Dark Corners: A Novel (11 page)

When he phoned her, she said she had the afternoon off and would come home in an hour’s time. Having her here would be wonderful, were it not for the fact that she would constantly urge him to stand up to Dermot and demand the rent. But he had to have her here for this coming weekend. He couldn’t live without her. He had done no work for weeks now. The book was a dead loss, not a book at all in fact, for he had destroyed all of it, even the plan and the notes he had made before he started. He had never wanted a real job, but now he wished he had one. It would get him out of the house. He read in the paper and saw on the television that jobs were very hard to get. It was hopeless for him even to look for employment.

On Friday afternoon, on his way back to work, Dermot knocked on Carl’s living room door. Carl was asleep. He got off the sofa and opened the door.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Just to ask you if it’d be all right to use the garden sometimes, sit out there, I mean. I’ve got a couple of deckchairs.’

Carl said, ‘That would mean coming through my kitchen.’

‘That’s right. OK with you?’ Implicit in the enquiry was
it had better be.
‘“A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot”,’ said Dermot.

Carl shrugged, nodded, shut the door. He wondered why he ever spoke politely to Dermot. Why even answer him? Silence would be best, but he knew he wouldn’t keep silent. Was it because he clung to some hopeless hope that Dermot would
relent, that he would say he hadn’t meant it, it was a try-on, and now, soon, he would pay the rent as he had always known he must?

When Nicola came in from work, Carl was waiting for her, sitting on the front step, maybe just to escape from breathing the same air as Dermot. Money was short. The lack of it was beginning to make itself felt in a serious way, and this was something Carl couldn’t admit to Nicola. Even though he had grown up in a world where women were becoming increasingly equal to men, where equality was the subject of almost daily TV programmes and constant newspaper features, he had still absorbed enough of a male supremacy culture to believe that, if he were to mention his financial crisis, Nicola would think he was asking her for a loan or even a gift. And she would press him again to confront his tenant.

On Sunday, they watched from a window as Dermot went to church. Like churchgoers in times gone by, he carried a prayer book. They had talked about Dermot for half the night, what he would do if crossed, and what the consequences would be. They did make love, at just before three, and afterwards fell into a heavy sleep until nearly ten. Saturday’s rain had stopped during the night. The sun was out, the wind had dropped and Mr Kaleejah was taking his dog for its morning walk. It always walked along in a docile way, pausing sometimes to look up at Mr Kaleejah and wag its tail. Carl had never heard it bark.

‘He’ll bring his deckchairs through the kitchen to the back door,’ said Carl. ‘Why deckchairs? One for him, and who’s the other for? Perhaps he’s got friends, but I’ve never seen them. The next thing will be he’ll want to take over one of my rooms. He’s got a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom. Maybe he wants another bedroom? He could take over my second bedroom. Why not? I can’t stop him.’

‘Yes, you can, Carl. He can tell his story to anyone he likes. How do you know they’ll even care? They’ll probably say, so what? If they’re even interested, they’ll google it and see that what you did wasn’t against the law. Tell him you want the rent and if he says no you’ll evict him. That’s what anyone else would do.’

She made it sound so simple, Carl thought. He watched Dermot turn the corner into Castellain Road and disappear. He put his head in his hands, a frequent gesture with him these days.

The day continued fine, becoming sunnier and warmer. ‘Let’s go out for lunch,’ said Nicola in a cheerful tone, though she felt anything but cheerful.

‘I can’t afford it.’

‘Well, I can. You’ll have to face up to that, Carl. When you do what I suggest, you’ll have some money and you’ll feel much better because things won’t be as bad as you think. Probably they won’t be bad at all. Come on, we’ll go out, and we won’t be here to see Dermot come back.’

So they went round to the Café Rouge, ate fishcakes and chips and lemon tart and drank a lot of red wine. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy,’ said Carl, ‘but I don’t want to go back there. I can’t bear to be under the same roof as him.’

‘I live there too, you know. When you tell him to do his worst, I’ll be with you. We’ll confront him together.’

The sun was very hot and the house warm and stuffy when they got home. Nicola went upstairs and looked out of the bedroom window. She called Carl. ‘You’re not going to like this, but you’d better see it.’

