He’d turned off his phone and thrown it in a drawer in the kitchen. He couldn’t bear to hear from anyone about anything. He still had no idea what had happened to Keith. Maybe he’d already been fired for hurting him like that.
When the morning came, he couldn’t think what to do other than carrying out the property inspection he’d been scheduled to do. He sat on the tube among the rush-hour commuters, the pain in his foot now so severe it strangely emboldened him to stare at everyone in turn, feeling miserable at just how much he wanted someone to ask if he was okay.
The address for the property inspection had rung a bell, but it was only when he’d limped onto the estate that he recognized it as the place he and Peggy had come on her first day. (Eric, was that the man’s name?) As he prepared himself to enter the property of the late Trevor Anderson, he looked across the rain-slick concrete slabs, a hopscotch game still faintly outlined, and saw a man carrying two off-license bags’ worth of shopping struggling to open the door to the flat where Eric had lived. Andrew wondered if the man knew about what had happened there. How many thousands of other people, in fact, might at that very moment be about to open the door to a house where the last occupant had died and rotted without anybody noticing.
* * *
—
According to the coroner, Trevor Anderson had died having slipped and banged his head on the bathroom floor, adding that conditions in the house were “pretty poor” in the bored tone of someone reviewing a disappointing quiche from a gastropub. Andrew had put on his protective clothes, forcing himself to ignore a fresh wave of pain in his foot, and observed his usual ritual of reminding himself why he was there and how he should behave, before going inside.
It had been clear Trevor had found it hard to cope in his last days. Rubbish was piled up in the corner of the living room—the collection of stains on one particular spot of the wall suggesting various things had been thrown at it before sliding down to join the pile. There was a fiercely strong smell of urine because of the bottles and cans of all sizes filled to the brim, which were spread out in a halo around a small wooden stool just feet from a television on the floor. The only other things that could count as possessions were a pile of clothes and a bicycle wheel resting up against a beige radiator shot with scorch marks. Andrew had searched through the rubbish but knew in his heart of hearts that he’d find nothing. He’d gotten to his feet and peeled off his gloves. In the side of the room that functioned as the kitchen, the oven door hung open in a silent scream. The freezer buzzed for a moment, then clicked off again.
He’d hobbled into the bedroom, once separated from the living room by a door, but now just by a thin sheet secured by parcel tape. Next to the bed was a mirror, flecked with shaving foam, leaning up against the wall, along with a bedside table improvised from four shoeboxes.
The pain had suddenly been too much and Andrew had been forced to hop over and sit on the bed. There was a book on top of the shoeboxes, an autobiography of a golfer he’d never heard of, the cheesy smile and baggy suit placing it firmly in the 1980s. He opened the book at random and read a paragraph about a particularly arduous bunker experience at the Phoenix Open. A few pages on, a lighthearted anecdote about a charity match and too much free cava. As he flicked forward again something came loose and fell into his lap. It was a train ticket, twelve years old: a return from Euston to Tamworth. On the back there was an advert for the Samaritans. “We don’t just hear you, we listen.” Below, in a small patch of white space, something had been drawn in green pen.
Andrew spent a long time studying Trevor’s drawing. He knew it was his, because it consisted of three simple oblongs, each with a name and dates inside them:
Willy Humphrey Anderson: 1938–1980
Portia Maria Anderson: 1936–1989
Trevor Humphrey Anderson: 1964–????
The only other words: Glascote Cemetery—Tamworth.
Andrew had so many questions. Had the drawing been intended for someone specific to see, or purely for the first person who found it? How many years after this man had drawn where he wanted to be buried had he sat waiting for death?
Andrew wanted to think that Trevor Anderson had lived a life of glorious hedonism. That this little piece of admin was a rare moment of practical planning in among the chaotic fun. Looking around at the grimy flat, Andrew realized this was a desperately optimistic assessment. The reality would be that in the last few years Trevor would have opened his eyes each morning, checked for sure that he wasn’t dead, and gotten up. Until one day he didn’t.
It was the waiting, that was the worst part—when the days were exclusively about eating enough food and drinking enough water to keep yourself alive. Maintenance. That was all it was. Andrew suddenly thought of Keith’s dull eyes the moment before he crashed to the ground. Christ, what had he done? At some point he’d have to face the consequences. And then there was Carl. How was he to deal with that? He could simply fold and transfer the money. But would that really be the end of it? Carl seemed so angry and bitter . . . What was to stop him from flipping at any moment and picking up the phone to Meredith? The waiting. It would be torture. He could never truly think about being happy with that hanging over him. And then there was Peggy. He thought of that afternoon in Northumberland. At the time he’d felt so full of possibility, convinced that everything was going to change. How wrong he had been. There was no way he could expect Peggy to understand his lies, not after he’d refused to help her when she’d needed him most.
