She wanted to know what MTV intended to do about Martin, but there was a limit to the insults she could take. “Would you like my resignation right now?” she said, and cursed herself.
“It certainly might seem appropriate. I should be interested to hear if you can think of any reason why I shouldn’t lire you, other than that it’s nearly Christmas.”
“Only that Martin has got used to working with me.”
“You really must have very little grasp of the situation, or else you want me to think so.” He glanced at his watch, at a desk diary, at her. “No, the only thing I can find to say on your behalf is that it seemed rather spiteful of the police to leak the story to the press after you had withdrawn your accusation.”
Of course she’d had to withdraw it, if only to give herself time to think.
Gould closed his diary with a loud snap. “I’m not firing you,” he said, “but I would strongly suggest you start looking for another job, maybe one less demanding. Even if Wallace continues, and I can’t decide that until I’ve talked to him, it’s hard to see who you might work with once he finishes. I’m giving you leave of absence until he comes back. Try and rest.”
He was being compassionate in his own terms, but she would rather have stayed at work: she would already be alone over Christmas—the trains were virtually at a standstill, she would never be able to get to her parents. She was at the door when he said, “There is one more thing.”
She turned and was dismayed by his expression. “It’s a pity,” he said, “but I think you ought to realize nobody would have suspected Wallace of anything if it hadn’t been for your attempt to discredit the police.”
It seemed pointlessly vindictive of him. Happy Christmas to you too, she thought. She took the lift down to the eighth floor.
Nell was squatting by a low shelf, indexing the books on cards. Molly realized she had never noticed the walls, which were green, for the disorder Nell had tackled by herself. “You’ve done well,” she said.
“I enjoy it.” Nell stood up, dusting the knees of her plaid skirt. “I like things to be in order. It occupies my mind.”
“Will you be staying in town over Christmas?”
“We’ll have to. We can’t go home—I mean, where we used to live.” She was sorting the index cards onto her desk as expertly as a casino dealer. “My daughter’s disappointed, I think.”
“I was going to say if you don’t know many people yet you might like to come over for a Christmas meal.”
“We’d love to. All—” She faltered and looked puzzled. “All right,” she said, somehow inappropriately. “Both of us would love to come.”
“How about Boxing Day?” Molly wrote her address on a blank index card and went down to her office to collect her binoculars. She’d done a good turn for herself as well as for Nell. Nell could keep her in touch with events at MTV.
As Molly walked blobs of snow dripped from trees in Hyde Park under the darkening sky. A fat woman sat down in the snow and laughed helplessly at herself, a businessman picked himself up quickly, pretending someone else had fallen, not him.
She stared at the police station as she passed and felt not at all vulnerable. The sight of a policeman’s helmet bobbing in the crowd ahead no longer seemed threatening— until she saw the policeman’s face.
For a moment panic grabbed her stomach like a hook. It was the skinhead policeman, striding into a hotel. When he emerged, marching a young woman who wore a jacket covered with zippers, Molly strolled forward, heart jerking. He glanced at her as he shoved his captive into the police car. He didn’t recognize her—he had never met her! But she recognized him.
He sat by the young woman and squeezed the zippered pocket over her right breast, squeezed the breast too. “Girlie, what you’ve got in there is going to put you away for years,” Molly heard him say as the car door slammed. Even if his name weren’t Randy, she thought, her dream had been right that it ought to have been.
She watched the car as it swung into the forecourt of the police station a few hundred yards away, then she walked home.
As she unlocked the apartment door, she consulted her watch and decided to call Chapel Hill.
“Am I taking you away from breakfast?”
“That’s okay, we’re just finishing. How are you, Molly?”
“Sorry that you won’t be here for Christmas. I know you can’t be, don’t worry. How are things with you?”
“Oh, pretty good. Yes, pretty good, I think.”
“Martin, this is complicated but you ought to know. I told you the film you were sent was fake. Now I’m convinced that it was faked in order to show what actually happened.”
