Читать книгу A Line of Blood - Ben McPherson - Страница 13

That first night the sex was drunken and good-natured. Millicent allowed me to believe I had charmed her into bed.

Later we had sat side by side and eaten breakfast at an all-night café in Holborn. I was surprised to find she was nervous. She spilled orange juice in my lap, was mortified, apologised like an English girl. I offered her my last cigarette – she’d long since finished her own pack – and she gulped the smoke down with obvious relief, her spine lengthening, her shoulders descending, balance and poise returning to her body. She took another of her double drags and handed the cigarette back to me. She liked me, I realised, and I liked her. Even when sober. So I told her.

‘Why? What do you like about me?’

Why did I like her? I knew next to nothing about her, had told her next to nothing about myself. But something had made me say it.

‘You’re good at smoking. You slept with me on the second date. You have slightly inverted nipples. And you’re foreign. What’s not to like?’

‘Don’t try to charm your way past the question, Alex.’

‘OK. Sorry.’

‘Do you? Like me? I kind of need to know.’

‘Yes, I like you.’

On the fourth day she flew back to the States without much explanation. She came back ten days later. She had broken up with her boyfriend. Moved out of their rented apartment. Sold her things and come to Europe.

‘Your boyfriend? Your apartment?’

‘It wasn’t working out.’

A bolter, friends said. Watch yourself. But I was younger then, and I was flattered by the impulsiveness of her choices. The girl I met in the pub.

When I asked her where her luggage was, she pointed at her bag. She had taken a courier flight from LAX. One large leather handbag. She really had sold everything. She had a week’s worth of underwear. Two t-shirts. Two skirts. One pair of trousers. She had £1,500 in cash. She would work, she said. You can’t, I said, you need a permit.

‘About that,’ she said. ‘I had a couple of thoughts.’

So we entered lightly into marriage; so, at least, it seemed to me then.

I lay still in our tiny double bed, listening. I had a memory of her sliding from the bed at first light, of her whispering something to me, tender and loving.

Birds and traffic. A family shouting on a back patio. And computer keys.

I got up and pulled on a clean pair of pants. Max’s door was open, his room empty. I opened the door to Millicent’s office. A desk, a chair, a computer and Millicent in her kimono dressing gown. A spare bedroom without room for a bed. Millicent didn’t look round.

‘That bad?’ I said.

‘What?’ she said, typing, her fingers floating elegantly across the keys, fast and precise. Her feet twitched reflexively.

‘You’re typing with your feet. You’re nervous. What are you worrying about?’

She turned, gave me a look of mock irritation, then turned back to her screen.

‘I’m preparing a little. For this evening.’

‘I thought it was unscripted.’

‘It pretty much is.’

‘Looks scripted to me, Millicent.’

‘So kill me, I’m nervous,’ she said. ‘Also, a guy with a drill just fitted a lock to the neighbour’s front door. Which is more than a little disconcerting. Why would they feel the need to do that, Alex?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He just … I can’t believe he just … went like that.’ Her eyes clouded, and for a moment I wondered if she was going to cry.

‘London,’ I said.

‘Maybe so,’ she said. ‘Yeah. Maybe it’s London.’ She sighed. Then she drew herself together again and the sadness was gone. ‘How many words is two hours, Alex?’

‘Three words a second,’ I said. ‘Makes 180 words a minute, 10,800 words an hour. Call it 21,000 words. Minus commercial breaks, which are about a quarter of the programme. So 15,000 words.’

‘Huh,’ she said. ‘That is a lot of words.’

‘It isn’t,’ I said. ‘Not really. Where’s Max?’

‘He fixed his own breakfast and went to school.’

‘He seem OK to you?’

‘So far. And yeah, I’m watching him for signs.’

She went back to typing. My wife at her desk.

I tried to distract her by cupping her breasts in my hands. She looked up at me and smiled, continued typing while she held my gaze.

‘How do you do that?’ I said. ‘Without looking?’

‘Neat, huh?’ she said, and turned back to the screen, carried on typing. I kept my hands on her breasts.

‘It’s a conversation,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to prepare. They ring, they tell you their problem, you answer their questions.’

‘So I’m talking, what, half the time?’

‘Less,’ I said.

‘So, that’s what, 6,000 words?’

‘Forget the word count, Millicent. You can’t script this. And you can’t write 6,000 words in a day.’

‘I never did this before, and I am super-nervous. Also, it’s forbidden to swear. And to smoke in the studio.’

‘You’re allowed to be nervous. You won’t swear. People will call. The station will filter out the hostile callers. You will help people who need help. The station will pay you. You can smoke outside during the commercial breaks.’

