Untouchable Things (50 page)

She has the feeling she’s turning a few heads. She feels light as she walks. Ready to meet Anna and José, ready to deal with her demons. A different person from the brittle wreck they saw last time. She can handle this.

She sees them at once, at the usual table in the corner. For a second she feels like the new girl again, like at her first lunch with them all that time ago, snaking her way past feet, bags, knees, chairs. But then their faces light up and they’re on their feet and she is hugged hard for the first time in too long. The smell of them is a hug in itself: José’s lightly spiced aftershave, the hint of sweat and garlic at Anna’s throat. José and Anna. Anna and José. Much is silently said in those hugs. Wine is poured, drunk in gulps. Minutes pass while all they do is grin at each other, saying
So!
and
Wow!
and
You look great!
Whatever she expected, it isn’t this. She wants to laugh and cry at the same time.

They both look a little different. José has colour back in his cheeks and newly conditioned biceps bulge out from the sleeves of his tight green T-shirt. Rebecca notices both men and women checking him out. Anna has grown her hair longer, and she looks softer for it, a bit 1940s.

She tells them about her time on the road, warming to her theme, rediscovering familiar ways of interacting, grinning at the sparring between Anna and José. She tells them about the people she’s met, exaggerating character quirks when her audience howls with laughter, glowing when they say how well she’s doing. Everything is exorcised in the telling: the shitty hair-covered bathrooms, the drunken director with a wandering right hand, the first night panics, the last night snogs (only two but it was good to know she still had it.) How had she coped without this? For the first time she isn’t looking for Seth to appear. It’s enough to be just the three of them.

Better than enough. She has hardened herself to them in the past year, demonising them in their absence – her absence, Seth’s absence – and she sees she was wrong. Maybe she needed to, maybe everything and everyone got tarnished by Seth. But her barriers have crumbled into dust at the sight of these friends, these dear friends, and there’s something surrounding them, winking in the sunshine, a glimmering prism reflecting between them. Love, she thinks and she squeezes it back into their hands.

During the second bottle there’s a gratifying flow of gossip, mainly from Anna. No one has had contact with Jake and it’s safe to conclude that he was only interested in Seth’s money – although Anna does appear to accept that his crimes might go no further than that. Rebecca doesn’t mention the email. It’s too soon to wade into tricky waters. And Anna has moved onto Michael, recounting that she’d tried to get in touch with him in connection with work; a client who wanted to fund something for the community in North East London. When he didn’t return her calls she phoned the school and discovered he’d left a few months previously.

“Presumably to move to another school?”

“I don’t know, they were a bit mysterious really. Said they couldn’t comment on his reasons for leaving. I was left with a slightly strange taste. Teachers rarely leave in the middle of the school year, do they?”

“Weird. I can’t imagine he got into trouble – he was dedicated to his job.”

They muse on this for a minute until Anna bumps her glass down. “And now for the really juicy stuff. You’ll never guess.”

Rebecca laughs. “I’ve missed you.”

They clink glasses. “That’s not all you’ve missed, sweetie.” She raises an eyebrow. “Charles and Catherine.”

“What? No!”

Anna’s face is the clue, eyes bulging expressively.

Rebecca mirrors her. “You’re kidding. I can’t believe it. What about her dedication to Seth?”

It’s the first time his name has been spoken, and Rebecca feels a ripple fan briefly and die away.

“Well, clearly she’s moved on. In a pretty major way. You’re never going to believe this.” Anna licks her lips, drawing out the moment. “The Virgin Catherine is with child.”

Rebecca’s squeals and facial contortions delight Anna. “See – I told you she’d be gobsmacked. What about that then?”

Rebecca can only just speak. “Well – good luck to them, I guess. Do we presume it was an, um, accident? Ouch, the mind boggles.”

“Tell me about it. Well, I’m hardly in her confidence but I can’t imagine they’d plan it like this. I had lunch with them last week. Quite the doting couple.”

Rebecca frowns. “And is she…”

“Fat?”

“Well…”

José shakes his head like a despairing parent.

“I wasn’t going to say that – but is she?”

“’Fraid not, love. She has a compact but quite impressive bump that she fingers constantly and otherwise looks pretty much the same. Pale, pained, vaguely disapproving.”

