by Alex Marwood
Two photos are all he has left: two photos from a life built together; all that managed to make it to the end of his journey. A formal shot of their wedding day, the two of them so young, side by side on an ornate throne, their hands entwined, as they waited to take their place at the sofreh-ye aghd and begin their feast. The other, his favourite shot of her, is wrinkled from travelling all the way here next to his heart. In it she leans, in western clothes – palazzo pants and a crisp white blouse with a frilled lace collar that stood up all the way to her earlobes – on a white balustrade by the Caspian Sea, a stiff breeze blowing her thick hair into her eyes as she turns and smiles at him. Roshana, free of the chador, is taking the risk of being observed to feel the air on her skin, her soft brown lips, her strong features, her elegant hands. The gold earrings she wears in it, her wedding ring, all gone and nothing left. He’s carefully framed the pictures, preserved them from harm, and still, four years on, he cannot look at them without a wrench in his heart.
I must live, he thinks. There is no alternative. I won’t be here, trapped in this waiting limbo, for ever. One day my application will reach the top of the pile. Day by day that day moves closer, but then what shall I do? What is there for me? No book I write, no speech I make, no plans, journeys, demonstrations will ever bring you back. If we’d had a child, Roshana… They say the pain fades with time, but time does nothing but make the ache sink deeper. I miss you. Oh, I miss you. If you were here with me…
Cher can sleep anywhere; it’s a skill she’s had to learn. She came home soon after dawn, climbed under her single sheet in the morning coolness and dropped off immediately, and the cat slunk in to join her as she slept. She sleeps, and sleep heals, but in sleep they also come back. You can escape anything, she has found, except when you’re dreaming.
She mutters in her sleep. Her frozen muscles strain to run, strain to fight. Sometimes, when she wakes in the early afternoon, she is sore and aching, as though she’s run a marathon.
A slight breeze stirs her thin curtains and cools her boiling forehead. Inside her head, she’s back in the attic. She’s found her way into the Landlord’s cupboard again, and climbed those stairs, and she’s in among the dust-motes and the shrouded furniture. Only this time, her nanna’s furniture is there. She can see the old familiar shapes, and wants to weep: the Welsh dresser with its display of mismatched china, cast-offs of dinner services that have passed out of Big House fashion, the squashy settee with the shiny flowered fabric that Nanna kept for best. The little varnished pine table that sat against the wall in the kitchen, where Cher ate every meal, the wall clock with the painted convolvulus on the face behind the hands. The Venus bird bath from her nanna’s bungalow garden, the goddess cradling a conch shell in her arms rather than stepping half naked from it, the collection of whimsical pigs that cluttered every surface.
And Cher is hiding, under a dust sheet under a table, because she’s heard her father’s tread on the stairs and it’s where her nanna’s told her to hide. Don’t come out, she’s said. Don’t come out for anything. I’ve called the police and they’re on their way. Just don’t come out.
Cher lied to Collette on Friday night. She does know who her father is. And she knows where he is, as well. He’s in jail for killing her nanna.
Oh, no, she mouths silently into her stuffy bedroom. Oh, no, no, no. Not again. Not Nanna. Oh, save me. Her hands creep up to cover her face and, in her sleep, she rocks.
They don’t even bother to talk, in her dreams, now. When Cher was twelve, there was plenty of talk. There was shouting from her father and pleading from her nanna. There was his name, over and over again. Danny. Oh, Danny, don’t do this. Come back when you’ve not been drinking and maybe then you can see her. But in the years that have passed, each time she relives it, the overture gets shorter. Now it goes straight to the main event. Her nanna’s black shoes, the little heel, the crossbar strap, and his trainers, grey from the rain outside, striding across the parched floorboards to stand in front of her.
