The Messengers (13 page)

“You know,
I
have a dog,” Helen said as she got his drink.

“Do you? Great! I mean, what kind?”

“A Weimaraner.”

“Oh, they’re nice.”

“Same color as Hercules, just about.”

“Yes?”

“Sort of milky coffee.”

“No. Black, please. One sugar.”

Helen laughed. I could see that Greg was working hard to build up some courage. “Actually,” he said, “Hercules and I often walk the route beneath the cliffs. It’s really beautiful, and he loves it. There’s a nice café at the end. . . .”

“Really?” said Helen, looking hopeful as she handed him his cup.

“Yes,” he said. He paused and seemed to lose his confidence. “Anyway, thanks for the coffee. Bye.”

He turned and walked away, his eyes shut tight and a grimace on his face. Even Hercules looked forlorn.

Helen was clearly disappointed. But she didn’t know what was coming next, did she? I felt sick, but I tried not to show it. “Hello. Two teas, please,” I said.

“That’s two pounds twenty,” she said.

I put the postcard in front of her on the counter and watched her eyes flicker over it. “That’s nice. Is it Picasso?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I replaced the postcard with a five-pound note.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Hey, do you do yoga?” I said.

“Yes, how did you know? Is it because I’m so flexible and relaxed?” she said, laughing.

“I saw you with your mat the other day,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking of going to classes.”

“Really? Well, I go to the Ashtanga place on Ferris Avenue. The teacher is really good, and she doesn’t make you do too much of the embarrassing chanting.”

“What time do you go?”

“I do the eight-till-nine-o’clock class. I’m going tonight actually.”

“Great,” I said. “I might see you there.”

I took the drinks and a long look at Helen, then made my way back to the beach hut.

Peter was ready with a map of Helmstown, his laptop, and a pile of notes. I saw that he’d bought a scanner, too.

“OK. So, tonight she goes to yoga. Then she shops at Sainsbury’s, and then she goes home to Butler Street,” Peter said.

The previous day, Peter had struck up a conversation with the manager of the Coffee Shack. He’d pretended to know Helen and found out her surname, which was Rossdale. From that information, he’d found out where she lived.

We looked at the map, trying to figure out which alley I had drawn in the message.

“There’s a Sainsbury’s near her house,” I said, pointing to the map.

“Yes, but if she goes to yoga
here
, on Ferris Avenue, then she’d go to the Sainsbury’s
here
, because it’s right next door.”

I followed her probable route home with my finger and found a thin street. “Vine Alley,” I said. “She’d go down Vine Alley.”

“I know where that is,” he said.

“But it’s safer to stall her outside the yoga class, isn’t it?” I said.

“Not necessarily. We don’t know how long those kids will hang around. Let’s meet here, and then walk to the alley together. Her class finishes at nine, so let’s meet at eight thirty, just to be safe.”

The determined expression he’d had for the last half hour suddenly slipped into one of doubt as he looked at the screen.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“They’ll probably just beat up someone else,” Peter said.

“We can only do what we can,” I said. “We’ve got the opportunity to save someone, and we’ve got to take it.”

“We don’t really know anything about this woman,” Peter said. “Who’s to say she’s a good person? She could be a mass murderer, for all we know.”

“I doubt many mass murderers do yoga,” I said.

“I’m just saying. There are always consequences.”

“I know that. The difference between you and me is that you always think the consequences are going to be terrible.”

“So would you if you’d been a messenger for as long as I have. It’s a result of personal experience.”

“Well, let’s start making some good experiences, shall we?”

He stared at the wall of his hut, mulling it all over. “OK,” he said eventually. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Auntie Lizzie tried to smile when I got home, but I could tell something was on her mind. She was tense. Decent people like her are rubbish at hiding how they feel. “Oh, hi, Fran! You look nice. Where’ve you been?”

“Just for a walk,” I said.

