Ritual

25

16 May

The grandfather clock said twelve and at the back of the house the sun shone directly along the line of trees, casting their shadows on the gravel. Spring was here. Already the wisteria was hanging its long racemes at the windows, fingering the pane as if it'd like to get inside. The Marleys used to do the gardening together, but since the accident Flea had never had the time or the inclination and certainly couldn't afford a gardener, so now the gardens sprang up in the summer, jungly and throbbing with insect life. Two years on and you couldn't get down the terraces to the bottom of the valley without a hacksaw. There was a folly down there too, meant to look like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. It spanned a small ornamental lake, but the limestone mortar had weakened and last winter the stone had sunk into the lake until only the very top of the arch was visible. The sensible thing would be to sell the garden to the Oscars, but she couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear the thought of the Oscar children running up and down the lawns she and Thom had grown up on.

'Falling in around my ears, Mum,' she muttered, standing in the kitchen that lunchtime. She could see the solar panels Dad had fitted in a line outside the garage. They had broken months ago and there wasn't any money to repair them, and on top of everything moss was covering the tiles and grass was growing in the gutters. From a distance the roof looked like another lawn. 'I'm so sorry. I never meant it to get like this.'

She lifted the pasta off the stove, dumped it in a colander, and, squinting in the steam, set it on the counter next to Dad's safe. Kaiser had told her she was going to be hungry, that she would probably be on the trip for more than twenty-four hours and when it was over she would want carbohydrate and vitamins. Preparing food afterwards — or doing anything that needed concentration — would be difficult. Pasta was the thing, Mum's favourite. She could save it in Tupperware and microwave it tomorrow. She peeled the skin off the beef tomatoes she'd been scalding in boiling water, running her fingers under the tap when they got too hot. She took the skin to the bin and paused, her foot on the pedal, the lid open, looking at the slippery pile in her hands, the juice leaking down between her fingers. Into her head came the mound of human skin she'd shown Caffery that morning. It stayed for a moment or two, then she dropped the tomato peel into the bin, wiped her hands on a teatowel, and let the image go.

'Flea?'

She turned. Thom was in the doorway, standing in that nervous way of his with his feet placed at an odd angle, like a foal, not sure its legs would support its weight. 'I'm sorry,' he said apologetically. 'The door was open.'

'Oh, sweetpea. That's OK.' She came forward, reaching to touch his face. Her little brother. Poor, poor Thom. 'It's so nice to see you.' He smiled. His skin was still as pale and fragile as it had been when they were children, and the bags under his blue eyes, which always made him look as if he was too scared to sleep, were pronounced today. 'Here. Sit down,' she said, pulling out a chair and patting it.

He sat, his awkward hands resting on his knees.

'I'll put the kettle on — make you tea.'

'What are you doing?' he asked, gesturing at the things she'd been cooking with — the olive oil, the garlic, the jar of pasta.

She took the heavy frying pan from the stove and scraped the garlic and onions into the tomatoes. Then she set the pan in the sink, running water on it.

'Flea?'

'Yes,' she said. 'What?'

'What are you doing?'

'What does it look like?'

'Cooking. But you're acting strange.'

She paused, standing at the sink with one hand on her hip, the other on the tap, and watched the yellow circles of fat float to the top of the water. She could hear the crows cawing in the cedars along the edge of the garden, she could feel her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She thought about Mum staring at her from the path in the trees, whispering, We went the other way.

'Flea? What is it? You're scaring me.'

She turned. 'Thom, I know you don't like to talk about it.'

'About what?'

'About — about, you know, the way it all happened. The accident.'

There was a moment's silence, while they both stared at each other. Slowly Thom's cheeks went red. The rest of his face stayed pale.

'The accident,' she repeated, more softly this time. 'One day we're going to have to talk about it. About what you remember.'

There were a few more seconds where he didn't do anything, just went on staring. Then he began to drum his fingers on the table. A little humming noise started in the back of his throat. There was a scar in Thom that no one should mess with, things he couldn't bear to think about. Guilt he carried everywhere. He scraped his chair back and got up. He went to the stove and stood with his back to her, looking down at the pan of tomatoes. He shook the pan, moving things around, collecting spoons and spatulas, as if he had purpose. His hair was so fine and blond you could see the tanned scalp underneath, the back of his neck so vulnerable where the hair hung away from it.

