Jeremy’s fluster disappeared.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said.
‘Oh, why not?’ said Martin, not turning towards him.
Jeremy hesitated, then, pleased, said, ‘Hang on. First, Chloe, are you ok?’
Martin snorted, but he did look back to Chloe. She nodded.
Clinging to this moral toehold, Jeremy mustered his best senior statesman delivery. These moments were won or lost as much by personality as rules. And by speaking slowly he gave himself a bit more time to think as he went.
‘The elderly lady concerned does not have a mobile phone, but she is due here shortly. I don’t think I should leave and let her discover this on her own, do you? Of course, I’d quite understand if you would want to leave her to it.’
Martin did now turn, and glared at Jeremy. In as even a tone as he could, he said, ‘So what are you proposing? Are you going to doorstep her with the news?’
‘No.’ Jeremy’s urge to disagree was accompanied by an acute awareness he hadn’t really thought this through. ‘No… I thought I – we – could, er, wait in the hall.’
‘What?’ Martin said, ‘like a surprise party?’
‘Well, I don’t…’
‘Martin…’ Chloe’s eyes bored into him.
‘… I don’t… On reflection, no, perhaps waiting in here would be better.’ Jeremy then felt a surge of relief in finding a good phrase. ‘We would be sitting with the body, as it were.’
Martin was now incredulous. ‘I’m sure she’ll love it if we’re sitting around watching telly with him. Shall I see if there’re some beers in the fridge?’
Chloe snapped: ‘Martin!’
‘Well, really,’ he appealed. ‘I’d be very happy to sit with him, but what’s an old lady going to think if we’re all watching the shopping channel as if we haven’t noticed he’s died? I think I preferred the idea of hiding behind the front door so that we she opened it we could all shout, ‘Sur-’
But Chloe held her right hand up, palm towards Martin. With her left hand she made little fanning gestures to her face. ‘I think… I think this is very upsetting and I need a tissue.’ She looked to Jeremy. ‘Could you tell me where the bathroom is please?’
‘Of course.’ Jeremy tried a new tack, of speaking in tones that he imagined a funeral director would use. Low, calm, understanding. As he directed her to the downstairs toilet through the kitchen, he could feel Martin bristling.
The three men waited in silence for Chloe to return, two of them conscious that no decisions would be made without her, and with no goodwill left for small talk. Martin looked at the old man again, and wondered about his life. Had he done what he wanted to? Jeremy got his phone out and tapped on it for a while. Something about the set of Martin’s jaw made him stop.
Chloe returned. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘They…she has a very nice kitchen.’
‘Yes,’ Jeremy nodded morosely. Then he had a thought. As casually as he could, he added: ‘She had it entirely refurbished last year.’
There was a deathly pause. The comment hung in the air like a smell.
With pointed slowness, Martin inched his head around from looking at the old man, to staring at Jeremy. But Jeremy was now studying his shoes. Chloe too declined to catch his eye. So Martin turned back to Jeremy, facing him square on, arms folded. He, at least, was going to stick up for the old guy.
But in the silence, an advertisement for a device that cut nose hair ran its course. A magazine rack with a pouch for jigsaws took its place.
So it was Chloe who spoke next. She too had had a thought.
‘Really?’ she said.
Jeremy nodded without looking up from his shoes.
‘Well, I think Jeremy’s right,’ said Chloe. ‘I think we should stay so we’re ready to comfort the vendor.’
Martin said nothing, but he turned to face Chloe, still with his arms folded. Now she did look him in the eye. The poise that she had regained reminded him of their third date. During coffee, she had wound down her contributions, and just looked at him instead, those blue eyes…waiting. He had tried a few gambits, but got next to nothing back. ‘No…Yes…Since May…’ But still she watched him. He was just about to ask her whether she thought the art of conversation was dying out, but almost for the hell of it first tossed out: ‘Would you like to come back to my place?’ She smiled and got up.
Right now, she was looking at him intently again. This time Martin simply stared back. She widened her eyes, and he said nothing. She smiled tightly and nodded in the direction of the open door. He was not, however, going to help. He looked between her and the old guy, and then made a point of sitting on the empty sofa.
