‘She’s horrid,’ he answered, without thinking.
Hobbs barked a startled laugh and paused to appraise Lewis. Some minutes behind, Paul Goldstein and Alan Dickson had stopped to be violently sick in the gutter, one’s projectile upwelling seeming to provoke the other’s.
Lewis and Hobbs stood face to face, hands in pockets, appraising one another properly for the first time since that demeaning meeting in Hobbs’ office three months prior.
Hobbs seemed to reach some sort of conclusion and nodded his head in the general direction of Lewis’s flat. ‘Let’s batter on, then,’ he said, before glancing back to Goldstein and Dickson’s position down the street. ‘I imagine your landlady would thank you to leave those two behind.’
Five minutes later, Hobbs was standing in front of the dresser in the flat, casually running his index finger over an oval frame of Lewis’s parents on their wedding day. Lewis stood at the opposite side of the sitting room, holding two tumblers of whisky.
‘You look like your father,’ Hobbs said. Lewis ducked his head in acknowledgement and handed him the tumbler, the scent of peat and seaweed pleasant in the air.
‘He’s a Postmaster,’ he finally said, sitting down on the sprung sofa. Hobbs looked politely interested but didn’t offer a reply as he joined him.
The silence stretched companionably between them for a spell, in which they each took short sips of their drinks and ice danced merrily about Hobbs’ glass. He had laughed as he asked for it, dismissing Lewis’s raised eyebrow with, ‘Purist, are we?’
‘Poor Julie will be in a right strop,’ Hobbs suddenly murmured, smiling faintly.
Lewis frowned into his tumbler, having entirely forgotten their encounter at the bar. ‘I doubt she’s heartbroken,’ he replied.
‘I don’t know. She doesn’t often make advances on the junior staff.’ Hobbs was watching him from the corner of his eye.
Lewis uncrossed his legs and scratched at his jaw unnecessarily, wondering darkly if Julie had been talking about him. How embarrassing. He chose to ignore the casual condemnation of his status.
‘She seems awfully taken with your accent,’ Hobbs grinned.
It struck Lewis then that he was lying.
‘Why did you drop out of Cambridge?’ he asked, and Hobbs’ smile vanished. A flush crept up his neck, and he shot Lewis a look of mock menace before answering.
‘I can’t decide if I’m offended or impressed by how rude that was.’
Lewis gazed pointedly back at him.
A sigh. ‘I had a bit of a tiff with my Head of Department,’ he offered, eventually.
‘You dropped out of the most prestigious university in the country because you didn’t fancy reading Yeats?’
‘You’re mocking me!’
‘I’m sorry, I was joking. Was it Milton?’
Hobbs barked a quick laugh and looked down into his tumbler. Realising the truth was not forthcoming, Lewis shrugged and settled further down into the chair.
‘I nearly dropped out of Edinburgh, you know,’ he murmured.
Hobbs’ raised eyebrow invited him to continue.
‘My mother took very ill when I was in my second year. I thought about dropping out and going home to take care of her. She wouldn’t let me. I stayed on to sit my exams, and she died alone in the house. Dad out at work, my sister at school.’
A vivid image of his mother appeared, unbidden, in his mind. Tall for a woman, wiry and lean with a sort of hard elegance, a deep blue skirt that reached her calves and a smatter of freckles between faint facial lines. She didn’t work but occasionally took in the neighbours’ sewing for a small fee. And she always smelled of the lavender talc Dad bought her for her birthdays and Christmases. She’d taught him and Cathy how to swim in the outdoor pool at Helensburgh, where their feet caught on jagged rocks and the water was salty.
Don’t you dare come home, she’d said. Don’t you dare.
‘Lewis.’
‘Sorry?’ He returned to the room, disoriented.
‘I have to – ugh, Christ. I’m sorry that I was unkind to you, the day I offered you the job on the third floor.’ Hobbs took a rushed drink of whisky, leaving the ice to rattle against the glass rim. He stared into the now empty tumbler.
Lewis stood, prising the glass from Hobbs’ elegant fingers, and crossed to the cabinet to refill it. His own fingers left a soft sheen of sweat on the whisky bottle, and he wiped his palm down his trouser leg.
‘It’s quite alright,’ he said, his tone light.
