The Truth Page 3

  ‘No, darling. It’s just that your brother – my son – seems to have an issue about telling me anything about anything.’

  ‘Maybe he thinks you’ll disapprove.’

  ‘Disapprove? Where does all this disapprove stuff come from? I’m just interested in what you all do.’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘Not in a judgemental way. I try to be encouraging. Have I ever stopped either of you from doing what you want to do?’

  ‘You weren’t exactly over the moon when Sam decided to join the drama centre.’

  ‘And I’ve been proved right. Look at the people he’s met there – a more terminally sullen group of miserabilists it’d be hard to find. I mean, they’re supposed to be actors! They couldn’t even communicate with the postman . . .’

  ‘Couldn’t even communicate with the postman!’ Jay mimicked. ‘God, Dad. You and Rex would get on well.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just want everyone to be happy, that’s all.’

  ‘We are, Dad. Sam’s happy being an actor. Mum’s happy with Rex and I’m happy with Shiraj.’

  ‘Shiraj? Who’s Shiraj?’

  ‘He’s a lovely, sexy, funny boy who thinks I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’re friends.’

  Mabbut paused mid-mouthful.

  ‘When did this all happen?’

  ‘When you were up in the frozen north.’

  ‘Where’s he from, Shiraj?’

  ‘He’s Iranian.’

  ‘That sounds interesting. Does he live here, work here?’

  ‘Well, I wanted to ask you about that, Dad. He’s looking for somewhere to live. Till he . . . till he . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s a refugee. He can’t go back home.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They arrested two of his brothers. The police. He managed to get out through some contact in the Foreign Office, but if he goes back then they’ll arrest him too.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘His father’s a journalist. Wrote something he shouldn’t have.’

  ‘The truth, probably.’

  ‘You’d like him, Dad. You really would.’

  Mabbut took this in. He was intrigued.

  ‘Sounds a lot better than Rex Lah-di-dah.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘So, will you meet him? He’s living on someone’s floor and I’d really like to . . . well . . . help him. Soon.’

  For the first time that evening, Mabbut felt better. At least someone still needed him.

  ‘What about the day after tomorrow? Let’s have dinner.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  Jay leant across and kissed him.

  ‘And I’m glad you’re back. Honestly.’

  Mabbut was doing the washing up when, half an hour or so later, Jay went out, staring into her mobile as she pulled open the front door. Hands in the sink, Mabbut glanced out of the window into what passed for a back garden. At the stained and rusting trio of garden chairs, the beds that needed weeding and the bushes he should have trimmed back weeks ago. His daughter was in love. As far as he knew, for the first time.

  He’d intended to spend the evening clearing emails, clearing the desk, clearing NorthOil out of his system, so that at nine o’clock the next morning he could enter his new life with seamless ease. But as he turned to climb the stairs he found himself paralysed by a sudden shock-wave of self-pity: because of Krystyna, who he was about to lose, and Mae, who he would never see again. And Jay, who’d found another man. It was a short, sharp feeling of abandonment which paralleled some distant memory. Of people walking away from him, and the fear that they would never come back. The sensation was painful enough to make him grab the banister rail and hang on to it for quite some time. When it had passed Mabbut steadied himself, breathed deeply and made his way carefully back to the sitting room. Here he picked up a half-drunk bottle of red wine and the remote control for the television and sank heavily into the sofa with a long and heartfelt sigh.

  When he awoke the bottle was empty. On the television two politicians were being grilled about plans to extend an airport, in a studio that looked like a military command centre. One MP insisted categorically that it was a very good thing as, all in all, the bigger the airport, the less its overall environmental impact. On a huge screen behind him appeared the words ‘Less Environmental Impact’. His opponent argued categorically that it was a very bad thing as the bigger the airport the more people would die from the effects of pollution. The huge screen switched to ‘More Deaths from Pollution’. After some searching, Mabbut located the remote under a cushion and flicked off the television.

