What You Make It

by Michael Marshall Smith

  As I stared horrified into her eyes, a half-image passed through the back of my mind. A picture, combined with a fragment of sound, a wisp of scent, a beat of atmosphere. A glimpse of the side of someone's face, the sound of a tenth of a word being spoken. The noise of a pub, the smell of beer on a warm evening. Like a memory it was there, a half second of the past, and then it was gone, unrecoverable.

  From that moment, I knew I couldn't try to explain away what was happening. It must have been me who was there, in that pub. That moment was part of me. Something had been forgotten, and I had to find out what it was. I must have been there, doing that, at that time, with someone.

  ‘David doesn't dream about things like that,’ Monica said suddenly, covering what must have been a very pregnant pause. ‘He's happy.’

  ‘Is he?’ Tamsin asked. ‘He doesn't sometimes want to call up his clients in the wee small hours and shout abuse?’ I shivered, but Monica didn't notice. I hadn't said anything like that since we'd known each other. But I used to. I used to all the time. ‘Or put razor blades in the parcels he carefully sends to them?’

  ‘Stop talking about me as if I'm not here,’ I said, mainly to convince myself that I was. ‘No, I don't wish any of those things. I'm happy now. I've got Monica, for a start.’ I hadn't said this for political reasons, but it went down well with her, and she looped her arm around my back.

  Tamsin looked at the two of us with a little smile that made me want to take a hot iron to her face. Somehow this woman was holding everything I had in her hand, and she was ready to clench her fist. I didn't know why, or what she was waiting for, or how much longer she'd hold off.

  Suddenly I knew what I had to do, what I should have done half an hour before. Thinking fast, I groaned and went through a great show of irritation at my forgetfulness, tutting and virtually slapping my forehead in order to get the message across. Tamsin and Monica stared at me with bright smiles.

  ‘What an idiot,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Got to go.’ I stood up, and reached for the car keys.

  ‘Where?’ Monica asked.

  ‘To see Steve,’ I said. ‘Completely forgot something.’

  ‘Can't you call him?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Got to get something from him.’ It was weak, and I knew that Monica wasn't convinced, but by that time I was backing towards the door. Unless one of them was prepared to call my bluff, they couldn't stop me going. ‘Won't be long.’

  I turned on my heel and walked rapidly through the kitchen, willing them not to say anything, hoping against hope that Monica wouldn't come up with the bright idea of suggesting that I give Tamsin a lift somewhere. I heard her call out just before I got to the door, but I ignored it, shut the door quietly after me and ran downstairs.

  I went through two red lights on the way to Steve's, using all the rat-runs I knew to get me there as quickly as possible. Tamsin was building a trap around me. I didn't know what kind, or why, but she was. The only way to stop the circle from closing was to jam something in the way: to ensure that Steve knew what was going on. I had to speak to him. I had to convince him that he was dealing with someone whose word could not be trusted. Not even on something as basic as her name. How I could do that without knowing what her real name was remained to be seen. But I had to do it.

  When I pulled up outside Steve's flat I was relieved to see that his light was on. I'd spent the last five minutes of the drive convinced that he might have gone to mine, or even that something might have happened to him. There was no reason for the latter suspicion, none at all, but once it had entered my head there seemed no way of dislodging it. But he was obviously home, and would have heard the message I'd left on the answer machine. That was good. I strode up to the door and pressed the entry phone buzzer briefly. It was one of our running gags, seeing how short a buzz we could generate. Partly a joke, partly a subversive dig at all those in the world who leaned on buzzers until the building shook. It was a good buzz, short and probably barely audible. I knew he'd be impressed.

  There was no answer. Puzzled, I pressed again, less briefly this time. After a pause a burst of feedback leapt out of the speaker.

  ‘Steve,’ I said. ‘It's David.’

  ‘Hello David,’ said Tamsin. ‘Why don't you come up?’

