Painkiller (19 page)

I listen to Niall’s footsteps as they come upstairs. The tread is heavier than my husband’s, but more vigorous; four or five
thuds
and he’s up on the landing.

When he comes in I’m tucked up in bed, covers up to my neck and welded under my chin.

‘Here.’ He hands me the wine cooler and my arm snakes out from under the duvet to snatch it. I put it on my bottom and it’s a wondrous feeling. I bring out the old patch – which is now practically boiling – and hold it out to him.

‘Can you put this in the freezer box? I’m going to alternate them.’

‘OK.’

He takes the warm patch, but his eyes are not on it. He’s watching my arm, and the pyjama cuff, and I know exactly what’s in his head.
She’s not naked under there
, he’s thinking.

‘Thanks.’

‘How are you feeling right now?’

‘Like a lobster in a saucepan.’

He perches on the end of my bed. I feel a sudden pressure near my toes. He stares at me, and I don’t know what it means. Concern? What do I look like? I must look a mess.

(
What big eyes you have
)

‘Do you want anything else from downstairs?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Food? You should eat some food.’

‘No thanks.’

‘A drink then?’

I’m absolutely parched. ‘Perhaps some iced water.’

‘Your wish is my command.’

He disappears again and is soon back carrying a glass stuffed with ice cubes. The feel of the cool glass on my fingers is heaven, and I down it in one.

‘You should eat some food.’

My thirst is lifted like a stone, and underneath it I realise there’s hunger. I’m very hungry.

‘You’ve not eaten much, have you? I bet they offered you next to nothing at the hospital.’

I nod my head.

‘You have to eat now.’

‘Well…’

‘Shall I make you something?’

‘OK. I’m sure I can cope with scrambled eggs.’

‘I hope I can.’ He smiles.

(
What big teeth you have
)

‘Joke. I’m actually quite a good cook. Scrambled eggs will be no problem.’

Off he goes again. I reach out for my phone on the bedside table, and bring it under the covers. I leave it on my belly, so I can snatch it up in seconds; I don’t know why. Yes I do. I’m nervous. I don’t
know
this man. Granted he was my client, but I didn’t take the time and trouble to know all of my clients; most of them were just a photo, a CV and a showreel. I know he likes extreme sports, and Peter O’Toole, and Sting, and I know he’s got a frightening ex-wife, and has a child called Peter, and he can make scrambled eggs…

But I don’t
know
him.

He comes back about twenty minutes later, with a yellow eggy mountain on a plate, and he sets the tray very very gently down on my lap.
Cutting off access to the phone.

(
That was obvious. You should have expected that
)

‘Is that OK? Not too heavy?’

‘No.’

Then he, very very gently, takes a pillow from Dominic (
my husband
)’s side of the bed and beckons me to lean forward, so he can prop me up.

‘How’s that?’

‘Great.’

The tray is full; he’s put on salt and pepper pots, and another glass of iced water. Just what I need. I start eating and it’s delicious and creamy.

I’m so intent on the taste that I barely notice him leave and return with his own plate of scrambled egg. I have an irrational, indignant feeling (
how dare he make his own lunch
) until I calm myself down.

He’s done all this for you, Monica. He’s driven you to the hospital, looked after you, driven you back, helped you in a massive deception; the least you can give him is some lunch.
 

It’s my house, so he’s the guest. Like a good girl, I try to be a good host, and attempt to spark some polite conversation.

‘Peter’s really cute.’

He stares at me for a second; he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, then he makes the connection. ‘Oh… yeah, yes he is.’

‘Do you mind me talking about him?’

He looks at me for a few moments and then decides. ‘No. I don’t mind.’

‘Good.’

‘Well, we’re friends, and as I am in your house…’

I shift in my bed.

‘Well, he’s very cute. He has your hair and your eyes.’

‘Ha. Yes, I thought that. I often thought… if it pisses Lorraine off, you know, giving her unconditional love to someone who looks like a mini version of me.’

‘I suppose it’s difficult for you, not seeing him all the time. I would guess that’s the worst part of being divorced.’