  He sat for a while, taking in the room in which he and Krystyna had shared so much of their life. He remembered the running argument about where the sofa should go, Krystyna adamant that it belonged in the bay, he equally adamant that it should face the window so you could see out. Which had brought up the whole question of what there was to see. To him, Reserton Road N19, a modest street of three-storey Edwardian terraces with brick walls, white-stuccoed window surrounds and steep roofs with pointed gable ends had been a great find, and he was happy that he had acquired such a place in an area that had not become too posh or gentrified. For Krystyna this was exactly the problem. In her pragmatic Polish way she could not understand why anyone would want to live in Reserton Road N19 if there were half a chance of living somewhere posh and gentrified. For Mabbut, North Holloway was somewhere he would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of his life. For Krystyna it was a low rung on the ladder of advancement. Which is why she preferred to have the sofa with its back to the view. In the end they had compromised and the sofa presently stood at right angles to the window.

  Opposite the sofa was an old pine sideboard. On top of it were gathered all the old family photos. Mabbut’s eye fell on them now. In one Sam, eight or nine maybe, was being squeezed by Krystyna, with Jay on her other knee, pouting stagily. Next to this photograph, in a silver frame badly in need of a polish, was a more formal study: Krystyna in a long black dress at the Dorchester, arm tight around him as he clutched the phallic plastic flame that was the British Gas Award for Environmental Journalism. Behind that, as if in the background, was a picture of Rita and Graham, his mother and father, taken on one of their trips.

  When his dad had retired from what used to be called the Egg Marketing Board Rita had galvanised him into action. They had become role models for the Saga generation: walking the Pennine Way, the Pembroke Coast Path and Offa’s Dyke in the same year. Maybe she’d known there was a problem ahead, but she never let on and appeared to be as shocked as they all were when his father’s illness was discovered. In his last year this sparky, irritable man was reduced to being a spectator of his own decline. With his sister Lucy in Australia, the filial responsibility had fallen almost entirely to Mabbut. Ironically, he’d been inspired by his parents’ sense of adventure to try to see more of the world himself. But just when his agent landed him a juicy, reputation-restoring commission from the Sunday Times to cover the Arianca dam project in Argentina his dad had entered the last, long-drawn-out stages of his cancer. There could be no question of his leaving home. Looking back now, it was not his father’s death as much as his mother’s sudden, completely unexpected deterioration soon afterwards that cost Mabbut the momentum he needed, and sent him instead into the arms of big business.

  He stared for a while at Rita and Graham. They smiled back at him, the hoods of their anoraks ever so slightly raised by the breeze. They both wore expressions of such irrepressible cheerfulness that he allowed himself to feel a pang of jealousy that they had come through their working lives to find such a place of contentment.

  THREE

  The next morning, much to his surprise, Mabbut awoke without any of his usual anxieties; his mind was clear and he felt an extraordinary sense of liberation. Duty done, money earned, he was at last free to begin what real
ly mattered to him. What, at some deeply needy level, had mattered to him since he had first looked at a book. To write stories. To be a writer of fiction. This was the first day of a new life, the day when an imagination cooped up for far too long could break free at last.

  Mabbut’s story was based on the premise that when man first emerged from Africa a tribe had split from the rest and mated with the very last of a line of trans-terrestrial beings. They had adapted so well to their surroundings that in a few generations they had developed an extraordinary and sophisticated way of life, and as they were far from the main migratory routes they were able to build a sort of prehistoric Shangri La, safe, secure, harmonious and progressive. This was the land of Albana, where a moral code based on co-operation and conciliation had evolved and where violence had no place. Then came the day when this haven was discovered by the outside world and the people of Albana had to learn cunning and cruelty to survive. They became, in time, a feared and destructive people. But two or three escaped and made their way through astonishing perils to keep alive the Ancient Truths, the arcane knowledge of Albana.

