Games People Play (38 page)

‘Don’t put yourself down. I am sure they are very good. I would like to see them.’

I laugh. ‘Come up and see my sketches some time…’ Good grief, am I flirting?

I think I must be. Karl leans towards me and looks in my face. He has the most amazing hazel eyes. ‘I would love to,’ he says slowly, and his hand comes up to cup the side of my face. My skin is cold, but his hand is warm. Just as the boat chugs alongside a little wooden jetty by the magnificent palace, he leans further in and kisses me, so gently that at first his lips and mine just brush together. It’s so sensual that the shock reverberates through my body, making my bad knee jump.

I wince with pain and put my hand protectively on my knee. He puts his on top of mine. And kisses me again, this time more firmly, pressing me back against the boat rail. My head is spinning from the wine and the pleasure of it. As far as things that hurt my knee go, this is a whole lot more fun than physio...I close my eyes and sink into the kiss.

When I open them again, the Japanese tour party is filing past us off the back of the boat, politely averting their eyes. Karl laughs and hugs me.

‘I have wanted to do that ever since I met you in Italy,’ he says.

I am astonished. ‘Italy? Really? But ...I thought...Mum…’

Karl looks a little embarrassed. ‘I think Susie is a wonderful woman also,’ he says. ‘I like her very much. But not in the way I like you. I did want to see her again, and I would like to have her as a friend. I hope she won’t be offended, but, most of all, I wanted to see her so that I could meet you again. I really like you, Rachel.’

‘How old are you?’ I blurt drunkenly, too nonplussed properly to acknowledge what he’s just said.

My cheeks have gone from freezing to flaming in the cold river air.

‘I am thirty-two,’ he says solemnly. ‘Single, mature, loving, sensible, solvent. All my own hair and teeth.’

‘But you live in Germany. Or Italy. Or both.’

‘
Ja
.
But I am still single, mature, and so on. And in fact I am thinking of settling down in one place soon. I am tired of not having a real home.’

‘And which place might that be?’

We are alone on the boat now, apart from the bar staff and boat crew. Karl stands up and hands me my crutches, then he picks up the bag of our lunch remains. He puts a proprietorial hand gently on my back as I hop towards the gangplank.

‘I think English crisps are so good,’ he says, giving me a sideways glance. ‘I would like to live somewhere which had good crisps.’

‘Yes,’ I reply, limping slowly back on to dry land, feeling the earth rock slightly beneath my feet in an echo of the boat’s motion. The palace looms next to us, huge and imposing under suddenly blue skies.

‘English crisps are excellent.’

Susie

After I dropped Ivan home, I went back to the restaurant where Karl and I had initially planned to meet. It was only an hour later, but to my surprise he and Rachel weren’t there, and the waitress insisted that nobody on crutches had been in. There didn’t seem to be any other restaurants nearby, and when I tried Rach’s phone, it went straight to voicemail.

I felt a little hurt, in one respect, but relieved in another. I wasn’t really in any fit state for a date, and it would do Rachel good to get out and have some fun.

Karl was a gentleman; he’d look after her. Who knows, I thought idly as I got back in Gordana’s car, perhaps he’ll be her stepfather someday – but the thought seemed so preposterous that I stamped on it immediately. I didn’t want to marry anybody else. I just wanted Billy.

Oh, snap out of it, Susie, I told myself. It wouldn’t do me any harm to play a little hard to get. Let Karl ring me if he wanted to reschedule our date. I don’t have to
marry
the man. It was just nice to have the attention.

Gordana had her car radio tuned to a talk radio station and, as I was driving in the direction of Corinna’s house, an item caught my attention. A man was discussing how he and his family were trying to rebuild their lives after he’d spent three months in jail for viewing images of child pornography, and explaining why he thought the Internet industry should take more responsibility for this crime.

I sat up straighter at the wheel and listened carefully. From the UK alone, he said, there had been seven thousand customers downloading stuff from just one illegal site in Texas, all traced by their credit cards. More than three thousand people arrested, seventeen hundred charged, and thirteen hundred investigations still ongoing ...Wow. I wasn’t sure if it made it better or worse to think that Ivan was not alone in his charges. But I was sure by now that Ivan hadn’t done this. I believed him when he’d said he was innocent – although I wondered if all three thousand people arrested were saying the same: ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it’.’

I was distracted by a grey squirrel running into the road right under the wheels of the car in front. I saw the car jog slightly as it extinguished the animal’s life in an explosion of guts, and I felt sick at the sudden, unintentional brutality of the death. The injustice of life sometimes felt almost unbearable.

Then the interviewer asked something interesting, and I forced myself to concentrate on the radio again:
‘How can the police prove that someone else didn’t
download the material with your credit card?’

I’d been wondering about that, too.

