Where There's Smoke

by Simon Beckett

  Her voice cracked a little as she asked. "Who is it?"

  "Cab for Powell." The voice was Cockney, nothing like Paul's, and she rested her head against the wall. She almost told the driver she had changed her mind: the urge to lock herself inside and crawl into bed was overwhelming.

  "Give me ten minutes," she called instead, and ran back upstairs to get dressed.

  CHAPTER 2

  The little girl was losing the fight to stay awake. Her eyelids drooped, flicked open, then drooped again. This time they stayed shut. Kate waited until she was sure Emily was asleep before softly closing the book and standing up. Disturbed by the slight shift of the mattress, the little girl turned on her side and burrowed under the sheets until only a tuft of pale hair was visible. Kate quietly slid the book onto the shelf. In the other bed Emily's brother, younger by almost two years, lay on his back, sturdy arms and legs thrown out with eighteen-month-old abandon. Angus had kicked off most of the covers. Kate pulled them over him again. She turned down the dimmer switch on the wall until the light from the Mickey Mouse lamp faded to a dull glow. The sound of the two children's breathing was a soft sibilance in the half-light. Kate had been absurdly flattered when they had both wanted her to take them to bed, Angus first, then his sister half an hour later. A wave of affection constricted her throat as she looked at the two of them sleeping. Gently, she closed the bedroom door and made her way downstairs.

  The house was a decaying, detached villa in Finchley, with high moulded ceilings, a mahogany-banistered staircase, and a small walled garden that Lucy called "the jungle". The ceilings were flaking and the banister cracked, but it was better than the cramped and cold apartment where Lucy and Jack had lived before. The house had been left to them several years earlier by an aunt, and they still didn't seem to have unpacked properly. Toys, papers and clothes were scattered on chairs, on the floor and over the backs of radiators. It was the sort of house Kate wished she'd been brought up in. She stepped over a red tricycle lying on its side at the bottom of the stairs and squeezed round a pile of boxes stacked untidily against the wall. Jack ran his desk-top publishing business from the converted cellar, and the over-spill from it cluttered the entire house.

  Lucy was putting more coal onto the fire as Kate went into the lounge. It tumbled out of the scuttle with a clatter, covering the flames completely. A damp smell came from it. Lucy set down the scuttle and wiped her hands on a rag. Her eyes were a vivid, almost violet blue as she looked up at Kate.

  "She get off okay?"

  "Out like a light."

  "You should come more often. They're always on their best behaviour when you're here. "Kate smiled and sat on the floor. The coal had smothered the heat from the fire, but already smoke was beginning to rise like steam from the black chunks. The lounge was big and draughty, and Lucy and Jack kept a fire going on all but the hottest nights. Kate curled her legs under her and leaned back against the settee. In front of her, the coffee table was littered with the wreckage of a Chinese takeaway, fried rice and noodles congealing in foil containers. A half-empty bottle of white wine stood among them. Lucy pushed a blonde curl out of her eyes and sat down on the floor near Kate. She picked out a cold prawn. "I knew I should have cleared this lot away," she said, chewing. "I'll have put on half a stone by tomorrow."

  "You could always come to the gym with me."

  "No, thanks. If God had meant women to be slim he wouldn't have invented chocolate." She popped another prawn into her mouth. "Anyway, look what happened the last time I went to a gym. I met Jack."

  Kate poured them both more wine, then settled back against the old leather settee. She felt drowsy and comfortable. She had known Lucy for seven years, but it seemed much longer. Lucy had been a receptionist at the agency where Kate had been given her first PR job, and where Paul Sutherland had been marketing director. Her pneumatic figure and tendency towards tight clothes had turned men's heads, but two children and a sweet tooth had changed all that. If she minded the trade, though, she didn't show it. Sometimes Kate envied her. Lucy sucked her fingers. "So you're adamant you're not going to the police about Paul?"

  "I don't think there's much point. It'd only be his word against mine." Kate reached for her wine glass. "Besides, nothing really happened in the end."

  "It would have if you hadn't stopped him. And how do you know he won't try it again?"

