Displaced Page 18

  Ghosts had been his thing, as he remembered. He’d dearly wanted ghosts to be real. And Father Christmas. He’d once ‘seen’ him out of his bedroom window flying with his reindeer above Tate and Lyle’s sugar factory. He’d never told a soul.

  Irving said, ‘I know there was a smell of animals back then. There won’t be now. Also, I recall a machine men would hit with a big mallet to test their strength …’

  ‘I haven’t seen one of them for years,’ Lee said.

  Irving shrugged. An eerie laugh echoed out of the haunted house as a gaggle of blokes in saggy tracksuits walked past smoking fags and holding glow sticks. They all looked as if they were going to an appointment at the Job Centre. Lee thought, poor buggers.

  Irving, who had also obviously seen the men, said, ‘I’m not one of those who believes this borough will gentrify. There’s too much poverty.’

  ‘I would’ve said the same for Spitalfields. I was born just off Brick Lane and it was a dump, I can tell you,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Now you can’t move for Trustafarians and artists.’

  ‘Yes, but Spitalfields has the benefit of historical buildings. A closed-down arts and crafts police station and a lot of ex-council housing doesn’t cut it, I think,’ Irving said. ‘Barking will always be a poor place.’

  ‘I have to agree with Mumtaz,’ Lee said. ‘Housing’s so short now, a place like this, so close to London, can only get more expensive. I think it’s a shame. If the poor can’t live in Barking and Dagenham, where can they afford to live, eh?’

  They turned a corner and came across the dodgems. Time was when the ‘job’ of being on the dodgems had been to hit as many other cars, usually containing your mates, as possible. Now, or so a sign in the corner said, deliberate bumping could see you thrown off the ride. Where was the fun in that?

  Lee was just thinking, not for the first time, about what a moany old sod he was becoming when he saw that Irving had stopped moving.

  Just for a short time, he’d probably been about four at the time, Irving Levy had a nanny. Why Bronagh came, and why she left, were mysteries to him. And although he couldn’t remember what she looked like, he did remember that she had been what his mother later called ‘superstitious’. She’d also called her ‘bog Irish’, which had struck Irving as not very nice and undeserved.

  He’d liked Bronagh; she’d told him about all sorts of scary things that had made him giggle with frightened delight. She’d been full of tales about the Banshee, about malignant fairies and about the walking dead. A lot of the characters in her stories had been strange and freakish. Maybe that had been why he had wanted to visit the freak show at the fair all those years ago?

  And now here it was again. Battered by time, its paint peeling and bubbling, and yet it was unmistakable.

  In the years since Miriam’s disappearance, he’d tried to recall exactly what it had looked like but he couldn’t. In his head it had sometimes been a converted Gypsy caravan, sometimes a large shed. What it was resembled a goods van from an old steam train. A small ladder led up from the ground into an opening in the middle of the structure, the name ‘Freak Show’ was picked out in red on a board above this aperture.

  ‘The Tattooed Man greeted you at the door,’ he told Lee and Mumtaz as he pointed at the thing. ‘I think the others stood around the walls, the Siamese twins were at the back. And there were a couple of exhibits in cages. I don’t know that I even looked at those, I think I was too frightened. And there were snakes, but then they might have been somewhere else.’

  He felt Mumtaz grip his arm.

  ‘I can’t believe they still have it,’ he said. ‘God, but it must be empty, surely!’

  And slowly they went to take a look. He was right, it was empty – save for a middle-aged man sitting on the floor smoking. When he saw them, he smiled.

  ‘Now, that’s what I like to see,’ David Sanders said. ‘People with an appreciation for vintage fair craft.’

  NINETEEN

  It had to be in her head. When she thought back on their conversation, Sara couldn’t find anything Gunther Beltz had said that was actually threatening. After all, a lot of people were talking about the rise of far-right politics in Germany. They had been for some time. Mainly disaffected middle-aged former East Germans, as far as Sara could tell; the far-right party, the AfD, did have young followers too.

  Maybe it had been the way that he made a comparison between the far right and the old DDR communists? Had she been wrong when she had interpreted this as a warning to her that he, or people like him, may get into power again? How could she know? She’d hardly stuck around to find out. Young Rolfe had been her way out, a dear young man who was writing his doctoral thesis on the Hidden Jews of Berlin.

  Now she couldn’t sleep. Ideally, she’d go out and try and walk herself into the mood for sleep, but she didn’t want to leave her flat. She felt unsure of herself in a way she hadn’t experienced for years. She’d known all along that she shouldn’t have any dealings with anyone she knew had been in the Stasi. But the English people had got at least some information from the encounter and that had to be the main thing.

  She just wished they had never told her about what lay underneath Beltz’s house. Sara knew she should tell the police, but she also knew that she wouldn’t. Old habits died hard and Beltz had been right about one thing, and that was that anyone could come to power in the twenty-first century. Everybody she met these days said that Mutti Merkel’s time was coming to an end and they were probably right.

  And there were people aiming to take her power who did not bear thinking about.

