Grasshopper Page 31

  None of us, that is Wim, Silver and I, knew what Håkan Almquist was really like. All we had to go on was visits from a man who mostly spoke in an incomprehensible foreign language and the testimony of his daughter who described him as dull, staid and respectable, and his London behaviour as exceptional. But Liv was an unreliable person and perhaps all this was exaggerated or outright untruths. So Silver and I concluded when we discussed it in private in our bedroom. Far from being the well-conducted clean-living mining engineer we had been led to believe he was, he might be exactly the kind of man who would defraud his daughter of a large sum of money and, once it was in his possession, abscond, leaving his hotel bill unpaid. But perhaps what we really wanted was to be rid of it all, not have this added complication in our lives, so that we could concentrate on the occupants of 4E.

  A fine hot summer’s day was in the making. The sun began to burn the mist away. Leaning out of the window, I could feel the heat on my skin, already intense. We’d go to 4E before dark, Silver said, and while Jason was still up. And we’d take presents with us as a token of our good faith and friendliness, things they probably never got, a newspaper maybe and a bottle of wine and something for the boy. Chocolate, Wim said, which seemed a good idea.

  I was due at the Houghtons’ at midday. It was really too hot for gardening, with a dangerous heat the English are unaccustomed to. I put on a cotton hat, which was a discard of Silver’s father, and sun cream on my face and arms and got down to dead-heading, cutting back and weeding. I don’t know if you have ever tried clearing a nettle plantation. It’s not a pleasant task in the heat, for nettles have root systems like a close-woven fishing net, yellow and tough. If you leave a bit behind the whole ramification grows again and with remarkable speed. Mrs Houghton brought me a cup of tea and Mr Houghton a glass of Perrier and both admired what I had done, saying they didn’t know how they had got on without me, something that is always gratifying to hear. It was just after six when I got home and learnt what had happened in my absence.

  Liv greeted me calmly enough but with staring eyes, and told me how she had twice tried to phone her mother in Kiruna and twice got the answering machine. She claimed to have been ignorant of the fact that her parents had one. The message she had left said only that it was Liv calling from London. Silver had tried to persuade her to go to the hotel herself, though he knew before he began that this was hopeless. All he had accomplished was to get her to stand on our front doorstep. He had taken her downstairs again, opened the front door and put the catch on. Then he had very gradually opened it wider with her standing beside him. Trembling all over, he said. It was relatively cool inside the hall. As the door came open waves of heat seemed to roll in and settle on their arms and faces. This was rather comforting to Liv, apparently, and enabled her to step over the threshold. She stood at the top of the steps under the porch overhang, where she followed Silver’s instructions and breathed deeply. She clung to his arm, tottering as if the damage done to her was in her bones rather than her mind. Sweat streamed off her, actually dripping from her face and making damp patches on her clothes, and he could smell her, an oniony, salty scent like frying.

  No cars went by. In the flats opposite windows were wide open and music drifting out, something quite unusual in Russia Road. But the weather was unusual, even for that warm summer. The sight of a man riding past on a bike set Liv shaking again. Silver suggested she walk down two steps but she was adamant she had done enough. He shepherded her upstairs again, if that’s the word, for shepherds don’t actually hold on to their sheep and manhandle them, which is what he had to do if she wasn’t to collapse on the stairs and go into one of her foetal positions. Once back in his flat he made her have a bath, actually running the water for her. Being a nurse must be like that, he said to me, only nurses do it all the time and he had only had one afternoon of it.

  It would be good for her to come out with us that night, he said. She hadn’t even been up on the roofs for weeks.

  ‘She could get the same attitude to the roofs as she has to the ground level,’ he said. ‘It could get to be a phobia of any sort of outside.’

  I asked him what he thought had happened to Håkan Almquist. ‘Gone off with someone he met while he was here on his own,’ he said. ‘Woman or man, I don’t know. The temptation of that money was too much for him. Liv doesn’t know her dad as well as she thinks she does. Maybe we don’t any of us really know our parents. After all, they don’t know us. But don’t worry. He’ll turn up.’