After a pause he said, “What makes you think that?”
This might be the hard part. “Do you remember what I said about my dreams?”
“Sure, I remember.”
Did he sound disappointed? “You did believe me, didn’t you?”
“Sure, why not? It wasn’t so hard to believe.”
“Well then, Martin, listen to this. I dreamed the police took me in for questioning and Maitland gave away that he’d helped kill Lenny Bennett. It was so vivid that it was only afterward I realized it had been a dream. And then, not half an hour ago, I saw proof it was more than a dream. They killed Lenny Bennett, Martin, I’d stake my reputation on it,” she said and realized that wasn’t much of a wager just now.
“Can you prove they did?”
“Well, no, that isn’t what I meant. I know they did but I can’t prove it.”
“Then I don’t see what it changes.”
“Only that you were right to go on screen about the film.” The clarity and optimism she’d felt on realizing she had cheated the future were fading. “At least you know you were justified. Mrs. Bennett wasn’t upset for nothing after all.”
“I guess that’s so. Well, Molly, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Yes …” She’d meant to relieve him of some of his worries, but wasn’t sure she had. “Call me over Christmas if you like,” she said.
Later she went down to Bayswater Road for a Chinese takeaway. The plastic tray burned her hands as she toiled home, the hardening slush froze her feet. She played a Tom Waits cassette while she ate from a serving tray on her lap. The sad, gravelly voice filled the room, a black voice from a white mouth, and she wondered what on earth she was going to do with her time. She’d build the extra kitchen cupboards she kept wishing for.
It’s a Wonderful Life was the first of television’s seasonal treats, James Stewart throwing himself in the river and then being redeemed by a vision of how his town would decline without him. She was enjoying it for its sentimentality and for its odd appropriateness to her until she thought: suppose Maitland had leaked the story to the press so that nobody would believe her if the police interrogated her now? Surely he wouldn’t take the risk. Nevertheless, before she went to bed she double-checked all the locks on the doors and windows.
She lay in bed and watched the beginning of a new snowfall. The small flakes floating past the gap between the curtains looked gentle as sleep. Perhaps her dream of the police cell had been so intense because it had involved Martin and her unacknowledged fear for him. It didn’t bother her so much now that she couldn’t tell where the dream had begun or ended, for she thought she could guard against that in the future by telling herself to wake. She dozed and then woke for a moment convinced she had already dreamed something into being, but what? Sleep seemed altogether more reassuring. She dreamed for the first time in eleven years of a red door that had once been painted green, a red front door with a canted dog-faced knocker. The door was ajar, but she managed to wake screaming, bathed in sweat, a moment before she would have had to push it open. The worst thing was that she couldn’t remember how she had got there in the dream.
19
WHEN Geoffrey looked up it didn’t help. He ought to have known not to stare at the stamps for so long, even though they fascinated him. It wasn’t as
if they were worth very much, though the teenager who’d sold them to him had thought they were. “These are special, they’re 3-D,” he’d said proudly, and Geoffrey had had to point out that they would be worth more if he completed the set. He must have outgrown stamps when he’d taken up motorcycling, for he’d shrugged at Geoffrey’s price as he’d unstudded his pocket to lock up the check. It had taken quite a while for the smell of leather to follow his jingling and creaking out of the house.
Now Geoffrey looked up from the stamps that seemed embedded in the page and wandered into the bedroom for a change of scene. He sat on the bed and gazed out toward Hampstead Heath, where tiny skiers glided across the dazzling snow under a bright blue sky, and wondered how long the weather would keep him away from the auctions. The breathing seeped back into his consciousness, and he remembered it wasn’t the weather that was keeping him in the house.
Perhaps he still had to get used to a third person in the house. He couldn’t expect the old lady to walk or be carried down the hill just now, he couldn’t expect an ambulance to come up here over the frozen snow. Good Lord, he had only to stay in the house; Joyce took care of the old lady’s needs while he kept out of the way. The old lady had yet to leave her room or, as far as he knew, her bed.
