by Isla Dewar
‘Who would steal such a thing?’ said Martha. ‘It wasn’t very nice. Was it valuable?’
‘When did we ever have anything valuable?’ said Sophie. ‘I think it has been stolen.’
‘Who the hell would steal that?’
Sophie said, ‘Don’t ask.’
Next day Sophie visited Brenda. She sat at the kitchen table, took a deep breath. ‘Chrissie is a thief. She’s been taking things from my home.’
Brenda said, ‘Nothing valuable, though.’
‘You knew?’
Brenda nodded and pointed to a plastic bag on the kitchen unit. ‘Your stuff.’
Sophie fetched it, put it on the table and peered inside. ‘The cheese is missing.’
‘We ate it. Didn’t know it was yours. Sorry. I made macaroni cheese.’
Sophie sighed. ‘You’ll have to tell Chrissie she can’t come to my house any more.’
‘Why?’
‘She steals things.’
‘Nothing very nice, though. Except for the spoons. The spoons are nice. Now you have them back. Everything is as it should be.’
‘No, it’s not. I don’t want that woman in my house again.’
‘That’s not very nice of you. If Chrissie didn’t come and steal from you, she’d go and steal from someone else. Probably a shop, and probably she’d take things of worth. She’d get reported to the police, prosecuted and sent to jail. Her husband would like as not hear about it and contact the court. He’d try to get her back in his care. He’d beat her. It’s your responsibility to save her from all this by letting her steal from you.’
Sophie said, ‘Huh?’
‘You heard. You should let Chrissie come and steal from you. It’s safer. Besides, she doesn’t want your stuff. She just gets a kick from taking something of yours with her every time she leaves. You’ll get it back. Just come by and I’ll return your belongings.’
‘I should let Chrissie come and help with my cake situation and turn a blind eye to her thieving problem?’
‘Exactly, it’s the kindly thing to do. That’s the way to go. We must all be kindly.’
‘I am kindly,’ said Sophie. ‘I treat people well and I have never stolen anything in my life.’
‘You have stolen a little bit of your gentleman caller’s heart and a deal of his self-esteem. You locked him out the other day. He was very hurt. Chrissie told me.’ She lifted the plastic bag from the table, handed it to Sophie and ushered her to the door. ‘You must be kindly to Chrissie, to Duncan, and mostly you should be kindly to yourself.’
At home Sophie put all her recovered goods back where they belonged. She made a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table slowly drinking it and visiting her recent past. She felt her life had moved out of control. Events had shoved her pleasant but rather drab routine aside. These days she was in pain a lot and now had a woman of dubious morals coming to her kitchen to assist in her cake business. Well, the pain was beginning to ease and the second bothersome thing she didn’t really mind. She thought it might be amusing to fetch home her purloined belongings once a week. She might see her things anew, and besides, it would be good to sit and talk to Brenda on a regular basis. Sophie rather liked the woman.
What bothered her was her naivety. A male voice on the phone had flattered her. She’d lapped it up.
‘Do you think you could do a Mona Lisa cake?’ the voice had said.
Sophie said she could. She became so obsessed with proving she was up to the task she did not heed the warnings from her gut. That voice on the phone had been familiar, its tone slightly mocking. Now she thought about it, the owner of the voice had been taking the piss and enjoying doing it.
At first that afternoon, the afternoon of the decimated cake she called it, had come to her only in traumatic flashback. The moment of falling, seconds before that the moment of knowing she was going to fall and there was nothing she could do about it, hard pavement coming at her and she was helpless to stop landing on her face.
Now, however, she could recall details. When she was being attacked she’d looked about seeking help. There had been nobody around. But when she’d first entered the street there had been a man standing on the other side of the road, watching. As she’d walked towards the house she was delivering the cake to, the man had walked quickly away. Straining to bring him to mind, Sophie was beginning to think she knew who he was.
