I should have rung the other bells and got someone to let me in. I shouldn’t have given up so easily but I did. I went home, got back into my dressing gown and spent the rest of the evening on the sofa watching telly. At about eleven o’clock, Fay’s doorbell rang. I was in the kitchen making peppermint tea and I heard her moving about below me, the opening of the door, voices, a pause and then a cry.
I went upstairs to look out of the bedroom window. There was a police car parked in the road outside. It had gone cold like it does in spring and my veins were threaded through with ice. I stood without moving or even breathing for several minutes more until at last I saw two policewomen come out, walk up the path and get back into their car.
As soon as they’d gone I went down – there’s a door in the hall that leads down to Fay’s. She was standing in her kitchen with her hands over her mouth staring at a glass of brandy. She looked blankly at me.
‘What’s happened?’ I said.
She didn’t speak. Her fingers fenced but didn’t hide the hole of her mouth.
‘He’s dead,’ she said.
I went very still inside. ‘Who?’
‘Dead.’
‘Who?’ My voice came out harder and louder than I meant.
‘David.’
The blood swarmed in my ears in hot relief and then in shame.
‘No,’ I said, ‘no.’
‘Yes.’
It took a few seconds for it to sink in. I pictured my fingers on the doorbell, the foggy little plastic labels with the residents’ names, the bubbled green paint of the door.
‘How?’
‘Overdose they think.’
‘When?’
‘He’s just been found.’
‘I went round there earlier,’ I said, ‘I rang and rang the bell but no answer.’
‘And what then?’
‘I, well, I came home. I thought he must be out.’
‘You came home?’
‘I didn’t … Oh Fay …’ I tried to put my arms round her but she flinched away. She had cream on her face, not rubbed in yet and not a scrap of make-up, I’d never seen her like that before.
‘Get out,’ she said.
‘You’re in shock, Fay,’ I said. ‘Drink the brandy – or shall I make you a cup of tea … sugary tea …’ I went towards her but she almost spat at me, her little body gone into a kind of cramp in the corner. ‘Get out,’ she said, ‘get Charlie.’
It was the shock. Shock does strange things to people. It makes them rude. You should never take offence when someone is in a state of shock.
‘I’ll phone him now,’ I said, but before anything else could happen Fay’s phone rang from her sitting room. I answered. It was Charlie. The police had taken his number from Fay and got him on his mobile already.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Is it real?’
‘Do you want to speak to your mum?’ I said. ‘Oh Charlie …’
‘Did you go round?’
‘He didn’t answer the door.’
‘And?’
‘I came home.’
‘Did you try his phone?’
‘Well he wouldn’t have answered, would he? Sorry, Charlie. I’m sorry.’
‘Give me Mum,’ he said.
I stood in the kitchen shivering while they spoke. My feet were cold on the floor tiles, I hadn’t even got my slippers on. I went to fill the kettle and her budgie cheeped at me and rattled his bell. Fay put the phone down and came back into the kitchen. Her face was yellow, mauve shadows underneath her eyes.
‘He’ll be back in an hour,’ she said, her voice gathered back into its usual shape.
‘What can I do?’ I said.
‘You’ve done enough,’ she said.
The kettle came to the boil and clicked off.
‘I’d like to be alone, if you don’t mind,’ she said.
‘But you shouldn’t be alone.’
‘All the same.’
She waited with stiff politeness till I left. I went back up the stairs. I made myself another cup of tea. I stirred sugar into it with a splash of brandy. My hand was actually shaking; I held it out in front of me and the shadow shivered on the kitchen table.
Chapter 13
~
The Merriams encouraged her closeness with Jeffrey. She didn’t have any friends at school. Her accent was different; however hard she tried she was just different. She was a daygirl and most of them were boarders. She was common and they were posh. They tossed their silky hair at her and turned up their noses. She didn’t care, she’d hardly ever had girl friends anyway. It was always the boys – who she knew, and they knew she knew, were only out for what they could get. She’d just been grateful to have something that they wanted.
But with Jeffrey she was a virgin again. Joan asked her if they were more than just friends.
‘I do like him,’ she confessed.
‘You know he’s off to university in September,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Long as you don’t get inseparable. We don’t want you pining away.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said.
There was a spring concert at Jeffrey’s school. They went as a party, the Sterns and the Merriams, all dressed up and keyed up with sherry and excitement. She wore a black skirt, a black sweater and a silver pendant, with her fair hair tied back with a velvet ribbon. She sat in the front row between his parents and her foster parents, with her knees demurely together. And it was almost as if she really did belong.
It was strange watching Jeffrey up there on the stage in front of everyone, quite cool about it too. She liked the music though she wasn’t used to classical and with no words her mind kept drifting off. She forced her attention on to Jeffrey, the hunched back, the intense expression, the long fingers stretching across the keys. When he finished and took a bow, to rapturous applause, he directed a special smile at her and it struck her like a dart.
Afterwards there was tea and biscuits and mingling, and Jeffrey held her hand while he was congratulated on his brilliance, and some of the praise leaked down his arm and through his hand and into her. After all, she was his official girlfriend for all to see. He had chosen her out of all the other girls there were around.
