Burial (2 page)

Pete puffed and exhaled, saying, 'Freaky or what?'

The door creaked loudly and Nathan's heart exploded in his chest.

He looked over his shoulder, at the door, saying, 'Christ. I'm getting the fear.'

Bob told him, 'Sometimes, telling these stories acts as a kind of evocation.'

'Evocation

of what?'

'I don't know. Whatever.'

Nathan's feet were cold. The worn carpet was bitty on his soles. He said, 'What are you talking about?'

'I'm doing ghosts.'

'Doing ghosts.'

'Studying them.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Absolutely. I'm two years into a PhD. Psychology.'

'But there's no such thing as ghosts.' He cast a quick, guilty glance at Pete. 'Sorry, mate.'

Pete shrugged, unbothered.

Bob began to pack up his briefcase, saying: 'So, is Pete lying?'

'Of course he's not.'

'Is he mad?'

'No.'

'Was he seeing things?'

'No.'

'Then what happened?'

'I don't know.'

'Nor do I. That's why I'm studying it.'

Bob stayed a little while longer. They drank a cup of tea and Pete played his band's demo. Bob nodded along and seemed to approve; he promised to come to Pete's next gig. They all knew he wouldn't. Then he thanked Pete and told Nathan it had been good to meet him.

Bob said, 'See you later, then.'

Nathan thought: Not if I see you first. But he said: 'You must have an idea -- you must have an opinion.'

'On what?'

'On what they are. Ghosts.'

'They're any number of things. Illusion, delusion, hallucination.

Electromagnetic phenomena dicking around with the temporal lobe.

Infra-sound. All of the above, and more. Not many people know this, but most ghosts are spectres of the living. The ghost of a living person is called a fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'Yeah, right.'

'It's true,' said Bob, with the briefcase in his hand.

He said goodbye, and they heard him stomp down the stairs - then the creak and slam of the front door.

'Fuck me,' said Nathan. 'Where did you find him ?'

They laughed.

On the bass, Pete banged out the riff from Ghostbusters. Nathan said, 'Is it true? What you told him?'

He didn't see Bob again for four and a half years.

That September, Maple Road's tolerant old landlord died, leaving the house to his daughter, who put it straight on the market. Unprotected by tenancy agreements, the housemates drifted off and away.

After Pete's band, Odorono, split up, he moved to a squat in London. A couple of years later, Nathan saw a small picture of him in Melody Maker. Odorono had become the Odorons. They released one independent album before succumbing to musical differences.

Nathan was one of the few who bought the CD; it was called The Malibu Stacey Sessions. Nathan played it three times, and tried each time to like it but never could. He filed The Malibu Stacey Sessions at the back of his collection, where it couldn't shame him with his indifference.

Now

it was Christmas, 1997.

For three years, Nathan had been employed as a researcher on a late-night local talk-back programme called The Mar Derbyshire Solution. The presenter, Mark Derbyshire, was paunchy and balding - with a neatly shaped beard which failed to obscure his close physical resemblance to a beaver. He wore satin shirts in primary colours, open to the third button.

Usually, The Mark Derbyshire Solutions lonesome audience could be relied upon to trumpet their opinion on the day's news stories.

When those stories weren't conducive to late-night chat, Nathan had to dig up some current issue that involved paedophilia, satanism, immigration, child murder, miracle cancer cures, political correctness gone mad, or European integration. This was called research. Mostly, it consisted of reading the Daily Mail.

When this think-tank of the lonely was in proper, eye-rolling form, Mark Derbyshire and the show's producer (a louche and florid ex-Fleet Street hack called Howard) kept Nathan around simply to have someone to humiliate.

A great deal of Nathan's job, therefore, involved popping out to the local twenty-four-hour garage or supermarket to buy tampons, extra-strength condoms, laxatives, or K-Y Jelly. Sometimes all four.

Sometimes, if Mark was feeling especially beneficent, Nathan might be sent to get the Jag washed instead. Sometimes, he was sent out with a pocket stuffed full of five-pound notes; in the early hours of the morning, he was required to approach strangers -- in the street, on late-night garage forecourts and in taxi queues whereupon he would ask them for that evening's code word, which had been decided by Mark: it might be simply big brassieres, or it might be Nule Saddam, or it might be Mark Derbyshire is a Sex Donkey!

