by A J Waines
For a second, Daniel was torn about whether to join him. The desire, however, to take his mind off the melodrama of his own life won him over.
The tavern had a timbered front and small latticed windows, and as Daniel stooped to enter, he felt like he was stepping into the seventeenth century. It must have been built when people were discussing the aftermath of the fire of London; a time when Milton had finished Paradise Lost and Henry Purcell was still a child. This is the beauty of London, he thought; it’s at the forefront of global economics, politics and culture, but it still has so many historical legacies embedded within it.
Edging past an old barrel by the door, he carved a path around tightly-packed groups of drinkers, looking for Rick. Fragments of conversation told him that most of the people were connected with the theatre. Cameras and phones flashed as fans snatched selfies with actors they recognised.
With no sign of Rick, he bought a drink, then spotted a familiar head of hair. Vibrant copper curls like a beacon in a black rolling sea.
‘… so maybe he was the first person to make a New Year’s resolution,’ she explained to a group pressed in a circle around her. ‘Pepys wrote in his diary at the start of 1661, “I have newly taken a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine...” but by mid-February he’d lapsed – just like the rest of us!’ A wave of laughter followed and she gave a mock bow.
Looking up, Jody caught sight of Daniel and beckoned him into the group. She swooped him into a hug and planted kisses on both cheeks. All a bit OTT for Daniel, who felt his face blossom bright pink in response. More flashes went off and he blinked into the dazzling bursts of white.
‘Hi – loved the play,’ he said, aware that the surrounding figures were probably wondering who he was.
‘Thank goodness it’s Sunday.’ She wiped her forehead and flicked her hand as if shaking off droplets of sweat. ‘I’ve got tomorrow off and I can get those bloody lines out of my head.’
‘Rick should be here somewhere,’ he said. ‘The guy who invited me to the meal.’
Jody stood on tiptoe turning 180 degrees. ‘Ah, Rick – I couldn’t remember his name.’ She drew him away from the others. ‘He was here, chatting up a chorus girl from The Lion King with a waist the size of a wasp.’ She shrugged. ‘I think he’s gone. He gave me a message for you, actually. Said not to wait if he wasn’t here.’
‘Oh…’ Daniel wasn’t altogether surprised. Rick was always changing his mind and disappearing.
A couple on a window bench got up to go and Jody pulled Daniel’s arm towards the opening space. She put down her wine glass on a soggy coaster and Daniel sat down beside her. It was a tight squeeze.
‘Amazing place…’ he said, noticing the tiny orange crisscross bricks stained with smoke above the fireplace.
‘You know, when this pub was first built,’ Jody said, running her fingers up and down the stem of the glass, ‘the theatre was going through a “circus” phase. It was all about illusions, trapdoors, outrageous costumes, actors flying on wires – even fireworks. The legitimate Restoration drama lot condemned it – too vulgar, but it brought in the crowds – a bit like a seventeenth-century Royal Variety Show.’
Daniel raised his eyebrows and was grateful to sip his drink, giving him time to work out what to say next.
‘I was impressed tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s a clever script. I like the way Izzy and Frank more or less change places in the last act.’ He was determined to be more articulate than when they’d first met.
‘Glad you liked it. I forget after so many performances how well written it is.’
On stage, Jody was like an exaggerated version of the woman he’d met at the meal. Flamboyant, carefree and entertaining. But it would have sounded like a chat-up line if he’d said it out loud.
‘How do you manage to get your voice to carry on stage for such long periods of time?’ he said, instead.
‘One thing you learn at drama school. As it happens, I come from a family of bellowers. My father was a bit deaf, poor love.’
‘I was in a school play once and my mum said she couldn’t hear a word.’
‘Quite the reticent type, aren’t you?’ She crossed her legs and he caught sight of her shapely calves, the colour of toasted almonds. He blinked and tried to pretend to himself that he hadn’t noticed. ‘So tell me – which actor do you most identify with?’ she asked.
‘Sorry?’
