Menace

by Gary Fry

  And there were physical transformations, too. Sometimes, while speaking, her language wriggled free of her mental grasp and became words she hadn’t intended: “I” came out as “ah,” “you” as “tha,” and “nothing” as “nowt.” With a professional career in mind, she’d worked hard in the past to erase colloquialisms from her everyday speech, but the unsettling thing was that, even if these old patterns had returned during the upheaval of pregnancy—a psychological regression, perhaps—why did none belong to her London upbringing? The truth was they seemed more in line with someone born—

  “…up north,” said Jane, observing herself in her bathroom mirror. She was getting ready to go out with Luke Catcher, the eminent author of many successful thrillers and a memoir of his youth in Yorkshire, during the 1950s. The man knew she was due to give birth soon—he was still the only person she’d told her news, certainly a disquieting thought—but she’d nonetheless selected a baggy dress that concealed as much as possible the great weight at her waist. She felt apprehensive about meeting the man and tried to reassure herself that this was because he was famous and might be a lot cleverer than she was.

  Her image in the glass winked approval, but this was an involuntary reaction, her rising tension about the evening inducing the nervous twitch her friend had first observed in the West End restaurant. Later, after fleeing to the bathroom, Jane also noticed another problem: the streak of grey in her hair, running from forehead to neckline on her left side. It was still there, un-dyed because Jane had had other things on her mind lately. But the sonographer she’d consulted during her second scan (not Jackie Meadows, who’d struggled to conduct the first) had explained that nurturing a new life inside often resulted in such temporary blemishes: acne, bed sores, the occasional grey hair. It was just the baby stealing sustenance from the mother.

  Something—in truth a lot—about this comment had deeply unsettled Jane, and at the time, she’d pictured the first sonographer’s face after glancing at the confused screen of her monitor…the way it had appeared to register fright… But then Jane had thrust aside all these thoughts, concealing her grey strands—in truth, several hairs were affected—beneath a plait of darker ones. Now she was ready to leave.

  A cab beeped in the street. She went out.

  10

  She’d had another brief email exchange with her dining companion this evening, mainly to confirm the location. It turned out to be a very swanky place in Oxford Street, the sort of joint where menus came without prices to avoid insulting affluent guests, for whom cost was never an issue. From a number of recent projects, Jane had managed to save over £15,000, but didn’t want to fritter away much on unnecessary expenses. She’d insist on going Dutch tonight—it wasn’t a date, after all—and then it was back to her budget, to affordable supermarket shopping and frugal use of utilities.

  As a middle-aged male concierge asked for her booking details—“I’m with Mr. Catcher,” she said with not a little pride—she wondered what this meal was truly about. Were she and the author casual acquaintances and would this meeting be a one-off? Jane supposed that must be the case; she’d guessed he lived up north, maybe even close to his childhood home in Whitby. But then she recalled how much of an assumption this was on her part. That spooky empty property, where she’d witnessed the thing she hoped to discuss tonight, might be no more his original family pad than Jane was his mother… As she was led into a vast, elegant dining room, boasting many chandeliers and velveteen curtains, Jane sensed her eye begin to twitch again—her right, the one always affected in this way when she grew anxious or even a little paranoid.

  Would Luke Catcher anticipate more than merely her company this evening? Jane didn’t even know if he was married, let alone a devoted family man. But he knew she was pregnant, which surely ruled out any illicit expectations. In that case, she should simply relax; he was probably a nice guy, one of six fine brothers, all of whom had made good in life, despite having had an “unusual past.”

  At that moment, nearing one corner of the dining room, Jane spotted the man whose photos she’d seen on his official website.

  Dressed in a suit and tie reminiscent of the one he’d worn as a child, he was a good-looking guy in a rough-and-ready way, as if a gritty northern breeding had weathered him. As he rose from a table for two, his smile brought his pale, craggy face to life, which had looked at first glance a trifle burdened. His eyes—the same intense light blue as those in Jane’s vision, but now marked by crow’s feet—were narrow and knowing, an unsurprising characteristic in a writer, whose knowledge and nous tended to exceed that of the common stock. He nodded to the concierge, the complicit gesture of fellow Masonic types, perhaps; Jane knew such covert organizations were rife in the higher echelons of British society, to which both possibly had affiliations. When the author said how nice it was to meet her, it was in a deep voice that enunciated each word, as if communicating in carefully chosen phrases was an occupational gift or even curse.

  “Good to see you, too,” Jane fired back, as the concierge helped seat her opposite Luke, who’d now retaken his chair. Moments later, a handsome young waiter appeared with leather-bound menus and a wine list. The youth was about to depart at once, leaving them to their frightening intimacy—at least this was how Jane had begun viewing it—when the author halted him.

  “Is claret good for you, Jane?”

  She knew very little about great wines, but experience of many upmarket events had taught her one thing: a decent claret wasn’t cheap. She also knew that this place was unlikely to serve poor wine.

