Cairo (32 page)

Not once during my account did he take his eyes from my face, as if scouring it for signs of deceit. Although I was telling the truth, the combination of his zealous interest and my desperation for him to believe me made me edgy.

‘Well,' he said when I had finished. ‘That's quite a story. And they didn't ask
anything
about, you know, Dora?'

‘Not a thing.'

‘You're sure it wasn't some sort of trap?'

‘Yes. But I thought we were done for. And my father was there, and my aunt and uncle. It was awful. What a day.'

‘Where's your father now?' he asked, looking around as if expecting him to leap out from behind a pole.

‘He's headed back to Dunley.'

‘I see, I see. Sounds truly ghastly.' He paused to absorb all this. ‘But well done. Not that I thought you would say anything, but, you know, we have to be on our guard.'

Sally had remained subdued for the duration of this exchange, listening, the toe of one shoe tracing figure-eights in the air. Her exposed ankle glowed in the dusk light. Her calf muscle flexed, unflexed, flexed.

Max placed a hand on each of my shoulders to better meet my eye. ‘Tom.'

‘Yes.'

‘We did it. I don't think we've thanked you properly. We couldn't have done it without you. We're meeting at Edward and Gertrude's place tomorrow, remember. Five o'clock. We'll split the you-know-what, the proceeds, and make some concrete plans for getting off this island. What do you think of that?'

‘Sounds good.'

‘It's going to be great. You've got a passport, I take it?'

‘Not yet. I was meant to go to the post office today and get the forms, but got sidetracked by the fuss.'

‘Oh. Well, not to worry. Get on to that. It only takes a week or two. Best thing to do is stay low until then. Don't splash money around. We'll start packing up. You know what? I am going to fetch us some champagne so we can celebrate. We shall drink to our health.' He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘To our good
fortune
.'

The thought of alcohol made me queasy. ‘I'm pretty sure we drank to our health last night.'

‘Then we shall do it again. The three of us. Darling, do we still have that bottle in the fridge?'

Sally glanced up, startled. ‘What?'

‘Champagne. Do we still have a bottle in the fridge?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Then I'll go to the bottle shop. I'll be back in a jiffy.'

Sally stood. ‘I'll get it, Max.'

Max held up an admonishing hand. ‘No. Wait here. I insist. Keep our Tom company.'

He kissed Sally (long, languorously) on the mouth and dashed down the stairs, whistling. Gradually, the sound faded away. A strained silence between Sally and me followed.

‘Sally,' I said.

‘Don't.'

Although acting on the spur of the moment, I had run this scenario over in my head dozens of times.

I took a step towards her. ‘Sally, come with me.'

She coughed over the top of my plea. It was a considerate gesture; an opportunity for her to pretend she hadn't heard what I'd said, a chance for me to pretend I had never said it.

But I couldn't stop. ‘Please, Sally —'

‘I said:
don't
'

‘Don't go with Max. Come with me instead.'

‘What, run away with you? To where?'

‘Anywhere.'

She sighed as if exasperated at having to deal with callow boys like me. And I remember noting this, knowing even then it would be an image with which I might torment myself in years to come.

I dug about in my shirt pocket for my packet of cigarettes. I offered her one.

She shook her head. ‘I've given up.'

I tried a different approach. ‘I know Max hits you.'

‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘What about those blood noses you get? I'm not a complete fool, you know. That time you hid from him at my place?'

‘Oh God. Not you as well. I'm prone to blood noses, that's all. I've had them all my life. Max would never lay a hand on me. Never has, never will. I'm not one of those women you can project anything onto. I'm not just a screen for your rescue fantasies. Last year a cabal of, I don't know what, gender-studies students accosted me in Lygon Street. Said the same thing. Wanted to save me from myself. Insulted me for taking Max's surname when we were married and letting the sisterhood down. I love Max. I'm married to Max. Till death do us part and all that, things you wouldn't understand yet.'

I was shocked and angered by her contempt for me. ‘You know he sleeps with other people,' I said.

