Attend

by West Camel

  Anne rapped loudly on the door and called out, taking Sam by surprise. ‘If she’s out, she’s out,’ he said, glancing over at the men in the narrow boat, wondering if he and Anne looked as if they shouldn’t be here.

  ‘Look at the boat; there’s something wrong.’ Anne cupped her hand to look into the kitchen window, trying to see past the bottles stacked up inside. ‘She wouldn’t leave it like that.’ Panic was clawing its way up her chest; she knocked and called again, thinking of Mel clambering down the rusted rungs and busting through the door.

  Her panic infected Sam in a moment; no sailor would leave their boat in such a state, he knew. He looked into Anne’s widening eyes, and saw Mel and Derek coming here straight from the police station. Or maybe before – yesterday. Until just a few minutes ago, he’d thought no one apart from him paid Deborah any attention. Now it seemed that everyone knew her; that she went unmentioned purely because she was always there.

  ‘See if the door’s unlocked,’ he said, and before Anne could reply he had turned the knob. The door opened.

  Over Sam’s shoulder, Anne could see that the kitchen was silent and still, as if the contents had just stopped moving. On the table was Deborah’s grey cloth bag; it bulged untidily, its handles slack, the contents lumped under the fabric. Beside it was a glass of water and a jug; a trail of drops led from one to the other. She forged past Sam to the stairs at the back of the room.

  Sam found his voice, and shouted, ‘Deborah? Are you in?’

  He paused behind Anne on the bottom step. She wobbled and he put his hand on her back. They froze, touching almost intimately as they listened.

  Anne called more gently than he had. ‘Deborah? It’s Anne. Anne and Sam. Are you OK?’

  After a moment, drifting down the stairs, like a thread of smoke from a dying fire, came a weak groan.

  Anne thundered up the steep steps. Sam had to hold back, so as not to be kicked in the face.

  The long upstairs room was filled with light from the bow window, which seemed bigger and cleaner and more translucent than he had ever seen it. The screen that usually divided the room was pushed back and made a tottering concertina on one side, revealing the large, high bed against the wall opposite the window. Lying in it, slightly raised against the pillows was a shrivelled figure.

  Anne was at the bedside first and took Deborah’s flimsy hand in hers before she had even thought about whether she would do it.

  ‘Oh, Deborah. You not feeling well?’

  Deborah shifted around in the bed and raised her head; the effort made her wheeze and cough. ‘I came over terribly giddy, then hot and cold, you know. I’ve not taken to my bed in I don’t know how long…’ She closed her eyes, breathing heavily.

  Anne touched Deborah’s forehead, not really knowing what she was feeling for. It was cool and damp. She studied the face; the smooth skin and strong, certain expression were lost in a mess of furrows, pouches and frayed veins.

  ‘I reckon you’ve got the flu.’ She tried to assume Rita’s nursing voice: positive and cheery, it had pulled her through sickness as a child and withdrawal as an adult.

  Sam stood uncomfortably at the end of the bed. Deborah sick was difficult to see. A hale adult, groggy in bed, could be ignored, but Deborah’s collapsed body, almost indistinguishable from the rumpled bed clothes, was ominous.

  And then he noticed it. Over the top of the cream-white quilt, trailing down onto the floor and leading up to Deborah’s breast, was the long sheet. And from close to its end an off-white thread snaked to a needle that Deborah pinched between the thumb and finger of the hand that Anne was not clasping.

  ‘A bit of flu doesn’t stop you working, eh, Deborah?’ he said, trying to inject some jollity into his tone, as Anne was doing. But the thought of her attempting to sew in her sickbed disturbed him. What was so urgent that she had to work on it now?

  Anne fussed around with the pillows and it occurred to Sam that she must be a mother. ‘Let’s get you a cup of something,’ she said. ‘Got to keep your liquids up. Are you warm enough? There’s plenty of covers here, I think.’

  Deborah managed a weak smile, her eyes watering a little. ‘It’s good to see you both. You know who your friends are when you need some help, don’t you?’

