Dispossession

by Chaz Brenchley

  She made a vague, hopeless gesture at that, and tried to come back strong again too late, having given herself too much away. “Okay, you didn’t have to come to me. But you didn’t have to run away from me, either.”

  “It wasn’t you,” I said, trying to reassure. “It was just everything; and that bloody truck the worst of it, watching someone die, I couldn’t hack it.”

  “You should’ve—” You should’ve come to me, I think she was going to say in defiance of what she’d said last, but she bit it back, remembering; and tried to change dance in mid-step, “You still could’ve phoned, you must’ve known I’d worry, I’ve been frantic...”

  Yes; and I’d been not thinking about her at all. Fleeing the city, I’d fled all that the city implied, until the need to know had drawn me back tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing it inadequate, only hoping she never found out just how disproportionate we’d been these last few days, she and I. “Luke has a way of taking things over, so you can’t see much outside of him; and it’s all been such a muddle in my head, I don’t think I could have talked to you anyway. Couldn’t have talked to anyone, really.”

  “You talked to Luke,” she complained; and I hid a grin, thinking that this much at least I could manage. Simple jealousy of Luke had always been a common factor, uniting all my girlfriends.

  “Not really. You don’t talk to Luke, not that way. There’s no point, he wouldn’t be interested.”

  She grunted, not entirely believing me, I thought, only letting it go; and then, coming round onto a different tack so hard that I wanted to duck for fear of some metaphorical boom cracking into my skull, she said, “So what are you doing now, then, why are you here? What did you come back for?”

  Not for me, she was saying, facing the truth with a fierce honesty, not if you could go away so easily, with never a second thought or a look behind.

  And she was right, of course, and I couldn’t deny it, she deserved as good as she gave me; so I said, “Don’t worry, I won’t get under your feet. I’ve got a room in a hotel. It’s only that I really need my computer. I didn’t like to let myself in without telling you, but...”

  And then she hit me.

  o0o

  It was a sweet clunking forehand slap, delivered with power and genuine feeling, if no great precision. She caught me half on the cheekbone and half on the ear, and the shock as much as the force of it sent me reeling back against the table behind me, clutching at its rim for support as my legs failed momentarily.

  After the shock, the stinging pain; I shook my head hard against that and a ringing dizziness, and the first thing I heard as my hearing came back online was the sound of applause from the other end of the hall.

  First thing I saw as my vision cleared was Suzie, seeming more than a little awestruck at what she’d achieved. Looking past her I saw a static picture, every player in the place standing stock-still, staring; only beyond them, behind the bar was there any movement, and that was Lee still clapping slowly, with a broad grin on his face.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Suzie whispered, fighting it seemed to stay angry, to hold on to that amid a turmoil of other emotions; and there at least I could agree with her wholeheartedly. No, I didn’t get it at all. The clarity of anger would have been a boon right then for me as well as her, only that I couldn’t manage it. I ought to, I thought, being made a public target; but it wasn’t there, I didn’t have it in me.

  “You vanish for days,” she went on, “for all I knew you could’ve lost your memory again, you could’ve been really ill if the doctors had missed something, you could’ve been dying with a brain haemorrhage in some hospital the other end of the country, and them not having a clue who you were; and then you turn up out of the blue and you want to just pick up your computer and go again? Stay in a hotel, and not get under my feet...?”

  Her fingers twitched at her sides, like she wanted to hit me again; but I lifted a hand to rub vaguely at my tingling ear, and her face changed as she came a rapid step closer.

  “Oh God, you’re okay, aren’t you? I haven’t...?”

  Despite everything, my mouth twitched into a smile, on the side that wasn’t sore. “No, you haven’t given me a brain haemorrhage, I’m not going to drop down and die.”

  She snorted. “Too bad, you deserve to. And I was just beginning to fancy widowhood, all that insurance money, I could have had a party.”