‘I’d be happy to sit with him for a bit.’
She stared at him some more, rolling her eyes to the door, but Martin’s answer was just to turn to the dead guy and start contemplating him once more, leaving Chloe and Jeremy stranded.
An advert for an all-weather fondue set came and went. The flame was guaranteed to keep in light to moderate wind and drizzle. Chloe turned back to Jeremy, revealing a tissue in her hand.
‘I wonder if there’s somewhere I can dispose of this?’
‘Of course,’ Jeremy cooed, ‘there’s a fitted pull out bin in the kitchen alongside the built in appliances.’ He smiled. ‘But if you can’t find that, try the dining room. It’s off to the left from the kitchen, and leads on to the conservatory.’
Martin gritted his teeth.
She was gone for about five minutes, or at least long enough for a whole feature on the amazing range of uses for a curved knife.
‘Thanks Jeremy,’ she said on her return. Then, ‘Martin, do you want to stretch your legs a little?’
‘No thanks,’ said Martin evenly. ‘I think I forgot my tape measure. And actually I’m a bit busy showing some respect to this dead chap here, by staying with him for a while?’
Chloe shot him a look. There would be trouble, later, Martin knew. There would be tight lips, and frostiness. If he sought to break the ice by suggesting they were maybe both to blame for the atmosphere, he would get an articulate speech about exactly what he had done that was disappointing. He would almost certainly give way and accept it was all his fault, and, yes, she had done the right thing in difficult circumstances, not him, sorry.
And yet, and yet. This was typical. Martin would have been happy to stop in Acton. He’d always felt fine there. Or go to Chloe’s homeground of Brentford. Sure, in neither place did you have the benefits of the militant middle class pushing their way into the classrooms, asking to see their children’s colouring in books every other week, but neither did it feel like a theme park for young families fretting about centiles, with their tidy…
‘Jeremy,’ said Chloe, ‘I wonder if it might be wise, before the vendor returns, to check that there’s nothing too upsetting in the upstairs rooms?’
Jeremy looked up, surprised. ‘Er…yes.’ He caught up. ‘Oh, yes… Allow me.’
Martin didn’t look at them as they went out. He looked at the old guy. I bet you wouldn’t be doing that, he thought. I bet when you bought your first house you were respectful, and polite, and… and overwhelmed with pride that you’d managed to save up enough money for your own place for you and your girl.
He tried to think of what Chloe would say when the old lady returned. It would probably be well judged, but clear. He realised he would feel no pride in her for that.
He could hear the tour going on upstairs, and saw the future. He’d be living in a house that would always be a monument to Chloe’s focussed pushing. He wouldn’t be able to tell himself that he had tried to stop her. It would be a permanent reminder of the unimportance of his belief that, so long as you treated people right, things would turn out ok.
And then he thought: this has to stop. He suddenly felt it with all his being.
He knew he was right. But he also knew that while the house was available, Chloe would not let it go. Even if he had the courage to keep up the r
esistance, to make the point, there would be prolonged unpleasantness. The arguments would not stop until he gave in, or the house was sold. He had to end this now.
He checked his watch. It was five to four. He stood up.
‘Listen old chap,’ he said, tucking some of the old guy’s wilder hair behind an ear, before patting him on the shoulder, ‘I’m just going to be a minute.’
Martin walked down the corridor towards the kitchen, heedless of the original features around him. He found the fridge: nothing. He went through cupboards until, with a smile, he found what he was after. He took two of them back down the corridor. As he turned back into the front room, he saw a shape coming up the path.
Jeremy and Chloe hurried down the stairs to greet the opening door. From where he was sitting, Martin could hear Jeremy breaking the news. Then it was the lady’s voice. She was upset, but not hysterical. He could hear her talking about an ‘old friend…just staying over…hadn’t looked well…’ He could make out that she said ‘only staying over’ several times. And then it was Chloe making a short and relieved speech about difficult times, and beautiful surroundings. There was her number if she wanted help, or just a chat. And whilst it was the wrong time now, if there was a desire to move on quickly, to put this behind her…
Soon, he heard his name being mentioned as her partner. Sitting with the body to keep him company, his respects, in all the circumstances. The talking stopped. There was a pause, and then the door opened slowly.
