by Rosie Chard
In spite of the weights accumulating in my stomach I rushed round the rest of the eavesdropping haunts at high speed, springing onto the bus as it left the stop, cursing the smallness of the steps as I scuttled down into the Tube.
The launderette windows were even more steamed up than the cafe, but what looked like the work of a large body had wiped a hole in the condensation and I could see Eve clearly, sitting in that signature listening pose of hers. I didn’t go in, just plodded back to the Tube and travelled the circle line, imagining every now and then I’d caught a whiff of Jack, until I reached Stanley’s neck of the woods. Here I concealed myself in the alcove of a block of flats and watched the door to the dentist for over three hours until I saw Stanley turn the corner. He straightened his tie at the door and went inside with the apprehensive air of someone on a blind date. I didn’t even bother making an attempt on the Ladies toilet in Camden Town. I knew what I would find. I didn’t know what I would find.
I was standing adrift in the street, thinking things couldn’t get any worse, when my phone vibrated in my pocket.
Never in all my dreams, never in all my boyhood fantasies of being the leader of a gang had I imagined I would be going out late at night at the age of thirty-four in order to threaten a girl. James came with me. His face dripped misgiving but he was there, trotting by my side in what I could only imagine was his gangster outfit: jeans, bomber jacket and scuffed-up shoes. He’d swept his hair back in a strange and greasy way and I’d felt nervous when he joined me at the exit to Camden Town Tube.
We’d planned our strategy in the pub the night before. After her phone call and tearful plea for help Missy had seemed frightened at the sight of James at my elbow. But I’d explained the reason for his presence, and after a few minutes, between gulps of lager and lime, she’d told us what we didn’t want to hear. Guilt prickled in my chest as she pulled up her sleeve and revealed a fresh bandage, whiter than before.
‘It’s just one girl,’ she’d told us. ‘But I need you to help me . . . to make her go away. Please make her go away.’
James had looked increasingly anxious as we hatched our plan. Missy would point out the girl from behind the safety of a scarf and James and I, the toughs that we were, would speak to her. Neither of us mentioned the elephant in the room, and only when the smell of dung became too great did I acknowledge the fact inside my head. We were scared too.
Yet after forty-five minutes of loitering in front of a mobile phone shop with a mind-numbingly dull window display my fear had begun to dissipate. I was even beginning to think that stakeouts were tiring, overrated things when Missy hissed, “It’s her!”
She could have been someone’s forgettable niece so unremarkable was the young woman who walked towards the entrance to the ladies toilets. No leather jacket, no sharp rings on her fingers, just a nondescript coat and sensible shoes.
“Are you sure it’s her?” I whispered into Missy’s ear.
“I’m certain,” she said. “ Be careful, please.”
I looked back at the shoes, then at James’ pale face. “Okay, matey. Let’s do this.”
We crossed the road quickly, bulking up our shoulders as we closed in.
“Miss,” I said.
“Yeah, Miss,” James repeated.
The woman turned, and there, surrounded by a circle of mousy hair, I saw the expression that had so terrified Missy.
“What?”
“I need . . . we need to talk to you for a moment. Please.” I’d decided I was going to start pleasantly, appeal to her nicer side.
“Fuck off.”
She started to walk away.
“Just a minute!” James laid his hand on her arm. We had discussed this in the pub. We wouldn’t touch her, under no circumstances would we touch her.
“Geddoff me!”
James snatched back his hand as if he’d been bitten. “Sorry, I didn’t mean. . . .”
I puffed out my chest, lowered my voice and put frightening spaces between my words. “Leave Missy alone.”
The woman stopped and stared. “Little Miss Missy?” she said.
My turn to reply; I lowered my voice further; my eyes watered. “I’m serious, just leave Missy alone and we’ll forget we ever met you.”
“She was listening to me, snooping little snitch. She deserves what she gets.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “Eavesdropping. It’s frightening, isn’t it.”
The girl frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Eavesdroppers get hold of peoples’ secrets.”
