Simon Lelic

by A Thousand Cuts (v5)

  Lucia tapped a finger against her wrist.

  ‘Right,’ said David and he disappeared again. He hollered to Lucia from the hallway. ‘So what’s up, Lulu? You turn up at my flat in the middle of the night—’

  ‘It was nine-thirty, David.’

  ‘—in the middle of the night, after six months in which you have basically refused even to talk to me. You eat three mouthfuls of the omelette I cook for you, then you fall asleep on my couch. If you’re not pregnant, why are you here?’ Again he poked his head around the doorframe. ‘Do you need money? Is that it?’

  ‘No! God no.’

  ‘Because it’s not a problem. I mean, I know it must be hard: with the flat, being on your own. I realise you don’t get paid very much.’

  ‘The flat’s fine,’ Lucia said. ‘The money’s fine.’ Although as she spoke it occurred to her that it might not be fine for much longer. ‘I just thought, I don’t know. That we could have lunch or something.’

  David was fiddling with his tie. He looked up. ‘Lunch?’

  Lucia nodded. ‘Lunch. Just the two of us.’ She realised immediately how this would have sounded. ‘I mean, me and you. Not together, just alone. Not the two of us as in us.’ She shut her eyes, waved a hand. ‘Just lunch,’ she said. ‘Are you free?’

  ‘For lunch?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Just the two of us?’

  Lucia sighed. ‘Me and you, yes.’

  David bobbed his head. ‘Okay. Sure. I can do that. How about Ciullo’s? On Charterhouse Street?’

  ‘I’ll find it. One o’clock?’

  ‘One o’clock,’ David echoed. He turned away, then reappeared at the door. ‘You sure you’re not pregnant?’

  ‘I’m not pregnant, David. Cross my heart.’

  ‘And you’re sure about the kissing thing? Not even a peck on the cheek?’

  ‘Not even that,’ said Lucia.

  It was the same apartment. The walls were still white, the carpet still green. The furniture was as it had been, in the same places, against the same walls, and looking only marginally more scuffed than it had before. Even Jane Fonda was a longstanding tenant, the result of a compromise Lucia and David had reached at the outset of their cohabitation and that Lucia had regretted for its duration: Lucia was granted veto on every other wall so long as Barbarella retained her position above the mantelpiece. She was framed, David had argued: that made her art. She was wearing rubber and squashing her tits together, Lucia had countered: that made her porn.

  Much was the same then but everything seemed altered. There was the smell, for one thing. The bathroom, for instance, smelt of cleaning products, which meant it smelt like the toilets at work; the kitchen smelt of milk that had been spilt but not fully wiped up. In the living room, there was a new television. Flipped sideways it would have doubled as a dining table. There were speakers too. Dozens, it seemed, at random heights and angles. None was particularly large yet they loomed like security cameras in a lift. On the shelves, the space that had been vacated by Lucia’s books had been infiltrated by the plastic boxes of DVDs, CDs and video games. There were bottles of spirits: Polish vodka, American bourbon, something yellow and Italian, all arranged like ornaments. And in various corners, cacti had been planted. Cacti were men’s plants, Lucia had long ago decided: low maintenance, high bluster.

  The sensation, Lucia thought, was of rediscovering a favourite jumper but realising, as you pulled it on, that it was actually a little tight, and it smelt musty, and the colour did not really suit you. As she readied herself to leave, she felt relief. She felt relief too that seeing David had not triggered in her the emotional relapse she had feared. She had loved him and for some time she had hated him but in the time that had passed since she had last seen him - and almost without her conscious self noticing - her feelings for him seemed to have settled between the two extremes. They were volatile still; they were treacherous. If he had insisted, for instance, and leant in to kiss her goodbye, she would not have stopped him. Some perfidious reflex might even have nudged her lips just a fraction closer to his. But he had not kissed her. As far as David was concerned, she had not let him. It felt like progress. Not victory, not quite that, but progress nonetheless.

  She shut the door behind her. She slid her bag on to her shoulder and she Chubb-locked the door and she made her way to the stairwell. She allowed herself just a single glance back.

  ‘David.’

  ‘Lulu.’

