The Company

by Sally Spencer

  I felt as if I were stalking a frightened animal – one so timid that even the slightest wrong move on my part would send my quarry scurrying for the undergrowth, never to reappear. So I trod cautiously, exercising a patience which, knowing my own nature, surprised me. Each morning, including the weekends, I would tour the city centre, studying the dropouts, searching for a clue which might tell me that one of them was my mysterious writer.

  Many of the residents of the Citadel congregated, for reasons known only to themselves, around the Carfax Tower area. There they would sit, wearing overcoats tied up with string even on the hottest day, and drink their cider or cheap wine. By nine o’clock in the morning, they were already drunk. By nine thirty, many of them were insensible. It was a depressing quest I had set myself, but I felt compelled to find the man who had somehow managed to make sense out of the meaningless journey which was his life.

  It was during the third week of my search that I found my man. Andy was sitting on a bench in St Giles, his exercise book on his knee, a pencil held in his grubby hand. There was a bottle of Strongbow cider at his feet, and after writing a few words, he would gaze longingly at it. Then, by what was obviously a supreme effort of will, he would return to the page and force out another sentence.

  I watched him for over ten minutes before I plucked up the nerve to approach him, and when I did, the only words which came to my mind were, ‘Thank you!’

  The derelict looked up. He was probably my age, but he looked older – or at least, worse. He was a broad man, but had clearly let his body go to seed. He had sandy hair with strands of white in it. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheekbones full of broken veins. His nose had obviously been smashed at some time and reset badly. The teeth in his wide mouth were mostly rotten.

  ‘Wha’ did ye say?’ he demanded belligerently.

  ‘Thank you,’ I repeated. ‘Thank you for writing such a wonderful book.’

  For a moment, I thought he would deny that he had, then he shook his head and said, ‘I wasna sure that anybody was readin’ the bloody thing.’

  ‘But you kept writing, anyway.’

  ‘It didna seem like I had any choice.’

  I held out my hand. ‘Robert Conroy.’

  Andy had hesitated for a moment, just looking at the hand, before he finally shook it. ‘Andy McBride.’

  ‘I want to publish your book,’ I told him. ‘I can’t pay you as much as some of the other publishing houses might offer, but I can assure you that I really do care about it.’

  Andy reached down for the bottle of Strongbow and took a deep swig. ‘It isna finished,’ he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  ‘I know that. I’m prepared to wait until it is.’

  A look of anguish came into Andy’s bloodshot eyes. ‘I don’ know if it’ll ever be finished,’ he moaned. ‘It gets harder all the time. The drink’s the problem. I canna hold off it for as long as I used to.’

  He took another gulp from his bottle. Already I was starting to notice the change in him. Another few minutes, and he would have no idea where he was, let alone what our conversation had been about.

  ‘If you want help, I’ll give it to you,’ I promised.

  ‘Help? What kinda help?’

  ‘I’ll rent somewhere for you to live. Probably only a bedsit, but it should be an improvement on the Citadel.’

  Andy shook his head. ‘Wouldna do nae good. Doesna matter where I am. Like I told you, the drink’s the problem.’

  ‘If medical treatment will help, I’ll pay for it,’ I said. ‘And if you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ll go there with you.’

  Andy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘What’s the catch?’ he asked.

  ‘No catch. I just want you to be in a position to finish your book so I can publish it.’

  McBride shook his head. ‘There just hasta be more to it than that.’

  ‘Maybe there is,’ I agreed. ‘I hit a low a few years ago, and perhaps I’d still be there now if my grandfather hadn’t stepped in and helped me.’

  McBride took his third swallow of cider. The bottle was nearly half-empty, and he was swaying from side to side. ‘The only thing ma granddad ever give me was the back o’ his hand,’ he said.

  ‘Let me do for you what my grandfather did for me,’ I pleaded.

  Andy looked down at his exercise book. ‘Canna even see the words nae more,’ he slurred. ‘Just a loada squiggles.’

  ‘You can come through this thing if you really want to,’ I said.

