Like a Charm

by Karin Slaughter

  She dropped her hand, smiled without looking at him. 'You'd better get on with it then . . .'

  'Listen, we usually go and have a couple of drinks afterwards, in the Woodman up by the tube. D'you fancy coming along? Just for one maybe?'

  She looked at her watch. Too quickly, Alan thought, to have even seen what time it read.

  'I don't have a lot of time.'

  He nodded, stepping backwards towards the pitch. 'Well, you know where we are . . .'

  The Woodman was only a small place, and the dozen or so players – some from either team – took up most of the back room.

  'I'm Rachel by the way,' she said.

  'Alan.'

  'Did you win, Alan?'

  'Yes, but no thanks to me. The other team weren't very good.'

  'You're all doctors, right?'

  He nodded. 'Doctors, student doctors, friends of doctors. Anybody who's available if we're short. It's as much a social thing as anything else.'

  'Plus the sandwiches you get at half time . . .'

  Alan put on a posh voice. 'We call it the tea interval,' he said.

  Rachel eked out a dry white wine and was introduced. She met Phil Hendricks, a pathologist who did a lot of work with the police and told her a succession of grisly stories. She met a dull cardiologist whose name she instantly forgot, a male nurse called Sandy who was at great pains to point out that not all male nurses were gay, and a slimy anaesthetist whose breath would surely have done the trick were he ever to run short of gas.

  While Rachel was in the Ladies, a bumptious paediatrician Alan didn't like a whole lot dropped a fat hand on to his shoulder.

  'Sodding typical. You do fuck all with the bat and then score after the game . . .'

  The others enjoyed the joke. Alan glanced round and saw that Rachel was just coming out of the toilet. He hoped that she hadn't seen them all laughing.

  'Do you want another one of those?' Alan pointed at her half-empty glass before downing what was left of his lager.

  She didn't, but followed him to the bar anyway. Alan leaned in close to her and they talked while he repeatedly failed to attract the attention of the surly Irish barmaid.

  'I don't really know a lot of them, to tell you the truth. There's only a couple I ever see outside of the games.'

  'There's always tossers in any group,' she said. 'It's the price you pay for company.'

  'What do you do, Rachel?'

  She barked out a dry laugh. 'Not a great deal. I studied.'

  It sounded like the end of a conversation, and for a while they said nothing. Alan guessed that they were about the same age. She was definitely in her early thirties, which meant that she had to have graduated at least ten years before. She had to have done something, had to do something. Unless of course she'd been a mature student. It seemed a little too early to pry.

  'What do you do to relax? Do you see mates, or . . .?'

  She nodded towards the bar and he followed her gaze to the barmaid, who stood, finally ready to take the order. Alan reeled off a long list of drinks and they watched while the tray that was placed on the bar began to fill up with glasses. Alan turned and opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

  'I'd better be getting off.'

  'Right. I don't suppose I could have your phone number?'

  She gave a non-committal hum as she swallowed what was left of her wine. Alan handed a twenty pound note across the bar, grinned at her.

  'Mobile?'

  'I never have it switched on.'

  'I could leave messages.'

  She took out a pen and scribbled the number on the back of a dog-eared beer mat.

  Alan picked up the tray of drinks just as the barmaid proffered him his fifty pence change. Unable to take it, Alan nodded to Rachel. She leaned forward and grabbed the coin.

  'Stick it in the machine on your way out,' he said.

  Alan had just put the tray down on the table when he heard the repetitive chug and clink of the fruit machine paying out its jackpot. He strode across to where Rachel was scooping out a handful of ten pence pieces.

  'You jammy sod,' he said. 'I've been putting money into that thing for weeks.'

  Then she turned, and Alan saw that her face had reddened. 'You have it,' she said. She thrust the handful of coins at him, then, as several dropped to the floor, she spun round flustered and tipped the whole lot back into the payout tray. 'I can't . . . I haven't got anywhere to put them all . . .'

  She'd gone by the time Alan had finished picking coins off the carpet.

  It didn't take too long for Rachel to calm down. She marched down the hill towards the tube station, her control returning with every step.

  She'd been angry with herself for behaving as she had in the pub, but what else could she do? There was no way she could take all that loose change home with her, was there?

  As she walked on she realized that actually there had been things she could have done, and she chided herself for being so stupid. She could have asked the woman behind the bar to change the coins into notes. Those were more easily hidden. She could have grabbed the coins, left with a smile and made some beggar's day.

  She needed to remember. It was important to be careful, but she always had options.

  She reached into her handbag for the mints. Popped one into her mouth to mask the smell of the wine. The taste of it . . .

  As she walked down the steps into Highgate station she dropped a hand into her pocket, groping around until she could feel her wedding ring hot against the palm of her hand. There was always that delicious, terrifying second or two, as her fingers moved against the lining of her pocket, when she thought she might have lost it, but it was always there, waiting for her.

  She stood on the platform, the ring tight in her fist until the train came in. Then, just as she always did, she slipped the ring, inch by inch, back on to her finger.

  Lee pushed his chicken Madras round the plate until it was cold. He'd lost his appetite anyway. He'd ordered the food before the row and now he didn't feel like it, so that was another thing that was Rachel's fault.

