Subway 4

by Violet Hunter

  “What are you talking about?” she said in a faint voice.

  I knew I was on to something.

  “I was admiring it, that’s all, I wondered where you bought it.”

  “Who are you?” she said, backing away.

  “My name’s Valerie.”

  She turned away and I thought she was going to refuse to speak to me but she swung round and said, “Do you know Jimmy?”

  I shook my head. “No, why?”

  “We had a fight. He took the scarf,” she said.

  “Why did he do that?”

  I knew as soon as I said it I sounded too eager.

  “I don’t know you. You can’t start interrogating strangers, it’s out of order.”

  “My boyfriend was wearing a scarf like that when he was killed.”

  She stared at me as if she thought I was mad.

  I carried on talking, trying to explain. “I gave it to him. It was a designer scarf, a one-off.”

  “You’re talking about crazy stuff. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  She looked behind her. We both saw the bus coming. She pulled her coat tighter. I couldn’t stop her from going. As she was getting on I called out, “Think about it, please.”

  She drew her shoulders closer together so I knew she’d heard.

  * * *

  After she’d gone I sat in the bus shelter. I felt bruised by the encounter, her hostility, though I knew I’d probably shocked her with what I’d said. I tried to figure out what it all meant. Even if the scarf was different there was something strange going on otherwise why would she have fought with her boyfriend over it? It went round and round in my head but I couldn’t figure out an innocent explanation for her reaction.

  Before I could be sure there was a connection I needed to make certain that there really was only one scarf like that, so I went back to Oxford. It was the same bus journey I’d done three weeks ago. This time the green fields looked mournful and neglected. I leaned my head against the window and thought about Anton’s touch on my back.

  Despite the cold the city was busy with tourists. I stood outside the shop looking at the window display. This time it was of shoes and bags, primary colours, red with a flash of blue, yellow with a diagonal stripe of purple. I went inside. The assistant was the same one as before. She looked up and smiled.

  “Can I help you?”

  I wanted to say, ‘I bought a scarf from you and now the person I gave it to is dead,’ but it was too shocking.

  “I bought a really beautiful scarf here a while ago. It was orange and pink with wavy lines. I… I left it on a train. I wanted to know if you had another one the same?”

  “I remember you now and I know the one you mean. It was lovely. The artist only made one of each design. There was the one you bought, one with turquoise and lilac spirals and one with yellow triangles on green. We sold them all in the space of a week. We asked her to make some more but she said that wasn’t how she worked.”

  “Oh. It’s just that I thought I saw a girl wearing the same scarf and I wondered if there were several.”

  “Definitely not. Maybe she found it on the train?”

  So it was the only one, which meant I might have met someone who knew Anton’s murderer. For a moment I felt like I was floating out of my body. I stood staring out of the window.

  “Are you alright?” she said.

  “It’s just strange that I saw it again.”

  When I got home I lay on the bed with my coat on, staring at the ceiling, trying to think. I’d been given a sign but because the girl refused to talk to me I couldn’t do anything about it. I had something and nothing, a scarf blowing in the wind, a scarf I’d probably never see again. Like Anton. I put my headphones on and listened to Salif Keita. His voice had lifted me out of some terrible places but today it was as if my body was in a shell, preventing the music from reaching me.

  I was so shattered. Grief coloured everything. My sense of myself seemed shaky, like water on a mirror obscuring my reflection. Nothing made sense. My dreams of becoming a great Shakespearean actor were over. I must separate myself from them. I would strip away my desire like a snake slipping out of its skin. Becoming an actor had given me purpose and a sense of hope about my life. Whenever I’d doubted my acting ability I was spurred on by Anton. We were on that path together, how could I carry on without him?

  The narrow bookshelf fitting the space by the side of the door before the ceiling started to slope down was full of plays, grouped together under playwrights, alphabetically. I still had the copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Dad had given me. I took it down and looked at it. It was battered on the spine and there were marks on the cover. I wished he were there.

  On the next shelf were studies of texts and related biographies. I started taking them off the shelves, thinking at first I might clean them and put them back, but instead began making a pile on the table. With each book it was like another piece of the dream breaking away but I couldn’t stop. When I’d finished I took the books over to the window and blew the dust off. The new tower block being built on the other side of the park was rising. My view was constricting.

  I cleaned the shelves. I could put my small sculptures there; they would look good. The piles of books went into carrier bags.

  15

  JIMMY

  Every time the doorbell rang I jumped. I didn’t want Mum or Liam getting suspicious so I was keeping out of the house as much as possible. I wasn’t eating much. I’d never been overweight but now my jeans were falling off me. Luckily Mum was too busy to notice.

  The day after Shelley and me argued, I asked Ray about Alan.

  “I’d like to catch up with him. We used to be good mates.”

  Ray was painting window frames. He looked round.

