A Thousand Cuts (25 page)

This was in school, out of school, before school, after school. Felix would shrug. He would say to me, do not worry, Mother. Do not cry. It was my fault, it must have been my fault. Do not cry. And I would wish then that his father were alive and that he were here and that he were with us. Because that is what a father is for, do you not think? To protect his family. I tried but I failed and I failed and I failed. I would walk with him, to school, from school, but then we would both end up running. I would talk with parents and Felix would watch his mother get shouted at, spat on, laughed at and he would learn exactly the things I did not want him to learn, about what people thought of us, what they thought of where we had come from, what they thought we were worth. I would talk to the school and the people I spoke to, the teachers, the headmaster, they would nod and look concerned and tell me that boys brawl, Mrs Abe, it is the way of things in this country. This country. Like it was their country and not my country, not my son’s country. The way of things. Like the way of things was fixed and decided and unchangeable. I have heard such words before, Inspector. Where I come from, such words are like medicine, they make it easier to cope with the pain. But not here. Not in the Greatest City in the World.

So I expect nothing. I have learnt to expect nothing. You seem nice. You look kind. But you know, I think, how this will end. It has ended already. Not for me, for me it will never end, but for everyone else it was over as soon as it began. Felix lived and now he is dead and already the world is forgetting his name. Tell me: will you remember his name? In a year. In a month. In a week. Will you remember his name?

‘Lulu.’

She turned away.

‘Lulu. Wake up.’

The hand was on her shoulder now, prising her from the pillow’s embrace.

‘Lulu. I’ve got to go.’

This time the name he was using registered. She lifted her head, just a fraction. ‘Don’t call me that.’ She tried opening her eyes but her eyelids resisted. The pillow drew her down; the blanket held her there.

Footsteps, the clinking of a set of keys. The muffled sound of water running, then more footsteps, almost to Lucia’s side. She turned on to her back and forced her eyes open. She freed her hands from the covers and with her fingertips rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

‘You snore, Lulu. You still snore.’

‘I don’t snore,’ Lucia said. She sat up, so that only her legs remained under the blanket. ‘And don’t call me that.’

David shrugged on his jacket, adjusted his cuffs. ‘Call you what?’ He looked about him. ‘Where’s my phone? Have you seen my phone?’

‘What you just called me. Don’t call me that.’

‘Lulu? I’ve always called you Lulu.’

‘I know. But someone else does too. He heard you one time, I think.’

‘Who does? Heard me what? Where the hell is my phone?’ Lucia’s Nokia was on the coffee table. She reached for it and dialled the number she still knew by heart. ‘Just someone I’d rather not be reminded of,’ she said and lifted the phone to her ear. She heard the dialling tone and then, half a second later, the hollow echo of the soul tune that David had chosen as his ring tone. It was coming from his jacket pocket.

‘That song,’ said Lucia. ‘That’s our song.’

‘You always said we didn’t have a song. You always said having songs was corny.’

‘I know. It is. But still.’

David disappeared into the kitchen. Lucia heard him open the fridge, lift out a bottle and take a swig of whatever was inside. He drifted back into the living room. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, yet he lingered just beyond the coffee table. He glanced towards the front door and then turned back to face Lucia. ‘So,’ he said. ‘How does this work?’

‘How does what work?’

‘Well, do I kiss you goodbye or what?’

Lucia swung her legs from the couch and sat upright. ‘What?’ she said. ‘No. Of course not. Why would you?’

David ran a palm from his crown to his forehead. His hair had been cropped for as long as Lucia had known him but it seemed thinner now, the cut less a statement of fashion and more a muttered denial of the advancing years. It was no bad thing, Lucia thought. It made him look more vulnerable somehow. Less male. ‘I don’t know,’ David said. ‘You slept here. Usually when women sleep here I kiss them goodbye. Then I leave or they leave. More often they leave.’

‘I didn’t sleep
here
. I slept on your sofa. And what do you mean, when women sleep here? Who sleeps here? What women?’

David grinned. ‘What’s the matter, Lulu? Not jealous?’

