by Nicci French
The kitchen looked as if it had been burgled and vandalized, so while they watched the movie I cleaned and scoured and wiped and put things away in cupboards, then got things out of cupboards and looked at them and put some in a bin bag, then replaced the rest. When Charlie came in, I was finishing off and I felt as if I had climbed a mountain and was standing on the summit looking over a beautiful valley in the sunshine.
‘I was going to do that,’ Charlie said.
‘It’s not a problem,’ I said. ‘I was meaning to sort it out.’
‘Sort it out?’
‘I’ve done the cupboards as well. I’ve thrown lots of stuff away. Like the ice-cream maker with the stirrer thing, except the stirrer thing was missing.’
‘I was going to replace it.’
‘How? Where? This isn’t the nineteenth century. There aren’t hardware shops any more where you can buy replacements. It’s cheaper to buy a new ice-cream maker. If we need one. Which we don’t because we’ve never made ice-cream. Or home-made pasta. I threw that machine away as well. It was rusty. We never make anything, really, except toast and bacon and eggs.’
‘How can you do this,’ he said, ‘after your weekend? I bet you hardly slept. Aren’t you exhausted?’
‘It’s the opposite,’ I said. ‘It’s good. It helps me wind down.’
‘You know, I love you in those pyjamas. But sometimes I regret buying them for you.’
I knew what he was saying but pretended I didn’t. My body felt all wrong. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone touching it.
‘I looked into your study…’ I began.
‘I know, I know,’ he said.
‘Your tax form. It was due in last week, wasn’t it? Or was it the week before last?’
‘I’ll do it soon,’ he said.
‘Let me have a look.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s half past eleven. You’ve probably not had any sleep all weekend, if I know you. And you’ve a company of your own to run.’
‘I’m not tired, I just want to have a quick look. Come on.’
I put on slippers and a dressing-gown, and dragged Charlie to his work room. It really was a scary place.
‘It’s like a diagram of the inside of my brain,’ he said, with a smile.
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’ll deal with it tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I promise. I’ll even open some of the letters. The ones with red bits on.’
I took a deep breath. ‘The main bit of advice we got when we started KS was to keep in touch with people. They get worried when they don’t hear from you. This,’ I gestured at the atrocious scene, ‘is like when a child puts his hand over his eyes and thinks nobody can see him.’
He grimaced.
‘We don’t want to lose the house, Charlie,’ I said.
‘Things aren’t that bad,’ he said, in a light tone. ‘You could always kill me and collect the insurance.’
I fetched a bin bag, my second of the evening, and a notebook, and got to work. I opened all the letters and started putting them into piles: real, meaningful, consciously arranged piles. Charlie protested at first, but then he lay down on the old sofa and drifted into a half-sleep from which I woke him occasionally with shouted inquiries. Envelopes and bumf and other rubbish went into the bag. Then I read through everything and arranged it first by subject and then in order of scariness. Charlie hadn’t been keeping proper accounts, so I created a rough-and-ready account book that could just about be presented to a tax man.
I woke Charlie and he went and made us hot chocolate, into which we dunked digestive biscuits. My feet were chilly and I could feel I was starting to slow down. A great weariness lurked behind my eyes, waiting to pounce. I put the piles of papers that could be forgotten about on the floor. I scribbled in the account book, I took notes, I prodded Charlie and reduced and reordered the papers, boiling it down, boiling it down, until there were just six pieces of paper that absolutely had to be dealt with. Three were unpaid bills; three were invoices he’d never sent off.
As Charlie dozed off again, I came across a letter in the bottom drawer, scrunched-up, as if Charlie had balled it angrily in his fist before chucking it in there. It was three lines long, not counting the signature, from a publishing company, rejecting his proposal for a graphic novel that I hadn’t even known he was working on. I shut the drawer quietly, and looked at Charlie, his head tipped to the side, his soft hair falling over one eye, his mouth half open, and a tiny rumble in the back of his throat. He hadn’t told me. He’d hidden it and pretended it didn’t exist. A violent spasm of tenderness shot through me, leaving me shaky and anxious.
‘Some of these are really good,’ I said brightly, when he woke, gesturing at the pile of drawings I’d put on the desk, except for the one of Meg and me together in which I looked scrawny and cartoonishly demented, which I’d surreptitiously screwed into a ball and crammed into the bin bag.
‘They’re nothing,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Just stupid doodles.’
I looked at him curiously. ‘You don’t enjoy it any more, do you?’
‘What?’
‘Drawing.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s just work.’
‘It’s not just work. You’re good at it, really gifted. God, if I only had a gift like yours. And you always used to love it.’
‘That was before I had to do it. Before it was a job. Like you keep telling me, we have to pay the mortgage.’
‘You really feel that it’s just a grind?’
‘This isn’t the time to talk about it, Holly. It’s two o’clock in the morning.’
‘Then stop doing it,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to.’
‘What are you going on about?’
‘You know what you really love doing, what makes you contented? Making things, fixing things. I’ve seen the expression on your face. That’s what you should do.’
