‘So,’ he says. ‘Tell me about this guy.’
She says nothing.
‘Name?’ He picks up a pen and taps it on the edge of his desk.
She has no energy for refusal or invention.
‘Brunborg,’ she says picturing him suddenly, his handsome, sad, romantic face.
‘Good lass.’ He sounds surprised. He sips his whisky, swills it round his mouth before he swallows. ‘We know that. We know all about him. Where he works, where he lives.’
She stares. How? And then she remembers the little blue card that fell from the pastel box, the way Dario slid it in his pocket.
‘But why?’ she manages. ‘He’s only a crazy punter.’
‘He doesnae want to take you away from all of this?’
She shakes her head.
‘That’s not what I heard.’
‘I’m never going to see him again. I don’t want to see him. I never asked to see him.’
‘A wee warning is all.’
Marta looks down at her own legs, her fingernails sharp in her palms.
‘But listen.’ Ratman lights a cigar, rolls it between his fingers. ‘Geordie shouldnaie have done that to you.’
She’s so startled she almost chokes.
‘You won’t be seeing him again.’ He reaches for the whisky bottle and she sees that his nostrils are pinched.
A little puff of hope, like a breath. ‘Really?’
‘Go now,’ he says.
Vivienne
click
I feel—
click
OK. The nanny left and I got by. Not easy, Tommy grizzly and Artie playing up because I had less time for him, I guess. Never noticed what a sulker he was before. But no one’s perfect. But I was managing. I was.
Then one day this weird thing. I was upstairs kneeling on the floor doing Tommy’s nappy and right in the middle the doorbell rang. At least it distracted him from his screaming. I stuck him together, hoisted him over my shoulder and took him, Babygro poppers all undone, to the door.
A skinny young guy stood on the step, a black cab was waiting at the kerb.
‘Does Mats Brunborg live here?’ he asked, his accent foreign. Some sort of Eastern European.
‘Why?’ I said, ‘Who wants to know?’
‘No reason.’ His face was pretty as a girl’s but there was something sleek about him that made me shiver.
Anyway, it was cold with the door open and Tommy’s legs were all bare.
‘I’m busy,’ I said, ‘sorry.’ I started to shut the door but he put his shoulder in and stared at me, right into my eyes. He might have had mascara on. His teeth were bad and his breath smelled like crappy sweets.
‘Excuse me!’ I said. ‘Shall I call the police?’
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘is just to ask if you hear of girl called Rosa? Maybe your husband knows this girl?’
‘No,’ I said,’ and anyway my husband is not who you said.’ I don’t know why I said that; it was an instinct. ‘Go or I will call the police.’
I shut the door and leaned there for a minute. What? Then I looked out of the little window beside the door and saw the black shape that was the cab drive away.
When the child minder came I went out. I was on a sort of mission. It sounds pathetic but I might as well say. This is going in the bin anyway. I could unspool the tape and . . . I don’t know . . . hang myself with it! No only joking. Knit a table mat! Knit Mats a tie!
Anyway, I was on a mission to win him back.
Maybe because my medication had kicked in
Maybe because I’d stopped drinking, just about.
Maybe because I was frightened he would leave me.
I had the works, eyebrows waxed, hair bobbed a la Louise Brooks, roots, lowlights. I had false nails stuck on, red as Babybel. I bought a new top, silky orange flowers, low cut and a diet book.
Also I bought a posh lasagne and the second most expensive Chianti from M&S. I put on lipstick and mascara, rang work to check that he was coming home for dinner. Asked Christine to please make sure he wasn’t late. Stuck a rose on the table in a tiny vase. My finger bled when I picked it, which I liked, the red of it not so bright as my nails but pretty against the creamy petals. A little smear there, like a secret.
Rita came round after work to help me get the kids in their night things, both clean and sweet at the same time. And when he did come in I was ready with a kiss.
He was amazed, you could see. Maybe a bit shocked. He smelled of sweat and tension. His jaw was dark, a little rough. Once I used to lick that roughness.
