Hope Dies Last

by Deborah Finn

  “You bastard,” she says.

  The woman at the next workstation laughs. “You’re not a fan?”

  With an effort, Marilyn takes her eyes from the screen and turns her head towards Sherry. Her face must look blank, because Sherry nods towards the television.

  “That Gallagher bloke,” she speaks loud and slow as though Marilyn is simple. “You’re not a fan?” She gives a twenty-a-day hoarse laugh.

  Marilyn swallows; she finds she can’t speak. She nods.

  “Yeah well, they’re all a bunch of shits,” Sherry says. She flicks a sidelong look at Marilyn as if she thinks she’s not all there. She picks the next shirt off the rack.

  And the moment of human contact is over. Marilyn doesn’t know how to make it stretch, she doesn’t know what to say. Once she would have known what to say. She would have been hustling to talk on the television herself; she would have been on the front of the world where the lights shine and the action happens. She wouldn’t have been working in a laundry, as good as mute.

  Marilyn turns back to the TV. He’s gone now. Next news item. Marilyn doesn’t care about air traffic controllers on strike. She’s not flying anywhere. It must be ten years since she got on a plane. Ten years. She looks at her hands. They are shaking slightly. Her hands are ten years older, reddened from the detergents and the starch. The skin is dry and it puckers when she straightens out her fingers. She has old lady hands. There are tears in her eyes and she doesn’t know if they are from anger or sadness, but she cannot stop them coming and she knows she will have to sit down, so she sits down on the floor and lets the tears come.

  Alberto drives her home from work. She manages to stop crying once she is sitting in the car. The luxury interior distracts her. It feels faintly indecent, the softness of the leather seat, the acres of legroom and the whispering engine. Marilyn could almost fall asleep here, but she has to direct Alberto to an area of town with which he is clearly unfamiliar. He hovers on her doorstep.

  “I will see you to your apartment,” he says, trying to shoo her through the front door of the building and into the gloomy foyer.

  Marilyn is ashamed for him to see the meagre scrap of rented space that is her home. She doesn’t know why. After all, he is the one who pays her minimum wage without benefits. Nevertheless, they are an impossible mix: her still and silent bedsit alongside Alberto’s loud voice and ebullient energy. She is the shield preventing these two worlds from meeting.

  She holds the door firmly, and stares at the complicated floral pattern of his shirt.

  “Thank you for bringing me home. That was very kind.” Her voice sounds flat and insincere even to her own ears, but she has nothing more to give to the performance. Her eyes drop to his shiny black shoes, shuffling on the worn stone step.

  “Do you need a doctor?” he asks, pulling out his mobile phone, as though he would instantly summon one up.

  Marilyn shakes her head. Why so much concern? She doesn’t know Alberto well enough to judge if he means it, or if he’s just some creep who would like to get her alone. Is this the price for bringing her home?

  “I’ll be fine. Just under the weather. I just need to sleep it off. I’ll be fine.”

  She starts to shut the door, but gently, so it’s clear she’s not closing the door in his face. “Thank you Alberto,” she says, for good measure.

  She turns and starts up the long winding staircase that will take her to the second floor and to privacy. As she climbs, she feels dragged down by the weariness that comes after tears, but there’s something else too. Her heart is lumbering uncomfortably in her chest, she feels wired and jerky. She wonders if she really does need a doctor.

  She gets to her bedsit and looks around. Everything looks normal. She looks at her hands. They look normal too. She sits in the armchair.

  “Everything is normal,” she says to herself, and the next second the anger bursts out of her as she jumps from the chair.

  “Everything is NOT fucking normal!”

  Three

  “Gallagher Holdings is exposed?” He’d heard that phrase before. “That analyst you brought in,” he said, looking at Steve. “That’s the phrase he used. Has he been talking?”

  Steve waved a hand in the air. “Lester, it was nothing. A poke in the dark.”

  “I’ll poke her in the dark,” Gallagher muttered.

