by Isla Dewar
Outside he leaned against the wall and breathed. Only ten minutes he’d been in that house and he’d forgotten about daylight. He blinked against the brightness. Someone nearby was mowing a lawn. The air was scented sweet green with freshly cut grass. He could hear children playing. He felt better. He knew he hadn’t told Bernice he’d no longer work on her case. But he’d get Martha to write a business-like letter of goodbye to the icy Bernice, making sure she enclosed an invoice. This was a much better plan.
He bent down to put on his bicycle clips and heard voices coming from the living room where he’d been sitting moments ago.
‘He’s gone.’ Bernice talking.
‘What did he want?’ A familiar voice.
‘Don’t know. Don’t think he knew what he wanted. Unless it was to tell me you punched him. Why did you do that?’
‘He was following me. It was getting on my nerves. He’s very punchable.’
Charlie stood up. ‘Brendan bloody Stokes. Bastard.’ He sneaked a peek in the window. Brendan was standing, arms round Bernice, kissing her neck. She was stroking his hair and staring at the wallpaper. She pressed her lips against the top of his head and, sensing she was being watched, turned and stared at Charlie.
The stare only lasted a few seconds. That was how long it took for Charlie to realise he was standing looking into someone’s living room. Looking back he remembered himself as having his mouth open and a puzzled, slightly glazed expression on his face. It wasn’t an image he was proud of.
He simply registered that this woman was holding, stroking, the very person she’d asked him to find. And wondered what the hell that was about. She was staring back at him. It was a pure stare, expressionless, blank, almost Zen-like. It was the sort of stare that usually ended with one of the parties involved shouting, ‘What? What the hell are you staring at?’
But Charlie didn’t shout. He didn’t barge into the house and demand to know what was going on. He fled. But it wasn’t the disturbing sight of Brendan in Bernice’s arms he was running away from; it was the stare.
34
Cake and Hello
The mugging had left Sophie afraid to go out alone. She felt exposed and could only manage to walk a few yards beyond the garden gate before panicking. There would be a tingling in her chest, a tightening of her throat; she’d swallow hard, look round wild-eyed and scurry back home. ‘Too much air round me,’ she said. ‘I need walls. Walls to cling to, slide along. Something reliable behind me so I know nobody can sneak up and take me unawares.’ A routine was established. Martha took her to the hospital for check-ups and along the prom for her daily walk. Charlie picked up Evie from school and brought her home.
The Charlie bit pleased Sophie. She enjoyed his gentleness, plus he made an excellent cup of tea. His dog, despite its dubious digestive system, brought a certain energy and completeness to the household. In fact, Sophie had started to consider getting a puppy. But for the moment a grown-up, house-trained visiting pet fitted the bill.
She wished she hadn’t sent Duncan packing. He was puppyish. If she wanted to walk, he’d happily amble along with her chatting about his work. He’d tell her obscure facts about Rasputin, Mary, Queen of Scots, Attila the Hun and other luminaries from the distant past. These facts would briefly fascinate her before vanishing from her brain for ever. But it had been fleetingly pleasant to dally with strange facts. And it would be a relief now to spend time with someone who wasn’t Martha and who wouldn’t loom over her, stare piercingly at her, searching her face for expressions of pain, and, gripping her elbow, asking for the umpteenth time if she was all right. It would be a step towards being normal again.
The business of returning to normal bothered her. When did it happen? How long did it take to get better? ‘Because, quite frankly, I’m fed up of feeling like this.’
‘Like what?’ Charlie was sitting across from her at her kitchen table. He and Murphy had done their duty and brought Evie safely home and he had brewed a pot of tea and laid out a plate of biscuits. It was a ritual they enjoyed. He hoped they might continue with it after Sophie was fit enough to walk to school and his collecting Evie duties were over. He liked routines. Involving himself in them day in day out gave him quiet comfort that all was well in his world.