“What has she told you?”
“Only what I need to know.” Such suavity, I hardly recognised myself.
“Yeah,” smooched James.
I’d forgotten he was there – just the creak of a jacket.
“Who are you?” asked the girl.
“I’m the eavesdropper.”
Up until then the title had been gentle, a lazy, relaxed word that suggested one lay back and waited for words to float into one’s ears. But somehow I’d injected it with menace. I think I might even have shown my teeth as I enunciated the ‘e.’
Years seemed to drop from the woman; she pushed her hair behind her ears; she licked the sore resting on her lip. “Alright,” she said, “I’ll let her go.”
I didn’t reply – just looked. “But tell her,” she glanced across the street, “tell her not to come down any more.”
“Down to the toilet, you mean?” asked James, looking relieved to be making a contribution.
The years poured back. “Yeah, down to the toilet.”
“I’ll tell her.” Now a master of the clipped retort I managed to end my sentence there.
Suppressing an instinct to bid her farewell I turned and walked briskly away, my gaze fixed on the phone shop, praying that James was with me. I smelt damp leather.
“Bloody hell, what happened?” said James through his teeth.
“Don’t speak,” I replied, through even tighter incisors.
We walked fast, but with dignity, leaving the toilet behind us and crossing the street on our own terms.
Like a rapidly rising moon Missy’s face appeared out of the gloom of a side street. “What happened?”
“Sorted,” announced James happily.
“She won’t bother you again, Missy,” I said, definitely taller. “But you mustn’t go down into those toilets again. Ever.”
“Okay.” The moon waxed, then waned. “Thank you.”
“Thank him,” said James, deflecting her gratitude in my direction. “Bill’s the one who . . . who did it.”
My voice remained loud. I bade James and Missy farewell using unnecessary decibels; I boomed out my order when I picked up a coffee on my way home and I yelled ‘Good evening’ to my neighbour on the stairs so loudly that she backed up against the wall. Only when I was telling myself that I fancied a late-night bowl of cereal did my voice lower and my chest regain its regular profile. Over the crunch of cornflakes I went over the details of the encounter in my mind: the sore, the smell of leather, the taut circle of Missy’s face.
Then I lay on my bed fully dressed. ‘Sorted’ James had said. Everything sorted out. But it wasn’t. The eavesdroppers were still roaming the streets of London, pen and notebook in hand. I’d started something that had taken on a life of its own. It had to stop. I had to stop it.
I didn’t know how.
STANLEY had a toothache. It was one of those big molars at the back, which had ground its way through fifty years of pork chops and gristle and bacon skin, but now was prone to flaking and exposed nerves. He’d tried to stem the creaking pain with antiseptic swilled round his gums and even embarked on a week of one-sided chewing, but still it throbbed and stabbed and bothered his every thought. The receptionist at the dentist’s had been unduly surly when he made the appointment, but she’d grudgingly found him a spot and now he sat in his usual chair. Waiting.
He’d regretted telling the others about the girl. They’d got it all wrong. He
thought they’d be proud of him for looking outwards instead of in. But no, they’d ticked him off like a schoolboy who had looked up a girl’s skirt. Beryl had disapproved too. She hadn’t gone near her new cuttlefish for a whole day and even the Christmas edition of the Lonely Hearts ads slipped beneath her feet had failed to bring her out of her sulk.
With his eyes on the National Geographic his ears went to work. He could hear all the sounds of the room: the squeak of the receptionist’s chair (he hoped it was uncomfortable), the tap of her keyboard and the rhythmic breathing through diseased lungs of the only other occupant of the room. He knew the sound of diseased lungs; after forty years of smoking he had them himself. Then his ears expanded their range, beyond the walls, beyond the garden and out into the street, from where he heard a new sound. The murderous drone of a chainsaw, cutting down a tree.
