Something to Live For

by Richard Roper

  “Come on, Andy-pandy. You and your missus have been together how long?”

  Andrew took a sip of water. “A long time.”

  “So come on, have you . . . ?”

  “Have we what?”

  “Got down and dirty somewhere public!”

  “Ah. Um. No. Not to my knowledge.”

  Meredith sniggered into her wineglass. Cameron laughed too, but his glassy eyes suggested he was too drunk to understand what was going on.

  “Not to your knowledge?!” Keith said. “You do know how sex works, Andrew? It’s not like you can do it behind your own back.”

  “Well . . . depends how flexible you are,” Meredith said. As she cackled at her own joke, Andrew excused himself to go to the toilet.

  “Don’t think we’ve forgotten about you,” Keith called after him.

  Andrew was in no hurry to return to the dining room–turned-school-playground, but there was something disconcerting about Meredith’s bathroom—namely the picture of her and, presumably, her now-former partner. It was a professional shot—all fluffy white shag pile and unnatural body language. Andrew looked at the man smiling gamely at the camera and wondered where he was at that moment. Maybe he was out drowning his sorrows with friends, that same fixed smile on his face, telling everyone that no, seriously, honestly, this was the best thing that’d ever happened to him.

  Back in the dining room, there was no sign of things having calmed down, although Cameron did appear to have passed out. Keith was standing next to him holding a marker pen, apparently preparing to draw something on his face. Meredith was at his side, bouncing on her feet and wheeling her arms excitedly like a toddler who’s just learned to stand unaided. Just as Andrew approached the table he saw Peggy clearly lose patience and stomp over to Keith, making to whip the pen out of his hand.

  “Oi!” Keith said, ripping his hand away. “Come on, it’s just a bit of fun.”

  “Could you be any more immature?” Peggy said. She went to make another grab for the pen but this time Meredith stepped in front of her, eyes fiery with defending Keith. “I don’t know what your problem is, Mrs. Uptight,” she hissed.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Peggy said. “How about the fact he’s clearly in a bad way about his wife, as you so kindly brought up earlier. Just because you two are apparently so happy doesn’t mean you get to humiliate him.”

  Meredith tilted her head to one side and stuck her bottom lip out. “Oh, hon, you sound ever so stressed. You know what you need? A good yoga sesh. I know this great place—Synergy—where I was last week? Get all that frustration out of you, yeah?”

  Synergy, why does that sound familiar? Andrew thought, edging around the table to stand next to Peggy. He’d planned to try to calm things down, but Peggy had other ideas.

  “You know what?” she said. “Every time I’ve had to be in the same room as you these last few months, the only thing that’s given me any sort of pleasure is trying to work out what exactly it is you both look like.”

  “Peggy,” Andrew said, but she raised a hand. A hand that wasn’t to be trifled with.

  “And, I’m very pleased to say, I’ve finally reached my conclusion, because it’s now very clear to me that you, Keith, look like a health warning on a pack of cigarettes.”

  Meredith made a strange gurgling sound.

  “And as for you, hon, you look like the result of a dog being asked to draw a horse.”

  As much as Andrew was enjoying the looks on Keith’s and Meredith’s faces he knew this silence was his last chance to stop things from getting out of hand.

  “Look,” he said, startling himself with how loudly he’d spoken. “Remember the cutbacks thing we saw in Cameron’s presentation? You really think this sort of behavior is going to go down well if he’s got to make that decision? I know he can be an idiot, but he’s still the most important person in this room.”

  It was at that moment that Cameron began to snore.

  “Ha, yeah, he looks really important right now,” Keith scoffed. “You’re just scared, as fucking usual. I, for one, am sick of trying to pretend he’s anything other than a streak of chamomile-tea piss. Let him fire me, see if I fucking care.”

  He took the lid off the pen with his teeth and spat it onto the floor, doubling down on his bravado. For the first time, Meredith looked uneasy, Andrew’s words about the cutbacks clearly getting through to her at least. Andrew and Peggy exchanged a look. He wanted to tell her that they should just get out of there, let these two idiots seal their own fate. But before he could say anything Peggy darted toward Keith and grabbed the pen.

  “You bitch,” Keith snarled, grasping at thin air as Peggy dodged him.