The old lady came in to find Martin sitting on the same sofa as the old guy. Both the men were perfectly still. The old guy was still sitting with his right arm resting on the arm of the sofa, the other by his side on a cushion. But now in that hand he held one of the cans of beer Martin had found in the cupboard. Martin sat in exact mirror image. He held the other can of beer in his right hand resting on the sofa cushion, next to the cold fingers of the older man. Martin’s other arm again lay along the other sofa arm. A tableau of blokes watching TV, then.
Jeremy came in to see what the silence was about. He noticed first that the old lady opened her mouth, like, he now saw, the two men on the sofa. But no noise was coming out of any of them. Jeremy was torn between a sense that everything was going badly wrong, and a more minor but precise thought which it took him a moment to tie down. That was it: the two blokes, and now Mrs Turner too, looked like those living statues you see in Covent Garden who suddenly do things when you put a coin in their bowl. He found himself wondering what they might do, when Chloe lost patience with tactfully waiting outside and came in to find the foursome with their mouths open. She, however, found words.
‘MARTIN!’ she screamed, ‘WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’
Martin spoke without moving, even his lips.
‘Oh, you know. Just making myself at home.’
‘You…you…idiot.’
Chloe turned. The others didn’t move, but quickly heard the sound of the front door opening and closing in angry succession.
Martin stood up. He took the beer can from the old man’s hand, and addressed the old lady directly.
‘Madam, my apologies. I’m never going to be able to explain this to you, but I meant no disrespect to you or to this gentleman. I offer you my condolences, and wish you all the best.’
He too left the room. Jeremy and the old lady heard his footsteps go back to the kitchen cupboard, the sound of some placing. His footsteps came back down the corridor. Then there was the opening and closing of the door for a second time. There was a pause as Jeremy and Mrs Turner looked at the body, and then each other.
‘How very strange,’ said the old lady to Jeremy. ‘Do you think they’re interested?’
HILLINGDON
Holding Patterns
Rachael Dunlop
When you fly into Heathrow, you can see the whole of Britain. That’s what Dawn’s boss always said to new members of staff. His little joke, he said. Most of the workers in the coffee shop in Terminal Five had no idea what he was talking about.
‘Don’t believe me?’ he’d say to their bewildered faces. ‘Dawn knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, Dawn?’
And Dawn would smile and nod and say nothing. Dawn was a local girl, unlike most of her co-workers, having lived in Hillingdon all her life. She knew he was talking about Little Britain Lake.
‘Shaped just like Great Britain it is,’ he’d continue, ‘a mini sceptred isle.’ (He fancied himself as a bit of a scholar as well as a joker.) ‘Just north of the airport, pretty much all the planes circle over it at least once.’
Dawn remembered walking around Little Britain Lake when she was younger, holding her mum’s hand, and looking up at the planes stacked up in the sky, a string of graduated pearls. She used to worry that the big planes and the little planes were going to crash into each other, until her mum explained that the planes were all the same size, but some were much higher up and further away, so looked smaller. And they were all going in circles anyway, so they couldn’t crash into each other. Dawn wanted to ask her mum why they were going round in circles when they were supposed to be going places, but she didn’t want to push her luck.
These days, as Dawn rode the bus to work at the airport, she would press her face to the window and watch the planes coming in to land. They dropped slowly out of the sky in lazy, loping descents, like they didn’t really mean it, like they might at any moment change their minds and swoop back up. And why wouldn’t they, Dawn wondered, when they saw where they were landing? When she thought of Heathrow, she thought grey: light grey concrete buildings, dark grey tarmac roads, planes and cars and buses coated in a grey fuel-infused dirt. And too much sky. Dawn didn’t like all that sky over her head.
