‘David was crying,’ I told her, as Kate crossed her arms and pulled off her tight-ribbed sweater.
‘Was he?’ she said. She didn’t sound very surprised. ‘When was that?’
I was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off my socks. ‘When we were first talking, in the living room. When I went to take a leak. I came out of the bathroom and he was standing by the window in one of the bedrooms, sobbing like a baby. He didn’t see me.’ I paused. ‘It looked like their son’s room. It had model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Guess they keep it as kind of a shrine.’
Kate said, ‘He was OK later, wasn’t he, when we had supper. He was even telling jokes.’
I stood up and unbuckled my belt. ‘It’s none of my business. But it was so sudden – the way he walked out of the room like that, and went to have a cry. I mean – what makes a man like David do something like that? He seems, like – so stiff-upper-lip.’
‘Grief, probably. Something must have reminded him about losing his son. Grief can suddenly hit you like that, even after years.’
We climbed into bed, and Kate snuggled up close to me. The guest bedroom wasn’t as grandiose as the suite we had shared in the Westerlunds’ apartment, but all the same the walls were decorated with gold-patterned wallpaper, and the furniture was all genuine English antiques, with a bow-fronted mahogany bureau and a pair of Sheraton armchairs which must have cost upward of thirty thousand dollars.
‘I remember when my grandmother died,’ said Kate. ‘My parents inherited her house – a really huge colonial, in Sherman, Connecticut. I used to roam around it when I was young and I was sure that I could hear my grandmother walking along the corridor upstairs, or hear her laughing, in another room.
‘I used to get so frustrated and upset because no matter how fast I ran upstairs, or hurried into the room next door, I could never catch her. I always had the feeling that I had missed her by a fraction of a second. I could even smell the lavender perfume she used to wear. But I never saw her again, and sometimes I missed her so much that I couldn’t, stop myself from crying and crying like I was never going to stop.’
‘Is that where you spent most of your childhood, Connecticut?’
Kate nodded. ‘I was very happy, most of the time. My mom and dad were very argumentative, but they did love each other, in spite of all of the rows. I miss them, too, really badly.’
‘They’re both dead? They must have died pretty young.’
She turned her face away. ‘Yes, well. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She turned back again, and kissed my shoulder. ‘You don’t have to be sorry. If anybody should be sorry, it’s me. I just wish I’d visited them more often, after I moved to New York. I just wish I could have one more meal with them, around the kitchen table. I wouldn’t even mind if they argued, which they always did.’
‘Pity you didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Somebody to share your memories with.’
‘But you have a brother, don’t you, and you’re always telling me what a pain in the ass he is.’
‘Toby, yes. But he and me, we couldn’t be more different. He’s a jock. He thinks that a diminishing chord is a piece of string that you keep cutting bits off.’
Kate laughed. ‘I think we’d better get ourselves some sleep. I want to take you sightseeing tomorrow, Kensington Gardens. And on Thursday we can go to Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square, and the Houses of Parli-ay-ment.’
*
Kate fell asleep first, curling herself up into the fetal position, with her back to me. I put my arm around her waist and held her close. The Philips apartment was very hushed, but I could still hear the muffled roaring of London’s traffic, like a distant stampede.
I don’t know how much longer it took me to fall asleep, but I was right down in the bottom of a well when I heard a phone ringing. At first I thought I was dreaming it, but it went on and on. After it had been ringing for over a minute, I sat up.
Kate was still fast asleep, and breathing heavily. But the phone kept on ringing, with one of those shrill, demanding, old-fashioned rings, and it didn’t seem as if anybody was going to answer it.
I eased myself out of bed. The drapes didn’t quite meet in the middle so the room was suffused with enough orange street light for me to see where I was going. I made my way to the door and opened it. The phone was ringing in the library. I considered knocking on David’s bedroom door and waking him up, but then I thought, no, if he’s so comatose that he can’t hear this persistent ringing, he needs his sleep more than I do.
I went limping into the library, went across to David’s desk and picked up the receiver. Hoarsely, I said, ‘Hallo? This is the Philips residence.’
At first, I could hear nothing but a soft crackling noise.
‘Hallo?’ I repeated. ‘Do you know what time it is? It’s a quarter of two in the goddamned morning!’
More soft crackling. It must have been a wrong number, or a fault. I was about to hang up when I heard a desperate voice shout out, ‘No! Please! No! That hurts too much! No! Please don’t do that, please don’t do that! No! Not my eyes! No no no that hurts!’
It sounded like a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, his voice barely broken. ‘Hallo?’ I replied. ‘Hallo, who is this? Can you hear me?’
‘Please I can’t stand it, please don’t do it again! Please, I’m begging you!’
‘Who is this?’ I shouted. ‘I can’t help you if I don’t know who you are!’
‘No no no, please! Aaaaaahhh!’ the boy screamed, and went on screaming.
It was horrifying, but he wouldn’t answer me and tell me who he was, or else he couldn’t. In the end I couldn’t stand the screaming any longer and I clumsily hung up.
