The Taxi Queue (18 page)

Kirsty finished her glass of wine and poured herself another. ‘Is it dead?' she asked. ‘Or asleep? I know how it feels.' She knelt down beside Luka. The floorboards were warm from the afternoon sun. It was late now and growing dark but the boards retained the heat. Kirsty was tired and had drunk too fast on an empty stomach. She leant forward and rested her forehead on her folded arms, making a neat, prayerful shape. After a few minutes she drifted into a hazy state, half asleep, half awake.

An articulated lorry clattered to a stop outside the house. Kirsty surfaced and wondered how long she had been dozing. She felt relaxed but no longer dead. She was aware of Luka nearby, the flimsiness of her short skirt, her bare legs tucked underneath her and the good feeling of the skin of her thighs on the back of her calves. In her sleepy state the warmth of her flesh and the proximity of Luka merged into the same sensation – a kind of tactile humming. Keeping her eyes closed, she moved a fraction nearer. Why complicate life? and Why not? she thought. She repeated both questions in her mind until they made no sense. She shifted herself so that her legs were touching the edge of Luka's jeans. She could feel the stitching. He still wants me, she thought. She opened her eyes and looked sideways at Luka. He was turned away from her, she couldn't see his face. She raised herself on an elbow and touched his bare back with the tips of her fingers.

‘Sodding horse!' he said, banging it down on to the floor.

Kirsty sat straight up, as if she had been burnt.

‘What?' he asked.

‘Nothing,' she answered.

‘Why is it broken?'

‘You must have overwound it,' she said dismissively, sitting on the hand that had reached for him.

‘That's terrible,' Luka said. ‘Not even crap goods. My own fault.' He held out the horse to Kirsty. ‘You try.'

Kirsty snatched it from him. The key wouldn't budge going clockwise. She tried anticlockwise but there was no bite to it. The winding stem got looser and looser and dropped out.

‘That's it,' she said. ‘Kaput.'

They sat crossed-legged and looked at each other. Kirsty had nothing to say.

‘What did Abe do?' Luka asked.

‘What did Abe do when?'

‘To make you so angry.'

Kirsty shrugged her shoulders. ‘He gave my number to someone – instead of his own. I assume that's what happened anyway. He's done it before.'

‘
Why
does he do this?'

‘He doesn't like to be harassed.'

‘So you are harassed. Great.'

‘That's the general idea. Once he gave my number to the economics teacher at school who fancied him. Mr Owen.'

‘You shouldn't allow him, Kirsty. It's wrong.'

‘That's Abe. He's always been like that.' Kirsty did her best to sound nonchalant.

Luka stretched his hand along the floor towards her feet without making contact. ‘Sorry for the horse,' he said.

‘Don't worry about it. Why be sorry?'

‘It was a present for you because I know that I'm a nuisance,' he said, slowly and correctly.

Kirsty took a deep breath. ‘I like anything with hair. I'll take it anyway,' she said. She got up from the floor, tweaking the yellow mane between her fingers. She went over to the bookshelves and squashed the horse in between Neil's tatty collection of thrillers. Her own newer and still unfaded books were on the shelf below. Luka was watching her. The horse wasn't well displayed, so Kirsty spent a few minutes rearranging the paperbacks to give the creature more space. She heard a voice in her head, saying, ‘You, Kirsty Rivers, would be good with children.' She struck a
tableau vivant
pose, spreading her arms wide, introducing the arrangement. She glanced at Luka. He was looking serious. What else was she supposed to do with the bloody horse? She remembered this about Luka, that when she was trying her hardest to keep him happy over some minor thing he seemed cosmically disappointed, as if the thing, whatever it was, had eternal significance that was beyond her grasp. She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Do you still like
my
hair?' Luka asked.

‘Yes, of course I do,' Kirsty said briskly.

Luka smiled.

UNLIKE THE NEW
glass structures to the south of Liverpool Street Station, the Victorian warehouses to the north-west of the railway lines had fully opening windows. If you had to be stuck indoors on a June afternoon, Karumi wasn't a bad place to be. An old-fashioned electric fan hung from the high ceiling, revolving at the moderate speed of a long-playing vinyl record. Blinds made of Japanese paper were drawn against the sun.

