Consent

by Leo Benedictus

  *

  Look, basically all I’m saying is that I’m aware I am bound to have an effect on you that is sometimes the effect I mean, sometimes another effect, usually not even an effect I know about, and that therefore, whatever my meaning, I will generally fail to communicate it, and you will likewise almost certainly fail to understand, having your own limitations as I have mine, but that we should nevertheless try, and keep trying, because eventually the paths of our failures will cross out everything that isn’t who we are.

  *

  She saw me of course but didn’t expect to, not there and then, so it is only now as she waits at the bar that she begins wondering. Was it me? Did I see her? Did I flee? She runs back out and peers through the slots in the crowd. All week she’s been imagining my face at the cafe door, her calmness in triumph, Dawn’s smiles on the back of her neck. Is it instead going to be a jab on my shoulder at the hot end of a chase through rush hour? She returns to the bar. She stews. She wonders if she has regrets, and the next day tells Dawn.

  That’s good news! Cheer up! It means he’s still around.

  I suppose, she says.

  Her doubts widen as Saturday draws on but she sticks with it and in the evening goes back to the pub, where the walls are for some reason draped with bunting, and the next evening too. The pub is one room like the cafe but so large and at times so busy that I could easily go unseen. Plus she is accosted almost hourly.

  Whoever stood you up’s a fucking plonker, said a small man in late middle age and a little drunk, his head stuck out of a group then quickly pulled back in. He would be married, she supposed, and this his chaste revival of the old days, like the maintenance of a motorbike that stays in the shed. Whoever stood you up’s a fucking plonker. It was the phrasing that made her smile, the junction between its gallant front and muddy rear.

  You’re with Frayne Peters, right? Third floor? That was a young guy. He offered his hand smartly and she shook it without thinking. I’m in M&A, he said into her eyes. And in his early twenties she guessed. The doubt concerned whether he was a teenager. He had that adolescent formality, like a boy playing a man with only movies to go on. It would be charming for as long as it was inept. She gave him, I’m sorry. You’ve got me confused with someone else. And a stare.

  On Monday she wears a fitness tracker for her run. It says she’s gone two and a half miles. On Tuesday she goes four. When she gets home she undresses and lies down, self-vanquished, her blood jumping.

  Dawn asks about the notebook for the first time.

  Just some thoughts, Frances says.

  What about?

  Dawn’s husband drove taxis, was a character and died. What kind of character Dawn won’t say. She’s spoken of him with only buried fondness, and that only once, giving the bare facts of an immaculate smoker’s death of lung cancer at the age of forty-eight following a five-month cough, three stunned weeks from diagnosis to demise. There’d been insurance. She said it felt as though some magic spell had turned her husband into money. Mick his name was. There’d not been time to find out how it felt to him. So anyway, in fear of frittering, Dawn’s riches went on an old friend’s cafe and the old friend went to Spain. No ceremony marked the change of ownership although the regulars were welcoming to Dawn and some spoke of noticeable improvements, most the result of the new hotplate being clean. Because she wasn’t doing this for love, you know. She said so a few times, and the hard words carried easily from the delivery entrance round back, where she stood with a cigarette in her outdoor hand. Why did she do it then? A shrug and a puff. One laugh. You’ve got to do something haven’t you? There the matter closed. She would not mention Mick again, and soured if you tried. The smoking was her statement, Frances decided, a defiance of the disease that they could not defeat. She was fifty-four and already had the look of an old woman beset by living.

  Oh you know, about people. And some of the things they say.

  You mean my customers?

  Sometimes.

  Two weeks later I rang during the three o’clock slump.

  Hi. Is that Frances?

  Yes.

  She waited, but she knew. She sat still in her seat, like there was danger in sudden movement, then did a slow half-turn and nodded at Dawn, who mimed cheering. I asked if she remembered me and said sorry I’d been slow to call. I had some free time at last, I said. I’d been wondering how things turned out. Would she tell me after work one evening?

  Ha! There is no work! she said.

  What?

  They fired me. Now I’m not allowed to talk about it.

  Oh. God, I’m so sorry.

  Thank you. It’s been a very strange time.

  I’m sure. Do you have something new lined up?

  I’ll be all right.

  What happened?

  I’m not supposed to say, remember. We can talk about other things when we meet.

  Things that are allowed?

  Yes.

  We settled on Friday, then there was one of those pauses.

  Actually I was hoping you would ring, she said. There’s something else I wanted to ask. That time I saw you in the pub. Sorry, I was a little wasted.

  I remember. I mean I remember seeing you. You seemed fine.

  Thanks, but I was wasted. Do you remember the guy I was with? The guy who was sitting next to me, I mean.

  I didn’t answer.

  Quite a big guy. I think you talked to him about some job he was doing. He’s a delivery driver. I’d never met him before, and I haven’t seen him since. I just need to get a message to him but I don’t have his details. Do you remember the name of the client on that job you talked about? A publisher, I think. It’s a long shot, but I thought I’d ask.

