by Joan Smith
‘What’s the line on Hillary, by the way?’
‘The line?’
‘The sisters. What’s the feminist line on Hillary?’
Loretta made a little gesture of annoyance. ‘I don’t know there is a line. If you want my personal opinion, she seems very capable but I’m not comfortable with women who derive their power... whose power is contingent on someone else. And it’s not as if he gave her Defence, is it? Health’s traditionally a women’s issue.’
She watched him fumble in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, take one out and light it without going through the usual ritual of asking her if she minded — not that it usually made much difference. He showed no sign of having heard what she’d just said, indeed he had behaved throughout the meal so far as if he was only intermittently aware of her presence.
The evening had got off to an umpromising start, with Loretta arriving at the restaurant a few minutes late to find Tracey hunched lugubriously over a whisky at the bar. She kissed his cheek, apologised for being late and tried to lighten the atmosphere with a remark about the painting behind the bar. It was a pastiche Tuscan landscape with a foreground of noses, each of them allegedly belonging to a celebrity — painters, actors, writers.
‘I can never remember what Pascal said about Cleopatra,’ she observed to a blank look from Tracey, who obviously hadn’t the least idea what she was talking about. ‘You know, about the history of the world being different if her nose had been shorter — or was it longer?’
His response was a rather ungracious demand to know why she hadn’t returned his call when she got back to the flat, even though he hadn’t asked her to. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I told you half past seven.’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Loretta responded, resisting the temptation to blurt out that she was late because she’d had to deal with an obscene caller who wanted to know if she did fellatio. ‘Let’s see if our table’s ready.’
Since then she had listened sympathetically to a lengthy account — outlasting their starters and main courses — of Tracey’s problems at the Sunday Herald. She now knew about the clampdown on expenses, the rigid imposition of a five-day week on reporters used to working four (at most), the hard-faced people brought in from the tabloids ... Making a fresh attempt to divert his attention from himself, Loretta pushed aside her empty plate, folded her hands on the table and said seriously: ‘I need your advice, John. A man’s been phoning the flat, he’s done it twice so far –’ She stopped, suddenly realising the significance of something Michael had said in his latest call. You’ve been out, I tried your number over and over... If he was telling the truth, he couldn’t have been watching her or shadowing her at the Metropolitan Museum. Instantly a warm glow of relief suffused her, making her realise how uneasy she’d been.
Tracey was staring at her. ‘What man? What are you talking about?’
Loretta said, ‘I’m coming to that,’ but her internal dialogue had thrown her off course and she found herself unintentionally starting in the middle. ‘There’s an outside chance he’s a friend of Toni’s, I don’t want to ask her outright because of what it says in the phone book. And it doesn’t really matter because the police are bugging the phone, they would’ve traced his number this evening if I hadn’t –’
‘Bugging the phone?’ She had his full attention at last, his expression revealing how startled he was by her garbled version of events. ‘Loretta, you only got here yesterday. How come all this — you didn’t mention any of this when you rang last night.’
‘You were rushing off somewhere. I didn’t want to worry you.’
He rolled his eyes upwards. ‘Another wild goose chase. Another man who knows a woman whose sister might have been propositioned by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas.’
Loretta said: ‘John, please.’
‘Sorry. What’s he want, this bloke?’
‘I suppose he’s your common-or-garden obscene caller.’ Loretta hadn’t expected to be embarrassed but she felt her cheeks flush. She picked up her fork, turned it sideways and, in desperation, pretended to read the maker’s name.
‘Meaning what exactly? What colour knickers are you wearing? That’s the standard one, isn’t it?’
‘Is it? To be honest I didn’t realise at first, not the first time he called. His questions weren’t ... I mean, they were weird, all about whether I’m an English rose –’
‘An English rose? Doesn’t sound very obscene to me.’
Loretta snapped: ‘That’s what Lieutenant Donelly said. If you must know, I put the phone down tonight when he asked if I did oral sex. Is that obscene enough for you?’