Slowly, this occasional item became a semi-regular feature.

Eventually it was given a name: A Fistful of Fivers, in Association with Infinity Motors, Ltd. Mark would send Nathan on to the street at 2

a.m. with 2,000 pounds in his pocket, cash. Nathan would hang around waiting to encounter some lucky member of Derby's Crew, which is what Mark called his listeners.

It didn't take Nathan very long to learn how to distribute the cash safely and quickly. Mostly, he handed wads of it to minicab drivers filling up at the twenty-four-hour garage round the corner - it was not terribly far from the police station.

Many of the cab drivers were regular listeners to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - although many of them, being immigrants, were also part of The Mark Derbyshire Problem.

Nathan was twenty-seven and at the fag end of a relationship with a girl called Sara, with whom he had once, not very long ago, believed himself to be in love. Now the sight of her nettled and demoralized him.

Sara didn't much like Nathan, either - so probably it was fortunate they barely saw one another. The Mark Derbyshire Solution was broadcast from midnight, which meant Nathan left for work shortly after 9 p.m. Sara worked in an office and didn't get home until 7.30. This left about ninety minutes for them to get through.

Nathan was pretty sure that Sara was sleeping with her boss, who was called Alex and looked like that kind of man.

There were hints. She'd taken to showering when she got home, as well as when she got up. She no longer wore her slightly tattier, more practical underwear to the office and her lingerie at the weekends; that behaviour pattern had suddenly (and neatly) reversed itself.

Nathan sometimes saw the flickerings of deceit in her face: the sidelong glance, the secret smile for a private allusion.

'Are you okay?' he would say.

'Fine,' she'd say - and smile that dreamy, knowing smile.

Nathan felt bad for her.

Now he'd decided the time had come to finish it with Sara; one of them had to do it. This is why he'd accepted that year's invitation to Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party. It was to be a kind of parting gift, and a kind of unspoken apology.

Sara didn't listen to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - it was on too late - but she'd always been impressed that Nathan worked for Mark Derbyshire, who had once been famous. And she'd always wanted to go to his party. But every year Nathan found an excuse not to.

The Christmas party had been written into Mark's contract when he still meant something, which was a very long time ago indeed.

But the radio station still paid for the drinks, the canapes and a miserable local wedding DJ to play some Boney M. records. Most of the senior management and a number of the station DJs and newsreaders felt compelled to attend. Many of the junior staff actively looked forward to it and so, apparently, did the communities local to Mark's house.

Before leaving for work on Wednesday evening, Nathan told Sara, 'So. We've been invited again.'

'To Mark's party?'

'To Mark's party.'

She froze, like a fawn in woodland.

Nathan was putting on his plaid jacket, the one he wore to work during the winter. He said, 'It's probably best if we don't go. There'll be a lot of drugs around, I expect.'

Ordinarily, Sara disapproved of drugs. But now exasperation flickered round the edges of her face. This was Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party, and the presence or absence of drugs was of no interest to her.

She grew demure. 'But I'd really like to.'

She said this every Christmas. And every Christmas, Nathan said, 'Maybe next year.'

Now she simpered a little, half playing, half meaning it, stroking his upper arm with the back of her fingernails, saying, 'Pretty please?'

And Nathan said, 'Okay, then. Why not?'

She screamed and kissed him - smacking him on the cheek and on the forehead.

Even as recently as a few months ago, they'd probably have had quick, celebratory sex. But Nathan and Sara no longer had sex.

Neither of them had mentioned it; it made them too sad, too awkward and too embarrassed.

Now, Sara got so childishly excited - running and whooping -- that she had to run to the bathroom.

At first, this pleased him; it had been a while since she was so happy in his company. Then he began to wonder when, exactly, she'd begun closing the bathroom door when she needed to pee.

It seemed to him that he really should know something like that if only so he could identify it as the moment he knew for sure that it was really over.

But he hadn't noticed, and the moment he knew for sure it was really over was right now, right this second.

After the moment had passed, he called out, 'I'm late, I have to run!' and opened the door.

