by Nicci French
'Why not?' I said. 'Am I mad?'
'Is this still to do with the whisky?' said Laura.
I took another sip and shook my head.
'Look at the facts,' I said. 'I break up with Brendan. Next thing, he's engaged to my sister. I can't bear the very sight of him. Next thing, he's living in my flat. Them living in my flat is awful. Next thing, I've moved out. So after days of manoeuvring, the result is that a man who makes me want to throw up when I'm around him is living in my flat and I've become a vagrant.'
'You're living here,' said Laura. 'That's not being a vagrant.'
I put my arms round her and hugged her.
'That's so lovely,' I said, overflowing with emotion.
To an observer we would have looked like two drunks outside a pub after closing time.
'I must say, I'm curious,' said Laura.
'What about?'
'This Brendan. You make him sound so appalling that I'd actually quite like to see him. It's like one of those exhibits in an old circus. Do you dare see the bearded lady?'
'You think I'm exaggerating.'
'I want to see him in action,' Laura said with a laugh. 'I want to see what it takes to make you vomit.'
The next day I was at work early, wanting to give Tony and Laura a bit of time together. I went back to the Hampstead house because the owners kept changing their minds about what they wanted. They'd decided that all the lights in the living room were wrong – they didn't want side-lights after all, but soft halogen spotlights on the ceiling. The Venetian red in the bedroom was too dark; in fact, it was too red. Maybe they should have gone for the pea green colour after all… The man of the household, a Sam Broughton, had arranged to come back to the house at lunch to discuss the fine details, and I spent the morning painting doors and skirting boards, laying licks of glossy white over greying wood.
Sam Broughton had just arrived from the City, insistent that he only had twenty minutes to spare, if that, and we were walking through the house, me with my notepad, when my mobile rang.
'Sorry,' I said to him. 'I'll turn it off after this. Hello?'
'Miranda? Thank God you're there.'
'I'm just in the middle of a meeting, Mum. Could you call back in a…'
'I wouldn't have called except it's an emergency.'
I turned away from Broughton's impatient face, his overdone glances at his watch, and looked out of the window at a sodden squirrel immobile on the branch of a chestnut tree outside. 'Tell me.'
'I've just had a phone call from Troy 's tutor and she says that Troy 's not come in.'
'That's not really an emergency, Mum.'
'He's not come in for days.' She paused. 'Most of last week.'
'That's not good.'
'It's like before. Pretending he's going there and then not turning up. I thought he was getting better.' I heard her gulp. 'I'm worried, Miranda. I called our house and he's not there, or at least there's no reply, and I don't know where he is or what he's doing and it's cold and raining outside.' Another gulp.
'What do you want me to do?'
'I'm stuck here at work. I can't really get away – and, anyway, the dental surgery's miles away. I tried your flat, but there was just an answering machine. So I thought you could just pop over and see if you could find him.'
'Find him?'
Behind me, Broughton cleared his throat angrily. His polished brogue tap-tapped on the newly varnished floorboards.
'It's much easier for you to get away and Bill wouldn't mind. And if something's happened
'I'll see if I can find him,' I said.
'I can't bear all of this any more,' said my mother. 'I've had enough of being strong. It's too much for me. What's wrong with us? I thought it was all going to be all right.'
'It will be all right,' I said, too loudly. 'I'll go now.'
I ended the call and turned to Broughton.
'I have to leave,' I said.
His glare deepened.
'Do you realize how expensive my time is?' he said.
'I'm very sorry,' I repeated. I wanted to say that my time was valuable as well, to me, at least. But I didn't. I was thinking of Troy, out there in the rain.
I went to my parents' house first. The workmen weren't there, though the ground floor looked like a building site – well, it was a building site. The kitchen was half-exposed to the weather. There was yellow London clay everywhere. I went from room to room, calling him. In his bedroom I opened the curtains and shook out the crumpled duvet, to make it look more welcoming if he returned. A book about the migration of birds lay open on the floor. I marked it with a scrap of paper and put it on his pillow.
