The Squeeze

by Lesley Glaister

  In comes a man with two bunches of carnations from the buckets outside. ‘Someone’s gonna get lucky tonight,’ Evie jokes as he grabs a couple of boxes of chocolates. He shakes his head and gives a hollow laugh. ‘Dangling by a thread, me,’ he said, adding, ‘two threads if I’m honest, like.’

  Marta shivers. His way of speaking, it’s like Geordie’s.

  ‘Good luck,’ Evie jokes as he leaves. ‘Men!’ she says. ‘It’d take more than cheap carnations and Ferrero Rocher to get round me!’

  She opens a packet of Polo mints and offers one to Marta. ‘So,’ she says. ‘What’s your story?’

  ‘No story,’ Marta says.

  Evie puts her elbow on the counter, and regards her frankly. ‘We’ve all got a story, love.’

  ‘I jumped out of somebody’s car and hid,’ Marta says.

  Evie laughs. ‘Good for you! Nasty type was he?’

  Marta nods, thinking about Connor, not nasty at all. What will happen to him, for losing her? What will happen to Lily?

  ‘You’re better off without him. My ex – God you wouldn’t credit it if I told you. Given up on the lot of them, me.’

  ‘Me too,’ Marta says.

  Evie laughs, a white ring of Polo flashing on her tongue. ‘You’re a bit young to be giving up. Me, I’ve been round the block a few times too many.’

  A woman comes in to pay for petrol, buy milk and a bag of wine gums. Evie chats to her and Marta watches, listens. How easy Evie finds it to chat, to be warm and pleasant. Marta puts her hand in the bag. She wants to read the newspaper page, look closer at the photo.

  ‘So, what are we going to do with you?’ Evie asks.

  Marta looks at the payphone, searches for Mr Brunborg’s card in the lining of her bag.

  ‘If I could make a phone call?’

  ‘Go ahead love,’ she indicates the phone.

  ‘But I have no money.’

  ‘None at all? How come?’

  ‘I dropped it in the car.’

  Crossing her arms, Evie regards her for a long moment. ‘Tell you what, you can have a go with my mobile one,’ she says. ‘Just got it. Have a look. Everyone’s getting them. Thought I’d treat myself.’ She takes a black phone from her bag. Ratman has one like it. Marta takes the card from her bag and puts it on her knee. There are two numbers, which to ring? She tries one but nothing happens, the same with the other.

  ‘You haven’t switched it on!’ Evie says. ‘You’re as bad as me!’

  Evie takes the phone from her, presses a button, waits till it bleeps and passes it over. This time there’s a ringing and then a woman’s voice, not friendly. ‘Yes?’ In the background, a baby’s crying. Panicked, Marta rings off. Someone’s paying for petrol and buying cigarettes, a red haired man. Marta’s heart thumps, though it’s not Ratman, he’s big and fat, nothing like Ratman.

  She tries the other number and this time a bright voice, says, ‘DFI and G Enterprises; Mr Brunborg’s line, how can I help you?’

  Taking a deep breath, Marta says. ‘Can I speak to him, please?’

  ‘He’s about to go into a meeting, I can take a message.’

  ‘I . . .’ Marta does not know what to say.

  ‘Who is it please?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘He could ring you back before the end of the day.’

  ‘But I must speak to him now.’

  A pause.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Tell him Marta,’ she says.

  Mats

  Christine puts the call through, raising her eyebrows and looping her finger in the air, indicating either that he should hurry or that there’s a lunatic on the line. The others are already gathering in the boardroom. Surprising she put the call through at all, so desperate is she to get him into this long overdue meeting.

  ‘Yes?’ he says, though already a premonitory feeling is creeping over him.

  A small, hesitant, accented voice: ‘Mr Brunborg?’

  As if yanked upwards by the roots of his hair he stands.

  ‘Who is this?’

  Silence, a small sigh. ‘I have run away, I am in a place, I don’t know . . .’