Daniel was thinking about too many things at once and was finding it hard to keep up.
‘You don’t believe in small-talk, do you?’ he said.
‘Come on – answer the question. Any actor – from theatre, TV or film. Who’d be the closest to revealing the real Daniel? Think Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle or Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby.’
He gritted his teeth and tried to visualise the row of DVDs he kept by the television.
‘I’d probably be… er…’ He didn’t want to choose someone who’d make him sound either shallow or overly glamorous. ‘… a simmering Anthony Hopkins?’
‘Hopkins in The Remains of the Day or The Silence of the Lambs?’
He watched her raise one eyebrow. It was a trick he’d been practising since he was sixteen, but he’d never quite been able to pull it off.
‘Ah!’ A flush of heat swept up his face again and he brushed some invisible dust from his sleeve. ‘Definitely as the restrained butler.’
‘Restrained or repressed?’ She leant towards him, her hands wrapped around her knees.
He put his arms up in surrender and leant back. ‘I’m not sure my brain runs at the same speed as yours,’ he said, laughing.
She tutted. ‘Oh – you’re out of practice, that’s all.’
She winked at him and he realised he couldn’t be happier that Rick had abandoned him.
Chapter 24
‘Need a pick-me-up?’ Rick stood on the doorstep waving a bottle of white wine in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other. It was a wet April evening with a fierce wind and in a bid to keep it at bay, Daniel reluctantly beckoned him inside. Nevertheless, bits of damp foliage and scraps of litter came in with him.
‘Rick – it’s Monday night,’ said Daniel, staring at the bottles. ‘Haven’t you got work in the morning?’
‘Easter break, thank God. Although I haven’t got shot of those bloody kids for long,’ said Rick, setting the bottles down on the kitchen table. ‘Got a brain-numbing school trip to Paris with the little gits. Thought this might oil the wheels a bit.’
Daniel poured them both a glass of wine, making sure he tipped considerably less into his own.
‘To the crap that life bestows upon us…’ said Rick, waving the glass in the air, before knocking back most of it in one go.
Daniel gritted his teeth and lifted his glass. ‘Cheers.’
‘You eaten?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You should have rung.’
‘I know. No juice left in the mobile.’ He shook it, as if it was the phone’s fault.
‘I can make you some toast, if you like?’
‘Make it four slices with peanut butter and you’re on,’ he said, sitting down, plonking his feet on the adjacent chair.
‘When are you going to Paris?’
‘Thursday. Two bloody days dragging them around a science museum, in a foreign language. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. I’m sick of the little shits.’
‘Bad day?’ said Daniel.
‘Bad life, mate. I don’t know what I’m doing any more. The acting idea I told you about is starting to look dead in the water.’
Ah yes, the latest fad that was going to reboot his life.
‘How come?’
‘I can’t get any auditions. No one will look at me. You need to either have experience or have been to drama school.’
It didn’t sound too unreasonable to Daniel.
‘Have you thought about doing a course? Going back to college?’ He dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.
‘I just
want to get on with it. These courses make you learn frickin’ poetry. You have to sing and tap dance, for effing sake. I don’t want a role in Mother Goose…’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to be in a decent drama on television… something like Killing Eve or Poldark. It doesn’t have to be a lead role, or anything. Even Casualty would do.’ Daniel smiled at Rick’s ‘realistic’ grasp of the situation.
‘Don’t you need an equity card for that kind of thing?’
‘You see? I can’t win.’ He leant forward, his elbows on the table, cupping his chin in his hands. He looked like a small boy who’d been told he’s not good enough to be picked for the school play.
‘Ah, Rick.’ He put the plate down in front of him with toast cut into neat triangles. ‘Sorry things aren’t working out.’
‘That’s because life isn’t satisfying, is it? Not for long.’ There was a huge crunch as he took a mouthful of toast.
‘I don’t know. That looks pretty satisfying…’ chuckled Daniel.
Rick looked up and crossed his eyes. ‘There’s always something that comes along to make your life shit, isn’t there?’ he said.