She phoned Duncan. ‘I think we should go for a meal together. My treat. Jelly’s. Now I think about it, it was fun. It just didn’t seem it at the time because I was angry at you and I got a shock when I saw Jamie.’
Duncan said, ‘Um . . . well . . .’
‘Good. Come round at half-past five tomorrow. I’ve got somewhere to go first. I need you to come with me. You don’t have to say or do anything. Just look positive and slightly menacing.’
‘I’m not good at menacing. And I’m not sure about Jelly’s.’
‘Nonsense. I’m telling you what to do. I’ve decided to be bossy from now on.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About five minutes ago. I’m feeling better already.’
42
A Woman Unworthy of Her Living Room
They procrastinated. Martha enjoyed it. She found it comforting and pleasantly naughty to put off something she ought to be doing and sit by the fire in the office drinking coffee instead.
‘Why do you procrastinate, Charlie?’
‘It’s pleasant. It’s a bit like playing truant. But you’re skipping off from your own life. Hiding from responsibility. Then again, I may just enjoy being by the fire.’ He leaned back, admired the back of Martha’s neck and the line of her jaw. A good jaw, he thought, firm. It would be good to run a finger along it, noting her stubbornness and determination. He considered reaching for her, taking her hand perhaps. But he didn’t. A rejection would ruin the warmth and comfort of the afternoon. Besides, when he turned to look at her she was sleeping.
Well, it was warm here, and she felt safe. Recently she’d spent her nights lying staring into the dark, worrying, imagining dire happenings. It had been this way since the burning of the suit. The reek of it, the thick black smoke; what had that suit been made of? The cheapest material in the universe, Martha decided. She remembered how cruelly synthetic it had felt. It must have been hell to wear, hot in summer, cold in winter. And the cut of it, so conservative, so middle-aged. Jamie must have hated it. That suit deserved to die.
It wasn’t the crazed treatment of Jamie’s work outfit that had scared Martha. It had been the look in his eyes. A hard bitter gleam. She’d shared a bed with this man, felt his body on top of hers, explored his lips and mouth with her tongue, stroked his hair, laughed with him, shared meals and jokes and memories. She’d been young with him. They’d marvelled at their child. And then he’d run away from her. He’d broken her heart. She thought she’d never trust another soul again.
Business was resumed next morning and the pair decided to start at Morningside and then move to the city centre to talk to Lucy at Heriot Row. Perhaps there would be somewhere new and interesting to eat on the way. Charlie wanted to turn up unannounced at Sheila’s door. ‘We’ll catch her unawares. She’ll be more likely to let something slip.’ Martha thought this rude and pushed for making an appointment. Charlie won.
The street was quiet, a few cars parked by the kerb. Martha pointed to a gate. ‘That’s it. It was dark and raining, but I’m sure that’s it.’ They walked through the small neat garden and rang the doorbell. They waited.
‘Nobody home,’ said Charlie.
‘If we made an appointment we could have saved ourselves a trip.’
‘Nah,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s interesting to snoop about when people aren’t at home.’ He peered through the downstairs window. ‘Posh.’
Martha looked in, saw a large white sofa, thick white carpeting, a chrome floor lamp and a long, honeyed-wood coffee table. ‘Expensive.’
Charlie rang the bell again and stood ba
ck, hands in pockets, looking at the upstairs windows. He was smiling.
‘You’re glad there’s nobody in,’ said Martha. ‘You can go away and procrastinate for another day.’
The smile widened to a grin. ‘You could be on to something.’
The door opened. A tall pale-faced woman with fiercely bobbed black hair and eyes lavishly dark with kohl stared out at them. Charlie’s grin faded.
‘Charlie Gavin and Martha,’ the woman said. ‘At last. I wondered how long it’d take you to come and see me.’ She opened wide the front door and stepped aside to let them in. Talking as she went, she led the way down the hall and into her living room. Her voice was assured, metallic. She was a woman who believed she was right about everything. Charlie thought she probably was. Failure would not occur to her.