I stood there for a few moments, my heart thumping, wondering what to do. Then I picked the receiver up again and dialed the operator.
After a long wait, a disinterested West Indian voice said, ‘Operator services. How can I help?’
‘I’ve just had a phone call. A young boy was screaming. I don’t know who he was but it sounded like somebody was hurting him.’
‘I suggest you call the police, sir.’
‘I wondered if you could tell me what number he was calling from, that’s all.’
‘Have you tried ring-back? You dial one-four-seven-one.’
‘No, I haven’t. Can’t you do it for me?’
‘Hold on, sir, and I’ll try.’
I waited and waited, and eventually she came back to me. ‘your number has received no calls, sir, since August the twenty-second.’
‘That can’t be right. I just answered it, only a few minutes ago.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I have the records on my computer screen, right in front of me. The last incoming call was received on Thursday, August the twenty-second, at thirteen-oh-three.’
‘But there’s a banker living here … and his wife. You can’t tell me that nobody’s called them in over a month.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. That’s what the records are telling me. There have been no outgoing calls, either.’
‘OK.’ I didn’t know what else to say. I put down the phone and tried to think what to do next. I had heard a boy screaming, no doubt about it, but if there had been no phone call, how?
One thing I was sure of: there was no point in calling the police. I had never had any dealings with the British constabulary, but if they were anything like the New York cops who had investigated the break-in at my previous apartment, I would finish up feeling like I was some kind of crackpot, or worse.
‘Heard a lad screaming, did you, sir? Even though nobody actually rang? Taking any medication, sir?’
I left the library and went back to bed. As I tried to make myself comfortable, Kate stirred and muttered something in her sleep, but didn’t wake up. I lay awake for more than an hour, with my mind churning over and over. How come the Philips hadn’t received any phone calls since August? Maybe they always used their cellphones, instead of their landline. Maybe they always communicated with their friends and their business colleagues by email.
Outside, it began to rain again, and I could hear water gurgling down the guttering. I kept hearing that young boy’s voice, too, screaming in pain.
‘Please don’t do that, please don’t do that! No no no that hurts!’
*
When I woke up the next morning, it was still dark and it was still raining. David had already left for the office, but Helena made us a breakfast of boiled eggs and toast and Earl Grey tea. We sat at the kitchen table looking at the puddles on the patio.
Helena said, ‘Look at it. Hard to think we had so many barbecues out there, isn’t it? I love barbecues.’
‘Helena makes the most wonderful lamb kebabs,’ said Kate.
‘So how did you and Kate first meet?’ I asked Helena.
‘Oh, we’ve known Kate for a long time, haven’t we, Kate?’ Kate smiled, and nodded.
‘You should take Gideon to the Courtauld Institute. They have some wonderful Impressionists – Renoir, Gauguin – Van Gogh with his bandaged ear.’
‘Actually I was thinking of taking him to Kensington Gardens, to see Peter Pan.’
‘Oh,’ said Helena. For some reason she didn’t look too happy about that. She stood up and collected our plates and our egg cups. I had a strong feeling that something was wrong, but when I looked across at Kate, I couldn’t catch her eye.
‘Helena … it’s important. He needs to see it sometime.’
‘I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier.’
Kate stood up, and laid her hand on Helena’s shoulder. ‘It won’t go on for ever, Helena, I promise you.’
Helena had her back to me, but she lifted her hand to her eyes, and I could tell that she was wiping away tears. ‘You’re a good girl, Kate. Don’t worry about me. I’m just being ridiculous.’
Kate hugged her. ‘No, you’re not. Don’t ever think that. After what you and David had to go through—’
Helena gave a sniff and turned around, smiling. ‘Don’t you take any notice of me, Gideon. I was always too emotional. Would you like some more toast? I have some lime and lemon marmalade if you fancy it.’
*
We walked to Kensington Gardens, arm in arm, under a large black umbrella.
As we walked, I told Kate all about the phone call, and the boy screaming.
‘I called the operator, but he said that nobody had called the Philips’ phone since August. They hadn’t made any outward calls, either. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense, does it?’
‘It will.’
‘What do you mean, “it will”?’
Kate kissed me. Look,’ she said. ‘There’s Prince Albert.’
‘What do you mean, “it will”? Are you trying to tell me you don’t believe me?’
‘Of course I believe you. I don’t sleep with liars.’
‘What about Victor?’
‘Victor is a whole lot of things, but he’s not a liar.’
She led me up toward the tall Gothic spire of the Albert Memorial. It was surrounded by sculptured animals from all four corners of the Victorian Empire – a camel, a bull, a buffalo and an elephant. Under its elaborately decorated canopy sat a gilded statue of Prince Albert, looking seriously miserable.
‘He doesn’t seem too happy, does he?’ said Kate.
‘Of course not,’ I told her. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Being dead doesn’t make people unhappy. It’s how they die.’
‘And you know that for sure, do you?’
Kate laughed, and pulled herself away from me, and went skipping off along the path. ‘Come on, slowpoke! You keep boasting how fit you are!’