by Nicci French
I tried an experiment. I tried to find any bit of my recent behaviour that didn’t make me feel just a bit queasy. There was, for example, my treatment of Charlie, which was a huge issue in itself. I’d lied to him, betrayed him, let him down, even my attempt at helping him, with his bloody accounts, had it been just a way of showing that – apart from everything else – I was better at doing his job than he was?
As for my work, as soon as I thought of KS a sour, sharp liquid rose into the back of my mouth, and for a moment I felt I was about to throw up. I was like a lap-dancer. I knew how to give the punters a good time and get them to do the equivalent of pushing ten-pound notes into my costume. That wasn’t something to be proud of. Precisely the opposite. I thought for a moment of this bed in Archway as my deathbed. If I were lying at the end of my life, about to enter an eternity of nothingness, how would I look back on my career? I’d entertained fatigued businessmen and sent them back to their crappy companies feeling a bit better about themselves. I would have been better occupied planting bombs in their offices. Almost anything would be better than what I was doing. It would be better if I gave up everything, gave the house back to the building society and learned an honest trade, learned how to make something real.
I almost made myself laugh with that one. I thought about that line in ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, about going back to my plough. Yeah, right. If there was anything more ludicrous than my life, it was my solution for dealing with it: Charlie could be a plumber and I could be a carpenter.
I got out of bed because I was starting to bore myself with my own thoughts. I had a shower and washed my hair, felt my nails scratching my scalp. When I got out I rummaged around on the bathroom shelf and in the cupboard, among all my ridiculous creams and lotions, for the nail-clippers and didn’t find them. I shouted down to Charlie asking where they were and he shouted something back and I shouted something rude in return. About number fourteen in Charlie’s top twenty irritating habits is using the nail-clippers anywhere but in the bathroom. One result is that I keep finding little crescent moons of nail-clippings sticking into my flesh in bed and another is that I can’t find the nail-clippers when I want them. I yelled down to Charlie that I was going to buy a pair of nail-clippers that I was going to keep entirely to myself. He didn’t reply. There was a particularly long jagged nail on my ring finger that kept catching on my clothing. I bit it until it split, then tore away the nail. Of course I got the angle wrong and it broke off far too low down and came away with a rip of pain, leaving exposed flesh beneath, which started to bleed. It looked insane as well. I had to bite off more of the nail just to make it even. Now it would need to grow for about two weeks before I could cut it again and make it look normal.
Charlie, or God, had hidden the nail-clippers somewhere, and then things got worse. I didn’t want to put real clothes on. I had no intention of going outside today. I pulled on an old pair of tracksuit trousers, the sort with a cord round the waist. I tugged at one end and saw the other disappear into the hole of the waistband. I howled at it. I tried to extract the fuzzy end of the cord from the hole but it was too far in. I tried to concertina the waistband to bring it closer but it didn’t work. I could feel the cord but I couldn’t get at it. I was once taught how to deal with this crisis. It involved a needle, a steady hand and patience, and I didn’t have any of them. I could feel arteries throbbing in my head. I was probably about to have a stroke and I would almost have welcomed it. The inanimate world was turning on me. The duvet, the nail-clippers, the tracksuit trousers. I pulled the trousers off, ripped at them, then threw them into the corner and squatted on the floor, holding my head.
There was a hand on my shoulder.
‘Charlie?’ I mumbled.
‘What’s going on? What is it?’
‘Bad night,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘You were talking in your sleep.’
That gave me a jolt. ‘What did I say?’
‘It was just babble,’ he said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘What happened to your finger?’
I looked at my ring finger. The tip was dark with dried blood. ‘I cut the nail too short,’ I said.
‘Get dressed anyway. We could go for a walk.’
‘I want to have a bath first.’
‘Didn’t you have a shower?’
‘I’m cold. I need to warm up.’
Charlie looked at me suspiciously. It reminded me of the look you give people when you suddenly realize that their puzzling behaviour is explained by the fact that they’re drunk. ‘Can I bring you anything in the bath?’ he said. ‘Coffee? A biscuit?’
‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’
In the bath I chewed all my nails down to an acceptable shortness. I was more skilful this time and they didn’t bleed. I don’t know how long I was in the bath, but I refilled it several times until at last there was no more hot water and I got out. I took a long time to get dressed. Deciding what to wear and then putting it on seemed the most enormous effort. Even the idea of pulling dry jeans over my damp skin made me feel dizzy. I lay on the bed and fell asleep briefly. Every time I slept I felt more tired when I woke up. I put my arm over my eyes to block out the wintry light.
Later, I don’t know how much later, I heard a voice. Meg’s voice.
‘Why are you crying like this?’ she said.
I opened my eyes and saw that Meg and Charlie were sitting on either side of the bed, looking down at me.
‘What’s happening? Am I ill? Maybe I’m dying? Maybe I’m already dead and this is my corpse and you’re both sitting here and soon one of you will sigh deeply and say, “Well, it’s probably for the best.”’
‘What are you on about?’ said Meg.
‘Meg and I are worried about you,’ explained Charlie.
‘Can’t think why.’
‘Do you want to get up now?’
‘Not with both of you sitting there looking at me as if I’ve got some fatal disease that might carry me off any minute. I’ll get up soon.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Charlie, with a reassuring, sympathetic expression.
I had an impulse to punch him in the face as a way of removing that smile and at the same time I was aware, in a distant way, that he was behaving extremely kindly and patiently in the face of intolerable behaviour from me. A little voice deep in my brain was telling me that at some point I was going to have to start behaving like a human being again.
‘I’ll count to ten and then get out of bed,’ I said. ‘One, two, three…’
Meg left when I reached nine and three-quarters. I lay there a while longer, then gritted my teeth, made the most enormous effort and got dressed. I opened the curtains of the smaller window that looks out on to the street: the pavements were wet and the sky overcast. I opened the curtains of the larger window and pressed my forehead to the cool glass. Charlie was in the garden, then Meg came out and stood beside him. She touched his shoulder and he turned towards her. They stood very close together, talking. Then he took her hand and laid it against his cheek and she smiled up at him. Together they returned to the house.
I clomped down the stairs, feeling as if there were lead weights attached to my feet. At least they could hear me coming.
Charlie made yet another pot of tea and pushed a steaming mug in front of me, telling me to drink. Meg toasted some bread and spread honey on it. Then Naomi appeared, carrying a tin.
‘Charlie said you weren’t feeling too good,’ she said. ‘I’ve made some ginger biscuits. Ginger’s very good when you’re feeling sick. Hi there, Meg.’
‘Hello, Naomi.’
‘I’m not feeling sick,’ I said mutinously.
‘Oh, well, they’re nice anyway. Here, try one.’
She smiled at me, and I saw her even white teeth with a gap between the two front ones. She wasn’t wearing a jacket or even a sweater, just a bright yellow T-shirt. She looked so tangy and
clean, like a spring day.
‘Holly’s been overworking,’ Meg said.
‘And not sleeping properly,’ added Charlie.
‘You poor thing,’ said Naomi. ‘No wonder you feel grotty. There’s this herbal tea I give to my patients with insomnia. It’s a mixture of Chinese herbs. It looks a bit like grey dust, but it’s very soothing and seems to do the trick. Do you want some?’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘Yes, she does.’
‘I can’t stand herbal tea.’ I looked at the three of them, standing over me. ‘Or sympathy.’
There was a ring at our front door and Charlie went to answer it. I heard a murmur of voices, then Charlie called me. I joined him at the front door and looked out. Two men were unloading something from the back of a van. It was a bulky object wrapped in a green tarpaulin.
‘What’s this?’ I said.
A fourth man handed me a clipboard. ‘Holly Krauss?’ he said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Print and sign,’ he said.
I looked at the receipt. ORYX GALLERY was written at the top, with a picture of something with horns that was in all probability an oryx.