“Great. That’s great. Listen,” she said, and she lowered her voice. “Robert’s doing his three-course Italian dinner thing tonight. He wanted us all to have a meal together.”

“I’d love to, Auntie Lizzie, but —”

“It would mean a lot to him. And to me, actually. We feel like we’ve hardly seen you. Don’t you think it would be nice? The four of us?”

I didn’t want to raise suspicion, and I certainly didn’t want to get into a fight. Not now. I nodded. “Sure. Sounds great.”

I was already calculating how early I could get out of the house.

I spent the afternoon in my room, thinking about Helen Rossdale. We didn’t sit down to dinner until eight p.m., and I started to panic. I checked my phone every five minutes, and I ate the mozzarella salad and the ravioli in about three bites.

“Goodness,” said Auntie Lizzie. “You’re eating rather fast, Frances.”

“Oh, it’s just, er — it’s so tasty, that’s all,” I said, looking at Uncle Robert. “I can’t stop myself.”

“You’d enjoy it even more if you actually chewed, ha-ha,” said Uncle Robert. Nobody else laughed. I certainly didn’t. Max stared at his food. I had ruined the atmosphere, but I couldn’t help it. The clock was ticking.

My phone went. A message from Peter:
Leaving now
. I began to type an answer, but Auntie Lizzie frowned and I put the phone in my pocket. I wondered if Peter would wait for me or go straight to Vine Alley to intercept Helen. I felt like I had to be there or it would all fall apart. I imagined the four youths, filling the width of the alley.

Uncle Robert went to the kitchen and came back with some ice cream. “Neapolitan,” Max said. “Nice.”

“It is
not
Neapolitan,” Uncle Robert said. He pointed at the ice cream, which was split into three sections: red, white, and green. “It’s
spumoni
, authentic Sicilian ice cream. The green is pistachio. The colors of the Italian flag, see?”

I had to get out of the house. “Listen,” I said, standing up. “This was great. Really. But I’ve got to go. I’ll see you all later.”

“Frances,” said Auntie Lizzie apologetically, “do you mind telling us where you’re going, love?”

“Just out. Seafront, probably.”

She started to speak again but stopped. Uncle Robert put his hand on hers and took over. “We wondered if you were going to meet the, er . . . the
man
I saw you with the other day.”

I sighed. “I’m not being funny, Uncle Robert, but that’s my business.”

“That’s true to a certain extent,” he said, nodding patiently. “But obviously while you’re staying with us . . .”

“We don’t want to be overbearing, Frances,” said Auntie Lizzie.

“Don’t be, then,” I said. “Look, I’ve got to go. Can we talk about this later?”

They looked at each other. Auntie Lizzie rubbed her eyes under her glasses. “There’s a lot going on in your life at the moment,” she said. “Everything back home . . . We just . . . We care about you — that’s all.”

I nodded. “I know,” I said. And I was gone.

I was later than planned, but I still had time. I knew Vine Alley was several blocks back from the beach, but the streets around there seemed to wind in tight circles. All the houses looked the same. White and regular, like teeth. I stood outside a pub, the Anchor, which was heaving with men, all facing the TV screens. I checked the map on my phone. The GPS wasn’t working. I was still pretty confident that I could find the place, though.

I kept walking, quickening my pace. I took one turn, then another. The name of the streets looked familiar, but I couldn’t focus. My brain was too full. I tried to call Peter, but he didn’t pick up. I closed my eyes and visualized the map we had looked at earlier, but the streets had morphed into one another and reversed themselves. “Think, dammit!” I said out loud. Time was slipping away. I ran to the end of the road I was on, took a left, and felt sure I was now on the right track. Then I saw the Anchor again, and my blood turned cold. I ran back the way I’d come.

As I was running, a huge noise rose up over Helmstown, and it took me a moment to realize that people were watching the football match. It sounded like a scream of terror. A young boy in a red T-shirt emerged from a front door to my right and punched the air. “Yes! Come on, England!” he said.

