by Adam Thorpe
‘Online shopping, hun. A gradual recognition that all your stock is massively overpriced maybe.’ Bedraggled, half-starved Asian kiddies sewing on pearl buttons, blue denim dye swirling into the drinking supply of ultra-poor countries. She’s seen the documentaries, Mungo on her lap. She likes documentaries.
Tony sighs and says, ‘Only the fittest survive. Develop your loyal client base, pronto. Think about the customer journey, yeah? From way before they’ve come in to way after they’ve gone out. Empathise. Hey, bloody Hell, we’re not talking about hitting targets but smashing ’em.’
‘Have you been on one of those silly courses, Tony?’
‘I hope you’re not past it, love. The tits still buoyant, are they? And don’t forget Australia Day, 26 January!’
‘This one’s for Tony!’ she cries that evening, riding Gavin backwards at his request, facing his toes in front of the faux fire while he slaps her buttocks, pinches them, prises them apart so she has to say whoa. This girl is so athletic, so strong. East German Olympic gymnast, 1980s. And she doesn’t even do much yoga. Each of his toenails is painted black, like Samantha Cameron’s (according to the Mail). Isn’t that a bit …? Or just goth?
Afterwards, Mungo pads in from down below, the cat flap just audible – always a welcome sound. Sheena thinks Mungo’s got the idea that cars are lethal, while not understanding that a Dolce & Gabbana daisy-embroidered dress (£435) is not a convenient litter. They are toasting each other with an Argentinian red on special offer at Majestic. The cat stops, stares at them with huge yellow eyes, gives a plaintive mew and scuttles off up into the attic room. ‘That’s not funny, Mungo,’ Sheena calls after him.
Gavin snorts. ‘Animals don’t have a sense of humour,’ he says flatly, staring into the fire. ‘That is a uniquely human trait. Neither do vampires. To spot a vampire, apart from them having red hair, right, is what you do is, you tell a good joke and the one what doesn’t laugh … ’
Sheena replenishes her glass. You only live once. Gav’s favourite T V series, he told her once, is True Blood.
‘Or you can scatter a packet of rice,’ he goes on. ‘All vampires suffer from OCD. They’ll spend hours counting them, or rearranging them in neat columns.’
She sees herself folding clothes neatly, lining up the sleeves exactly. It wastes so much time. She reveals her upper teeth. ‘So check me for fangs, darlin.’
He laughs his sweet little laugh. ‘Pure dreaming, Sheena. I’d be so frickin lucky.’ He flexes his fingers around an imaginary neck. ‘Wait till the Romanians come. Then we’ll be kept busy.’
Watching a late-night documentary about junior doctors, charged up and unable to sleep, she recognises something in the gaze of the male ones as their tutor dissects the cadaver, which is called Tom. It is Gavin’s gaze as he kneels next to her equally naked body, his long slender fingers at work. You have to show a cadaver respect, it is explained. The gaze is a mixture of wonder, fear and outright bloody sadism. A surgeon’s gaze. She’s known one or two in her time.
She stirs her Horlicks and reads the poster in the kitchen for the first time – properly, that is. She can’t recall where she got it from. It’s gathered grease spots and acquired a ripple from the steam. Funny how your belongings come to mirror you, like your pets. The happiest people do not have the best of everything, they make the best use of everything they have. She does get lonely, of an evening. Her young beau breaks that. Never weekends, though. They now get through a couple of bottles of decent wine afterwards. He brings nuts from his foodstore, where he has an office, shared with only two other people. She opens her packet of fudge from the monastery out near Kirmond le Mire (present from Tony, the smarmy bugger), and the lad finishes it off methodically. ‘I’d like to be a monk,’ he says. ‘Fudge and not being disturbed by stupid prats. Ever been to it?’
‘Not on your nelly.’
‘I’ll drive you out there one day. Nice walks. A decent lake with swans.’
Sheena nods. What a terrible idea. Is Gavin the type to go on nice walks? Well I never.
‘You know what,’ he says one time. ‘I didn’t ever want promotion. I have six people under me, loads of responsibility. Less time for making the world a better place.’
‘That’s what my Tenerife hotel said. Please to reuse your towels. Make the world a better place.’
They are sprawled on the bed, his head like a concrete bollard in her lap. His hard-on is history, thanks to her attentions. The supply seems inexhaustible. Now the soldier is the size of a thumb. ‘Tom Thumb,’ she murmurs, flipping it up and down. ‘It’s all a question of blood,’ he says, staring up at the ceiling. ‘It’s not muscle. How are your tofu boots?’
