Crazy Paving

by Louise Doughty

  ‘And people in brass bands will have to play paperclips,’ muttered Annette.

  Helly removed a large paperclip from the box and put it on her lower lip. Then she went back to the stationery cupboard.

  Annette glanced up at the clock: nine fifty-six. Richard was even later than usual. She turned on her computer and reached for the mouse. As the hard disk span up, she ran her eye down her list of tasks for that day, sighing.

  Richard sat in the passenger seat while his wife drove. They were silent. Their three golden retrievers sat in the back. Two of them were lying down and one was resting his head over the back of Gillian’s seat with his snout on her right shoulder. Gillian had tied a patterned silk headscarf tight under her chin and pulled it forward so that it obscured most of her face. Glancing sideways, Richard could see only the small angle of her nose. He glanced sideways several times, trying to guess her demeanour from her posture and the movements of her hands on the wheel. It was always hard to tell with Gillian.

  As they rounded the bend past The Jolly Huntsman, they passed David Harton on his bicycle. David Harton was their neighbour and had taken to cycling only recently. He was wearing a yellow waterproof cape over his suit and had wrapped his briefcase in clear plastic and placed it in a white wire basket clipped to the front of the handlebars. Bicycle clips restrained his trouser legs. It had stopped snowing but the air was still damp. Harton wobbled as he pedalled slowly through the deep brown slush, his knees sticking out at thirty-degrees angles. He glanced over his shoulder and waved at them as their car swished past. They both waved back.

  ‘David is taking this fitness campaign seriously then,’ commented Gillian.

  Richard felt relieved. ‘Juanita has put him on a diet,’ he said. ‘Avocados and brown rice. It’s a new thing.’

  They came to the village high street.

  ‘Did he get planning permission for the heli-pad?’ Gillian asked.

  ‘I think there’s a problem. He may not be able to put it on the roof after all. They’re thinking about the paddock.’

  ‘Oh no. Really?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’ Richard felt pleased with himself. If Gillian became annoyed about their neighbours’ plans for a helicopter pad in the paddock then she would forget about last night’s little problem. Gillian was a woman who could only be annoyed about one thing at a time.

  Gillian sighed heavily. Richard took a risk. ‘What about dinner?’

  Her response disappointed him. She barked. The dog on her shoulder jumped.

  ‘Dinner?’ she added, dismissively. They drove in silence for the rest of the journey.

  As they pulled into the station car park, Richard checked his watch. He had seven minutes to spare; time to try and make things right before he got his train. He hated going to work with things all wrong. It ruined his entire day.

  She switched off the engine and he turned to her. Then he reached out and took her hand. She was wearing string-backed driving gloves. His were black leather. ‘Gillian,’ he said, looking down at her hand, ‘I am sorry about last night. I am sure we can get it fixed . . .’

  ‘We? You mean I, Richard. You are sure I can get it fixed.’

  ‘I could ring Benson’s from work.’

  ‘No,’ Gillian replied quickly. ‘Leave it to me. Last time we had Benson & Sons in their apprentice ruined the carpet.’

  ‘I did get him sacked.’

  ‘That’s hardly the point, is it?’

  He began to rub one of her fingers between two of his. ‘No, Gillian.’

  She sighed. ‘I will call out the plumbers and the engineers. I will sort everything out – and there will be dinner.’

  He knew he was forgiven. He leant towards her.

  She waited until his face was close to hers and then put her free gloved hand over his mouth. ‘But you have to promise me,’ she said evenly, ‘that you will never try and fix the boiler again.’ She took her hand away.

  ‘Promise,’ he said.

  He leant forward again and their lips brushed briefly. The retriever on Gillian’s right shoulder watched them, unmoved.

  Richard drew back slightly, paused, then risked placing a hand on her knee. She looked at him.

  ‘I’ve been very bad . . .’ he suggested hopefully.

  She kept her gaze level. Then she said softly, ‘Yes, Richard, you have. And tonight you will be punished.’