And then the noises. The dull, hard crack of fist on face. And over and over, her nanna’s heels raised off the ground, kicking helplessly as he holds her like a punchbag. Her nanna saying his name over and over Danny, oh, Danny, no Danny, Danny please. Cher pokes her fingers all the way into her ear canals, but still she hears when the punches turn crunchy, and when they turn pulpy. And then the feet stop kicking, and she sees the ankles crumple as he drops her. Her nanna slides down on to the kitchen floor, and her face hits it with a wet slap because her arms have no strength to break the fall. And she’s not her nanna any more. She’s a weird mask of blood and broken bone, and all her teeth are gone. But still, as he pulls his foot back to kick – the trainers spattered red now, blood soaked deep into the laces – she raises a finger to her broken lips and gazes at her with her broken eyes.
And her dad’s voice. Calm as a tea party. ‘You can come out now, Cheryl,’ he says. ‘Daddy’s here.’
Under her sheet, Cher claws at the air and mouths a silent scream. And then the dream passes and she curls around her cat.
It’s so strange, thinks Thomas, how a single experience can change the way you feel about someone for ever. Five days ago, she was just the stupid little girl downstairs. Loud-voiced, tactless, a bit tarty, always in trouble – and now he sees her. Really sees her, for the first time.
She’s like me, he thinks. She was the only one among them who really stayed calm. I can’t believe she’s so young. So young, and unprotected, and she handled herself like a queen. Even when I found her broken in the street, there wasn’t a tear. Not a moment’s hesitation, not a sign of fear. She just did what needed to be done, and she did it well.
He sits in his armchair and drinks his coffee. He used to enjoy Sundays more, when he knew that there was a Citizen’s Advice day coming up next day. But now it’s just another day among the others in a life spent waiting for the two days when he has a function in the world. These budget cuts haven’t only sliced away protection for the vulnerable: they’ve sliced away his own sense of self. That’s all he’s ever wanted to be: a good neighbour, a helpful friend, a citizen who makes a contribution. I’ve certainly done the first this weekend, he thinks, and the second. Please, God, let me make it a hat-trick this week.
She’s pretty, he thinks. When she’s not done up in those bright fake colours the young are so keen on these days. When her hair’s just loosely piled on her head and she’s forgotten about make-up, she’s a real natural beauty. That lovely skin: so smooth, so flawless – well, it was, and I’m sure it will be again, when it’s healed – apart from the little smattering of freckles across her snubbed little nose. It’s the perfect shade of tawny. How lucky, he thinks. She’s not had much of a start in life, but at least she’s got looks.
It’s another golden, twinkly day, a welcome breeze stirring the leaves of the shady chestnut tree. His girls face him on the sofa, both dressed in green. A good summer colour: dignified, sophisticated. Nikki’s dress is a vibrant lime. An unlikely choice on a redhead, but it really works; brings out her golden highlights and makes her eyes shine. Marianne’s back in her olive silk, his favourite dress of all. She looks so elegant when she wears it. So calm and poised, so…
… dry.
Thomas sits forward and two lines appear between his eyebrows. He’s been too busy to give the girls their full share of attention this weekend, but Marianne is looking distinctly desiccated. The skin over the décolletage, where the elegant bones have always given her supermodel status in his eyes, looks distinctly flaky. He puts his coffee down and goes over to look more closely. Marianne gazes placidly at him as he bends to study her breastbone. Yes. He can’t remember when he last looked this carefully, but the skin is rougher than it used to be. It’s scaly, like a snake beginning to shed its skin.
Chapter Thirty-Five
She always holds it together when she’s in the room, and when she’s coming out past that sour-faced bitch on the reception desk, with her judge
ments and her pointed stapling, and maybe her careless way with a phone number, but seeing Janine wrings tears from her every day. The empty face, the faded skin, the oxygen tube clamped to her face and taped there to stop her wandering mad hand from ripping it out. God knows, Janine, I’ve resented you, but I’ve never wanted to see you like this.
When she steps into the sunlight, she wants to scream at the sky. That’s my mum. My mum. The party girl. The good time had by all. How can she be like this? How can it have happened? Oh, God, how can she not know me?
She wants to break things and rip her hair out, but each day she straps on her dignity as the tears stream down her face and she walks away from those cold receptionist eyes. Don’t look back. Don’t look. Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Steady as she goes. Willowherb and ragged robin, the edge of the road crumbled away into chalky soil. Keep walking. Just keep walking. She pulls her sunglasses from her bag and clamps them to her eyes. She’s never wanted strangers to see her crying.
