by Jonathan Coe
She answered after a minute or two, wearing a light, Japanese-style dressing-gown. An expanse of freckled breastbone was exposed, sheened thinly with sweat although I for one thought the temperature had dropped quite sharply this evening.
‘Michael?’ she said.
‘I’ve been really unfriendly these last few weeks,’ I blurted out. ‘I came to apologize.’
She looked puzzled, of course, but managed to take it in her stride.
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘There are some things – possibly there are some things you ought to know about me,’ I said. ‘Things I’d like to tell you.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful, Michael. I certainly look forward to that.’ She was humouring me, I could tell. ‘But it is the middle of the night.’
‘I didn’t mean now. I thought maybe … over dinner.’
That seemed to surprise her more than anything. ‘Are you asking me out?’
‘I suppose I am.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘OK. Where?’
This put me in a corner, because I only knew one local restaurant and didn’t want to go back there. But there wasn’t much choice.
‘The Mandarin? Nine o’clock?’
‘I look forward to it.’
‘Fine: well, we could either get a taxi from here, say ten minutes beforehand, or actually it’s not very far to walk, and then we could maybe stop on the way …’
I realized that I was talking to a closed door, and went back to my flat.
Now Fiona was spreading plum sauce over a pancake with the back of her spoon, and filling it with thin strips of duck and cucumber. Her fingers worked neatly.
‘So, Michael, what are these revelations about yourself that you’ve been bursting to tell me? I’m agog.’
I smiled. I had been nervous all day, thinking how peculiar it would be to share a meal with someone again, but now I was beginning to feel quietly euphoric. ‘There are no revelations,’ I said.
‘So last night – that was just a subtle way of getting to see me in my dressing-gown, was it?’
‘It was just an impulse, that’s all. It had only just occurred to me how strange my behaviour must seem. You know – the way I keep myself to myself, how I barely answer you sometimes, all the time I spend watching things on the television: you must wonder what on earth’s going on.’
‘Not really,’ said Fiona, biting into her folded pancake. ‘You’re hiding from the world because it frightens you. I frighten you. You’ve probably never learned to form real relationships with people. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to see that?’
Wrongfooted, I tried to bite into my pancake, but I hadn’t folded it properly and the contents spilled out just as I was about to put it into my mouth.
‘You have to work at these things, that’s the point,’ said Fiona. ‘If it’s depression we’re talking about then let me tell you, I’ve been there. But, you know … Take that bike ride I went on the other week. Agony, it was. Complete bloody agony. But at least I met some people, went for a drink afterwards, got a couple of dinner invitations out of it. It may not sound like very much, but after a while you realize … there’s nothing worse than being on your own. Nothing.’ She sat back and wiped her fingers on her napkin. ‘Well, it’s just a thought. Perhaps we shouldn’t get heavy this early in the evening.’
I wiped my fingers too. Huge amounts of plum sauce seemed to come off and smudge the napkin with great brown patches.
‘You made a good choice here,’ said Fiona, glancing around the restaurant. It had a comfortable atmosphere, somehow intimate and convivial at the same time. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘No, no. I just read about it somewhere.’
But this, of course, was a lie, since we were in the very place where my mother and I had had the last, explosive argument from which our relationship was yet to recover. I had vowed never to come back here, fearing that someone on the staff might recognize me and make some embarrassing reference – for we had created quite a scene at the time – but now, finding myself both calmed and exhilarated by Fiona’s company, this anxiety seemed preposterous. It was after all one of the most popular restaurants in the area, and when I thought of all the thousands of customers who must have come and gone during the last two or three years … Really, I was flattering myself to suppose that anybody might have found the incident at all memorable.
A waiter came to clear our plates. ‘Good evening, sir,’ he said with a slight bow. ‘How nice that you come back again after all this time. Your mother is well?’
I sat speechless for a while after he had gone, unable to meet Fiona’s eyes which were laughing even as her mouth remained politely quizzical. Then I admitted: ‘Well, yes, I did come here with my mother once. We had a terrible row and … well, it’s not something I really wanted to talk about.’
‘I thought that was the whole point of this evening,’ she said. ‘To tell me things.’
‘Yes, it is. And I will. It’s just that there are certain things, certain areas …’ This was coming out badly, and it was clear that if I was to regain her confidence, a major gesture was called for. ‘Come on, you can ask me anything. Anything at all. Ask me a question.’
‘All right then: when did you get divorced?’
I put my wineglass down in mid-sip, spilling some on the table. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘It was on the cover of that book you showed me.’
And yes, it was true: I’d wasted no time in trying to impress Fiona by showing her a copy of my first novel, the dustjacket of which did indeed contain this little nugget of personal information. (Which had been Patrick’s idea: he said that it made me sound more interesting.)
‘That would have been in 1974, believe it or not,’ I said. I could hardly believe it myself.
Fiona raised her eyebrows. ‘What was her name?’
