The Otherlife Page 12

  ‘They came to see me in London,’ I say slowly. ‘When I was better. But they didn’t say that Jason was dead. Mum must have asked them not to. They just wanted to know … they wanted to know what he was like as a tutor, if I’d got on well with him, if I thought Hobie liked him. That kind of thing. I didn’t understand why they were asking me questions about Jason. I thought … I suppose I thought they were asking me more about Hobie, considering …’

  But I can’t quite finish what I’m trying to say.

  Dad begins to clear our plates, with hands that are not quite steady.

  ‘How did Jason die?’ I ask. ‘Didn’t they do an autopsy?’

  ‘I imagine they must have done, but I never heard what they found.’

  ‘Isn’t that … isn’t that a bit strange?’

  Dad pauses, a plate in each hand.

  ‘I’ve always thought,’ he says slowly, ‘that it was something we weren’t meant to find out. Something – I don’t know – something that the Duvalles would have considered a scandal of sorts. They both sit on the boards of various organisations, some political, some cultural. You know.’

  ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Dad.’

  ‘I mean that they’re a prominent family. They couldn’t have afforded to have a suspicious death on their doorstep, could they?’

  ‘Suspicious how?’

  ‘Well, Ben, come on. Jason was a young man, a student. He looked … vaguely alternative, with that goatee and so forth. He was rather emaciated. I’ve always been absolutely sure that Jason took an overdose of something or other.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ I say, fighting to articulate the words. My breath comes quick and uneven; my hand aches to retrieve my painkiller from my pocket. Dad is wrong. He is completely wrong. He’s doing what he always does, which is to take some small scrap of truth and embroider it, make up something many-coloured and brash and shouty. Something fictitious.

  He pats me clumsily on the shoulder. ‘Look, Ben,’ he says, ‘it’s a sad reality that more people are grappling with addictions than we know about.’

  Then he walks into the kitchen, where the radio is still blaring away. While he’s out of the room I quickly tip a pill into my palm and swallow it. In my haste, I drink from his glass, not mine. I nearly spit it out in surprise.

  It’s not water in Dad’s glass.

  It’s neat vodka.

  I freeze as he comes back with a plate of truffles. As though he’s caught me, when actually it’s the other way round.

  ‘Someone gave me these. They’re wheat-free, or dairy-free, or something. Try one,’ he says. ‘It’ll cheer you up; chocolate always does.’

  ‘Dad,’ I say, and it comes out sounding more accusatory than I meant it to, ‘I thought you’d stopped drinking.’

  His eyes dart sideways, a swift flicker that I only notice because I’m expecting it. It means he’s about to tell a lie.

  ‘I have. More or less.’

  ‘You’ve got vodka in the water jug.’

  ‘Look, Ben,’ he says, ‘I know you’ve got a lot of revision and exam stress and the like, and this must all have come as a terrible shock to you, but I wish you wouldn’t waltz over here and give me a hard time. I told you what you wanted to know, didn’t I?’

  He gets up and hunts for the remote, un-mutes the TV and makes a show of going through every channel. A jarring sequence of sound-snippets crowd the room: newsreaders, weather girls, detectives. He sits in the armchair, the twin of the one we’ve still got in Kensal Rise. They looked better as a pair.

  I make up the bed in the spare room, digging around in the airing cupboard for clean sheets. There’s no bulb in the bedside lamp, so I leave the overhead one on. I sit on the bed, next to the radiator, which is turned up far too high for May. Dad’s socks are drying on it, tragic-looking grey-white things, unravelling at the ends. I’m not unwelcome here, but I never feel totally at home.

  A knock.

  ‘Come in,’ I mutter.

  Dad is bringing me a replacement light bulb.

  ‘Forgot. Sorry. I know you need the light on,’ he says.

  He sits down on the bed, like I’m in hospital and he’s been allowed into the ward for a visit. He has a tongue-tied, tactful look about him.

  ‘Ben,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you the truth. To say there was never a good time feels like a poor excuse.’

  ‘There is no excuse.’

  ‘But you have to admit that, given the circumstances … I’m sure your mother meant to tell you. But, well, after everything else that was going on at the time, don’t you think it’s understandable that she tried to keep you from becoming too distressed? You were very ill, besides.’