‘You think? You really think all of that?’

‘And as soon as you’re in it, you’ll remember what you know.’

Self-Help for Cynics. Millicent’s books had no truck with self-pity. They didn’t propose chanting, or detoxes, or relentless positivity as solutions to relationship breakdowns and bereavement. They were tough and funny, but had at their core an understanding of real emotional pain.

Make your play and move on. Books for people like us, a generation of people who layer themselves in irony, people who would never be seen buying a self-help book because that would be absurd. Then, suddenly, the same eternal question: what to do? Or, as Millicent put it:

‘Which version of you are you planning to be, when you climb out the well you just filled with your shit? Sooner or later you’re going to have to swim to the top and drag yourself out. Make your play, and move on.’

Millicent’s cynicism, of course, was a well-constructed front. She could speak the language of the cynic, but she knew – and I know she still knows – that she’s an idealist to the core. She believes in love, and she believes that people are redeemed through loving each other. She could never allow herself to say as much – Millicent knows it would destroy the brand if she did – but Self-Help for Cynics worked because it was one bruised romantic talking to other bruised romantics, using the language of the disaffected.

People began to write to Millicent. ‘I don’t know why they’re thanking me,’ she said to me when the first letters had begun to arrive. ‘It’s pretty obvious. Get some sleep for Chrissakes. Consider not taking drugs. Go for a walk. Try to remember sex.’

Millicent had followed Self-Help for Cynics with Adulthood for Cynics and Parenthood for Cynics. Bereavement for Cynics won a minor award and got her invited to the Hay Festival; Marriage for Cynics had won a major award and was sold at the checkouts of upmarket supermarkets.

I took my hands from Millicent’s breasts, leaned against her chair. ‘I’m married to a brand,’ I said. ‘What more could a modern man want?’

‘I’m a moderately successful author. Of self-help books.’

‘You’re a brand,’ I said. ‘We can move to Crouch End.’

‘I make forty pence a copy. I’m on probation at the radio station. We can’t afford to move any time soon.’

She stood up from her chair, turned around, stretched, stood on the balls of her feet, yawned and kissed me.

I turned her around again, crossed my arms across her chest and slid a hand into her dressing gown, holding her very close. She leaned into me, asked me why I was so sweet to her.

‘I’m not,’ I said.

‘And yet somehow you are.’

You see, I thought, she needs you too.

I sat at my computer. I logged four hours of city landscapes in ninety minutes. Maybe my workload was manageable. Maybe my work was just another logistical brick in our plan for Max. Maybe Millicent was right. Maybe this was no more than a scheduling problem.

At ten to eleven two police officers appeared on the other side of the street, watching our house. I put the man at around fifty, and the woman at thirty, maybe thirty-five. Dark suits, but definitely police. They looked different from the other officers we had met, but I couldn’t immediately say why. Something about their bearing.

I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and t-shirt. Millicent splashed water across her face, came downstairs in a white linen dress that came halfway down her thigh.

‘Interesting choice,’ I said.

‘Too short?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘How do you dress for the police?’

She beckoned me downwards, reached up and did something to my hair.

‘I guess this is pretty much who we are,’ she said.

‘You ready?’

‘You’d better believe it, you handsome fuck.’ She held my hand in hers, and I could feel that she was trembling. She was trying to build me up. She was as nervous for me as I was.

I could hear the officers’ voices outside the front door now.

‘Are they, like … hovering creepily?’ Millicent’s voice was hushed now.

‘Looks like it,’ I said.

‘Do you think they …’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They heard nothing. You’re beautiful and poised, and they’re here to talk to me. And we have nothing – nothing – to hide.’

The man said something to the woman, and both laughed. How relaxed they sounded. How unlike us.

‘Yeah,’ said Millicent. ‘Easy to forget. I don’t like this at all, and it hasn’t even started.’

I opened the door barefoot: this is us at home, as we always are. But as soon as the door was open it felt like a mistake.

The two officers were as neat as we were wild of hair. Their eyes scanned us up and down, this straight-backed man and this straight-backed woman in their exquisitely tailored plain clothes. They were a little older than I had realised. She was forty perhaps; he was sixty. They were different in other ways, too, from the police we had met so far: their clothes were expensive and they carried themselves with a confidence that comes with high rank. I looked past them out into the street. Probably an unmarked car. Almost certainly something fancy and German. If Mr Ashani had seen them he would have guessed what they were about.

How did we read to them? Me in t-shirt and jeans; Millicent blowsy in her short linen dress. Both of us barefoot. Parents. It was eleven o’clock.

Could they come in, did I think? No. I looked round at Millicent. No. I turned back to them, looked down at my feet, laughed a self-conscious laugh.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course.’ No.