  "I'll be more careful. I don't think he will, though. He was just drunk and worked up about them losing the pitch. I can't see even Paul being stupid enough to make a bigger thing of it."

  Lucy gave a laugh. "I can."

  Kate accepted this without comment. Lucy had tried to warn her off Paul Sutherland from the start. She hadn't listened.

  "So what happens now you've won the pitch?" Lucy asked. "Are you going to back off and take things a little easier?"

  "I wish. Now's when the hard work really starts."

  Lucy selected another prawn. "So delegate. You're always saying how good Clive is."

  "He is, but I can't dump everything on him."

  "So you'll try and do it all yourself, until you have a -" Lucy broke off. "Well, until you drop," she finished. The first flames licked through the coal as the fire began to burn in earnest. Kate watched them. "I enjoy working," she said.

  "That doesn't mean you can't have a social life as well."

  "I've got one."

  Lucy snorted. "Going to the gym's hardly what I'd call being a party animal."

  Kate rubbed her neck. Probing tendrils of another headache announced their presence. "Don't go on about it."

  "I'm sorry, Kate, but I can't just sit back and watch you work yourself into a frazzle." The firelight gave Lucy's blonde hair a reddish tint. "I know running a business isn't easy. God knows, Jack puts enough hours into it. But you need some sort of existence outside work.

  "Without warning, Kate's vision blurred. The fire dissolved into sparkling prisms. She turned away, blinking her eyes clear.

  "Kate? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing. I'm all right."

  Lucy tore off a piece of kitchen roll and handed it to her. "No, you're not. You've been in an odd mood all night." She waited until Kate had blown her nose. "Is it what happened with Paul?"

  "No, I'm just being a silly cow, that's all.

  "Lucy just looked at her.

  "I don't know what's wrong," Kate blurted. "I should be ecstatic, but I just feel…" She tossed the wad of kitchen roll onto the fire. It held its shape for a moment, then disappeared in a spurt of flame. "I don't know how I feel."

  The flame died down, leaving a grey curl of ash. A thin tail of smoke wavered up from it. Kate looked away, unconsciously brushing at her sleeve.

  Lucy was watching her. "You need a holiday."

  "I don't have time."

  "Then make time. I know starting your own agency was the best thing you could have done after the mess with Paul, I'm not disputing that. But it's not healthy to carry on burying yourself in it. If you were enjoying yourself I wouldn't mind, but you're obviously not."

  "I'm just feeling a bit low, that's all."

  "Oh, come on, Kate, that's bollocks, and you know it." Lucy sighed and set down her glass on the coffee table. "Look, I don't want to go on about it. But you can't let one bad experience sour you for life. It's time you put it behind you."

  "I have put it behind me."

  "No, you haven't. Before you started seeing Paul you used to be going out all the time, but since then you've just cut yourself off from everybody."

  Kate shrugged. "People lose touch."

  "Only if you let them. How many people did you bother to tell when you moved into your flat? I bet most of them don't even know where you live any more." Lucy waited for her to deny it. Kate didn't. "And you haven't so much as been out for a drink with another man since you split up with Paul, and that's been more than three years, now."

  "I haven't met anyone I want to go out with."

  "You haven't tried. I've seen you whe
n we're out together. You've got this aura around you that says, 'Don't touch.'"

  "What do you want me to do? Fall flat on my back for every man I meet?"

  "No, but you don't have to turn into a nun, either. Come on, be honest. Can you seriously tell me you don't miss sex?"

  Kate avoided looking at her. "I don't think about it much."

  "That's not a straight answer."

  "All right, then, no, I don't particularly miss it. Okay?"

  "Then there's something wrong with you." Lucy began to take a drink, then lowered her glass as another argument occurred to her. "I know some women are perfectly happy putting their career before everything, but I just don't think you're one of them. And, let's face it, you're not getting any younger."

  "Thanks."