He showered and we got the children settled, and sat down at the table like proper people. I’d put a candle there, a tall pink one, it made me think of a spindly penis and I couldn’t light it, it would have seemed barbaric. I felt weirdly awkward, like this was a date rather than dinner with my husband. I opened the wine. I would only have one tiny glass.
‘Don’t,’ I said when he went to light the candle.
He gave me a look and lit the wick.
‘So,’ he said, when at last we were ready with our wine, our food, the rose, the poor pink candle squirming, ‘what’s all this in aid of?’
I shrugged. ‘Just us,’ I said. ‘I mean you. I mean . . . I want to start again. I want to say thank you . . .’ I tailed off. I couldn’t read his face.
‘Well,’ he said, after a bit. He seemed to be struggling with his expression, but then he looked up, reassuring me with a smile. ‘That’s good. I’m glad you’re feeling better.’
‘And,’ I said; this was my big moment, ‘I’ve been thinking it over. You’re right. Let’s move to Norway. A fresh start.’ I thought of glaciers and fjords and cleanliness, grandparents, Norwegian jazz.
‘Too late,’ he said.
‘Surely there’ll be another chance?’ I fought gravity to keep my face from smearing down.
‘Perhaps,’ he said.
I asked him about his day, he asked about mine. It was like we were strangers, until the wine loosened us up a bit, and then I remembered the boy who came to the door.
‘What boy?’ Now I had his attention.
‘He said something about a girl.’
‘What girl?’
‘I don’t know. Rosie or something. Why? He just wanted to know if you know her.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said who wants to know and he said me and I said no.’
‘You said no.’ He looked relieved, maybe impressed.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what’s it about?’
The candle was scorching a petal and I shifted it, the jiggle sending hot wax running onto the table.
‘No idea,’ he said. And he would say no more about it. It was nothing. It had to be nothing. Of course I did go through his pockets like any wife, but there was nothing. And this was Mats, my Mats, the straightest man on earth. We finished our meal and talked about oh I don’t know.
The subject of the boy forgotten.
For then.
click
Mats
He scanned the road before pressing the bell. The barefooted boy opened the door, and Mats stepped in. Behind the reception desk sat a woman in a white coat, filing pointed burgundy talons. She flicked her eyes at him, bored, and returned to her manicure. A bona fide masseur? Surely not with such nails?
The boy led him through into the lounge. It was almost familiar now, the oily sweetness of the shuttered air, the velvet music, the weak pink lamps – though outside the light was still hard, bright and clean. Six o’clock, the days were lengthening coldly. Billy Holiday was playing: Come Rain or Shine. Silent gymnasts performed backflips on the television. He noticed white knitting on steel needles, looked like leggings for a baby, a handbag, a lip-sticked cup.
‘Was it you?’ he said.
&n
bsp; The boy looked at him eyes blank, jaws going at his bubble gum like a sheep’s.
‘Do not come to my house again. Understand?’
An insolent shrug.
‘I’d like to speak to . . .’ Mats hesitated. Was manager the right term? ‘Whoever’s in charge. Whoever sent you.’
‘You are friend of Rosa. Yes?’
‘I don’t know a Rosa. I know Marta.’
‘Is same.’
‘How did you know my address?’ Mats said.
‘Wait. I will see if boss is free.’ The boy threaded through the bead curtain so smoothly it barely rattled, pattered up the stairs. Uneasily Mats lurked, noticing a Gameboy on the table – Arthur wanted one of those. When all this was over, he should have one. He should have anything he wanted.
A middle-aged woman entered rubbing cream into her hands. She nodded and settled herself down, picked up the knitting. ‘You being seen to darling?’
Mats nodded.
‘Please to wait,’ said the boy, returning. ‘Rosa is busy. You want a different girl while you wait?’ He cocked a silky eyebrow. ‘Plenty other girls, you want to look?’
‘Aye. Plenty of lovely ladies,’ added the woman.
Mats shook his head. He should just get the hell out, but no, not having gone through all it took to come here, collar turned up like a criminal.