I didn't really know where to look. Where would I go, if I were him, and hanging around waiting for the end of the day? I walked on to the high street and peered into cafes, record shops, the local bookstore. I tried the library, but it was closed; it's only open two days a week now. I looked into the mini-arcade, where several boys – other truants, I assumed – were playing the fruit machines in the smoky, bleeping gloom. Troy hated places like that. They made him feel trapped.
I walked to the park and wandered around in the rain. There weren't many other people, just a couple of winos sitting on a bench and a young mother striding furiously past pushing a buggy. From its inside came a yell like a siren. No Troy. I went to the playground in case he was taking shelter there, but it was deserted. Pigeons hopped through the puddles. I went to the little snack bar which sells ice creams on sunny days, but there was just one woman in there.
Really, he could be anywhere. I rang Mum at work and she'd heard nothing. I rang Dad, who was in Sheffield on business, but his voice kept breaking up until it eventually crackled into silence. I rang my flat in case Troy had somehow found his way there, but after two rings the answering machine clicked on and my own voice told me no one was there to take the call. I left a message anyway, one of those that go: ' Troy? Troy? Are you there? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, pick up the phone. Please, pick up the phone. Troy?' I heard the note of fear in my voice.
When you're looking for someone, you see them everywhere. Out of the corner of your eye, and then you turn and it's an old man. In the distance, but as they get closer it's nothing like them after all. Ahead of you, and they turn around and it's a stranger's face. I walked for an hour, telling myself reasonably enough that I shouldn't worry too much. In the end, wet and chilly, I went back to collect my car from outside my parents' house and, on the chance that he'd returned, went in.
The hall doorway was slightly open and through it I could see Troy seated on the old sofa. His hair was plastered to his skull, and he was draped in a thick tartan blanket, under which he was naked. He looked so shrunken and desolate, sitting there, that I could hardly bear to approach him. He lifted his head and looked up and gave a half-smile at someone I couldn't see, and a figure moved across to block him from my view. I pushed the door fully open and stepped into the room.
' Troy,' I said. 'Brendan. What's going on?'
I don't know what I was thinking, but my voice was sharp. I pushed past Brendan and knelt by Troy, clutched him by his narrow shoulders.
' Troy? Are you all right?'
He didn't reply, just looked at me, through me. He had the appearance of one of those people you see on the news, who's just been pulled out of wreckage, off a sinking ship.
'Sweetheart,' I said as if he were a baby still. I wanted to cry. 'What happened?'
'I've run your bath,' said Brendan. 'Nice and warm. And I'll bring you hot chocolate while you're in it. OK, mate?'
Troy nodded.
'And I better ring your mum, all right?'
'I'll take you up to your bath,' I said.
I left Troy in his bath and went to the kitchen, where Brendan was standing amid the builders' wreckage microwaving a jug of milk for Troy 's chocolate. It was a clumsy process because he could only use his unbandaged hand.
'I got Marcia's message on your answering machine. Clear
ly she doesn't know you've moved out,' he said. The microwave bleeped and he took the jug out, stirred in the cocoa and sugar, and whisked it till it frothed. 'There.' He took a little sip and added more sugar. 'So I thought I should go and look.'
'Where was he?'
'Down by the derelict warehouses. I don't know why I went there – I just had a feeling he was there, like an instinct. I knew. I think some people have that gift, don't you?'
I shrugged.
'Who knows what might have happened if I hadn't been there. I think I was meant to save him. It was fate. And so I've made a decision.' He poured the drink into a mug. I'm going to put off looking for a job until Troy 's all right. Troy will be my job.'
'Oh no,' I said, 'I don't think that's a very good idea. Not at all. In fact, if you ask me…'
'I'm not,' he said calmly.
'Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. Troy doesn't need you. The very opposite. What Troy needs, apart from anything else, is you out of his…'
'I'll take him his chocolate,' Brendan cut in. 'You don't really need to stay if you're busy.'
'I'll wait,' I said furiously. 'I'm not leaving him.'
'As you like,' he said.
