Killing Cupid (12 page)

‘Eh?’

‘You fancy Siobhan , don’t you? Come on, you talk about her non-stop. Siobhan this, Siobhan that.’ She laughed throatily. ‘If I didn’t like her myself I’d be thoroughly bored.’

‘You like her?’ I said.

‘Don’t sound so worried. I don’t mean I like her in that way – just as a mate. I’ve got a feeling Siobhan and I are going to be really good friends.’

That worried me enough, but then she said, ‘Siobhan told me you asked her out for a drink.’

I gulped. ‘Did she say anything else about me?’

‘No, not really. She didn’t slag you off, if that’s what you’re worrying about. Actually, I don’t know if we should be talking about this.’

And then it all came pouring out. I couldn’t stop myself. It’s one thing being able to write down how I feel about Siobhan, but I suddenly had an unstoppable urge to talk about it, to tell someone else. I told Kathy that I thought I had fallen in love with our teacher, that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and that I wanted to tell her how I felt but that I was scared of rejection. I even told her about sending her the card and ordering the underwear for her. Kathy just sat there and listened to me, her eyebrows raised.

Suddenly, I felt ill. I told Kathy I needed the loo and went off in search of it. In the gents, I locked myself in a cubicle and was immediately sick into the toilet. And as I wiped my mouth with a piece of shiny toilet paper, my mind cleared. Oh fuck, I thought. What have I done? Kathy’s going to tell Siobhan – she’ll probably put her own slant on it as well. She might make me sound like some obsessive nut. And they’ll talk about what I was doing in the George V in the first place. God. I sat on the toilet and put my head in my hands. Why was I such a moron? I had wanted to talk to Kathy, get to know her, find out how I could remove her from the scene in the same way I got rid of that twattish bloke, Phil. And I’d made a hash of it.

Shit.

I came out of the cubicle and splashed my face with cold water at the sink. I looked at myself in the mirror. What a state. I desperately wanted to go home, to crawl into bed and hide from the world. But I couldn’t. I had to undo the damage I’d done.

I went back to the table. Kathy was smoking one of my fags.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I always crave ciggies when I’ve had a few. But I was just waiting to say goodbye. I ought to get home. My head’s spinning.’

Home. So she could phone Siobhan, tell her what I’d said, twist it into lies.

‘Whereabouts do you live?’ I asked.

She told me she lived just across the road, in a block of flats.

‘Do you really have to go?’ I said. ‘I was enjoying myself.’

She looked at her watch, then at her empty glass One thing I’d figured out over the last couple of hours: Kathy had a thirst on her. ‘Well… I guess I could be persuaded to stay for one more. But you’ll have to pay. I’ve got no more cash on me.’

I took out my wallet and looked inside it. There was a ten pound note tucked inside, but Kathy couldn’t see it from where she was sitting. ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Neither have I.’

That was when Kathy gave me a long, appraising look. ‘I’ve got some booze at my place.’

My heart started to beat quickly. ‘That sounds good.’

‘You know I’m not interested in you like that though, don’t you? You know I’m gay.’

‘How could I forget?’

That made her laugh, and she stood up, pulling her jacket on. I followed her out of the pub and across the road to a block of flats. She unlocked the door and we went inside, Kathy pressing the button by the lift. She staggered as the lift began to ascend and almost fell into my arms. ‘God, I’m really drunk,’ she laughed.

‘Me too.’ But really, I felt sober. Stone cold sober.

She lived two floors below the top flat. We entered her apartment and she went straight over to the fridge while I crossed to the window. She had an amazing view, right across north London, the lights of the city shining and pulsing in the night. Kathy came up and handed me a bottle of beer. ‘Great view, isn’t it? A lot of people feel sorry for me when I tell them I live in a block of flats, but they change their opinions when they see the view.’

‘It’s awesome.’

She laughed. I found myself picking at the label on the bottle of beer. I felt incredibly tense, all the muscles in my back cramping, sweat gathering in my armpits. I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t really even know what I was doing there.

‘The view’s even better from the roof. You can see all the way to Canary Wharf’ Kathy said, swigging from her own beer bottle. She really did like her booze.