The boy stretched the grey gum, poked his tongue through the skin of it, blew a bubble and took it back inside his mouth, as gently as if it were an egg. Mats tore his eyes away. Smirking, the boy resumed chewing, turned his attention back to his Gameboy. The woman examined her knitting, tutted and began unravelling it.
Mats sat on one of the low pink velvet sofas. You’re going to love me, like nobody’s loves me. Did they have a sense of irony here? There were magazines on the table, his nervous impulse was to reach for one. Spread legs, bum up, cheeks pulled apart to show a pursed little bum hole – he replaced it quickly, glancing at the woman, picked nervously at the scab of a cigarette burn on the velvet.
The doorbell drilled, making Mats almost shed his skin. The woman heaved herself up, patted her hair, went to bring the newcomer through. Five girls rattled through the curtain and stood in their underwear; one was tiny, Asian, looked like a child in a pink mesh nightie, dark nipples glinting through. One had wide pale thighs, silky green knickers, tight and humid against her crack. He looked at his lap, mortified, horrified by the beginnings of an erection I guess when you met me it was just one of those things. He could, he actually could, have one of them if he wanted. But not the child. Surely she couldn’t really be a child?
The woman chatted away to the man about the weather, the football.
Mats kept his eyes on his knees, sweat beading on his upper lips. The man chose; Mats didn’t care to see which one.
The boy spat his gum into the bin, swigged his Coke. From a paper bag he took a strand of red liquorice and began to nibble it slowly into his mouth, propping his bare feet up on the desk displaying black, leathery soles.
A guy rattled out through the beads and paid the woman. Mats stared at his corduroy legs, scuffed brown shoes, tweed jacket. Teacher maybe? Had he been with Marta? Mats stomach roiled at the thought. He cracked his knuckles, stared up at the gymnasts on the TV screen.
Another guy came through the curtain and approached him. ‘Mr Brunborg? Mr Chapman.’ He was smart, slight with a tidy ginger beard. Mats stood and the man extended his hand. Mats gave it a reluctant shake.
‘This way.’ Mr Chapman rattled back through the curtain. Mats was seized by a sudden impulse to barge his way out of there and forget it; he looked at the door. It was as if the boy was reading his mind.
‘Best to do what Mr Chapman say.’
‘I would, darling,’ said the woman comfortably, turning her knitting to begin another row.
Mats forced a breath into his lungs. Man up, Vivienne said to him sometimes. Man up, he told himself now. He had come to get this mess sorted out and he would do it. Put an end to it.
He pushed through the curtain of beads. Mr Chapman was waiting on the stairs, and once satisfied that Mats was following, continued upwards, past two floors of closed doors behind which the women worked. Was Marta in there now, on top of, underneath a man? He shuddered as he followed Chapman up another staircase; here the warmth and scent of the place were replaced by chill bleakness and the smell of damp, bare bulbs dangling over stained plaster and the frayed remnants of a stair carpet. Mr Chapman unlocked a door and ushered him into an apartment, and through into an office. In here it was hot and reeked of cigar smoke, a smell that reminded Mats of his father, the last person he needed on his mind right now.
‘Sit, please.’ Chapman indicated a black leather sofa. Mats obeyed and regretted it as the springs groaned him into a low, subservient position.
‘Drink?’
Mats nodded and the man splashed Bells into two glasses, handed him one and retreated behind his desk. He took out a cigar box. ‘You don’t? He waved it and Mats agreed. No he didn’t. He sipped the drink. Mr Chapman lit himself a cigar and savoured the smoke thoughtfully before he raised his glass. ‘Slainte.’
‘Slainte,’ Mats muttered and took a sip.
Silence followed. Mats knees were higher than his hips. Crossing them had only made it worse. He felt ridiculous.
‘So, you wish to see me?’ Mr Chapman said. ‘You have a complaint?’
‘You sent your boy to my house?’
‘You are a regular, I understand?’ Chapman said.
Mats snorted. ‘Hardly!’
