by John Harvey
He stepped away as Sara paused at the edge of the pavement, trying to pick him out. Really nice, she looked, loose black trousers, black jacket over a red blouse. The last thing he was going to do, risk spoiling the evening, say anything about the knife.
“What did we have to come and see this for?”
“Ssh. Watch this bit. It’s terrific. Look.”
“Where?”
“There, coming through the door. Look!”
“Oh, God!”
Sara twisted sideways in her seat, covering her face with her hand almost as quickly as the semi-naked hero magicked a sword from the ether in perfect time to slash the throat of one attacker right across while connecting a flying kick to the jaw of a second, finally disemboweling the third with all the skills of a pathological Vietnam vet and master butcher, the dying man’s entrails slithering off screen, silver-gray and red.
“Amazing!” breathed Raymond, lost in admiration.
“I just didn’t like it,” Sara said. “All that violence.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Raymond said. “I’ve seen a lot worse.” He meant better, but he wasn’t about to say so. Get too far up Sara’s nose and he wouldn’t even get a feel from her on the way home.
They were in Pizza Hut, the smaller one, up near Bridlesmith Gate. The other one, above Debenham’s, was better, but Raymond didn’t have good memories of walking down there this time of a night.
“I don’t want to be snobby, Raymond, but it’s just not my kind of film, that’s all.”
“Oh, so what is?”
“I don’t know …”
“Something all romantic, I suppose?”
“Not necessarily.” Sara chewed her garlic bread with mozza-rella topping and thought about it. “Something with more to it, I suppose.”
“You mean, serious?”
“Okay, if you like, serious.”
“Well, what about what we just saw, then? All that stuff about how they kept him buried underground for weeks at a time, absolute blackness, nothing to eat except for rats he had to catch and kill himself.”
“What about it?”
Raymond couldn’t believe it. Was she stupid or what? “It shows you, doesn’t it? Explains why it happened.”
“What?”
“Why he turned out like he did. Dedicated to vengeance. No feelings. It’s like,” pointing his fork at her, “his motivation. Psychology and that. Can’t tell me that’s not serious.”
“One deep-pan medium with extra beef topping,” announced their waitress, Tracey, wafting the platter between them. “One thin and crispy vegetarian.”
Raymond was sure she’d ordered that on purpose, get him all riled up.
“Table for two?”
“Please,” Patel said.
“Smoking or non?”
Patel glanced sideways at Alison, who said, “Non.”
“Do you mind sharing?”
“No,” said Patel.
“How long would we have to wait,” Alison asked, “to get somewhere by ourselves?”
Raymond had finished his pizza, every slice, garlic bread, more than his share of the salad; now he sat nibbling on a piece of Sara’s vegetarian, didn’t taste of a thing. Since they’d argued about the film, she had scarcely said two words, beyond complaining about the dressing he’d spooned over their bowl of salad, how she preferred the blue cheese to the Thousand Island any day of the week. Next time, get it yourself, Raymond had thought, saying nothing. What sort of an idiotic name was Thousand Island for a salad dressing anyway?
“Listen,” he said, leaning towards her.
“Yes?”
“That knife of mine: what d’you have to go bloody talking to the police about it for?”
Alison paused in the midst of explaining the relative merits of a fixed-rate mortgage.
“You’re not listening, are you?”
Patel felt himself beginning to blush. “Yes, I am.”
Alison shook her head. “You’re staring.”
“I’m sorry.”
She smiled. “It’s all right.” And reached out her hands. “Now all you have to do is stop fidgeting with that knife and fork.”
“I’m …”
“I know, you’re sorry. Are you always so apologetic, or is it something to do with me?”
“I’m sorry, I’ll try to be more positive.”
“Good,” Alison said, still smiling at him with her eyes. “Do that.”
“Are you ready to order?” the waiter asked.
“Er, I don’t think so,” said Patel, “not quite.”
“Yes,” said Alison, “we’ll order now.”
Patel smiled, and then he laughed.
“I hate that,” Raymond said.
“What?”
“Over there?”
Sara turned her head, following his stare. “What about it? I don’t see …”
“The girl sitting with that Paki.” Raymond grimaced. “Kind of thing I hate to see.”
Fifteen
“What’s the matter with you this morning?”
“Nothing. Why?” Lorraine, turning away from the kitchen window, busying her hands with her apron.
“Three times I’ve come in here now, three times you’re just standing there, staring.”
“I’m sorry,” heading for the dishwasher now, finish loading it up with the things from last night’s dinner party, every fork and glass and plate, she didn’t know how her mother had managed for so long without one.
“You’re sorry?”
“I was thinking.”
“What about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing special.”
Michael lifted the kettle, making sure there was sufficient water before switching it on to boil. “That’s what she used to say.”
Lorraine trapped the word, who, before it left her tongue. Of course, she knew.
