The doctor wanted Edward to go into hospital for a check-up, but he refused. He did, however, agree to remain in bed for a few days. But he never got as far as his bedroom, preferring to lie on the sofa in front of the fire. He stared into the flames for hours on end, or at the photograph of Evelyn, which was always in his hand.
Although Dewint did his best to keep him from drinking, he started again. He tried to get Edward to eat, but met with nothing but abuse. He did allow Dewint to keep the fire built up, but would accept nothing else from him. In the end Dewint just brought trays every mealtime and left them on a side table. They were always there, untouched, when he returned.
He just did not know what to do. Edward had been drinking steadily for four days, and never left the room except to go to the bathroom. Then he would shamble straight back into the lounge. It was obvious to the old man that Edward was very sick. His eyes were sunken, he was unshaven, and bottles were strewn about the room. Late one night Dewint heard the familiar sound of rock ‘n’ roll music, the same record over and over again, until he hid his head under the pillow trying to block out the repetitious racket.
The music pounded through the house while Edward desperately sought oblivion. The more he drank, the more his mind reeled. Voices called to him, his head ached continuously. He sweated, his face dripping, so he threw open the french windows. No sooner had he done that than he felt chilled to the bone. Shivering with fever, his teeth chattering, he slammed the window shut and stoked the fire until it blazed, then wrapped a blanket around himself. The heat began to sweep over him again, so he rested his head on the cold, wet windowpane.
Gazing at the river, he saw a fire had been lit by the jetty at the end of the long, tangled garden. Vague, shadowy shapes huddled around it, hands held out to the flames. He was about to scream at them to get off his land when one of them started to sing. The words were distorted by the echo from the river, but soft, as though the singer sang only for himself. The song ripped through Edward’s drunken mind...
He pressed his face against the cold, damp window and began to sing the words, dredging them from his past. In the red glow of the flames, the singer turned towards him and smiled. Edward was rigid with fear as the man rose to his feet, still singing softly, but now looking at Edward. The man was Freedom.
‘Come on, Eddie, don’t be afeared, boy. Gimme yer hand, make a Romany of thee.’
Involuntarily, Edward made to move from the window, but pressed close again as he saw a small, naked child walk through the overgrown garden. The child lifted both arms to Freedom, and Edward knew he was watching himself. In slow motion, shimmering in the fireglow, he watched Freedom lift the boy and carry him to the flames... The voice whispered close; he could feel the warmth of the man’s breath as he whispered over and over, telling him not to be afraid. A knife glinted and the child’s eyes widened; he sobbed in fear, but Freedom was holding him safely, holding him with those deep black eyes, with gentleness, with such love it was overwhelming...
‘Give me thy hand...’
The child held up his right hand, and Edward pressed his own flat against the window, wincing with pain as the knife cut clean down his thumb. A single, bright red tear of blood dripped down the child’s hand, and Freedom knelt before him, licking at the blood... then turned and spat into the fire. The flames rose higher and the coals burned brighter...
Edward backed further and further from the brightness beyond the window, moving away from the memory, away from the sight of his father — moving away from the memory of himself as a boy, the long-forgotten memory of his initiation into the Romany clan. He didn’t want to see any more.
The song started up again and repeated, over and over:
Edward was crazy with fear. Turning to run from the room he was caught by his own image in the mirror — but it wasn’t his own face staring back at him, it was the face of his father. He screamed, ‘Get away from me! Go away!’ But still Freedom’s face remained, and then the tears flowed down his cheeks, terrible, streaming tears. Edward closed his eyes to shut out the face of his father, but it remained as clear if not clearer than the image in the mirror. The tears continued dripping down the high, carved cheeks, falling on to naked shoulders while the eyes stared wide, unblinking.
Edward’s chest heaved as the deeply buried memories surfaced, exploded, and he remembered killing his father, remembered every fragmented second...
Once more he was screaming with rage. He was seventeen years old, shouting and punching out at Freedom, screeching that he was going to Cambridge, no one would hold him back — no failure, no has-been boxer, no pitiful loser like Freedom could stop him...
Freedom began to undo the thick leather belt from his waist. Now Alex was there, little Alex weeping for them to stop, crying to them not to fight.
Edward put his arm over his face as if to block out the image that would appear next. He couldn’t bear to face his mother, but she was there, standing at the kitchen door and begging for them to stop. He could see her clearly, her white pinafore, her dark red, coiled hair. She tried to come between them, but Edward pushed her aside and she fell backwards. The dog was barking — Rex, the white bull terrier, growling and yapping, scuttling between their feet, jumping up as if even he was afraid of what was going to happen. He yelped as Freedom tripped over him and lurched against the kitchen table...
Slowly, the inevitable happened again, so slowly... Edward opening the kitchen drawer. Edward taking out the sharp knife, the big knife Evelyne used to carve their Sunday roasts. He took out the knife as his father turned to him...
Edward’s face was distorted with blind rage as he screamed, ‘Come on, you bastard! I dare you to fight me now! Come on!’
Freedom seemed to relax. He no longer attempted to take his belt to his son — instead, he smiled, and lifted his arms in a gesture of love, opening his arms wider and wider, moving closer and closer to his son, closer to the knife.
Edward tried to stop the memory, tried to stop the memory continuing... Picking up a bottle, he smashed it against the fireplace... but the smiling face of his father would not go away. He moved closer, as if to embrace his son. Edward snatched up a poker from beside the fireplace and brought it crashing down between the open arms, crashing into the face that haunted him, the face that would not let him be in peace, would not let him forget. He smashed the face in the mirror into a thousand pieces, broke his own face into myriad jagged pieces... but Freedom was still there.
Edward put his hands over his ears to cut out the sing-song voices — and suddenly there was silence. He felt his father’s arms embrace him as the knife cut upwards into his heart, opening his chest. Freedom sighed, he sighed just as he had done on the day it happened...
Edward stepped back, looking at his bloodstained hands. Splinters of glass had cut his palms to shreds and he was covered in his own blood, but his mind was so confused and disorientated that he believed it was his father’s.
Freedom was lying face down on the floor, lying where he had fallen, embedding the knife deeper into his heart. Evelyne knelt beside him, rocking him in her arms, as his blood spread like deep crimson flowers over the carpet, over her white apron... Edward’s mother cradled Freedom until his body was stiff, until they had to prise his arms away from her.