‘Well…’ He fiddles with the salt pot on the tray, twirling it round. ‘To tell you the truth he was kind of the reason we split – not that I would ever say it to Peter,’ he adds hastily. ‘I never felt ready to have kids, and she was pushing so hard, and once I sort of said OK and then, when it didn’t happen straight away and things started to get complicated, it wasn’t so simple. There were the fertility tests, the
in vitro
, and so then I had to pretend really hard to doctors and everyone that I really wanted a child, and she was sitting by my side listening to this act I was putting on, and she was believing what I was saying, and I felt I was getting further and further away from what I wanted… I felt… I felt I was looking down on my own life, like in a dream, while it was being shaped around me. Do you get what I’m saying?’

‘Oh definitely,’ I say. ‘The one thing about my life, actually I’d say the main thing, yes, the main thing about my life, about how I live, the pain and everything, is that feeling. Everything happens around me. My life is not my own.’

‘Exactly,’ he shouts, suddenly animated. ‘I didn’t want kids. End of story.’

‘Oh, I wanted kids,’ I say. ‘That is to say, Dominic and me, we wanted kids, we did all the
in vitro
, and the tests, because I wanted them more than anything else I could think of. I wanted kids so much it hurt. When I got pregnant it was like heaven had singled us out for a miracle. Sometimes I think it’s just as well that I have so much pain now, because it overshadows that other pain… Just about. And Dominic… He sat there with me, talked to the doctors and nurses, and he said he wanted them so much, because he saw how much pain I was in without them, and because he loved me, and wanted me to be happy, he wanted them too. So he meant it. He really really meant it.’

Niall stares at me.

He’s realised he’s said something wrong. He’s realised he’s taken a wrong turn and even though simply by being here he’s won round one, he’s lost round two to my husband. Even though it’s only slight, he can feel that disapproval hanging in the air.
 

He’s going to do that thing that men do. That wolves do. His sheep’s clothing has slipped, and he’s going to try to put the costume back on. To modify what he just said. Sure enough
…
 

‘Well, when I say I didn’t want kids, I probably meant that, deep down, subconsciously, I didn’t want kids with Lorraine. Perhaps there were problems with us before, and I didn’t want to face up to them…’

He gets up, stretches his arms so hard that his little shirt rides up and shows a belly button garlanded with a tangle of thick black hair.

‘You see, I’m sure I would want kids if I found the right woman… Someone
really
special…’

‘Is that an offer?’

‘Could be. I was about, you know. At the time. On your books, so to speak.’

He flashes me a dazzling smile.

‘Thanks for your gracious offer, Niall, but I would have kept trying with my husband, thank you very much.’

‘But you haven’t, have you? You’re not trying any more.’

He picks up a photo from the dressing table. Another smiling wedding photo. He inspects Dominic with a casual, appraising gaze, and puts it down. My husband has been summarily dismissed.

‘I mean you’re not, are you?’

Why is he asking this?
 

‘Are you? You can tell me if you are, but I get the sense you’re not.’

(
What a big nose you have
)

‘We can’t.’

My body is burning like a furnace, but my voice is cold.

‘I thought you of all people would understand.’

‘I… what?’

‘My body is swilling with drugs. Do you think I’d want to carry a life inside me for nine months with all the stuff I take? The baby would be born a junkie, it could have two heads…’

‘Oh.’

‘… and I can’t go without the drugs for nine months. I couldn’t go without them for nine seconds. I just can’t do it. My whole system would shut down. I thought you would get that.’

He slumps against the dressing table. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘And adoption would be impossible too. Skim my medical notes and you’ll think I’m part cripple, part junkie, part suicide risk. I couldn’t look more inappropriate as a candidate if I was in an iron lung and smoked fifty a day.’

He knows this conversation is another dead end. He’s stumbled down another path which puts him at a disadvantage against Dominic.

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘If this treatment works, if it works permanently… I could…’

He’s not interested. He looks out of the window and leans on the sill, tapping the vase with his little finger.

‘So… your husband doesn’t know you’ve done this?’ He keeps looking out the window, looking at nothing, as if what he just said is a casual observation. (
But it’s not
)

‘No,’ I say.

