Silent Children Page 16

  "There's no chance of a reconciliation?"

  "Not after what I said to him when I thought he had."

  "I'm certain everybody sympathises with your tragic situation."

  Mr. Brand held a respectful pause before saying "Shall we continue in my room? The ladies will need seats."

  "I'll bring them," Ian said.

  "Rupert can carry mine," Mrs. Duke told everyone.

  The headmaster made a sound not unlike that of a machine gun with his throat and led the way into his office, a wide bright room slitting its blinds at a view of the outstretched legs of the building. Ian planted a chair well away from its twin before the broad oak desk, and Leslie sat while he stood beside her. She remembered when she would have lifted him onto her lap; she sensed the vulnerable little boy hiding inside him and imagined one inside Rupert too, and willed Mr. Brand to be quick with the interview. Instead he reached or at least mimed reaching for the phone. "Will the ladies have a coffee?"

  "Not with my nerves," Mrs. Duke said.

  "Tea, then."

  "You won't want me gurgling when you're talking to them."

  The heat that the blinds were failing to exclude was parching Leslie's mouth, but she shook her head at Mr. Brand. "I'm fine," she lied.

  "In that event let me hear the accounts. Duke, you may begin."

  "Ames cut my eye with his book."

  "I think that's common knowledge. How is it presently feeling?"

  "Hurts."

  "I fancy it must," Mr. Brand said dabbing at both of his own. "What word from the hospital, Mrs. Duke?"

  "His corny whatever they call it is ripped."

  "The cornea. The horny membrane, from the Latin," Mr. Brand told Rupert in case the knowledge came in useful. "How will it affect his sight, can that be told yet?"

  "He won't lose it, the doctor said."

  "That's cheering. Meanwhile I understand it tends to aggravate Rupert's problems with his schoolwork."

  "It would, wouldn't it?"

  "Anything else you would like to place on the record, Duke? What do you say led to the incident?"

  "Ames wrote a horror thing about putting a girl under the floor."

  "So Mr. Cardigan informs me, but I wonder what it has to do with you."

  "You're joking. It's like using what that bastard did to our Harmony."

  "I didn't mean her. I wasn't thinking of her."

  "No polyphony, if you please. One voice at a time. I must say, Ames, if you weren't thinking about her then perhaps you should have been."

  "He shouldn't have wrecked it. He won't be able to wreck the book Jack's writing about all the stuff Hector Woollie did."

  "He's what?" Mrs. Duke demanded.

  Mr. Brand showed her a palm. "Anything further, Duke? Anything that doesn't involve language we don't expect from our boys. Intemperateness only leads to the sort of incident we're having to discuss." When some or all of that left Rupert speechless, Mr. Brand said "Ames's version, then. Speak as freely as you wish within the limits of politeness and accuracy."

  "It's like I said, Duke heard Mr. Cardigan talking about my story and he came and tore it up. I was going to show my mother and Jack. Duke made me mad, that's all."

  "Are you saying you were temporarily insane?"

  "Just mad."

  "Angry, you're trying to say. Furious."

  "Right."

  "There's no merit in a usage that blurs meaning." Having led a silence to mourn the loss, Mr. Brand said "The destruction of another boy's schoolwork is a serious matter, but I think we may accept that Duke has paid for the infraction. On the other hand—"

  "Sir." Ian waited to be sure he would be heard, and then he said "That isn't all he did."

  "I see," Mr. Brand said, though Leslie was certain he had no more sense of what was coming than she had. "Continue."

  "He broke into our house and sprayed stuff on the doors."

  "That's a rotten lie," Mrs. Duke cried, grabbing her knees with her silver-nailed hands as if to launch herself at him, and Leslie was readying herself to intervene, breathing as deliberately as she could to slow her pulse that felt like the shakes, when the headmaster brandished a hand. "What evidence have you of that, Ames?"

  "Duke said."

  "Is that true, Duke?"

  Rupert dragged his glare, intensified by its confinement to one eye, away from Ian and neutralised his look before it reached the headmaster. "Can't remember what I said."

  "In other words, you might have."