‘I should fix things?’
‘Yes. Forget being an artist or an illustrator. Retrain. Retrain as a… as a plumber. I’m always reading about how plumbers can ask any price they want, they’re in such demand. We can remortgage the house and put you through an apprenticeship. You’d love it.’
‘So that’s what you think of me, is it? I should fix drains and broken pipes and clogged gutters.’
I heard the danger signs and ignored them. ‘It’d be better than sitting here day after day failing to work, staring into space, and feeling miserable, with me getting all resentful. Let’s just do it.’
‘So you’re in Soho being a consultant or an enabler or whatever you fucking care to call it. And what does your husband do? Oh, he’s a plumber. If you’ve got a blocked toilet, you know who to call.’
‘Why not, Charlie? What’s wrong with being a plumber?’
‘I thought you believed in me.’
‘I do – of course I do.’
‘I thought you said I had a great future ahead of me.’
‘I just want you to be–’
The phone rang. We looked at each other in puzzlement.
‘Who the fuck could possibly ring at this time?’
A shudder of apprehension passed through me and I leaped to it, but Charlie got there first. ‘Yes? Oh.’ His expression changed and his voice lost some of its aggression. ‘No, unbelievably I wasn’t asleep. Yes. Yes, OK. I’ll be right over.’ He put the phone down.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Naomi in a panic. She needs my help with something.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘She saw our lights on.’
‘What can be so urgent?’
‘She can smell something burning. She’s worried there might be an electrical fire.’
‘Can’t she call someone?’ I said.
‘She did call someone,’ he said. ‘She called us.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Charlie, ‘and I’m a plumber, not an electrician. But she’s a neighbour. If her h
ouse burns down, it’ll take ours with it.’
‘Come back soon, Charlie. We can’t leave things like this.’
‘I thought you’d sorted it all out,’ he said, and he was gone. I heard the front door slam, his footsteps ring out in the silence.
I sat there for a few moments, going over the conversation in my head, seeing his hard, furious face. Then I put each pile of paper into a separate folder. I picked up all his pencils and pens and put them into a glass jar. I pushed rubbish into the bin bag. I returned all the mugs and ashtrays to the kitchen. I wiped every surface with a cloth. At last I sat down at his clear desk in his clean room, put my head on my arms and let myself sink into a shallow, fretful sleep.
When I woke, with a jerk as if I was falling, I felt stiff and unrested. I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly five o’clock. I trudged upstairs, but Charlie still wasn’t back so I made a large pot of strong coffee, then phoned Naomi.
‘Naomi. It’s Holly.’
‘Holly! Oh, God, I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your night. Charlie’s been my saviour. It was an electric cable. The wires were exposed and they’d got terribly hot. He’s patched it up for the time being, but he had to unscrew this box on the wall and unfasten–’
‘That’s enough information,’ I said blearily. ‘I’ve made us all a pot of coffee. Come over and drink it.’
‘I don’t have your energy. I need to go to sleep, not drink coffee to wake me up.’
Ten minutes later, Charlie returned. He looked dazed and disconnected, but I took him into his study. He blinked at his room. It was tidy. It was almost bare.
‘Here,’ I said, handing him my piece of paper. He looked at it blankly. ‘I’ve written it down for you. It’s very simple. You’ve got to make four phone calls, one after another, starting at ten a.m. And you’ve got to write three letters. I’ve drafted them for you. It’s not as bad as it seemed. And send off the invoices. Then people might send you some money.’
He looked at the paper, then looked at me. ‘How can you do this?’ he said.
‘Once I get going with something I can’t leave it until it’s done.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ I said.
‘No. No, it’s me who should be sorry.’
I put my arms round him. ‘We’re all right, aren’t we?’
‘I’m going to take a shower,’ he said. ‘Then we should try and get some sleep.’
‘It’s way too late to go to bed,’ I said, trying not to notice that he hadn’t answered my question. ‘I thought we could have some breakfast. We could have a walk before I go to work.’
‘Aren’t you shattered?’
‘Sleep’s overrated,’ I said. ‘There are too many interesting other…’ The words were tripping over themselves and getting caught in my mouth like something too dry to eat. ‘Other things. You know what I mean?’
‘I don’t know if I do,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re way beyond me.’
‘Is that a compliment?’ I asked, but he didn’t reply.
8
It’s easier to think when you walk, and easier not to think, as well. You just stride along, your feet hitting the pavement and the cold air rinsing through you. You can see things without seeing them, hear them but take no notice.
I walked all the way to work that morning, Archway to Soho, maybe six miles along big, busy roads. Across the dizzying bridge, trying not to look over this morning. Down the hill, Kentish Town Road, Camden High Street. I had a perfect cup of coffee in a little cafe´, smoked an illicit cigarette that I cadged from a young woman, and eavesdropped on a conversation between two schoolgirls about how difficult it was to snog properly when you wore braces on your teeth. Then along Hampstead Road, on to Tottenham Court Road, and there I was, a stone’s throw from our office. I looked at my watch. It seemed to have taken me just over an hour and a half, including the coffee stop, which seemed rather quick. Maybe it wasn’t six miles after all, or maybe I’d walked very fast. I noticed that my cheeks were glowing and my hair was stuck to my forehead with sweat.
