“We went to Prague for treatment, but my wife didn’t want to continue,” I say, hoping it would jog his memory. “Jack died not long after we came back.”
“Oh, very sorry about that,” Nev says, but it is as if he is somewhere else, listening to a different conversation. His words were choppy, sputtered out. “How did you know where to find the house like?”
“Just asked around,” I say, and Nev starts to speak but there is a shout from outside as something, a football I think, hits one of the front windows. Nev does not move in his chair, as if it has happened many times before.
“Is that Josh out there playing football?” I ask. “The blond boy.”
Nev’s eyes dart to the window, and then he sits back in his chair. He does not speak for a moment, and it is as if the words are difficult for him to say, as if he is trying to overcome a stutter. On the coffee table, I can see some cheaply made flyers. Nev Barnes. No Job Too Small. Painting, Gardening, Odd Jobs. Call: 01632 532676.
“No, that’s not him,” he says after a while. “I think I know the one you mean, though. The lanky lad.”
I think about the boy outside, slotting the ball between the gas cans, sweeping his long blond hair out of his face. It was Josh; I was sure it was Josh.
Nev is motionless. One of the angels holds his attention for a moment, as if he notices that it has a speck of dust on its wing.
Suddenly, he stands up from his seat and takes a few paces toward me, and he is on edge now, tapping his legs with his hands, a red rash spreading across his neck.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude like, but what can I help you with? I... I’m very sorry about your son, but I... I... I’m not sure I can help you with anything.”
“So where’s Josh then?” I say, and I didn’t mean it to but it sounds like a threat.
Nev walks toward me again, as if he wants to show me the door, but I don’t budge, stay sitting in my seat. He is getting more agitated, pacing back and forth across the living room.
“I don’t know why you’ve come here,” he says, and he is wringing his hands together, as if he is squeezing water out of wet clothes.
“I just want to know what happened to Josh,” I say, looking him in the eye.
“What happened to Josh?” Nev says, clicking his fingers and cracking his knuckles. “Why are you asking about my son?” He is standing over me, and he smells of stale sweat. “I think it’s time that you leave now.”
I stand up to face him. He seems smaller now, and I am nearly a head taller than him. “Where is Josh then, at school?”
He looks at me and then looks away. “That’s right, yes, at school, the lad’s at school,” he says, and he doesn’t sound as if he even believes it himself.
“You’re lying, Nev. I know you’re lying.”
“Lying, what are you even saying now. I’m telling you, mate, he’s at school, just around the corner, and he’ll be home soon, doing his homework. Or he’ll be out there playing football with them lads...always have to call him in for his dinner because he’s football mad, my Josh...”
Nev doesn’t look well. He is not pacing anymore but standing still, holding on to the mantelpiece for support. He is shaking and his eyes are glassy, as if he’s had some kind of fit.
“Are you okay?” I say, touching his arm. “Perhaps you should sit down.” I help him back to his chair, and he sinks into the cushions, trying to catch his breath.
“My Josh died five year ago,” he says suddenly and then looks away at the wall.
I say nothing and Nev shakes his head. “He never got better, did he, poor lad. He died out there, over in Prague.” He sits forward in his seat, turns away from the angels and toward me. “He also went to the clinic, Dr. Sladkovsky’s clinic, for treatment but it didn’t work for him either. I didn’t understand it, like. I read all those testimonials about all them little boys and girls that got better. Did nothing for our Josh, though, in the end.”
“What... I don’t... So why, why did you say that he was alive, that he got better?” I say, the skin prickling on my neck.
Nev shrugs, and I notice that he is frantically tapping his left leg on the carpet.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “All your letters, your photos of Josh. We were on the phone and I heard him. I remember you asking him to take his shoes off, and I could hear the cartoons in the background. And the video of you two dressed up as Batman and Robin. I just don’t understand. So who was that in all the pictures?”
Nev slumps even farther down in his chair. “The younger ones, that were my Josh. They were taken when he was over there at the clinic and around that time. But the older ones that you see, they were his cousin Tim. Same age. Everyone used to think they were brothers. It’s my sister’s little boy.”
I swallow to try to shift something, thick like dust, in my throat. The sympathy I had for Nev a moment ago is now gone.
“So you made his cousin pretend to be Josh?”
“No, nothing like that. He knew what happened to Josh of course, and that I was involved with all these cancer groups. So when we dressed up and did all our silly videos, he thought he was just helping the little sick kiddies. To be frank with you, he liked it. Happy to help, to be honest.
