Brand New Friend

by Kate Vane

‘Dunno. I was probably off my face. I only remembered it because of the fire. You see anyone else from those days? What about Isabel? She was gorgeous, wasn’t she? I totally had the hots for her back then. Even spoke to Claire about it, but she said Isabel only fucked strangers. I wonder what she’s doing now.’

  Paolo didn’t answer.

  ‘So you know how Claire was when she was pissed, I just forgot about it. Till I heard about the fire and I thought, maybe Claire, or Mark, or whoever did it, meant to set up the security guard, but something went wrong. I was sure no one we knew would want to kill him. But now, from what we know about Mark, I’ve got to think again. Supposing he did mean to kill the guy, set us up for murder, did it without telling his boss? Then maybe his boss thought, this is too heavy, criminal damage while undercover is one thing but murder, fuck that, and they agreed between them that Mark would take off?’

  ‘Do you think that likely?’

  ‘No,’ conceded Ratman, ‘but that’s the point, isn’t it? All we know about Mark is what he told us, and that was all lies.’

  ‘But at the time you thought Mark or Claire did it.’

  ‘Claire asked me if I’d done it. I couldn’t have done. I was in Bradford when it happened. I’d been to a gig at the 1 in 12 Club the night before and ended up crashing at someone’s house and staying another day and night. But the way she asked was like she didn’t really think I’d done it, more wanted to confirm what she already knew.’

  ‘Because of the risk to life?’

  ‘Me?’ Ratman said. ‘To be honest, if I’d thought of it I would have done it. I was a mad fucker back then, and an angry one. But I didn’t think of it. When Mark called off the other thing I was happy to wait till we got a better idea.’

  Ratman waved at the bar and one of the achingly cool staff brought two more drinks. Paolo looked askance and Ratman said apologetically, ‘I’m an investor in the place.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Fucking mad, ain’t it?’

  ‘So you’ve done alright for yourself.’

  ‘I’ve been one lucky bastard. I won a shitload of money at the bookies. I was living in a squat in Hackney at the time, so someone said, “Why don’t you buy a flat?” But the squat was cool, I didn’t want to leave, so I thought, I’ll buy a flat and rent it out. And someone else said, “Don’t buy a flat for cash, for the same money you can put deposits on five flats and then you can offset the mortgage interest against income.” I was always pretty good at figures so I could see how it made sense. So after a while I had to find an accountant, and she said, “Now you’ve got some equity you can use it to buy more property. And while you’re at it you’d better form a limited company.” So there I was, big-time landlord, living in a squat. And the property went up and up in price. No fucker can afford to live in Hackney now.’

  ‘How much did you win?’

  ‘Just shy of a hundred grand.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I know. I’m rich and I’ve done fuck all to deserve it. That’s capitalism for you.’

  ‘What were you betting on?’

  ‘Seven-horse accumulator.’

  ‘Horse racing?’

  ‘I would have said, Don’t tell Mark, but it hardly matters now, does it?’ He laughed, a kind of snort. ‘A vegan animal rights activist backing the gee-gees.’ He made it sound as if it were a rare and fascinating natural phenomenon, not his own hypocrisy. ‘Crazy ain’t it?’

  41

  Paolo had heard the truism that every group must have a scapegoat. Whether it’s an office, a sports team or a shared house, there’s one person who everyone gangs up on to preserve the unity of the whole. They’d never really had that in the house, probably because they were too disparate a group to be united in the first place. But the balance subtly shifted after the arrival of Graham. The surprise was, it wasn’t Graham who became the scapegoat.

  Claire fumed all through the Saturday when Graham moved in (but she did clean the kitchen first, and remind Isabel to remove her clothes from the no-longer-spare room). Paolo got back just as she was finishing.

  He had been to a party and ended up spending the night in Chapeltown with a woman with amazing green eyes. The house had been quiet, he guessed her housemates were out. In the morning she told him she was twenty-eight and had a ten-year-old son who was spending the night with his dad and asked him if he wanted to go to a gig that night.

