Untouchable Things (43 page)

Just three chocolate bars, half a bottle of wine, a state funeral and the tears of a nation for her to say a proper goodbye to her ma.

Scene 3

The newspaper images should have prepared her but they didn’t come close. The smell hit first, a thick fragrant sweetness that gave her goosebumps. Rebecca stopped still at the first glimpse of white, upsetting the steady procession behind her. People in front were staring rapt as if a host of angels had settled on the grounds of Kensington Palace. As she shuffled forwards the same
Oh my God
dropped from her open mouth as everyone else’s. This wasn’t a few bunches of flowers but a glistening ivory ocean that swelled and rose before her like the taffeta skirts of a giant bride. She thought of an inflated, goddess-sized Diana on her wedding day. As the waxy horizon continued shifting and expanding she gasped and her eyes watered. It was the feeling of tininess in the presence of something extraordinary. But this was also a fixed moment in time. She would never see anything like this again.

She spent a little time moving amongst the bouquets, where she could. Sometimes they were thigh-high. She was silent, lost not just for words but for thoughts, a way of processing what she was seeing. She laid her own modest clutch of freesias next to an old-fashioned teddy bear with a note round its neck.
Sleep well in heaven
.

It was easy to cry because everyone else was. The British upper lip was down and drooping. They were crying for Diana, they were grieving their mothers, spouses, old lives, lost dreams. Finding comfort under this shared blanket of sadness. Standing shoulder to shoulder, just for this moment, to better bear the weight of death and debris grinding them down.

I’ve lost him
she said, to her surprise. The woman next to her nodded and took her hand. For a second there was peace and acceptance. Everyone here had lost someone. Then the certainty came.
He’s here.
As soon as she said it she knew it was true. He’d followed her again. The woman stared as Rebecca broke away and tried to back up, knocking into mounds of plastic-wrapped lilies. He was here and she had to find him.

She was making a stir now, pushing forwards then stopping suddenly to stand on her tiptoes. People tutted as she disturbed their reveries. She didn’t care. He was here, she could feel it.

“Sorry, sorry, excuse me…” She fought her way along a floral corridor, struggling for breath. Bloody bouquets everywhere like the last night of a performance. She wanted to hurl them out of her way.

“Have you lost someone, madam?”

She looked at the hand on her arm with its navy cuff and up into the spectacled eyes of a policeman. Relief flooded her.

“Yes, a friend of mine. I have to find him, it’s urgent.”

“Okay, madam, let’s just move this way.” He was guiding her, his hand firm on her elbow. “When did you last see this friend?”

“Oh, er…” She couldn’t exactly say two months ago. And he was moving her too fast. She pulled back, twisting her head around.

“Sorry, I know he’s here, I just have to find him.” She looked at her escort. “You couldn’t make an announcement or something, could you?”

The officer regarded her evenly. “Perhaps it might be easier if you called his mobile phone, if he has one?”

“Oh – no, it’s switched off. I have to find him. Please can you help me?” She wanted to clutch his sleeve, drop to her knees and beg the kindly policeman to make everything right.

“Let’s get you out of these crowds and we can talk about what to do.”

She submitted for a couple of minutes until a jet head of hair jumped out from the blurry hush.

“That’s him!” She pulled away from the hand on her elbow and lunged forwards, shoving a middle-aged woman so hard that she toppled over. “Sorry.” Gasps around her, the woman spluttering. She was vaguely aware of the policeman stopping to help the woman up and pushed harder through the crowd: there he was, twenty people ahead of her. The policeman would catch her any second. She had one option left.

His name circled once, twice, three times around the arena of flowers before her scream was sucked silent into the waiting foliage. Everything seemed to stop. A magpie called overhead. The distant rumble of a bus from the road. And then the black head turned.

It was a woman.

“No.” She said it aloud, backing up now, bumping more people, more flowers, more teddy bears. “It was him. It was him.” Someone grabbed hold of her upper arm, hard, until the policeman forced his way through. She pulled free of the new hand but the policeman took her by both shoulders.

“Forwards please.” His voice was harder now. “People are trying to pay their respects. Please restrain yourself.”

