The Code

by Nick Thripp

  I frowned.

  ‘Or at least for me, for old-times’ sake?’

  For the loathsome Beart? Never. For Rachel, of whom I was still very fond, just possibly. For the lovely Mrs Beart, for old-times’ sake, well, why not? I could see her violet eyes, her dark hair cascading over her delicately sculpted white shoulders, I could almost taste the saltiness of her sensuous lips. Rachel tugged at my arm again, Mrs Beart’s image evaporated and I found myself staring at an ornate gilt table lamp and wondering for a moment where I was.

  Rachel looked up at me and smiled in what I assumed she thought was a beseeching manner.

  ‘Well, will you?’

  I nodded and she promptly produced a piece of paper from the drawer of an escritoire. Without bothering to read it, I signed with the pen she proffered.

  She kissed me on the lips. ‘You’re such a lamb. Shall we go and join the others?’

  Her nod to John and his acknowledgment of it as we re-entered, was almost imperceptible, but while I was resuming my place beside my PR friend, it replayed over and over in my mind’s eye, and I felt used and soiled.

  John rose from the table and rummaged in the distressed oak sideboard. He emerged holding a bottle.

  ‘I’d like you all to try something rather special,’ he said as he distributed thick, cut-glass whisky tumblers. ‘I think you’ll like it. It’s a bottle of 1926 Macallan.’

  Chapter 26

  Suzie, 1999

  Rachel lifting her veil for me to kiss her, her graceful glide down the aisle, the smiles of the congregation, people shaking my hand and patting my back; these and a few other sepia-tinted slow-motion fragments of the day Rachel and I married flickered across my mind, though I wasn’t sure whether they were real or imaginary. It was John and Rachel’s wedding day. As the taxi crawled along the Brompton Road in the bright sunshine, I squinted through the window, trying to recall the obscure contours of my barely-remembered past.

  Several cigarette smokers were lounging outside the whitish-grey neo-classical church. I joined them, lingering in the warmth until I saw Rachel’s bridal car approaching, when I stepped into the cool interior. My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the relative darkness and I almost didn’t recognise a shrivelled Mrs Beart, sitting hunched on a pew at the front of the packed church. It seemed inconceivable I’d ever desired her, I’d ever made love to her. Edwina, Rachel’s mother, sat on the other side of the aisle with one of the aunts. From his absence, I presumed something must have happened to Rachel’s father, although she’d never mentioned it.

  The service seemed interminable. I looked around for faces I recognised and saw a few of Beart’s colleagues, and some of the people I’d met at their house. I didn’t like any of them. The reception at the Connaught promised to be a dull and tiring affair. Perhaps I could make my escape early I thought, as we filed, blinking, out of the church.

  *

  I think Rachel’s mother and I found it equally odd I should be in the line of guests being welcomed to Rachel’s wedding reception, though we pretended nothing was amiss and greeted each other in a friendly manner. My heart fluttered as I approached Mrs Beart. She gave me a warm smile.

  ‘It’s been so long, dear,’ she said, emphasising the word ‘dear’. It reminded me of my mother and seemed to accentuate the yawning difference in age between us. ‘When was it, do you remember?’

  ‘A long, long time ago.’ I bent forward to kiss her cheek and the smell of decay was unmistakable. She gripped my arm tightly and I looked down at her scrawny, blue-veined hand.

  ‘Lovely to see you here, dear. I’ve often thought of you.’

  The pressure of the queue forced me to extricate my arm. I passed along to congratulate Rachel and John, before seizing and gulping a glass of champagne.

  ‘You look like you needed that.’ The voice was familiar. I looked round to see a tall girl smiling at me.

  ‘Suzie, what are you doing here?’ It was a stupid thing to say, even though Rachel and Suzie had barely been on speaking terms for years.

  ‘I might ask you the same question. Isn’t it odder for an ex-husband to be at a wedding than an estranged sister?’

  ‘Suppose you’re right. Sorry, wasn’t thinking. What are you doing now?’

  ‘I’m an artist.’