  In his tiny study, off the landing at the top of the stairs, Mabbut drew up the blind and welcomed in the chilly morning light. He settled himself at the computer, interlocked the fingers of both hands, then sipped the remains of his coffee, cleaned his glasses, blew his nose, eased a blackberry pip from between his two front teeth, sighed heavily and began. And that’s when the phone rang.

  In later years he wondered whether, if he’d turned the phone off as he’d intended to, all the things that subsequently happened to him would have happened at all.

  Out of habit he picked up the receiver. There was a pause, a pause long enough for Mabbut to know exactly what sort of pause this was and whack the phone down before anyone could start to sell him anything. The phone rang again, almost immediately. This time there was no pause.

  ‘You just put the phone down on me.’

  ‘How was I to know it was you? You didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You didn’t give me a chance.’

  ‘You don’t usually need a chance.’

  ‘I’m ringing with the best news of your life and you put the phone down on me.’

  ‘I thought you were trying to sell me something.’

  ‘I am, dear boy, I am. And when you hear what it is, you’ll want to buy it.’

  Mabbut’s glance was caught by a movement outside the window. From within the cloud of ivy that covered his neighbour’s wall, a fox appeared, withdrew, then reappeared, this time sloping off along the wall and dropping down into the garden next door.

  ‘I’ve just started the novel.’

  ‘We need to talk. Lunch?’

  Mabbut adjusted his chair.

  ‘It’s a trilogy. I can’t take breaks.’

  ‘Goldings at one?’

  ‘Look, this has to be something hugely important. It’s my first day. Lose this and my whole—’

  ‘It could be hugely important. Trust me, Keith. Would I lightly take an author away from his book?’

  The bus dropped Mabbut by the university and he cut through past the electronic showrooms and the Yum Yum Sushi House until he found himself outside the familiar green door of Goldings Dining Room. It was always a surprise to find it still there, with its bland façade of green-painted panels, and its name scrawled in italics, like a signature. It was warm enough today for two spindly tables to have been squeezed on to the pavement. He found his agent inside, at a table as far away from the sun as possible. She was ensconced with her mobile phone and a glass of red wine. She acknowledged Mabbut distractedly, and carried on talking.

  Mabbut smiled at the Croatian waitress, a strikingly beautiful girl who he sensed was unhappy.

  ‘Red?’ she asked, glancing at Silla’s half-empty glass.

  ‘Better not.’

  The waitress shrugged and gave that awkward sideways grimace which was the only thing Mabbut didn’t adore about her.

  ‘I’ve started my new book. Don’t want to lose concentration,’ he explained.

  She laid a mat on the table and looked up at him.

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘It’s about the first men on earth.’

  The waitress frowned.

  ‘And women?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Women too.’

  There was a pause, as if everything that needed to be said on the subject had been said.

  ‘What you want, then?’

  ‘Coke, please, Martina.’

  Silla, ear still clamped to the phone, shook her head vigorously, wagged her finger and mouthed ‘wine’.

  He shook his head.

  ‘No, not today.’

  Silla repeated the gesture, this time overriding Mabbut and appealing straight to the waitress. By the time Keith had protested again the glass was on the table in front of him. The Croatian gave one of her inexplicable but deeply appealing half-smiles.

  ‘The special of the day is rigatoni.’

  She turned away.

  Silla Caldwell covered the phone and hissed at him.

  ‘Sit down. Stop hovering!’

  Mabbut smiled grimly and pulled out a chair, grating it almost deliberately along the unevenly tiled floor.

