Soft

by Rupert Thomson

  ‘Don’t tell me. Feed the cat.’

  ‘It’s only for two days.’

  Sally looked at her for the first time since arriving home. ‘Miami, I suppose.’

  ‘No,’ Glade said. ‘I’m going into a clinic.’

  ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’ Sally’s eyes widened and glittered. She lit a cigarette. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Glade said. Which almost made her feel guilty. She felt she should have invented an illness, a disease. Something an American might give you. ‘I’m taking part in a sleep-research programme.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘They’re paying me. I need a dress –’ Glade bit her lip. She had given it away.

  ‘You are going to Miami.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s just that Tom’s invited me to a wedding.’ Glade hesitated, then she said, ‘In New Orleans.’

  ‘New Orleans? I don’t believe it.’ Sally turned away and stood at the window, her cigarette held just below her mouth. ‘New Orleans,’ she said, more mistily this time. ‘The French Quarter, Bourbon Street …’

  Glade looked puzzled. ‘Bourbon Street?’

  ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’ Sally’s voice was faint, as if she was very far away – or even dead, perhaps, and appearing to her flat-mate in a dream. ‘You don’t know anything.’

  Hot Wings are Back!

  Shortly after take-off, Glade felt thirsty. She waited until a stewardess was passing, then she reached out and touched the woman on the arm.

  ‘Do you have any Kwench!?’

  ‘Kwench!?’ The stewardess bent down, smiling.

  ‘It’s a new soft drink,’ Glade explained.

  ‘I haven’t heard of it.’

  No, Glade thought. Nor have I. How odd.

  ‘Would Coke do?’ the stewardess asked her.

  ‘Just water,’ Glade said. ‘Thank you.’

  Kwench!? She must have seen the name on TV. Or in a magazine. Her water arrived. It tasted faintly of chemicals, but at least it was cold. She drank half of it and sat back in her seat. There were things in her mind she knew nothing about, things she didn’t even realise were there. She looked out of the window. The Atlantic Ocean lay below, bright-blue in the spring sunlight. Something disturbed her about seeing water from so high up, something about the way the surface wrinkled. Like watching lice. Or maggots. It happened every time she flew. She leaned back, closed her eyes.

  She thought of Tom, who she hadn’t seen for months, who she had hardly spoken to, not recently, and wondered how it would be this time, in New Orleans. He would sound so enthusiastic on the phone, while they were planning things, but when the moment came, when they actually met, she always had the feeling that she wasn’t quite what he’d imagined, that she was somehow less than he’d expected, and she would catch him looking at her, his eyes puzzled but amused, as if he’d fallen for some kind of trick, or even, sometimes, resentful, as if she’d deliberately deceived him. Once, she had arrived at his apartment in Miami to find a group of people sitting round a low black coffee table. They were sitting close to each other, as if trading secrets, or taking part in some complicated game. She remembered their shoulders, which were raised against her, like barriers, and she remembered the angle of their necks, haughty and forbidding. When she first entered the room, they peered at her, but only their heads moved, somehow their shoulders and necks stayed in the same place, and there was nothing in their eyes, their eyes were like the eyes of dead fish, hard and shiny, blind. And Tom looked no different to any of the others, who she had never seen before and did not know. Tom’s eyes were as dead as theirs. She backed out of the room, away from that black table, those dead eyes, and, closing the apartment door behind her, walked quickly down the stairs. Tom found her sitting on a cane chair in the lobby, among the potted palms.

  ‘Glade?’

  She smiled up at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘You didn’t see me?’

  ‘I walked into the room and it was dark suddenly. There were so many people.’ She nodded to herself, remembering. ‘I didn’t see you. I thought you weren’t there.’

  ‘It’s my apartment, Glade.’

  She was still smiling at him. ‘I thought you weren’t there.’

