The Full Legacy (12 page)

I saw the shadow of a smile pass over Turner’s face too. She moved very close so that I could hear her over the rattling of the tube. ‘Michelle told me you were out shooting horses this afternoon,’ she said.

I grinned. ‘Yes... in the photographic sense, of course. A friend of Michelle’s husband has a print shop. He’s putting together a brochure for a race horse trainer who’s hoping to attract the Middle Eastern market.’

‘It was a nice day for it. Do you ride?’

‘Hell, no.’ I remembered the size of the horses and the speed of them, and shuddered. ‘How about you?’ I guessed she probably did.

She shook her head. ‘Not much anymore. I don’t have the time. I used to when I was younger.’

‘Yeah... thought you would.’ This was out of my mouth before I wondered if it might sound rude... like I was putting her into a category or something.... Posh kid, private school, tennis lessons and a pony.... ‘How was
your
day?’ I asked hurriedly, just in case.

She smiled.

‘Oh, fine, you know. Accountancy’s got a bit of a dull reputation, but I like it. You get to meet some interesting people.’

We got out at Tottenham Court Rd, by the Dominion Theatre. It felt strange to surface into the air – hardly fresh, with all the traffic crawling past, engines throbbing, exhaust fumes I could taste. All those people too – hot, jostling, chattering... chaos really... though I loved central London – always had.

I steered Turner past the newspaper stand, past Burtons, under the vast concrete outcrops from Centrepoint – to First Out.

She ran her finger down my arm in the queue and I felt ridiculously proud. There were plenty of good looking women in there, but I figured there was no-one to match her. Whether or not she was dangerous, I was becoming more and more enthralled by her all the time.

‘I’ll get these,’ she said.

‘Only if I can pay next time.’

‘Okay.’

So – it looked like there might be a next time. I smiled at the thought.

And if she was paying, I thought maybe I ought to show willing and have something healthy, so I settled for soup and a roll. She, of course, had salad. I’d known she would.

‘It must be ages since I’ve been here,’ I said, looking around me as we settled with our trays at a table downstairs. It was fairly busy. Most of the tables were occupied. There were several people alone, reading copies of Capital Gay and The Pink Paper, then a table of four men, reminiscing about trips to ‘Heaven’ in the early eighties.

The woman at the table beside us glanced briefly over her cappuccino at Turner, then settled the cup back into its saucer, looked at me and kept looking, her fingers tracing a line round the collar of her studded leather jacket. She had short dark hair, make-up, and motorcycle boots under the table. I wondered how she kept cool in all that leather. And I wished she would stop staring. I imagined that she fancied Turner and was checking me out – trying to decide if we were ‘together’, or just friends.

I looked away, first pretending to, then really, taking an interest in the alterations to the place.... Surely there never used to be a bar. And had the wiring in the lights always wound its way around the ceiling in copper pipes?

‘They have a women’s night here on Fridays,’ said Turner.

Instantly my insecurity grew to epic proportions.

‘I reckon you know more about Gay London than I do,’ I said.

‘I came here with Suzanne once, that’s all,’ she replied. ‘It was the night she introduced me to Ros.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ I felt unreasonably irritated. I’d felt my stomach lurch at the mention of Suzanne’s name, though she’d said it casually enough. ‘You two really
are
pretty close aren’t you?’ I wrapped my first and second fingers around each other to demonstrate quite how close they were in my fantasy.

‘Not really,’ she laughed – refusing to take me seriously.

And I had to be content with that, because I knew she wasn’t going to discuss it any further.

I ate my soup. It was good. Vegan. Tasty.

Turner eyed the woman at the next table.

‘She fancies you,’ she said, quietly, after a while.

‘Don’t be daft.’ This seemed highly unlikely to me.

Turner grinned. ‘She does,’ she said. ‘Lots of women do. I saw that at the party, but you just don’t notice, do you? I think that’s part of your attraction.’

I stared at her confused. I didn’t believe her, though part of me would have loved to.