‘Sorry, Loretta,’ he said contritely. When she didn’t respond he leaned across the table and touched her arm. ‘Come on. I’ve said I’m sorry.’
She shrugged his hand away. ‘It’s OK, I can handle it.’
‘Maybe you can but ... Here, have another drink.’ He refilled both their glasses. ‘OK, go back a bit. You say this chap may be a friend of Toni’s?’
Loretta sighed. ‘I don’t know. It says in the phone book you shouldn’t tell anyone, not even your best friend, which of course she isn’t — she came to supper a few times in Oxford and we went to a couple of exhibitions but we’re hardly close. I don’t think I’d have been so upset,’ she added unguardedly as a waiter cleared their plates, ‘if it hadn’t been ...’
Tracey waited. When she didn’t complete the sentence, he said encouragingly: ‘If it hadn’t been for what?’
‘Well, say it is a friend of Toni’s, that means he knows her address.’
‘You mean he knows where you’re staying? You’re worried he might come round to the flat?’
Loretta lowered her voice. ‘Not necessarily to the flat.’
‘I’m not with you, Loretta.’
‘I just — oh God, you’re not going to believe this. This afternoon, at the Met, I had the feeling I was being — watched.’ She frowned, realising she had watered the story down. ‘Followed,’ she added quickly.
‘Followed.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you think it’s the same bloke?’
‘Yes. No.’ She was confused, remembering what she’d worked out about Michael a couple of moments ago. ‘How should I know?’
Tracey said: ‘You’re not going to like this, Loretta –’
‘But?’
He grimaced. ‘You have got an unusually vivid imagination. OK, obviously the phone calls are real, I’m not denying that. But they’ve upset you, anyone can see that, and maybe you’re... not exactly imagining things. Jumping to the wrong conclusion. You’re an attractive woman –’
‘Thanks.’
‘— and it’s hardly surprising if men look at you. Maybe you don’t usually notice but this time, because you were feeling jumpy ... Remember the time we went to Rhodes and you accused the waiter at that taverna –’
‘What’ That was ten years ago. More. And he definitely touched my breast.’ She sat back in her chair, her hands gripping the edge of the table. ‘I can’t believe you’re bringing it up now.’ The incident he was referring to had taken place on their last, disastrous holiday together, only a few weeks before they separated, and Loretta hadn’t given it a thought for years. ‘What’s wrong with you tonight?’ she asked crossly.
To her surprise, Tracey ground his second cigarette out and raised his hand to his forehead. ‘I don’t know. Now you mention it I do feel a bit—I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s the heat.’
Loretta said unsympathetically: ‘It isn’t hot in here and if you’ve got a headache you shouldn’t be drinking red wine.’
‘It’s not a headache — not exactly.’
Loretta stared at him. ‘You’ve gone very pale. You’re not going to be sick?’
‘Um — I hope not. Sorry, Loretta, I think I’d better go to the gents. You didn’t happen to notice it on the way in?’
Sh
e shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m sure we can find out.’ She peered over her shoulder in search of their waiter. When she turned back, Tracey had lowered his head and was mumbling something too low for her to catch.
‘What’s the matter? Do you feel worse?’ She glanced in alarm at the empty wine bottle, thinking he couldn’t possibly be drunk on half a bottle of house red and a couple of whiskies at the bar while he was waiting for her. ‘John, can you hear me?’
He lifted his head, stared at her without focusing for a few seconds and slumped in his chair. Loretta started to get up, caught sight of their waiter and signalled urgently for him to come over.
‘Is your friend all right?’
She bit back another sarcastic reply. ‘I think he’s ill but I don’t know what... Could you get me the bill? Quickly?’
‘Sure.’ He moved away and she reached across the table to grasp Tracey’s forearm through his jacket. ‘John,’ she said urgently, trying to rouse him. ‘I’ve asked for the bill. We’re leaving in a minute, maybe some air ...’ She recalled what it was like outside, the sticky heat which had settled on her during the taxi ride to the restaurant, and thought it might actually make him worse. But the only thing she could think of was getting him back to his hotel as soon as possible and asking reception to call a doctor.