  Deborah didn’t seem surprised to see the two of them together, but Anne decided to explain it anyway, sitting down beside Deborah on the sheet. ‘We just met, Sam and me. I didn’t realise you had a fancy man, Deborah. Kept him secret from me, did you?’ This really was Rita speaking; but Anne didn’t care. Deborah chuckled a little, which made her cough again.

  Sam laughed along and picked up the trailing end of the sheet; Anne felt him tug it out from under her behind. ‘Do you want us to put this away for you?’ he asked.

  But Deborah became animated, trying to sit up and clutching her end of the sheet. A defensive pout formed on her pale lips. ‘Let me keep it by me. I can work on it every now and then, a few stitches here and there. It’s nearly finished now, I think.’ She ran the tips of her fingers over the textured surface. ‘Never thought I’d get there, but, yes, I think it’s nearly finished.’

  Sam watched her face; its creases and lines seemed to reveal a great, relieved, weariness. He shivered, as if the windows in the bay had been thrown up and a cool breeze was blowing in.

  ‘Shall I go and make some tea?’ He needed to move around to get his mind working; they hadn’t come here for this.

  ‘Good idea,’ Anne said. ‘How about some soup, Deborah,’ he heard her say as he went down the stairs. ‘Feel up to it?’

  In the kitchen Sam found the kettle and the water bottle heavy and difficult to use. How could the tiny, brittle woman in the bed upstairs have struggled with these weights most of her life? And then he found in the corroded caddy the modern, round tea bags – the small things Deborah stole from the world that had accelerated away from her while she ambled on at her own steady pace.

  Anne came down and he watched her bang around with pots, looking in cupboards and drawers. She found a can of soup – cream of vegetable. But the can opener was a huge machine, so he had to hold the can steady while she turned the enormous crank. The lid finally came away with a ragged, dangerous edge.

  ‘How sick do you think she is?’ he asked, keeping his voice low.

  Anne poured the soup into a chipped enamel saucepan and tested the heat of the various plates on the stove with what looked like a professional touch.

  ‘I don’t know, Sam,’ she said. ‘She just looks like an old woman with the flu to me. We’re going to have to build up the fire. There’s no heat on these.’

  She poked at the fire and swapped the kettle and saucepan around. She was acting as if they hadn’t had the conversation in the alley. He wanted to grab her shoulder and remind her why they were here. She was putting more wood on the fire now without giving it air.

  There was a pair of bellows propped in the corner of the nook. ‘Look,’ he said, taking them up. He placed the nozzle between the bars and began to pump. Flames bloomed almost instantly.

  ‘Anne, what about Nigel? And Derek and Mel? We need to find out if Deborah knows anything.’

  She heard the urgency in his voice, and with nothing to do but wait for the fire to heat the plates, and the plates to heat the water and the soup, she had to consider his words.

  Finding no sign of Mel here was a relief. It seemed that only she and Sam knew about the little house. It was preserved, and she wanted to preserve it. But she couldn’t keep the real stuff out. Even if she tried to, Sam was insisting they bring it in. Kathleen was dead; Mel and Derek were in their cells, or perhaps released by now. And Nigel was almost certainly in the tunnel. She centred the kettle on the plate and gave the fire an unnecessary poke.

  Sam was a few years older than Julie, and seemed alone and independent, but he was looking to her. He must see her middle-aged face and the few grey hairs in her straggly mop. He had seen her daughter, and her grandson sucking on a bottle. And
he was watching her make soup for a sick old woman. She turned the spoon in the saucepan. He didn’t know her history; he hadn’t any reason not to trust her. He deferred to her as a mother. The kettle popped and hummed high, quiet notes.

  ‘We’ll give her this tea and soup, get her strength up a bit, and then we’ll ask her.’

  Sam stood up; then sat down again in a different chair. ‘I’m just in a rush, you know – to see what Derek’s done. What I might have done.’

  Anne could see he wanted to change things – to rewrite the story, so it was the one he wanted to tell. But she knew she couldn’t rewrite anything: she had done what she had done.

  She wondered where Kathleen’s body was right now. In a hospital morgue somewhere, lying in a long, cold drawer. Should she be there rather than here? Saying she was sorry that she hadn’t accepted Kathleen’s choice? Telling her dead ears that she was pleased for her? Bubbles rose to the soup’s thick surface; Anne flushed hot now from the heat of the stove.