'You know what?' he said conversationally. 'I'm not doing well in my job. I'm really not getting on in it.'

'Thom, I just want to-'

'If I'm honest, I'd say it's even starting to affect us. Me and Mandy.'

'Please listen to me-'

'And if I'm telling the truth, I feel trapped. Trapped like I've never been before. All because of the job.'

Flea closed her mouth. She knew people could go into denial, but she'd still imagined, in some corner of her conscious mind, that one day Thom would talk about the accident if he was forced to. She thought that by now he'd have worked the guilt through, rationalized it. But no, there he was, blanking her, as if he hadn't heard a word she had said. She sighed and sat down at the table.

'I can't bear it any longer.' He poked at the tomatoes. 'I'm trapped.'

'Are you?' she said flatly, half annoyed with him, half pissed off with herself for bringing that subject up in the first place. 'I had no idea.'

There was a long silence while Thom stirred the tomatoes and Flea sat watching him.

'Anyway,' he said, after a few minutes. He tore off kitchen towel, put the spoon on it, and cleared his throat. 'Anyway, I think I've got a new thing going.'

'What sort of new thing?'

'Some people I know. They import chandeliers from the Czech Republic. They're beautiful, better than any you've seen in the antique shops round here.'

Flea pressed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger because she could feel a headache starting. Since what happened in Bushman's Hole, Thom had lost every job he'd had. He'd worked for travel agents and magazines selling advertising space, he'd worked as a telephone researcher for seven pounds an hour. When he wasn't employed he'd used the loan on his insurance money to start businesses. In two years he'd been involved in no less than six failed ventures. From selling slimming pills he'd imported from the US to selling pixels on a web page, to investing in a piece of land for which he later found he couldn't get planning permission. All had gone wrong, leaving him almost broke.

'Thom, we've talked about this. You said you'd stick with a job. You can't keep taking these risks.'

'It's not a risk, it'll be fine. I just need an alibi.'

'An alibi?' Flea dropped her hand. 'What sort of alibi?'

He pushed aside the pan and came back to the table, sitting opposite her, elbows on the table. She could see in his eyes that he had wiped the accident from his mind. It was weird, the way he could do that.

'It's a really good venture but I've kept it from Mandy-'

'Because she'd say exactly what I'm saying and-'

'No, because I want it to be a surprise when it works.' He looked at her anxiously. 'But I need your help. Things have gone a bit wrong.'

'What?'

'I keep going off to meet them and Mandy's starting to think I'm seeing someone else.' Flea raised an eyebrow. 'I know,' he said, and suddenly the pallor had gone and his voice was excited. 'I know — she's even been following me. Brilliant, isn't it?'

'Brilliant?'

'I've seen her sneaking along the road behind me. You know what it means.'

'No,' Flea said. 'I don't.'

'It means she loves me. She's jealous! She really, really loves me.'

Flea shook her head wearily. She looked at the smooth skin of Thom's throat, faintly transparent and white where it covered the Adam's apple. Mandy was his first serious girlfriend. There had been a series of women he'd imagined he was having a relationship with — he'd fall ridiculously, childishly in love and end up devastated when they didn't return the attention. Until Mandy. And, like a child, he mistook Mandy's possessiveness for true love.

'She thinks I don't know she's following, but I do. So, now I've got an important meeting with these people, make-or-break. If I'm not there I can say goodbye to the whole thing.'

'And you want me to lie for you?'

'If I tell Mandy I'm here she'll believe me.'

'Here? No, she'd come and check.'

'Probably. But she'd never knock on the door because she thinks I don't know she's on to me. I'll take your Focus — I'm insured — and leave my car out the front on the road. That way if she follows or drives past I'm covered.'

'When do you want to do this?'

'Monday night.'

Monday was the day after tomorrow. Flea's last night off work. Kaiser had promised her the ibogaine would be out of her system by then.

She stood, picked up the pan and ladled the tomatoes into the pasta. She dropped in some olives, some sliced sausage and left the lid off to let the sauce give up its moisture. Then she spent some time wiping the surfaces.

Thom watched her, his eyes fixed on her. 'Well,' he said eventually, 'will you do it?'

'You know the answer to that, Thom.' She sealed the Tupperware box and put it into the fridge, closing the door hard. She didn't know why but she felt angrier than she should. 'Because you know I'd do absolutely bloody anything for you.'