Girl 99

by Andy Jones

  I’m dozing fretfully when the toilet flushes, followed shortly by the sound of running water. I want to vanish down the back of the sofa with the dust and crumbs and lost pennies, but as hard as I press my head into the leather cleft, it refuses to swallow me up. And so, while my houseguest showers, I unpeel myself from the sticky sofa, pull on clean clothes over my dirty body and open every window in the flat. I’m emptying the remainder of last night’s wine down the sink when she wanders into the kitchen, buttoning up her crumpled shirt.

  ‘Any chance of a tea?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say. ‘Sleep well?’

  She sighs and perches on a stool at the breakfast bar. ‘Have you got a cab number?’

  ‘Clapham Common, right?’

  She closes her eyes and nods, and I hit last-number redial and call the cab that should have been here seven hours ago.

  I pick up Sadie’s old cat mug to make this woman’s tea, but it seems somehow sacrilegious and I swap it for a chipped old article from the back of the cupboard.

  ‘How do you take it?’ I ask.

  She coughs out a dry laugh (Pixie?) and shakes her head. ‘Just milk,’ she says. ‘Sweet enough already, aren’t I?’

  She sips her tea, while I look at mine.

  ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘I probably should have asked last night, but . . . are you on the pill?’

  ‘I thought we used a whatsit,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘It broke.’

  The furrows deepen on this woman’s forehead. ‘But you . . . you stopped? Right?’

  ‘Too late,’ I say, wincing.

  Her head lolls back onto her shoulders as she emits a long sigh towards the ceiling. ‘Effing brilliant.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘That’ll be me getting the morning-after pill then, won’t it?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  I sincerely sodding hope!

  ‘Thirty effing quid,’ she says. ‘Fan-effing-tastic.’

  ‘Perhaps I could give you the money for the, you know, pill thing.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Got any Nurofen?’

  We don’t kiss goodbye on the doorstep, we don’t hug and we don’t shake hands. I just hand over thirty quid, and she (Precious?) doesn’t even say thank you. And she doesn’t ask for my phone number, which – while undeniably a relief – I do take as a bit of a slight.

  I clean the toilet, strip the bed, and throw the sheets, pillowcases and duvet cover into the washing machine. I make a pot of tea using the small purple starflowers Doug gave me, but it does nothing for my hangover so I chew a handful of raw flowers and chase them down with a glass of milk and a banana. It doesn’t help.

  What I need more than anything else right now is deep and dreamless sleep, but Yvette is showing someone around the flat at ten, and I don’t want to be within a mile of the place. So I lace up my trainers and trot off to the park. Maybe I can flush some of the toxins and despair out of my system.

  The first five minutes are heavy and plodding, but when I hit the park – maybe it’s the open space, the green, the sunshine, The Beatles on my iPod – I find a gear and kick to match the trip-along rhythm of ‘Paperback Writer’. Halfway around the park, the path ascends steeply and abruptly. And as I haul my increasingly heavy self clockwise and upwards, the Fab Four start in on ‘Helter Skelter’. And the effect is exactly that. The guitars are frantic, the drums aggressive, and it feels as if my brain has come free from its stem and is revolving inside my skull. The final minute of the track is a mess of screeching, smashing feedback, and I yank the headphones from my ears and veer towards a tree to spew for the second time this morning – a yellow froth flecked with purple scraps of chewed-up starflower that splashes over my trainers and up my shins.

  It takes fifteen minutes for me to regain my balance, and another thirty to walk back to the flat.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I’m in the shower when I hear a loud knock at the door. Yvette was due to show a potential buyer around at ten, but I didn’t get back from my aborted run until after eleven.

  The knock comes again, louder.

  Maybe I got the time wrong. Maybe the viewer was late.

  If it is Yvette, she’s got a key, so I turn off the shower and wrap a towel around my waist. I’m looking around the flat for somewhere to hide when a female voice shouts through the downstairs letter box: ‘Hello?’

