Walking with Ghosts (21 page)

There was a sense in which Janet wouldn’t have minded if they got married or not. As far as she was concerned they were married already. But that would never be enough for Geordie. Sam wondered if anything would ever be enough for Geordie. He’d known complete rejection, by his family and by society at large, and he’d known the horror of that when he was still really a child. It had marked him. If the whole fucking tribe had taken a knife and opened Geordie up from gullet to groin, cleaned him out and sewed him back up again the cut wouldn’t have been deeper. If fate had been twisted slightly, this way or that, Geordie could have gone screaming mad from his experiences. He might have turned to the bottle or some other drug, or he might have decided to wreak vengeance with physical violence on himself or others.

The point where that might happen had passed now. Janet was a great slice of redemption in Geordie’s fate, because she was able to see beyond his damage, through to the core of him. She was able to drip-feed him tiny doses of confidence and dignity, and he was able to accept them and build on them. More importantly, he was able to return them to her. To love her. The deprived and neglected kid, half starved, who had walked into Sam’s life just a few short years before had almost disappeared now. When he stood next to Janet at the civil ceremony today there would be no lack of magic, no lack of absolute spiritual intensity. If there was a god, or anything resembling a guiding hand in the universe, He, She, It, and the whole host of accompanying angels would be belting out a tune to celebrate that small part of Geordie, that tiny piece of all of us, which is big enough to carry us through.

‘What are you talking about here,’ Dora had said. ‘Spirit, the soul, will-power, some primitive instinct of survival?’

Sam had tried to think of an answer for several fractions of a second, but caught himself doing it. ‘Gimme a break, Dora. I’m a PI. Ask me about distressed damsels, something I can get my teeth into. Philosophy’s for the clever guys. All I know is people usually give themselves to God when the Devil wants nothing more to do with them.’

She’d given him that smile he suspected he couldn’t live without. Then, shaking her head she’d said, ‘Sam Turner, master of disguise.’

Since no man could show any just cause why they might not lawfully be joined together, the deed was done. Tricky moment there for Sam, though. He was next to Janet’s mother, and she did a real good shuffle, like she was going to stand up and tell the whole room that this detective kid just wasn’t good enough for her daughter. Fortunately, she didn’t do it, so Sam’s two and a half year record for not hitting a woman remained intact.

Janet was a dream. She’d concentrated on the outside, the blue silk dress, her hair and make-up, the small bouquet of Sweet Fairy miniature roses, but she was as if lit from inside. There was a real warm glow going on somewhere deep within her, and it showed in her face, her eyes, the way she walked and talked, even the way she sat there, next to Geordie, listening to the registrar.

But if Janet was composed and serene, Geordie was a mumbling wreck. Sam had seen the kid in some pretty tough situations since they’d been working together. But even the time when Geordie had got himself shot he’d not acted up as badly as he did during his wedding ceremony. When he was asked if he wanted this woman, he looked at the registrar with incomprehension for several seconds before blurting out: ‘Pie Glue.’

After the ceremony they had a photo session in the garden behind the register office. The photographer was a Norwegian woman Sam had met socially, and he smiled to himself as she tried and failed to squeeze a civilized expression out of Janet’s mother. There was one group shot with the whole gang: Geordie and Janet at the centre, and arraigned around them were Sam, Celia, Marie and J.D. ‘If that one turns out we’ll have a blow-up for the office wall,’ Sam told the photographer.

The reception was at George Forester’s house. Forester was one of the solicitors who retained Sam’s firm for routine jobs, and he and his wife were childless and had a soft spot for Geordie. A couple of their neighbours had prepared a buffet, and J.D. had brought his band along to provide the music. When they first arrived there was a couple in tennis whites on the court in the Foresters’ garden. The French windows were thrown open and as people arrived they gravitated towards the buffet and took food and drink outside on the lawn.

J.D. began rolling up joints as soon as he arrived, and before the buffet was half demolished everyone was stoned.

