by Greg Keen
‘About what?’
‘Let’s say it was a personnel issue.’
Stephie scowled and sat back in her chair. Tough shit. I hadn’t spoken about what happened on a late-July night in the upstairs room of the Galaxy in almost four decades. It would take more than a feminine strop to get me started. Some things that are buried deserve to stay buried. Even if that did ruin my leg-over chances.
‘I take it we’re going our separate ways at the end of the evening,’ I said, just to make absolutely sure on that point.
‘Not necessarily,’ Stephie replied.
FOUR
Three years ago, Stephie’s husband, Don, had been returning from a race meeting in Chester when his Lexus skidded on black ice and ran into an artic. He was killed instantly. After the funeral no one heard from Stephie in six weeks. Then she turned up at the club and got on with things as though nothing had happened.
A few of us regulars said how sorry we were for her loss. All we received in return was a perfunctory nod. We assumed Stephie had been staying with her grown-up son in New Zealand. At any rate, things were back to normal, and normal is what we like in the V. Not that many people would recognise it as such.
Stephie and I first slept together on Christmas Eve last year. The club closed at lunchtime and I asked whether she fancied a nightcap. Already half-pissed, we went back to mine and put back another bottle of vodka. One minute we were on the sofa watching It’s a Wonderful Life; the next we were rolling around on the floor.
I awoke alone at ten o’clock on Christmas Day to a cracking hangover and an empty bed. My call to Stephie went straight to voicemail. The next time I saw her was in the Vesuvius three days later.
‘About the other night . . .’ I began in the time-honoured fashion.
‘What night?’
‘You know. When we . . .’
Stephie’s brow crinkled. ‘You mean when I came round for a drink?’
‘Yeah, that night,’ I said.
‘What about it?’ she asked.
‘I just thought you might want to . . . you know . . . talk about it.’
Stephie couldn’t have looked any more puzzled had I asked to discuss which brand of bleach she was using in the V’s toilets or the GDP of Peru.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no reason,’ I said.
One way to deal with the rash things you’ve done in life is to pretend they never took place. And I could hardly insist we anatomise our moment of madness if Stephie wasn’t prepared to take a scalpel to it. For the next few weeks we chatted as though nothing had happened. It got to the point where I began to wonder if my booze-sodden brain had simply invented the entire event. And then one evening, when I was kicking back after a hard day photographing an alleged paraplegic trampolining at his local leisure centre, my buzzer went.
Stephie was on the step holding a bottle of Stoli.
A protocol quickly built up around our relationship. Never acknowledging the fact that we were having one was the first rule. It always happened at my flat and Stephie left within the hour. I suppose you could say we were fuck buddies, if that term could apply to people whose combined ages were north of a century.
No-attachments sex is generally regarded as the male ideal and certainly beats no sex whatsoever. And yet the truth was that I felt oddly uncomfortable about the arrangement, but not so much that I wanted it to end.
We paid the bill at Pizza Express and headed south down Dean Street. It was getting on for eight o’clock. Those who had been hanging around the parish for a couple of post-work drinks were changing their minds or vacating the area. Curtains were rising in theatreland and red lights being turned on in second-storey windows.
After picking up a bottle of Smirnoff in Gerry’s – rarely consumed these days but still somehow necessary – we entered Brewer Street. The conversation was stilted, to say the least. Anyone would have thought Stephie and I were en route to a game of Russian roulette as opposed to an appointment with sexual bliss.
The flat I lived in was above the Parminto Wholefood Deli, a shop that catered for fruitarians, vegans and other lunatics. My brother Malcolm’s company bought the place a few years ago to put up out-of-town clients. As virtually all of them preferred twenty-four-hour room service and a view of the park, it was seldom occupied. Malcolm let me stay there when I was between places, which was pretty much permanently.
A large white envelope with my name across it lay on the flat’s doormat. I dropped it on the side table at the top of the stairs. Stephie visited the bathroom while I straightened up the sitting room and poured a pair of drinks. She returned clutching the Atriliac box.
‘What are these?’ she asked, using much the same tone my mother had on discovering a packet of Senior Service in my school blazer.
‘I’m looking after them for another boy,’ I said.
‘Is that a joke?’
‘They’re just some pills my doctor prescribed.’
‘Why’s he giving you antidepressants?’
‘Would you believe because I’m depressed?’
Stephie sat next to me on the sofa. She dropped the Atriliac box on to the coffee table and said, ‘Have you started taking them?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why are you depressed, Kenny?’
‘Low serotonin.’
‘Low what?’
‘It’s a naturally occurring feel-good hormone,’ I explained. ‘If your system’s deficient then you struggle to maintain a positive mood.’
Dr Leach had also said that depression was nothing to be ashamed of and that I’d done the right thing coming to see her.
Stephie was less sympathetic.
‘Remember what Jack used to say about having eyes in the front of our heads so we could look forward in life instead of backwards?’
I nodded. ‘He was full of annoying shit like that.’
There was a hiatus in the conversation, which Stephie eventually broke. ‘You know they offer grief counselling on the NHS these days, Kenny.’
