Catch Me When I Fall (24 page)

It was as if I had become the custodian of Holly's life, knowing
more about its details than she did herself. 'Tony Manning. Why?' 'Where's he?'
'Dunno. Actually, I do. He said he was building a new block of fiats near Tare Modern. The area's coming up apparently. Why? There's nothing you can do, you know. You can't persuade these people to be nice.'
I didn't have time to reply. Naomi pushed her head round the curtains, calling, "Hello," brightly as she did so. Holly mumbled something and closed her eyes.
'I think she's a bit tired,' I said.
'I wanted to give her these.' Naomi put a brown-paper bag on Holly's chest. A yeasty smell filled the air. 'Saffron rolls,' she
said. "Fresh from the oven. They're still warm. Here, try one.' Holly shook her head.
I don't really like saffron, but she seemed so eager that I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I picked up a roll and took a small bite. 'Delicious.'
'Good. I thought there were enough flowers and fruit.'
'You've obviously been a great help to Charlie and Holly,' I said.
'Mostly to Charlie,' said Holly, in the same hardly audible mutter.
'It's been a pleasure,' said Naomi. "They're my friends. And, anyway, I'm a nurse. I know what Holly's been going through. Is still going through,' she added. 'People think she's recovering, but they should bear in mind it's not a virus she's got and she's
deep in the thick of it still, aren't you, Holly?'
'I suppose so.'
'She'll need us all to rally round for a long time to come. Isn't that right?'
Holly turned away from both of us and burrowed into her

pillow. I bent over and kissed her hollow cheek 'Don't worry any more,' I said softly. 'Not about anything. Everything's going to be fine."

30

Before I had the time to track down Vic Norris, Rees found me. The very next day, just as I was writing an email to everyone in the office about how expenses should now be submitted properly, not merely scrawled in lipstick on a tissue, he came in through the open door of our office, sauntered up to where I was sitting and dropped a thick brown envelope on the desk in front of me. "Thought you might like to see some snaps of your little friend before you take her into any more police stations," he said.
'How do you know about that?'
He smiled.
'I watched you go in," he said, 'and then I watched you come out again. But I haven't been taken in for questioning, have I? The police didn't want to know, am I right? Who'd believe a word she said, if it came to court? A bit of a fantasist, our Holly. Anyway, look at those snapshots of her -just copies, by the way.
He turned and walked away. I sat and stared at his receding figure. It took a few seconds for the anger I felt to bubble up inside me.
"It was that guy, wasn't it?' said Lola from behind me. 'That creep who was stalking Holly.'
"Yes. Listen, hold the fort, will you? I'll be back in a minute.' I was almost amused by the bafflement on her face, openmouthed like in a cartoon, as I burst past her and ran down the stairs. He had just left the building when I caught him and took him by the sleeve.

"Listen to me,' I said.
'What?'
'I know what you did.'
'You know what Holly said I did.'
"I know what you did,' I ploughed on. 'And I'm warning you, if you ever go anywhere near her again, you won't get away with it a second time.'
'Why would I want to go anywhere near her? She's just...' He stopped and searched around for the right word. "Scum,' he said finally. I could smell the beer on his breath.
'Just keep away. You've no idea of the knife edge she's...' I bit down on the words.
'I think I do. She tried to top herself, didn't she? Pity.' 'Pity?"
"That she failed."
If I had been holding a knife I would have plunged it into
Rees's chest, just to take the knowing, vicious smirk off his face. "And stop harassing her friends.'
'She's sick, isn't she? Sick in the head. Poor old Charlie. Anyway, he's welcome to her. I wouldn't want to luck a nutcase.'
I took a deep breath, clenching my fists to stop myself screaming and attacking him.
'Keep away,' I said, and left him there in the street. It occurred to me that any onlooker would have assumed we were lovers having a tiff. The thought made me shudder.
Back in the office, I slid my finger under the gummed flap on the brown envelope Rees had dropped on to my desk and pulled out the top photograph. It was a picture of Holly asleep at Luigi's; he must have gone up close, unless he had a zoom lens. She was lying against the table, her head in the crook of one arm, and her eyes were closed, with smudges of mascara round them. Her lipstick was smeared and her skin looked waxy. You could even make out a dribble of saliva running from the corner

of her half-open mouth. I couldn't bear the idea of Holly ever seeing this, of her suspecting it existed. I winced and pushed it hastily into the envelope, which I then hid at the back of the filing cabinet's bottom drawer.