  Gala had chosen to make goulash of all things. She used way too much garlic, even for the old man’s tastes, and it stank the van out. But she liked doing it and Amber was a fan.

  Eva watched her son-in-law put the takings in the safe and lock up.

  ‘How did we do?’ she asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said.

  She knew that with only a small amount of pressure, she could get him to talk about how much interest the old freak show van had inspired. Just before they’d started the evening session, he’d come in full of it.

  ‘And not just hipsters either,’ he’d said to no one in particular. ‘All sorts. Kids and old people, black and white, some Muslim woman with a coupla Jews.’

  Eva had looked up and said, ‘How do you know the woman was a Muslim or the other people Jews?’

  ‘Woman had her head covered in that way they d.’

  ‘In what way?’

  He’d waved his hand at her. ‘You know, like they do!’ he’d said. ‘The Jews … Well one was a bloke about my age, he might not’ve been a Jew to be fair, but he was dark and looked a bit like the older bloke who was wearing one of them hats.’

  What hats? Eva knew, but at the time she’d left it at that. Now she could have pressed for more information, but she didn’t. Her papa could be listening. Even though he was apparently making jokes with Amber in his bedroom, she couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t to be trusted and, if she was right about what Amber had been planning to do that afternoon with the Twins, neither was she.

  Shazia had decided to stay.

  ‘There’s no point going back to Brick Lane now,’ she’d said once she’d finished the meal Mumtaz rapidly cobbled together for them both. ‘Do you mind?’

  Mumtaz had said, ‘This is your home. Of course I don’t mind.’

  And so the two of them had sat around chatting and watching TV. Shazia told Mumtaz about the books she’d bought for her course and Mumtaz told her about the fair.

  ‘They bill this BigO as the biggest big wheel in the world, but I don’t think it is,’ she said. ‘I’m sure the London Eye is bigger.’

  Shazia laughed. ‘That’s fairgrounds,’ she said. ‘It’s all a con. Fun, but these days …’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know how they carry on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, we have theme parks, don’t we?’

  ‘They’re expensive.’

 
; ‘Yeah but they’re always rammed. I dunno, maybe Barking’s the right sort of place for a fair …’

  ‘Because it’s poor?’

  ‘I guess,’ she said.

  Mumtaz shook her head. ‘Such a shame.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘We met a man, connected with the fair, and he said they were planning to theme it next year.’

  ‘Theme it?’

  ‘They want to make it an “experience”,’ Mumtaz said. ‘A Victorian fair with steam-driven carousels, mulled wine, great big swings and all the people on the stalls dressed up in crinolines and old-fashioned corsets.’

  ‘Sounds cool. Sort of steampunk.’

  Mumtaz wasn’t sure that she knew what steampunk was. It probably didn’t matter. Then she said, ‘He also talked about reinstating the old freak show.’

  Shazia frowned. ‘That sounds a bit … well … dodgy. Do you mean like bearded ladies and elephant men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t like that much,’ Shazia said. ‘Mind you, you can see worse on YouTube these days, I expect.’

  ‘I try to avoid it.’

  ‘Oh, there are some good things on there, and some of the weird stuff can be interesting, but it does give you the impression there are a lot of weird people out there who will do anything to get themselves noticed.’

  ‘Including exhibiting their deformities?’

  Shazia shook her head. ‘Amma, you are naive sometimes,’ she said. ‘You just have to look at some of the celebrities flaunting their new noses and bums to realise this is OK now. It’s fun to be a freak in some people’s eyes. It’s appalling. Anyway, do you have to go back to the fair?’

  Shazia didn’t know who Mumtaz was working for or why.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Grace is going. Might go with her,’ Shazia said. ‘Especially if you’re going to be there.’

  If he slept, what would he dream about? Irving looked at the bottle of co-codamol on the table and then looked away. If he took a couple of those he’d begin to feel drowsy and then he’d drop off in the chair. His whole body ached and he knew he’d feel better, physically, if he slept. But if he dreamt about that freak show, he could lose his mind.

  What a terrible thing this journey he had embarked upon had been. That awful macabre story that Herr Beltz had told about his father would haunt him for a long time. Even if it was proved he was not related to Beltz, that story would remain with him. How strongly did someone have to feel about another person to exhume their body and bury it underneath their house? But then, maybe Beltz’s father had just simply felt misplaced guilt over Rachel’s death? Not that he could have done anything about it.

  Irving had never felt strongly about anyone. But then had anyone ever felt strongly about him? His parents may have done, although they never showed it. His father had been distant and his mother inscrutable. He’d often wondered what had happened to her to make her so cold, but he never dared ask. Maybe it was because she never once volunteered any information about herself. She would tell him about her day, if he asked, but nothing more. It had been as if she lived only in the present. Maybe she could only live there?

  He tried to remember whether he’d ever been back to the fair as a child. He felt that he probably hadn’t. He’d been a few times as an adult, just after his mother died, but he’d not seen the freak show van that time. That time, he’d just wandered around in the rain on his own, recognising nothing. Only his own imminent death had caused him to go back to the park at all. And then, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he’d started to dig. Did he really think he’d find Miriam’s body amongst the marigolds and sweet peas?

