The caffeine was starting to kick in, the familiar jittery feeling, the slight nervousness, her heart pounding. Perhaps she should try and run it out? There would be no one on the streets. Maybe she should call a friend. Reconnect with the past. She knew many friends were hurt by her silence and wondered why Annie never returned their emails. A whole year had passed since her life had imploded. To her old friends, Annie’s life sounded rather glamorous: six months in India and now a job working as a chef for Carlo Spinetti, a well-respected film director in London. During their rare conversations, her best friend Megan would tell Annie how lucky she was not to be stuck in a provincial town waiting for the kids to come home from school, how she had broken out of the cycle of washing and cooking and baking. Annie found herself agreeing in a gay tinselly voice that she hardly recognised. Yes, she said, it’s great. I feel like I am living every single second, really living it. I have been born again, given a second chance to reinvent myself. I am uncompromisingly me.
She wanted her friends to cut through the play-acting to ask what she was doing so far away from home, so cut off from everything familiar. Once or twice she nearly told Megan. But Annie didn’t know where or how to start her story. I live alone in a rented flat at the unfashionable end of the Uxbridge Road. I go to work every morning on the Central Line. I work late most nights because there is nothing to come home to. Whole weekends can pass without me speaking to another living soul. Although my job sounds glamorous, the reality is quite different. If I am lucky, I get to make a bowl of pasta or chop salad. Mostly I make endless lattes and wipe surfaces. I am so bored that I volunteer for every menial, extraneous chore – I am the office drudge. My wages are so paltry that by the time I have paid the rent and the other basics, there is enough left over for a bit of a night out every third week – alone, of course. I joined a few dating agencies and have had the odd encounter but none have led to anything. My employer is a highly talented, lecherous Italian film director, but since I have worked for him we have been ‘in development’, which means he has long lunches out of the office and afternoons spent in bed with his latest young mistress.
If I died here in my studio flat on a Friday night, no one would notice until my employer wanted a restaurant booked or his dry-cleaning collected. In Devon I used to walk into the local pub and know half the locals; here I don’t even know the people who live in my building.
How do I tell my old friends the truth?
For someone else, it could be a great life: interesting, exciting and relatively free of worry. The problem is that it doesn’t happen to be the life I want. It isn’t the way I planned it. Somehow the scripts got muddled up. I, Annie, am supposed to be living in a little village outside Tavistock with the love of my life, running a company that we set up together. Somehow or other I got ejected out of my story halfway through and ended up in another person’s life; I don’t want to be here a second longer. I am too old, too scared for this existence. It’s meant for a younger, braver kind of person.
How do I tell my friends that loneliness stalks my every move and a feeling of desolation presses down on my heart? My grief is not like a cloud or an atmosphere: it has an actual physical weight and a presence. Sometimes it assumes the shape of a heavy blanket, or tiny weights suspended from every finger, lobe and eyelash; or it can be a boulder or a suitcase needing to be pushed or dragged.
Finishing the last dregs of coffee, Annie wondered how to fill the next few hours. Normally on Sundays she went to the launderette. She liked the companionship, the noise, the chatter of Magda, the Polish manageress who had, after only three years in London, morphed into a proper English grouch.
‘This country going to fucking dogs. Pound is worth no shlotti. Education rubbish. Strikes everywhere. National-Health-No-Service, I call it. I will go back home to Poland, proper country, and good values. You want iron or just fold?’
If only I hadn’t done the washing on Wednesday, Annie thought.
Sometimes, if the weekend seemed too empty, Annie took a ride on the number 27 bus from Shepherd’s Bush to Chalk Farm, passing through London’s cultural bandwidths; wealthy Holland Park, bankers’ Notting Hill, bohemian Bayswater, Irish Paddington and all the way up the Marylebone Road through Camden. These rides were cheaper than going to movies and it was generally far more satisfying to invent histories for the passing people and fellow passengers. Once she had a pedicure at the local nail salon just to have a conversation; however, the girl working on her feet was Vietnamese with limited English, and the woman in the adjacent seat spoke on her mobile phone throughout her treatment.