Janet’s mother was sitting on a chair by the temporary stage eating a salmon paste sandwich as if it contained anthrax. She wasn’t stoned. Celia was standing next to Sam under a sun umbrella by the tennis court. ‘I’m not sure this is my kind of scene,’ she said.

‘You’re not stoned?’ Sam asked.

Celia smiled and shook her head. ‘No more than usual. You?’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘But you, me and the mother-in-law are the only ones who’re not totally Out of it.’

The couple in tennis whites were falling around and giggling on the court. They were both from the university, she a lecturer in the English department and he some kind of technician in physics. ‘It gives you a nervous breakdown,’ she said, dropping her racket.

The technician hooted. ‘It’s giving me one. What is it?’

‘Dunno. Temple balls something.’

‘Balls? Didn’t think they allowed them in temples.’

They both thought that was seriously funny.

Sam took Celia’s arm. ‘Shall we mingle?’ he said. ‘I can’t stand all the hooting.’

As they moved away the couple on the court were prostrate, their rackets abandoned for the day.

The taxi driver who had brought Geordie and Janet from the register office hadn’t managed to get away. He’d had a plate of sandwiches and some trifle, refused wine because he was driving, but accepted a couple of tokes from J.D.’s magic stash. Now he was facing the wrong way in his cab. All alone in there. Giggling.

‘I’m going to have a try with Janet’s mother,’ Celia said. ‘She looks lonely over there. Coming?’

‘No, please,’ Sam said. ‘She looks as refreshing as a day with the tax man.’

Geordie left Janet with a group of young people and walked over to Sam. His eyes were sparkling. ‘This is great,’ he said. ‘I should get married more often.’ He looked at Sam’s face. Held out a half-smoked joint.

Sam shook his head. Smiled.

‘Come on, Sam, it’s a wedding. A little bit of blow won’t hurt you. Don’t be so serious.’

‘Serious. Christ, Geordie, I’m an alcoholic.’

Celia was deep in conversation with Janet’s mother, so Sam helped J.D. and the band set up their instruments. Took a long time.

‘Tell you what,’ J.D. said to the lead guitarist. ‘Once we get going we won’t be able to stop one song and start another.’

The guitarist thought about it for a while. ‘Right,’ he said eventually.

‘What we could do,’ J.D. told him. ‘We could run through all the numbers without stopping.’

‘Like fade out one and bring up another?’

‘No. You’re not listening. Don’t be a bunny. What we do is, we allow one song to
metamorphose
into the next one.’

‘Like Kafka, man?’

J.D. raised his eyebrows. He handed a tambourine to Marie. ‘You can play this, pretty woman.’

Marie took it from him and shook it, then she turned it upside down and shook it again. Seemed to play better that way.

J.D. turned to Sam. ‘Did I thank you for letting me run with the pack?’

‘Forget it,’ said Sam.

‘I can’t forget it. Pm jingle brained with dope and goofy about this woman here, and I still can’t forget it.’

They went into the first song, and Sam listened closely for the time it would metamorphose into the next one, but it didn’t happen. After twenty-eight minutes, ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ showed no signs whatsoever of transforming itself into a second song.

Everybody in the band reckoned it would do, though, eventually.

With a little help.

Sam drifted over to Celia and Janet’s mother. Celia had the butt of a joint between the first and second fingers of her right hand. There was a guy in front of them had adopted the fig-leaf position. Both of the women were staring at him. But he was out of it. Didn’t even know they were there. Paralysed with paranoia.

‘How’re you doing?’ Sam asked, indicating the cigarette. Celia waved her hand nonchalantly. ‘Over-rated, this stuff,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel any different at all.’ She got to her feet and headed for the buffet table. ‘Hope there’s something left to eat. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’ And she howled with laughter.

Late at night Sam took the newly wedded couple to see Dora. They sat with her for around fifteen minutes. She laughed at their descriptions of the reception, but she quickly tired. ‘I’m not sorry about missing the party,’ she said. ‘But I’d have liked to be at the ceremony.’