  There’s nothing to say to that.

  ‘Is there anything you would like to talk about, Ben? Because I’m here for you, you know that. We both are. Or if you ever want to go and see Hobie. You know I’d come with you. If you wanted.’

  There’s nothing to say to that either. I do not want to see Hobie. I used to, at first, but … it was just too difficult. I did go, but only once, or perhaps twice. I remember I went on my own, shunning my mother’s attempts to drive me. I stayed no more than a quarter of an hour or so each time, hating each minute.

  For a while my father and I sit in silence.

  ‘You’re wrong about Jason,’ I say. ‘He wasn’t a drug addict. He worked with children. He was … responsible.’

  But Dad doesn’t reply to this. Perhaps he is thinking about something else.

  ‘Dad,’ I say, ‘what happened to Marti? Why did she leave?’

  He looks taken aback.

  ‘My nanny,’ I say deliberately. ‘The one you disappeared with. The one you were going to marry.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Dad. He gets up and ruffles my hair. ‘You’d best get some sleep. Your mother’s left three messages about your exam in the morning.’

  ‘But why did Marti leave, Dad?’

  He turns off the overhead light, becomes a black silhouette against the doorframe.

  ‘She left,’ he says quietly, ‘because she knew I still loved Maud.’

  And this, oddly, doesn’t sound like fiction. It sounds like truth.

  Before I go to sleep I stand at the window, just as I would at Mum’s house. The forget-me-not curtains Dad bought on eBay do not fit the frame, because he didn’t know how to measure up properly. The wood of the sill is rotten: if I clawed at it, I’d be able to rip it away with my hands. I’ve taken more painkillers today than I have all week: very bad news, especially with maths tomorrow. The narrow Battersea street is lamplit and silent; a cat crosses the road, its tail waving lazily, as if to acknowledge ownership of the night.

  I close my eyes. I listen for hidden sounds: an owl, a lone car.

  When I open them, he is there.

  Haloed by the streetlamp, he stands in a long dark coat. His hair is golden, white-gold on yellow-gold. The threads of light are honey-coloured and slow-moving. I lean out of the window and call to him.

  ‘Baldr!’

  He raises a hand in a half-wave. He smiles: a kind of soft rearrangement of the currents of light in his face. I know that wry, almost-embarrassed smile. I’d know it anywhere. He doesn’t speak, but I can hear him: Everything in your own time, Ben. No rush.

  ‘Jason …’

  And I’m out of the room and down the stairs before I’ve had time to think, pelting down Dad’s boot-cluttered hallway, to throw myself into his arms and tell him it’ll be OK. I will find out what happened, Jason, I promise. The cat is washing its face on a jasmine-draped fence over the road, pausing only momentarily to look at me in surprise as I hurl myself at the gate.

  ‘Jason!’ I yell, holding my hands out as if there are threads of gold still floating in the aura of the streetlamp. ‘Jason!’

  But he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.

  Hermódr Visits Hel

  By Ben Holloway

  22/10/2008


  The grief of the Gods was terrible, and Odin was saddest of all, for he knew Baldr’s death foretold their doom. It was the first of the dark prophecies to be fulfilled. Now the Gods had no choice but to realise that, after Loki’s cruel trick with the mistletoe, their world must inevitably come to an end. Ragnarok, the day of reckoning, would be upon them soon.

  Frigg longed for someone to ride to the kingdom of death to bring Baldr back, and Hermódr, another of Odin’s sons, offered to make the journey. He rode Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. As he approached the bridge, he saw Heimdallr, the crooked-backed watchman. There he sat, with the rain trickling down his face, gazing into the distance. Hermódr crossed the bridge of glowing colours and went down, down, down to the gates of Hel.

  He cantered through the iron gates and plunged into the bleak mists of Hel’s kingdom. There he found Baldr, sitting on a high chair, with Hel, Loki’s daughter, at his side. Baldr’s face was white and his eyes were dull.

  ‘Release my brother,’ said Hermódr.

  ‘I am willing,’ said Hel, ‘on condition that every living thing weeps for him.’

  Hermódr rode back to Asgard, bearing this news.

