by Nicci French
'What?'
'It feels almost wrong. After Troy and – you know, I thought I'd never be happy again. And it's all happened so suddenly.' She blushed. 'I've met someone.'
'You mean
'A nice man,' she said. 'He's quite a bit older than I am, and he really seems to care for me.'
I put my hand over hers. 'I'm very, very glad,' I said warmly. Then: 'No one I used to know, I hope?'
The stupid attempt at a joke fell flat. 'No. He's a junior hospital manager. His name's Laurence. You must meet him sometime.'
'Great.'
'He knows about everything…'
'Of course.'
'And he's very different, from, you know…
'Yes. Good. Great.'
'Mum and Dad say they like him.'
'Good,' I said again hopelessly. 'Really good. I'm so happy for you.'
'Thank you.'
I bought a big bunch of tulips and daffodils and irises and hopped on a bus that stopped a few hundred yards from my parents'. The scaffolding had finally gone from the outside of the house, and the front door had been painted a glossy dark blue. I knocked and listened: I knew that they'd be there. They never seemed to go anywhere these days. They worked, and then my mother sat in the house watching television and my father spent hours in the garden, plucking weeds from borders and nailing bird boxes to the fruit trees at the end.
There was no reply. I walked round to the back and pressed my nose against the kitchen window. Inside everything gleamed new and unfamiliar: stainless steel surfaces, white walls, spotlights on the ceiling. Dad's favourite mug stood on the table, beside it a plate with orange rind on it and a folded newspaper. I could imagine him methodically peeling the orange and dividing it into segments and eating them slowly, one by one between sips of coffee, frowning over the paper. Everything the same, and everything changed utterly.
I still had the key to the house so I fished it out and opened the back door. In the kitchen I found a vase and filled it up with water and crammed the flowers in. There were a couple of segments of orange left on the plate on the table, and I ate them absent-mindedly, gazing out at the garden that just a few months ago had been a mess of potholes and discarded kitchen units, and now was neatly tended and planted out. I heard footsteps on the stairs.
'Hello?' It was my mother's voice. 'Who's there?' she called from the hallway. 'Who is it?'
'Mum? It's me.'
'Miranda?'
My mother was in her dressing gown. Her hair was greasy and her face was puffy with sleep.
'Are you ill?' I asked.
' Ill?' She rubbed at her face. 'No. Just a bit tired. Derek went out to get some garden twine and I thought I'd have a nap before lunch.'
'I didn't mean to wake you.'
'It doesn't matter.'
'I brought you some flowers.'
'Thank you.' She glanced at them without taking proper notice.
'Shall I make us some tea or coffee?'
'That'd be nice.' She sat down on the edge of one of the chairs.
'Which?'
'What?'
'Tea or coffee?'
'Whichever you'd prefer. I don't mind.'
'Coffee,' I said. 'And then we could go for a walk'
'I can't, Miranda. I've got, well, things to do.'
'Mum…'
'It hurts,' she said. 'The only time it doesn't hurt is when I'm asleep.'
I picked up one of her hands and held it against my face. 'I'd do anything,' I said, 'anything to make it better.'
She shrugged. The kettle shrieked behind us.
'It's too late for anything,' she said.
'I loved her,' said Tony. He was on his third beer and his words were slurring together. Everything about him seemed to have slipped a bit – his cheeks were slack and stubbly; his hair was slightly greasy and fell over his collar; his shirt had a coffee stain down the front; his nails needed cutting. 'I loved her,' he repeated.
'I know.'
'What did I do wrong?'
'That's not the way to look at it,' I said weakly.
'I wasn't good at saying it, but she knew I did.'
'I think…' I began.
'And then,' he lifted up his beer and drained it. 'Then when she ran off like that, just a note on the table, I wanted her dead and she died.'
'That's not connected, except in your mind.'
'Your fucking Brendan. Charming her. Promising her things.'
'Promising her what?'