‘It’s not. What must you have thought of me?’ He stopped short at Lewis’s fleeting smirk. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘I’ve spent many hours since plotting your very violent death.’
‘Fuck off,’ Hobbs laughed, looking delighted.
‘Fuck you if you think it’s funny. I’ve spent three months thinking about nothing other than ways to make you look at me differently.’
Hobbs had a serious expression on his face. ‘How do you want me to look at you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lewis lied.
Hobbs was watching him. Lewis remembered himself and turned back to refill their tumblers. The ice had all but melted in his warm hands.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he said, brandishing the glasses in the air as explanation. He didn’t look at Hobbs as he left the room.
The freezer was in the house basement, a luxury the landlady, Mrs Bell, was deeply proud of. Lewis loped down the three flights, dancing carefully around the creakier floorboards, aware that it was long past eleven and that Jenny Warren on the first floor would be sleeping already. She worked at the hospital in a role that required her to leave the boarding house at some ungodly hour. But as he reached the landing, her door was flung wide. Mrs Bell stared him down imperiously from the doorway, a glass of sherry in one hand and an angry-looking tabby cat draped across her arm.
He halted mid-stride, reflecting that she was at once the most striking and ridiculous woman he had ever seen. She must have been at least six feet tall, a trait she emphasised with imposingly high heels, and she was desperately lean. At one point in her life she might have been very beautiful. Lewis couldn’t be sure of her precise age, but her tottering gait and deeply lined face suggested she was at the very least seventy years old. Her hair was vividly black and coiled in a thick, elegant spiral atop her head. She dripped with gold, and always wore a fat string of pearls around her neck.
‘Lewis!’ she said, beaming.
Jenny Warren gestured frantically from behind, her face a mask of misery. Lewis fought the urge to laugh. Jenny was a sweet girl – she hadn’t yet learned that to live peacefully under Mrs Bell’s roof, one must avoid Mrs Bell at all times.
‘Mrs Bell,’ he said, grinning. ‘Miss Warren,’ he added, nodding to an exasperated Jenny.
She continued to make inscrutable gestures behind Mrs Bell’s back, and he squinted at her curiously.
‘Have you been having a nice evening?’ he asked them, and Jenny threw her hands in the air, clearly infuriated.
Mrs Bell crossed the hallway and extended her gaunt face in his direction. He knew that this was an invitation and kissed her politely on the cheek. She smelled of sweet sherry and floral perfume, and he drew back sharply. The cat had taken advantage of his closeness and hooked a claw in his shirt sleeve. Mrs Bell squawked as he pried it off.
‘Pushkin has always been so fond of Lewis,’ she told Jenny, smiling between the two lodgers.
Jenny nodded politely. ‘Yes, yes. Goodnight now, Mrs Bell. I must be off to bed!’
She shut the door firmly, prompting Mrs Bell to quirk a quizzical brow. ‘Awfully unsociable, that one. It’s no wonder she’s a spinster, really.’
Lewis was certain that Jenny would have heard Mrs Bell’s stage whisper through her closed door and merely nodded.
‘You k
now, you’d make a delightful couple,’ she said, cackling. Pushkin, as perturbed by this outburst as Lewis was, leapt from her arms and made a dash for the upper floor. Mrs Bell looked unconcerned and looped her free arm through Lewis’s.
‘I’m sure Miss Warren has plenty of suitors.’
He sounded prim, he realised, and Mrs Bell snorted disbelievingly. She noted the two empty tumblers in his hand.
‘You have a guest,’ she said, unaccountably pleased. ‘Is it a lady friend?’
He blanched, and she patted his hand.
‘You and Miss Warren, such a private pair. It’s no wonder you’re both unmarried, I tell you. But you know, you’d make a delightful couple.’
He cleared his throat to avoid answering – it was a familiar refrain – but was spared their usual back-and-forth when a light tread on the stairwell behind him announced Hobbs’ arrival.
‘Oh, look there! Pushkin has found a new friend.’ Mrs Bell peeled the cat from Hobbs’ arms and planted a loud kiss on its head. The cat wriggled uncomfortably, and she bent down to release him. Lewis met Hobbs’ eye over her stooped frame and shrugged apologetically.
‘Mrs Bell, this is Frederick Hobbs. We were drinking with some colleagues this evening,’ he added, aware that it might be unusual for him to have someone in his room so late.
