Until Death

by Knight, Ali

  19

  That evening Kelly sat listening to metal forks against china, the chinking of glasses as they were set down too hard on the unyielding slate table in the kitchen. Every few moments Medea scraped her chair across the marble floor, moving with the evening sun, wanting every last ray to drill into the leathery skin on her face. The house had so many hard, brittle surfaces, echoing like the inside of Kelly’s head did. The sounds were like the clanking of huge metal chains, scraping and rubbing against each other … She felt the panic rising in her and she tried to focus on Christos’s mouth and the way he ground his teeth together as he ate, the way small globules of food would cluster at the corners before he wiped them away.

  ‘These are good stuffed peppers,’ Christos said, nodding as he chewed through one. Kelly murmured her agreement, realising that this would be the last time she would eat her mother-in-law’s food. This was their last meal together. This was a day of endings: she had gone to the lawyer and Jason had come round and collected the masks that she’d finished. He had revved away in the van with hardly a backwards glance. She had waved after him, a tear cresting, realising he was the closest thing she had to a friend. She would miss him.

  She glanced at the clock. Six twenty-three. She had memorised the time of every train that ran to Exeter via Tiverton Parkway, knew which Underground train they needed to take to get to Paddington Station. They would be in danger for no more than three or four minutes.

  ‘Eat your pepper.’ Christos pointed his fork at his son.

  Kelly was unsure how she could swallow, her heart was doing a crazy jump round her ribcage. The passports were like a huge brick on her backside, so heavy and obvious they felt. She poured a glass of wine from the bottle Christos had opened. He was faithful and respectful to the memory of the country of his parents, but he drew the line at Greek wine, calling it vinegar with syrup thrown in, and drank expensive French red instead.

  Walking away is what Medea had claimed she wanted to do. As if leaving a man like Christos was that simple. Just off you go and shut the door. Kelly took a swig of wine. It tasted like blood. The degradation had been bit by bit, almost unnoticeable, as if she had put her hand in a pan of cold water and it had been heated slowly and inexorably until it had reached boiling point and her body was a writhing mass of pain.

  ‘Daddy, I want to see where you work,’ Yannis said.

  Christos put down his fork. ‘Now there’s an idea. I’ll take you to the docks some time. It’ll be your business one day.’

  No, it won’t be, thought Kelly. She caught Florence looking at her. She often had no idea what her daughter was thinking, what those big pale eyes really saw. She might need to be prepared for some pretty tough questioning from Florence once they left.

  ‘Daddy, Mummy said we can go and get ice cream after dinner. Can we?’ Her daughter looked up at her father.

  ‘I brought baklava,’ Medea said flatly.

  Yannis made a face.

  ‘There’s a new place I saw that’s just opened on Judd Street,’ Kelly said. ‘I thought it was worth a try. Do you want to come?’

  Christos stopped chewing and Kelly wondered how she could breathe.

  ‘No. I can’t.’ He paused. ‘You go.’ He turned to his mother. ‘The pastries will keep. Bring me back a scoop of chocolate, will you?’

  Kelly smiled, not least because Medea’s mouth had puckered to half its usual size. ‘Medea, do you want anything?’ The vigorous shake of Medea’s head didn’t surprise her. ‘Do you want sprinkles, Christos? They might do something good like sprinkles.’

  She cleared up the kitchen after their meal, careful not to seem in a hurry. ‘Put your shoes on, kids,’ she called, and walked into her studio, the city light bouncing against the props and masks and throwing phantom-like shapes up the walls. She opened a drawer and scooped out an envelope of photos of Amber and shoved them in her bag, feeling the camera burning into her back. It was a danger taking them, it would alert them sooner that she had really gone, but she had to take the risk. She picked up a sweater as she left and walked into their bedroom. She glanced at the photo of Amber as a baby in the frame on the dressing table. Goodbye, little one. It would be the first thing he’d notice was missing. She was leaving this life with only the clothes on her back so that she could still be there to bring up her remaining children. Her eyes stayed dry.