  "Well, you're not. You're thirty-four next year. You might like to think you're Superwoman, but your biological clock's running the same as everyone else's. Don't you think it's about time you started thinking about having a family, and -"

  "Oh, come on!" Kate's wine sloshed as she banged down the glass. "Hear me out -"

  "I don't have to, I know what you're going to say! I should get married, settle down, cook tea! Sorry, but I don't think so. You might be happy being a housewife, but there's more to my life than that!"

  She was surprised herself by the heat in her voice. Lucy looked at her for a moment, then wrapped her arms around her legs and gazed at the fire. "Perhaps there is. But I'm not the one who's been in tears, am I?"

  The flames popped and crackled in the silence. "Sorry," Kate said. "I didn't mean that."

  "It's all right." Lucy turned to her again. "I meant what I said. And you can scream and shout all you like about not wanting a relationship, and not wanting to settle down. But I've seen how you are with Angus and Emily, so don't try to tell me you don't want children, because I won't believe you."

  Kate tried to produce a denial, but none came. Lucy nodded, as if this confirmed her point, but before she could say anything else they heard the front door being unlocked. "Sounds like the reading finished early," Lucy said, cocking her head. She leaned forward quickly and put her hand on Kate's knee. "All I'm saying is, ask yourself what you really want. And then do something about it." She fixed Kate with a firm look, then sat back as footsteps approached down the hallway. Kate reached for another piece of kitchen roll.

  "Are my eyes red?"

  Lucy stretched, twisting her hands from side to side above her head. "No, and it wouldn't matter if they were," she said, through a yawn. "When Jack's had a couple of pints he wouldn't notice if you were starkers."

  The lounge door opened and a heavily built man bustled in, grinning. His wiry, black hair was thicker on his forearms than it was on his head. He bent and kissed Lucy. "All right, luv? Hi, Kate."

  Kate smiled at him. He examined the cold contents of the foil containers, absently rubbing his slight paunch, then sank down into the high-winged leather armchair behind Lucy. Lucy leaned back against his legs. "Good meeting?"

  "Not bad. Gavin's got a new collection of poetry he's thinking of putting out, and Sally's got an idea for a new distribution system…"

  Kate stopped listening. Although being with Jack and Lucy was like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers, she knew she would leave soon. The thought of going back to the barrenness of her empty flat depressed her, but sometimes she couldn't help feeling like an outsider, a spare setting at an already complete table. She stared back into the fire as Lucy and Jack's voices lapped around her. A piece of coal made a snapping noise. The flames danced and quivered, always on the verge of shapes that she could never quite recognise.

  That night Kate dreamed she was in a railway station. It was vast. People hurried past, ignoring her. She knew her train was about to leave, without knowing where it went from. In front of her was a huge timetable, but the words on it were somehow indecipherable. Gripped by a terrible urgency, she began forcing her way through the crowds, but as she did, she became aware that she had lost something. Even in the dream she didn't know what it was, only that she couldn't go on without it. She tried to retrace her steps, pushing back against the mass of people, but she was in another place now, further away than ever. The urgency became panic. She ran blindly through the station, filled with an awful need to find what she had lost, knowing that time was running out. And all the while everyone around her walked with assured intent, and the Tannoy blared out in a foreign language.

  The dream left her with a vague sense of unrest next morning. As she drank her orange juice and waited for the toast to pop, she had the feeling that this wasn't the first time she'd had it, only the first she could remember. Kate decided she wouldn't mention it to Lucy. She would only read too much into it.

  CHAPTER 3

  Later, she was to wonder what would have happened if she hadn't seen the magazine. Redwood had been on the phone again, making yet more amendments to the campaign. Two weeks after winning the pitch, he was still calling her most days, and when he finally rang off Kate put down the receiver with a feeling of weariness. She opened the Trust's file, stared at it for a moment, then tossed it down on her desk and sat back. Sod it. She went down to the basement kitchen, deciding to have tea instead of coffee for a change. The kettle was half full. Kate switched it on and dropped a teabag into a mug as she waited for it to boil. On the work surface nearby was a copy of Cosmopolitan. Idly, she picked it up. The glossy cover offered the usual mix of celebrity interviews and sex. One of the captions declared, "Men: Who Needs 'Em?". Underneath, in smaller letters, it added, "Donor Insemination: The Shape of Things to Come?" Kate ran her eye over the other captions. Then back. She flicked through the pages. She began to read. Behind her, the kettle gouted steam before turning itself off. Kate didn't look up. She stood with her hip resting against the work surface, motionless except for when she turned a page. Only her eyes moved, running over the words in a waking REM. At one point she flipped back to reread a passage on a previous page. She lingered over it, then resumed where she had left off. She was turning to the next page when the door opened. Kate jerked her head up. Josefina paused in the doorway. The Spanish girl had an empty coffee jug in her hand. She gave Kate a nervous smile.