‘We could give you five minutes.’

‘No need,’ I said.

‘Right then.’

‘We don’t wear shoes in the house. But you are welcome to, of course.’

No reaction.

‘You have to understand,’ I said, ‘that we’re under quite a lot of stress.’

They handed me their business cards. They were detectives of some sort. I glanced at the cards and handed them to Millicent, instantly forgetting their ranks. Millicent would remember if necessary. Derek and June.

Now that I had gathered myself I was angry at the intrusion.

‘Coffee?’ I said. The woman shook her head.

‘No, thank you, Mr Mercer,’ said the man. Derek.

‘Coffee, Millicent?’ I asked.

‘Coffee, Alex.’

In the kitchen I unscrewed the coffee-maker. Tapped the old grounds into the sink. Filled the reservoir with water from the tap. The detectives stood awkwardly, looking around, taking in the disarray of our lives. I put coffee into the little funnel, and screwed the coffee-maker back together. I lit the gas and set it on the hob.

Millicent sat down at the table, produced a packet of Marlboro and offered me one. I watched the she-detective, enjoyed her irritation as I nodded yes. June, she was called. I was short on sleep and long on caffeine and nicotine, in no mood to apologise for the mess. Let them wait.

Millicent took a cigarette for herself and tossed the pack to me. I caught it, removed a cigarette, and lit it from the hob. Millicent lit hers from a lighter she’d found on the table, and we smoked silently as we waited for the coffee, owning the kitchen.

‘So,’ I said, ‘any idea how long this is likely to take?’

‘An hour. Possibly two,’ said the woman. ‘It depends what you tell me, Mr Mercer.’

‘I really should be working.’

‘I suggest you ring your employer.’

‘I’m working from home this week.’

‘Well, then.’

‘So,’ said Millicent. ‘You guys don’t need to speak to me, right?’

There was a long pause, and the detectives exchanged a look.

‘Actually, Ms Weitzman, there is something I’d like to discuss with you,’ said the man. Derek.

‘OK.’

‘We can talk about it while my colleague is speaking to your husband.’

Millicent put out her cigarette, put her hand to her face, rubbed the bridge of her nose with her forefinger.

‘Sure.’ She gave a stiff little smile. ‘Shall we speak in the garden?’

‘That would be fine, Ms Weitzman.’

Millicent stood up and opened the back door.

‘Your coffee, Millicent,’ I said.

‘Oh. Sure. Thanks.’ She sent me that same stiff little smile.

I poured her a cup, poured one for myself. Millicent and Derek went out into the garden. She shut the door with great care. She didn’t once look at me.

‘What’s that about?’ I asked.

‘Just something we need to clear up with your wife, Mr Mercer.’

‘Alex.’

‘As you wish.’

‘But what do you have to clear up with Millicent?’

‘Your wife is at liberty to share the content of the discussion with you, Mr Mercer. As of course you are to share the content of this discussion with her. Now, perhaps we should both sit down.’

We sat facing each other across the kitchen table. I felt a sudden urge to apologise for our mess, to make some excuse for the rudeness we had just shown. It’s not you, I wanted to say. We’re all just a little freaked out at the moment.

We’re not bad people.

We’re good parents.

But that would only make me look weak now, and besides, it would change nothing.

‘So, Mr Mercer, you understand why we’re here?’

‘The suicide of our next-door neighbour.’

‘It certainly could be a suicide.’

‘Could be?’

‘We’re keeping an open mind, Mr Mercer. Now, before we go any further, I should say that we are aware that the experience of finding a body can be a traumatic one. We can arrange counselling if you should at any time find it necessary.’

‘It’s my son I’m worried about. This is tough on him.’

A patient smile. ‘I understand. But I’m also required to say that should you at any point require help in regard to what you have experienced, then we can assist you in arranging that help, either without cost or for a nominal fee. These things are tough on adults too.’

Since when were the police all pinstripes and counselling? I looked out of the window, but couldn’t see Millicent and the he-detective. Probably sitting down. On the love seat, I thought, and found the thought darkly funny. Millicent would be suffering spasms of social agony. She hated encounters with authority figures, especially authority figures with English accents.

‘Now then.’ The detective produced a small voice recorder and placed it on the table. ‘May I?’ Yellow-grey eyes, keen and unyielding.

I nodded. She pressed the record button, and told the machine where she was, and who she was talking to. Then she turned to look at me.

‘I should just say here at the start that you are by no means a suspect at the current time.’

‘At the current time? What are you saying?’

‘That you are not a suspect.’

‘You had me worried.’

This time there was more understanding in her smile.