  She walked into the ensuite bathroom and casually threw the wrapped panty pad with its cashpoint card hidden inside it into her bag. She came and stood by the lift and waited as Yannis put on his shoes. ‘We ready?’ She stood by the door to the lift and punched in the code.

  ‘Yannis?’ Christos was walking down the stairs as she turned, the lift sliding open behind her. ‘Why don’t you stay here with me?’

  Four steps, three steps, two, one. He was standing right next to them.

  Yannis looked up at his father. Kelly bit her tongue till she tasted blood. She had to pretend it didn’t matter if he came or not. ‘Daddy …’ Yannis was rocking from one foot to the other, teetering between options.

  ‘I want Yannis to come with us,’ Florence said.

  His sister pushed him into a decision. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ He jumped up and down, the pull of chocolate greater than the attractions of his father.

  The lift door began to close behind them and Kelly stuck out her foot to bounce it open again. ‘See you later.’ She turned to go.

  ‘Just a minute.’

  She turned back to him, her heart in her feet. He came close, put his arms around her and squeezed her tight. A wave of panic hit her as she realised he might feel the passports in her pocket. She pulled away and backed into the lift. As the doors began to close he blew her a kiss. And then they were gone.

  She stared at herself in the mirror as the lift plummeted downwards. Terror and defiance were etched on her face. In the lobby, a caretaker she didn’t recognise nodded at her lazily as she took her children’s hands in hers and headed for the smoked-glass door.

  They walked left out of the door towards the Euston Road. There was a side entrance to the station near them to the right, but she couldn’t be sure Christos wasn’t watching the security camera that guarded the exit. She tried to hurry the children to the corner. They would be out of sight then.

  They rounded the corner and she started running.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Florence asked.

  She didn’t answer, jogging through the front entrance of St Pancras. She saw a cashpoint and jammed in the card, taking out her daily maximum amount of £1,000. Then she ran with her protesting children to the Underground.

  ‘Where are we going, Mum?’ Florence asked once they were on the train to Exeter, heading west.

  ‘Somewhere by the sea,’ she said.

  ‘Is it warm there?’

  ‘Not at this time of year. We’re going to see a friend of mine. An old friend.’

  Two hours later the train pulled up at Tiverton Parkway and they got out, a blustery wind blowing down the platform. The few other passengers melted away and Kelly stood in the darkness, unsure what to do. She saw a figure in a denim jacket and a curl of cigarette smoke, heard the scrape of her high heels. ‘Lindsey.’

  ‘Hello, Kelly.’ Her voice was rasping and flat and she flicked the cigarette away and gave her a hug. ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  Kelly nodded.

  ‘Let’s get a shift on then, it’s a long drive.’

  20

  Nearly four and a half thousand miles away, and five hours behind Kelly, the Wolf was still in the bar in Belém he’d entered at eleven that evening. A girl was next to him on the bed in an upstairs room, but he wasn’t sure it was the girl he’d started out with. Her long dark hair fanned out across rumpled pillows and twisted sheets. He could hear Thomas Jefferson, nicknamed ‘President’, captain of the Saracen, talking and laughing behind the paper walls in the room next door to him. His hangover was beating percussion in his brain, and he had lain here
quite long enough, the woman pushing him down whenever he tried to get up. But it was time to get to work. It was good to start a voyage with a bellyful. It brought good luck, the Wolf believed. It would help the fourteen-hour shift he was about to start in the heat pass quicker.

  He tried to sit up and the woman moved to pull him back down again. ‘Enough, enough, I’ve got work to do.’ He stretched and scratched and glugged down some water.

  ‘President! All hail the President!’ he shouted and heard swearing and groaning in reply from the other side of the wall as he bent to pick up his T-shirt. He pulled it over his head and the sour odour of old sweat hit him. Most of his gear was still on the ship; this had been only a three-day stopover – he’d shower and change later.