They cackle over José’s remonstrations.

“That’s just unbelievable. I guess Charles is pleased?”

“Over the moon, his little smile was practically cracking his face. She’s harder to read, of course. What was interesting is that the subject of Seth didn’t come up once.”

Rebecca sips her wine and takes a breath. “I suppose we have to be careful it doesn’t become that way for us.” A sudden hiatus, as if she’s pressed Pause in the middle of a song. The dialogue resumes immediately but the rhythm is more stuttering.

“You’re right. But it’s also good to have a break from talking about him.”

Rebecca nods. “That’s true.” But she knows she has to say her piece or it’ll be left forever inside her, a shred of shrapnel in her heart. She looks at both of them. “It hurt so much that you were keeping secrets from me.”

José lowers his eyes. Anna fiddles with her glass. “I know. It was wrong, like I said. I’m sorry. We both are.”

José makes a slight head movement, a nod.

Anna puts her glass down. “But we were all keeping secrets from each other, weren’t we? You too, Becs.”

Rebecca feels a flush of anger across her cheeks. “It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t that the way he wanted it? Divide and rule, all of that.” Rebecca is amazed to hear Anna talking like this about Seth. “It’s what he did. Look, I understand why you cut us off, Becs. When it all came out I didn’t even want to talk to José for a while.”

He manages an uncomfortable smile. “That was pretty mutual, actually.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ve all been through this. We all made mistakes. The question is, can we move on? And I think we can.”

Rebecca nods but looks at the table. She can’t put it all away quite so easily.

José shifts in his seat and speaks quietly. Rebecca leans in to hear him over the increasing clatter of the lunchtime rush. “I was in his debt. I was so grateful to him, you know about all that stuff now. And whatever motives he had, whatever he’s done since, he did save me.” He looks at her. “I would have done anything for him.”

Anna’s voice is soft too. “I think you’d have done the same, Becs. Covered for him if he’d asked you to.”

Another flare of anger. Because it was the truth. “Maybe. But after he’d gone you should have come clean with me.”

Anna shrugs. “We were also protecting you. Have you ever thought of that? With all the police questioning it was safer and easier for you if you didn’t know anything. Otherwise you could have been dragged in too.”

She can see that. Suddenly, as if a curtain has been raised, she can see another interpretation for their secrecy. The surprise of it takes her words away. Instead she feels the burn of tears behind her eyes.

“Hey.” Anna takes her hand. “Don’t get upset.” She nods across the table at José, whose nose has turned pink. “Or you, Josie. Come on, we’re not gonna get dragged down by this again. Let’s order another bottle.”

Both Rebecca and José reach to cover their glasses in identical gestures and everyone giggles. Rebecca takes a breath. “You’re right. So, tell me about you two. How’s work, José?”

He blinks and rolls his shoulders as if to shrug something away. “Okay. Much better. I feel like I’ve got into my stride again, which is a relief. Life at the moment is pleasantly… non-eventful.”

They smile at each other. Anna shoots him a sidelong glance. “Of course that will change soon.”

“Will it?”

She leans back in her chair. “Spoken to your
Mama
recently, darling?”

“They’re away.”

“How convenient.”

Rebecca grins at the ping-pong dialogue. “Now now, you two. Play nicely please. What’s this about?”

José scowls. “Playing nicely with her is impossible.”

Anna blows kisses across the table. “It’s just that José has finally decided to tell his parents the real reason why he hasn’t found a nice girl yet and I’m encouraging him to do it as soon as possible.”

Rebecca looks at him. “Wow. That’s pretty big.”

José grimaces. “You have no idea how big. I’m not doing it over the phone, Anna, as I’ve told you before. I’ll go home after the summer and do it then. My brother has offered to be a human shield.”

Anna eyes him. “Fair enough, I suppose. I’ll nag you about booking your flights until you do it.”

“I bet you will.” He turns to Rebecca. “After… everything, you know, I just wanted life to be simpler, cleaner. More honest.”