‘We appreciate that the form of wording we use can seem vague. I hope you understand why we have to speak in these terms.’

‘Sure. Sorry.’

‘I need to start by asking you a little about your professional life, Mr Mercer.’

‘I’m a TV producer.’

‘And you work for?’

‘Myself.’

‘And what does that involve?’

‘It used to be said that you employed everyone else on set.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Now I pretty much just do what I’m told,’ I said.

These were her warm-up questions; my answers didn’t matter. She was establishing a pattern of question-and-answer, she was making it clear that she was in control.

‘I interview people on camera, so I know how this bit of your job feels.’ I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. She wasn’t trying to establish a rapport with me.

‘Do you have any imminent travel plans?’

‘I plan the shooting, and the editing. I have responsibility for the budget.’

‘Thank you. Duly noted. Your travel plans?’

‘There’s a whole lot of other stuff too. I also direct.’

‘All right, Mr Mercer,’ she said. ‘And do you plan to work outside the country in the next twelve weeks?’

‘New York. Next week. And Chicago. And LA. And San Francisco.’

‘Hmm. OK.’

‘Series with Dee Effingham. Her twelve favourite men in comedy.’

‘Duly noted.’ If she was impressed, she didn’t show it.

The real questions began. She asked me to tell her about finding the dead neighbour. She was patient and very thorough. She asked open-ended questions, never trying to antici-pate my answer. From time to time she would produce a small notebook from her inside pocket, write single words in block capitals. WATER. CRACK. ERECTION. If I started to interpret what I had seen, she would gently lead me back to the facts. All the while, the voice recorder sat at her side, bearing witness to my testimony.

Twenty minutes into our conversation, Millicent and Derek came in from the garden. Millicent was guarded, on edge. I tried to catch her eye, but she looked away, her attention focused on the detective, who nodded to his colleague but didn’t look at me.

I reached for Millicent’s hand, and she let it rest in mine for a moment. Then she was seeing the detective out of the room and to the front door.

As June and I talked, I heard water running in the bathroom upstairs, heard Millicent’s footfalls on our bedroom floor. Then I heard her coming down the stairs and quietly letting herself out of the house.

‘I’d really like to know what that was about now, please, if you don’t mind.’

‘And I’ve explained to you that I can’t discuss that with you, Mr Mercer. I’m sorry, I really am.’ She meant it, the sorry part. For the first time the professional distance dropped away; I could see something like sympathy in her eyes.

‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette? I could leave the back door open.’ She smiled. ‘And can I make some more coffee?’

‘Of course. I’ll have a cup too, if I may.’

This was worse. I didn’t want her pity, didn’t want there to be a reason for her to feel sorry for me. My hands shook as I made the coffee, shook as I lit my cigarette, shook as I handed her a cup.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Lack of sleep. And the fags probably don’t help. We both know we need to stop. For our son if nothing else.’

She gave me her sympathetic smile again, left her coffee cup untouched. I drank my own coffee and smoked in silence. I wondered where Millicent was.

‘Are you all right, Mr Mercer?’

‘Yeah, can we get this finished now?’

We were at it for another hour. The same patience, the same open-ended questions, the same absolute professionalism. But that edge of concern in her voice, the knowledge that she now felt sorry for me – that was unbearable.

‘You haven’t really asked me about Max,’ I said, as I realised the discussion was ending.

‘No.’

‘Are you planning to question him again? Because I don’t think he could take that.’

‘Mr Mercer, that would be a very different kind of investigation, and I don’t anticipate that.’

‘Meaning?’

‘You can draw your own conclusions.’ She smiled, that expression of concern again.

‘OK, so what happens now?’

‘We’ll be in touch. Unless of course you or Max wish to access any of the support services we have spoken about.’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘And I must ask you to remain in the country. You will need to reconsider your American trip.’

‘What?’

‘We’d like you to remain in the country.’

‘But you just said, or heavily implied that I, or rather that the investigation wasn’t …’

She cut across me. ‘Mr Mercer, you are helping us with our enquiries.’

‘But I’m not a suspect.’

‘Not at this stage.’

We ended the meeting, and she left me at the kitchen table, paralysed by my thoughts.

There was a thing, then. Some thing has happened.

It was the water that stirred me. For a moment I was sure I was wrong, that the tap in the neighbour’s kitchen could not be running. Then I knew that it was, and wondered why the sound troubled me.

I shook myself from my trance, became aware of my legs, rose slowly, trying to rub the sleep from them as I moved towards the wall that divided our house from the neighbour’s.

Water. Definitely water.

I put my right ear to the wall. Short percussive bumps. In pairs. And the water was still running.

