Crazy Paving (16 page)

Marjorie glanced from side to side. ‘Really . . .’ she murmured, fiddling with a tiny gold lizard which hung on a fine gold chain around her neck. ‘Honestly . . .’

Richard sat back and took a sip from his coffee, surreptitiously glancing at the clock above Marjorie’s head. Another ten minutes of chatting her up, that should lay the groundwork. Some
women would do anything if you flirted with them. Silly bitch.

It took slightly longer than ten minutes, nearer twenty in fact. Marjorie was subtle but voracious. When other members of staff started drifting back from lunch, Richard said
goodbye and headed for the lift. Before pressing the button, he paused. He could go down to Finance on the ground floor and have a chat with Dave, or he could go back upstairs. He pressed the up
button.

The lift was just about to pass. Almost straightaway, there was a whoosh and clunk as it came to a halt and the doors jolted back. It was empty except for a small figure in one corner.

Richard stepped inside. The doors slid shut behind him.

The lift was very narrow. It carried a maximum of four people and even that was something of a squeeze. Its walls were lined from top to bottom with dark mirrors which made skin look greyish.
There was a large round bulb set in the ceiling which cast pale light down in an indistinct beam.

As Richard stepped in Helly stood up straight, looking up at him. He met her gaze, blankly.

Helly looked to one side. The mirrored walls reflected a dozen other Richards standing in the lift, inches away. They were all looking at something small tucked away in the corner.

The lift moved slowly and smoothly upwards. Richard did not speak or move. He stayed facing her, staring calmly, his back to the door. Helly bit at her lower lip and kept her face turned to one
side, refusing to look up at him.

The lift reached the second floor and jolted to a halt. The doors slid open.

Richard turned and left.

When Helly came back from lunch, Joan could not meet her gaze. She could not escape the feeling that she had something to feel guilty about, however much she reasoned with
herself. Helly seemed unusually quiet. Perhaps she is feeling guilty too, Joan thought. The thought made her feel a little better.

It was mid-way through the afternoon when Helly came round the corner and gestured at Joan’s filing tray. ‘Are we going to give it a go then?’ Monday afternoon was filing time,
the sorting out of the previous week’s chaos before that week’s had a chance to build up. At the end of each day the surveyors would drop copies of their correspondence into the red
plastic tray on Joan’s desk. By Monday afternoons, the pile had usually started to slither.

Joan and Helly had developed a routine. The huge grey multi-filing unit was behind Joan’s desk. Helly would sit cross-legged or kneel in front of it, while Joan would spread the filing
over her desk and hand pieces to her one by one. The sites were filed according to the alphabetical order of the tube station to which they were nearest. Rosewood Cottage, for instance, was filed
not under R for Rosewood or S for Sutton Street or even C for Cottage. It was filed under N, for New Cross.

The office was quiet. Annette had gone to spend the afternoon at the Perfect Secretary exhibition at Earl’s Court. The boys were out on site. Richard had been in his office all afternoon
with the door closed.

They filed in near silence for almost an hour. Then Joan handed over a memo Raymond had sent to all the security supervisors concerning general site access. Contractors who wished to use the
CTA’s toilet facilities must always sign in before doing so. Helly shook her head.

‘What the hell do we do with this?’

Joan shrugged. ‘Oh stick it under Miscellaneous, love.’

Helly turned to the cabinet and kneeled up to ‘M’. Then she stopped. ‘Which Miscellaneous?’

Joan frowned. ‘How many have we got?’

Helly pushed her fingers between the files. ‘Miscellaneous Arches, Miscellaneous Offices, Miscellaneous Residential and Miscellaneous Sports Grounds.’

‘Isn’t there a Miscellaneous Miscellaneous?’

Helly shook her head.

‘Oh well,’ Joan said, ‘we’d better open one up.’

Helly began to laugh. Then she began to cry.

Joan was silent. Helly sat back on her heels. Tears rolled down her cheeks in rivulets, as if a year’s worth of crying had suddenly spilled over. Her shoulders shuddered. Every now and
then, she gave a small gulp.

When Joan deemed the moment right, she reached into her skirt pocket and handed over a lilac coloured tissue, neatly folded. Helly took it, nodding her thanks, and blew her nose.

Raymond’s memo had fluttered to the floor. Joan picked it up. ‘A bit soggy for its own file,’ she said. She turned it over. Then she crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into
a nearby bin. ‘There. That’s filed that eh?’

Helly smiled damply. ‘Sorry Joan,’ she said, small-voiced.

‘That’s alright, love. I’ve always hated filing too.’

Helly smiled again. She drew the tissue underneath her eyes and then looked at it. Mascara and eye-liner had appeared in dark smears. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Is my face
red?’

‘Beetroot,’ Joan replied.

Helly lowered her hands to her lap and bowed her head. She twisted the tissue round her fingers.

Then, Joan said very gently, ‘Look love, is there anything you’d like to tell me about?’

Helly looked up. Joan smiled. ‘I’m not daft you know, though most people round here treat me as if I am. If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine. But I don’t
mind.’ She must know what I’m talking about Joan thought, unless there’s something else as well. ‘Are you in any bother?’

‘Joan . . .’ Helly said.