At half past eleven, I drove to the building site south of the river. In spite of Holly's vagueness, it proved quite easy to find. I asked a bulky man with a mottled nose and an orange hat if he could
point me in the direction of Anthony Manning.
'Tony?"
"Yes, Tony." I tried to sound businesslike, as if I was expected.
"Not here. He's never here on Thursdays. It's his day at the club.'
"The club?"
'Golf. Schmoozing clients.' 'Which club would that be?' 'In Kingston.' 'Oh. Thanks.'
I thought of giving up, just going back to the office and telling myself I'd done everything that could be expected. But instead I found myself driving to Kingston and asking directions to the golf club, then walking in, trying to look as if I came to this kind of place all the time. At the bar where people were drinking gin and tonic I asked for Anthony Manning, and a man in a hideous brown corduroy suit pointed outside and said he was on the course.
I ordered a tomato juice but was told non-members weren't allowed to drink in the bar. I said I'd just sit in the comer and wait, and was told that non-members weren't allowed even to be in the bar. So I loitered in the hallway, looking at a catalogue full of pictures of checked hats and shoes with tassels. And at last someone said, "Yes?'
A tall, solid-looking man was before me, jingling change in his

pocket. He wasn't wearing the stupid clothes most of the men preferred around here. There was not a hint of a smile in his face, or of curiosity.
"Anthony Manning?"
"Yes,' he said again, a hint of impatience in his voice.
'I'm Meg Summers, a friend of Holly. Holly Krauss.' He didn't
say anything; the expression on his face didn't alter. I took a deep breath. "She's in hospital and not well and I need to track down someone for her. To sort out her debts.'
A tiny smile appeared on his face. "Do you, now?' "Yes.' "And?'
"Where do I find him?"
"You need to visit him at his company headquarters.'
'That sounds grand."
"It's a shop in Kennington.' He scribbled an address and handed it to me.
'What kind of shop?"
'This and that," he said, and turned away. But then he added, "And don't try to beat him down. He's negotiating from a position of strength.'

I thought I should have someone with me so I took Lola. She's really the last person you should involve in a crisis. She's small, innocent, panicky and gullible. But she adores Holly, like a puppy adores its owner. I just wanted her to sit outside in the car and wait for me. What for, I couldn't say.
Cowden Brothers was a pawn shop between a boarded-up travel agent and a barber. In the window was a monocycle, a saxophone, an electric guitar, a grandfather clock and lots of jewellery. Also, a small sign saying, "MONEY LENT. GOOD TERMS.
CONFIDENTIALITY RESPECTED'. I pushed the door and a bell
jangled loudly.

A fat man with a tiny, dainty face sat behind the counter. He was reading a magazine and smoking. Behind him a much older man was watching the racing on TV. 'I'm looking for Vic Norris,' I said.
'And you are?"
"Meg Summers. A friend of Holly Klauss.'
'I don't know who you are and I don't know who she is."
"I suppose Vic Norris would know who Holly is."
He stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. 'He doesn't work here," he said.
'I was given this address.'
The man slowly extracted another cigarette from a packet and lit it. 'What's the nature of your business?' he said.
'My friend owes Vic Norris some money. Apparently.'
"Oh dear. And why are you here?'
'She's unwell.'
The man took a deep drag on his cigarette and gave a wheezy
cough. 'What was the name?'
"Holly Krauss.'
'Hang on.' He walked through a door behind the counter.
The old man turned his head towards me, then back to the racing.
When the fat man returned, he seemed more affable. 'That's
right. Your young lady owes sixteen thousand pounds.' 'Sixteen? I heard it was eleven.'
He chuckled. 'There's interest payments, love,' he said. 'Your friend has been slow in paying."
'This is completely unfair,' I said. 'She didn't mean any of this. And she's been ill.'
The man didn't seem to have heard me. He just turned to his companion. "Who won?'
'Nineteen To The Dozen,' said the old man.
"Fuck," said the fat man.

'I was saying that this is completely unfair.'
"Your friend should be careful where she borrows money," he said.
'She didn't borrow it. She was lured into a poker game.'
The man shrugged. 'Next week it'll be seventeen, then eighteen.
But..." Another shrug. He gazed down at his magazine. 'What if she can't pay?' I said. 'What if people can't pay?'
The fat man smiled, showing a gap in the teeth in his upper jaw. 'They always pay,' he said.
I looked at him and at the old man behind him. I looked at the objects arranged on the shelves -old stereos, a drum-kit, shoes, a teapot and matching jug, an exercise bike, several watches, a carriage clock, a clumsy black camera.
"Today's Thursday,' I said. 'I'll come on Tuesday with it. Tuesday before six in the evening.'
'On Tuesday it'll be seventeen thousand."
'I'll come on Monday. Can I pay with a cheque?' 'There's a service charge for cheques,' he said. 'How much?' 'Thirty per cent." 'I'll pay cash.'
The door jangled again as I left.

