Land of the Living

by Nicci French

  And here, in the half-dusk, was my final stop of the day. The thin drizzle had turned to spitting snow, which flickered down out of the grey sky. But the lights were all on in the greenhouses and when I entered I smelt resin and heard running water. Occasionally a wind chime jingled in a gust of air.

  It was like stepping out of my world and into another dimension. The greenhouse wasn't vast, yet a panoramic view was spread before me, as if I could see for miles and miles. There were trees everywhere, old and beautiful, with twisted trunks and spreading boughs. I bent down and touched one delicately.

  "Chinese elm," said a voice behind me. "Over a hundred years old."

  I straightened up. Gordon Lockhart was stocky and balding. He was wearing bright red braces over a thick blue jersey.

  "It's an indoor plant," he continued. "This one," he pointed to a tiny tree with leaves the colour of flame, 'that's a Japanese maple. Outdoor, except we've brought it in for winter."

  "It's lovely," I said. "God, it's odd and lovely here. Peaceful."

  "It is," he said. "I come in here and I step off the dirty, noisy street and I'm in another world. An ancient forest in the middle of London. See here, that's a banyan tree. See those aerial roots."

  "Lovely," I repeated. "Like a dream."

  "Take your time. It's not easy to choose the tree that's right for you. Or is it for a gift? Very popular gift, especially for weddings and anniversaries."

  "I've really come here to ask you something," I said. "I think we've met before."

  "I meet a lot of people."

  "I'm from Jay and Joiner's. You provided twenty bonsai trees for the Avalanche offices at Canary Wharf. I think I came here to tell you that you should charge more for your labour."

  "Abbie? Abbie Devereaux? You've cut off all your nice hair."

  "Yes."

  "I got more money out of them. And I gave you a present, if I remember rightly."

  "Yes," I repeated, remembering nothing, not wishing to offend him. My head buzzed. Behind me, water gurgled like laughter. I said, "It was a Chinese elm, wasn't it?"

  "An elm, because you wanted it for the inside, you said. Ten years old, as I recall. Nice fat trunk already. You said it was a present."

  "A present," I repeated. "Yes. It was a perfect present. Well, I just came here to ask you if you could remember when we met. The date, I mean."

  It turned out we'd met twice, on the Monday and then on Wednesday the sixteenth. I felt winded and elated at the same time. I had leapt two days on in my schedule. I thanked him and then, on an impulse, I bought the banyan tree. I could give it to Jo when we met.

  Eleven

  As I approached Jo's flat with the banyan tree, I saw that my car had been clamped. Apart from the original ticket, there was now a large sticker on the windscreen telling me not to try to move it. It also gave the phone number I had to call to get it released, on payment of a large amount of money. I felt in my pockets but I couldn't find a pen. The car hardly looked worth releasing. I'd deal with it some other time. At least I knew where it was for the moment.

  I had more important things to do. The pregnancy-testing kit I had bought was on special offer, so that was some good news. Fifteen per cent off. First there was much fumbling with my cold, trembling fingers to get the polythene wrapper off. I looked at the end of the box. The expiry date was 20.04.01. That was why I had got it cheap. It was nine months past its sell-by date. Did this matter? Once it was past the expiry date, did it start getting the results wrong?

  I went into Jo's bathroom and ripped open the inner wrapper. I pulled apart an object that looked like a pen with a giant felt-tip at the end. I looked at the instructions on the box. "Hold the pink urine absorber in your urine stream for at least one second." That was no problem. I replaced the stick in the cartridge. I looked at the instructions. "Now wait four minutes before reading the result." Four minutes. An irritating amount of time. After I'd pulled my knickers and trousers up, I didn't have long enough to go and do anything. I stared at the three holes. They duly went pink. Now I just had to wait for the pink to go away in the middle window. Who designs something like that? A man, probably. Someone like that Ben guy at the design company. What a way to earn a living. I could imagine all the meetings that had been held to decide on the optimum shape. I had spent the last couple of years going to meetings like that. I rotated it so that I couldn't see the window. It was an obvious scientific fact that if I continued to look at the pink stain in the middle window, then it would be unable to fade away and I would be pregnant.

