by Stella Duffy
She was starting to doze in front of the new season big expense costume drama – pleasingly populated with a variety of heaving bosoms – when the doorbell rang. She ran to answer it before a second ring could wake Matilda. There was a man standing on the step. Her age maybe, oddly familiar but not. He was wearing a very good suit, had smooth rounded nails on the hand he held out to her. She didn’t shake hands. Didn’t want to talk to him. Couldn’t believe it was really him. Standing there, grinning at her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hello.”
Nothing more. He was smiling, lit by the light spill from the hallway behind her. Smiling at her, at her discomfort she thought.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“I was hoping we might have a little chat?”
London accent, like Saz’s, something estuary around the edges, but drawn tighter for the city. Harder. Less real. Less true.
“Why?”
Saz waited for the man to speak. He just smiled. Saz tightened her grip on the door lock, wondered again why she and Molly hadn’t got around to putting on a chain. Forced into speaking by his silence, the strength of his silence.
“Look, I’m not working at the moment. I don’t … work. Anymore. I mean, if that’s what you wanted … ?”
About to explain about Matilda, her reason for giving up, the public reason, not Molly’s reason. Reasons. Stopped herself. Too much information. None from him.
“Not many people do work at this time on a Sunday night though, do they?”
He was still smiling, held out his hand, looked like he was offering a hand to shake, in reality holding tight to the door Saz was trying to close.
“It’s Will? Will Gallagher?”
Saz thought she might throw up, pushing against the door, pushing him back. “I know who you are.”
“Well, good. Because we need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
As he took his hand off the door, ready to come into the hallway, Saz pushed harder still and slammed the door in his face, double-locking it. He was laughing on the other side of the red-painted panels.
“Ah, really – we do need to talk? Something’s happened. We need to talk about it.”
“Go away.”
He called again, through the closed and locked door, “I’ll come back later. Tomorrow maybe, the day after?”
“Go away.”
Still under her breath, too quiet for him to hear, leaning with her whole body-weight against the double-locked door he wasn’t even trying to open. He was walking off, she heard his footsteps, round the side of the house, down the path and into the street, leaving now, singing to himself a song in French. She hated that song. She’d always hated that song.
Saz leaned against the door for a long time. Eventually she realised she was cold and then remembered she was home, remembered she was grown, and therefore, apparently, she was safe. She pulled herself up from the floor, back creased in door panel indents, went round the flat checking every window, every lock. She sat in Matilda’s boxroom, the room they were well aware their daughter would outgrow before the end of the year, lit by the amber elephant night-light, and watched her child breathing, sleeping soundly, until her own heart eased its furious pace enough for her to go back to the sofa and the cold pizza. Saz finished her glass of coke, toyed with congealed cheese and tomato before she dumped the pizza and went to bed. She lay, eyes wide, staring into the darkened bedroom. The occasional lights of cars passing on the street outside were a comfort. Eventually she slept. She didn’t dream. Or if she did, she didn’t remember. Saz definitely didn’t want to remember.
NINE
Ewan’s Mum brought in a tray of food and drinks and the boys fell on it, the girls held back. They took the diet cokes, shared a scone without even addressing the issue, smeared away some of the butter, ingested the rest with guilty joy. Didn’t want the boys to see them eating. Or not eating. Will slow-smiled his thanks and Daniel started to call her Mrs Stirling and then mumbled Diane and then muttered nothing at all.
Mrs Stirling left the room and heard their conversation start up again as she closed the door. Muffled giggles, another squeal maybe. A boy’s voice, man’s voice, Will probably, sounded like he was making an announcement. Pronouncement. Ewan’s mother hoped he wasn’t saying something nasty about her. Her looks. Her body. Her age. Ewan’s mother went to the kitchen to wash up. She would be forty-one next week. And she knew that was way too old to think Will Gallagher was cute. But she did.
They finished their scones. Put down the coke cans. Ewan pressed his narrow body hard against the door, listened to the sounds of his mother back in the kitchen, nodded safety to the rest. Everyone looked at Sally, Andrea spoke first.
“Well, are you going to do it?”
Sally paused. Wanted to look as if she was thinking it over. Wanted to look as if she had a choice.
Daniel was picking at that scab again, lip beginning to bleed, Ewan rested against the door now, Will and Andrea were holding hands behind her back on the settee, Will close, his breath on her shoulder, Andrea’s body spray perfume strong in her nose, itching her eyes.
Sally shrugged, attempted nonchalance, failed. “Yeah, all right. I’ll do it. If I have to.”
“Ah, but you don’t have to, that’s the whole point.” Daniel corrected, smiling from his place on the floor. “You have to want to do it. That’s the point. Do you want to do it, Sally?”
Sally didn’t know if she wanted to do what they were asking of her, couldn’t know if she wanted to, it wasn’t a matter of wanting, it was a question of safety. Agreeing to the demands of the group because it was always safer to be with them than not. Safer to be of them than not. “Yeah, OK then, I want to.”