  ‘Please, David. Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what? Oh.’ He had been tapping a fingernail against his glass. He curled his fingers and slid his hand away.

  ‘Not that. Stop . . . this. Stop smiling like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you’re on a date. You’re not on a date.’

  ‘It’s not business.’

  ‘It is. That’s exactly what it is.’

  David’s smile broadened. ‘Whatever you say, Lulu.’

  ‘And stop calling me Lulu.’ She turned her head away. ‘You’re not making this easy.’

  The waiter arrived with the water Lucia had ordered. He made a fuss of placing it, clearing the wine glasses, presenting each of them with a menu. Lucia folded hers and set it to one side once the waiter had moved away. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said. ‘Am I going to be able to talk to you?’

  ‘Sure,’ David said. ‘That’s why we’re here, right? To talk.’ He leant in and reached for Lucia’s hand. She let him take it, then snatched it back.

  ‘David—’

  ‘Lucia, look. I was wrong. Okay? I made a mistake and I’ve been paying for it ever since. Please, let me make things up to you.’

  Lucia shook her head. She tucked her hands under the table. ‘David. Listen to me.’

  Before she could go any further, however, another waiter appeared beside them, pen and paper poised. Lucia picked up her menu and gestured for David to order first. He chose pasta. Lucia was looking for soup. When she found it, she changed her mind. ‘Do you have chocolate cake?’ she asked.

  ‘We have a delightful Valrhona tart served with caramelised oranges.’

  ‘Does it have chocolate in it?’

  ‘It does, madam.’

  ‘I’ll have that,’ Lucia said. ‘Thank you.’ She relinquished her menu.

  The waiter retreated. Lucia looked back at David, who had his head slightly bowed and a hand on his forehead. She could not help but smile. Her order, she realised, had embarrassed him. It was a trait of his that she had forgotten: waiting staff intimidated him. A murderer, a rapist, even a crown court judge: none came close to having the same effect on David as a second-generation Italian in a bow tie bearing a notepad.

  ‘David,’ said Lucia. ‘I need your help. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘You said that already. You said that last night.’

  ‘Yes. I know I did. But listen. It’s the only reason I’m here.’

  Doubt tugged at the edges of David’s smile. ‘But I thought you meant . . . I mean, when you said help, I thought you meant . . . ’

  ‘Sex.’

  ‘No! Hell. Not sex.’ A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. ‘At least, not right away.’

  Lucia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m trying to be serious, David. I’m trying to have a serious conversation.’

  ‘So am I, Lucia. I mean, what am I supposed to think? You can’t deny that you’ve been giving me some mixed-up signals.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Lucia said. ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘You hugged me. When you first saw me, you hugged me.’

  ‘That was a reflex! It was platonic.’

  ‘You were laughing at my jokes all evening. They weren’t even that funny.’

  ‘I was being polite, David. Your jokes are never particularly funny.’

  ‘You let me kiss you goodnight.’

  ‘You kissed me goodnight? When did you kiss me goodnight? ’

  ‘When you were lying down. On the
couch.’

  ‘Lying down? With my eyes closed? Sort of breathing heavily? That’s called sleep, David. That’s called being asleep. You may have kissed me but, trust me, there was no consent.’

  David shifted. As he moved, the tablecloth twisted. He ran a hand across the surface to flatten it out. ‘Well, anyway. The point is, you spent the night at my flat. Wearing just my T-shirt and a pair of knickers.’

  Their table was tucked in one corner, against the bar and away from the entrance. Behind Lucia a Kentia palm loomed, close enough for her to feel the tips of its leaves against her hair. She felt prickles, too, of attention from the table across from theirs. When she spoke again, she kept her voice low. ‘You need to get that image out of your head,’ she said. ‘Because it was a mistake. Clearly it was a mistake. I should have waited until morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all.’ She made to stand. Before she could extricate herself from the palm, however, David reached across and put a hand on her forearm.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Wait. Sit down, Lucia, please.’

  The waiter arrived with their food, blocking Lucia’s only path out of the restaurant. She hesitated. She glanced at David.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please sit down.’