From the bathroom, she yelled, 'See you, babes!' and he smiled.

He caught the bus to work.

Saturday was the night of the party. Nathan slept late and woke, unusually, to the sound of Sara going about the house, singing. It was a sunny, late-winter afternoon, and from the flat the traffic noise was reduced to a monotonous hiss.

He got up and pulled on an old and faded band T-shirt. Utterly Bastard Groovy, it read, green on black. Utterly bastard groovy was exactly what Nathan never felt, not any more.) In this and a pair of Calvins, he slapped barefoot to the compact living room.

Sara was sitting at the table, one hand round a mug of coffee, reading the Guardian Review. Nathan was struck by the reality of her. He saw how pretty she was, and how young; with her face cleansed and scrubbed of make-up, he could see the tiny imperfections and freckles on her nose and cheeks, and her eyes looked naked and vulnerable. She was bare-legged, wearing only one of his Tshirts. It fitted her like a minidress. This is how she'd dressed on those far-off Saturday mornings when he first knew her; those days when it would have seemed impossible that he could ever grow to dislike her, or she him. Or that they could ever stop having sex.

In the afternoon they snuggled chastely on the sofa, watching a black and white film as the winter sun dipped in the west.

At 5.30, they began to get ready. Nathan took a shower and shaved. He had a couple of good suits hanging in the wardrobe -- he'd bought them with his first credit card when he and Sara were first together and he was light-headed with the idea of being in love, and being loved by this lovely girl. There were some good shirts, too (also yet to be paid for), and several good ties. Nathan never wore ties; he had the wrong kind of job. But Sara kept buying them, and with each tie he unwrapped from tissue paper, he sensed her disdain for his lack of ambition ratchet up another notch. The ties hung on a rack in his wardrobe, a Technicolor indictment.

When, in a rolling cloud of scented steam, Sara finally emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a white towel, Nathan was dressed and ready, laying out his wallet and keys on the kitchen table. He wore a charcoal-grey suit over a black T-shirt.

He sat on the bed and watched her. There was no prevarication; she'd been planning her outfit for days now. She blow-dried her short hair with brisk, staggering efficiency, so the asymmetrical fringe fell over one eye. She applied her make-up with a few, quick, practised strokes (but in a manner he knew required years of diligent practice, like elite sportsmanship). Towel off: knickers on. Bra. Pull-up stockings.

Spritz of perfume. Dress. Slip on heels. Suddenly remember to apply roll-on deodorant. Examine self in mirror from several difficult angles, smoothing down creases with an alluring little shimmy. Open handbag. Double-check keys, address book, mobile phone, whatever other mysteries the bag contained. Lean in to mirror. Fiddle with fringe, minutely calibrating it. Add mascara.

She ordered a taxi and mixed them a gin and tonic. The plan was to sit listening to music - Sara's choice - until the taxi arrived. Nathan hated the Cranberries.

He walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Faintly embarrassed by his own nervousness, he ran the taps just to make a noise. Then he removed from his pocket a little Ziploc bag containing four grammes of cocaine in four paper wraps. He'd cleaned out his savings account to buy it. The supplier was Howard, the grey-haired ex-hack who produced The Mark Derbyshire Solution.

Nathan racked up two fat lines on the cistern, then took the little pewter snorting spoon he'd bought from a now-closed head shop in Cornwall one good summer that seemed a million years ago, and he snorted back, crisply and efficiently. Then he stood straight, looking at the ceiling, sniffing. His snot tasted chemical.

He smiled with joy at the memory of it and knew it was working already.

He tucked the spoon into one pocket and the wraps into another, opened the bathroom door and walked out, sniffing.

In her party dress, Sara stood alone in the centre of the room, one hand cupping an elbow, the other holding a long glass of gin and tonic. As if she were the host and waiting for the party to begin.

At the railway station, they queued for tickets. There were twenty minutes to kill. They stopped for a drink at the generic railway bar.

Nathan visited the lavatory. Then they hurried to catch the train. It sat on a wintry platform. They boarded and sat without speaking, Sara staring - apparently sombre - at her blank-eyed reflection in the train window, and through it to the passengers on the platform who passed spectrally by.