  “Oi!” Andrew yelled, rushing over, banging his hip on the table in the process. Peggy feinted one way, then doubled back and climbed up onto a chair, where she held the pen aloft, Keith and Meredith straining to reach it. If a stranger had walked into the room they might have been under the impression that they’d just chanced upon a strangely angry Morris dance. Just as Andrew reached the melee Peggy pushed Keith away with her foot so that he stumbled backward. Andrew could see the fury in Keith’s eyes, and as he lurched back toward Peggy, Andrew instinctively reached out and pushed him in the side as hard as he could. Unbalanced, Keith stumbled away and slammed backward into the wall with a horrible double thwack of back followed by head against the doorframe.

  At that moment, several things happened at once.

  Cameron woke with a start.

  Keith reached for the back of his head, looked at the blood on his fingertips, and promptly collapsed to the ground with a thud. Meredith shrieked.

  And then, as Andrew’s brain finally clicked—Cynergy, not Synergy—he felt his phone vibrating and pulled it out of his pocket. It was Carl.

  — CHAPTER 26 —

  Andrew wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the bath (or why he’d decided to run one in the first place), but it had been scaldingly hot when he’d lowered himself gingerly in, and now it was barely lukewarm. He’d put Ella on in the living room, but the bathroom door had swung shut so he could only just hear the music. He’d considered getting out and opening the door, but there was something different about experiencing the music like this, where he had to train his ears so intently that he heard every key change, every subtle shift in vocal inflection, as if for the first time. He felt overwhelmed at Ella’s capacity to surprise and thrill him after all this time, but now the record had come to an end and every time he shifted position he felt the coldness of the water seeping into his flesh.

  He couldn’t really remember leaving Meredith’s earlier that evening. He’d stumbled out, his phone still ringing, vaguely aware that Meredith was screaming, “He’s killed him! He’s killed him!” as Peggy tried to calmly explain the situation on the phone to the emergency services. The next thing he could recall was the scuff marks and the strip light and his neighbor’s perfume. Maybe he was in shock.

  He finally worked up the courage to get out of the bath and sat shivering on his bed with a towel wrapped around him, looking at his phone on the floor in the corner where he’d dropped it. He’d turned it off after the third time Carl called, but he knew he couldn’t ignore him for much longer. Carl and Meredith. Meredith and Carl. There was no way Carl’s calling him now was just a coincidence. And then there was Keith. Maybe he should call Peggy first, see what had happened. He couldn’t really have hurt him that badly, surely?

  He went to the living room and sat with his phone, switching between the two numbers, unable to make a decision. Eventually, he pressed “call.” Digging his fingernails into his arm, he waited for Carl to answer, the silence horribly absolute. He was suddenly desperate to puncture the stillness, and he rushed over to his record player and clumsily dropped the needle, Ella’s voice filling the room. It was the closest to backup he was ever going to get. He walked around the
train tracks in a figure eight, the phone still ringing out.

  “Hello, Andrew.”

  “Hello.”

  There was a pause.

  “Well?” Andrew said.

  “Well what?”

  “I’m returning your call, Carl. What do you want?”

  Andrew heard Carl swallow. A disgusting protein shake no doubt.

  “I met one of your colleagues last week,” Carl said. “Meredith.”

  Andrew’s head swam violently, and he crumpled slowly to his knees.

  “She came to a yoga class of mine. Business has been slow, so it was only her and a few others. We’ve not been able to afford proper advertising, of course.”

  “Right,” Andrew said, clinging on to the slimmest hope that Carl wasn’t going where he thought he was with this.

  “We got to chatting after the class,” Carl said. “It was a bit awkward, really. She suddenly started going on about some miserable affair she’s having. I don’t know why she thought I’d be interested. I was desperate to get rid of her and then suddenly, out of the blue, she mentioned where she worked. And, lo and behold, it was with you. Small world, isn’t it?”

  Andrew considered hanging up. He could take the SIM from his phone and flush it away and never have to speak to Carl again.

  “Andrew, are you still there?”

  “Yes,” Andrew said, through gritted teeth.

  “Good,” Carl said. “I thought someone might be distracting you. Diane, perhaps. Or maybe the kids.”

