I yearn to share the happy state they are hardly aware of. Breathing, touching, smelling, tasting. Living. It’s excruciating to have lost it. Beyond this room, beyond the reception area, out on the street below, in the Monday morning bustle of Brighton’s Western Road stretches a multitude of these incredible, brilliant creatures, of whom so recently I was one.
My fervent thoughts trigger hope. Before death, said Scotty, that’s when the emotional investment has to be made, but surely repentance must count for something? I redouble the affection I’m beaming at this delectable duo, drawing on the deepest reserves of my training and talent to get into character, building to a flood of unconditional love. The outward rush of emotion is powerful: it has me spinning in the air above the will and the pending tray, lifting me upwards, certain at last I am free. I love humanity, and today I will go out among them.
I rise so far and no further, brought to a sharp halt inches short of the ceiling. The laws of the universe are not to be fooled: there is no one I truly love, and my freedom is bounded and useless. I drift disconsolately down to where Pearl’s searching has finally located the will. ‘How careless of me,’ she says. ‘I should have locked it away.’ She’s passing the plastic folder and me across the desk into Simon’s eager hands.
‘Something for me?’
I’m filled abruptly with shame. I can’t bear to watch. My bequest snubs and demeans him. I should have been kinder.
‘But how generous,’ he’s saying. ‘I didn’t presume to expect, not for a moment. Harry knew I had money troubles – I have a small antiques business, and the market is not what it was – but I never once asked him for help.’
Pearl shifts uneasily. ‘I should have explained better,’ she says. ‘There is something for you, but that isn’t why I asked you to come. I take it you know that you’re also an executor?’
Simon’s jaw drops. Then he beams. ‘I am? But how flattering.’
I’d forgotten this detail myself. When drafting the will, Pearl prompted me to involve someone acquainted with the house and its contents. Who better than a neighbour who dabbles in antiques?
He shakes his head now in wonderment as he slides the will out of the folder. Don’t read it, Simon. I don’t want you to read it.
‘Most people check with their executors to make sure they’re willing,’ Pearl says. ‘It can be an onerous task. You aren’t sole executor. The other’s myself, representing Walker, Macpherson & Allen, so if you’d rather take a back seat, that’s fine – you’ll hardly need to do a thing except sign a few papers, though I’d be grateful if you could bring me any financial documents he kept in the house.’
Simon isn’t listening. To Pearl’s evident discomfort, he’s scanning the pages of the will for his name. She pushes on, covering her embarrassment with talk. ‘The more I do, the greater our charges will be of course, but the estate looks to be huge – legal charges won’t dent it. I’ll give you a schedule of our rates – hold on.’ She taps away at her keyboard, and the printer starts chugging.
Then Simon says, ‘Oh,’ and his hand with the will in it drops to his lap, jerking me after it. Unprepared for the movement, I shoot on past to the floor, where I linger in an agony of remorse. One thousand pounds with thanks for his services. Did I intend to insult him? I fear that I did. The sum stands as recompense for the pains he took as helpful neighbour, that he will doubtless take now as executor, but beyond that the message is ‘get lost, you bothersome idiot’, words I swallowed in life because of his usefulness to me.
His suede lace-ups have seen better days. There are mouse droppings on the plush green carpet. But my efforts to distract myself with these trifles are useless. I drift reluctantly upwards and peer over the edge of the desk.
‘Mr Foyle, I’m so sorry,’ Pearl is saying. ‘He wasn’t a nice man.’
The wall-clock shows 6.30. The day is slipping away. The edge of the will remains visible, poking out of the folder on top of this filing cabinet by the door. I hover on the brink of calamity. I’m going to be shut up in the dark any minute, there’s no knowing for how long, it could be weeks, months, even years. Pearl rarely consults papers, does the bulk of her work on computer. This could be my last glimpse of the world before eventually what – a shredder, an archive?
