by Jonathan Coe
She wrote for forty-five minutes and then, at a quarter to ten, there was a ringing on the front door bell. She ran down to the nearest video monitor, which was on the first-floor landing, and turned it on. A grainy black and white image of Frederick Francis appeared. He was standing outside the hoarding waiting to be admitted. She buzzed him in and then went further downstairs to open the front door.
‘Hello,’ he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling on you out of the blue.’
‘Not at all,’ said Rachel. ‘But Gilbert isn’t here. Madiana’s in New York and he’s … well, I don’t know where he is, exactly.’
‘I know,’ said Frederick. ‘It was you I wanted to see.’
‘Oh. Well, in that case … Come in.’
She led him into the sitting room, a place she rarely visited.
‘Are you going to offer me a drink?’ Freddie said, sitting down on the sofa nearest the door.
Rachel could smell alcohol on his breath already.
‘I’m not sure that it’s mine to offer.’
‘Oh, come on. After all you’re doing for this family at the moment, you’d be entitled to bathe in champagne every night.’
‘In a diamanté bath,’ said Rachel, smiling. ‘All right then, where do they keep the booze?’
Frederick rose to his feet and proved that he knew exactly where to find the drinks cupboard: it stood flush with the bookshelves that were full of unread eighteenth-century first editions. After a quick search among the bottles he plucked one out with an air of triumph.
‘Twenty-year-old Lagavulin,’ he noted, uncorking the bottle and pouring two large tumblerfuls. ‘Almost the same age as you, in fact.’
‘I don’t really drink wh –’
‘This is more than a whisky. It’s nectar.’ He clinked her glass. ‘Come on. Chin-chin.’
Rachel took a sip of the leather-coloured, peaty Scotch and had to concede that it was superb. All the same, she resolved not to drink too much.
‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ said Freddie, ‘I was having a drink nearby, and I thought I might drop in to find out how you were coping, all by yourself, and also … Also, as it happens, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our conversation the other day, on the plane.’
He had not returned to the sofa. He was pacing the room uncertainly, shooting glances of enquiry at Rachel’s face as he spoke.
‘Oh?’ she said.
‘The fact is, Rachel, that you obviously have rather a low opinion of me and … I’m not comfortable with that.’
‘I’m sorry if I gave that impression. It had just been a bit of a weird day, that’s all …’
‘I think it’s about more than just one day. You hate me. You don’t like what I do.’
‘No,’ said Rachel, taking another sip of whisky, and realizing that this conversation was going to be every bit as awkward as she had feared. ‘I don’t hate you. It’s true that I think your work is – well, a bit unethical …’
‘A bit! Come off it, Rachel. What I do stinks. It stinks to high heaven.’
She was taken aback. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well, clearly you’ve had something of a change of heart in the last few days. But those are your words, Freddie. Not mine.’
‘I thought a bit of plain speaking was called for, for a change. And yes, I have had a change of heart. And I lied to you on the plane, Rachel. I said that everything Gilbert and I do is within the law. Well, it isn’t. At least one of the funds I’ve set up in Madiana’s name could land all of us in prison. And perhaps it should.’
‘I visited someone in prison, this week, as a matter of fact. A friend of mine. She’s doing three months for benefit fraud.’
‘I bet she hasn’t fiddled a fraction of what I’ve siphoned off for Gilbert over the years.’
Rachel wished that he would sit down. His pacing was beginning to make her dizzy.
‘Well, these are fine words, Freddie. So what are you going to do about it?’
‘I’m thinking,’ he said, ‘about going to HMRC and telling them everything. Or perhaps taking the story to the papers.’
Rachel took another, very cautious sip of whisky, and allowed herself a long look at Freddie while her lips were still to the glass. Nothing about this sudden conversion of his rang true, to her ears.
‘I wouldn’t do anything drastic,’ she said. ‘Having seen the inside of a prison, I don’t think it would suit you. And please don’t turn your whole life around on my account. Whatever your ethics, I don’t dislike you personally. Not at all.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Because it may surprise you to learn that your opinion means a lot to me.’
‘And why would that be?’
And suddenly he was upon her, pressing her up against the bookshelves, causing her to spill the rest of her whisky on the floor, his lips crushing down on hers, the full weight of his body bearing down on her. ‘Because you are … so … fucking … gorgeous,’ he said, between heavy, alcohol-soaked breaths. ‘Because … I can’t die happy … until I’ve got inside your pants …’
‘Get OFF me!’ Rachel shouted, and pushed him away with a force that sent him reeling across the room. He toppled against the grand piano, steadied himself, and then for a few moments they stared at each other. When he made no further move, she pointed at the door. ‘Get out. Get out now.’