‘The roof?’

‘Yes. You can get to it by climbing onto the fire escape. What do you reckon? Do you fancy it?’

‘Is it safe?’ I said.

‘Well, it’s a bit of a clamber, but I’ve done it a few times and I’ve always been alright. You’re not going to wimp out on me, are you?’

I hesitated. There were all sorts of ideas in my head.

‘Come on then,’ I said, and she led me through the flat to a window that opened onto a balcony. From there, a metal fire escape led up to the roof and down to the garden. A long way down to the garden. The fire escape didn’t look very sturdy. I looked down again and had a sudden attack of vertigo. My palms were wet with sweat. Half of me wanted to go home. But there was a voice in my head telling me what I had to do.

‘Are you alright?’ she said, turning to look at me, a silly pissed smile on her face.

I nodded.

Kathy stepped up onto the fire escape and I followed . . .

I can’t write any more. It’s too much. Too much.

I ran all the way home.

And I know that when I close my eyes tonight all I’m going to see is her crumpled body on the patio. All I’m going to hear is the way she cried out.

And how it sounded like the first syllable of my name.

Chapter 11
Siobhan

Monday

It’s too much. First, the card, the flowers and the underwear...and now the weirdest thing yet has happened. Even more bizarre than that stupid woman in her car destroying most of my garden wall.

If it was happening to someone else, I’d think it was quite funny. I came back from Sainsbury’s this morning and was just putting the fish fingers into the freezer when I heard a few spots of rain tap against the window. It was at that point I remembered I’d left the washing out, so I went into the garden, and there, hanging demurely on the line, were these clothes which weren’t even mine!!!! At first I felt sick, and upset because whoever left them had nicked my favourite NY t-shirt and my vintage Levis. All these paranoid thoughts went streaming through my head, about sexual predators and freaks spying on me with binoculars – until I realised that a) nobody could see into my bedroom, and b) it was unlikely that any sad pervert would spend the kind of money which had clearly been spent on these clothes. They were Prada! Cotton jersey; a black skirt and a sort of slinky t-shirt, with the tags still on them. I unpegged them and scrutinized them. They felt lovely, that really smooth, thick good quality jersey material.

My first thought was: I want them. I unpegged them from the line and took them inside. They looked like they’d be a perfect fit. But thinking about what they were doing there was too much – it made my head hurt. I needed some air, some space to think, so I hung the clothes in my wardrobe – might as well look after them – and closed the door on them. If it’s all some great big mistake, I might not have them for long. Part of me was hoping that they’d be gone when I returned home; that the Prada Fairy or whoever the hell brought them would take them away in the time it took me to walk down the road to buy a paper. A bigger part of me hoped they’d still be there when I got back. Which of course they were.

I did make a few tentative phonecalls, just to see if anyone I knew had left them there as some sort of joke, but got no joy. I even tried Phil – left him a message which he didn’t return. I’m sure it wasn’t him, though, he’s not talking to me. I’ve called him a couple of times – he must be back from Portugal by now – but he isn’t getting back to me. I think I must have really upset him.

Well, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough who left the clothes there. Nobody would spend that much money on me and want to remain anonymous for long.

Thursday

Police were called to Beulah Mansions in Grove Road, Camden on Monday evening, where the body of a woman had been discovered in the grounds of the building. She was later identified as 31 year old Kathy Noonan, a resident of Beulah Mansions. There were no witnesses, but the police report states that Ms. Noonan had fallen to her death from the roof of the building. A police spokesperson said that Ms Noonan had been out drinking that evening, and that there was no suspicion of foul play. ‘It seems that she tried to climb on to her roof via the fire escape and must have slipped,’ the spokesperson went on. ‘It’s a popular spot for residents of the building.’

The Ham and High spoke to another resident of Beulah Mansions, who told us, ‘The young people at the top of the building are always climbing up there. I’ve warned them it’s dangerous, but they never listen.’

There was no suicide note, and Ms Noonan’s parents tell us that they had spoken to their daughter earlier that day and she was in good spirits. The funeral will be held at St. Peter’s Church, Highgate, on Friday 2nd October at 1pm.