Lucia laughed. In her head it sounded less than convincing. ‘You and I both know that the only women who have ever spent the night in this flat are me, Barbarella over there—’ she gestured to the poster on the wall ‘—and your mother. Oh, and Veronica. How could I forget about Veronica?’

‘Victoria,’ said David. ‘It was Victoria, not Veronica.’

‘Victoria, Veronica, Verucca. Whatever happened to her?’

David shifted, stroked his head again. ‘She left. She got poached.’

‘In boiling water?’

‘By another firm. She got poached by another firm.’

‘Well,’ said Lucia. ‘It was probably for the best. She wasn’t your type, you know. Too hairy.’

‘She wasn’t hairy.’

‘I saw her naked, David. She was hairy. She was downy.’

David shook his head. He made to leave, then stopped himself. ‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone? Philip told me you weren’t seeing anyone.’

‘Philip’s wrong,’ said Lucia. ‘I am seeing someone.’

‘You’re not seeing anyone.’

‘I’m seeing someone. I am. His name is . . . ’

‘His name is?’

‘His name’s Harry. He’s from work. We met at work.’

‘Harry,’ said David.

‘Harry,’ said Lucia.

David nodded. He grinned again. ‘Right,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Lucia.

‘Nothing.’

‘What? Nothing what?’

‘Nothing nothing. It’s just, well. If you’re really seeing this Harry bloke, what are you doing here? On my sofa? Wearing one of my T-shirts and very little else?’ His eyes slid below Lucia’s waist. Lucia looked down and realised her legs, her thighs, were no longer under the blanket. She whipped the cover across.

‘You have to go, David.’

‘Huh? Oh shit. Shitshitshit.’ David spun and darted from the room. Lucia heard shoes tumbling from the rack in the hallway. A moment later, David reappeared at the door. There was no trace now of his grin. ‘Jesus Christ, Lucia. You’re not . . . I mean, you aren’t . . . ’

This time when Lucia laughed it was with genuine amusement. ‘How long has it been, David? Six months? Seven? I don’t think even this T-shirt would have let me keep that quiet until morning.’

David’s eyes closed. He breathed. He opened his eyes. ‘Thank fuck,’ he said. ‘I mean, sorry, but . . . Thank fuck.’

Lucia tapped a finger against her wrist.

‘Right,’ said David and he disappeared again. He hollered to Lucia from the hallway. ‘So what’s up, Lulu? You turn up at my flat in the middle of the night—’

‘It was nine-thirty, David.’

‘—in the middle of the night, after six months in which you have basically refused even to talk to me. You eat three mouthfuls of the omelette I cook for you, then you fall asleep on my couch. If you’re not pregnant, why are you here?’ Again he poked his head around the doorframe. ‘Do you need money? Is that it?’

‘No! God no.’

‘Because it’s not a problem. I mean, I know it must be hard: with the flat, being on your own. I realise you don’t get paid very much.’

‘The flat’s fine,’ Lucia said. ‘The money’s fine.’ Although as she spoke it occurred to her that it might not be fine for much longer. ‘I just thought, I don’t know. That we could have lunch or something.’

David was fiddling with his tie. He looked up. ‘Lunch?’

Lucia nodded. ‘Lunch. Just the two of us.’ She realised immediately how this would have sounded. ‘I mean, me and you. Not together, just alone. Not the two of us as in us.’ She shut her eyes, waved a hand. ‘Just lunch,’ she said. ‘Are you free?’

‘For lunch?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Just the two of us?’

Lucia sighed. ‘Me and you, yes.’

David bobbed his head. ‘Okay. Sure. I can do that. How about Ciullo’s? On Charterhouse Street?’

‘I’ll find it. One o’clock?’

‘One o’clock,’ David echoed. He turned away, then reappeared at the door. ‘You sure you’re not pregnant?’

‘I’m not pregnant, David. Cross my heart.’

‘And you’re sure about the kissing thing? Not even a peck on the cheek?’

‘Not even that,’ said Lucia.

 

It was the same apartment. The walls were still white, the carpet still green. The furniture was as it had been, in the same places, against the same walls, and looking only marginally more scuffed than it had before. Even Jane Fonda was a longstanding tenant, the result of a compromise Lucia and David had reached at the outset of their cohabitation and that Lucia had regretted for its duration: Lucia was granted veto on every other wall so long as Barbarella retained her position above the mantelpiece. She was framed, David had argued: that made her art. She was wearing rubber and squashing her tits together, Lucia had countered: that made her porn.

