I tried to remember the nightmare. There had been the man, James, holding the green shoe in his hand, the mirror, dark against the wall, and the feet and legs and body on the bed. Then there had been his intense anger at my intrusion and the sensation of suffocation and falling. Now James, the man from my dream, had entered my real life. I thought of the strangeness surrounding his death, the positioning of the body close to the underground room, the mirror in the darkness beneath. I shivered and downed the rest of the wine in my glass.
Pouring myself another, I looked at the open file on the coffee table. I knew there were pages still unread but I was unsure now if I wanted to continue. I couldn’t begin to imagine what they might contain. Instead, I tried to think about eating something. But the thought left me nauseous. I wasn’t hungry and, besides, it was late. I paced up and down the room thinking, trying to make sense of things. Finally I walked over to the television in the corner of the room and turned it off. Even though the sound hadn’t been on loud, the room was plunged instantly into deep silence. It spilled over me and somehow brought with it calm. I walked back to the sofa and lay down. I stared at the file open beside me on the coffee table but I couldn’t summon the energy to reach across to it. The will to continue reading had now completely deserted me. Instead I tried to relax and let the quietness take control.
24
THE SOUND OF the telephone woke me, shattering the comforting silence of my sleep. It set my nerves instantly on edge. I attempted to open my eyes but they were cemented shut. Lying still for a moment, I tried to remember where I was. My whole body was cold, aching and my mouth felt as dry as a desert.
The insistent grating of the telephone continued. Turning onto my side, I prised my eyelids apart. I was still on the sofa in the sitting room. Late-morning sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating an empty red-wine bottle, a half-empty glass and a yellow file on the table beside me. A trail of wine had snaked down the length of the glass and formed a deep purple circle around its base on the table top. I breathed in deeply, closed my eyes and surrendered momentarily to the dull thud of a hangover forming in the recesses of my brain. As I lay there, incapacitated, the harsh ringing of the telephone suddenly stopped. It left an ominous silence in its wake, a silence that seemed to be speaking to me. I opened my eyes again, grabbed my watch from the coffee table. ‘Shit,’ I yelled and jumped up.
Half an hour later, I sprang out of a cab and ran towards the doors of our Shoreditch office. I felt sick as I sprinted up the steps to them two at a time. As I moved towards Richard’s office, I found myself hating, not for the first time, our open-plan arrangement. Multiple stares rose from the paperwork on various desks and followed my progress as I marched briskly across the floor. I began to sweat and the colour rose in my cheeks. Why on earth hadn’t I taken five more minutes to brush my hair and find a clean shirt? I really hadn’t thought this through properly. As I passed Tara’s desk, she leaped up and walked with me.
She looked concerned. ‘I tried calling you. Where were you?’
I shrugged, not replying.
‘Look, do you think it’s a good idea to go and see him in this state?’ She indicated my crumpled appearance.
‘Yeah. I think it’s better to just deal with it now.’ Although, to tell the truth, I didn’t know whether it was. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Only that this seemed better than the alternative of turning round and leaving across the open-plan office again.
As we reached Richard’s door Tara’s hand intercepted mine. She held the handle closed for a second. ‘Are you sure it isn’t better to go home, take a shower, come back later with some drawings? He really wants to see some progress, Johnny.’ Tara was looking at me, her eyes pleading. I noticed then, for the first time, that she too looked tired. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you could offer him that?’
She was probably right but something in me didn’t want to turn back. Besides, I wasn’t sure that I could offer Richard any progress, now or later. I smiled. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.’ And I moved her hand out of the way and turned the handle.
As I stepped into Richard’s office the first thing I noticed was the sunlight pouring in through the windows. The blinds had been lowered but the light still shone unforgivingly across the room. I blinked as I walked through it, imagining myself in high definition, a tired, bedraggled spectacle with untidy hair and clothes. Again I regretted my earlier decision not to simply turn on my heels and leave. But now it was too late. I was in full view, exposed by the glowing winter brightness. I was vaguely aware of Tara following me, closing the door behind us, and of Richard rising from the chair behind his desk and muttering something to me. But what it was I didn’t hear. I came to a halt and when I saw Richard gesture to a seat I felt my knees bend in reflex. Only when I had been sitting for a moment or two did I notice Hajime, one of our senior associates, standing beside Richard’s chair.
