Purple People

by Kate Bulpitt

  ‘How do you know Annie?’ he asked.

  Phew.

  ‘Bit random, really,’ said Eve. ‘We bumped into each other at the Anti-Purpleness rally, happened to get talking. I almost had a heart attack when I realised it was her.’

  ‘Of course, one of your newsreading idols.’

  ‘We got talking, and it turned out, astoundingly, that she loves Pam Fox-Jones.’

  ‘Everyone loves Pam Fox-Jones!’ said Magnus.

  He must be wondering, Eve thought, how it is that instead of partaking in the world of real news, I write a cartoon about someone who does.

  ‘What did you think to the rally?’

  ‘I saw you speak,’ said Eve.

  ‘That was terrible…’

  ‘No, you were great. You kept things going admirably, I thought.’

  ‘Of all the things to happen. Idiots. The pro-Purple brigade couldn’t have wished for a better outcome. I know they’re angry, but honestly. That’s an impressive case of shooting yourself in the foot.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to the policeman?’

  ‘He’s still being treated. I went to see him. Wouldn’t you know, he’d been against the Purple Scheme himself.’

  ‘No!’ said Eve. ‘How awful. How does he feel about it now?’

  ‘Still against it. Not so supportive of the guy with the paint though.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I talked to him about being in one of the portraits I’ve being doing – I’ve been taking pictures of people, filtering them so they look Purple.’

  ‘I’ve seen some of them.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yep. I saw the one of Carla.’

  Magnus said nothing.

  ‘So is the policeman going to do one?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Professionally he shouldn’t be seen to be supporting the anti-Purple campaign.’

  ‘With what he’s been through he should be allowed to do what he wants.’

  ‘True. But never so simple when there’s politics involved, and when him being against it could be so effective.’

  ‘Does he know how they’re doing it, the Turning?’

  ‘I did wonder that, but I didn’t ask. I figured if he wasn’t sure about a photo, he’d be even less sure about spouting confidential information. But if he decides to do the picture…’

  ‘I tried to ask a friendly policeman,’ said Eve.

  ‘Did you? That’s throwing caution to the wind.’

  Eve felt a hint of pride at hearing that.

  ‘You don’t think… it wouldn’t have been him who said anything?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Eve, ‘but it crossed my mind.’

  Uncertain, she bit into her sandwich.

  *

  A little later, they were back on their mysterious mission. Magnus pulled up outside a shop, whose sign, in classy gold paint, declared it to be De Lora Antiques.

  Eve swivelled to face Magnus.

  ‘Is this—?’

  ‘Let’s go in,’ he said, ‘Carla’s waiting for us.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  A smart, middle-aged man with rolled-up shirt-sleeves and glasses pushed down his nose turned as the bell above the door rang.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, lifting the specs up and adding, ‘Magnus, is it?’

  ‘That’s right, hi,’ said Magnus, stepping forward and shaking the man’s hand.

  ‘I’m Al. We’ve seen you in the papers, of course – and on the telly. Very impressive.’

  Magnus shrugged. ‘Ah, I don’t know about that, but thanks.’

  Al pushed his glasses back down. ‘Nine across is a tricky one.’ He looked about to read them the clue, then said, ‘But you’re not here for cryptic crosswords. Follow me.’

  They walked through the shop, weaving between polished pieces of refined furniture – solid Victorian desks, Art Deco lamps and teak side tables, with glass vases providing bright bursts of colour. There were also plenty of random treasures ­– old cigarette machines, a gumball dispenser, and a beautifully restored rocking horse.

  Al opened a door at the back of the shop. Further back looked to be a stock room, but to one side was another door, which he opened.

  ‘She’s upstairs,’ he said.

  Eve followed Magnus up a staircase to a sitting room with a soft green carpet and floral wallpaper. In the middle of the room was a sofa, and on it sat Carla De Lora.

  ‘There you are,’ she said, hopping up and giving Magnus a hug hello.

  ‘And here’s Eve,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Eve. ‘I’m sorry about the other day.’

  ‘It seemed pretty weird,’ said Carla, ‘but then Magnus said there was more to it, why you needed to know.’

  ‘I completely understand that it puts you in an awkward position—’

  ‘An illegal one,’ said Carla.

  ‘Well, not quite,’ said Magnus, affably. ‘It is, technically, breaking a confidentiality clause on a contract, which I would never usually ask anyone to do. But that was signed long before what’s happened with everything else. Besides, I promise you that neither of us is going to say anything that could incriminate you – right, Eve?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘And in fact she’s more likely to get into hot water than you are,’ Magnus said, pointing to Eve’s arm.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Carla. ‘Who did that to you?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Eve.

  ‘People who don’t want the Purpleness being thwarted,’ said Magnus. ‘You don’t support the Purple Scheme…’

  ‘I definitely don’t,’ said Carla.

  ‘Then go for it. Can you tell Eve what you told me? How InTan works.’

  Carla tucked one leg underneath her; her toenails were painted in the same coral as her manicured hands. She pursed her lips.

  ‘They inject it.’

