Something Might Happen

by Julie Myerson

  I’m hot and tired and I haven’t put on make-up or brushed my hair.

  Oh, I say. Hello.

  Hello, he says again.

  You’re still here then?

  Yes.

  His hands are in his pockets and he tilts his head back a little as he looks at me.

  No baby?

  It takes me a moment to realise what he’s talking about.

  At home, I tell him. She’s with Mick. I left her. I’m—going to work.

  He stands there absolutely still, frowning slightly.

  So what’s going on? he says. Where’ve you been?

  Where have I been? I say, surprised.

  Yes. After you phoned me, you disappeared. I’ve been looking all over for you.

  But I’ve been—here, I tell him, flushing.

  Where?

  Here. At home, at the clinic—everywhere.

  He smiles.

  Outside the butcher’s, there is sawdust on the pavement. In the window fake grass, brightest green—a foil for the pink and red of the meat.

  Are you OK? he asks me.

  Yes, I tell him. I push my hair out of my face and my heart swerves. No, not really, I’m late.

  And I turn and do something I didn’t think I could do. I run up the High Street, past Butlers, past Parsons’ Tea Rooms and Sheila Fashions. Past Mei Yuen’s and the dry-cleaner’s and up to the spot where I can see the safe wooden sign for Empson’s Books rocking gently in the wind.

  By the time I reach the clinic, I’m already missing him. But I had no choice. I suddenly knew that if I let myself stand there on that pavement with him a moment longer, things might not remain the same. Your whole life can be changed in a single moment if you let it.

  I park the car on North Road just next to the boating lake, about fifty or maybe a hundred metres from the place where Lennie died. The lake is closed for the winter, a large heavy chain and padlock draped across its wrought-iron gates. Some paddle boats are pulled up on the side of the grey, wind-rippled square of water, under the tarpaulins—the rest have probably gone to be spruced up and repaired for next year.

  In front of me is the cream concrete face of the Dolphin Diner and, beyond, the long wind-lashed expanse of the pier. It has a fitness centre on it now, except that no one goes to it as far as I can tell. And next to that, the arcade with its money machines.

  I sit in the car and look at the pier and think of Mawhinney and all those others slaving away to catch someone who Vic Munro thinks will never be caught.

  I look at the pier for a long time, till my hands no longer know where they are or whether they’re still on the steering wheel or on my lap, till I no longer remember where I am or what I’m doing or why.

  I wonder if I’ll see Mawhinney come out, but I don’t. I see no one. I wait for a long time, till the windscreen is specked with rain, and still no one emerges from that pale concrete building.

  After that, I leave the car where it is and walk along the front as far as my hut. The Polecat. It is almost dark, the sky greenish with dark, but I know the walk so well I don’t need light.

  It’s spotting harder now with rain and because I haven’t been here since that night—haven’t been able to bring myself to come—I can feel the nervy pulse of my blood in my tongue, my throat, in the hotness of the hair behind my ears.

  The sea is crashing down. You can tell by the sound of it that the waves are pretty huge.

  At the end of the concrete ramp, a couple of kids are forlornly skateboarding, but otherwise no one’s around, just the waves making a tearing sound as they hit the groynes. Soon their darkness will join up and melt into the dark of the sky. I love that moment when you can’t see what’s what any more and sea and sky are one.

  The key to The Polecat is in my pocket. It’s a normal key, small and steel, the type that would open a shed or cupboard. I put my foot on the second wooden step of the hut and shove the key into the lock and at first it won’t turn but then I push a little harder and it does, it gives.

  The door falls open. I stand there in my hut and breathe in hard, enjoy its familiar smell of slightly damp curtains, wood preservative and the faintest, blueish whiff of gas.

  Later, back home, I climb the stairs and I look at Livvy, asleep in her cot. I stand there and wonder what I’m doing. Panic builds in me. I don’t recognise the person I’ve become. I stand there and I hold my fingers up to my eyes, ready to wipe the tears before they even come.

  The hanging of the Annual Art Circle Exhibition at the old school gym is something that Lennie usually organises. It’s not really about the art—tepid purplish watercolours of the area, the ferry, the fat silhouette of Blythburgh church, the creek at dawn—but about the spirit of community. There are some dedicated amateur painters in our town. All the paintings and drawings are for sale, with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity. Harriman’s always donates the wine for the private view.

  Everyone has agreed that this year the exhibition will be dedicated to her memory. Some people considered that it should actually be cancelled, but Polly and Maggie insisted that Lennie would have wanted them to go ahead. They say they intend to make it the best yet. They’re roping in everyone they can find to help with the hanging.

  I call Mick and tell him I’m dropping Liv back after work so I can go and help.

  At the gym? he says. But I thought you were going to get out of it?

  I was, I tell him, but I’ve thought about it and it wouldn’t be right.

  I put down the phone and breathe in the silence.

  I don’t go there. I hurry instead down Stradbroke Road, where a man is smoking a cigarette with one hand and sweeping crab apples into the gutter with the other. Further on, by the lighthouse, some oldish women are standing on the corner with their PVC shoppers. One of them, Mrs McGowan, is a patient. She waves and I wave back.