‘I wasn’t related to Jack.’
‘You might as well have been.’
True enough. Over the years, Jack had given me payday loans, advice on women, a place to kip between flats, and allowed my tab to slide until it looked like the national debt of a rogue African state. Not so much a father figure as an indulgent uncle.
And now he was dead.
‘What can a counsellor say that I don’t know already?’ I asked Stephie. ‘Doesn’t matter whether you’re or good or bad; loved or loathed, it all ends up the same way.’
‘You don’t know what the future holds, Kenny. No one does.’
‘I can give you an educated guess about mine.’
Stephie sighed. ‘Go on . . .’
‘Odeerie’s bound to drop dead soon and then I’ll be out of a job. I’m too old to get another and I’ll be even more broke than I am now. Eventually my brother will sell this place, which means I’ll be on the streets without a pot to piss in.’
‘Might never happen,’ Stephie said after taking a hit on her drink.
‘Why not?’
‘You could get cancer next year, have multiple bouts of unsuccessful chemo, and then die alone in some underfunded shithole of a hospital.’
‘That’s a fucking terrible thing to say.’
The corner of Stephie’s mouth began to twitch. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t prevent mine from following suit. Eventually we were laughing like a pair of lottery winners. It was a couple of minutes before either of us could speak again.
‘You don’t seem depressed now,’ Stephie said.
‘Yeah, well, it won’t last,’ I replied.
‘I’ve got something that’ll keep you happy for a while.’
‘The vodka?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes and kissed me.
Stephie and I were practised enough to know what worked for each other but not so much so that sex had become routine. I recalle
d the side effects of Atriliac, and wondered if that was another reason not to take it. Was it worth ruining one of the few enjoyable things in my life just for a dose of chemical sunshine?
After the event we lay on the duvet, sheens of sweat drying on our bodies. Each told a different story. Stephie attended yoga classes three times a week and ate a largely vegetarian diet. Her skin retained the pliancy of youth and had yielded little ground to the years. Her legs were as sleek and muscled as a professional dancer’s.
The best that could be said about me was that at least I wasn’t fat – quite the reverse, if anything. My ribcage stood out like a glockenspiel; my hips like the fins on a Ford Anglia. There had to be muscles in there somewhere, but they were small and they were scared. Thank God for a winning personality, is all I can say.
Stephie turned on to her side. ‘Did you take a pill?’ she asked.
‘Check in the box if you don’t believe me.’
‘I meant a blue one.’
‘Nope.’
Stephie smiled and ran her hand over my chest. ‘Not bad for an old man,’ she said. ‘Not bad at all.’
‘Who are you calling old?’
‘That’s the spirit.’
‘And besides, Viagra takes an hour to kick in. By the time it hit my bloodstream, you’d be halfway down the Northern Line.’
Stephie swung herself out of bed and pulled her knickers on. Her skirt quickly followed. She dressed like a woman who has just been told the building is on fire.
‘Look, all I’m saying is that we’ve been doing this for the best part of a year and I’m not exactly sure where we’re going with it,’ I said.
The bra was hooked and a sweater pulled over it.
‘Don’t be like that, Stephie . . .’
She struggled into each boot and headed for the door.
‘At least let’s talk about . . .’
And that was the last thing I said before Stephie left the bedroom. I imagined her retrieving her coat from the sitting room and waited for the front door to slam.
That she felt she was betraying Don’s memory was why our random trysts were never referred to. At least that was Odeerie’s theory and he was the only person I’d discussed it with. He recommended that I enjoy things while they lasted. He wasn’t right about everything but it looked as though he was right about this.
My cock peered at me reproachfully from its nest of greying pubes. ‘Don’t you fucking start,’ I said. And then the bedroom door opened again.
‘Okay,’ Stephie said. ‘Let’s talk.’
When Malcolm’s company decorated the flat, the aim had presumably been to appeal to all tastes. In doing so it appealed to none. Each room had been painted an innocuous pastel colour and the furniture bought with utility in mind.
I had attempted to rid the bedroom of its safe-house ambience by hanging a repro of a Walter Sickert painting above the fireplace. By the window stood the only furniture I owned – a brass-hooped sea chest that had belonged to my great-grandfather. Stephie sat on it, hugged her legs and stared at the floor.
‘Don was the only guy I’d ever slept with,’ she said in a voice so soft it was barely audible. ‘I was sixteen when I met him and we were married three years later. There hadn’t been anyone else before.’
‘I didn’t know.’
Stephie shrugged. ‘Why would you? How many women my age have only been with one— with two guys?’
‘You should have said something.’
‘You reckon?’
‘No, probably not.’
I dragged the duvet over my lower half and reached for my Marlboros. Stephie occasionally had one. Not this time. I lit up and waited for her to continue.
‘That first time was a bit of a test,’ she said after opening the window. Cold air eddied into the room, with the sound of chattering people from the street below.
‘You mean it wasn’t an accident?’ I asked.
‘An accident?’
‘After all that vodka, I thought maybe . . .’