Mrs Bell shooed him to the side and embraced Hobbs by the shoulders. Despite her height, he stood a head taller than her and looked down at her with some amusement. If he felt any distaste, Hobbs hid it well.
‘A pleasure, Mrs Bell,’ he said, clasping her hands between his own. She beamed at him, sherry stains and lipstick darkening her teeth.
Lewis felt the warmth of embarrassment, but Hobbs seemed unperturbed. She peered up at his face as though searching for some familiar feature.
‘I know your grandfather, boy!’ she declared, surprising them both.
‘You do?’ Hobbs asked, a fleeting look of scepticism swiftly replaced with a nod of polite interest.
‘Oh, yes, we used to dine in the Cecil together, Mr Hobbs. I know him quite well, you know.’ She leaned in. ‘He tried to kiss me once, but I slapped his face!’
Laughter burst from Hobbs’ lips, surprising Lewis.
‘I don’t doubt it, Mrs Bell,’ Hobbs said, sweeping an arm around her back and guiding her up the stairwell. ‘He always said he only courted the most beautiful young women.’
She simpered, delighted, and the two continued on towards Lewis’s room.
‘Lewis,’ Hobbs said, looking over his shoulder with a sly wink. ‘Bring up enough for Mrs Bell as well. I want to hear all about my grandfather’s wild youth.’
Lewis watched them ascend, nonplussed. When they disappeared into his room, he turned to go downstairs. Jenny Warren opened her door a crack and peered out at him.
‘If you could try to keep her quiet, I’d be very grateful,’ she whispered. Lewis winked, and she closed the door silently.
6
It was long gone one-thirty by the time Lewis was able to usher Mrs Bell out of his room and downstairs to her own living quarters. She occupied the ground floor of the house, and he and Hobbs had been forced to carry her down between the two of them.
‘If he’s anything like his grandfather,’ she crowed mercilessly up the stairs as they retreated, ‘he’ll be up until the rooster sings!’
They smothered a laugh, and Hobbs hooked an arm around Lewis’s shoulder as they made their way back up to the third floor. Lewis felt curiously sober, though Hobbs, he noticed, had lost his steady gait.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered as he closed the door, gesturing down at the floor as though Mrs Bell might be lying at his feet, swilling cheap sherry and telling inappropriate stories about Lawrence Hobbs.
‘She’s so obscene!’ Hobbs said, with a tone of delight. ‘I can see why my grandfather would have liked her.’
‘Quite,’ Lewis replied, and they both sniggered.
Lewis was leaning against the closed door, Hobbs against the dresser at the opposite side of the room. A small silence bloomed, into which their smiles slowly faded.
‘Where were we,’ Hobbs mused, ‘before the lovely Mrs Bell joined us?’
‘Which she did at your invitation,’ Lewis reminded him, his admonishing tone only half serious.
Hobbs smiled. ‘She was an interesting distraction,’ he replied, shrugging.
Once more, a small silence grew. Lewis studied Hobbs. Even drunk, his eyes somewhat bleary, he was elegant. Tall and lean and neat, his fair hair smoothed off his face. Lewis self-consciously touched his own hair. Dark curls, tangled and messy. He dropped his hand, oddly annoyed. Hobbs had noticed; Lewis saw his eyes run the length of his body, and he felt his cheeks warm.
‘Ah. Yes. I was apologising to you,’ Hobbs said, and he had the grace to look sincere.
‘There’s really no need,’ Lewis replied, embarrassed for him.
‘Sometimes I…’ Hobbs broke off, his face darkening. Lewis sensed he should remain silent. Hobbs was making some sort of decision. He cleared his throat.
‘Well, my behaviour is sometimes less than it should be,’ he said, abandoning whatever truth he had considered revealing.
Lewis was disappointed. He thought of the meeting, how small he had felt under Hobbs’ gaze. He looked up to meet it now and blushed at the way Hobbs was looking at him. Hobbs pushed himself away from the dresser and walked over to the door. Lewis swallowed, felt his irritation dissipate.
‘You know, Julie wasn’t wrong about the accent,’ Hobbs said.
He leaned in and kissed him.