Will let go of Andrea’s hand and moved it up Sally’s back and around her shoulders, leaned in closer, whispered right into her ear.
“No, that’s not quite good enough. Where’s the magic word?”
Sally didn’t know what he meant, Will’s hand warm on her shoulder. “You have to say please. It’s part of the plan.” He grinned, close enough for Sally to feel his mouth slide into a smile against her cheek. “And Sally, you know I like it when you say please.”
She sensed Andrea’s anger beside her, nodded anyway, nodded because part of her liked the feeling of Andrea’s anger, lots of her liked the feeling of Will Gallagher this close.
“All right then, I do. I want to do it.”
She leaned forward, slid herself free of Will’s hand and looked at each of the others in turn – Daniel, Ewan, and Andrea. Then she brought her gaze back to Will. Smiled. Slowly. “Please.”
And then Sally smiled again. Because she found she could.
TEN
When Matilda woke at six in the morning, a mumbling semi-chatter, half-song coming from her room, Saz was glad of the reason to get up, follow their established routine, do nothing but care for her child. She called Molly as they had arranged, asked about Asmita, how it was to be there with no Ian, how they were getting on, how it felt in the house. She asked so many questions there was no reason for any others in return. She didn’t mention her visitor from the night before. Finally Molly had to go, she and Asmita were driving in to Glasgow for lunch and shopping before Molly caught her plane home. Asmita had decided it was time to buy a new duvet. Molly knew it was the right move – Ian had always been too hot at night, her mother too cold. She also thought the shopping was heartbreaking, she wanted her mother to behave as if nothing had changed, when everything was different. Molly thought it was too soon for her mother to change her bedding. It would always be too soon.
Saz hung up reluctantly and when the phone rang an hour later she ran to it. Then stood in front of the grey handset, not wanting to answer. If he had her address, then maybe Will Gallagher had her phone number too.
Probably he had her phone number too. She didn’t pick up and then the answerphone kicked in, but no one left a message. When Sa
z dialled 1471 she found the caller had withheld their number. It could have been anyone. But she didn’t think so.
*
The sun was shining beyond the tight-closed windows and the warm day, just on the twist into proper autumn, would normally have had her out on the heath with Matilda in half an hour. Her pre-baby routine of daily running had, since Matilda, turned into long fast walks for the two of them. Today, mother and baby stayed inside, doors and windows still locked.
Matilda didn’t mind. There were good games at home and a more than usually attentive mother who was interested in anything that might take her mind off things, anything at all to still her chattering brain. Every nursery rhyme Saz knew and then they started all over again. Practising their favourites for when Molly came home. Saz practising Matilda’s favourites. And not even nearly bored this time, she gave ten renditions of the Lady and the Crocodile perfectly happily. When Matilda went down for her sleep after lunch, Saz went to bed too. Took her daughter into the big bed with her, she didn’t want to be alone. No one else called other than Molly when she was at the airport and ready to board the plane home. No one came to the door, the only post was an electricity bill and the menu for a modern Indian restaurant, same old dishes at newly exorbitant flock-free prices. The flat was quiet. Saz kept quiet. Tried not to listen to the past reasserting itself.
When Molly was safely home, had kissed and lightly stroked her sleeping daughter, they sat together and talked through the past few days. Molly’s journey, Asmita’s crying, once stilted, scared to start, and then again and again. Taking the ashes up to Loch Fyne, leaving Ian there, father ash and rose petals floating off on the water’s surface. She told Saz how it had felt in the old house. Home but not home. And yet, how Ian seemed to be in every room anyway. The jams and green chilli pickle he loved in the pantry, his favourite koftas and the lamb casserole still in the freezer. The shock that her mother, that healthy appetite in the sweet round woman, had no interest in food. It was good she’d lost weight, Asmita had wanted to lose weight for years, Molly knew it was good for her body too. But now she’d done it and her husband wasn’t there to see. Ian could look after himself, five years as a merchant seaman had taught him that much, he had cooked as often as Asmita had throughout Molly’s childhood, made dishes his wife loved, taken care of her. She just wasn’t interested now. And when Molly made one of Asmita’s favourites as a treat for both of them, spent four hours on the sauce, slow bubbling, neither had been able to eat, just sat at the old wooden table crying. And drinking. Whisky, wine, water. Molly told Saz it had been good, crying together, getting pissed together. Molly, tears streaming down her face, said she felt better than she had in ages.
And all that evening Saz nearly, almost, not quite, told Molly about the visitor. She didn’t know what to say, where to begin. How to go back there, to a place where she had been so unhappy, tell Molly a brand-new story about the past Saz chose not to remember herself. Saz didn’t want to tell that story. She was scared that speaking it aloud might bring another knock on the door, Will Gallagher returning to her home. So she sat beside her partner and listened and kissed her lover’s fingers and laughed at the stories of Ian and Asmita’s friends, helpful and loving and consistently clumsy, no good words to make death better.
They went to bed early that night, at ease in each other’s arms, with each other’s bodies. The days away turned to kisses in bed at home turned to kisses on bodies at home turned to slow fuck and fresh delight and just Saz and Molly, the two of them, as they had been so good at for years now. Easy fuck, soft into welcome sleep.