  “Haven’t seen him in months, he fell out with Mandy. He was hanging out with a girl she didn’t like, a Goth or something, all black fingernails and huge boots. I thought she was alright myself but you know Mandy, a bit intolerant.”

  I couldn’t imagine Alan going out with someone like that.

  “You don’t know where he is then?” I said, trying not to sound desperate.

  “I’ve got a number but it may be out of date, I haven’t tried it recently. If you speak to him say I’d like to see him.”

  The phone rang for ages then went to answerphone, which wasn’t Alan’s voice. I didn’t leave a message. I tried again later and got the answerphone but this time I left a message and he got straight back to me.

  “What’s up Jimmy? Haven’t heard from you for a while.”

  “Wanted to catch up that’s all. I’m working with your dad now.”

  “I feel sorry for you. I’ve got no time for him, he never stood up to Mum about Evie.”

  “There’s something I want to ask you.”

  “What’s that then?”

  “Not on the phone, can I come round?”

  “Sure, you can meet Evie too.”

  He gave me his address, which was in Catford. When I arrived at the house he was out the front under the bonnet of an old car. I said “Hi” and he poked his head out. His hands were covered in oil. He wiped one on a piece of rag and stuck it out.

  “Alright mate, good to see you,” he said.

  We went inside. The back door was open and the yard was full of twisted bits of metal. I poked my head out and saw things that looked like totem poles. When I looked closer I could make out pieces of engine that had been welded together.

  “That’s Evie’s stuff, she’s a sculptor, makes things out of the parts I can’t use, recycling she calls it.” He sounded proud. “She’ll be back soon.”

  I wondered what sort of girl he’d hooked up with.

  “What did you want to ask me?”

  I
hadn’t decided exactly what to say. The story had to be believable.

  “I need an alibi.”

  “What you been up to, committing murder?”

  Like he knew. I laughed, trying to make it convincing. “Nothing like that. Someone I was with was in a fight. Turned out the bloke got a serious injury so I need to place myself somewhere else.”

  He folded his arms and looked at me. “Who was this geezer, the one you beat up?”

  “Not me, someone else.”

  “If I’m going to lie for you I like to know what I’m doing it for.”

  Just then the front door opened and a voice called, “Hello.”

  “Come and meet Jimmy, we’re in the kitchen.”

  She was really tall and skinny. Her boots had platform soles about six inches thick; without them she probably would have been normal height. Her hair was long and black, dyed, not natural like Shelley’s and she had black eye make-up on.

  “Hello Jimmy, nice to meet you.”

  I was surprised because when she smiled she looked quite pretty.

  She looked from me to Alan. “No resemblance then. I’ve heard about your misspent youth. What are you up to now?”

  “Oh you know, this and that.”

  I didn’t want to get into conversation with her because I needed to sort stuff out with Alan.

  “We’re going down the pub sweetheart, you can come if you like.”

  “No it’s OK, I’ll let you two catch up. I’ve got some work to do.”

  She went out into the yard, put on a pair of goggles and picked up the welding tool.

  Now I’d seen her I didn’t want to tell Alan that the geezer was black. Evie wasn’t but she was weird, different.

  After I’d got the drinks in I raised the subject again, told him the date and half of what’d happened, except that the guy got beaten up, not that he died.

  “What was that date again? 7th February?”

  “That was it, happened in Rotherhithe so I need to be somewhere else, where there’s no CCTV so they can’t verify it.”

  “Wasn’t that when that bloke got done over on the common, the black geezer?”

  Somehow it must have stuck in his mind.

  “Was it? I don’t remember.” I was turning the beer mat over and over.

  He put down his pint and stared at me across the table with clear pale-blue eyes. He did that a lot when we were younger.

  “You weren’t mixed up in that were you? If you were I can’t help you. I can’t stand racism, makes my stomach churn.”

  “I swear it wasn’t that, we were miles away from there and the geezer was white.”

  He kept looking at me and I could see he was thinking hard. I was praying he was going to say yes, there was no one else to ask, but he said, “Sorry mate, I can’t do it. After the last time I got nicked I swore to Evie I’d go straight and I don’t want to get caught for giving a false alibi. You’ll have to ask someone else.”

  I could tell he’d made up his mind.

  Shit.

  * * *

  I was in my room listening to music and didn’t hear Liam until he practically yelled in my ear.

  “Been out with Shelley?”

  “What’s it to you?” I grunted.

  “Just wondering.”

  “What?”

  “Whether you’ve got a bit on the side.”

  I pulled off the headphones. “Leave it out. You know me better than that.”

  “I bumped into her yesterday.” He was leaning against the wall, arms folded like he had an agenda.

  “And?”

  “She said you had a row.”

  “Just a minor misunderstanding that’s all.” I shrugged.

  “She said you hurt her.”

  “Bollocks. You know me better than that. I’d never hit a woman.”

  “Hurt her,” he said, persistent.

