The Honey Trap

by Lana Citron

  ‘A repercussive one.’

  ‘What? You mean you keep making the same mistake over and over again.’

  ‘No, that’s like behavioural patterns. I’m talking about a mistake that could cost me my job.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I broke the rule.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘And the finger.’

  Before going to the police station, I’d spent much of the morning retracing my steps of the fateful night. I’d called the Phoenix. The landlord of the pub plainly thought I was a crank, or someone from a TV show, calling in to make a fool out of him. Public humiliation in the name of entertainment. Is humiliation a virtue? I just don’t get it. Video clips sent in by people who force their kids, partners and pets to fall or trip, or bang their heads in the most obvious of set-ups, and all for a measly fifty quid. Three in a boat and guess what? They fall into the water. Wow, couldn’t see that coming! Ooops, the hose has gone awry and near drowned the baby, or Dad looks like he’s doing a massive piss . . . hilarious. Clumsy me, tossing pancakes, and wait for it . . . plop, it fell on my head! Hey, watch out! There’s a glass door in front of you . . . oh too late!

  I called the minicab company. Unbelievably, the driver in question had ceased to exist. I guess they must have assumed I was some sort of Customs official checking out his status. I called the bus company, was kept on hold for twenty minutes, and then a recorded message informed me I should write in, assuring me that eighty-five per cent of complaints are answered within three to four weeks.

  ‘Look.’ I leant in close to the policeman, a young guy, and I was struck hard by the fact I was no longer a young woman. For so long the feared and dreaded law had always been older than me. How things change: before you know it, you’re looking middle-age right in the face, and the face is worn-out, eyes heavy, and there is no hint of laughter behind those windows to the soul. The glow of youth has long since been extinguished, and you take to wearing make-up and looking at old photos thinking, Christ, what have I become?

  ‘Look, young man,’ snapped I, to the police boy, attempting to be assertive, though I have joined the ranks of the crippled. Yes, I believe motherhood is a state of near crippledom. One’s pace is slowed down and one gets special seats on buses.

  ‘Look, I found a finger, and that’s odd. I mean, someone is going round with a missing finger. I think it should be investigated.’

  ‘But you see, Mrs . . .’

  ‘Ms,’ I correct him.

  ‘Ms . . . sorry, what is your surname?’

  ‘Brodsky, Isabel Brodsky.’

  A QUICK PERSONAL HISTORY

  Isabel Brodsky. Born in the last century, a child of the seventies. Irish mother, a lapsed Catholic, Swiss father, a lapsed Jew, and together they made two secular babies. Me and my older brother, Freddie. My mother, a feminist hippy, found herself with two small kids, and an idealistic husband, forced to embrace capitalist ideology and set up a successful marketing business. Pretty soon after that they split, though to be fair to them, it wasn’t acrimonious.

  I had an easy childhood, stable, loving, and spending time with Dad meant we got to go on loads of holidays. My mum now lives in New Mexico. My father remarried, and lives in Switzerland with his second wife and two kids.

  But back to me – at the age of twenty-seven, having missed three periods, I decided to take a test. Lo and behold it proved positive. The donor – for alas, that is all I can call him – I’d met at a music festival and haven’t seen since. Two days of joviality, of drugs and wild abandon. Has to be said he was a great lay. Anyhow, we were only ever on first-name terms, but if I saw him again, I’m sure I’d recognise him. I have this image in my head, which is probably a wild distortion of reality, of an incredibly good-looking guy, and Dutch to boot. I think his name was Jan something-or-other. I did of course put little personal ads in Time Out and its Dutch equivalent, stuff like, Jan, met you at Glastonbury, now pregnant, will need child support. But weirdly I never got a reply.

  To make matters worse I was in a long-term relationship at the time. We were coming up to our first anniversary and Finn was away in the rainforest, helping some charity with botanical stuff. He didn’t feel like sticking around. Strange that, hey? What you sow, so shall ye reap, or weep in my case. So I found myself forced into taking responsibility for my actions. Et voilà, Max.