‘Hi there,’ I said to him. I heard my own voice clearly, so the acoustics at least seemed to be back to normal. ‘It’s a little bright in here, don’t you think?’
He nodded and smiled, but even in my somewhat dazed state I noticed how uncomfortable he seemed. I turned my attention back to Richard who was now seated once more, staring down at his desk.
‘Hi, Richard,’ I began. ‘Sorry I’m so late for our meeting. Am I interrupting anything now?’
‘No, no, no,’ he said, but his tone seemed to imply that he was somewhat at a loss. He looked from me to Tara and then back again, without his usual display of certainty.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ventured.
‘Yes,’ he said, eventually, taking a breath and running a hand through his hair. This seemed to embolden him. ‘In fact, perhaps it’s better that you’re here now.’
‘Okay,’ I said but added nothing more. The intense sunlight seemed to heighten the tension in the room and I felt a quiver of unease in my stomach.
‘Look, Johnny . . .’
As soon as I heard the words I closed my eyes. I knew what was coming. For some reason, an image of the mirror flashed across my mind.
‘. . . I don’t really know how to say this. So I’m just going to say it.’ Then Richard paused, as if in doubt about whether he was in fact going to say it. He cleared his throat and, in spite of myself, I felt for him. He was nervous and it can’t have been a feeling that sat very easily with him. ‘Things don’t seem to have been heading in the right direction on this project for a little while now. I think perhaps you might even agree?’
He paused again for a moment and I thought about contradicting him, jumping in with some upbeat statements about my ideas and drawings, saying that the finished designs were just around the corner. I thought about telling him that he’d got it completely wrong. If he’d only give me a little more time there’d be something exceptional coming his way. But when I opened my mouth to speak no words came out. Something in me couldn’t do it. I couldn’t muster the capacity to lie. So instead I closed my mouth again and let the unexpected winter sunlight wash over me, bright and cleansing. I looked at him and simply waited for what was coming next.
‘Well,’ he soldiered on, ‘given that we’re now behind on the timetable and there’s no real concrete sign of drawings that can realistically be shown to the client . . .’ Richard hesitated for a second, perhaps waiting for an interjection from me that didn’t come. ‘I really feel I have no choice but to reassign the factory project.’
He rushed out the last few words. Still, their meaning was clear enough. He was firing me from the job. I had dreaded being given this news, had felt it hanging over me, heavily, for a couple of weeks. But now it had actually been delivered I felt surprisingly little. If anything, relief spilled through me. I turned to Hajime and really saw him for the first time. Of course, that was why he was here. Our talented Japanese associate. He was diligent, ambitious, unkempt but in a stylish sort of way. In short, he was everything that I was not.
I followed his aver
ted gaze, unable to meet mine, to the table in front of him and Richard. It was only then that I noticed the photographs of the factory, its spaces, its light, its machinery, the pile of surveyors’ drawings, the few rough pencil sketches. I took a breath and looked out of the window into the sunlight. Then my gaze returned to the desk. Yes, there was no mistaking it. There were pictures and documents concerning the factory renovation. So this had been a done deal before today. I felt a slow uncurling of anger in my stomach. Whatever I might have said to Richard, however I might have tried to redeem myself now, it would have been too late. The process had already started. They had begun to carve up factory floors, eager to get their hands dirty on the job.
I looked at Richard, at my friend, who had made no real effort to speak to me about his concerns. And I felt fury take hold of me, fury directed at him. In that moment I wanted to yell, to scream into the sunlight, to say everything I’d ever held back. But as the words failed me, as I sat silently, I felt the momentum of my anger shift. Towards myself: I had let this happen, I had not raised my own anxieties with him but rather had sought to keep him in the dark about them and had asked others to do the same.