‘I didn’t go through with it because I was pissed, Kenny. I got pissed so I could go through with it.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so touchy. If it was going to be anyone it was going to be you. The only reason I had the vodka was because I felt . . .’
‘Guilty?’
Stephie bit her lower lip and considered the question.
‘More sad than guilty,’ she decided. ‘It was a year before I gave Don’s clothes away and even then I cried for two days. You can imagine what it was like sleeping with another man.’
‘Why didn’t you wait?’ I asked.
‘Because I’d have waited forever, Kenny.’
‘And it hasn’t got any easier?’
‘Maybe I will have that fag after all.’
Stephie left the chest for the edge of the bed. I gave her a Marlboro. She took a long drag and sent the smoke in the window’s general direction.
‘The truth is that in some ways it’s got easier and in some ways it hasn’t. But there’s only one way I’m going to be able to create some real change.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m moving back to Manchester.’
It took a moment or two for this to sink in.
‘For good?’ I asked. Stephie nodded. ‘But your home’s in London.’
‘It was but the Vesuvius is finished and Jamie’s in Auckland. I need some change in my life. The money I get in for the flat will buy something really decent up there.’
Jamie was Stephie’s son. He had married a Kiwi girl he had met at university and emigrated the previous year. Stephie stared at the tip of her smouldering cigarette.
‘And I’d like you to come with me,’ she said.
‘Seriously?’
‘I’m talking about relocating to Manchester,’ she said, reacting to the incredulity in my voice. ‘Not a one-way trip to Mars.’
‘But what would I do up there?’
‘I’m sure they’ve got skip-tracing agencies. If they don’t, you can open one up. It’ll be a fresh start for both of us.’
‘Easier said than done.’
‘No, it isn’t. All you have to do is rent an office and put an ad in the paper. I’m closing the V at the end of next week and going up a couple of days later.’
‘Don’t you have to sell your place first?’
‘I already have.’
‘But you can’t have bought anything in Manchester yet?’
‘I’m renting for six months. It’s got two bedrooms and one of them’s yours. If you’re interested, that is . . .’
‘What if it doesn’t work out?’ I asked.
‘Then you come back to London. It’s not as though you’ll be taking much of a risk, but if you think it’s a total non-starter . . .’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘When do you need to know?’
‘Before I leave,’ Stephie said. ‘Otherwise you’ll sit on your bony arse forever.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I said, but we both knew she was right.
After Stephie’s offer there didn’t seem much else to talk about. She stubbed out her fag and said she had to be going. I pulled on my pants and a T-shirt and escorted her to the front door. She left for Piccadilly Circus station after a chaste peck on the cheek.
I spurned the Smirnoff for a bottle of Highland Monarch. The supermarket Scotch isn’t triple-distilled or filtered through activated carbon but sometimes it’s better to stick with what you know, even if it does only cost £9.99 a bottle.
Nursing a large one, I tried to imagine life in Manchester. An image of myself with a foamy pint in my hand discussing homing pigeons and the state of Stockport’s back four came to mind. And yet, when they called time in the Rovers Return, I’d be catching the tram home to Stephie. All of which begged the question: why hadn’t I bitten her hand off? Just before midnight I gave up trying to find an answer and bro
ke the seal on the white envelope that had been waiting for me on the doormat. Inside were two A5 photographs of Harry Parr.
The first had been taken in a studio. A blonde in her thirties looked into the camera with a muted smile. Make-up and expert lighting had given Harry an air of sophistication that was absent in the second shot. This featured her wearing a Breton T-shirt while leaning against a sun-dappled wall. She was grinning broadly and what the grin took away in terms of sophistication, it repaid in charm.
Whatever I decided about Stephie’s offer, Harry Parr would turn up safe and sound in a couple of days.
They always do.
FIVE
Accompanying the shots of Harry had been a telephone number for her estranged husband. The following morning, I went online to see what I could dig up about the pair. Celebrity magazine archives featured the wedding of Frank Parr’s only daughter, Harriet, to Mr Rocco Aloysius Holtby, described variously as a leisure-industry consultant, an entrepreneur and a currency speculator.
Rocco had a thick head of brown hair and a moustache that greyed slightly at the edges. The swell above his collar might have been due to a tight shirt stud or a burgeoning double chin. I’d have said he was around forty. A scroll through the blurb beneath the photo of the happy couple revealed that I’d undershot by two years.
Rocco wasn’t on LinkedIn or Twitter. Nor could I find anything else on social media. It appeared that he was digitally prominent for having married the daughter of the seventy-ninth-richest person in Britain. There were no reports of a relationship rift, which meant it had either been kept quiet, or no one gave a toss.
My call was answered on the seventh ring. ‘Mr Holtby?’ I asked, and received an affirming grunt. ‘My name’s Kenny Gabriel.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I’m a friend of your wife’s father.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Shame.’
‘Frank’s a little concerned about Harry. She hasn’t been in touch for a few days.’
‘Dunno where she is.’
‘I’d still like to ask a few questions.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘In person.’