A Traitor to Memory

“Why's that?” Nkata asked.

Harriet Lewis smoothed down her skirt. She fingered a minute length of thread that she found at the edge of a button on her jacket. “I suppose you'd call it a code of ethics,” she finally said.

“She's a solicitor?”

Harriet Lewis stood. “I'm going to have to phone Katja and request her permission to answer that question,” she said.



Libby Neale went straight to the refrigerator when she got home from South Kensington. She was having a major white jones, and she considered herself deserving of having the attack taken care of. She kept a pint of vanilla H?agen-Dazs in the freezer for just such emergencies. She dug this out, ferreted a spoon from the utensil drawer, and prised open the lid. She'd gobbled up approximately one dozen spoonfuls before she was even able to think.

When she finally did think, what she thought was more white, so she rustled through the trash under the kitchen sink and found part of the bag of cheddar popcorn that she'd thrown away in a moment of disgust on the previous day. She sat on the floor and proceeded to cram into her mouth the two handfuls of popcorn that were left in the bag. From there, she went to a package of flour tortillas, which she'd long kept as a challenge to herself to stay away from anything white. These, she found, weren't exactly white any longer, as spots of mould were growing on them like ink stains on linen. But mould was easy enough to remove, and if she ingested some by mistake, it couldn't hurt, could it? Consider penicillin.

She rustled a cube of Wensleydale from its wrapper and sliced enough for a quesadilla. She plopped the cheese slices onto the tortilla, topped that with another, and slapped the whole mess into a frying pan. When the Wensleydale was melted and the tortilla was browned, she took the treat from the fire, rolled it into a tube, and settled herself on the kitchen floor. She proceeded to shove the food into her mouth, eating like a victim of famine.

When she'd polished off the quesadilla, she remained on the floor, her head against one of the cupboard doors. She'd needed that, she told herself. Things were getting too weird, and when things got too weird, you had to keep your blood sugar high. There was no telling when you'd need to take action.

Gideon hadn't walked her from his father's flat to his car. He'd just shown her to the door and shut it behind her. She'd said, “You going to be okay, Gid?” as they'd made their way from the study. “I mean, this can't be the nicest place for you to wait. Look. Why'n't you come home with me? We can leave a note for your dad, and when he gets back, he can call you and we can drive back over.”

“I'll wait here,” he'd said. And he'd opened the door and shut it without ever once looking at her.

What did it mean that he wanted to wait for his dad? she wondered. Was this going to be the Big Showdown between them? She certainly hoped so. The Big Showdown had been a long time coming between Davies father and son.

She tried to picture it, a confrontation provoked, for some reason, by Gideon's discovery of a second sister he hadn't even known he'd had. He'd take that card written to Richard by Virginia's mother and he'd wave it in front of his father's nose. He'd say, “Tell me about her, you bastard. Tell me why I wasn't allowed to know her either.”

Because that seemed to be the crux of what had set Gideon off when he'd read the card: His dad had denied him another sibling when Virginia had been there all along.

And why? Libby thought. Why had Richard made this move to isolate Gid from his surviving sister? It had to be the same reason that Richard did everything else: to keep Gid focused on the violin.

No, no, no. Can't have friends, Gideon. Can't go to parties. Can't play at sports. Can't go to a real school. Must practise, play, perform, and provide. And you can't do that if you've got any interests away from your instrument. Like a sister, for example.

God, Libby thought. He was such a shit. He was so totally screwing up Gideon's life.

What, she wondered, would that life have been like had he not spent it playing his music? He would have gone to school like a regular kid. He would have played sports, like soccer or something. He would have ridden a bike, fallen out of trees, and maybe broken a bone or two. He would have met his buddies for beer in the evening and gone out on dates and screwed around in girls' pants and been normal. He would be so not who he was right now.