by William Shaw
‘Poor bloody man.’
Jill nodded. ‘So if he had heard an argument between Ayman Younis and your mystery man, we’ll never know now anyway, will we? I better go.’
Alex walked her back to her car, still parked outside Bill’s. ‘Did he have a history of drug abuse?’
‘Homeless, wasn’t he? Loads of them do.’
‘Exactly.’
Jill looked at her, puzzled. Alex said nothing; waved at her as she drove back to the world of work. When she got back home, the house still smelt of the flowers she had put into a vase earlier that week.
Zoë was in the shower. Alex sat at the top of the stairs, thinking. When she emerged, one towel wrapped around her body, another round her head, Alex said, ‘Right. I think it’s high time you told me where William South is.’
Zoë walked straight past her to her bedroom without saying anything and closed the door behind her. Alex heard her turn the key.
Thirty-eight
At one in the morning, Alex noticed the light still on under her daughter’s door. She knocked gently. ‘You awake?’
After a few seconds, her daughter’s voice: ‘What is it?’
‘I really need to know about Bill.’
Zoë opened her door, her forehead tilted forward aggressively, like she was readying herself for a blow, but she was wearing one of her dad’s old Tribe Called Quest T-shirts and it looked so huge on her it undercut any attempt at looking fierce. ‘I can’t tell you, Mum.’
‘I won’t make you. Did Bill South make you promise not to say where he was?’
‘Yes.’
Alex had to pause before opening her mouth again because hearing that hurt.
‘He’s somewhere safe, Mum. Don’t try and find him, please. OK?’
‘What about the drinking?’
The teenager blushed. Whatever it was, it would have to be bad if it made Zoë blush these days.
‘Oh God. He’s still drinking?’
‘No. Don’t worry, Mum. He’s fine. Totally fine. He’s safe. He hasn’t drunk for days. I’m not saying anything else, OK?’
She laid her hand on her daughter’s arm and said, ‘You’re a good friend to him, aren’t you?’
Zoë’s shrug was a minimal jerk of her shoulders.
‘Will you pass him a message then? Tell him I think I know what really happened on The Hopeful. So there’s no point in him hiding any more. And I really, really need to talk to him about it. For his own good. It’s really important.’
Zoë frowned. ‘What?’
Alex dropped her hand. ‘He’ll understand. Just tell him next time you see him. Will you do that?’
‘Night. Mum,’ she said, and pushed the door closed on her mother.
She woke in darkness underground again, the smell of earth around her once more, the pressure of roots gripping her chest, her face wet from sweat and tears.
And then it wasn’t just a ceiling that had fallen on her. Now, instead of damp soil, there was the scent of cold metal and oil. She was no longer in the cellar, and a red car had dropped on her and the weight of it was crushing her, making it impossible to breathe.
‘Ssh,’ a voice beside her whispered. A cool hand on her forehead. ‘It’s OK. Go back to sleep now.’
In the morning when she woke, skin clammy, Zoë had gone out. She tried to remember her dream but it had gone.
There was a note by the toaster: We need more oat milk and tahini. Out all day. Love you. x. She was still in her pyjamas when her phone rang at eleven. ‘Which house are you in?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m outside.’
She opened the kitchen door and Terry was there in his open-top Mini and a blue baseball cap. ‘Not dressed yet?’
‘I’m off sick,’ she said. ‘It’s allowed.’
‘Get some clothes on and fetch your passport. I’m taking you for lunch. Or do you have a better offer?’
‘I told you about me and restaurants. I don’t get on well with them.’
‘That’s why. I’m taking you. You’ll be fine with me.’
‘Did you say passport?’ she asked.
He drove her to his house on Greatstone beach, where another car with a driver was waiting, uniformed, with a cap. ‘Fancy,’ she said.
‘That way I can have a drink. I’m treating myself.’
They made the ferry with twenty minutes to spare.
‘What if I’d said no?’
‘I’d have gone alone. Plus, there’s thirty per cent off ferry crossings today so it wasn’t too big a risk.’
The ferry juddered as its thrusters pushed the stern off the pontoon at Dover. Foreign travel always had a smell to it; airports smelt of concrete and kerosene, ferries were fresh paint, salt and diesel. She leaned over the handrail, breathed it all in and watched the milky blue water churn under them.
The ferry was called The Pride of Kent. Why had she never done this trip before, she wondered? Her daughter disapproved of all air travel, but they lived so close to France. She blamed herself for being so self-absorbed. They had not taken holidays at all.
‘Penny for them?’
‘This is good. Thank you for doing this.’
‘I don’t like to sound smug, but I thought so.’ The ferry nosed its way through the harbour entrance as the white cliffs unfolded themselves to the east. The top of South Foreland Lighthouse shone brilliant in the ridiculous sun.
She took a photograph of herself against the southern fringe of England and sent it to Zoë:
Bill’s not the only one running away from home x
Her phone buzzed a second later:
?????