‘
Well, of course it does happen. People are often
reluctant to use their own cards, in case it gets traced
back to them. Most people are aware that it can be
...
.’

Not Ivan, I thought. Ivan couldn’t even do his grocery shopping online, from what Rachel said.
‘...
so they
use a stolen card or, more commonly, a borrowed one
.’

‘
But surely the police can tell which computer the
material has been downloaded on to?’

‘
Yes, of course, and when the same person owns the
computer and the credit card, it’s pretty conclusive
,
but it takes the police months to sift through all the
files on all the computers they’ve impounded, which is
why the cases often take so long to come to trial
.’

Huh, I thought. That explained a lot. I had a mental image of a huge warehouse piled to the rafters with a jumble of impounded computer equipment and a team of weary-looking investigators standing in the doorway looking at it all in despair. Two words caught my attention: ‘time stamp’. I listened more closely.

‘
Anything you do on a computer creates a “time
stamp” which can be easily checked – it’s one of
the first things the analysis team would look for. If the
suspect is denying it, it’s his chance to come up with
an alibi
.’

Prickles ran down my back and in my excitement I mounted a pavement when turning the corner into Corinna’s road. If someone really had set Ivan up, they’d have to have broken into the house to do it, when neither he nor Anthea were there. He and Rachel travelled so frequently, and from what I understood, Anthea didn’t like being in the house on her own when he was away, so once the investigators got the time stamp sorted out, surely there was a good chance Ivan could prove his innocence, since he could well have been away when the crime was committed?

Parking badly over Corinna’s neighbour’s driveway, I was rushing inside to call Ivan – but I hadn’t even reached the front door before doubts began to assail me again. Surely this was the first thing Ivan’s solicitor would have suggested? Ivan hadn’t mentioned it as a possible get-out clause, though. Was it possible the solicitor wouldn’t know about time stamps? Also, there had been no evidence of a breakin at the house.

Unless – and this was more likely – someone could have done it from the office at the tennis club? Perhaps the police had just seized the wrong computer? After all, all they had to go on was the evidence of payment on Ivan’s credit card ...oh. That hadn’t been reported as stolen either. And presumably there’d be a date and time recorded on the credit card transaction too.

My head was still whirling when I let myself into Corinna’s house with the spare key she’d lent me. As I stood in her small, silent front room, surrounded by her tasteful vases and arty prints, with the smell of her perfume faintly hanging in the air, I wondered how long I’d be staying in other people’s houses, feeling like an intruder amongst their possessions and taste in decor. Maybe not for much longer – Corinna had been hospitable, but I knew she wouldn’t want me there longterm, and I didn’t feel comfortable at Gordana’s, not with everything that was happening.

As I reached for the phone, I felt a sudden pang of yearning for Lawrence, and for my own things in my own house. My house – our house, as it was – wasn’t immaculate and shiny and minimalist like Corinna’s. Our house had cat hair in the sugar bowl, a blow-up armchair mended with Band-Aids (I was amazed Billy hadn’t popped it altogether by dropping lit joints on it), and an unfortunately swirly bedroom carpet we’d never got around to changing. There was no art on the walls, just a few dreamcatchers and some old film posters in clipframes, which I’d never stand for if I lived in England, but which in Lawrence was perfectly fine.

In just a few months, it would be spring again; in Lawrence, the stabbing cold and bleakness of winter would be melting into something green and fresh, skies swept clean and blue by warmer winds, trees budding and people shedding their overcoats and mufflers like a rebirth. Newport and Pavonia would stop pretending they didn’t know how to operate the cat-flap and would be frisking in the garden again, chasing birds and beetles. It was too early for mosquitoes and chiggers, so I could be outside in the grass all day and evening without first having to poison myself with insect repellent, and I could be in the sun without getting burned to a crisp. It was my favourite time of year.

I want to go home, I thought. Surely I’d be back in time for spring. But how could I leave Rachel with all this going on around her? I still felt responsible for her knee injury.

Besides, I still wasn’t sure if I could face going back to my house without Billy in it. At least, not before Christmas. Christmas without Billy was far too depressing to contemplate.

I didn’t call Ivan. Not straight away. On impulse, I dialled Billy’s number at the garage instead. He always started work early, so I thought he ought to be there. I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d come round to take more of his stuff to Eva’s, about a week after I discovered them holding hands in the deli.

‘Billy Estes Mechanics, Billy speaking.’ His familiar voice wavered a little over the distance, and I imagined with wonder the speed of it, travelling through sea-bed cables.

‘Hi, Billy, it’s me.’

There was a pause, infinitesimally longer than the transatlantic delay. ‘Hey, Susie, how are you, honey?’ He sounded formal but friendly.

Not your honey any more, I thought. ‘I’m OK. I’m in England, staying at Corinna’s.’

‘Yeah. I ran into Audrey at the drug store and she mentioned you were taking some time out after your ski trip, and that she was feeding the cats. How was it, by the way, your trip?’