  I cast my mind back. ‘That makes sense. I remember you painting. What do you paint now?’

  She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t make out.

  ‘Pet portraits.’

  I laughed, thinking she was joking. I stopped when it became obvious she wasn’t.

  ‘You haven’t changed much,’ she said. ‘You always were a supercilious shit.’ She started to turn away and I grabbed her sleeve.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a bit stressful, Rachel re-marrying and all that.’

  ‘Why? You’re not still in love with her, are you?’ I could see contempt in her turned-down mouth. ‘I would have thought you’d have been pleased to be shot of her. What’s it to you if she’s collared some other sucker?’

  Normally I would have defended Rachel but, that afternoon, I found Suzie’s irreverence refreshing.

  ‘You’re right. What’s it to me? Let’s have another drink.’

  ‘So, give me the dirt on Rachel, all her faults, everything that drove you mad.’

  ‘There wasn’t any dirt.’ I wondered whether my answer would terminate a conversation I wanted to continue. Suzie stared at me intently.

  ‘Pretend you’re David Attenborough and describe Rachel in her native habitat. I can’t imagine her functioning as a normal person.’

  I stared out of the window. It all seemed an eternity ago. Then I drew a deep breath and put on my hushed David Attenborough voice.

  ‘This little creature is the Greater Crested Rachel. It flutters from its nest early every morning and runs around a lot to keep fit. It flies to a big aviary where it sits in front of a screen for fourteen hours, before flitting back to its own bird-box to warm up worms in a microwave. Then it hops back into its nest, taking a work file for company.’

  I glanced at Suzie. Her eyes sparkled with merriment.

  ‘Doesn’t the Greater Crested Rachel ever do anything fun; go to concerts, or sit by the river on a sunny summer’s evening watching the water flow by?’

  I dropped my Attenborough impersonation.

  ‘No time for idle pleasures. Sometimes a dinner out, usually to a new restaurant she wanted to try.’

  ‘With nice fat files to pleasure her every night, how did you get a look in?’

  I leaned towards her and lowered my voice.

  ‘I didn’t really. She didn’t seem very interested and we ended up living apart. After that, it was only a matter of time.’

  ‘Priceless, absolutely priceless.’ Her voice was clearly audible above the loud hubbub. ‘All those brains, qualifications and what-not and she became one of the living dead. A real corporate man. No wonder your marriage failed. Tell me more.’

  ‘I think we’ll be going in to eat soon.’ Despite my qualms, talking to Suzie felt very satisfying.

  ‘I’m enjoying this. I’m going to make sure you sit next to me.’

  ‘There’s a seating plan and name tags. I’m sitting with the gaga great-aunts and third cousins once-removed and you’re probably at the centre of things.’

  ‘Just watch me.’ She disappeared into the melee, reappearing beaming a few minutes later.

  ‘I put us both on a nice table by the window.’ She took my arm. ‘It must be time to go in; shall we take our seats?’

  As we passed, I peered at the seating plan and saw some crude crossings-out in red biro.

  ‘Very subtle.’

  ‘No point putting sugar on it,’ she said, tossing her hair back.

  I wondered what the guest who found herself unexpectedly on the famil
y table made of her elevation, and whether she or the family was more surprised.

  We ignored the others on our table, and Suzie’s flirtatious badinage with a couple of young waiters resulted in lots of wine flowing our way. She chattered away about anything that came into her head, laughing and slapping my thigh several times, once allowing her hand to linger there for a few seconds.

  An uncle stood up to make a speech, and the reception dozed gently through his almost unintelligible recollections of Rachel as a little girl.

  Suzie wrinkled her nose. ‘She always was an odious little goody-goody. Never missed a day’s school, never got a detention, always did her homework; yuck, what a creep.’ A few people at neighbouring tables overheard. Some seemed amused, others looked stony-faced. The population seemed split half and half.

  John rose to his feet and several people cheered, rattling their cutlery against their wineglasses. John puffed out his chest and hooked a thumb into his grey waistcoat. He had some cards with notes on them in his other hand. Sliding these into the pocket of his morning suit, he surveyed his guests. The room became hushed.