  Before his knees can buckle, he sits down again, pressing his fingertips hard between his eyes. Christine’s concern engulfs him; he turns his head away.

  ‘Mr Brunborg is it?’ cuts in another, older, female voice. The phone is threatening to slip from his grasp, he tightens his grip as he sags over his desk, listening. ‘Poor lass was taken poorly. Can you come and fetch her? Garage at the Scotch Corner services, Junction 55. Know it? I’m only here till lunch like, best get her away before Jonno starts his shift.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mats says. ‘I understand. Of course.’ He lets go of the phone and sits staring at it.

  What?

  ‘Come on Mats,’ Christine says. ‘Are you OK? Need a Lemsip?’

  Christine’s phone rings and she picks it up. ‘Yes, he’s here. Right away.’ She turns to him. ‘They’re all set. Coming?’

  He shakes himself out of it. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Marta alive? What did he see in the cellar then?

  ‘But you can’t.’

  ‘Emergency.’

  ‘But Mats . . .’ Her voice is almost a wail.

  He forces his mind into gear. ‘Can you reschedule for later?’

  ‘No, Fergus is—’

  ‘Tomorrow morning then, first thing?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘A breakfast meeting. Apologise. I’ll be in before 8.’

  ‘But you can’t keep . . .’ She windmills her arms.

  ‘Please Chrissie.’ He sniffs, brings out a Kleenex to dab his nose.

  ‘But what am I going to say?’

  ‘You’ll think of something.’

  She stares at him. ‘Ferg’s been patient up to now but . . .’ she tails off into a sigh. ‘Anyway it’s meant to be my late morning tomorrow,’ she adds.

  She always visits her mother on Wednesdays. Of course, she does. Part of her flexitime deal.

  ‘But can you do it?’ He lifts his lips into a smile, and steps closer, looking down at her, right into her eyes. ‘Please Chrissie,’ he says, ‘and look, take this afternoon off instead.’

  ‘Fergus’ll have kittens, I’m warning you.’

  ‘Go on Chrissie.’

  She flushes, runs her hand through her hair. She’s lost weight lately he notices, the bones of her collarbone stand out above the neck of her silky blue top. Her throat, encircled by a fine gold chain from which dangles a golden C, is mottled with a blush.

  ‘Och, just for you then,’ she says, with her caving-in smile.

  ‘You’re a marvel.’ He hooks his coat from the stand by the door. ‘Don’t know what I’d do without you,’ he says and walks away fast, before anyone emerges from conference room.

  Outside it’s raining, as it’s done almost all spring so far. He hails a cab home and creeps in for the car keys. He can hear the television on in the sitting room; it’s the Easter holidays and Artie’s watching cartoons. Vivienne’s upstairs with Tom. Silently he lifts the car key from its hook and closes the door. The car’s parked a few spaces along the road – she’ll never notice it’s gone.

  ❦

  It is Marta. Her small white face behind the counter jerks his heart. The old hippy woman kind and curious, openly tries to weigh him up: father or what? It’s hardly an affectionate reunion, though he would like to hug Marta’s small shivering body. Here she is in front of him, alive. Alive.

  And his responsibility.

  He thanks the woman and leads Marta out to the car. The sky is clearing; rain filtered by sharp sunshine lights her face strangely, making her seem to glow like a little icon, but she is live, warm, flesh and blood. What to do? What to do? Take her somewhere safe . . .
but where?

  She climbs into the car, clicks the seatbelt, remains silent, staring at the windscreen. For what must be several minutes they share this silence. Once she turns to him and opens her mouth as if to speak, but changes her mind.

  Eventually, he starts the engine, pulls out onto the slip road. On their slowest setting the windscreen wipers squeak and jerk; she appears hypnotised by them.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ he says at last.

  Her head whips round at that. ‘Me? Why?’

  He is incapable of an immediate answer, but at last says: ‘How did you get here? Did he – Chapman let you go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I paid him to let you go,’ he says.

  Her face clouds with disbelief, frown lines cutting deep between her eyes.