A few roads away there was an alley. Behind a row of bins, out of the parking warden’s jurisdiction, a man lived in his car. It was a small white Ford Escort and the man, probably an East European, had made curtains out of discarded newspapers and broken the passenger seat to make a flat bed. When Annie walked past on her way to work he’d be asleep, wrapped in an old rug. She tried not to think where he washed. Sometimes she left a sandwich or an apple on his bonnet. She wondered if these gestures came from true compassion or if she was just relieved to find someone worse off than herself.
Annie bought a book of London walks and criss-crossed the city, exploring different areas and small shops and pubs. There were always free talks and concerts or cut-price movies, but the lonelier she got, the less adventurous she became.
Putting on her thick overcoat, Annie put her front door keys in her pocket and left the studio flat. In the communal well of the building, some of her neighbours’ children were playing with a Tonka truck and an old Barbie doll. They looked at her with disinterest. She thought about smiling but could not be bothered; besides, the movement might crack her dry, stretched skin. Outside the cold was bitter and she took shallow timid gulps of air and drew her coat around her, wishing that she had changed her ballet pumps for something tougher. Walking towards her in a neat row were four youths, their hoodies pulled over their faces. Were they going to mug her, beat her up? She wanted to warn them that the only thing in her pockets was despair and about seventy-five pence. Just before they collided, the phalanx of boys split, leaving the centre of the pavement clear.
‘Hi,’ one said gently. ‘Cold isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Annie said. ‘Very.’
They can tell, Annie thought, I am not even worth mugging.
Walking along her street towards the Uxbridge Road, she peered down into brightly lit basements, at couples and families, children sitting, heads bowed over homework; their mothers at the sinks, a father at a computer. She tried and failed to imagine herself with a husband, some children. Happy family lives seemed to belong to other types. On the Goldhawk Road, black sacks of rubbish lay in heaps waiting to be collected. A discarded television set was abandoned next to a high-heeled red stiletto. An Asian man was closing up his shop, wrapped tightly in a scarf, hat and sheepskin coat, struggling with the heavy padlocks and iron shutters. A stray dog fell in with Annie, walking companionably beside her until he spotted a young boy holding a steaming Cornish pasty.
Through a window she saw a couple lying on a sofa watching an old movie, limbs entangled. Next door, six young friends were still at lunch, three empty bottles of wine and dirty plates pushed away, laughing at a shared memory or an odd remark. How did people get together, create unions, and fall in love? Had she lost the ability to connect with others? Was loneliness going to be her constant friend and lover? Could she make a life with it? She walked on through the market, empty now apart from a fox foraging among the discarded crates and unwanted food smeared by footsteps into the tarmac. Even though it was cold, the street smelled fetid and cloying – Annie walked briskly towards the river in search of a breeze.
She saw the flashing lights before she turned into the narrow street. In the dusky light the blue strobes made the small white terraced houses otherworldly, like a scene from a sci-fi movie. Walking towards the fire engine and the police cars, she recognised the row of shops where she had bought he
r picture. Twenty steps on, she realised that her junk shop was nothing more than a charred shell. The fire had taken place many hours earlier, only the faintest plumes of smoke drifted from the charred embers and the firemen stood around drinking cups of tea. Annie’s only thought was where and how was she going to return the picture. Suddenly all she wanted was to get rid of that two-dimensional albatross whose acquisition seemed to epitomise her wrong-headed, wilful and frankly self-destructive life decisions.
The area around the shop was cordoned off by plastic tape. A policewoman stood guard by the entrance eyeing up a few children on bikes who were discussing the fire.
‘Probably burnt a whole family alive.’
‘We’ll watch the news later to find out what happened.’
‘Do you think it will be on the BBC?’
‘Look it up on Twitter – much quicker.’
Annie walked up to the policewoman. ‘What happened?’
‘We are investigating the causes of the fire.’
‘Did the man leave a forwarding address? Somewhere he could be reached?’ Annie asked. She had to find Mr Bernoff and get a refund.