No one had attended to the garden since Carl’s father had died; in fact since long before that. Where the lawn had been, the grass had grown tall and turned to hay, and the flower beds were dense with stinging nettles three feet tall. Two deckchairs covered in red-and-blue-striped canvas had been put up among the hay, and in them sat Dermot and a rather large young woman with shaggy dark hair wearing a dirndl skirt and peasant blouse. Carl made a sound like a howl of agony.

‘Who’s that woman?’

‘His girlfriend, I should think.’

‘He hasn’t got a girlfriend.’

‘Well, he has now.’

A visit from her parents was not to be welcomed by Lizzie. Usually, that was. Now, however, in possession of Stacey’s beautiful flat, she felt very different. Not just on account of the decor and furnishings, but because quite a lot of exotic drink still remained from Stacey’s store, as well as tins of the sort of biscuits and snacks that went well with drink.

Tom and Dot had been in the flat no more than ten minutes, had examined the large refrigerator, the freezer and the washing machine and drier as well as the living room and bedroom furnishings and the two flat-screen televisions, when they were plied with dry Oloroso and Tequila Sunrises. Conversation concentrated on Tom’s recovery from his assault on Haverstock Hill. Lizzie, who didn’t take admonition well herself, told him how careful he must be in future, and to be sure to take his mobile with him and phone her or her mother at the least sign of danger. Dot agreed, but added that it was useless to say anything as Tom never did what he was told.

Advice, in any case, was unnecessary. They both thought privately that Tom had given up his exploration of London on buses. It had, in their opinion, been ridiculous, and fortunately, and without too much harm being done, had been ended by the Haverstock Hill attack. Both Dot and Lizzie were now putting their minds to some alternative hobby for him and already had ideas: golf, for instance, though Willesden was a long way from a golf course; the Willesden cycling club, though Tom didn’t possess a bicycle, and anyway, look how many cyclists got knocked down by lorries; dog-walking, which considering they had no dog was never taken seriously. None of these options was mentioned to Tom.

Up to now, Tom Milsom had led a calm, steady, peaceable life. His job had been largely trouble-free. His wife loved and respected him, or seemed to. His daughter – well, she took his money, he thought bitterly, and for a flat she no longer even lived in. What did they think of him, the pair of them, for giving up an interest he had plainly enjoyed because two boys had hit him? Part of him never wanted to get on a bus again, even though it was not the buses’ fault. In fact he had not even been
on
a bus when the boys had attacked him. This line of reasoning sent him out of the house – though perhaps it was more the result of Dorothy plying the vacuum cleaner round the armchair he was sitting in.

He walked about a mile, thinking it was good for him, then got on the number 139 bus. It was only then that it occurred to him he should have looked at London Bus Routes online. Perhaps when he got to Baker Street he could find a number 1. There was something fascinating, intriguing, about a bus numbered 1. It ought to be the best of all London buses. He asked the driver, who told him to stay on till Waterloo and pick up the number 1 there, which would take him to Bermondsey and Canada Water. Relaxing in the back of the 139 once more – there were several empty seats – Tom felt enormously better. He had always wondered what Canada Water was like, what Canada Water
was,
and now he would find out.

The sun was shining; it would be light for hours. Nothing was going to happen today or on the days to come. The trouble with those two boys had been no more than a nasty incident. Luckily he hadn’t been much hurt and all was going to be well.

NICOLA WANTED TO
protect Carl from Dermot, but she didn’t tell Carl this. No matter how far emancipation had progressed towards equality, a woman might tell a man she wanted to care for him but she could not admit to him that she wanted to defend him from another man. Anyway, she seldom saw Dermot. If she heard him on the stairs, she kept inside the living room until the front door closed. They had met only once recently, in the hallway, she going out and he coming in, he from the pet clinic and carrying shopping, she on her way to buy something for an evening meal.

‘You’re living here full time again now, are you?’ he had asked. There were several ways of putting that enquiry, and Dermot’s phrasing was rather accusatory, the implication being that she shouldn’t have been. She would have liked to ask him if he had any objection, but Carl’s fear of Dermot was beginning to affect her too.

‘I am, yes,’ she said.

