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‘Old Mr Carstairs’s heart gave out when they told him his wife had died,’ she said. ‘I think maybe that’s why Grandma’s been told they’re all away on holiday somewhere. I wouldn’t want her to be sick too.’
If the chauffeur said anything in reply then Evangeline missed it. His neck was getting hotter by the minute, though. She could fry eggs on that neck now, she thought, with all that grease there, too. You could see the grease in a line on his collar. She wanted to pull her photo of Lincoln out of her school bag to look at but she didn’t dare because she didn’t want to cry in front of him.
When they got home Grandma Klippel was outside waiting for them. At certain times it was hard to imagine how tough the old lady could be, and this was one of those times. With her linen skirt flapping about her knees and her skinny, saggy-fleshed arms hanging out of her cardigan sleeves, she looked almost frail. The light was going and her expression was hard to gauge. There was a smell of beach plum blossoms and Evangeline remembered it was nearly spring.
There were circles of dark skin around her grandmother’s eyes, as though she’d been rubbing, or reading without her glasses, or something.
‘Hello, dear. And how was school?’ she asked.
Evangeline looked back at the chauffeur. ‘Fine.’
Grandma Klippel smiled. ‘Do you know you are at the same school that my son went to? Darius was at that school for four years and he adored every minute of his time there. I used to wait for him to come home each afternoon just like I am standing here waiting for you. Isn’t that wonderful?’
She was the only person Evangeline knew who could smile without looking happy. She tried to smile back but the right look just wouldn’t come. When she started to shiver she pretended to her grandmother it was the wind making her cold, even though they both knew there wasn’t any more than a breeze blowing that afternoon.
She fell ill on that day; the fever lasted a week or more and she was off school for a month. When she got up again it was almost summer and her grandmother took her on a berry hunt just as though nothing had ever happened.
On her first day back at the school Evangeline got sent home early for fighting. She’d got angry over nothing much other than her unhappy life and she’d jumped on the girl with the most know-all face in the class for little more than the fact that the girl had a father and she did not. When she jumped the girl went down like a pile of old paper, instead of fighting back. So the car had been summoned to pick her up.
The chauffeur’s name was Cecil. It was a strange name and she didn’t know if she dared use it. He came from Manchester in England, which was why he talked so funny. He had a colour photo of his family in his glove compartment. She wondered if he missed them as much as she missed her own.
This time Cecil stopped the car. Not quickly, but just slowing down onto a verge as though stopping to point out some tern that dotted the sky overhead. The windows came down automatically and they both sat there a while, listening to the wind cutting through the dune grass. There was a rock nearby that was covered in creamy-white shells dropped by the gulls. Beyond the rock was a lonely-looking yellow sandbar that the tide was busy trying to cover up.
Evangeline’s nose caught the smell of fresh smoke and when she looked around Cecil was drawing on a weedy-looking roll-your-own.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, and she shook her head, flattered by his manners. He had lowered the glass between them so that his voice didn’t sound so funny. It was nice, sitting there quietly. After a while Evangeline started to cry but he didn’t make a fuss, or try to stop her. He just let her cry until her eyes were empty of tears and then he took his own hankie down to the water and brought it back wet, so she could wash her face with it.
‘She might know, you know,’ he said, meaning Grandma Klippel. Evangeline shook her head.
‘If she knew she’d have said. She never lies, she told me so. She wouldn’t say anything unless she believed it. Why do people die?’
‘God knows.’ Cecil spat a fleck of tobacco. He was not a philosopher. Evangeline thought the answer was fair enough. She never asked the question that was really troubling her, though: why did they die without her? Why hadn’t she gone as well? Didn’t they want her with them? Thea, Darius, Lincoln and Patrick. All together. Without Evangeline. The thought came into her head that they had hated her. Why? Was it her school grades? Was it because she was so ugly? It just didn’t make sense unless you looked at it that way.
Maybe they did hate her, after all. She would never have considered doing anything without them.
‘Why don’t you take a run on the beach for a bit?’ Cecil asked. ‘Your grandmother’s not expecting you back yet. Get a bit of colour into your cheeks.’