I moved slowly to the sink, tipped wine from yesterday’s glass, shook out the last drops, and returned to the wall that divided our house from the neighbour’s. I placed the base of the glass against the wall, and put my ear in the bowl of the glass. Again those short percussive bumps. The sound was no clearer than before. I moved my head away, looked at the glass. Wasn’t this the way it was done? I turned the glass around, put my ear to the base of it; the sound was still no clearer. Pairs of percussive bumps. Still the sound of the water through the pipes.

I put the glass down on the table, and returned to the wall, cupped my ear to its smooth white surface with my hands.

A bump. A metallic crash. No second bump this time.

A woman’s voice. A cry of frustration.

I thought for a moment of Millicent, but why would Millicent be in the neighbour’s house?

I opened the front door and went out into the street.

‘Look, sir, look.’

Mr Ashani was standing on the pavement outside our house. He nodded towards the dead man’s house and made to speak, but I smiled and tapped him on the elbow, walked past him to the neighbour’s front door. Then I saw what Mr Ashani had meant me to see.

A locksmith had fitted two small steel plates, one to the door, one to the frame. They had buckled slightly, as if under force, and the padlock that had held them had given. Someone had placed the lock on the low wall in front of the house, as if meaning to replace it.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Indeed,’ said Mr Ashani.

‘No yellow tape, though.’ Perhaps the police weren’t thinking murder after all.

‘In this country, sir, police tape is blue and white.’

‘Well,’ I said, and folded my arms.

Mr Ashani shot me an uncertain half-smile and went back into his house.

I rang the dead neighbour’s bell. The door opened. I guessed at once that she was his sister. She was tall, and a little too slight for her frame. Her skin was very pale, and her brown hair hung crisply at her shoulders: the kind of woman my mother would describe as willowy. The kind of daughter my mother’s friends had. Pretty, in other circumstances.

‘Alex,’ I said. ‘I live next door.’

I looked past her. From here I could not see the sink, though I could hear the tap running in the kitchen. I could see the source of the crash, though. She had pulled a drawer out of its mount, and the sides had come away from the base as it landed. Impractical slivers of stainless steel were strewn across the kitchen floor. I guessed that the flat ones were knives, the curved ones spoons. The forks seemed to have only two prongs.

The words Crime Scene flashed across my mind. She doesn’t know.

‘I was making a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Trying to. Would you like one?’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

She stood, uncertain, as if waiting for me to say more.

Don’t go in.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry to ask you this, but you have spoken to the police?’

She nodded, and pushed the corners of her mouth inwards. ‘But not since the night. Not been feeling very sociable. Haven’t been charging my phone.’ There was a glassy look to her eyes, and I could see she badly wanted not to cry.

‘I don’t think you should be in there just now,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Why not?’

Because the police think I might, just possibly, have killed your brother.

‘Did you force the lock?’

She nodded. Etiolated, I thought. You wouldn’t think there was enough strength in those narrow shoulders.

‘I think the police fitted it,’ I said.

‘I slightly realised after I’d done it,’ she said. ‘Stupid, isn’t it, what grief makes you do?’

She looked at me and smiled, as if that explained it.

‘I think you need to turn off the tap and leave.’

‘Couldn’t you just come in while I get myself sorted out?’

‘I’m sorry, no. Is that your bag?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘You can come and sit with me, if you like.’

Mr Ashani must have been watching. He sprang from his house, and had his hand on my arm before I reached my front door.

‘Mr Ashani.’

‘Mr Mercer, I must speak with you.’

‘I’m a little busy just now, Mr Ashani.’

‘I wish to discuss with you what kind of man this was.’

Leave us alone.

‘I’m expecting his sister for tea. Perhaps we could talk later?’

‘This is a discussion we must have, Mr Mercer.’

For a while I didn’t think she would come. I made coffee and tidied up a little. I could still hear the tap running through the wall, and I guessed from the tiny scraping sounds that she was picking up the cutlery and trying to replace the drawer. Eventually she turned off the tap, and a minute after that she was sitting at our kitchen table.

Her name was Rose, and her hands shook as she drank her coffee. Her lower left arm was covered in silver bracelets, which glinted as she moved: a soft metallic sound, like breath. Why hadn’t I noticed before?

I suggested she speak to the police. I hoped they wouldn’t reveal that I was under suspicion, because there was something genuine about her, and I wanted her to like me. Even in her grief she was sweet and self-deprecating and funny.

‘Was it you who found him?’ she asked after a while.

‘Yes. And my son. We were looking for the cat.’

She nodded as if that explained it.

‘Thanks.’