Simon left hours ago. My mood rallied, cheered by their telephone conversations with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The head bean-counter came to the phone, then a couple of big cheeses who were clearly knocked sideways by my colossal bequest. But in a moment of horror to match that at the crematorium, the first thing Pearl did after she saw Simon out was to put the will in the folder and take the folder to the filing cabinets that stand in a row by the door. She parked it on top of them and slid open a drawer, while I shrieked unheard at the end of my tether.
The moment passed. She fished out a wodge of company letterhead and some pre-franked envelopes and returned to her desk, leaving me here, reeling with shock. The stay of execution can only be temporary. Before she goes home for the evening, she’ll be back, opening another drawer, dropping the folder in, closing it, locking it.
6.35. I can’t think straight for anxiety. Pickles 64123, do you read me? Please answer. I strain to conjure you from the air, imagine you perched beside me, dangling your feet, wriggling your toes, or else practising your lotus position on the green carpet. Please Scotty, hear me. I need you.
A receptionist looks in. ‘I’m off now.’
‘Okay, goodnight, Chloe,’ says Pearl. ‘See you tomorrow.’
6.43. There’s no word from Scotty, no shimmer of golden curls or insouciant smile. Pearl paces between desk and window, phone to ear, trying to soothe the couple in Saltdean, pausing to make yackety-yack faces at herself in the small mirror that hangs on the wall. Earlier there were several calls from the media before she instructed reception to say yes, the firm was dealing with Lord Whittaker’s estate but had no comment to make at this stage – there would be a press release in due course.
6.58. She finishes the call and returns to her computer. I don’t know what she’s been working on – my leash is too short to see. She’s printing off sheets of letterhead, the envelopes too, checking them, signing them, sealing them, and – no, stop! – she’s tidying her desk, throwing notes and scraps in the waste bin, brushing the crumbs of her lunchtime sandwich to the floor. Half-standing, she waits as a last letter prints. She signs it, seals it, and then it’s happening, she’s ready to leave. Briefly, she examines her reflection, smoothing her straightened hair behind her ears and practising her smile. Then she picks up the letters, shoves them into her shoulder bag, and heads straight towards me.
No escape, here she is, there’s no stopping her. She parks her bag on the cabinet next to me and stoops to open a drawer.
Her hand rises through the air for the folder. The open drawer yawns below me like the gateway to hell. I dive for the remembered safety of the shoulder bag that lies here beside me. I’m in under its flap, burrowing amongst its contents, but it’s useless. The will has me hog-tied. There’s no way to save myself. I’ll be dragged from this sanctuary and into the metal drawer that even now I hear sliding shut.
Shut, did I say? Yes, there’s the sound of the key turning, but the bag lurches and steadies, bumping along and away, and somehow I’m here, still inside it, not filed, back on Pearl Allen’s hip, saved again – can it be? But of course! – by a medium for an idea or a message, by these letters that must carry news of my bequests. In the dim light inside the bag I can make out the aura around them. I was too panicked to see it before: everything I was about to lose sight of was so sharp and so bright.
A door opens and closes, and another key turns. The flap of the bag lifts and a bunch of keys drops past me into the clutter. I’m hearing the tap of Pearl’s heels on the stairs. Bright daylight seeps in around the flap of the bag, and all at once I’m revelling in the fabulous sounds of traffic and bustle and the chatter of strangers’ voices as she strides along Western Road. I turn
somersaults of glee among the throat sweets and tampons.
Before long she halts, lifts the flap, and here comes her hand again, closing on the bundle of letters. Out they go, into the evening sunlight, and out I go too. Wonderful! The startling vastness of outside. The infinite sky busy with gulls riding the wind. A red and white bus flashes past.
The vision is brief. There is no time to savour it. I’m plunged into shadow again, shooting with the letters through the slot of a pillar box, tumbling to the pile of post below, where I hover – dazed, reprieved, apprehensive – peering eagerly through the darkness, trying to decipher the addresses on this scatter of envelopes, praying that one of them will be to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Damn it, they have landed face down.