  “It’s none of your business but if you must know she nicked something of mine, I got it back off her that’s all. She took it the wrong way and went running off. She gets wound up about stuff, you know what girls are like.”

  “Shelley’s straight, you said that yourself. What did she take?”

  “A watch Granddad gave me. It was broken, I was thinking of getting it mended.”

  I avoided his eyes. Liam knew me well enough to know if I was lying.

  “You involved with something dodgy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been acting strange recently.”

  “Got a few things on my mind that’s all.”

  He gave me a look and said, “You should sort it out else you’ll lose her.”

  He went out shutting the door hard. I cursed Shelley for talking to him.

  * * *

  There was no one else I could ask to be an alibi. I had no money to offer as a bribe. I thought about Liam but he already thought something was up; besides, he seemed to be getting more and more moral, like he’d got religion or something.

  Though I was still angry with Shelley I missed her, having a laugh, making out, her hair draped all over my chest. I called her but she didn’t answer. After a few days she texted and said she wanted to meet up.

  She turned up looking sexy as hell. I wanted her straight away but her expression was a turn off.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Look Shelley, I was in a really bad temper that day, let’s forget it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not only that. Something else happened. I met this mad woman outside work. She asked me about the scarf, the one you tore off me. She said all this stuff about her boyfriend. Told me he was murdered and he was wearing a scarf like that when it happened.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “For fuck’s sake Shelley, who was she?”

  “Don’t swear at me. I don’t know who she was, I never saw her before. She was black, not old.”

  She was standing with her arms folded and still hadn’t taken off her coat.

  Her expression annoyed me and I grasped her arm, a bit harder than I meant to. “What did you say to her?”

  “That hurts.” She pulled her arm away. “Nothing. It was scary, I’m telling you. I got away from her. Where did you get that scarf? I want to know the truth.”

  “I can’t remember the shop’s name, it was in the West End, one of those ones that sells jewellery and stuff.”

  She looked at me and I could see she was trying to work out whether I was telling the truth or not. I had my best innocent face on.

  “So she’s lying then?”

  “Yeah Shelley. You said yourself she was mad.”

  She sat on the bed. I could tell I was winning the argument.

  “You promise it’s got nothing to do with you?”

  “I promise. Now come here, I’ve missed you, I’m sorry about the fight but it’s over. Can we talk about something else?”

  She looked dubious but I pulled her close and told her that I loved her. I unbuttoned her coat and lifted up her yellow jumper. I began to stroke her breasts. She was kissing me. I was turned on but trouble was now I knew about this woman. There was no way it was just a coincidence or that she was crazy; there had to be more to it than that especially as she was black. It could have been her boyfriend that Chris killed and now there was evidence pointing to me.

  Shelley undid my jeans and for a while everything else went out of my mind.

  16

  VALERIE

  Before they could release Anton’s body there needed to be a post-mortem, which seemed to be taking forever. I wanted to be at the funeral with everyone to say a proper goodbye. I felt as if I was holding my breath underwater and soon my lungs would burst. Days went past and
there was still no news then finally the date was set – 3rd March, 10.30 a.m., South London Crematorium.

  I woke early, my stomach clenched as it always did whenever I was nervous. It seemed strange to be frightened of an event that was just very sad. I wasn’t sure what to wear and laid several things out on the bed. Although Anton loved bright colours I didn’t want to offend anyone so finally I chose a black skirt and a black jacket. Underneath the jacket I wore a purple shirt and my tiger print belt that Anton liked. He said it was like a cat wrapped round my waist. As I fastened the silver clasp I kept my hands there, trying to imagine his fingers on mine.

  The last funeral I’d been at was Dad’s, twelve years ago. I remembered the table with the food and beer and Mum trying to get me to eat a sandwich but all I wanted was for him to come home.

  I met Renee at the entrance and we walked through the cemetery towards the crematorium, which was set within a circle of trees. Low cloud hovered over the tops. It was as cold as ever. As we got closer I saw Mr Thomas standing by the door and next to him a tall young man, who I knew must be David, though he didn’t look like Anton. More and more people were arriving. Anton had a lot of friends, both black and white, and I remembered him telling me he had eight cousins.

  Renee and I stood to the side waiting. I was shivering with cold.

  “Are you OK, Valerie?”

  I nodded unable to speak.

  We were there for a while then the hearse appeared at the gates. There was to be no resurrection. As it passed I made myself look at the coffin. I took in the polished wood, the brass handles and the bunch of white lilies on top before averting my eyes. The undertakers carried it into the building and we followed, taking a seat a few rows from the front. I caught sight of Matthew sitting on the opposite side of the room. He looked over and gave a brief smile.

  When everyone was seated the vicar began to talk about Anton’s life. I could tell he was trying to be sincere but his words could have been about anyone. After he finished we sang a hymn that I didn’t recognise. I was waiting to feel something other than frozen.