  Eve glanced at Magnus, then back to Carla.

  ‘You’re sure? And that’s the only way they do it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many times did you use it?’

  ‘Only a couple. I had one injection to try it, before I agreed to be spokeswoman, and another a few months later, before the photos.’

  ‘How long does it last?’

  ‘It was three months when I used it, but they were working on six-month doses, so if you used it you could be tanned for the whole summer.’

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense though,’ said Eve.

  ‘Why?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘No one felt anything. No one had anyone close enough to them to inject it.’ Eve thought about this: did they? Couldn’t it have been one of the guys Duncan was caught in the midst of, and the hen? If Womble had been approached, could it be that members of the public were being planted, to be victims who then Turn those who act against them? Wasn’t that too far-fetched? But then, was anything, these days?

  ‘What are you thinking?’ said Magnus.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eve. ‘It has to be InTan, it has to be. But it doesn’t make any sense. I feel like such a dunce. Why can’t I work this out?’

  ‘Humane have got a team of people compiling information and they haven’t come up with anything. You seem to have got further than anyone else.’

  ‘Thanks to Bob.’ Eve frowned. ‘How many people would have known about InTan, about how it works?’ she asked Carla.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Carla shrugged. ‘Not many. They were pretty strict about me talking about it. They really didn’t want any rival companies knowing about it, wanted it kept a hundred per cent under wraps. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, not even my manager, who did the deal. So most of the time I didn’t know who knew, because I never brought it up. The photographer who took the pictures for the campaign hadn’t a clue.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he kept asking, saying how mysterious it was. He thought it was really funny, it being so secret.’

&
nbsp; Magnus looked at Eve, whose forehead was now cradled by her palms as she considered all this, frustrated.

  ‘I don’t see how they can be using it. Unless they follow people away from the scene, or – ’ she shrugged – ‘radio ahead to someone who finds them and injects them. But no one remembers being injected, or feeling anything that could have been an injection. And they couldn’t have done that with Finn, because I was there.’

  ‘So I haven’t helped?’ said Carla.

  ‘No, you have, you definitely have,’ said Eve, as positively as she could. ‘There has to be something in it, I just need to work out what.’

  *

  The return journey had been quieter, Eve’s brain cells like bumper cars, bashing into one another as they tried to steer a clear path to some answers, to finding a credible place for InTan in this mauve maze. Was it a red herring after all? Plus, the drive from De Lora Antiques made the car feel like an hourglass, the miles of road the grains of sand slipping through. Should she acknowledge what had gone before, before they ran out of time?

  Magnus pulled up outside Womble and Helena’s.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Eve, ‘I really appreciate you arranging this, convincing Carla to talk to me.’

  ‘It hasn’t helped though.’

  ‘It has. I’d never have found out how InTan worked otherwise.’

  ‘Do you think they are using it?’

  ‘I can’t see how. But there must be a link somewhere.’ Eve sighed.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Eve, brightly.

  ‘It’s been good to see you,’ said Magnus.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘See you in another fifteen years,’ he smiled.

  ‘Do you want to come in and see Womble and Helena?’

  ‘I shouldn’t stay long, but yes, it’d be good to say hi.’

  They entered the house, Eve calling a hello. There was no answer, except for the barks from Sven and Mr Bailey, who ran to greet them. On the kitchen table was a note.

  *

  Evie –

  Hope you’ve had a good day.

  We’re going out for dinner this evening – send harmonious thoughts our way…

  H x

  *

  Eve looked up from the note. ‘They’ve gone out to dinner.’

  ‘Ah, the romance is still alive!’

  ‘Mm.’ Eve nodded. ‘I, um…’

  Magnus leaned forward, listening, as ever.

  She looked at him, acutely aware that he was just as she had remembered.

  ‘I… Would you like a glass of wine?’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ he said, ‘driving.’

  ‘Oh, of course. Tea?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Eve put the kettle on. She felt sick. I shouldn’t say this, she thought. Why would I think about saying this? Not a good idea. But then, what if she didn’t get another chance?

  She reached into the cupboard for a pair of mugs, then putting one on the table, said, ‘I’m going to have wine.’

  ‘Go for it. After the day you’ve had… How’s your arm feeling?’

  That wasn’t what she’d meant, but remembering the bruise, looked down at it. ‘Not too bad.’

  She opened the back door to let the dogs into the garden, and to get some calming air.

  ‘Shall we sit outside for a minute? Before you have to be stuck in a car again.’

  Nearby someone was having a barbecue, the smoke and the scent of grilling meat wafting over the fences with the sound of the party’s chatter.

  Eve handed Magnus his tea. They sat on the patio wall. She was quiet.

  ‘Pondering on another conspiracy theory?’ Magnus said, though Eve was pretty sure that wasn’t what he was anticipating.

  ‘Not quite,’ she said. She looked at her wine glass, gave a near invisible shake of her head. Now or never?

  ‘I’m sorry, by the way.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For being a moron, back through the mists of time. Not that… I know it was hundreds of years ago, and I’m sure you haven’t thought about it again since then – I mean, why would you – but… I have, and I’m sorry.’

