Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  A plate spun, lazily, in the ensuing hush, spiralling to a gradual standstill. The restaurant was utterly silent.

  Then Kate was out of her seat and kneeling beside Alex, and white-coated waiters were converging on them from everywhere.

  Alex let her help him sit up. His mouth was bleeding. Broken plates crunched underneath him. "Are you all right?" she asked. Dumbly he put his hand to his mouth. He blinked, staring at the blood on his fingers, and then glared up at Paul. Kate felt him tense. "Don't, Alex! Please!"

  She kept tight hold of his shoulders. Some of the tension went out of them, and then other hands were helping him to his feet.

  Paul was surrounded by waiters. He looked surprised himself by what he'd done as he allowed himself to be hustled towards the exit. The girl, who hadn't spoken throughout, tottered along behind on her high heels. Kate saw Alex staring after him with a look in his eyes she hadn't seen before. Then Paul was roughly pushed out of the room, and the doors had closed and shut him from view.

  One waiter brushed the worst of the debris from Alex's clothes while another neatly stamped out the small puddles of blue flame that had spilled out from the alcohol lamps.

  The table was swiftly righted and Kate and Alex were politely ushered along the aisles to the door as waiters set about repairing the mess. Some people stared openly at them as they passed, others ostentatiously kept their eyes averted.

  There was no sign of Paul or the girl in the foyer. The head waiter solicitously sat Alex in a chair and had hot towels brought to wipe him down. Alex held a napkin to his mouth, saying nothing. A taxi was ordered, and the head waiter smilingly refused Kate's offer to pay for the meal and damage. He was polite, but clearly wanted them to leave. Kate glanced back into the dining room as the door swung open. Their table was already fully set and covered with a fresh white cloth, candles glowing sedately as though nothing had happened.

  She tried to persuade Alex to let the taxi go straight to his home, but he refused.

  "I'd rather take you home first," he said. His voice was thickened slightly by the swelling on the side of his mouth from where Paul had hit him. Something in his tone told Kate not to press.

  Neither of them spoke again during the journey. Alex sat bunched in the corner, staring out of the window. Occasionally he dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the bloodstained napkin the head-waiter had insisted he take. Kate sat at the other side. There could have been a glass wall between them.

  The taxi pulled up outside her flat. Alex continued to stare through the window as she opened the door.

  "I'm sorry," she said. He nodded. He looked as dispirited and dejected as a schoolboy who had lost a fight. Abruptly, she turned to the taxi driver. "We'll both get out here, thanks."

  Alex turned to her, alarmed. "No, I'll go home -"

  "No, you won't. I can't let you go like this. The least I can do is let you get properly cleaned up."

  "No, really -" he began, but she was already on the pavement, the taxi door standing open as she paid the driver. After a moment Alex got out. He waited behind her, silent, as she unlocked her flat and led him up the stairs. "The bathroom's through there. If you want to change your sweater, I've got a T-shirt that'll probably fit you."

  Leaving him, she went into the kitchen and set the coffee percolator on to boil. Then, rummaging in a drawer until she found a baggy T-shirt, she went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. Alex opened it a crack. He had taken off his sweater, and through the gap in the doorway she could see how white his skin was. The silver chain lay pale around his neck. "Can't promise much for the style," she said, passing him the T-shirt. He smiled, a little nervously, as he took it.

  Kate went back to the kitchen. The coffee hadn't started to bubble. She set out two cups. Then, taking a tumbler from a cupboard, she went into the lounge and poured a large brandy into it.

  There was a noise from the doorway. Kate turned as Alex came in, pausing uncertainly in the doorway. It was strange seeing him in her lounge, wearing her T-shirt. She held out the tumbler. "I thought you could do with this. Coffee's on its way."

  He accepted the glass with mumbled thanks. Kate sat in one of the armchairs. Alex went to the other. He took a sip of brandy, and winced. Gingerly he touched his mouth again.

  "How is it?" she asked.

  "Okay."

  She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry about tonight. About what happened."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "It does. You got dragged into a situation that…well, it wasn't your problem."

