At about a quarter to eleven, she came out, the boy’s mother. She struggled with a shop cart of laundry through the front door and set off down the street.
Old though he was, Frank could still appreciate a good figure when he saw one. She wore a white tube-top, tight over her heavy breasts, revealing a flat tummy, and even tighter white shorts cut sharp and high over long, tanned thighs. But she wore too much make-up and he could see the dark roots in her hair. Common as muck, Joan would have said, in the Lancashire accent that had never left her, no matter how long she’d been here. A real tart, a piece of white trash. No wonder her kid was a burglar, a ring thief, a robber of memories, defiler of all things decent and wholesome.
Frank watched her totter down the street on her ridiculous high heels and go into the laundromat. It took about half an hour for the wash cycle and about as long again to get things dry. That gave Frank an hour. He paid his bill, crossed the street and entered the apartment building.
He hadn’t really formed a plan, even during the hours he had spent watching the building that morning. He knew from last night that the apartment was on the third floor at the back, right in the centre, which made it easy to find. The corridor smelled of soiled diapers and Pine-Sol. When he stood outside the door, he listened for a while. All he could hear was a baby crying on the next floor up and the bass boom of a stereo deep in the basement.
Frank had never broken the law in his life, and he was intelligent enough to recognize the irony of what he was about to do. But he was going to do it anyway because the absence of the ring was beginning to make his life hell. Nothing else really mattered.
For three days he had waited for the boy to return Joan’s jewellery, as his mother had told him to do. Three days of nail-biting memories: dreaming about the German soldier he had killed again; reliving Joan’s long illness and death; watching again, as if it were yesterday, the woman he had loved and lived with for nearly fifty years waste away in agony in front of his eyes. So thin did she become that one day the ring simply slipped off her finger onto the shiny pink quilt.
And now that he was on the brink of remembering the final horror, her death, the ring had assumed the potency of a talisman. He must have it back to keep his sanity, to keep the last memories at bay.
He had watched people on television open doors with credit cards, so he took out his seniors’ discount card and tried to push it between the door and the lock. It wouldn’t fit. He could get it part of the way in, then something blocked it; he waggled it back and forth, but still nothing happened. He cursed. This didn’t happen on television. What was he going to do now? It looked as if he was destined to fail. He rested his head against the wood and tried to think.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
His heart jumped and he turned as quickly as he could.
‘I said what do you think you’re doing?’
It was her, the slut, standing there with her hands on her hips. It was disgusting, that bare midriff. He could see her belly button. He looked away.
‘No, please.’ He found his voice. ‘Don’t. I won’t harm you.’
She laughed. ‘You harm me!’ she said. ‘That’s a laugh. Now go on, get out of here before I really do call the police. Old man.’
Frank had to admit she certainly didn’t look scared. ‘No, you don’t understand,’ he said. There was nothing for it now but to trust her. ‘The robbery. I overheard. You see, it was my house your son broke into.’
She stared at him for a moment, her expression slowly softening, turning sad. She was quite pretty, really, he thought. She had a nice mouth, though her eyes looked a bit hard.
‘You’d better come in, hadn’t you?’ she said, pushing past him and opening the door. ‘I came back for more quarters. Just as well I did, isn’t it, or who knows what might have happened?’ She had a husky voice, probably from smoking too much.
The room was sparsely furnished, mostly from the Salvation Army or Goodwill, by the looks of it, but it was clean and the only unpleasant smell Frank noticed was stale tobacco. The woman pulled a packet of Rothmans from her bag, sat down on the wing of an armchair and lit up. She blew out a plume of smoke, crossed her legs and looked at Frank. ‘Sit down, it’ll hold your weight,’ she said, nodding towards the threadbare armchair opposite her. He sat. ‘Now what do you want? Is it money?’
‘I just want what’s mine,’ Frank said. ‘Your son stole my wife’s jewellery. It’s very important to me, especially the wedding ring. I’d like it back.’
She frowned. ‘Wedding ring? There wasn’t no wedding ring.’
‘What?’
‘I told you. There wasn’t no wedding ring.’ Sighing, she got up and went into another room. She came back with a handful of jewellery. ‘That’s all I found.’
Frank looked through it. The only pieces he recognized were the gold chain and the pair of cheap earrings. The rest, he supposed, must have been stolen from another house. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What happened to the ring?’
‘How should I know?’ She stubbed her half-smoked cigarette out viciously. ‘Maybe he sold it already, or threw it away. Look, I gotta go before someone steals the laundry. That’s all I need.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘No, wait. Can I talk to him? Maybe he’ll tell me. I have to find that ring. I’m sorry… I…’ He let her go, and before he knew it, he was crying.
She rubbed her arm. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘There’s no need for that. Shit. Listen, Daryl’s a bit non-communicative these days. It’s his age, just a phase he’s going through. You know what teenagers are like. Basically, he’s a good kid, it’s just… well, with his father gone… Look, I’ll talk to him again, OK? I promise. But I don’t want you coming round here bothering us no more, you understand? I know he’s done wrong, and he’ll pay for it. Just leave it to me, huh? Take the chain and the earrings for now. For Christ’s sake, take it all.’
‘I only want the ring,’ Frank said. ‘He can keep the rest.’
‘I told you, I’ll talk to him. I’ll ask him about it. OK? Here.’
Frank looked up to see her thrusting a handful of tissues towards him at arm’s length. Her eyes had softened a little but still remained wary. He took the tissues and rubbed his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s been such an ordeal. My wife died three years ago. Cancer. I keep a few of her things, for memories, you understand, and the ring’s very important. I know it’s sentimental of me, but we were happy all those years. I don’t know how I’ve survived without her.’
‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ she said. ‘Ain’t life a bitch. Look, I’m sorry, mister, really I am. But please, don’t go to the police, OK? That’s trouble I could do without right now. I promise I’ll do what I can. All right? Give me your number. I’ll call you.’
Frank watched the broken cigarette still smouldering in the ashtray. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He nodded, gave the woman his telephone number and shuffled out of the apartment. Only when he found himself holding the revolver in his hand at home in the early evening did he realize he didn’t even know the woman’s name.
A day passed. Nothing. Another day. Nothing. Long gaps between the memories, when nothing seemed to be happening at all. Most of the time Frank sat at his bedroom window, lights out, watching the apartment. He cleaned his gun. There were no more rows. Mostly the place was dark and empty at night.
At first, he thought they’d moved, but on the second night he saw the light come on at about midnight and glimpsed the boy cross by the window. Then it went dark again until about two, when he saw the woman. She must work in a bar or something, he thought. It figured. The next thing he knew it was morning and he couldn’t remember why he had been sitting by the window all night. The sun was up, the birds were singing, and his joints were so stiff he could hardly stand up.