As Mr Chapman considered this he popped his lips, fish-like, emitting puffs of smoke. Under his jacket he wore a white roll-neck sweater, above which his beard was sharp and fiercely red. Though Mats was sweating this man looked cool. The gas fire was turned up high. To remove his jacket he’d have to stand, awkward from such a low position. But he wouldn’t be here long. Stick it out. Man up. Take the initiative.
‘So, you sent the boy to my house? Upsetting my wife. Is this your usual practice?’
Mr Chapman shook his head slightly. He appeared amused.
Mats loosened his tie, tried surreptitiously to undo a button. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘OK. I’ve been here once or twice. But why—’
Mr Chapman interrupted. ‘See, a wee birdie told me that you’re interested in . . . how shall we put it . . . poaching one of my lassies.’
Mats frowned.
‘You had a “date” with her.’
‘No,’ Mats said. ‘No. I mean yes, I did see her once – it was a coincidence.’
‘A coincidence?’ Mr Chapman smoked and smirked.
The fire was heating the fabric of Mat’s trouser leg; he tried to angle his knees away from the glowing orange bars.
‘Aye, all right. A coincidence mebbe. But then you bring her presents, turn her head . . . what’s a man to think?’ Mr Chapman grasped his beard in one hand and smoothed and smoothed. ‘Pastels. Do you think she’s a wee artist? I dinnae ken that about her. Makes me think you must ken her pretty well.’ He snickered. ‘What’s a slapper like that gonnae to do with a box of pastels!’
Sweat was trickling down Mats’ neck. He wondered if his trouser leg was scorching. Might actually burst into flames. On the windowsill pots and pots of prickly cacti. Through the glass there was the shape of gables and chimneys against the orange-dark of the sky.
‘So, what did your missus make of it?’ said Mr Chapman.
‘Leave her out of it.’ Mats put both his hands to his face, pushing the sweat back into his hair. His heart was like something bouncing on elastic.
‘Maybe you plan to dump her, take up with Rosa? Bonny wee bint, I’ll gi’ you that. Beg pardon if that’s offensive,’ said Chapman, with a narrow smile. ‘Another?’ he waved the bottle. Mats shook his head. Chapman poured himself a drink, took a sip and smacked
his lips. ‘Now.’ He leant forwards. ‘Down to business. You want her, you can have her.’
Surprise opened Mats’ mouth.
‘Take her away from all of this,’ Chapman said. ‘Ride off into the sunset. That the kindae thing you have in mind?’
Mats longed to get up, push up the window, shove his face out into the cold, or to punch Mr Chapman’s smug bastard face, hammer down the stairs, grab Marta and run. Like a scene from a movie this played out before his eyes. Jump in the taxi that would be conveniently waiting and then . . . then what?
‘It’s very touching,’ Mr Chapman said. ‘Lucky wee lassie, eh?’
Mats breathed in. Keep calm, keep calm.
‘I’ll be sad tae see her go,’ Mr Chapman said. ‘But if it’s true love, who am I to stand in the way?’ He paused, smoothed his beard. ‘Shall we say a hundred grand?’
Mats stared at him dumbly.
‘How much did you have in mind?’ Mr Chapman said. ‘Come on now, I’m willing to bargain.’ Silence. He grasped his beard in one hand in a kind of disbelieving glee. ‘Dinnae tell me you thought I’d give her away for free!’
‘I didn’t think anything. I don’t have that kind of money.’
Quiet, but for the distant sound of a door slamming, the shrilling of a phone.
Mr Chapman exhaled a plume of purplish smoke. ‘What kindae money do you have? See, I’m prepared to bargain. I’ll let you into a secret, I’ll be glad to see the back of her. One way or another. If you dinnae want her then, well, I cannae say what might happen to her. Just between you and me.’
Mats stared, groping for his line. He thought of Marta’s slim neck under the dark cloud of hair, her wet eyelashes as she looked up at him. If he said no now, if he walked away, what would happen to her? Was he to have that on his conscience now? He didn’t want her, not in that way, not in any way. But if there was a chance for her to be safe and free and for himself and his family to be safe and free . . .
‘I could maybe find twenty grand,’ he found himself saying, his tongue in charge, reality spinning free.
The Squeeze Page 11