  Andrew balled his free hand into a fist and bit down on it hard until he could taste blood.

  “It’s funny how our memories distort,” Carl said. Andrew could tell he was trying to keep his voice level. “Because I could have sworn that you lived on your own in a bedsit just off the Old Kent Road, that you hadn’t been in a relationship since . . . well . . . But according to this Meredith person you’re a happily married father of two living in a fancy town house.” Carl’s voice was vibrating with repressed anger. “And there are only two explanations there. Either Meredith has got things spectacularly wrong, or it means you’ve been lying to her and god knows who else about having a wife and children, and Christ I hope it’s the first one, because if it’s the second then I think that might be the most pathetic, awful thing I’ve ever heard. And I can only imagine what your boss would think of that, were he to find out. You’re working with vulnerable people a lot of the time, and for the council too. I can’t imagine such a revelation would go down particularly well, do you?”

  Andrew brought his hand away from his mouth and saw the cartoonish bite mark on his skin. A memory swam into his mind of Sally throwing a half-finished apple over a hedge and protesting to their mother when she told her off.

  “What do you want?” he said quietly. At first there was no reply. Just the sound of their breathing. Then Carl spoke.

  “You ruined everything. Sally could have gotten better, I know she could, if only you’d made things right. But now she’s gone. And guess what? I spoke to her lawyer today, and she tells me that the money—Sally’s life savings, just to remind you, Andrew—will be paid to you any day now. Christ, if only she’d known the sort of person you really are. Do you honestly think she’d have done the same thing?”

  “I don’t . . . That’s not . . .”

  “Shut up and listen,” Carl said. “Given the fact I now know just how much of a liar you are, let me make it very clear what’s going to happen if you decide to go back on your promise to give me what’s mine. I’m going to text you my bank details, right now. And if you don’t transfer the money to me the moment you get it, then all it takes is one phone call to Meredith, and everything’s over for you. Everything. Got that? Good.”

  With that, he hung up.

  Andrew took the phone away from his ear and gradually his brain tuned back in to Ella’s voice: It wouldn’t be make-believe, if you believed in me. He immediately logged in to his online banking on his phone. When the screen showed his account, it took him a moment to realize what he was looking at: the money was already there. His phone vibrated—Carl’s bank details. Andrew started a new transfer, entering Carl’s details, his heart racing. One more click, and the money would be gone, and this would be over. But, despite every instinct, something stopped him. For all of Carl’s words about what Sally would make of his lies, would she really take a better view of what Carl was doing right now? This money was the last thing that connected him and Sally. It had been his sister’s last gift to him. The last emblem of their bond.

  Before he could stop himself, he’d hit “cancel,” dropping the phone onto the carpet and putting his head into his hands, taking long, calming breaths.

  He’d been sitting on the floor, thoughts flitting between weary defeat and desperate panic, when his phone rang again. He was half expecting it to be Carl—that somehow he’d worked out Andrew had the money already—but it was Peggy.

  “Hello?” he said. The background noise was chaotic, people shouting over each other, clamoring to have their voice heard.

  “Hello?” he said again.

  “Is that Andrew?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “It’s Maisie. Hang on. Mum? Mum? I’ve got him.”

  Andrew heard a collective “Whoa!” and the sound of blaring horns, then everything went muffled with the sound of fingers scrabbling at the phone.

  “Andrew?”

  “Peggy? Are you okay? Did Keith—”

  “You were right about Steve. Got back and he was shouting at the girls, drunk out of his skull and on god knows what else. I can’t do it anymore, I just can’t. Grabbed as much stuff as I could and shoved the girls into the car. Steve was too busy smashing the place up to stop me leaving but he jumped on his motorbike and came after me.”

  “Shit, are you all right?”

  Another horn blared.

  “Yes, well no, not really. I’m so sorry, Andrew, I should have believed you earlier.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I don’t care—I just want to know you’re safe.”

  “Yeah, we are. I think I’ve lost him. But the thing is, look, I know it’s late and everything but I’ve tried everyone else and . . . I wouldn’t normally ask but . . . could we come to yours, just for an hour or something, till I figure out what to do?”

  “Yes, of course,” Andrew said.