  Steve gave a tiny warning shake of the head, his eyes flicking around to see who was in earshot. He put a hand on Gallagher’s shoulders, steering him down the corridor. Two women in business suits came clacking past in high heels. Gallagher gave them a smile and a gallant nod.

  “We’ve got the car waiting outside,” Steve said. “Back to base, and then at two o’clock we’ve got you riding a bike for a photo call.”

  Gallagher stopped and gestured at his handmade suit. “A bike? Are you kidding me? I haven’t been on a bike for twenty years.”

  “Well, they say you don’t forget, eh?” Steve opened the double doors to the front steps. It was raining, and the pavements were empty.

  “No press?” Gallagher grumbled.

  Steve opened an umbrella as they waited for the car. “Just as well with all that make-up. You look like a tranny.”

  Gallagher touched his face, felt the powder mixing with his own sweat to form a greasy paste. Inside the car, Steve pulled out a packet of wet wipes from a storage box and tossed them over to Gallagher then went back to studying his phone. “There’s a new sandwich bar opening just opposite the office. Run by two sisters and they are British.” He lifted his hand and they high-fived. “We’ll go over there at one. We’ve ordered you prawn mayonnaise.”

  “Aye, and I’ve ordered you a kick up the arse.”

  Steve laughed. “Yeah. Roast beef and mustard. A man’s sandwich, right? And these sisters are lookers. They’ll make good copy. But Lester...”

  “What?”

  “Hands off, alright? They’re young enough to be your daughters. Hands on shoulders, not on waists, not – for God’s sake – on their bums. Alright?”

  Gallagher rolled his eyes. “Steve, I’m not a complete idiot.”

  “You could have fooled me,” Steve muttered.

  “I could fire you, you know.”

  Steve laughed. “And there was a call from some woman. Said she had to talk to you personally, said you knew her from way back. Her name was.... where is it? Oh yeah, Marilyn Souter.”

  Gallagher paused in the act of wiping his face clean. For a second he didn’t move at all. “What did you say?” But he already knew before Steve repeated the name. It had been ten years, but she was back. “What did she want?”

  “Wouldn’t say. Wouldn’t talk to anyone but you. We got her number.”

  “She wanted me to call her?”

  “I guess. Becca took the call. You know her then, this Marilyn?”

  Gallagher barely shook his head. He turned to look out the window at the rain soaked pavements. His throat felt tight.

  “This shirt’s too small,” he said, running his fingers around the collar.

  He could feel Steve’s eyes on him, could hear his silence. He’d stopped tapping on that bloody phone. Gallagher swung round to face him. “What?”

  “Is there something I need to know, Lester?”

  “What?” He couldn’t quite meet Steve’s eye and his gaze skittered around the car interior. “Marilyn Souter? No.” He shook his head. “She’s nothing. Ancient history.”

  “If there’s something I need to know, Lester, something that needs tidying up..”

  “There’s nothing. Drop it, alright!” His voice came out rough. He saw Steve’s jawline bunch up and harden. “Sorry,” he said quickly. He sighed, his shoulders dropping. “I’m sorry, Steve. I’m just wound up from the TV, the campaign, everything, you know.”

  Steve nodded, his eyes dropping back to his phone. Gallagher turned and looked out the window again, absently wiping the grease from his face. What did she want? She’d seen him on the TV, se
en his campaign, thought she’d make a bit of trouble? She didn’t have anything on him.

  The driver pulled into the underground car park for Havelock Mill. It had once been an industrial building, an ugly red-brick brute, and now a fine-boned steel and glass tower had been awkwardly grafted onto the side. Gallagher Holdings operated from the fifteenth and sixteenth floors. A lift went from the car park and opened directly into the foyer. An icy blonde called Lesley sat behind a curved reception desk. She was speaking into her telephone headset and nodded almost imperceptibly as Gallagher walked past.

  Gallagher peeled off towards his office, closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. He took a deep breath and walked across the room, sat down at his chair. All the notes of the day were stacked on his desk. He shuffled through them, and found the one he was looking for. It was written in Becca’s loopy handwriting with the number in a little cloud.