She contemplated me, eyebrows arched. ‘So do I, remember? But it doesn't mean I love him any less.'

I slapped at a mosquito that had landed on my arm. I took satisfaction from the smear of blood on my palm until I understood the blood was a quantity of my own that the insect
had drawn before I realised. ‘But I thought we —'

‘I'm sorry, but you thought wrong.'

‘I love you.'

God
, I thought.
How pathetic I sound
. I had sworn not to humiliate myself, yet that was precisely what I was doing. I had become a boy scrambling up the stairs of a collapsing building. Seeking what?

She flinched. ‘I know you think you do, but you don't know me. Tom, you're only eighteen. I'm nearly ten years older than you. What do you think love is? Fluffy bunnies? Dancing through meadows? Love is tangled, it's complicated. A dark forest. It's hard to find your way out, nor should you want to.

‘You know, last year I was at a party and this awful man with long hair tried to pick me up. He thought he was quite special, assumed I would simply go home with him if he asked. I told him to buzz off, but Max got wind of it and later, when the man was leaving, Max had a go at him. It turns out he was some sort of greasy pop star and one of his minders beat Max up. Broke one of his teeth, gave him a black eye. But Max didn't care. He'd do it again for me. He'd do
anything
for me. And once
Maldoror
is finished, Max will be famous and no one will even remember who that pathetic pop star was.'

She smiled at the memory with satisfaction. ‘Love is not always enough, you know. There is always much more. I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea. You and me, it was just a …' Her voice trailed off. She shook her head.

‘What? It was a what?'

‘Nothing. Sorry. I'm sorry.'

I was embarrassed, furious. This was not the way I had anticipated this conversation progressing. How had things gone so awry, and so quickly? ‘Do you even know what happened at Queel's place that night? Do you?'

At this she turned away.

‘He murdered Queel? In cold blood. For
nothing
.'

‘This is all becoming a bit Freudian, isn't it? Do you wish to win me over or tear him down? Besides' — she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear — ‘it wasn't for nothing. It was for everything.'

‘He came into the room with a pistol and shot him. Right in the chest. It was unbelievable.' Unconsciously I had made a gun of my fingers, which was aimed at her.

‘You were there, were you?' she asked. ‘Well, the police think it was one of his mad girlfriends.'

‘Yes, you know I was.'

‘How did you get there?'

‘What? What does that matter? I drove in my car. You were at the warehouse yourself when Max asked me to drive him over to Queel's.'

‘Hmm, I don't remember that. Anyway, where is this gun now?'

‘Under my floorboards.'

‘
Your
floorboards? And tell me, did anyone see you at Queel's place?'

‘Well, I hope not. If they had we would have been arrested by now.'

‘So it's your word against Max's, is it? Because Max was with me for most of that night. Until he went to that big party up in Drummond Street.'

Although this was hardly a watertight alibi, the hairs stiffened on the back of my neck as I digested the implications of her statement. I stared past her at the tower of the Brunswick Street commission flats, drenched orange in the setting sun. Someone — man, woman or child, I couldn't tell from this distance — stepped onto one of the balconies to shake out a towel or rug.

‘But you know that's not true,' I managed to say, and in my stammering voice I detected the dismal wail of a child who realises
he has been comprehensively outmanoeuvred.

Sally brushed a twig from her green skirt before turning her gaze — now limpid and cruel — upon me. ‘Sometimes you'd do anything for love. Even things you might not want to do. You'll learn this one day.'

My heart felt emptied of blood, my lungs drained of air. How appalling is love: it is almost impossible to judge if someone feels it for you, and yet you know instantly when those feelings are retracted. Almost as if love, like air, is best detected by the lack of it.

‘And did you know about Helen? About her girlfriend Pat?'

Sally nodded.

‘But you didn't say anything about it when I told you all that stuff about thinking she was my mother?'

She didn't move. I heard footfalls on the outside staircase, and Max surfaced, brandishing a bottle of champagne and three glasses.