Tuesday
Lily
On the echoing upper concourse of St Pancras Station, the man scanning the crowd from a stool in the champagne bar was charming, affable, well-dressed, well-educated, well-travelled, articulate, outgoing, talented, independent and attentive. At least that was what his online profile said, and here he was at a bar-table for two waiting for tonight’s lucky lady to show. The barman was primed to breeze over the moment she arrived with two glasses of their cheapest bubbles, a smallish investment while he sized up whether to move her on to the Grand Brasserie, or to a pizza house, or to apologise that he couldn’t stay long after all, he had a last-minute work commitment.
He refreshed her mugshot on his phone. She should be easy to spot. Lots of brown hair swept off a smooth forehead above an elegant profile, her chin confidently raised. When she appeared, he would lock eyes with her and smile in delighted recognition, sliding from his stool and throwing his arms wide, offering a bear-hug before she knew what had hit her. It worked nine times out of ten. He wasn’t tall or particularly attractive, but his ad didn’t lay claim to either, and his online image was recognisably him, even if flatteringly enhanced by a fedora. The women were never as fit as their photographs either, and the secret of pulling them, he’d found, was to greet them like long-lost best friends.
He had high hopes of this one. Her emails were spirited and witty, and her voice on the phone was enticing, with none of the vamping or inane giggles that some of them seemed to think were alluring. The two or three restaurant meals needed to bed her could be a canny investment. Lily Caruthers could well see him through the summer. Who knew, he might even get serious.
Here she came. The same hair. The same profile. Young and fresh-looking, her face averted as if she expected to find him over there, not over here. He waited, poised to spring the smile and offer the hug.
Then she turned and met his eyes, and he saw what she’d been hiding, what her online image concealed. She was ten yards away, walking fast towards him, and he was on autopilot, down from the stool, arms wide, thinking, shit, there was no way he was taking this one to a restaurant.
She had the cheek – no, rephrase that, the gall – to refuse the hug. ‘We don’t know each other,’ she said smoothly, ‘and I can see you’re a bit taken aback.’ She extended her hand to be shaken.
‘No, no, not at all.’
She was wriggling up onto a stool, and the drinks were here, twenty quid down the drain, the waiter pretending not to notice his date’s hideous disfigurement.
‘This is nice of you. Thanks so much. Cheers,’ she said.
He hoisted himself onto his own stool, pulled out his cigarettes and spun the packet on the table. ‘No smoking, sir,’ said the waiter.
‘I’ve upset you,’ she said.
He couldn’t look at her, didn’t want to. He watched the waiter to the bar, made a meal of returning the cigarettes to his pocket, then frowned up at the great, airy span of the glass-and-iron train shed.
‘I promise you, it’s only skin deep.’
He snatched a glance at her. Eugh, what a nerve. Enough with the stiff upper lip. She kept on about it, she was asking for it, she needed telling. He leaned in, lowering his voice. ‘Upset hardly covers it. Pissed off more like, because you’re bang out of order, not mentioning something so gross.’
‘Excuse me?’ Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Well, that’s friendly, I must say.’
What did she expect? He glanced towards the stairs that led down to the lower concourse and the Underground. She twisted to follow his gaze, then turned back. ‘I could say the same thing,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember you telling me that you’re wider than you’re tall and follicly challenged.’
His hand shot to his head. He pulled in his stomach. ‘Totally different,’ he said.
She smiled and said nothing.
‘Not the same thing at all.’
‘Quite different things, I agree.’ Her smile became a grin, dimpling one cheek, crumpling the other. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I can cover my shame with one hand. Can you?’
‘Not funny.’
‘You’re right, I shouldn’t mock, but “gross” had me riled. Look. Stop. Rewind.’ She held the hand out to him. ‘Neither of us wanted to be pre-judged, that’s all.’
He wasn’t going to engage with this. It was time to cut his losses. He bent to grab his laptop bag from under the stool.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Brilliant. I see.’
He shouldered the bag. Stood for a second, taking a good, long look at her. Half woman, half aubergine.
‘What happened to the non-smoker with the great sense of humour?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘The drinks are paid for. Have them on me.’ He was away, heading fast for the stairs, pulling out the cigarettes and fishing for his lighter.
‘Are you all right, madam?’