  "You don't have to tell me."

  "Yes, I do, I owe you an explanation, at least."

  Kate felt the need of a brandy herself. But she was determined to abstain. She wasn't going to risk anything interfering with the chances of becoming pregnant. "I used to be involved with Paul. We were at the same agency for a while, but then things got unpleasant and I left. I didn't see him for years, but then I won a pitch he wanted, and he lost his job, and now he blames me."

  Alex looked into his glass. "How involved were you?"

  "We lived together for over a year. I thought…well, I was thinking in terms of marriage and babies. I must have been stupid."

  "Why?"

  "Oh, it isn't really worth going into."

  To her surprise, though, she found she wanted to. "I just didn't see what sort of person Paul was, that's all. He was the agency's marketing director, and I was the new girl. I suppose I was flattered that he took an interest in me. It took a while for me to realise he was taking an interest in half the other girls in the office as well. And anybody else that took his fancy. By the time I did, we were living together."

  Kate swallowed. She could feel Alex watching her. "Anyway, eventually I confronted him. He denied it, and like a fool I believed him. But then something else would happen, and I'd confront him again, and he'd deny it again. That went on for a while, and then one night we had a blazing row. You know, a real vase smasher. And he didn't deny it any more. He said—he said it was my fault. That I drove him to it."

  She stopped, remembering the crushing lack of self- respect. She shook it off and went on. "I should have left him then, but…well, I didn't. We made up. But now he knew he could get away with it, he didn't even try very hard to hide what he was doing any more. And then -" She broke off.

  "What?" Alex asked.

  "Nothing. I just left him."

  "What were you going to say?"

  "Nothing," she repeated, but there was no conviction in her voice. She could feel Alex watching her. "He gave me VD."

  Part of her couldn't believe she was telling him this. Only Lucy knew, and she never alluded to it. Kate could feel the rawness and shame surfacing again, but also a relief at telling someone. Telling Alex. "The doctor at the hospital told me it was nothing serious, only gonorrhoea, and that a course of antibiotics would clear it. So then I told Paul. And he…uh, he blamed me. Called me a slut and a whore, and accused me of giving it to him. He knew I hadn't, but it was easier than accepting he was in the wrong. And I suppose he was upset because he knew he'd have to go for treatment himself, and get in touch with all the girls he'd slept with recently. He'd got to take it out on somebody. So he threw me out of the flat we were sharing. You know, physically pushed me out, and started throwing all my clothes out of the window. The neighbours called the police, and when they came he started telling them what a whore I was, and what I'd given him. I think he'd almost started to convince himself by that time. And I looked at these two policemen, and I could tell they believed him. They didn't say anything, but they looked at me like I was…dirt."

  She noticed she was plucking at the chair arm. She folded her hands back on her lap like an unwanted book. "Anyway, he refused to let me back in. I didn't know anywhere else to go, so I phoned Lucy. She and Jack had only just had Emily, but they let me stay with them until I found a flat. I was in quite a state. I couldn't go back to work, not with Paul there. I suppose I had a sort of breakdown. I cut
myself off from all my friends, except Lucy. I couldn't face seeing any of them. I started chain-smoking, bursting into tears for no reason. Then Lucy got me some freelance work with someone Jack knew. I did a few more jobs like that and ended up starting my own agency."

  She shrugged. "Instant work therapy."

  Alex was listening with an intense expression. "What about Paul?" he asked.

  "I'm not with you."

  "Was tonight the first time you've seen him since then?"

  "I wish."

  She told him, briefly, about the pitch for the Parker Trust account, and its aftermath. When she finished she took a deep breath. "So that's what you ended up in the middle of tonight."

  Alex didn't say anything. Kate tried to phrase another apology, when a smell she had been peripherally aware of for some time finally registered. "God, the coffee!"

  She leapt from her chair and ran to the kitchen. The odour of burnt coffee became much stronger. The espresso percolator was blackened around its base. It was hissing threateningly as Kate turned off the gas. She picked it up by the black plastic handle and hastily set it down again, shaking her hand. "Damn!"