‘Verity. We met at school.’
‘You must have married very young.’
‘We were both nineteen. Neither of us had been out with anyone before. We didn’t know what we were doing, really.’
‘Are you bitter about it?’
‘I suppose not. I just look on it as my misspent youth: genuinely misspent – not taking drugs and sleeping with lots of different people, which would probably have been good fun, but this … perverse drive towards conformity.’
‘I’ve never liked the name Verity,’ said Fiona decisively. ‘I knew someone called Verity at college. She was prissy. Set a great value on telling the truth but I don’t think she ever told it to herself. If you see what I mean.’
‘You think names are important, then?’
‘Some names. Some people grow to resemble their names, like owners and their dogs. They can’t help it.’
‘I came across a curious one today. Findlay. Findlay Onyx.’
I had to pronounce the two halves quite distinctly before Fiona could be sure what I was saying. Then I explained to her how the name had come to my attention.
Earlier in the day I’d gone out to the newspaper library in Colindale to chase up further reports concerning the death at Winshaw Towers on the night of Mortimer’s fiftieth birthday. You may remember that the local newspaper had promised to keep its readers informed of every development. I had naïvely expected from this that there would be a series of stories dealing with the subsequent investigation in some detail. But, needless to say, I had reckoned without the fact that the Winshaws happened to own the newspaper in question, and that Lawrence Winshaw was Grand Master of the lodge which also numbered several representatives of the constabulary among its most influential members. Such an investigation had either not been reported, or, more likely, had never been undertaken at all. There was only one item of interest, a brief sequel to the report which I had already seen, and that was more cryptic than enlightening. It said that no further information had come to light, but that police were anxious to interview a private det
ective who was known to operate in the area – the aforementioned Mr Onyx. It seemed that someone answering to the description of the dead man (who had still not been identified) had been seen dining with the detective at a restaurant in Scarborough on the evening of the burglary attempt; furthermore, according to a local solicitor who had been acting as proxy for Tabitha Winshaw, Mr Onyx was known to have visited her at the Hatchjaw-Bassett Institute on at least three separate occasions earlier in the month, presumably on business. For good measure the report added that he was also wanted for questioning on three counts of gross indecency under Section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act (1956). After that, there was no further mention of the mysterious incident. The lead item in the next edition concerned an unprecedentedly large aubergine which had been grown by a local gardener.
‘So, that would appear to be that,’ I said, as we were served with a plate of steaming king prawns, heavy with ginger and garlic. ‘This guy was nearly sixty, it said, so there’s not much chance of him still being around. Which means the trail has more or less gone cold.’
‘Becoming quite the little detective yourself, aren’t you?’ said Fiona, spooning out a modest portion. ‘Is there any point to all this, though? I mean, does it really matter what happened thirty years ago?’
‘Somebody thinks so, obviously, if they’re prepared to break in to my publishers and follow my taxi home.’
‘But that was more than a month ago now.’
I shrugged. ‘I still reckon I’m on to something. It’s just a question of where to start looking next.’
‘Perhaps I could help you,’ said Fiona.
‘Help me? How?’
‘I’m used to doing research. That’s what my job is, really. I write abstracts of articles from the scientific press, and then they’re indexed and put into this huge reference book which usually winds up in university libraries. The name Winshaw comes up quite often – you’d be surprised. Thomas, for instance, he’s still involved with quite a few of the big petrochemical firms. And then of course there’s Dorothy Brunwin – wasn’t she a Winshaw, originally? Every year there’s a whole stack of pieces about some wonderful innovation she’s thought up, some new way of processing various disgusting parts of a chicken’s anatomy and passing it off as meat. We go back all the way to the 1950s, so I could check out all the contemporary references – you never know, there might be a clue buried in there somewhere.’
‘Thanks. That would help,’ I said, and then added (equally insincerely): ‘Sounds like interesting work. Have you been doing it for long?’
‘I started … just under two years ago. It was a few weeks before my divorce finally came through.’ She caught my eye and smiled. ‘Oh yes, you’re not the only one to have screwed up on that front.’
‘Well, that’s a relief, in a way.’
‘Did you and Verity have children?’
‘We were children: we didn’t need to have any. What about you?’
‘He had children. He had three daughters, from his first marriage, but he wasn’t allowed access to them. Understandably, I suppose. He was a manic-depressive and a born-again Christian.’
I didn’t know quite how to react to this. A large chunk of beef covered in oyster sauce fell from my chopsticks and landed on my shirt, and that distracted us for a while. Then I said: ‘Of course, I don’t know you very well, but somehow he doesn’t sound like your type.’
‘True: you don’t know me very well. Oh, he was my type all right. You see, unfortunately I’m one of those people … I have a giving nature.’
‘I’d noticed.’
‘The way I showered you with pot plants, for instance.’
‘The way you give money to beggars – even when they don’t really want it.’