Tears rushed to her eyes as he propelled her along. “You don’t understand. Please slow down. Please slow down or we’ll miss him.”

The hands on her shoulder were implacable. She twisted her head frantically from side to side, trying to pick out a face. Her nose sought for oxygen in the thick, sweet air. The tips of her fingers started to tingle and gratefully she closed her eyes.

There was movement around her when she opened them again. And voices, perhaps in the next room, talking about her.

“Up you sit.” She was pulled up under her arms like a child.

“Put your head between your knees.”

She did as she was told, breathing rapidly. Then a woman’s voice and a hand on her back.

“Are you feeling better, love?”

The kind words kick-started the tears.

“Come on now, lift your head and have a bit of water.” A bottle was pressed into her hand. She sat up straighter and took a sip, letting the tears slide into her sticky mask of hair.

“Is there anyone you want us to call?”

She cried harder, put her head back on her knees. The voices were talking about her again.

“Look love, we’ve got your mobile phone here and we’re going to call someone. How about Anna? Or Catherine?”

“No no.” She sniffed up into a thudding headache. “Call Shaz, my flatmate. Shazia.” She parted her hair and saw a short-haired policewoman crouching by her side. She was at the edge of the gardens and the sight of the ghostly tableau in front of her reminded her.

“I have to go.” She clambered to her feet, wiping her face.

“Not so fast.” The policewoman had also stood up. “You’re in no fit state to do anything. We’ll go across the road and wait for your flatmate to come.”

* * * * *

“He was there, Shaz, I know he was.” They were drinking musty herbal tea at home that Shaz had found at the back of the cupboard. “You don’t believe me either, do you?”

Shazia looked down at her chipped Birmingham City mug.

“He was there and I missed him. And I don’t… I don’t know if I’ll ever find him now.”

Scene 4

Catherine finds herself at Seth’s flat more and more. She’s always ready with an excuse, leaves the Jif on the worktop in case someone else turns up, but she’s never disturbed. Seems like everyone’s lost interest in him, including the police. It’s just Diana, Diana, Diana at the moment. The person she really fears meeting is Jake. That phoney smile – and now, knowing what he’s capable of – makes her jumpy as she sips camomile tea. But even he isn’t a big enough deterrent. This is the place where she’s closest to Seth, and it pulls her back over and over again.

She was always happy here, practising her scales, waiting for him to get home. For some reason she can’t play anymore. Some people pour their heartbreak into music or writing but she can’t begin to start. She feels guilty seeing the piano lying there dormant, its closed lid reproaching her. She dusts it regularly, though, runs fingers along its back. She doesn’t play but she does wait for him to return, telling herself that today he’ll be back at five after visiting his accountant and stopping by Selfridge’s food hall. She makes up outings and errands for him, realising that she never really knew what he did when he left the house.

She’s at her own flat at the moment, on her tightly sprung little sofa, slipping into her other world. She takes his face in her hands and he clings to her and tells her why he had to go, how he couldn’t handle his growing feelings for her, how he’s terrified of trusting but realises he can’t manage without her. They are kissing now and the savagery of his need overwhelms her. Tears scorch his eyes when he looks at her, seeing into her as no one has before.

The shrill ring of the phone shatters their moment together. Her mother’s voice on the machine, again. Wondering if she’s alright, why she isn’t calling, saying her sister Suzanne’s worried too. Catherine nearly laughs at the reversal. She isn’t trying to worry anyone but there are more important things to think about at the moment. She doesn’t want to be disturbed when she’s feeling so close to him. Now it will take a moment to get back to where she was.

A thought leaps up, licking her like a stray flame. She could go to his flat and stay overnight, go straight into work in the morning. She could be with him all night, in his bed, surrounded by his things and his smells. For one whole night she can leave her life and inhabit this other world, the real one.

Her heart dances as she packs her bag: best underwear, body spray, clothes for tomorrow. She thinks of sliding into his bed, nestling the pillow that has cradled his face. She can have him all to herself for one night.

Scene 5

Not a single taxi – and there were many, sailing gaily along Ladbroke Grove – had its light on. Charles waved anyway but wasn’t even treated to a glance by passing cabbies. Bloody London. If public transport was going to shut down at midnight the least you could do was have a decent supply of taxis.

