The Turnaround

by Mark Timlin

  ‘Hi,’ I said when she answered.

  ‘Hi yourself.’ She sounded like she hadn’t missed me. I’d missed her. Her tone made me feel even more miserable, if that was possible. I knew it was time either to start again or finish the whole thing.

  ‘Wanda’s dead,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Wanda. The woman who looked after my cats.’

  ‘Oh, Nick, I am sorry. What happened?’

  ‘She’d been sick, very sick. I didn’t know. She had an operation. It killed her.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry,’ she said. Her voice had changed. It was warmer and softer and more like the Fiona I knew.

  ‘Me too. And I quit the case I was on.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Good. Those pictures were horrible. They scared me.’

  ‘They scared me too,’ I said. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I quit.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Because you walked out on me.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. And I was glad she said it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Want to do something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A drink?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘I’ll be round in half an hour,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  And she was. I drove to the block of flats in The Oval where she lived, and took the lift to the twenty-seventh floor, and she let me in through the security locks and chains. She looked beautiful. She was wearing a pair of ancient Levis, patched on one knee and worn to a hole on the other. Through the hole I could see she was wearing black tights underneath. With the jeans she wore a pink Levis shirt and black elastic-sided boots with Cuban heels.

  ‘Looking good,’ I said.

  ‘Feeling good,’ she said back. ‘But you look like you’ve been through the wars.’

  ‘Organising funerals for friends takes it out of you.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  I told her.

  ‘When’s the funeral?’

  I told her that too.

  She held me tightly and it felt like coming home. ‘You should have called before.’

  ‘I didn’t think we were on speaking terms.’

  She kissed me with more passion than she had done for a long time. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you. Do you want to go out?’

  ‘Not particularly. You?’

  ‘No. There’s booze here and most of a Deep Pan pizza from last night. Extra everything.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve really been living. Got any drugs?’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of black.’

  ‘How’s the hot water?’

  ‘Boiling, and lots of it.’

  ‘Can I have a bath?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Come and talk to me?’

  ‘Of course. You run a bath. I’ll roll a joint and make some Margaritas, then I’ll be in.’

  ‘Roll two joints and make a jug.’

  ‘That kind of day?’

  ‘That kind of life.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll even soap your back.’

  ‘Deal,’ I said.

  I went upstairs to the bathroom. It was warm and smelled of Fiona. It was a fair size with a big tub, toilet and washbasin. I found a clean bath sheet in the airing cupboard and put it on the rail to warm up. I splashed a liberal squirt of Badedas bubble bath into the tub and put both taps on full. The hot water in Fiona’s block was amazing. It was scalding hot at all hours and never ran out. It was the one good thing about the place apart from the view. The bubbles foamed up as I took off my clothes and hung them on the back of the door. I felt the water. Just right. I turned off the cold tap and stepped into the bath. I let the hot tap run on until the water was nearly up to the overflow and I could hardly bear the heat of the water. I turned off the tap and sank back under the pale yellow water. It was heaven. I could feel the stress kinks coming out of my muscles.

  Fiona came in a couple of minutes later. The room was steamy and cosy. She was carrying a tray with a jug of Margaritas, two long-stemmed cocktail glasses rimed with salt, a couple of rolled joints, an ashtray and a box of matches. She put the tray on the floor, sat on the closed toilet seat, took off her boots and wriggled her toes and poured out two drinks the same colour as the bathwater. I’d have to remember not to get them mixed up. She passed me over one of the glasses. The liquid was ice cold and sharp with lemon and I felt more sweat bubble on my forehead.

  ‘Pass me a towel, will you?’ I said.

  She did. I balanced my glass on the edge of the bath and dried my face and hands with the thick warm towelling. ‘Light up, babe,’ I said.

  She put one of the joints between her lips and struck a match and set fire to the end. She inhaled and held the smoke in for five heartbeats, then let it out through her nostrils in two twin streams. ‘Shit,’ she said in a cracked voice, and passed the joint over. ‘Strong little mother-fucker.’

  ‘So’s the booze,’ I said, and dragged deeply at the joint. It was too. It cut into my throat and lungs. I felt the first hit like a club and sank lower into the water so that it lapped under my chin. ‘Great,’ I said. I came up and took another drag, passed the joint back to Fiona and picked up my drink. ‘It’s good to be here,’ I said.

  ‘It’s good to see you.’

  I sat in the bath for over an hour, topping it up with hot water every few minutes. We talked about everything except Wanda. As we talked Fiona plaited her hair into a thick rope of a pigtail and pinned it up on the top of her head.

  By the time we’d finished both joints and the jug I was solid gone. I looked at her across the steamy room. ‘Want to come in?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she said, stood up and pulled the snap buttons on her shirt open with both hands. Underneath she was wearing a tiny white push-up bra. She reached behind her and undid the fastener and shrugged out of it. Her breasts looked as firm as tennis balls and I saw her nipples harden and grow. She undid the buttons on her jeans and pushed them and her tights and white panties over her hips in one motion and stood naked in front of me. Her skin was white and smooth and her triangle of pubic hair was thick and black and oily-looking between her legs. ‘I suppose I get the tap end,’ she said.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘I’m going to get dimples in my back.’

