‘Sorry?’
‘After. You doing anything?’
‘Well … no, not really.’
He asked her if she’d come for a drink.
Before yesterday, before she had dealt with an actual real-life ferret, she might have described Gary James as a ferret-like man, by which she would have meant that he had bright, mischievous eyes and a pointy nose. But now that she had handled a ferret, she saw that he was really nothing like one: his eyes were not so far apart, nor his nose tucked so close below the eyes. A ferret’s mouth was just a little line, like the imprint of a thumbnail, beneath its snout, whereas Gary had a fairly wide mouth, especially when he smiled. He had a long, prominent nose. There was a gloss to his dark hair. If she was honest, he looked much more like a rat. A nice rat. If you were being kind, you could say he had a look of James Taylor. But really he was more like a rat. She quite liked rats.
At the pub he drank a half, then another. He offered her an Embassy from a red and white pack which he pulled out of the pocket of his denim jacket. Emily, who didn’t much care for drink, had a lemonade shandy followed by a ginger ale.
‘Ginger ale? With nothing in it? That’s the last drink I’m buying you. I’ve got my reputation to think of, you know,’ he said.
‘Oh dear. Am I letting the side down?’
‘I’ll get over it.’ He grinned. His nose was not only long, but bony. You could see the shape of the bone at the bridge of his nose: two little knobs, with a flat bit in the middle, as if a hazelnut had lodged there.
He told her stories. How his mum had put ten No. 6 in with his sandwiches for school every day, from when he was twelve years old. How he and his mate had gone round to scrounge sherry off a married woman in a big house on the Evesham Road, when they were lads, until one time her husband came back and caught the three of them, plastered, and chased the boys out of the house with an umbrella.
‘Did you ever go back there, afterwards?’ she asked.
‘Nah. He was angry enough just to see us in there. But not half as angry as he was going to be, when he found out his silver lighter had gone, off the table in the lounge.’
‘You didn’t!’
He grinned again.
He told her how he had been apprehended by a keeper over the other side of Stratford, but still got away with two and a half brace of pheasant, because the bloke had caught him after he’d already gone back to put the birds in the car. The only reason he’d found him empty-handed was that he was on his way to get more.
‘There seems to be a bit of a theme emerging,’ said Emily.
‘What’s that then?’
‘You, nicking things.’
‘I’d only take from someone who could afford it. I’d never have anything off a friend. I’m Robin Hood, me.’
‘I needn’t hang on to my handbag then,’ said Emily.
‘No, you’re all right.’
‘Right then,’ said Emily, replacing her empty glass on the table. ‘I’d best be off.’
He stood up. ‘Tell you what. I’m going fishing, Saturday. You could come along. It’s nice down by the river. I know a good spot.’
She laughed. ‘I’ll see,’ she said.
They had had the drink on a Tuesday and he had not been in touch on any of the days afterwards. By the time she left work that Friday, she’d given up on him. Probably just as well, she told herself. He’s obviously a dodgy character. But she couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
On Saturday morning Emily was woken by a long, insistent ring on her doorbell at home. She looked at the clock: it was a quarter to six. No one called at Butter Lane. She assumed someone had rung the wrong bell, that the caller, whoever they were, wanted someone in the lower flat. It rang again. Whoever it was had pressed the bell for so long that it was almost rude. Annoyed now and wide awake, she got out of bed and went to open the window in the living room at the front. She looked down at a mop of straight dark hair.
‘Hello! Yes? Up here!’
It was Gary James. He tilted his head back and smiled up at her. She could see his throat, paler than the skin on his face.
‘You coming then?’
‘What? Are you bonkers or something? I’m not dressed. Do you know what time it is?’ She felt quite cross. Disturbing her so early on her day off. She hadn’t even said she’d go with him!
‘Best part of the day.’
‘I’m not ready. I’m not even dressed.’
‘Sounds nice.’
‘I might not even come. I’ve got things to do today.’