  After we’d eaten some of Silver’s bean soup (very unsuitable for the weather) and a not very successful lentil dish of my own with multi-grain bread, Liv attempted another phone call to her mother. She went into our bedroom and, this time, her mother still being away from home, left a long message. We could hear her but of course we couldn’t understand. She translated for us.

  ‘I am saying to her, Far has disappeared, he has stolen my money. I trust him and he is doing this terrible thing to me. All this I am telling her because she should know it. But she cannot do anything for me, for she is there and I am here. But she should know what he is doing to me.’

  Silver sighed. ‘Did you leave this number?’

  ‘She is knowing it. Don’t you remember Mor is phoning me here when Clodagh is making me tell them I live here?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Silver, ‘we’re going to make ourselves known to 4E Torrington Gardens.’

  Liv demurred a bit. Her excuses were plainly just that, excuses. Her mother might call back, the hotel might phone to say the money had been found, she was too tired and ill with the worry of it. It looked as if Silver had been right in forecasting an extension of her agoraphobia to the roofs. But he really wanted her with us, not for her company, of which both of us were weary, but because presenting Andrew and Alison with a man and two women rather than a woman and two men would make them feel more secure and encourage them to trust us. He told Liv this and she seemed flattered. At any rate, she agreed to come.

  I was rather pleased Wim was still absent. Present in my mind and constantly recurring was a picture of those two people clinging to each other at the sight of us. Alison’s scream still rang in my ears. It was Wim who had done this, I believed, who had provoked this reaction, his startling face and physique, so attractive to Liv, his shaven head, his eyes and the black clothes he wore. And of course he had made the threatening gesture of breaking in. Even though it was he who had discovered them in the first place, we’d be better off without him.

  The problem we hadn’t thought of was how to get her on to the top of 4E without crossing the tarpaulin that covered the burnt area of roof. The only way was the one we intended to take, that is by way of the street and the scaffolding. But Liv, of course, wouldn’t go down into the street. We all climbed out of Silver’s window and followed our usual route. It was about nine, later than we had meant to be, but much time had been taken up in arguing with Liv and persuading her to come. The evening was warm, almost all light faded from the clear deep purple sky. Liv lit two candles and carried them along, one in each hand. Down below us lay a greenish-golden sea, the glow of street-lamps shimmering through spread plane leaves. There was no wind, not even the faintest chill in the air, and strangely no smell of exhaust or cooking or humanity, only the scent of lavender from one of the gardens down there, where they grew that pleasant herb to the exclusion of all else. We walked along inside the parapet and stopped when we reached the tarpaulin to survey what lay before us.

  ‘I can walk across,’ Liv said. ‘I am not so big. I am not so many kilos.’

  But Silver wouldn’t let her. He had brought a torch which he shone down on to the front of the building below us. Each house had its own individual balcony, separate from next-door’s, and the railing was not dumbells of stone but an ironwork trellis. Those of 18 and 22 had only been blackened by the fire, as the whole upper part of the façade had been, and looked structurally sound but the one in the middle, on 20, had been damaged by some ot
her agency, the firemen’s ladders perhaps. Those balconies were not intended for standing on or climbing over, nor used as repositories for heavy equipment, and this one was sagging from the wall, its floor actually split away from the main fabric and showing a wide crack.

  We all dropped down on to the balcony, feeling our way gingerly and holding on to the lintels in the dormers. It was perhaps as well we did for when we got on to 20 the floor groaned and creaked under our weight, especially under Silver’s. He wasn’t heavy for his height but he was a lot heavier than Liv and me and when he took a step a piece of masonry broke loose under his tread and went clattering down into the front garden below.

  Hastily we climbed back up again. By then we realized we were going to have to leave Liv behind. We went all the way back with her, using up more valuable time, and left her in the flat with the intention of once more phoning her mother, though by this time, in Sweden, it was almost eleven.

