‘I do. Don’t think that.’
‘You don’t. Otherwise it would all be different.’
‘I’m sorry about yesterday. It’s out of my hands.’
‘It’s not, but that’s not the point. It’s not the programme. Not the fucking Americans. Not Brad Pitt. It’s us.’
‘What do you mean?’
For the first time in weeks, I’d got through, made a connection, triggered something in his brain. He looked, if anything, frightened.
‘Something’s happened,’ I said softly. ‘You won’t tell me what, which is why I’ve never asked. But that’s enough to tell me it’s over.’
‘What’s enough?’
‘The fact that you won’t talk to me. The fact that you don’t trust me. The fact that you can’t be bothered any more. I don’t want that. Not now. Not ever.’
‘It’ll change,’ he said half-heartedly. ‘I promise.’
I carried on with the peanut butter sandwich. He was watching me, still apprehensive.
‘What about the baby?’ he asked at last.
‘What about it?’
‘You really want to keep it? Only…’ He touched the pocket where he kept his cheque book. It was an obscene gesture and I ignored it.
‘The baby’s due in December.’ I said. ‘That makes me nearly six months pregnant. Six months is dangerous, even if I wanted an abortion.’ I gave him a cold smile. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage?’
I watched him swallowing.
‘So you’re keeping it?’
‘Yes.’
‘How will you cope? For money?’
‘Christ knows. There’ll be a way.’
He looked far from convinced. He asked me where I intended to live. I didn’t answer.
‘Tell me where,’ he repeated. ‘I need an address.’
‘Why?’
‘Because .. .’ he shrugged, looking hopeless, robbed of an answer.
I’d nearly finished the sandwich. Afterwards, I washed up my plate and asked him to call me a cab. When the cab came, he helped me load my things into the back. Only after he’d returned to the flat and shut the door did I tell the cabbie the address.
‘Tottenham Green, please.’ I collapsed back against the seat. ‘Napier Road.’
Three
The next few days, to be frank, passed me by. Robbed of my routine - my early starts, my endless phone calls, my snatched meals - I surrendered to the waves of exhaustion that had been threatening to engulf me for weeks. I slept late, only getting up to make tea and a slice or two of toast. The moment I felt tired again, I retreated back to bed, happy to close my bedroom curtains against the world. Living with Brendan, commuting to the office through rush hour traffic, I’d forgotten how quiet Napier Road could be. With Nikki back from South Africa, I didn’t even have the cat to break the silence.
Slowly, I began to surface. Some of the numbness wore off, replaced by a deep anger. The word that preoccupied me more and more was betrayal. I thought about the programme promises we’d made, to each other first of all, and then to an ever-widening circle of people who’d been silly enough to believe us. The kids, of course, and their parents, and the local authority contacts in Portsmouth, and then individuals like the woman from the probation service who’d been so knocked out by the idea that she’d threatened to put Gary up for the MBE. These were people who knew what it was like at the bottom of the pile, who cared about the damage we were inflicting on our children and on each other. What, I asked myself, would Brad Pitt do for them? Except thicken the soup of glitz and violence that television already dished up by the bucketful?
I pursued these questions around the flat, brooding on the way that Brendan had throttled my boisterous little infant. He’d done it because something else had taken his fancy. He’d done it because he couldn’t resist the lure of the big money. That wasn’t especially wicked. It wasn’t even, on reflection, a surprise. It was just weak, and predictable, and utterly gutless. For once, we’d happened on something truly original. We’d worked our socks off trying to get the programme into shape and we’d had a fighting chance of playing to a huge audience. It would have been popular, and decent, and good fun. Now, like so much else, it was just wrapping.
Towards the end of the week, mid-August now, Gary turned up. I hadn’t bothered to phone either him or Everett, mainly because I couldn’t bear to believe that they, too, had been part of the betrayal. We sat in the kitchen. Gary looked fit and bronzed and weatherbeaten.
‘How was Skye?’ I asked him.
He told me the training had been abandoned after the first week. Brendan had phoned through on the mobile and ordered them all back south. It had, said Gary, been a kind of blessing.
‘A blessing?’
‘Yeah. Most of the kids couldn’t hack it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They were completely off the pace. Half of them couldn’t wait to get back on the train.’
I toyed glumly with my coffee. This didn’t begin to fit my script. I wanted to hear about heartbreak, disillusion, dashed hopes. Not a bunch of adolescents pining for McDonalds.
‘Are you serious? You were glad it was called off?’
‘Not me, love. Them.’
‘But you’d have seen it through, surely?’
‘Of course.’
Gary was rolling a cigarette. He licked the gummed seam then looked up.
‘They’d have cracked it in the end, one way or another, but it wouldn’t have been easy. Not as easy as we thought, anyway.’
“That was you, Gary. You thought it would be easy. Me? I thought it would be bloody impossible. Or nearly, anyway.’
‘Yeah, well, you were right.’
‘But that was the point, wasn’t it? Challenge? Up against the odds? All that?’
Gary lit the cigarette. Smoke curled up towards the wreckage of my ceiling.