  Wonderful, beautiful, astonishing Max, catapulting me into a world I’d never envisaged. A world I call Heavell. For motherhood has turned out to be a strange state, indeed a mixture of heaven and hell where there is no limbo. Yet for all my griping, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

  ‘So, what happens now?’ I asked the PC.

  ‘Usual police procedure. I’ll pass this information on to my superiors, cross-check with other stations, hospitals, see if it fits with anything.’

  ‘Are you taking me seriously?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Miss Brodsky . . .’

  I wondered if he had a girlfriend, if it was opportune to flirt, if a dismembered body lay scattered in amongst the gardens where I lived. Can someone die from a chopped-off finger? Had some old lady bled to death while I, inebriated, needlessly abandoned myself?

  Guilt, awash with, and . . .

  TIME FOR A MIDWEEK CRISIS!

  Actions taken had afforded me some relief, yet I remained anxious over work, wondering whether I’d be back on the breadline. I fretted about this all the way to the office. Surely they would have found out that Bob had in fact shown up.

  By chance, neither Trisha nor Fiona were at the office. In their stead I found Nadia manning the Trap. I didn’t mention the Bob episode, concentrating on the digit dilemma. Nadia listened, enthralled, her mouth agape.

  ‘That is way creepy.’

  ‘Tell me about it – the guy looked so young, it was like confessing to a Boy Scout.’

  ‘How could you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lose the finger.’

  I felt wretched. Nadia is young. Everyone younger than me I now consider to be young. She had her first kid when she was eighteen, second when she was twenty. Twenty-seven now, she lives with her mum and has this extended-family thing going on, i.e. lots of support. Plus she’s doing a part-time degree at the Royal Academy of Music and sings in a band. In mummyspeak, she’s a jammy cow. Oh yeah, she is also phenomenally beautiful, in a phwoar-to-almost-scary way. Plus, she’s got this really positive attitude and is incredibly easygoing.

  I did my best to resist liking her for a long time. Caved in when I found an envelope she had left for me on the desk containing three rolled-up joints and a note saying, ‘Issy, you are giving yourself unnecessary facial lines. Please smoke these and lighten up.’

  Max and I hang out with her some weekends, which is fun. In fact, I won’t have a word said against her and my envy is restricted to premenstrual-tension days only, which she, bless her, fully understands. See, working together means we have synchronised, allowing us to indulge in the most fantastic bitching sessions and then a few days later make up, when the release flow occurs.

  ‘Nadia, are you so thick as to think I would have lost the finger on purpose?’

  ‘Some old lady bled to death and you did nothing about it.’

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  Ears plugged with fingers, another Maxim I indulge in from time to time.

  ‘Issy! A little old dear, so weak she had to fling her own finger out the window of her flat, in a cry for help, and you . . .’

  ‘OK, now you’re just being over-dramatic.’

  ‘You’d think someone on your street would have noticed something. You really should ask your neighbours.’

  ‘Talk to my neighbours? Are you crazy?’

  In this day and age, one never can be sure who or what one is living next to. As far as I’m concerned, neighbours are people to be avoided at all costs, except if their washing machine has leaked and you need th
e name of their insurance company to make a claim.

  THE MAN ABOVE ME

  So there I was, screaming at my neighbour, full throttle enraged, my period expected in less than twenty-four hours. After I’d finished my rat-a-tat-tatting, he, arsehole supremo, squinted his eyes, ignored my question about weird goings-on, and asked, ‘Can you ask your kid to keep the noise down?’

  Well, that just friggin’ did it.

  ‘He’s a three-and-a-half-year-old, you fucking jerk, and it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. How dare you.’

  ‘Got a migraine.’

  He pointed to his temple.

  This is the guy who plays music at eleven o’clock at night (late in mother time), who has baths at midnight, and once turned on his washing machine at 2 a.m.

  When he moved in last year, I’d been optimistic. Nice-looking guy, thought we could be friendly. How deceptive appearances can be. I distinctly recall being laden down one afternoon, what with shopping bags and Max, inching towards the front door, in dire need of assistance. Then as I fumbled in my pockets for my keys, all fingers and thumbs, the door opened, he exited, and let it slam shut, like practically in my face, before I could wedge Max in as a doorstop.