  It doesn’t sound like Yvette, but I have water in my ears and the voice has travelled up thirteen steps and through the door to my flat, so it’s difficult to be sure.

  ‘Thomas!’

  No one calls me Thomas except my dad and Douglas. And . . .

  I open my door and shout down the stairs: ‘Eileen?’

  Eileen has been married and raised three sons, so she knows a hangover when she sees one. She sent me back to the bathroom to finish my shower, and after I’d towelled off and thrown on some clothes, I found her waiting for me at the living room table, steam rising from a bowl of chicken soup. A cup of tea, a plate of buttered bread.

  I still don’t know why she’s here.

  Eileen regards me as I try a spoonful of soup, and it seems we’re both a little on edge while my guts decide what to do with it. It stays down, for the moment, and I reload the spoon.

  ‘Friend’s birthday,’ I say plaintively.

  ‘Boys will be boys,’ says Eileen. ‘Well, given half a chance.’ She smiles, but it doesn’t make it all the way to her eyes.

  ‘So,’ I say. ‘This is a nice surprise. Were you looking for Doug?’

  ‘If I was, I’d go to the allotments. The courgettes are out,’ she adds somewhat wistfully.

  I take another mouthful of soup, decide to risk a slice of bread; it slips down easily, settles, and a little life ebbs back into me.

  ‘Have you two fallen out?’ I ask.

  ‘Not really. Sort of. No, well, it’s complicated, love.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  Eileen regards me as if she’s assessing some crucial aspect of my character. And then she nods. ‘When I started courting Fred – my husband – I was twenty-two, he was nineteen. A boy really. Handsome as a matinee idol, but a boy, all the same.’

  Eileen pauses, lifts her drawn-on eyebrows as if she’s waiting for me to confirm that I’m keeping up. I’m not sure that I am, but I nod anyway.

  ‘You have to understand, I’d had a few boyfriends.’ Eileen leans forward conspiratorially. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘O-kay . . .’

  ‘Sex,’ says Eileen.

  ‘Listen, Eileen, I don’t know what Dou—’

  ‘Shush up and eat your soup. I’m trying to tell you something here, and it’s hard enough without you interrupting me.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I tear the rest of the bread into pieces and float them on the surface of my soup.

  Eileen takes a deep breath and continues: ‘Fred had the biggest winkle I’d ever laid eyes on.’ She holds her palms apart – and if she’s not exaggerating, then Fred had a winkle roughly the size of a can of hairspray.

  I hold up a hand.

  ‘What?’ says Eileen.

  I realise I have nothing to say, so I lower my arm and mutter, ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Good. So as I was saying, Fred’s thingummy—’

  ‘His winkle?’

  ‘Yes, love, his winkle. The thing was . . . as big as it was . . . poor Fred, he didn’t have a clue what to do with it. But it was okay, see, because I’d been there before. I understood the situation and knew how to . . . guide him through it, if you will.’

  Oh my God.

  ‘That was forty-one years ago,’ Eileen goes on. ‘And we had a wonderful sex life. Right up until the end.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ I say, rising from my seat. ‘I’m glad you thought you could tell me. It’s good to . . . share . . . these things. Another cuppa?’

  ‘But it wasn’t always easy. You understand?’

  I sit back down.

  ‘As a man gets
older his body gets older. Aching back, sore knees and whatnot. Things, things . . . aren’t what they used to be.’

  Eileen gives me a look – Do you follow? – and I nod that I do.

  ‘But we’d known each other since we were kids. We’d been through it all together, so we went through this together. Went to the doctor’s, got the Viagras, happy days are here again.’

  Eileen reaches into her handbag and produces a box of Viagra. She puts them on the table between us.

  ‘There’s three left,’ she says, tapping the box, once, twice, three times.

  ‘Listen, Eileen, no offence, but I . . . I don’t . . .’

  ‘Not for you, Thomas. For Douglas.’

  ‘Eileen, I’m not sure this is any of my . . . I don’t understand.’

  ‘I want you to give them to him, love.’

  ‘Does he need them?’