  Confused, he glanced down at his shoes, which were like moccasins, only made of straw. He shook his head. When he looked up again, though, he was smiling too. ‘Jesus, Glade,’ he said. ‘You scared the hell out of me back there.’

  It was all right after that.

  He had this idea about her, though, which he kept attempting to fit her into, and since he spent far longer with the idea than he did with her, it had become more familiar, more real than she was. She didn’t know what the idea was exactly, but every time she saw him she felt her corners bump against the smooth, round shape of it; she felt the awkwardness, the gaps. It was strange because, when she was in London, she forgot what he was like as well – only she didn’t try and make him up. Seeing him again, after months, she often found it too much for her, literally too much, to see everything so completely realised, to see all of him at once, when she had only been able to remember his teeth, or the blond hairs on his wrists, or the way he said her name. It was this sudden avalanche of detail – a surfeit, really – that made her hesitate in doorways.

  Tom.

  She wondered how it would be this time. She wondered how often in her life she would fly to him like this. She wondered what he would think of the picture she was going to give him.

  Jesus, Glade.

  She walked out of the air-conditioned building into the heat of early afternoon. A highway lay in front of her, its surface pale-brown, four lanes of traffic travelling in each direction. Airport Boulevard. It had been a fifteen-hour flight, with a connection in New York, but she didn’t feel tired yet. She stood on a strip of grass at the edge of a car-park, the sun bright and fierce against the right side of her face. She liked the way American air always seemed to glitter.

  Tom had told her to take a cab to the Hotel Excelsior, which was in the French Quarter. He would be waiting there for her. They could spend the afternoon on the roof, he said. They could order Mint Juleps and watch the sun go down over the Mississippi. But somehow she found herself out by the road, beyond the line of taxis, wanting to delay things. She thought she’d have a drink first. Perhaps, if she had a drink, she wouldn’t hesitate in front of him. Perhaps, if she had a drink, her voice wouldn’t be so small. She was proud of herself for having the idea. For thinking like him.

  She looked around for somewhere. Silver-bellied planes drifted over every few seconds, no more than two or three hundred feet above the ground, bringing everything into a strange, unnatural proximity. A van painted a metallic dark-blue coasted past, bass notes shaking its smoked-glass windows. She couldn’t see anything resembling a café or a bar. Maybe there wouldn’t be, out near the airport.

  Then, almost opposite her, she noticed an Italian place. Café Roma, it was called, the letters alternating red and green on a white background. She crossed the road between rows of hot, slow-moving cars. Once on the other side, she peered through the plate-glass window. There was no one to be seen. She tried the door. It was locked. She was about to walk away, disheartened, when she heard a loud click. A man was standing behind the door, unlocking it. There must have been three different sets of bolts, but finally he managed it.

  ‘We’re not closed.’ The man stammered slightly. ‘We’re open.’

  ‘No,’ Glade said, ‘it’s all right.’

  ‘No, really. We’re open.’

  He was about thirty, with smooth, light-brown hair that fitted the shape of his head so closely that she thought it might be a wig. Though he wore a long white apron, he didn’t look like somebody who ran a restaurant. Perhaps she should just get in a taxi, like Tom had told her to.

  ‘This city,’ the man said, and his eyes moved past her, shifting constantly from one part of the hi
ghway to another, ‘I don’t know. In the last six months it’s gone crazy. I have to keep the door locked all the time. You never know what’s going to come in off the street.’ His eyes veered back to her, deep in his head and bleached of all colour, and then he smiled. It was too sudden to be entirely reassuring, which was what she thought he intended it to be. She found that she was no longer wary of him, though.

  ‘I don’t want to eat,’ she warned him. ‘I just want a glass of wine.’

  ‘We have wine. Please,’ and he held the door for her, ‘come on in.’ He looked into the empty restaurant. ‘Sit anywhere you want.’