  This one sounds really crazy, L. But she said she knows you. Her name is Marilyn Souter. B x

  Gallagher had the corner office. Walls of glass on two sides offered a panoramic view over the city and the complicated weaving of roads, canals and railways bridges. Gallagher swivelled the chair around to stare out of the window, but he saw nothing of the view. He crumpled the note in his hand and then looked down at it, and smoothed it out again. He snatched up the phone and stabbed in the number. It rang, three times, four times, five times. He was about to slam it down when the ringing stopped. She didn’t speak immediately, and for a moment Gallagher could hear his own breathing amplified through the handset.

  “Hello,” she said at last. “Is that you, Lester?” Her voice sounded weak, and for a second an elated fury coursed through him. She was nothing.

  “Hello Marilyn. Surprise surprise!”

  He heard her thin, shrill laugh, almost like panic. “It’s really you,” she whispered. He could hear the disgust, the horror in her voice.

  Gallagher gripped the edge of the desk, trying to crush solid mahogany in his fist. He counted a few beats. “You wanted to speak to me, Marilyn. What did you want?”

  “I want.... Oh my god!” She broke off and he could hear her rasping breaths, as if she couldn’t get the words out. She sounded like she was pacing around. “I want.... I want payback, Lester. I’m going to make you pay.”

  “Pay? You’re not making any sense, Marilyn.”

  “You owe me.”

  “I owe you?”

  “You fucking do!”

  She cut the call abruptly and Gallagher stared at the phone in his hand.

  There was a knock on the door and Steve came in wheeling a racing bike. Gallagher closed his eyes, shaking his head.

  “You’re kidding me right?”

  “It’s top of the range, mate. Look at that!” He lifted it up with one hand. “Weighs 12lb. That’s less than your balls.” Steve’s laugh was a low rumble that echoed through his straining belly.

  Gallagher leaned forward in his chair. “Steve, I can’t believe you’ve got me doing this. What if I fall off?”

  Steve shrugged. “You’ll be on all the front pages.”

  “And that’s a good thing? Me looking like a complete arse?”

  “Works for Boris, eh?”

  “Alright, OK... oh for fuck’s sake, what’s that?”

  Steve was holding up the cycling pants and jersey. “Like Bradley. Everyone’s into it.”

  “Bradley weighs about 6 stone. Have you seen me?” Gallagher stood up, spreading his arms wide. “In case you haven’t noticed, that’s not all muscle.”

  Steve laughed. “People like that. Makes you human.”

  “Makes me fat.”

  “You’re not fat. You’re solid.”

  Gallagher shook his head and sighed. “Is this for the sandwich shop? I thought that was a suit job?”

  “Change of plan. You’re going across the road with your bike and then you’re cycling over to Hallowfield and you can bang on about the cycle paths if anyone starts about traffic and parking. That and the sandwich shop, it’s a kind of healthy eating, healthy living vibe. ”

  “How do you even get to Hallowfield on a bike? It’s across the motorway.”

  “Don’t worry. The car can go ahead of you.”

  Gallagher raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’ll look great, won’t it? Won’t look like a tit at all, riding my bike behind my own car.”

  Steve winced. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll look it up.”

  “You do that. And get out while I put this on.”

  Steve raised a finger. “Just one tip, chief. I’m told that you need to go commando in these. Something about chafing.”

  “OUT!” Gallagher roared at him. He could hear Steve laughing as he closed the door.

  Gallagher put his suit and shirt onto a hanger. He held up the lycra cycling tights. He looked inside them, at the strange moulded padding. Could Steve be right? No, fuck that. He was keeping his pants on. By the time he’d smoothed the cycling jersey down over his belly, he was pretty sure he looked like some kind of pervert.

  He pressed the intercom button. “Becca, is there a mirror in here somewhere?”

  “What?” Becca said.

  “Just get in here.”

  A few seconds later she appeared, carrying her little notepad. When she caught sight of Lester her mouth dropped open, and then she folded over laughing.