  I turn quickly onto St James’s Green. It’s dusk and a brisk wind ruffles the surface of the sea. Alan the greengrocer is just closing, pulling in his awning, dragging in the crates and buckets, folding the cloth that looks like bright green grass. A brightly coloured poster in his window announces that he stocks fireworks. It will probably stay there till Christmas—everything does in this town. As I pass, Alan looks up and raises a hand to me. I do the same and hurry on.

  Chapter 11

  IN THE HOTEL RECEPTION, A GIRL WITH FIERCELY PULLED-back hair is chatting on the phone, pretending she hasn’t seen me waiting there. I ask her if Lacey is in. She shrugs.

  No idea, she says. I haven’t seen him go out.

  So he’s in?

  Unless I wasn’t looking at the time.

  I ask her if she’d mind calling him. She asks rudely for my name and I tell her.

  He says to go on up, says the girl, with no expression at all on her face. Straightaway picking up the other phone to carry on talking. I start up the wide, hushed staircase then have to come back because I don’t know his room number.

  Four, the girl snaps.

  Up on the first floor, a chambermaid is hoovering the landing. I think I recognise her. She may have babysat for one of us. She moves the hoover out of the way as I knock on his door.

  He doesn’t have a jacket on. Just a kind of dark shirt with a blueish T-shirt under. He hasn’t shaved either.

  Hello, he says.

  Hello.

  I can’t look at him. I hold on to my handbag and touch the buttons on my coat and look at the room.

  What a surprise, he says.

  He offers me the only chair, pulling it out from the girlish, glass-topped dressing table. I sit. Next to me are small careful piles of his loose change.

  This is awful of me, I say.

  He looks at me with relaxed interest.

  Why?

  I mean, just barging in like this.

  Barge in any time, he says with a bit of a smile.

  Yes, I say, but unannounced.

  They rang me, he says, from reception.

  Oh loo
k, I tell him, you know what I mean.

  He has nothing to say to that. He asks me if I want a drink.

  I look at my watch. Though I know what time it is.

  OK, I say.

  He opens the minibar.

  Gin, whisky or vodka?

  Vodka.

  He pours it carefully, hands me a glass.

  I take a sip. The taste is blue, metallic.

  Do you want something in it?

  He passes me a tonic.

  Thanks. I pull back the tab and tip it in, watching the quick fizz.

  I can smell cooking and bar smells from downstairs. He holds up his drink and looks at me. Far away a phone rings. He keeps looking as if he’s about to laugh.

  Well—cheers, he says.

  I smile. And dare to look around. The place is very neat. You wouldn’t think a person was even staying in it. As well as the change piled on the table, there’s a wad of folded notes. A large notebook, a couple of pens. A laptop computer. A jacket, his one, flung on a chair. And a towel. A pair of boots pushed carefully under the TV. And a faint, enticing smell in the air—a smell of him.

  He moves a newspaper and sits there on the neat, oatmeal corner of the bed and looks at me. He doesn’t seem to feel any need to speak. The silence spills over between us and terrifies me.

  You like your room? I ask him.

  It’s OK, he says. Apart from the noise of the bloody barrels.

  What?

  First thing in the morning. They start trundling them around, or unloading them or something. You should hear it. Before six it starts, the noise is incredible—

  It’s the brewery, I point out.

  Yes, he says, looking at me.

  I sip my drink, feel it pounce into my heart.

  Tell me about Natasha, I say then, surprising myself.

  He looks up quickly.

  Natasha?

  Yes, I say. Tell me what she’s like.

  I feel my cheeks get hot.

  You’re blushing, Tess, he says.

  I laugh. For once I don’t care.

  I always blush, I tell him, with you. You know that. You should be used to it by now.

  He bites his lip.

  I can’t get used to anything about you, he says quietly.

  No? I hold my breath.

  No.

  Well, I say softly, I don’t know. Is that good?

  I don’t know either, he says to me. It might be. It might not.

  For a moment we’re both silent. He puts down his drink.

  There’s not much to say about Natasha, he says. I mean, I don’t know what you want to know. We go right back, I’ve known her years.

  What does she do?

  He looks at me.

  She’s a solicitor.

  In London?

  In London, yes. She does other things as well. She works with children, as a volunteer. Counselling and stuff.

  She does a lot, I say.

  Yes, he agrees. She does.

  She sounds nice.

  She is, yes.

  He looks at me, waiting. We both wait and say nothing. I wonder what she looks like. How old she is. Whether he’s spoken to her today. What he said.

  So, I ask him, do you like it here?

  This town?

  I nod.

  Not much, he says.

  Really? Why not?

  He shrugs.

  It puts me on edge, he says. Too much water, too much sky.

  But I love that! I tell him straightaway before I can stop myself.

  Well, I know you do, he says, obviously. That’s why you moved here. But I’m a city boy. I like buildings, people, mess, dirt.

  I used to like that, too, I tell him.

  But not any more?

  No. I don’t think so, no.

  He smiles at me.

  And Natasha? I say.

  What about Natasha?

  Does she like that, too?

  His face when he looks at me is unchanged.

  She does, I suppose, yes.