  "He got me so furious angry I could've said any—anything, sir."

  "That would hardly have improved the situation, would it? I appreciate you must have felt aggrieved, Ames. Nevertheless—"

  "Hold on." Leslie's throat was so dry she had to clear it with a cough. "Can we stay with what we just heard? Can we establish if he broke into my house?"

  "He just said he did," Mrs. Duke informed her as if addressing a backward child.

  "No, he only admitted he said it. Was it true?" Leslie asked him.

  His tight lips twitched, and she saw Mrs. Duke open her mouth to talk over anything he said, but it was Mr. Brand who spoke. "Forgive my interrupting, but I think we must confine ourselves to school matters. If you've reason to believe Duke was responsible for any damage to your property you should contact the police."

  "It's us that ought," Mrs. Duke protested. "We'll be sending them after her boy for what he did to mine if you don't give him what he deserves."

  "I assure you I shall be taking all the relevant factors into consideration." The headmaster raised his chin an inch as if to render his unruly hair less prominent or his solemn expression more so. "However provoked you may have felt," he told Ian, "you could very easily have blinded him."

  "I know." Ian grimaced with regret or to steel himself to add "Sorry, sir."

  "Easy said and not enough," Mrs. Duke objected.

  "When it becomes necessary to expel a boy," Mr. Brand said, "I feel the school has failed."

  Leslie held her breath and found she couldn't look at Ian. By the time Mr. Brand went on, her eyes had begun to sting. "Given everything I've heard here today, and bearing in mind the need to send a signal to the students, I shall with immediate effect be excluding Ames for the remainder of the term."

  "That's not nearly enough," Mrs. Duke said at once. "You heard what I said about the police."

  "I hope you wouldn't expect that to alter my decision, Mrs. Duke. If your son weren't injured I should have to consider excluding him for destroying Ames's work. As far as recourse to the police is concerned, I gathered that if either you or Mrs. Ames were to involve them, the other would reciprocate."

  Mrs. Duke gave him a long dull stare before saying "Have you finished with us?"

  "Unless there was anything further you wished to say. Thank you for attending."

  "Come on, Rupert. Can you see where you're going all right?" Mrs. Duke said, and as a parting shot "Time you were in your class if it doesn't hurt too much to work."

  Leslie supposed the headmaster's decision was just, but she wished he could have stopped short of making her feel helpless over the break-in at her house. It was like so much of life, she thought: a mess of motives and emotions that couldn't be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, that would simply linger until the passage of time let the frustration of it dissipate. "What will Ian do about his schoolwork?" she said.

  "Arrangements will need to be made with his teachers. Perhaps you could telephone the staff room at lunchtime." Mr. Brand stood up, and as a further sign that the interview was over, used his fingertips to clear his forehead of hair. "I hope to see a continuing improvement in your work, Ames," he said. "I hear your teachers had been happy with your progress."

  Leslie tried not to feel ostracised as she left the building for the deserted schoolyard. "It's good that they're pleased with your work, isn't it?"

  "Guess so," he said, not much more than a shrug.

  "It is, Ian. The bad stuff's been dealt with,
so let's concentrate on the good. If you have time and you want to, you could try writing your story again for me and Jack to read."

  He turned his back on the suggestion and walked ahead, and she kept the rest of her thoughts to herself along the North Circular Road. Most of the journey across the recreation ground was accompanied by a terrier that was determined to see her and Ian off, to the amusement of its slowly jogging rotund owner, and some of the people in the streets nearer Jericho Close were visibly of the opinion that Ian should be at school. At least the sight of her house was welcome, not least because the Nova in front of it meant Jack was in.

  She didn't call to him as she stepped into the hall. He'd been preoccupied of late, no doubt with his book. She filled the percolator in the kitchen and sent Ian to fetch a mug from the garden table. When she saw him wave at Jack's window and at Janet's, she went out herself.

  Jack was at his desk, and gazing either into the distance or at the screen of his word processor. It took him a few seconds to notice her, at which point he raised a thumb and then its fist, though not far. Rather than distract him further, she only smiled and turned to Janet, who was leaning out of her bedroom window. "Just finishing the packing," Janet said, "and then it's the time-share for three weeks. Do I see someone else on holiday?"