  Lucia sat, on the edge of her chair, and the waiter set the plates in front of them. The tart was brown. As far as Lucia could tell, that was the only characteristic it shared with the chocolate cake she had pictured in her mind. She nudged her plate towards the centre of the table and watched as David prodded his pasta with his fork.

  ‘Look, David. I’m sorry. If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry. But surely you can’t expect me . . . I mean, after what you did . . . ’

  David coughed. He gave the pasta another prod, then set down his fork and raised his head. ‘What can I do, Lucia? You said you needed my help. What can I do?’

  Lucia reached across the table and slid her fingers under his. She smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Really.’

  David shrugged. ‘I haven’t done anything yet. You haven’t even told me what you want.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucia. She withdrew her hand. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘So? Tell me.’

  ‘For the moment, all I need is information.’

  ‘Information? What kind of information?’

  Lucia propped her elbows in the space where her plate should have been. ‘Start by telling me what you told Philip. After that ... Well. After that, we’ll just have to see.’

  He showed me the gun.

  Well, he didn’t show me as such but I saw it. The week before the shooting, this was. We were in the staffroom and I was sitting next to him and I spotted it when he opened his briefcase.

  I say the gun but I suppose it was just a gun. I’m only assuming it was the one he used. To be honest, it didn’t even look like it would fire but that sort of tallies with what people have been saying. That it was an antique. A museum piece. From the war or something. That’s what people are saying, isn’t it?

  So it was the gun, I suppose. It was wedged between a file and a stack of papers, like it was a Thermos flask or his lunch box or something. Like it was anything but what it was.

  I say, Samuel, sort of laughing. That’s not what I think it is, is it? He says, pardon me, and I nod. That, I say. In the case. It’s not what I think it is.

  Oh, says Samuel. Oh. You mean this?

  And he lifts the lid of his case wide and picks up the gun by the handle. His finger finds the trigger and for a moment the barrel is pointing right at my head.

  I sort of laugh again. I mean, I wouldn’t make much of a policeman, would I? Someone points a gun at my head and all I can do is give a nervous giggle. But anyway, that’s what I did. And I say, Samuel, I’d rather you . . . I mean if you could not please . . . So I giggle and I can’t even finish a sentence.

  Samuel says oh again. He says, no, no, no, don’t worry. And he turns the barrel so it’s pointing at the back of his case, at the upturned lid of his case, and beyond the lid, sitting opposite, is Terence, Terence Jones, TJ to those who know him, and Samuel’s got the gun pointed right at him. And TJ can’t see this because he’s reading the newspaper and anyway the gun’s still hidden by the briefcase. And Samuel, his finger’s there on the trigger and I can tell he’s about to squeeze. As in, fire. The gun. At TJ.

  So what do I do?

  I do nothing. I watch. It’s all I can do. Like I say, you’d be happy to have me on the force.

  But as it turns out the gun doesn’t fire. Samuel pulls on the trigger but it sticks. It doesn’t move. And Samuel looks up at me and he’s not exactly smiling but he looks pretty pleased with himself nonetheless. Do you like cats, Inspector? I like cats. I have three. And Samuel looks like my tabby, Ingrid, when she’s eaten her share of the giblets and Humphrey’s and Bogart’s too.

  Samuel, I say. Really. And still I’m struggling to think what to say to him. Because it’s not the type of situation you ever contemplate dealing with, is it? Not if you’re someone like me. I’m interested, Inspector: how would you have reacted, do you think? If you had been me? Because you would have done what was right, I’m sure, and not just because of your training. Although I suppose it’s perfectly obvious to me now. I should have wrestled the gun from him. I should have pinned him to the floor. I should have called for the headmaster, told the headmaster to call the police. That’s what I should have done. That’s what I wish I had done. Naturally that’s what I wish.

  But at the time I was waiting for an explanation. That’s what rational human beings do, isn’t it, when they’re confronted with something beyond the scope of their everyday experience? They withhold judgement. They offer the benefit of the doubt. They fear the worst perhaps but they know deep down that there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation. That’s the very phrase people use, in fact, isn’t it? You’ll see, they say. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  And Samuel gave me one.