‘What makes you think you’ll suddenly get better?’ he said, and took a caramel wafer.
‘Won’t I?’
‘No. Physically you’ll improve. You’ll notice your aches and pains aren’t so achy and painy and you’ll move about more easily and that’ll be fine. But emotionally, getting better’s a whole different ball game.’ He unwrapped the biscuit, took a bite, made a face and looked at it in disgust.
‘They’re not meant for you. I’d have thought you’d be more of a ginger snap man. What do you mean, a whole different ball game?’ Sophie asked him.
‘I mean emotional scars don’t heal in the same way. You don’t wake up and find you’re better. I sometimes think you don’t ever get better. You just add the emotional hurt to your emotional baggage and carry on with your life. You just get better at hiding the pain.’
‘I don’t like the thought of that at all. I just want to feel normal.’
‘You’ll have to redefine normal. Now normal for you will be not really enjoying walking but doing it anyway, having aches and pains, worrying about Martha, enjoying seeing Evie grow up, feeling a bit scared when you are out alone because you got attacked and other stuff I don’t know about because it happened before I got to know you. Plus the fear of getting attacked again.’
‘And what is normal for you?’
Charlie stared over the rim of his cup and said he didn’t know. ‘I’ve forgotten, or rather I’ve lost track of who I am. I had it going perfectly. A good solid routine. Coming and going at regular times. Bacon roll at quarter to eleven. Everything in the right pocket. Not thinking about upsetting stuff. But it’s all beginning to fall apart.’
‘Martha?’
‘I think so.’ Charlie sighed.
Sophie watched him cross to the cooker, fill the kettle and put it on to boil. She knew he wasn’t a man who was comfortable in other people’s homes and certainly would never put on the kettle without being invited to do so. Even then he’d feel like an interloper. But he was relaxed here. Boiling Sophie’s kettle and making a fresh pot of tea without being asked was all right. In fact it was expected of him. It was a small rite of passage that marked him as accepted in the household. She suspected he enjoyed it.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have hired her,’ said Sophie.
‘Oh, no. I like having her around. I like watching her work. She bites the inside of her cheek when she’s concentrating. She’s got dimples when she smiles. I like the one on the left. She’s bossy, though.’
‘Oh, for heavens’ sake Charlie. You’ve really fallen for her.’
He didn’t deny it. He made the tea and brought the pot to the table. ‘Is it obvious?’
Sophie poured. ‘You have just gone misty-eyed talking about my daughter’s dimples. And you’re her boss and you have for the past couple of weeks left your work to go and collect her daughter from school. Not many bosses do that. They have a business to run.’
‘There’s that. So it’s really obvious then?’
‘Not to Martha. She’s the one you have to worry about.’
‘I know. If she finds out, she may leave her job and I’ll never see her again. But if she doesn’t find out, she’ll never know and she could meet someone else. Or she might feel the same and not tell me. And I wouldn’t know how she felt. It’s just awful.’
‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’
‘No. Never done it before.’
‘Never courted a woman? Done a bit of wooing?’
‘There have been women. But no wooing. They were just there then not there.’
‘You had crushes, though. Crushes are universal and they’ve been happening since the beginning of time. I had a crush.’
‘You
did?’
‘There was a time when I was young and fell in love with inappropriate people. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was lovely. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed being miserable. I wallowed in sorrow.’
‘What came of it?’
‘Nothing. I fell in love with Martin in the end and I was happy. Most of the time, anyway.’
‘That’s probably as good as it gets.’
Sophie cupped her chin in her palm and considered him. ‘You know nothing about love, do you?’
He shrugged.
‘Martha told me about your mother. She rejected you. It might have broken her heart.’
‘No. I don’t think so. I was roundly rejected. I’ve got used to the idea. I just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. No more pain.’
A voice from the living room, Evie teaching Murphy to speak French. ‘Gâteau,’ she said. ‘Can you say that?’
Charlie said, ‘Evie knows French?’
