Rush of Blood (19 page)

It wasn’t as though she
never
worked on Saturdays. Still, Jenny had decided it would not be a good idea to let on that today she was actually calling from
home, on her own time. On her own dime, as he might have said.

She lay back on her bed, thinking things through.

That crack about transatlantic phone calls. Laughing and joking with her like any other colleague. Maybe a bit flirty too,
if that wasn’t her imagination running riot with her.

‘He looks sod all like Denzel Washington,’ Steph had said, when Jenny had shown her Gardner’s picture. ‘Well, maybe if Denzel
Washington had spent a fortnight eating nothing but doughnuts.’

‘He’s got this amazing voice.’

‘You can’t shag a voice …’

It was incredible timing, Jenny thought, to have called just when he was running down one of the leads she had given him.
He clearly hadn’t wanted to say too much about it though, so maybe he’d been unable to speak freely. Perhaps he’d been talking
to someone he didn’t want listening in on their conversation.

Cop talk.

She flicked the television on, then flopped back on to the bed, trying to decide what to do with the rest of her Saturday.
Steph was busy, but that didn’t matter. She might go and see a film, she thought, or there were two or three novels she’d
picked up and put down again. She might even just stay in and watch whatever the hell she wanted on TV, which was after all
one of the advantages of being single. Everyone was always banging on about being with somebody, but that didn’t always turn
out for the best, did it, even when you stayed together? Thinking about the likes of the Finnegans and the Dunnings and that
other weird pair, Jenny decided that being in a couple was not all it was cracked up to be.

You could have way more fun on your own.

Behind the counter, Devon or Deron poured out hot milk and said, ‘You’re usually in a bit earlier than this.’

Dave said, ‘Yeah, my girlfriend normally does the morning class at the theatre.’ He pointed back towards the Brixton Road.
‘She’s doing something a bit different today, that’s all.’

‘She an actress or something?’

‘Trying to be.’

‘Have I seen her in anything?’

‘She’s just starting out,’ Dave said. ‘It’s a tough business to get into.’

The barista nodded. ‘I’m really a guitarist …’

Dave took his coffee across to a table in the window and spread out his
Guardian
. Having admitted defeat with the espresso, he had decided to persevere a little longer with broadsheet newspapers.

He turned the pages slowly.

He should probably have just said, ‘Yes,’ to the bloke behind the counter and not ‘Trying to be,’ but still, asking if he’d
seen her in anything after that was pretty stupid. The truth was, he was never very comfortable talking about Marina to anyone.
He’d shown Kevin a picture at work, of course, because he’d wanted him to know how
gorgeous she was, but he tried to avoid any further discussion. He wanted to keep his private life private.

He wanted to keep her to himself.

He took a sip of coffee and felt his chest tighten as he remembered some of the things he’d said when he was out with Ed and
Barry. Things about him and Marina, personal stuff. He was not a drinker. He was only grateful that he hadn’t blurted out
anything else, that he hadn’t said too much. When Marina had asked how the evening had been, Dave had told her that Ed had
been showing off as usual, that Barry had been a bit surly. She had nodded as though expecting nothing else, still she knew
how much he’d been drinking so she had been wearing the expression that clouded her face if there was even a fraction of doubt.
Wanting to make sure there was ground he had not been stupid enough to cover. Up close, looking him in the eye and checking
for a reaction.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he had told her. ‘They’re idiots. I just listened to them talk rubbish all night.’

In spite of himself, he was still wondering what Ed had meant in the Indian restaurant. Calling him a weirdo, saying ‘exactly’
the way he had. Dave had struggled to keep his anger in check, to control his breathing, but he desperately wanted to know
what Ed Dunning thought of him; what all of them said about him and Marina behind their backs. Obviously nobody ever really
knew what anyone else was thinking and, on balance, that was probably a good thing. Like that film where the hero tells everyone
exactly what’s on his mind and his life falls apart very bloody quickly. But when it came to what people said and what they
actually thought, Dave considered himself more finely attuned to that everyday deceit than other people. More of an expert.
He told himself that he could see the yawning gap between the public and the private face; the breadth and the blackness of
it.

