Tattletale

by Sarah J. Naughton

  You stood there, your body half turned away, as if you were about to leave, and my heart jumped into my throat – I came so close to missing you.

  ‘Hi, sorry, I didn’t hear the door,’ I gabbled.

  You turned back. You were all dressed up to go out – a big parka with a furry hood. My mind raced with the possible reasons for you coming round – could I take in a parcel for you, could I let you back in because you’d lost your key …?

  Then I noticed what you were carrying. A bottle of wine in one hand, and two plastic wine glasses in the other, a grey woollen blanket over your arm.

  ‘I’m going to watch the sunset,’ you said.

  ‘I thought I was the only one who’d noticed it.’

  Our eyes met. ‘You’re probably busy. And it’s cold, but I was wondering if you wanted to co—’

  ‘Yes!’ I almost shouted, then was stricken with terror in case you were going with someone else and wanted me to lend you a corkscrew or something.

  But you exhaled with relief. ‘Great.’

  I stepped out onto the landing and went to close the door.

  ‘Erm, you might want to put something warmer on!’

  That was just like you, Abe, to think about me and how I was feeling, before yourself. Your sister was right about one thing at least – you can love someone too much. You should have thought about yourself more, my darling. You should have told me how you were feeling. I could have helped you.

  ‘Come in a minute. I won’t be a sec.’

  You came in behind me, shutting the door softly. I led you through to the living room and you went straight to the window. I watched you for a moment, silhouetted against the red sky. So beautiful.

  Then I went to change. It felt strange as I hurried into my bedroom, knowing you were there, in my flat. A raw sort of feeling, as if I’d peeled off a plaster and the newly exposed flesh was throbbing in the air. Not painful, just sensitised.

  I pulled off my jogging bottoms, my sweatshirt and T-shirt, sniffed my armpits, and then, on a whim, I changed my knickers, from the boy-shorts I’ve always worn, to a pink pair with lace at the front that one of the girls in the bedsit gave me. You can just glimpse my pubic hair through the lace and, looking at myself in the mirror, my heart started to pound. What was I doing?

  I told myself to calm down, that I just wanted to feel confident and attractive with you.

  I put on the rain dress, with a cable-knit Aran jumper over the top and a pair of pink cashmere socks – both Christmas presents from Helen. Then I pulled on my charity shop boots, brushed my hair, and at the last minute, put on some lipstick.

  It would have to do, I told myself, as I slipped out of my bedroom to find you still by the window. You started when you saw me, then you smiled.

  ‘My favourite dress.’

  I looked away, the blush deepening.

  ‘Well, come on then, rainwoman, this wine won’t drink itself.’

  When we got out of the flat I started going down the stairs because the best view would be around the back and we could sit on the wall that surrounds the car park.

  ‘Where are you going?’ You leaned over the banisters, grinning. The banister rail pressed into your hips and your T-shirt moved in the currents of air rising up through the stairwell.

  I’d passed the door at the end of the landing every day since I moved in, but never thought to wonder where it led. Somehow you got it open and as soon as you pushed it wider and the cold air rushed in, I realised – it led to the roof.

  Giving me the wine bottle to carry you took my other hand and began leading me up a flight of concrete steps. The door below us swung shut and for a moment we were in total darkness.

  My grip on your hand tightened.

  ‘It’s all right,’ you murmured. ‘Don’t be scared. I’m here.’

  I squeezed your hand. ‘I’m not.’

  I remember thinking how soft your hands were. Not rough and coarse like a normal man’s, but soft as mine.

  It was so dark that I couldn’t see where I was going and when you got to the door at the top I didn’t stop in time and bumped into you. You held me to stop me from falling back and for a moment we were in each other’s arms. The fur of your parka was against my cheek. It smelled warm and cosy, like fresh hay.

  You held me just a second longer than was necessary and then you pushed open the door.

  The lead was slippery with rotting leaves and the soles of my boots had no grip, so I didn’t let go of your hand as you led me out into the middle of the roof.

  A low crenellated wall surrounded the spire.

  ‘We could sit here,’ you said. ‘The view’s OK. Or,’ you grinned and raised your eyebrows, ‘we could go higher.’

  I followed your gaze towards the little door set into the spire, and then up. Just before it narrowed to a point, there were two arched apertures, open to the elements.

  ‘The view from there will be amazing, but it’ll be pretty windy. Will you be OK?’

  I held your gaze and said, ‘As long as you keep me warm.’

  It was shockingly brazen of me. You might even call it provocative, but I knew I could trust you, Abe, and I was right.

  The little door opened onto a spiral staircase and a moment later we stepped out onto a stone floor covered in twigs and dry leaves, I guess from birds making nests higher up. Opposite the windows that looked towards the high road, there was another pair, looking west, into the sunset. For a moment I couldn’t catch my breath.

  ‘Careful,’ you said, as I went over. ‘We’re pretty high now.’

  The view was incredible, stretching right across London. I could see Hampstead Heath and the Emirates Stadium, as well as all the office blocks and cranes in the city.

  You came to stand beside me, resting your arm on my shoulder. I could feel the stiffness in your muscles, as if you weren’t sure you were doing the right thing, and I slid my arm around your waist to let you know that you were, that I was comfortable with you. More than comfortable – I was happy.