‘Do you know the deceased?’ The policewoman suddenly looked interested.
‘The deceased? Oh my God, you mean he’s dead?’ Annie looked at the embers and shuddered.
‘Perhaps you would like to come and make a statement.’ The policewoman lifted the plastic tape to let Annie through.
‘I don’t know him but I bought something here yesterday. A picture. I wanted to bring it back. I changed my mind.’ Annie could not believe this turn of events. £75 – next time she would get a match to burn the cash; it would save a lot of time. Damn Robert and his ex-wife. Damn her own impetuousness.
Half an hour later, having disappointed the inspector with her lack of knowledge or insight, Annie walked back towards home with the words arson, homicide, murder and motive ringing in her ears. She was stunned by the apparent randomness of the crime and her proximity to the event. A mere six hours after she had left the shop, someone had barged in, tied up the shopkeeper, doused the interior with petrol and thrown a burning rag soaked in petrol into its midst. The whole place had gone up like a tinderbox. Old stuff, even bric-a-brac, burned quickly. It was unfortunate that the neighbouring shops had shut early. No one heard his screams or the crackle of the demented fire until it was too late. Annie pulled her overcoat close around her. Abandoning the thought of a bracing river walk, she headed home, her own self-pitying thoughts kicking into perspective.
Her mobile rang – a blocked number. It was bound to be a salesman – a disappointment for both.
‘Miss McDee?’
‘Yes . . .’ Annie said hesitantly.
‘This is Paddington Green Police station. We have a woman here who says she’s your mother. She has said a lot of things tonight, some more fantastical than others.’ The man sounded weary.
Annie stopped in the middle of the road and looked up to the sky. Her hangover, forgotten in the drama of the fire, came roaring back. ‘Does she have any ID?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Do you want a physical description?’
‘Yes,’ said Annie, though she knew it was her mother. There had been many similar calls.
‘So she’s about five feet five, red-haired, slim, smartly dressed, good-looking. Small tattoo of a bird on her arm and a large black eye.’
‘Is there bail?’ she asked.
‘No, and we are keen to free up the cell.’
‘What state is she in?’
‘Sobering up, slowly.’
‘I’ll come and get her.’
Annie knew she should leave Evie there – rescuing never worked, for long.
She went into a small café and bought a cup of tea and a doughnut; fortification for the hours to come. She was certain what lay ahead. Her mother would go through predictable cycles of denial, anger, recrimination, and depression. Annie would have to listen, to console, to cajole. Her mother would stay with Annie for a while before disappearing one day without warning.
This time I won’t go, Annie thought, taking a sip of the scalding hot tea. But she knew she would; they only had each other.
This is what happens for wishing I wasn’t lonely: some divine and appalling joke.
The last time Annie heard from Evie she had moved to Oswestry and was training to be a shiatsu masseur. ‘Have finally found my calling’, the postcard said. Annie had not got excited. She studied the photograph cursorily. The woolly sheep crouched at the bottom of a snowbound valley did not inspire confidence. Every time Evie moved she believed it would provide the answer: a new place, a new start. Annie had been to eleven schools between the ages of five and sixteen. But no matter how many times they crossed England, the demon drink always caught up with them.
Dragging herself out of the café, Annie walked down to Shepherd’s Bush and into the underground. The train swayed on its tracks, taking Annie east past the gypsy camp, a milk factory and a riding school, where it crossed under a motorway and ran between a rail track and a canal. An empty beer can at her feet rolled backwards and forwards, the plaintive song of thin tin on a corrugated floor. She pressed her face against the cold dirty window and, looking up, saw a skein of geese circling above her. Below the train was a wasteland of scrub and dirt. The vista was made from grey on grey: grey sky, grey buildings, grey upholstery, and grey concrete holding up grey motorway. The light was too flat; there were no shadows to make it interesting, nothing to tempt the eye or spirit.