‘What, and let me spend the whole day by myself? Show some mercy, girl.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in, for a cup of tea?’ he asked. ‘I can’t stand here all day, you know.’
‘Oh, all right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to come down to let you in.’
She put on her dressing gown – it was faded, an old candlewick one that her grandmother had given her, years ago – and filled the kettle, before she went barefoot down the stairs and let him in.
‘Tell you what, I’ll make your breakfast, while you get ready,’ he said, once they had climbed the stairs and he had followed her into the kitchen, where she got out mugs and teabags.
‘But you don’t know where anything is,’ said Emily.
‘I think I’ll be able to work it out,’ he said. ‘This kitchen’s all of six by eight.’
‘Just a piece of toast then.’
No one had been to her flat before, not since the landlord had first shown her the place. Gary seemed to take up too much room. She felt awkward, passing him in the kitchen doorway. She could smell him, as she squeezed past, tobacco and a cleanness, too, like the smell when you fold a newly washed towel. But there was something else, too, a smell that she recognised but couldn’t, for a moment, place, something flammable.
Emily took her jeans from the back of the chair and looked for a T-shirt and jumper, then took off her dressing gown and nightdress. It occurred to her that she was standing naked, only a few feet away from Gary James, that if the wall wasn’t there they would be near enough to touch each other, almost. She could hear him, opening cupboards in the kitchen. She felt annoyed that he’d woken her, that he was rummaging in her cupboards. She dressed.
‘Have you been down to the river before?’ Gary asked her.
‘No, I haven’t. I knew there was a river here, but I hadn’t really taken in where, or how to get at it.’
‘In actual fact, there are two rivers. You could more or less throw a stone into one of them from your place,’ he said.
‘Really? Is it that near?’
‘We’re not going that way just now. It’s not so good for fishing, bit shallow. But I’ll show you next time.’
She was aware of feeling pleased that he was thinking there would be a next time. They walked along the street. Emily could see two men working in the back of the baker’s shop already, lifting and stacking great trays of what looked like doughnuts or rolls. There were signs of life, too, at the newsagent – the grille was up – but Fine Fare was still shut up and in the dark. It was much too early for shoppers and there were no cars. Empty like this, the place looked picturesque, like a place on a postcard. They turned right at the end of the street. Emily found it difficult to keep up with Gary. He had a loping kind of gait, leaning forward slightly into a long stride. It was a tall person’s walk, although he wasn’t especially tall. She followed as he went left past a pub. There were some old half-timbered buildings and then the lane came to an end at allotments, with open fields beyond. At the far side of the allotments they climbed over a gate.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Not too far for you?’
‘No, I like walking. I like being outside.’
‘And I do,’ he said.
They came to the river and carried on, along the water’s edge. Looking back, she could follow the river’s
course by the willows which lined its banks, although the water itself was not visible below the level of the fields. After a bit they came to a place where the river curved.
‘This’ll do,’ he said. ‘You get fish on a bend, where there’s an undercut.’
Gary stopped and took out a cigarette. He had a Zippo lighter: the source, she now understood, of the smell she had noticed earlier. He seemed to have a lot of gear. There was a hooped net which stretched open like an accordion, and a rod, and a big metal box like a tool box – or perhaps it was an actual tool box, she wasn’t sure – and a fraying canvas bag from which he produced a tin full of bait. It was an old tobacco tin, with a green and yellow lid. The lid had rough holes gouged through it. After a few draws on his cigarette, he opened the tin.
‘Crikey! That stinks,’ she said. ‘What on earth is it?’
‘Sweet corn and maggots. Bit of meal. Works a treat.’
‘It smells horrible.’
‘Yeah, but you’re not a fish, are you? You’ve not got to like it.’
‘Why are the worms that funny colour?’
‘Iodine. Fish are attracted to a bit of colour. Brightness they like.’
‘My granny goes fishing.’
‘Where’s that then?’
