It won't have been my brother," he answered. "Alan's thirty-five. You're thinking of someone else."

"No," I assured him. "It was certainly Alan. I taught him in '78 when he was fourteen. He was a bit of a handful," I finished with a laugh, "but I expect he's calmed down by now." Danny examined me closely for a moment, before pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. "You must have had an easy life then," he said, more in criticism than compliment. "My mum's not much over fifty but she looks a damn sight older than you do."

I smiled. "It depends whether you think teaching is easy.
I
don't, but then I've never taught art. Perhaps that's less stressful than trying to force Shakespeare down the throats of reluctant adolescent boys."

He rose immediately to the bait and I listened with patience to five minutes of complaint about the intolerable necessity of an artist having to earn a regular income ... about the wear and tear on the nerves caused by the arrogant egotism of students who hadn't a creative bone in their bodies ... about how, if he'd been lucky enough to live in a country where culture was valued, he'd have been given a grant to make his own art instead of teaching brain-dead morons how to make theirs...

I nodded sympathetically when he drew breath. "And I suppose your family isn't in a position to help you?"

"I'm not married."

"I meant your parents. I remember your father quite well." I thought of the photograph of Derek Slater that Wendy Stanhope had lent me. "Dark-haired, rather good-looking. Very like you, as a matter of fact."

He wasn't easily flattered. "There's only my mother," he said, "and she's on invalidity benefit." He offered me a cigarette and lit one for himself when I shook my head. "Dad abandoned us years ago ... can't even remember what he looked like anymore."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "It was for the best," he said unemotionally. "He took his belt to all of us at one time or another. Alan worst of all. Dad used to beat him about the head when he tried to protect Mum, and Alan's still got the scars to prove it."

"I did wonder," I said, equally unemotionally. "More often than not he was sporting a black eye at school, but he always told me he'd been in fights with boys from rival gangs. 'You should see the other guys,' he used to say."

For the first time Danny smiled. "He was a good kid. He took a hell of a lot of punishment till he got to fifteen and slammed a baseball bat into Dad's face. That's when Dad took off." Another shrug. "I don't remember him but everyone says he was a right bastard. He got in touch with one of my sisters a few years ago but nothing much came of it. He was only after money. Sally tried to persuade Alan to help him out, but he refused and we haven't heard from him since."

"Do you know where he is now?"

There was a small hesitation. "Somewhere in London, I think."

Prison?
I wondered. "And what of Alan?" I asked in the sort of reassuring tone that said I was more interested in my ex-pupil than I was in his father. "How's he getting on? Is he married?"

Danny nodded. "He's got a couple of kids, a girl and a boy. Never raises his voice to them ... won't even give them a smack." He sucked moodily on his cigarette. "It fucks my head to visit him. He lives in this great little house in Isleworth and his wife's brilliant. She's called Beth ... plain as a pikestaff and wide in all the wrong places ... but every time I go there I think, this is how families are supposed to be, with everybody loving each other and the kids feeling safe. It makes you realize what you missed." His eyes strayed toward Luke and Tom, who were arguing over which CD to put on next. "I'd say your sons are pretty lucky, too."

I realized suddenly how vulnerable he was, and felt ashamed of the way I was using him. Until that evening he had been a name on a computer screen, an unremembered child from twenty years ago who had responded to an e-mail in the innocent belief that he was helping a lad in Cape Town complete a thoroughly trivial IT project. Yet he had no responsibility for Annie's death, and I wondered if he even knew that a black woman had died in Graham Road in '78. Certainly the name Ranelagh meant nothing to him, which suggested that both Annie and I had been long forgotten by the time Danny was old enough to understand that one woman had died on his road and another had accused her neighbors of racially motivated murder.