  McBride screwed up his eyes, as if he were having difficulties focussing. ‘Go away!’ he said.

  ‘Please think about what I’ve just said.’

  ‘Go away afore I turn nasty and hurt ye.’

  It was laughable even to suggest that in his condition he could do me any harm, but I left anyway. There didn’t seem to be much else I could do, now that the writer I’d spoken to a few minutes earlier had transformed himself into just another drunkard.

  I went looking for Andy McBride again the next morning, but he was neither at St Giles nor in any of the other places where the residents of the Citadel gathered. I repeated the procedure the following day, and the day after that, but I had no success.

  In spite of my best efforts, I told myself, I’d done what I feared I’d do, and frightened McBride off. The man could have gone anywhere – perhaps to London, as he’d originally intended, perhaps back to Glasgow. There would be no more exercise books dropping through Cormorant’s letterbox. I had lost Andy McBride, and all I was left with was an incomplete work of near-genius.

  It was more than two weeks after our encounter on St Giles that Janet rang through to my office to say, agitatedly, that we had an unwelcome visitor at reception who insisted on seeing me.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s …’ Janet lowered her voice. ‘Well, he’s a tramp.’

  I sprang from my chair and rushed down the corridor. Janet was sitting at her desk, glaring up at Andy McBride. The tramp-writer was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the last time I’d seen him, but his face and hands were looking considerably cleaner.

  McBride seemed to find my appearance on the scene embarrassing, even though meeting me again was the purpose of his visit.

  ‘Ye said … ye said if I wanted help …’ he mumbled, staring down at the ground.

  ‘Come into my office and we can talk about it, Mr McBride,’ I said.

  He followed me into the office and sat down in the chair I offered him. He didn’t look comfortable. ‘Aboot what ye said yesterday—’ he began.

  ‘It wasn’t yesterday,’ I interrupted. ‘It was two weeks ago.’

  Andy shook his head, as if trying to clear it of muzzy thoughts.

  ‘I sometimes lose tracka time,’ he admitted. ‘Anyway, what ye said …’

  ‘I meant it.’

  ‘Ye’ll rent me a bedsit?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll give you a small living allowance while you finish the book.’

  ‘I nearly didna come,’ McBride said. ‘Even when I waz halfway up the stairs, I didna know if I waz gonna make it.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘Thing is, where I am now, I’ve got no further to fall,’ McBride said. ‘An’ there’s a kinda comfort in that – a kinda security. But what ye’re offerin’ me is a chance, an’ I’m bloody terrified I might blow it.’

  ‘We’re all terrified we might blow it,’ I told him, thinking of all the nights I had lain awake worrying about my own delicate mental balance. ‘And I can’t tell you that you won’t. But just think of the rewards if you don’t blow it.’

  McBride’s lower lip quivered, and the sight of the big Glaswegian on the point of crying almost made me want to burst into tears, too.

  I reached across my desk and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘You can handle it, Andy,’ I said. ‘We’ll handle it together.’

  McBride nodded. ‘Maybes I can a’ that,’ he agreed. ‘When do I sta
rt?’

  I picked up the phone. ‘Janet, put me through to one of those estate agents on the Cowley Road. No, it doesn’t matter which.’ I turned my attention back to Andy McBride. ‘You’ve already started,’ I said.

  We very quickly fell into a pattern. I would pick Andy up from his bedsit every morning and take him to the office. Once there, he would go straight to the desk I’d made available for him. Sometimes he would write, sometimes he would just gaze at the wall, but all the time he would be fighting his craving for a drink. The two of us would have lunch together, then after the day’s work we would usually go for a long walk, followed by dinner. To close the evening, I would drive Andy home, making sure that we arrived at his door after the pubs and off licences had closed. And twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, we attended meetings of the Oxford branch of Alcoholics Anonymous.

  It was an exhausting process, but a rewarding one, too. Andy had a fund of stories to tell and, now that he was sober, a genuine interest in what was going on around him. I had originally thought that he would eventually produce just the one marvellous book he had in him, but now I began to let myself hope that perhaps there might be others to follow it.