We sat and drank coffee in silence. Then she asked if I minded if she smoked. ‘In the garden, I mean. Would that be OK?’

‘You don’t need to go in the garden.’

She produced a packet of Kensitas Club and offered me one. She took out a silver lighter and tried to light my cigarette, hand shaking.

‘You’re not really a smoker, are you?’ I said.

‘It’s that obvious?’

‘Girls like you don’t smoke Kensitas Club.’ I sniffed the cigarette in my hand. ‘And these are stale. You nick them from a party?’

The sadness lifted from her, and she smiled, making light.

‘Busted.’ A glint in her eye. More than just a nice English girl, then.

‘Want a proper cigarette?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

I lit two cigarettes at the stove, handed her one. She gripped the cigarette like a pen, took a drag, watched the smoke as it curled upwards. She was nothing like Millicent but she had something of the same underlying strength, some quality that made me feel I could trust her, almost as if we shared a secret, though if you had asked me to define what I liked about her I would have struggled, would have worried that you thought I was attracted to her.

‘Was it awful for you?’ The aching sadness was back. ‘Did it look as if he was suffering? I mean, of course he was suffering. He had to be to do that. But how did he seem?’ I could feel her struggling for the words. ‘Did he look all right?’

‘I think it was OK. He looked OK.’ I thought again about that rictus smile. Of course it was awful. The erection. The violence of it. Of course he didn’t look all right. But the poor man was someone’s brother. He was Rose’s brother.

‘He looked dignified. He looked peaceful.’

He looked murdered.

‘You’re a good man, aren’t you? Was it really not awful?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not good. Other people are good. And it wasn’t awful.’ I was lying to soften the blow.

‘You are good, you know,’ she said. ‘There’s kindness in your voice.’

She got up, asked if she could use the lavatory. Of course, I said, of course. I hoped we had shut the bedroom door.

When she came downstairs I could tell she had been crying.

‘He really wasn’t a bad man,’ she said. ‘It’s important you understand that.’

‘Why would I think he was a bad man?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You might. For what he did.’

I told her I understood, although in truth I did not.

‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the coffee, and for the cigarette.’

‘Coffee and cigarettes is pretty much all I’m good at.’

‘Don’t forget kindness.’ She took my hand in hers, then stopped as if embarrassed. ‘Will you come to the funeral, Alex? He didn’t know so many people. Bit of a loner.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Sure.’

Then she kissed me on the cheek and was gone.

I sat down at my computer at the kitchen table.

Max came home at four. He commented on the smell of cigarette smoke, made his own sandwich, and went up to his room. Then he came back down and asked me for five pounds.

‘What do you want five pounds for?’

‘We don’t have any milk.’

‘Milk doesn’t cost five pounds.’

‘OK, two pounds then.’

‘All right, Max. Here’s two pounds.’

‘Thanks, Scots Dad.’

‘There’s nothing mean about me giving you two pounds to buy milk.’

‘Do you want the change?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, Dad. You’re not mean at all.’

I ruffled his hair.

‘Want me to come to the shop with you, Max?’

‘No, it’s OK.’

I rang Millicent again. Left the same message again. Added that I missed her and wanted her to come home, then felt foolish and tried to rerecord the message. The answering service cut me off.

Max came home with a small carton of milk and a packet of Maltesers.

‘I don’t remember saying you could buy those, Max.’

‘You didn’t say I couldn’t.’

‘I said I wanted the change.’

‘Here.’ He handed me seven pence. ‘Do you want some Maltesers?’

‘Yeah. All right.’

I pushed my computer to one side. We sat at the table drinking milk and dividing up the Maltesers. Max got a kitchen knife and cut his Maltesers into halves, and then into quarters. He sat dissolving them on his tongue, then sticking out his tongue to show me.

‘What do you want for supper?’

‘It’s Mum’s turn to make dinner.’

‘I’m making it tonight.’

‘Fish and chips. From the fish and chip shop, not home made.’

‘OK.’

‘Can you give me the money, and I can buy it?’

‘Later, OK?’

‘OK, Dad. Dad?’

‘Max?’

‘Aren’t you going to eat your Maltesers?’

‘You have them, Max.’

‘OK. Dad?’

‘Max?’

‘Tarek said you’re going to send me to a psychiatrist.’

‘Why did he say that?’

‘I told him what I saw.’

‘Well, what you saw was pretty upsetting, wasn’t it?’

Max said nothing.

‘Max,’ I said, ‘Max, if you ever feel the need to talk about what you saw, doesn’t matter where or when, we can talk about it, OK?’

‘Is it because of the boner?’

‘What do you mean, Max?’

