Clare handed me another. Her eyes were still red and puffy from the half-hour she had spent crying in my arms on the kitchen floor. She looked too fragile to withstand this level of grief; I thought the sobbing was going to break her.
‘This one was in France last year, and this one was her last birthday.’
I thought that she looked a lot older than a teenager, an unsettling thing for any parent. Trouble was written all over her, in the come-hither eyes and the self-assurance with which she held herself.
‘She looks… happy,’ I said.
I didn’t think my real thoughts would have been appropriate.
‘She was. I—’ She halted mid-sentence.
I tensed.
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I… I’m not sure I’ve done that before.’
‘Done what?’
‘Talked about her like that, in past tense.’ Her laugh wasn’t quite right. ‘Silly, I suppose, all this time talking about her like she’s on holiday or something.’
‘My brother died the other day.’ I put the photos down on my knees, and for the first time since it had happened it stopped feeling like something I had watched happen to someone else. ‘He’d been in Afghanistan for so long it doesn’t actually feel like anything’s changed. It’s pretty weird.’
‘Wow, I’m really sorry.’ For once, she sounded genuine. ‘I’m surprised, you know, that you have a brother.’
‘Sister too, and parents, like normal people.’
‘Are they OK?’
‘I…’ I still hadn’t called back. ‘I don’t know, to be honest.’
‘Were you close, you and your brother?’
‘No. Though that was my fault, really. Me and Harri, my sister, we fucked up a lot. I mean a lot, you have no idea how much…’ I kept talking, letting the words find their own way out. ‘So it wasn’t his fault, he just made us feel… bad, I suppose.’
She nodded, rubbing at the bruise on her forehead. I was almost overcome by the urge to touch her.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Why do you…? How can you keep making these fucking excuses for him?’
A weary expression came over her face and she sighed. ‘It’s not his fault, I… Sometimes it’s better to just feel something, I guess. Or something… different, at least.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘You might… Maybe.’
I wanted to kiss her again.
Across the room another mobile started ringing and she stood up. She looked at it for a moment, and when she chose to answer I could hear Pat’s voice without even being on speakerphone.
Clare held the phone a few inches away from her ear as he started shouting. I made out the words ‘fucking’, ‘liar’ and ‘bitch’. I had a fleeting vision of punching him in the face, over and over and over again…
‘Save the phone call for your lawyer, darling,’ she said.
Pat started to say something else, but she cut him off and put the phone down.
There was a sardonic glint in her eye.
She looked at me. ‘You have to go. I have some… things to do.’
‘What sort of things?’
She ignored me. It was always her conversation; never mine. ‘If I call you, will you come back?’
I hesitated, but not for long enough to be convincing. Asking her about what had just happened would be pointless, I could tell.
‘Yes,’ I said.
She smiled, but I wasn’t sure if it was at me. ‘OK.’
I stood up and held out the photos.
She took them, curling her fingers around mine for a moment. It was as if a mist had descended around her face; she wasn’t there any more. I left without saying anything else, feeling as though something poisonous was crawling across my skin.
I shut the front door and stood on the driveway, taking deep breaths before walking back towards the road. I resisted looking back at the house; I felt as though she might have been watching.
My mobile started ringing as I reached the pavement, and when I was sure I was out of sight I answered it.
It was Pat.
‘Nic,’ he said, sounding as though he was breathing through his teeth. ‘I need a favour, a personal one. I’ll pay you more if need be.’
‘I—’ I cut myself off, remembering to act oblivious to whatever had happened on the phone with Clare. ‘Yeah, sure. What sort of favour?’
‘Had some visitors to my office… I think I’m going to be charged with assault. Possibly ABH, I don’t know, God knows what she’s made up. Nic…’ He paused. ‘Nic, this is serious, I need you to watch her.’
‘Clare?’
‘I need you to watch her. Even if I get out on bail I won’t be able to go home.’
I slipped on a patch of ice. ‘Um, sorry, I’m not getting you. I mean, I understand but… what are you—?’
‘You don’t know her, Nic. You don’t know what she’s… what she’s capable of. I know you think you’ve got it all worked out and you’re probably feeling very fucking superior, but she’s losing the plot. She’s losing the fucking plot and she’s not safe. I need you to keep an eye on her and tell me what’s going on.’
There were normal behaviour patterns in abusive relationships; scripts and clichés that were always followed. I had seen them in enough jobs. This wasn’t normal. No matter how I ran through the scenarios in my head, I couldn’t grasp what was going on. One moment they were both playing the roles I expected of them, then one or both of them turned everything back on its head.
It dawned on me what Emma must have felt like; being between two people who had spent almost two decades of marriage learning how to fuck each other up.
‘How much?’ I asked.
‘Depends what you tell me. I’m serious. You have no fucking idea what she’s like and you have to tell me what’s happening.’
He didn’t sound angry any more, I realized. He didn’t sound unhinged, or jealous, or possessive. He sounded worried.
Part of me wanted to throw it back in his face, tell him how glad I was that he was finally getting some comeuppance, that not even an hour ago his wife had left scratch marks on my forearms as she had kissed me. But I didn’t. There was a creeping feeling, a tiny fragment of doubt, which kept telling me I might be wrong.
