Approaching Zero (7 page)

“Yeah, she’s got no one, poor love,” she imagined the nurse telling other nurses in the staffroom, or her husband, or other volunteers at the soup kitchen where she obviously volunteered in her spare time. “So I thought I’d help, you know, give her a few quid.”

Kathy pushed her face as close to the mirror as she could without head-butting herself, so close that she could see the broken squiggles in her bruises, until the image misted up with her breath. “Poor love, indeed,” she said, suddenly feeling even sorrier for herself and then pulled back, turning her head left and then right and then left again for as many different perspectives as possible. When she finally concluded that there was no such thing as a flattering angle and probably wouldn’t be for some time to come, she gave up on the mirror and returned to the front door to retrieve her keys and close the world out for the day. A bath: that would sort her out. That would make everything better.

She tried to run up the stairs, but realised after the first few steps that her battered body wasn’t quite up to that yet and besides, there was so much clutter on the stairs—piles of book, magazines, shoeboxes of things that she had accumulated and was yet to find a place for—that she would have probably fallen and broken her neck anyway. She peeled off her layers before even reaching the magnolia bathroom with the floral transfers that her grandmother had loved so much, and sat on the loo as the bath filled with water, a mass of inviting bubbles dividing and multiplying on the surface and filling the room with a fragrance that promised to relax and rejuvenate her. She lazily began to count the bruises and scratches dotted around her naked body from the collision and knew that it would take more than a bottle of pink goo to bring her back to life. But as she stepped in amongst the steam and bubbles and sat down, a comforting shiver swept over her followed by something that really did resemble relaxation. She closed her eyes and all she saw there was the peachy glow of the underside of her eyelids. This was rare for her; left unchecked, her brain had no problem juggling issue after issue, filling her mind with images of all the world’s ills and her inability to really do much of anything about any of them. So she took advantage of the calm and stayed in the same position for more than an hour, with her eyes loosely closed and the soothing heat of the water transporting her to a place where she would stay forever if she could. With barely the energy to think, she surprised herself when she eventually found the energy to wash her body and shampoo her hair. This was definitely more of a chore than a luxury, but she remembered how the woman in the mirror had looked back at her, as if she had spent the night sleeping rough, and knew it was worth it. When she was soothed, scrubbed and rinsed, and then dried, moisturised and robed, she headed downstairs again. She wasn’t particularly hungry but she dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and flicked the kettle on. It was easy to forget to eat; she had seen this in clients whose complex issues surrounding food were always difficult to resolve. Or rather, she had seen clients whose issues manifested in their relation to food, controlling each mouthful as if it represented one of the endless people who had caused them harm. Kathy simply forgot to eat but because of her profession she made herself and had consequently saved herself from becoming what her mother would call ‘dangerously thin.’ She was just thin at the moment, nothing more, nothing less.

The toaster popped up and made her jump, from what she had no idea; she wasn’t particularly doing anything, she wasn’t looking at anything, although there was plenty to look at in the cluttered kitchen. She had gone through a stage of buying all sorts of appliances, pans and bowls for the kitchen—all of them big and bright. The idea had been to bring some colour into the space, which was painted an unappetising beige colour. But most of the things she had bought were still in the boxes or piled up unused. And she hadn’t quite got round to shifting the old appliances, pans and bowls that she was replacing. Consequently, even if Kathy hadn’t lost her appetite, it would be almost impossible to prepare a meal there. Every work surface housed a precariously balanced pile of pottery or china—colour and good intentions. Rather than worrying about the mess, she had stopped noticing it. And as she hung around the kitchen, it was as if her eyelids were still down, although she was walking around. She was clearly exhausted and resolved to eat the toast, drink the tea, check her emails, and take herself off to bed.