She had never been as happy or as proud of anything.
Chapter 14
^
Shaved off the beard, made a trip to the barber and next stop John Lewis to get kitted out. Told the assistant I’d won the lottery and wanted to go for a new look. He was obviously a gay and in seventh heaven going round with me, getting me to stroke the fabrics and holding different colours of shirt up to my cheek.
Standing in front of the changing-room mirror in a soft black suit and creamy linen shirt I saw myself as I aimed she would. Narrowed my eyes and practised the Rupert expressions, the slow smile, the bashful grin. Remembering the hairy little C. Martin she lived with, I thought she wouldn’t stand a chance. Spent over a grand in all once the leather jacket, the briefcase and the shoes were all totted up.
Once I’m in role I go to Green’s Robotics at five-thirty. I wait round the corner – don’t want her spotting me yet. I see Karen come out with a fat blonde and they stand there yacking for a minute before she goes off. I take the oblique approach and follow the blonde. She goes into a paper shop and I knock into her when she comes out. She drops her purse and goes scarlet grubbing about for the rolling coins and a Bounty bar. Taking a deep breath, seeing myself step out on to that stage, I tell her to stand up while I pick it up for her, and then insist on buying her a drink.
‘You need to sit down a minute,’ I say.
‘I’m fine,’ she says but I hardly have to twist her arm to get her sitting at a table with a glass of wine in front of her.
I take my time, small talk first then edging the conversation round to work. She natters away and is soon on her second glass of wine, with a bowl of peanuts to dip into, before at last the subject comes up.
‘Ooops, I’m getting tipsy,�
�� she says. I keep my eyes averted from the sticky lip-print on her glass.
‘No harm in that.’
She frowns at me and then it all bursts out. ‘I’m right pissed off actually,’ she says. ‘There’s this new woman at work.’
‘Who?’
‘Why?’
Careful, careful. I shrug and sip my Kaliber.
‘Well anyway, she’s only been there five minutes, compared to me, I’ve been there since I left school, anyway, there’s this course, right, and you get to go to Blackpool, stay in the Astoria which is four stars all expenses paid and all in work time, and who gets it?’
‘She does?’
‘Too right. Not fair, is it?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ll tell you why, she’s thin, that’s why, and pretty. It’s discrimination. The worst thing is, she doesn’t give a toss about going, at least she lets on she doesn’t. I went up to Gary, our boss, and I was like, What about me? He was like, It’ll do her good. But she hasn’t been there five minutes!’
‘What’s her name?’ I say.
‘Nina, why? Oh my God, you don’t know her! She’s nice really, it’s just …’
‘It’s OK. I know her boyfriend.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She wants it kept secret, her and Charlie, I reckon he’s married but …?’ She looks let down when I shake my head. ‘What then?’
‘Not for me to say. When’s the course?’
‘Why?’
‘I thought I’d look him up while she’s away. She’s the possessive type, never lets him out alone.’
‘Is she?’ She twiddles about with her hair. ‘Week after next,’ she says, ‘the Monday to the Wednesday.’
‘I’ll give him a ring then,’ I say.
She puts her hand up to her mouth. ‘Here’s me going on and on and you haven’t said a word about you! You must think I’m a right motormouth.’
‘Not at all.’
She edges her fat knee, shiny under the nylon, up against mine and her smile turns my stomach.
‘Well, better get home,’ I say, ‘or my missus’ll be on the warpath.’
She blushes and makes a little gulping sound.
The way she blushed right up into the roots of her hair proved she was a real blonde. At least she had that much going for her.
Chapter 15
*
All I could think of to do was to help out in practical ways. After the cremation, I went to clear out Dave’s bedsit. I did it to spare Charlie. The landlord wanted the room emptied as soon as possible so that he could re-let.
He rapped on the door as soon as he realised I was there. ‘I’m very sorry and all that,’ he said, when I opened it, ‘but look at it from where I’m standing. Dead men don’t pay rent.’ He looked quite pleased with the ring of that and I slammed the door in his money-grubbing face.
It was weird to be alone in the bedsit. I’d only been there with both Charlie and Dave before and then it had always seemed hot and crowded. I would perch on the arm of Charlie’s chair by the gas fire, while we listened to music and tried to bring Dave out of himself.
I drew the curtains that Dave always kept closed and looked at the sticky carpet and the tattered wallpaper patterned with race-horses plunging into nothing. It was worse than I’d thought. In the evenings, in the lamplight, it had never looked as bleak. I opened the window to let out the smell of stale smoke and in came the roar of traffic, the tough whiff of exhaust fumes. I know I should have done something more that night. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. When I’d rung the doorbell he was probably already … well. I didn’t make it happen.
I gathered up all the bicycle pumps and put them in a box for Oxfam. I flicked through Dave’s books: The Book of Changes, a Bible I was surprised to see, some comic thing called the Sandman and a sketchbook of pornographic scribbles. I put the books and CDs in a box for Charlie to sort through. Dave would have wanted Charlie to have everything though of course he hadn’t left a will, just a note that had been clutched in his hand when he’d been found.