His mother came out of the darkness of the house. “Leo! Back inside.”

“Excuse me!” I shouted.

The mother raised her head. I saw, from her expression, how crazy I must have looked.

“I’m trying to find Vine Alley,” I said.

She pointed. “That way.”

I turned in the direction she’d indicated and saw Helen up ahead in the distance. I called, but she didn’t hear me. I ran.

By the time the grid of Helmstown streets opened up to me, it was too late. Helen was walking quickly toward the alley. I kept sprinting, but I knew I wouldn’t get there before her.

Peter came into view from the other direction, just as Helen was about to enter the alley. He called to her, and there was a brief conversation, which I couldn’t hear. Peter was pointing wildly, and Helen was stepping away from him, shaking her head.

As I got closer, Peter grabbed Helen’s arm, and she wrenched it away and slapped his face. Then she ran — thankfully avoiding the alley — around the corner to a parallel street.

I got to Peter a few seconds later. He was bent over slightly, holding his face. “You OK?” I said.

He took his hand away to reveal a large red palm mark.

“Well,” I said, “you did it, Pete. You saved her.”

“Some thanks I get,” he said.

We looked down the alley and saw the gang of youths, in silhouette in the light of the streetlamp. I shuddered. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

We walked back toward the beach, and my heartbeat gradually returned to normal. Stopping at the railings above the seawall, I laughed, a bit giddy with the power of changing the future. I clasped my hands together, knelt down, and pretended to pray. “Dear Lord, thank you for giving Helen . . . what was her name again?”

“Rossdale,” said Peter.

“Thanks for giving Helen Rossdale another chance. Please watch over her and make sure she uses her life well.”

“And make sure she doesn’t take shortcuts down dark alleys,” said Peter.

“Yes! Tell her to keep to well-lit walkways.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Peter, who was frowning down at the sea. “What’s up, Pete?” I said.

“It wasn’t God that saved her, though, was it? It wasn’t about higher powers or an inevitable order. It was us.
We
did it, didn’t we?”

I nodded and then so did he. I thought that maybe I was making some progress, but then a disturbing thought seemed to pierce Peter very suddenly, and he raised his hands to cover his face. “Peter? You OK?”

He didn’t answer for a moment.

“Peter?” I said again.

“Do you know how long I’ve been a messenger?” he said.

“No.”

“Years, Frances,
years
. I have lost count of the recipients. I have lost count of the people I have painted and delivered to. The people I’ve killed.”

“But, Peter —”

“I could have saved them. All of them. Most of them, anyway. But I didn’t. Oh, God,” he said.

He coughed, dry retching. I went toward him. Being a messenger had given him this worldliness, an acceptance of death that made him seem older than his years, but at times like this I realized that being in your twenties wasn’t that different to being a teenager. You didn’t suddenly have all of life’s answers. In fact, all that happened was that you’d failed a few more tests.

“Come on, Pete. It’s hard, but there’s nothing you can do about that now. Besides, you weren’t to know.”

“Why didn’t Tabby tell me? Why didn’t she know? I always used to feel so guilty. I always used to feel like I was
creating
the death scenes from my own imagination, you know what I mean?”

I nodded, because, strange as it sounds, I did know. For how could I draw something that wasn’t somehow in my mind? And as Pablo Picasso said,
Everything you can imagine is real
.

Pete kept talking. “I used to feel that I was causing these deaths. But Tabby talked me out of it. Why?”

“She was probably trying to protect you. Just the way you tried to protect me. You always said that things couldn’t be changed, and that I was just delivering the message. It was to make me feel better. It’s the only thing you can do when things are out of control: try to protect your feelings.”

Peter shook his head. “It’s a lot of people, Frances. A lot of people gone and for nothing.”

“All the more reason to make the future better than the past, Pete,” I said.

I left him to it then, because I knew that what he was dealing with couldn’t be cured by a few kind words and a pat on the back.