I wasn’t wrong, almost certainly wasn’t, but I still had to get the laptop.
‘OK,’ I said slowly. ‘OK, I’ll do it.’
‘Thanks. I’ll send you my lawyer’s number, just in case, but I’ve got to go.’
He hung up.
I stood still in the cold for a while, unsure of where to start, where this was even going any more. This evening, I thought, checking my watch, I was going to start with calling my parents back.
Mark was watching Question Time in the living room, so there was a comforting level of noise in the background as I paced in the kitchen for a while with the cordless phone. After about ten minutes I pressed the Call button, hoping that being forced into speaking would calm me down.
I leant against the kitchen worktop, my heart pounding. I still hadn’t remembered to change my fucking watch. As I looked at it I felt uneasy, but couldn’t pinpoint why. It made me think of Matt.
Harriet answered my parents’ landline.
‘Hello?’
In the living room I heard Mark laugh and shout something at the TV. There had been a bottle of brandy on the coffee table.
‘Hi, Harri, it’s me.’
She made a disbelieving noise down the line. ‘So much for coming back, huh?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you want to speak to Mum?’
‘No, I mean it. I’m really…’ I swallowed. ‘I’m really sorry and… I really miss him.’
She didn’t say anything and I started absently picking up kitchen utensils and putting them down again.
‘Is that what you called to say?’ she said.
‘You know… You know what really gets me?’ I said, choki
ng.
‘What?’
‘Neither of us… We didn’t turn up for the… er…’ I stabbed a fork into the granite as a few tears worked their way down my cheeks. ‘When he got his wings… We didn’t, neither of us… It’s so… fucking…’
‘I know what you mean.’ Her voice was thick.
‘I don’t even… remember what the fucking excuse… was,’ I said, sniffing.
‘I was high, I suppose.’ There was a pause, where she sounded as though she had walked into another room and shut the door. ‘He wasn’t a saint, Nic, he just… thought he was. They just think that.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘What the fuck’s the point in being bitter about it now? We both… we both fucked it up.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘No, listen!’ I snapped, managing to fight back the tears long enough to construct a sentence. ‘It’s not his fault he made us look like shit, he was just—’
‘Perfect,’ she spat.
‘Why the fuck are you being like this?’
‘Why the fuck are you trying to apologize to him? He’s dead, Nic, a gravestone’s not going to hear your fucking apology, so just deal with it. You think I haven’t had to listen to them, going on and on about how they didn’t fucking do enough for him? Well, maybe if they’d done less for him they wouldn’t have left us to the shit!’
I stared across the kitchen at my reflection in the oven door. I couldn’t think of anything to say. There was nothing I could say, not even in contradiction.
There was a long silence.
Harriet sniffed, and I was shocked to realize she had probably been crying.
‘So I don’t… I don’t want to hear it,’ she said. ‘And I hope… I hope you’re coming to the funeral because…’
‘Of course I’ll come, I just—’
‘… we have to say something and if there’s not one other person there who’s fucking sane about this I—’
‘Harri, don’t cry…’
‘I might fucking throw up.’ She sniffed. ‘Nic… I’ll call you… back.’
‘No, come on—’
The line went dead. I realized there were still tears running down my cheeks and I brushed them away. As I put the phone down on the side I noticed the brief silence before the TV kicked in again. Mark had probably muted it for the duration of the call.
I dashed some cold water on my face from the sink, and when I took the phone back out into the living room Mark was acting oblivious. I watched Question Time for a while from the back of the room, until he turned the sound down a little.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he said, without turning around.
I laughed, but everything still hurt. ‘Na… Maybe later.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Sighing heavily, I came around the sofa and slouched down next to him. ‘It’s all right. Well, you know… It’s… one of those things.’
Mark reached over and gave the side of my neck an affectionate scratch, before turning the sound up again.
‘Look at this dick on the panel,’ he said, his lip curling at the TV screen. ‘I don’t know how the audience do it, how they don’t just stand up and shout, You’re a cunt! You’re a racist cunt!’
I poured myself a glass of brandy and put the phone down on the coffee table, just in case. I didn’t expect her to call back; she was too much like me. Fuck her, I thought. Fuck all of them.
20
I turned up at Mackie’s house, unannounced, at an antagonistic time of morning. Before getting there I had tried phoning Matt’s number, and Brinks’s, but neither of them had answered. In a way, I almost wished they were both dead. It would save me the hassle of tracking them down every time I needed them.
After ringing the bell a few times I kept my finger on it, sending the shrill noise throughout the house until, finally, Mackie answered the door in a burgundy dressing gown.
It was amusing that he made an effort to look pleased to see me, but his knee-jerk expression of dread betrayed him before he was able to force a smile.
‘Oh… Nic, hi.’
‘Can we talk?’
‘It’s six in the shitting morning.’
‘I know.’
I didn’t move, and he retied the cord of his dressing gown.
‘OK,’ he said, ushering me in. ‘I suppose you want a cuppa?’