  The woman had her pants on now, had snapped back into business mode. ‘You owe me more. You’ve spent an hour extra.’ She had stepped towards the door to block his exit.

  He held up his hands, smiled. She’d played a fast one but he wasn’t going to condemn her for that. A woman who had her eye on the money was someone straightforward, someone he respected. ‘Fair dues. You don’t miss a thing.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Where you going, anyway?’

  ‘London.’

  She put her hands on her hips, swaying to one side. She had a mole on the corner of her lip which had attracted him last night. In the morning light it still looked cute. ‘One day I leave here and see the world.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something for nothing, the world’s all the same.’

  ‘I’ve got a passport, you know. I’m not staying here for ever.’

  Young dreams that would fade and die. He gave her the extra money and banged on the wall to hurry the President along. He opened the door and half ran out, sliding down the banister to the ground floor. He didn’t bother to say goodbye.

  The President half fell down the stairs after him. ‘You’re a bad, bad man, you know.’ The President wiggled his finger at the Wolf and shook his head as they stepped into the tropical heat outside. ‘God, that’s one hell of a hangover.’

  ‘That’s why you love me. Come on.’

  They walked down a rubbish-strewn alley and out to the quayside. It was busy in the early morning, because the day would only get hotter. A mile-long stretch of docks and wharves, gantry cranes, thousands of men from all over the world, permanent or just passing through, moving the goods that oiled the world economy – and the other items that never turned up in a balance sheet: the guns, drugs, contraband cigarettes, women, children …

  The Saracen was registered in Cyprus, flying an Argentinian flag, staffed by a crew from six nations and operated by Christos Malamatos, resident of London. It was taller than a twenty-storey building, as big as a small town, with giant smears of rust that ran down its huge sides to the water. The gantry cranes used to load the containers were so high off the ground you couldn’t see the operator. As a merchant seaman it was the Wolf’s floating home for a sixty-seven-day stint, and he was on the last leg now, seven days across the Atlantic to London with forty thousand tonnes of cargo on board – some more precious to the operator than others.

  The Wolf stopped walking and stared up at the ship. ‘You carry on, I forgot something.’ He left the President and headed back to the bar. The best plans were simple. He took the stairs two at a time and opened the girl’s door without knocking. She was efficient, already stripping the bed, and had tidied up the bottles. She looked surprised, was still young enough to find life a shock. In a few years that too would be gone.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘What do you want it to be?’

  He laughed. ‘It’s in your passport, unless you’re a lot cleverer than I thought.’

  She smiled back, a broad mouth and black eyes bright with calculation. ‘Luciana.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fancy seeing the world?’

  21

  Kelly woke in a small room, shafts of sunlight piercing the gap between the flowery curtains. She could hear kids playing outside, their voices rising and falling on the wind. The window pane rattled in its warped frame. She pulled on her clothes and opened the bedroom door, heard the clattering of plates in the kitchen, the tinny tones of a radio.

  ‘You slept late. You must have been shattered.’ Lindsey was in faded pyjamas and a big wraparound sweater, her dirty blonde bed hair poking up at odd angles. She poured water into a giant mug that said ‘Sports Direct’ and handed her a tea. ‘Strong, milk, no sugar. Don’t worry, Steve’s gone to work. There’s no one to answer to.’

  Kelly came over and gave her a hug, staring over her shoulder at the kitchen door that gave on to the garden. A broken swing was swaying in the wind, a kid’s tractor and some old farm implements were stacked in the corner of the weedy lawn. ‘It’s perfect.’

  Lindsey picked up her cigarette packet and opened the door and they went out. Yannis and Florence were pushing one of Lindsey’s kids on an old tricycle. The lawn gave way to a field and then another and then some low farm buildings and in the distance the Atlantic.

