In order to retain my dignity, I waited until she had gone to the kitchen to get me a glass of water, before scuttling out on my hands and knees, gulping down fresh air as I made for the graveyard.
I had to get off the tube after a few stops. I didn’t know where I was going, nor did I care. I went where there were crowds to lose myself in. Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street. Everywhere people stopped, shopped, wandered. No one looked at me. I went into a Swarovski shop and stared at the world through crystal shapes. Through their clean, decisive cuts, the light was refracted and geometrical, rolled out like a measuring tape of tailored rainbow. The world was ordered, here. Distilled. You put in all the chaos and confusion and it came out sparkling in white light.
A noise like a school bell began to emanate from my crotch, and I realised that my phone was ringing. A number I didn’t recognise.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh hello there,’ said a shaky voice. ‘Do you do greenhouses?’
‘What?’
‘Greenhouses,’ came the voice, louder. ‘Do you clean greenhouses?’
‘What? No. Who is this?’
‘I was recommended to you by Mrs O’Hallahan. She said you did a wonderful job on her conservatory.’
‘I think you’re getting me confused with someone else.’
‘No, you’re Günter Glass, from the papers.’
‘I don’t even live in Salisbury!’
There was a pause.
‘I never said you did.’
‘Just piss off, will you?’
I cancelled the call and saw a text from Lieve: Running away is not very fucking mature. Bloody phone. If only there was some way I could use it to talk to someone I actually liked. If only there was someone I could turn to, who would really listen. I wandered through the store, rebuffing offers of help with that catch-all, ‘I’m just browsing.’ I didn’t even really know what browsing was. A browse didn’t involve any real inspection, nor trying anything on, nor could the assistant sincerely believe that browsing ever led to buying. Perhaps that was why they left you alone.
Yes, if only there was someone I could talk to who gave clear advice. I stared at a crystal goblet. The light swam through it in perfect ellipses, following an infinite, prescribed loop. It was, in many ways, the perfect goblet. If I bought that, I’d never have to replace it. It would be my life’s goblet. Unless I broke it. I pulled out my wallet to inspect the money in there, which was scant, but spotted a Samaritans card nestled in among receipts. I pulled it out. Dean Angela Winterbottom. 01722 335161. I took out my phone and dialled.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello. It’s Günter. I don’t know if you’ll remember me, I changed your aeroplane warning light.’
‘Ah Günter! How could I forget you? Our visitor numbers have shot up since your escapade. How are you getting on? Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? Everyone here is so very dull. Nothing in the Bible about being po-faced, but His believers are nothing if not revisionist.’
‘I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’ve moved to London.’
‘Not to get away from us dreadful churchgoers, I hope? I heard you had a bit of a run-in with our choir.’
‘Oh God – gosh – yes, sorry about that. I wasn’t quite myself that day.’
‘What I worry about, Günter, is that you have been claiming not to be yourself for as long as I’ve known you. It’s becoming quite an untenable position.’
‘I suppose so. I’m starting to figure some things out. I have a good job and I have recently met a woman I like very much.’
‘But you’re phoning me.’
I imagined her hands curling into question marks. Perhaps she was on hands-free.59
‘Well, yes. I suppose I just wanted some honest advice, and I don’t know anyone else who is equipped to provide it.’
‘All right. I’m hardly a woman of the world but I shall do my best.’
‘Okay, you know how I said I’ve been seeing someone?’
‘I wouldn’t worry about the whole spilling semen business too much. Leviticus 15 tends to take the view that everything will be fine by the evening, as long as you wash.’
‘Well actually, it’s gone rather too far the other way. This woman that I’m seeing, she’s got a bun in the oven.’
‘Oh my. That’s wonderful news, my dear boy! Shotgun wedding, is it? We’d love to have you here. Wouldn’t worry what the neighbours say. It was ever thus. The men of Salisbury tend to buy rings and prams in package deals.’
‘But I’m not sure that I’m ready to be a father.’