  ‘I ran,’ she says.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Early. They, Dario and Mr Smith, they put us in a car. Not Ratman,’

  ‘Ratman?’

  ‘Mr Chapman. He was not there today.’

  Mats flexes his bruised knuckles on the steering wheel, says nothing. The traffic is heavy, juggernauts, coaches, vans. Water sluices up from a passing lorry, visibility is bad. He increases the wipers’ speed, concentrates on driving, pulling out into the fast lane. There are blossom petals stuck to the windscreen where the wipers don’t reach, like pale fingertips pressed against the glass. He coughs, cupping his hand over his mouth. A police siren sounds and he pulls back into the slow lane between two towering juggernauts, till the police car has raced past, blue light flashing on the wet glass and on her little face.

  They sit in their own thoughts for a while and then she turns to him, eyes huge. ‘We were going to London, I think. Or somewhere. I got out and ran. I left Lily.’

  ‘A friend?’

  She’s quiet for a moment. ‘Not really.’

  He glances in his wing mirror and pulls out again, digesting this.

  ‘You did not really give Ratman money for me?’ she says, almost a smile in her voice.

  Is he going to look foolish in the eyes of this girl now, after everything?

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ he says again.

  ‘Why?’

  He opens his mouth but doubts every possible word and doubts what he saw or thought he saw. What did he see? Doubts even his memory; what did he do?

  ‘How much did you pay?’ she asks.

  If you can read this you are too close, he reads on the back of a van and eases his foot off the accelerator.

  ‘Where’s the money now?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he says. And finds he doesn’t care. The thought could almost make him laugh. Fifty thousand pounds gone like snow on the water and he doesn’t care! It feels like nothing. I’m a murderer, he thinks. I have killed a man. This fact is still not real; thinking about it feels like probing a dental cavity still numb from the anaesthetic. He switches on the Radio, You and Yours, a cosy woman talking about the price of pet insurance.

  As they approach Edinburgh he struggles to get his mind to work straight. ‘Have you got anywhere to go?’ he asks with little hope.

  Sunlight on her skin is rippled by raindrops through glass. ‘I have nowhere,’ she says in a small voice. ‘I want to go home.’

  He nods.

  ‘But I am illegal immigrant. I have no passport, no money for ticket.’

  His nose is starting to run. He overtakes a coach, pulls out a tissue. ‘I’ll find out how to deal with that,’ he says. ‘Did, does, he have your passport, Mr . . . Ratman?’

  She tells him in small halting bursts almost too quiet to hear above the sound of the engine, the swish of the wet road, about how she was smuggled and forced to work, how she was owned by Chapman or maybe by a man called Smith. As she speaks he glances at the swollen knuckles on his right hand and catches the hard edge of an idea: even if Marta is alive, Chapman deserved what he got.

  ‘I’ll get you home,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t know what I will say. Why did I send no money all that time? Only one letter – it is letter you posted,’ she adds. ‘Thank you.’

  He feels the lightness of her hand on his knee, just briefly. He flicks the indicator and they turn down a slip road to the roundabout, the City Bypass; home soon, what is he going to do?

  ‘There will be a way,’ he says, feigning confidence.

  ‘You think?’

  Such a detonation of hope in her eyes, he nods though he has no idea. ‘For sure.’ He dawdles to let the traffic lights go green and makes the only decision he can make. ‘Till then, you’ll have to come home with me.’

  She sends him an uneasy glance.

  He parks round the corner from home, but can’t bring himself to get out yet. If only he could just close his eyes. He could, he thinks, actually sleep now. After all the whirling in his brain, there’s a sudden vacuum, as if he’s shocked himself senseless. He massages his fingers, almost forgetting Marta’s there, stares at an old woman being pulled by two terriers on a double lead, watches their ten stiff legs turn the corner into his road. That lady lives only two doors down, though they’ve never spoken.