  “Yes. Fine, thanks.” Then she smiled awkwardly, as if what she had to add was an inconvenience to Luke and even the on-looking waiter. Nevertheless, she quickly patted her modest mound nudging against the table. “But I won’t be drinking more than half a glass. I have someone here to set a good example to.”

  Now it was Luke’s turn to look embarrassed. Perhaps he’d forgotten about her pregnancy and the baggy dress she’d chosen had concealed it. “Oh yes, forgive me. It’s been a while since I’ve had to take into account such considerations.”

  The waiter departed with a silent nod, and then the author—he looked in his midsixties, which squared nicely with what Jane knew to be his ’50s upbringing—smiled again, a gentle expression that softened some of his face’s cragginess, a feature that might have resulted from either unfortunate genes or a challenging life.

  His previous comment—about being distant from matters of childbirth—prompted Jane to speak first.

  “Do you have children of your own, Mr. Catcher? And are you married?”

  “Hey, it’s Luke, okay? Plain old Luke.” Jane felt that this humble instruction removed some of the tension involved in speaking to someone whose public reputation was way above her own, but she nonetheless suspected he’d made the comment to evade her questions. She said nothing, giving him an opportunity to reply. And several seconds later, he did. “I have a son and a daughter, both living abroad at the moment. I’m widowed, however. My wife died about a decade ago. Cancer, alas. A wicked combatant.”

  This would explain the absence of a ring on his third-left finger, an observation that had mildly alarmed Jane after noticing it during her arrival. A girl in her position—handpicked for work by many lascivious clients—learned to read signs of dishonorable motivation quickly. But Luke wasn’t behaving in any way that might become lecherous. More than anything else, he seemed avuncular, with a world-weary twinkle in his blue-eyed gaze, and a purse of the lips that denoted wisdom… Jane wasn’t sure how she understood these things; she just did.

  Having expressed only mild condolences—after all, his wife had died a long time ago—Jane settled back in her chair as the waiter returned to do his duties with the claret. Once the cork was out, Luke was offered a quantity to sample, and unlike most pretenders Jane had ever dined with, he seemed to appreciate what he tasted before returning an agreeable nod. Then the younger man poured them both half a glassful, the maxim
um Jane would drink. In truth, she could use something toxic to take the edge off her mood, and she’d never been one of these obsessive people who thought an unborn child could be harmed by minor indulges. Indeed, weren’t small amounts of alcohol supposed to be good for the blood? She didn’t know for certain, but believed she’d read this somewhere, in one of the many leaflets she’d been given by maternity staff reviewing her pregnancy or maybe on a less nanny-ish website.

  Pushing aside a mental image of six children on a cliff side, seen through an upstairs window, Jane reopened the conversation, on this occasion alluding to the reason she’d agreed to this meal.

  “You came from a big family, didn’t you? All those…brothers?”

  Luke parted the creaking covers of his menu, prompting Jane to do the same. Then he took a sip of his wine, waited several seconds before swallowing, and eventually replied.

  “Yes, there was quite a bunch of us. We had some…good times. You know, I sometimes think that being the oldest of…six drove me on to achieve all I have as a writer. It’s like a need to keep ahead of the pack, driven bone-deep. Am I making any sense?”

  Jane was an only child, but understood what Luke was getting at. She’d experienced a similar compulsion as a model, a desire not to let peers, however much she liked many other girls in her profession, race too far ahead. But her overriding response to the author’s words was to wonder why he’d hesitated at least twice while discussing his childhood. It was as if he was uncomfortable talking about his siblings, the five boys Jane mothered in a virtual sense on the cover of his forthcoming book.

  She was just about to ask him more about his past when the waiter returned to take their orders. In keeping with her newfound diet regime, Jane selected a mushroom-based starter and then a spinach bake for mains. Luke ordered salmon mousse and a steak. Then he returned his gaze to her.

  “Are you a vegetarian, Jane?”

  “Not really,” she replied, and intended to get back to her earlier inquiry when Luke went on in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “My mother ate no meat.”

  Despite feeling something twitch deep inside her, there was no reason to suspect that this latest information about the Catcher family was anything other than coincidence. Jane had suffered a curious experience at what purported to be their home and since hadn’t felt like eating meat—so what? What was the connection? Why, nothing at all… Nevertheless, she quickly asked, “Tell me something about your mother.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, one thing I find puzzling was why you chose to hire someone like me—a model, I mean—rather than use an original picture. After all, the photographer added genuine snaps of the children—of you and your five brothers. So…why not your mother, too?”

  Luke had seemed less reticent about these issues by email, but that may have been a ruse to score dinner with a beauty. Jane considered herself to be modest, but knew all too well what men were like, even the fundamentally decent ones. And was there any reason to assume the author was anything less than that? Not at all. He was simply reflecting on complex personal issues. Hell, he’d even written a memoir about them. But that surely meant he was willing to go public with associated events.

  “My publisher insisted on an alternative snap,” he explained, and then, before going on, took another sip of wine. “I’m afraid my mother wouldn’t have been suitable.”

