by Ray Connolly
It was then that he realized what it was. It was a fragrance, a scent he didn’t know. On the balls of his feet he moved forward soundlessly into the living-room. Everything was as he had left it. His eyes whipped across the settee and shelves and paused for a moment on his stereo equipment. Looking around for something with which to arm himself he noticed a half-finished bottle of Courvoisier brandy. Still the presence persisted. Taking hold of the bottle by the neck he walked more bravely than he felt towards the kitchen. It was empty, as was the bathroom. He gripped the bottle more tightly. Was it possible that his imagination was beginning to play tricks with him?
There was only the bedroom left. The door was closed. He leant against the side of the wall, trying to remember whether that was the way he had left it that morning. He was sure it couldn’t have been. He never closed doors. Yet on Tuesdays the daily didn’t visit the flat. Common sense told him to race out of the place, to get down to the safety of the lobby and call the police. But it was his home that had been invaded. He had to know. Delicately he turned the door handle. And waited. There was no response. He didn’t even know what to expect. Then, with a quick kick of his foot, he jerked the door wide open, simultaneously flattening himself against the outside wall to avert the possible assault from within. It never came. Instead from inside the room he heard a sigh, and the sound of the bed creaking as somebody turned over. He gripped the bottle more tightly, and edging around the door peered towards the bed.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Sweat ran down the side of his face. He let go of the bottle.
There, lying in his bed, was Kirsten, oblivious to the terror which she had invoked in him.
Suddenly aware of how foolish he must look he undressed in silence and climbed quietly into his bed, taking care not to waken his uninvited, but so very welcome, guest. As he lay there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the relief that he knew sleep would bring to him, he found himself overflowing with gratitude that tonight of all nights Kirsten should have chosen to sneak into the apartment and wait for him. He had no idea where she might have obtained a key but it was good to have her there at a time like this. Turning his head towards her he looked with a selfish fondness at the fairness of her skin, a porcelain shade lit by the light from the outside street.
‘Huckle?’ she murmured sleepily, uncurling her legs from the foetal position so that the length of her body stretched warmly against his. ‘1 was worried about you. I’m sorry …’
In the darkness of his pillow Huckle felt a stab of regret that he really wasn’t worth feeling sorry for. But he didn’t say it.
‘You frightened me,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t recognize the perfume.’
Kirsten moved closer to him, her eyes still closed. ‘Sorry. I was working for Chanel today. It’s a free sample.’
Chapter Eight
Watching a woman dressing at the end of the night or the beginning of a morning is, thought Huckle, rather like seeing the kindergarten toys packed away in their boxes at the end of playtime. It’s a full stop; a change of direction.
A moment earlier Kirsten had slipped from his bed, slim, naked and dimpled, and imagining him to be asleep had tiptoed quietly into the bathroom, to return a few minutes later, to assemble herself for the day, taking her work clothes from a large canvas bag. Through half closed eyes Huckle watched her flesh disappearing under her uniform of efficiency; that shell under which she shielded her needs and desires which might otherwise burst out of her, and shame her with their sentiment.
How well planned she was, thought Huckle, as the dressing continued. How practical; everything she might need for the day had been neatly packed the night before. Quickly the slim, clean form hid itself, as panties, skirt, bra and shirt appeared from out of the bag. For the first time Huckle realized that Kirsten wore a bra for work, which she certainly didn’t when she came to see him in the evenings. Lastly came the shoes and then the inevitable glasses. Once again she was Kirsten Parish, spinster and career woman, maybe now feeling a little bit reluctant to be so classified.
‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ Huckle’s voice came hoarsely from the sheets. He saw Kirsten start with surprise and then turn towards him.
‘I thought you were still asleep.’
‘And miss the cabaret?’
Kirsten smiled at him. He knew that she felt grateful that he wanted her to stay a little longer. She disappeared into the tiny kitchen. He regarded her swaying form as she moved away from him. Despite his exhaustion of the night before her presence had aroused in him appetites that he neither wished nor was able to control, and together they had worked away the terror of the evening. Huckle hadn’t told her everything; he provided no details, but as the mental images of the body of Joe Chambers propped over the wash-basin had crept back time and again into his imagination, Kirsten gradually understood what had happened.
‘What are you going to do today?’ She had brought him some tea and was sitting on the side of the bed, looking at him through those large glasses that made her look continually surprised.
Huckle didn’t know what he was going to do. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Have a rest. Loaf around in the bath. Talk to Winston. Take you to dinner?’
‘My, my. I am flattered.’
‘What d’you mean?’ He was playing his injured innocence act.
‘I always imagined you thought of me as a pair of legs with a thing in between.’
‘I do.’
‘Bastard.’
Huckle sipped his tea and smiled at her. ‘How did you get in last night?’
‘I propositioned the hall porter.’
‘Impossible.’
‘It’s not impossible when he’s asleep.’
‘You pinched the house key?’
‘Are you sorry?’ Suddenly she was on the defensive, abrupt in her fear that she might have annoyed him.