  Deborah would die. Flu it might be; but there was a truly aged woman fading in the bed upstairs; and she wanted to come to the end of it all. Anne thought again of Nigel, appearing everywhere with his long, flexible neck, everyone despising him. But he was only giving people what they wanted: babies; drugs; death.

  The kettle calmed into its final boil. She checked that the soup was heated through.

  Upstairs, Sam stood holding the tray, watching Anne help Deborah sit upright, packing pillows behind her. Deborah managed a smile before starting work on her soup. She sucked small spoonfuls in carefully, her eyes unfocused.

  Sam found two chairs and placed them either side of the bed for himself and Anne. Then he sat and drank his tea, waiting for an opportunity to speak.

  When she had had enough, Deborah replaced her spoon in the bowl and took up her mug; it was clearly heavy for her, she had to clasp it with both hands. But she looked a little pinker and her breathing was now even. He could wait no longer.

  ‘Deborah. We have something to ask you.’

  She placed her mug on the table beside her bed and blinked expectantly at him.

  ‘Something’s happened. We think somebody’s been down in the tunnel.’

  Deborah’s hand reached out for the embroidered sheet that had been pushed back while she ate. She pulled it towards her, turning her head from Sam to Anne and back again. Her mouth was a little open, her eyes flicked around. She was confused. Or possibly calculating.

  Anne placed a hand on Deborah’s sleeve. ‘That phone call I got when I was here earlier – that’s what it was about. Mel and his…’ she gestured uncertainly at Sam, so he nodded to make her go on, ‘his bloke, they were arrested last night for breaking into the house in Albury Street.’

  Deborah uttered a small syllable of understanding. She began to smooth out the sheet, her head seeming to nod as she searched for the needle among the folds.

  When she at last found it, Sam ventured, ‘That’s how the two of us met – just now. You must have been wondering.’

  With trembling hands Deborah adjusted the thread in her needle. ‘I’m not surprised. Your paths had to cross eventually, didn’t they?’

  Sam caught Anne’s eye as Deborah laboured to bring the section of the sheet she was working on close to her. He felt wrong-footed; her concentration as she found the correct part of the sheet and pierced it with the needle almost suggested she had engineered all this.

  ‘Deborah,’ Anne paused. She was more patient than Sam felt. Deborah looked up from her work. ‘Mel and Derek didn’t steal anything. We think they’ve locked someone in the tunnel.’

  Deborah pulled the needle through the cloth and raised her hand in an arc; but her arm quivered and she had to drop it before starting the next stitch. ‘And how did they know about the tunnel, then?’ She raised her eyes to Sam. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. It was like she knew what he’d done.

  ‘I told Derek about us going down there on Saturday. I didn’t know this would happen.’

  Anne put her mug down on the bare floorboards and crossed her arms. ‘So, Deborah – do you know anything about it?’ She felt strangely comfortable being a little stern. ‘Has someone been to see you other than us? Have you been down in the tunnel again?’

  Deborah shook her head. ‘No, no. I’ve not been near Albury Street since Saturday night. And no one has been here. No one.’ She straightened the sheet and squinted at it. ‘Who is it that they’ve locked down there?’

  ‘A bloke called Nigel,’ said Anne. ‘He’s the one who sold Kathleen the drugs I wouldn’t get for her.’

  Anne was sure she saw a smile flutter across Deborah’s face.

  ‘And he’s got Derek’s ex-wife pregnant,’ Sam added.

  Deborah looked up at him. ‘That too?’ He thought she seemed amused. ‘Well he’s being punished for it now, isn’t he? If he doesn’t have a key, he’s likely to die down there.’ She curled her lip, displaying her tiny teeth; he had never seen her look so flinty.

  Anne saw a glimpse of fear in Deborah’s twitching lip – fear for someone incarcerated a few feet below ground, searching the passages for a way out as everyone else walked the streets above him, ignorant of his solitary agony. ‘We want to get him out,’ she said.

  She had not thought of these words with what she considered the front of her head; they came from the complicated mesh further back. And, as she spoke them, a tightness in her stomach released. This was right, she thought.

