Soft

by Rupert Thomson

  For half an hour the girls warmed up. They swam rapid, stylish widths of crawl, or else they simply floated in the shallow end, rolling their shoulders so as to loosen the muscles. He noticed Karen immediately. She was wearing a white rubber hat that said WARNING on the front, and on the back, in smaller letters, SWIMMING CAN SERIOUSLY IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH. He watched her drink from a litre bottle of Evian, one hand propped on her hip. He watched her smooth some kind of gel on to her hair. He didn’t think she’d seen him yet.

  Then, at two o’clock, there was an announcement, the words merging under the glass roof, blurring into one continuous hollow sound. The judges took their seats. According to the programme, the first part of the competition – ‘Figures’ – was scheduled to last three hours. Only one Karen appeared on the list of entrants – 24. Karen Paley. So now he knew her name.

  And suddenly, it seemed, the competition was beginning. A girl in a black one-piece costume swam towards the deep end, moving sideways through the water, almost crablike. When she drew level with the judges, she flashed a smile that was wide and artificial – the smile of an air hostess, a beauty queen. She turned on to her back. Floated for a moment, so as to compose herself. Then executed the required figure – which, in this case, was called FLAMINGO BENT KNEE FULL TWIST. One by one they came, the girls, in seemingly endless succession. They all smiled the same smile, all followed the same sequence of movements, yet Jimmy didn’t find it in the least monotonous. If anything, the opposite was true. He felt he could have watched it almost indefinitely. It was like a highly esoteric form of meditation. The warm air, the green water. The repetition … Looking around, he saw that most people had fallen into a kind of trance – not just the spectators and the officials, but the girls themselves: the way they swam to the side of the pool when they had finished, so languorous, so dreamy, as if they had been hypnotised by their own performances. And, all the time, that music playing – slowed-down, slurry versions of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and ‘Lara’s Theme’, Officials in white uniforms, the continual murmuring of voices, music that echoed eerily under a high glass roof … it reminded Jimmy of visiting a hospital, somehow, or an asylum: all this going on, but separate, parallel – cocooned.

  At last he heard Karen Paley’s number called, and there she was below him, rolling on to her back and straightening her legs. He couldn’t help noticing her body as she lay on top of the water, her breasts just lifting clear of it, the fabric of her costume clinging. He saw her take a breath. Slowly her hands began to revolve, slowly her head and shoulders disappeared beneath the surface. In less than a minute it was over, and she was reaching for the silver steps and climbing from the pool. While she waited for her marks, she caught sight of him, high up on his wooden bench; the smile she gave him was quite different to the smile she had given the judges only moments before. Afterwards, she walked the length of the pool, her blonde head lowered, as if deep in thought. She moved like a dancer, her bearing upright, her feet slightly splayed. He watched her pick up an ice-blue cloth and, bending, rinse it in the water at the shallow end. She wrung it out and wiped the moisture off her body, then she put on a dark-green robe and a pair of stretchy socks with soles, not unlike the slippers you get on aeroplanes sometimes.

  About ten minutes later he heard footsteps and turned in time to see her sitting down beside him.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she said. She had slicked her hair back behind her ears. A small red mark showed on the side of her left nostril where the noseclips had gripped it. ‘People don’t usually watch the figures. They prefer the solos, the duets. It’s more dramatic.’

  ‘They’re missing out,’ Jimmy said. ‘I haven’t seen the solos or the duets, but I can’t imagine them being better than this.’

  She looked at him warily, thinking he might be mocking her.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘There’s something soothing about it. Almost hypnotic.’

  ‘So you’re not bored?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  She glanced at the clock above the shallow end.

  ‘I thought maybe we could do something afterwards,’ he said, ‘if you’re not too tired, that is.’

  ‘There are fifty of us and we have to do three figures each,’ she said. ‘It’s going to take a while.’