  Stepping past him, into the room, she was reminded of her own life: the quietness of it, a green neon sign that said, simply, SPACES. She sat at a table in the corner, her suitcase on the floor behind her chair. The plain brick walls had been decorated with posters of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. Bottles snugly cupped in faded raffia hung from the ceiling. Every table had a red-and-white check cloth on it. You would never have imagined there was an airport right outside the door.

  ‘Would you like white wine,’ the man said, ‘or red?’

  She decided that she wanted red.

  ‘Would you like some music? I have records.’ He brought out a selection – Mozart, Verdi, Bach.

  She chose Verdi, because he was Italian.

  As he was putting the record on, the man glanced over his shoulder. ‘You’re sure you’re not hungry? We have fresh linguine, with shrimp. It’s very good.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I ate on the plane.’

  ‘How about a little bowl of gumbo? It’s a speciality of New Orleans. I made it myself.’ He saw her hesitate. ‘Just a taste. It’s on the house.’

  She smiled. ‘All right. Thank you.’

  The man’s name was Sidney and his wife was called Consuela. Consuela was much older than Sidney, forty-five at least. They could have been mother and son were it not for the fact that they looked so unalike. Sidney was tall and spare, with that strange, close-fitting head of hair and those pale, haunted eyes. Consuela came from Puerto Rico. Short and thick-waisted, she had hair that was so black, it looked wet, and skin that had a sickly, olive tinge to it. Every now and then she would shuffle into the restaurant in a pair of pale-blue flip-flops and smile in a distant, abstract way, as if she was amused not by them but by something inside her head, a memory, perhaps, then she would step back through the curtain again, hidden by the strings of amber beads.

  When Glade had finished her bowl of gumbo, Sidney joined her at the table and began to talk.

  ‘Last week Consuela was shot,’ he said.

  Glade stared at him, her glass halfway to her mouth.

  Consuela had gone home at lunchtime to find a man in their apartment. The man shot her twice and then escaped. When Sidney discovered her, at five o’clock, she was lying on the bedroom floor, bleeding from wounds in her forearm and her shoulder.

  ‘She was lucky,’ Sidney said.

  Consuela appeared from behind the bead curtain. Sidney spoke to her in Spanish. He took her hand as she came and stood beside him, putting his other arm around her waist. She stood quite still, staring past him, at the floor. He was still looking at Glade.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.’

  A minute passed. Then Consuela gently disengaged herself and moved away. The curtain clicked as she passed through it. Sidney got up to change the record. On his way back to the table he poured two glasses of a clear liquid, handing one to Glade. She watched him drain his glass in one. She sipped at hers. The drink had an unusual consistency. Like oil.

  ‘Two days later my car was stolen.’ Sidney told her.

  In broad daylight, from right outside his house. It was only an old car, a Dodge Dart, but it would cost him five hundred bucks to get another one like it. Then, at the weekend, these guys who were on something, PCP or crack, he didn’t know, they’d come into the restaurant, broken a chair, some plates, then they’d walked out without paying. There were three of them, big black guys with leather vests and chains around their necks. What was he supposed to do?

  ‘I can understand why you lock the door,’ Glade said.

  Sidney was watching the street again. ‘You just have to knock,’ he said, ‘that’s all.’

  She looked at him curiously. The way he talked, it sounded as if he thought she’d be coming to the restaurant quite often.

  ‘We’re moving apartments next week. Consuela, she can’t sleep.’ He looked at Glade, his eyes pale and unsteady in his face. ‘You should be careful here. Keep to the centre. Where are you staying?’

  Suddenly she had a picture of Tom sitting on the roof of the Hotel Excelsior. The sun was sinking into the Mississippi. An empty chair stood beside him. Her chair. There was a quick flash of gold as he lifted his wrist to look at his watch.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just after five.’

  Glade put a hand over her mouth. ‘I must go.’

  ‘You have to be somewhere?’

  ‘Someone’s waiting for me. I’m very late.’ Glade stood up. ‘I’d better get a taxi.’