  His carriage was half full. All of its occupants were men and most were reading bits of paper. The only problem with first class travel was that it obliged you to pretend to work. Richard always carried a calculator in his pocket. Once seated, he would withdraw it and press its buttons at random. Occasionally, when he knew himself to be observed by the man sitting opposite, he would pause and frown at it, shaking his head slightly.

  Today, he tapped in the numbers 01134 and turned the calculator upside-down. It said hEllO.

  At Victoria, he remained seated for a few minutes to allow the scrambling mob on the platform to clear. Then he strolled towards the concourse. Half-way there he stopped, put down his briefcase and lit a cigarette. He blew smoke into the air in a manner which a casual observer would have considered confident, derisive. There are days, thought Richard, when it occurs to you that in comparison with many people you have made a success of your life and have much to be proud of.

  He headed for the bank of telephones in the corner of the station, the ones tucked out of sight. There were some in the middle of the concourse, but he couldn’t risk being spotted by any of his staff who might be running late. In the alcove, he took out his phonecard and a small book bound in plum coloured leather which he kept tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket. He had one or two calls to make before he got to the office.

  The first person to greet him as he stepped out of the lift was his new surveyor, William Bennett.

  ‘Richard,’ William observed. Then stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ said Richard as he walked down the open-plan department, William in pursuit.

  ‘Sutton Street,’ said William. ‘Compulsory purchase order on Rosewood Cottage. Need to talk. Might be a problem.’

  Richard grunted. By now they had reached his office. He slung his briefcase on his desk, opened it and began unloading sheafs of paper.

  ‘Had to take the Sports Ground specs home over the weekend,’ he muttered. ‘No overtime in this job you know.’

  William looked a little frustrated. ‘I really do think we need to sort this out,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be straightforward after the Royal Assent. To be honest, Richard, I’m not sure. I need some back-up.’

  William Bennett was twenty-seven. He had worked for Richard Leather for six weeks but had already surmised that the only way to get him to do anything was to appear helpless.

  Richard was looking pleased. He came round to William’s side of the desk and slapped a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve got the project meeting on Friday. It will all get sorted out then.’

  Annette stepped into the office swiftly and silently and placed a cup of freshly poured black coffee on Richard’s desk. Silently, she left.

  Richard was guiding William towards the door. ‘The thing to do is to move fast, before the other side have time to get organised. They haven’t employed a solicitor or anything, have they?’

  ‘The old couple? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘When are you going round?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I tell you what.’ Richard dropped his voice. ‘Pop round, next week maybe, after the meeting, do a few measurements and have a sniff about, okay?’

  By now they had reached the door. William looked at Richard, confused. Richard smiled, winked, and closed the door in his face.

  When Richard turned from the door, his smile had disappeared.

  It happened at eleven sixteen a.m. Annette knew because as soon as she heard the blast, she checked her watch. It was a deep, unmistakable boom, short but sonorous, as if a roll of
thunder had been compressed into a box and then burst free. The window next to her rattled. For a minute there was silence, then the sirens began. Opposite her Joan looked up, her gaze questioning. Annette nodded, then reached for the phone.

  It rang twice before her mother answered. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mum, it’s me. I thought I’d better ring. A bomb’s gone off. I’m fine.’

  ‘A bomb?’

  ‘Yes. There’s been an explosion. It rattled the windows of our office.’

  ‘Are you at work? Are you okay? How near was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Whitehall, maybe. It’s hard to tell. It seemed quite distant.’

  ‘I’ll put the radio on. Did you get my note about the jumper?’

  ‘Mum I can’t talk now, I’m at work. I just wanted to let you know, so you wouldn’t hear it on the news and worry . . .’

  Raymond came round the corner. He was the senior surveyor and Richard’s deputy. He wore a bow-tie. He wrote his draft memos in green ink and complained to Annette that young surveyors these days didn’t understand the past participle. ‘Was that what I thought it was?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Annette.