  ‘Cry, sob, weep for Baldr! Weep, weep, weep for him!’

  His call echoed around the woods and mountains, towns and valleys. And every living thing did indeed shed tears for their dear Baldr: the birds and beasts, the men and women, even the silver and gold that lived in the earth.

  All wept, except one.

  There was a giantess who dwelt in a cave. She refused to weep for Baldr. ‘Alive or dead,’ she said, ‘I’ve no use for Odin’s son. He’s nothing to me. Let Hel keep him.’

  The Gods, knowing that the giantess was none other than Loki in disguise, were furious. Loki fled and built himself a hut with four lookouts, where he thought he would be safe.

  HOBIE’S DIARY

  Sunday 19th October 2008

  I wasn’t allowed to do Saturday Football Club. I ranted at Clothilde but she was completely inflexible: Mum had said under no circumstances could I go until the physio woman said it was OK. I couldn’t confront Mum because she’d gone to a wedding at Chelsea Town Hall. Za and I both needed to study, she said. I think she wanted to get drunk. I hate weddings anyway. You have to sing hymns and then sit at the children’s table at dinner which they call breakfast (how stupid can you get?) and drink sparkling fruit juice and Mum makes me put gel in my hair. Zara loves it all, of course. Flowers and bridesmaids and people crying into Kleenex and then throwing confetti.

  Since there wasn’t anything else for me to do yesterday apart from more tedious work (English in comprehensions and an essay about China’s economic future), I thought I might as well put my plan into action. Clothilde was doing some ironing and the cleaner was faffing about somewhere and I could hear Zara watching a repeat of X Factor in the sitting room, warbling a tuneless rendition of some American pop song that she’d presumably choose as her Fantasy Audition Piece.

  The time was nigh.

  I went into Mum and Dad’s room, which is on the floor below ours. Everything in it is cream or beige or a really wet-looking bluey-greeny colour. There are window seats with lots of cushions that never get sat on and an antique carpet called an Isfahan. I know what it’s called because I once left a red felt-tip pen on it with no lid, and was in big trouble. They used to have a wall-mounted flatscreen television, but then this feng shui man came and said it would disturb the precious Qi of the bedroom so they took it down. I asked if I could have it but they said no. The bed is always made. There is a chaise longue, which is French for long chair.

  Mum’s dressing room is in a little room off the bedroom. It is all wood, even the ceiling, really polished reddish brown wood, a bit like in the cabins on the yacht. The shoes are arranged by colour on long shelves at one end. Some I have never seen Mum wear. The hats are in hatboxes. She was wearing one today that looked like somebody ate some feathers and then sicked them up onto a ball of wire netting. The jumpers and scarves and tops are in drawers that slide out completely noiselessly. There are lavender sachets hanging everywhere, like Christmas-tree decorations. And when you open the sliding doors, that’s where the dresses are. Some of them are in bags.

  The problem was, what to take.

  In the end I picked four dresses off the rails and two handbags, which were in an organised testudo like a Roman battle formation. One was black and one was cream.

  The dresses looked like summer ones, which I thought Mum wouldn’t miss immediately – although part of me sort of wanted her to realise they were gone and wonder why. I chose a frothy orange one by Alice Somebody and a hideous flowery one by Matthew Something and a black leather one (ugh, imagine Mum wearing it!) and another black one with no sleeves. I put everything in a bin bag which I’d had some difficulty locating because I’d never had to look under the sink before.

  I picked up the spare key from the suede thing in the hall where Dad leaves business cards and foreign coins and loose change (which I pillage for cigarette money), waited till the roar of the hoover was hovering just overhead and left the house.

  I always get away with it when I try stuff like this. Partly I think it comes down to sort of assuming that I’m going to. It’s like those silly confidence-building exercises Mr White and Miss Atkins get us to do sometimes. I’ve got loads of confidence. Zara’s the reverse: she assumes she can’t do things, so she messes them up. Loki got away with everything. Well, almost everything. Recently I’ve been reading about how the Gods caught him after Baldr died.