Tracey was breathing noisily now, snoring almost, and people at nearby tables were turning to look. Loretta had hardly ever seen him drunk and on those few occasions he had been nothing like this — alcohol made him voluble and argumentative, a bit of a loose cannon ar dinner parties, not comatose.
‘Thanks,’ she said, throwing her Visa card on to the plate the waiter was holding out without checking the bill. She turned back to Tracey, remembering he had been ill after his last trip to Bosnia in February; he had picked up a kidney infection from infected water in Sarajevo which lasted several weeks but she had no idea whether it was likely to recur, or have such spectacular effects if it did.
The waiter returned and she scrawled her name on a credit card voucher. ‘Your hotel, John,’ she said as she got to her feet and came round the table to help him up. ‘What’s the name of your hotel’ She thought back to the message he’d left on Toni’s answering-machine, almost certain he hadn’t mentioned the hotel by name, only its phone number and the address of the restaurant they were in.
‘Shit,’ she said in a low voice, propelling him towards the street door. The waiter went first, clearing a path, and at least Tracey was docile, leaning on her with his eyes closed and doing exactly what she told him. They passed a phone in the lobby but the time difference meant it was too late to ring the Sunday Herald office in London; it occurred to Loretta that, unless she was prepared to prop him against a wall and search his pockets, the only sensible course of action was to take him back to Toni’s flat. She got him out into the street, supporting him with both arms while the helpful waiter looked for a cab, and felt sweat break out on her forehead as they were enfolded by the predatory heat.
A taxi stopped and she heaved Tracey inside, squeezing herself after him. ‘Riverside Drive,’ she said tiredly, ‘Riverside and 73rd.’ When the driver hesitated she raised her voice: ‘What’re you waiting for? Can’t you see he’s ill?’
Her tone warned him not to argue and he set off, taking an immediate right which threw Tracey even more heavily against her. Loretta struggled to push him upright, agonising over what she should do when she got to Toni’s flat. Put him to bed? Call a doctor? Toni had left the vet’s emergency number, but no doctor; Loretta recalled the name of Toni’s gynaecologist, Hester Rosenstein, but that wasn’t much use in the present situation. Tracey’s head rolled sideways on to her shoulder and she turned away, repelled by the combination of alcohol fumes and stale cigarette smoke emerging from his slightly open mouth.
‘John,’ she said urgently, trying to shake him awake, but got no reaction other than a burst of coughing which prompted the taxi driver to glance anxiously at the back seat as he waited at a red light. With some difficulty she encircled Tracey with her left arm, propped him upright and tried not to think about the next hurdle — how she was going to drag an almost insensible eleven-stone man along the path to Toni’s apartment block, through the foyer and into the lift to the fifteenth floor.
The time on Loretta’s watch, when she woke up with a start and turned on the bedside lamp, was four-sixteen on Saturday morning. She had been catapulted into wakefulness by a dream which left only the lightest impression of itself, evaporating so quickly that she could not say what it was about or why her heart was pounding. She blinked, temporarily blinded by the electric light, and came fully awake only when she looked across and saw the huddled form of John Tracey on the sofa. She tiptoed across the room to check on him, reassured by the even rise and fall of his chest, and as she watched Tracey murmured and heaved himself into a new position under the blanket she had thrown over him. It was slightly chilly in the room, the air-conditioning working too hard now the outside temperature had fallen, and Loretta moved silently to turn it down. Honey, who was lying on the floor near the sofa where she could keep an eye on John Tracey, made a long, whiffling noise through her nose and glanced sleepily at Loretta over her shoulder.
‘Shh,’ she whispered, ‘go back to sleep.’ The dog regarded her for a moment, eyes glazing over when she sensed it was too early for breakfast or a walk, and obeyed.