He carried on walking, repeatedly craning his head backwards in search of a yellow light. Nothing. Autumn had leapt in suddenly like a matador with a chilly swish of its cape. A suit jacket was no longer adequate at one in the morning. He stopped and pulled out his blue inhaler, turning out of the wind. It was the first time he’d let his hair down since the photo arrived and now look at him. Smashed and stranded with work tomorrow. Just for one night he’d wanted to forget, down pints like a twenty-year-old, flirt with some of the sassy girls in dark blue jeans and maybe even take a telephone number home. But who was he kidding? Charles Maslowe didn’t get to be a selfish ass. Charles Maslowe didn’t get the girl. Charles Maslowe was not allowed to forget.

His mind had been on overdrive since the photo, searching and surmising and making connections even in his sleep, insidious connections in deep, dark neural pathways. At three in the morning he’d ping suddenly awake with a perfect recollection of something Seth said, a put-down, an obscure reference, a hint. Stuff he’d forgotten, or tried to forget. He was re-evaluating everything he thought he knew about his oldest friend.

He’d said nothing to Sarah, of course. Something like that – well, goodness knows what it could trigger. He tried to be natural around her but he kept seeing her in a red wig and unsisterly pout. A child playing dress up. The shock of ribs under her taut skin. The Bridget connection came to him in one of those midnight epiphanies. Sarah, Mrs Larson had said. Seth had betrayed Bridget with Sarah. He had pushed it out of his mind and now it was staring him in the face. Looking at the photo, the timing fitted. Sarah would have been doing her Masters. He’d no idea they’d stayed in touch. And now she couldn’t even bear to hear Seth’s name. What the hell had he done to her?

This was no longer playboy Seth, hedonistic Seth, notching up conquests for fun. This was completely personal. Seth, his oldest friend, his best friend, had tried to ruin the two most important women in his life.

But why?

Was he jealous?

That seemed ludicrous. But the only other explanation was a terrifying malice. Or it wasn’t Seth at all. Someone else was behind it, someone who wished them all harm. His hands trembled as he put the inhaler back in his pocket and surveyed the quietening road. A tiny bulb of panic started to flash in his head, faster and faster. He couldn’t even get himself home, let alone figure out how a mind like Seth’s worked. His friend’s laughter blew around him like the accelerating rain and spray from passing cars.

He gripped his keys in his pocket. That’s when he remembered. He pulled them out and checked. There it was, a single gold key, never used. He laughed back into the wind. Seth may as well help him out for once.

Scene 6

She burrows down into wrinkled white cotton, one pillow nuzzled by her face, the other hugged hard to her chest. She is awake and asleep, drowsy and alert, suspended in dreams and duck down duvet. She knows he will come to her, summoned by her whispered calls like Jane Eyre to Rochester. She hears his key in the lock.
Honey, I’m home
. Rolling through ripples of darkness towards the chink of light she sees a silhouette above her. He tries to speak but she puts a finger over her mouth and holds out a hand. He takes it wonderingly as she pushes back the covers to let him see her. Any second now she will feel his hand on her, first fluttering then frantic, then the weight of his body drowning her out, crushing her to rubble. His neck is wet and she closes her eyelids against his tears.

* * * * *

“Catherine, please talk to me.”

How can she talk when she cannot look, cannot meet his tender confusion and fired hope, her mirrored image in his eyes?

“I don’t want you to feel embarrassed about what happened. I don’t. It was beautiful.”

She’s in a nightmare. That’s what it is. She’s in the misted kingdom of changelings and dark magic where betrayals are undone upon waking.

His hand tries to evoke a response from her rigid body. “Please. Please look at me. I know I was – I’d had a few drinks, but I knew exactly what I was doing and I don’t regret it for a second. To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever had such a nice surprise.”

He means to lighten the atmosphere, make her feel better, but she curls up as if he has released a swarm of cockroaches to crawl over her body. “Please leave.” She has too little power to be polite. Her voice is a whisper and she knows he will make her repeat it. The second time she manages to say
sorry
.