She took Cecil’s advice, running wild till her legs ached, and the air did feel good. Then they drove back to the house.
‘We have whole baby chickens for supper, Evangeline, with herby gravy,’ her grandmother said. ‘Go and wash up, there’s a good girl.’ She was wearing a lilac-flowered dress and a matching duster coat, as though she’d been out. She never told lies. She would have said.
7 (#ulink_5ca149fa-106e-5197-9759-bc46c334a8fa)
Nothing was spoken, then, and as Evangeline grew a little older the question ‘Why?’ hung constantly in her head, like a small bird on a perch in an empty cage, pecking away all the time. When she got a little wiser she asked Cecil how he knew and he said he’d just known, that was all, which seemed to her a stupid kind of an answer.
Then she thought about it properly and she started feeling better. If Cecil had ‘just known’ they were dead then maybe she knew that they just weren’t. Maybe you could sense these things and Cecil was wrong. She tried not to think about it too much. It had made her ill the first time and she didn’t want to be ill again.
It was as though a fog slowly settled around the whole affair and as time pushed an ever-widening space between herself and her parents she began to despair of ever finding out the truth.
And just as Evangeline grew older, so Grandma Klippel seemed to grow younger. She was not such an old lady, after all. When she had first come to the house Evangeline had thought her grandmother to be about ninety years old, but now she knew she was nearer fifty. Maybe Darius’s disappearance had made her younger because she spoke a lot about when he was a boy and acted half the time as though she were just a young mother again.
Shock over the deaths created some sort of malfunction between Evangeline and her grandmother. She needed the old lady’s sympathy and pity, but she knew she could never seek it because that would have meant giving away the secret that was so important to hide.
They lived in the same house, then, and her grandmother was kind, but that was all. Each of them was too empty inside to nurture any real affection. Grandma Klippel would not allow crying in public, though Evangeline heard her grief at night sometimes, when she was alone in her room. She wanted to please her grandmother. Most of all she wanted to please her parents, wherever they were. It was as though they were always there somewhere, watching and waiting; holding their breath until she did something they could be proud of at last. Darius and Thea: beautiful and talented. All of them, some place special, some place she couldn’t reach because she wasn’t special enough.
Evangeline felt like a ghost. She grew to realize that wishing she were with her family was the same as wishing she were dead too, but that was all she could think about. It was impossible not to imagine that they were having fun somewhere without her. Every bone in her body ached to join them.
When Cecil left to get married, another man took his place. The new man was older and Evangeline imagined out of boredom that he was in love with her grandmother. Unlike Cecil the new man knew nothing about her parents. He spoke little English and he went home at night. They would be all alone in that house then, with just the sea for company.
Evangeline thought about Darius as a small boy, playing happily in the surf. She even tried it herself a few times. The beach was OK in the summer. The sand would be warm on top, though it got colder and wetter the further your feet sunk. She liked the white driftwood and even took a few pieces home, which pleased Grandma Klippel for some reason. She remembered Cecil telling her he’d seen a whale swimming off the coast and that the next day it had been dead and washed up on the beach. Maybe that was how she’d find them one day – Darius, Thea and Lincoln, lying in a row on the sand, bleached and blistered by the sun and the salt in the water. She became afraid to go down onto the sand at all after that fancy.
For Evangeline’s eighth birthday Grandma Klippel had organized something extraordinary, though she refused to say what. Things stirred in the old house at last. Two rooms were decorated, which meant there was some life in the place as local handymen arrived along with radios, kettles and twenty cans of apricot-coloured paint. Even when the rooms were finished the smell of paint lingered for a couple of weeks.
On the morning of her birthday Evangeline went to school as usual, but when she got back there was someone waiting on the porch with her grandmother. The woman was small with wiry black hair, and dressed in clothes that reminded Evangeline of her mother.
Grandma Klippel was beaming.
‘Today is a special day, Evangeline,’ she said. ‘This is Miss Clayburg and she’s to be your tutor, stopping with us for the whole of the summer.’ She bent down closer, to be on Evangeline’s level. ‘You remember what a famous artist your father was, Evangeline?’ Her breath smelt of violets. ‘And your mother, of course. They had great talent, both of them. I told you. Never forget that.’
