CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - ALEC
Once upon a time, Christine said something to me. It was a private moment. We were sitting on a dock somewhere… Antigua? Anguilla? Angola? Don’t recall.
All I remember is that we had done something. Something typically dangerous and dramatic and altogether impossible, in the course of which an item was probably stolen and someone was maybe killed. It’s better than fifty-fifty odds that was the case. And in this quiet moment after the fact, Christine admitted to me that sometimes she dreamed of a different life.
I asked her, “What kind of life, nunu?”
She said, “I don’t know. One where I go to a cubicle, or maybe a small office, and am, like, a personal assistant or something.”
I laughed. I laughed so hard. She slapped me on the shoulder, telling me to stop. But it just seemed ludicrous to me. Because there is no way that Christine would ever be satisfied with a life like that. Something as boring and tedious as the kind of lives that others have. But I also laughed because I couldn’t imagine why, of all the dreams a person might dream, that is the one she chose for herself.
I can now.
Sitting in the back of the SUV, staring out the window as the city streets of London become country roads to… wherever, I understand. Perhaps it’s the pastoral placidity of it all, but something docile and domesticated doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world at present. I’m sure that paying bills and showing up at some office on time, lest one be reprimanded for tardiness, would get wearisome. But I’m also sure that in a scenario like that, the chances of having to formulate a plan to kill your baby brother before he tries to kill you and possibly the people you love—for the second time—is greatly diminished.
We’re not heading to Eliza’s, it would appear. We’re being shuttled in the opposite direction to Theo’s house. This is where the Watsons have convened to work out, with the three of us, exactly what happens next.
No one has spoken since the car pulled up and we got inside. Not a word. Danny looked at Charlie with a bit of a scowl. Christine looked at me with something akin to longing. And Brenden looked at his phone, playing some type of escape room game.
And now we find ourselves pulling up to the cottage. It’s quaint and sweet. Just like Eliza’s. The Watson brood have always been somewhat frugal with their money. I know they earn a fair amount of it, doing what they do, but for them, it has always seemed that just somewhat better than where they’re from has been good enough. That placid, docile life that Christine once mused about… the Watsons seem to have discovered it.
The SUV rolls to a stop and we all step out. There is the slightest chill in the air, but it is an otherwise lovely day. In some respects. In other respects, it is a horribly ominous one. I don’t imagine the two are separable.
Entering through the main door, I hear the sound of tiny feet galumphing down the stairs. The child called Andra sees the five of us and immediately runs over to…
Danny.
She tugs at his hand and says, “Hopscotch,” as she jumps up and down. She has quite a great deal of energy, this one. A restless and demanding spirit.
She probably gets it from her mother.
In any case…
Theo descends the stairs after her, and Russell and Eliza enter from another room. Eight of us stand looking at each other somewhat awkwardly while one of us continues to enjoin that hopscotch be commenced directly. Danny appears both distracted and flattered. It is a charming look on him that I can’t help but smile at.
“Andra, come here,” Eliza commands, and the little girl obliges. She joins her mother, as do Brenden and Charlie. And the tableau is now made unmistakably manifest. On one side of an imaginary dividing line are me, Christine, and Danny. An unlikely trio that, at a glance, would not be easily recognized as a family. And other the other side, five Watsons who it would be impossible not to observe as one. In the middle: A small Watson-Berg. Or possibly van der Watson. Whatever one might call her, she is the lone, unifying element that causes us all to be here now.
Eliza’s eyes drift across the three of us. I see no judgement, exactly, but there is an unmissable assessing. “You look rested,” she says to me. “Got a shave, did you?”
“So it would seem.”
“And you all had a good evening? Comfy? Happily reunited?”
“Lize,” Russell interrupts, but she goes on.
“Nobody creeping around your place in the middle of the night, were they?”
“Lize, come on,” he says again.
“Mummy, this is boring,” the child says, looking up at her mother.
“Why don’t you go practice in Uncle Theo’s foam pit, love?”
The child’s eyes go wide. “Really, really, really?”
Her mother nods her head. “Just don’t jump from too high.”
The little one doesn’t respond, just goes tearing off to the rear of the house somewhere.
“You’re letting her fuck around in a foam pit without supervision? OK…” Christine says, nodding her head after Andra is away from earshot. Eliza’s jaw tightens in a way I have seen many times before and she bites at her bottom lip.
Russell, as is his role, steps around to the front of the brood and says, “Here’s where we’re at: Nobody wants to be here, but here we be, so let’s just discuss what needs to happen so we can never speak again, shall we?”
I internalize a laugh because it is now painfully obvious to me that the probability of us never speaking again is slim indeed. It would seem that some vengeful god plans to keep thrusting us into each other’s paths until whatever cosmic debt we all owe is paid. But, perhaps, just maybe, what’s going to happen next will be the thing that pays it off once and for all. I fokken doubt it, but I’m a goddamn optimist.