‘Ah, the other thing.’ I heard a door clicking shut as Dean Winterbottom lowered her voice. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. The papers would have a field day if they caught me and I really don’t have the expertise; you’re much better off going to Marie Stopes.’
‘No no no, I didn’t mean—I suppose I just wanted to know what you think of the idea. Is the little thing sacred or something? Is it wrong to bring it into the world if I can’t take care of it?’
‘Mmm,’ she said ponderously. ‘It’s always hard to do the right thing. Especially in this day and age, don’t you think?’
‘I quite agree.’ I felt a tug of affection inside me then. If only Dean Winterbottom were a little younger, I’d want her to be my mother. Or perhaps if she were a lot younger …60
‘The Bible doesn’t really stretch to this debate, I’m afraid. There’s no word for abortion, as I’m sure you’d expect. I think at one point someone asks God to inflict miscarriage on a population,61 but there are a lot of spiteful people in the Bible. I’m not sure people have ever really understood the meaning of infinite love. As for Jesus, he said that it’s not what happens to your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.62 He was mainly talking about bacon but I think the point stands. The material aspect is not nearly so important as your reasons. It is a good book, I must say. You might consider reading it one day.’
‘I don’t know what to do. She wants to keep it, but I don’t.’
‘Perhaps this pregnancy is her own little corner of permanence.’
‘But a baby should have two parents, and I’m not going to be there.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I didn’t choose it. It’s as if someone has just showed me a photo of a sports car and then told me I’ve bought the car and I owe them hundreds of thousands of pounds. I didn’t ask for the car, I can’t afford to pay for it, I don’t even have my own parking space. I just don’t want it to happen. If they’d told me what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have wanted to … you know? Look at the photo.’
‘You mustn’t dehumanise the baby by pretending it’s a car.’
‘But …’
‘You need to talk to your partner, Günter. You could try to persuade her that it’s the right thing, but you can’t always make all your own choices. What would be the point in living, if you knew how you were going to do it in advance?’
I furrowed my brow and pursed my lips as if willing my face to implode as I walked out onto the street. Two men were washing windows from a bucket at the shop opposite, its front-of-store displays gleaming in their mock Tudor housing. Above the door where two staff arranged exotic flowers ran a single word in two-foot-high letters: LIBERTY. Above that, a weathervane in the shape of a golden ship changed its course slightly, glinting in the midday sun. The summer had arrived, and with it a renewed promise. Soap trickled down across the concrete. These things – glass, water, sunlight, liberty – were bright things, clear and open. Uncomplicated. Pure.
‘Are you still there Günter?’
‘I am.’
‘Be good.’
I took in a deep breath. The air was crisp.
‘I’ll try.’
17
Wolfish Frenzy
‘Long-life okay?’
‘Well, yes all right.’
Emma the Hemp Bag Lady came through to the sitting room carrying two mugs.
‘It’s a lovely place you have here,’ I said. ‘Really.’
Emma cast her eye around the room coyly.
‘I’ve tried to make it cosy. I know there’s a lot of residential round London but it’s hard to find somewhere that really feels homely.’
‘I had the same problem when I was looking,’ I said.
‘I used to do his shopping for him, you know. I have a car, so it’s no bother. You should see the amount of fish he gets through. Sometimes I wonder if he’s not keeping a porpoise in there.’
‘He does have a turtle.’
She smiled and rolled her eyes. She knew he wasn’t crazy. Or at least not violent. He just lacked social mores.
‘So,’ she said, looking into my eyes as she sipped.
‘Um. How’s the law going? Are people still breaking the law? You know, yobs and oiks and that lot?’ I asked.
‘I wouldn’t know. Not my sort of thing,’ she said.
‘What’s your sort of thing?’ I asked. It came out sounding a little suggestive, and she laughed nervously.