  “Right,” Lester said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Oh... my... god,” she gasped. She managed to stand up and she looked him up and down. She pressed her hand over her mouth when she got to his groin, her eyes flaring wide. Swivelling on a heel, she walked towards the en suite shower room. She pulled open the door of a tall cupboard. On the inside of the door was a mirror. She pointed at it, and walked past him, without saying a word.

  Gallagher studied himself. Well, he looked a bit of a twat, but actually not as bad as he’d expected. That running he’d been doing lately had firmed him up a bit. He turned side on. Bit of a paunch, but not too bad. Actually, not bad at all. He rolled his shoulders. Maybe he should get into this cycling lark; everyone else was. He rummaged in the wardrobe and found his running shoes. As he bent over to fasten the laces, he could feel his stomach rumbling. He was about ready for a sandwich as it happened.

  The sandwich shop girls, Rachel and Trish, turned out to be twins and they were very pretty indeed. So pretty it smelled like a put up job. The press would love that: ladies’ man Lester Gallagher groping the next generation of voters. The girls stood either side of him, their arms linked behind his back. Gallagher kept his hands in front, holding up his roast beef sub. He wondered if it looked a bit phallic, what with the cycling shorts putting everything on display.

  While the press were clicking away, Gallagher’s phone started vibrating in the back pocket of his cycling jersey.

  “Oh my god, what’s that?” shrieked Rachel, or maybe Trish.

  Gallagher smiled benignly. “It’s my iPhone. No need to panic, girls. Just a text.”

  He pulled away from them. “Delicious sandwich,” he added, before taking a bite for the cameras. Jesus! How much mustard had they put on there? His tongue was on fire. He stifled a cough and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerated display, quickly knocking back a quarter litre.

  “Can we see you on your bike now, Lester?”

  Gallagher smiled grimly. He’d practised up and down the corridor at work, but the brakes were super sensitive and had tipped him off a couple of times already. And the saddle was like a knife up the arse!

  Stalling for time, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and checked the text message.

  “You know what you did. And you’re going to pay.”

  Gallagher forced a smile onto his lips for the watching photographers. How had she got his mobile number?

  He put the phone back in his pocket, swung his leg confidently across the bike and pushed off into the traffic.

  Four

  Marilyn sat on a bench on the high path. From here, she cou
ld look down on the playground. There was a fenced in section for the toddlers with mini seesaws and baby swings. She watched them bumping about and falling over, like tiny aliens.

  Next to the toddler playground was the adventure park for the bigger kids. There was a wooden pirate’s ship with rigging and tunnel slides, a zipwire and rope walkways. It was nothing like the playgrounds of Marilyn’s childhood. Where she grew up, there was wasteground to play on, littered with broken glass and bricks. Or the school fields if you broke through the chain link fence.

  Marilyn had already spotted Ben. He was on the ship’s deck, turning the huge wheel. As she watched, another boy grabbed the wheel and Ben ran off to climb the rigging. He got halfway up and shouted something. He was holding his hand up to his eye, miming a telescope.

  What did she feel? Marilyn didn’t know. He was her child. He had her dark copper hair, her skinny build. He was a part of her. This stranger was part of her own flesh. What was she supposed to feel? You are my son. She imagined saying it, but the words stuck in her throat. They weren’t right. But if not those words, then what? She needed to say something. Something was building up inside of her, wanting to burst out. Her head felt like it was packed too tight. Marilyn pulled off her woollen beret and let her hair fall down. She dragged it back over her shoulders, scratching at her scalp. And then she saw Beth.

  Beth was walking towards the adventure playground. She’d hardly changed in ten years. She still looked like an athlete, with that long swinging stride, those suntanned arms. She was a good six inches taller than Marilyn. Her dark hair was in a high, bouncy ponytail. She was wearing a patterned dress and funky boots. She looked like she’d walked out of a White Stuff catalogue. When she got to the pirate ship, Beth shouted something up to Ben. Then she sat down on a bench. She opened a book and started reading.