I turned to look at Tara, feeling the regret swell and tangle inside me. She had tried to warn me, to help me and even when I hadn’t listened she had stood by me, by every bad decision I had made. And she had lied to Richard for me. I looked at her face, pale, stricken. Perhaps this was a shock to her too, something she had not been expecting quite yet. Yet it had all been heading inexorably to this point.
I smiled at her as I stood up, somewhat shakily, and pushed the chair away from me. ‘Tell me just one thing, Richard. Has Hajime been to the factory already to have a look at things? Perhaps he’s been a few times, when Tara and I haven’t been there?’
After a moment or two, Richard nodded and had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny, but I had to take steps . . . in case . . .’ His voice petered out.
‘I understand. Tara noticed that someone had been coming in and out. She just didn’t know who it was.’
I turned to look at her but she didn’t see me. She was facing Richard, a furious expression on her face. So he had kept her in the dark about his plans. I had to hand it to him. He could be a ruthless bastard when he wanted to be. ‘Funny,’ I said to myself, moving towards the door.
‘I’ll need your factory keys back, Johnny. You won’t be needing them now.’ Richard’s tone was impassive, his voice composed. ‘I’m sorry to ask it but . . .’
I stopped and turned back to face him. I studied his chiselled face, the set expression, his brown eyes, the hardness at their edge. He didn’t look like he was sorry.
I felt the anger rise within me again. I looked out of the window and saw a rush of dark clouds across the sky, casting a pall over the city. The next moment the brilliant sunshine vanished from the room. As I pulled the factory keys from my pocket, I noticed a bitter taste in my mouth. I swallowed and tried to clear my head. But it was then that the images hit me. A mirror in the blackness, a man, James Brimley, a man from my dreams, dead upon a factory floor. The green eyes of a girl, the blackness of a queen. The images tumbled through my mind, disconnected. Then I saw the keys sitting in the palm of my hand. As Richard reached across to take them, it took all my strength, all of my composure not to snatch my hand away. A dark reflection flickered in front of my eyes and vanished. Then Richard pocketed the keys.
I smiled at him for a moment. A brief, tight smile filled with hate. Then I turned on my heels and left.
25
THAT EVENING I was sitting at Ophelia’s dining table, having just recounted the sorry story of being fired from the factory project. A half-empty bottle of red wine sat in front of me. I took a large mouthful from my glass and wondered for the hundredth time how it had happened. Even now, having gone over the details with Ophelia, it all still felt somewhat unreal. I looked at the silver candlestick next to the bottle of wine, at the white candle, cascades of wax clinging to its side. I frowned. Somehow the candlestick looked different today from the way it had looked the last time I was here. And yet it was the same candlestick, I was sure. Perhaps it was simply that everything looked different now. Jaded, tainted.
I pulled off a piece of wax, rolled it into a small white ball and placed it next to the yellow file open beside me on the table. I stared at it for a time, then took another large gulp of wine. It seemed like the best thing to do in the circumstances. Closing my eyes, I rubbed my fingers across them. I was tired, I needed some rest. But in the darkness behind my eyelids I saw an image of the keys of the factory sitting in the palm of my hand, my offering to Richard. My eyes snapped open and my anger, which had abated somewhat, rose ferociously once more. I came back to the question I had been asking myself all day. Which of these two scenarios was worse? Being sacked from the project or being evicted from its premises?
‘Here you go.’ Ophelia was making her way back into the room, carrying a sandwich. She moved the bottle of red wine and set the plate down on the table in front of me. ‘Now eat this. You can’t just drink.’ She ran her fingers through my hair and kissed me on the cheek. Then she sat opposite me again.
‘Thanks,’ I said, but simply looking at the sandwich made me feel queasy. I pushed the plate towards Ophelia with an apologetic smile. Then I refilled our wine glasses.