‘Family law. It’s mostly divorces, to be honest; hardly a day goes by when I don’t hear the word divorce, it’s enough to make anyone not want to get married, but occasionally you do see a yummy-looking divorcee and wonder how soon is too soon.’ She sniffed. ‘You get all sorts, really. Domestic abuse. Pre-nup. Children, custody, that sort of thing.’
‘Must be hard to have faith in relationships from where you’re sitting.’
‘It is. You have to remind yourself that you’re only seeing the problems. I imagine there are hundreds of happy couples out there who don’t even know what a family lawyer is. Millions. Does colour how you see the world, though. I’ve always thought, if you worked for the emergency services, you’d think everyone was an arsonist or something. Whereas in reality fires rarely happen. I don’t know a single person who’s ever set their house on fire.’
‘Neither do I.’
We touched the edge of a vast silence, like an unknown forest.
‘Do you ever do cases about pregnancy?’ I asked, hoping that I’d reached the appropriate quotient of small talk.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for example, if a woman got pregnant and one of them wanted to keep it but the other one didn’t.’
‘The law’s quite clear on that, fortunately.’
‘But would you fight a case in principle? On moral grounds?’
‘I don’t see why not. Money for old rope.’
‘And how much do you charge? Do you do that no win no fee thing?’
‘Only crooks do that. A proper lawyer will charge you properly.’
‘Ah.’
I thought back to my bank balance. Maybe it would be easier to deal with this all next month. Although that said, time was rather of the essence if I wanted to stop Lieve. I wondered how easy it was to get a credit card.
‘Emma, do you think you might represent me? I need a lawyer. My girlfriend tricked me into getting her pregnant.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, tricked you? After the first few minutes, did you not begin to suspect that you were having sex with her?’
‘She said she was using contraception, but she wasn’t.’
‘So you didn’t know she wanted to get pregnant?’
‘Well, she did say she wanted a child. But she specifically told me she was on the pill.’
‘What if she was? Contraception isn’t fool proof.’
‘Fool proof? What are you trying to – look, the point is I know she lied.’
‘It’s not illegal to lie.’
‘Why not’ She laughed in my face, then, and all at once I realised we were both standing, and I saw how absurd it would be to make lying illegal, and I saw how desperately unfair it was that we had laws for everything – where you can leave your car, minimum-clothing requirements, how loud you can be – but no law for basic honesty.63
‘Emma,’ I said. ‘Please try to understand. I’ll have to pay to take care of it and if I’m not a terrible person I’ll end up looking after it as well, but that’s going to change my whole life, probably more significantly than anything else that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t even get a say. I want a child at some point but it’s not a good idea now, for me or for the baby. A child has the right to two loving parents.’
Emma stuck her bottom jaw out. ‘If we’re talking about rights, a woman has a right to bear children,’ she said.
‘But bears would make terrible children,’ I replied.
She didn’t laugh.
‘Women have had the short end of the stick for all of history. The one thing that you can’t take away is a woman’s right to be a mother.’
‘But it’s not fair. What about equality?’
‘I’m not talking about equality. Feminism isn’t just about equality, it’s about evening out our terrible odds.’
A car alarm went off somewhere and kept going.
‘But I’ve never oppressed a woman in my life.’
‘It’s not about you!’
‘Yes it is, it’s my bloody child!’
I was leaning across the table now, anger burning in my crown. The car alarm might in fact have been a smoke alarm, since it was now accompanied by the smell of smoke, which seemed to be emanating from the smoke which had started seeping under the door.
‘Come on!’ I said.
We flung the door open and bolted out into the hallway. I pressed the lift button but Emma dragged me by the arm down the stairs. We ran down and out onto the little patch of green at the front. She phoned the fire brigade, who had already received a call and were on their way.
As I stood on the grass it occurred to me that the smoke had been issuing from my first front door. What if my dad had tried to cook? It was a Wednesday. I had to go back in.