‘Terrible. Rachel broke her leg really badly. She still can’t walk on it. She might not be able to play again for a year.’

I heard him exhale. ‘Wow, that’s awful. Tell her I’m sorry, would you?’

‘Sure.’

Another pause, more awkward this time. Annoyingly, my eyes filled with tears.

‘So, how have you been?’

Now he sounded tender, and I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.

‘Well. You know. Not great, really. I want to come home, but I don’t want to ...I can’t face…’ Come on, Susie, I told myself. Hold it together. I took a deep breath. ‘There’s been all kinds of awful stuff happening here. Gordana’s got cancer—’

‘Oh, man, that’s terrible.’

‘That’s not the half of it. Ivan got arrested for downloading child porn. He’s waiting to go on trial, in a total state. Swears he didn’t do it. And Anthea’s dumped him – it turns out he’s been sleeping with some young player behind her back; well, behind mine, too, it started when we were married….’

As usual, once I began, it all came falling out. I could imagine the surprise on Billy’s face; the way he’d be looking into the middle distance, frowning with concentration as he tried to keep up with my torrent of words. It was such a relief to talk to him. I’d missed having him to confide in, so much.

‘Jeez, Susie, sounds like you landed right in it there. But what about you? Are you OK?’

He keeps asking me that, I thought irritably. ‘No, like I said, Billy, not really. I’m coping fine. I think I’m even maybe starting to get over you. But I’m worried about Rachel and shocked about Gordana and feeling sorry for Ivan, believe it or not. I want to come home to Lawrence, but I feel trapped here by everything that’s going on, and it’ll be a long time before I’m really going to be
OK
again.’

‘Sorry.’ Another pause. ‘Susie. Look, I really am sorry about what happened . . .’

‘I don’t want to hear it, Billy. Don’t tell me. I’m sorry I called – I just missed you. I wanted to hear your voice.’ The tears came back, although I was fighting them as valiantly as I could. I had to go before he heard them creep into my voice.

‘I miss you too, Suze,’ he said quietly.

I leaned back in Corinna’s huge beige leather sofa (‘Taupe, sweetie,’ she called it). It made a loud farting noise for which I hoped Billy wouldn’t think I was responsible.

‘I’ve got to go now,’ I said, feeling worse than before.

‘When are you coming back?’ he asked, a plaintive note in his voice.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I need to make sure Rachel’s all right first. And Gordana. Even Ivan, in a weird sort of way. I just heard something on the radio which might possibly help him out. I was about to call him when for some reason I found myself calling you instead . . .’

‘Well, give me a holler when you’re back. It would be...I mean... Can I ask you one thing? Have you, you know, met anybody else? You and Ivan seem to be more close than you used to be . . .’

I rolled my eyes and tried to sniff discreetly. ‘Would you care if I had met someone else? Or got back together with Ivan?’

‘I know I’ve got no right to ...but yeah, I guess I would care. Sorry. I know it’s out of order of me.’

Sorry for what? I thought. Sorry for caring that I’d met someone else, or sorry for blowing my life apart? All these sorries, none of them making a blind bit of difference to the way things were, and would be, forever.

‘Yes, Billy, it’s way out of order.’

I considered telling him about Karl, but decided against it, mostly because nothing looked like it would ever actually happen between us, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted it to now.

‘But for what it’s worth, no, I haven’t met anybody new. Or re-met anybody old, either. And I don’t even want to ...I really am going now. Take care, OK?’

‘You too, Susie.’

There was a pause into which I was sure, absolutely certain, that we were both silently whispering ‘B.I.L.Y.’ to one another. I put down the phone, made a note of the length of the call so I could reimburse Corinna for it, and then howled into one of her expensive embroidered silk cushions. I had to replace it upside down on the sofa, in the hope that she wouldn’t notice the large teary mark all down the middle of it.

What the hell did I go and call him for? I thought. As if I wasn’t missing him enough already.

Later, when I’d calmed down again, I reflected on how odd it had been to hear Billy hesitant like that. One of his most endearing qualities was his utter naturalness. You could put him into any situation and he would be completely at ease. Even when I plunged him into an Anderson family Christmas that time, with Ivan glowering and Gordana fussing and Anthea uptight enough to cause stress to a coma victim, even then he took it all in his stride. He just sat back, beamed at everyone, offered to help as if he’d known them all for years, and generally exuded calm.

Or perhaps he’d been high ...Oh well, whatever the cause, it was his default characteristic, and he sounded different without it. I remembered when we first got together, that too had seemed so natural that I felt none of the pressure of a first date or a new relationship. Billy had just said to me one day at the Crossing, after Ivan and I had split up and I’d moved back to Lawrence: ‘Hey, I’m going to the grocery store. Wanna come with me?’