Loretta slipped back into bed, pulling the quilt up over her knees and resting her arms on it. She glanced anxiously at Tracey but he was almost completely hidden by the blanket; in any case, at this distance she probably wouldn’t be able to make out the tiny puncture mark she’d found on his bare arm when she pulled his jacket off and helped him on to the sofa. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which surprised her until she thought about the climate in Washington at this time of year, and the mark was on his inside forearm, no more than a pinprick but the surrounding area was slightly pinker than the rest, like a faint halo. She had traced the circle with her finger, feeling the hard dot at the centre where the substance, whatever it was, had gone into the vein. Then, hardly believing what she was doing, she had examined both his arms for needle tracks and found — nothing. Tracey had moaned and tried to shake her off, but he was still too much under the influence of whatever he’d taken to be properly aware of what she was doing.
He occasionally smoked a joint but she did not think he was remotely interested in other drugs, not even speed which, he said, one or two of his colleagues at the Sunday Herald used to keep awake when they were working into the early hours on a big story. Not that anyone injected speed, as far as Loretta knew, and what Tracey had taken clearly wasn’t a stimulant. She found it impossible to picture him injecting himself yet the puncture mark was much further down his arm than any vaccination she’d ever witnessed; in fact, the spot was almost exactly where the vein would come up if he applied pressure above his elbow. An adverse reaction to a drug would explain his disjointed speech and sudden collapse at the restaurant, yet Loretta still couldn’t quite bring herself to countenance it. On the other hand she was reluctant to call a doctor — always assuming there was one listed in Toni’s red address book — when she had absolutely no idea what he’d taken. She was still agonising, crouched by Tracey’s head, when there was a barely perceptible change in his breathing. Loretta held herself still, hoping she wasn’t imagining it, and as she listened the rasping breaths which worried her so much began to give way to a shallower, more even pattern. In a while, when Tracey and the dog began to snore gently, unfortunately not quite in sync with each other, she got up, shook each of her feet in turn to get rid of the pins and needles which had set in during her vigil, and undressed for bed.
She had fallen asleep more quickly than she expected and the anxiety which invaded her dreams and woke her up shortly after four was only partly to do with Tracey. She needed to know he was all right, that he hadn’t developed any alarming new symptons while she slept;, and as soon as that had been est
ablished her brain scrolled down to the next worry on her list. The same unfriendly porter who had been on duty when she rushed out to meet Tracey was at the desk when they returned, regarding her impassively as she struggled towards the lift with him. At the last minute, as her hand reached out to press the button, he called out: ‘You staying in 15G?’
Loretta looked back over her shoulder. ‘Yes. It’s in the book,’ she added irritably, assuming he was questioning her bona fides.
‘Visitors gotta be announced.’
‘Oh come on,’ she said, assuming he meant Tracey. ‘Even in this state?’
‘Not him. Other guy.’
‘What?’
‘Tried to sneak into the elevator without me seeing.’ He pulled back the cuff of his dark jacket and looked at his watch. ‘Hour, maybe two hours ago.’
Loretta heaved Tracey round so she could face the porter. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘I tell him right out, visitors gotta to be announced. He says, “I’m going up to 15G” and I say, “No you ain’t buster, not without me calling up first. Far’s I know, lady’s out for the evening.”’
‘15G? You mean he wanted Toni’s flat — Ms Stramiello? Didn’t he know she’s away?’
He ignored her and said stolidly: ‘Just so’s you know — visitors gotta be announced. S’why I’m here.’
Loretta let out an impatient sound. ‘It’s not my — he can’t have wanted me. I’m not expecting anyone. I don’t know anyone.’ Her muscles ached and she eased Tracey’s weight on to her chest to give her arms a break. The porter continued to watch her, making no move to help, and she took a deep breath, preparing to propel Tracey into the lift.
‘Hey — I ain’t finished.’
‘Now what?’
‘This guy. I don’t like his attitude.’ He pronounced it att-itood.
‘His — how d’you mean?’
‘Sneaky. Like he don’t wanna be seen.’
Loretta said impatiently: ‘Maybe he didn’t know he was supposed to speak to you first.’