‘Up north. It’s nearly Scotland, where she lives. She catches trout. Salmon, sometimes. She loves it.’
He grinned. ‘We won’t be seeing any salmon today. Might get a perch.’
‘I don’t know much about fish. We don’t get fish, really, at work. Only the odd goldfish. They’re prone to fungal infection. By the time people notice there’s anything wrong with them, it’s too late anyway.’
‘You cold?’ he asked her.
‘A bit.’
‘It’s still early, it’ll warm up. I normally have my coffee mid-morning, but we could have a cup now, if you like?’
She nodded. From a pocket he produced a slightly flattened Marathon bar.
‘Tell you what, you break that in half for us, and I’ll sort the coffee.’
She tore the wrapper and bent the chocolate. The toffee formed strings as she divided the pieces, giving the bigger of the two to Gary. She wouldn’t have chosen a Marathon – too salty, too sticky – but in the cool early-morning air it seemed delicious. From the canvas bag Gary produced a tartan-patterned thermos. He poured coffee into the cup which formed its lid, and handed it to her. The cup had a dent in it. She wondered if he’d had the flask for a long time, but she didn’t ask him. The coffee tasted thin and oversweet. After she’d taken a few sips, she handed it back, for him to finish.
They sat side by side. Some of the time they chatted, quietly, but mostly they were silent. Emily didn’t mind or feel awkward at all. She had never thought she was very good at talking anyway. She enjoyed watching the sunlight flicker on the surface of the river. The water was the colour of caramel and in places it dimpled and eddied, like syrup coming to the boil. A coot busied itself among the bramble branches which overhung the opposite bank. Its call sounded like coins clinking against each other in a pocket. There were ducks, and songbirds announced themselves to one another from the trees. She kept glancing at the side of Gary’s face.
She didn’t know how long they had been there when Gary got a fish. He jumped to his feet and reeled in the taut line, a few inches at a time. She could see the line tugging against him, as if a terrier was playing a game with a stick. The water broke and seemed to froth as the fish emerged into the strange element of the air.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Looks like a tench. Quite a good fish, this one.’
With a final lift of the line the fish was in his hands. He held it at waist height, one hand under its head, the other at its tail, the fish facing outwards. Its underside was ever so slightly pink. Once Gary had it in his grip the fish stopped writhing and stayed still, only pulsing, its mouth open.
‘Have a feel of his skin, go on,’ said Gary.
Emily hesitated, then put out a hand and ran just the tips of her fingers along the fish’s back. It felt viscid, almost oily.
‘That’s really weird,’ she said.
‘Doctor fish, they call them. That slime is meant to have medicinal qualities, see. He can go back now.’
‘Aren’t we going to eat it?’
Gary knelt, balancing the fish in the declivity of his thighs. He gently removed the hook from the fish’s cheek – it seemed to be panting now – before leaning forward to slip it back into the river, his arms submerged for a few moments in the shallows of the water, as the fish came free of his grasp.
‘Nah. They’re no good to eat,’ he said, standing up. There was a dark patch of moisture on his jeans, where the fish had been.
The day grew warmer. Gary caught another fish, a chub, and then a second tench, smaller than the first. The silveriness of the chub was as bright as a new ten-pence piece.
‘He’d make decent eating,’ he said.
‘Do you put them all back?’ asked Emily.
‘Not all. Sometimes I keep one, if it’s a good fish, for dinner. It’s more about just being out here, spending time, you know? Speaking of which, what time is it? I’ve got to be back for half two. The fish don’t tend to feed, not once the sun’s this high anyway.’
It was almost one o’clock. The morning seemed to have gone by in minutes. He packed up his things and they walked back the way they had come, the sun warming their backs. When they rounded the corner and the monkey puzzle tree in front of the church came into view, she asked if he’d like a quick something to eat, a sandwich. He followed her up the narrow stairs. His fishing rod made a tack-tack-tack sound as it caught on the banisters.