  I stared at the speaker, feeling sick, then took a quick step backwards. As a blurred afterthought I moved so that I remained close to the front of the building, so that someone looking out of Steve's window wouldn't be able to see me. Heart pounding, I gazed unseeingly out across the road. There was no way.

  No way she could have got here more quickly than me.

  No way.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  At the sound of his voice I refocused suddenly to see Steve walking down the pavement towards me. He was still wearing his coat, and looked cold. Moving quickly and silently, as if in a dream, I raised my hand to my lips and ran towards him. He stared at me as I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the car.

  ‘Dave …’

  ‘Steve, get in the car,’ I hissed. ‘Just get in the fucking car. Please.’

  He got in.

  It took an hour, but in the end I did it.

  I didn't say anything as I drove. I glanced across once to see him sitting looking affably out the front, and decided against breaking the silence. I hate talking about important things when I know I'm about to be interrupted by admin such as getting out of cars and buying drinks.

  I drove to another pub that we sometimes went to and bought a couple of beers. When we were comfortably sat, when he'd been for a piss and I'd lit a cigarette, I began. I told Steve again that I'd never met Tamsin before. He started to shift in his seat, but I kept going. I told him that I'd just got home to find Tamsin in my flat, talking to my girlfriend, and that she'd made a reference to something that had spooked me. I told him that there was no way she could have beaten me to his flat. He nodded at that one: he's been driven by me, and knows the routes I take. I realized suddenly that he had only my word for the fact that she'd been there when he turned up, but he didn't question it.

  He believed me, finally. At least, he believed that I'd never gone out with Tamsin. I firmly drummed into Steve the precise number of times I'd seen or spoken to Tamsin, and what the circumstances had been. He seemed willing to disregard anything Tamsin said which contradicted my version, and that was enough to be going on with. In my relief I was willing to back off the weirder stuff. It seemed the right thing to do. I think Steve was inclined to see it as slightly hysterical exaggeration on my part, done for comic effect. I wasn't prepared to sound any stranger than necessary, so I let it go. The sentences concerning it washed down through the conversation and disappeared, leaving us with something more explicable. A mad woman. We both knew about those.

  In the end I drove him home, and felt a weight lift from my shoulders as our familiar banter started up. As he got out of the car he laughed and shook his head.

  ‘I should have known it was bollocks,’ he said. ‘In all the time I've known you I've not seen you even look at a blonde, never mind go out with one.’

  I laughed, and waved, and drove away and because I was so relieved that I'd sorted things out with Steve it was only when I'd got about halfway home that I absorbed what he'd said. When I did I steered the car over to the side of the road and just sat for a while, engine idling, staring at the condensation on the window.

  Tamsin's hair was brown. A rich, dark brown. Exactly the kind I liked.

  When I got home I smoothed over my abrupt departure. Tamsin had stayed another five minutes after I'd left, apparently, and then gone to take the tube. I nodded distantly. It didn't make any difference. If she'd left a second after I had she still couldn't have beaten me. I tuned out while Monica free-associated on the subject of holidays, and worked on a way of asking a question so that it wouldn't cause trouble.

  ‘Tamsin's hair,’ I said eventually, with the air of someone who thought it looked terrible. ‘Is it natur
al, do you think?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Monica said seriously, giving the subject the full weight of her attention. ‘You can't fake a blonde like that.’ I nodded, dismissing the subject, but Monica held onto it. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Babe, you know I prefer brunettes,’ I said, in a just passable Bogart voice, and Monica laughed. She knew.

  So did Tamsin. Perhaps that's why I was seeing someone different. They saw blonde Tamsin. I saw someone with dark hair who didn't have a name. I thought it was more likely that I was the one seeing the truth.

  She had power of some kind. That was clear. What was less apparent was what the hell she wanted.

  The subject changed and we watched some television and went to bed and I lay all night staring at the ceiling.

  The next morning it started in earnest.