This was a reference to an old man who had approached Fiona as we were walking to the restaurant. Although he had merely asked her for the time, immediately she had taken twenty pence out from her purse and pressed it into his palm. He seemed more taken aback than pleased, and it was left to me to tell him that it was actually a quarter to nine – for which he thanked me as he went on his way.
‘Quite,’ she said. ‘I take pity on people.’
‘Even when they don’t really want it?’
‘But nobody really wants it, do they? However desperate their case is. That’s what you find out, in the end.’ She sighed and stroked her wineglass pensively. ‘I won’t be marrying out of pity again, that’s for sure.’
‘His case sounds pretty desperate, anyway.’
‘Well, he and his wife had both been devout evangelicals for a while. They had these two kids and then she had an incredible job giving birth to the next one. The upshot was that she lost her religion – with a vengeance – and walked out on him, taking these three daughters with her. Faith, Hope and Brenda.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘What, him and me? Five years, nearly.’
‘Quite a while.’
‘Quite a while.’ She took the last shred of green pepper from her bowl and popped it in her mouth. ‘There are even moments – moments of great weakness, I have to say – when I miss him a little bit.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, it’s nice just to have somebody there, sometimes, isn’t it. He was quite helpful when my mother died, for instance. Quite kind.’
‘What about your father: is he … still …?’
‘Alive? I’ve no idea. He ran off when I was ten.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m an only child. Just like you.’
After that we found ourselves staring in silence at the debris of our meal. Fiona had replaced her chopsticks tidily on their cradle and, apart from a few stray grains of rice, her half of the tablecloth remained spotless. Mine looked as though it had recently been used by Jackson Pollock to form the basis of a particularly brutal composition fashioned entirely out of authentic Chinese foodstuffs. We ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of lychees.
‘Well,’ said Fiona. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that you’d opened up to me this evening, after all those promises. I wouldn’t say that your soul had been laid naked before me across the dinner table. All I’ve found out is that you got married at a ridiculously young age and that most of the time you’d rather watch films than talk to people.’
‘I don’t just watch films,’ I said, after a short pause during which I had the sensation of standing poised to dive into uncertain waters. ‘I obsess over them.’
She waited for me to clarify this.
‘Well, just one film, actually. And you’ve probably never heard of it.’
I told her the title and she shook her head.
‘I was taken to see it by my parents when I was only small. We left the cinema in the middle and ever since then I’ve had this strange feeling that it’s – that it’s never really finished, I suppose. That I’ve been … inhabiting it.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Oh, it’s a silly film. All about this wealthy family who turn up at a big country house for the reading of a will, and get bumped off one by one. It’s meant to be funny, of course, but I didn’t see it like that at the time. It scared me to death, and I fell wildly in love with the heroine, who was played by Shirley Eaton – do you remember her?’
‘Vaguely. Didn’t she come to a nasty end in a James Bond film, once?’
‘In Goldfinger, yes. She gets covered in gold paint and suffocates. But in this other film she has a scene with Kenneth Connor, where she invites him to stay the night in her room, and he’s very attracted to her and she’s obviously very kind and sensible as well as being beautiful, so it would be the best thing from every point of view, but he can’t bring himself to do it. There are all these terrible things going on in the house, this homicidal maniac wandering around the place, and yet he finds all of that less frightening than the thought of being alone with this wonderful woman for a whole night. And I’ve never forgotten that scene: it’s been with me fo
r the last thirty years. For some reason.’
‘Well, that’s not hard to understand either, is it?’ said Fiona. ‘It’s the story of your life, that’s why you’ve never forgotten it.’ She took the last lychee out of the bowl. ‘Do you mind if I have this? They’re so refreshing.’
‘Go ahead. My tastebuds are crying out for some chocolate, anyway.’ I signalled for the bill. ‘Maybe there’ll be a shop open on the way home.’
∗
Outside, it became clear that the heatwave was now on the wane, and I noticed that Fiona was even shivering slightly as we walked back to our mansion block. We stopped at a late-night newsagent’s, where I bought an Aero and a white Toblerone: I offered her half of the Aero and was quite relieved when she didn’t take it. There was a light mist in the air as we turned off Battersea Bridge Road and began cutting up some side streets. This was a quiet, poorly lit area, the houses squat and mournful, the front gardens neglected, with few signs of life at this time of night except for the occasional cat bolting across the road at our approach. No doubt it was the effect of the alcohol and my excitement at the success, as I saw it, of the whole evening, but the atmosphere suddenly felt heady, pregnant with the certainty of similar, even better times to come, and I was filled with a wild optimism which had to be given voice, however obliquely.
‘I hope we can do this again soon,’ I stammered. ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself this much since … well, within living memory, let’s say.’
‘Yes, it’s been nice. Very nice.’ But there was something tentative about Fiona’s agreement, and it didn’t surprise me to hear a qualifying note enter her voice. ‘Only, I don’t want you to think … Look, I don’t really know how to put this.’