‘Wouldn’t say no.’
I stopped in the hallway and looked up at the tribal mask, leering at me with square teeth. It was like a caricature of an old man’s face, with too much hair and too wide a smile. It reminded me a little of the statue in Clare’s living room. Why would anyone have things like that in their home? Things that so obviously wished ill on everything they saw?
‘Don’t wanna be rude, mate, but… I was kinda hoping to never see you again.’ He laughed, nervously, as he pottered around the kitchen. ‘You know, unless it was a social occasion or something…’
‘I need a favour.’
‘Fuck, I thought so.’ He sighed and put the kettle on. His eyes were still puffy with sleep. ‘Go on then, what is it?’
‘You’ve worked for Felix Hudson before, haven’t you?’
I took my eyes off the mask when I received no reply. He was staring at me, his mouth moving as if trying to find the appropriate words. He was a truly awful liar.
‘Don’t bother trying it on, I’m not actually asking you,’ I said.
‘Um… Once or twice.’
‘No, quite a few times.’ I put my hands in my pockets and wandered into the kitchen towards him. ‘I only just realized that was where I recognized his name from.’
‘So…’ His eyes went from my pockets to the doorway, and then back to the kettle. I could almost see the images in his mind, trying to work out if he could throw the boiling water in my face before I reached him. ‘Why do you want to know about Felix?’
‘That’s… none of your business,’ I said, smiling. ‘I just need to speak to him.’
‘Speak to him?’
The kettle had started to growl over us.
‘Yeah.’ I raised my voice. ‘Just speak to him.’
Mackie took the thing off the boil. ‘Nic, mate, you never wanna “just speak” to anybody.’
‘You make me sound so antisocial,’ I said, enjoying his discomfort.
‘Oh fucking hell, why do you wanna speak to him?’
‘Business, weather, you know. Can you get ahold of him? Bet you have a number or two.’
‘Just the one,’ he said, motioning as if to make the tea but deciding not to bother. ‘Nic, is there…? Is there anything else? I mean, anything else I can do? He’ll fucking kill me. He doesn’t mess around.’
‘Neither do I. Who’s in your kitchen?’
He rubbed a hand over his face and made an audible noise of distress. ‘What do you want me to do? Do you want his number?’
‘Can you call him and ask him to meet you somewhere?’
‘Jesus Christ, no.’
‘Did you forget the question before that?’ I asked, taking a step forwards.
‘Oh chill out! Fucking hell, OK, OK, Nic, just chill out, yeah? Where?’ He backed away, retying the cord of his dressing gown again.
‘Fetching colour,’ I said.
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere he hangs out already? Somewhere that won’t sound too obvious.’
‘It’s gonna sound obvious whatever I say, mate. I haven’t even fucking seen him since the summer.’
‘Look, I don’t really give a shit,’ I said, shrugging. ‘Just let me know by the end of the day that you’ve sorted something out, right? I’ll be on my mobile, and make sure it’s soon.’
Mackie put his hands up, looking like a man cornered by the law who didn’t have the fight to plead not guilty.
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that,’ I said. ‘How often have I ever asked you for anything?’
‘Only takes the once, doesn’t it?’
He had given up more easily
than I had predicted, and I realized I needn’t have been so menacing. I thought about the body in the stilettos, carrying it in pieces out through the front door behind me. I wanted to ask if he had been all right, but indicated my head back at the tribal mask instead.
‘What is that thing?’
‘I don’t actually know. Found it on a stall somewhere.’ He shook his head, the colour gone from his face.
‘What does it mean?’
‘No idea. I’m not that cultural really, it just… spoke to me, I guess.’
In my mind I could see the statue with no face. It looked like something Clare would have bought, rather than Pat. The idea of it speaking to anyone made me shudder, but it wasn’t hard to see her in it.
While I was in the car I remembered to take Dad’s watch off and put it back in the glove compartment, for next time. I looked at the Rolex, thought of Matt, and the more I stayed with the image the more it dawned on me that he had been lying. It wasn’t right, the way he had kept checking the time, the crude note from Felix, the way his grief and fear were so staged, and the way he avoided Emma’s name…
Stupid bint…
Bitch…
I needed to find Felix. That was the only way I stood a chance of understanding exactly what Matt was lying about.
I stopped calling the number he had given me, dropped my phone on to the dashboard and parked the car outside Edie’s geometric oddity of a house. This morning I’d decided I couldn’t put this off any longer.
I rang the doorbell.
After a short wait Scott opened the door without the chain on. I had hoped he wouldn’t be the one to answer.
Up close he looked unnervingly like his mother, but with someone else’s jawline. Everything from the lips upwards was the same, even down to the direct stare, which was even more striking on a child in their early teens.
‘Hey, Scott,’ I said, with a grim smile that would never have fooled Edie. ‘Is your dad in?’
‘He went out for more coffee but he’s coming back. You a friend of his?’
I ran through what I knew about Edie’s background. ‘Um… yeah, I’m a friend of your mum’s actually. We were at NYU together for a bit.’
‘You come from New York?’ His face lit up and he had the same smile. ‘Cool.’
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