  "I did not mean to frighten you."

  "No, I was…I was just making a cup of tea." Flustered, Kate turned to the kettle and saw it had already switched itself off. She clicked it on again. The girl went to the sink. Kate saw her glance at the magazine, and hurriedly closed it. "Sorry, is this yours?"

  Josefina brushed a heavy hank of hair from her eyes. "It's all right. You can read it, if you like."

  "No, I've finished with it, thanks.

  "Kate put the magazine back on the work-surface as Josefina began to fill the coffee jug from the tap. There was nothing knowing about the way the Spanish girl had smiled, Kate told herself. Why should there be? She'd only been reading a women's glossy, for God's sake. There was nothing wrong with that. So why was she blushing? The kettle boiled. Kate busied herself pouring boiling water onto her teabag.

  On her way home, she stopped off and bought a copy of the magazine from a newsstand.

  Lucy was already at the cafe when Kate arrived. It was lunch-time, and most of the tables were already full, but Lucy had managed to claim one on the pavement under the red awning. As Kate approached, she was flirting with a waiter, a pair of sunglasses pushed back on her head to hold her hair from her eyes. The waiter grinned as he went back inside. Kate pulled back the white plastic chair from the table and sat down. It was warm from the sun.

  "Not interrupting anything, am I?"

  Lucy gave an easy shrug. "Don't begrudge me my little pleasures. I've got to pick the kids up from the crèche in just over an hour."

  They opened the menus. Kate ordered a Greek salad without really looking. Lucy ordered moussaka, giving the waiter another smile as she thanked him. He took the menus with a flourish. She watched him walk away.

  "Have you ever noticed how Greek men have
lovely bums?"

  She turned back to Kate with a sigh. "Anyway, this is a surprise. I thought I'd never see you now you've got the new account. How's it going?"

  "Don't ask."

  Lucy didn't any more. She was more interested in the argument she and Jack were having over buying new hardware for his business. Kate fuelled her monologue with the occasional nod and smile, hearing none of it. Further down the street, a group of workmen were digging up the road. A traffic warden stopped by a car, wrote down its registration number. A few feet from him, a tramp rummaged in a waste bin. Kate watched them without seeing. She looked back at Lucy and tried to pay attention. She found herself twirling and untwirling her napkin around her finger, and made herself stop.

  The waiter returned and set their food on the table. Kate picked at the oil-drenched salad and white cubes of feta without appetite. She realised Lucy was looking at her, expectantly. "Sorry?"

  "I said, how's the salad? These aubergines are gorgeous! I've got a recipe for moussaka from a magazine, but it doesn't taste anything like this!"

  The opportunity made Kate's heart race. "I was reading a magazine article the other day." Her tone was studiedly casual. "About artificial insemination."

  "Oh, yes?" Lucy didn't so much as glance up.

  "Yes, it's…you know…surprising how many women have it."

  Lucy was engrossed in a mouthful of moussaka. "Jack's cousin did. Her husband was impotent. Some sort of hideous accident, or something, so the only way they could have kids was thingy. Artificial whatever.

  "Kate forgot her nervousness. "Did they use his sperm or a donor's?"

  "Oh, Kate, please, not while I'm eating!" Lucy pulled a face. "Anyway, I don't know all the details. They emigrated."

  She bent over her food again, then stopped. She gave Kate a sharp look. "How come you're so interested?"

  Kate made a show of forking up more of her salad. "I'm not. It's just…you know, an interesting subject."