  ‘Thanks,’ I’d hollered.

  ‘What?’ he’d replied.

  ‘You could have let me in.’

  ‘You have your own keys.’

  Arghhh, and that marked the beginning of our many run-ins. We now do our best to ignore each other.

  My neighbour from hell was telling me to keep the noise down.

  Me. Christ, I’d only knocked to see if he’d noticed any weirdness of late.

  ‘So if you wouldn’t mind, my head is really sore.’

  I glowered straight at him, whispering under my breath, ‘Here’s hoping it’s a brain haemorrhage.’

  For the next hour, Max and I indulged in a very simple game called, ‘Who can scream the loudest.’ OK, I confess, Max has brought out the child in me, the spoilt-brat one.

  Next day I called the police station to check if they’d found a match yet: they hadn’t.

  BACK ON THE NIGHT SHIFT

  It was Thursday and I was on the night shift. Maria arrived to a rapturous reception from Max. Then, as always, she produced a treat from her jacket pocket, and the next ten minutes were mine to shower and get ready.

  ‘Issy, are you OK?’

  ‘Sure, Maria, why d’you ask?’

  ‘But what happen Monday?’

  I hadn’t splurged to anyone of my recent nocturnal activities, not even Joy, my closest, dearest friend. Joy decided to go travelling last year (bitch). She’d worked her arse off in the City as a broker, which led to a stress-related illness, which, coupled with her biological clock and no takers, provoked her into handing in her resignation and running off to South America. She hasn’t been seen since. I miss her sorely. It actually hurts. We text regularly, since Fiona got wise to my telephone antics, but it’s not the same. Of all my friends, I was the first to bairn-produce, and it’s taken a while to find a whole new set of kid-friendly people.

  ‘But what happen, Issy? You were in a bad state.’ Maria’s tone of voice impressing upon me to open up.

  Can’t pretend any more. Swept too much under the carpet. It’s knee-high with emotional debris.

  ‘I . . . I . . . well, Maria, I sorta, kinda, I think I’ve fucked up badly. Tonight may be my last night on the job.’

  I could have brave-faced it, pretended to Maria that all was under control and I’d just pushed the boat out a little too far. Fact was, I was drowning, and what happened that night was a result of pure, unadulterated, triple-x loneliness.

  ‘Maria, you know the one rule at the Trap, the cardinal sin, the boundary not to be crossed . . .’

  ‘I get picture.’

  She sighed heavily with genuine concern and then did the wrong thing by putting her arms round me and giving me a hug.

  I surprised myself and dissolved into sobs.

  ‘It just gets so lonely looking after Max on my own, and sometimes I need to be held, you know, just held.’

  So Maria held me for fifteen minutes, and OK, she wasn’t hunk of the month but it was something, and for fifteen minutes it felt like someone was taking care of me, loving me.

  I arrived at the office late. Trisha was there waiting for me to take over.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Trisha. I’ll make it up or you can dock my wages.’

  ‘No problem, Issy, the kettle’s just boiled. You want a cup of tea?’

  What was with the personality makeover? Maria must have rung her.

  ‘Issy, you should go to the gym – it’s really good for releasing endorphins.’

  ‘Oh right, thanks.’

  Blu-tacked to the noticeboard was a piece of paper with the words ‘Don’t Abuse Office Time’ printed in bold, and for my benefit, no doubt.

  ‘Look, Trisha, I’m really sorry about Monday.’

  ‘Stop apologising. Listen to this, about Bob Thornton . . .’

  ‘Bob?’

  Here it comes. I took a deep breath and thought, Whatever happens, it’s going to be OK, it’s going to fine.

  ‘The thing is, I called Mrs Thornton and she said her husband had gone out on Monday . . .’

  So that was why she was being nice – the lead-up to my P45. She was going to string me out to dry – oh twist the knife a little deeper, honey.

  ‘Trisha, I was there. I swear he didn’t show up. I’m not lying.’