  Oh yes. I remember. He did talk about a publisher, didn’t he?

  I hummed and sighed while I checked my notes.

  Matinee Press? Was that it?

  Yes! Thank you, I’m sure that’s right. Matinee.

  She went pink. She was so happy.

  *

  I went home to get some things. I say home but it didn’t feel that way. I’d not really been able to sleep there since the funeral so I’d been moving my stuff out by degrees and not been back for a week or so. This was yesterday. Already it feels like my real home is here, in my new quarters, cramped as they are.

  So I went back to my former home, I should say, and it seemed distant to me. Not less familiar. If anything the familiarity I experienced was more intense because I had to consider it. When you live with things every day you recognise them effortlessly and as a result don’t notice yourself doing it. They are ordinary to you. Once things fall out of your daily life, however, recognising them starts to require an act of recollection. A small act, but enough to make you notice and take interest, like first wiping away a coat of dust.

  I intended to be quick but I lingered, transfixed by the sight of the old pen jar. Then it was the same over an unwashed cup. It got me thinking that perhaps the most intense interest possible would come from visiting your childhood home and finding everything preserved exactly as it was when you were a child. All the same mess. The same scuffs and accoutrements. You’d look around and everything would be exotic and familiar at once. It would be quite disturbing, I think, because what’s ordinary to you is a good map of who you are. You’d see how much you change without noticing. What’s ordinary to me now, in my new home, is darkness and this screen, and being as stealthy as I can.

  Patrick’s missing. The publishers say so right away. They’ve spoken to the family a few times. The family have been in touch a few times. The publishers feel so awful for them, they wish they could do more. At last they find the brother’s number. He’s Steven Lacey with a V. Type Patrick Lacey and the screen swarms. The brother has been busy. He’s got a website going. It’s cheap-looking and misspelled. There’s a police investigation number everywhere. When Frances calls they take her details and say they’ll call her back. She tries to explain that it’s strange, beca
use there’s other police already looking for Patrick. Her boss died and the last time she saw Patrick the police were at her house. They say they’ll call her back. She calls the first police and gets the DI something who rang her before. He is nice, and confirms that the investigation remains open, but it takes a while for him to recall the case and who she and Patrick are. Even then this news about her alibi fails to stir him. She thought he’d think her brave and honest and was braced for questions. Maybe he thinks Will was suicide. Anyway, he has the name.

  She calls Steven Lacey. He sounds busy but pleased. He asks if they can meet at the mother’s home so she takes a train east and follows his directions through a retail park and into a grid of dowdy residential roads. The houses are not long built but already look like they regret it. The gardens are past mowing, or paved and parked on. Rust trails hang down the walls from the boilers’ overflows.

  She rings the bell and as she waits it starts to rain. A breeze hits the street, mussing up the trees provided. Her finger is ready to ring again when the door opens. Muttering, the mother motions her into a narrow hallway thick with dog. A staircase reaches up the left wall, and on the right a glass door dapples the lounge, where the mother goes. Money has been spent in here, but little recently. The give in the sofa has gone and the grey flanks of an old television jut deep into a carpet that shows the work of paws. The mother takes a chair and points to the sofa. A greasy-looking Yorkshire terrier appears and jumps round ratifying everything.

  Steve should be back any minute, the mother says. Can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee, juice?

  Her own glass holds something fizzy and clear.

  Thank you. Actually I’d love a tea.

  Milk and sugar? Get down, Carlos!

  Milk no sugar. Thanks.

  The mother moves wearily. She is younger than Frances expected and has given good looks to her son. After a long time she returns, collected somewhat by the rhythms of tea-making. She passes the cup through a cloud of perfume.

  Thanks. I can’t imagine how awful this must be for you. I’m so sorry.

  The woman smiles but says nothing. In speaking there are traps.

  I’m Frances, by the way.

  Steve told me. Lindsey. Pleased to meet you.

  They are too far apart to shake hands and it seems not worth standing up, so Frances does a little wave, then regrets the flippancy. It loosens something in Lindsey, however.

  Sorry I was slow with the door earlier. It’s. It’s the not knowing. I understand that something terrible might have happened. You can’t not think about it. But even. It sounds bad but even if I did hear the worst, you know, if that phone went now. Or if it hadn’t been you at the door. She is looking more at the carpet than at Frances. And people do still phone, you know. Then they talk about your energy bills and you just have to deal with it. I don’t know what’s normal but I keep thinking there must be something wrong with me because I’m not getting used to it at all. Not at all. For a long time Steve said I shouldn’t worry, then we heard that Patrick wasn’t showing up for jobs. You think horrible, horrible things. You can’t help it. And you can’t really say it to people, but if I heard the worst, you know. If the worst happened. I could stop feeling like it was going to happen any moment.

  The dog sleeps on her feet, its ears twitching.

  What do the police say?