  She’d done this before, talked up a storm in self-defence. I ignored it. What was harder to ignore was the cool touch of her hand displacing mine, stroking the stubble on my temple and the smoothness of my cheek, trying to take away now what pain or shame she’d put there.

  Not meaning to, only reacting and not thinking at all, I reached up and gripped her wrist, to take her hand away. For a moment she went entirely rigid, and her eyes were blank; then she smiled tightly and turned her hand inside my loosening grasp, so that her fingers linked with mine. A quick tug and she was away up the aisle between the tables, and I could go with her hand in hand or I could stand and fight, pull free; but everyone was watching still, grinning or still giggling most of them, and I wouldn’t feed their greed for entertainment. Save it for when we were private...

  So I let her tow me all the way through the club and out of the double doors, with no more than a wave of her hand at Lee in passing, keep an eye on things, I’m taking this errant man upstairs. Which she did, and there at least I could slip my hand free of hers, because it’s both difficult and foolish to hold hands on a flight of stairs too narrow to climb two abreast; and at the top she was busy with keys and didn’t have a hand free to recapture mine even if she’d wanted to.

  I followed her in at the beckoning jerk of her head, and she led me silently all through the flat to the big empty bedroom; and turned to confront me there, gestured at the futon, rolled out now and made up ready for the night. “You can go where you like, you can do what you like; but as long as you’re in this city, Jonathan Marks, this is where you sleep, right? This is yours, you bought it, you can sodding well sleep on it...”

  And there were tears leaking down her face suddenly, though she dashed at them with an angry hand, and I didn’t know what to do.

  Fell back on the helpless male thing, a half-hearted pace forward and an open-handed gesture she wouldn’t see because she’d turned her back now, a muttered meaningless phrase, “Look, Suzie, it’ll be okay...”

  And then she turned again, all the way around as if she’d only meant to do a three-sixty in the first place, and her cheeks might be wet still but her eyes not, they were glaring.

  “And what’s with this ‘Suzie’ stuff, all of a sudden? Sue to you, I said, I always have been.”

  “That’s why,” I said, with an inward sigh, here we go again. “If it was only me called you Sue before, if it was something special between us, then it’s better for both of us if I don’t do it now. It’d be like me taking over someone else’s name for you, it’s invested with too much that I don’t share any more.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “I know. But I can’t pretend, love. I can’t be the Jonty you married when I don’t remember the first thing about him.”

  “Then don’t call me ‘love’,” she said. “Bastard.”

  But she said it entirely without heat, with a neutral gaze; I tried to meet that with one of my own.

  “Suzie, then?”

  “Suzie.” She nodded, and we could have shaken hands on it, we were that formal for a moment. Until she scowled, and said, “But you’re still a bastard, and I hate you for it. Come on, I’ll show you where your toothbrush is, and where we keep the towels. I suppose you don’t remember?”

  Of course I didn’t remember; and she didn’t actually mean that anyway, she didn’t make the first hint of a movement. Just stood there looking at me, daring me to defy her; and all I could do was prevaricate. “I’ve booked a room already, at the Palace. It’s too late to cancel that, they’ll charge me anyway
.”

  “So pay anyway. Or charge it to Deverill, that’s better. That’s what you usually do.”

  “Is it?”

  Even I could hear how my voice sharpened at that. She gazed at me thoughtfully, then nodded. “Yeah. Every time you buy me dinner. You’re dead tight, you.”

  I twitched a smile at her. “Well, maybe. But I don’t want to do that tonight. Or at all, until I know why he’s prepared to pay my bills for me.” And then, going on quickly as her face clamped, “But all right, I won’t go back to the hotel tonight. I’ll sleep on the sofa, or something.”

  “You’ll sleep here,” she said, her finger stabbing down once more at the futon. And reading my face at least as easily as I was reading hers—she’d had more practice, after all, weeks and weeks of it, unless I was benefiting from experience I couldn’t consciously remember—she added, “There’s a spare bed in the other room. I’ll use that.”

  “No, I will.”