  He felt he’d had a near-death experience as he snuck out when she went to make a pot of tea (even the pot sounded dangerously domesticated). He didn’t know the buses from Chapeltown so he’d walked into town. He thought at one point he was lost and felt almost tearful with relief when he saw the concrete bulk of the Merrion Centre.

  Isabel was draped on the sofa reading Nietzsche. She was wearing the gorgeous silk garment she wore when she’d just got up. He lounged on the other sofa and just enjoyed her beauty for a moment. He thought of what thwarted desire had driven him to. He had almost ended up a stepdad!

  This was his delicate state when the new lodger came downstairs and hovered in the doorway.

  ‘All done now,’ he said.

  No one answered. Claire came out of the kitchen, rubber gloves up to her elbows, put her hands on her hips. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘Oh. Yes please.’

  ‘We’ve only got soya milk.’ She glared at him.

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘Have a seat –’ Paolo had been about to say his name but then he remembered that he didn’t know it. Isabel was not going to give him space on her sofa so Paolo waved vaguely at the other armchair.

  ‘He’s called Graham,’ said Claire, before Graham could speak, as if she were in a classroom and the teacher had asked a hard question and she wanted to show that she knew the answer.

  Graham nodded but hesitantly, as if he were just pretending that he’d also known the answer all along.

  Graham and Claire’s friendship progressed from there. When she told him they were all vegetarian, he agreed not to cook meat in the house. He said he mostly ate at the Refectory or Nafees anyway. When Claire lamented that Isabel and Paolo never washed up, he got up and did the dishes, even though they weren’t his.

  Over time Claire began to compare Dudley unfavourably to Graham. It was as if Graham had introduced her to a new model for an engineering student who you’ve got nothing in common with but somehow are sharing a house with.

  ‘Dhanesh never hangs out with us. Like when we had the house meal everyone else came.’

  Paolo probably wouldn’t have come himself, apart from the fact that he happened to be home and it meant he wouldn’t have to cook. Graham was there and set up some fancy flashing lights. Mark made guacamole and helped Claire serve up. Kev serenaded them after dinner. Isabel graced them with her presence but couldn’t strictly be said to have eaten, although she did wave a cigarette in the general direction of the food. Dudley, however, said he had to study for an exam.

  The thing that got to her though, was that he’d started eating meat in his room. Since he got the microwave, he had upgraded from Pot Noodle to ready meals.

  ‘I suppose it’s his choice,’ said Paolo weakly, because the truth was he didn’t like it much either.

  ‘It’s his choice if he wants to live somewhere else. We made an agreement when we decided to live together, and he’s broken it.’

  Paolo supposed he was to blame. He’d told Claire that Dudley was a veggie. He’d thought that Dudley had good taste in music and was an alright bloke so they likely saw the world in much the same way. Okay, perhaps he could have done something more concrete, like ask him. But it might have meant having to start house-hunting all over again.

  He knew that for Claire it was about more than that. It was a long, slow struggle. Like when they leafleted McDonald’s, for every person who took an interest there were ten who were indifferent and a couple who were abusive.

  Claire had even been threatened once and Paolo had surged forward, primed to do vi
olence. Claire had looked at him with scornful amusement as she fronted up to the man in his leather blouson. He soon walked away and swung open the door to McDonald’s defiantly. Or would have except he tried to push and the door opened outwards, so his defiance had mutated into sheepishness by the time he got it open.

  He knew why Claire felt oppressed by Dudley. He knew what she was thinking. How can we change the world when we can’t even convince our housemate?

  Now she was trying to get Isabel onside.

  ‘He could at least make an effort,’ said Claire. ‘Graham does.’

  ‘Graham just wants to get in your knickers,’ said Isabel. Paolo sniggered

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Claire, ‘does he?’

  Isabel nodded ominously.

  Paolo said, ‘What about it, you’re always moaning that you can’t get a shag.’