It seemed that he was about to obey her. He wiped his mouth and started making for the door, but as he was passing beside her he made another lunge, grabbing her around the waist this time and throwing her to the floor. Now he was on top of her and she was pinned to the carpet.
‘Get OFF!’ she screamed again, and just then a child’s voice said, ‘Rachel?’ and they both looked towards the doorway, in which Grace and Sophia were standing, side by side, wearing their matching pyjamas and looking rumpled and sleepy.
Averting his eyes from the children’s questioning gaze, Freddie staggered to his feet and went over to the mirror above the fireplace, where he straightened his tie and smoothed down his hair. Rachel was still on the floor. The impact of the fall had bruised her and for the time being she didn’t think she could get up.
‘Are you all right?’ Sophia said, and they both came forward and held out their hands to help her.
Without another word, or so much as a glance in their direction, Freddie left the room and strode across the hallway towards the front door. They heard it open and then slam shut.
In a slow, painful movement, Rachel rocked herself into a sitting position, and then stayed that way for a while. Grace and Sophia knelt down on either side of her and put their arms around her. It was this display of sympathy, above all – so unexpected, so unlooked-for – that gave her the strength to raise herself finally, and stand upright.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you back into bed. I think we all need another night-time story, don’t you?’
‘Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Mr Francis?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I think he knows the way out.’ And then, holding hands, the three of them slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor.
*
Freddie certainly knew the way out. But he was in no hurry to leave. For ten minutes he stood in the Gunns’ front garden, next to the temporary site office, and tried to calm himself, breathing slowly and heavily, his breath steaming into the night air. It was a clear night, cloudless and starry. The moon, three-quarters full, threw antic shadows across the paving slabs, the patches of dried-out mud and cement, the te
mporary planking. The disorder of the builders’ materials seemed to suit his own deranged state of mind. He felt no immediate inclination to pass through the door in the hoarding. The thought of hailing a cab and making the journey home sickened him.
At first, when he became aware that he was being watched, his reaction was surprisingly calm. He did not know where the creature had come from, or how it had crept up on him so silently, and for a moment he pondered these questions in a mood of dispassionate curiosity. It dawned on him only slowly that he was in mortal danger; and not just that, but that he was about to die in the most grotesque and unbelievable way. The eyes, the two high, widely separated, beady amber eyes, gazed at him with fixed malevolence. The creature’s legs were long and double-jointed, rising at their apex to a height taller than Freddie himself. The belly, the huge, distended belly, was covered with short hairs which in the moonlight appeared to have a greenish hue; it sagged heavily against the ground, an obscene sac containing vast, revolting liquid secrets.
The creature’s legs quivered and twitched as it readied for the pounce.
Only now did Freddie start to back towards the wall. But with the third or fourth step he tripped and fell, so that he was prone and supine as the spider advanced towards and over him, its legs thrashing and scuttling, the stomach dragging itself across Freddie’s shins, knees and thighs, then over his torso before finally settling on his face, so that the entire vile, colossal weight of the thing was pushing down on him, the stench of it, the thick, coarse texture of the body forcing the gorge up to his throat and sending him quickly, irresistibly into a swoon from which he was never to recover.
17
‘What a whopper!’ bellowed Grace.
‘What – a – whopper!’ echoed Sophia, at half the speed and in a much deeper voice, and, swept up by uncontrollable laughter, they both started rolling around on the playroom floor.
The credits and the title music came up on the screen all too quickly and they started shouting:
‘Oh, Rachel, can we see it again? Please, Rachel!’
‘Just the last scene, Rachel … please!’
Who would have guessed it, Rachel thought, as she rewound the DVD about three minutes. Who would have guessed that of all the things she could have shown them, it would be this terrible, creaky, inept, black and white British comedy film from the early 1960s that would send them into such paroxysms of delight, breaking down the final barriers of icy composure which they had maintained in front of her for so long? She had only bought the DVD two years ago because Laura had mentioned it to her as forming part of her researches: warning her, at the same time, that watching the whole thing would probably destroy her will to live. But the last scene, at least – or rather, the final gag – was a miracle of audacious stupidity. After ninety tedious minutes of joking around with fake Loch Ness Monsters, the real monster (itself about as dreadful an example of low-budget special effects as you could imagine) reared its plastic head out of the water and uttered the three immortal words that Grace and Sophia found so hilarious, and which they were now repeating over and over again, trying to imitate the monster’s droll, deadpan voice as they waited impatiently for the scene to restart.
‘One more time,’ she said. ‘One more time, or we’re going to be late for the train.’