  Did Luke mean that she hadn’t been attractive, that casual browsers in high-street bookstores and online would be more likely to buy the tome with a pretty face on its cover? But Jane needn’t ask this question, because the author went immediately on.

  “She looked seriously ill just before she died. And that occurred—her death, I mean—only a few months after that seaside picture was taken.”

  Months, he’d said. Months and not years. How tragic. She—and her husband, presumably—had brought six children into the world, and she wouldn’t live long enough to watch them grow up. Jane sensed her insides squirming again. Then she glanced back at Luke.

  “So were you all brought up by your father?” she asked, just as the starters arrived. The waiter retreated without a word, as if mindful of the thorny material beginning to unfold. Elsewhere in the dining room, only a handful of couples ate, drank and chatted in almost inaudible voices. Music performed on a lute rattled out of speakers mounted high in corners, like invisible serenades. Black-clad staff glided back and forth, as if on silent skates.

  Then the author spoke again.

  “My father died only months before my mother did. If her illness was short and merciful—cancer, as it happens; the same thing that devoured my wife—his was long and painful. He had a spinal disorder that twisted him up, made him mean-spirited and cantankerous. I caught him crying on many a night, but there was nowt…there was nothing I could do about that. He’d just bark vicious commands at me. And it was my job—the oldest of six—to make sure my brothers stayed away from him. This went on for years, at least until I was six or seven. They say folk retain few memories from before that time, but I’d counter with this argument: it depends on how concentrated they are—how intense.”

  “It sounds…pretty challenging,” Jane replied at once, because that was what she believed she was expected to say, a tacit rule of engagement. Nevertheless, several aspects of Luke’s latest response had unsettled her. First, perhaps most innocuously, his brief lapse into Yorkshire vernacular—“nothing” had come out as “nowt.” She recalled her own occasional verbal slips over the last few months and considered them similar. But his made sense, didn’t they? The north had been his childhood milieu, the place he’d grown up. She had no convincing explanation for her linguistic errors.

  Secondly, he’d said his father had had a serious problem with his back. And wasn’t that what had burdened Neil Lindsey, the actor who’d recently been working in Southend and had returned injured? Neil Lindsey—the father of Jane’s child?

  This was all growing stranger, but the author didn’t appear to share her concerns. He simply tucked into his food with all the innocence of the child he’d just referred to, the young version of himself who’d trodden uneasy ground between gravely sick parents and many demanding siblings.

  After eating more of her own starter, Jane decided to switch the focus to more positive aspects of the author’s past. “Tell me about your brothers—what are they up to these days?”

  “Oh, various things,” Luke replied, his smile finally resurfacing after a troubled hiatus. Those shockingly blue eyes flashed as he went on. “We all benefited from being brought up in Wales by an uncle and aunt on my father’s side, who both understood the importance of education. And so Roger, the youngest, is a solicitor. The next two up—Brian and Frank: twins—are in the civil service. Paul is a chef, and the one almost as old as I am is James, now a big wheel in the NHS.”

  “Wow. All high achievers, then.”

  “Except for me, just mucking about.”

  She looked and noticed he’d meant the comment as a joke, a playful return to their earlier bonhomie. Then, laying aside her cutlery just as he’d now done, she said, “My own parents died a while ago—a terrible car accident. It’s tragic when they’re unable to see what their children turn out to be, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Luke replied, and looked a little awkward doing so. But that was when the waiter returned to collect their empty plates.

  The opportunity to move into conversational territory related to what Jane had seen that day in Whitby quickly passed, and so they chatted about several trivia matters—Luke said he now resided in the North Yorkshire town of Harrogate, and Jane told him about her London flat—until the mains arrived and they were left again to their subtle mind games.

  “I must admit,” Jane began, tucking into her meat-free dish with some enthusiasm, “that I made an assumption about the house you picked for the photo shoot. I simply guessed it was your childhood home. But is that true?”

  The image in her mind
involved six boys seen from an upstairs window, but this was quickly supplanted by the sight of the author temporarily putting down his knife and fork—his steak was hideously fat and bloody—and then looking back at her with a plaintive look in his intense eyes.

  “Look, Jane, I agreed to meet up this evening, mainly because you seemed so friendly by email. But I wonder whether we might just enjoy a pleasant meal together. I’m paying, by the way. And I won’t hear a word against that. You’re my guest. But I’m no aging lecher. I’m a nice old man with an irrepressible admiration for beautiful things. And I consider you high among such chattels. I’ve felt the same since first spotting your picture in a magazine about a year ago. You…you look so much like…”

  “Like who, Luke?” Jane asked, perceiving him to be struggling. She’d touched a nerve, perhaps, or the recent process of writing about such difficult times had left him raw and exposed.

  It was several minutes, during which both ate more of the delicious food, before Luke admitted, “You look so much like my mother once did, before the burdens of caring for my father and then illness made her cranky and even a little paranoid. She even had a streak of grey, just where you appear to have a few strands. It’s quite…uncanny, really.”