He drank his coffee, remembering a line from some book or film he’d seen somewhere.

Who knows what evil lurks in men’s hearts?

He smiled, thinking that in Ed Dunning’s case there was probably nothing lurking apart from the next shit joke and something
about the size of a woman’s tits.

Devon – yes he was sure it was Devon – wandered across and put a plate down in front of him. ‘Cheesecake,’ he said. ‘On the
house because you’re a good customer. My sister makes it …’

Dave said thanks and helped himself to a forkful. Sweet as it was, a sour taste came up in his throat as he thought about
dinner at the Dunnings’ place that evening.

Smiling and trying to keep that gap nice and wide. Then Ed making some crack about what he and Marina got up to in bed.

The hell there would be to pay.

Marina shifted in the hard seat of the plastic chair. She crossed her legs, uncrossed them again. She held on to the sides
of the chair.

Philip was looking up at her from the front row of the auditorium. ‘This exercise is called the “hot seat”,’ he said. ‘It’s
about staying in character, no matter what’s thrown at you … but it’s also about using what’s inside you, tapping into your
own feelings so that you can pass them on to your character. You OK with that?’

Marina said that she was.

‘I’ve been working on a character for you—’

‘What’s she called?’

He waved the question away. ‘We’ll find out. It’s who she
is
that matters, what she’s feeling. The way things are shaping up in my head, there’s definitely going to be a sadness in her
and maybe that’s because of something I see in you, and that’s what I want to get to this afternoon. You ready? You clear
how this works?’

She nodded.

Philip took a few seconds, then sat back and folded his arms. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Kelly,’ Marina said, quickly.

‘You live round here?’

‘Camberwell.’

‘And what do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a sex worker,’ she said. She gave her character a far more pronounced London accent than she had herself. She thought
it sounded pretty good. ‘A prostitute.’

He nodded, thought about it. ‘Are you happy doing that?’

‘Happy as you can be.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘What does “happy” mean anyway?’

‘I think
I’m
pretty happy …’

‘Well, I wouldn’t still be tossing off old men if I won the lottery tomorrow, put it that way.’ She was thrilled to see him
smile at that and had to control the urge to smile herself.

‘You got any kids?’

‘A boy and a girl.’ She was trying to think of names when he asked the next question.

‘You doing this for them, Kelly?’

‘Yeah, and to pay for what I need.’

‘You mean drugs.’

‘Would
you
do this unless you were completely out of it?’

He smiled again and held up his hand. ‘OK, that’s great, now stay in character please, hold on to that and stay focused, all
right.’

She nodded. She was still Kelly. She imagined herself walking up to the side of a car, leaning down to the window. The excitement,
the fear …

‘I love the way she’s making jokes to mask the sadness I was talking about,’ he said. ‘That’s great. But I want to go deeper.
I want to
expose
it. Once we’ve done that we can put it back in its box, but we need to bring it out into the light and see it for what it
is …’

She had a short leather skirt on, a denim jacket, fuck-me heels.

‘Just close your eyes and get centred,’ Philip said. ‘I want you to think of something that makes you sad … maybe it makes
you angry … just focus on whatever that is. If it’s a person, focus on his face, on every detail you can remember …’

She shook her head, but her very reluctance seemed to make Philip
even more excited. He stood up and his voice moved from a quasi-hypnotic drone to something rather harsher.

‘Focus on it.
Use
it …’

It was easy. Uncle Ian. Her dad’s best friend who was not really an uncle and who was not the man her father thought he was.
The smell of fags and barley wine on him and the turn of her stomach and the blankets pulled up tight to her chin when the
door squeaked and the light spilled into her bedroom and Uncle Ian stepped inside.

Her breath caught.

Philip said something but she couldn’t make it out. He raised his voice and said, ‘Tell me where you are?’

Light blue wallpaper with small yellow flowers on it. The lamp with a tear in its shade. A shelf above her bed with all her
books and animals and a metal money-bank like a miniature red pillar box.

She said, ‘I don’t want to.’

‘Tell me who’s there, Kelly.’