  Claire gave him her iciest stare. ‘These housemate crushes are so embarrassing,’ she said never taking her eyes off him. Despite his Italian olive complexion (or so he liked to think of it) Paolo felt himself blush.

  42

  They were in a cellar somewhere. It was a house party. The cellar was just a cellar, concrete floor, bare-brick walls, a strong smell of damp underneath the newer smells of booze and fags and sweat. There was a stereo and fairy lights, all supported by an extension chord that was strung along the thin wooden bannister that led up to the kitchen. He’d arrived with Claire and was working out how to lose her. Mark was there too. Mark didn’t generally come to parties, if he was in the pub with them he’d usually slope off home, saying he had to be up the next day for work or sabbing or a demo or to help a friend move some gear in his van or some other worthy cause.

  Isabel was at the International Film Club with her posh History of Art friends. He went with her once to see some surrealist film, supposedly to practise his French but actually to sit beside her in the dark for two hours. He found it impenetrable and tedious, though he nodded sagely when Isabel said it had good camera technique. Afterwards they’d all gone to the bar and he’d thought how these were Isabel’s people with their sleek hair and posh accents and black turtlenecks. He wondered, more than ever, what Isabel was doing living in their house.

  Paolo and Claire were both pretty pissed but Mark, of course, wasn’t drinking. As Paolo went round the room, chatting and dancing, he looked back and saw them engaged in their usual earnest conversation, though how they could hear each other he didn’t know. Maybe they didn’t need words but had perfected some special psychic communication that no one else could share. Then suddenly, Mark was beside him, mouth close to his ear, telling him about problems with the sprinkler system in Flemings department store. Paolo zoned out, he left the logistics to Mark and Claire, so it took him a while to realise that their scheme to plant a firebomb in the store was being called off.

  ‘For now,’ said Paolo.

  ‘What?’ asked Mark.

  ‘For now. I mean, they’ll get the sprinklers repaired soon, won’t they?’

  Mark looked back at Claire. ‘We’re not doing it,’ he said simply.

  ‘Who says so? Who’s we?’

  Mark didn’t answer.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Paolo.

  He ran up the cellar steps, not knowing why, not knowing where, and found Fiona in the kitchen exploring the fridge.

  ‘You’re back,’ he said. She was down from Faslane. Some of the city group had spent a few weeks up there with the peace protesters the previous year. Since then there had been frequent trips between Faslane and Leeds by both groups, almost like the French exchange at school.

  Fiona turned when she saw him, smiled and kissed him, pressing her body along his. They’d spent a night together last time she was down here. She’d left the next morning without a word so he thought that was it but perhaps not. He took her hand and headed through the hall and up the next set of stairs. The first bedroom they came to showed signs of activity beneath a pile of coats but the next one was empty and they shut the door behind them as they fell on each other.

  What he liked about Fiona was that she was a woman of contrasts. She was wearing a rough canvas combat shirt, strictly utilitarian, but as he undid the buttons he saw a black lacy bra. Her henna-red hair was tied in a cheery ponytail but her black miniskirt was teamed with sturdy black army boots. She was already easing her woolly tights down over them as he unzipped his jeans.

  This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He could hear people on the stairs, the pounding of music, but as his hands moved over Fiona all he could think about were the earnest whispers of Mark and Claire.

  43

  Was the night he spent with Fiona really the night of the fire, or was his memory playing tricks? He had some recollection of being in bed with her at his house, and getting up, and Dudley being there and saying something about a fire. If it was a Saturday, how would he have known? Had he been to the library? Why was Dudley even there on a weekend?

  What he remembered of that night was Fiona briskly rearranging her clothes and dragging him to another party, and then another and then they ended up back at his. So he hadn’t seen Mark or Claire for the rest of that night.

  He had his laptop out on the kitchen table, a picture of domesticity, even if the pasta al forno had been made for them so all he’d had to do was throw it in the oven and open the wine. Salma was finishing a chapter in her study. The girls were in bed. They were having a grown-up supper, since he’d been late back anyway. It felt good to be home.