Stanley could taste blood in his saliva as he flicked through the magazine. Someone had drawn a moustache above the mammoth’s reconstructed lips since he’d last been there, which made him feel sad. He was so busy trying to rub the whiskers off with his thumb that he didn’t notice someone had come into the waiting room, until they coughed. A child’s cough. And there she was. Hardly more than ten years old, she sat on the chair like a miniature woman. Alone.
The girl looked blandly in his direction then winced as the high-pitched whine of the chainsaw pierced the room. This was the moment Stanley had been waiting for. He pulled back his lips and smiled the pearliest, healthiest and most hygienic of smiles. She didn’t smile back; she looked out of the window.
He studied the small silver bag on her lap. What was inside, he wondered. Her bus fare? A tiny doll perhaps? He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Small fingers pulled the zip and delved inside. He could hear the contents rubbing against one another other as she rummaged. She paused and Stanley stopped breathing as the girl pulled out a small, glass bird. Its body was transparent but the head was yellow and the wings blue.
Stanley rose from his seat slowly. He walked over to where the girl was sitting and sat down beside her. “That’s a pretty bird,” he said.
“His name’s Bobby.” The girl looked at Stanley’s eyebrows.
Stanley held out his hand. “Can I hold him?”
The girl met his eye then placed the bird gently down on Stanley’s outstretched palm. It weighed nothing. Legless and smooth, it lay on its side as if mortally wounded.
“That’s a very pretty bird,” he said.
The girl smiled up into his face.
“I have a bird in my house,” he continued.
“What’s his name?”
“Beryl. He’s a she.”
The girl touched her cheeks. “Bobby could be her boyfriend.”
“Yes.” Stanley glanced round the now empty waiting room, then at the vacant reception desk. “Would you like to meet her?”
She touched her cheeks again. “Yes!”
Stanley took a deep breath. “Would your mother bring you?”
The girl shook her head. “She works.”
“Can you remember things?” Stanley asked.
“What things?” The girl’s hands were back on her lap.
“Names and things?”
“Yes, silly.”
“I live at 12 Barnet’s Lane. Come whenever you like. Just knock on the door. And bring Bobby.”
The girl took the bird out of Stanley’s hand and slipped it back into the silver bag.
Stanley glanced round the room again. No one was there but he, the girl, and the bird. No one was listening. No one would hear his belting heart.
CHAPTER
36
In spite of the worry that now tugged at my insides, I brushed my teeth, drank tea, nibbled a piece of toast and went to work early next day. If my blood flowed faster then the hands of the clock moved more slowly and the morning dragged with the weight of my thoughts. Although not hungry I took an early lunch and left the office just before midday. I liked to think I knew London inside out, but occasionally I was drawn down one of the many alleys that cut through the city where my mental map would dissolve and my bearings be lost. I wanted to be lost. I needed to find solace in a place full of strangers.
I knew I’d be late back to the office but I kept on walking, enjoying the unfamiliarity of London’s secret arteries and as I popped out into the bright light of Ludgate Hill I saw the dome of St. Paul’s rising from the end of the street and felt the bulky happiness of being a Londoner.
I walked up the steps of the cathedral, feeling a shiver in my back. It was an effort, lifting my feet up the high steps, each stone smoothed by thousands of earlier feet, yet I glided easily through the massive doors into the most imposing, no, the most sacred church in all of London. I could be tempted by this, I thought as I gazed up at the central dome. The grandeur seemed to pull me in further, lead me down the aisle and offer me a seat close to the altar. But the dripping smile of a wide-skirted clergywoman, eager to assist and smelling of wax, was enough to persuade me back onto my feet and I walked in the direction of another set of stairs at the side of the main aisle, not made of stone, but crafted in wood.
A sign on the wall gave stark warning to the feebler members of the congregation. Two hundred and fifty-seven steps up to the Whispering Gallery.
It was hard to picture the effort involved: the calculation of height, the ache in the legs, but I went up, up and up, then up some more. And not just me; the sound of a weary person shadowed my every step, breathing heavily, gasping out a ‘holy shit’ as we paused on each landing, me hoping it would be the last.