‘Like who?’ I demanded, sure that she was just soft-soaping me. All those years of living in my mother’s shadow, of being a chubby kid, a gawky confused and tongue-tied teenager, and a clearly not attractive-enough partner to keep Corinne at home had taken their toll. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that now I’d called her bluff she wouldn’t be able to name anyone with even an iota of interest in me.

‘Like that Georgie woman you were talking to when I fell on you.’

I remembered Georgie’s telephone message and instantly felt guilty about not replying to it. I imagined that by now her initial impression of my abysmal manners was well and truly set in stone.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Well, that makes a grand total of one. It’s hardly a fan club, is it?’

‘Like Kay,’ said Turner, ticking off number two on her fingers. ‘I thought you two were together at first. Not that it would have stopped me making a play for you.’

I guess the last part of that sentence should have raised alarm bells for me, but I was too busy being shocked at the first. ‘Kay doesn’t fancy me,’ I said. The idea was so ludicrous I almost laughed.

Turner raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course she does,’ she scoffed. ‘That’s why she’s been giving
me
such a hard time. And why she’d been warding Ros’s attentions off for so long. She’s nuts about you. Neither of you can see it, that’s all.’

I was amazed. I’d thought Turner was pretty astute, but I figured she was way off beam with this particular theory.

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I’m definitely not Kay’s type.’

Turner shrugged. ‘Which is?’ She sipped juice from a tumbler. I could see she didn’t believe me. She looked amused.

‘Well,’ I blushed. ‘Maybe someone like you.’

‘Like
me
?’

‘Yeah,’ I rushed on. ‘Or Corinne, my partner... It was Kay she’d been with the night she died.’

Suddenly I had the sense that Turner had known
that
all along too. She didn’t look surprised, just sympathetic. She didn’t let on though. For some reason I think she didn’t want to pre-empt what I had to say about it all.

‘You must both have been devastated,’ she said, and her eyes sought mine, candid and very gentle. ‘I think I can understand how it would bring you together.’

I nodded, finding that I did actually want to tell her how it had been back then.

‘She came to the funeral,’ I said. ‘She sat at the back of the crematorium on her own. She didn’t really talk to anyone, but everybody knew who she must be... I remember all the raised eyebrows and ‘Oh my God what’s going to happen now?’ looks being exchanged. Poor Kay didn’t have the faintest idea what she’d just walked into. The atmosphere was already awful anyway because the family didn’t approve of Corinne’s sexuality and had already totally blanked me and my mum and all our friends. They’re really strict evangelical Christians. The only reason we weren’t having the service in church was because Corinne had specifically made a will saying she didn’t want it. Anyway, after the service I felt sorry for Kay standing there on her own and I introduced myself to her. I’m sure I must have been much more of a surprise for
her
than she ever was for me. Corinne had told her that we weren’t actually an item anymore... that we were just living together as flatmates. When I look back on it that was maybe even how she saw it. We hadn’t had a physical relationship for ages... slept in separate rooms... It may seem a bit weird, but I invited Kay home after the funeral. It wasn’t like we were ever going to be welcome for ham sandwiches and Madeira cake in the family’s church hall, and I certainly wasn’t up to going to the pub with my mum and the rest of the gang. We talked for hours. I didn’t really have it in me to be resentful towards her. She wasn’t the first by any means, and she had lots of answers to things I hadn’t understood before.’

Turner listened quietly, resting her hand on mine. Her eyes flickered over my face when I’d finished.

‘Corinne must have been very special,’ she said, ‘for you both to love her so much.’

‘I don’t know,’ I stopped, feeling my throat tighten. ‘I thought I could save her with my love I guess.... I can see now how stupid that must sound.’

‘I don’t think it’s stupid to love someone.’

‘It’s stupid if they’ve fallen out of love with
you
.’

‘And is that what had happened?’

Was
it?’ I still don’t know really, even after all those years.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I admitted. ‘It was impossible to know what was going on with her really. She was very... attentive... very good at making people feel important.’

Just like Turner, I thought, seeing myself as I imagined these women saw me; gullible and a bit desperate. I tried to pretend I wasn’t feeling that and carried on with my story.