  Sam twisted towards Anne, so that the legs of his chair scraped on the floor. They hadn’t discussed this, but then they had known each other for … could it be less than an hour? She was looking at him now with raised brows, as if to say that they did need to save Nigel, which would save Derek too.

  He watched while Deborah completed a few more stitches, her lips working in time with her fingers. She was slow; her movements tired her, but it was clear she was determined to do this work. He just had to wait for her reply.

  At last she laid her head back and closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know how this Mel and this Derek got into the tunnel – I’ve got the only key and the people that live in the house don’t go in there as far as I know.’

  Anne grunted. ‘A door is no problem for Mel, he’d be able to unlock it and lock it again easily.’

  ‘But you two will need the key.’ Deborah opened her eyes slightly and pointed at Sam, then at Anne with her needle. ‘I don’t keep it here. If you can get me up, we can go and get it. Perhaps the effort will finish me off. That’d be nice.’ She laughed and her throat convulsed.

  Anne sat forwards. ‘No, no, we can do it. Just tell us where it is.’

  ‘It’s in the box in the river, marked by my little buoy. You know, Anne. You saw. But I’ll have to go – you’ll need me to sail the boat.’

  Anne sank back. She couldn’t ask Deborah to go out on the water and struggle with ropes and sails; even a little sewing strained her. Yet, it was what she wanted – something that would be the end of her, just like Kathleen. Anne’s eyes fell on the needle, which caught a sliver of evening light; there were countless complications she had solved by sticking such a deliciously sharp point in her flesh.

  ‘I can sail,’ said Sam. It had taken less than a moment for him to decide. ‘If Anne knows where to go, I can sail the boat.’

  Deborah raised a hand in amused defeat, and laughed at the ceiling until she coughed and her eyes streamed. ‘Of course, of course,’ she mouthed as her chest heaved.

  Chapter 26: Anne and Sam

  Sam was already in the boat. It was eight years, but the ropes under his hands and the pitch of the hull in the water were familiar. He wondered whether, if Deborah had not become sick, she would have collected the key herself and would by now have been in the tunnel, shining her torch on Nigel. She would not know who he was. Unless she was friends with him too and just hadn’t told anyone. He’d thought he had her all worked out, but now his picture of her was misted. With just a few strokes she’d become a
frail, unpredictable old bird.

  He shook the sail out and hooked it to the gaff. The wind slapped the slightly damp fabric against his face and wrapped it around his legs.

  He snatched himself out of its wet hug. The tide was ebbing, Deborah was in bed, and he and Anne had to get the key. Where was Anne?

  She appeared on the ledge and he handed her down into the boat. She was nervous – unused to the water. He would have to account for this, he thought.

  Anne felt the boat give way under her foot; it was an uncomfortable distance below the ledge now. Sam’s grip on her arm was stronger than she would have expected, but he moved more erratically and with far more energy than Deborah had: his pulls at the sail and brisk arrangements of the ropes and oars rocked Anne around in her seat. She gripped the gunwale and set her jaw. It was too late to go back: Sam had untied the painter and they were drifting away from Deborah’s house, slipping backwards, stern first, driven by the combined strength of the current and the tide.

  She quivered slightly and tried to recall the exhilaration she had felt the last time she was in this boat, with Deborah. But that seemed like a fairground ride now – this was real: they had a goal and they were under pressure; the daylight, the tide, and probably Nigel’s sanity were all running down. She glanced up at the bow window retreating over the boat’s prow. Deborah too was fading away. She shook the hair out of her eyes, flared her nostrils to inhale more air and sat straighter.

  Sam only needed to pull a few strokes on the oars for them to reach the bend in the creek where a puff of wind had him hoisting, the sail then clambering into the back of the boat and turning it downstream. The boom swung across them; he drew in the sheet and they were under way.

  He felt a strength in his arms and back and a firmness in his cheeks as they accelerated towards the creek mouth. The wind was picking up as they approached the Thames. Anne was clutching at the wood of the boat like it was the remnants of solid land, but he saw that she knew when to move and avoided the boom when he told her to.