Then the phone rang.
“Shit!”
“Leave it.”
“We can’t leave it, Saz.”
“Yes, we can. Ignore it. Pay attention to me.”
Saz pulled Molly back to her side.
“But it’s late.”
“Let them call back in the morning.”
“It might be important.”
“This is important.”
“It might be my ma. We can’t leave it.”
The phone was ringing on. Saz realised she must have forgotten to switch on the answer machine, and now Matilda had heard it and started wailing and Molly was up and out of bed and halfway down the hall. “For God’s sake, Saz, what’s your problem? Get the bloody phone. I’ll get her.”
Then Saz was sitting up and the phone was in her hand, fingers over the mouthpiece. “OK. Fine. OK.”
She felt sick, scared of talking to him again, scared of Molly asking questions. She held the receiver in her hand, almost to her ear, not quite there, not quite ready. She could hear the expectant waiting on the other end, someone waiting for her voice, her answer. Not ready at all, acting ready. Hoped sounding ready might do it for her, where looking shocked and horrified yesterday certainly had not.
“Yes? What is it?”
There was a delay, then a small voice, a woman’s voice, not his voice. Saz thought of Ian, of Asmita ringing Molly, of the too-early-morning call and the sickening bad news. Nothing good ever came of doorbells and phone bells at the wrong time of day.
ELEVEN
“Saz?”
“Yeah? What? Who is it?” Still nervous, not trusting the familiar female voice on the other end of the line.
“Saz, it’s me, Claire. What kind of a greeting is that?”
Relief, anger, annoyance, adrenalin flooded through her body and out her mouth. “Claire? What the fuck are you calling at this time of night for? Where are you?”
A pause, then, “Oh yes. It’s night there, isn’t it?”
Saz looked at the green glowing clock on the oven. “Midnight, after midnight.”
“Right. And you always answer your phone that nicely?”
“Yes. No. Are you OK? Why are you calling so late?”
“Sorry. Didn’t think. It’s only about six here. I’m at work.”
“And I’m not. What do you want?”
“I want you to do a job for me. Just a one-off, someone I need to check on in London, for a client.”
Saz sighed. Claire Holland, old friend, big party queen, very successful solicitor, had left for New York several years ago, moving from one department of her sprawling firm to another, finally giving up business law and settling in the only slightly less lucrative but way more interesting area of family law. Divorce her speciality. Nasty, messy, huge financial dispute divorces her special speciality.
“Claire, I’m not working. I’m being Mummy.”
“Still.”
*
Claire didn’t get it. She didn’t want to get it either, she wanted Saz to work for her.
“Yes, still. Permanently. For a while, for the foreseeable future. She’s only nine months old.”
“Yeah, but the money would come in handy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, no … Molly’s earning enough for three of us for now. We’re lucky, and then again, we’re not quite as high maintenance as you either.”
“True. Last time we met I thought you could do with a manicure.”
“Yeah, and I thought you could do with two less martinis.”
“That’ll be after the four each we’d already had?”
“Claire, please, it’s late. You know I don’t want to work anymore, I gave up. I’ll get another job when Matilda’s a bit older, when I work out what the hell I want to do.”
“Don’t you mean what the hell you can do?”
“Yes, that too. Right now I’m very happy living a nice quiet peaceful life.”
Safe life. Saz wanted to say safe life. But she didn’t want to tempt the gods who had so generously given her Claire on the phone instead of someone she really didn’t want to speak to.
“Ah, but this is a nice quiet peaceful job.”
“No such thing.”
“No really, just listen. It’s this new client of mine. His marriage is over, she left him, he’s been the carer for years, she’s the one with the big career and all the money. She’s re
fusing alimony, says she can’t afford it, and we don’t believe her. I need someone over there to have a look, check her out.”
“Yeah, and even if I wanted to do this job, she’d just let me into her house and the office and her bank account, would she?”
“Doubt it. But she’s saying she can’t afford to run her car or pay her bills, let alone the expenses my client’s been left with for their home here. She says she can’t even manage to eat out once a week. And my client happens to know this exwife spends every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at a very expensive girlie lunch with her college mates, then on to one of those pretending-to-be-New-York spas – though God knows why, no one really cares about the state of their body in London anyway.”
“I do.”
“Not extending to weekly pedicures, you don’t. And even if you did, you wouldn’t follow it up, as this woman does, with a nice speedy shag-fest, getting herself seen to by one of the harder working boys in town.”
“Does that mean hard working or working boy?”
“The latter. Of course. Though he probably works hard at it too.”
Saz was pulled in despite herself. “God, different world, isn’t it? Is that why they broke up?”
“Nope. My client’s gay, the wife’s known all along and it suited them both, she had the money, he looked after her and escorted her and saved her from having to admit to being yet another single woman in New York. Except now he’s fallen in love and finally decided it’s time to come out, and she’s being difficult about money because she’s pissed off with him.”