“Came in once, don’t know where I’d been, somewhere, I don’t know, local, not far, maybe taking a load of stuff down the tip, Diana was in the front; the lounge. She was wearing her outdoor clothes, raincoat, red scarf she’d had for years; standing there in front of the windows, she’d got this shovel, little garden shovel, blue-handled, in one hand. ‘Diana,’ I said, ‘what d’you think you’re doing?’ And she just turns to me and smiles, like I was the last person she expected to see. ‘What are you doing?’ She’s got nothing on under her coat, not a stitch. ‘Nothing,’ that was what she said. ‘I don’t think I was doing anything.’ And then, ‘It’s turning quite cold. I shouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t in for some rain.’”
Lorraine, listening, couldn’t look at her husband’s face instead, she concentrated on his hands, the way, slowly, he spooned coffee into the two mugs and, after the kettle’s click, added the water, one spoon each of sugar, the milk.
“What she was going to do,” Michael said, “was start digging. Digging for James.”
Lorraine wanted to throw her arm round him, give him a hug, tell him that it was okay, she knew that it still got to him and that was all right, she could understand. But she knew that if she did, he would shrug her off and frown and give her his look that said don’t, don’t, just leave me alone.
Taking her coffee from the work top, she brushed the outside of his hand with her own.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking across the room.
“There’s no reason.”
“Just, when I walked in and saw you …”
“I’m not Diana,” Lorraine said, wiping at the surface where the mugs had left a faint ring. “I’m nothing like her.”
“I know.”
“So.”
Michael sipped his coffee; it was still too hot. “He was only eight days old, James. That’s all he ever was.”
The muffled whine of a power saw aside, it was silent for some little time; then, through the door, the shriek of sudden laughter, Emily watching Sunday morning television. Lorraine set down her mug and crossed the room to switch on the dishwasher. �
��If I’m going to get that stuff out back sorted,” Michael said, “it’d better be now.”
If God had meant me to be a plumber, Millington thought, he would have set me on this earth with a full set of washers and a neck that stretched easily around U-bends.
“Graham!” his wife called from the foot of the stairs. “Is it coming along all right?”
Millington confided his reply to the spider with whom he was sharing the space beneath the bath and fumbled for the correct adjustment to the wrench.
“Whatever happened to that nice young man you met at that garage? You know, the time you had that trouble with your exhaust. Somewhere your side of Grantham.”
“Nothing, Mum.”
“I thought he was going to take you out for dinner or something? He did fix the exhaust for free.”
What he had done was squeeze on some rapid-dry sealant, pack some black gunge around it and try for a quick feel while her Nova was still jacked up to head height. Dinner had been a Berni’s three-course special offer, prawn mayonnaise, rump steak with jacket potato and watercress garnish, Black Forest gateau. He’d hardly been able to wait to get Lynn out into the car park and show her that he hadn’t earned his Kwik-Fit mechanic-of-the-month certificate for nothing.
“So there’s nobody else on the horizon, then?”
“No, Mum. Not just at the moment.”
“Oh, Lynnie,” her mother sighed. “I do hope you haven’t left it all too late.”
“And not before time,” Patel’s father said, unable to keep a smile of second-degree pleasure from his voice. Patel could imagine his father’s face, his mother and his sisters standing near.
“You must bring her up to visit us.”
“Look, I don’t know …”
“Soon.”
Sara’s mother spent her Sunday mornings at the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints, a former community hall with a corrugated roof and a view of the race course. Her dad spent his Sundays in bed with the News of the World and the People—only chance I get to have a good read—least till the pubs opened.
“What’s he like, then, this Raymond?” Sara’s mother asked, sliding a three-inch-long steel hatpin from the folds of her permed hair, the soft gray felt of her church hat. “Educated, is he? Nicely spoken?” She pursed her lips into a smile. “As long as he isn’t common.”
Divine gripped the white porcelain, willing himself not to throw up a third time. His throat felt as if it had been scraped out with a blunt instrument and his head was a ball that had been punted eighty yards upfield. If ever he got back up from his knees he had to stagger down to the corner shop for a couple of pints of milk and the twenty Bensons whoever it was in his bed had been asking for ever since raising her head from his pillow, mascara and eye shadow smeared right across it. Half-light of day, she looked seventeen, office junior somewhere, the two of them last night, stuck out on the dance floor, one minute jiggling around to some elec-trocrap, the next rubbing up against her to Phil Collins. “You’re not really a copper, are you?” No, darling, I’m Leonardo da-fucking Vinci!
Kevin Naylor had been up since short of seven, ironing his work shirts in the kitchen while he listened to The Bruno and Liz Breakfast Show, pair of them flirting like mad over the microphone, likely didn’t say a word to one another once it was over, separate taxis home to Surrey or wherever. He had hoovered all of the upstairs and about half of the down, stupid bag had jammed up and he’d torn it taking it out, no spares under the sink and his attempt at a running repair with Sellotape had ended in disaster and dust at the foot of the stairs he’d had to sweep up with a dustpan and brush.
When finally he phoned, of course it was her mother that answered; he’d thought she wasn’t going to let Debbie come to the phone at all.
“Three-thirty, then?”
At the other end of the phone, it was ominously quiet.
“Debbie?”
He could feel her mother standing there, exaggeratedly mouthing words for Debbie to say.