  Heat radiated from the metal as Kate used a cloth to pick it up this time. She turned a tap on and tentatively held the percolator under the stream of water. The sudden burst of steam almost made her drop it.

  "I'd just leave it to cool. You'll crack the metal doing it that way."

  She hadn't heard Alex come in. Kate poured a little coffee into one of the cups, and wrinkled her nose at the sharp odour. She set the percolator back on the cooker. "Looks like coffee's off. I've got instant, though. Or tea?"

  "It's okay. I ought to phone for a taxi, really."

  His edginess was contagious. "Okay."

  She turned away. "The phone's in the hall."

  She went to pour the coffee down the sink and, without thinking, picked up the percolator by the hot metal. With a cry, she dropped it and boiling coffee splashed out as it struck the cooker. Kate jumped back, but the scalding liquid spattered her bare wrists. She gasped at the pain of it, and then Alex was beside her, pushing her to the sink.

  "Here." He was spinning the cold tap on full. "Put them under."

  She recoiled from the force of the cold water, but he kept both her arms in the stream, turning them so that the water gushed over her burnt hand and scalded wrists. Red patches had already formed where the coffee had landed on her skin, and Alex kept them under the tap until her entire forearms started to ache from the cold.

  "I think that'll do it," she said.

  Alex shook his head, still holding them in the icy water. "Not yet. If you keep them in long enough it'll stop them from blistering."

  She glanced at him. He stood pressed against her, his hands gripping her arms at the elbow, face intent. At last he turned off the tap. "Is there a clean towel?"

  "In that drawer."

  Kate motioned with her head. Alex took one out and gently dabbed her arms dry. The livid patches were not as angry as they had been, and no longer hurt. Her arms felt numb from elbow to finger tips.

  "Have you got any E45 cream?"

  Kate didn't even know what it was. "No. Savlon?"

  Alex gave a terse shake of his ha, still patting her arms with the towel. "Anything you use for sunburn?"

  "There's some aloe lotion. On the shelf in the bathroom."

  He nodded approval. "What about painkillers?"

  "It doesn't hurt."

  "It will, once the numbness has worn off."

  "I think there's some aspirin in the bathroom."

  He went to fetch hem Kate stayed where she was, a little bemused by it all. Her arms were beginning to tingle.

  Alex returned and gave her three aspirins. He began to fill a mug from the draining board with water.

  "Don't bother," Kate told him. "I'll chew them dry."

  He looked at her for the first time since she had dropped the coffee pot. "It was a habit I got into," she explained, seeing his expression. "I used to get a lot of tension headaches."

  He handed her the mug anyway. "It still won't hurt to get some fluid inside you."

  As Kate used one hand to drink, he delicately smoothed the lotion onto the burnt palm and wrist of the other. She put down the mug and watched him. "I thought you were a psychologist, not a burns specialist."

  He kept his eyes on what he was doing. "You'd be surprised what you pick up."

  He gently smeared lotion onto her other arm. His fingers were light on the tender skin. "There. That should take the worst of the sting from it."

  He was standing close in front of her. "Thank you," she said, and without planning it leaned forward and kissed him.

  He stiffened. Kate could feel his sudden tension, and for a second thought he was going to pull away. Then, hesitantly, he relaxed.

  The contact between them was only slight, little more than a brushing of lips, and Kate dimly wondered what she was doing. She closed her eyes. She could taste the brandy on his mouth, feel the slight hardness where his lip was swollen. She touched it with the tip of her tongue. His breath feathered against her skin. She kissed him again, her tongue softly tracing the line of his lips. Moving closer, she brought her arms up around his neck, awkwardly, because they were sore. His went tentatively around her. She kissed him more deeply, feeling his tongue begin to respond to hers. His arms tightened around her waist. She dug her fingers in his hair, pulling him to her, no longer aware of the pain in her arms. His hands dropped to her buttocks as he pressed himself against her. She drew away, leading him towards the hallway.