I bought a poppy-seed muffin in Luigi’s and ate it leaning against the wall outside the office, allowing myself to cool down. A woman on roller-blades tacked gracefully towards me and gave me a wide smile as she passed. Perhaps, I thought, I should get some of those. Then I could slide and swoop to work every morning. It didn’t look too hard.
‘Hi!’
‘Meg, I didn’t see you. I was in another world.’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Fine.’
‘I went to bed before ten and got up at eight. Bliss.’
‘You look different,’ I said. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
‘Nothing!’
‘You have. You’ve done something to your hair.’
She flushed and put a hand up. ‘I bought one of those straighteners out of a catalogue, and when I got up this morning I just did it,’ she said. ‘I looked in the mirror and saw the same face I always see with a frizz on top.’ Then, defensively: ‘Does it look dreadful?’
‘No. But you don’t have a frizz, you have curls. They’re lovely. I wish I had curly hair like you.’
‘No, you bloody don’t, Holly,’ she said, and for a minute her mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed and she looked like someone else. She looked like Charlie had the night before, when I’d told him he should become a plumber. Then she smiled. ‘Oh, well, it makes a change. It’ll roll itself up when the wind changes. One other thing…’ She stopped.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t know if I should tell you.’
‘Go on. You’ve got to tell me now.’
‘Someone phoned me. A man. He didn’t say who he was, but he said he knew you and you were heading for trouble. He said we all reap what we sow, or something. He sounded rather sinister.’
‘Was he carrying a scythe?’
‘Holly!’ she said reprovingly.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
There are three lavatories at our office. At nine minutes to twelve, I went into the largest one, rolled my coat into a bolster and put it on top of the closed toilet seat. Then I kicked off my shoes, lowered myself to the floor and laid my cheek gratefully on the rough warmth of the coat. I closed my eyes.
The toilet next to mine flushed. I opened my eyes again and looked at my watch. A quarter past midday. The strange buzzing seemed to have gone from my head, so I stood up, slipped my shoes back on, picked up my coat and walked out of the cubicle. I washed my hands and face, brushed my hair in front of the small mirror and marched back into the office.
‘We have a letter from Deborah’s lawyer and he’s threatening to take action against us for her unfair dismissal,’ said Meg, as I took a seat opposite her.
‘Is it a problem?’
‘I’ve asked Chris to come round this afternoon to talk about it.’
‘Maybe I’ve brought ruination on the firm,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘And there’s someone on his way up to see you.’
‘Who’s that?’ I started riffling helplessly through the diary.
‘He didn’t say. He just said he was here to see Holly Krauss. I assumed–’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
But it did matter. Rees’s smile didn’t waver as he approached me across the room. Once more, I felt that sense of queasy revulsion.
‘Hello there, Holly.’
I could feel several pairs of eyes watching us curiously.
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I said coldly. ‘Please leave.’
‘Oh, I haven’t really come to see you. I was at a loose end and I just wanted a look round where you work. Get a sense of your life, you know the kind of thing. And you must be Meg?’
‘That’s right. Can I help you?’
‘We talked last night on the telephone. Remember?’
‘In which case, I think Holly’s right and you should leave immediately,’ she s
aid splendidly. ‘Or shall I call the police?’
‘All women here, is it?’
Meg picked up the phone.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m just going.’ He looked at me, then pinched my cheek between his finger and thumb so it hurt. ‘I’ll wait for your call, Holly. But I won’t wait long. And I won’t go away.’
Numbers and dates slid mysteriously into the right grids on the screen. How did I do that? I could sense that Meg hadn’t gone away.
‘What?’
‘That man, he’s dangerous,’ said Meg.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. He’s just a creep.’
‘Holly, can you hear yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Have you told Charlie?’
‘You know when a machine’s running smoothly and the cogs and wheels are clicking round together and it’s all oiled and you feel you could just go on and on working like that for ages? Then along comes Rees, and he’s like a spare bolt that’s been dropped into your perfectly running machine and you know if you don’t get rid of him at once that there’ll be this terrible screeching of metal and sparks and things will fly out at you, and with a grinding and a wrenching and a rusty screech it’ll all come to a halt. You know that feeling?’
‘You haven’t told Charlie, then.’
‘No. I’m not going to… What? You don’t really think I should?’
Meg looked at me and I couldn’t read her expression. Then she looked away and drummed her fingers on her desk. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, in a voice so quiet I had to strain to hear it, ‘things are better out in the open.’
‘Sometimes they are,’ I said. ‘Sometimes they definitely aren’t.’
‘Holly…’ She hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Doesn’t matter. You should at least call the police.’
‘No.’
‘So you’re just going to ignore it and hope it goes away all by itself?’