She laughs. ‘My boots are very tasty,’ she jokes, not wanting to think about Paul, who is frowning at her from above. Appalled Paul.
He throws his head back, pressing her belly down with the heaviness of his skull, and laughs most peculiarly, a sort of soft high-up howl.
Sometimes she wonders if he is on some type of drug. Todo es posible, as it also says in her kitchen. No, it’s a drug called youth. The golden elixir. Sometimes irritatingly immature. ‘You’d better be going,’ she says. ‘I am truly knackered.’
‘Scented candles,’ he calls up, descending the stairs in creaks to the front door. ‘That would be useful. Frankincense or rose. There’s a good place on Sincil Street.’
‘What a kind thought,’ she says. He’s not brought a single thing so far, except a sprig of holly and some free nuts. He looks surprised. She folds her arms and squints down at him. ‘And a bottle of red, why not? Go for it, Gavin.’
It’s bloody cold out. There’s a wind. Flat, desolate country. Bracing, some say. That’s one way of putting it. The blasts of freezing air on the coast. The locals. Ah, the locals! Missing Lincs, as the joke goes. At least two decades behind the rest. But you can find your nest and keep cosy. Anywhere, really. She supposes her shop would find better soil in Chelsea or Notting Hill, but she’d be serving the wives of Russian oligarchs, the oppressed nannies of Qataris. The occasional real quality, Sloanies and dressed-down aristos. The toddlers would be just as sweet, presumably: impeccable Montessori spawn. Spoiling as they get older. Ruined by the age of eight. Dwarf masters and mistresses of the world.
She phoned Paul last night and he’s invited her for an early herbal tea. She would rather a strong coffee, but she’ll pull with the tide on this one. He sounded as if he was thinking about something else on the phone, and her heart sank. The fact is, she wants to find closure with Gavin (the whole thing is mad and potentially quite dangerous vis-à-vis the clientele), but not without Paul in the wings. She’s decided that he is chronically depressed and thus without initiative. She needs to provide the initiative.
As she passes On the Hob – pricey toasters with a mirror finish, retro 60s kettles, trad enamel bakeware – Hannah is hoovering and shouts something through the open door. Sheena pops her head in; they’ve not talked for days. The Hoover dies with a whine.
‘Sheena! What’s happened to you? You look fab!’
‘In what way, precisely? My red nose? My blue ears?’
Hannah puts her free hand on her hips and appears to be assessing. ‘I dunno, you just look really, really fab. Younger. You know, about twenty-five?’
‘Exaggeration. Try harder.’
‘OK, thirty-five. I’m thirty-six. You’ve got a really good colour? I mean, it’s bloody January; most people look like walking corpses!’
That’s what having an affair does to you, baby. Ask Shirley the hairdresser. She can spot it a mile off.
‘What’s all the green and gold for?’
‘Australia Day! The 26th. This Thursday coming. I thought I’d give it another whirl. See these amusing porcelain ornaments? For the kitchen? What do you reckon, babe, honestly? A sly touch of humour?’
I’d rather be playing rugby.
‘Knock me over with a feather.’
Paul has a cold. He’s feeling sorry fo
r himself. He’s not got a good colour, not at all. He snuffles in the pantry at the back and says, ‘I’m vulnerable to flu and stuff. My buggered spleen.’
‘That’s rotten,’ says Sheena. What she really wants to say is, Notice me.
‘I don’t think it’s flu, though. It feels like it, but I haven’t got a temperature.’
‘It’s called man flu,’ Sheena says. ‘Women just have a simple cold and carry on. Woman flu. Ignored.’
‘You’re probably right. Rebecca used to say that.’
‘Can I cheer you up with a Chinese? This weekend? I imagine Indian isn’t your thing, outside India. Or there’s good old-fashioned British at Peelers, in the High Street. A lemon sole to kill for. Warm bread rolls. Tomorrow evening?’
Paul blows his nose carefully, an operation Sheena does not concentrate on, pouting at her tea instead and scorching her lip.
‘Can we make it next week? I’m feeling pretty poorly.’
Bloodless, that’s what he is. But then he does have man flu. It’s emphasised his eyebags, as colds do. Deep breath, Sheena doll. ‘What happened to Rebecca, then?’