  He still remembered Claire’s soliloquy about ‘home’ the night Graham showed up (Dudley would have called it a rant but that didn’t stop him dozing off part way through it). Even in his stoned state it had highlighted for him, once again, the way he and Claire were both different and the same. They had both wanted to escape where they came from but for Claire, this was where she wanted to stay. Leeds, and that house, had never been home for Paolo, just a stop on the way to something better, even if he didn’t know what that something was. He’d spent years chasing it, travelling round the world. And finally he’d found his home. With Salma, in Cairo.

  At least he still had one of the two.

  It occurred to him he had time to call Graham before he had to put his laptop away and set the table, but he felt that little sinking feeling, like when you remember you still haven’t done your tax return or spoken to the people next door about their dog crapping on your patio. His mind conspired with him and turned its thoughts to Dudley.

  Paolo had lost touch with him, like he did with a lot of people. He spent a year in Cairo studying Arabic as part of his course, and when he came back most of the people he knew had graduated. He’d heard that Dudley had gone on to train as a chartered accountant in Birmingham with one of the big firms.

  Paolo could imagine him as finance director of some small engineering firm in the Midlands. Married to Lucy, sending his kids to private schools. A bit of a belly over the waistband of his trousers, too many gadgets on the dashboard of his company car.

  He went onto LinkedIn. It soon became apparent that there were a lot of Dhanesh Guptas worldwide, and that not a few of them had a predilection for accountancy. He filtered by including Leeds University in his search. Still, he might have missed it because it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

  His Dhanesh Gupta was Chief Executive Officer of ZKI International Holdings, a company based in Dubai. He was formerly the Finance Director. His photo was so generically CEO-like that it could have been anyone, so he went over to Google and combined the company’s name with Dudley’s.

  It seemed Dudley was no stranger to PR, at least in the business pages. A profile on his rise, a rather portly Dudley in his office with the obligatory view of skyscrapers beyond the picture window. Dudley on the golf course, Dudley with his wife at a gala dinner for some or other charity. She was a consulting engineer also based in Dubai, born in Beirut, educated at Oxford and MIT.

  Seeing the glass-and-metal desert of Dubai, even in the background,
even on a screen, left him with a visceral sense of loss for his old life. He and Salma had had some fun times there. Its bland internationalism, its sense of being both everywhere and nowhere, stripped of associations, made it the ideal place to decompress after tough assignments. He’d always liked to be there just long enough to get bored, to be itching to return to the real.

  Salma walked in at that moment, and he slammed the laptop shut. It was foolish of him, like he was looking at porn.

  She looked askance as she poured them each a glass of wine then got cutlery from the drawer, as he went to the oven to take out the pasta. He liked this, the way they moved round each other, small domestic rituals accomplished without words, but there was tension as they sat down to eat.

  ‘I was looking up an old uni friend,’ he said finally. ‘He’s CEO of a company, ZKI, based in Dubai.’

  He’d said it. Dubai. And she hadn’t flinched.

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  ‘He never seemed very ambitious. Or curious about the world.’ He frowned. It seemed he hadn’t really known Dudley at all. He was more surprised about Dudley than he was about Mark in a way. Oddly, Mark was the one person from their group who was living the life he might have imagined.

  ‘ZKI? I think this is the company owned by Yevgeny Petrov.’

  He looked blankly at her.

  ‘Father of Natalya?’

  ‘What is she, a reality star or something?’

  ‘She’s a living saint according to some. She has set up her own aid organisation.’

  ‘Funded by Daddy?’

  ‘Of course. But they do some respected work. The unsexy stuff that most high-profile donors avoid. Sanitation, chronic illness. They ran a big campaign on period poverty before anyone else was talking about it and I think now she’s doing something on diabetes.’

  They finished their meal and he fed the great jaws of the dishwasher while Salma topped up their wine.

  ‘I keep wondering who Tilda’s source was. She says the information was sent anonymously, but I don’t know if I believe her.’