The small plane buzzed overhead, drowning out some of her words, but Grandma Klippel ignored the noise. It was almost as though the plane was eavesdropping. Evangeline looked upward. The sun had caught the plane’s wings. There was a white trail winding behind it, like a long smokey cloud.
‘I know Darius was not your father by blood but I believe somehow you may have inherited his talent. I have seen the green shoots in you already and I want to nurture those shoots. You are to learn to paint, Evangeline. Miss Clayburg is an art tutor from one of the greatest schools in New York. We can thank God she has been kind enough to come all this way out here and take you under her wing.’
Miss Clayburg smiled. She had crooked teeth but they were white, like the driftwood.
‘It was no kindness, Evangeline,’ she said. ‘When I received your grandmother’s letter and read who your father was I felt honoured to have been asked at all. I was Darius Klippel’s greatest devotee. If he has passed on half his talent you will be a very special little girl indeed.’
Grandma Klippel had more in store. ‘Close your eyes,’ she told Evangeline.
Evangeline closed her eyes and felt herself being led inside the house. They laughed as they took her up the stairs, counting each step out loud and warning her to take care on the last one. Then they went up again and again, towards the attic.
Evangeline had never been to the top of the house before, Grandma Klippel always kept those doors locked. She could hear the key turning now and then she felt the sun on her face and a greasy smell of oil in her nostrils.
‘Open!’ Grandma Klippel exclaimed.
The sun was dazzling, blinding. Evangeline squinted, trying to make out the shapes in the room. Miss Clayburg took her by the arms and turned her about slowly. They were in an artist’s studio, much like the room Darius had worked in at home, only bigger. The light came from the roof, which was all windows, and the smell came from the tubes of paint, which were lined up in their hundreds, ready for use. There were canvases and easels and several unfinished paintings of Darius’s, piled up along the walls.
Grandma Klippel clapped her hands together.
‘Well, Evangeline?’
Evangeline had stopped breathing. The smell of the oil paints was like a knife cutting into her soul. Every time she breathed in she was back in the studio in Boston and Darius was fooling around and making her laugh.
Sometimes he put paint on his face. Or he would do lightning scribbles with charcoal and draw funny pictures of Lincoln with his eyes crossed. Once he let Patrick loose with a paintbrush between his teeth and framed the result. Her mother used to joke it was the best work of art in the house.
Not breathing was difficult but she didn’t want to know that smell any more, it hurt too much. ‘What do you think, dear?’
It wasn’t Grandma Klippel’s fault, she wasn’t to know. She was looking happier than Evangeline had ever seen her. Miss Clayburg looked as though she was in the throes of ecstasy.
Evangeline smiled. ‘It’s an artist’s studio,’ she said.
‘It was Darius’s studio, dear, when he was at home,’ her grandmother told her. Her eyes looked pale and filmy with excitement and memories. ‘Now you are to use it.’
‘But I don’t paint.’ It seemed like a simple truth.
Grandma Klippel was busy looking round. ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ she whispered. ‘I know you have the flair, Evangeline. Look at the driftwood you bring home, just like my son did when he was your age. He used to spend hours gazing at the shapes. You have an eye for beauty and that is an important start. Miss Clayburg can teach you the rest.
‘Knowing that this place will be used again has made me happier than I can imagine.’ She was speaking to Miss Clayburg now, above Evangeline’s head.
Miss Clayburg must have seen her expression, though, because she smiled down at her.
‘Don’t worry, Evangeline,’ she said, ‘we’ll treat it as a game at first – just have some fun messing around with all the colours and things. Look,’ she took Evangeline across to a table covered with paintboxes, ‘did you ever see a rainbow? Yes? Maybe we could create one on this sheet of paper here, using these colours. Do you remember how it looked? Draw the shape.’ She pressed a pencil into Evangeline’s hands.
