In a daze she got up and drew back the curtain. His light breathing floated through the air. He was lying face up on the bed, his face smooth and peaceful in the silver moonlight. She didn’t want to go too close, and watched him from the door. The same Paul she slept beside night after night. The same one she wanted to spend her life with. But in the same breath, totally different. A changeling in his warm, familiar body. She stood there watching until her bare feet grew sore and first light came. Then she got onto the bed and curled into a corner, leaving enough space between them so they wouldn’t touch.
In the morning they didn’t mention it. They got up as normal, went down to the breakfast bar. Paul downed a few strong coffees, his eyes puffy from lack of sleep.
“My head is splitting,” was his only mention of the night before.
They returned to the room, packed, and left their bags with the concierge when they checked out. The driver would be there to take them to the airport in an hour. They went down to enjoy a final drink on the beach. They hugged and kissed and smiled. But they weren’t laughing any more. To Lena, as she lifted handfuls of sand and let the fine grains slip through her fingers, the cocktail tasted sour, the air smelled fetid and the beach dragged like rocks underfoot.
They reached the airport without fuss. Right before they boarded their plane home, Paul turned to her and said, “I got the go-ahead for the refurbishment.”
Chapter Sixteen
Annie sat in the armchair, her legs curled up, watching while across the room Paul squirmed in agony. Cold sweats. Hunger pains. Itching. Midnight came and went. He was worried that he might be getting sick. Neither of them had moved for over half an hour, a ceasefire born of fatigue. The subtlest noises in the quiet room – the ticking of the clock, the soft patter of the first drops of rain on the window, the crackle of the fire, now revived in the grate, Annie’s breathing – sounded like thunder in his ear.
The knife wound on his arm had clotted: no more than flesh deep. The rust-coloured beads had hardened into a crusty purple. One more scar on a body full of them. Every time he looked up, Annie was staring at it. “Feeling guilty?” he asked.
She looked at him with revulsion. “No. I just don’t want you to bleed to death before I find out what I want to know.”
He believed her. Her coldness chilled him.
“You and me aren’t that different, you know. When it comes down to it, you do what you have to do.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she snapped, then fell into a sulky silence again. But she no longer looked at his arm.
Wiggling his fingers and toes and rotating the joints as much as the ties would allow, Paul took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled, attempting to manage the pain, worried about lasting nerve damage.
“When you came into the bar,” he suddenly said, trying to take his mind off his aches, “why didn’t you approach me? When you left, how did you know I’d follow you out?”
She looked at him with undisguised hatred. “I knew you couldn’t resist a vulnerable woman. My first attempt at contact and you took the bait. That was my good luck.” Her lip curled. “And then, outside… I was worried you’d know me right away. But you didn’t. When I looked up and saw you there, standing beside me at the bus stop, I wanted to run. I recognised you, from the newspaper clippings, but you’re different in real life. Uglier. You can see there’s a darkness in you. A blackness.”
Paul exhaled again, loudly. “You should hear yourself! A blackness,” he mimicked. “Know what I think? I think you’re bored. I think you’re using Lena as an excuse to have some drama in your life. You’ve filled your life with this incredible fantasy. She’s run off somewhere; it wouldn’t be the first time. And you want in on the action.”
“She’d never leave it this long without getting in touch,” Annie whispered, and Paul saw an opportunity.
“I didn’t know you two were close.”
“We’re sisters.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something. From what I remember, she barely even knew you.”
For a second Annie stopped short. She looked injured. But it didn’t last long. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to manipulate my emotions. Make me think it’s all in my head. Lie, cheat and manipulate – your grubby little tools. But I’m not my sister, Paul. Your bullshit doesn’t work on me.”
“I didn’t groom her,” he said through gritted teeth, finding it easier to keep talking, take his mind off his aching body. “She came into the bar I was working in. I helped her out and we got together. She was eighteen. We were both adults. Nothing dark or sinister there.”
Annie shook her head contemptuously. “She wasn’t eighteen in the photograph.”
“That was from a couple of years before. I met her in the park one afternoon.”
“Do you meet a lot of teenage girls in parks?”
They fell into silence.
Annie took out the photograph again and began studying it. Paul watched her eyes flicker over it. Then she put it down, rifled through his wallet once more and found the small passport-sized picture of Jack as a tiny boy again.
“Who’s this?”
“My son.”
She held it closer, inspecting.
“How old is he?”
“In the picture? Three. Four.”
“And what about now?”
“Twelve, thirteen, I guess.”
“Don’t you see him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Paul shrugged his shoulders. “He’s better off without me.”
“Has there ever been anyone in your life that wasn’t better off without you?”
Paul smiled. “We talked about having children someday.”
Annie baulked. “Because you did such a good job first time round?”
