Eleven

by Sarah Rayne

  Nicola will be almost asleep when he gets home, even though it’s only eight o’clock; she won’t last beyond ten. Pregnancy hasn’t made her sick but tired, tired, tired. There’ll probably be a tetchy exchange about the fact he’s chosen to work a Saturday again, but this is how he gets the edge over his colleagues, this is how his sales are up so far this year when everyone else’s are down. This is how the baby, when it’s born, will have a dad who’s got a safe job when everyone else is about to lose theirs. Ollie imagines it will be a boy, although he’d secretly like a girl, a tiny version of Nicola, a portable beauty. The thought makes him smile as he steps down onto the station platform. His umbrella springs open to keep off the rain. The weather’s been shit recently, he thinks, but at least it’s not so cold now. Unlike the handful of other passengers who disembarked here, he makes for the quicker, darker, rear exit.

  ‘Stop where you are and give me your money,’ says Julius.

  It sounds ridiculous out loud, the line that he practised hundreds of times in his head, and he senses that his intended victim is in danger of not taking him seriously. In the dusk, the two of them look at each other; Julius, ten years younger, more alarmed than the man he is trying to mug.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me whatever you’ve got.’

  Ollie screws up his eyes to look at his mugger. The kid is huge. If he turned and ran now, he would surely get away. But there could be more of them.

  ‘Or what?’

  Julius is sweating.

  ‘Just give me your money.’

  Ollie wants to get home. He still doesn’t regard this as a threat, just an inconvenience.

  ‘Look, get out of my way, would you?’

  ‘Give me your money.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Julius looks at Ollie’s impatient, puckered face, and has a strong sense that Ollie is what Liam Rollin will be like in ten years, that Ollie, in fact, would be one of his school tormentors, were it not for the fact of their decade-apart birthdates. A dam bursts in his mind and he seizes Ollie’s wrist violently, his other hand bringing the knife out from under his jacket. Ollie cries out in pain or surprise. Julius brings the knife close to his victim’s chest. The knife is almost comically big, like one you would slice crusty bread with, but a blade is a blade, and he can feel his victim’s wrist stiffen in fear.

  Ollie’s free hand begins to fumble in his pocket. He brings out a pair of rumpled notes.

  ‘This is all I’ve got.’

  Julius hasn’t thought any further than apprehending someone. He certainly doesn’t want to negotiate over how much he gets. But this is nowhere near enough. He thinks he can hear footsteps.

  ‘Give me more.’

  ‘This is all I’ve got, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Well, give me your phone.’

  Ollie sighs and looks at Julius with what still seems like irritation – even now, Julius registers at the back of his mind, even with the knife I’m not getting respect. He tightens his grip. Ollie’s eyes waver between the knife and his whitening wrist. Finally he gives in, remembering how a barrister was killed by a fourteen-year-old at this station a few years back. He reaches around with his free hand and fishes his BlackBerry out of his pocket. Julius takes the BlackBerry and clasps it in his shaking hand. Their eyes meet for a second before he lets go of Ollie and starts to run for the other exit, in wide, awkward strides, his eyes bulging like a cartoon character’s.

  ‘I’ll have the police after you, you fat cunt!’ Ollie calls after him.

  Julius careers, like a runaway trolley, down the nineteen steps to the main station concourse and out through the deserted ticket office. Panicking, he dumps the knife into a ragged bush by the taxi rank. He regrets it straight away. The bush is barely thick enough to hide it, it will probably be visible in daylight, they’ll get it out and fingerprint it, they’ll check everyone somehow. Gasping for air, his body awash with sweat, Julius lurches for home, not daring to stop. He is barely conscious, for once, of the surprised or amused looks of the night-walking lovers as he steams past. The screwed-up banknotes scratch together in his pocket. He feels as if nobody has ever done anything as bad as this.