T don’t blame you,’ he conceded after a while. ‘I’d be pissed off, too.’
‘But you’re not.’ I pointed out. ‘You’re not pissed off.’
‘Who says?’
‘Brendan. He told me that you and Everett agreed the change of plan.’ I pushed a saucer towards him for the toppling ash. ‘True?’
‘Sort of,’ he nodded.
‘Why?’
Gary didn’t answer. Finally, he pulled an envelope from his pocket and put it on the table. It had my name on it. I recognised Brendan’s handwriting.
‘What’s that?’
‘I get the impression it’s money.’
I didn’t pick the envelope up. Gary had known about me and Brendan and had obviously realised that the thing was over. We talked about it for a minute or two but I could sense his embarrassment and quickly took the conversation back to the kids. The fact that he’d fallen in with Brendan’s change of plan still hurt. I nodded at the envelope, still lying on the table.
‘Is that your answer?’ I asked him. ‘You did it for money? Said yes for money? Quiet life? Cash in hand?’
‘They’re paying the bills,’ he pointed out. ‘They’re giving the orders.’
‘But Gary, the orders are crap.’
‘That’s not my problem, love. I’ve worked with dickheads all my life. The man says jump, you jump.’
This was a side of Gary I’d never seen before. I was amazed, not just by his compliance but by his honesty in admitting it. If he shrugged once more I’d begin to believe he really didn’t care.
The envelope still lay between us. Gary was keen to change the subject.
‘It’s from Brendan,’ he said. ‘He asked me to bring it round because he thought you wouldn’t let him in.’
‘He’s right. I wouldn’t.’
‘You want me to tell him that?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded, ‘please.’
Gary left soon afterwards. Only when we were in the hall did he stoop to peck me on the cheek.
‘It’s a fucking shame,’ he muttered. ‘We had a few laughs, didn’t we?’
‘We did.’
‘Yeah,’ He opened the front door, looking out at the street. ‘Still, can’t be helped, eh?’
Back in the kitchen, depressed as hell, I opened Brendan’s envelope. Gary had been right about the money. Inside, stapled to a note, was a cheque for £5,000. When I read the note it wasn’t at all clear what the money was for but the payee was definitely me and I suppose it helped a bit to know that finding some kind of work wasn’t quite as pressing as I’d thought. If I was careful with the money I’d managed to save, £5,000 would last me well into the autumn. Once I’d got my little boat trimmed out again, maybe I could make some sensible decisions.
I took Brendan’s note through to the front room. The fact that I was beginning to miss him I was determined to put down to force of habit but hearing his voice behind the scribbled phrases didn’t help at all. He said that he was sorry for everything that had happened. He admitted that he’d been keeping things from me but said there were good reasons why. One day, maybe, there’d be a chance to explain properly and then I might understand. In the meantime I was to take very great care and try not to think the worst of him. At the end of the note, typically, he’d signed off with a flourish. There were some winds, he’d written, that were too strong even for me.
I read the note for a third time, beginning to realise that he wasn’t talking about Home Run. This laboured apology, this plea in mitigation, was to do with us. He’d been keeping secrets. He’d tried to weather some kind of crisis. And he’d failed. I folded the note and returned it to the envelope, trying to resist the temptation to get out my magnifying glass, and crawl all over the last few months we’d shared, looking for clues to what had really happened.
When it came down to the pair of us - flesh on flesh - I was pretty certain I hadn’t been fooling myself. I’d been through enough affairs to distinguish between make-believe and the real thing, and I knew that those times together had touched us both in the deepest places. Apart from anything else, in this one respect he’d find me bloody hard to replace and if there was anything of the real Brendan in the warm, generous man I’d made love to, then he was in for some very lonely nights indeed. This knowledge was far from comforting, chiefly because it applied equally to me. You simply can’t give so much of yourself away, pile your chips so recklessly on a single square, and then just shrug it off when the run of the dice turns against you. Life, thank Christ, isn’t like that. We’d loved each other. And we’d lost it. And that was a very great shame.
Still in a daze, I heard Gilbert clattering downstairs and out through the front door. Since I’d been back, I’d scarcely been aware of him at all - no flute, no prowling up and down all night - but now there was no avoiding the man. Not only was there a spring in his step, but he was whistling, something I’d never known him do before. I turned in the chair, looking over my shoulder, watching him lope off down the street. His head was up and the slouch had gone. Maybe it’s the weather, I thought. Or maybe he’s turned some personal corner. Whatever the reason, I was glad for both of us. One crisis was quite enough.
Andi from work phoned an hour or so later. She’d been wanting to get in touch but she’d lost my number and when she’d gone into the computer for the personal details we were all obliged to register, she’d found that mine had been deleted.
‘You’re a non-person,’ she giggled. ‘Lucky thing.’
We chatted for a while. Once she’d sussed that I wasn’t suicidal, conversation was easy, the usual swamp of office gossip. As soon as I decently could, I steered her round to Brendan.
‘How is he?’ I inquired.
‘He’s OK. Manic as ever.’
I could hear how guarded she’d suddenly become and for one awful moment it occurred to me that he might have shacked up with someone else.
