Tree of Pearls Page 5

  Each one?

  ‘Please, don’t,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  So we pleaded with each other a little. Then ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Just let me do it then I’ll explain. Please?’

  Don’t plead. Please.

  I let her.

  ‘Angeline, this is Chrissie. I am apologizing to you. I am sorry for the letters. For the phone calls. For the scene at the funeral – I think. I’m not sure what happened but I think I probably should apologize. And for coming in on your bath and passing out on your bath mat and upsetting your friend. And for all the shouting and everything and for thinking what I did about you and Eddie. I want you to know that I am very very sorry.’

  I was gobsmacked.

  ‘And I would like to apologize to your friend in the bathroom who got me the taxi.’ (That was Sarah.) ‘And if you know where Harry can be found now because I haven’t seen him since Eddie … passed away … since he went to gaol, actually, and nobody knows where he is now but I know you and he were friends and I have a lot to apologize to him for too.’

  Whoa.

  Of course she would think Eddie was dead. But going back suddenly to the days when Harry was Eddie’s employee, running his fancy garage for him … Chrissie doesn’t know Harry’s a cop. Of course not. Unless Eddie told her, when she visited him in prison. If Eddie knows, that is.

  Does Eddie know? No, of course not. Eddie is the main man Harry was undercover from, for god’s sake.

  Oh, fuck the lot of them. I only want a quiet life.

  Not a helpful declaration. I am one of them. In my quiet way.

  ‘Why, Chrissie?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh!’ She has this slightly breathy squeak. She must be going on fifty but she still wears what Fergus the crime correspondent calls her heyday hairdo, which is sub-Bardot, and very high heels. ‘I can tell you. You know I was drunk – well I was. Now I’m not. My name is Chrissie and I’m an alcoholic. And I’m not a criminal’s wife any more. I’m – something else. I don’t know what yet.’

  ‘So?’ I said, not quite so unkindly.

  ‘Do you want to know? No, of course not. I’ll give you the short version. You probably know about it. It’s the twelve steps. One of the steps is that you apologize to everybody you did wrong to while you were drunk. You were quite high up my list actually. I had to go through people a lot because I kept thinking I should be apologizing for stuff which was Eddie’s. Couldn’t tell whose was whose, if you see what I mean. But with you it was quite clear, and recent, and so you were a good person to start with. I did my mother first. But I’m going to have to go back to her. Several times, actually, I should think. But I thought I could get you under my belt – sorry! I know that sounds rather … because of course you don’t want to have anything to do with me, and that’s absolutely fair and right. But you know it’s terribly embarrassing. Thank you for not, you know, laughing or anything.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I found myself saying.

  ‘So that’s what I’m doing and thank you for listening and … if you wanted to talk about any of it I’m here. I know that might sound rather mad. But you see I’m trying to think of myself as a normal person now and that’s the kind of thing I would want to say if I was a normal person – you know, if Eddie hadn’t hijacked me and I hadn’t turned to the booze to protect myself from him. If I’d just met some nice man. Or if Eddie had been ugly or something, or poor, then I wouldn’t have fallen for him. Because I wouldn’t have, I don’t think. I was so stupid when I was young. But I’m not going to be any more. And it’s quite a challenge. Anyway I don’t want to go on and bore you. Well I do, but I don’t want you to be bored. I want you to forgive me, and if you do, you know, in your own time, I’d really like it if you could let me know, because it will just make all the difference. It will be like fuel for my redemption rocket, you know? And it would be awfully good karma for you. Not that I mean to try to bribe you or anything. But forgiveness is good, isn’t it? And I know my husband caused you grief, and while I know that’s not my fault, if I had been a different woman, not so weak, everything might have been different, even that, so I don’t feel responsible for you but I do feel for you. I’m sorry, they do feed us an awful lot of rubbish at this place but it’s terribly good. I do hope I’m not talking like a Californian. Oh look. I’m peeing in your ear and you’ve got better things to do – but I would like to talk to you. Any time. You’ve got my number, haven’t you. Here it is again. Or e-mail me – Chrissie@newchris.demon.com. Are you on e-mail? It is fabulous … sorry I’m going on. Look. Any time.’

  ‘Chrissie,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘A word.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘While reinventing yourself, it might be worth putting in the gene that lets other people get a word in edgeways.’

  ‘Nervous,’ she said. ‘Very nervous. Not a drop for six weeks. Sorry.’

  ‘OK. Listen. I am all for redemption. I wish you well. I hope you succeed but I don’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘It would be a wonderful bonus for me if you did, very good for my recovery,’ she said, ‘though of course I know that recovery is within the individual, you can’t look to anyone else to do it for you.’

  ‘I owe you no bonus,’ I said.

  ‘No, nor any £100,000!’ she cried. ‘I’m living off what he left me because I have to eat but I tell you, this is genuine. I’m going to be redeeming left right and centre. I won’t bother you. If you wish me luck that’s all I need. Thank you. But if you forgive me, let me know. God bless you.’

  God bless me.

  Blimey.

  And that was it.

  I sat back, rather exhausted, after she rang off. I didn’t know what to make of it so I left it lying on the side of my mind like an unanswered letter. At least Preston Oliver hadn’t rung me. Nor anybody else.