  V

  Three nights later, as Murray and Xavier address their midweek audience, Julius flits between wakeful shuffling and dreams of being interrogated or chased. He exchanged the BlackBerry for £100, no questions asked, at a place in Kilburn that cheerfully buys and sells almost-certainly-stolen goods. Added to Ollie’s cash, it covers another couple of months at the gym, which buys him time to get a job. Whenever a teacher looks directly at him, or he walks past a policeman, Julius expects to be confronted with evidence of what he did at the weekend. He mutters disjointed, uneasy phrases in his sleep, and casts his arms about as if to ward off a series of attackers.

  ‘Continuing our sideways look at the . . . world of the news,’ says Murray.

  One of Murray’s strategies for dealing with the W problem is to pause shortly before the troublesome consonant, and then, after a deep breath, sail through it, and the next few syllables, all in one movement. This can give his sentences an odd cadence, like the jumpy phrases which answering machines piece together from pre-recorded fragments, but it’s better – anything is better – than those agonizing stops and starts.

  ‘Now, our next story is that our esteemed leader is meeting the American President this week. I was trying to picture the scene in the wer, in the wer—’

  ‘In the White House,’ Xavier puts in helpfully.

  ‘Exactly.’ Murray’s curly head bobs up and down. This is his favourite part of the show. ‘And I imagine it might go a bit like this.’

  Xavier stares out of the window at the car park as Murray adopts an unconvincing American drawl. The thin outline of their resident fox emerges from behind the recycling units. Murray almost trod on the fox last week as they left the studio; it has become so composed around humans that, rather than scuttle away, it gave the pair of them a cool, contemptuous look, its black eyes like tiny stones.

  Beyond the limits of Xavier’s gaze, nocturnal London, the shadow London, is halfway through its shift.

  On Bayham Road, Xavier’s neighbours are asleep, although Jamie will wake at 6 a.m., and resist all Mel’s gummy-eyed attempts to negotiate another hour or so of peace. Maggie Reiss, the psychotherapist, is asleep too, next to her stockbroker husband; she hasn’t been bothered by gastrointestinal problems at all this week. A few postcodes away from her, Frankie Carstairs still has a prominent scar from the stitching, which the doctors say will fade. His mother’s uncharitable review of Chico’s won praise from her editor, who is always delighted if a section as irrelevant as ‘Eating Out’ can create some controversy. Ollie Harper sleeps next to his four-months-pregnant wife Nicola. He didn’t tell her about the mugging – why make a drama out of things; the doctor told her to avoid stress. He got a temporary phone on Monday, it’ll be a week till his BlackBerry can be replaced. The young couple made an offer, which he’s pretty sure they can’t really afford, on the flat.

  Murray lumbers to the end of his skit about world leaders and moves on to his second prepared piece of topical comedy, about a Somali pirate ship which has made headlines by taking a crew hostage somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Xavier musters a couple of encouraging chuckles and snorts, and looks forward to the syndicated news bulletin which, with its precise, non-negotiable timing, will put an end to this awkward comic interlude.

  Julius’s teacher Clive Donald is in his back garden in Hertfordshire, staring absently at the sombre bare trees in the moonlight, which make him think of arms reaching up through the earth, their fingers trying to grasp the sky. Earlier he took a sleeping pill, which has had no effect. Also medicated, and cruising far above London, is Andrew Ryan, the restaurant owner, coming back from Hong Kong where he lost a couple of thousand pounds at the races. His seat reclines to become a bed, and can be fully shut off from the rest of the cabin by means of a curtain,
but these comforts are wasted on Ryan who knocked himself out with two pills before take-off. Unknown to any of the passengers, the hold of the plane contains the corpse of a formerly high-ranking government official who died of a stroke last week. Meanwhile, George Weir lies placidly in Golders Green Cemetery. His daughter, a council worker specializing in road safety, laid fresh flowers on his grave at the weekend.

  ‘That was “Murray’s Musings”, and if you’ve had a bit of a giggle, text in and let us know. Now, the joys of the news and sport.’

  ‘And after the break,’ says Xavier, ‘we’ll be asking you to tell us about a moment that haunts you. Something you’d like to put right, if you could turn back time. And we might just play a song on that very subject.’

  Murray flicks a switch and the toneless, crystal voice of the newsreader begins.

  ‘Nice work,’ says Xavier. ‘The bit about pirates was good.’

