Meg started to sob.
‘Now give her to me!’ The creature hissed and lunged again at Peter, reaching out for Lauren’s body.
‘NO!’
The walls shook and pictures fell to the floor. A mirror shattered. There was a roar from both sides of the hall as Peter and his dad lowered their heads and charged.
Meg wailed and there was a clash of horns, a scream of pain. The darkness seemed to grow, spreading into all the corners of the hall. The rushing noise they’d heard earlier came again and grew louder like a roaring river; a continuous rolling of thunder. The blackness touched Suky’s face, licked at the sides of her mouth. Peter shouted again, ‘No, she isn’t dead’ and the ground began to shake. Lightning flickered outside. Suky buried her face in Jimmy’s chest and they hugged each other. She thought the earth was going to crack open and swallow them all. It was the loudest noise she’d ever heard, and she was sure it was the end.
Then the darkness vanished and all was quiet.
The sun shone into the room through the windows, catching on the pieces of broken chandelier and filling the air with stars. Peter’s dad was lying on his front near the stairs, breathing heavily. Peter was sitting on the carpet amongst the broken roses with Lauren still in his arms. Her eyes were closed and her face was white as lilies. She sighed.
Meg leapt to her feet and ran out of the house. Andy ran after her, but they heard the sound of her car slicing through the winter’s air as she drove away down the lane, leaving him shouting her name.
50. Ali
I was drinking coffee in a café outside the Gare de Lyon in Paris. There were tables out on the street with people sitting at them, but I’d opted to sit inside in the warm. I had a table by the window, and I’d ordered double espresso along with a glass of water. The coffee was thick and bitter, and I nibbled a croissant to neutralise the taste in my mouth. I was wearing a new coat that I’d bought in London, and a black hat which I kept taking off as it made me feel self-conscious. On the table were some orange gloves I’d crocheted before I left England. My rucksack leaned against my feet. It contained all my worldly possessions.
It was nine thirty in the morning and outside on the street was the tail of the rush hour, with all the accompanying noise of honking horns and rushing feet, a blur of coats, high heels, and briefcases. I was in no rush. I had all the time in the world.
I slipped my hand inside the pocket of my coat and touched the postcard. The day lay before me, empty of plans. I smiled and sipped my coffee. I knew Richard was here in this city. The streets smelled of him and his kind.
Two weeks ago I’d woken up with him in the hotel in Leeds, the bed vast with rumpled white sheets. The curtains weren’t completely closed and the sun shone softly into the room. My body felt heavy and warm and I stretched, opening all my capillaries and letting the blood rush through.
Richard was standing in the doorway wearing his shades, holding two mugs of coffee.
I slid out from under the sheets and walked naked to the window to close out the morning sun. I could feel him watching me. When I turned round he removed his glasses. His irises were cloudy, his look unreadable.
‘Hungry?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Shall we get breakfast, or do you fancy coming back to bed for a bit?’
He grinned. ‘Breakfast can wait,’ he said.
The coffee went cold too. I didn’t remember it was there until later, and by then Richard had gone.
We were lying with our bodies entwined, the sweat drying on our skin, when Richard’s phone went off.
‘Stuff that,’ he said. But it went off again a minute later, and then again. The fourth time it rang he groaned and pulled himself away from me.
‘I suppose I better find out who it is.’
He answered it and walked through to the lounge. When he returned he was wearing a shirt, and had his shoes in his hand.
‘It’s Meg. She’s on her way back to Paris. She needs me.’
I turned over onto my front.
‘Can’t she go by herself?’
‘Something’s happened. She’s in a bit of a state. I’m sorry Ali.’
He pulled on his jeans and I sat up in the bed with the sheet wound around me and watched him. When he had his jacket on he came and sat next to me on the bed. He held me close and the leather was cold on my skin. We kissed and he pushed the sheet away with his hands, ran his fingers down my back.
‘Ali, why don’t you come too?’ he said into my hair.
I felt the tingling of my blood rising to the surface, filling the tiny vessels in the skin of my neck where his lips brushed. I could feel the pulse of desire beating through my body. I slid my hands inside his jacket and held him tight.
‘Maybe later,’ I said. ‘There’s something I need to do first.’
The train journey was long and complicated, with three changes. By the time I arrived it was already seven in the evening. I wondered about finding a hotel for the night, but I didn’t want to lose the momentum that had carried me this far. In the morning I might be tempted to scurry away.
So when I got off the train I walked the familiar route home. Not much had changed. Some of the hedges had grown higher and the hill up to our street seemed like a gentle slope after the hills of West Yorkshire. But I could almost believe the intervening years hadn’t happened.
Our house was different. The outside had been painted and the garden was as neat as a pin. Mum must have got a new gardener, I thought. The curtains pulled across the window hung heavy and let through only the thinnest of slivers of light from inside. Even the door had a new knocker.
I still had a house key. I wondered what they’d do if I just let myself in. Maybe they’d changed the locks. I decided not to find out and rang the bell.