  *

  Harry came round that night to put Lily to bed. He’d rung during the day to say was it all right. And to say maybe I might like to go out, or something – should he babysit? I was pleased, but I didn’t want to go out. I watched the news, amazed to have the hours between six and eight to myself. There were TV programmes I’d never heard of that had presumably been going on all this time between six and eight, never watched by mothers of young children.

  I must get a job. I don’t know anything about the real world any more. I just sit here and pretend things aren’t happening.

  I could hear them giggling in Lily’s bedroom. He was telling her the wide-mouth frog joke. Doing voices. It squeezed my heart.

  Lily dismissed Harry, and I went to read to her. Climbed into bed with her.

  ‘Does he stay forever?’ she asked.

  ‘Who, Paddington Bear?’ I asked, because that was who I was reading about.

  ‘No. Daddy.’

  ‘He’s your dad forever, yes,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘When are you getting married?’

  Blank. Help!

  ‘We’re not,’ I said. Have I led her to believe that we were?

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you were. I thought that’s what parents did. Adjoa’s parents are going to get married. She’s going to be a bridesmaid. And lots of parents are already married. You know. Like yours. Were you a bridesmaid for them? You and Mummy? Dead mummy? Not you and you. You couldn’t be two bridesmaids. And anyway Mummy would have felt left out. Dead mummy.’ She was asleep.

  Dead mummy. She accepts stuff now. How will we explain Harry having shagged Janie though?

  Well we will.

  We. That is such an alarming word.

  *

  Harry had waited for me. He wanted to talk about Eddie. I stopped him.

  ‘Do babysit,’ I said. ‘For an hour or so. I want to clear my head.’

  And I jumped in my car and went down to Hammersmith, where I bought half a pint of cider from the
Blue Anchor and climbed over the river wall on to the pontoon, stranded on the mud at low tide, and sat, looking across to the playing fields in Barnes, down river to the bridge, spangled with lights, and up river towards Brentford where the gryphon lives, and the herons, past the curve of Chiswick, as Turner a view as you can find now in London, over the roofs of the house boats, their paint tins and geranium pots wonky as their hulls settled diagonally on the Thames sludge, their little portholes throwing gleaming coins of yellow electricity out on to the dark slimy mud surface. It was shiveringly cold, and I sat huddled in my coat. Artificial light and natural dark, water and late birds. You get more night on the river than anywhere else in the city. The largest expanse of dark without a light of its own. In Upper Egypt the trees are full of egrets, who hang at dusk like handkerchiefs, and say buggle buggle da, buggle da, burbling like shishas. Written down the words even look like Arabic. And the sky is striped, green and rose and gold, the colours of alabaster, and the moon lies on its back.

  A couple of late scullers called across the pewter water. Mad people.

  I hadn’t intended to think of the night on the Corniche el Nil when Sa’id and I began to fall apart, but sitting by one river you can’t but think of others you have known. It made me too sad and the soothing effect of the night river, which has been a favourite of mine since I was old enough to stay out late, stopped working, so I went home.

  On the way back I stopped at a phone box and rang Sarah. My fingers moving independently of my will. Unable to stop myself. It’s for her to decide if she doesn’t want to talk to me.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Angeline.’

  ‘Oh. Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’

  The trouble with the spur of the moment is that unless some fluke leaps to your aid, you don’t know what to say. I didn’t. The irresistible urge which had guided my fingers had no interest in helping my voicebox now that I had got through. Plus I had developed this habit of discretion. I am constantly aware that I might say something that will get Harry into trouble.

  ‘How’s Sa’id?’ I asked. What else could I say? There’s nothing else I want to know.

  There was a silence. The line breathed, from London down to the sea where she lives.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. In that English way which could mean anything. That cold way.

  ‘Is he back from Greece?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Don’t be …’ I started to say, and stopped.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to be,’ she said.

  ‘Are you …’

  I couldn’t talk to her.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘You’ve forfeited your right to know. I’m not unsympathetic. I forfeited my right too once. I’m working on getting it back. You are not popular in that family. I want to know my sons now. I’m not taking you up.’

  I winced, even down the phone.

  ‘Everyone is all right. The police have gone. For now. I dare say you feel the burden of what you brought on the family but again … I’m working on getting my children back. They don’t want you.’

  And I didn’t believe her. Her excuse made sense – that if she tried to rehabilitate me at the same time as herself it would be too much. But I didn’t believe her. They may not want me – I don’t want them either. But they wouldn’t object to my expressing concern, to my wanting to know that the problems I introduced them to are passing, to my sympathetic interest in how Hakim, for example, who had found Eddie quite without my involvement after all, was dealing with the fallout from our shared psychopath.

  She doesn’t want them to want me. She’s still confused – oh, say it. She’s jealous because Sa’id loved me and didn’t want to love her. And because I told him he had to, because she’s his mother, she resents me. And because she loved an Egyptian and it failed, and she wanted us to fail. And we did! So what’s the problem?