‘Gâteau and bonjour. That’s it.’
‘It’s almost enough.’
A string of gulls floated past the window. The sky was late afternoon blue, barely a cloud. Four-thirty, a time of day he loved. There was the promise of evening. The world would shut down for the day. He could go home and forget about Bernice Stokes and other worries such as being in love with Martha. He’d cook a meal – something simple tonight, he thought, pasta with clams – then he’d settle on the sofa with Murphy and imagine what it would be like to be happy.
Sophie said, ‘You could just about get by with those two words. Cake and hello. The world would be pleasant enough if that’s all we had to say to one another.’
They smiled, considering the possibilities of getting by in the world using only two words. ‘It’d just be a matter of how you said them,’ Charlie said.
He loved these afternoon chats. And felt guilty that he was glad Sophie had been attacked. If she hadn’t she’d be able to collect Evie and he wouldn’t ever have come to sit in this kitchen drinking tea. Was this what it was like to have a family? To just be with someone and feel relaxed enough to talk about anything? It was simpler than that. To just be, that was it. All a person had to do was just be who they were. It sounded so easy. But he found it incredibly hard. Verging on impossible.
‘You suit your life,’ he said to Sophie.
‘What an odd thing to say. Of course I suit my life. I live it.’
‘I know. But I deal with people who didn’t have a life that fitted them, so they went off looking for one that did.’
Sophie was intrigued that Charlie thought of life as a coat, something that people put on, something that ought to fit. Life was something that happened to him, a surprise. She supposed Charlie thought his life was like a wrong coat he’d picked up in a cloakroom by mistake.
‘This morning I spent time talking to a woman, a client, who really didn’t fit her life,’ he told her. ‘I realised she didn’t suit her house. She didn’t look as if she belonged in it. There was nothing. No pictures on the walls. No knick-knacks or photographs. No books.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘I suppose that is odd. Most people have something on a shelf or hanging on a wall.’
‘Something to remind them who they are and what they want to be or that they were happy once,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve noticed that.’ He leaned forward. ‘There’s more. After I left, as I was collecting my bike, I peeked through the window into the living room. There was my client in the arms of the man she asked me to find.’
Sophie said, ‘Goodness. What did you do? Did you go back in and demand an explanation?’
‘I ran away. I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought they might be laughing at me. Or they might be duping me and I couldn’t think why. So I got on my bike and cycled away as fast as I could. I can see myself flying down the street, jacket flapping behind me, and my face set with urgency.’ He stuck out his jaw. ‘Like this.’
‘You should have confronted them both. There’s something very strange going on.’
‘I know. But I’m not good at confrontation. I’m beginning to realise I’m not good at anything that involves other people. I’m thinking I’m not very good at being me.’
Sophie snorted and told him not to talk nonsense. ‘There’s something going on and it’s up to you to find out what.’ She folded her arms and confirmed her instruction with a nod.
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted her to tenderly pat his arm and tell him not to bother. If there were nasty suspicious goings on, he was best out of it. But no, she was urging him on, keen for him to get wired in and solve the mystery.
‘I was hoping you’d tell me to walk away.’
‘Oh, you can’t do that. You have to stand your ground. You can’t let people use you. There’s a piece of motherly advice.’
‘Thank you. It wasn’t really what I wanted to hear.’
‘That’s the snag about motherly advice. Nobody wants it.’
Charlie nodded.
‘But of course,’ said Sophie, ‘as a mother I can’t help dishing out advice. It’s part of the job. And it doesn’t stop. You don’t retire from motherhood. You go on and on handing out advice nobody wants, can’t help it.’
Charlie shrugged and said that he wouldn’t know.
‘I’ll offer some more advice. I’d check up on the client who doesn’t fit the life she lets you see.’
He stood. ‘Yep. Good plan. I should do that.’ He headed towards the door. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘I’ll have more advice for you. I can see you’re keen. Unlike my daughter who stopped listening to me when she was thirteen. Mostly my advice is don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Just don’t. Don’t do anything you’re tempted to do. It’ll only lead to tears.’