It was Emma who came to the door. She had pins in her mouth and a thread of cotton stuck to her jeans. We stared at each other and neither of us spoke.
Mum called through from the front room, ‘Who is it, Emma?’
Emma removed the pins and coughed.
‘Are they collecting for something?’ Mum called. ‘There’s some change in the tin in the kitchen.’
Emma didn’t take her eyes off me. ‘Mum, it’s Ali,’ she said loudly.
There was the noise of something being knocked over, the sound of footsteps, then Mum appeared in the hall. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the light. She looked at my face.
‘My God! Ali,’ she said. ‘You’ve changed.’
Emma was sticking the pins into the sleeve of her jumper but she didn’t stop looking at me.
‘It’s been four years,’ she said. ‘People change a lot in four years.’
Mum was still staring. ‘Emma, she looks like your dad. Don’t you think she looks like your dad?’
‘She always did. She was always going to be the pretty one.’
I frowned. Emma was wearing a brown jumper and jeans. Her blond hair was scraped off her face into a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing any make up. But she was still beautiful.
‘We’re making curtains,’ she said, explaining the pins and the thread. ‘Would you like some tea?’
Emma took me through to the kitchen and made tea for us all.
Mum said, ‘Ali, I can’t believe it. I didn’t think we’d ever see you again,’ and when Emma handed her a mug of tea she looked at it and said, ‘I don’t think I can drink this.’
I still hadn’t said anything. Even though it was me that had surprised them, the shock of seeing their faces felt like a punch in the guts.
Emma handed a mug to me. ‘It’s good to see you, Ali,’ she said. There were tears in her eyes and I thought: bloody hell, she means it.
The first words I managed to say were ‘Where’s Dad?’
Mum snorted. ‘Where he always is, I’d think. Propping up
the bar in the Boatman.’
‘Dad kind of fell to pieces after… well, after you left.’
‘Did he?’
‘He felt guilty,’ Emma’s voice was like Gran’s. I’d never realised that before. ‘We all felt guilty. And when the police didn’t find you, he became convinced that you were dead. He left his job, said that if working hadn’t kept him away from his family you might still be alive. He started drinking.’
The tea was hot in my hands. I wanted to put it down but the table was too far away.
Nobody said anything.
I thought about what I’d been planning to say. This wasn’t what I expected. I thought they’d still be the same, like the streets outside, the hedges which were just a little taller, a little neater.
‘I stole money from you, when I left,’ I said to Mum. ‘I wanted to pay it back.’
‘Pfft!’ she waived her arm at me. ‘Give it to a charity for the homeless. I can’t drink this, I’m going to have a G and T. Will you two join me?’
Later I walked down to the Boatman. Dad wasn’t propping up the bar; he was at a table with some friends laughing and making jokes. He’d gone grey and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I only ever remembered seeing him in a suit. I stood at the bar and ordered a drink, and after a few minutes he saw me. He went very still.
His friends hadn’t noticed and they carried on with their conversation. He excused himself and walked over to me at the bar. We stood facing each other.
‘Ali?’ he said.
‘Dad.’
Then he hugged me and he smelled of beer and cigarettes, and his stubble was rough against my cheek and I could hardly breathe because my nose was squashed against his shoulder, but it was the best hug he’d given me since forever. We were both crying.
‘Ali,’ he said, over and over again.
I asked him if he’d come to Paris with me. All those years of being stuck in an office, and then in a bar, I said it was time to travel, to see the world. Emma and Mum had set up a business together as interior designers and it was thriving. They would be fine without him. They could come out and meet us for a holiday in Barcelona or Goa or Marrakesh. He squeezed my hand and said maybe.
I don’t think he was ready to stand without the support of a bar.
I stayed with them for two weeks.
In the second week I got the postcard from Richard. He could have emailed. Or texted. But Richard is still attached to the old ways of doing things. The postcard had a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the front, and on the back a note: Marriott, Champs-Élysées, I’ll wait for you. Richard xx.
I hadn’t replied.
I put the black hat back on my head. I could smell his blood, and his nearness opened my pores, made me feel the life coursing through my body. I felt electric. I felt like singing.
I left the café and walked into the station. The departure board went on forever, listing trains to destinations whose names carried the taste of pistachios, the smell of frankincense, the slippery coolness of freshly caught fish and the heat of desert sand. I could go to any of these places. I could walk up to the kiosk right now and buy a ticket to wherever I liked.
I touched the card in my pocket again. The corners were soft from over-handling. I could go anywhere I liked, but I didn’t have to go alone unless I wanted to.
51. Peter
Lauren was sleeping. She was as pale as milk, her lips almost as white as her face, but she was breathing and a vein throbbed blue in her temple. The mark on her neck looked like a bruise. She seemed very young. Cassie sat on a chair and Peter sat on the edge of the bed. There’d been so much poison in her blood they hadn’t known if she would make it.
‘You go and get a cup of tea,’ Cassie said. ‘You’ve been here all night. I’ll watch for a while.’