  ‘Please convey my affection and respect to Abu Sa’id and to Madame Amina,’ I said. ‘If my name should be mentioned. I mean the family nothing but well, and I greatly regret that my misfortunes have overflowed on to them.’ I don’t know why I bothered saying all this to her. But sometimes you just need to say things. It doesn’t matter if they’re heard.

  ‘OK. Well,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Goodbye.’

  But he’s OK. She said so.

  *

  Back in the kitchen Harry was drinking a beer that he had brought in a plastic bag, and reading the paper, with his feet up on the table. He looked deeply at home. I tried to remember him in the kitchens of our shared past. Sitting on the draining board in Clerkenwell. Bike boots steaming on the boiler. Those huge woolly council-issue socks we all wore: cream-coloured, ribbed, up over your knee before you rolled them down. Not wearing them when I was going to work because they left red marks on my calves and ankles: no good for my beautiful dancing feet. Harry climbing in the bath with me that time with all his gear on; he’d just come in from despatching all day and said he was soaked through anyway. His leathers smelt of my bath oil for weeks. Ylang-ylang and WD-40.

  The past is blurry.

  He looked up, hesitating, before folding away the expanse of newspaper, elbows wide like a pelican’s wingspan.

  ‘Beer?’ he said, and reached out to give me a bottle. I took it and sat down across from him.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Oliver,’ he said. ‘Trying to.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. He’s been avoiding me all week.’

  ‘Oh. Does that mean—’

  ‘It means he wants me out of the way. I was a little insistent with him. He said – well, he confirmed what he’d told you, that Eddie has absconded from the scheme, that Interpol are upset about it, the Egyptians are doing what they can but they’re very taken up with the anti-terrorist stuff since the massacre at Luxor, and as it appears that he’s left the country they are quite pleased not to be bothered. He said your boys seem to be in the clear. Everybody in Luxor knows they’re OK, and they’re all in shock there anyway and not knowing where their next crust is coming from because the tourists have just disappeared. And he said I was not to worry my pretty little head about it, but get on with this insurance fraud like a good boy.’

  I pictured Luxor, empty of visitors. How we put ourselves in other people’s hands. How we suffer when they leave.

  ‘What insurance fraud?’ I asked, absently.

  ‘My job. You know. What I do. This complicated boring bloody insurance thing. You don’t want to know.’

  It’s true. I didn’t.

  ‘But if you were working all that time on Eddie, why are you off it now?’

  ‘Because it’s out of our hands, anyway – we’re the regional crime squad. Witness protection is nothing to do with us. Oliver’s just keeping track of it. It’s bureaucracy. And pride. No one can quite let go of a catch like Eddie. And resentment. It was a fucking insult when he got cut this deal, actually. Those who knew – Oliver, and me – were insulted on behalf of the other lads, too, because a lot of work went into this, as well as a lot of taxpayers’ money. Though of course I shouldn’t know anyway. So I can’t complain, or have an opinion. Except to Oliver.’

  ‘But why is he cutting you out?’

  ‘That I don’t know. That I don’t know.’

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  Big bony hands wrapped round the beer bottle. I spend half my life round this table.

  ‘Does he … does he think that you’re too closely involved with me, and I’m too closely involved with it, if you see what I mean?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Could be.’

  I would be sorry if that were the case. I don’t like to see Harry feeling sidelined; I wouldn’t want it to be because of me. And I want to be uninvolved. I was becoming uninvolved. I thought I had done so well. But now it’s back, but it’s all so intangible, I don’t know what to do. Live with it? Is that the moral of the story? Learn to live with
it?

  ‘I rang Sarah,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to,’ he said. Not unkindly.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That everyone’s fine and the police have gone. But she didn’t want to talk to me.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No. I don’t need to talk to her. She says they’re OK, Oliver says they’re ok, so I don’t need to worry. It’s only them I felt bad about.’

  So why do I still feel bad?

  Because I’m disappointed. Because if Sa’id had been in trouble I could have gone and rescued him and …

  Oh shut up.

  And because I can feel Eddie tweaking. He may not be tweaking me directly, the chain may not be round my neck, but it’s on the floor beside me, I can hear it tripping up people I love. He’s still out there.

  ‘Chrissie rang me,’ I said.

  ‘Yikes,’ said Harry. ‘The mad lady. How is she?’

  I told him. He laughed. ‘Oliver did that too. But he’s too proud to admit that that’s what he was doing. Just went round saying to everybody: “I haven’t always been very … well anyway sorry.”’

  ‘She was kind of sweet,’ I said.

  ‘Well, off the booze, away from Eddie, who knows.’

  ‘Still mad though. Wanted me to confide in her.’

  He laughed and laughed. ‘Doesn’t know you very well then,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Mrs Do-it-Yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Well who the hell else is going to do it?’ I said, crossly. It pisses me off, when people castigate my naturally independent cast of mind, when they should know full well that I have nothing else to depend on anyway.

  ‘Yeah. Anyway you’re getting better.’

  Then I got a bit crosser, because I don’t like to be judged, specially not by an emotional fuck-up like Harry (though actually he is getting better too). But we cheered up again, then it was time for him to go, and as he stood up he put an envelope on the table, and looked at it, and looked up at me.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.