‘What’s he up to?’
‘The usual. Chasing sponsors, sweet-talking the networks, you know, smoothing his way around.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Ah…’
There was a long silence. I pointed out that I’d more or less got over it. The worst had come and gone. Nothing she said could possibly make any difference.
‘OK,’ I could visualise Andi nodding. ‘So are you ready for this?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s gone back to his wife.’
‘Sandra?’
‘The very same.’
‘Moved back in?’
‘As we speak.’
For some reason, God knows why, it was the last thing I expected. I’d been living in a world of hotel bedrooms, expense account meals, and limitless free Moet, an agonising fantasy scored for some outrageous bimbo with legs the length of my body and talents to match. Instead, my ex-lover had chosen to return to the dungeon and shackle himself to the bitch-queen. Poor Brendan. Poor, sad man.
‘Why ?’ I heard myself saying.
‘That’s what we’re all asking.’
‘And Sandra?’
‘She probably knows, at least I imagine she does. Maybe she’s got something on him, maybe he likes getting beaten up.’
My mind was racing ahead. Brendan was probably back with the shrink by now, pouring his heart out. Either that, or he’d be into heavy drugs again - though a moment’s thought told me there wasn’t enough cocaine in the world to buffer the likes of Brendan from his wife. They were totally different animals, different species even. In any self-respecting zoo, Sandra would have an enclosure all of her own.
‘That’s incredible,’ I said at last. ‘I’m not sure I believe it.’
‘It’s true. Definitely. I had to get him on the phone this morning. She wanted a price on the new set for Members Only.’
‘Where was he?’
‘At home.’
Home was De Beauvoir Square. That’s where he’d lived. That’s the place we’d made our own. Sandra lived north, a lordly Edwardian pile Brendan had once shown me from the car.
‘You mean Highgate?’
‘Yeah, the family pad. He’s been back there a couple of days now. Doesn’t come in until late morning.’
‘And she phones him?’
‘All the time.’ She giggled again. ‘I’m sure she’s doing it for our benefit really. She’s making a point. It’s all kissy-kissy. You should hear it. Yuk.’
I tried to imagine Sandra getting herself around the simplest endearments. Even saying please was a skill she’d never mastered.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘I just don’t get it.’
‘Neither does he, probably, poor fool that he is. Tell me, Jules… ‘
‘What?’
‘Why do men always fuck it up?’
Why indeed? I took Brendan’s cheque to the bank that afternoon and spent longer than I should have done filling in the deposit slip. The conversation with Andi had roped me to the memories of the spring and early summer and I hauled myself back over those blissful months, testing every knot, every memory, looking once again for clues. Where had I gone wrong? What had I missed?
Walking back to Napier Road, I took a detour through the park off Lordship Lane. After the recent heatwave, the grass was parched and brown and I settled myself on a bench, feeling fat and bewildered, replaying a phone call in my head. The phone call had come from Brendan in Australia. When he’d rung to tell me he’d been delayed, there’d been no explanation, no small talk, none of his usual gush, and the moment I’d risked a little intimacy he’d rung off. At the time I’d thought that was strange, wholly out of character, but only now did I remember that Sandra, too, had gone missing. The weekend Brendan hadn’t come home was the weekend she’d so abruptly disappeared. Who was to say she hadn’t
left the country? What was to stop them meeting abroad? At some agreed location?
The harder I thought about the coincidence, the more convinced I became that something must have happened. It was after the Australian trip that Brendan had started to duck and dive again, to cloak our relationship in a thin tissue of evasions. We were both maniacally busy and it had taken me a while to realise how distant he was becoming. But tracing it backwards, I had absolutely no doubts that his Australian trip had been the start of it all.
Next to the sandpit was a phone box. I dialled Andi at Doubleact. Two little black girls were trying to build a fairy castle. When Andi answered, I told her what I thought was the date of the mystery weekend. She’d have access to payments made that month. What might the computer tell her? I hung on while she dived into the accounts file. A minute or two later, she was back.
‘You’re right,’ she announced breathlessly. ‘We were invoiced for a return ticket to Singapore.’
‘In whose name?’
‘Sandra’s.’
‘Did she book anything else?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘Three nights at the Hyatt Regency.’
‘Single or double?’
‘Double.’
I thanked her and hung up, remembering the voice of the operator the morning Brendan had phoned to tell me he’d been delayed. She’d sounded oriental. Of that, now, I was quite certain. I leaned back against the door, looking across at the sandpit. The fairy castle had collapsed.
I returned home to find a huge bouquet of fresh flowers on the hall carpet at the foot of my door. Beside it, nicely wrapped, was a present of some kind. Shamefully, I thought at once of Brendan but there was no way he could have let himself in unless, of course, Gilbert had opened the door to him. I glanced up the stairs. Gilbert’s door, for once was open. He was standing just inside, stooped but cheerful.
‘For you,’ he called.
I picked the flowers up. Just smelling them reminded me that there was a life out there beyond the events of the last week or so.
‘You gave me these?’
Gilbert nodded, stepping out onto the top landing, absurdly proud of himself.
Nocturne Page 18