  ‘I’d hang them,’ spat Raymond. ‘They should all be hanged. Every one of them. Bloody Irish.’

  Annette returned to the Schedule of Dilapidations she was typing. The vehemence of Raymond’s opinions irritated her even when she agreed with him, and in this case she did not.

  Joan picked up the phone. It would not have occurred to her to ring Alun, but seeing Annette so considerate about her mother, she wondered if her husband might be concerned.

  Alun was on shifts that week so he was at home. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh hello Alun, it’s only me. I just thought I would tell you, a bomb’s gone off.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I’m alright. I’m fine in fact. I’m in the office. I’m at work.’

  ‘Yes I know.’ Hearing his irritation made Joan feel stupid. She often felt stupid when she spoke to her husband.

  Richard had emerged and was conferring with Raymond. He too thought that bombers should be hanged. Then he went back to his office.

  ‘There’s no excuse for it,’ pronounced Raymond to Joan and Annette, ‘no excuse for it at all.’ Having no audience for his opinions never bothered Raymond, any more than he would worry if nobody was listening to his jokes. If no one thought them funny, he was more than happy to provide the laughter on his own. If no one agreed with him that those who planted bombs should be strung up, then he was perfectly content to agree with himself.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Joan as she put down the phone. ‘I suppose they’ll close all the stations. The traffic will be terrible.’

  ‘It’ll be alright by tonight,’ said Annette, without looking up from her work.

  ‘There was a bus crash up my way last week,’ said Joan. ‘A bus went over on its side going round a corner. It ended up leaning up against a lamp-post. Imagine sitting on a bus that was leaning up a lamp-post.’

  Annette kept her head down. ‘I suppose you would slope rather a lot.’

  ‘I mean,’ Joan continued amiably, ‘if you get a train you crash, if you get a bus you end up sloping. If you walk down the street a litter bin blows up.’

  Raymond had turned to go but turned back and rounded on Joan. ‘It’s not the same thing!’ he exploded furiously. ‘Honestly Joan, how can you say that!’

  Annette looked up. Raymond was usually polite to Joan. She was fifty-four and Raymond regarded himself as a gentleman.

  He continued. ‘It’s just that kind of immorality that lets the IRA get away with this sort of thing.’

  Joan was looking at him. She blinked.

  Raymond sighed. ‘A bomb exploding in the street,’ he explained patiently, ‘is not the same as a car crash or a train derailment. It is not an accident. It is something that someone has done deliberately. It is not something to be merely regretted. We need to take action!’ He concluded this speech by thumping the air with his fist, turning smartly on his heel and striding off down the office. Joan looked at Annette.

  ‘Raymond doesn’t have a member of the IRA handy,’ said Annette, ‘so it looks as though you’re the next best thing.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Joan.

  ‘I know,’ said Annette with a sigh. One of these days, she thought, I am going to push something unpleasant up Raymond’s left nostril.

  Joan stood and went to the filing cabinet. ‘Actually,’ she said as she returned to her desk, ‘I think maybe I did mean it like that.’

  Annette looked up again.

  Joan plonked the day file on her lap and unclipped it. She picked up a handful of papers from her in-tray and began to sort them into date order. ‘The fact is,’ she continued, ‘as far as we’re concerned, it might as well be like a bus crash. We have no control over it. It could happen any time. We just have to think about statistics and cross our fingers.

  ‘Someone might have died in that bomb we just heard,’ she added as she began to insert the pages into the file. ‘And as far as he or she is concerned, the important thing was that they walked down that street at that time, instead of stopping to buy a newspaper or taking another route. They went past the bomb. The bomb didn’t go past them.’

  No one had died in the blast. The bomb had gone off down a side-street near Lambeth Bridge, in a rubbish skip. Two homeless people sleeping in a doorway opposite had been slightly injured. Several windows had been blown out. The Evening Standard headline pasted to the newspaper sellers’ kiosks read, ‘LONDONERS DEFY BOMB TERROR’. Annette bought a late edition to read while she waited in a pub off Broadway. She was having dinner with an old schoolfriend.