  ‘I know. I’ve got the programme.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  They sat in silence for a moment. He looked down at her hands, which lay folded on her lap. He noticed the small round bone on the outside of her left wrist, how prominent it was, and how the vein curved past it, towards the knuckle on her little finger.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re good, are you?’

  She smiled. ‘You didn’t see me do that figure?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But I can’t tell.’

  ‘Last year I had a trial for the Olympic team,’ she said. ‘They take twelve girls. I came thirteenth.’ She looked at him quickly, almost defensively. ‘I’m not bad.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get in?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think my legs were long enough.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Really,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it comes down to that. The look of things.’ She glanced at the clock again, then stood up and tightened the belt on her robe. ‘I should be going back.’

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I don’t think your legs are short,’ he said.

  She smiled again. ‘Nobody said they’re short,’ she said. ‘They’re just not long enough, that’s all.’ She turned and climbed the steps towards the door, a muscle flexing just above the tendon in her heel.

  Jimmy peered down into the pool. The figure had changed. The new name on the board was PORPOISE SPINNING 180°. He leaned forwards, trying to see the difference between one girl’s execution of the figure and the next. He couldn’t, though. Not really.

  At four-forty-five, his mobile phone rang. He pressed TALK and put it to his ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that you, James?’

  There was only one person in the world who called him James. With the phone still pressed against his ear, he climbed the steps and stood by the open window.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘it’s me.’

  Outside, black clouds jostled one another in the sky. The air seemed to be changing shape.

  ‘James,’ and there was a pause of three or four seconds, ‘we’ve got ourselves a situation …’

  A situation? Jimmy thought. Wasn’t that American for disaster?

  By the time he walked out of the Leisure Centre, thunder was rolling across the rooftops and the first drops of rain were beginning to darken the car-park asphalt. He thought it would probably take him at least an hour to reach Chelsea, which was where Raleigh Connor lived. Driving north, through the wet streets, he remembered the way Karen’s leg had appeared, perfectly motionless and vertical, above the surface of the pool. Her foot first, then her calf, then her knee and, finally, her thigh. The figure had been so controlled – there wasn’t a single ripple, not even a drip – that, for a few moments, the water became solid. Seeing her leg rise into the air had seemed magical, almost supernatural – like seeing a sword being drawn, smooth and gleaming, from a stone. He thought of how her skin had shone.

  At the next traffic-lights he took out his mobile phone and rang the Leisure Centre. He asked the woman who answered if he could leave a message for Karen Paley.

  ‘Tell her I was called away,’ he said, ‘an emergency at work. Tell her I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ The woman sounded doubtful.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘It’s very important.’

  ‘I said I’ll try.’

  Jimmy found Connor’s street without any trouble, parking on a meter about a hundred yards beyond the house. As he walked back he saw the front door open. Lambert crossed the pavement and bent down to u
nlock a black BMW. He was wearing a different coat – hip-length, waterproof, pale-grey. As before, Jimmy was struck by Lambert’s ordinariness. If aliens ever landed and they wanted to take a human being back to their own world, they would have to choose someone like Lambert. He was so typical. He was practically generic.

  ‘Lambert,’ Jimmy said.

  Lambert looked round, showed no surprise. ‘Are you going in?’

  Jimmy nodded. He watched Lambert ease himself into the car and close the door behind him. After a moment the electric window slid down. ‘This thing,’ Lambert said, ‘it’s moved to a whole new level.’ He twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared. ‘A whole new level,’ he said and, glancing over his shoulder, pulled smoothly out into the road. He drove to the junction, indicator flashing, then turned the corner and was gone.

  Standing on the pavement, Jimmy remembered how the girls had smiled when they appeared before the judges. A smile that, in his memory at least, was now beginning to resemble the ghastly, exaggerated smile of the dying, or the dead.