  Scarlet lady, red in the face from deceit.

  ‘I know, I received an email from Bob apologising for Monday night and wanting to meet up again.’

  LORD, YOU HEARD MY PRAYER LETTER AND THANK YOU, ALMIGHTYNESS

  Off the hook but confused nonetheless. Relief washed away a week of intense anxiety. And you know what? I came on immediately.

  ‘I was thinking you should meet Bob again,’ Trisha continued.

  ‘What? No way. You do it, he was your lead originally.’

  She handed me a printout of the email: ‘Trixi bella belle, Monday was a fuck-up, can we meet up soon, was wondering if you like gigs?’

  ‘That’s weird,’ I blurted. The whole tone had shifted. ‘What’s gig shorthand for – some sexual perversion?’

  ‘No, a band playing in a pub.’

  ‘Duh, there I was thinking horse and trap clap, spank as in hanky panky.’

  ‘Issy, stop fussing. Email him back and set up another date.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I have a feeling he was there.’

  And before I could say anything to further incriminate myself, Trisha winked at me.

  ‘I think he took one look at you and bottled it. I mean it in a nice way.’

  She left a couple of minutes later, off to seek out a certain Roger. He claimed to be a member of a book club. However, his wife’s suspicions had been aroused as all the books he’d supposedly read had creaseless spines. A dead give-away, if ever there was one.

  I fixated on thoughts of Bob. Was he some mighty game player? Did he know his wife read his emails? Were they actually perverts and having some warpo fun? It didn’t add up: there was something awry.

  I sent an email to him, kept it vague: ‘Dirty Bob, Monday was indeed a fuck-up, I’ll give you one last chance to make it up to me. Trixi, tricksy belle.’

  TING-A-LING-A-LING-A-LING

  The green light gloweth, arm in action and . . .

  ‘Good evening, the Honey Trap. How can I help?’

  ‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?’ A Yiddisha mama speaketh.

  ‘Hi, the Honey Trap.’

  ‘Can you talk up a little louder, I haven’t got my hearing aid in.’

  I wind the volume up.

  ‘Hello. The. Honey. Trap.’

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  A shrill old dear was piercing my eardrums.

  Suddenly it dawned: was this the woman with the missing finger? Could it be? Could it possibly be . . . ?


  ‘Are you . . .’

  ‘Finklestein,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but is this about the finger?’

  ‘Finkle . . . as in F.I.N.K.L.E.S.T.E.I.N. Look, you can . . .’

  CALL ME GLADYS

  Oi, Gladys, but did she go on some. I’m paid to listen – that’s what I kept saying to myself over and over.

  ‘He’s not himself. I don’t know what it is, but to be honest these last couple of weeks something’s changed. He’s lost his umph, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Umm . . .’ To be honest I didn’t.

  ‘Not umm . . . umph. He was always so full of it and now . . .’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Seventy-nine.’

  ‘I see, and you think he could be having an affair?’

  ‘After fifty years of marriage you think I care . . . I know this isn’t strictly what your company is for, but look . . . Can you talk to him? Get some sense out of him? Make him smile, though not too much – he’s just had a heart-bypass operation. What colour hair do you have?’

  ‘Brown.’

  ‘You a nice girl? Educated?’

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘Think you could help me out?’

  ‘Excuse me for being naive, but why don’t you use an escort company?’

  ‘Have you seen how much they charge? Listen, he needs a bit of attention from a stranger, a total stranger . . . see what I’m saying?’

  ‘It’s not really our thing, Mrs Fink.’

  ‘From one woman to another . . . please . . . please . . . I’m at my wits’ end. Just the once. Please?’

  ‘OK, I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘So every second Monday, he goes to Harry’s after work – you like chicken soup? They do good chicken soup . . .’

  A DATE SET FOR MONDAY

  Me and the boy child got through the weekend, the pair of us gagging come Monday morning for some quality separation time. He flew out of my arms, screaming the name of his best friend of the moment, without a kiss goodbye, not even a wave ta-ta. I turned and went to hang his coat on his name peg. Left the nursery and –