  It was possible. I had looked in my diary and found my period had been due around 24 January, when I was in hospital. Today it was Friday 1 February, so I was a week overdue. Of course, that might have been because I'd been practically starved for several days, and continuously terrified out of my wits. The body is quite wise. But what if I was pregnant? I devoted a huge psychological effort into not trying to imagine what that would be like. Obviously, putting an effort into not thinking about something is like having a hippopotamus in your living room and trying not to look at it but I only had to do it for about two minutes, or maybe even one minute. You probably didn't need the full four minutes, so I turned the cartridge round and I wasn't pregnant. I checked the package again just to make absolutely sure I was right. I was right.

  I opened a bottle of Jo's wine to celebrate. With my first sip I wondered if this was wrong. The next day I would buy some wine to replace it. I still felt guilty and I thought of those red-edged bills. Men would be coming soon to cut off her gas, electricity and phone. I was living in the house. I had to take some responsibility. For all I knew I might have arranged with Jo to run the house while she was away. I imagined her coming through the door and finding a pile of unpaid bills and me sitting in the kitchen disposing of her wine. I topped up my glass really topped it up, almost to the rim and went to take responsibility for Jo's mail.

  In the end, there really wasn't much to deal with. Once I'd thrown away the envelopes, then winnowed out the magazines, the catalogues, the offers of insurance, the invitations to events that had already taken place, there was not much more than a handful of letters that were really for her. There were the bills: phone, gas, electricity, credit card. I flicked through. They were all very small. No problem. I did a rough calculation in my head and concluded that it would be less than a hundred pounds to pay the lot of them. I'd even pay her credit-card bill, since that added up to a measly twenty-one pounds. Among her other talents, Jo clearly had a Zen Buddhist control over her finances. No store cards For the rest there were three letters with handwritten addresses and two postcards. I didn't look at these, just propped them up on the mantelpiece.

  The phone rang. I didn't answer. I'd thought about this and in the end I'd given Jo two more days. If she hadn't returned by then, I would start intercepting calls. In the meantime, I left the answering-machine on and listened as, every few hours, a friend left a message. Hi, I'm Jeff or Paul or Wendy, call me.

  I went to sleep thinking of who I needed to see next. He was almost the last person I wanted to meet. Almost.

  Todd Benson was visibly surprised to see me on his doorstep. I hadn't phoned ahead, but I thought he'd probably be home. "Abbie," he said, as if he was confirming that it was me, or hoping it wasn't.

  "Carol gave me your address," I said. "I just rang her and told her I was coming to see you at home. To check if it was all right." That was untrue. "I was in the neighbourhood, I thought I'd drop by for a word."

  That was untrue as well. Todd lived in a basement flat in a smart square just south of the river. It was a tube journey and a fairly hefty walk. I had got Todd's address out of the file and I had said nothing to Carol about coming to see him, or anything else. Pretending I had made me feel a bit safer.

  Todd shrugged and asked me in. I thought he'd either be very rude to me or very depressed, but he was just polite. He asked me if I wanted some coffee then made it while I stood and looked at him.

&nbs
p; In a grey T-shirt, purple tracksuit bottoms and moccasins, he wasn't exactly dressed for the office. The last trace of Jay and Joiner's was his designer spectacles, so thick-framed they looked like welder's glasses. He handed me a mug of coffee and we stood together, awkwardly, in his kitchen. I held it in both hands they were still cold from the northerly wind outside.

  "You look worse than I do," he said.

  "I've had a bit of a bad time," I said. "I went on leave."

  to8

  "Like me," he said.

  I wasn't sure of the extent to which he was joking. "Sort of," I said warily. "That's not why I'm here. Somebody attacked me."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know. Nobody's been caught. I was quite badly hurt and one result of that is that I've got very vague memories of the last few weeks."

  He sipped his coffee. "I don't take pleasure in that," he said.

  "Well, of course you don't," I said, alarmed rather than reassured.

  "I don't feel any anger against you."

  "I'm sorry about what happened'

  "No," he interrupted. "You did me a favour. I think I went mad."