CHAPTER 16
'I thought you were getting better. I thought things were getting back to normal at last.' My mother was pacing the room in an agitated fashion. Her hair was half unloosed from its bun and hanging down in strands over her face. She was wearing a jumper back-to-front.
'What does "better" mean, exactly?' asked Troy. 'And what's normal? No one's normal.'
He was sitting on the same sofa I'd found him on the previous night, in the same slumped position, as if there weren't a bone in his body.
'Oh, for God's sake,' snapped my mother.
'Calm down, love,' said my father, who was standing with his back to the window. He'd come home early from Sheffield and was still wearing his suit. He hadn't shaved, though, and the knot of his tie was pulled loose. It wasn't exactly a total psychological collapse, but it gave him an odd, raffish look.
'Calm down? Is that all you've got to say? Every time something goes wrong, that's your advice. Why don't you say you'll make us all a nice cup of tea?'
'Marcia…'
'I want someone else to take charge here, not always me.'
I glanced across at Troy. The sun was shining through the window on to his silky hair, and he seemed quite tranquil. He felt my eyes on him and looked up, raised his eyebrows and gave a little smile.
'Tea would be nice, actually,' he said. 'And I'm quite hungry. I haven't had anything to eat all day.'
I stood up.
'I'll get us all something in a minute,' I said. 'Toasted cheese sandwiches?'
'Thank God Brendan was here,' said Mum fervently. I flinched. I'd been there too, hadn't I? 'If he hadn't found him…'
'I'm in the same room, Mum,' said Troy. 'You can talk to me.'
'What have I done wrong?'
'What's it got to do with you?'
'Exactly,' said my father. 'We're not going to get anywhere if this becomes about your feelings of guilt. This is about Troy.'
My mother opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. She sat down on the sofa and took Troy 's hand.
'I know,' she said. 'I was so worried. I kept thinking…' She stopped.
'I wasn't going to kill myself or anything,' said Troy.
'So what were you up to?' asked Dad. 'Skipping lessons, wandering around.'
Troy shrugged.
'I wanted to be left alone,' he said eventually. 'I couldn't bear everyone fussing over me all the time. People looking at me to see how I am.'
'You mean me,' said my mother. 'I'm the one who fusses. I know I fuss. I try to stop myself and stand back, but I can't help it. I feel if I could just help push you back on to the tracks, everything would be all right for you.'
'You should trust me.'
'How can we trust you,' asked my father, 'when you skip lessons and lie to us?'
'It's my life,' said Troy mutinously. 'I'm seventeen. If I want to skip lessons, that's my choice. If I fuck up, it's my fuck-up, not yours. You treat me like a little child.'
'Oh,' said my mother. It sounded like a moan.
'If you want to be treated like an adult, you've got to behave like one,' said my father. He rubbed his forehead, then added, 'It's because we love you, Troy.'
My father never says things like that.
'I'll make us those sandwiches,' I said, backing into the windy, half-wrecked kitchen.
When I came back in, carrying a tray loaded with toasted sandwiches oozing melted cheese, and four mugs of tea, my mother had red eyes and had clearly been crying. She said, ' Troy says he'd like to stay with you for a while.'
'Oh,' I said. 'Well, I'd love that, Troy. It'd be great. The snag is, I'm not living there at the moment, Brendan and Kerry are.'
'Not for long, though,' said Troy. 'I can stay there with them for a couple of weeks or so, and then you'll be back. Right?'
'You know how much I want you to stay,' I said, 'but can't you wait just for a week or so?'
'Why?'
I stared at him helplessly. 'Are you sure you'll be all right with Kerry and Brendan?'
He shrugged. 'They'll fuss too much as well. It'll be better with you.'
'So wait.'
'I need to move now.'
'I'll be around,' I said. 'Just call me when you need me, OK?'
'OK.'
The following day I took time off work and went with Troy to the Aquarium. We spent two hours there, noses pressed against the glass. Troy loved the tropical fish, glinting like shards of coloured glass, but my favourite were the great flat fish with their stitched upside-down faces. They looked friendly and puzzled as they floated through the water with their bodies waving. Afterwards I drove him to my parents' house to pack his stuff. Brendan and Kerry were going to collect him in a few hours' time. I hugged him hard.