  Silver had his doubts then whether we should abandon the whole venture until the next night but I dissuaded him and we set off once more, this time along the pavements. The final painting of the terrace in Peterborough Avenue had begun, there was quite a strong paint smell in the warm still air, and we wondered if perhaps we might make ourselves known at 4E only to have to abandon them through lack of access.

  Though a light was on in the room we had decided must be Jason’s, the flowers on the makeshift curtain showing up red and yellow against the gleaming green background, the living room was in darkness. Still, the window was open several inches at top and bottom and inside it was rather untidy, a newspaper lying on the floor, cups and a glass on the table, cushions in the two armchairs flattened and a pair of women’s shoes on the rug in front of the fireplace, as if Alison had kicked them off and let them lie. If this had been Silver’s place, it would have been quite normal for a room to be left like this overnight, indeed much worse than this, but we had had evidence of Alison’s need to tidy up before she went to bed. She’d be back and probably Andrew would too.

  Should we wait outside in silence, go away and come back, or do as we had done before and light cigarettes to attract their attention? Go in, said Silver, go in and be there waiting for them. It would be a shock but it would soon be over and better than letting them see us through the window again. We opened that window as far as we could, raising the inner sash until its top and bottom bars were parallel with the outer sash, and climbed inside. The air in there felt the same as outside, warm, still, but without the smell of paint. It was darker, though. Our eyes had to become accustomed to a different kind of darkness. A mirror hung above the fireplace and I turned my head away from it, afraid that if I looked into its shiny greyness I’d see not myself but someone else’s face. We sat down each in an armchair and, leaning forward, I picked up Alison’s shoes and set them side by side, their toes pointing towards the window. We looked at each other in total silence for a minute or two.

  Silver got up and opened the door. Light came flooding in, light and voices. They were somewhere, talking. The words weren’t distinguishable. He looked at me, looked away again, and spoke that phrase I’ve told you is what I say when I want to attract the attention of a customer whose name I don’t know, though I didn’t use it in those days and maybe never had used it.

  ‘Are you there?’

  He didn’t call it or speak it very loudly, but in a quiet gentle manner that no one who wasn’t completely paranoid and terrified would take as threatening. There was silence. The voices that had been in conversation were stilled. Silver pressed the switch by the door and I stood up, blinking at the flood of light.

  Everything happened very quickly after that. I didn’t see him come, I didn’t even hear him, but he was upon Silver before either of us could move or make a sound. He leapt on him out of the hallway. He threw his arms round his neck and flung him to the ground, scrambling on top of him and punching his head, screaming, ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!’

  22

  We pulled him off, Alison and I. She tugged at him as much as I, she was as anguished and upset as I was. And suddenly, as we pinioned him and had to let him go because he was too strong for us, Silver leapt up from the floor in a single bound and flew at Andrew, grabbing him by the throat. My Silver, that I’d always thought of as gentle and easy-going. They fought and sprang apart, confronting each other, snarling like dogs. I shouted out that we were friends. I roared at them, I could have been heard in Swiss Cottage, I yelled that we sympathized, we’d come to help.

  ‘By breaking in?’ Alison cried on a bitter note.

  ‘We never broke anything,’ I said, and then I saw the piece of porcelain Silver and Andrew had knocked on to the floor while they were fighting. It had been a china bird, a bullfinch with grey wings and soft pink breast, but its head was broken off and its delicate feet were shattered. I picked up the pieces and held them in my hand.

  Alison looked at its fellows on the shelf above a radiator, a wren, a greenfinch and a thrush. She made a deprecating gesture with her right hand. ‘I brought them with me when I came here. They made it home. Well, no, they helped to make it home.’

  The men had stopped. The fighting was over. Andrew’s neck was bruised red and purple as if someone had tried to strangle him and Silver’s face, his poor pale skin, was a mess of blood and dirt, his left eye the colour of raw liver and swelling fast.