Evangeline reached across the vast expanse of white paper. It was important to do well. It was important not to make a mistake. She had to be good. She had to be careful. People were watching. Live people. Dead people. She leant across and slowly drew a neat but teeny arch in the middle of all the white, being more careful than she had ever been before in her life. Miss Clayburg’s smile became a little more squeezed.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘but wouldn’t you like to make it bigger? How about filling the whole page?’
Evangeline reached for the rubber and erased the first arch, making sure all the marks were gone and the page was clean as a whistle again before drawing a slightly larger second one in its place. She used her elbow to make sure the arch was perfect in shape. She was careful again and took a long time about it. Any bits that went wrong would be rubbed out right away. In the end Miss Clayburg took the eraser away from her altogether. Evangeline was aghast. The picture would never be perfect now.
She watched the tutor wet a brush and sloosh paint all over the arch. Nothing looked right now. The colours ran into one another. Warm tears welled in the back of her eyes. Miss Clayburg should have known better – anyone could see she’d made a mess. Evangeline began to cry more but she kept the tears balanced inside her eyes, so they didn’t spill.
‘What do you think?’ Miss Clayburg said.
‘It’s very messy,’ Evangeline told her in a small voice. She tried to sound polite. Miss Clayburg smiled.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing to some of Darius’s paintings. The paint was all over the canvas. Colours clashed. Edges had been blurred. Nothing looked like anything. ‘You don’t have to be neat to be an artist.’
‘Maybe,’ Evangeline replied, but she didn’t sound convinced. She wanted to be neat. She wanted to be perfect. Then her parents could be proud of her and Grandma Klippel would go on smiling the way she was now.
8 (#ulink_4c0d090c-3d47-573e-9774-29f184e9d13a)
Budapest 1983
Mikhail had decisions to make. He had lived on the streets for over a year and the truth was he was not a natural survivor. Lots of boys were. He thought of them as corks, floating along on the surface of all deprivation while he was sinking, slowly but consistently going under.
He ate but he was still starving. In the winter he froze and in the summer he was ill. He felt unwell all the time. Sometimes he even thought he was dying. The idea terrified him, but after a while things got so bad that he thought it was what he wanted, after all.
He had not spoken to anyone properly since Andreas’s death, although sometimes he addressed himself to Andreas personally. At first the lack of companionship was the hardest thing to suffer but before long he almost relished it. He was a dark shadow on the streets; in a way it was rather romantic.
He had grown a lot in the last couple of years, despite the lack of proper food, and his brother’s coat was no longer too big for him. Although he was still only fourteen people had stopped reacting to him as though he was a child, which made him feel safer. A child alone got relentless hassle from the police. A young man, though, was largely ignored, as long as he broke none of the laws.
Despite his deprivations, Mikhail was methodical about reading a newspaper. Sometimes he stole them and often he just took them from litter bins, but always he read as many as he could lay his hands on, as they were his only link with the proper world. When you stopped knowing what was happening in the world you were no longer a part of it. Andreas had read a lot. It was he who had taught Mikhail that.
Mikhail was doubly pleased if he could get the Daily News since he could still read a little English as well as Hungarian. Andreas had learnt English at school and he had taught Mikhail too, for he said it was the language of America, where he was bound when he became famous. These things were important, Mikhail could see that. Keeping in touch was important and so was speaking another language. Their mother had made Andreas learn English and, although Mikhail spoke it badly, he needed to remember what it was he had learnt, otherwise he would know he had given up. Giving up was like waiting to die.
When he caught sight of himself in mirrors he was always shocked. His hair was longer and darker. He asked one of the other boys he met to cut it with his knife but the boy turned on him and stole fifty filler from him instead.
Sometimes he did make friends of a kind. There was a boy with the nickname of Tincan he sometimes met down in the metro. Tincan had given him useful advice about where to sleep without being bothered too much. And then there were the men.
Mikhail was approached on average twice a week in winter and as much as three times a day in the summer. They all wanted to help him and they all wanted to be friends. It was Tincan who told him to be careful. The religious ones were the worst, he said, the ones who said they’d pray for you and show you a warm hostel where you could sleep the night for nothing.