  ‘I bet we’ve got the best view in the whole country right now,’ you said softly.

  I let my head fall on your shoulder. The fabric of the parka was cold and slippery under my cheek.

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  To my disappointment you took your arm away, but then I understood. You were taking your coat off and wrapping it around my shoulders. Now I was nestled into the sweet warmth of your body.

  For several minutes we just watched the sky. The wind had blown up again and the bands of different colours were coiling and unravelling under high, gold-bellied clouds.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ you said.

  I looked into your eyes and my voice was barely audible when I spoke. ‘You.’

  I placed my hand on your chest. It was rising and falling so fast. You stayed perfectly still as I rose up onto my tiptoes and kissed you. Your lips were so soft. For a moment you didn’t respond and I was terrified I had misunderstood your intentions, as I always do, but just as I was about to pull away you circled me with your other arm and kissed me back. Time seemed to stand still. Even the wind dropped. The sun must have come out from behind a cloud because my eyelids glowed red. I was overcome with such dizziness that if you hadn’t been holding me up I think I would have tumbled out of the window.

  After a few more minutes you pulled away and smiled at me, but I didn’t want it to stop. And more than that, I wanted it to go further. I had waited so long.

  I moved my hand across your chest and you caught your breath.

  I started unbuttoning your shirt.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I nodded and you kissed me again, and now I felt the tip of your tongue against my own, I responded, and you held me tighter, crushing me to your body. Something was rising in me that I had never felt before.

  You lowered me gently down onto your coat and, with the dry leaves whispering around us, I lay back and closed my eyes.

  Then you were inside
me, moving in me. And then we were moving together. We were like one person, our breath, our heartbeats, the slow coming together and moving apart: all synchronised, as if our bodies knew one another already.

  Something inside me opened then, like a flower blooming. For the first time I felt like a woman.

  You whispered my name breathlessly and I murmured yours, moving my palms up and down your smooth back, feeling the energy that rippled through your body. Your lips were on my neck, on my shoulders, my breasts.

  Heat flowed across my skin. All my nerve endings were alive, as if my whole body thrummed with electricity. In the core of my being I felt a bursting warmth, like a wellspring, bubble up and start to flow through my veins.

  ‘Jody,’ you said, your voice cracking. ‘Jody.’

  Afterwards, for those still seconds as you lay on top of me, your breath in my ear, your heart thudding against my ribs, I looked out at the last flare of the dying sun, and I knew that I had left it all behind, all the pain and fear and shame. Down there, where the rubbish whirled around the broken tarmac – that was my past. Up here, in the cold, clean eye of the wind, with the bloody sky stretched over me – this was my future. With you.

  You pushed yourself onto your elbows and smiled at me. ‘All right?’

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell you just how right I was, so I just smiled back at you, touched your face.

  ‘I know this will sound strange because we hardly know each other,’ you said, your hand cupping my cheek. ‘But I think I love you.’

  I love you too, Abe.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  22. Mags

  I decide to print out the messages from Redhorse and show them to Derbyshire. If this were my case there are several lines I’d follow. One: Jody found out Abe was having an affair and pushed him. Two: Abe tried to end the affair and his lover pushed him. Three: An as yet unidentified third person pushed him for unknown reasons, but someone witnessed this.

  If I can’t get Derbyshire to take any of these scenarios seriously then I’ll either have to call in some favours with private investigator firms in the US – see if they can’t trace the IP address where the chat room messages came from – or give up and go home. To be honest, the latter option is by far the most attractive, but I feel like I owe it to Abe to at least try.

  I save the messages onto a stick and head to the Internet café on the high street. There’s a queue for the printer so I order a latte and sit at a table to wait. The girl behind the counter is Eastern European; her skin has a greenish waterlogged pallor that makes me think of a drowning victim.

  Outside a wall of buses inches by, slower than walking pace.

  Sipping the latte I flick through one of the coffee-ringed magazines. It’s filled with gleeful descriptions of celebrity break-ups. Friends say Kelly just couldn’t take his hostility towards her BFFs. Friends say he didn’t like her leaving her dirty underwear around the bedroom.

  I toss the mag down in a pool of coffee. A whole industry based on schadenfreude, making their inadequate readers feel smug about their drab little lives and relationships. Celebrities break up because their egos are solid enough not to put up with other people’s bullshit. The rest of us don’t have the balls, because we’re too insecure to be alone. Maybe you have to be as wet as Jody to be really happy.

  She’ll be at Abe’s bedside by now, gazing into his grey face, clutching his flaccid hand, her lips moving in silent prayer.

  How could he do it to her?

  Was it simple cowardice? Easier just to let her believe that they had the perfect romance than admit that he was not only unfaithful, but also bisexual? That wouldn’t really fit into Jody’s dreamscape. If she’d found out it would have been such a horrible shock. Enough to make her do something entirely irrational and out of character? Something violent? Jody? It seems so outlandish.

  I can see her with a knife, wild-haired and crazy-eyed, slashing with anguished abandon at the murderer of her dream, but pushing someone over a banister? That feels like a man’s doing.