I’m on a day trip to France. Back this p.m. Remember to tell BS what I said. I love you xxx
She waited for another message, but there was nothing.
‘Texting your boyfriend?’
‘My daughter.’
‘Starfish girl. I’d like to get to know her.’
She raised her eyebrows; he raised his hands, in mock self-defence.
‘It doesn’t mean I’m asking you to move in with me.’
‘I’m not sure I like the view from your house, anyway.’
‘You prefer a nuclear power station?’
‘You barely notice it,’ she said.
He laughed.
They found a place out of the sun and sat together in the shade. ‘It’s good to see you smiling,’ he said.
‘I sometimes wonder if I’m ever coming out of this.’
‘You will,’ he said. ‘It’s just about allowing your brain to put things back where they ought to be.’
‘You make it sound like I’ve just put my socks away in the wrong drawer.’
At the ferry terminal they picked up another taxi. The ferry was half empty and they didn’t have to wait long, but the drive was disappointing. The Calais seafront was flat, cluttered with bland post-war concrete flats that looked out over half-hearted post-industrial spaces. They pulled up in front of an unprepossessing apartment block that looked much like the one Jill lived in in Ashford.
‘Is this it?’ She peered sceptically up at the cream-painted block.
‘This, believe it or not, is one of the best seafood restaurants on this coast.’
‘You recall that last time I was at a restaurant I had a total meltdown.’
‘And this time you will be fine. You’ll see.’
She offered to pay for the taxi, though she had no euros. He said, ‘It’s my treat.’
‘The car was your treat. And the ferry.’ How long, she wondered, had he been planning this?
‘You pay for the meal, then,’ he said.
‘Expensive is it?’
‘Très.’
They caught the lift to the fourth floor. Terry’s French was shaky,
but at least he tried. ‘La table pour Monsieur Neill.’
The maître d’ pronounced his name ‘Nile’, but led him to a table by the windows that looked out over the Channel. They sat either side of a crisp tablecloth and looked at the menu. He had booked tickets and a table for her without asking; she was unsure how she felt about it. She tried to remember the last time she had gone out with a man who had behaved like this. Her ex, Zoë’s father, had never planned anything at all. She had had a long affair with a senior officer in London; he was married. In many ways, that had been her most successful relationship. What she had enjoyed about it was the lack of commitment; nothing had ever been planned. It had all been about snatched moments. They had slept with each other whenever chance had provided the opportunity. Since moving to Kent, between her daughter and her new job, she had never had time for men. Now here was a man who had organised everything. When he had asked her out it had felt spontaneous, but the longer she was with him the less comfortable she felt. She imagined telling Jill about it, complaining that he picked a restaurant without consulting her. Jill would think her unease ridiculous. Jill loved men who bought her stuff.
She looked up at him, frowning at the menu. ‘The lobster casserole is supposed to be amazing,’ he said.
She looked down the ‘Plats’ menu and found cocotte de homard.
‘Now I said I’m paying, you’re getting the most expensive thing on the menu?’
‘Naturally.’
When the sommelier arrived Terry asked, ‘Red or white?’ When she said red, he ordered a Pic Saint-Loup, and only after the waiter had gone said, ‘Is that all right?’ She tried not to mind. She should be enjoying herself. When the waiter approached she wondered what she would do if he tried to choose food for her too, but he didn’t. She ordered in French, picking the monkfish and bass tagine.
She should relax, she told herself. He was controlling, but weren’t most men? It was lovely to be somewhere completely different.
‘Why the police?’ he asked, out of the blue, settling back in his chair.
‘My dad was a copper. Sweetest man you’d ever meet. I idolised him. My counsellor would say I was still probably trying to get his attention.’
‘My father was a surgeon,’ he said. ‘Probably the same.’
The wine came. It was delicious. The entrées arrived after the first glass and they were exceptional too. She had scallops, which Zoë would have disapproved of, and enjoyed every soft mouthful. As they ate, looking over the water at the ferries that came and went from the port, the day turned a rich hazy grey.
He talked about university politics and how he’d been glad to escape them. She began to relax. The wine helped. She talked about Zoë, how she said she didn’t want to go to university because she could learn everything she needed on a computer these days and she didn’t want to end up fifty thousand in debt.
‘Wise girl.’
‘I worry about her. She can’t seem to make friends with people her own age.’
‘People her own age are overrated. I used to teach them.’
‘And you don’t miss it at all?’
‘God, no. You do, though, don’t you? Miss your job.’
She didn’t answer.
‘You should learn to miss it less. That way happiness lies. That’s what I found.’
When the monkfish came, she ate it in silence, watching the ships.
‘Did I say something wrong?’
She shook her head. The tagine was rich and full of subtle flavour, and she tried hard to enjoy it.
The waiter approached, asked them in English whether the meal was OK.
‘Are you sure nothing’s wrong? You’re very quiet.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She put down her fork. ‘I just don’t react very well to people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.’