“Right,” I say, stepping forward. “Before anyone says anything else, I just want to offer this: All of you”—I point my finger at the Watsons, en masse—“don’t have to be part of anything. You came along to help retrieve me, and I appreciate it, and if you like, your work with this is done. This is our concern. Christine’s, Danny’s, and mine. It has nothing to do with you. So I am right now offering you the chance to step away. You offered the same to us, an opportunity to step away and let you handle whatever this perceived threat is. But it’s not yours to handle. So I’m suggesting that all six of you get on a plane—I’ll arrange one—and have it take you anywhere in the world. Anywhere you want to go. Perhaps Nara would be a good place to lie low for a while…” I look at Eliza, who glares at me. “And once we have seen to it that all concerns related to me, or us, or you have been dealt with, you can return. Or stay. Or do whatever you like. The point is, I’m offering. I encourage you to consider seriously.”
I don’t know what I expect. Eliza wouldn’t take me up on this exact offer once before, so I have no idea why I think she might now. Except I do. It’s the same reason they all might.
The child.
Before, the child was just an idea. Something as yet not fully formed. Not a walking, talking person who also has to share in the burden of being part of a world in which this type of thing is what passes for normal. Now, seeing the way they clearly love her—and seeing that she is a curious, special, odd, and wonderful little being—perhaps they will all think differently.
I think they must be mulling it over sincerely, because the looks on their faces suggest that it’s at least worth their proper consideration. Or that’s what I think their looks convey. I realize that what their looks actually convey is disbelief because after about three seconds they all burst into laughter simultaneously.
“Fuckin’ hell, mate!” Russell says. “Are you taking the piss? Is he taking the piss?” He turns around and presents his rhetorical question to the group. “Mate, let’s be clear about something…” He steps in closer than I would encourage him to. I have a history with his sister and his niece is my child, but if he violates my personal space, I may not be responsible for what happens after.
He continues talking. “I ain’t never liked you, mate. I ain’t never trusted you. And you’re off your fuckin’ trolley if you think I’m going to trust your poncy South African arse now. The only reason you’re even here is because she asked for you to be.” He points at Eliza, who looks away. I can feel heat behind my neck. Palpable heat. And I turn to see that it’s coming from Christine’s glare.
Regular little Days of Our fokken Lives we’ve got happening here. Eish, man.
“Look, bruv,” he goes on, pointing a finger at me, which I do everything in my power not to snap in half, “I woke up yesterday morning, drank my tea, and set about having a normal day. Me and the lads were planning to go over the details of a job at a jeweler’s in Oxford, maybe play some footie, and visit with me mum for an hour or two, when you lot showed up.” The finger passes across Danny and Christine as well. “And suddenly, we’s been thrust into a scenario where men with guns shot at us, and me sister and niece don’t feel safe in their own home at night. And if you think for a moment that we’s the type of people who’d just hand over the resolution to a situation like this to the very wanker who put us in said situation, then mate, you don’t fuckin’ remember us terribly well.”
I can feel his breath on my face. His tension. His anger. His fear. That’s what anger is, after all. It’s just a reconfiguring of fear. Or sadness. Or some other vulnerable emotion that one doesn’t want to feel. Anger is the mind’s brilliant way of interceding and overpowering the weaker feelings.
Ironically, of course, anger can also make you weak because it shows you for who you are. A person. Like other people. As my father once told me, if you are unfrightened, the other oke will be forced to take up that fear in compensation and you will be made powerful by his absorption of what you cast off.
When the world is off its axis and others fear losing control… that is when I am at my most powerful. Because I breathe into myself and become greater than I am.
Death thrives on fear. Death is not welcome here.
And just like that, I remember this, and I feel like myself again. All it took was to look in the eyes of someone who believes they have something to lose and counter that look with the belief that I do not. There is nothing that can be taken from me. I will not allow it. And so, Russell’s anger has brought me back into balance.
I’ll have to remember to do something nice for him.
“Aces,” I say, and smile.
He scowls at me, furrows his brow, and says, “Let’s go work out a proper fuckin’ plan.” And he marches off into the house, his brothers in tow. I step to watch him leave, and when I turn back, I see that Eliza is still here, standing by the stairs. She is to my right, Christine is to my left, and Danny stands across from me.
That this quadrilateral formation is the one we inadvertently find ourselves in should be observably absurd, but I am beyond the point of surprise anymore.
“How did you know where to find us?” Christine asks her after a moment.
“I assumed you’d still be in London, and if you’re in London there’s only one place you’d be.”
“Why?” Christine asks.
It’s unclear what the ‘why’ refers to, but Eliza chooses a very particular answer. One designed to achieve some type of objective. I’m just not clear exactly what.
She responds, “Because, whether I like it or not, in this particular instance, Alec is the one person in the world best situated to protect his daughter.”
And now, Christine’s breathing is all I can hear.
I glance at Danny. He tilts his head at me.
How does life get so complicated so easily, man? How does it happen?
I don’t know. But I do know it doesn’t have to be.
I step over and stand beside Christine. Danny steps to the other side and joins us. I allow my finger to graze her hand.
And as we reconnect, Eliza regards us with an unknowable expression. Then she takes in a deep breath, pulls her shoulders back, exhales, and after a moment, says, “Indeed,” before she walks away, leaving the three of us alone.