‘She was just rebelling against the world. She’d had such a claustrophobic upbringing. It was very strict and very traditional, but there was a real sense of community, I think – a real sense of belonging, if only you could stick to their rules. She tried to do everything to fit in when she was a kid and then, she hit adolescence, and she just couldn’t do it anymore. Her family wouldn’t accept her, so she rejected them and everything they stood for. Deep down she thought she was heading straight to hell in a bucket. She was terrified. And the more frightened she got, the more exciting it all became, and the more she got hooked on the excitement, the more she tempted fate. She used to do these crazy things...’ I faltered, remembering the séance - how it was Corinne who suggested it, even though she’d been much more scared than I was at the idea. I shook the memory away. ‘It all just caught up with her in the end, I guess. That kind of thing always does.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Turner’s eyes were kind. I felt myself falling deeper. ‘Come home with me tonight,’ she said.

‘What about Adam?’

‘Adam’s working away.’

She took my hand and led me to the next phase.

On the Tube, we watched our reflections superimposed on acres of darkness as we moved into the night.

There were plenty of other people about. A huge spiky-haired man beside me was eating a burger from McDonald’s. The smell of onion and chargrilled meat grappled with Eternity from the blonde in the corner. The doors, opening at Oxford Street, let in a waft of acoustic guitar from the concourse beyond the platform. A dreadlocked baby snoozed in her mother’s arms as we got off the train to change onto the Bakerloo Line.

I asked Turner about her husband.

‘I met him at University,’ she said. ‘He was in my tutorial group and he was the star of the show - Blond, athletic, straight ‘A’s all the way. I didn’t like him at first. He was very arrogant, but he fascinated me. Our first date was quite typical. He took me to see ‘The Hunger’, and lectured me on Nietzsche in the pub afterwards. Then he bought a shed load of coke from a dealer, told me how he’d like to end the evening and asked me if I was interested. If I wasn’t, he said, he’d say goodnight and find somebody who was. It wasn’t a game. I could tell he really didn’t care either way... That’s what hooked me, I suppose. Nobody had ever been that dispassionate about me before. I felt completely inconsequential to him. It was like not being anybody... just free floating. It felt very liberating at first. But, you know, it palls after a while. Eventually, I reckon, there aren’t many people who can survive without a little warmth in their life.’

She sounded so flat about it. I didn’t even feel shocked – just puzzled rather, as to why she would choose that.

‘But you married him,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘I did, didn’t I?’

She was getting up. ‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

She lived near Regent’s Park and she had the lot... Bang and Olufsen hi-fi; watercolours by Maggi Hambling. Floor to ceiling windows with views over London that Ros would probably have been prepared to sell her granny for.

‘You shouldn’t be risking this for me,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘But I’m not.’

She went to make coffee and I sat down on the sofa, sinking into the soft cream luxury of it, wondering if I should actually have followed her into the kitchen and offered to help.

‘I’ve wanted you all week,’ she said when she came back.

‘Oh?’ I wasn’t used to people being so forward. I didn’t know what to say.

She ran her fingers through my hair. ‘I’ve tried all kinds of things to take my mind off it, but they haven’t helped.’

‘Oh?’ The vaguely suggestive words conjured an image I tried to push from my mind but it lingered as she ran her hand down my cheek.

I tried to balance my mounting passion with the coffee mug in my left hand. Then she kissed me and I tipped coffee down myself... leaping to my feet just quickly enough to prevent it dribbling onto the sofa.

‘SHIT!’
I felt the hot liquid soaking through my T-shirt and into the skin just below my ribs.
‘BUGGER!’
I cursed again, trying to hold the thin cotton material away from me. ‘I’m so sorry, have you got a cloth.’

Turner was watching me, amused, her eyes narrowed. ‘Why don’t you just take it off?’ she suggested.

She was taking my drink away from me, putting it on a small side table where it was safely out of reach. Then she turned to catch hold of the bottom of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head.

 ‘Off!’ she said. ‘Everything!’

I felt so clumsy and stupid and small. I also felt like she was playing with me. In a funny kind of way though, I liked it and I certainly didn’t want her to stop.