Ordinary Thunderstorms

40

PLANE, OAK, CHESTNUT, GiNKO — Adam noted the trees on his way to work as if he were strolling through his own arboretum. High summer now and the sun on the dense leafage this early morning made him feel moderately exultant — if such a state of mind could be imagined. The exultance he owed to sunshine and nature — the moderation arose from the nature of the job he was walking towards, its disadvantages and inadequacies, especially given the profession he had previously occupied. But he shouldn’t complain, he knew. He had woken up in what was his own flat, showered in hot water, breakfasted on coffee and toast and was going to work, however relatively underpaid that work was. It was a routine, now, and one should never underestimate the importance of routine in a person’s life: routine allowed everything else to seem more exciting and impromptu.

He checked in with the duty head porter, Harpeet, and wandered through to the ‘common room’ as he privately referred to the porters’ restroom — a small personal reference to the life he had once led in academe. A trio of other sleepy porters lounged there, the remains of the night shift coming off duty. Adam glanced at the clock on the wall — twenty minutes early — Mr Keen. He had received his first pay cheque and banked it; he had been sent his first utility bill (water) and had paid it — his life, to anyone looking on from the outside, would seem almost normal.

“Hey, Primo. How you do?”

It was Severiano, a young guy whom he liked, who had joined Bethnal & Bow around the same time as he had, and who claimed to have taken up portering to improve his English. They gripped hands briefly, in a kind of high slap, like tennis players across the net at the end of a match.

“So, how was weekend?”

“Quiet,” Adam said. “Just stayed in, watched TV.” He kept all answers to all questions as bland and banal as he could manage.

He poured himself a styrofoam cup of tea from the tureen, picked up a discarded tabloid and began to flick idly through it, heading towards the back pages for the sport, but curious to see on the way what else was going on in the tabloid world. It was summer, the football season was over, but he still felt himself at a serious social disadvantage with his colleagues. Apart from work and its travails all anybody seemed to want to talk about was football — last season’s football and the coming season’s football. He knew a little about English football but he’d lost touch during his many years in the USA — the game had changed beyond all imagination since he’d left the country and he knew he had to learn more if he wanted to converse more naturally with his fellow porters, if he were indeed to become one of them. In his first week someone had asked him idly which team he supported and, not thinking, he said the first name that came into his head at that moment — Manchester United. The shouts of derision and cries of pure hatred that greeted this choice astonished him. But now it was if he came to work every day in a Manchester United strip for he found himself the constant butt of crude anti-Northerner jokes and obscene remarks about the members of ‘his’ team (names that meant absolutely nothing to him). One porter had shouted in his face: “You live in Stepney and you support Manchester United — you WANKER!” Adam had smiled blankly back at him — what hideous sporting faux pas had he committed? So he was teaching himself more about English football against the day when he would publicly switch allegiance to a London club that would be found more acceptable.

As he turned the pages a photo caught his eye — a flicker of unconscious recognition occurring in the same way as you will recognise your own name in a list of a thousand. He turned back

— it wasn’t a photo, it was an ‘artist’s impression’. He stared at it

— the eyes were drawn closed but there was no doubt the portrait had a look of Mhouse about it — a clear look of Mhouse. He read the text beneath it with a cold, creeping sense of foreboding that brought out goose-bumps on his body. “Young woman — early twenties — unidentified — accidental death most likely…” Adam felt light-headed. Then he read about the tattoos on the body and saw, printed bold in capital letters: MHOUSE LY-ON.

He went outside to the staff car park to inhale some fresh air, the newspaper still in his hand, his head a shouting racket of plots and possibilities. No, not Mhouse, surely — he said to himself

— not Mhouse. He re-read the article. The body was found in the Thames by Greenwich…Some decomposition, obviously in the water for many days. Unidentified woman. Anyone with information…There was a number to call.

He paced around for a while, bad feelings accumulating, a scenario building in his head that involved a big ugly man with a weak, cleft chin. How, though? He had left The Shaft within minutes of seeing him there — minutes — there could have been no trail…But Mhouse was dead, that much was certain. But what about Ly-on? He realised he owed it to Ly-on to make the identification — nobody in The Shaft would do it — perhaps that would allow his mother to rest in peace, after a fashion.

He went to the payphone in the lobby and picked up the phone. He put it down. He had to think this through — serious risk might be involved. So he outlined all the reasons why he shouldn’t call and identify Mhouse’s body and he had to acknowledge they were firmly sensible and anyone in his situation would have been well advised to heed them. But he realised that he wasn’t going to act in a thoughtful, logical way. He thought of Mhouse, dead, cold, lying in some kind of steel drawer with a brown label tied around her big toe and a number written on it and his very being seemed to contract and shudder. He knew he couldn’t leave her like that. So what if there were risks — everything in his life was risky, and once you accepted that risk element then another kind of strategic, worldly, impromptu thinking came into play that had nothing to do with reason but everything to do with the person you were and the life you were living. Nobody knew who he was, Adam told himself. Adam Kindred wouldn’t be making this identification, no, it would be Primo Belem, a casual acquaintance of the nameless victim. He could confidently give his name and address — he’d done it a dozen times now — even to the police. There was no mention of foul play in the paper so perhaps a simple identification was all that was required. Mhouse would have her name back and Ly-on would understand, one day, what had become of his mother. More importantly, Adam knew he would feel he had done his duty by Mhouse. His wild, crazy Samaritan would have been repaid. There was no other way. He picked up the phone again.

“Marine Support Unit,” a voice said.

“Hello…” What did one say? “I’ve just seen the paper. The body of the young woman found in the river at Greenwich. I think I know who she is.”

He took a pen from his pocket and noted down the details of what he should do and where he should go. He said he would be there when his shift ended in the evening and hung up.

Mhouse was dead. He had to face that fact — there was no escaping it and no escaping the equally appalling fact that, one way or another, he had inadvertently brought death to her. Whoever was leading this desperate hunt to find him had killed Mhouse in pursuit of information. Guilt overwhelmed him, gathered in his throat like bile. It was bile. He managed to make it outside to the car park before he vomited.