“What do you want me to say?” he snapped. “That I’m a shitty father? That’s not a revelation to me.”
“Did Lena know about him?”
“Of course. She was good with him – some people just are… good with that sort of thing.”
The skin around Annie’s eyes softened and turned red.
“I started out with the best of intentions.” He lifted his head in defiance. “I never meant for bad things to happen.”
Annie erupted. “You work for a man like Manny Munroe and you never meant for bad things to happen? Didn’t think you’d wreck lives, leave a path of destruction in your wake?”
“When I was fifteen I lived on a burned-out bus,” he retorted. A picture came into his head, of himself washing in public bathrooms, his skin stretched tight over razor-sharp bones. “You try spending night after night in the freezing cold and see if you don’t take a helping hand when it’s offered. You’ve never had a difficult day in your life.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she spat back. “And don’t give me that shit about not having a choice. Boo-hoo,” she sneered. “All over the world. Every day, people come out of worse. This is Glasgow. The West. We have a welfare state. In other countries people are starving to death. But you bleat about how it’s all so sad, how you turned to crime because you didn’t have a choice. With a normal job you wouldn’t be able to afford Gucci. Is that another of your ploys? To make people feel sorry for you?”
“I don’t want your pity. That’s all you people have. I’m trying to explain. But what’s the point if you’ve already made up your mind?”
“Did my sister know she was living with a killer?” Annie shot back at him.
“No.”
“So you lied to her?”
“She didn’t ask.”
Annie gave an exasperated scream. “It’s not the kind of thing you ask a partner, is it? Honey, just out of curiosity, have you murdered anyone?”
“I was trying to protect her.”
�
�But you couldn’t?” Annie perched on the couch, her thin shoulders scrunching forward, her thumb kneading the knuckle of her index finger. “Protect her from who?”
Paul no longer felt like talking. But Annie persisted, burrowing her way in like a worm.
“Did she find out? Is that why she tried to get away from you?” Annie’s voice was urgent now. “The first time she came to stay with us, we were told not to let you in, if you came round.”
“She wasn’t trying to get away from me. She was angry with me.”
“Why, what did you do?”
“She saw something,” Paul heard himself say, surprised at how the little girl was getting to him.
“What?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, could feel his temperature rise.
“Something with Munroe?”
His eyes stung. Colours and sounds momentarily blurred.
“Tell me!” Annie shouted, rising to her feet. “What did you get her involved in?”
Chapter Seventeen
Nine years ago
Even though the bedroom door was closed, Lena could hear Paul in the living room, shouting down the phone.
“I tell you what, I’ll buy you some Ibuprofen… I don’t care… I’ve been very patient… No, no… Stop. Just stop.” There was silence for a moment before he started up again, building strength for the crescendo. “Do you want me to lose my temper, Dessy, is that it? Want me to come down to Sharkey’s Bar? I know that’s where you’ve been when you’re supposed to have been fitting my disabled toilet. Want me to lose my temper in front of that tidy barmaid you’ve been perving over? Because I will, if that’s what you want. If you’re not at my bar, ready to work today, I swear to fuck I’ll come looking for you.”
When she was sure the call was over, she came out of the bedroom. Paul had moved into the kitchen. She went in to find him leaning against the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand.
“Fucking morons!” he cursed.
“Everything OK?” she said as she re-boiled the kettle and put a tea bag in a fresh cup.
“Same bullshit, different day,” he said into his coffee.
The kettle clicked, she poured in the water, fished out the used bag and threw it in the bin. “Is that the plumber whose mother died?” she asked as she got the milk from the fridge.
“Probably bullshitting about that too. That’s the kind of people I’m dealing with.” He rolled his eyes and sighed. Beside him, toast popped out of the toaster. He put the two slices on a plate, burning his fingers as he did so, then got the butter and started spreading.
“Apart from that, how’s it going?” She leaned against the fridge, mug in hand.
“We’ll get there.” His head nodded up and down like a plastic dog in the back windscreen of a car. She took in the waxy paleness of his skin, the grey shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t come to bed at all the night before. He’d hardly slept since the refurbishment had got underway a few weeks before.
He saw her watching and gulped down his coffee. “Right, I’m off.”
“Uh… before you go,” she said, tiptoeing over to him. “Have you got any money on you?”
“Again? I just gave you some yesterday.”
“I was thinking of getting some extra bits and pieces for tonight – nibbles for the guests. You’re still going to make it, right?”
He looked at her, bewildered, and her heart sank.
“The exhibition.”
“Right, Lena, of course. I’ll be there.”
He took out his wallet and handed her some notes, tens and twenties, without counting. “Must be nice having your own personal money dispenser,” he said under his breath. She winced a little but took it from him anyway.
“Half seven,” she said as she followed him to the door. “Everyone else is coming at eight, but I want to show you around first.”