The waiter was back. Nosy or kind, it amounted to the same thing. She hated the presumption of strangers. ‘Fine, thanks.’
She took a swallow of champagne and shifted the stool so her back was to the waiter and the bar. No escape: in the middle of the concourse a young man and woman stood hand in hand, gawping at her like kids at the zoo.
She took another gulp of fizz, all set to slip off the stool and leave. But wait. Let a few minutes pass. If she bolted now for the Underground, just her rotten luck she would overtake Mr Bald Ego, find herself on the same platform as him and have to endure his disgust once again. She pushed the empty glass aside and picked up the second. What a creep. She’d assumed all those adjectives in his ad were ironic, but he was just a humourless fart.
Calm down, she told herself. This was just as much her fault. She’d been half-crazy this week: throwing Martin out, playing dangerous games with that wide-boy removal man, defying insomnia by cruising dating sites at three in the morning. She had no business dating so soon, so impetuously. She’d forgotten what a minefield it was, and the bastard was right: she should have come clean on the phone.
She took deep breaths of station air, the smell of elsewhere: Nottingham, Sheffield, Brussels and Paris. Feet echoed on the concourse. None of it mattered.
It was a mistake swallowing champagne so fast – the bubbles massed painfully beneath her ribs – but the alcohol was taking the edge off. Her head spun slightly. She hadn’t done the little shit justice. If he were still here, she’d be tearing strips off him.
‘Bugger the lot of them, eh?’ said the waiter, collecting the first empty glass.
She drained the second and held it out to him. His eyes were on her cheek. Then they dropped to her breasts.
She half-twisted her ankle as she slid off the stool. She swallowed the pain and kept walking.
The curious glances on the Underground were harder than usual to ignore. She met them belligerently, forcing one person after another to look away. ‘No offence meant,’ said a young man. ‘You need to get over yourself.’
What she needed was to be alone. She sprinted up the escalator and power-walked the streets towards home. Turning the last corner, she played step-right-step-left with a woman holding a large dog on a lead, who blurted out, ‘Hi!’ before, ‘Sorry, not thinking. We’re neighbours. I’m across your back fence.’
Inside, she paced the hall, throwing her bag on the stairs and yelling obscenities. At the nosy neighbour. At her horrible date and that chancer of a waiter. At her arsehole of a husband. At herself for her misery.
Gradually she calmed down and picked up the mail, most of it junk advertising, but there was one that looked interesting. High-grade white envelope. Brighton postmark.
Thursday
Harry
My, some bits of that journey were exhilarating. I wouldn’t say no to a repeat. I even enjoyed the rough-handling into the mail sack and being thrown onto and dragged out of the post office van. I was bidding goodbye to Death and his minions, back in the world and finally on my way somewhere interesting. Not a hope in hell as it turned out, but the optimism was good while it lasted.
As Pearl’s face-down letters sank in the growing pile awaiting collection, I relished the music of traffic and chattering shoppers that filtered in through the pillar-box slot. I imagined the possibilities that lay ahead. At some point in the bowels of the postal system I was going to be faced with a split-second choice of which letter to follow. What luxury to have options at last! Much as it was tempting to fly to the Royal Shakespeare Company, more filing cabinets lurked there, so I decided against it. Better to land on the doormat of some trivial person who would make much of the letter, finger it, re-read it, show it to others. I reviewed my beneficiaries accordingly.
With an upsurge of elation it hit me – one of them was my sourpuss of a domestic! Was it possible that, in a magnificent stroke of fate, Mrs Butley would be my saviour? She’d been keeping an eye on my house, Simon said, feeding Henry V every day. It just needed the satisfying spite of One thousand pounds with thanks for her services to count as emotional investment, and I could attach myself to her letter. She would curse me and slander me, but I would relish the spectacle, and with luck she would cart Pearl’s missive around in her ugly great handbag to flap indignantly in the face of anyone who would listen. She would carry it, and me along with it, over the threshold next time she fed Henry! I was dancing with joy in the dark pillar box at the prospect of being home safe.
The Posthumous Adventures of Harry Whitaker Page 10