31

I had nearly eleven thousand pounds in the bank, in a special savings account. It had taken me six years to amass that much. I was keeping it to buy a house. Well, probably a poky one-bedroom flat in the outskirts, but a start at least. One day I'd live in a place of my own, with a small garden. Herbs and flowers and an ornamental fruit tree. Maybe a cat, even. Holly had been able to buy her house because there were two of them, and her mother had lent her half the deposit. When we first started the company I dreamed we'd be earning enough to save more quickly, but of course it hadn't been like that.
I put away the thoughts of my fantasy house, my fantasy life. I had eleven thousand, but I still needed to find another five, and I could see no way of raising that at all, let alone by Monday. I had an overdraft limit of five hundred, so I guessed I could call on that. But five thousand?
Late that afternoon I sat at my desk and pondered. At KS Associates we had an agreed overdraft limit of thirty thousand pounds and were only in debt at present to the tune of nineteen thousand, four hundred. That meant I could write out a cheque for cash tomorrow morning and still not have reached the limit. I even took the company cheque book out of the drawer and put it into my bag. But then I glanced round the office, at Lola and Trish and all the others who trusted me -who thought I was safe as a house -and put it back again. I knew I would be signing away everything we'd worked so hard for.

"You'll come with me to my parents for Christmas, won't you?'
It wasn't really a question, more a statement, delivered casually as I was pushing a fork loaded with rice into my mouth. I was suddenly filled with a calm kind of happiness at the steadiness of this relationship, its basic kindness. I laid down my fork. "That'd be nice," I replied, trying to keep the wobble of emotion out of my voice. "If you'd like me to.'
"I'd like you to," he said. 'And they want to meet you.'
'Do they?' I beamed. 'Yes. I'd like to meet them too.'
We grinned at each other, then returned to our meal. I hadn't looked forward to Christmas for ages. Most years my parents and I had gone to my sister's in Devon. She had a husband, and now two small children, a cat. They lived in a small house in the middle of nowhere, mud churning up to the threshold and the sea not far over the horizon. I always felt a bit of a spare part, the one who arrived late and alone, and played the part of the good daughter and the cheery aunt for a day or two before escaping back to London. Last year I'd gone to Holly and Charlie's, and stayed up till five in the morning because Holly insisted on a drunken game of charades. I remembered her standing on a table in her spindly shoes, her paper hat askew, giggling helplessly. But this year was different. Todd and I had plans together. We were going to buy a tree together, we were going to go away at New Year together, maybe make resolutions together. The year ahead seemed bright with hopes.
Then I let Holly move from the back of my thoughts into the front once more. She was going to have a strange Christmas this year. I'd talked to Charlie about it and he'd told me that her mother had agreed to stay on until she was out of hospital and settled at home. His mother was also coming for a few days. Naomi was going to cook the dinner. Poor Holly, I thought, lying in her hospital bed, dull and pale and thin, while all around people discussed her and made plans for her.

I had always thought of Holly as bold, the boldest person I'd ever met, but now she was scared. I wondered if she was so afraid because of what was inside her-all the strange, tormenting demons she used to think were part of her character but which now felt like hideous invasions -or of what lay outside, in the real world she would have to return to soon enough. Probably she was afraid of both the inside and the outside: she couldn't escape either, and there was nowhere to hide. Even when she slept, she had told me, she had hideous dreams. I have never felt so sorry for anyone in all my life as I now felt for Holly, nor so responsible. It was as if we'd moved beyond the normal kind of friendship, and she was more like my daughter, my sister, my mother, rolled into one. Like a boulder on my heart, so that even when I was with Todd, a little part of me was thinking of her and worrying. And making plans, like the plan I had for today, which I'd not even told Todd about because I knew he would tell me I was being stupid.
'What's up?' asked Todd. 'Your face has got that frown on it.' 'Has it? I don't know why.' 'What were you thinking about?" 'Oh, nothing.'
'Meg, I'm not blind, Tell me."
'It's not really my story to tell. It's Holly's."
'Oh, Holly. I might have known.'
A slight coolness hung between us for the rest of the evening. And in the end, lying in bed, I told him about Holly's debt, my
visit to the golf club and to Cowden Brothers.
"You know what I think'
"You think I'm being incredibly stupid."
'I think you're the kindest and most loyal and generous friend there's ever been.'
"Oh." I could feel my cheeks turning pink in the dark. 'Not really.'