“Right… right,” he said as he backed out the door, toast in his mouth. Just before he closed it, he took the toast out, leaned back and kissed her.
She went straight through to the bedroom and opened up her bottom drawer, pulling out her shoebox from beneath some tops. Her stuff occupied all the drawers now, and some of the wardrobe. She carried it over to the bed and sat there with it. When she took off the elastic band, it popped open, spilling notes onto her lap. Ever since the Spain trip, almost twelve months ago now, she’d been making even more effort to save. Insurance; her escape fund, if it came to it. She spread out the money and began counting. She knew there was roughly a thousand pounds there, but she wanted an exact figure. She added in most of the money he’d given her that morning, only keeping back a little to buy some nibbles with, for the guests at the exhibition later.
A moment later she was startled to hear Paul’s key turning in the door. She began stuffing the notes back into the box.
“I forgot that list for the supplier,” she heard him shout from the hall. “It’s beside the bed.”
She turned and saw a piece of paper with figures written on it. Quickly, she started to tidy away her shoebox. Heard his footsteps outside the door. But it was too late; he was already in the bedroom before she could get the lid back on it. Stray notes were still scattered across the bed beside her.
As he went over to the bedside table to pick up his list, his eyes fell on the box stuffed with money. “What’s that?” he said, then glanced at his piece of paper, folded it over and put it in his trouser pocket.
“This?” she said, embarrassed, her cheeks red. “It’s just some money I’ve been saving.”
“Oh, right,” he said and walked back to the door. He stopped in the doorway and turned round. “My money?” His forehead creased, his eyebrows knitted in a frown.
“You gave it to me. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Why would I mind?” he said quietly, his voice low.
“I just wanted to have it put by… you know… for a rainy day.”
He began to walk away, then turned back. “You know, you only had to ask if you needed money. You didn’t have to hide it behind my back.”
She began to explain, feeling aggrieved at his tone. But he wasn’t finished. His eyes scrunched into narrow slits, his lip curled. “It’s always going to be the same with you, isn’t it? One foot out the door, ready to take what you can,” he spat.
Lena felt his words like a slap. She could feel a heat rising within her. He’d never spoken to her like that before.
She didn’t know what to say.
“Every other cunt’s ripping me off and now you are too.”
He walked away after that. The front door slammed behind him, shaking the walls.
Lena got the bus to her college in the early evening. As it was the last week of the course, they were having an exhibition of their work. Family and friends had been invited and it was also a chance to say farewell and good luck to the other students. Most of them had applied to art schools, Lena included, but she hadn’t heard anything back yet.
A few of the students were already in the classroom, setting up. They had each been given a board, about four feet by six feet, enough to hang five or six pieces. The paint-spotted desks had been moved to the side and covered with a paper sheet on which had been set a row of drinks – Coke and Irn-Bru, boxes of red and white wine – and some plastic cups.
Lena chatted to her friends as she put up her pictures, making sure the edges were all at right angles, the drawing pins secure. One was a pencil drawing of a bird’s wing, another a still life in charcoal they had done as a class. The still life sessions had been a real success: their teacher, Mike, had scavenged a selection of objects from round and about – odd-shaped vases and pots, a cat’s skull, a hip bone, dried flowers – and the students had drawn them over and over. The results were really good.
It was a nice sunny evening and the doors onto the concrete yard had
been left open. When Lena had finished setting up, she went for a walk around the yard on her own, kicking up stones, checking the time.
She came back inside just after seven thirty. The first eager friends and family members had already arrived and were milling around the room. She was introduced to some of them. A few asked her if her boyfriend was coming. She tried to be non-committal, saying that he would if he could get away from work.
She got a glass of wine and wandered around the room, looking at the artwork of her classmates, talking to a few. She went out for some air and came back in, stood by her pictures. By eight o’clock she knew he wasn’t coming.
With the party now in full swing, Lena spied Mike, their teacher, moving towards her. He was dressed in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, cords and scuffed brown brogues – a young fogey, still only in his early thirties.
“Any word yet from the Glasgow School of Art?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I heard David M. got an unconditional offer.”
“Yeah.” Mike nodded. “Great news.” He leaned in closer. “He’s not as good as you, though,” he said and looked around to make sure no one else had heard.
“Bet that’s what you say to all your students,” she joked, but she knew it wasn’t. Of all the people she’d met that year, he had been her favourite. For the first time in her life she was teacher’s pet. She’d joined him for a smoke a few lunchtimes. He was a cool guy in an awkward, geeky way. She hadn’t told Paul about him. She knew he would only make fun of him.
“What about Dundee?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t go for the interview.” She shrugged, knowing he’d be disappointed. “I couldn’t move up there anyway, so I didn’t see the point.”
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