by Luke Tredget
Anna’s body goes slack in its chair. It is a dazed feeling of relief, similar in intensity to the sensation she had the previous evening when she fled from London Bridge, as if a hurtling juggernaut has only just missed her. The feeling is short-lived, though, as she soon realises that the juggernaut has not missed her – its arrival has only been postponed for a short period of time. In fact, it has only been delayed by a few minutes, given that everyone is now up and out of their seats, and the party seems to be over. The main light is switched on and everyone looks squinty and overly lit as they pull on their jackets and scarves. The girls circulate around the room hugging each other, while the boys shake hands and bid each other hearty farewells. In order to extract a little more time Anna attempts to get some new business started – she asks Bean for a detailed update on his bar, suggests Toby and Cecile stay for a nightcap, and tries to get Hamza to go out for a cigarette. But they are all pulled irresistibly to the door by the arrival of taxis, and there is time only for goodbyes, and each person queues up to kiss and hug Anna in turn. Zahra whispers ‘good luck’ into her ear, Hamza puts the Marlboro packet and lighter into her hand. Then she experiences another time slip, because the next thing she knows she is looking down from the front window to where all seven of her guests are standing in a loose circle on the pavement. It feels peculiar and somewhat sinister, to be looking down at miniature versions of the people that seconds ago had so noisily surrounded her.
‘And then there were two.’
Pete’s saying this causes her to start; she didn’t know he was standing behind her. He is watching her, his hands clutching the back of a chair. She tries to smile at him, then returns to the pavement where a people carrier has arrived; pocket-sized versions of Keir, Zahra, Toby and Cecile climb in, while Hamza, Bean and Ingrid walk off towards the high road. Then there were two, she thinks, and from the corner of her eye she sees Pete edging his way towards her around the table. She carries on staring at the taxi, as Toby slides the door shut to encase them within the cab, and Pete encircles her from behind in a hug.
‘Baby,’ he says, nuzzling her neck above the collar of her jumper; his shaved chin scratches like sandpaper. Who is this man? He asks if it wasn’t so bad, after all, and she is daunted by the prospect of having to speak. She feels like a block of ice in his arms, rigid and lifeless. ‘It was good,’ is all she can organise herself to say.
His legs and torso are pressed against her back, and she tries to detect the lump of the ring box in his jeans. He sighs through his nose, and she braces herself for some emotive declaration, some highly calibrated statement to propel them towards the fated moment, but instead he says: ‘I’m going to put some dishes on to soak.’
‘Okay,’ says Anna, quiet as a trapped bird.
‘Then it’s time for your present.’
She nods, and the weight of his body is lifted off her back; she watches him rounding the table and leaving the room, and as he crosses into the hallway her voice is restored and she says: ‘Wait.’
He stops and turns, one eyebrow raised.
‘I’m going to step outside for a moment. For some fresh air.’
His eyes narrow slightly, before he smiles.
‘Whatever you want,’ he says. ‘It’s your party. But don’t be long.’
‘I won’t,’ she says, trying to smile back. She waits until he has closed himself in the kitchen, then she grabs her bag and goes down the stairs.
The night air is so cold and clean and refreshing that for a moment Anna is fooled into thinking she has sobered up entirely, and would be fine to drive a car or give a speech or do anything at all. But when she lights a cigarette she realises she is still firmly within the grip of the drugs: the hot smoke is far too delicious, releasing a voluptuous tingling sensation along her veins and across her skin. She smokes with metronomic regularity, losing herself in the plumes and swirls, until she is struck by two anxious thoughts: one, that the cigarette is almost finished already; two, that Pete is probably watching her from the living-room window, just as she was watching the others a few minutes ago. But these are irrational concerns: if she is enjoying smoking, she can simply have another cigarette. And if she doesn’t want Pete to watch her, she can simply move.