She feels her ribcage swell. “I can relate to that. Good for you, love.” She squeezes his hand. “If positive things can come out of all this…” She trails off. “Sorry, that’s such a platitude.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Anna speaks lightly but looks out of the window. “I can’t say I regret meeting Seth, knowing him, having that experience. We had some amazing times. Well, I did.” There’s a pause. For the first time Rebecca feels the empty seat at the table, his absence. Anna sighs. “He has a seductive power over people but it was also our responsibility how we reacted.” She flushes slightly and turns back to the table. “I’ve been having therapy, in case you can’t tell.”

“Cool.” Rebecca keeps it light in return, hides her surprise.

“Yeah. There was a point a few months ago when I thought – well, anyway, I wasn’t in good shape. I started seeing this counsellor, Laura, and it was amazing what came out. I thought I was there just to talk about Seth but she showed me all these connections I hadn’t made before. Between Seth and my dad. In some ways they are quite similar – the charisma, dominating a group, that sort of thing. Although my dad isn’t a complete nutter.” They share a smile. “I ended up talking more about my family than anything else. I suppose that’s the usual thing with therapy. My mother’s death, all the unprocessed stuff there.” She smiles. “Listen to me, with my therapy-speak.”

Rebecca smiles back. “It sounds like it really helped.”

“It did. And of course we did spend a fair bit of time talking about Seth, analysing him. I still needed answers, needed to understand.”

Rebecca knows she should keep the focus on Anna but the kick of curiosity is sudden and intense. Familiar. “And did you?”

Anna pauses as if deciding whether to respond. Then she sighs. “It was interesting to hear her perspective. She thought he was probably very damaged as a child, which I doubt anyone would dispute. She talked about narcissism and how that can mask feelings of emptiness and self-hatred.”

Rebecca shrugs. “Sounds like more therapy-speak. And a lot of guesswork.”

“Yes, and she said that – said we had to be careful about looking for a label to give us an explanation. Which makes sense.” Anna drains her glass and looks hopefully around for a waitress. “We’re all individuals after all, and Seth was more of an individual than most. Some of the narcissism stuff fits though – charming, manipulative, needing to be adored.” She catches the waitress’ eye and orders another bottle. “I’ll drink it, even if you two don’t.”

“So – why did he disappear then?”

Anna shrugs. “That’s still the million dollar question. She said maybe in pretending that his parents were dead he’d split part of himself off, repressed it so that he did almost believe he was an orphan. Then if something happened to challenge that version of reality, like his mother showing up at his flat, for instance, upset about her husband leaving her, it could have totally unhinged him.”

Rebecca thinks of him on the day they slept together, swollen-eyed and brittle.

Anna looks at her. “She said it was possible the collision of the two realities, as she put it, could push someone like that over the edge.”

“Meaning?”

“Make him delusional. Maybe even dangerous.”

Rebecca thinks of Seth – suave, sardonic, self-assured. “No, I can’t see it.” But other images are filtering through: Seth at the dinner party, Seth holding the negligee over her face. Footsteps following her at night. Goosebumps hatch like flies along her upper arms.

Anna lines her cutlery up in the middle of her plate. “She did actually warn me, you know. She said the main threat would be towards his parents or anyone he identified closely with one of his parents – but that I should still be careful.”

There’s a connection here that Rebecca doesn’t want to make and she shivers, reaches for her cardigan. José makes the more obvious connection. “And, of course, after he disappears his father is mysteriously killed.”

“But…” Rebecca frowns. “His mother’s been convicted for it.”

Anna shrugs. “And she had a fair old motive. We’ll probably never find out the truth about that one.”

Rebecca doesn’t want to go any further. She runs a hand through her hair. “He’s sidetracking us again. You didn’t finish telling me about you, Anna. Sod it, give me some more wine.”

Anna grins and passes it over as José shakes his head. “Well, I suppose the therapy has set a few wheels in motion. You know I’d lost contact with my pa?”

Rebecca nods.

“I think I transferred some of my feelings for him onto Seth. That’s what my counsellor said and it makes sense. When Seth left – I just lost it. Sorry. I know I was hard work.”

“Nothing new there then.”

Anna gently prods José with a fork. “I couldn’t handle it. I had to find him so I didn’t have to face up to all these other feelings that were coming up. Losing my pa, losing my ma. Too much losing.”

Rebecca rubs Anna’s arm. “Do you feel better now?”