There was, of course, one very simple way to fix everything. It was a thought that had occurred to him a long time ago, now. Not in some moment of crisis, but simply registering itself as a possibility, as he went about his business. He had been waiting in line somewhere. A supermarket checkout perhaps, or maybe the bank. As soon as he’d acknowledged the thought, it was with him permanently. It had been like a stone hitting a windscreen, leaving a tiny crack in the glass. A permanent reminder that, at any time, the whole sheet of glass could smash. And now, he realized, it made complete and utter sense. Not only did he have a way out, but, for once in his life, he would be in complete and total control.
He looked at himself in the mirror, his face partially obscured by a streak of dirt. He set the ticket down carefully on top of the book and got slowly to his feet, standing still for a moment, listening to the gentle hum of the estate—canned laughter from a television next door, gospel music coming from the flat below. He could feel his shoulders slacken. Decades of tension were beginning to lift. Everything was going to be fine. The opening bars of Ella’s “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?” came into his head. There was a renewed flash of pain in his foot. But this time he barely registered it. It didn’t really matter. Not now. Nothing did.
In the kitchen, the freezer buzzed into life for a few moments, shuddered, then clicked off.
* * *
—
He made one final pass of Trevor’s flat and e-mailed a report to the office. Hopefully he’d given enough information for someone to make the funeral arrangements.
He took the bus home, standing with one leg raised like a flamingo, feeling liberated at how little of a shit he gave about the way people were looking at him. As soon as he was home he went straight to the bathroom and ran a bath. As he waited for it to fill he limped to the kitchen and, almost as if trying to hoodwink himself, reached into a drawer without looking until his hand touched what he was after. He ran his fingers against the scarred plastic handle of the knife, feeling oddly comforted by its familiarity. He ran it under the tap, supposing it should be clean, though it didn’t really matter. He started toward the kitchen but stopped and turned back. This wasn’t going to change anything, he told himself, but it felt like he should check, just in case. He opened the drawer and pulled out his phone. It seemed to take an age to turn on. When it vibrated, Andrew nearly dropped it in surprise. But then he saw that the message was from Carl.
Is the money with you yet? You better not be having second thoughts. He shook his head, slowly. Of course Peggy hadn’t messaged him. He was already dead to her. He threw his phone onto the countertop, where it skidded along.
He flicked through his Ella records and decided what he was going to play. Normally, it would be on instinct. But for this, he felt the need to find the album that encapsulated everything he loved about her. In the end he decided on Ella in Berlin—the reissued import version. He lowered the needle and listened to the volume fade up on the crowd, their excited applause sounding like rain on a windowpane. He undressed where he stood, halfheartedly folding his clothes and leaving them on the arm of a chair. He thought perhaps he should write a note, but only because that’s what people did. What was the point if you didn’t have anyone to say anything to? It would just be another piece of paper waiting for the litter picker’s pincers.
By the time he’d lowered himself into the bath, gasping with pain as the hot water stung his foot, applause was ringing out again at the end of “That Old Black Magic,” and the gentle double bass and piano of “Our Love Is Here to Stay” filled the air.
He’d intended to drink the rest of the wine but had forgotten to bring the bottle from the kitchen. It was better this way, he decided. To be completely lucid. In control.
The rumbling thud of the bass drum and the rushed coda from the piano signaled the end of the song, and Ella thanked the crowd. Andrew always thought she sounded so genuine when she did that; it was never forced, never false.
He was beginning to feel woozy. He hadn’t eaten for hours and steam was fogging the room and his senses. He tapped his fingers on his thighs under the water and felt the ripples go back and forth. He closed his eyes and imagined he was floating down a languid river somewhere on the other side of the world.
More applause, and now they were on to “Mack the Knife.” This was where Ella forgot the words. Maybe this time it would be different, Andrew thought, feeling along the side of the bath until he found the plastic handle, gripping it tightly. But no, there was the hesitation, then the breathless, audacious reference to wrecking her own song, and now the cheeky improvisation where her voice morphed into Louie Armstrong’s rasp, the roar of the crowd. They were with her, cheering her on.
He lowered his hand into the water. Tightened his grip. There was barely time to pause for breath before the urgent drums of “How High the Moon” and Ella launching into her scat-singing. The music chased after her words, but she was always too quick, always too quick. He twisted his arm and clenched his fist. He felt the sharpness of the metal, his skin straining against it, about to give way. But then there was another noise, cutting through the music, vying for his attention. It was his phone ringing, he realized, opening his eyes, his fingers unclenching from around the knife’s handle.
— CHAPTER 28 —
It was Peggy.
“You’re in the shit for not being here. Cameron’s properly fuming, and he’s taking it out on the rest of us. Where the hell are you?”