'You know – whirlwind romance, marriage, babies. All the things we used to argue about in the last few months.'
'Ah,' I said.
'I would have agreed in the end, though. She should have known that.'
I sipped my wine and said nothing. I thought of Laura, laughing, her head tipped back and her mouth open and her white teeth gleaming and her dark eyes shining with life.
'Now she's dead.'
'Yes.'
On Sunday, I ran again. Seven miles through drizzling mist. I had coffee with Carla, who'd also known Laura and wanted us to spend the hour exclaiming with a kind of scarifying relish over how awful it all was.
I worked on the company accounts. I was restless and agitated. I didn't know what to do with my spare time. I didn't want to see anyone, but I didn't want to be on my own. I sorted through old correspondence. I threw out clothes that I hadn't worn for over a year. I went through all my e-mails and deleted the ones I didn't want to keep.
At last I rang up Bill on his mobile and said I'd like to talk to him. He didn't ask me if it could wait till tomorrow, simply said he was in Twickenham but would be back by six. We arranged to meet in a bar near King's Cross that used to be a real dive, but was now minimalist and chic, and sold cocktails, iced teas and lattes.
I had another bath and changed out of my sloppy drawstring trousers into jeans and a white, button-down shirt. I was there fifteen minutes early. When he arrived, he kissed me on the top of my head and slid into the seat opposite. He ordered a spicy tomato juice and I had a Bloody Mary, to give me courage. We clinked glasses, and I started asking him how his weekend had been. He held up a finger.
'What's this about, Miranda?'
'I want to stop working for you,' I said.
Reflectively, he took a sip of his drink and put it back on the table.
'That sounds like a good idea,' he said.
'What!' He just smiled at me in such a kind and tender way that I had to blink back tears. 'Here I was plucking up the courage to tell you and all you can say is that it sounds like a good idea.'
'It does.'
'Aren't you going to beg me to stay?'
'You need to start over.'
'That's what I've been thinking.'
'Away from the whole family thing.'
'You're not like family.'
'Thanks.'
'I meant that in a good way.'
'I know.'
'I feel like my life's one great big enormous ghastly mess and I need to scramble free of it.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I guess I'll try to get a job with an interior decorating company, something like that. I've got enough contacts by now. Shall I give you three months' notice, or what? And will you be my referee?'
' "I've known Miranda Cotton since she was one day old…" Stuff like that?'
'Something like.' I swallowed and fiddled with my drink.
'Don't go all sentimental on me, Miranda. We're still going to see each other. It's not as if you were leaving town.'
'I thought I might.'
'What? Move out of London?'
'Maybe.'
'Oh.' He raised his glass. 'Good luck to you. I've always been a believer in burning one's bridges.'
'I know. Bill?'
'Yes.'
'I never was in love with Brendan. It wasn't the way people thought.'
Bill gave a shrug.
'I never thought much of him. The way he would always squeeze my arm when he was talking to me
and use my name three times in a sentence.'
'Do you believe me, then?'
'On the whole,' he said with a half-smile. 'More or less.'
'Thanks.' My eyes burned with tears again. I felt floppy with gratitude. 'I think I'll have another Bloody Mary.'
'Well, I'm going home. Drink all you like, but we start on the new house at eight.'
'I'll be there, eight sharp.'
He stood up and kissed the top of my head once more.
'Take care.'
CHAPTER 30
I did it. I made myself do it and I did it. I put my flat on the market. I was sleepwalking through it, not thinking. I just didn't care, and so it went more smoothly than anything I've ever done in my life. A young man with a clipboard came and looked around and raved about how saleable it was. He said their commission rate was three per cent. I said two and there was just a beat of hesitation and he said all right. The very next morning, a woman came to see it. She reminded me of me, except a bit richer, a bit more grown-up. She had a real job. She was a doctor. I saw the flat through her eyes. So much had been moved out that it had a minimalist look to it that made the space seem brightly lit, larger than it really was.