‘Oh,’ I said, as the horrible truth dawned. ‘Can you take it back?’
The man shook his head. ‘We’re heading straight up to Leicester, love. Anyway, I don’t think it works like that. You’ve paid for it. It’s yours now. Where do you want it?’
It took three of them to get it into our living room; it wasn’t that big but it was enormously heavy. Charlie said nothing as they removed the tarpaulin with a flourish.
‘Gracious!’ said Naomi. ‘What on earth is it?’
I couldn’t even remember which object I’d bought. It was several pieces of defunct machinery welded together at strange angles, then balanced on a plinth. It looked extremely ugly and far too big for the narrow room. Charlie still said nothing until the door closed and the men were gone. ‘What’s this?’ he said. His fists were clenched by his side.
‘I had a rush of blood to the head,’ I said brightly. ‘Whoosh!’
He picked up my copy of the receipt I’d signed. ‘Jesus Christ, Holly,’ he said.
‘How much?’ I asked.
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘I’m going to return it.’
‘Of course you’re going to fucking return it. Or try to. How do you know they’ll take it back? I wouldn’t. Why did you go and buy it in the first place? What did you think you were doing?’
‘It seemed like fun at the time.’ I gave a little chuckle to prove my point. ‘And it might be an investment. Who knows?’
Charlie had gone white with anger. The receipt was trembling in his hand as if a wind were blowing. He could barely speak. ‘We have a ninety per cent mortgage,’ he said. ‘We lied about our salaries to get it. I don’t understand.’
We all looked at the dreadful object in our living room.
‘I think we should go now,’ said Meg, but she and Naomi stood as though rooted to the spot.
‘What are you up to, Holly? What the fuck is going on with you? Tell me! Tell me!’
I was looking at the sculpture and for the first time that day something seemed funny. To my horror and shame, I started to laugh. And once I’d started, I couldn’t stop.
12
Meg hates November. She says it’s the year’s corridor: a grim, narrow time that you have to go along to get somewhere else. She hates February as well. The greyness, the cold, the hard earth, the bare trees, the brief, pale, pinched days. None of this has ever made much sense for me. Seasons are for farmers and gardeners. I think it’s the weather in your head that matters and suddenly, in the third week of November, when the streets were wet and the air grainy with drizzle, the weather in my head was blazing yellow sunshine, high blue skies. It happens like that. There had been weeks of pushing along through the tunnel of days like a blind, slow, grimy old mole, and then, without warning, I surfaced, half dazed, into the beautiful light.
I pulled apart the curtains and let in the morning. The fog outside blurred the shapes of the houses and trees and muffled the sound of the traffic. Familiar objects had become mysterious. Anything could happen on a day like today.
‘Wake up, Charlie, here’s some coffee.’ I sat on the side of the bed and put a hand on his warm shoulder. He didn’t stir and I gave him a shake. ‘It’s half past seven. You said you wanted to be gone by eight.’
He muttered something and retreated down the bed, gathering the duvet around him like a soft, billowy cave.
‘Shall we meet for lunch today? I’ll treat you.’
‘I’m seeing someone,’ he said, from under the duvet. ‘The accountant and then the design editor of the Correspondent.’
The accountant. It sounded grand but it was actually Tina, who had helped Meg set up the KS accounting system.
‘I’ll take you out afterwards,’ I said.
He half sat up and took the coffee, cupping both hands round it and letting the steam rise into his face. ‘I said I’d go out with Sam and that lot for a drink.’
‘Pity,’ I said. ‘I wanted to celebrate.’
‘Celebrate what? It’s not my birthday, is it?’
‘Just celebrate. What colour shall we paint this room?’
‘What?’