The living room was cluttered for very different reasons to the kitchen. But as Kathy lowered herself onto the sofa and set the tea and toast on the coffee table, she was every bit as blinkered as she had been to the explosion of crockery and food mixers. This room had become a kind of HQ for her research, with each wall displaying heavily annotated maps, pictures of men and children and notes that she had made. Every surface in the room housed a pile of either books or papers and the odd plate was dotted around and cups with small carpets of green fur at the bottom. The actual carpet had once been a colour that belonged to the red family, but it had been so long since it had seen a hoover that it really could have been any colour. Kathy’s laptop was where she had left it, plugged into the wall, and she took it onto her lap and flicked it open. Before she could even access her email account, Brady’s face was flashing up in a little box at the bottom of the screen. Kathy answered the call and immediately wished that she hadn’t.

“Kathy, where the hell have you been?” Brady spat furiously. She was dressed in her casual uniform—the green shirt with the open top button—sitting amongst greenery that gave absolutely no clue to where in the world she was Skyping from. “Holy shit! Your face!” she then said.

“Cheers,” Kathy told her. “Like I didn’t feel bad enough anyway.” But Kathy was smiling inside. This was the first friendly face she had seen in days. She took a bite of the toast then gripped her cup and snuggled back on the sofa to tell Brady all about it.

When she had finished her explanation of events—how she had floored Malcolm Scott, but ended up in hospital herself—Brady said, “Are you sure you’re okay?” and her face filled the screen as she looked into the camera to scrutinise her friend.

“I’m fine. We’ll a bit battered, but nothing I can’t handle. It’s just… It’s just.”

“I know, Kathy. It’s always
just
the same thing, but we’re trying. In fact I’ve got some awesome news for you.”

“But none of it makes a difference, Brade. It’s laughable.” Kathy only began to realise just how angry she was as she spoke to Brady. “Running paedos over on my bike?”

“Well you could hardly have used your car. You don’t want to end up inside.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t run them all over and they’re everywhere. Everywhere. The vapour rub doesn’t work anymore. Kids just aren’t safe anymore. They never have been really. But what’s the point in knowing who these perverts are if there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s getting worse if anything, Brady. They’re everywhere and I’ve got no idea about the missing kids.” She hardly noticed the tears flowing down her cheeks as she ranted at her friend. It was as if she had been waiting for this moment since she woke up alone in the hospital. “And I’ve lost the list,” she said pitifully as if everything that could possibly have gone wrong had gone wrong. And then she stopped and looked closely at Brady. “Are you laughing, Brade?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just–”

“I can’t believe you’re laughing at me. What’s funny? Why are you laughing at me?”

“It’s just that you’ve got a great big lump of something white on your forehead. I’m not laughing
at
you honestly.”

Kathy swept her hand over her forehead and found the blob of moisturiser. She rubbed it into her hands and couldn’t help smiling just a little herself.

“It’s all going to be okay,” Brady reassured her before she could cry again. “I can’t believe you actually did it, you know. I don’t think I’d have the balls to knock someone down on a push bike.”

“Yeah, right. Because you were just twiddling your thumbs in Afghanistan.”

“It’s different, Kath. You get a uniform when you join up and I know it sounds a bit wrong, but it gives you permission to do things that are… well, you know. I don’t think I could do what you did.”

Kathy knew that she was being appeased, a bit like you would a child, patted on the head and told that she had done well despite the overall futility of the thing, but she was happy to take it. She needed a bit of comfort and support at the moment and if this were the only thing on offer then it would have to do. The soothing effect lasted only as long as it took for Brady to finish the sentence, though, before the principal issue was back with them.

“I just can’t do it all, you know. It feels useless.
I
feel useless.”

“Well, that’s what I was calling to tell you about. And to make sure that you’re all right. But—you’re not going to believe this—I’ve found someone… to help.”

Now it was Kathy’s turn to move closer to the screen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve found what we’ve been looking for—someone like you, but someone who can take care of things for us.”

“Who? Where? I didn’t even think you were looking seriously.”

“I wasn’t really but then I met her and, well, she’s just everything we could ever want, Kathy.”

“So what happens now? Tell me about her. Where did you find her? Is she happy to help? Do we need to pay her?”