  ‘That’ll be nice.’

  She looked at herself in the full-length mirror behind the door. ‘D’you think I’m getting fat?’

  Dangerous question from any woman. From a model doubly dangerous. Fiona had never been skinny but there was something about her flesh that was different from most people’s. It was soft but firm, like there was a layer of rubber between the skin and the meat below. But whatever I said I knew I was walking through a potential minefield, especially when I was so far out of my tree I was finding it difficult to enunciate the simplest of words. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘You sure?’ She got hold of one buttock and squeezed a handful. ‘Is that cellulite?’ she said.

  Really dangerous ground now. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Liar!’

  See what I mean? ‘You’re not getting fat, Fiona, but you’re getting me at it, posing around like that.’ She was too and she liked me telling her.

  She walked over to the bath, folded up a towel and put it over the taps. ‘You’re no gentleman,’ she said.

  ‘And getting less so by the minute.’

  She wrinkled her nose and stepped into the bath and sat down opposite me and pushed her legs alongside mine. I held her thighs in my hands. She felt so good. Her breasts floated on the water and I reached up and touched one. ‘You’re beautiful,’ I said.

  She put one hand between my legs. ‘And I think you’ve been playing with a submarine in h
ere. I’ve just found the periscope.’ She knelt up, making a wave in the bath water that splashed over the side of the bath, and kissed me. Then she lifted up my cock and sat down on it. We both gasped as she slid down me. ‘Hot,’ she said.

  I nodded and she moved up and down on me gently, trying not to spill too much water, until she came with a cry of delight. Her face and breasts were bright red and sweat had plastered her fringe on to her forehead. She pulled away from me and sat back down in the water. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘You can go now.’

  I lay back and wished we had another jug of Margaritas.

  Later on in bed together she let me get on top and then we ate cold, greasy pizza and shared a bottle of Bud. Then we did it again. It had been a long time. When we’d finished we lay back and shared a cigarette.

  ‘Do you want tea?’ she asked

  ‘Love it.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said. That wasn’t like her. She jumped out of bed and put on her dressing gown and went downstairs. I pulled on a clean T-shirt and boxer shorts that I’d brought with me. I sat up in bed and turned the sound on the TV up. I’d forgotten that The Italian Job was the late film. It was just starting. It’s one of my favourites of all time. I must have seen it twenty or thirty times and I know great chunks of the dialogue off by heart.

  Matt Monro was singing his heart out and Rossano Brazzi and his Ferrari were just about to get totalled on the front of a bulldozer in a tunnel in the Alps as I adjusted the volume. ‘Put on your shades, Rossano,’ I said to the screen. He did.

  Into the tunnel he drove, turned a bend and – blammo!

  ‘Tough shit, babe,’ I said. ‘One day you’ll learn, and take the plane.’

  ‘You and that bloody film,’ said Fiona as she came in with two china mugs of tea and a packet of digestives on a tray. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of it?’

  ‘Some films you don’t.’

  ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘Can I just turn the sound down?’

  ‘Sharman!’

  Oh Christ, here we go, I thought. Now’s the time to pay for your pleasure. I turned the sound off reluctantly as Noël Coward made his first appearance, and gave Fiona my full attention. ‘What?’ I said, dunking my digestive.

  ‘I’m leaving the flat.’

  ‘What, here?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘Why? I thought you liked it.’

  ‘I do. I did. But I can afford a place of my own now.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I thought about Guildford.’

  ‘Guildford?’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Only one good thing comes out of Guildford,’ I said.

  ‘I know. The A3 to London,’ she said back. ‘Very funny.’

  ‘All right, Guildford,’ I said. ‘Why not? There’s some very nice properties around there.’ Nice properties! I was still half stoned.

  ‘There are. I’ve looked.’

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘I’m telling you now.’

  ‘Sure you are.’ I was convinced this particular little scorpion was going to have a sting in its tail and I was right.

  ‘What are you doing for money?’ she asked.

  ‘Living on my laurels.’

  ‘I’ll give you a week. Maximum.’

  ‘Very amusing,’ I said.

  ‘What you do for a living is crap.’

  ‘It’s what I do,’ I said. ‘You said that to me once. Remember?’

  She didn’t want to. ‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ she said.

  ‘What – another fuck? I don’t think I’m up to it.’

  ‘Shut up, Sharman, and listen, will you?’ I looked over her shoulder. Michael Caine was in a hotel room with about fifteen women. They were all in their underwear. It was one of my favourite parts of the film. Fiona saw me looking, hit the remote, and Michael and the ladies of the night vanished into the ether.

  ‘You were saying,’ I said, and lit a Silk Cut.

  ‘Come and work with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You may not have noticed but things are getting good for me. Very good. I’ve been offered a recording deal.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week. Stock, Aitken and Waterman.’

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘And more modelling work than I can handle. And some acting. Maybe a movie. I’m going to be away a lot soon and I need someone with me. You could do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Everything. Be my personal manager.’