‘I thought about you, then,’ Geordie told her. ‘I thought about my mother for a while, then I thought about you.’ Dora reached for his hand, and he gave it to her. ‘Thank you, Geordie,’ she said. ‘I thought about you as well.’ She glanced at Janet. ‘Both of you.’

A couple of minutes later she was asleep.

Sam took the two of them home in the Montego. They got into the back seat. ‘You should have gone away,’ he said. ‘Even if it was only for a couple of days.’

‘Too much responsibility,’ Janet said. ‘Geordie doesn’t want to go away till this case with India Blake is finished.’

‘Yeah,’ said Geordie. ‘And your mother. We can’t go away and leave her by herself in the house. When that’s all sorted we might go to Amsterdam for a couple of days. I’ve bought a Dutch phrase book. We read it in bed.’

‘Not tonight, though,’ said Janet.

‘Not likely,’ Geordie agreed. ‘Whadda you think I am? Reading in bed on our honeymoon?’

27

There was a moment there, when she first opened her eyes, Marie didn’t have a clue who it was in bed with her. Her consciousness had wiped J.D. out of the reckoning, totally forgotten about him, so he didn’t figure in the equation. She knew Gus was dead, so it couldn’t be him. There’d been a wedding and a party long into the night last night, so taking everything on balance, including the alcohol and the Nepalese Temple Balls, it could be just about anybody. She sneaked a look at him.

It was J.D. with his mouth open.

Christ! J.D. How could she have forgotten about him?

She lifted her head from the pillow and swivelled round, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and a knife, several knives, a canteen of cutlery fell off a shelf inside her head and almost forced her eyes out of their sockets.

‘Yuuuuuuuuuk,’ she said, gently lowering her head into her hands. ‘Yuk, yuk, yuk.’ But no one was listening. As she sat there she recognized that her head was only one of the problems. There were so many things wrong with her she couldn’t begin to count them. She needed to pee, that was the first thing. Then the sphincter guarding her back passage seemed to have taken on a life of its own, and was currently dividing its energies between a rhythmic spasm, something akin to African tribal drums, and a bubbling intensity like the dance of hot metal being poured into a mould. Her limbs ached, arms and legs, especially the legs, thigh and calf muscles having been forced into exertions of dance never before contemplated. And then there was the inside of her mouth. She knew all the old descriptions from the politically incorrect Arab’s armpit, to the bizarre bottom of a budgie’s cage, but the imagery that came to Marie’s mind now reminded her of the photograph of the decayed body of India Blake.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it, however, as the absolute need to pee forced her mind to organize the reluctant tissue and muscle. The journey to the bathroom was one for the Israelites, or those guys who hauled the big rocks to Salisbury plain, but she made it.

Nepalese Temple Balls. Never. No more.

Everyone would be late in the office. Geordie might not make it at all, with a honeymoon on his hands. She and J.D. had walked Celia home last night, Celia telling jokes she’d heard in the nineteen thirties and not been able to understand. Marie and J.D. still didn’t understand them now, but all three of them laughed just the same. Then Celia had gone into a medley of Gracie Fields’ greatest hits, ‘A Little Dutch Boy And A Little Dutch Girl’, ‘Little Donkey’, ‘Sally’, and ‘Around The World’.

Marie did try to get J.D. out of bed, but decided she’d have more luck raising Lazarus. He had said that he’d come to the office with her last night, but now he was full of reasons why that wasn’t possible. He had to go back to George Forester’s house to collect his drum kit. He’d arranged to meet up with the guys in the band. He needed to do something quiet, like maybe play some cards.

‘Did I tell you I was reliable?’ he said.

‘No, but you did say we’d spend the day together.’

‘I can’t get it on. The band’s got another gig tonight, somewhere up near Whitby. I need to sleep.’

‘Please yourself,’ she said. ‘It’s your life.’ When she left the house, J.D. didn’t look like he had enough ambition to make the trip to Whitby.