‘Rebecca? Oh, she left. Ten years ago? Walked off with the plumber. An Israeli. Installing the new boiler. They run a surfboard rental business near wheresyerface. Tel Aviv. Inter-esting architecture.’
His eyes are on hers.
‘Oh, I’ll bet you mean Igal,’ she says. ‘Very good-looking but short. Like it’s all in miniature. Except the necessaries, I suppose. Fantastic with leaks.’
He starts crying, can’t help himself. He covers his eyes. No, he’s not crying, he’s chuckling. A bit like a growl because he’s breathing in, not expelling – she might as well be tickling him on the tummy. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, wiping his eyes, ‘I think that’s done me good. Thanks. Sorry about that.’
She sips at her chamomile and feels a bit of a prat. ‘At least he wasn’t from Leigh-on-Sea.’
He looks up, puzzled. She goes for it.
‘A randy young plumber from Leigh
Was plumbing a maid by the sea.
She said, “Stop your plumbing,
I hear someone coming …”
Said the plumber, still plumbing, “It’s me!”’
He nods slowly, as if she’s recited from the Book of Common Prayer. Probably a mistake. Bugger-it-all-up Sheena.
Blue Monday followed by Blue Tuesday. Already the third week of 2012 and it still sounds futuristic. February round the bloody corner, as if it can’t wait. And then Fay appears in school uniform, albeit with her shirt hanging out. Apologises for being ‘lippy’. Her fleeced coat looks even bulkier on her; she seems thinner, or Sheena has just forgotten. She is such a serious kid. ‘Forgotten all about it,’ Sheena says in the middle of checking a size. She thinks of what Mike said, but it all goes out of the window in front of the actual child. Because that’s all Fay is: a child.
It’s two thirty on Wednesday. ‘School pack up early, did it, Fay? Another conflagration?’ The girl looks shifty in her uniform, multicoloured backpack frayed at the corners. She’s already taken off her coat, hanging it carefully on the hook in the pantry, and is folding the Kenzo rompers that some wild three-year-old strewed over the bench, ‘helping’ his proud mother. ‘You know what, sweetheart? It’s good to see you again. I have been wondering.’
‘Wondering what, like?’
‘Whether you’d ever pay me the privilege. Why don’t you make us a cuppa?’
‘I can stay for supper, if you want, after work.’ Her emerald eyes are gleaming with hope.
Oh no. Not with Gavin coming, scented candles and all. Unless Gavin is cancelled. For ‘security reasons’ he’s refused to give her his mobile number. If she’s not in, he said, too bad; I’ll go down to the pub. He’s a little paranoid maybe, but she feels more secure that way. No texts to be discovered. No voice messages. Not that she’s afraid of being found out. She’s not breaking any regs, but the newspapers can make a scandal out of anything. ‘A string of sex partners … running a toddlers’ clothes shop … reputation in tatters … middle-aged curvaceous blonde … predatory baby-snatcher … school questioning its work-experience policy in the light of … an application of more robust safeguarding arrangements … ’
‘Sorry, hun, I prefer you to get the school bus,’ she tells Fay, ‘as it’s a school day. I don’t want trouble.’ Fay nods, used to disappointment. She is picking golden hairs off a cloche hat of dark-green felt, the kind of task she enjoys: the whole shop, Sheena tells her, is a magnet for hairs and dustballs. Fay spends the afternoon religiously dealing with it.
When the girl goes off to the loo upstairs just after five, Sheena finds herself discreetly checking that the light fingers haven’t been at work again. An old book is one thing, a Sonia Rykiel pink tulle dress with diamanté is something else. She does a quick visual sweep of the empty boutique, then attacks. The backpack – a well-worn Adidas sports bag, the zip awkward – is happily loaded with school textbooks and a pencil case, but no stolen items. It smells a little of cigarettes, but that might just be the ambient fug in the Ermine abode. Or maybe in the school, which (Sheena checked this too, when first contacted) has only just emerged from Ofsted Special Measures. She feels awful.
After ten minutes she wonders why Fay hasn’t come down. Maybe she’s checking in turn. Sheena feels a flush of panic, but why should she care if there’s a trace of Gavin? She changed the sheets this morning. He only ever brings himself, wrapped in a long charcoal-black coat and dark grey scarf. You can’t leave those behind by accident, not in her cream-orientated flat.
She hurries upstairs, her feet sore from the day’s work, and finds Fay lying on the bed with a purring Mungo, a curtain of hair blending into the cat’s head.