Not worth the bother. No hard feelings. D.
He’d had very few clothes and they were too tatty for Oxfam so I put them into a bin bag. I held on to one thing for a moment: a T-shirt, black faded to grey, with an RSPB logo. It was identical to Charlie’s – in fact it probably was Charlie’s. I held it to my nose, soft, worn cotton, thin peppery smell of skin. The seam had come undone at the shoulder. I poked my finger through. An empty garment where Dave should be. Charlie could not have stood to do this.
In the bathroom there was a torn poster saying Have Nothing in Your Home That You do Not Know to be Useful or Believe to be Beautiful – a joke considering the heaps of squeezed-out toothpaste tubes, toilet-roll middles, rusty disposable razors and other rubbish. I stuffed it all, including the poster, in the bin bag with the clothes. I considered cleaning – but the grey ridges of scum round the sink and bath, the crusty scabs in the toilet defeated me. Leave it to the landlord, I thought. Dead men don’t clean.
On the mantelpiece I found a stick of Blackpool rock. It had gone soft and my fingers squidged into the sticky pink coating as I picked it up. Charlie had bought that rock on the day we met.
I’d gone alone, on a whim, to Blackpool for a couple of days. Though when I arrived at the boarding house and saw the roomful of icy polyester flounces, the grey and freezing rectangle of sea, I wondered what on earth I’d been thinking. The first evening I wandered about in the rain and bought chips with neon curry sauce and was under the covers by nine o’clock watching telly. But at breakfast the following morning I met Charlie.
He was eating scrambled eggs. Because it was off-season the landlady had opened up a small side-room for breakfast. The actual dining room was being decorated and there was a depressing smell of paint and white spirit. And the only guests were me and Charlie.
This is what I saw when I walked into that room. Curly hair, somewhere between brown and fair, blue eyes, a straight nose, golden stubble and a smile that took me in and gave me myself back, all bright and shiny new.
‘Mind if I?’ I said, just out of politeness, there was nowhere else to sit.
He had his mouth full, but he gestured and grinned while he chewed and swallowed. He was wearing a tweedy grey sweater, fraying at the cuffs.
We were quiet for a moment. I looked at the wisps of wool against the golden hairs on the back of his hands. The landlady came and took my order. I couldn’t think straight so I copied him and asked for scrambled eggs.
She sniffed. ‘If you’d have turned up ten minutes ago I could have scrambled them together,’ she said.
‘If it’s too much trouble …’ My voice came out sarcastic but I didn’t mean it. I meant if it is too much trouble I’ll have something else, I didn’t care about the scrambled eggs, but she flounced off.
Charlie raised his eyebrows at me.
‘I didn’t mean it like that!’ I said.
‘She was in a huff with me for wanting filter coffee,’ he said.
I said, ‘You’d think she’d be grateful not to have to do sausages and stuff.’
And that is when it started, the feeling of complicity between us, beginning with the landlady and growing to include everything. Charlie and me against the world.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Just fancied blowing the cobwebs away,’ I said. ‘What about you?’
He was working. He was an architect and was looking at plans for a new municipal glasshouse and aviary. ‘Perfect for me,’ he said. ‘Birds and buildings. But we’re getting nowhere slowly. Red tape like you wouldn’t believe. Public-health issues, insurance issues, planning issues, etcetera etcetera.’
We chatted for a while and I blurted out my story, my lack of family, the violent husband I’d fled to Sheffield to escape. All my personal belongings were lost in a fire. I worked as a clerical assistant at Green’s. I lived alone in my own bedsit
.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘that you’ve had such a rough time, I mean.’ He gazed at me with calm blue eyes, eyes as blue as the sea should be. ‘Hey, what are you planning today?’
I shook my head. ‘Dunno. A walk.’
‘I’ve got a couple of hours free,’ he said. ‘How about we walk together?’
It turned out that he lived in Sheffield too. He began to tell me some of the architectural history of the city. I wasn’t bothered about that but I watched his mouth talking and I watched myself eat the eggs and drink a cup of filter coffee and even have another piece of toast with marmalade. The landlady came in again looking at her watch. ‘I normally have the pots done and the Hoover out by now,’ she said and we took the hint. I felt her eyes on me, wondering if he had picked me up or I’d picked him up, but the picking up was mutual.
We’d walked in the wind and he’d pointed out birds to me pecking in the fringes of the sea, their twiggy legs in the cold water, long beaks piercing the sand. Birds have always given me the creeps but I didn’t mention that. Later we went in for a coffee and wandered about afterwards holding hands. Our hands reached out to each other almost of their own accord and it was a peculiar experience for me to be out with Charlie as if we were a pair of lovers, right there in the street for anyone to see.
And that is when he bought a stick of rock for Dave and one for me too and I sucked it as we walked along talking about this and that. And when he’d kissed me – our first kiss took place beside a pillar-box – the taste was of minty rock.
In Dave’s bedsit I unpeeled a bit of the sticky Cellophane and put my tongue on the sweet mintiness, just to taste that kiss again. And then I threw it in the bin bag and hurried to finish the job.
Nina Todd Has Gone Page 5