  ‘Damn wind, can’t light my fag.’ Lindsey had her back turned, hunched over with a clicking lighter. Kelly felt a fresh wind, straight off the ocean, pushing back her hair. They walked to the edge of the garden where the potholed drive wound away and two old cars sat rusting by a garage. ‘I swapped the bright lights for this. You’re lucky it’s not raining. It’s always raining here.’

  ‘This is a lovely place, Linds. I can see why you moved back.’

  ‘You’re having a laugh.’ She inhaled, regarding her old friend. ‘You look even thinner, you old cow. You must have been pretty desperate to come all the way to deepest Devon to get away.’

  ‘More than you know.’ Kelly turned her face to the sun again. ‘Oh, to have the wind in my face, to breathe, you have no idea.’

  ‘It went that wrong, eh?’

  ‘As wrong as it can.’

  Lindsey sighed. ‘He use his fists?’ She took a deep drag on her cigarette when Kelly didn’t answer. ‘I told you at the time he was too good to be true. Didn’t I tell you?’

  Kelly started to nod. ‘But tell me how a woman in my situation was supposed to refuse.’

  Lindsey let out a half laugh. ‘You weren’t, that’s the point. He could have who he wanted. He could have had any of us in there. Still thinks he can, by the sounds of it. He wants all the choice and none of the responsibility. We all dreamed of escape, Kel, you actually did it.’ She inhaled again. ‘Remember when he laid out that map of that ship on the table? My God, he saw you coming.’

  ‘Oh stop, Linds.’ She almost laughed. They had both been working that day when Christos came in to buy a coffee. He used to tip well, they had all noticed. Then he had laid out a plan of a ship, and the siren call of the sea, of her old life, had brought her over.

  You like ships? She had seen his dimples then as he smiled.

  More than you can know.

  Come closer, let me show you the biggest ship you’ve ever seen. She had glanced back at Lindsey, saw her bulging eyes behind the counter urging her on, the look that said, Live our dreams for us. And she had discovered, serving him coffee that day, that she still had the capacity to flirt, to put her looks and her charm to work once again. She still wanted fun and adventure, to believe that all the heartbreak and loss had not ended her life, but thrown it in a new direction. How she had loved him then. And how, only five years later, she hated his guts.

  ‘The kids look good,’ Lindsey said. ‘Happy.’ The kids began rolling around on the grass before running into the house.

  Tears pricked at Kelly’s eyes. ‘They are all I’ve got.’ They both sighed at the small pieces of good fortune each had been handed.

  A cat came alongside and jumped on a low wall, its bushy tail wafting through Kelly’s fingers. ‘How many of these have you got now?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘Just the two.’

  ‘You’re destin
ed to end up a cat woman.’

  ‘With just two? They hardly keep the boredom at bay. She had kittens recently, so sweet they were, racing all over the house and up the curtains. We gave them away – see how good I am? But she still looks for them.’

  ‘Looks for them?’

  ‘Yeah. She wanders round the house mewing, calling for them. She searches everywhere, but her children aren’t there.’ Lindsey took a final drag on the cigarette, then flicked it away and glanced back at Kelly. A second later it dawned on her what she had said. ‘Oh God, Kelly, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t mean – oh Kel, I’m sorry …’

  ‘It’s OK, I know you didn’t mean anything by it.’

  Lindsey looked stricken. ‘I’m so sorry. Jesus, I’m a stupid insensitive cow sometimes …’

  Kelly hugged her friend. ‘No, you’re not. Not at all.’ She saw Lindsey wipe away a tear. ‘I won’t be here long, Linds, just today while I get my money out. I didn’t dare to keep it in the flat in case he found it. You’ve got a lot on your plate and not much space.’

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  ‘It’s better if you don’t know. Really, it’s better. I need to get to a bank, is there one nearby?’

  ‘I can drive you to the village, there’s a post office. Will that do?’ She looked at her watch. ‘You slept late. It’s shut at lunch, but opens afternoons.’

  ‘We’ll leave this afternoon if you can drive us to the station.’