she told us it was all a secret.’
Valentine noticed that the young man gripped the glass now, his knuckles white. He drank the water, showing a glimpse of pale throat through the bottom of the glass.
‘First thing I said stands: I wasn’t born. So what do I know?’
‘But growing up — at the pub — you must have asked questions.’
‘Know what I wanted for most of my childhood? I wanted to be white. I’ve got over that now. But back then the last thing I needed was to remind anyone in the Flask that I wasn’t like them. So no — I didn’t “ask questions”. It’s what we do well, isn’t it, the Brits? Avoid taboo subjects. Until this last week I haven’t spoken half a dozen words about my father to another human being — OK? Nothing.’
He put a lot of emphasis on the last word, and as he said it he leant forward so that a small silver chain slipped out of his open shirt — and on the chain a silver emblem: two lines, curved to make a fish.
‘You go to church?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the necklace.
‘It was a present, from Bea.’ He sunk his chin so that he could see the fish as he took it in his fingers. ‘She used to go to the Free when I was little. I went on the outings, that kind of thing.’ He looked at Valentine. ‘Then we stopped. I wear it for her — ’cos it makes her happy.’
‘You’re close?’ asked Shaw.
‘She’s my grandma. Of course we are. She’s had time for me, always.’ Shaw sensed it was the first thing he’d said that hadn’t been framed, designed to produce an effect.
‘Why’d you stop going?’
Ian nodded, rhythmically, as if he’d finally decided to tell a truth.
‘I used to feel — perhaps Bea did too; I don’t know, I’ve never asked her — feel that we were welcome, but like it was a different kind of welcome to everyone else. They were big on slaves, right? The Free. They fought the good fight. But even back then the only black faces you saw were passing through. They were made welcome — but it was a kind of a temporary welcome. They overdid it, like it was a favour. Ask ’em how many blacks they’ve got in the congregation now. I’ll tell you the answer — the only black face on a Sunday’s hanging in that gold frame over the door.
‘Nothing was ever said,’ Murray continued, ‘but we knew we’d always be outsiders. Then one Sunday we went, Bea and me, for the service, and I sang in the choir — ’cos that’s something John Joe did teach me, I can hold a tune. Afterwards we had tea in the yard, like we always did, and I played with the other kids. There was a swing and stuff because the pastor had his own family — all girls. There was plenty of noise, as usual, and then it all kind of stopped. I could hear these two adult voices, raised in anger. And one of them was Bea’s. The pastor said one word — really clear. He said: “Please,” like you’d say to shush someone up. And Bea just said, “It’s ten years, for God’s sake. Ten years.”
‘She came and got me and we left. She never went back. She gave me this instead.’ He let the silver fish fall so that it swung on its chain. ‘We never said a word to each other, just walked home. I pestered Mum to tell me what was wrong — kept pestering, until she told me. There was this concert coming up at the Free and she’d wanted to come and listen ’cos I was going to sing. Bea had mentioned it to the pastor and he’d said Mum couldn’t set foot inside the church. Leviticus, see? They’re still the same today. Unbelievable. It’s the twenty-first century, not the seventeenth. But it’s a sin they don’t forgive. And do you know what that made me think? It made me think, what kind of people can keep that kind of hatred alive?’ He looked from Shaw to Valentine. ‘How
16
They found Freddie Fletcher in bed in the one-roomed flat above the PEN office, two floors above Tinos. He’d ignored the knocks on the door, the grit against the window. But they’d finally obtained a spare key from the Greek owner of the cafe, telling him they were worried Fletcher was ill — or worse. And when they found him in bed, he did look ill: his skin held a green tinge in the half light, and as he smoked his hand trembled, his fingers resting on the bedside table. The edge of the wood was marked with a line of small burns where, Shaw guessed, he’d fallen asleep over the years, a cigarette laid ready at his side. The facade of brisk good humour he’d managed to maintain in their first interview was threadbare here in this sad damp room. The original wallpaper had been for a child’s room — red and blue balloons — but now they were covered in posters, one showing Churchill’s face with the slogan DESERVE VICTORY.
Fletcher lay on top of the covers, propped up against chair cushions in a white vest and jogging pants, his skin swirled with black hair at the shoulders. ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ he said. ‘I’m not dying. Big Christmas bash tomorrow — so I’m just making sure I’m up for it. Can’t beat a plate of good British turkey.’
Valentine stood with his back to the wall, promising himself that he’d never lie in a bed in a room like this. Shaw took the only seat, removing a pile of newspapers to the floor: all of them the BNP’s
‘Seen a doctor?’ asked Valentine in a tone of voice which implied that he didn’t care either way.
‘Yeah.’ He thought about what he was going to say next, then went ahead. ‘Fucking Paki. Said it was something I ate. Well done, mate. Course it’s something I ate.’ He put his hand under his vest and massaged his stomach.
‘You were less than truthful, Mr Fletcher, when we first spoke,’ said Shaw. ‘You said there were only two black faces at Nora Tilden’s funeral — from the Free Church?’
Fletcher avoided their eyes by shutting his. They heard something give in his guts, a deep-seated rumble of intestine buckling.
‘Fuck,’ was all he said, rubbing his fingers into his flesh.
‘What about Pat Garrison — Nora’s nephew? He was there. He’d been on the scene a few months. Why didn’t you mention him?’
‘It’s twenty-eight years ago,’ he said, keeping his eyes shut. ‘Not yesterday.’
‘Were you active then, in 1982, in the BNP?’
‘National Front. I’ll be on one of your files down at the nick, too. Couple of fights. I’ve spilt blood for the cause. Mine and theirs.’
‘Right. And you didn’t notice the black kid in your local pub?’
He opened his eyes, then swung a foot off the bed, forcing himself to sit on the edge. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t notice him — did I? I said I didn’t see him at the funeral. It was a big do — you know, coupla hundred at the cemetery. I knew the kid — we all did.’
‘But back at the pub — you were at the wake? Not two hundred there, were there? What did you do — drink, eat, sing? And still no sign of Pat Garrison?’
‘Nora liked us playing games: dominoes, crib, darts, stuff like that. So when the hangers-on had gone we got stuck into that — bit of a competition, with the choir on too. Folk stuff, sea shanties — British music. I suppose he was there. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. He used to hang around the bar with Lizzie, or his mum.’
‘What did you think?’
Fletcher licked his lips and Shaw guessed he was thinking carefully about what to say.
‘I thought — we all thought — that he must be ashamed of his mother and what she’d done, you know, while the men were out there, fighting for King and Country. Men like my dad. Whatcha think they’d have thought if they could’ve seen
Shaw found it almost impossible not to respond: to point out that the war had been over for years when Bea met Latrell, that trench warfare was a century old, and that the beaches of Normandy saw thousands of black GIs dead on the sands. But this wasn’t the place for that argument, however much he’d like to have it.
Valentine coughed on to the back of his hand. ‘Trenches are the First World War, Mr Fletcher.’
Fletcher froze, staring at Valentine, even as Shaw quickly asked the next question. ‘So Patrice wasn’t welcome. Or is that an understatement?’
‘He had a home — some place he was welcome,’ said Fletcher, tearing his eyes off Valentine. ‘He should