  They say they’re doing what they can. Steve convinced them to search the flat. They’ve talked to all his friends. He’s registered as a missing person, so we’ll know if his credit cards get used. They say when young men disappear it’s usually volitional.

  Do you know any reason why he might have run away? Is his business in trouble?

  Steve’s been looking into that. I know it wasn’t doing brilliantly, but I thought it was OK. He has a bit of debt. Steve reckons the police will just let the bailiffs find him.

  I suppose as long as he’s found.

  Lindsey’s hands encircle the whole glass.

  How about Patrick’s dad, is …

  We’re divorced.

  OK.

  But he knows. He’s been helping a little on the phone.

  The door opens and an even larger version of Patrick appears, this time freckled, maybe with less hair, lacking some of the finer edges. He kisses his mother and tells her he has the posters. Then he gives Frances his attention, and a shake of his hand.

  I’m Steven. Thanks so much for coming down.

  No one has seen Patrick since the Friday night, when he went drinking with friends. One of them remembers he had a job the next day, and there was a booking in his diary, but the client emailed to cancel on Saturday morning, and his phone was off by lunchtime. The van appears not to have been used. Bringing all this together, Steve’s belief is that his brother, finding himself at a loose end, went into the city for personal reasons that morning, using public transport. He left no record of any arrangements, and no footage of him has been found on the buses and trains that were nearby, although not all the footage has been checked. There is too much of it, the companies say. Besides, the weather was good and he might have walked.

  There is no reason to imagine that Patrick is involved in anything dangerous or illegal. He takes drugs recreationally but has never sold them, to the best of anybody’s knowledge. He is single and appears to have had no regular girlfriend since the end of a long-term relationship last year. That woman, now with someone else, says it’s been months since she saw him. No other women had realised he’d gone. If he intended to disappear it must have been an intention quickly formed because the recent documents folder on his computer shows that on Friday afternoon he’d been developing plans to take his business online. That may have been why he went into town, for some kind of research.

  Oh my God, that was my idea! We talked about it that night.

  Your idea to start the website?

  Well, not a website. But I said he should consider a presence in online auctions. That’s where people buy things that need delivering. He didn’t sound interested, I thought.

  Could you tell me everything you can remember about your time together, from the beginning?

  She does, and in the telling she remembers more. Some are clean pieces of fact, some just edgeless feelings. The solemnness of that cigarette, but also his wryness in the pub, and afterwards their lust and laughter. She tells it all, daintily where she can, and finds herself describing a young man enjoying life. He did seem to have pleasure to live for. At any rate she knows she thought so at the time. Appearances can, well, we all know what they can do. When she gets to Patrick leaving she feels embarrassed for the first time. Had he given her his real number, had she heard it properly, had she just known his surname, things might have gone another way. She treads carefully lest some fault of hers lies scattered among the facts, and rushes by what happened to Will. She can’t deny it’s weird. Two men in two weeks. The X where their paths crossed marking her.

  Thank you, Steve says. I need to make a couple of phone calls. Can I give you a lift to the station when I’m done? It’s chucking down out there.

  Thanks, but I’ll be fine.

  They stand and shake hands. The dog scuttles in to be involved. As Steve’s footsteps fade above their heads, Frances makes ready to leave, but Lindsey remains sitting.

  I’m so glad you came, she says. It’s like I could hear Pat in some of what you said. It’s been a while since we heard anything new.

  I just wish I could do more. Or that I’d done something different. Maybe he just needs to be alone for a few weeks?

  Maybe. There’s no other good way to explain it, is there?

  Frances feels set the task of trying, but the silence while she thinks becomes her answer.

  Steve’s been amazing, Lindsey says. He’s used up nearly all his annual leave to move back here and run things. I’d be lost otherwise.

  He’s an amazing brother. I’m sure if anyone could find Patrick.

  Frances hops from foot to foot. It fee
ls awkward to be standing, awkward to sit back down.

  They’re very close. Very close. Sibling rivals, you know, even though Steve’s five years older. I think maybe it’s been helpful for him to make a project out of this. She actually laughs. I’m just a total mess.

  Anybody would be. Frances approaches to place a hand on her back.

  Probably. I don’t know. She stands. I need a top-up. Can I get you anything? Another tea? There’s biscuits if you’d like one?

  No thank you. I’m fine.

  Frances makes a circuit of the room while Lindsey is in the kitchen. There are reproduction watercolours in matching frames. Here a meek hillside, there a tepid shipwreck. She knows it’s garbage but tries to know something else. She feels a kind of fellowship with this stricken family. Like they’ve each brought their own impression of Patrick and together made a mould, his absence at the centre. Lindsey returns with a tea of her own and says,

  I decided to follow your example. I’ve not met many of Pat’s girlfriends. Not that you are his girlfriend. I know that. I just mean he keeps that side of things to himself. Nowadays I suppose people do settle down much later than they used to, and he doesn’t want his mum poking her nose in anyway. You don’t have kids?