  Loki knew that in order to hide from the Gods he would have to disguise himself again, so he experimented with lots of different shapes and eventually decided to change himself into a salmon. Then he wove himself a net out of some stiff grasses, but seeing that it would be able to catch fish (so why did he do it in the first place? What a retard!) he hastily threw it into the fire. He looked out of the window and saw the Gods were approaching, so he turned into a salmon and leaped into the river.

  The Gods came to the hut and found no sign of Loki. But Kvasir, who was very wise, looked into the ashes of the fire and saw the remains of the net that Loki had burnt there.

  ‘Let us use this as our model and construct another net for ourselves,’ he said to the other Gods.

  So they made a net, using Loki’s as a pattern, and they threw it into the river. Loki saw it, and managed to leap over it, but Thor caught him by the tail in midair.

  The Gods took Loki to a dark cave where they set three slabs of stone in the ground. To bind him they used the intestines of one of Loki’s sons, which turned to iron. When Loki was safely bound they placed a serpent at his head, and the poisonous venom dripped onto his face. Loki’s faithful wife, Sigyn, held a bowl beneath the serpent to catch the drips, but each time she went to empty the bowl the poison would fall again on Loki’s face. The whole earth shook with his struggles. And Loki stayed there, until Ragnarok.

  Pretty harsh.

  There’s a whole bunch of shops near Notting Hill Gate and some of them are Exchange places where you can take in CDs, books, clothes etc and swap them for cash. Or so it’s advertised. They smell of old sweat, like Jason’s vile holey jumpers, and I’ve never been in. But I’ve walked past enough times because they’re on the way to and from school. There was a man selling the Big Issue outside a newsagent’s and I wondered what the Big Issue actually was. I didn’t buy one though.

  I went into the shop that said ‘WOMAN’ in big white letters. Inside there were rails and rails and rails of fur coats and pouffy ballerina dresses on hangers and glittery belts descending from the ceiling like snakes and glass cases full of shoes and jewellery. Everything had big labels on with prices that had been crossed out and rewritten to make it look like the shop was full of bargains. I said I wanted to exchange some clothes, and they made me go downstairs to a basement with a really low ceiling stuffed with even more rails of clothes, including vests and faded jeans and things I couldn
’t imagine wanting to buy if you knew someone else had worn them first.

  There was a counter at one end with two women sitting behind it. They had loads of bags full of clothes, and they were sorting through them and holding them up and checking the seams and putting those white plastic things on them so they couldn’t be stolen. As if anyone would want to!

  ‘Can I help you?’ said one of them. She had a lot of piercings in one ear.

  The other one was staring at me strangely.

  ‘Yes, please. My mother asked me to bring all these dresses and bags in.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said the first one, only it sounded more like lessavvalook, all one word.

  She tipped everything out onto the counter and they both pawed at the dresses, turning the necks out so they could see the labels.

  ‘Are you sure your mother doesn’t want these?’ said the second one.

  ‘She’s got loads of others,’ I said confidently. ‘And these ones are –’ what was that expression? – ‘last season.’

  ‘Nah, mate,’ said the first one, but she was more talking to the second one than to me. ‘This one here’s new season. And this one.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you don’t want them …’ I said.

  But I knew they would. They went into a little huddle and then did lots of adding and subtracting incredibly slowly, but I suppose if they were good at Maths they wouldn’t be working in this rubbish-looking shop and then the first one said:

  ‘We can do you £160 cash or £200 exchange for the lot.’

  I asked for the cash of course, but just as I was leaving I noticed this enormous clown suit, all white with balloon sleeves and big black pompoms down the front, and I thought I might get it for Zara as a joke. So in the end I left with £135.

  I never actually have any money. I have lots of things like computer games and a MacBook Pro and designer clothes, and of course stuff like my grandfather’s model ship collection and a cricket bat signed by Kevin Pietersen. And if I ask for something I usually get it, and if it’s really big then maybe I have to wait until my birthday or Christmas which are conveniently nearly six months apart so I never have to wait longer than that. But I never have any cash on me and I don’t have a bank card. This annoys me. It’s one rule of Mum and Dad’s I’ve never managed to get around. Until now. I crossed the road and went into Pret and bought a Super Club sandwich and a packet of crisps and then crossed back again, thinking I needed to hurry up because Clothilde would absolutely call the police if she realised I was out of the house.