“You’re still bringing the baby for tea?”
He had gone into Marks and Spencer and bought one of those Battenberg cakes that she liked, chocolate eclairs, a pair of them in a Cellophane-topped box. He’d queued forever at Birds, in a line of old women and older men, to buy sponge mice with eyes and little tails, each in different colored icing, a malt loaf, gingerbread men. In case Debbie didn’t bring any with her, he had got tins of baby food desserts, rhubarb and apple, rice pudding, apple and plum.
Now he grabbed them from the cupboard shelves, the fridge, tore at their wrappings, hurling them into the sink and squashing them against the sides, pummeling them with his fists.
“Bloody hell, Ray-o! What d’you call that?”
Raymond struck the end of his club against the ground and watched as the ball bounced yards past the twisted metal flag and ran down the slope underneath the hedge at the edge of the municipal putting green.
“Thought you’d be better getting it in the hole than that,” his uncle Terry winked.
“Thinks he’s Tony-bloody-Jacklin, that’s his trouble,” Raymond’s father said, dropping his own ball on the spot.
“Stop bloody moaning,” Raymond said. “Took you five shots at the last one and then you had to knock it in with your foot.”
“That’s what the real pros do, you ignorant twat,” his father said.
“How do you know?” said Raymond scornfully.
“Because I’ve watched them.”
“In your dreams.”
“On the telly.”
“My shot,” said Terry, moving forward.
“Only pros you’ve ever watched,” Raymond said, “are the ones up by the Forest. Fiver for a quick gob-job in the back of the car.”
“Hey!” Raymond’s father went for him with his club, but hit his uncle Terry instead.
Raymond threw down his own club and went storming off across the green, hands in pockets, head down, ignoring the shouts of other players lining up their putts.
“Ray-o!” Terry shouted. “Come on back here.”
“Good riddance!” his father said. “Don’t waste your breath.”
Really surprised, Lorraine had been, when Michael had touched her neck and said, what did she think, maybe they could slip up to bed, have a little rest. Surprised, but pleased. She could scarcely remember the last time they’d made love in the afternoon; when first she’d started seeing him, seriously at least, seemed to be all they’d ever done.
“Where you off to now?” Michael had asked, undressed beneath the duvet, eager to get on with it but thinking maybe Lorraine thought she’d need the K-Y jelly, Vaseline.
“Just checking,” Lorraine said, peeking through the drawn curtains, Emily with her dolls spread out all over the rear lawn, the little pushchair and the pram. She could just hear her voice, pretend adult, telling them they should be more careful with their clothes, asking them if they thought money grew on trees.
She walked back from the window slowly, knowing that Michael was touching himself under the covers, watching the movement of her breasts.
Twenty minutes later, sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, hearing Michael whistling as he put back on his clothes, Lorraine said: “Give Emily a shout, there’s a love. Wash her hands before tea.”
Sixteen
Michael, lighting a cigarette, pushing his shirt down into his trousers, thinking, another six or seven hours, the damned weekend’s good as over. Alarm’ll be going and there I’ll be, fighting for car-park space before seeing the same old faces on the train. The ones who nod and climb behind their Telegraph; those who want nothing more than to talk about their round of golf, their kids, their car; the four who had the cards shuffled and dealt before leaving the station, bridge at a penny a point.
“Michael!”
Thinking: Sheffield, that’d be better. Chesterfield, even. Easier. Worth dicing with the traffic on the M1 for a chance to get home at a decent hour, get back to living a proper life.
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“Michael!”
He rested his foot on the board at the foot of the bed, so as to tie the lace. Lorraine and I weren’t forever rushing off in different directions, if we had a bit more time to relax, going to bed wouldn’t be such a rare event. Thank God, at least when they did it was still pretty good. He tied his other lace. Lorraine, she’d never needed a lot to get her going; certainly not back when they’d started.
“Michael!”
“Hello!”
“You’re not still there, are you?”
“No, I’m on my way.”
Emily’s dolls were scattered here and there on the back lawn. Her pushchair was skewed sideways in the gravel passage that ran between the side of the house and their neighbor’s high creosoted fence. Michael couldn’t see the doll’s pram at first, but then there it was, pitched on to its side near the garage door.
“Emily!”
He hurried fifty yards in either direction, finally back to the houses front and rear gardens—“Emily!”—all the while calling her name.
“Michael, whatever’s the matter?” Lorraine in the doorway, sweater and jeans, pink towel in her hand as she rubbed her damp hair.
“Emily, she’s not here.”
“She’s what?”
“Not bloody here.”
Lorraine stepping out, towel to her side. “She’s got to be.”
“Yes? Then show me where she bloody is.”
They searched the house, top to bottom, every room, bumping into themselves in and out of doorways, on the stairs, faces increasingly pale, drained.
“Look.”
“Where?” Michael swiveling anxiously round.
“No, I mean …”
“I thought you’d seen something.”
Lorraine shook her head, came forward and took his hand and he shook her away. “Just for a minute,” she said, “we ought to sit down.”
“I can’t bloody sit down.”
“We need to think.”