It was Sunday morning, and for the second week in a row she had cancelled her regular date with Jamie. Not, this time, because she had been brusquely summoned to a foreign country to help with ten minutes’ homework. No, this time she had made the decision herself (and had arranged to see him tomorrow during the girls’ school hours instead) because she was determined to get them out of the house for the day, and to take them not to a museum, gallery or gourmet restaurant, but somewhere where they might have some mindless, uncomplicated fun. Chessington World of Adventures seemed the obvious choice. It wasn’t the easiest place to reach by train, but that in itself was part of her plan. She wanted to show them that not everybody in the country travelled in a chauffeured limousine. Other modes of transport were available.
In any case, they ended up having a glorious day. Grace’s favourite ride was the Scorpion Express; Sophia inclined towards the Rattlesnake. They both enjoyed getting soaking wet on Rameses’ Revenge, and they emerged looking pleasantly shocked, dazed and dizzy from the Dragon’s Fury. For Rachel, most of the time was spent standing with them in queues, or watching them on rides and trying to take photographs while they whizzed past on some rollercoaster or carousel. A few months ago, she would never have imagined that this was how she would choose to spend an entire Sunday. But there was a reward at the end of it, and it was a precious one: by the time they returned to Turngreet Road, the twins were more animated and talkative than she’d ever known them, and they both promised her that it had easily been the best day of their lives so far. They had loved everything about it, even the terrible junk food and the crowded, severely delayed train ride home. In fact, sitting opposite them in the packed carriage and watching the bright-eyed curiosity on their faces as they looked around at the other passengers, enthralled by the novelty of finding themselves in contact with this mass of ordinary humanity, Rachel wondered whether this hadn’t been their favourite part of all.
*
The next day she went to see Jamie in Crouch End, where he shared a house with six other students. He paid almost £200 a week, for which he was given sole occupancy of a tiny bedroom on the second floor. All the rooms in the house – including what used to be the sitting and dining rooms – had been turned into bedrooms and rented out, so Jamie rarely ventured out of his own bedroom unless it was to go down to the kitchen and make some instant coffee or microwave himself a meal. His bedroom was just about big enough to hold his single bed and the child’s dressing table which served as his desk.
‘I can only stay a couple of hours,’ Rachel said, explaining that she had to be back in Chelsea to pick the girls up from school. It was annoying, then, that Jamie proposed watching a film, and would not be talked out of it: all the more so because the film was Ghosts, Nick Broomfield’s dramatization of the Morecambe Bay cocklepickers’ tragedy of 2004, which he needed to watch for the latest chapter of his thesis.
‘Why are you always thinking about work?’ said Rachel, who after the stresses of the last week had come with an entirely different purpose in mind.
‘It’s only ninety-six minutes,’ said Jamie, checking the back of the DVD box. ‘We can do something else afterwards.’
Despite herself, Rachel could not help finding it an absorbing and upsetting film. It followed the misfortunes of a young Chinese illegal immigrant forced into ever more insecure jobs within the food industry, in order to pay back money to the ‘Snakeheads’ who had smuggled her into the UK. Rachel found that the story had a strong resonance with her memories of Lu, the Chinese worker Phoebe had looked after for a few days back in 2003. It was an odd coincidence to be watching a film that so clearly reminded her of this episode now, just when she had spent the last few days attempting to set it all down on paper. When the film was over, Jamie sat at his desk and started making notes.
‘Do you have to do that now?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go in like … half an hour. Forty minutes tops.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Jamie. ‘There are so many things I’ll need to say about that film. Really I could start a whole new chapter about it.’
He scribbled rapidly in his notebook for another two or three minutes, his brow so furrowed with concentration that he did not even notice what Rachel was doing behind his back. When he turned to speak to her again, he found that she had stripped off
her clothes and was stretched out beneath his duvet.
He put his pencil down.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know … I mean …’
‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘Are we going to do it or not?’
He pulled off his shirt and slid in beside her. Rachel put her arms around him and planted a long, moist kiss on his mouth.
‘I was attacked last week,’ she murmured, as Jamie’s hands began to glide over her body. Immediately he stopped and pulled back.
‘What?’
‘This guy came round to the house and … tried it on with me.’
‘Guy? What guy? Who was it?’
‘Someone I know. A friend of Gilbert’s.’
‘Did you report it to the police? Did he hurt you?’
‘He probably would have done. But he didn’t get very far.’
Jamie pulled away even further, sitting upright and staring down at her angrily.
‘Tell me his name.’
‘No. Why?’
‘Tell me the bastard’s name.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘I’ll go and smash his face in.’
Rachel tried hard, but couldn’t refrain from giggling.
‘Come off it. You?’
‘Yes, me.’
She reached up, put her arms around Jamie’s shoulders, and pulled him back towards her.
‘That’s very touching, sweetheart, but it’s the last thing I want.’
She kissed him again.
‘What do you want instead?’ he asked.
‘A bit of tender loving care would be nice,’ said Rachel, taking his hand and placing it carefully between her legs.