  "Just studying until the end of term because of the fight he was in."

  "Boys." Having summed up a great deal in the syllable, Janet presented Ian with a grin as compensation. "Still," she said, "I'll sleep better knowing there's two men at home to keep an eye on the house."

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  HORROR MAN WRITES BOOK ABOUT MURDER HOUSE

  "Bitch."

  "Now, Ian, there's no need for that."

  "Well, she is. I bet Jack thinks she is."

  "I'm sure Jack is too well brought up to say so even if he thinks it. That's right, isn't it, Jack?"

  "I—I didn't catch who we're talking about, to tell you the truth."

  "Rupe's mom. She must have told the paper you were writing your book. I shouldn't have said at school you were."

  "Hey, it's okay. No harm done that I know of."

  "No such thing as bad publicity, don't they say?"

  "I guess."

  Perhaps Leslie should have kept the observation to herself. He was obviously more bothered than he wanted her and Ian to know. She folded the newspaper on the kitchen table to conceal the headline and the reappearance of the picture of Jack on the stairs. "At least it won't have spoiled your book, will it?"

  "I figure it's still safe in here," he said, knuckling his forehead so sharply that she winced. "That's where I live."

  "With us too, I hope."

  "See, Rupe's mother didn't care if she wrecked your book. That makes her a bitch, and the wheelie woman's one as well."

  "Ian, I do think you could put away some of your vocabulary for a while if not for good. It doesn't hurt to choose your words even if it takes more time, does it, Jack? I'm sure that's part of being a writer."

  "It's helped me so far.'"

  "There, Ian, advice from a professional."

  "If you can use a tad more, try writing that story you wrote again before you forget it. It'll be a second draft, and real writers do those. Want to promise me you will?"

  "I'll try."

  "If anyone's to blame for the lady in the wheelchair keeping after us, I must be. I didn't handle her too well the time we met."

  "Stop feeling guilty, Jack. You've no reason I can see."

  "It's sweet of you to say so." Looking as though he might have reached for her if Ian hadn't been there, Jack stood up. "Guess I'll take a shower and try to wash away my sins."

  That was so deadpan it hardly sounded like a joke. He'd already been preoccupied when he had come downstairs in his dressing gown—his robe, she supposed he would call it—for a cup of the English breakfast tea he'd grown fond of, and she wished she hadn't left the newspaper in sight, though he would have had to deal with the report sooner or later. She hoped he had now. She was clearing away her and Ian's breakfast plates—Jack hadn't wanted anything to eat—when the phone rang.

  Ian sprinted to it, but his eagerness lasted only until he'd answered it. "Some man for Jack."

  "Run up and tell him."

  She hadn't meant quite so immediately that he didn't take time to ask the caller to hold on. She dumped the plates and utensils in the sink and hurried to pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

  "You'll be what's your name again?"

  It wasn't only how blurred the slow male voice was that threw her, it was its resentment of having to turn its answer into a question. "You tell me," she said.

  "Doesn't matter. Is Jack Lamb there?"

  "There's some man on the phone," Ian was shouting over the cloudburst of the shower as Leslie made an effort to meet rudeness with politeness. "My son's just letting him know you're calling."

  "Knows who I am then, does he?"

  "My son? He does if you told him."

  "Then he doesn't."

  "Phone," Ian yelled, "some man," and before Leslie had time to word a retort to the person referred to, the bathroom door flew open, revealing Jack in the process of wrapping himself in a towel. "Who is it?" he demanded.

  "No idea, and frankly I can do without knowing. He doesn't seem to want anyone except maybe you to know. He's all yours, or I can cut him off."

  "No," Jack said, "no, don't do that." Having secured the towel around himself, he ran down to her, leaving a moist footstep on each stair. "Jack Lamb," he said, turning the receiver and his head toward the wall.