  Magnus was still for a moment, gaze directed out across the lawn.

  Eve was about to stand, to apologise for this too, now, but Magnus said, ‘What happened? I was never really sure.’

  Eve thought she might cry. What was the point in saying all this, dredging it up? Why put Magnus through it when it wasn’t his redundant lunacy to deal with? He wasn’t the one who’d struggled since, who’d failed, who needed to stop coming back to this and dwelling on it (although, she countered, hadn’t she lingered less before he was in the news and plastered everywhere, a perpetual reminder?). Sleeping dogs, she scolded herself, imagining a snoozing cartoon canine, with zzzzs floating above its head, before being rudely and grumpily awakened. Eve glanced at him, but couldn’t read his expression. In her head, they’d had this conversation many times before. Now she’d got the ball rolling, with the real and not an imaginary Magnus, she didn’t know where to start. Didn’t she just get the one shot? Should she have just said nothing after all?

  ‘I liked you so much.’

  Magnus put his tea down on the wall. ‘Back at you.’

  Eve didn’t know what to say to that, scurried away from the compliment.

  ‘I was much too daft for you,’ she said.

  He shook his head, though not so much exasperated, she thought, as slightly bemused, despite himself – plus maybe (and she might well have been imagining this), the tiniest bit sad?

  ‘When we first met I remember thinking how brilliant you were, and lovely – one of the most tip-top, best people to spend time with – and that if you were single I’d have to set you up with someone. And then we were all at that gig before you went away—’

  ‘Molotov Marmalade.’

  ‘Yep, by which point you were single, and afterwards I must have been rabbiting on about something—’

  ‘You liked Greg,’ said Magnus.

  Eve blushed, and covered her face with her hands, muffling a sound somewhere between a groan and a caught-red-handed giggle.

  ‘Stop interrupting!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So it was after the Molotov Marmalade gig, and I was talking to Womble and Helena, and she said, I don’t know why you’re not chasing after him, and – ding – ’ Eve used her hand to represent an imaginary lightbulb flashing beside her head – ‘I realised I liked you. But you were already going, so… We’d still talk sometimes…’

  ‘You’d call to see how I was.’

  Eve nodded. ‘I loved those calls. We always seemed to chat for a while, about nonsense, and I thought you must think I was dopey and couldn’t believe you’d carry on humouring me.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, I thought that was that. And then a while later, I was going into the tube station – I think Womble and I were going to a gig – and I thought I saw you. I figured I must be imagining things, willing that you’d be around again, and then a few nights later I got home and there was a message from you. And when we made a plan to meet, you said, it’s a date, which I thought was funny because, you know, it couldn’t really be a date. We hadn’t seen each other in ages, and things had always been so… platonic.’

  ‘It was a date.’

  ‘Right. Crazy! I couldn’t believe it.’ Eve paused. ‘Look, I know this is all stupid, and irrelevant now, but you should know how much I appreciated… you had this way of making me feel as though I was the me I hoped I could be.’ She winced. ‘That sounds ridiculous, and horrifying, I know. Honestly, if you knew the hours that I’d bored poor Womble and Helena with it all, up ’til late eating biscuits, and going on and on. Then here you were. Back. Calling about a thing that might be a date—’

  ‘And then?’

  Eve took a gulp of wine, then another.

  ‘Then that last time you came round… I got home that evening and Helena’s cousin was there…’

&
nbsp; ‘Ah, yes.’

  Magnus’s face said, how could I forget?

  ‘I’d told him all about you, and said you were coming, and he said he’d help me cook the most fantastic dinner to impress you.’

  ‘You seemed impressed by him.’

  ‘I know! I know, which I was, sort of, but in a puppy dog kind of way. He wasn’t like anyone we knew, and I adored him, but not in any – it was a daft little sister kind of crush, I didn’t have any romantic aspirations there.’

  Magnus raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I didn’t! Honest. Though I can well imagine what it must have looked like. I always told myself that’s where I went wrong, that it must have looked to you as though I wasn’t interested, that I was easily distracted – especially later, with that awful guy – and so that was it. I don’t think I could admit that maybe after all you might just not have been interested in me.’

  There were some shouts and peals of laughter from the barbecue garden.

  ‘Anyway. There you were, but I could feel myself retreating.’ She held her hands in front of her, a mime touching a wall. ‘I started to tell myself I wasn’t sure… which was ridiculous – all that time, all that hoping, enjoying someone’s company so much, getting this opportunity, and… Of course, I didn’t twig ’til later – months later, when it was much too late – that the reason I told myself that was because I was – ’ she paused, took a breath – ‘scared, and inexperienced, and instead of just saying that, instead of saying, I really like you, but I’m feeling slightly terrified—’

  ‘Terrified of what?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘Getting hurt. Being vulnerable. Getting things wrong.’ She shrugged. ‘And so then after we were on the doorstep…’

  Eve became silent, recalling again what was to her the point of no return; the moment that, if she was given a time machine, she’d rush to faster than the speed of light, and change those minutes when they’d said goodnight.