  Alex didn't take his eyes from hers. He seemed almost drugged as they went into the bedroom. It was dark, with only the light from the kitchen spilling through the open door. She kissed him again, stroking his back. When she slid a hand inside his T-shirt she felt him give a small quiver.

  She took hold of one of his hands and moved it to her breast. He cupped it lightly, and she felt the quiver spread through him. He was trembling as she undid his belt, then the top button of his trousers. She could feel him suck in his stomach slightly as the backs of her hands touched his bare flesh. There was a crispness of hair beneath them. He gave a low moan and clutched her more tightly, his own hands fumbling at her dress. She reached behind herself to unzip it. The dress tumbled slowly to her ankles. She stepped out of it. "Oh God," he breathed, looking at her, and then they were kissing and she was dragging off his T-shirt, scarcely aware of the ripping sound as it came over his head and shoulders. The skin of his chest and stomach was hot against hers. She heard the faint rasp of it against the fabric of her bra as he groped behind her, struggling with its catch. She unfastened it for him, and Alex gave a little whimper as he bent his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth. She tugged his trousers over his hips, running her hands inside the back of his underpants to grip the roundness of his buttocks before peeling off the thin fabric.

  He wasn't fully erect, so she took hold of him, squeezing lightly. She felt him throb and harden, the shaft smooth, almost silky, in her hand. He gave a low gasp. With her other hand, Kate pushed off her own pants, letting them whisper down her legs to the floor. She put her arms around his neck, kissing him, feeling his erection pressing against her stomach, and stepped back towards the bed. Alex was shivering as he went with her. She sank onto it, pulling him on top of her, opening her legs so he lay between them. He lunged at her clumsily straight away, missing and gliding over her lower belly. She reached down between their bodies, guiding him, lifting her hips slightly, and then she felt him sliding inside her.

  She raised her legs, snaking them around him as their bodies wedged tight together. Suddenly he was thrusting frantically, his head arching back as he spasmed and gave a strangled moan. He hung for a moment, jerking and rigid, then went limp. Kate felt his full weight settle on her as he buried his head in the angle of her neck and shoulder, gasping. She gently stroked the back of his head, adjusting to the abruptness of it being over.

>   After a while she felt him stir. He pushed himself off her and lay on his back. "Sorry."

  Kate could barely see him in the darkness. "What for?"

  "You know. Being so quick."

  "It doesn't matter."

  She meant it. Her initial disappointment had ebbed now. "I'm not…I'm not very experienced."

  The confession was blurted out. Kate hid her surprise. She rolled onto her side, so that her body was touching his, aware of the cooling wetness between her thighs. "That's nothing to be ashamed of." She put her hand on his chest. She could feel his heart beating under it. The chain he wore around his neck felt cold as she stroked her fingers through the hairs.

  "Sorry," he said again, and Kate lightly tapped him.

  "Stop it. There's no need to keep apologising."

  Turning, she reached for the bedside table and switched on the lamp. Blinking in the sudden light, she looked back at Alex. His eyes were wet, she saw with alarm.

  "Hey, come on!" She moved so she was lying half on top of him, propping herself up on her elbows. Her breasts brushed against him. She smiled. "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

  He smiled back but didn't meet her eyes. "No. It's just that…I'm not very good at this sort of thing."

  "You seemed okay to me."

  He gave her a quick look and, with sudden intuition, Kate understood much of his past nervousness. The tenderness she felt for him closed up her throat.

  "What's this?" she said, deliberately changing the subject. She fingered the disc hanging on the chain around his neck.

  "It's just a St Christopher."

  Kate casually slid one of her legs over him as she examined it. The medal was about two centimetres in diameter, and the design of the man carrying the child across the water was crude and stylised, not at all obvious at first glance. "It looks old," she said, lifting it from his chest. It was thick and heavy.

  "Uh, yes, I suppose it is." He looked down at it. "It waas my grandmother's."

  "Did she leave it to you?"

  Alex paused before answering. "No, she gave it to me before she died. She said it'd bring me good luck."

  Kate laid it back on his chest. "And has it?"