  I was sitting at my desk, as ever. I felt hollow, too blank to be tired. It was grey outside, and the leaves of the trees which lined the other side of the road were stirring constantly and silently behind the glass of my window. Monica had gone quietly to work at half past eight, and since then it felt as if I hadn't heard a sound.

  Until the phone went, and I dropped my cigarette. The ring isn't that loud, but it was much closer than I was expecting. I realized that the phone was lying to one side of the desk. I'd forgotten to put it on the charger overnight. Again.

  It rang twice more, and then I picked it up.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Hello David,’ said a voice, and in a way it was almost a relief.

  ‘Tamsin,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You know it's not. You know that's not my name.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Bullshit. You know. You just don't fucking remember.’ I was startled by the tone of her voice. For the first time it had lost its gloating pseudo-politeness and was on the verge of anger. It raised hairs on the back of my neck, and I didn't want to hear it get any worse. But I didn't know her name. I simply didn't know.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘What do I want?’ she shouted, and I could feel myself shrinking with a familiar fear. ‘What do I want? You're such a shit, David, such an utter, fucking shit. You fuck me up, throw me away, and you want to know what I want from you?’

  ‘Tamsin, I …’

  ‘Don't call me that!’

  ‘I don't know what else to call you – ’

  I stopped not because I'd run out of things to say, or because I was interrupted, but because I heard the all too familiar tones the handset makes when the battery has run out.

  The line went dead, and I was just trying to decide whether to run to get the other line in the bedroom, or just to be thankful that the conversation was finished, when I heard Tamsin's voice again, coming from the phone.

  ‘Yes you do,’ it said. ‘Yes you do. And you'd better remember, because I need to know.’

  ‘Can't you just leave me alone?’ I stuttered, not knowing if she'd hear me. The battery indicator light had gone out. The phone should have been dead.

  ‘Why should I? How can I? If you don't even have the decency to remember my fucking name?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘please, just go away.’

  ‘I can't,’ she said, abruptly no longer sounding angry.

  Then there was no more sound. I looked at the handset. The battery indicator was still out. Our last couple of sentences couldn't have happened. I put the phone back on the desk. I didn't want it recharged.

  Her name wasn't Tamsin. She'd admitted it now. I had to find out what it was, or remember it. Until that happened, it would go on, and from the tone of her last sentence I wondered if it was more than that. Maybe it wasn't just me who was being persecuted. Maybe I was involved. Perhaps she couldn't go until I remembered who she was.

  Maybe she really didn't know.

  I spent the rest of the morning ignoring my work, thinking until my brain hurt. I couldn't get anything to come. I couldn't think of anyone who I'd shared dreams of New Orleans with. I couldn't remember who the letters were to. In the end I called Steve, from the phone in the bedroom. The first minute or so of conversation was a little stilted, and I wondered how long it would be before our shouting match completely left both our minds. But it relaxed soon enough, and after a while I asked him.

  ‘Steve, got a weird question for you.’

  ‘The answer's no, Dave. I like and respect you, but I simply can't do that other thing. I'm just not attracted to you in that way.’

  ‘Very funny. Since Katy, how many girls have I been out with?’

  ‘Is this a rhetorical question?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause, and all of the light-heartedness went out of Steve's voice. ‘Are you okay, David?’

  ‘Not really. How many?’

  ‘Well, there was Ginny, then that one I never met.’

  ‘Jackie.’

  ‘Yeah, her, that skinny one – Mel, was it? Oh, Christ, and that complete nutter. Yvonne. Whatever happened to her?’

  That was something I'd often wondered. Exactly what had happened to Yvonne, why she had backed off in the end.

  ‘She went away. Eventually.’

  ‘Right. So, four.’

  ‘That's what I thought.’

  Back in the living room, I stood and looked out of the window at the drizzle. Outside on the pavement a cat ran past, as if fleeing from something. But they always look like that: probably it was only the rain.