  "I'm not sure'

  "In the last weeks I was almost outside my body looking at myself as I laid waste to my life. You see I've always wanted to be a success, and to a certain extent I've always been a success. I've been thinking about it in the last couple of weeks and I've come up with an answer. I felt that people would only love me if I succeeded. Love was a reward for achievement. I think that I needed to make a complete fuck-up in order to make a total separation between my work life and my emotional life. It's me who should apologize to you. I put you in the position of having to do my dirty work for me. So I'm sorry, Abbie, I'm so sorry."

  And standing there in his own kitchen, Todd cried until his face shone with tears. I put my coffee mug on his kitchen table. I wasn't going to hug Todd, I just wasn't. It would be hypocritical. On the other hand I couldn't just stand there. So I took a couple of steps forward and put my hand on his shoulder. The problem was quickly resolved because he threw his arms around me and held me tight to him, sobbing. One side of my neck was wet with his tears. It was impossible for me to avoid some sort of reciprocal embrace. I didn't give him a full hug. I moved my arms round and gave him not much more than a light tap on his shoulder-blades.

  "Todd," I said feebly. "I'm sorry about this."

  "No, no, Abbie," he sobbed. "You're really a good person."

  I slightly increased the pressure of my hug then eased myself free. I went over to his sink and tore off" a bit of paper towel. I handed it to him and he blew his nose and dabbed his face with it. "I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said. "It's really been a positive time."

  "That's good," I said. "I'm glad about that. But if it's all right with you, I'd like to talk to you about what I was saying about these really vague memories of the last few weeks. For example, I remembered nothing at all about taking time off from Jay and Joiner's. What I'm doing is talking to people I know and seeing if they can tell me anything about that time. Stuff that I've forgotten." I looked Todd in the eyes. "Some people might say that we parted on pretty bad terms. I wondered if we had any contact after you .. . well, left."

  Todd rubbed his eyes. His face was puffy and red. "I felt pretty bad for a few days," he said. "I was bitter. I felt I'd been shafted. But then, as I thought about it, I felt different. By the time you got in touch I was fine."

  "Got in touch? What do you mean?"

  "You rang me."

  "When was this?"

  "Two, three weeks ago."

  "I mean, exactly."

  Todd stopped and thought. He ran his hand over his stubbly hair.

  "It was one of the days I go to the gym. They kept up my membership, you know. That was good. So it must have been a Wednesday. Afternoon."

  "Wednesday afternoon, right. What did I say?"

  "Nothing much. You were being nice. You rang me to ask if I was all right."

  "Why?"

  "Because you were being nice. You said you had things on your conscience and you wanted to sort them out. I was one of them."

  "Did I say anything?"

  "You talked about your time off. You told me about the Avalanche job. You were lovely. You sounded happy. I mean in a good way."

  I stopped for a minute, thinking, going over the lost days in my head. Then I looked up at Todd. "You mean there's a bad way of being happy?"

  I rewrote my "Lost Days' very neatly, underlining dates. It went something like this:

  Friday January 11: showdown at Jay and Joiner's. Storm out.

  Saturday January 12: row with Terry. Storm out. Go to Sadie's for night.

  Sunday January 13: leave Sadie a.m. Go to Sheila and Guy. Meet Robin for shopping spree and spend too much money. Meet Sam for drink p.m. Go back to Sheila and Guy's.

  Monday January 14: see Ken Lofting, Mr. Khan, Ben Brody and Gordon Lockhart. Phone Molte Schmidt. Fill car with petrol. Phone Sheila and Guy to say not coming back for night.

  Tuesday January 15: go to Sheila and Guy and leave note saying found somewhere to stay. Collect stuff from there. Phone Terry and arrange to collect stuff next day. Book holiday in Venice. Order Indian take away p.m.

  Wednesday January 16: buy bonsai tree. Phone Robin. Collect stuff from Terry's. Phone Todd.

  Thursday Tanuary 17:

  But Thursday was a blank. I wrote, in capital letters, 'morning after pill', and then I wrote jo'. I made myself coffee and then I stared at my piece of paper and let it grow cold.