She wasn’t Kelly and she couldn’t do this. Why was he making her do this? What was wrong with what she’d been doing? Making
things up and thinking about how she looked and doing the London accent. That was good, wasn’t it? That felt like acting.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this …

Dave was the only person she had ever told. It was what had brought them together in the first place. That shared experience.
She remembered him finding her crying in the corner at that stupid party. Thinking she was drunk until they’d started talking
and it had all come pouring out of her. He’d made it clear that he understood, that he knew what she had gone through. He’d
told her that none of it was her fault, none of it.

They had talked all night and then, as usual, she’d fucked the pain away.

She opened her eyes. Philip was walking towards the stage and rummaging in his pocket.

He thrust a tissue towards her and said, ‘Let it out, OK. It’s all useful. Come on, let’s go and talk about it.’

*

In the dressing room, Philip produced a tobacco tin and took out a ready-rolled joint. ‘Do you want some of this?’ he asked.

‘People will smell it,’ she said.

He lit the joint. ‘I’m not scared of a few geriatric tap dancers.’

It was strong stuff – skunk, he told her – and her head was starting to spin after just a couple of tokes. Philip was waving
his arms and talking about the play he was writing for them all, how the part he had in mind for her was definitely the most
important.

She nodded along and tried to follow what he was saying.

At some point he started talking about his wife and kids. He said something about how his students were like children, like
older children and how he hated to see them upset.

Then he leaned in to kiss her, and she let him.

Barry had started to lose it from the moment his ex-wife picked up the phone. Something to do with just hearing her voice,
like those dogs in that experiment, didn’t matter what sort of mood she was in. Still, better her than that arsehole accountant
she was shacked up with, who cycled everywhere and had bought his son a fucking Chelsea strip for crying out loud. Now he
really
knew how to wind Barry up.

Hiya, Barry. How’s it hanging, mate? Let me put her on
…

Not that winding him up was particularly difficult these days. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he’d been flying off the handle a
lot lately, that almost anything was liable to set him off.

Like walking on eggshells, Angie kept saying.

Two minutes, that’s all the time the miserable bitch had given him on the phone with Nick. Barely time to get beyond hello,
for Christ’s sake. ‘Why d’you keep doing this?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t I talk to my own son on the phone for more than two bloody
minutes?’

‘He’s got homework to do,’ she said.

‘Come on, it’s Saturday.’ She said nothing. ‘I’ve got rights.’

‘You’ve got no rights,’ she said.

He recognised the signs, but as per usual, by the time he did it was
too late to do anything about it. The prickle of sweat across his chest, the ache in his jaw from grinding his teeth.

He had all but ground the buggers to dust that night on the piss with Ed the smartarse and Dave the dickhead. It was general
things, like the fact that he was actually younger than Ed Dunning but somehow felt years older. The way Ed and Dave had shared
looks, like he wasn’t quite bright enough to appreciate their double act as much as he should. More specific stuff too, like
Ed’s pathetic leering at anything with knockers and thinking he was Mr Entertainment, or Dave sucking up to him like the weedy
kid in the playground and talking about what had happened back in Florida when he really didn’t know the first thing about
it.

Neither of them would know a solid piece of four-by-two from the holes in their arses. Neither of them knew how smart he was
and
neither
of them had the first idea what had happened to that girl.

His ex-wife was talking. Lecturing him. He had to concentrate to make it out above the hiss that might have been on the line
or in his head.

‘I need to talk to you about maintenance,’ she said.

The prickle of sweat was spreading. ‘Look, I know.’

‘You’re behind and I don’t want to go to my solicitor about it, but I will if I have to.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘So, don’t make me.’

Why the hell was she being like this? Why was everybody doing their level best to screw his life up? He felt like he was being
punched and punched.

‘We’ve lost a couple of big jobs lately,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Not my problem, Barry.’

‘Things’ll pick up.’ He was squeezing the phone so hard that his knuckles had whitened and his arm was locked solid. ‘I just
need—’

‘You could get a loan,’ she said.

‘Come on.’

‘Borrow some cash off your brother.’

‘Why don’t you—?’