Then I heard another sound, deeper in the void behind me. Childish voices drifted up from below, “I’m tired.” “These steps are too big.” “Can we have lunch up there?”
Then a teacher’s voice, projectile, out of breath. “Kids, you’re going to love this place. But you have to whisper.”
I walked faster. I passed a locked door, then another, and then another. Finally, with the steps behind me and my heart beating heavily in my neck, I entered the Whispering Gallery – a vast circular room with a hole in the centre of the floor that dropped down to the main space below. I peeped over the railing that circled the void and saw black and white tiles dotted with tops of heads, whole people reduced to bald spots and partings and thick, optimistic comb-overs.
The gallery was empty, just me and the people painted on the huge domed ceiling, all dressed in robes, lots of folds in their robes, all sitting at the feet of the painted orator. Listening. And behind the orator a horse reared, its mane thrown up, the inside of its mouth purple. There seemed to be something coming straight out the horse’s mouth.
I sat on the curved bench that lined the entire room, sat at the feet of the orator. I saw no one. I heard no one, and as I looked up thoughts of a god began to preoccupy me. The misty light trapped in the top of the dome could have been his doing. The painted men in robes were listening to someone; I was listening, my head tipped back, not caring that my mouth hung open.
I sat up straight as the children filed into the other side of gallery, their small faces blurred by distance across the vast space of the room. Voices seeped out from behind the locked doors, “sit,” “sit,” “sit.”
The dome coughed.
Then a whisper in my ears, “hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.” More children entered, “sit” “sit.” “Johnny, just sit.”
Then the long whisper, “schh . . . schh . . . schh. . . .”
I put my ear to the wall.
“This is beautiful,” said the wall.
I pressed my ear closer.
“It’s boring,” said the wall. “I want to go to the shop.”
Then I heard a new noise, the muffled voice of a sermon starting far below me, 257 steps further down. I stood up and looked over the railing. So much was being said but I could only hear one repeated word that floated up towards me, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Jesus wept.
I looked up at the ceiling men in robes. Was it
them speaking? Or the orator with his big muscular arms, or the horse, its lips pulled back.
More children filed into the gallery with their teacher, “sit, sit, sit, schh . . . schh . . .” spreading along the long wall, more and more. Conversations were everywhere: behind the locked doors, inside the wall, inside my head. “Sit, sit, schh, schh. . . .”
Suddenly, I couldn’t stand it: the dome, the void, the painted robes, the inside of the horse’s mouth, the locked doors, the children – the low, insistent whispers.
I put my hands over my ears; I drew in a breath and opened my mouth wide. “Stop! Stop talking! I don’t want to hear any more! Stop!”
The line of children turned to face me. I could hear someone crying behind me, crying inside the wall.
The wall spoke. “Jesus wept.”
It was hard to run down the stairs. The shallow steps, so kind on the way up, were hard to judge on the descent and twice I nearly fell, first clutching at the handle of one of the locked doors then grabbing the elbow of an upcoming woman who swayed like a swooning statue. “Sorry! So sorry.”
I rushed back up the aisle, through the great doors and down into the square outside the cathedral. But here the noise of the world seemed even louder, people everywhere, chatting, laughing, arguing, getting the last word. I couldn’t turn the sound down. I rushed on, past everyone and everything, my ears chased by the loudest words, those of a street preacher clutching a handful of leaflets. “Jesus! Remember Jesus.”
Jesus wept.
I rushed back towards the office, primed to swerve around anyone who crossed my path. And many people did. A tangled mob of bewildered tourists stopped me crossing the road as I strode down The Strand, then a taxi driver nearly ran over my toes as it mounted the kerb to drop off its ride. A large party of pensioners collecting their luggage from the side of a coach was my final obstacle, and in spite of my plummeting mood I was forced to stop and smile as they spilled across the pavement in a chaotic spectacle of Zimmer frames, handbags and suitcases on wheels.