Frozen Music (16 page)

‘Do you know the origin of the word obsessive?' I asked him.
Holden shook his head. ‘It means battlement, barrier. In medieval times being
possessed
was a serious problem. It was very much a matter for the stake. But if you were
obsessed
, then you were highly respected because, far from having allowed the devil to get into you, you were busy erecting barriers: obsessions. So if I seem a bit obsessive at times it's simply because I'm putting up barricades against the devil called chaos.' I sat back, feeling that I had explained myself rather well.

‘If you hadn't noticed, we've progressed a bit since the Middle Ages. And anyway, what does that have to do with whether or not you eat at an Italian or Indian restaurant? You know, I used to think you were really together.'

‘I am, I am. And that's all because of my systems. A lot of people say things like, I really should try and eat something other than Italian, or Thai or whatever it is they're always eating, then they still go back to the same old place they always go to, because it's convenient or whatever. But when I say something like that to myself, I set it into system. I don't leave things to chance or whim.'

The next day was a Wednesday. I was running a few minutes late when I spotted Barry Jones already halfway up the street. As he hurried along I noticed a burly man in his mid-twenties following him. Photographer? But I saw no camera. Reporter? Private detective? I guessed as I walked along. The burly man caught up with Barry Jones and… oh my God! Mugger! In seconds, Barry Jones lay sprawled across the pavement deprived of his shoulder-bag, then almost nonchalantly the attacker aimed a kick at his victim's head. ‘Stop it!' I screamed, running towards them. ‘Stop that!' The man turned round and stared at me, and then, not even bothering to run, he was off.

I knelt on the ground by Barry Jones's side. Cars drove by and if their drivers and passengers noticed anything they showed no signs of stopping. There were no other pedestrians in sight. ‘Someone call the police,' I yelled up at the windows of the apartment blocks. ‘Call an ambulance, please.' Barry Jones opened his eyes wide and let out a groan. ‘It's all right,' I assured him. ‘I won't leave.' He tried to speak.
‘What was that?' I leant closer, my ear almost touching his lips. I hastily grabbed hold of my hair to stop it falling into his face. ‘Can you try to speak again?'

‘Go away. I want to be left alone.'

I sat back up. ‘But you need medical attention,' I told him.

Above our heads a first-floor window was flung open and a woman's head covered in pink curlers popped out. ‘Did you say call the police?' she yelled.

‘Please! And an ambulance!' The woman's head disappeared back inside. Was it my imagination or was there a shadowy figure behind the lace curtain of the window next to hers?

‘You don't understand.' Although his voice was unsteady, Barry Jones managed to raise it. ‘I don't want anyone. Just help me to my feet.'

But within minutes the ambulance and the police arrived. I gave a description of the attacker, as best I could, having explained that I had been some distance away.

‘You're very observant, miss,' the constable said.

I smiled modestly. ‘Oh, it's my training. I'm a journalist.' An anguished cry from Barry Jones being carried past on a stretcher made me turn round. I watched as he was manoeuvred into the back of the ambulance. ‘Can't they give him something?' I asked the officer. ‘The poor man is obviously in great pain.'

I was asked to step into the police car. ‘It's common procedure, miss, if you don't mind. We're instituting a search of the area and would be much obliged if you could accompany us for identification purposes.'

I got into the back of the car. ‘You mean you want me to go along with you to see if I can spot the attacker?'

‘That's what I said, miss.' Off we drove through the nearby streets.

There were still very few people on the pavements, but the road was getting busy with traffic. ‘There,' I shouted suddenly as I spotted a lone figure by the window of a computer hardware shop. The car screeched to a halt and a dog, out on his own, his leg lifted against a rubbish bin, leapt with fright and ran off in mid-stream, leaving a trail of pee on the pavement. The man by the shop window turned round.
‘No. No, sorry, mistake,' I said just as the two policemen were about to leap from the car.

We drove on. Half an hour later we gave up the search. ‘Sometimes we get them; it's amazing how many of them hang around the area of the crime,' the constable said as they dropped me off at the house after a brief stop at the police station where I signed my statement. ‘We'll be in touch if we get him.'