  Stiff from sitting too long in front of some ‘reality TV’ nonsense, he got up and walked over to the front window. The outside light was on, illuminating the garden, which looked like a quagmire. Lee and Jas had cleared up after themselves when they’d cleared out the garage, but it still looked like a piece of unkempt waste ground. Who had the man in the photograph they had found been? Had he ever been anything to his mother? Just because it had been found in a handbag, did that mean it had to have belonged to her? It was as he was thinking about this that he noticed a figure standing in the street, looking at him. Muffled up against the rain in what could be a waterproof coat of some sort, Irving couldn’t work out whether it was male or female.

  He went back to his chair to get his glasses, but by the time he returned to the window, the person had gone.

  Gala snored. She sounded like a pig. But then she didn’t look that much different from one. Maybe she was like her father? Whoever he had been.

  Eva had been in the midst of her ‘wild’ phase when she’d given birth to Gala. Running around with all sorts of men. Bela had beaten her so many times, but it had never stopped her. She’d taunted him, hinting at things she could reveal, which she could not possibly have known. But it had given him pause and so, in the end, he’d just let her do what she wanted. She was like him in every possible way. She looked like him, spoke as he did, thought the same thoughts. Sometimes it made him shudder. To have someone so in tune with you was unnerving. Bela tried not to think about the Twins, but failed.

  TWENTY

  They showed her the ropes, literally. But Amber shook her head.

  ‘I’ve promised Nagyapa I won’t fly for a bit,’ she said.

  Their small, painted eyes looked at her with disdain. Amber was aware that her friends were watching her and said, ‘I’m going shopping with Lulu and Misty. We’re going up Camden.’

  Then she turned and walked away. Eva watched until the girl was out of sight and then walked over to the Twins. Addressing them in their own language, she said, ‘I don’t know why my father tolerates you. That is something about which I’ve no idea. But what I do know is that you can be hurt, and if you carry on encouraging Amber to fly, I will hurt you.’

  One of them went to speak, but Eva silenced it with a raised hand.

  ‘And don’t say that what you do, you do with the approval of my father,’ she said. ‘Because I don’t care. And yes, I know that if it came down to you or me, he would choose you. But whatever you are to him, you can die just like other people.’

  She walked away. Not sure whether she believed what she had just said or not.

  Mumtaz had left for Barking as soon as she’d ended the call from Irving Levy. Now sitting in his dark, slightly damp living room, she took the cup of tea he offered from his shaking hands and said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘In the real world, nothing much,’ he said. ‘Last night I looked out of that window about midnight and saw somebody standing in front of the garden, in the street. Couldn’t see whether it was a man or a woman, but I had the feeling it was looking right at me.’

  ‘Did you feel threatened?’

  ‘No, not really,’ he said. ‘More curious than anything else. And not about that person, about myself.’

  ‘How so?’

  He leant back in his chair. ‘I’m finding I’m not afraid,’ he said. ‘After a lifetime of timidity I find it hard to credit, but there it is. Whatever I discover about my mother or Miriam is alright because it has to be. I can’t change what was.’

  This, Mumtaz knew, was a new way of thinking for Irving.

  ‘I had a dream last night,’ he continued. ‘A dream, a vision – something. I’d been trying not to sleep. After seeing that freak show van, I was unnerved. I wondered whether, if I closed my eyes, I’d dream things that would make me go mad. I didn’t. At least I don’t think so.’

  She smiled. ‘I don’t think so either.’

  ‘But, in the end, something like sleep happened,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who they were, but I was with people who loved me.’

  ‘In the dream?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be honest, it was so nice, it’s shaken me. Neither of my parents ever showed affection. I always felt on edge with both of them. But these people – we were having a picnic on grass – they were nice. They w
orried about me. I could tell.’

  ‘I’ve no answers for you, Irving,’ Mumtaz said. ‘I’m not sure how much credence I would personally give to dreams. But I do believe that sometimes they can reflect what maybe we have missed, but which has been noted by our unconscious.’

  ‘I really felt as if these people loved me. But there is no love in my life.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the simple fact that, although Lee and I are working for you, we do care,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Because we do. We really want you to find, at the very least, some closure. You’re a nice man …’

  ‘Who has wasted his life in the company of diamonds.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘A skill like that is never wasted. You work in a most extraordinary trade in a most extraordinary place.’

  He smiled. ‘I am flattered.’

  Mumtaz said, ‘Lee is taking the photograph he found in your garage to the artist today. So, although Lesley’s opinions won’t be definitive, we may get some idea about whether your mother was related to him. In the meantime, do you want to tell me about your impressions from yesterday? I know that seeing the freak show van was a shock, but did it provoke any memories you’d not had before?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was shocking, as you say, but I didn’t feel afraid. The van was clearly older than it had been the last time I saw it, and it was empty.’

  ‘Would it have been different had some of the “acts” been inside?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘And I admit I was horrified when that man said he’d like to bring the freak show back. I know that logically it is unlikely to feature any of the freaks that were exhibited when I saw it – most have to be dead by now – but I found it distasteful.’