He looked away from Hampstead Heath to rest his eyes, which were determined to make out the microscopic skiers, He couldn’t be sure that he’d seen one of them fall. He closed his eyes, and then he realized he couldn’t hear the breathing. He mustn’t call the doctor before he knew what was wrong, if anything. All the same, it took him a while to step onto the landing and open the door of the guest room.
The room was pale with snowy light that glinted on the Christmas decorations Joyce had hung. The enormous mound of bedspread dominated the room, on the bed and in the mirror of the dressing table, doubly still. From the doorway he couldn’t see anyone under the mound. As he tiptoed into the room he had the notion, so odd that he didn’t know if it was a hope or a fear, that he might find nobody there at all.
He was nearly at the pillow before he saw the upturned lace half buried there. It looked even fatter than he remembered. The puffy eyes were closed, the mouth drooped open. He stooped to listen for breathing, close enough to see that she had no eyebrows or eyelashes unless they had sunk into the ungovernable flesh, close enough to wonder if the inside of her mouth was white as well. And then her lips moved feebly. They closed and quivered open with a snore. Her breathing recommenced, louder as he crept away, and he had almost reached the door when she piped, “I’m not asleep.”
He couldn’t help damning himself as he turned. The mound was shifting, the blankets and bedspread slipped off one enormous shoulder. He had to speak when her small eyes met his. “Is there anything you want?” he said.
She smiled, a wide smile that looked young. He thought she had teeth until he saw that the fat white ridges were gums. “You can stay and talk to me if you like, Geoffrey.”
Presumably she’d learned his name from Joyce. “Do you know, I don’t know what to call you,” he said, staying near the door.
She gave him a fat exaggerated pout that hinted what she might have looked like once. ”You know,” she piped.
“No, I don’t. Joyce didn’t tell me.”
“She’s a wonder. There’s not another like her.” The small colorless eyes closed on an appreciative look. “She’s out now finding somewhere, isn’t she? Out in this. She can’t do it all on her own, you know. She needs someone to speak up for her.”
Geoffrey felt accused. “I would if I could.”
“I didn’t mean you. No offense. She’ll find someone.”
He could only hope so. “You were going to tell me your name,” he said.
She sat up laboriously and minutely, displaying her bald head that looked even more like old cheese with a few cobwebs. “What would you like it to be?”
His heart sank. “I don’t mean to bother you,” he said, “but where do you come from?”
“Not far. Or maybe you’d think it was.” Presumably she didn’t know. “Thank you for letting me stay in your house,” she said. “You must tell me if I’m too much of an inconvenience.”
She tilted her head almost coquettishly. “I’m sorry I don’t talk much,” she piped, “but I like to listen.”
He felt trapped and then ashamed. “Would you like me to read to you?”
“Oh, I’d love that. Have you got the newspaper?”
He took her to mean today’s, and London’s. “I’ll have to go up to the shops,” he said, and felt deeply relieved when she looked grateful. At least he could get out of the house for a while.
Walking was easy at first on the frozen snow. The pavement was a mass of overlapping footprints like a dance school gone mad. By the time he reached the newsagent’s he was having to hold on to walls.
He bought the evening paper and struggled back up the hill. When finally he reached home he was hot and exhausted. At least he heard the breathing as soon as he opened the front door. He peeled off his wet clothes and toiled upstairs, resenting having panicked. Her head wavered up from the pillow as soon as he stepped into the room. “Oh, thank you,” she piped, with a smile so sweet that his resentment vanished. The smile didn’t even show her gums.