  Twelve

  As long as I had things to do, I was all right. I just had to keep busy, keep myself from thinking, from remembering, for then memories engulfed me like icy waters and I was back in the dark, and eyes were staring at me, fingers touching. No. I mustn't go there.

  I tackled the fridge first, throwing out all the old food and wiping down the shelves. Then, of course, I had to do a shop to refill it. I walked to Camden high street, where I went to the bank and withdrew 250 from my account, which was shrinking rapidly with no immediate prospect of being replenished. Then I bought satsumas, apples, salad stuff, cheese, coffee and tea, milk, bread, butter, eggs, yoghurt, honey, two bottles of wine, one red and one white, six bottles of wheat beer, some crisps and olives. I didn't get any meat, because maybe Jo was a vegetarian. I got washing powder as well, and toilet paper. Even though I felt precarious and strange in Jo's flat, I was making myself at home there lying in the bath, washing my clothes, adjusting the central heating, cooking myself comforting meals, lighting candles as the dark closed in. But I was always waiting for a key to turn in the lock and for Jo to walk through the door. And I was always fearing that she wouldn't. She was like a ghost in her own home and she haunted me.

  I staggered back there now, weighed down by plastic bags that bit into my gloveless fingers. I had to stop every now and then to rest and get a firmer grip. At one point, a man came up and offered to help me as I stood bent over the bags, getting my breath back.

  "I'm fine," I snapped, and watched the benign expression on his face fade.

  Back in the flat, I took three envelopes from Jo's desk, and put fifteen pounds into one, for Terry, fifty-five into another, for Sheila and Guy, and a further ninety into the third, for Sam. Later, I promised myself, I'd make a pilgrimage, paying off my debts and saying thank you.

  It occurred to me that I should report my mobile phone missing; I should have done it immediately. I started to dial a number, but another thought clamped itself round my guts and I banged down the phone hurriedly, as if it might bite me.

  I went outside again and walked up Maynard Street, then down another road, until I came to a public phone box that was working. Inside, it smelt of piss and the booth was covered with cards offering massages and very strict French lessons. I inserted twenty pence and dialled. It rang three times, and was picked up.

  "Hello?" I said.

  There was no answer, but I could hear breathing at the other
end.

  "Hello, who is this, please? Hello. Hello."

  The breathing went on. I thought about wheezy laughter in the darkness, a hood, hands lifting me off a ledge on to a bucket. Suddenly, the realization of what I was doing winded me. I managed to stutter out, "Can I speak to Abbie, please?"

  The voice at the other end a voice I didn't know whether or not I recognized replied, "She isn't here now." Sweat trickled down my forehead and the receiver felt slippery in my hand. The voice continued, "I can say you called. Who's speaking?"

  "Jo," I heard myself say. I was going to be sick. Bile rose in my throat.

  The line went dead. I stood for a few seconds, holding the phone in my hand. A man on crutches stopped outside the booth and tapped on the glass with the end of one of them. I put the receiver down, pushed open the door and ran back to the flat as if someone was chasing me. I'd put the bag of stuff I'd taken with me when I left the hospital the clothes I'd been found in, and the few odds and ends I'd picked up while I was there inside the wardrobe. I rummaged through it now, and to my relief found the card that Inspector Cross had given me. I dialled the number and he answered immediately.

  It wasn't much fun talking to Cross again. He had been embarrassed and quite sympathetic at our last meeting at the hospital. Or perhaps compassionate is the right word but it was a compassion that had made me feel ill with rage and shame and terror then, and even now gave me a queasy feeling. I said I had something urgent to tell him, but that there was no way I could set foot in the police station, and could he come to me. He said that it was probably better anyway for him to see me when he was off-duty, which made me feel that I was illicit business. We arranged for him to come to the flat shortly after five in the afternoon.

  The conversation lasted for about one gruff minute and when I put the phone down I felt so strange that I took two pills, drank a tumbler of water then went into my room and lay on the bed for a few moments, face down and eyes shut.

  Had I spoken to him? I didn't know, but the sensation that I'd felt in the phone booth the kind of feeling you have in a nightmare just before you jerk awake, a sensation of falling, of wheeling through the darkness had been so strong that even now I felt dizzy and appalled.