  Connor met Jimmy at the door. Though Connor was dressed in casual clothes – a navy-blue cardigan, slacks, a pair of well-worn leather slippers – he looked less relaxed than usual; his skin seemed paler, his lips thinner. Jimmy followed him down the hallway and into a large, open-plan living-room. Two white sofas faced each other across a floor of polished wood. A black Labrador lay sleeping on the rug by the fireplace, its hind legs twitching as it dreamed. Through the french windows hollyhocks and roses could be seen, and a lawn with a stone birdbath in the middle. It occurred to Jimmy that he had never tried to imagine Connor’s life outside the office.

  ‘Nice dog,’ he said. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Earl.’ Connor bent over, stroked the dog’s sleek head. ‘I just got him back. He was in quarantine for six months. Out at Heathrow.’

  ‘Did you visit him?’

  ‘Every Friday.’

  Jimmy nodded. He thought he remembered Connor leaving early on Friday afternoons. He didn’t know what else to say, though. He had never owned a dog, or even liked them particularly.

  ‘I saw Lambert outside,’ he mentioned after a while.

  Connor straightened up. ‘I’ve told him to shut down the operation. As of today.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There’s been some kind of leak.’ Connor turned, the garden dark behind him. ‘Lambert says it’s watertight his end. I said the same.’ He faced Jimmy across the room. ‘Was I right?’

  ‘There’s only you and me,’ Jimmy said, ‘and I’ve said nothing.’

  ‘Well, there’s a journalist out there who’s got the idea that there was something,’ and Connor paused for a moment, ‘something illicit about the launch of Kwench!.’

  Later, sitting on the sofa, he explained that he had set the appropriate wheels in motion and Jimmy knew better than to ask him to elaborate. Presumably this was what Lambert had meant when he referred to ‘a whole new level’. They were going to have to bring Communications in, Connor said. Maybe somebody from Finance too. Debbie Groil and Neil Bowes would have to be briefed on the project, otherwise they’d be in no position to handle media curiosity.

  Jimmy nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ He took a deep breath, let it out again. ‘They’re not going to like it.’

  Connor ignored the remark. ‘I’ve called a meeting for Monday morning. Eight-thirty. I want you there.’ He rose to his feet, showed Jimmy to the door. ‘I’m sorry to break into your weekend like this.’

  They stood on the front step for a moment, looking out into the street. The storm had moved away. There was a dripping in the trees and bushes, and the smell of rain on grass. A car drove by, house music pumping from its open windows.

  ‘By the way,’ Connor said, ‘where were you when I phoned? It sounded strange – the background …’

  ‘Crystal Palace,’ Jimmy said. ‘I was watching the synchronised swimming.’

  Connor looked at him. ‘That’s a new interest, I take it.’

  Jimmy smiled faintly, but didn’t comment.

  When he was sitting in his car again, he took out his mobile and called the pool. This time a man answered. Jimmy asked if he could speak to Karen Paley.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the man said. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I must be able to. She’s competing there today.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ the man said. ‘It’s finished. It’s all over.’

  Cheops

  Monday morning, half-past eight. Sun slanting through the glass wall of the boardroom. From Jimmy’s point of view, the weather couldn’t have been more ironic. Bright ideas, clarity of thought, accountability – they were all ideals that had been seriously undermined by what Connor had told him over the weekend; they could come crashing down at any moment, like statues in a revolution. Jimmy sent a surreptitious glance across the table. Debbie Groil seemed to have opened her wardrobe in a defiant mood that morning. She had chosen a scarlet blazer with gold buttons, and a frothy white blouse. Her tights, Jimmy knew without looking, would be blue. Sitting next to Debbie was Neil Bowes. He looked sallow, bilious, the skin under his eyes hanging in the kind of loops that curtains have in cinemas. He would have spent a sleepless night, imagining the worst – though, actually, this was worse than he could possibly have imagined; Jimmy had to keep reminding himself that both Neil and Debbie had been summoned to the meeting knowing nothing of what was on the agenda. Only Connor seemed unconcerned, his hands clasped loosely on the table, his gaze passing beyond the glass and out into a complacent sunlit world.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘perhaps we should begin.’

  As they were all aware, he went on, the launch of Kwench! had been an extraordinary success. During the first two months of distribution in the UK, sales of the brand had been phenomenal. They had forced most sectors of the market to sit up and take notice. Everyone in the room had played a part in that success, and everybody in the room was entitled to a share of the credit. However, he added, and here his voice dropped an octave, there had been a secret aspect to the launch, an aspect that had been highly original, highly innovative. They had found themselves in new territory, territory that nobody had ventured into before. There had been unpredictable elements, factors they hadn’t always been sure they could control. Which was only to be expected, given the lack of precedent.

  Debbie was looking at Connor now, a blank and yet unflinching look, and Jimmy knew instinctively what she was thinking. How long can someone talk without actually saying anything? At that precise moment, though, Connor seemed to sense her impatience because he launched into a detailed outline of Project Secretary – its infrastructure, and the philosophy behind it. He talked persuasively about the excitement of creating word of mouth – quite literally creating it. He even made use of Jimmy’s private vocabulary, describing the people who had been through their programme as ‘ambassadors’. He was just building to a climax when Debbie interrupted.

  ‘You know, I had a journalist on the phone on Friday afternoon,’ she said, ‘all very nice, very charming, and I was thinking: What does he know that I don’t know? What’s he on to?’ She lifted her eyes to the window and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you went ahead with something like this.’ She looked at Neil, but Neil was staring at his notepad as though he was hoping it would turn into a trap-door and he could disappear through it. ‘If you’d come to me six months ago,’ she went on, and her voice was shaking a little now and her throat had flushed above the ruffled collar of her blouse, ‘if you’d told me about this, I would have said –’ She checked herself. ‘Well, it’s unrepeatable.’

  Jimmy was struck by her outspokenness. No one had ever dared to address Connor quite so directly – at least, not in his experience. To his surprise he found himself admiring her.

  ‘This is not about recrimination, Debbie,’ Connor said calmly. ‘This is about pragmatism. We have a situation on our hands. What we’re doing here this morning is decidi
ng how best to deal with it.’

  ‘So what exactly is the situation?’ she said.

  ‘Probably you’re not aware of this,’ Connor said, ‘but I have several people working for me in the media, people who supply me with information. It helps me to plan strategies. It can also act as an early-warning system. Towards the end of last week I received a communication from one of these people.’ He took out a pair of half-moon spectacles and put them on. After straightening the sheet of paper that was lying in front of him, he looked up for a moment, over the thin gold rims. ‘I’ll just read the relevant passage.

  A freelance journalist is thinking of writing an in-depth piece about your company, with particular reference to the division responsible for Kwench!. It seems unlikely that the piece will be favourable. In fact, the journalist in question appears to have information, or access to information, relating to practices that he describes as highly irregular, if not actually illegal. At this point, his source is still anonymous, though I don’t expect it to remain so for much longer. The allegations of irregularity relate specifically to the way in which Kwench! has been marketed. He details instances of bizarre behaviour on the part of certain consumers, and speculates as to the origins of this behaviour. There is some talk of a subliminal campaign, though there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to back this up as yet …’

  Connor removed his spectacles. ‘Talk,’ he said, ‘Rumour. Speculation. That, I feel, should be our first line of defence –’

  ‘But it’s true,’ Debbie broke in. ‘You just admitted it.’

  ‘Truth is not the issue here.’

  There was an edge to Connor’s voice that Jimmy had never heard before. Debbie looked as if she had just been dipped in liquid nitrogen: touch her with your finger and she would shatter into a million fragments.

  Feeling sorry for her, Jimmy stepped into the silence. ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘if this article comes out, it could be pretty damaging …’

  Connor folded his spectacles, each separate click of the slender golden arms against the frames quite audible, like twigs snapping in a wood in winter. ‘Clearly this journalist, whoever he is, must be discouraged. The article must not be written.’