Martha, meantime, was looking at the red coat. It was a thing of beauty. Even hanging from the peg on the hallstand where it had been carelessly draped, it looked perfect, the ultimate garment. Martha noticed the cut and the slight sheen of the material. Is it silk? She leaned towards it, considered reaching out to stroke it. But Sheila turned and imperiously asked, ‘Are you coming? Or are you planning to make love to my coat?’
Martha sighed and said, ‘I’m coming.’ She would have preferred to stay ogling the coat. Like that guitar in a shop window all those years ago, it was an object of lust.
The house smelled of new carpets and fresh paint. The living room was so frighteningly pristine both Martha and Charlie shoved their hands in their pockets and looked down at their shoes. Shod feet had no place on this deep-pile cream carpet. This room was waiting for a Sunday supplement style page to turn up and photograph it. Martha momentarily stopped breathing. This place was too precious. It needed Evie and Murphy to romp about in it, create a little havoc, make it less forbidding.
She didn’t sit. She hovered by the window. Charlie stood by the fireplace and Sheila perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘Well. You two are probably the worst detectives ever.’
‘I’m not a detective. I just find people. I found Brendan. That was all I was asked to do,’ Charlie told her.
‘Not a great feat of detection I should say. The man was practically walking about town wearing a T-shirt saying “I am Brendan Stokes”.’
‘I admit he was suspiciously easy to find.’
Sheila turned on Martha. ‘You followed us home. You just about tailed the taxi we were in. A little advice, if you are following somebody in your mother’s car get the exhaust fixed before you start. The Beetle you drove farted and coughed and roared after us.’
Martha shrugged. ‘I hadn’t set out to look for Brendan. I was parked outside Jelly’s hoping to see someone else.’
‘Your husband?’
‘Yes. How did you know that?’
‘I know all about you and him.’ She pointed to Charlie. ‘Bernice checked up on you both.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘I suppose she wanted to know who she was handing over money to. She certainly knows a lot about Charlie here.’ She nodded to him. ‘You’ve led a solitary life.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Charlie. ‘I have friends. Not many, I’ll admit. I’ve had lovers. Not family so much. But them’s the breaks.’ He looked about. ‘Nice room.’
Sheila nodded. ‘I like it.’
‘Does Brendan?’
‘Of course.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘A while.’
Charlie said, ‘Ah.’ As if that meant something to him. ‘How did you meet?’
‘At a party at Bernice’s house. I went along with a friend. She didn’t want to go to a party alone. Of course she abandoned me as soon as we arrived and I was left wallflowering it in the corner of the living room.’
Martha said, ‘Your friend got a drink and wandered off to mingle and flirt. She just needed someone to enter the room with. I know the type.’
‘Yeah,’ Sheila nodded, ‘doorway cheats. Anyway, Brendan rescued me. He came over to chat and top up my glass. He stayed with me all night and a couple of days later phoned me and asked me out.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know he was with Bernice. No idea.’
‘When did you find out?’ Charlie asked.
‘When Bernice turned up at the door and told me. Brendan had long taken a place in my bed and in fact I’d asked him to marry me.’ Her face twisted into a bitter smile. ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Anyway, he hadn’t accepted – or refused, come to that. He said he’d have to think about it. When Bernice turned up and told me all, I was heartbroken. Humiliated. And absolutely bloody furious.’ She smoothed the loose cover on the arm of her sofa, patted it into place. After that she glared down at Charlie’s feet and said that really he ought not to be in this room without having removed his shoes first. ‘I will get my revenge,’ she said. ‘We all will.’
‘You’ve met the other women?’ Charlie asked. For a horrible moment he’d thought she was seeking vengeance for his shoes on the perfect carpet. ‘I’m sorry about the shoes. I didn’t think.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve met the other women. We’ve had dinner. Drank champagne. Made plans. I think it’s time you and your shoes left.’
‘So,’ said Martha, ‘what do you make of that?’
They were back in the car, reviewing the situation. Looking across at the house they’d just left, thinking how chilly it was in there.