Anna walks down the street. At the corner of Cavendish Road she drops the butt of her cigarette and crushes it beneath her foot, and then places a fresh one between her lips. Simple as that. She is also pleased with her new position and vantage point, but what if Pete saw her move, or comes down to check on her, and sees her standing twenty metres up the road? She walks further, turning left onto Cavendish Road and then right into Brooklands Court where she perches on the front wall of a seemingly deserted house covered in scaffolding. Now she is properly tucked away, and the feeling of being off the map gives her mood another lift. How easy it is, to satisfy your desires. All you have to do is look inside yourself, focus in on what you really want, and act accordingly.
At that moment her phone buzzes within her bag. Her first thought is that Pete must be calling her, though it seems early for him to reach out in concern. Could it be from her 81, following on from his Twitter message? She pulls it from her bag and finds a message from Ingrid, giving thanks for this evening and saying her friends are lovely. She doesn’t reply, and instead opens Twitter again and rereads the message from Geoff; she imagines him combing through all the pictures on her Instagram feed, and with a pang of guilt sees him standing beneath the information board at the station. How callous she was, to leave him there without even saying sorry. He deserves an apology at the very least, and without thinking too much about it, she opens Kismet, finds Geoff 81, goes to write a message, before cancelling and pressing ‘voice call’ instead. The phone rings five times, two reverberating trills of unequal length, before an automated voice tells her to leave a message. She hangs up.
Anna holds her burning cigarette up to eye level, and guesses at how much life is left in this one – three drags, four at most. Of course, she could just light another, and then another, could keep smoking until the pack is empty, at which point she could walk to the high road and buy more. She could spend the rest of her life doing nothing but smoking, if that’s what she wants, and at that moment her phone lights up and vibrates in her hand. It is a voice call, from Geoff 81.
‘Geoff!’
‘Hello, Anna,’ he says, after a pause, his voice sounding clipped and grown-up.
‘Hey. Hi. Hello.’
She is walking again, with no destination in mind. She turns off Brooklands Court onto Cavendish Road; at the bottom she can see the glowing shopfronts of the high road. There is a silence, and it takes her a moment to realise he is waiting for her to speak.
‘I suppose I should say something, since I called you.’
‘That’s the convention, yes.’ It sounds like he has an ice cube in his mouth.
‘Well … I just wanted to say sorry for last night. It was a crap thing to do.’
‘These things happen,’ he says, immediately. ‘When you’re as old as me, you become inured to things happening.’
There is a pause until Anna thinks of another thing to say: she thanks him for the tweet and the clue, and says that she will follow it up.
‘Ah, now that is important,’ he says. ‘Standing me up is forgivable. Giving up that project would not be. It would be a terrible shame, for you and your followers. But mainly for you.’
Anna repeats that she will definitely follow it up, and then they fall silent again; she notices she is leaning against someone’s wheelie bin. It is apparent that Geoff isn’t going to hold up his end of the conversation, and Anna considers rounding things off. But she doesn’t want to do this, and asks what he is doing instead.
‘I’m looking out the window. Having a drink. You sound as though you’ve had a drink yourself.’
‘Well, it is my … I mean, it is Friday,’ she says, catching the word ‘birthday’ just in time. ‘Who are you with?’
She can
hear Geoff take a sip of his drink; ice cubes clink about. Then he says: ‘I’m alone.’ The news that he isn’t with his family in Surrey is a sudden, unexpected relief.
‘What can you see out the window?’
‘All of London. The whole damn thing. You see, it was misleading to call it a window. It’s a wall of glass, and really quite high up.’
‘What floor?’
‘The twenty-second.’
‘Whoa.’
‘I can see everything northwest of Elephant and Castle.’
‘Elephant and … Wait, are you in that crazy skyscraper, the one with the wind turbines?’
‘I am indeed. Do you know it?’