  Leslie returned to the kitchen while Ian took the chance to brush his teeth. "What name is that?" she heard Jack say, and "Right" and "Not yet" and "Not one of those either" and "Working on it" and "Sure, if you want." She saw him scribbling on the pad beside the phone before he said "I'll be in touch."

  "Anything good?" she risked asking.

  "Nothing bad, I guess." He tore the page off the pad and found nowhere to put it. "I wouldn't know how much to trust the guy, though, if he's as drunk as he sounded this early."

  "But it wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be."

  "I don't—how do you mean?"

  "He wasn't as bad as I made him sound."

  "Got you. Maybe not. He was an agent wanting to know if I had one in Britain and if I had a publisher yet. For, you know, the book he heard I'm working on, though don't ask me where he heard I was."

  "It's got to be encouraging to find you're in demand, hasn't it? It could be the start of a revival. We can hope."

  "You think?" For a moment he seemed about to say more, and then a shiver brought his knees together. The hall didn't strike her as cold or draughty, though of course she wasn't wearing only a towel. "I'd better get my shower," he said.

  "Tell Ian I'm just nipping next door," Leslie called after him and, having watched his increasingly—not to say enticingly—bare legs ascend the stairs, let herself out of the house.

  The Advertiser was protruding from Janet's and Vern's letterbox. She dragged the paper out and stooped to peer through the slot. The hall and the stairs and the three closed doors were as they should be. She released the metal flap and heard an echo of its clank somewhere within. As she straightened up she became aware that a woman who'd parked a red Volkswagen halfway along Jericho Close had halted at her gate.

  She was wearing a long autumnally brown dress too voluminous for her thin neck and thinner limbs. Beneath sparse curls the colours of metal beginning to rust, her small face looked drawn together by concern. She came to some decision and advanced, sandals clacking beneath her heels, toward the door Leslie had left open. "Excuse me, can I help?" Leslie called over the fence.

  "Don't trouble. I know where I'm going."

  "So do I," Leslie said, mildly enough. "To my house."

  Even when Leslie strode down the path and up her own, the woman seemed less than convinced. "Tell me what you want by all means," Leslie said, "and who you are would be nice
."

  "Are you sure you live here?"

  "I'm sure of a few things, and that's one of them." Leslie was running out of patience, having expended too much on the man who'd phoned Jack. "Now it's my turn to get some answers, so if you'd like—"

  "You're Mrs. Ames."

  "That's me, but I knew it already, believe it or not. What I'm asking you—"

  "You wouldn't say you were unless you really were." The woman held out her hands and then curled her fingers toward herself, and Leslie couldn't tell if they were recoiling or indicating their owner until the woman said with no more than a hint of defensiveness "I'm Adele Woollie."

  Leslie didn't quite gasp, but she had to press her lips together. Harder to deal with than the revelation was the way Mrs. Woollie seemed to be implying Leslie would be sympathetic to her because they had something in common. Even if that was only notoriety, Leslie wasn't anxious to admit sharing it with her. "So what do you want?" she said.

  Mrs. Woollie tried to square her thin shoulders, a gesture that gave her the appearance of being manipulated like a puppet. "My son."

  For a headachy moment Leslie thought she was referring to the child who'd been buried under the kitchen, and had to remind herself that victim hadn't been a boy. "Well, you aren't going to find—"

  It wasn't Jack who cut her off, because he was only calling to Ian "I'm through with the bathroom"; it was how Mrs. Woollie's face changed as she heard his voice. Don't say it, Leslie willed her. I won't believe you if you do. It's ridiculous. It's impossible. It's too much.

  "That's him," Mrs. Woollie said.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As Jack withdrew his face from the cone of hot water his thoughts came clear. He had to tell Leslie who he was. Even once he'd turned off the shower and stepped out of the bath his skin was still crawling, not with trickles of water but with the memory of his dread that the man who'd phoned a few minutes ago would prove to be his father. Any caller might be, and suppose Leslie guessed? However she might take the truth when Jack revealed it, having it betrayed would be worse. He'd hidden it for fear of harming their relationship, but he valued her so much that he wouldn't feel deserving of her if he failed to tell.