Chapter 136: The Person Who Cannot Be Asked I

The kitchen door stayed open about 4 inches. He could hear her in there not doing anything. No tap. No kettle. A chair leg on the lino, once.

He put his hand in the bag and felt paper gone soft at the corners, a bulldog clip, and at the very bottom 3 envelopes held together with an elastic band that snapped the second he touched it.

MR D FLYNN, in black capitals, with the D bigger than it needed to be and Australian stamps with birds on. Two had the same December postmark. The third was thinner, and 3 years later.

He sat with them on his knee.

Go on, then. Find out what sort of man writes to a lad of 17 from the other side of the world and never once picks up a phone.

The first flap had never been stuck down properly. It came up with his thumb.

It was a card with a beach on the front, a pier going out into flat blue water and gold writing across the sky that said Season’s Greetings. Inside, he had written in the same capitals:

THOUGHT OF YOU. DAD.

And a £20 note, folded once, the old paper kind they stopped using years ago. He looked in the envelope twice. That was all there was.

He had heard her call it at that Formica table the morning the postcard came. He’d never ask straight, he’s too clever. So he sends a beach.

He stood up and pushed the kitchen door the rest of the way open.

His mother was sat with her coat on the back of the chair and both hands round a mug gone cold, looking at the window over the sink.

He put the card down in front of her with the £20 on top.

"December 2015," she said, without touching it.

"How’d you know?"

"Mine come the same week. Same beach." She moved the note an inch with one finger. "And a twenty in mine an’ all. I put it in the gas."

"Did you keep it?"

"Twenty pound after 40 thousand, Danny? No. I fed it to the meter because it was the only way I could stand to have it in the flat. What are you doing with the other 2?"

"Leaving them shut."

That brought her head up.

"You’ve opened one."

"To see what he was. And he’s what you said, he’s a beach." He sat down opposite her on the chair with the wobble. "You told me at this table the next one’s got trouble in it. A bit of bad luck. Something Sharon needs."

"I don’t know that for certain."

"I know me, though. If I open the 2018 one and it says the boat’s gone, I’ll pay it. I’ll have 3 grand on its way to Queensland before I’ve got my coat on. He’ll write back, and then he knows there’s money, and then he’s doing sums about me."

His mother said nothing.

"You told me that on Tuesday. The minute anybody knows, they’re doing sums. And I’ve told somebody since."

"Who?"

"Jodie. To the pence."

His mother put both hands round the mug.

"Well. That’s 2 of us, then. I told your gran the size of the debt in 2015 and asked her to keep it to herself, and she’d told the whole of Sunday dinner before the gravy was on. I didn’t speak to her till Easter."

"And you kept these. All this time."

He had not meant it to come out like that. It came out flat and it stayed on the table between them.

"I did," she said. "And I told you in there. Be cross if you want."

Am I?

My face is hot. That’s something.

And if she’d give me them at 17 I’d have wrote back to the beach. I know I would have.

"I’m not," he said. "I thought I’d be cross walking in. I’m not."

"You might be next week."

"If I am, you’ll hear it." He picked up the 2 that were still sealed. "Priya wants his name and address on the file for the will. These have got both, with a postmark that says he knew where I lived. They can go in her drawer in Clapham still shut. And if I ever want to read them, I’ve got to go up them narrow stairs and ask her for them out loud."

His mother looked at him across the Formica for a long while.

"That’s clever. That’s what I’d have done in 2018 if I’d had the sense, instead of shoving them behind my shoes." She got up and put the mug in the sink. "Take your beach with you. I’m not having it in here."

He put the card and the 2 sealed envelopes in his inside pocket next to his birth certificate. He left the £20 on the table.

She saw him leave it, and did not pick it up.

At 8 the walkway was cold enough to see his breath, and 3 doors along somebody had the football on through the wall.

He rang Mara. It went 5 times, and when she picked up there was water behind her.

"It’s 8 o’clock. I said after 6. I meant 6."

"I’ve been at my mum’s."

"That’s allowed. I’m in the bath, by the way. I’m telling you so you know exactly what you’re not coming down for."

Danny stood on a walkway in Battersea with his eyes shut.

Don’t.

Copper piled up wet on top of her head, and the rest of her under the water.

Stop it. She’s told you where the line is and she’s stood right on it.

"Go on, then. Naomi."

"She didn’t read it. She took it up at 6 with the flap tucked in, left it on my island, and came straight back down for her coat."

"Oh, thank God, I’ve been sick about it all..."

"She knows there was something in it, though."

"How?"

"I went into her office at 20 past 2 and asked her what she’d done with an envelope."

One drip, and nothing else.

"I asked you to find out what happened to it," Mara said. "I did not think you’d walk into her office and ask her to her face like a man reporting a lost dog. You could have asked the lad on the desk. You could have asked who takes things up. You could have asked anyone in that building except her."

"I wanted it done before you asked me tonight."

"Well, it’s done. God, Danny. What’s she doing about it?"

"Nothing new. It’s not going in her letter. And if I go back in before Monday, she says she’ll have me in an email."

"So don’t." A breath. "I did it, by the way. Nine o’clock this morning, before I could talk myself round."

"What did Priya say?"

"Very well, Ms Doyle. A letter confirming, an invoice for work done, the full £450, because the work was done." She stopped. He could hear her deciding. "And then she said she hoped whatever I’d decided to be honest about, I’d found somebody honest to be honest with. And put the phone down."

"Priya said that?"

"I had to sit down on the floor. Not one question out of her, and she knew there was one there." The water shifted. "I sacked the only straight woman I’ve met this year and she wished me well doing it."

"Let me cover the 450."

"Offer me money once more tonight and this phone goes in the water with me. I’m going, I’ve got my hair to do."

The line went.

He texted Ray from the top of the stairs.

Machine stays under the blankets. Deniz is skimming Monday for 4 days. Not putting it back under wet plaster. Sorry for messing you about.

Ray came back inside a minute.

Wasn’t coming tomorrow anyway, I don’t do Saturdays. Bin bag over the group head under the blanket or you’ll have plaster in it till Easter.

He laughed out loud on the walkway. A woman taking a bag down to the bins looked at him and looked away.

The alarm went at 5:15 and he was already awake. The green carrier bag was on the island, near where Mara’s note had lain on Thursday.

Jodie had read Good at 11:52 on Friday night and not answered.

At 5:30 the phone went.

[ 06:00. ] [ 14 Calton Avenue, Dulwich. ] [ Grade 4. ]

whose house

[ A residential address. ]

is anyone there

[ 4 persons are expected. ] [ The host is the 5th. ]

Eighteen minutes on the scooter at that hour. No kit. At 5:33 he stood in front of his own wardrobe and left the Ashcombe’s suit on its hanger, and put on the navy suit from the hospital, the white shirt, no watch, and the shoes that make no noise. He moved the envelopes across from last night’s coat into the inside pocket without thinking about why.