  She'd be in the bedroom by now, crying.

  She never cried when it was actually happening. He knew it was because she didn't want to give him the satisfaction, or some such crap. That only proved what a stupid cow she was, because he couldn't stand to see her cry, to see any woman cry, and maybe if she did cry once in a while he might ease off a bit.

  No, she saved it up for afterwards and he could hear it now, coming through the ceiling and putting him off his dinner.

  The row had been about the same thing they were all about. Her, taking the piss.

  He'd backed down on this afternoon walking business, on her going out to the woods of an afternoon on her own. He'd given in to her, and today she'd been gone nearly six hours. Half the fucking day and no word of an apology when she'd eventually come strolling through the front door.

  So, it had kicked off . . .

  Lee was bright, always had been. He knew damn well that it wasn't just about her staying out of the house too long. He knew it all came down to the pills.

  There'd been a lot more rowing, a lot more crying in the bedroom since he'd found that little packet tucked behind her panties at the back of a drawer. He was clever enough to see the irony in that as well. Contraceptive pills, hidden among the sexy knickers he'd bought for her.

  He'd gone mental when he'd found them, obviously. Hadn't they agreed that they were going to start trying for a kid? That everything would be better once they were a family? He was furious at the deceit, at the fool she'd made of him, at the time and effort he'd wasted in shafting her all those weeks beforehand.

  There'd been a lot more rowing since . . .

  Christ, he loved her though. She wouldn't get to him so much if it wasn't for that, wouldn't wind him up like she did. He could feel it surging through him as he lost his temper and it caused his whole body to shake when it was finished, and she crawled away to cry where he
couldn't see her.

  He hoped she knew it – now, with her face buried in a sopping pillow – he hoped she knew how much he loved her.

  Lee dropped his fork and slid his hand beneath the plate, wiggling his fingers until it sat, balanced on his palm. He jerked his forearm and sent the plate fast across the kitchen.

  Watched his dinner run down the wall.

  He watched them.

  He lay on the grass, just another sun-worshipper, and with his arm folded across his head he spied on them through a fringed curtain of underarm hair. He watched them from his favourite bench. His face hidden behind a newspaper, his back straight against the small, metal plaque.

  For Eric and Muriel, who loved these woods . . .

  He watched them, and he waited.

  He watched her of course at other times too. He'd followed her home that very first day and now he would spend hours outside the house in Barnet, imagining her inside in the dark.

  He couldn't say why he'd chosen her; couldn't really say why he'd chosen any of them. Something just clicked. It was all pretty random at the end of the day, just luck – good or bad depending on which way you looked at it.

  When he was caught, and odds on he would be, he would tell them that and nothing else.

  It all came down to chance.

  They'd begun to spend their afternoons together. They walked every inch of Highgate Woods, ate picnics by the tree where they'd first met, and one day they held hands across a weathered, wooden table outside the cafeteria.

  'Why can't I see you in the evenings?' Alan said.

  She winced. 'This is nice, isn't it? Don't rush things.'

  'I changed my shifts around so we could see each other during the day. So that we could spend time together.'

  'I never asked you to.'

  'There's things I want, Rachel . . .'

  She leered. 'I bet there are.'

  'Yes, that. Obviously that, but other things. I want to take you places and meet your friends. I want to come to where you live. I want you to come where I live . . .'

  'It's complicated. I told you.'

  'You never tell me anything.'

  'I'm married, Alan.'

  He drew his hand away from hers. He tried, and failed, to make light of it. 'Well, that explains a lot.'

  'I suppose it changes everything, doesn't it?'

  He looked at her as if she were mad. 'Just a bit.'

  'I don't see why.'

  'For fuck's sake, Rachel . . .'

  'Tell me.'

  'I don't . . . I wouldn't like it if I was the one married to you, put it that way.'

  She looked at the table.

  'Don't cry.'

  'I'm not crying.'

  Alan put a laugh into his voice. 'Besides, he might decide to beat me up.'

  Then there were tears, and she told him the rest. The babies she didn't want and the bruises you couldn't see, and when it was over Alan reached for her hand and squeezed, and looked at her hard.

  'If he touches you again, I'll fucking kill him.'

  She appreciated the gesture but knew it was really no more than that, and she was sad at the hurt she saw in Alan's eyes when she laughed.

  Afterwards, Rachel leaned down to pull the sheet back over them. A little shyness had returned, but it was not uncomfortable, or awkward.

  'I would tell you how great that was,' she said. 'But I don't want you to get complacent.' She turned on her side to face him, and grinned.

  'I was lucky to meet you,' he said. 'That day, looking for the ball.'

  'Or unlucky . . .'

  He shook his head, ran the back of his hand along her ribcage.

  'Did you know that a smile can change the world?' she said. 'Do you know about that idea?'

  'Sounds like one of those awful self-help things.'