  ‘Just something I ner, ner, knocked up on the way here,’ says Murray. ‘Coffee?’

  As Murray shoulders his way out of the door, Xavier thinks, I really should stop him from doing these bits. Or at least reduce the length of them. Or the frequency. One a week would do. A couple a week. Not every night.

  Murray has found all sorts of ways to sidestep any suggestion of dropping his comedy segment from the show. He proposes ideas to ‘punch it up’ or ‘give it an extra kick’. They moved it nearer the beginning of the show because ‘the audience will be fresher then’, and then back towards the end because ‘the audience will be more in the mood for light relief then’. When from time to time Roland, their executive producer, suggests removing it altogether, Murray always rolls his eyes and accuses him of ‘underestimating what a bit of laughter can do for a show’. Xavier keeps his opinions to himself. Murray works hard on the jokes, and often arrives with several handwritten A4 sheets, dense with witticisms scrawled in his stunted handwriting, which seems as strained as his speech.

  Tomorrow evening, Xavier is taking Murray to a premiere in Leicester Square. The film stars Nicolas Cage, who goes out for revenge on someone, or someone goes out for revenge on him; Xavier can’t quite remember the details of the press release. He was invited initially by email, which was then followed up with a glossy note in the post – a sign that the producers are not expecting much press interest in the movie, are chasing up anyone who might give them a quote, like party organizers casting the net wider and wider into the pool of their casual acquaintances.

  Murray sets down Xavier’s coffee in the BIG CHEESE mug. He checks the incoming emails and texts. There are very few from people claiming to have ‘had a giggle’ at the last part of the show, and at least a couple report a contrary reaction.

  Murray brushes these aside, as ever, with a goofy smile.

  ‘Some people never lighten up.’

  The ensuing half-hour is certainly not conducive to lightness, as callers tackle ‘The One Thing You Would Change in Your Life’. One man says he should never have left his wife, who went on to win the Lottery.

  ‘But if you’d only have been with her for the money,’ Xavier consoles him.

  ‘No, I think I really loved her,’ laments the caller.

  ‘So why did you leave her, if I can ask that?’

  ‘Because I’m an idiot,’ the caller answers matter-of-factly.

  There are other people who have dropped out of university or shouldn’t have gone in the first place; turned down a great job, or were crushed by a dismal one for thirty years; missed the last chance to say goodbye to a loved one. The regrets fizz across the city from their various custodians to the meeting point in the studio in West London. There are lighter recollections, too: someone in Belsize Park merely wishes he had never bought his current toaster.

  ‘If that’s the worst thing you can look back on,’ Xavier reasons.

  ‘I didn’t say it was the worst. Just the one I’m telling you.’

  ‘Well, fair enough, and maybe I won’t tell you my worst one, either. But here’s one of mine.’

  The expectant hush when Xavier begins a story, Murray always thinks, can be sensed from the studio as clearly as if all the listeners were sitting rapt in the same room.

  ‘I was about eleven, and we were on holiday by the sea. I had a kind of dinghy, shaped like a big fish, which me and my dad were floating around on. Suddenly this boy, about my age, tried to climb on board.

  ‘My dad was trying to shoo him away. The kid kept saying is there room for me? Is there room for me? And looking at us with this very pleading face. He didn’t seem to have a parent or anyone with him. I didn’t know what to do, I was frozen, but my dad told him pretty roughly to go away. He kept gesturing: get lost. And eventually this boy swam away, looking very hurt, or just disappointed, as if he’d really set his heart on getting on that fish. After he’d gone, my dad said the kid had mental problems. There’s nothing you can do for people like that, he said.

  ‘He wasn’t a bad man, my dad, he just . . . he didn’t really understand other people that well. Anyway. If I could turn back time I would at least try to get him to let the kid on board. I sometimes wonder where he is now.’

  ‘Maybe he drowned!’ Murray starts to blurt out glibly. He means it as a relief from the taut atmosphere, but it’s a terrible error.

  Xavier, quick as ever, covers for him, anticipating the sentence and blocking it with one of his own, like a goalkeeper instinctively smothering a shot with his body.