  ‘I suppose it’s all over,’ Andrew said. He sat down in the red armchair and laid his head back and closed his eyes. ‘You’ll have told the police or the social services. Whatever. They’ll be here soon.’ He gave a sigh, the like of which I’d never heard before and have never heard since, it was so heavy and profound, a great exhalation of breath, loud and rasping. ‘It was a good try. It lasted six months. It’s over now.’ He turned on Silver, then on me, vindictive looks. ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.’

  Alison said, before the utterance of that word ‘yourselves’, ‘Would you like a drink? You may as well. I want one. We’ve been through enough. We’ve one last bottle of wine.’

  ‘What’s that called?’ Andrew looked at her, casting up his eyes. ‘Heaping coals of fire on one’s enemies’ heads?’

  ‘I’d like a wash,’ said Silver, and he went out to find a bathroom. No one tried to stop him. Somewhere in the flat a clock chimed eleven. Outside in the street, as if on cue, the fire engine (or police cars or ambulance) sirens began to howl. Andrew went over to the window and stood there as if giving himself up.

  ‘They aren’t coming for you,’ I said. ‘We’re not your enemies. We’ve come to help you. We thought we could do things for you.’ I introduced myself, adding that we lived together. ‘I’m Clodagh and he’s Silver. We’re on your side. And we haven’t told anyone.’

  It was plain, naturally, that Andrew didn’t believe us. He nodded, he stared at me, saying nothing. Alison came back with the wine, already opened, and four glasses on a tray. Before pouring it she went up to Andrew and sat on the arm of his chair. She did a strange unexpected thing – well, strange to do in company. She put her arm round his neck and kissed him full on the lips, an open-mouthed kiss, a kiss of passion, as if she was saying to him, this may be the last time, or the last time before things change so terribly that we shall become different people.

  He responded, but less warmly. Perhaps he was embarrassed. I had a feeling that if it went on he would push her away. She drew away from him and got up. The wine was poured. As she filled the last glass, finishing the bottle, Silver came back, his face clean but covered with angry blotches. Suddenly the boy in the next room cried out, a piercing yell. It was the sound a two-year-old makes in fear, in a bad dream, but with the volume of which a child of eight is capable. Alison ran to him.

  ‘He’s quite disturbed and he doesn’t sleep well,’ Andrew said. He sounded very tired. ‘He wants to be in his own home. He hates not being able to go out.’ Lifting his glass, ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Did you mean that? About being on our side?’ />
  ‘Of course. Why not?’

  ‘How did you find us?’

  ‘Our friend saw you. He recognized you.’

  ‘We go on roofs,’ I said. ‘That’s what we do, it’s our thing. We’ve watched you through the window. We didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘Everything frightens us,’ Andrew said.

  Alison came back with Jason. She couldn’t carry him, he was too heavy for her, but she held him close against her as he walked beside her, her arm round the boy’s shoulders as she pressed his head against her waist. His face was stained with tears. He lifted big dark eyes to look at us, to stare aghast or fascinated, it was hard to tell. I thought then that we must have been the first people he had seen, apart from Andrew and Alison, for six months.

  It was as if Alison read my mind. ‘We see no one. We live here isolated. Andrew goes out sometimes, not often. He goes to buy food. We live out of tins.’ She glanced at her wineglass. ‘And bottles.’

  Then Silver said it again, that we were friends, that we wanted to help them. They must trust us.

  ‘But why? Why help us?’

  ‘I suppose because we think you ought to have him. We don’t like the rules. Isn’t that enough? Trust us.’

  ‘I trust no one,’ Andrew said.

  He took Jason on his knee. He drew him towards him and looked solemnly into his face. Everything those two did seemed ritualistic, studied, as if they believed they were doing it for the last time. Andrew gently eased Jason into his arms, letting the boy lean back into the crook of his elbow. Alison crossed the room and closed the window. Jason was quiet then, sleepy, content.