Anna is delighted by the coincidence, and explains that it is the only building she can see from her bedroom when standing on tiptoes. She says that she is obsessed with views, and he says he is too, that it is the sole reason he picked the place. This time the coincidence doesn’t surprise her at all. It is the least she would expect for an 81; if the number is accurate they should have all the big things in common. She watches a man walk past on the high road, his body appear ing black against the gleaming shopfronts, and decides to give Geoff a test.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she says. ‘My friend had this idea for a project. Tell me if you think it sounds any good. You know how people all have sheds and drawers and cupboards full of hammers and nails and ladders and half-empty paint pots and crusty paint brushes and all this other stuff?’
‘It sounds familiar, yes.’
‘How often do people use these things? Like, never, right? And yet everyone has them. But what if you had some kind of local store that people could access as part of a membership scheme, a shed-like thing with high-quality tools and stuff, that they could pay a small monthly fee to use. Like Streetcar. But a shed.’
Geoff laughs, and says it is an excellent idea. He asks questions and picks holes in the plan – how would they protect the sheds from burglars, and how to deal with the inevitable Sunday afternoon surge in demand for tools – but he reiterates that he thinks it’s a great idea.
‘You think it would work?’
‘Of course. It’s the best type of business – one that strives to make money and make the world a more efficient place.’
‘That’s it!’ she says, excitedly. ‘That’s exactly it!’ She is walking again now, still on Cavendish Road but further uphill. Her phone makes the beeping noise that indicates another call is trying to get through. She ignores it and waits for it to stop beeping before speaking again.
‘It was my idea, really.’
‘I know it was.’
She laughs and says: ‘I know you know.’
Anna stops and perches on a low wall; the rapid walk uphill has made her dizzy. She waits for her heartbeat to slow down but it doesn’t; it is not exertion but excitement that is making it pump. The same rushing excitement she used to feel at the Minuscule of Sound, or when she and her dad picked up the passport, or when she and Geoff broke into Somerset House. While she thinks this the line is silent, but Geoff hasn’t complained; it is like he understands and welcomes her reflective moments, as if they have achieved comfortable silences already.
‘So … tell me what you can see from your window.’
He says immediately it is just so many lights, and that it’s better in the day, when the city spreads out like an ornate Persian rug. His words remind her of the imagined manifestation of her Kismet profile, a spread of thousands of dots on translucent paper, each one a co-ordinate of her personality. She further imagines Geoff’s profile – an equally complex constellation – being laid over hers, and the two corresponding in such a way that many of the starlike dots are doubled in size, providing an invitation for lines to be drawn between them, tracing a new sign of the zodiac.
‘It sounds dreamy,’ she says.
Geoff clears his throat, then says: ‘Why don’t you come and have a look?’
The idea makes Anna stop still on the pavement.
‘Come and have a look?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean now?’
‘Why not? I could do with some company.’
She sighs and says, ‘I would like that. A lot.’ Her emphasis suggests a ‘but’ is around the corner, though Geoff doesn’t let her get to it.
‘So would I. And it’s a very simple thing, if you want to do it.’
Anna runs through the idea in her mind: walking to the high road, jumping in a cab, riding to Elephant and Castle, sailing up to the twenty-second floor, being with her 81.
‘Just think,’ continues Geoff. ‘If you want to do it, and I want you to do it, then it would be perverse not to do it.’ Her phone makes the beeping noise again.
‘It might feel like a big decision now, but it really is a small thing. A simple thing, if it is what you want. What are you afraid of?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll do it. I’m coming.’
‘Good,’ he says, as if this was a matter of course.
‘I’ll come! I’m coming!’ she says, taking big strides down the slope, her voice wobbling with each step. Geoff checks she knows the address, and tells her what to say to the concierge.