The news of how ‘Barry Jones got Brutally Mugged on Quiet London Street', would be out instantly and then it would be a matter of time before the story, if there was one, of his infidelity broke. I couldn't justify not alerting my own paper.

The next morning the
Chronicle
sported the headline, SECRET THRUSTS OF NATION'S FAVOURITE HUSBAND END IN BRUTAL WEST END MUGGING. Underneath was a photograph of Barry Jones leaving hospital, his face bruised and his arm in a sling.

I stayed late at the office, working through the notes for a series of articles I was planning under the heading of ‘Passionate Lives'. The idea was to explore the engine in people's lives, and also what happened if there was no engine. As I was preparing to leave, Lennie, the office junior, came in with the hot-off-the-presses edition for the next day. MEET THE OTHER WOMAN IN BARRY JONES LOVE TRIANGLE! (
Turn to page five
.)

I did. Our reporters had found out that the woman with whom Barry Jones had spent the night before the mugging was a Ms Virginia Kitchener, a divorced mother of three. There was a picture of her in one of the tabloids, eyes staring, chin sagging in surprise, trying in vain to shield her face from the camera. Next to it was a photo of Barry Jones's wife, looking immaculate and beautiful in a touchingly fragile way.
I have nothing to say
, dignified Mrs Jones announced.
But I've brought you all some tea. You must be getting cold out there
.

What a woman!

‘You landed that guy well and truly in it,' Holden said at dinner that evening. We were sitting in my little kitchen finishing the goulash I had prepared. Holden had stated it was far too warm an evening for goulash, but he still ate it all.

‘What do you mean,
I
landed him in it?' I knew precisely what he meant, having thought the very same thing myself, but that didn't mean I was ready to accept it from someone else. ‘He landed himself in it by being a cheating hypocrite. If I hadn't told them, another paper would have had the story all the same. I was doing my job.'

Holden sat back in the chair and stretching out his legs in front of him he smiled an infuriating little smile and shook his head. I wanted suddenly to slap him right across his ironic expression.

‘Anyway, why should you care?' I asked. ‘The guy is a sleaze ball.'

‘So stop moping and come and give me a kiss.'

I was torn between needing approval and wanting to tell him to piss off.

Piss off won.

Holden stood up, scraping the chair back on the stone floor. ‘Don't be vulgar. I'll see you tomorrow.' He marched out of the kitchen and a few seconds later I heard the front door slam shut.

Five minutes later he was back. ‘I forgive you.' He grinned as he sat back at the table and picked up his knife and fork.

‘Are you in love with me?' I asked him. ‘I mean really, passionately?' I asked because if he was, I wanted to know what it felt like. I could feign in love for long enough to fool most men and even myself for a while. I lusted with the best of them, but deep down below the layers of pretence that constitute one's character I knew that at the age of thirty-two I had never really been in love (that's not counting Pigotty).

‘Don't start.' Holden sighed the sigh of male martyrdom. Most men were like that in my experience; treating any conversation threatening to become emotional as if it were a dog with unfortunate personal habits that insisted on curling up at their feet. They'd brush it off with an embarrassed laugh or a frown, or ignore it in the hope that it would slink quietly away. Holden was no exception. Then I thought, why should he be? That was one of the troubles with relationships these days; we expected each other to be the exception. I mean, when a woman referred to her husband as ‘a typical man', it was not usually meant as a compliment. And how many times have you heard the phrase ‘That's so like a woman' said in a tone of awed respect?

‘If you wrote a list of all the things about me that irritated you most,' I said, ‘I bet it would go something like this: “She talks at breakfast. Reads bits aloud from the papers. Fiddles with my hair when I'm trying to watch sport. Says, ‘You don't like it, do you?' every time she wears something new. Talks about problems even when there's nothing one can do about them. Talks about feelings. Uses the word Relationship as an offensive weapon.” Shall I go on?'

Holden gave me a long look. ‘So if you know these things get on my tits, why do you do it?'