There was a piece of Cheddar in the fridge, and a couple of tomatoes on the side. Emily cut them into slices, while Gary went to use the bathroom.
‘Just wash my hands; the bread’ll taste of bait, else,’ he said.
Emily took their plates through to the room at the front, which doubled as a place to sit and to eat, with a small table in front of one window and a television with its back to the other. Gary perched on the windowsill nearest the table, while Emily sat on the sofa. She found it distracting, his presence in the room. Instead of having her plate on her lap, she left it on the arm of the sofa, dropping crumbs of bread and cheese onto her jeans. After he’d eaten his sandwich, he pushed the plate a little further away from him, towards the middle of the table. His outline was dark against the brightness from the window.
‘Come over here,’ he said, holding out a hand towards Emily. She stood up, crumbs falling onto the carpet as she stepped towards him.
After that he called for her every Saturday and often met her after work on a Tuesday or Wednesday as well. Almost opposite her flat was a tiny street Gary showed her, called Meeting Lane.
‘I rang the council roads people, asked them to rename it that, so I could meet you there,’ he told her.
‘Oh yes? What was it called before, then?’ ‘Nothing Lane. Lonely Lane. Who’d-bother-to-come-down-here Lane.’
On weekdays he waited there for her, and they walked down the lane, past leaning cottages and a grand but now abandoned-looking walled garden, until they came to what must once have been an orchard, where rough grass and weeds and patches of bramble grew under old apple trees, to the river’s edge. On fine evenings they lay in the grass here together, where no one could see them. Gary laid his denim jacket underneath her. On Saturdays he took her fishing with him, always on foot, but to different places: one week it was downriver, to the Arrow Mill; another, they’d go in the opposite direction, to the Alne, up by the weir. In the deeper, slower-running stretches of water closer to Evesham there were bream and sometimes, when he’d caught a decent-sized fish, Gary would kill it with one sharp blow to the side of its head and give it to her, to cook. Emily noticed but didn’t much mind that he never offered her a go with the rod. She did not want more than she had, with him. She liked it when he told her things: how maggots were sol
d by the pint, like ale; how barbel, of all coarse fish, put up the hardest fight, pound for pound; how he varied his bait, because most things were worth a try and he’d had good luck with weird combinations sometimes, like mixing luncheon meat with curry powder. He told her that the metal implement which he used to kill a fish once he’d got it landed was called a priest.
‘And that’s as near a churchman as you’ll get me,’ he said.
She took to bringing a book along, although often she simply sat, or leant on her elbows, idling. Often there were water birds to look at, ducks usually, or swans. She liked listening to the sound of a swan, drinking. Their delicate lapping seemed at odds with the appetite suggested by the power of their great necks and muscular wings. They sipped at the water daintily, like a prospective bride taking tea with the vicar. Emily liked looking at Gary when he didn’t know her eyes were on him, just watching him baiting his hooks, or getting a knot out of his line. She wondered if he was thinking, as she was, of what they would do with each other later on. How he’d lift her arms above her head, one by one, and kiss her underarms and breasts. She could picture his body, pale and insistent and wiry, underneath his clothes.
In the autumn, when Emily found out she was pregnant, the first thing that came into her mind was to wonder whether the child had been conceived outside, in the old orchard. She found herself hoping that it had. As soon as that sliver of a wish lodged within her she understood that she would keep the baby. She knew she ought to consider what to do, whether she should have an abortion, what to say to Gary. She had no idea how to break the news to her family, or the people at work. Roger and Pat had been so kind to her, she didn’t want to let them down. She didn’t know how she would support herself, with a child. Animals had no need to reckon such things, she thought, they just got on with it. Perhaps she could simply do the same.
Chapter 11
Ruth worried about Christopher. Always the first of the household to get up, he had begun coming down long after she and Ilse had breakfasted. Sometimes, on those mornings when she was teaching, Ruth did not see him at all before she left the house.
My Former Heart Page 15