  Later, she walked down Birdcage Walk and up Horse Guards Parade, to catch her train home. Whitehall was still cordoned off, even though the bomb had been streets away. There was a nice pub on Whitehall, she remembered, with snugs and wooden floorboards. It probably got evacuated nightly now.

  The snow had been falling all day and by early evening it had settled. Now it floated sparsely in huge flakes which swung from side to side as they descended. Trafalgar Square was empty. The occasional bus or car drove slowly through the slush. Orange street-lamps lit up an inky sky. As she crossed the square she made deep, fresh prints in the ankle-deep snow. The only sounds were the distant hum of traffic from the Strand and the soft swoosh of a passing black cab as it ploughed gently past the National Gallery. London, thought Annette with a sigh, is the most beautiful place on earth.

  By Friday the snow had gone rotten; melted into a deep brown dampness. Walking along a pavement was a treacherous business. Trying to cross the road was hell. Intermittently it drizzled or the wind blew but the weather couldn’t make its mind up. Commuters found its indecision irritating.

  Annette was visiting her mother that weekend and struggled into work with an overnight bag and a carrier full of old tights. Annette’s mother collected old tights.

  It had been a busy week. Richard had been in a panic over the Sports Grounds’ specifications. Raymond had had an urgent schedule. Expecting Joan to do anything complicated on the computer was out of the question. Annette had buckled down with grim determination, allowing herself a glimmer of satisfaction in the knowledge that without her the entire department would grind to a halt.

  Friday was a quiet day, thank God. Most of the boys were out on site visits. Richard had a project meeting at two thirty. It would be nice with him shut in his office for a couple of hours. He had been hurling dictation work at her all week with mounting frenzy. By Thursday, he had taken to emerging from his office, whistling, then tossing a tape at her from the door. It would sail over her computer to land in her in-tray or, once, on her head.

  She was half-way through the first memo when the telephone on Helly’s desk rang. She couldn’t see Helly from where she sat but knew she was supposed to be at her desk. Joan was out at a dental appointment. Annette let the phone ring six times be
fore muttering, picking up the receiver on her desk and pressing seven. It was Reception; some more of Richard’s visitors were here.

  ‘Helly?’ Annette stood in front of Helly’s desk. Helly had her arms resting on it and her forehead on her arms. She was trying to go to sleep.

  ‘What?’ Helly responded, without lifting her head.

  ‘Richard’s visitors have arrived. Go and meet them at the lift or you’ll be sacked.’

  Annette returned to her desk and replaced her audio headphones. She pressed the foot pedal. Richard’s crisp tones pronounced, ‘In addition, and furthermore, I draw your attention to my memo of . . .’

  Helly rose to her feet so slowly she nearly fell over. By the time she was half-way down the office, the gentlemen from Arnold & Sons had emerged from the lift and were standing in front of the swing doors, blinking.

  ‘Hello. This way,’ said Helly from approximately twenty paces. She turned smartly on her heel and led them back down the office at some speed. The two men trotted after her.

  At the door to Richard’s office, she paused. Then she tapped and opened it, standing back and gesturing for the men to go in. They moved forward hesitantly. She heard Richard greet them. She tried to close the door behind them but it caught on the second one’s heel. ‘Sorry,’ she said as he looked back. She went to pull the door shut but it was too late.

  ‘Helen!’ Richard’s voice called from inside the office. She rolled her eyes, fixed a smile on her face and opened the door.

  Richard was standing behind his desk. William, the new surveyor, sat on his right. Raymond sat on his left. One of the contractors and an architect were sitting in front of the desk. The two men from Arnold & Sons were struggling with plastic chairs which they were trying to fit into the small remaining space next to the architect. One of them had decided to sit on his chair first, grasp the edges with both hands and nudge it sideways.

  ‘We’ll have coffee thank you Helen,’ said Richard in a tone of voice that suggested politeness within the context of total command.