Little Bird. Camilla Way

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СКАЧАТЬ was unbearable. Two days passed, and then two more, and still she didn’t phone or come. Each hour without hearing from her was agony. He was certain that this time she had gone for good. Finally, sick to death of his dark thoughts he had gone to the pub in search of Jimmy and Eugene – anything to take his mind off her.

      The Hope and Anchor is a vast Victorian hulk of a boozer that looms malevolently over the New Cross–Old Kent Road junction. Inside its cavernous interior the flock wallpaper is covered in photographs. Yellow, curling Edwardian prints show the neighbourhood lit by gas lamp and patrolled by horse-drawn carriages. Others depict the pub in its sixties heyday: various monochrome gangsters, minor celebrities and glamour girls caught in frozen animation before the same flocked paper. In one, Ronnie and Reggie Kray leer into the camera with dead eyes and mephitic grins. Amongst the photos hang a selection of mysterious brass ornaments interspersed here and there by dead animals in glass cases. The wall above the bar meanwhile is dedicated to the landlord’s boxing trophies, celebrating the now chain-smoking, balding cirrhotic despot’s vainglorious past.

      The three of them had been drinking here since their mid teens and the ancient juke box still played the same selection of tired eighties pop. As Frank walked through the door Madness sang One Step Beyond. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and he squinted in the dimness – thick maroon velvet curtains blocked out the afternoon sun. In the Hope and Anchor, it was always midnight.

      He found Jimmy and Eugene playing pool and he fetched himself a drink, glad suddenly, that he didn’t have to make conversation. Almost immediately he began to wish he hadn’t come, that he’d stayed at home with the curtains drawn and the stereo on full blast. He barely had the energy to lift his pint he was so hacked-off. After a while, Jimmy potted the final ball and came over.

      ‘Not seeing Kate tonight?’ he asked after the hellos were over with and he’d sat down.

      Frank winced. ‘No.’

      Jimmy glanced at him questioningly, but taking in Frank’s face, merely nodded. Eugene began to shout loudly into his mobile phone.

      ‘How’re the savings coming?’ asked Jimmy after a brief silence. ‘You must be nearly there now.’

      Frank had to think for a moment before he realised what Jimmy was talking about. He’d been saving for the past year, trying to get enough money together to go travelling, and it had, until he met Kate, been the subject uppermost in his thoughts. ‘Oh,’ he said vaguely. ‘Yeah … you know. Still saving.’

      Jimmy shot him a puzzled look, but Frank ignored him. How could he possibly explain how he felt? That he was half mad with thoughts of a girl he hardly knew? That nothing mattered at the moment apart from the one desperate hope that he would see her again. He knew exactly what his friends’ response would be: Stop being such a fanny, Auvrey.

      ‘You want a game?’ asked Eugene, nodding over to the pool table.

      ‘Nah, you’re all right,’ he said, continuing to stare into his pint. Now that he was here, he just couldn’t be fucked to talk to them. ‘You have another one.’ He pretended not to notice the look that passed between them.

      He watched them play for a minute or two, before sinking once again into his own thoughts. He felt with Kate as if he’d discovered a whole new country that he was desperate to explore if only he could find where to catch the boat from. How then, when Jimmy asked about his plans to travel could he even contemplate Greece, Turkey, Germany, France? What the fuck did he care about those places – boring, bland, flat compared to Kate – if they were somewhere she was not? He didn’t even have a phone number for her. He hadn’t seen her for nine days.

      ‘Fancy a line?’

      He suddenly realised that Eugene was talking to him.

      ‘Might cheer you up a bit.’

      ‘No. You know I don’t do that shit.’ He must have spoken more sharply than he’d meant, because Eugene was pulling a face.

      ‘Suit yourself. Jim?’

      Frank went to the bar and tried to think up an excuse to leave. When he returned he realised that Jimmy and Eugene were arguing about something and half-heartedly he tried to get the gist.

      ‘Well, what’s the point?’ Jimmy was saying. ‘It’s Sunday for fuck’s sake. Just chill out for a night – lay off it for a bit.’

      ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Grumpily, Eugene got up and moved off in the direction of the gents. ‘Just say no, right? Thanks, Jim. Gotcha.’

      When he’d gone, Jimmy turned to Frank and appealed to him. ‘It’s starting to do my head in. Seriously, Frank, I’m worried.’

      He shrugged. ‘He’ll be all right. You know what he’s like.’ To be honest, the subject bored him. He’d never been into drugs himself, but everyone and their dog seemed to be coked up at the moment – it was a national sport. No big deal.

      Jimmy nodded unhappily. ‘Yeah. It’s just that he’s spending all his time with those wankers down the Feathers. Andy Mitchel and that. You know the kind of shit they’re into.’

      Inwardly, Frank groaned. Not this. Not now. He couldn’t bear the thought of Eugene becoming one of those sad fucks whose lives revolved around the dole office, the pub, and his next fix. In fact the thought was so depressing he refused to allow it as a possibility.

      He shrugged non-committedly. ‘He’s always been like that. We’ve had this conversation ever since we were kids. He’s a grown up, Jimmy. It’s not our job to rein him in all the time is it? And to be honest I’ve got enough to worry about other than Eugene’s benders.’

      He realised that Jimmy was looking at him strangely. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. A silence fell.

      ‘Look, Jim,’ Frank said, getting up. ‘Sorry, but I’m feeling a bit gyp. I’m going to head on home.’ Eugene had just re-emerged from the gents and he waved over at him. ‘Have a good night, yeah? I’ll give you a call in the week.’

      On the edges of Deptford he passed vast sites of half-built apartment blocks. Bill boards boasting designer living with river views. White towers of little square rooms with the same dimensions and soullessness as the council flat he’d grown up in five minutes down the road, only with Italian-style taps and a £300K price tag. He felt his mood worsen.

      And then, turning the corner, his spirits soared as he spied a familiar flash of yellow hair outside his door. She was sitting on his step smiling up at him as he approached. It was all he could do not to shout out with relief: the world sang.

twelve

       Long Island, New York, 1997

      She is fourteen when she firsts asks Ingrid about the photograph. They are eating breakfast one morning when her gaze happens to fall upon the image of the little, blond child and she asks, ‘Who is that?’ vaguely remembering Robert’s reaction to it the summer before.

      ‘Eat your breakfast, Elodie,’ Ingrid pours more coffee, and looks pointedly at Elodie’s bowl of cereal.

      ‘Yes. Who is that?’

      ‘That is my son, Elodie. Our СКАЧАТЬ