She said that the flat had a good feel to it. She smiled and said it must have good feng shui. I took a deep breath and said yes and thought about Troy hanging from the beam. Half an hour later the estate agent phoned saying that Rebecca Hanes had offered ten thousand less than the asking price. I said no. He said the market was looking a bit soft at the moment. I said it didn't matter. He rang back ten minutes later and said she had offered the full amount, but she wanted to move in straight away. I said I didn't want to be hurried. I would move in a month. He said he thought that might be a problem, but he rang back after a few minutes and said that would be fine. As I put the phone down, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror and I wondered: is that the secret of doing deals? Is that the secret of life? If you care less than the other person, then you win. Was that me?
I was pretty far along in the process of jettisoning my old life, but I had done nothing about getting myself a new one. I took my old school atlas off the shelf and opened it at ' England and Wales, South'. Suddenly I realized that I had an existential freedom to my life. I had no particular family connection with anywhere outside London. I wasn't constrained. I was equally indifferent to everywhere. Should I draw a line an inch around London? Two inches? Three inches? Would I like to live beside the sea? And, if so, which sea? Village or town? Or open countryside? Or island? Thatched cottage? Houseboat? Martello tower? Decommissioned lighthouse? My freedom was like an abyss in front of my feet. It was almost awesome. It was also the wrong way round. I needed to think about work. What I needed to do was to find a job or jobs. I needed to make some calls. But there wasn't immediate pressure now. I'd bought myself a month by being horrible to a nice woman.
I made a resolution. I would contact two people every day who might be of some help in finding me work. I sat down with a piece of paper and after five minutes' thought I had a shortlist with one name on it, a guy called Eamonn Olshin, who had just finished training as an architect. So I phoned him up and asked if we could meet up so I could pick his brains about work. Eamonn was surprisingly – almost ridiculously – friendly. I had been seeing the world as a hostile, treacherous place for so long that it was startling when someone just sounded pleased to talk to me. He said it was funny I should call because he'd been meaning to get in touch for ages and how were things? I was enigmatic in my reply to that one. He said that, come to think of it, he was having people round for supper that very evening and why didn't I come along? My immediate impulse was to say no because I wanted to spend the rest of my life living in a hole in the ground and because it would make me seem pathetically needy. But I was needy. Maybe not pathetically so, but definitely in need. A brutally simple thought struck me. Who would I normally turn to at a time like this? Laura. I said yes, all right, trying not to sound too desperate.
Eamonn's flat was down in Brixton. I wanted to arrive fashionably late, again in order not to show that I was too keen, and then I lost my way so I was ludicrously late. Also, the plan had been to breeze in looking rather cool, but because I'd had to ask the way from about five different people I ended up sprinting along back streets and then the flat was on the top floor, so I was puffing like a walrus, and clammy and dishevelled, when I finally walked through the door, just before nine o'clock. There were eight people sitting around the table, two or three of whom were vaguely familiar. Eamonn introduced me to them in turn. The first was his girlfriend, Philippa, which was a relief. He really had invited me because he wanted to see me. After I had regained my concentration, it was too late. I'd missed almost all the names.
They were halfway through the meal and I said I'd quickly catch up, but I helped myself to just a token portion of lasagne. I sat next to Eamonn and talked briefly about my plans. He was very encouraging, but he had assumed I was looking in London. I told him I was going to move away, probably to the countryside. He looked baffled.
'Where?' he said. 'Why?'
'I need to get away,' I said.
'That's fine,' he said. 'Take a weekend break. There are some great deals. But don't go and live there. London is where you live. Everywhere else in England is for…' He paused, as if it were difficult to remember what it was for. 'I don't know, going for walks in, flying over on your way somewhere.'
'I'm serious,' I said.
'So am I,' said Eamonn. 'We can't afford to lose you. Look, there are people from all over the world stowing away on ships and in containers and under lorries, just because they want to get to London. And you're leaving. You mustn't.'