‘That’s probably the best advice I’ve ever been given. So, I’ll do what’s expected and ignore it,’ said Charlie. ‘To use one of our acceptable two words, cake till I see you again.’
‘Hello,’ said Sophie. She flickered her fingers, a small goodbye wave.
He flickered back. Then felt a little embarrassed about it. Waving wasn’t his thing. Even over small distances to someone he liked.
Still, he smiled as he walked to his office. It amused him to consider a world with only two words, cake and hello. And he felt comforted to be offered advice he knew he wouldn’t take.
35
Optimism Never Occurred to Me
Charlie wondered what Martha would buy in the newsagent’s. He reckoned chocolate and a magazine. She needed to make a reasonable couple of purchases as she quizzed the shopkeeper about the house Bernice claimed was hers. Then again, he thought, Martha might buy crisps. Crisps would be good.
A sadness had descended on him a couple of days ago. It was a fairly regular visitor. He imagined it as an external thing, a cloud that enveloped him from time to time. It blurred his thoughts, made him slow to react. He was viewing his world from behind a Perspex sheet, voices were muffled, and he was going through his day as if on autopilot. It tired him. He slept a lot.
He was sure he knew a lot about missing people, and was proud of this. He fancied he understood the human condition. People disappeared because of debt or because they found themselves living a life that had become unbearable or they had become convinced their family and friends would be happier without them. They ran away. And often he would find them. He raked through past lives. He followed trails. He realised that people didn’t act randomly. They returned to where they had been happy or they moved to where they’d dreamed they’d be happy.
Of course, some people vanished. They walked out of their homes and were never seen again. They left behind grieving families gasping with pain, guilt and bewilderment. Then again, Charlie had discovered that some people wanted to be found. They couldn’t think of any other way of expressing their misery than disappearing for a while.
Martha slid into the seat beside him. ‘Here.’ She handed him a Mars
bar.
‘Chocolate,’ he said. ‘Thought so.’
‘And two pens and a notebook. Can’t resist stationery. You were right, the newsagent knows all about what’s going on in the neighbourhood.’
‘Newsagents know how you vote on account of the paper you take. They know if you’re away and when you’re coming back. They know stuff.’
It had taken Martha fifteen minutes to discover that the house Bernice claimed to be her own belonged to George Robertson, an accountant who’d been posted to India three months after moving in. He was due home in a few weeks and had hired an interior designer to tickle the house up before he moved back in. ‘The designer’s called Bernice Stokes.’
‘She’s using her own name?’
‘It’s a scam,’ said Martha.
‘I know that. But what has it got to do with me? Why get me to find someone who wasn’t missing? What is it all about?’
‘Dunno.’
‘And I dunno.’ He sighed. ‘It’s quiet here. Calm. You get the feeling nothing much happens.’
‘It’s the suburbs. Things happen. People just keep it under wraps.’
‘I know. But looking around, it feels safe. It’s light. There are trees and flowers and hedges.’ He took a deep bite of his Mars bar.
‘What brought this on?’
‘I used to have a constant knot in the stomach. It faded as I got older. Now it’s back. That feeling of dread. Something bad is going to happen.’
‘You’re being silly. Nothing bad is going to happen.’
‘I feel it in my gut.’
‘You’re a doom-monger. How can you be like that? So positively, assertively negative?’
‘You should talk, you’re the most negative person I know.’
‘Yes, but at least I’m not gloomy about it. Just certain events in my life have stripped me of my optimism.’
Charlie said, ‘Optimism never occurred to me.’
They ate their chocolate, both thinking, but not saying, it was too sweet. Or maybe natural born pessimists grew out of confectionery. Silently wrestling with these gloomy thoughts they watched Bernice and Brendan Stokes walk past the car and on to the end of the street.