  It should have made me feel better to get confirmation from Steve that there couldn't have been anyone else. It didn't. Instead, it opened up a portion of my mind which hadn't really been paying attention. It melted suddenly, as if I was relaxing a muscle which I hadn't realized had been clenched for months, maybe years.

  There had only been four. There was no one else.

  Tamsin had to be one of them.

  I turned and walked back into the bedroom. I opened the cupboard and sat down in front of it. Reaching beyond the hanging tails of coats and shirts I found my box file. For a moment I just let my hands rest on it, sensing that I could simply leave it there, that its contents could remain half-buried. But half-buried is not enough. You can put rubbish as deep in the bin as you like, and cover it with whatever you can find, but it will still be there. Even when the truck has come to take it away you'll know, know that somewhere the evidence remains. It may be hidden so that no one will ever find it, and it may be destroyed, but you'll still know it's there, or that it existed once.

  Once a coin has been thrown in the water, it's always going to be lying at the bottom of some pool or other.

  I pulled the box out and opened it on my lap. Unlike the files for my ‘proper’ ex-girlfriends, Katy and her predecessors, the contents were a jumble. Letters, cinema ticket stubs, wine corks and dried-out flowers mixed together so thoroughly that they could have related to just one person. I pulled out a couple of letters and glanced at the writing on them.

  Letter from Ginny. Card from Mel. Unwisely, I glanced inside. There, in an untidy biro sprawl, was a message saying that she thought she loved me. Carefully phrased, so as not to go too far out on a limb, but there in black and white all the same. Cringing to the depth of my soul with shame, I put it back in the envelope. I hadn't loved Mel, or any of them. It wasn't that I had taken advantage. I simply hadn't felt anything at all.

  Two consecutive postcards from Jackie. The first a tirade. The second a numb acceptance. A CD single of the theme song from a long-forgotten film which I went to see with Mel, a song which would have been ‘our tune’, if we'd stayed together long enough to have one. If I hadn't left, walked out dead into the night, leaving her tearless and bewildered.

  Rain spattered against the window suddenly, and I looked up. I caught a glance of a photo of Monica and I which hung on Monica's side of the bed. Her face looked down at me, brown from the holiday she'd been on before we met. It was a pretty f
ace, but it took me a moment to recognize it. Even longer to recognize myself.

  I pulled another handful of letters from the box, mostly from Ginny. It was odd I couldn't find anything from Yvonne. I must have thrown them away. I was still leafing through cards and letters, feeling more and more horrified at myself, when my heart nearly stopped at the sound of the doorbell. Scattering the contents of the box I leapt awkwardly to my feet.

  In the hall I paused. We don't have an intercom system, and so I had to go downstairs to answer. I didn't know whether I wanted to. After a pause the bell rang again, and I opened the door to the flat and walked slowly down.

  No shape bulked through the glass of the front door, and when I opened it, there was nobody there. On the mat lay a small bundle wrapped in brown paper, and I picked it up and closed the door.

  In the bedroom I took the paper off. Inside, damp from the rain, were seven letters. They all bore the same address, written in my handwriting, and none of them had a name.

  Sitting suddenly down on the bed, as my legs went from under me, I took the letter out of the first one. It was neatly laser printed, and I recognized the typeface. I recognized the contents too. It was the first letter from the nameless folder. No name at the top, but my initial at the bottom, and a kiss.

  Another clatter of rain hit the window, but I barely heard it. Fragments came at first, and then whole scenes, pushing through the cracks like eyeless animals wriggling from the earth. In slow motion, my vision blurred, I reached down and pushed my hand through the articles scattered around the file box on the floor, the remains of what should have been friendships, the debris of shattered people. The person I had thought was me watched as someone else searched for what he knew was there to be found.

  A small bottle, and a key.

  I found them.

  The key fitted a door which I now remembered. The bottle held formaldehyde, and something else. The last joint of a finger, a finger which always used to point. Something which belonged to a woman whose face I could suddenly recall.