  He drops the gun into the briefcase, rather carelessly. He clicks the briefcase shut. He says, it’s real but it doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since 1945. It was my grandfather’s, he says. Or rather, it became my grandfather’s. He stole it. Won it. However you want to look at it. He got it from a German, a Nazi. In Italy. My grandfather fought in Italy.

  Which is fascinating, rather, isn’t it? I teach religious studies but my subject and Samuel’s are so intertwined that really the syllabuses should be merged. That’s what I think anyway. Because what’s the study of religion but social history? What’s faith but an empathy with the past? But that’s not why we teach religious studies, I’m told. My views, depending on who you talk to, are old-fashioned or avant-garde. Which is fine, I suppose. I’m not complaining. And I’m in danger of straying from the point. Which is, Inspector, that what Samuel said intrigued me. His explanation was logical and fascinating both. The gun was a relic from the war and he was, he told me, teaching his sixth-formers about Monte Cassino. He wanted to engage them, he said. Show them something that would bring them forwards on to their elbows rather than send them back on to their heels. Which is just the sort of thing Samuel would say because there was nothing he wanted more than to get his kids interested. I mean, all teachers, regardless of their subject, can empathise with the sentiment but for Samuel it had turned into a mission. He was committed. He was determined. He must have been, mustn’t he? To put up with what he did. To keep coming into work after everything that happened.

  So I’m convinced but still I manage to keep some sense about me.

  Do you think that’s wise? I ask him. It’s a gun after all. And this is a school.

  He shrugs.

  I say, I mean it, Samuel. I really think you should be careful. The parents, the headmaster, the pupils for heaven’s sake . . . Just imagine how they might react.

  Now Samuel does smile and I don’t like that smile at all. But it’s a flicker, a spark that catches and then goes out, and after it fades it’s h
ard to tell if it was even a spark at all. Maybe you’re right, Samuel says. Maybe you’re right.

  I’m glad you think so, I say, because I really think . . . But then the bell goes and everyone gets up because it’s the last double period before lunch. And neither one of us says anything more.

  This would have been the Wednesday so it was exactly a week before. After that, I watched him fairly closely. As closely as I could, at any rate. It was hard, though, because we taught in different wings and neither one of us spent a great deal of time in the staffroom. We each had our reasons. He was a fairly solitary figure and I suppose I’ve always been one too. But I like to think that I am happy in my own company. There are moments, naturally, when I crave companionship and usually they coincide with times when there is none on offer. What’s that - Murphy’s law? Anyway, at school when I go to the staffroom it’s usually to hear adult voices. Even TJ, for all his shortcomings, can seem a calming presence after you have been floundering all day amid the shrillness of youth. But Samuel: he was never happy in his own company. If this doesn’t sound too self-important, Inspector, I’ve always seen myself as something of a spiritual barometer in this school. It’s not a role anyone else would recognise, naturally, more an extension of my particular specialisation. Not even that, really. I’m just interested in people. That’s all. I’m nosy, you might say. I like to know how people cope. Within themselves. What drives them. What undermines them. There’s no great skill involved. You just have to listen more than you talk. You seem to listen well, Inspector, so I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. And with Samuel, it was obvious from the very start. Not that he would do what he did. Heavens. How could a balanced individual expect that of anyone? It was obvious, rather, that he was troubled. Sad. Sad is the word. Sad and lonely and unable to break from the mould into which his life had settled.

  So he was vulnerable. Extraordinarily so. And he was having a difficult time, as you probably know. But though the gun worried me, I’m not sure that even then, at the time I saw it, he had decided he was going to use it. You’re going to ask me why he was carrying it then, aren’t you? Before the shooting I would have repeated to you his story. I believed him, mainly because I wanted to. Obviously, though, he was lying about it not working. Maybe the safety catch was on when he squeezed the trigger or something and that’s why it didn’t depress. I mean, is that how guns work? I’m not an expert on these things. He didn’t show the gun to his sixth-formers either. I know he didn’t because I asked - subtly of course - Alex Mills, one of the pupils that Samuel and I shared, when he was helping me clear away after class. At the time I was relieved. I assumed Samuel had seen sense and that the matter was at an end. It didn’t occur to me that he’d never had any intention of showing the gun in class.