  ‘So let’s lighten the mood . . . any even sillier regrets than the one about the toaster? Thanks to Nigel for that, and we’ll take more after this – the song you’ve all been requesting.’

  ‘You’re listening to Late Lines,’ says Murray redundantly, grateful for his reprieve. The polished chords of a popular soul ballad emerge from the speakers. Murray reaches across and pats his partner’s hand by way of a thank you. Xavier is surprised at himself for telling the story: an episode which he hadn’t thought of, as far as he can remember, for many years. When he looks out of the window again, he can see, as clear as a photograph, the boy’s troubled, imploring face, and his stiff, sad shoulders as he turned and swam away.

  On the night of the premiere, Leicester Square is sulky with drizzle and the red carpet looks dog-eared and damp at the edges as a selection of the best available stars trots dutifully across it, posing, arms around whoever, for the rapid-fire snaps of bored photographers. There’s a model, the winner of a recent TV talent show, a game-show host; not many people, tellingly, from the actual film. The director is there with his much younger girlfriend and a gut which imposes itself through an inadequate tuxedo like somebody mooning through a gap in curtains.

  As Xavier waits for Murray near the optimistically signposted VIP entrance, his mind goes back irresistibly to another premiere, years ago at the Zodiac. The picture was a much anticipated art film about an orphan, locally produced and set in Melbourne. The gang of four had secured tickets by being loyal Zodiac customers. The director, a jolly-looking man with an uncle’s beard, sat a couple of rows ahead of them. The Zodiac had been built before the clinical comforts of today’s multiplex were ever dreamed of; the rows were crammed together and the intimacy between patrons was one of the things that gave the place its particular heightened atmosphere.

  With the start of the film imminent, Matilda tapped Chris’s knee.

  ‘Hey. Look.’ She pointed to the director in front of them.

  He had seemingly worked himself into a remarkable state of anxiety. He continually wiped his sweaty hands in his lap, jiggled his legs up and down, and glanced to his left and right as if in hiding from some enemy. At one point he swivelled all the way round to survey the full room behind him, and his large, alarmed eyes peered at the four of them for an uncomfortable moment as if appealing for help.

  ‘Fuck! He looks terrible!’ Matilda observed in a clumsy whisper.

  Chris rolled his eyes and dug her in the back, in case the director heard them.

  ‘He’ll just be ne
rvous. Imagine making a film and everyone knowing it was yours. Well, imagine making a film at all,’ said Russell.

  ‘He does look unusually worried, though,’ Bec chipped in.

  ‘By unusually do you mean—’ Matilda began, but at that moment the lights dimmed.

  Before long they had a possible explanation as to the director’s distress, because the movie, of which so much had been expected, turned out to be terribly slow-moving and dull. As the scenes wore on, the disenchantment of the once-excited audience became almost palpable, like a sickly smell blown in from outside. From time to time Chris stole a glance at the hunched figure of the film-maker. His movements had become less frenetic, more resigned; he rested his head wearily in his hands once, and several times shook his head, as if unable to believe what he was seeing.

  Towards the end – at least, they hoped the end was near, but the film was too long on top of everything else – a particularly ill-judged piece of dialogue brought an incredulous snigger from sections of the audience. The director rose from his seat in a violent motion and crashed his way through the row of legs to the aisle. As he hurried away, the gang of four could see that he was crying.

  The friends exchanged rueful looks. Chris felt a sudden impulse to go after the man, though with no idea of what he hoped to achieve if he found him. He allowed a couple of minutes to pass and then, as inconspicuously as possible, slid out of his own seat.

  Of course, there was no escaping Matilda’s notice. Her eyes widened in surprise: Chris had almost never, in anyone’s memory, missed a moment of any film.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Bathroom.’

  She didn’t buy it, he knew, but he edged his way to the end of the row and out into the lobby, where the dark-red walls were hung with autographed pictures of long-dead MGM stars. After a brief scan of the lobby, Chris went into the Gents, and found the director, leaning as if drunk, with his head against the hand-dryer.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Chris in the end, not knowing what else to say.