  ‘When the priest asked whether anyone had reason to object to our marriage, I expected all the unattached men in the church to stand up because they’d missed out on marrying the most wonderful person in the world.’ He smiled down at Rachel’s upturned face.

  ‘I was the luckiest chairman in the world when Rachel agreed to work for me. Now she’s married me, I’m definitely the luckiest man in the world.’

  There was a ripple of applause mixed with a chorus of ‘Hear-hear’ and ‘Rather.’

  ‘It’s always the cleverest men who are the most stupid when it comes to love,’ Suzie whispered. ‘Boy, will he regret today in the years to come!’

  I felt conflicted but I didn’t want to put Suzie off whispering in my ear. The sensation had made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I was beginning to feel aroused.

  ‘I can’t bear to listen to any more of this crap.’ Suzie didn’t bother to whisper. ‘I’m leaving. Do you want to come with me?’

  Fortunately, we weren’t far from the staircase used by the waiters, and I slipped out discreetly. Suzie followed, not caring whether she was seen, and stumbled noisily on the wooden stairs.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere open and green,’ she said, swaying slightly, as we emerged in the bright sunlight. ‘Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park or somewhere like that; I’ve had enough of central London.’

  She stuck her hand out and a taxi pulled up beside us.

  ‘We haven’t got the right clothes,’ I replied and she shoved my shoulder with her hand.

  ‘You sound like my Great-Aunt Maude. It hasn’t rained for a month, what’s wrong with going as we are?’

  I looked down at my hired morning suit and highly polished shoes and shrugged.

  ‘OK. Why not? Hampstead Heath? I haven’t been there for years.’

  ‘Good choice.’ Suzie jumped in and told the driver where we wanted to go. ‘I used to take Charlie there when I was fourteen, maybe fifteen,’ she added as we seated ourselves next to each other.

  ‘For walks? It’s a long way from where you lived,’ I said, thinking Charlie was the family dog.

  ‘For sex. He was my lover.’ She paused. ‘I adored him, or at least I did till Rachel stole him off me.’

  I tried to picture the then twenty-six-year-old Rachel stealing her little sister’s spotty teenage boyfriend.

  ‘But surely—’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ Suzie’s jaw tightened. ‘You think I’m making it up.’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s just that Rachel’s so much older. Why would she go out with some pimply youth?’

  ‘He wasn’t some youth, he was Daddy’s curate, and she didn’t know about us, at least not until I told her.’

  ‘Rachel didn’t mention Charlie when telling me about her previous boyfriends.’

  ‘I’ll bet she didn’t. She dropped him like a piece of cat shit, and Daddy had him sacked for sex with a minor. It was the talk of the village, despite Daddy trying to hush it up. I felt a bit sorry for Charlie. He was a virgin when I seduced him.’

  We fell into silence as we flashed past Belsize Park tube station, a lustrous red in the bright afternoon sunshine.

  ‘I hate my family,’ she said, apropos of nothing.

  ‘I don’t much like mine. By the way, is your father all right? He wasn’t at the ceremony today.’

  ‘Daddy’s a non-person now. No one has anything to do with him, except me. He’s shacked up with a former choirboy of his in Poole. Couldn’t be happier.’

  A lorry cut across our path and the taxi braked hard. Suzie and I were flung forward and I managed to grab hold of her arm to stop her from banging her head.

  ‘He seemed such a contented family man,’ I said, releasing her.

  ‘Living a lie, like so many people.’ She reached out, placing her warm hand on mine.

  Suzie told the taxi driver where to drop us, and set off at a brisk pace until we came to a secluded spot where she sat down. I looked around at the remnants of ancient woodland surrounding us. A green woodpecker dipped past. I’d never seen one at such close quarters. Suzie patted the grass, and I sat beside her.

  ‘The nature here is beautiful.’ I thought this would ingratiate me with an artist.