  Eileen sips her tea. ‘I think so, sweetheart. We haven’t actually . . . Did he tell you about Lyme Regis?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Me and Doug have been together for six months. We’ve kissed and canoodled, of course, plenty of canoodling, but we haven’t actually . . . you know.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Bonked.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, six months is a long time to wait. A person gets frustrated, Thomas. So I suggested Lyme Regis. I assumed Doug was either shy or just being a gentleman, but I thought a weekend away might, well, open the window, so to speak.’

  ‘More tea?’

  ‘I’m fine, love. Too much and I get cystitis.’

  My soup’s turned tepid and I’ve lost the little appetite I had. ‘Is it hot in here?’ I ask. ‘I’ll just open the w— Just let some air in.’

  Eileen continues as I open the window and briefly contemplate jumping out of it and running away.

  ‘So I booked the train, booked the B’n’B. Single room, double bed. Sit down, I can’t talk to the back of your head, lovely as it is. Thank you. So, long story short, Douglas took a turn. Demanded the poor woman at the B’n’B put us in separate rooms, and I’m afraid that rather set the tone for the whole weekend. By Monday I was losing patience, so I asked Doug to help find a dropped earring in my room.’

  ‘But you hadn’t dropped an earring, had you?’

  Eileen grins and shakes her head.

  ‘You minx.’

  ‘I have my moments. But this wasn’t one of my best, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He sussed?’

  ‘Far from it. He found the earring I’d placed under the bed, so I said thank you and gave him a big kiss. A real smoocher. And Doug kissed me back. Things’ – Eileen glances at the table, as if she has X-ray vision and is seeing through the wood and through my trousers – ‘began to progress.’

  I don’t want to hear this or think about this, but I’m cornered and there’s nothing to do but wait it out and try and block any unwelcome mental images.

  ‘We closed the curtains – I mean, we’d only just had breakfast and my room overlooked the main road – and made our way onto and into the bed. You’re gritting your teeth, love.’

  ‘Headache,’ I say.

  ‘Well, that’ll teach you. Where was I?’

  ‘In bed, I think.’

  ‘Right, and then, well . . .’ Eileen smiles sadly, holds up her index finger and then lets it droop. ‘I tried to tell him not to worry, but he didn’t want to talk about it. I suggested a walk, but Doug said he had a headache and went back to his room. We were meant to be staying Monday night, but Doug said the bed was aggravating his shingles, and we caught the last train back to London. Hardly said a word the whole way back.’

  ‘Have you talked to him since?’

  ‘I’ve seen him at bridge, and he was a gentleman, of course. But it’s awkward now, and there’s been no canoodling whatsoever.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear it, Eileen. I thought you two were good together.’

  ‘We bloody well were, love. We are. And I’m not one for quitting.’

  I try not to look at the Viagra, but their gravity is too strong to resist. 100mg film-coated Sildenafil tablets.

  ‘So you’re going to . . .’ I nod at the pills. ‘Give him the . . .’

  Eileen laughs. ‘He won’t hear it from me, love.’ And she stares hard at me.

  ‘Me? No, no way.’

  ‘Well, there’s no way I can give him my dead husband’s leftover dicky pills, is there?’

  Dicky pills?

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Tell him they’re yours.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Well, he knows what you get up to, love. He’s heard all your comings and your goings. Drop it into conversation. Tell him you swear by the Viagras. Offer him a couple.’

  There is nowhere to hide in my living room, no cupboard to climb into, no curtains to conceal me, no trapdoor; all I can do is hunch my shoulders around my ears, hide my face in my hands, and hope Eileen will get bored and let herself out.

  ‘There’s no need to blush,’ says Eileen’s voice. ‘Blimey, love, do you need a glass of water?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I do.’

  Eileen follows me through to the kitchen. ‘Honestly,’ she says. ‘You’d think no one had ever done it before. So . . . will you help me, love?’ And the way she looks at me is heartfelt and honest and it breaks my heart.

  As hard as it’s been for me listening to this, it must have been ten times harder for Eileen to tell it.