I swallowed my anger. I laughed, far too heartily, and held the glasses as Max poured champagne for us. Sally protested ineffectually.

Max held up his glass. He looked from me to Sally and back again. ‘My friends. My beautiful friends.'

And we drank.

‘Now,' he went on, ‘there's one more piece of news we should get out of the way.'

Sally shook her head. ‘Oh, no, no. I don't think this is the right time for —'

‘Nonsense. Tom would love to hear it.' Max cleared his throat and stood taller. ‘Guess what? Sally and I are going to have a baby.'

‘Max, we can't be absolutely sure yet.'

‘But
I'm
sure, my love. I truly am. Oh, it's going to be great. All of us in France, our baby …'

Slow as poison, this information moved through me, immobilising first one part of my body, then another. Shock is the absence of emotion — rather than being one itself — in which the world is sucked away or, perhaps more accurately, one is briefly exiled.

I pictured the three of us from a distance. Max, Sally and I on the rooftop. Sally stood clutching the collar of her red jacket at her chin, eyes fixed on the ground, as Max, with one arm draped over her shoulder, threw back his drink with triumph.

And there I was with my glass of champagne, stepping forwards to kiss Sally on the cheek and shake Max's hand. The expressions on our faces were hard to read, and I was too far away to hear what else was said. But there was laughter, Max's laughter, floating forever across the evening air.

I WOKE AS IF FROM A DISTURBING DREAM, BUT THE DREAM
— if indeed that had prompted my waking — was gone, leaving only a faint aftertaste of unease. It was still early. The morning light was only half formed. In addition to the nearby thrum of traffic and the soft sizzle of wind through the peppercorn tree outside my window, I discerned the deep, irregular pant of what must have been a massive hound being walked in the street below. But after a few seconds I realised it was the sound of someone sawing wood with a large-toothed tool.

The noise started, stopped, started again. At first it sounded some distance away, and I assumed a tenant in the block was having repairs done on their apartment. The closer I listened, however, the more it sounded like it was coming from somewhere much nearer. My apartment, in fact. I sat up. Had my father arranged some pre-sale repairs? For some time the front door had been sticking, but I hadn't told anyone about it, so minor had the irritation of this been.

I swivelled around until my feet landed on the cold floor. I was by then positive the horrible sound was coming from close by. My breath quickened and, as on my first morning here, I searched for a potential weapon in case I was confronted by an intruder.

The noise stopped. I was overcome by a terror so acute that it became difficult to breathe. Perhaps it was the sound of a creature, after all? I picked up a mug (empty, save for a soggy crust of mould) and rose to my feet. And it was then I was assailed by the questions one is inevitably assailed by in these situations: Should I call out? Should I attack? Or should I wait out the burglary without revealing myself and hope whoever it was left me unharmed?

Fuelled by who knew what reservoir of courage or foolhardiness, I tiptoed forwards. The intruder had not yet moved into my hallway, as I was yet to hear the squeak of the loose floorboard beneath the carpet runner. This was some consolation. Unless it was someone who knew to avoid the loose board? I drew breath, raised my mug and stepped into the lounge room.

Nothing. No one. The front door was closed, my apartment empty apart from myself.

After a few seconds, the noise started again. It was definitely emanating from somewhere near my front door. I peered through the darkness. Near the base of the wooden door was a glimmer of daylight where there should have been none, a hole at around shin height. As I watched, the hole spread like a puddle, assisted by what appeared to be someone picking away at the crust of wood from outside. Tiny fingers, faintly simian in shape, wrenched splinters away.

I tried to speak but my throat was uncooperative, as was my whole body. After some time (those dreadful, elastic minutes) a head forced its way through, even though the gap was not wide enough for a head. Or not for a human head.

It was indeed a troll-like creature, snouted and bewhiskered, that shouldered its way inside, spitting chunks of wood from its mouth as it did so. When halfway in, it sneered at me, displaying crenellated battlements of broken and bloodied teeth.

‘Tom!' it squealed in Eve's unmistakable, high-pitched voice. ‘How do you spell murder?'