Daniel would never have shared Rick’s view until recently. He shrugged and fiddled with the salt cellar, keeping his eyes on the table.
‘Mum’s finally sold the old house in Oxford,’ said Rick, a dribble of butter glistening on his chin. ‘Do you remember it?’
‘No, I never went there.’
‘What? Are you saying I never invited you over during all the time we were schoolmates?’
‘No.’ Daniel cleared his throat. ‘It was down to your dad being so ill, I think. I’ve never met either of your parents.’
Rick let out a moan of recognition. ‘Oh, that’s right. Of course. Life was crap back then as well.’ He rubbed his stomach. ‘Anyway, Mum moved when Dad kicked the bucket and rented out the old place, but last year she decided she wanted shot of it altogether to get the money. In case she has to go into care. That’s my legacy up the spout.’ He sniffed. ‘Louise and me had to clear the place out last summer. It was an effing nightmare; tenants had left it in a right state. Worst part was Mum kept Miles’s room exactly as it was when he died – she’d had that room locked up before the tenants came in. Going back in there did my head in. Like a frickin’ tomb. A nine-year-old kid. Having to pack up his train set, his Chelsea kit and Pokémon cards…’
Rick looked genuinely distraught.
‘Hey, you should have said. I would have come with you.’ Daniel put his hand on his shoulder.
Rick shrank back as though suddenly aware he’d revealed too much sensitivity.
‘Yeah, well, you were inside your own little happy-bubble with this one.’ He glanced over at Ben. ‘I know you’ve had it tough, mate, but at least you’ve got him.’ He glanced up at a photo beside the fridge. ‘He’s got your chin, don’t you think? And the funny way you scrunch your nose up.’
‘Has he? Do I?’ said Daniel, rubbing his nose, feeling chuffed.
Rick carried on. ‘He looks more like Sophie though, especially as he’s got blond hair and you’re dark.’ He waved his finger in the air. ‘You remember Dezzie Delaney from high school? His dad’s got red hair and his mother is dark and he’s an out and out blond. He looks more like the dog than his parents.’
From the time of Ben’s birth, Daniel had searched, like most parents, he assumed, for similarities between father and son. At first he sought something of himself in Ben’s physical features; his long, curling eyelashes, the dimples he had in the same place, as a kid. Then, as he grew into a toddler, Daniel couldn’t see any facial similarities at all any more and had looked instead for common traits in their personalities and behaviours. Daniel had seen Ben favour his left hand at times, the same way Daniel did. Other similarities followed; he hated rice pudding, could finish a small jigsaw puzzle by the time he was two and regularly sang a melody from the radio completely in tune.
Rick brushed his crumbs onto the floor and they both turned as a howl of wind rattled the back door. Daniel turned the key in the lock and pulled down the blind.
‘Things have been a bit weird around here, lately,’ he said.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘No, I mean… maybe I’m being forgetful or something – but it’s as though there’s been another presence in the house.’
‘Oh man, spooky.’ He fluttered his hands in the air.
‘Seriously.’ Daniel folded his arms. ‘There have been a couple of nights when Ben’s been out of his cot and I swore I’d locked the side.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Well, here’s the crazy bit, he seemed to be talking to someone.’
Rick snapped back his chin. ‘To who?’
‘I didn’t actually see anyone.’
‘Maybe he was pretending his mum was there.’
‘I don’t know. It’s not just that. It looks like someone’s been in the loft – there was a telltale sprinkling of grit on the floor right under the hatch. But, I haven’t been up there in ages.’
‘Did you check to see if anything is missing?’ asked Rick, helping himself to another glass of wine.
‘No, but there’s nothing valuable up there. Just paperwork and junk.’
‘Hadn’t we better go and check?’
‘There’s no point, it’s––’
Rick was on his feet pacing towards the hall, before Daniel could talk him out of it. Anything for a bit of drama. Daniel reluctantly pulled down the loft ladder, but before he could place his foot on the bottom rung, Rick shoved him aside. ‘You’re injured, mate. I’ll go.’