  The days grew into weeks, the weeks into months, and still Andy steered clear of the drink. It was a great feat of courage – a marvellous transformation – and when I left Oxford to attend my brother’s wedding, I was confident that even without my presence Andy would be able to stay on the wagon.

  ‘I’m thinkin’ o’ tryin’ to get inta university to study lit’rature,’ Andy McBride told me in the hospital room in Bridgend. ‘What do ye think?’

  ‘It’s a good idea,’ I replied. ‘Most writers claim they’ve benefited from studying the works of other people.’

  ‘But d’ye think I’d get in?’ Andy asked worriedly. ‘I have’na got much in the way of formal qualifications.’

  I laughed. ‘Give them a couple of years, and Gobshite will be on the university’s syllabus,’ I said. ‘So I don’t imagine they’ll have any difficulty admitting you as a student.’

  Andy checked his watch. ‘I’d better be goin’ if I’m to get back to Oxford tonight,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll come down an’ see ye again soon.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I told him. ‘They’re discharging me tomorrow.’

  ‘So ye’ll be comin’ home yerself?’

  Even the thought of returning to Oxford made my stomach churn.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for a while, anyway.’

  Andy gave me a strange look. ‘It’s not like you to stay away from your work. Wha’s the problem?’

  The problem? The problem was that Marie was in Oxford – Marie, the woman who hadn’t even bothered to ring me to see how I was feeling.

  How would I face her when we next met? Should I act as if I hadn’t noticed her lack of concern? Or should I, with a towering anger, demand to know how she could have been so callous? Did I even have the choice? Was I enough in control of myself to guide my own actions?

  ‘It’s her, isna it?’ Andy said. ‘She’s the problem.’

  ‘It’s her,’ I admitted.

  He shook his head wonderingly. ‘I dunna know why you bother wi’ her,’ he said. ‘The woman does nothin’ but play games with ye.’

  I sighed. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘Isna it?’ Andy countered. ‘Ye’ve bin seein’ her for two years, an’ she’ll not let ye do so much as hold her hand.’

  ‘We agreed at the start that we’d be no more than friends,’ I said hotly.

  ‘You mean she told ye that ye’d be no more than friends. But she’s more than that to you, isn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said – because I didn’t want to admit to the truth, but I couldn’t tell an outright lie, either.

  ‘She must know how ye feel – an’ if she canna feel the same way herself, then she should do the decent thing an’ stop seein’ ye.’

  I felt as if a red hot iron had been plunged into my gut, burning through flesh, melting the fat, because while the thought of not seeing Marie again was terrifying, there was at least a part of me which recognized that Andy was right – that she should have done the decent thing and stopped seeing me.

  ‘An’ then there’s that flat o’ hers,’ he said, leaving me no time to recover my strength.

  We had had this particular discussion countless times before. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said wearily.

  ‘She’s bin roond to your place, but ye’ve no been roond to hers,’ Andy pressed on relentlessly. ‘Now why is that?’

  ‘She has a small flat. Part of it is her office. There simply isn’t room to entertain,’ I said, even though I’d been the first one to raise the question of why she would never let me cross her threshold.

  ‘No room! Tha’s bollocks!’ Andy retorted. ‘She wilna have ye roond because she’s got somethin’ to hide. But it’d be easy enough to find out what that somethin’ is,’ he continued, lowering his voice, even though there was no one else in the room.

  ‘No!’ I said emphatically.

  ‘We’d be in an’ oot o’ the place in five minutes,’ Andy said. ‘Christ, I musta broken inta hundreds of flats in my time.’

  ‘It’s not right,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not right tae torment yerself, either. If you had a quick look aroond, it might answer all kinds o’ questions.’

  ‘And if we got caught, a three-time offender like you would go straight back to gaol,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I’d be willin’ tae take the risk if I knew it was helpin’ you,’ Andy said. ‘I owe ye more than I can ever repay.’