  “You’ll sodding well do what you’re told, for once. This is king-size, so are you. The other one’s little, so am I. It’s just physics, or geography, or whatever. I don’t fit in here, without you.”

  She’d been using it, I thought, none the less; but I was tired of arguing, happy to lose. At my shrug of submission, she beamed broadly, took my elbow, steered me towards the door. “Come on, then. Towels and toothbrush, yes? And I’ll show you where your clothes are, too. I mean, for God’s sake, where did you get this stuff? What is it, the jumble-sale leftovers that Oxfam wouldn’t take? You look better underneath, mind. Hundred per cent better than last time. Luke must be good for you. But God, I was scared when you ran away. Don’t you do that, right? Don’t you dare do that again. Whatever happens, we can sort it out.”

  We were nearly at the bathroom door by now, and it was incredibly hard to stop walking, to resist the constant flow of her words and her intent.

  “Hang on,” I said. “I should phone the hotel, at least, if I’m not going to sleep there.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  I shrugged. “Maybe they won’t charge me full rate, if I cancel now. Maybe they like to know how many guests they’ve got in the building, in case there’s a fire. Or maybe it’s just a matter of courtesy, but I won’t feel comfortable, else.”

  She snorted. “Didn’t phone me when you bunked off, did you? Didn’t show me any courtesy. But go on, if you want to. If you must.”

  And she waited, and so did I, because I still felt like a stranger here, I couldn’t go searching while she watched; and it took her a second before she grunted in frustrated understanding and said, “Just round the corner there, on the floor. By the hi-fi.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was a cordless phone, silently recharging. I picked it up, found the hotel’s number on the key-card they’d given me at reception, and dialled.

  A woman answered after a couple of rings. I said, “Oh, hullo. My name’s Jonathan Marks, I checked in with you this evening...”

  “Oh yes, Mr Marks. Thank you for calling. I’ll just put you straight through to the manager.”

  “No, wait, there’s no need for—”

  “He asked me to, Mr Marks. As soon as you called, he said.”

  He was expecting a call? Weird. Spooky. I hadn’t been expecting to make one. But I didn’t have time to puzzle it through, because he was on the line almost immediately.

  “Mr Marks? Michael Hobden, I’m the duty manager tonight.”

  “Right, hullo. Look, I just called to say I won’t be coming back...”

  “No, that’s fine, sir. I quite understand, and I do apologise for this. It certainly appears as though one of our staff tipped off the press. At the moment our guests are having to run a gauntlet of reporters outside the door, which is intolerable for all of us, but clearly you’re the party most injured. There’ll be no charge for the room, of course. If you’d like to give me a number where we can reach you, then whoever’s on duty can let you know when the coast is clear for you to come and collect your car, or make arrangements for someone else to pick it up; but I’m afraid that’ll be tomorrow morning at the earliest. They know your room number, so they’ll probably have your car tagged as well, and I don’t think they’ll be going away tonight.”

  “Oh. Yes, a number, of course. Hang on...”

  I had to yell for Suzie, and ask her; the number wasn’t on the phone. He vowed without any prompting to keep it confidential, and then he apologised again and brought the conversation to a tidy and diplomatic end. I put the phone down, stared at it for a bit, then turned to find her watching me curiously.

  “Suzie? Why would the press be chasing me?”

  “Oh. Yes, of course they would. Hold on...”

  She disappeared, came back a minute later with a bundle of papers. One she discarded on a sofa, the other two she passed to me without comment.

  I hadn’t been headline news, apparently, though it was only a local paper; but front page at least, I’d been, and for two days running. The first time was a report on the truck and the fire and Oliver’s death, naturally, and Deverill’s narrow escape. I was in there as a subsidiary, an also-survived, but they had me down as “Mr Deverill’s lawyer, recovering from a road traffic accident”, which was interesting. Deverill had many lawyers, but not one of them was me.