I shoved the door open and sprinted back up the stairs. I got to the first front door, opened it to find smoke billowing from the second front door and fumbled in its moving shadow. I opened the second and more smoke issued forth in thick plumes, getting thicker. The smoke was coming, without a doubt, from the Steppenwolf’s room. I shouted out for anyone who might be there and heard a muffled shout back – my dad’s voice. It was loud, the crackling, and I couldn’t see through the smoke. I edged closer to the Steppenwolf’s room and saw my dad through the smoke, apparently confused, having just woken, covered in his own sick.
‘Bad day at the office, son.’
‘The fucking flat’s on fire!’
He put up a hand as if to say, ‘hold on a tic, I’ll just get my coat.’ Then he picked up his wallet and tucked a newspaper under his arm, gave me a thumbs up and wandered out with me in tow, coughing.
‘So the Steppenwolf isn’t in there?’ I asked as we reached the bottom.
‘Oh, shit it!’ he said, ‘Hang on.’ He ambled off back up the stairs. I could hardly let Dad go on his own, since he couldn’t lift anything much heavier than a bottle, so I started up after him. By now I could feel the smoke settling in my lungs, each breath like a packet of cigarettes, or inhaling a drink instead of swallowing it, and I felt dread spreading through my chest, not knowing what we would find, or how we would get out again. As Dad receded into the smoke up the stairs I was overtaken by what looked like a dirty alien. He stopped as he passed me, turned and shouted an order to leave the building, pointing back the way I had come, his great moon suit blocking the way ahead. I obeyed the fireman even though, as absurd as it might sound, I resented the glory that would follow him. No one had seen me leave with my dad. It would look as if I had gone into the building, wandered around for five minutes and been rescued by the firemen. I was better than that. I wanted people to know. I suppose, if I’m honest, I’d envisioned a news headline. That’s what Blades had said, wasn’t it? That I was the kind of person who made the headlines?
But then I remembered that Dad and the Steppenwolf were still in danger. I we
nt back out to the patch of green, where Emma glared at me and others milled about in dressing gowns or towels, and I felt awful.
‘Did you find anyone?’ Emma asked through gritted teeth. ‘Yeah, my dad.’
‘Why didn’t he come down with you? Did you abort him?’
I pursed my lips and tried not to think of comebacks. Instead, I thought about the Steppenwolf and the flat. My phone, wallet, laptop, clothes, pouches, bike, magazines, my sidekick holster, my grappling hook … Oh dear, the GOMORRAH. I hoped the fire didn’t get anywhere near that.
My dad was dragged down and taken to a paramedic, the fireman assuming the vomit on his shirt was something to do with the smoke. It was a good thing he hadn’t been too near the fire, or he’d have gone up like a whisky-sodden guy. They tried to lie him down but he kept trying to sit up, crying, ‘The bloody wolf’s still in there!’
Others left the building as more firemen turned up and started to unspool a powerful hose. And then the Steppenwolf was carried out on a single fireman’s shoulder. He hung limp and seemed curiously small out here in the world, as if a spell had broken. I rushed up to him as the fireman laid him down and a paramedic tried to strap an oxygen mask on him.
‘Archimedes!’ he spluttered.
‘Is there someone else in there?’ the fireman asked urgently.
‘It’s a turtle,’ I explained.
The fireman gave the jaded shrug of one who has rescued a thousand cats from a thousand trees, and strode back to the fire engine. He had good karma to spare.
After various tests and checks at the hospital, we were allowed back into the charred, sodden remains of our flat. The Steppenwolf’s bed had gone up, and my magazines were cindered. Curious, how the objects around you can anchor you. I supposed that was why Max was so sold on materialism – it was the comfort of an external definition, a set of signposts to replace the water-cooler chats that most people used to throw their personalities out into the world. It was a bit like being James Bond, who never got much opportunity to cultivate long-term friendship, and tried to say it all with his watch. The most fashion-conscious places were always the ones where people made fleeting connections. Perhaps that was why people in this city were obsessed with ‘vintage’ – it gave a sense of continuity to balance out the relentless novelty of city life.
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