‘Nothing is for nothing,’ Tincan told him, though even he had a couple of regular men friends he would disappear with now and again.
There was one man Mikhail saw a lot, around and about the city streets. Sometimes he would find Mikhail on a bench in the park and just sit chatting, and sometimes he would pass him in the street and nod his head as though they were old acquaintances. The man seemed pleasant enough and even Tincan appeared to like the look of him. He was shortish and middle-aged but smart and well-dressed, like an ordinary businessman.
The man’s worst fault was that he appeared to be a little shy, which made him rather boring at times. Mikhail felt safe enough with him, though – the man had never tried propositioning him. The most he had ever done was to share his sandwiches one day when Mikhail was too hungry to refuse them.
Tincan told him the man was wealthy.
‘How can you tell?’ Mikhail asked.
Tincan shrugged. ‘His haircut. The cologne he wears. And did you see his watch? Tell me it’s not real gold and then let me tell you you’re a fool.’
‘I wonder where he lives?’ Mikhail asked.
‘Dunno,’ Tincan said. ‘Why don’t you follow him if you’re so interested?’
That winter the sleeve of Andreas’s coat split open and Mikhail grew still more depressed. Too dispirited even to steal food or new clothing, he would often mooch up to Castle Hill and look down on the city and its river and dream of hot pork stew and chocolate and nut pancakes.
Tincan grew desperate at the state he was in.
‘You must get money, Mikhail, or you’ll starve! Look at you – you don’t wash, you don’t eat. What’s the matter, don’t you want to live?’
Mikhail did not have the words to explain how he felt. To Tincan existence was all; the good life lay in the future, and if he could just get through the winter then things would pick up by spring. He told Mikhail he was going to become a famous actor and he never voiced any doubts over the possibility of a sparkling career.
‘Take money where you can get it, Mikhail,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a fool. Stupid men die, you know – it’s the clever ones that survive.’
Tincan survived by meeting men under the iron bridge in the park.
‘You just have to wait there, that’s all. They give you money, Mikhail, it’s OK. Some give a lot – look.’ He held some notes out for Mikhail’s perusal.
‘I don’t want to get money like that,’ Mikhail said.
‘But you don’t argue when I offer you food it has paid for,’ Tincan said.
‘I don’t need your food.’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Tincan grabbed him by the arm. He had hair the colour of linen and a line of matching fuzz across his pale top lip. His eyelashes were nearly white. ‘Look, Mikhail,’ he said, ‘it’s not that bad, you know, what I do. What do you think? You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. Tell me, do you masturbate? Ever? Eh? Of course you do. Well, do you hate yourself so much for that? No. Well think of this as being similar, only with someone else, that’s all. I do it only to live, Mikhail. It’s not so important – life is what counts. One day I’ll be working in the film studios in Hollywood and I’ll look back at all this and laugh and be glad I was so crafty. Then I’ll remember my poor stupid friend Mikhail who died of cold and starvation because he was so foolish and stubborn. That’s how it is, you know, that’s what will happen.’
Tincan took Mikhail to the park the following evening. At first it was half-light and there were children around, so they smoked a cigarette and shared stale cake until it got darker, and then the children were gone and the whole park fell silent.
Tincan went off for a piss and Mikhail almost bolted. There was a wind hissing through the trees and the branches creaked overhead. He was afraid of ghosts and glad when Tincan got back. Then he saw that his friend was followed and his heart leapt with a greater fear.
The man kept his head down. He wore a knitted cap and his hands were firmly stuffed into the pockets of a greatcoat. He cleared his throat a lot but didn’t speak.
‘This is Pepe,’ Tincan whispered, ‘I call him that because of the moustache. He’s a policeman but I’m not supposed to know that. He comes here once a week when his wife visits her mother. He’s a bit shy of the bathroom so try not to breathe in too much, but apart from that he’s not bad. He won’t speak in case anyone recognizes his voice.’
Mikhail stared across at the man, who was hopping from one foot to the other in the cold. White breath rose in a plume from his nostrils. His head nodded once. OK.