  His relationship with Priscilla Caldwell went back twenty years to the days when he had, for a short time, been one to watch. Indeed, he had appeared in the ‘Ones To Watch’ list attached to a Sunday newspaper article about a new, fearless breed of journalists, none of whom anyone could remember now. Silla liked young men with radical tendencies, and despite the fact that she was Home Counties metropolitan and he a wary Northerner they’d always got along pretty well. She had done her best to nurture his investigative tendencies, but when the well had dried up she’d used her contacts to find him work in the steady if unspectacular world of company commissions. Mabbut was not successful enough to claim her whole attention and she was not close enough to him to be part of the rest of his life. On this basis, their chummy but undemanding relationship had ticked along nicely. Until today, when Mabbut sensed that something had changed. Her big green eyes were wider than usual and her sturdy, broad features betrayed an unfamiliar bounce. Silla was excited.

  She laid her phone on the table, throwing it a meaningful glance as she did so.

  ‘That was Ron Latham.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Ron Latham. Urgent Books. Used to be with Waddilow and Bowler until they became Herald and Barker. Did the Flapjacks.’

  Mabbut knew the name, but from the business, not the literary, pages.

  ‘He’s one of the biggest players now. Stacks of money behind him.’

  Mabbut’s eyes narrowed. Silla clinked her glass against his with such abandon that it was clear it wasn’t her first.

  ‘And he’s after you.’

  ‘What for?’

  But Silla was off again, leafing through the menu then waving at the waitress.

  ‘Let’s order,’ she barked.

  They both chose the day’s special. He drank his glass of wine and half the bottle she later ordered. She remained almost coquettishly mysterious about the matter in hand, and only politely interested as he expanded on his novel, so they talked about this and that, and a small fight outside the Spanish club farther down the street provided some unexpected entertainment. An hour later Silla switched on her phone, and kissed him briefly.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Look, Silla, you’ve torpedoed my first day on Albana—’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Albana. The novel! Remember?’

  Silla pushed back her chair and stood up, smiling crisply.

  ‘Not a good title, by the way.’

  She waved the bill.

  ‘Albania or Nirvana. You can’t have both. Excuse me!’

  The lovely Croatian switched off her mobile and came towards them.

  ‘It’s a working title.’

  ‘We had one bottle of water. Th
e rest was tap, I think.’

  Mabbut persisted. ‘I can’t let you sabotage my second day.’

  ‘There. Two San Pellegrinos. We only had one.’

  The waitress looked down at the bill for some time, as if trying to decipher ancient runes.

  ‘OK. I change.’

  Silla reached for her coat.

  ‘The life of a writer is unlike any other, Keith. It’s lonely, it’s unpredictable, it’s blown by the winds.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘A writer’s mind must never be closed. It’s his duty to be curious and my duty to feed that curiosity. Think of it as the start of a big adventure.’

  She gave him a brisk, breathy hug.

  ‘Meeting’s at eleven. Pick you up at ten.’

  ‘I’ll take the Tube.’

  She frowned.

  ‘They’re in darkest Southwark, darling.’

  For Silla public transport was a foreign country. She shook her hair, pulled on a beret and smiled reassuringly.

  ‘I’ll send Hector.’

  Which was exactly why Mabbut had suggested taking the Tube.

  FOUR

  Silla Caldwell was one of the few writer’s agents who still employed a driver. This was partly to do with an old-fashioned concern over image and partly because a year or so previously she’d totalled her own car after a carafe too many with a Swedish thriller writer. No one had been hurt and it was quite likely she would have got away with it had the car she’d hit not had a policeman in it. With a deftly mixed cocktail of charm and remorse Silla had avoided public opprobrium and all who knew her reckoned she’d been very lucky indeed. Apart from the loss of a colourfully eccentric Alfa Spyder, the only real penalty she’d incurred was the arrival of Hector Fischer in her life.

  And it was Hector Fischer’s large, close-shaven, ever so slightly perspiring head that Mabbut could see from the back of the BMW as they sat becalmed in the Russell Square one-way system.

  ‘She was no good for him,’ Hector insisted, in his menacing Austrian accent. ‘No good for him at all.’

  Silla was deep in a phone call, so Mabbut felt duty bound to respond.

  ‘So what did he do?’