He shook his head, the kind of gesture that implied wonder more than disapproval. ‘As I always say,’ he said, ‘it takes all sorts to make a world.’

She said nothing about it to Carl. When she got back with the two ready meals and a bottle of rosé, her anger, which was considerable, had died down. Dermot was upstairs but silent apart from a burst of ‘Amazing Grace’ when he briefly opened his front door.

Next day was Saturday, the weather improved, and he was out in the garden with the two deckchairs, though only one was occupied. He must have sneaked – as Carl put it – through the kitchen with them while Carl and Nicola were out.

‘You’ll have to tell him you don’t want him in the garden,’ said Nicola. They were in the bedroom, looking down on the top of Dermot’s head.

Carl didn’t say anything.

‘You’ll have to, Carl. This is only the thin end of the wedge.’

‘I’ve already told him he can use the garden.’

‘Don’t you think that if he was going to tell anyone – I mean about selling that stuff to Stacey—’

‘I know what you mean. I think about it every day. It haunts me. I know what you were going to say. That if he was going to tell the newspapers or her aunt or her cousins or
anyone
, he’d have done it by now. But why would he? He has the perfect arrangement. He could tell them tomorrow or next week. It’s not something that gets easier for me, is it? The newspapers will send someone around here to interview me. He’s biding his time, as he might say. He’s waiting for someone or something to trigger it, and me telling him he can’t sit out in my garden might be just the trigger he needs.’

The weather went on being nice, and Dermot sat out in the garden again the next day. Carl and Nicola knew he would, because he left the deckchairs out overnight. This, Carl said, was the thickening end of the wedge, or was it the further thinning? Dermot had gone to church, of course, carrying his Alternative Service book. Carl, like many atheists, disapproved of that work, preferring the Book of Common Prayer, and would have liked to say so scathingly to Dermot but was afraid. His tenant – could you describe someone as a tenant when they paid no rent? – returned at eleven thirty with the fat dark girl. They sat in the garden for an hour, then the deckchairs were vacated and soon a strong smell of curry permeated the house.

Carl and Nicola went out. They had a drink in the Prince Alfred around the corner. It was a fine old pub, much loved by Nicola and once loved by Carl. He loved it no longer; there was nothing that he loved.

‘Except you,’ he said. ‘I love you a lot. I really love you, but how can I marry you?’ He had never mentioned marriage before. ‘This torment will go on for ever, for the rest of my life. I know it sounds mad, but it’s true. I shall live in this house or another house and he will be there with me, wherever it is. He will never go and I can’t get rid of him. Sometimes I think I’ll kill myself.’

Weeks had passed since Yvonne Weatherspoon had been to the pet clinic. Sophie was well and no injections were due, but a new event in the Weatherspoon household had taken place. Elizabeth had occasionally opened the French windows for the cat to go out in the evenings, and Sophie had stayed out until dawn, squealing under Yvonne’s bedroom window to be let in. This truancy had badly frightened Yvonne, and she was even more distressed when she saw that Sophie had a wound on her neck and a triangle of furry skin nipped from one of her ears. She had plainly been fighting with the Bengal next door.

‘This is what happens when you have your children home to live,’ Yvonne told Dermot the next morning, referring of course to Elizabeth, not Sophie.

‘You wouldn’t be without her,’ said Dermot in a sentimental tone.

‘There’s no question of that. Will Caroline be able to see me? Well, see
her
, poor darling.’

‘I expect we can fit you in. Sophie will have to have intravenous antibiotics.’ Dermot liked to display medical knowledge picked up from Caroline, Darren and Melissa without actually knowing anything about it.

‘I should have phoned first. I know that.’ Yvonne brought her face very close to his across the desktop. ‘But you see, if I did that, I thought you’d say no, maybe say there was no room for us.’

‘Not this time.’ Dermot smiled his toothy yellow smile. ‘Now here’s Melissa come for you. I’m afraid Caroline’s out on a call.’

Left alone, and with no other pet-owners due until the afternoon, he let his mind wander on to Stacey Warren and the pills that Carl had given – no, sold – her. He mustn’t tell, he knew that beyond a doubt. It would be different if Carl had demanded the rent and threatened eviction, but it was unlikely that he would do that as he was too frightened.