Once his shape had disappeared, Daniel mooched up after him.
‘Where’s the light?’
‘Above you to the right; the pull switch.’
‘Ah, got it.’ Rick was randomly opening boxes. ‘What do you keep up here?’
‘Like I said, mostly junk. Paperwork, files, books, photos. Some of Ben’s old toys. You know… the usual.’
Daniel joined him, peering into dusty boxes.
‘Anything missing?’ Rick asked.
‘Not that I can see.’ He wasn’t quite sure why they were up there when there wasn’t anything worth pinching, anyway.
‘That’s weird,’ he said, bending down.
‘What?’
‘Well, I haven’t been up in ages, like I said. How did this get here?’ He held up a cloth. ‘It’s still damp.’
The cloth smelt of bleach. He scanned the tacked panels between the beams, then cast an eye over the whole area, but could find no reason for it being there.
Minutes later they were back to the kitchen.
‘Doesn’t look like any break-in I’ve ever heard of,’ said Rick, clearly disappointed. Daniel was certain nothing had been taken. ‘Thief does a spot of cleaning while he’s looking for the family silver?’ he snorted. ‘I reckon you’re just a bit jumpy, mate.’
Rick had a point. Daniel watched as he helped himself to a banana from the fruit bowl. Then draped the empty peel back in the bowl, over the apples.
‘Mate, you’ve been through a hell of a bad time lately.’ Rick put his arm round him. ‘You’ve got bad memories living with you. Maybe your mind isn’t fully on the job. That’s probably all it is.’
Daniel watched him chew. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Daniel, the wine acting like a net curtain, making everything seem less sharp. Nevertheless, he’d have to stop taking the sleeping tablets. He couldn’t be out for the count if Ben was at risk in any way.
Rick finished his banana, polished off the wine – and started the whisky – ending the evening spread-eagled over the sofa in the lounge, fast asleep. His legs were akimbo with his dirty baseball boots inches away from a white cushion. Daniel tried to untie the laces as Rick snored, but they were both knotted. He moved the cushion instead.
Daniel put Ben to bed and when he returned, he rang for a taxi. When he heard the beep of a horn outside the house, he
looped his arm under Rick’s shoulder to drag him to his feet.
‘Come on, sunshine, time to go.’
A sharp pain shot up the stitches in his chest and he had to prop Rick against the wall, unable to bear his weight any longer.
Rick was still asleep, his breath catching the back of his throat. Daniel was still having intermittent flashbacks and envied Rick’s ability to switch off. If the attack had taken place somewhere else, perhaps it would have been easier, but he had to walk into the room where it happened every day.
Gravity got the better of Rick’s head and it fell to one side, waking him up.
‘Stay over if you like…’ said Daniel, without enthusiasm.
‘Na – got things to do – people to see. Great evening,’ said Rick, stretching his mouth into a wide yawn without covering his mouth.
Daniel closed the door on him, together with the late-night chill. He stacked the dishwasher and set it running, before switching off the lights.
He stared at Ben’s lime-green plastic cricket bat leaning against the front porch and, half-joking to himself, considered whether he should take it upstairs with him. Perhaps he could keep it beside his bed, just in case the intruder made another appearance. Except, chances were there was no intruder. Did he really believe someone had been getting in? To do what? What about the cloth in the loft that was still damp?
The house had been empty between the attack and his return four weeks ago, so how that had got there was a complete mystery.
He left the bat where it was. Rick was probably right. He must have popped into the loft at some point. It was just his memory playing tricks on him.
Chapter 25
Sophie used a blunt pencil to strike through another day on the calendar above her bed, just as Shareen came out of the shower. She didn’t bother to cover her body with the towel and Sophie noticed marks on her inner thigh and tattoos that were normally hidden by her clothes; a coiled serpent wrapped around her belly button, and when she turned her back, she could make out a purple butterfly with the name Kelly underneath it, at the base of her spine.