  I look down at my drink.

  I don’t live with Natasha, he says.

  Oh, I say. You don’t?

  No.

  The windowpane has turned black and outside in the street there are noises now—evening noises that I suppose I must be used to because I hear them all the time. Except not normally from up here.

  I hear the heavy, clanking sound of the security grille of the Amber Shop. A lorry backing up. A child’s shrill complaint, wanting something. A lone bicycle bell. Ding ding.

  I don’t think of my own children. I’ve never been so far from them. For now, they’re little specks, they’re nothing, they don’t exist. If I ever wanted to shock myself, this would be the moment and this would be the way.

  Tell me something, he says as he leans over to pour me the rest of the vodka. Why did you run away from me?

  I make an effort to sit up on the chair, cross my legs the other way.

  What? I say.

  The other day. In the street. You ran away.

  Did I?

  Yes. You know you did.

  I put down my glass and knit my fingers together and sigh.

  I did, I agree, yes, I’m sorry.

  No need to be sorry.

  Well, I am.

  Why?

  Because it was rude—

  No. Why did you do it?

  I think about this.

  Oh, well, I was scared, I tell him at last.

  He looks at me closely, as if it can’t be true.

  Really?

  Yes. I think so.

  What, scared of me?

  No, I say, struggling to get it right, not of you, just—well—I didn’t know what was going to happen.

  In what way happen?

  I glance up and my heart bumps. I can’t say it.

  I can’t say it, I whisper.

  He is sitting on the edge of the bed and he reaches out and touches my hand, the one that is on the table, the one without the glass. Just touches it. The touch—warm, terrifying—makes me breathless. I don’t look at him. My heart flips over.

  And do you know now? he says.

  Know what?

  Do you know—what’s going to happen?

  No, I say. Leaving my hand there, looking at it. No? You don’t know?

  I take a breath and look at the window again. Shut my eyes. I daren’t even think about it, I say.

  The moments pass. Nothing happens. I take my hand back and put it in my lap. Safe.

  Why did you do that? I ask him.

  Oh Tess, he says, don’t ask me that—

  He leans forward from where he sits on the bed, but he doesn’t touch me.

  Tess, he says.

  Yes?

  You came to see me, he says.

  I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I didn’t think, I just did it without even thinking—

  But I love that! he says. The way you just do things—so frank. I mean it. That’s what I liked about you from the start.

  I’m not frank, I tell him, looking at him now. I’m not being frank with Mick. I’m only frank when it suits me to be.

  You’re lovely, Lacey says quietly.

  I close my eyes.

  I shouldn’t be sitting here, I tell him.

  It’s easy to say that.

  Is it?

  You’re lovely, he says again.

  Well, I tell him, it’s easy to say that too—

  Not for me.

  It’s wonderful that you think it—I mean, it’s exactly what I want you to think—but I also think I’m misleading you.

  Oh? he says.

  I mean, I don’t really want anything to—happen.

  You don’t?

  He is looking at my face all the time.

  I’m sorry, I tell him, I really shouldn’t have come. You see, it’s—I’m waiting.

  Waiting?

  To get used to you. For this to wear off.

  For what to wear off?

  This thing�
��this—

  He smiles, waits.

  This pull, I say.

  He sits back and gives me a long look.

  Do you feel it, too? I ask him.

  Yes, he says, I feel it.

  I just want to be your friend, I tell him and he smiles again even more.

  Me too, he says.

  This feeling. It will pass. I know it will. In the end you’ll just seem ordinary to me.

  Oh, he says, sounding disappointed. Will I?

  Yes, eventually.

  He seems to consider this.

  But, hey, look, what if I don’t?

  No, I tell him firmly, that’s why I’m here, if you want to know. To make it happen—

  It?

  Make me used to you—

  But, he says, not laughing now, how do you know, Tess, that it works like that?

  I just know.

  You know a lot of things.

  Yes, I agree, I do. I told you I did. But please don’t touch me.

  He lies back on the bed with his drink. He does exactly as I ask, I’ll give him that. He doesn’t touch me or come near. But he might as well not bother to do this distance-keeping. Because the truth is he has found a place in me that no one else has ever discovered—not Alex, not Mick—and he’s there right now and it makes me go absolutely still and calm, hypnotised.

  I don’t tell him this.

  Talk to me, he says. He is a little drunk. So am I. The room has become both larger and smaller, our place in it more tilted and strange. Amazing how drink stops you minding about things.

  I ask him if he likes his work. He hesitates.

  I keep on telling myself I’ll stop, he says, that this will be the last one. Then something else comes up—and I worry about why I’m doing it.

  What do you mean worry?

  Well, each new case, the details of it, the people, it takes a piece of you. You get sucked into people’s lives—

  Is that bad?

  Not bad exactly, but taxing. Difficult.

  He looks at me and smiles, such a warm smile.

  I told you before—you get too involved. It can be sort of—hard to resist.

  Because you’re good at it?

  No, he says, because it’s too interesting, too exciting. Whether you want it to or not it gives you a buzz.

  He looks at me.

  Yes, even something like this, he says. Does that shock you?

  No, I reply, wondering whether I mean it.