‘I’m glad.’
‘That’s okay then.’
‘Yes. That’s okay. But why last night? I mean how did you know I hadn’t gone off whoring and would turn up with another woman and kick you out in the middle of the night …?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘But supposing I had what would you have done?’
‘I wouldn’t have done anything. But at least I would have known where I stood.’ ‘Or don’t stand, as the case may be.’
‘Yes, that too.’
‘And where do you stand? Do you know?’
‘I think so … I think I’m at the bus stop waiting for the last bus home, but it’s already gone.’ Her face almost crumpled with the admission. Huckle instantly regretted beginning this line of conversation. Nothing he could say now would be adequate or even fully truthful: for the first time she had committed herself to him, dropped her front of practicality and wallowed in sentimentality.
For a moment neither said anything, then abruptly Kirsten picked up her bag. Taking her fur from where she’d dropped it at the end of the bed, she pulled it around herself so that she was even further enveloped, and without speaking further made her way to the door and let herself out of the apartment.
Huckle lay for some moments, staring at the point in the doorway where he had last seen her and wondering what emotions he felt towards her, whether in fact there wasn’t some love inside him for her. Or was it just pity that he felt? A pity mingled with sexual attraction. As he lay there he relived the sensation of the night before, and the smooth warmth that she had pressed against him, her body folding under and over his so that he had the sensation of hiding inside something which wrapped over him and hid him away from the terrors which stalked through his imagination. He remembered how grateful he had felt towards her, his body cushioned by her warmth and suppleness. And he was glad that if he’d had nothing else to offer her, at least they’d shared that moment. That had been good.
At nine-thirty the telephone by his bed went. It was Winston. He’d been in the office since seven, and Mitford had asked him to find out when Huckle was coming in.
&n
bsp; Huckle sank even further under the sheets. ‘Do us a favour will you? Tell him I’m a bit shaken after last night and I’m taking the morning off.’
‘I already said that was probably what you’d do.’
‘What about the story?’ Huckle was asking a question to which he knew the answer.
‘I’ve already written it. Do you want to hear it?’
‘Well, what have you said?’
‘It’s a very straight account of finding Joe Chambers’s body. I wrote it under a “Staff Reporter” by-line, all third person stuff, saying how “two Staff Reporters John Huckleston and Winston Collins discovered the body after calling at the studio to interview Chambers”.’
Huckle nodded as he listened to the rest of the account. The first edition had just come up from the printing room and Winston had it in front of him.
‘It’s quite a day for you, Huckle,’ Winston carried on. ‘The second lead is your story about the blonde girl at the explosion. The photofit is right under the headline about Chambers. Anyone can make the connection.’
Huckle paused for a minute. ‘You know what, Winston, if anyone does make a connection between last night and PUMA … then that connection is going to be me. On the scene of two deaths within forty-eight hours … and all on the same front page. Bloody hell.’
‘You could apply for legal aid, you know.’
Huckle laughed. ‘Is there anything else from our PUMA friends today?’
‘Isn’t one murder enough for you?’
‘Come on.’
‘There’s a piece in The Guardian trying to link PUMA with three lots of threatening phone calls and one case of arson at the homes of, as they say, “prominent BBC and ITV personalities”. There’s no indication who they’re referring to. That’s over the past two months. Mitford’s got Sarah Walton poking around to see if she can stand it up better than that.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Lots of guff about special security being put on prominent TV people … and tightening up of security at all studios and newspapers. The Sun has a picture of someone barricading the outside of the Liverpool Daily Post office. They’re running the headline Street of Siege.’
‘Who’d want to blow up the Liverpool Daily Post? Anything else?’
‘QPR lost last night.’
Huckle absorbed this last piece of information with the affected boredom which supporters of soccer teams reserve for the exploits of rivals. For both of them it signalled the end to the conversation. With a vague message for Mitford that he would be in later Huckle put down the phone.
He would have liked to have gone back to sleep, but his brain had been too much alerted. Regretfully he gave up the idea and, climbing out of bed, pulled a white towelling gown around him, the same gown which just a short time earlier Kirsten had used for her journey from the bathroom. Funny how much better it looked on her. He thought again that he could smell that mystery Chanel in the material.
Pulling apart the curtains he peered down on to Sloane Avenue. It was light now, that dank, misty lightness that comes with low cloud, and he could see that although it was no longer raining the street was still shiny and puddled.
In the kitchen he turned on the news on BBC Radio Four. It was almost the end of the programme and someone was talking about the need for strong government to combat inflation and street violence. Strong government was becoming an increasingly persistent topic, he thought. He moved with the automatic reactions of a man now familiar with living alone: two slices of thick bread were dropped into the toaster, a bowl of cornflakes cascaded into one of his two dishes. Tightening the belt of his gown he walked to the front door for the milk. Because Kirsten had spent the night there his two pints had been brought inside, along with his copies of The Times and the Daily Express. On the floor under the letter flap were two manilla envelopes, the contents and demands of which didn’t bear contemplating so early in the day, and a brochure for lawnmowers sent unfathomably by a mail order company to someone known as N. J. Pakuli. He tossed it into a basket, kept in the hall for the purpose of disposing of such wrongly directed and useless mail, and went back into the kitchen.