The alcohol was in Terry’s veins now. He leaned forward. ‘All I said was that you are too involved, sometimes. It’s not good for you, considering what you’ve been through. You need to take time off too. You’re not recognising the trauma. It must have been awful for you, seeing that man, dead. And now you’re back there in your mind, aren’t you?’ He laid down his fork, reached out his arm across the small table, and put it on top of hers.
Terry was just a thoughtful man. He had been through bad things himself. And he was only trying to help, she told herself.
Thirty-nine
Despite that, there was a kind of stiffness to the rest of the meal. They stuck to safe topics; which TV shows they liked, the best gigs they had been to. He had seen Nirvana at Reading; she said Soul II Soul at Brixton Academy. For dessert he ordered a sorbet with genever. When she said she didn’t want anything, he ordered two spoons and pushed one across the table towards her, so she pecked at his with her spoon, eating most of it though she hadn’t wanted it, trying to lighten the mood.
‘Quite a place, isn’t it? Enjoying yourself?’
‘I am,’ she said, ‘Yes.’ They ordered coffee. ‘Décaféiné,’ Alex added. The restaurant was in a dull part of the town, so there was no point suggesting a walk. She felt trapped in there with him until the time came to take the ferry home, feeling like she had ruined his treat. When the bill came, he tried to pull out his wallet again in a show of gallantry, but she paid.
On the ferry home she stood on the starboard deck and looked north. The lights of a container ship came on, blaring on the horizon.
Under the overcast sky, the Dover Strait had turned grey. She thought of Frank Hogben. In Curly’s boat she had been down in among the waves; up on the deck of this big blue and white car park of a ship, they felt a long way below her.
And just as she was thinking about Frank Hogben, trying to puzzle things out, her phone came back in range and beeped with a message from Zoë:
Hope u r having a good time. Staying with T & S tonight. Will you be OK on yr own??? x
As she was looking at it, another pinged in from an unrecognised number:
Z says you want to meet. Will message you tomorrow at 9.
She broke out into a grin.
Terry noticed. ‘News?’
‘Just an old friend who I haven’t heard from in a while.’
She replaced the phone in her bag and stared a little longer at the dark sea. ‘Tell me about your addiction,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Go on. You know everything about my catastrophes now.’ She looked up from the sea below and looked straight at him. ‘Even things up a bit.’
‘I don’t really talk about all that that much.’ For the first time, he looked less sure of himself. ‘I was never actually a junkie. I was an addict. I had enough money to fund the habit and so I managed it. There’s such a cliché about addiction; I was nothing like that.’
‘God forbid you are a cliché,’ she said.
His grin was not so bad, she thought. ‘It was a bit like that, to be honest. I would have rather died than look like a junkie. I kind of organised myself around my needs. I’m quite an organised, single-minded person.’
‘I can see that.’
‘I made sure I did my job properly so I would have time to take drugs. It made life extremely simple. It gave me priorities. Unfortunately, the biggest priority was buying and taking drugs, which meant I couldn’t sustain a relationship. I had occasional girlfriends, but never for very long because I always had to lie to them about my life and they always played second fiddle to . . . the other thing.’
He looked at her, and there was something very direct about his gaze.
‘It’s one of the things that made me want to change, if I’m honest.’
When they called for foot passengers to disembark she was oddly relieved to be in England again. In the queue for passport control he said, ‘Will you come back to my place, for a drink?’
Her daughter would not be home. T
here was no reason to say no. ‘OK. Just a quick one.’
She flicked through her passport. In the last few years she had only used it to apply for bank accounts. It would expire in a year. She examined the photograph in the back, taken when she was still working in London and when Zoë had still been in primary school. It was a picture of a woman who seemed a lot younger and a lot more carefree who stared back at the camera. Her hair was shorter; maybe she should try that again. She had no memory at all of the blue top she was wearing.
‘Show me your passport photograph,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’
He turned away from her, facing in the direction of the slowly moving queue. ‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ he said.
‘Go on. Show me it. Or is that awful?’
He ignored her, looking ahead. Showing each other your passport photos was one of the things you did, wasn’t it? Like squeezing into photo booths together.
‘Show me it,’ she insisted, laughing. ‘It can’t be that bad.’
‘OK,’ he said tightly, pulling the passport from the inside pocket of his pale-blue jacket. He flicked through it and opened it at his photo and held it out towards her. ‘There. OK?’
She looked at it. From a distance it appeared to be a perfectly ordinary photograph of Terry, hair a little longer perhaps but there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
She reached out to take it, but he pulled it back and put it into his pocket.
When they approached the immigration officer, he said, ‘You go first.’
When she was waved on, she turned and watched him take the passport out again, hand it to the woman. The moment she gave it back, he tucked it swiftly inside his jacket again.
The same driver who had taken them there was waiting on the Dover tarmac. ‘Nice day?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was, actually.’
In the car back Terry was talkative, jolly, telling the driver and her anecdotes about his former students. An English public school boy whom he caught cheating in exams who was now a minister in government. A Scottish girl who vomited with nerves whenever she sat an exam.