‘Tarek said that if you see a grown-up’s willy and it’s a boner then all the other grown-ups go spectrum, and you have to go to see a psychiatrist.’

I sat, trying to find an answer to this. Tarek had covered a lot of angles in one sentence.

‘So do I have to go and see a psychiatrist?’

‘I don’t know, I think it might be a good idea.’

‘Do you have to go and see a psychiatrist too?’

‘No, Max, I don’t think so. But Mum and I will be coming with you when you go for the first time.’

He bristled at the injustice of this.

‘You saw the boner too, Dad.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘So why don’t you have to go?’

‘Max, you’re eleven.’

Max rolled his eyes in that way only eleven-year-olds do.

‘In the next few years you’re going to be discovering a lot about your body. And about other people’s bodies. And Mum and I want to make sure that you don’t find that scary.’

‘I know about sex, Dad.’

‘I know you do, Max. But Mum and I want to make sure you’re OK.’

I tried to take his hand but he pushed me away.

‘Are you going to tell Mr Sharpe about the psychiatrist?’ There was humiliation in his eyes; his voice was very small.

‘Yes, probably. But he won’t tell anyone else. And if you go for a few times and Mum and I decide it’s not really necessary, then you can stop. OK?’

He picked up the rest of the Maltesers and went upstairs to his room. I sat, feeling worse than ever. I’d be angry with me too if I were him.

Max and I ate our fish and chips.

The doorbell rang. My first thought was Millicent without her key, and my second thought was the police.

It was Fab5.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘All right, Alex,’ said Fab5. He went through to the kitchen and sat in my chair, stole a large chip from Max.

‘Hey,’ said Max.

‘Good to see you too, wee guy.’

I had hoped Millicent would love Fab5. She never did.

‘Fab5? Like, we’re cool and we’re black and it’s 1979? Guy needs to accept his reality.’

Fab5 thought Millicent lacked a sense of irony; she thought the same about him. If you forced me I would side with Millicent; she saw from the start what I did not: that he had slipped his moorings, that he was adrift.

Fab5 was my oldest friend, though. True, there was something a little faded about him now, a little stretched around the edges. It was getting harder to laugh at the stories about women and cocaine. He partied a little too hard and his hair had taken on a warm red-brown sheen that doesn’t exist in nature. He knew this, though, and that’s why we were still friends. Behind the laughter there was a wistfulness for a time when he and I were young together, and London, it seemed, lay at our feet: a time before Millicent, in other words. I wondered sometimes if Millicent disliked Fab5 for that reason too – he was a reminder of a younger, less faithful me.

My wife worries that I might revert to type.

Fab5 helped himself to one of my cigarettes. ‘You going out like that, Lex? She’ll not be pleased.’

‘What?’

‘Dee, you incorrigible twat.’

Dee Effingham. The Sacred Cock at seven.

‘What time is it? And don’t say twat in front of Max.’

Max pushed his tongue hard against his cheek and made a two-tone mm-mm sound.

‘See, you’re corrupting my wee boy, Fab5.’ Twat was the right word, though.

‘It’s six twenty-five, Dad,’ said Max.

‘Run, Alex,’ said Fab5. ‘Run like the wind.’

It wasn’t till I was on Drayton Park that I saw the scarves and the hamburger boxes, and realised it was match day at the Arsenal. Even weaving through the side streets, I couldn’t avoid the football completely. I made the Sacred Cock at five to, but I’d half-run the last five hundred metres.

I ordered a pint of Flemish.

‘Hello, Gorgeous. What’s got you so hot and bothered?’

‘Oh, Dee. Hi.’

‘See, I blend in. Let me get that for you, hmm? Have you been running?’ She chucked a fifty at the barman.

‘Yes. You got me.’

‘You’ve got that freshly fucked man-of-the-city thing going on. Didn’t pull you out of bed, did I?’

‘I wish.’

‘So do I, Gorgeous. So do I.’

‘Do you kiss Middle England with that mouth, Dee?’

‘No, Gorgeous. First rule is never swear on the telly. And it’s all of England, you know. And Wales, and Northern Ireland. And, oh you know, those funny little people up north.’

‘Yeah, my mum loves you.’

‘Not your dad?’ She mimed a hurt little pout, shaking her shoulders, and for a moment her breasts had me in their forcefield: the dangerous ravine of cleavage, the smooth milk-white vastness. She made a show of following my gaze and gave a mock-seductive sigh. ‘Bad boy, Gorgeous. Caught looking.’

‘I was just wondering …’

‘Yes …’

‘… whether that was part of your clothing range?’

‘Nice recovery, Gorgeous. Sure that’s what you were thinking?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Because I could have sworn …’

‘I’m happily married, Dee, but if I wake up single tomorrow, you’re first on my list.’