By now the news headlines were being repeated: ‘Scotland Yard are refusing to confirm that there may be a link between the murder last night of a London film maker and the PUMA group of terrorists who claimed responsibility for Sunday night’s bombing in Kensington. It is believed, however, that the murdered man may have unwittingly helped the terrorists in their interruption of the transmission of the film The Third Man on BBC Television two nights ago. The body of Mr Chambers was found by two London journalists. Meanwhile extensive security precautions have been set up at all London radio, television and newspaper offices in response to PUMA’s threat yesterday to all members of the media. It is expected that Minimum Lending Rate will be raised by a further one per cent tomorrow as a result of renewed foreign speculation against sterling, and the threat of strike action by both the seamen and electricity generating plant workers …’
Huckle turned his attention to his toast, plucking it from the toaster, and dropping it on to his plate. His arm stretched out towards his tape recorder and he pressed down the button which released the music. The tiny flat filled with the music of benediction, the alien, other-worldly voices of the monks of Clervaux, paying homage to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Huckle munched his cornflakes and flapping open his newspapers, considered the news broadcast. ‘They could at least have named us,’ he thought. And then for the first time he wondered seriously whether any of them really were in danger.
He found Susan in the garden hanging out dripping clothes on an aluminium clothes-horse. She had her hair tied back in a pony tail, which made her look younger than thirty-one, and quaintly old-fashioned. She didn’t bother to turn as he approached her, although he was sure she could see him. She was presumably playing it cool. Deliberately he walked into her line of vision. She looked up casually, taking a peg from between her teeth and using it to grip a pair of small pyjama pants to the washing line.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she said at last, since it was clear that Huckle was not going to announce his arrival. The greeting wasn’t intended to be a reproof for turning up, but neither was it a welcome. It was a statement of surprise that he should be visiting his old home at that hour of a week-day, and without giving any notice.
‘I’m taking the day off.’ Huckle felt oddly daft, standing there in his every-day work suit at two o’clock on a Wednesday, shy of the woman who was still his wife and vaguely aware that he was playing truant. Susan carried on pegging the clothes on to the line; she looked so neat and charming, he thought, and then decided that he mustn’t think things like that.
‘The children will be pleased. Jane’s got mumps and I’m keeping Charles off school because he’s pretending he has it, too. He’ll be bored by tomorrow, and begging to go back.’
‘Isn’t that serious: mumps, I mean?’
‘It will be if you get it. It’ll certainly slow you down a bit. Jane’s hardly ill at all, but you know how she likes to play the old soldier. If she knows you’ve come she’ll think it’s because of her.’ She stopped pegging: ‘Why have you come?’
‘Can we have a cup of coffee?’
Susan shrugged: ‘Go in and put the kettle on, while I finish this lot.’
Huckle went into the house. He could never visit his home without some misgivings, but he always tried to drive them from his mind. He reached up into the shelf by the cooker and realized that since he had left Susan had changed things around a bit. The place where the coffee had always been stored now contained the crockery.
‘It’s in the other cupboard.’ Jane’s voice behind him made him jump. She was standing there in her pink pyjamas, looking like a very young Lauren Bacall.
‘I thought you were supposed to be ill,’ he scolded, as he went in search of the other cupboard.
Jane pretended not to hear. ‘I heard you talking, so I thought it must
be important if you’d come to see us on a Wednesday.’
‘Where’s Charles?’
‘Watching television.’
Huckle put the kettle on and ladled out a spoonful of instant coffee for Susan and himself. Outside in the garden Susan was nearing the end of her chores.
‘Have you got a fancy woman?’ Jane’s question came at Huckle like a poke in the eye.
‘A what?’
Jane smiled. She was only eight but she knew she’d nailed her father good and truly. ‘A woman. You know, a girl friend, that you cuddle with, and all that.’
Huckle couldn’t help but be amused. ‘All what?’
‘You know, like they do on television. All that kissing and stuff.’
‘Would you mind if I had?’
‘No. But have you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Yes. Honestly.’ Huckle, embarrassed in his lie, spilled the water from the kettle on to the wooden kitchen workbench. For a moment he caught a mental flash of himself building it all those years ago when they had first moved to Fulham from Reading.
‘No, honestly, is what your father really means.’ He hadn’t heard Susan come in. He looked towards her in annoyance but she silenced his protest even before he could make it. ‘It’s better to tell the children the truth. If they can’t believe their parents, who can they believe?’
Huckle looked towards Jane again: she was grinning widely. ‘What’s her name?’ Huckle knew he was crimson with embarrassment.
At this point Susan stepped in. ‘Back to bed, young lady. You’re supposed to be ill.’