He brought in his office chair and sat by the bed to read her the newspaper. More murders in London than ever, more threats of terrorism, and he wondered if he should be reading her that kind of news, but she seemed eager for more. A television researcher had accused the police of giving her the third degree only to find that the policeman she’d accused had been in church at the time—there was a photograph of her, trying to hide her face as she emerged from a revolving door. The story amused the old lady, for the bedspread was quaking, and Geoffrey couldn’t help grinning. He turned the pages, he sat forward as the print grew dimmer. He didn’t know how long he had been reading when he heard Joyce closing the front door.
He blinked at the room, which was almost dark. The old lady was asleep. He stumbled out with the chair, then hurried down to Joyce. “Any luck?”
“I may have found somewhere.” She straightened up from pulling off her boots. “Only may have. Someone wants it for one of those hamburger places. You’d think we’d get priority, but they’re going to make us fight.”
“Surely they’d have to let you have it if people knew what the situation was.”
“That’s right, they knew. I saw some of my old folk today, they’re going to write to all the papers. They want to come back to me, even though they’re being taken care of. I won’t let them down, not while I’ve got two legs and a voice.” She glanced up the stairs. “How’s she been?”
“No trouble really. I read to her for a while.”
“That’s my Geoffrey. I can always count on you. I’m glad you’re making friends.”
“It’s you she wants, you know.” He followed her into the kitchen, where she was boiling milk to lace with rum.
“You don’t mind her staying, do you?” Joyce said. “The sooner I find somewhere, the sooner she can go.”
“It’s just that I’m looking after her and I don’t even know her name.”
“Sometimes it’s one thing, sometimes another.”
She mustn’t know either. “Where does she live?”
“Why do you want to know that?” When she turned from pouring the milk into mugs, she looked angry. “If you want her to leave, just say so. She’s frightened to stay at home during the day, but if you can’t stand her, back she must go.”
“I didn’t say that.” But he was suddenly wondering what Christmas would be like. He might have raised that point, except that Joyce was staring at the newspaper he was still holding. “Where did you get that?” she demanded.
“On the High Street. She asked me to.”
“Oh, well, if she asked …” She looked dubious. “Best not to leave her alone again, though.”
They left the living-room door ajar, even though they could hear t
he old lady’s breathing when it was closed. He sipped his laced milk as he glanced through the newspaper, where he could remember hardly any of the items, before handing it to Joyce. Then she cried, “Good God!” He jumped up.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am. Don’t be tiresome. Look here.” She was pointing at the photograph of the woman who hadn’t managed to hide her face. “Did you read this? It’s a miracle, that’s what it is. I’ve been wanting to pray, you know. Maybe this is meant to tell me I should.”
“What, the woman who tried to defame the police?”
“Never mind that. She must have had her reasons.” She was slapping the photograph impatiently. “I know her, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I met her years ago. Oh, Geoffrey, what luck.”
“Well, so you know her.”
“Geoffrey, sometimes you’re worse than my old folk.” She smiled tolerantly at him. “She works on television, don’t you understand? She’s exactly what I need. Let these hamburger people make trouble for me now and I’ll go straight to Molly Wolfe.”
20
THE Christmas lights of Oxford Street stained the snow like petrol. As Danny turned the comer into Wardour Street, a roof dripped on him, but he couldn’t have cared less. He stopped at the Rank poster windows, because he wanted to read about next year’s films, not because he was pretending that he wasn’t going to Soho. He didn’t need to pretend, he never had. He didn’t need to go to Soho now, and that was why he would.
The Essential was showing films by Martin Wallace, whoever he was. Danny picked his way past, mincing on the frozen slush, to the staggered crossroads of Old Comp-ton Street and Brewer Street, the lights of their shops throbbing. Perhaps it was because he meant to give himself a present that the lights made him think of Christmas.
Someone was laughing in a newsagent’s on Old Comp-ton Street, and he hoped they were laughing at Molly Wolfe. He’d seen her picture in the paper, and now he knew where she worked. He wouldn’t have to look for her in Soho on his afternoon off. There couldn’t be a better place to celebrate than Soho, not when she had made him go there in the first place.
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