6
When Lewis woke on Saturday morning, Freddie was gone. A faint smell of cologne lingered in stale air that was otherwise heavy with cigarette smoke. The only tangible evidence of his presence was the discarded tumbler on the sofa, and the soft bruises he had left on Lewis’s lips.
Lewis groaned and rubbed vigorously at his left temple, which pulsed unpleasantly under the influence of too much alcohol and too little sleep. His legs were tangled in the bed sheets, and he had to struggle out of them before he could lurch on unsteady feet to the basin. Splashing cool water across his face, he groaned into the depths of the ceramic, and realised he was crying. He dashed an angry hand across his eyes, then washed as quickly as he could.
Within the hour, he was striding along the High Street towards the library. It was closed, being a Saturday, but after three short raps on the back entrance, a short, stocky man opened the door and ushered him in.
‘Lewis! It’s been a while,’ Arthur said, pleasantly surprised. ‘We heard you got a promotion. I suppose you’ve been busy.’
They entered the study room of the library, where an intimate group of two sat around a large round table. Strewn across it was an assortment of playing cards, books and notebooks, while the two people passed between them a bottle of whisky and packets of cigarettes.
‘Carson! Christ, we thought we’d rid ourselves of you!’ Ken looked a bit drunk as he raised the bottle in Lewis’s general direction, spilling a glug on the table in the process.
The young woman next to him broke out in a sweet smile. ‘It’s nice to see you,’ she said.
Lewis nodded at her, unaccountably awkward, sure that his previous night’s activities were somehow obvious. He felt himself blush.
‘Well? Where have you been hiding? Six weeks it’s been, and here I am stuck with a bloody poet and – sorry Ann, but it’s true – a silly wee lassie.’ Ken ruffled the young woman’s hair with what appeared to be affectionate intentions but came across as rather aggressive.
Lewis had once described Ken as ‘obnoxiously Scottish’, and Ann had nodded gravely. She winced beneath Ken’s large hand, quietly trying to smooth out her fair hair as soon as he returned his attention to Lewis. Arthur settled himself at the other end of the table and shot Ken a
reproachful frown.
Lewis cleared his throat, nervous. ‘Sorry for the radio silence, chaps,’ he said, taking a seat next to Ken and deliberately taking the bottle from him. ‘But here I am. Ready to share one of those “tortured, pseudo-intellectual” pieces you all love so dearly.’ With this he winked at Ann, who chuckled, and he felt some of his bravado return.
‘I never said that,’ Ken interjected. ‘I said they were torturous and pseudo-intellectual.’
Lewis felt a twinge of irritation but laughed along with Arthur and Ken. Ann looked vaguely uncomfortable, but then, she was always too sensitive for these group sessions. He often wondered what brought her back, week after week. Ken was invariably drunk and unbearable, he himself was quiet, and even Arthur was subdued and only quietly polite about her work. They were hardly a literary corp d’elite, just a ramshackle writers’ group with not one published piece between them and a tendency to get drunk before they got constructive.
Ann was an average writer. She produced inoffensive, uninspired samples of a seemingly very long novel on a weekly basis. Arthur had been trying – and failing – to write his Waste Land, while Lewis produced short stories one week and ill-judged essays the other. Ken didn’t actually contribute any writing of his own, but claimed to bring his expertise as an agent to the table.
Lewis was loath to admit it, for the man was miserable, a drunk and often cruel, but he could be helpful when he wanted to be. The problem was, he repeatedly told Lewis, that he should be writing novels, not short stories or poems. He was a writer who needed ‘breadth, space and scope’ – not to mention, son, your shorter stuff is just awful, god-awful.
‘Where have you been?’ Ann asked, breaking into his thoughts.
‘Hmm? Oh – working,’ he answered truthfully. ‘I’m on the editorial team now.’
‘Oh Lewis, that’s –’
‘Editorial?’ Ken interrupted. ‘That’s a laugh. Freddie Hobbs got you running errands? Making his tea and wiping his a–’
‘Ken.’
‘Sorry, Ann. Lewis knows what I mean, though, eh? A special variety of prick, is our Freddie.’
Lewis felt a flush creep up under his collar and, without thinking, pressed his fingers to his mouth. He was aware of the lengthening silence in the room, Ann’s thoughtful gaze and Ken’s belligerence. A slight tremble in his leg.
The Paper Cell Page 3