In the kitchen Mr Lion had baked biscuits. He, Jimmy and Suky were eating them at the table and they pulled up a chair for Peter.
‘You should get some rest,’ said Suky.
There was nothing they could do now, except give her body time to recover. Andy and Peter had sat through the night, but Andy had gone to bed once the crisis was over. Peter was awake and edgy. He didn’t want to sleep.
‘Get some sugar in you, lad,’ said Mr Lion. ‘It’ll do in lieu of sleep today.’
Jimmy said, ‘I’ve got an appointment at the barbers. You want to come?’
Peter touched his head. His hair had grown long, covering his horns and ears. It was silky and soft and his skull itched.
‘Why the hell not?’ he said.
The barber trimmed Peter’s hair so the horns showed and he cut round above his ears. When he left he could feel fresh air on his neck and cold touched the base of his horns.
‘Looks cool,’ said Jimmy.
Six months later
52. Mr Lion
Mr Lion swallowed and put the empty beer glass on the bar.
‘Another?’ asked the barmaid.
‘Why not? One more, eh Beauty, then we’ll go home and get some food.’
The barmaid pulled him a pint and he lifted it to his nose.
‘Hello.’ Steph was sitting on the next bar stool, three feet away.
He smiled. ‘Hello.’
‘I like your new hairdo. Very glam.’
Mr Lion put his hand up to his mane.
‘This is how it goes if I don’t straighten it. Lauren’s taken her straighteners with her.’
‘Has Andy gone too?’
‘He’s gone off travelling on his own. Lauren’s gone to Greece with Peter and his dad.’
‘It must be strange with them all away.’
‘Just me and Beauty. It’s lonely, after all these years being part of a family.’
‘Oh Mr Lion.’ Steph shuffled her stool nearer. ‘They’ll be back before you know it.’
Mr Lion sipped at his beer. ‘I miss them. I even miss the things that annoy me. Lauren’s used cotton wool pads left on the side of the sink. Milk left out of the fridge.’
‘Everything’s predictable when you live on your own.’
They lapsed into silence and drank their drinks: hers a pint of Guinness, his a Wily Badger Brown Ale.
‘What about you?’ she asked after a few minutes. ‘Has there ever been anyone for you?’
‘What, a girl?’
‘Someone special.’
‘No.’ Mr Lion touched his hair, which was the colour of ripe plums. ‘No, not really.’
‘But almost.’
‘Well, I thought so.’
‘Tell me.’
Mr Lion coughed a little. ‘You don’t want to hear about all that. I was a fool.’
‘Yes I do. I’ll buy you a drink.’
Steph waved the barmaid over and ordered two more pints. They watched as she pulled them, the Guinness running slowly through the tap, the ale from the pump. She placed them on the bar and beer ran down the sides of the glasses.
‘What happened? Who was she?’
‘We met on the internet.’
‘When?’
‘Ten years ago. It wasn’t the thing it is now, internet dating. We weren’t even on a dating site. It was a site for cooks to get tips from one another, share advice and so on. My username was Goldenpaws. You could put up a picture of yourself.’
‘Was she pretty?’
‘She was gorgeous. Blonde and voluptuous. She didn’t look like a cook.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Autumn.’
‘Odd name.’
‘She’d chosen it herself. I think she used it in real life, not just on the internet.’
‘And you got on well?’
‘Our conversations about griddle pans and kneading times got very flirtatious. And when we discovered the private messaging function, they got downright dirty.’
> ‘Did you meet?’
‘Eventually. The internet thing went on for a long time. We’d talk and talk, and sometimes we kind of acted, you know, imagining we were together. I thought about her all the time and she said the same.’ Mr Lion pushed his mane back from his face. ‘So we agreed to meet.’
‘And…?’
‘A disaster. She thought my picture was just for the internet. When she saw me she screamed. She had hysterics, called me a freak. She didn’t want my kind of love.’
Steph touched him on the arm and he looked at her.
‘Everyone’s not like that,’ she said. ‘Some girls like something a bit different. Some even prefer it.’
‘Really?’
She looked into his eyes. ‘Yes, really.’
She turned back to her beer and he began to fiddle with his mane.
‘You can borrow my straighteners if you want,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever use them.’
‘Could I?’
‘I’ll pop them round later if you like. If you’re in.’
‘I’m going home after this one.’ He looked across at her. She was draining her pint. ‘I was going to make a bite to eat. It’s a bit sad cooking for one, I don’t suppose you’d like to…?’
Steph beamed. ‘I’d love to.’
He finished his pint and stood up. ‘Well, pop round when you’re ready.’
‘I’ll just go home and get the straighteners.’
They parted outside the White Horse, touching hands briefly before going their separate ways.
‘You have a lovely voice, Mr Lion,’ she said.
Mr Lion’s Playlist
1Shy Guy – The Uptights
2The Who Who Song – Jackie Wilson
TAINTED LOVE Page 29