  I recounted to Daniel Jody’s story of her and Abe’s first kiss, hamming up the scene of Abe stripped to the waist, beating down the flames with his sodden shirt while Jody swoons by the sink.

  He said, ‘Then did he sweep her off on his Arab stallion to his yacht in the Caribbean?’

  I laughed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit Mills and Boon, isn’t it?’

  At the time I’d been more interested in teasing him about his knowledge of pulp romance plots, but now … I don’t know. Is it all a bit too perfect? Is Jody making things up to make her relationship look rosier? If so, is she hiding more about herself? Is there actually a violent psychopath hiding behind the mask of pathetic little victim? Am I that bad a judge of character?

  Christ. How much longer do I have to wait in this dump?

  One guy’s hogging a computer while he gabbles on his mobile in some obscure guttural language, Latvian or Ukranian or something. I feel like going up to him and tearing the phone out of his hand. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, while manic Latvian laughter ricochets around the café. I’m in the throes of that post-sex low when all I want to do is ring Daniel and ask him back for more. That’s the last thing I should do, of course. I already said he could call me, but I’ll just send him straight to voicemail. I certainly don’t want to be embroiled in a relationship with a man who has kids and an ex-wife.

  Finally the Latvian logs out and I print out the messages and leave.

  Returning to the flat is a battle against the relentless wind. It tugs at my clothes, roars in my ears and up my nose, as if it’s trying to get inside me. By the time I get to Gordon Terrace I feel like I’ve run a marathon, but as I turn towards St Jerome’s it starts buffeting my back, thrusting me forward, making me stumble over the ridges on the path. They look like tree roots pushing up through the tarmac, but there isn’t a single tree as far as the eye can see.

  A woman is standing by the main doors. As I approach the building I see she’s carrying what looks like a large basket wrapped in paper with a repeating pattern of teddy bears.

  ‘Sorry.’ I move past her to open the door.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ she says. Her middle-class accent is incongruous in these surroundings. From behind she looked younger but her face suggests she must be in her mid to late sixties. ‘Do you know Jody Currie, on the fourth floor? It’s just I have a parcel for her but she doesn’t seem to be in.’

  ‘I can take it.’

  Then I catch sight of the label: To Jody, with all my love, Helen.

  So, this is the aunt who was supposed to be Jody’s guardian but kicked her out to grow up in a care home: now trying to buy off her own conscience with what smells like a hamper full of bath bombs.

  Without catching her eye I hold out my arms to take the package.

  ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘perhaps I could pop up? Maybe she hasn’t heard the buzzer.’

  ‘I saw her go out,’ I say coldly.

  When she doesn’t hand over the present I look up. Her eyes are hazel and heavily ringed with brown. She’s breathing heavily, the silver locket on her bony chest bouncing the light as it rises and falls.

  ‘She’s told you, hasn’t she?’ she says.

  I make my expression blank. ‘I’ll make sure she gets the parcel.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t true. None of it. You should know you can’t believe a word she says.’

  She is lying.

  I glance down at the label again. It’s in slanting block capitals where the notes were in a more looping lower case. But even if she was disguising her handwriting, I can’t imagine what motive she would have to leave me them.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All the fairy tales about her past, her family. My son. The rape.’

  I stare at her. The rape?<
br />
  ‘No smoke without fire, they say, don’t they?’ Her eyes are a mass of tiny thread veins. ‘He could never get away from it. What she said he’d done, him and his friend. Their mates stuck by them, of course, but there are enough people who insist you always have to believe the victim. They never took into account her background. She was so damaged …’

  Her junkie son raped Jody and now she’s accusing Jody of lying about it. Disgusted, I push past her and open the door.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘We loved her,’ she says.

  ‘Clearly not enough.’

  Her face twists in anguish. ‘But we had a responsibility towards our own flesh and blood, didn’t we? If it had been just us, then we would have managed, but when she started lying about our son … Her accusations destroyed him.’

  ‘Sounds like he destroyed himself. It was nothing to do with her.’

  Helen’s hands are still clasped around the present, gradually turning blue in the cold. There’s a sudden snatch of wind and the label twists and tears itself free to flap across the grass, but her eyes don’t leave my face.

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  So, Jody never mentioned this rape. Why should she? But still I can’t quite bring myself to close the door.

  ‘You promised to look after her, to bring her up as your own, and then because your son became a drug addict you decided you couldn’t cope and kicked her out. And these accusations …’ I emphasise the words with contempt. ‘If it comes down to Jody’s word versus the word of a drug addict, I know who I’d trust. You had a responsibility to look after that girl. However difficult it was, you were her aunt. Her parents entrusted her to you.’

  I hold Helen’s gaze. I may not have been the best of sisters to Abe but I’m here, aren’t I? I’m doing my duty. This woman abandoned hers.

  ‘But I’m not her aunt.’ Helen’s bloodshot eyes are wide and bewildered. ‘I was her foster mother.’

  I stare at her for a moment, then I force the door closed.

  ‘Felix turned to drugs because of what she did!’ Her voice is muffled by the glass. ‘She cried rape against our son and his friend and it destroyed his life!’