‘He’s always been better than you at managing his money.’

‘… just go and fuck yourself!’

She hung up and he shouted out the last two words again as he smashed the phone back on to its cradle.

Angie had called up to tell him that tea was ready and was just setting his Arsenal mug on the counter when Barry came into
the kitchen.

‘What the hell have you done to yourself?’ she asked.

He looked down at his fist and tightened the bloodied wad of toilet paper that was wrapped around it. ‘Stupid,’ he said. ‘I
broke one of the windows in the bedroom.’

‘You all right, love?’

‘I cut myself trying to board it up, that’s all.’

Angie passed Barry his tea and told him it didn’t matter. She did not need to listen to some half-arsed explanation. She knew
that he had gone upstairs to phone his ex.

‘I’ll get one of the lads to come round and sort it out tomorrow,’ he said.

They sat at the island and drank their tea. Angie fetched the biscuit barrel and they both dug in.

‘I’ve still got a good mind not to go tonight,’ Angie said.

Barry dunked his biscuit. ‘Suits me.’

‘I mean, I almost certainly wouldn’t have gone for that stupid drink anyway, I’ve got too much to do with the kids, but it’s
nice to be asked, isn’t it? Especially when I was the one that got the ball rolling, when it was me that got everyone together
in the first place. Plain bloody rude, that’s what it is.’

‘Maybe you missed an email or something,’ Barry suggested.

She shook her head. She hadn’t missed anything. It was no great mystery to her because she’d been through the same thing plenty
of times at school and knew exactly what was going on. The cool, skinny bitches who did not want to be seen hanging around
with the fat girl. Even back then, much as she had cried about it and wished that things
were different, she had felt a small, warm glow of satisfaction, sitting on her own in the corner of the playground or playing
on her own. She knew that she was better than them because she was nicer. She would not grow up and hate herself because of
the way she had behaved.

She had comforted herself with that thought back then, sitting at the edge of the playing field or bouncing a ball alone and
thinking of all the horrible things she wanted to do to them.

‘Well, stuff them,’ she said.

Barry let out a long sigh. ‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now …’

‘No. Stuff them because we
are
going to go and
we’ll
be the ones with the moral high ground, right, love? We can sit there and look at their smug faces and they won’t know that
we know.’

‘Well, they’ll probably work out that I’ve told you.’

‘They won’t know for certain though, will they?’ Angie said, smiling. ‘And it suits me just fine to let them think they’ve
got away with it.’

‘Whatever,’ Barry said.

When the tea was finished, Angie told Barry to put the biscuit tin away, to ‘put a padlock on the bloody thing’. She watched
him slouch across to the cupboard; the small steps and the rounded shoulders like he was carrying the weight of the world,
and said, ‘You really don’t want to go tonight, do you?’

‘They’re not our sort, are they, Ange? Or at least … they don’t think we’re their sort.’

‘I thought you had an OK time,’ Angie said. ‘When you went out with Ed and Dave. I mean, I know Ed can be a bit of a pillock
…’

‘It’s Dave I really can’t work out,’ Barry said. ‘Who the hell he is, I mean.’ He came back to the central island and sat
down. ‘It’s like he’s just trying to please everyone or something, like he … adapts. He’s Jack the Lad with Ed, talking about
birds or whatever, “I’ll have what he’s having,” all that. Then with his missus he’s all meek and sensitive. Like whatever
you call it … a new man.’

Angie nodded. She had noticed something similar herself, thought Marina was exactly the same, that the two of them were probably
very
well matched. ‘I know, but isn’t everyone a bit like that? Trying to fit in.’

‘Not me, mate,’ Barry said. He slapped his hand on the granite. ‘What you see is what you get.’

‘Unfortunately.’

‘What?’

‘I’m joking,’ Angie said, reaching across to rub the back of his hand.

And she was. She knew that her silly sod of an old man would do almost anything for a quiet life and yes, there were certainly
things she would change, top of the list being lengthening that short fuse of his. But as much as she believed anything, Angie
believed that Barry was fundamentally honest and decent.

Whatever that stupid cow of a copper might have thought.