‘I was thinking about it in the night. I thought yellow for the kitchen, not a horrible, stinging yellow, of course, something soft and buttery and alluring, and then a terracotta colour in here, maybe. Like the roof tiles of an Italian house. Or greeny-grey. What do you think? Something sexy or something restful? I’ll buy the paint and get started on Saturday. Or even before. I’m owed about a hundred days off. I could do it really quickly once I get started. You don’t need to do a thing. I’ve been letting things slide a bit and I want to look after you now. What I hate are all the preparations you’re supposed to do first. You know, cleaning the skirting-boards and putting paper down and clearing shelves. Or cleaning the brushes afterwards. It’s as bad as reading instruction manuals. One promise I’ve made to myself is that I will never, ever again read an instruction manual. Trish was saying yesterday that when you decorate you should put masking tape all the way along the wood where it adjoins the walls, so you get clean lines. That sounds excessive to me. Sometimes I think Trish should have been in the army. I’ve always had steady hands.’
I held my left hand straight out in front of me. ‘Look at that!’ There was a tremor in my fingers, a visible vibration.
‘They’ve never done that before,’ I said. ‘Just as well I’m not a brain surgeon. I could wipe out entire areas of activity with one little wobble. Maybe I’m drinking too much caffeine. Or not enough. Caffeine withdrawal?’
Charlie waited a long time before answering. ‘Yellow?’ he said at last.
‘What?’
‘I was trying to follow your train of thought and I got stuck somewhere near the beginning. How long do you think you could go on talking without receiving a reply?’
‘What? Oh, sorry. Shall I make you some toast? Toast and marmalade? I could even iron a shirt for you.’
‘Liar,’ he said, and I giggled. Then the giggle turned into a strange, snorting laugh that I couldn’t control.
He swung his feet to the floor and stood up, strong and naked in front of me. I reached up and put a hand on the small of his warm, golden back. ‘All that running,’ I said. ‘You could be a bit late.’
‘I can’t today.’
‘Another time.’
As he pulled on his jacket, his mobile phone played its daft tune in the pocket. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Yes? No, eight’s fine. Of course I’ll be there.’ His face relaxed into an intimate little smile and I knew he was talking to a woman. He changed the phone to the other hand and half turned away from me. ‘I won’t be late.’
Suddenly it was like watching a stranger, a handsome stranger with crow’s feet round his eyes.
‘Who won’t you be late
for?’ I asked, as he slid the phone back into his pocket and fiddled with the knot of his tie in front of the mirror.
‘Nobody. Sam and that lot.’
‘You can flirt but you’re not allowed to fall in love with someone else.’ The words were out of my mouth before I had time to stop them. A lightning bolt of panic slashed through me as I heard myself speak. How could I say things like that, and mean them too, after my behaviour? How could I mind if Charlie was going to lean across a restaurant table this evening, staring into some woman’s face, when I’d spent a night being kissed, touched, scratched, fucked, turned inside out by a stranger?
‘Don’t worry,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m a married man, remember?’
‘I remember.’ I reached out and adjusted his shirt unnecessarily with my quivering fingers. ‘Have a good day.’
I was too jumpy to work properly. I spent a couple of hours at lunch trying to choose paints in a warehouse-sized shop just up from the office. They had such distractingly evocative names: celandine yellow, silver flax and Thames mud; ice grey, liquorice, spice. I ended up buying five litres of a deep, orangey-red paint called fox brown, and five of a mustardy yellow, plus three sleek black brushes – thick, medium and thin – a paint tray, six sheets of coarse-grained sandpaper and a bottle of methylated spirits. In the afternoon, through a meeting and then the fortnightly office discussion about new ideas, I kept thinking about standing in front of a smoothly plastered wall, with a full brush of yellow paint in my hand. That first lick of colour; a vivid streak across blankness.
Just after six, Stuart rang me on my mobile. I heard voices in the background. Did he spend his entire life in bars? I hadn’t seen him since that evening, another of those evenings that I was trying to forget. The Oryx Gallery were proving resistant to my idea – more like a plea – of returning the sculpture and it was now standing in our bedroom, where no one else had to see it, a monument to something. Charlie had already stubbed his toe on the base and I had torn a skirt quite badly on one of its many jagged edges.