  ‘Okay. I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, really,’ she says, kissing me on the cheek. ‘Now, you’d better sneak me out – gawd knows what Doug would do he if found me up here with a lad of your reputation.’

  According to the time on my mobile, it’s one forty-one a.m. on Sunday morning when Kaz texts: If I find out you’ve told anyone, I’ll ruin you.

  I’m tempted to text back and say there’s no need, I’m ruining myself, but I don’t want to antagonise her any more than I already have.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Despite being mid-June, St Michael’s Church is as cold as a meat locker at seven a.m. on Thursday morning. Location scouting notwithstanding, it’s been a year almost to the day since I was last in a church. Today, though, I’ll be the man telling everyone how to behave. The Gospel According to Thomas Ferguson.

  The crew arrive first – dressing the sets, setting up the lighting, blocking off shots. Verity is friendly and relaxed; more than that, she seems particularly upbeat this morning – literally whistling while she works – and I can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with her handsome carpenter. Joe said they’d arranged a second date, and judging by Verity’s demeanour this morning, I’m guessing it went well. I come at it obliquely, asking if she had a good night with everyone at the Goose the other week; Verity says she did, but doesn’t give anything else away.

  Ruth the vampire arrives and goes straight into make-up while Rob and I set up for the first shot. At nine thirty the agency and the client arrive, and Ben and I go to brief them over pre-shoot bacon sandwiches.

  The scene waiting for us on the catering bus – a converted double-decker fitted with tables and bench seats – is like something from a teen road movie. It’s chaos, with maybe a dozen excited people crowded into a small area at the back. They’re surrounding someone, and it’s not until I get within a few feet of the melee that I see it’s Kaz. Holly is holding her wrist, and my first thought is that Kaz has had some sort of accident. But the mood is too high, there’s too much laughter and delighted squealing. And Kaz is wearing what looks like a bridal veil.

  And then I see it, the source of all this clamour – a diamond ring.

  Kaz’s boyfriend Marcus, I am told by several people all at once, proposed on Saturday night. On the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris. So romantic! So exciting! Can you believe it? ‘Yes,’ I say; ‘I know,’ I say; ‘No,’ I say. The veil was Verity’s idea; she raided the wardrobe department,
and now we’re all having our pictures taken with Kaz and her veil and her Cartier engagement ring. Say cheese!

  I remember – as if I’d really forgotten – the threatening text she sent in the early hours of Saturday morning. Had Kaz known? Had she seen it coming as so many fiancées-to-be do? Was I a final fling? A last hurrah? Or was she as surprised on Saturday night as I am now? If so, I hope she feels as sick with guilt as I do.

  I kiss Kaz on the cheek and wish her well. Her face doesn’t flicker.

  Anyone who’s been on more than one shoot knows. Shoots are a stop-start process, intercutting periods of high bustle with long spells of inactivity. So you take a book. Or a magazine, a pair of headphones, a crossword, a sheaf of Sudoku, knitting. Bianca gave me a colouring book full of elaborately illustrated animals.

  Our client on Little Horrors is a friendly but tightly wound woman called Judith, and although this is not her first shoot, it is the first one she’s commissioned. So if it turns out terrible, it’s on her head. Accordingly, Judith is frenetic with caffeine, nervous energy and questions – as such, this morning’s schedule is more stop than start. The most recent stop involves a tight close-up of our little vampire. Ben is giving direction to Ruth, the DP is adjusting the lighting, and a small army of crew is rigging up lamps and reflectors. I’ll only be called upon if there’s a dispute or if something malfunctions. Likewise, the bulk of Verity’s work has been in the preparation, so while Laura retouches Ruth’s make-up, Verity quietly turns the pages of her novel. Today she’s got a whole rock-chick thing going on: black jeans, torn at both knees; white high-top Converse; sleeveless Ramones T-shirt; a cluster of bracelets and a cloud of teased-out, mussed-up blonde hair. It’s my favourite of her various looks so far.