Sheena smiles. ‘You two don’t really get on very well, do you?’ They both give her the same long look: green eyes, yellow eyes. Straight-faced. No sense of humour.
Two peas in a pod.
She’s already tiddly on Scotch by the time Gavin turns up. Less than two hours before she had put on her big fur coat and walked Fay to the bus stop through the dusk’s icy swirl. A few flakes whitening in the street lamps, the cobbled pavement a glistening limb-breaker, no salt in sight (council cuts). She felt guilty: hard and merciless. Love follows you, she said in her head. ‘Come round whenever you want on Saturdays,’ she told her, ‘and weekdays if you’re not bunking off school.’ She pecked her on the crown and smelt Mungo in the red hair. ‘Put your hood up, angel, you’ll get earache.’
‘I’m not a kid,’ complained Fay.
Sheena felt a shudder rise through her – no, more a ripple, a spasm of maternal loss. It just never worked out, the whole kids angle. Time whipping past like the wind. Never the right man. And Paul just down the lane, sort of waiting. Lazy Sheena. Lazy, stupidly shy Sheena.
Then Fay, as if reading her mind, turned round and asked if she was seeing her ‘bloke’. ‘Eh?’ ‘That bloke who has the shoe shop. With the ponytail.’
‘Could be,’ Sheena replied, tightening her fur over her chest. ‘But keep it secret.’
The girl, instead of grinning, glowered at her, her eyes aglow. A flake landed in her hair and instantly melted. The bus, by some miracle, was only ten minutes late. It growled towards them, all brightly lit like an aquarium, and carried her away into the night. In Sheena’s hand was the crumpled fiver that she’d intended to stuff into Fay’s mitt at the last minute. Bugger it. Next time.
And tomorrow’s Australia Day. For which she has prepared nothing. Not a koala, hun.
7
MIKE
1 March–22 May 2012
The month of the black ashbud is beginning as it means to go on: in misery mode. It’s keeping dry, however, so he’s lugging out the vintage trestle table, opening it with three practised jerks. Blowsy Sheena (local and typically uninventive nickname Lego-ver) is watching him from behind a cigarette in front of her overpriced kiddies’ boutique bang opposite, with its bubblegum colours and bu
g-eyed cartoon cut-outs. The familiar dilemma: should he turn and greet her properly or just nod? What do you say when you cross someone’s line of sight every day for years and years? The lane is narrow; you can smell her perfume under the nasty smoke: a proper street would have been easier. A cheery wave rather than a word.
Trouble is, they’ve fallen out. An unfortunate incident for which he’s been unjustly blamed. It’s Gesellschaft rather than Gemeinschaft. Her latest boyfriend is the ageing hippy who runs the shoe shop down the lane. Mike’s spotted her struggling up the hill with him, pushing his wheelchair. Laughing. They do electric ones these days, but maybe the poor bloke likes the exercise. He presumes he’s her boyfriend, or maybe she’s just being kind. He doesn’t probe.
He settles the trestle’s metal legs to the right of the door, chocks of wood under the appropriate feet to counter the slope, and the board receives the usual: a battered pinewood box full of 50p bargains. The lure to get the attention, entice the unwary inside.
He notices the addition around midday. Slipped between This Was My World by Viscountess Rhondda (cracked spine repaired with gaffer tape) and Making Floristry Your Business (1947, badly bumped corners), the intruder is a familiar book. It provokes a racing of his heart. Only he knows why. And Sheena, annoyingly.
This has happened before: tyro poets product-placing their first pamphlet; spiral-bound notebooks of obscene and racist apophthegms, whatever. Always posted immediately into the pseudo-Edwardian street bin two doors up, like the apple cores, Magnum wrappers, dirty tissues or half-sucked boiled sweets with the sticking power of superglue. A used nappy once.
This one is different. It was originally – until yesterday – in the basement stock room, his overspill area. It was, in fact, concealed within the seventeen volumes of the complete and unsellable Works of Thomas Carlyle, like a stick in a forest. Between Sartor Resartus and French Revolution 1, to be precise. He didn’t notice anyone descending to the basement, defying the NO ENTRY sign above the stairs.
Sheena has gone back inside. Mike is not into remonstration. He slips back into his lair. At closing time, in the sodium-shafted darkness of the lane, he humps the box and the trestle inside. He removes the intruder from the box, but instead of returning it to the basement, where the books are double-shelved, he slots it into the Animals, Pets section.