That was a fair question, but I had to think about it for a moment. ‘Because', I said at last, ‘I think doing all those things is utterly reasonable. I suppose that's why I feel such despair for the future of heterosexual relationships.'

Linus left Katya's flat, stepping straight out into the pouring rain, barely noticing the water running down the back of his open-necked shirt. ‘What have I done?' he mumbled as he walked off towards the office, but the words ended up more triumphant than remorseful. He tried again. ‘Oh God, what have I done?' But it sounded more like a moan of pleasure. He could not stop thinking of how Katya's thighs felt encircling his hips and of the expression of surprised delight in her eyes as they made love. She had looked as if she had been given a present she had spent years yearning for. Not like Lotten, who looked more like someone dispensing a favour with varying degrees of reluctance. ‘Oh Lotten,' he groaned. ‘What have I done to you?' But all he felt was the warmth of being wanted. As the afternoon went on his remorse became more real, helped by the images he conjured up of his wife, his helpmate, the mother of his son. ‘What have I done?' And this time the words carried genuine pain. It was late afternoon before he got down to some real work, but then, as always, it absorbed him. He paused briefly only to observe to himself that he was a monster, a cold-hearted, amoral bastard, before bending down once more towards the drawings in front of him.

The sitting-room window of the flat was lit up and Lotten had not yet drawn the blinds. He could see the familiar outline of the reading
lamp with its green shade by the armchair and a hazy display of books at the back of the room. The flat was on the second floor of the yellow-brick forties block, above an undistinguished lobby with an efficient lift and a sensibly proportioned stairwell. He and Lotten had lived there since the year before Ivar's birth and in spite of Lotten's talk of moving out of the city they remained. Lotten accused him of being passive to the point of inertia when it came to all things domestic and practical. She was probably right. As he walked up the stairs to flat five, he resolved to make amends. If Lotten wanted to move out of the city, that's what they would do. He would design the house himself, the way she had always wanted. By the time he turned the key in the lock he had almost come to believe that his infidelity would turn out to be a godsend for him and Lotten both.

‘You're late,' Lotten said from the drawing-room sofa. She was watching television with her feet up, her hand dipping rhythmically into a bag of dried apricots. He suddenly realised that she didn't really care if he was late or not, in fact she had not for quite some time. He, in turn, had been too relieved not to be greeted by sulks and dramas to ask what had brought about the change.

‘Ivar's been in bed for ages,' Lotten said, her eyes still on the television. ‘There's some chicken in the fridge and some potato salad.' Linus stayed for a moment, watching her. She seemed unaware that he was still in the room. This was what he had prayed for, a quiet, uneventful evening with nothing to challenge him or confront his guilt, but now he felt let down. He wanted attention, damn it.

‘Come and eat with me.' He smiled at her. ‘Let's eat together.'

Lotten glanced up briefly, a slight frown on her forehead as if she was surprised and not altogether pleased to find him still there. ‘I told you, I've eaten.'

Linus strode up to his wife and took her hands, pulling her up towards him. ‘Let's have a glass of wine.'

Lotten's level eyes looked into his. ‘What's wrong with you? I'm trying to watch this programme.'

‘Why should there be something wrong?' He tried to make his voice light, but had he been singing he would have struck one false
note after the other. He tried again. ‘Does there have to be something wrong for a man to want to spend some time with his wife?'

‘Yes, in my experience.'

He had to pause and think about that. ‘Oh, come on,' he said finally, trying to pull her up from the sofa. ‘Let's talk.'

Lotten shrugged free. ‘What about?'

‘Oh, anything. Just let's talk the way we used to. Let's get drunk and talk and be like we used to be.'

Lotten looked round for the remote. ‘We
used
to be younger. We
used
not to have a child.
You used
to have time to listen.
You used
not to work every hour God gave you.'

His guilt made him aggrieved. ‘
You
told
me
that you understood about my work. You told me you couldn't live with someone who wasn't passionate about what they did and that allowing each other space was essential.' He gave a joyless bark of a laugh, a million miles away from his usual abandoned giggle. ‘Of course, that was before we were married.'