Friday

Haven’t written this diary for ages. Two weeks – that’s awful. Haven’t done anything much for two weeks, actually, what with all the crap that’s been going on. I cancelled one writing class out of respect for Kathy – they weren’t very pleased, at the college, but I was in no fit state to teach – and then it was half term. I haven’t felt like writing anything, not even this. But I suppose I should write it all down, otherwise I’ll forget it.

I thought it appropriate that I should go to her funeral. After all, she was a friend – nearly – as well as one of my students. What I didn’t anticipate was how much it would upset me. I suppose I’m lucky, having got to the ripe old age of 35 and having only been to two funerals in my whole life, both of which were for octogenarians; but this one was horrible, in a totally different league of awfulness to Granny’s and Auntie Dot’s. The church was packed with young people, and everyone – including me – was crying. Sobbing, mostly.

I will never forget the desolation on her parents’ faces, a drab looking couple in their sixties, who seemed bewildered, horrified and grateful by turns at the huge gay turnout. I hope for their sakes that they already knew Kathy was gay – I’m sure they must have done. She did like to broadcast it. I remember her so clearly at that first writing class, saying ‘I’m Kathy and I’m gay’, with a really proud, defiant expression on her face like it absolutely was a celebration for her, something she wanted to shout from the rooftops.

Bad choice of expression.

The service was so, so moving. Kathy clearly had a lot of friends, and they were so shocked at her just suddenly… being dead. There was as much disbelief as grief in people’s eyes. I don’t believe it was anything but an accident, and nobody else believed it either… but whenever something like this happens, you can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t an accident. There’s this little voice that says ‘what if she jumped?’ But really, so what if she did? She’s still dead.

The four or five people who stood up to speak, their voices trembling, clearing their throats and swallowing back tears constantly, talked of her lust for life, her adventurous spirit, her desire to excel.

No, there’s no way she’d have thrown herself off her roof.

One woman in particular could barely get the words out at all. Poor thing. She said she and Kathy had been best friends since childhood – I remembered Kathy mentioning her, briefly, in the pub. She was quite pretty, in that rather gummy sort of way. I thought she’d probably look a bit horsy when she smiled – although since I didn’t see her smile, I wouldn’t know for sure. She got about two sentences into her speech and just kind of crumpled. The church was completely silent, a deep heavy intense silence that even people’s quiet sobbing didn’t seem to dent, and we all waited for her to finish, like the agonising seconds spent willing a stammerer to get his words out; but she couldn’t. Her face turned redder and redder and eventually she shook her head, and fled back to her seat. It was awful.

The whole bloody thing was awful.

But there was one little part of me that – and I’d never admit this to anybody – felt oddly jealous. Imagine, being envious of a dead woman! But the love that all her friends felt for her was so completely palpable, and all the wonderful things that they said of her. I suppose everyone says nice things about you once you’re dead, but Kathy clearly was a very special person. It made me wish that I’d had more time to get to know her. It also made me wonder if people would say the same kinds of things about me, if I died?

As we all filed out at the end (family and close friends only were going on to the crematorium), they played ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’ by Dusty Springfield, because it had been one of Kathy’s favourite songs. At that moment I think every single person in the church felt the same, that now Kathy was gone, none of us knew what to do with ourselves, and that, even if we hadn’t known her well, nothing would be the same again.

Then I heard a voice at my shoulder. At first I didn’t register that it was Alex from the writing class; I was crying too hard.

‘Isn’t it terrible?’ he said. He looked a state too; really white and red-eyed. I didn’t realize he’d been matey with Kathy. I nodded, trying to get myself together but feeling the corners of my mouth pulling right down for another batch of tears. He handed me a clean tissue, and sort of twitched his fingers, as if he wanted to reach out and comfort me. I was glad he didn’t though – if anyone had touched me then, I think I’d have collapsed entirely.

‘It was nice of you to come,’ I said, then regretted it. It sounded like I was hosting the damn event or something. We stared at each others’ ravaged faces, and suddenly I felt relieved that he was there. I didn’t know anybody else there, and couldn’t face going back to the house for drinks, as her father had hesitantly invited everyone.