  I forced a smile on to my face. ‘Who’s talking bollocks now?’ I asked him. ‘What I’d really like – what would really make me happy – is for you to go back to Oxford and write me another masterpiece. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Aye, I will, if that’s what ye want,’ Andy agreed. ‘But if ye ever change yer mind aboot that other thing …’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, with more certainty than I actually felt.

  ELEVEN

  Owen Flint told me that he hated hotel rooms. He hated the way the mass-purchased beds were precisely slotted in, he said, so that there was just enough room for the mass-purchased bedside cabinets. He hated the fact that the room next door would probably be a perfect replica of his own room, and that they had probably been laid out in some design office in London. He hated, in other words, the feel of the places, because though they were a hundred times more luxurious than the spartan dormitory he had lived in as a child, they were still institutional. So it was hardly surprising that the moment he had unpacked his small suitcase, he picked up the leather-bound photograph album that Grandmother had lent him, and headed for the bar.

  Once there, he ordered a pint of best bitter, and opened the album at random. The first picture he came across was a group photograph, probably taken some time in the late forties when Grandfather was still working in his father’s store. Grandfather stood in the centre of the photograph next to Grandmother. The serious expression on his face could almost have been Victorian, Flint thought, had it not been for the slight twist of the mouth which suggested that as well as dispensing authority, he was also capable of great kindness. The children were either side of their parents. The one on the left – my father – had a slightly preoccupied look, as if he lived most of the time in a world of his own. The one on the right – Uncle Tony – seemed very much aware of the real world, and the possibilities it offered for making mischief, and Flint sensed that, the second before the photograph had been taken, Tony had been glancing around the room, assessing his opportunities.

  The chief inspector took another sip of his pint, and turned a few pages. The wild boy he’d seen in the previous picture had grown into a broad man. The woman next to him had dark brown hair which spilled in curls over her shoulders. She was wearing a cloak over a low-cut dress. She held a cigarette in her left hand, and underneath the picture, someone had writ
ten ‘Tony and Jane. Their engagement party’.

  So this was Philip’s mother – the woman who had run away from home when her son was still a child. Flint found himself wondering what had made her do it, just as he wondered – though he had never plucked up the nerve to find out – what had happened to his own parents. He made a mental note to ask Grandmother about Jane the next time he saw her.

  Somehow, examining the photographs seemed to drain him. He’d look at one more, he promised himself, and then he’d call it a night. He turned almost to the back of the album and saw the familiar sight of Magdalene College Bridge. He recognized the people in the picture, too. How could he not! There was me, looking blissfully happy. And there was Jill – beautiful, delicate Jill – with her hand resting on her proud boyfriend’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s Mr Flint, isn’t it?’ said a voice to his left.

  Flint looked up and saw a pretty blonde woman. For a moment he wondered where he’d seen her before, then realized it was the absence of a uniform which was confusing him.

  She was the nurse who had looked after Charles Conroy, and her name was Trollop. No, it was Torlopp.

  ‘Is it your night off, Miss Torlopp?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ the nurse replied. She hesitated for a second, then said, ‘Well, it’s been nice meeting you again.’

  ‘Would you like to join me in a drink, Miss Torlopp?’ Flint suggested.

  The nurse giggled. ‘I don’t think we’d both fit into just one,’ she said, but she pulled out one of the high stools and sat down. ‘You’re looking at one of Mrs Conroy’s photograph albums, I see.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Flint agreed. ‘How is the old lady?’

  ‘If you ask me, it’s not all sunk in yet,’ the nurse told him. ‘But it will. It always does in the end.’

  Flint signalled a waiter. ‘What would you like to drink, Miss Torlopp?’ he asked.

  ‘A white wine, please. And call me Jo.’

  The chief inspector placed the order. ‘Can I ask you a question, Jo?’ he asked, turning back to the woman.

  ‘I’m thirty-one, and what you’ve heard about the voracious sex drive of nurses is a gross exaggeration,’ she said.