There had been a bit of a rush on in the early part of the lunch period but by three thirty only two clients were waiting. One of them was restless, unaffected by the ambient calm. She got up from the leather sofa, sat down again, rearranged her scarf. Then she addressed Abe who was sitting behind the slate-topped table. ‘Please call through and tell Mr Ibrahim I am here,' she said.

Abe took a swig from the large bottle of mineral water that was placed in front of him. ‘Sorry, there's no intercom,' he said. ‘Tariq will be out soon. He's running a few minutes late.' Abe felt under the table for the volume control on the sound system and the Buddhist monks lurched on to a new plateau of song. He stared at the computer and idled over his telephone messages. Impatience was probably what brought the woman here in the first place – fidgeting so much that she injured herself. Now she was applying dark lipstick, holding up a small gold compact mirror as if it were a fist. Abe yawned. He heard Tariq Ibrahim's voice, as the door
opened: ‘Take two ibuprofen, Mr Jenson. The discomfort will soon pass. No caving or pot-holing this weekend, no team-building exercises with that bank you work for. I make my living from company Away Days. Confine your speleology to videos.' A man in his late twenties, holding his jacket by its collar, preceded Tariq out of the treatment room. He was wearing a shirt with a wide stripe and his free arm was crossed over his chest, kneading the opposite shoulder with slow circular movements.

‘Ah, Mrs Paz. Come along in,' Tariq said. He used only titles and surnames. It was a little bit of Harley Street come to EC2. Mrs Paz allowed herself to be shepherded through the door. Before shutting it, Tariq put his head back round and stuck his fingers in his ears. Abe turned the volume of the sound system down to a murmur. Mr Jenson punched in his pin number. He had a certain appeal, Abe thought. The earlier lunchtime clients had all been pimply megaphones in red ties; the type who ended the day in All Bar One. Mr Jenson had good skin and didn't crash around the place. Abe stared at his back and the crumpled shirt cloth as he disappeared through the exit. He heard the clanking of the lift rising to the top floor, the slam of the gate shutting, the clanking as it descended. Then it was quiet again.

A couple of minutes after Mr Jenson's departure the remaining client, a woman, put the magazine she had been leafing through to one side and stood up. She adjusted the sunglasses that rested on her head and walked towards Abe. ‘Abe Rivers?' she said. Her voice sounded brittle and a little bit posh. Abe had never seen her before and was surprised to be addressed by name. She placed the fingertips of her left hand on the edge of the table, as if to steady herself. Her nails were painted impeccably. She wore a wedding ring and a circlet of sapphires and diamonds above it: what people call an eternity ring. ‘I'm sorry to bother you. You don't know me and I haven't come for a . . . treatment.' She hesitated
over the word, came to a stop and started again. ‘Vivienne Epworth,' she said.

Abe stared up at her. Mr Jenson was wiped from his mind. The woman in front of him had a childlike face – open but anxious – that seemed at odds with her well-groomed, almost glamorous appearance. She wasn't tall and carried herself straight to gain an extra half-inch. Abe smiled at her – the sort of smile that took up a little time. His face stretched into it and seemed to get stuck. ‘Vivienne. Pleased to meet you.' He stood up, as if in a dream, and shook her hand across the table.

‘Does my husband's name, Richard Epworth, mean anything to you?' she asked.

‘Should it?' Abe said.

‘Your sister said it would.'

‘Kirsty?
Did
she? What did she say?'

Vivienne Epworth opened the clasp of her bag and seemed to be searching for something. Abe watched in silence. He blamed Kirsty for Vivienne's surprise visit but blame was no help to him. A deep channel was opening up in his mind. Its depth was unknown – and the direction of the flow. Vivienne had found what she wanted. ‘I'd be very grateful if you'd just look at this.' A card fluttered in her hand. Abe took it from her. He glanced at it and handed it back. He had forgotten the feather; it was a nice design. It meant something, though he struggled to remember what. The woman herself was like a spiky kind of feather, or even more a bird that had become trapped indoors.

‘Excuse me for saying this, but you seem a bit worried. Are you worried?' Abe said.

Vivienne gave a shake of her head that involved a kind of smile. It was as if she couldn't do one without the other.

‘I don't want you to be worried. Let's go and sit down over there.' Abe indicated the sofa opposite. He came out from behind the table. Vivienne walked to the sofa and sat down. She took the sunglasses from her head and held
them in her lap with the card. Abe tried to focus. The room seemed to have closed in on him, though the windows were open and the paper blinds that hung over them moved and tapped against the glass. ‘Do you know anything about my sister?' he asked, turning towards Vivienne.