Janine is dying. They’ve told her as much. Every day, that heart beats less and the lungs fill up a little more. And she won’t let me hold her hand. I see her fingers plucking, plucking, plucking at the tan plastic cover on her chair, and when I reach out to soothe it, she snatches it away, looks accusingly at me like I’m trying to hurt her. She hardly speaks any more. Just random mumbled syllables, mostly, her brain cells dying, dying away for lack of air. I want her to die, she thinks, but I don’t want to lose her. Not like this. Not when I’m not allowed to say goodbye. Not when…
Malik is standing outside the Costcutter on Christchurch Road.
She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts that she doesn’t see him until she is almost upon him. Then something about his bearing – the slim Armani-clad body that she knows from experience is made of solid muscle – suddenly catches her eye, and she dives into the Venus bar and hides herself behind a potted palm.
Her heart hammers, and she hears the sound of the sea. Somewhere, a long way away, a clatter of glassware coming out of a dishwasher, a voice asking in a pointed manner if it can help. She turns and waves at the barman, and he shakes his head and turns away, rubbing at a wine glass with a cloth.
Collette creeps forward to the folding door. She’s not even sure if it is him. His hair is different. When she last saw him, he had a buzz-cut. Now it’s long enough to curl over his collar, swept back from his face with some product that glistens.
Yes, it’s him, all right. She shivers, despite the heat of the day. What’s he doing here? What the hell is he doing here?
Malik seems to be watching the road from behind his sunglasses, scanning it up and down with those laser-beam eyes. The underground is a hundred yards away, but it might as well be a mile. She can’t walk past him. She’s changed, but not so much he won’t recognise her if she’s who he’s looking for.
It might not be, Collette. It could be coincidence. London’s full of Turks; there’s practically one on every street corner. You don’t even know if he works for Tony any more. For all you know, you’re standing in his bar.
Yeah, she thinks. Want to test that theory?
‘Can I help you?’ the barman asks again. He’s going to throw me out in a minute, she thinks. Walks across the wooden floor and buys a glass of Sauvignon. It’s early to be drinking. The place is empty apart from two thirty-something women eating panini and wearing sunglasses. The barman silently pours her drink out, slides it across the counter.
‘Meeting someone?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Avoiding someone.’
‘Ah,’ he says, and goes back to polishing his glasses. He’s not interested. She’s just another lush finding an excuse to start her day.
She walks back to the doorway. He’s still there, still outside Costcutter, hands crossed over his crotch like a footballer waiting for a penalty, still looking. He scans the road like a Terminator: a slow 180-degree sweep up, down, up, down, the whole movement taking maybe ten seconds.
Look, the whole place is full of people, she thinks. What can he do?
Follow you.
She has to go. She knows that. It’s only a matter of time before he changes his vantage point – he’s not standing on the route from Sunnyvale to Collier’s Wood underground for nothing. He’s not waiting for a girlfriend.
Her hair has grown, and grown out, since they last saw each other, and she’s stopped straightening it and let the natural curl come in. And she’s put on weight. When you ran a bar full of twenty-year-old girls who took their clothes off for a living, keeping yourself awake on coffee and the odd line like everyone else, your natural weight quickly became whippet-like, but it was never a weight that she could have maintained while eating. She’s gone up two full dress sizes since she left, though that still only makes her a twelve. And she’s wearing flat sandals – he’s never seen her in anything other than towering heels. From the back, she reassures herself, I look like a completely different person.
She counts as she watches his scanning technique. Yes, ten seconds. If she leaves as he reaches the apogee of his turning arc, she can get twenty, thirty feet down the road before his eyes hit her back. Far enough that he won’t know her. Far enough that she’ll just be another girl in the street. She walks down to the far side of the restaurant’s bistro folding doors, puts her wine down untouched on a table, waits, counts and exits.