  ‘Bugger nature.’ She leaned across and kissed me, her tongue pushing vigorously into my mouth. Soon she was undressing me.

  ‘Someone might—’

  ‘My God,’ she replied, ‘I have brought Great-Aunt Maude with me. So what if they do? Who the fuck cares?’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘Yeah, who cares?’

  Soon we were naked, the sunshine warming our skins as we twisted and turned, Suzie’s long pale legs wrapped round me.

  Afterwards she said, ‘You’re not too bad really. Even if you are a bit on the tubby side, I still can’t see why Rachel traded you in.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re not too bad either. As for Rachel, she’d need a bloody good memory to remember what sex with me was like.’

  Suzie smirked. ‘So there is something my brilliant older sister isn’t perfect at then.’

  ‘I didn’t say she wasn’t good at sex—’

  ‘I know what you said.’ Suzie pushed me to the ground and lay on top of me. ‘And as for you, I’m going to give you a real hard road test to see whether you’re worth going out with. I’m very choosy about the men I shag.’

  *

  I must have passed Suzie’s gruelling test because she came back to my flat with me that night. The next day she went to collect her things from wherever it was she’d been staying, I never did establish exactly where, and moved in.

  I realised quickly that our lives were very different. Suzie would stay awake all night, smoking dope in my previously smoke-free apartment, drawing or painting or sometimes staring at the wall as she listened to old albums by Pink Floyd or King Crimson. She would come to bed about seven o’clock in the morning, just as I was getting up. Unless she had a commission to paint someone’s pet, and these were rare, she wouldn’t go out, and, with the central heating at maximum, would wander naked round the apartment or slouch on the sofa, eyes closed.

  In the early days, I tried staying up with her and smoking dope. Both activities so drained me of energy that going to work the next day presented an almost insuperable challenge and I couldn’t continue with them.

  If we had an invitation to dinner or to a party, she would hum and haw whether to come with me.

  ‘They’re bound to be boring people. All your friends are.’

  Sometimes she disappeared for two or three days, as though to make up for all the time she’d spent in the apartment. I tried asking where she’d been and who with. Her eyes glazed over and she refused to say.

>   ‘I come and go as I please,’ was her only reply.

  Occasionally a young man called Chico would call up.

  ‘Oh, he’s a friend from Art College,’ she told me, adding, ‘not that it’s anything to do with you.’

  We co-existed amicably, even though we only overlapped for a few hours in the evening. Although I knew she lived by a different code from me, I liked her company and I enjoyed our vigorous and inventive sex life. It wasn’t like being in a relationship. It was like living with one of those cats which moves from house to house, eating and sleeping where it pleases, and I resolved not to become too attached to her. I’d learned my lesson from Amelia, and I didn’t want to get hurt again.

  *

  I was in the office when Rachel phoned; it was the first time I’d spoken to her since the wedding.

  ‘Nice do,’ I said. ‘Loved the dress.’

  ‘Don’t give me all that. I saw you sneaking out with Suzie and now I hear she’s moved in with you, the bitch.’

  ‘Who told you?’ I was genuinely puzzled. Suzie didn’t seem to speak to anyone apart from Chico.

  ‘Mummy; Suzie went to stay there for a couple of days. Listen, she’s bad news. She’s got zero integrity. She’ll sponge off you, two-time you, then piss off and leave you in the lurch.’

  ‘Hang on a moment, Rachel. I’m not thinking of marrying her. We’re just having a good time, that’s all. There’s no lurch to leave me in.’

  ‘Huh!’ There was silence on the line for a few seconds. ‘She only moved in with you to get at me.’

  ‘I thought it might be something to do with my animal magnetism and my rippling biceps.’

  ‘Even though she might appear air-headed,’ Rachel continued, ‘deep down she’s a cunning little vixen. You’ll find out.’

  ‘She speaks very highly of you too.’

  ‘I’ll bet she does. I hope the two of you are very happy,’ she said and put the phone down.

  *

  Suzie usually remained elusive about her past. It seemed a strange contradiction in one who in other ways was so forthright.