‘See you soon!’ she says, and then hangs up. She looks down at her phone and knows that any second Pete is going to try and call; the device feels as potent and dangerous as it did last night, when she considered throwing it in the Thames. Before switching it off she has to tell Pete something, though. She imagines him in the house, pacing back and forth in the living room, wondering where she has got to. Her heart goes out to him, but only so far; she thinks that on some level he already knows that it wasn’t going to work, just like she always knew about him and Zahra. She sends him a one-word message – sorry – and then a four-word message to Zahra – I couldn’t do it. Then she turns it off and continues towards the high road. It occurs to her that the traffic might be clogged, or she might struggle to find a taxi at this time, and will have to turn her phone on to summon one. But then, as if the world is just sitting around waiting to collaborate with her plan, the very first vehicle that approaches her is a black cab. The letters TAXI are glowing orange, and as she raises her hand it obligingly slows to a halt beside her.
*
Thirty-five minutes later she is sailing upwards in the lift, the display panel flickering through the floors as her stomach drops. On the twenty-second floor she finds door number 176, and is about to knock when she decides to get rid of her chewing gum; on the landing she finds an ankle-high chrome bin. Then she knocks. The door clicks, then swings open to reveal Geoff.
‘Anna 81,’ he says, softly, as if in reverence. He is wearing a white shirt, untucked, and tan chinos. So handsome, she thinks. Every time it surprises her.
‘Hello, Geoff.’
He steps aside to let her in and they walk along a short hallway that opens into a sweeping living space; to the left is a sunken, carpeted lounge area, to the right a glistening kitchen, all brushed steel and glazed tiles and the wall painted jet black. They hover on the threshold between the two rooms. He must be quite rich. She always assumed he had money, but not this much money.
‘I’m pleased to see you,’ he says, nodding slightly.
‘I’m pleased to be here.’
They say this formally, as if performing a ceremony; she is glad she got rid of her gum. She feels awkward, and the sensation passes through her of reality not matching anticipation, or the real situation being too real. She looks down at her new boots and tells herself to ride this out.
‘So you wanted to see the view?’ He extends his arm towards the kitchen and she sees that the black wall is actually a continuous expanse of glass. She walks towards it, and at first the window gives back the reflection of the kitchen and her own approach, but then she sees beyond this to countless white and yellow lights, as bunched and layered and numerous as stars in a clear night sky. The sudden awareness of height and distance makes her stom
ach turn over, but not in a bad way. She steps right up to the glass and after a few moments the landmarks make themselves known amid the twinkling chaos. The London Eye is a thin purple disc standing on its side. The Palace of Westminster is an amber mass stretched along the river. St Paul’s is a tiny white-tipped helmet, nestled within taller shapes.
‘You can see everything,’ she says. She is facing northwest, and off towards the glimmering horizon is Kilburn. She guesses where it is, then blots it out with a thumb pressed against the glass. How incredible, to think the room, house and suburb that so completely surrounded her are now behind her thumb. It is a change of perspective akin to having flown into space, and in a way she has: she has flown into space and landed on a new planet, planet Geoff.
‘Do you have any children?’ she asks.
‘A daughter,’ says Geoff. She can see him reflected in the glass, leaning against the kitchen table, watching her. ‘Her name is Clara. She’s eleven. She lives in Argentina with her mother.’
Anna nods, says nothing. For a moment she is daunted by all the things she doesn’t know about Geoff, and thinks maybe he wants it like this. He wants to keep things light, superficial – he has no idea what day this is for her, what she has just done. She watches his reflection for signs that he is annoyed by her question, and in contrast he rises and approaches her. She reaches her hands out behind her to welcome his, and in a flourish of co-ordination they fit together: she loops his long arms around her waist like a belt, he pulls her back towards him, takes some of her weight, and then kisses the back of her head, sighing through his nose. Yes, yes, the touch, she thinks, sinking back into him. She can feel his breath on her ear and his steady heartbeat pressed on her back, the vibrations humming through her like faint electricity. Their shadows in the glass are now a single column. And yet it is not a sexual longing she feels, or not precisely. It is deeper than that, their touch satisfying a much deeper shared hunger. And it is this sensation, more than anything else, that proves the validity of the number: they are in no hurry. She looks at their reflection in the glass, and the number 81 flashes above them.