  “You’re a lifesaver. We won’t be a hassle, I promise. Okay, what’s your address? Maisie, grab that pen, darling, I need you to write Andrew’s address down for me.”

  Andrew felt his stomach somersault as he realized what he’d just agreed to.

  “Andrew?”

  “Yes, I’m here, I’m here.”

  “Thank god. What’s your address?”

  What could he do? He had no choice but to tell her. And almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth the line went dead.

  “It’s fine,” he said out loud, the words swallowed by the yawning indifference of his flat, the four walls that comprised living room, kitchen and bedroom seeming to have encroached.

  Okay, let’s look at this logically, he thought. Maybe this could be a second house? A little place he had all to himself for a bit of . . . what was that dreadful phrase Meredith had said the other day? “Me time,” that was it. He turned slowly on the spot and took the place in, trying to imagine it was the first time he’d seen it. It was no good. It felt too lived-in to be anywhere other than his home.

  I’m going to tell her everything.

  The thought caught him off guard. Moments later came the sound of a car pulling up outside. He looked around. Maybe he should try to clear up—though there was hardly any mess. As usual, there were one plate, one knife and fork, one glass, and a single saucepan on the draining board. Nothing else was out of place. God, what was the use?

  He took one last look
around, then grabbed his keys and headed for the door. Down the stairs. Past the scuff marks. Through the faint cloud of perfume. The lower he got, the colder the air became, and he felt his confidence starting to drain with it.

  No, you’ve got to do it, he urged himself. Do it. Don’t turn back now.

  He was in the corridor, just one set of doors separating him from Peggy and the girls, their shapes blurred through the frosted glass.

  Do it. No going back.

  His hand was on the door handle. His legs were shaking so much he thought they might give way. Things just have to get worse before they can get better. Do it, you fucking coward—do it.

  Peggy threw her arms around him and he felt her tears on his cheeks. He hugged her back so tightly he could feel her loosen her own grip in surprise.

  “Hey now, hey,” she whispered, and the softness of it brought tears swimming into his own eyes. He could see Suze trying to carry three different bags out of the car at once, struggling to keep her balance. Maisie was at her side, her face pale, her arms folded tightly around herself. Peggy put her hands on Andrew’s chest. “Shall we go inside?” she said. Andrew watched her eyes searching his, concern now dawning.

  “Andrew . . . ?”

  — CHAPTER 27 —

  Andrew was sitting on a dead man’s bed wondering if he’d broken his foot. It had ballooned up grotesquely since last night, fluid expanding underneath spongy flesh, and it was now throbbing and hot, as if infection were setting in. He hadn’t been able to fit a shoe on it that morning—the best he could do was a knackered old flip-flop he’d found at the bottom of a cupboard. The pain was excruciating, but nowhere near as bad as what he felt when he closed his eyes and pictured again the disappointment dawning on Peggy’s face.

  It had all happened in such a blur—his garbled apology to her and the girls (no, sorry, they couldn’t come in after all, he was so so sorry, he’d explain when he could, it just wasn’t possible tonight)—then the confusion on Peggy’s face, and the hurt, and finally the disappointment. He’d fled inside, unable to watch Peggy shepherding her confused daughters back into the car, jamming his fingers in his ears so he couldn’t hear them questioning why they were leaving already. He was back in the corridor, past the scuff marks and through the cloud of perfume, and up the stairs, and inside, and then he was listening helplessly as the car drove off, and when he could no longer hear its engine he looked down and saw the train set laid out with all its precision and care and expense and then he was kicking and stamping at it, bits of track and scenery slamming against the walls, until all that was left was carnage blanketed by silence. He hadn’t felt a thing at first, but then the adrenaline wore off and the pain hit him in a dull, sickening wave. He crawled to the kitchen and found some frozen peas, then searched the cupboard next to him, optimistically hoping to find a first aid kit. Instead, there were two bottles of cooking wine covered in a thick film of dust. He drank half a bottle in one go, until his throat stung and the wine spilled over his mouth and down his neck. He shifted so he was sitting against the fridge, and that’s where he eventually fell into a fitful sleep, waking just after three and crawling to his bed. He lay there, tears leaking down his cheeks, and thought of Peggy driving through the night, her face intermittently illuminated by streetlights, pale and afraid.