‘You really should eat,’ she said, but without much conviction. We sat for a moment or two in silence. ‘So what I can’t work out is why Richard wouldn’t have discussed his issues with you first. It’s all very draconian, especially as you’re supposed to be his friend.’ Ophelia frowned, narrowing her eyes.
I simply nodded. I had been thinking about it all day and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was still angry with me over Tara. Whether he knew it or not, that had probably had a bearing on his decision-making. Kill two birds with one stone. Get me off the project. And get me off the project in which she was involved.
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Ophelia continued.
Except that perhaps it did. The old green-eyed monster had raised its head again. With that thought, something else came to mind. Instinctively my right hand reached for the yellow file open beside me, my fingers resting against the roughness of the paper.
‘What is that, by the way?’ Ophelia pointed to the file. ‘You keep touching it. Are you making sure it’s real?’ And she laughed.
But, ironically, she was right on point. ‘Funny you should say that.’ I smiled. ‘It’s a file that Tara prepared for me. I read some of it last night but I haven’t had a chance to tell you about it.’ The events of the day flashed in fast-forward through my mind and again I had a sense of the unreality of things. I stared at the candlestick to see if that helped. It didn’t. But the coolness of the paper under my right hand, the solidity of the table beneath it, soothed me. ‘It’s mostly about James Brimley, one-time boss of the factory.’ I took a breath. ‘And the investigations into how he died there.’
‘Oh,’ said Ophelia, her laughter all gone.
‘Do you want me to tell you about it?’
‘Only if you want to.’ She looked at me as she took a sip of her wine. ‘It’s been a bit of a day for you, after all.’
Images of the meeting cascaded through my brain. Then leaving the Shoreditch office, pounding the streets for a while trying to make sense of things, ignoring calls from Tara and finally heading home. Finishing reading the file had turned out to be a welcome distraction – even if there were other unexpected things within it. ‘No, it’s fine. Really. It takes my mind off today, at least.’ I thought of Richard’s outstretched hand once more, reclaiming the factory keys, and my mortification and fury rose again. I took another gulp of wine, swallowed it down and began the story of James Brimley’s death.
As I talked about what Tara had uncovered, Ophelia watched me, her green eyes calm, collected. Only when I paused for breath did she interject. ‘So James was found dead in the dispatch
room?’
It was less of a question than a statement, but I nodded nonetheless. Then I showed her the drawing that the coroner had made, the cross marking the place where the body had been discovered. ‘Tara and I must have walked over the spot hundreds of times.’
Ophelia looked at me and shuddered. ‘Creepy. And the circumstances of the death were creepy, too.’
‘Right. And yet the coroner concluded he died from natural causes . . .’
‘But . . .? Aren’t you convinced?’
‘There’s nothing conclusive. It’s all circumstantial stuff like scuffs on his hands and marks on his neck. There’s nothing really to suggest suicide or some kind of wrangle with an intruder. There’s nothing really to point to foul play.’
‘So what are you thinking?’ Ophelia’s eyes had narrowed again.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. But something about it doesn’t stack up.’ I thought about my nightmare again. That didn’t stack up either.
‘What is it, Johnny?’ Ophelia said.
I sighed. ‘Do you remember me telling you about the nightmare I had? A few weeks ago?’
‘Of course I remember.’ She paused. ‘The one in which you thought you died.’
I pulled the article with the photographs of James from the file and placed them in front of her. ‘Turns out that he was the man from my nightmare.’
‘James?’
I nodded.
Ophelia stared at me for a second, uncomprehending.
‘I know, I know. It’s a head fuck.’
‘So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. A man who you see in a dream turns out to have actually existed.’ She paused. ‘And to have worked in the place where you now work.’
I nodded again. We were both silent for a few minutes, each caught in our own thoughts.
‘It’s . . . well . . . I don’t know.’
‘Exactly. I started to wonder if I was going mad.’ I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. ‘And then today it got even weirder.’ I flicked through Tara’s file until I came to the right document. I pulled it out and placed it in front of Ophelia.
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