  ‘So,’ he says at last. ‘This is how it’ll go. I’ll tell my wife you were working for a friend, as a cleaner maybe? And she didn’t like you. Maybe she accused you of stealing? Threw you out, you’ve nowhere to go.’

  ‘Yes?’ she sounds doubtful. ‘She will believe this?’

  ‘She’ll have to.’

  Vivienne

  click

  The day was a snotty mess but I drank nothing.

  That’s really good.

  And then the door opened early, about 2 0’clock, and there was Mats.

  ‘What are you doing home?’ I said.

  Tommy crowed and waved his arms from his bouncer and Mats scooped him up.

  ‘I’ve catched a cold, Dad,’ Arthur said, ‘and I didn’t even try.’

  ‘That was Daddy’s germs,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve brought someone to help,’ Mats said, almost ducking as he spoke – I don’t like surprises, he knows that. Then, get this, he brings in a tiny girl, tangled hair, filthy gym shoes, hideous plastic coat red as a stop sign.

  Rosie? I thought, dumbstruck by the nerve of him, but no.

  ‘This is Marta,’ he said, pulling a face behind her, meaning, please don’t go off on one.

  ‘Help?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

  She was looking at the floor.

  ‘Help me build a space station?’ Artie said.

  The girl peeped up at Mats as if for permission, great big, dark brown eyes with starry lashes. The way she looked at him! My kind and handsome husband holding his baby. How wonderful he must look to her. How sweet and pliable she must look to him. How petite. How young.

  But still, the state of her . . .

  ‘This is Arthur,’ Mats went, ‘and this is Thomas.’

  The girl looked up at Tommy’s face, high on Mats shoulder.

  ‘And this is my wife, Vivienne,’ went Mats.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, maybe a bit shortly. I mean! He could at least have started with me.

  The girl was already kneeling on the floor with Artie.

  Mats took my arm and steered me out into the sitting room where the curtains were still shut from last night. Artie had been watching telly and it was still showing a noisy cartoon. He put Tommy down on the rug.

  ‘She is homeless,’ he said before I could get a word in.

  ‘You must be fucking joking!’

  There was a long pause. Mats sat down on the sofa. He clasped his fingers and bent them back till they clicked. I hate that. I watched his face, but I couldn’t tell anything.

  ‘Is this her?’

  He looked up at me.

  ‘The girl. When that guy came round he said something ab
out a girl.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t know what that was about.’

  Hmmm.

  I watched Tommy struggling to roll over.

  ‘She can stay in the attic, can’t she?’ he said. ‘Just for a day or two.’

  ‘What?’

  I mean!

  ‘I’ll sort it out,’ he said, fiddling with his ear now, really bloody irritating habit, ‘do the sheets and everything.’

  ‘But Mats?’ I was giving him an incredulous look, but he wouldn’t receive it. ‘Who even is she?’

  He sighed – as if this was an unreasonable question!

  Come on!

  ‘Look, she needs somewhere to stay. You – we – need some help about the place. I thought it would be a good solution.’

  ‘No, I don’t need help.’

  He looked meaningfully round the room, which OK was a mess.

  ‘Is there something dodgy going on?’ I said.

  He gave me a level look, like shame on me for even thinking such a thing.

  ‘Where did you find her?’ I went at last.

  Tommy was waving his arms and legs, eyes fixed on the cartoon, shrieking at the colours.

  ‘God’s sake.’ Mats retrieved the remote from between the sofa cushions and switched off the telly; Tommy continued to stare at the screen, expectant, baffled. ‘Someone at work.’

  ‘She’s not a stray cat!’

  ‘All I know, she’s had a really bad life. We can’t leave her out on the streets.’

  ‘Why not? What’s she to us?’

  ‘She’s a human being who needs help,’ he said. I wanted to slap him for sounding so . . . whatever the word is.

  Tommy had rolled over and found a crayon to chomp on now, and I leant forward to flick the spitty yellow wax from his gums.

  ‘There must be people to deal with people like her,’ I said. ‘Can’t you take her to a hostel or something?’