Don’t show fear. They operate on fear. Just keep walking, normal pace, and don’t look back. He’s not going to try anything now, even if he does see you. Stay where there are people and you’ll be safe. It’s when they find out where you live that you’re really in trouble.
She tells herself these things, but she only half believes them. She strides out along Christchurch Road, her footsteps unnaturally loud in her ears, as though she were in an echo chamber. Breathe. Breathe, Collette. They want you to be afraid. You get afraid, you get disorientated. You get disorientated, you make mistakes.
She hears his feet turn on the pavement and start to follow…
Drawn up by the mouth of Christchurch Close is a shiny black Beemer. Tinted windows, chrome accessories, undoubtedly this year’s model. Totally Tony. She can see someone in the driver’s seat, a darker shadow behind the dark glass. Unless Tony’s had a change of staff, it’s most likely the Albanian, Burim. Rough manners, an attitude that says he will settle any disagreement with a knife. Malik’s number two, but never backward in coming forward.
They could take me now, she thinks. The two of them. Take a chance on it and flip me into that car in broad daylight. Where is he? Where’s Malik? I wish I could risk a quick look; see how much he’s caught up. He sounds so close. His heels click and scrape on the surface. Segs. She remembers that he always hammered metal segs into his shoes the moment he bought them. He said they made them wear better. It was only later that she realised that they also inflicted more damage if he felt a need to stamp.
She can’t tell if the figure in the car has seen her. She dips her head and crosses the road. If Burim wants to get her, she’s going to make him leave the car and give her warning. No silent electric slide of the window and a steel-hard hand shooting out to grab her wrist for him. She lifts her bag off her shoulder and puts it over her head so that the strap crosses her body. If she’s going to have to fight, or run, she needs both hands free.
The sunshine is so bright that, even through her shades, it hurts her eyes. Step, breathe, step, breathe.
Away from the shops around the tube, there are fewer people on the pavement, but the road is filled with the blessed hum of noonday traffic. If they try to take her, they will be seen. She reaches the far-side pavement and stops to choose her direction. Go on to the bus stop, or go back? You might get past him, or he might just turn around and follow you down the escalator. These suburban stations are all but empty at this time of day. You’ll be most likely alone on the platform with him, nothing but air between you and the track.
Okay. The bus. I’ll take the bus.
/> They can follow the bus. I can take it to Tooting. It’s always busy there, because of the hospital, and the market and the shops. Go to Tooting, get on the tube. If you cut through Sainsbury’s, come out the back way, you might get there before he realises where you’ve gone.
She scans her possible routes home in her head. Maybe I should go into town. Victoria, Waterloo – they’re both busy. Lots of places where buses and cabs can go and cars are forbidden. If I go up to one of those… then back down to Clapham Junction. Busiest station in the country. When a train lets out there, that long, long tunnel beneath the tracks is like 28 Days Later. If Malik’s following, I can change to another platform before he’s even seen where I’ve gone. Hide in one of the shops. Go out the exit where the cars drop off: most people don’t even seem to notice it’s there as they rush up towards the main barriers. Yes. Clapham Junction. If I’m lucky, I can get the Northbourne train first time.
And if you’re not, you’ll lead him straight to your front door.
Ahead, she sees a bus approaching. The stop is a hundred yards away, no distance at all. The display on the front says it’s going to Wimbledon, but it’s single-storey, which suggests that it might well take a long route to get there. But it’s a bus, and that’s people, and people are safety for now. Wimbledon’s always busy, around the station. If he follows her now, she can lose him there.
Without looking over her shoulder, Collette takes to her heels and sprints.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Excuse me!’
In another life, this woman would have run the WAAF. She has a natural built-in foghorn, a height and stature you only get from generations of plentiful meat. Thomas sits up to attention as she marches towards him wheeling her three-wheeled lightweight buggy, an OshKosh toddler straining to keep up without dropping its Peppa Pig. She gets within talking distance, but her tone stays the same, as though they are communicating across a playing field. She’s got a touch of sunburn. That high medieval forehead, made higher by the sort of Alice band he hasn’t seen since the 1980s, will be peeling later. ‘Do you mind not feeding my dog?’ she shouts.