‘No,' she said.

‘I thought she'd already had a chat with you?' Abe paused but Vivienne offered no information. He wished he could make her look at him. She kept giving him quick alarmed glances that jigged him around as if he were shots taken by a hand-held camera.

‘Kirsty can be a bit weird,' he said. ‘Did she – kind of – say really odd stuff?'

‘She seemed annoyed that I'd bothered her – which I fully understand.'

‘She told you to come here. Did she explain why?'

‘No. I've no idea why. I'm hoping you'll tell me.'

Abe took a breath and blew the air slowly from his mouth. He wanted to thank Kirsty as well as kill her. Vivienne shifted slightly next to him. Abe looked at the small ringed hand gripping the card. Now he had to get her out without harming her. He didn't have much material to work with. Kirsty, feather. Kirsty, bird. He flipped to peace and pet shops in a wild game of associations. Steady on, he told himself.

‘Kirsty has talent. Same as our dad. He was an artist, a photographer. He took a photo of a girl leaning over Waterloo Bridge. Perhaps you know it?'

‘No,' Vivienne said.

‘Before your time, probably. The girl's name was Tamsin Spira. The poster made her quite famous for a while. When you look at the photo you're not sure whether she's on her way home after a night out – just stopping on the bridge to look at the dawn – or about to jump. Kirsty's quiet – not like me – but one day she'll do something good like that. Music, though, not photography. It's typical of her to have chosen a feather. Something that's small and insignificant and floats
through the air or on water . . .' Abe took a breath. ‘. . . And that weighs nothing at all.' A memory returned, like a thread of light underneath a door. He had to keep going and sensed that there would be something round a corner to save him. The feather had a meaning connected with Gloria. ‘Osiris,' Abe said and dried up.

Vivienne gave him another of her choppy looks.

‘You've heard of Osiris?' Abe continued, in what he hoped was a normal voice. More of the stuff was coming back to him. Gloria's chanting – the Egyptian judgement of the dead.

‘Well, I know he was an Egyptian god.' Vivienne's face turned pink. ‘But is it another word for something?'

‘Not as far as I know. What sort of thing?'

Vivienne shook her head. She hesitated. ‘Is it something people take?'

Abe stared at her. He felt that he had been put in charge of a vessel made of glass and, although Vivienne looked the young side of middle-aged, it seemed like very old glass, all the more fragile for having survived so long undamaged. ‘If it is, they haven't told me about it. Osiris was a saviour god who died and rose to life,' he said. He never had made Gloria the website.

‘I don't think so,' Vivienne said quickly. ‘Only one person did that.'

Abe remembered the Epworth noticeboard. He nodded slowly. ‘I think I see where you're coming from. But we can share, can't we? Pool our resources?'

Vivienne crossed her legs. She was wearing heeled sandals and her toenails were the same pink as the paint on her fingers. Abe waited a moment while his memory fully clocked in – but not too long. She was becoming impatient. ‘The feather is truth,' he said. ‘After death a person has to give an account of his or her life and what counts isn't what he or she has, or has not, done but how truthful the account is. They called it negative confession. The person's heart is
weighed against truth. That's a
really
interesting idea, isn't it?'

‘Up to a point,' Vivienne conceded, ‘but I can't see what it's got to do with your sister – or Richard.'

Voices behind the left-hand door indicated that the session had come to an end. Abe didn't want Tariq getting involved in this. ‘I need water,' he said. ‘Do you want some? Or I could make you a peppermint tea?' Vivienne shook her head. Abe stood up and went to the table. He picked up the bottle and took a gulp. The coldness trickled down his throat without refreshing him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The door opened. It stayed ajar for a few moments, then Mrs Paz and Tariq came out. ‘No more weights, Mrs Paz,' Tariq was saying. ‘No more suspending Mr Paz from the balcony. Abe will make you another appointment for the same time next week. We'll take it from there, Mrs Paz. See how it goes. Little and often will be our motto.' Mrs Paz looked mournful. Her scarf hung slackly round her neck. She limped towards the exit. ‘Take the stairs, Mrs Paz. Stairs are sovereign,' Tariq called after her. They heard the clanking of the lift rising to the top floor, then the slam of the gate shutting, then the clanking again as it descended.