Page 37 of The Bodies
THIRTY-THREE
When Ralph Erikson answers the door, Tuesday morning, he’s wearing a traditional Japanese kimono in black silk featuring gold dragons and tigers in a complicated, interwoven design.
‘Joseph,’ he says. ‘What a pleasure. Would you like to come in?’
‘Thanks, I will.’
Ralph’s kitchen, although well kept, looks like it hasn’t been decorated since the eighties: peach walls, wooden cabinetry, terracotta tile floor.
Trinkets and collectibles crowd every surface: Disney snow globes, Murano glass paperweights, a menagerie of bone china creatures.
Plants share their pots with plastic gnomes and fairies.
Mounted on the walls are decorative plates daubed with the names of various holiday destinations, alongside embroidered hoops and display cases filled with thimbles.
Many of the phrases stitched on the hoops reference heaven and the afterlife. Other oddments in Ralph’s collection share the same focus. Joseph sees porcelain angels, bronze crucifixes, hand-painted images of tunnels and light.
Among all this clutter are scores of photographs of Carole Erikson, Ralph’s late wife.
There are snaps of Carole as a young girl; as a woman in her twenties, her forties, her sixties; even a few of her smiling in a hospital bed.
Lots of the images sit inside frames stencilled or inscribed with messages:
Goodbyes are not for ever, and also not the end.
Because someone we love is in heaven, a little bit of heaven is at home.
Some of the messages are more direct, and strike Joseph as more disturbing:
I am watching you, every day.
Tonight, in your dreams, we will dance.
Watch for my signs – I’ll send them every hour.
‘Would you like some shogayu?’ Ralph asks. ‘It’s a ginger tea, brewed with honey and lemon. The Japanese mainly drink it in winter but I enjoy it in summer, too. Carole loves it. Don’t you, darling?’
Joseph frowns, glances around the room – until, finally, he understands. ‘I’ll try some, thanks.’
Ralph pours him a cup from a saucepan on the stove. ‘Please,’ he says, indicating the breakfast table. ‘We don’t get many visitors these days.’ He cocks his head as if listening, then smiles. ‘Well, you would say that.’
Joseph carries his brew to the table. ‘You talk to her. Carole, I mean.’
‘Unless she’s being difficult.’ Ralph flinches, then chuckles – as if reacting to a mild admonishment.
‘It’s nice that you do that.’
‘You don’t talk to … Claire? Is that your first wife’s name?’
As usual, when hearing it, Joseph feels like he’s plummeting into an abyss. ‘It was,’ he says. ‘And yeah, sometimes I do. But not often. And not in the same way.’
The older man nods. ‘You petition her, perhaps. Plead for help. When things aren’t going how they should.’
‘Something like that.’
Ralph joins him at the table. ‘Some might say that isn’t really a conversation. They might say it’s an appeal to a deity you’ve disguised as a loved one. They might tell you that a conversation has to flow in two directions, and for that you mustn’t simply talk, you must listen. Really listen.’
Joseph thinks of yesterday’s cemetery visit. How he’d managed to touch Claire’s headstone but not look.
Ralph smiles. ‘If it’s really Claire you seek, then it’s time you opened your ears to her, Joseph. It’s time you opened your eyes, too.’
Joseph clears his throat, tries to shake off the dreamlike mood that’s stolen over him.
‘Saturday night, at the party. We were talking about Erin’s intruder.
I know it was a false alarm but it got me thinking about security, and then I remembered you offered to show me the ropes on your doorbell cam. ’
‘I did,’ Ralph says. From the depths of his robe he retrieves his phone. Unlocking it, he opens the Nest app and angles the screen. ‘The camera’s idling right now. But if I press here, it’ll wake and show me the live view. See?’
Suddenly, Joseph’s looking at an astonishingly high-resolution image of his own house, from the perspective of Ralph’s front porch. ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘What’s the view like after dark?’
‘Great – it switches over to night vision. You can change the sensitivity trigger for what it records, but I like to keep it high – you’d be surprised at how much wildlife you get to see. When you want to check recent events, you just press here. Or, for a full history, here.’
‘Would you mind if I had a play around?’
‘Be my guest. Would you like some more shogayu?’
‘I’d love some.’
Ralph hands over his phone and gets up from the table. Joseph, recalling the instructions he researched on Claire’s iPhone, opens the app’s settings menu.
He taps Delete video history . Then he taps Delete to confirm. It’s ridiculously easy, ridiculously quick. If what he read online is correct, Google don’t keep backups, which means the evidence on Ralph’s device has disappeared for good.
‘How strange,’ the widower says, from where he’s standing by the stove, ‘that we were only just talking about the importance of opening your eyes. And it turns out you came here seeking better ways of seeing.’
Actually, Joseph came here to prevent others from seeing, but he’s not going to argue the point. He jumps out of the app’s settings and back into the live view of his house. Thanks to the clock at the top of the screen, he’s able to note the exact moment that a police car pulls into his driveway.