“That’s a lot of questions, Kathy, and I’ve only got a few minutes until I’m back out there. Her name is Suri, and she’ll be at the airport tomorrow at seven thirty.”

“Tomorrow!”

“Yes, tomorrow. She can explain it all to you. I’m sorry I haven’t got more time to talk.”

“Bloody hell, Brady. What, that’s it?”

“This is a good thing, Kathy. Just try and hold that in your head will you. All of our prayers have been answered. We never need to feel powerless again and they won’t be able to touch us for it.”

“But–”

“Got to go, Kathy. I’ll be in touch in a few days to see how you’re getting on. Later,” she said and her face disappeared from the screen, leaving a silence that was far more imposing than the calm quiet that had hung in the air before the Skype call. Kathy closed the laptop. She had lost the taste for communication suddenly and checking her emails could wait. She looked over at the TV, which hadn’t been turned on in years, and wished for a moment that life could be as easy as switching it on, finding a chat show or a soap, sitting back with her cup of tea and letting the day fold around her. She didn’t even know where the remote control had hidden itself, but wherever it was it was winning the game of hide-and- seek that it was playing.

Kathy took another bite of the toast and the crunch echoed around the room so loudly that it took her by surprise. She threw it back on the plate, drained the last of the tea, and then just sat. She had dreamt that Brady would actually come through for her and find someone to help them, but in reality she had thought it pie in the sky. It was just something that Brady had suggested to appease her—another of her hair-brained ideas that went away if Kathy paid it little attention. And here she was telling her that she had actually found someone and she was coming tomorrow. Tomorrow? Kathy looked around the room with fresh eyes. Where was this woman going to stay? She couldn’t stay there. It was okay for her. It was perfect for her, but it was hardly The Grosvenor. And the living room was the least of her troubles. Where was she going to put her? Of the three bedrooms, one was her room, one was her nan’s, untouched since her death, and no one had been able to get into the other for years. Storage was the polite name for it—it housed everything from camping gear to unused furniture, to photos, toys and God only knew what else—a dumping ground would be a more realistic description. Kathy could feel all of the good work of the bath being systematically undone, and she didn’t know whether this was because she was expected to put a strange woman up in her house, who may have come from anywhere in the world, or because of the power that this woman would have. Suddenly her head was full again, but the psychologist in her, never off duty, was looking after her once again and a little voice told her that she really just needed to go to bed, get some proper sleep, and start again when she was fully rested. She slowly dragged herself off the sofa, the strain highlighting every single pain caused by the collision, but then the shrill ringing of the landline in the corner of the room nearly knocked her down again. She considered leaving it, but she knew who it would be, not because she was psychic but because there was only one other person it could be and she would be worried sick.

“Hello,” she answered sleepily, perching on the thin lip of the dusty cabinet beside her.

“Kathy?” She was right on both counts; it was her mum and the way she said her name betrayed the fact that she had been fretting about her daughter’s whereabouts.

“Hi, Mum. Sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

“That’s okay, honey. Just as long as you’re okay.”

“I’m always okay,” Kathy said, manufacturing a strength in her voice that she didn’t know she was capable of. She also managed a little giggle, shrugging off her mum’s concerns in the way that years of practice had informed. “I was out with some friends from work last night. Feeling a bit rough today. Is everything okay?”

“That’s great, baby. I can’t remember the last time you went out. Did you go anywhere nice?”

“Just into town, you know. Few drinks. Have you been up to anything nice?”

“Erm…” The pause was longer than normal, suspiciously so. “Actually, I wanted to tell you something, Kathy.” Another pause. “I’ve met someone. It’s early days and we’re taking it slowly, but his name’s Marcus and he’s beautiful. He’s a bit younger–”

“How much younger?” Kathy didn’t mean to sound outraged, but the question leapt out of her before she could contain it.

“He’s in his twenties. But that doesn’t matter, it’s–”

“His twenties!”

“Yes, he’s–”

“How did you meet a man in his twenties?” Again, the high pitch of Kathy’s voice wasn’t intentional, but she couldn’t help herself.