‘So… are you going to tell him?’

‘Maybe. If it works.’

‘But he didn’t want you to do it because he was afraid it would give you false hope. That’s what you said. He thought, even if it worked, it could only be temporary.’

‘OK, so no. I’m not going to tell him.’

He nods approvingly.

‘Do you think he doesn’t want you to get better?’

Exactly what I said to Angelina.
 

‘Of course not.’

‘But he doesn’t want to give you false hope.’

‘That’s what he says.’

He’s working up to something.
 

He circles the bed and perches himself on my dressing room table. ‘Who are you now, Monica?’ he says, smiling.

‘What?’

‘You told me you were lots of Monicas. The pain made you into different Monicas. I just wondered which one you are now. The Monica I met didn’t want to keep any secrets from her husband. This is obviously a different Monica.’

‘This is a Monica who loves her husband very much, but won’t be told what to do. Not about this.’

He sniffs, says nothing.

‘Why, you think I should tell him?’

He shrugs.
Up to you.

The silence lengthens.

‘I couldn’t run the risk of him trying to stop me. Even though he loves me, and we’re a team, at the end of the day it’s my body, I don’t think he should have a say in what I do with my body.’

He makes a ‘hmm!’ noise, very quietly.

‘You don’t think that.’

‘Oh I do, it just, well… It kind of makes my point, doesn’t it?’

I’m tired, and I’m hurting. ‘Sorry, did you have a point, Niall?’

‘Yes,’ he says, suddenly energised. ‘Yes. About kids. It was my body and she was just telling me what to do with it. “Put it in now, I’m ovulating”, “Wake up, get inside now.” She was forcing my body to create life, against my will.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite the same at all,’ I snap. ‘I think you should go.’

‘I was just —’

‘Thank you for your help, but I think you should go.’

‘No way.’

‘Please.’

‘You need looking after.’

‘My husband can do that. He’s been doing it for years.’

‘How will he do that, when he doesn’t even know you’ve had the treatment?’

‘I’m a woman in pain, lying in bed. He knows the rest. Cups of tea and breakfast in bed. That’s all I need.’

‘You’re fooling yourself.’

Get him out of here.
 

‘Thank you very much, but I think you should leave now.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Geoff had his lunch in the Pret down the road, and when he got back there was a flurry of activity in the station. There were coppers running around, leaping in and out of squad cars. He could smell the starch of freshly ironed CID shirts.

‘Bradbury wants to see you,’ said Mike. ‘Twice in one day, you lucky bugger.’

When he went back to Bradbury’s office and knocked on the door Bradbury leapt up, startled. ‘DI Marks,’ he said. ‘Glad you’re back.’

So it’s back to formalities
, Geoff thought.
Something’s up.

‘Everything all right, sir?’

‘You haven’t, by any chance, set the wheels in motion regarding our mutual friend Mr Wood?’

‘I rang Wood’s wife just before lunch. Answering machine implied she was still alive and kicking – well, probably not kicking, judging by the last time we met her. I’m planning to go round there this afternoon…’

Trevor had gone as pale as his ill-fitting shirt. ‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘You do know Derek Cooper’s here?’

The new golden boy from CID. Shit.
 

‘Oh.’

‘He’s seen the tape, and he’s as sure as eggs is eggs that the mystery man in our footage is some Russian gangster operating out of Crouch End. They’re going over there mob-handed right now, to make an arrest.’

He threw a black and white photo down on the desk. The man in the photo did look a lot like the man on the CCTV footage.

‘He reckons this is the piece of evidence that will finally help him get the bastard off the streets.’

Trevor never came naturally to swearing. ‘Bastard’ came out like a posh kid experimenting with dirty words.

‘So it would be good if you could follow up your phone call with an apology to Mr and Mrs Wood. Sorry to bother them, and all that. You know what IPCC are like these days…’

An hour ago Geoff was annoyed that Bradbury had sent him off on a wild hunch. Now he was annoyed that Bradbury was telling him to back off. Call him a contrary old copper, but he was a big believer in a copper’s gut instinct, and to see Bradbury wither like this… it ever so slightly got on Geoff’s tits.