'I'll come and see you there very soon,' I said. 'A day or two.'
In fact, hardly an hour passed without me discovering something that I'd forgotten. I actually had to carry a piece of paper and a pen around with me so that I could keep a list. I could buy more knickers, but I couldn't buy everything. Three more T-shirts. Nail clippers. Conditioner. Woolly hat. Chequebook. Street map. It was just ridiculous, so after work the next day I went to my flat with the shopping list. Inside, I found Brendan and Troy playing cards in the main room. They looked over at me in some surprise. Brendan said something, but I couldn't hear him over the music. I marched across the room and turned it down.
'I can hardly hear it,' said Troy. 'You'd have to put a stethoscope against the speaker to hear that.'
'I just popped in to collect some stuff,' I said.
'That's fine,' said Brendan. 'Go ahead.'
The very idea of Brendan airily telling me to go ahead in my own flat made me want to boil a kettle of water and pour it over his head. I couldn't speak. But then I did speak.
'How are you doing, Troy?'
'Pretty well, aren't we?' said Brendan. Troy smiled at me and raised his eyebrows.
I went into my bedroom. Unsurprisingly, this was where Troy was sleeping, and in only a day my room had started to look the way that his bedroom always looked. The bed was unmade, there were clothes on the floor, books lying open, a funny sweaty smell. I was as quick as I could possibly be. I threw some things into a carrier bag I'd brought with me. I pushed the door gently to and climbed up and reached for the book where I had hidden the money. I counted it and felt my skin crawl as I did so. Sixty pounds. I counted it again. Sixty. Couldn't he just have taken it all? What was he doing with me? I put the rest of the money in my purse. I went back out into the main room.
'I had some money in my bedroom,' I said.
Brendan looked round cheerfully.
'Yes?'
'Some of it's gone. I wondered if anybody had borrowed it.'
Brendan shrugged.
'Not gu
ilty,' he said. 'Where was it?'
'What does that matter?'
'It might have got lost or fallen down the back of something.'
'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'Also, I can't find my Tampax.'
'Kerry may have borrowed it,' Brendan said. 'She's having her period.'
'Borrowed it?'
'Yes,' said Brendan. 'It's anal sex only at the moment.'
I couldn't quite believe what I'd heard. I felt bile rise, sour and sharp, in the back of my throat.
'Sorry?' I said.
'Only joking,' said Brendan, grinning at Troy, whose face had gone as blank as a stone. 'Miranda likes it when I tease her. At least I think she does. It's your deal.'
I started going over it all in my head, and I tried to explain it to Nick. I told him how I'd put the slip of paper in the door and how it had been in a different place when I checked it. I took a sip of wine. We were sitting in a wine bar on Tottenham Court Road, just round the corner from his flat.
'I'm finding it rather complicated,' I said. 'You know in films where they leave a slip of paper and then they see it lying on the floor and they know someone's been there?'
'Yes,' said Nick. 'It happened in The Sting. Robert Redford did it because these gangsters were after him.'
'Really?' I said. 'I think I saw it on TV years ago. I can't remember that bit. I'm terrible about films. I forget them completely.' I took another gulp of wine. It felt like I was drinking more than Nick was. He was sitting there, being all calm and sober, and I was talking and drinking. 'The difficult thing for me was the slip of paper being back but in an obviously different place. Do you see what I mean?'
'No,' said Nick.
I found it hard to work out myself. I really had to stop to think about it. It hurt my brain.
'The thing is,' I said, 'most people wouldn't notice the piece of paper at all. And maybe, like five per cent of people would spot the paper and they would make a huge effort to put it back exactly where it had been left in order to disguise that they'd opened the door. But of that five per cent about five per cent – do you see that? Five per cent of the five per cent – a tiny Machiavellian group – would deliberately put the piece of paper in an obviously different place. They're calling your bluff, do you see?'