‘And you think that choice lies with you. That’s so sweet, Gorgeous. So terribly tousled and sweet. And you would absolutely be second on my list …’

She insisted I match her drink-for-drink. We got quietly drunk in a corner, forgot to go upstairs to watch the comedy. I didn’t want to sleep with her any more than she wanted to sleep with me, but there was something so charismatic and so pretty and so direct about her that I started to understand why Middle England loved her so much. And I was flattered that she was flirting with me over her large glass of Chenin Blanc. Flattered, too, that she wanted to work with me. It would have been bad manners not to flirt back.

On my third pint of Flemish she got me on to Max. I pulled a photo from my wallet.

‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘Gorgeous begets gorgeous. Is his mother very beautiful?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’ll bet. Call your hot wife. Get her down here. And your son, if he’s still up.’

‘He goes to bed at nine.’

‘Not a showbiz kid, then?’

‘No.’

‘How very wise.’

And anyway, I thought, Millicent wouldn’t like this. Whatever this is. However innocent this is, Millicent wouldn’t like it at all. She doesn’t mind, she says, the arms across the shoulders, the drinks after work, and the nuzzling goodbyes. But she’s stopped coming out with me, and lies, instead, reading into the small hours. She’s always awake when I come home.

‘It’s the industry,’ I say, ‘it’s just what we do. No one’s screwing. Not since the 90s.’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I get that. Did I even say I mind? I don’t mind, Alex.’ But maybe this is my equivalent of out, thinking. Maybe it’s that part of me that’s unreachable to Millicent. Because she minds. I know she minds.

At half past eight I tried to decide what to do about Millicent’s radio programme. If I left at nine thirty I could hear the end of it, and be in for when Millicent got home. Perhaps I could catch the beginning of it on the download. I could check that Max was safely asleep.

At ten past nine I explained that I had to go.

‘But Gorgeous,’ she said, ‘we’re getting to know each other. Don’t you want us to know each other, Alex?’

‘Of course I do, Dee. Of course.’

‘That smile of yours,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly beguiling. Your wife is a lucky woman. Can she really not share you with me just a little more? Bit harsh of her, don’t you think?’

‘It’s not her,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’

We’re under such strain.

I had to be there.

‘And after all, Alex,’ said Dee. ‘After all I am technically your employer. Am I not? Because no me, no show.’ She put her right hand on her breastbone, and gave an ironic little pout. I laughed, but her words had a strained quality that told me I would be unwise to leave.

Over Dee’s fifth glass of wine, and my fifth pint of Flemish, she asked me, ‘So I’m wondering a little about your approach to fidelity, Gorgeous. How absolute is it?’

‘It’s very absolute. Absolutely absolute since I met Millicent. Thirteen years so far.’

‘And yet you make it sound like some twelve-step programme. Each day a new day in your struggle with the demon pussy. Were you always such a gorgeous absolutist?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘You’re going to tell me all about what a naughty boy you used to be.’

I have a memory of Dee’s hand on my knee, and of five Flemishes becoming eight. I spoke of my lapses as a younger man, and of my regrets. Dee was a good listener, and I was glad to be talking about something that wasn’t the neighbour. She teased, probed and massaged the information from me. I’m certain that I didn’t make a pass at her, nor she at me, but I don’t remember much more than the hand, the smile, and her boundless, limitless breasts. Fecund, fecund, fecund.

I did not tell Dee that I couldn’t go to the States with her. I had decided that I was going. Did June arrest me? No. Did June caution me? No. Did she politely but firmly ask me not to go? Yes, and I would let June down just as gently. I was going to America.

I got home at twelve, offended Fab5 by trying to pay him, checked that Max was asleep, and vomited three times into the bath.

Where was Millicent?

I sat, scooping chunks from the bath into the toilet. Then I blasted the bath with the shower attachment. The smell grew worse, and I realised I had transformed my gastric fluids into an easily absorbed aerosol suspension, shrouding the bathroom in a delicate mist of puke. But at least the bath looked clean now.

I lay down fully clothed on the bed, got my phone from my pocket. I dialled her number, got voicemail, was just smart enough to remember not to leave a Flemish-amplified message. I tried to picture her; I missed her; I wanted her body beside me, around me. But the Flemish in my veins kept distorting the signal, sending me Rose’s narrow shoulders and Dee’s endless breasts: I couldn’t find Millicent’s face through the electric fog of shash, ache for her as I might.

In a small metal box in a drawer on my side of the wardrobe I keep letters from the women in my past: the letters serve as a warning; I read them when I am tempted.