‘I’m glad I’m not Brendan Stokes. Hell hath no fury like a woman who finds the man she has proposed to may have received similar invitations from quite a few other women.’
‘I suppose. It’d be awful to discover you were not the only one to know the secret things he liked in bed. I’d mind the intimacies,’ said Martha.
‘I wouldn’t really know about that. I just wonder what the other fiancées and lovers are planning,’ said Charlie.
‘A hitman?’
‘They wouldn’t want him dead. Alive and miserable and penniless and cold and homeless and unloved will be the plan I imagine. These women will shred him.’
‘I suppose. Even so, I can’t help thinking that each lover would secretly like to think they were his favourite. They were the best fiancée and best in bed. People can be competitive about anything and everything.’
Charlie nodded towards the house. ‘That one in there has worn herself out being competitive and humiliated. She’s tense, nervous, critical, did you notice? She was sitting there, fists clenched and working her jaw, grinding her teeth. She’s going to need some serious dentistry soon.’
‘I didn’t notice. I was busy noticing you noticing her. God, that house is terrifyingly perfect. You wouldn’t want to sneeze or fart in there.’
‘She’s given that living room all she’s got and now she isn’t comfortable sitting in it. She needs it to be pristine. Absolutely perfect in every way. And now Brendan has rejected her, he has also rejected that room. She feels bad. Unwanted. Unworthy. She feels unworthy of the room she’s painstakingly created, her own living room.’
Martha said, ‘Nothing’s worse than being rejected by someone you loved and trusted. I wondered for years what would have happened if I’d run after Jamie. Thing is, he’d have left me anyway. He’d decided to do that. Same with Sheila and the others. Brendan has decided to cheat on them. It’s not about them. It’s about him and his ego.’ She looked pleased with herself, took a packet of fruit gums from her pocket, popped one in her mouth and offered them to Charlie. ‘Perhaps I ought to go back and tell her that.’
‘Perhaps you better not. Perhaps we should go and talk to Lucy in Heriot Row.’
43
Two Bloody Pounds
Sophie and Duncan sat in the Beetle staring across at the entrance to Jamie’s building. The evening was warm. People were sitting on doorsteps. ‘Look at this,’ said Sophie. ‘People soaking up sun. Beer or wine trickling over the back of their throats, minds empty of worries and filled with music, feet tapping and small conversations. I’d forgotten
about this sort of thing.’
Duncan looked surprised. ‘Had you? An evening like this, doing this mindless stuff, is the reason I failed at everything. I lived like this even when it wasn’t sunny. A bit of booze, some music and as few thoughts as I could get away with. Such indulgence was my downfall.’
‘Well. Good way to go. I’ve spent the last years with my shoulders tense, busy baking and worrying and fussing. I could have been drifting along with Joni Mitchell. I’d have enjoyed that. I completely forgot about enjoying myself.’
‘Funny that. For years I thought about nothing else. In fact, it never occurred to me to do or think about anything I didn’t enjoy. Responsibility wasn’t an issue. Sometimes I regret that.’
‘That’s silly. What’s the point of regretting something you can’t fix? Your past is over. Let it go.’
‘Easily done. I barely remember it. Still, I think I could have achieved more. My mother would be disappointed in me.’
‘Your mother was a hard woman. She was terrifying. I don’t think a human being has lived who wouldn’t have disappointed her. If Albert Einstein had been her son she’d have said, “Well, relativity, who needs it? He still doesn’t put his dirty underpants in the laundry basket.”’
Duncan shrugged. ‘That’s familiarity for you. Probably Galileo’s mother and Churchill’s mother and Kafka’s mother were the same. In my opinion, anyone who had some kind of involvement with your teenage underpants would have no respect for the grown-up you.’
‘I never liked your mother,’ said Sophie.
‘Can’t say I was particularly keen on her myself. But she was my mother and I feel strangely bound to defend her. Are we bickering, by the way?’