She sounded angry. Glad, perhaps, to have an excuse to call and vent at him without explicitly mentioning the other night.
He’d managed to crawl to the bedroom, where he was now sitting on the floor, naked, exhausted. It felt like he’d just woken from an intense dream. He had a sudden vision of blooms of scarlet muddying the clear bathwater and had to grip his knees to stop the sensation that he was falling. Was he still here? Was this still real?
“I’m at home,” he said, his voice thick and unfamiliar.
“You’ve thrown a sickie?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not that.”
“Right. Well, what’s going on then?”
“Um, well, I think I sort of nearly tried to kill myself.”
There was a pause.
“Say that again?”
* * *
—
They met at the pub, once Andrew had refused Peggy’s several demands to take him to the hospital. The post-work Friday evening drinkers would be descending soon, but for now the place was empty, save for a man sitting at the bar making conversation with the polite yet clearly bored bartender.
Andrew found a table and slowly lowered himself onto a chair, folding his arms around his chest. He felt incredibly fragile all of a sudden, like his bones were made of rotten wood. A few moments later Peggy shoulder-barged the door open, hurrying over to him and smothering him with a hug that he accepted but couldn’t reciprocate because he’d begun to shiver uncontrollably.
“Wait here, I know what’ll sort you out,” Peggy said.
She returned from the bar with what looked like a glass of milk. “They didn’t have honey so this’ll have to do. Not a proper hot toddy but ah well. My mam used to give them to me and Imogen when we had colds. At the time I thought it was a proper cure but looking back she clearly just wanted to knock us out so she could get some peace.”
“Thank you,” Andrew said, taking a warming sip and feeling the not unpleasant sting of the whisky. Peggy watched him drink. She looked anxious, fidgeting with her hands, twiddling her earrings—delicate blue studs that looked like teardrops. Andrew sat inert opposite her. He felt so detached.
“So,” Peggy said. “You, um, said on the phone about the whole, you know . . .”
“Killing myself?” Andrew said.
“That. Yes. Are you—I mean it’s a stupid question I suppose but—are you okay?”
Andrew thought about it. “Yes,” he said. “Well, I suppose I feel a bit sort of . . . like I might actually be dead.”
Peggy looked down at Andrew’s drink. “Okay, I really do think we need to get you to a hospital,” she said, reaching over and taking his hand.
“No,” he said firmly, Peggy’s touch bringing him out of his daze. “There’s really no need. I didn’t hurt myself. I’m feeling better now. This is helping.” He took a sip of whisky and coughed, clasping his hands together until his knuckles were white in an attempt to stop them from trembling.
“Okay,” Peggy said, looking skeptical. “Well, let’s see how you feel after this.”
Just then the door of the pub opened and four extremely loud sets of suits and ties containing men came in and arranged themselves at the bar. The old regular finished his pint, tucked his newspaper under his arm and left.
Peggy waited until Andrew had nearly finished his whisky before seeming to remember she had a beer to drink and taking two hearty gulps. She sat forward and spoke softly. “So what happened?”
Andrew shivered in response and Peggy reached over and cupped her hands around his. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me details, I’m just trying to understand why you’d . . . want to do something like that. Where were Diane and the kids in all of this?”
Andrew’s synapses instantly fired as he searched for an explanation. But nothing came to him. Not this time. He smiled sadly as the realization hit him. This time, this time, he was going to tell the truth. He took a deep breath, trying to settle himself, to stamp down on the part of him desperately trying to stop him from going through with this.
“What? What’s happened?” Peggy said, looking even more worried. “Are they okay?”
Andrew started to speak, hesitantly, having to pause every few seconds: “Have . . . have you ever told a lie so big that you felt there was no way out of it . . . that you . . . that you had to just carry on pretending?”
Peggy looked at him evenly. “I once told my mother-in-law that I’d crisscrossed the bottoms of sprouts when I hadn’t. That made for a tense Christmas Day . . . but that’s not quite what you mean, is it?”
Andrew shook his head slowly, and this time the words came out before he could stop them.
“Diane, Steph and David don’t exist,” he said. “It came from a misunderstanding, but then I kept the lie going, and the longer I did the harder it was to tell the truth.”
Peggy looked like she was thinking and feeling a hundred different things at once.
“I don’t think I really understand,” she said.
Andrew chewed his lip. He had the strangest sensation that he was about to start laughing.
“I just wanted to feel normal,” he said. “It started off so small but then”—he let out a strangely high-pitched bark of a laugh—“it’s sort of got a bit out of hand.”
Peggy looked startled. She’d fiddled with one of her earrings so much that it came free in her hand and bounced onto the table like a little blue tear that had frozen as it fell.
Something to Live For Page 23