Philippa raised an eyebrow at her new boyfriend.
'She said she was serious.'
Maybe Philippa thought that Eamonn was being too nice to me. He sulked a bit and said he would talk to his boss to see if he knew any people who 'weren't good enough to make it in London '. We chatted for a bit and then the conversation lapsed and I felt a nudge. It was the man sitting on the other side of me. He was one of the ones who had looked familiar. Of course I hadn't caught his name. Unfortunately he remembered mine.
'Miranda,' he said. 'It's great to see you.'
'David! Blimey!' I said. He'd cut his hair short and had a small moustache over his upper lip.
He waggled his finger at me roguishly. 'Do you remember where we last met?'
'It's on the tip of my
'I saw you sitting on your arse on the ice at Alexandra Palace.'
A wave of nausea swept through me. Oh, yes. He had been one of the group on the day I met Brendan. What was it? Was God punishing me? Couldn't he have given me a single evening free of this?
'That's right,' I said.
David laughed.
'A good day,' he said. 'It's the sort of thing you ought to do more often and you never really get around to it. Didn't we do a sort of conga on the ice?'
'I wasn't really secure enough, I…'
He narrowed his eyes in concentration. I could see he was trying to remember something. I thought to myself, please, God, no.
'Didn't you…?' he said. 'Someone said that you had a thing with that guy who was there.'
I looked around quickly, and I was relieved that an animated conversation about life in the country was proceeding without me.
'Yes,' I said. 'Briefly.'
'What was he called?'
Couldn't he shut up?
'Brendan,' I said. 'Brendan Block.'
'That's right. Strange guy. I only met him a few times. He was an old friend of one of the guys, but…' David laughed. 'He's out there. He's just one of these people, the stories you hear about him. Amazing.'
There was a pause. I knew, I just knew, that I should start talking about anything else at all. I could ask him about where he lived in London, what his job was, if he was single, where he was going on holiday, just anything except what I knew I was going to say.
&nbs
p; 'Like what?'
'I don't know,' said David. 'Just odd things. He'd do things the rest of us wouldn't do.'
'You mean, brave things?'
'I mean things you'd think of as a joke, he'd actually go ahead and do.'
'I'm not following you.'
David looked uncomfortable.
'You're not still together, are you?'
'As I said, it was just a brief thing.'
'I just heard about this from someone who was at college with him.'
'He went to Cambridge, didn't he?'
'Maybe later, this was somewhere in the Midlands, I think. From what I heard, Brendan was really winging it. He did no work at all. Apparently his idea of hard work was to photocopy other people's essays. He was doing one course where the tutor got so pissed off that he failed him altogether. Brendan knew where he lived and he went round there and saw his car parked outside the house. He'd left one of the windows wound down about an inch. What Brendan did was to put some rubber gloves on – you know, the kind you use for washing up – and what he did was he spent an entire night going around the area picking up dog shit and pushing it through that crack in the window.'
'That's disgusting,' I said.
'But amazing, don't you think? It's like a stunt in a TV show. Can you imagine coming down in the morning and opening your car door and about a million dog turds fall out? And then trying to clean the car. I mean, try getting that smell out of the car.'
'It's not even funny,' I said. 'It's just horrible.'
'Don't blame me,' David said. 'He wasn't my friend. And then there was another story about a dog. I'm not exactly sure of the details. I think they were renting a house somewhere and a neighbour was getting on their nerves. He was some old guy with one of those scraggly, mangy dogs. It used to run around the garden barking, driving everyone mad. Brendan was very good with animals. My friend said that the most ferocious Rottweiler could run at you and in about five seconds Brendan would be scratching it under his chin and it would be rolling on the ground. So Brendan got hold of the dog and he put it in the back of some builder's lorry that was just about to drive off. There were these other people around who thought he was joking and that he'd get the dog out, but he didn't. Someone came along and got in the lorry and drove off, and it headed down the road with this barking coming out of the back. Insane.'