She got out of the train at Royal Oak and walked along the Harrow Road towards Paddington. Reaching a large roundabout she realised she had no idea where the police station was. A man was pushing a child in a buggy twenty yards ahead. Annie ran up to him. He looked drunk with fatigue; the child slept soundly. He pointed north. Walking on past two tower blocks and a busy intersection she saw a church, a perfect Georgian gem, set in a small garden of gravestones and statues. Beyond it, the grim façade of the police station.
Once inside the station Annie filled out various forms, handed over her driving licence and was clicked through a turnstile to an inner sanctum. The place stank of disinfectant and vomit. In the background someone banged on their cell door; another person, a man (she thought), moaned.
‘Are you here for Mrs Eve McDee?’ a tired-looking officer asked.
Annie nodded.
‘A few more forms to fill out.’ He handed her a clipboard with some paperwork attached. Annie was familiar with the questions; it was not the first time.
‘I am the direct descendant of Colonel Sir Cospatrick Ninian Dunbar Drummond of Durn.’ Annie’s mother’s voice rang out from somewhere behind a locked door.
‘Quite a character, isn’t she?’ said the policeman.
Annie was unsure what to put under known address. Where was Evie living?
‘He seized the Bital Wadi Akarit Ridge, the final barrier our army had to cross to reach the southern end of the Tunisian plain. Cospatrick led his platoon up a vital spur.’
‘The duty officer said that she was too drunk to remember her own name but she’s been spouting all this history for hours.’
Annie, after some consideration, filled in her own address. ‘She’s got an extraordinary memory.’
‘My family is descended from the Earls of Moray.’
‘Oh shut it,’ shouted an irritated voice.
‘Be careful, in the seventeenth century we were in charge of the eradication of banditry, we purged the Borders of malefactors, robbers and brigands.’
‘Someone put a sock in her mouth,’ another voice shouted.
‘Is any of this true?’ the policeman asked Annie.
‘No – she’s half Irish, half West Country. Grew up in Wiltshire, grandparents were pig farmers,’ Annie replied phlegmatically. ‘She’ll start singing soon.’
As if on cue, the hesitant notes of ‘Carrickfergus’ drifted from the cells to the front desk. ‘I wish I had you down in Carrickfergus, only four nigh
ts in Ballygrand, I would swim over the deepest oceans, to long ago.’
‘Is she always like this?’ he asked.
‘On a good day.’ Annie smiled.
As a child she would never let someone speak badly about her mother. She defended Evie passionately, hoping to convince herself and those around her that the latest round of drinking was a mere aberration. For much of the time, Evie had been a wonderful mother: fun, anarchic and loving. Younger than all the other parents, Evie was often mistaken for a sixth-former or a relief teacher, and Annie was proud when the fathers turned to look at her or the older girls copied her hairstyles and make-up. Without a father or long-term boyfriend, mother and daughter were a team: they danced in the moonlight; took buses to nowhere; sang entire Elvis Presley albums; baked extravagant cakes and ate them in bed while watching classic movies. But early on Annie had learned to spot the danger signals – more cigarettes than usual; music played at full volume; a restless pacing around the home; her mother’s patience thinning until the terrible moment it went snap. It was a life built on a faultline or next to a volcano, and there was no way to know when the next fissure would appear, when the top would blow. During those times, Annie was sent out of the house and told to find her way to school by following children in identical uniforms. Calls from hospitals and police stations were not unusual; if anything these were a relief – it meant Evie was still alive. The moment she dreaded was the doorbell ringing unexpectedly: ‘We have some bad news.’ Annie had imagined this scene over and over again.
Annie sat down on one of the hard chairs in the reception area to wait for Evie. The walls were covered with friendly Neighbourhood Watch posters. The faint sounds of Radio 1 drifted out from one of the offices. Maybe, Annie thought, it will be different this time. Perhaps Evie had finally reached rock bottom. She shook herself and snuffed out the rays of hope. It was a ridiculous thought after all these years.
‘Oh it’s you,’ Evie said to Annie in mock surprise as the policemen brought her out.
The Improbability of Love Page 5