  'No, it's just a philosophy really, based around the randomness of everything. How every action has consequences, you know? How it's connected.' She closed her eyes. 'You smile at someone at the bus stop and maybe that person's mood changes. They're reminded of a friend they haven't spoken to in a long time and they decide to ring them. This third person, on the other side of the world, answers his mobile phone doing ninety miles an hour on the motorway. He's so thrilled to hear from his old friend that he loses concentration and ploughs into the car in front, killing a man who was on his way to plant a bomb that would have killed a thousand people . . .'

  Alan puffed out his cheeks, let the air out slowly. 'What would have happened if I'd scowled at the bloke at the bus stop?'

  Rachel opened her eyes. 'Something else would have happened.'

  'Right, like I'd've got punched.'

  She laughed, but Alan looked away, his mind quickly elsewhere. 'I want to talk to you later,' he said. 'I want to talk to you tonight.'

  She sighed. 'I've told you, it's not possible.'

  'After what you told me earlier, I want to call you. I want to know you're OK. There must be a way. I'll call at seven o'clock. Rachel? At exactly seven.'

  She closed her eyes again, then, fifteen seconds later she nodded slowly.

  It was a minute before Alan spoke again. 'Only trouble is, you smile at anyone at a bus stop in London, they think you're a nutter.'

  This time they both laughed, then rolled together. Then fucked again.

  When they'd got their breaths back they talked about all manner of stuff. Films and football and music.

  Nothing that mattered.

  Alan lay in bed after Rachel had left and thought about all the things that had been said and done that day. He wanted so much to do something to help her, to make her feel better, but for all his bravado, for all his heroic notions, the best that he could come up with was a present.

  He knew straight away what he could give her, and where to find it.

  It was in a shoebox at the back of a cupboard stuffed with bundles of letters, a bag of old tools and other odds and sods that he'd collected from his father's place after the old man had died.

  Alan hadn't looked at the bracelet in a couple of years, had forgotten the weight of it. It was gold, or so he presumed, and heavy with charms. He remembered the feel of Rachel's body against his fingers – her shoulder-blades and hips – as he ran them around the smooth body of the tiger, the edges of the key, the rims of the tiny train wheels that turned . . .

  After his father's death, Alan had spoken to his mother about the bracelet. He asked her if she knew where it had come from. The skin around her jaw had tightened as she'd said she hardly remembered it, then in the next breath that she wanted nothing to do with the bloody thing. Not considering where it had damned well come from.

  Alan put two and two together and realized how stupid he'd been. He knew about his father's affairs and guessed that, years before, the bracelet had been a failed peace offering of some sort. It might even have been something that he'd originally bought for one of his mistresses. His father had been a forensic pathologist and Alan was amazed at how a man who exercised such professional skill could be so clumsy when it came to the rest of his life.

  It wasn't surprising that his mother had reacted as she had, that she'd wanted no part of the charm bracelet. It had become tainted.

  Alan was not superstitious. He sensed that Rachel would like it. He wouldn't give it to her as it was though. He would make it truly hers before he gave it.

  He knew exactly what charm he wanted to add.

  From Muswell Hill it was a five minute bus ride to Highgate tube. Rachel leaned back against the side of the shelter. Her hair was still wet from the shower she'd taken at Alan's flat.

  She'd thought so often about how she might feel afterwards. It had been a vital part of the fantasy, not just with Alan but with other men she'd seen, but never spoken to. The sex had been easy to imagine of course. It had been gentler than she was used to and had lasted longer, but the mechanics were more or less the same. Where she'd been wrong was in imagining the feelings that would come when she'd actually done it. She
'd been certain that she'd feel frightened, but she didn't. Fear was familiar to her, and its absence was unmistakable. Heady.

  She waited a couple of minutes before giving up on the bus and making for the station on foot. Had there been anybody else at the bus stop, she might well have smiled at them.

  Lee didn't think that he asked too much. Not after a long day talking mortgages to morons and assuring mousy newlyweds that damp was easily sorted. At the end of it, all he wanted was his dinner and some comfort.

  He couldn't stand her so fucking cheerful.

  Taking off his jacket and tie, opening a beer and asking just what she was so bloody chirpy about.

  Had she been up to those fucking woods again?

  Yes.

  Who with?

  Don't be silly, Lee.

  Sucking off tramps in the bushes, I'll bet.

  Then she'd laughed at him. No outrage like there should have been. No anger at his filthy suggestions, at the stupid suspicions that he'd only half tarted up as a joke.

  A jab to the belly and another to the tits had shut her up and put her down on the floor. Now he straddled her chest, knees pressed down on to her arms, his hands pulling at his own hair in frustration.

  'We were going to do the business later on. I was well up for it and tonight could have been the night we did something special. Made a new life.'

  'Lee, please . . .'

  'You. Fucking. Spoiled. It.'

  'We can still do it, Lee. Let's go upstairs now. I'm really horny, Lee . . .'

  He shook his head, disgusted, gathering the spit into his mouth. She knew what was coming, he could see it in her eyes and he waited for her to try and turn her head away as he leaned down and pushed the saliva between his teeth. Instead, she just closed her eyes, and he thought he saw something like a smile as he let a thick string of beery spit drop slowly down on to her face.

  As soon as the seven o'clock news had begun, Alan reached for the phone and dialled the number.

  It was answered almost immediately, but nobody spoke.