  It took twenty-five minutes to reach the Hotel Excelsior and Glade wound the window down so the warm air blew into her face. Before she left the restaurant, she had parted the bead curtain to say goodbye to Consuela. The woman was sitting on a wooden chair, her hands resting on her knees. She wasn’t doing anything, just staring. The walls in the kitchen had been painted pale-green, which gave the room a melancholy feeling. Outside, on the pavement, Glade looked back. Sidney was already fastening the bolts. She waved, but he didn’t see her. There are people who seem to come alive when you appear and die the moment you are gone. It’s as if they’re machines and you’re electricity.

  You just have to knock, that’s all.

  She left her luggage with the man in reception and took a lift to the top floor. She saw Tom as soon as she stepped through the french windows on to the roof. He was sitting in a low deckchair, facing away from her. He seemed to be staring at the pool. He looked as though he hadn’t moved for a long time. The water in the pool was motionless as well, a perfect surface. She didn’t hesitate at all. It had worked, the alcohol.

  ‘Tom,’ she said.

  He didn’t look up, not even when she was standing in front of him, her shadow masking the top half of his body.

  ‘The plane got in four hours ago,’ he said. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the pool.

  She glanced at her hands, then looked away, into the sky. She smiled quickly. ‘This city,’ she said. ‘It’s gone crazy in the last six months.’

  It wouldn’t have been her choice to drink Margaritas, but Tom always drank tequila when he wanted to be drunk, and she went along with it. It was part of the price she had to pay for being what he called ‘flaky’. She knew she would probably be ill at some point, but that too was part of the price. They were sitting in a bar in the French Quarter, the dark wood doors open to the street, and if she looked past Tom’s shoulder she could see bright neon signs, cars glinting as they glided past, the teeth of people laughing. She had been telling him about the mountain in Paddington. She thought it might intrigue him, change his mood. Watching him across the table as she talked, she couldn’t tell whether she had been forgiven yet. At least they were out together, though. And he was looking at her now, the way he always did, his eyes moving restlessly from one part of her face to another, as if he was trying to take in every detail, no matter how small, as if he was trying to learn her off by heart. She wondered if it had something to do with his work, this habit he had of cross-examining her face. Then, suddenly, he was leaning forwards, both forearms on the table. There was something he hadn’t understood.

  ‘This mountain,’ he said. ‘You can climb it, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Well, not any more, actually. They took it away.’

  ‘They took it a
way?’ Tom stared at her with his mouth open.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They took a mountain away? How could they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Glade said. ‘I always thought of it as a mountain, but I suppose it was just a hill, really.’

  Tom was shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  She smiled downwards, into her Margarita. A funny colour for a drink. Almost grey. And that frosting round the rim of the glass. Like Christmas.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ Tom was grinning at her now, salt grains sticking to his upper lip. ‘Did I say something?’

  She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking, that she’d known he would react like that, exactly like that, so she just shrugged and smiled. In any case, she liked it when he floundered. She found his uncertainty attractive.

  ‘Fucking Glade,’ he said, and shook his head again. He was still grinning, though.

  He finished his drink, then told her the plan for the evening. They were going to visit a friend of his who lived ten minutes’ drive away. He’d rented a car.

  ‘You’re not too drunk?’ she said. ‘I mean, we could always take a taxi.’

  ‘They all drink down here. It’s a different culture.’

  ‘Oh.’ He could make her feel so cautious, almost dull. She decided not to mention taxis again.

  They collected the keys to the car from hotel reception and took a lift to the basement. She thought Tom might try and have sex with her on the way down – when he was thinking about sex, something seemed to go missing in his face – but they reached the car-park and he still hadn’t touched her.

  The rental car was a convertible, an ugly dark-red colour. She sank low in the seat, her head weightless, her vision slightly blurred; she could taste the drinks on her lips. The car trembled, roared. Tom scraped the wing on a concrete pillar while he was backing out, but he just laughed and said, ‘Insurance.’