  ‘Like ironing your lingerie?’

  ‘You like my lingerie.’

  And I’d ironed it before when I’d found it in the washing basket at home with my stuff. I’m noted for my deft hand with silk. ‘Ten percent?’ I said.

  ‘Whatever. Are you interested?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Look, Sharman, let’s tell the truth for a change. You’re wandering around like someone in a fog. You’ve got nothing.’

  ‘I’ve got the flat and the car.’

  ‘You chose that flat because it was the smallest in the world. You’ve done nothing with it. It came complete with everything. You didn’t even choose the curtains. And your car’s falling to pieces. You’re not getting any younger, you know. Don’t you think you’re a bit old for all this nonsense? You’ll end up dead in a gutter if you’re not careful, and I’m fucked if I’m going to be the one to identify you at the morgue.’

  That was a bit close to the bone, what with Wanda and all, but I got her drift. ‘And Guildford?’ I said.

  ‘We could move in there together. I’m not going to get a two up, two down. I want a bit of room to breathe.’

  And keep horses, I thought. ‘It sounds idyllic.’

  She looked for sarcasm in my tone. Couldn’t find any, and didn’t reply. I meant it. It did. For someone else. ‘Can I think about it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. It’d be a hell of a change for both of us. But I need someone I can trust working for me.’ It was ‘for’ now, not ‘with’. ‘Someone who won’t fiddle the expenses and can keep his hands to himself.’

  ‘I can’t promise that.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  I did, unfortunately.

  She yawned, ‘I’m tired,’ she said, and came into bed next to me, kissed me, and was asleep almost immediately. I’ve always envied people who can do that. I got up and opened the curtains and smoked a last cigarette looking at the lights of London far below me.

  It had been a good evening. One of the last we’d ever have. There was more wrong than even I had realised. The sex had been good, but somehow it hadn’t felt like a spontaneous display of love or affection, or even an attempt to comfort me at the death of a friend. It had been more like a tasty morsel you’d throw to a dog to make him behave, and could just as easily withhold if he didn’t. I got the feeling that, if I agreed to jack in what I did, it would be the thin end of the wedge and that Fiona would take it as evidence that I could be easily manipulated in future.

  Besides, I knew that I wasn’t cut out for a career in showbiz. I got back into bed and put the TV back on and watched the end of the film. I’ve always maintained there was room there for a sequel.

  16

  There’d been better times and there’d been worse times in my life, but there’d rarely been lonelier times. The hours went by like they were frozen. I stayed indoors as much as possible. It was the thought of the price of shotgun cartridges that did it. I watched a lot of old movies on TV that week. BBC2 were running a Jack Lemmon season. I saw The Apartment and Days of Wine and Roses. Great films, but they just made me feel lonelier somehow.

  I drank too much and went and scored an ounce of grass from under the railway bridge at Balham. It was a good deal. Lots of leaf and not too much stem or seeds.

  I sat in front of the open window and let the soft early summer breeze blow away the smell of the dope whilst I looked out for s
trange cars parked up in the road outside.

  I thought a lot too. About what Robber had said about staying on the case. But I made no firm decisions. As far as I was concerned it was finished. It was other people I was worried about.

  The Sunday before the funeral I was sitting in the flat drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. Feeling weird and jittery as usual. The telephone rang. It was my ex-wife, Laura.

  ‘Nick,’ she said. I recognised her voice. Some things you never forget. That was exactly how she’d started the telephone conversation when she’d told me our marriage was finished.

  ‘Laura,’ I said back. That was exactly how I’d started the same conversation.

  ‘Nick,’ she said again, ‘I wonder if you could do something for me?’

  As far as I was concerned I’d already done all I could for her, bar opening my wrists. Perhaps that was the favour now. ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Take Judith for a couple of weeks. Louis and I want to go away.’

  Judith is my ten-year-old daughter. Louis is Laura’s new husband. He’s a dentist. Together they have a baby son.

  ‘Where?’ I asked. It was none of my business but she was trying to get round me so she didn’t mention it. Normally she would have. ‘There’s a dentists’ convention in Switzerland. Geneva. We’re going to drive there. And on the way back we want to stop for a few days in France. At one of Louis’s relatives.’

  ‘A dentists’ convention in Switzerland,’ I said. ‘The excitement could kill you.’

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic, Nick. You know I don’t like it.’

  ‘I know you don’t like a lot of things,’ I said. ‘But you don’t mind dumping our daughter on me when it suits you.’

  ‘Is that how you feel about it? Dumping?’

  ‘You know I don’t. I don’t get to see enough of Judith as it is. What are you doing with your son?’ Once again it wasn’t any of my business, but once again she didn’t say so.

  ‘He’s staying with Louis’s mother. She couldn’t cope with Judith too. She’s not as young as she was.’

  Are any of us? I thought. ‘Or doesn’t want to,’ I said.

  Laura didn’t say anything, which was answer enough. ‘I don’t know if this is a very good time,’ I said.