Much was the same then but everything seemed altered. There was the smell, for one thing. The bathroom, for instance, smelt of cleaning products, which meant it smelt like the toilets at work; the kitchen smelt of milk that had been spilt but not fully wiped up. In the living room, there was a new television. Flipped sideways it would have doubled as a dining table. There were speakers too. Dozens, it seemed, at random heights and angles. None was particularly large yet they loomed like security cameras in a lift. On the shelves, the space that had been vacated by Lucia’s books had been infiltrated by the plastic boxes of DVDs, CDs and video games. There were bottles of spirits: Polish vodka, American bourbon, something yellow and Italian, all arranged like ornaments. And in various corners, cacti had been planted. Cacti were men’s plants, Lucia had long ago decided: low maintenance, high bluster.

The sensation, Lucia thought, was of rediscovering a favourite jumper but realising, as you pulled it on, that it was actually a little tight, and it smelt musty, and the colour did not really suit you. As she readied herself to leave, she felt relief. She felt relief too that seeing David had not triggered in her the emotional relapse she had feared. She had loved him and for some time she had hated him but in the time that had passed since she had last seen him - and almost without her conscious self noticing - her feelings for him seemed to have settled between the two extremes. They were volatile still; they were treacherous. If he had insisted, for instance, and leant in to kiss her goodbye, she would not have stopped him. Some perfidious reflex might even have nudged her lips just a fraction closer to his. But he had not kissed her. As far as David was concerned, she had not let him. It felt like progress. Not victory, not quite that, but progress nonetheless.

She shut the door behind her. She slid her bag on to her shoulder and she Chubb-locked the door and she made her way to the stairwell. She allowed herself just a single glance back.

 

‘David.’

‘Lulu.’

‘Please, David. Stop it.’

‘Stop what? Oh.’ He had been tapping a fingernail against his glass. He curled his fingers and slid his hand away.

‘Not that. Stop . . . this. Stop smiling like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’re on a date. You’re not on a date.’

‘It’s not business.’

‘It is. That’s exactly what it is.’

David’s smile broadened. ‘Whatever you say, Lulu.’

‘And stop calling me Lulu.’ She turned her head away. ‘You’re not making this easy.’

The waiter arrived with the water Lucia had ordered. He made a fuss of placing it, clearing the wine glasses, presenting each of them with a menu. Lucia folded hers and set it to one side once the waiter had moved away. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said. ‘Am I going to be able to talk to you?’

‘Sure,’ David said. ‘That’s why we’re here, right? To talk.’ He leant in and reached for Lucia’s hand. She let him take it, then snatched it back.

‘David—’

‘Lucia, look. I was wrong. Okay? I made a mistake and I’ve been paying for it ever since. Please, let me make things up to you.’

Lucia shook her head. She tucked her hands under the table. ‘David. Listen to me.’

Before she could go any further, however, another waiter appeared beside them, pen and paper poised. Lucia picked up her menu and gestured for David to order first. He chose pasta. Lucia was looking for soup. When she found it, she changed her mind. ‘Do you have chocolate cake?’ she asked.

‘We have a delightful Valrhona tart served with caramelised oranges.’

‘Does it have chocolate in it?’

‘It does, madam.’

‘I’ll have that,’ Lucia said. ‘Thank you.’ She relinquished her menu.

The waiter retreated. Lucia looked back at David, who had his head slightly bowed and a hand on his forehead. She could not help but smile. Her order, she realised, had embarrassed him. It was a trait of his that she had forgotten: waiting staff intimidated him. A murderer, a rapist, even a crown court judge: none came close to having the same effect on David as a second-generation Italian in a bow tie bearing a notepad.

‘David,’ said Lucia. ‘I need your help. That’s why I’m here.’

‘You said that already. You said that last night.’

‘Yes. I know I did. But listen. It’s the only reason I’m here.’

Doubt tugged at the edges of David’s smile. ‘But I thought you meant . . . I mean, when you said help, I thought you meant . . . ’