Inside the airport, too, things didn’t have as much colour as they should. Dawn supposed it was something to do with the lighting – white fluorescent light bouncing off white tiled floors, bleaching everything in between.
It was different in the coffee shop – cosy, warm, all natural wood and plum-red walls. It smelled warm too. Dawn usually worked the first or last shifts, fitting them around her classes at sixth-form college. Early shifts were her favourite: she liked brewing up the first coffee of the day, before the machine started to overheat and scorch the coffee. She took her role as a barista very seriously and when there was time (which wasn’t very often) she would linger over the ritual of brewing the espresso: waiting for the machine to heat up; drawing off a scant cup of hot water to prime the pump; carefully tamping the coffee into the holder so the water would flow through at just the right speed; steaming the milk until it was creamy and dense or frothy and filled with air, as required.
It was on one of the slow early morning shifts that Dawn first met Audrey. She was sitting at a small corner table, lingering over a rapidly cooling latte, a small black carry-on suitcase tucked behind her legs. She looked to be about the same age as Dawn’s mum, which meant she was probably a good deal older. Dawn’s mum looked every inch of her forty-four years, and then some. This woman took care of herself – she had the sort of skin where the edges of ageing had been blurred out by a lifetime of good habits. Her hair was neat and her clothes looked expensive, if a little out-of-date.
She’d been sitting at that table for a while, which wasn’t so unusual. There were two types of customer in the coffee shop – those with time to kill and those with no time to spare. This woman wasn’t checking her watch or leaning out to check the departures board outside the coffee shop. She was sitting quite still, elbows on the table, coffee cup cradled in mid-air, eyes gazing into the unseen distance. She looked, Dawn realised, relaxed. Like there was nowhere else she needed to be.
Dawn came out from behind the counter and started wiping down the tables, moving closer and closer to the woman in the corner. She took a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure the boss wasn’t looking.
‘I could heat that up for you.’
The woman looked surprised to be spoken to. ‘Sorry?’ she said.
‘Your coffee. I can heat it up if you like. Not supposed to, really, but there’s nothing worse than getting half way through a large latte and finding it’s gone cold.’
The woman smiled. ‘Nothing worse,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’
Dawn gave the cold coffee a shot of steam and returned it to the woman.
‘Thank you… Dawn,’ she said, leaning in to read Dawn’s name tag.
‘No worries. It’s quiet this morning. Where are you off to, then?’
‘Where am I…?’ For a moment the woman looked blank. ‘Oh. I’m going to Kampala.’ Now it was Dawn’s turn to look blank. ‘Uganda,’ the woman explained.
‘Oh, nice.’ Dawn said, not knowing what else to say. Of all the places on the departure boards that she had dreamed of going to, Uganda wasn’t one of them.
‘My husband is working out there. Volunteering. He’s a heart surgeon.’
Now Dawn was impressed. Not that the woman was married to a heart surgeon – that wasn’t an achievement, just a fact. No, it was the idea that they had so much money he could afford to work for free, give his time for nothing. Dawn worked every free minute she had to justify the time she spent in college.
The woman finally checked her watch. ‘I should make a move,’ she said. ‘Thanks for this.’ She raised her now empty coffee cup in a half-salute and left.
The next evening, there was a thick stack of envelopes waiting for Dawn on the kitchen table, lying beside her dinner plate like a side order of paper and ink. It was late and her mum had eaten already. At least, Dawn hoped she had eaten. Sometimes she forgot and sometimes she just couldn’t be bothered. Her mum was at the sink now, washing the pots. As Dawn sat down at the table, her mum pulled off her rubber gloves and lit a cigarette. She turned to face Dawn, leaning back against the sink and squinting at her daughter through the smoke.
‘Mum, can’t you wait ’til I’ve finished eating before you light up?’ Dawn said.
Dawn’s mum ignored her protests, taking a slow crackling drag on her cigarette and tipped the ash into the sink. ‘Thought you weren’t going to bother with applications,’ she said finally, ‘I thought we agreed.’ Dawn dropped her eyes quickly from her mother’s accusing gaze. She shuffled through the envelopes, checking off the names of the universities they were from.
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