  The second paper, the next day’s edition, had me again front page, and second only to a nursery sex-abuse scandal where the protagonist was coincidentally one of my own clients. This time, at least I was the focus of the story. THE LAWYER VANISHES, the catch-line ran, Missing-Memory Man Goes Walkabout.

  I scanned the story swiftly, grimaced, glanced at Suzie. “The police too, huh?”

  “Afraid so. Maybe you should tell them that you’re here, yes? Before they come looking? They don’t find you at the hotel, they’re going to come back. I bet most of those messages are them already, press or police,” nodding towards the answering machine, where a blinking counter told of a dozen calls waiting.

  “Back? You mean they’ve been already?”

  “Everybody’s been. I made a list. Two lists: phone calls, and personal visits. You can look at them in the morning. Not now.” Tonight’s for us, unspoken but very much there in her body language, half diktat and half appeal. Please?

  To me that was as much a threat as the press, the police and the sensation-seekers combined, but—hell, I’m slow, but I get there in the end. She’d been through shit, this girl who seemed to love me, and that was substantially my own fault. I owed her one night at least, on her own terms.

  “Can you turn the phone off?”

  “Sure can.” Her fingers moved on the handset, and, “There,” with another of those huge smiles, far too large for her fine-featured face to encompass.

  “And not answer the door?”

  “Better than that, I can lock the fire door at the bottom of the stairs. They won’t get up further than the club.”

  “What if there’s a fire?”

  “We’ll get into the bath together, turn the shower on, and if they don’t rescue us in time we’ll be soup by morning,” but she didn’t look at all distressed by the idea. Content to die with me, she was, this girl, at least in fun; and I wouldn’t, couldn’t even call her by a pet name or anything approximating to it, and I didn’t see how we were ever going to bridge this gulf between us.

  o0o

  She ran off down the stairs, jingling keys; I went to look at the paper she’d kept but hadn’t shown me. Found myself reading the top story this time, about a body discovered, a man burned to death in a stolen van. For a moment, I didn’t see the connection; but the report went on to imply—simply by admitting that the police had refused to confirm it—that this dead man was being sought at the time of his death two days ago, for questioning with regard to the burning truck that had killed Oliver, had so nearly killed Deverill and Dean and me.

  Reading between the lines, then, presuming that the reporter and the police both had good information, this guy
had tried to assassinate someone, Deverill or me; he had failed; and now he was dead himself, in a way that horribly echoed his bungled attempt. Locked into the van, he’d been, no accident. Which made it an execution. For trying, or for failing? I couldn’t say, couldn’t guess, even: didn’t have enough information. I just heard Suzie coming back up the stairs, and put the paper back quickly where she’d left it. If she didn’t want to talk about that tonight, then emphatically neither did I.

  o0o

  I didn’t recognise the toothbrush that she showed me, on a quick where-to-find-things tour of what she called my property. It was not the splayed, broken-bristled old thing, Boots’ finest, that I’d been using in defiance of my dentist for a year or more. She’d thrown that out, she said, the morning after I moved in. She’d taken me shopping, she said; and hence this sleek and streamlined designer object that felt strange in the hand and would surely feel stranger in the mouth, though doubtless it slayed plaque at fifty paces.

  Must have been some shopping trip, that, and too bad I didn’t remember it: you spend so much money all at once, you should have it logged for life. The toothbrush was nothing, but the futon she told me I’d bought, I’d insisted on. She’d been sleeping till then in her brother’s bed, and we’d needed shelter from her ghosts, I’d said. Apparently.

  Privately, I doubted it had been quite like that; I’d never slept on a futon in my life and would never have thought to try. More likely I’d said, we need a new bed, and left it to her to choose. But if she chose to remember it otherwise, I was in no position to argue.

  And then she took me into the second bedroom where I found ghosts of my own—books that had been mine since university, folders from the office, sheets and sheets of A4 covered with my scratchy hand—and she threw open a wardrobe to show me where my clothes were, and that must have been some shopping trip indeed, because I knew none of them.