‘Never underestimate the old ones,’ Joan said, getting to her feet. ‘Now you stay there while I make a cup of tea.’

When Joan got back, Helly was sitting on her chair. She had wiped her face and was peering at herself in the dark screen of Joan’s computer. Joan sat down in the spare chair next to her
desk and put down the tea.

‘What have you got in the M&S bag?’ Helly asked. Next to Joan’s desk was a bulging green plastic bag.

Joan looked at Helly, then said, ‘Swimsuit. I worked the lunch hour so I’m off early and I’m going to take it up to Marble Arch. I got it Saturday at the little branch on the
Walworth Road. They didn’t have my proper size and it’s not really the type I’m after.’

Helly took her tea. ‘What type are you after?’

‘One I can get these knockers of mine into. Now what about you?’

Helly put her tea down. ‘I think I’ll go to the loo and have a fag.’ She paused, then said briskly, ‘Thanks Joan.’ She turned and went to her desk for her
cigarettes and lighter.

Joan stayed sitting where she was and looked at Helly’s steaming cup of tea. She shook her head.

Night was falling over Rosewood Cottage. Under the framed print of Kandinsky’s
Cossacks
, Helly’s great-grandmother Mrs Hawthorne slept, and dribbled.
Joanna Appleton sat beside her.

When Joanna was sure her mother was asleep, she rose softly and crept out of the room. It had taken over an hour. The old lady kept drifting off then waking again, muttering madly through her
gums, something about a man watching the house, out there in the dark, waiting for the chance to get in. She had seen him from the window, she claimed. Joanna was sceptical. Her mother hadn’t
looked out of the window for years.

When she had closed the door to her mother’s room, Joanna tiptoed carefully to the room next door which she shared with Bob. Without putting on the light, she went over to the window. She
parted the curtain and peered out. It was almost dark. A solitary street-light cast a pale pool. Beside it, the rubbish skip glowed yellow. The railway arches opposite the cottage were dark open
bottomless mouths.

Joanna shivered. There was nothing out there.

The old bat gets more barmy by the day, she thought. Gives me the creeps.

On the footbridge at Hither Green station, Annette hesitated. It had just been announced that the eight eighteen to Charing Cross was running four minutes late. The eight
seventeen to Cannon Street was about to pull in on Platform 3 but if she got that she would have to change at London Bridge. She was one of a group of twenty or so commuters on the bridge, hovering
uncertainly, looking down the line. As the eight seventeen became visible in the distance, most of them broke off and began to clatter down the steps. She watched them as they trotted down to the
far end of the platform, where the train would be least crowded. It was a Wednesday. She was tired. She didn’t feel like changing at London Bridge. She wanted to get a seat and stay in it all
the way to Charing Cross. She wandered along the bridge to Platform 1, to wait for the late-running eight eighteen.

When it arrived, it was more empty than usual; most of the regular passengers had been sucked in like plankton by the previous train. She found a corner seat in an end carriage and slumped into
it, her handbag on her lap. She carried a paperback novel each day but rarely opened it. Reading made her feel dizzy and sick but she didn’t like to be without something in case the train got
stuck somewhere (she always urinated just before she left the house for the same reason and carried mints in case she had a coughing fit). The woman sitting opposite Annette was reading. She caught
a glimpse of the title,
Living God
, black letters on a bright yellow background. The woman was wearing black patent shoes with thin straps and buckles. Underneath them, she had white
cotton socks. Her feet looked like little hooves. A red mac was belted loosely around her small frame. Her face was shiny. How, thought Annette with some distaste, can any woman get to the age of
thirty and not have discovered translucent powder?

She was staring out of the window as the train pulled into New Cross and it was then that she saw Helly, smoking fiercely, her bag slung over her shoulder. As the train pulled to a halt, she
dropped her cigarette onto the platform and opened the door to the carriage in front of Annette’s. I didn’t know she lived out this way, thought Annette. She would have to wait a while
at Charing Cross, to let Helly get ahead of her. They still weren’t speaking to each other after their argument over the leave form. It was the week after Annette had reported the theft of
Joan’s money to Richard. She was expecting to turn up any day and find that Helly had gone. The last thing she wanted was to bump into her on the way to work.

The carriage filled up. A business couple in identical beige macs squeezed in next to the
Living God
woman and sat in silence, staring straight ahead, holding hands.

As the train began to lurch forward, Annette saw that someone had tied an orange balloon to the New Cross sign at the end of the platform. It had a grinning stick-on mouth, a stick-on nose and
one, off-centre, stick-on eye. It was caught in the train’s slipstream as they passed and fluttered madly, banging against the post, its open mouth an obscene chortle – as if it knew
something they didn’t.

They pulled in to London Bridge. The man from the business couple kissed his wife lightly on the mouth and got off the train. The
Living God
woman continued to read. A few other
passengers got on. The eight seventeen pulled in next to them at an adjoining platform, a minute later than them after all. Annette congratulated herself on having made the right decision as she
had hovered on the bridge at Hither Green.

They sat.

Then, from somewhere towards the front of the train, there was a bang.

The sound was unmistakable. Annette knew the quality of it from the explosion she had heard at work some weeks ago. It was not the volume of the noise that made it so distinctive –
although it was very loud – it was the density. There was no echo, no reverberation. The entire compass of the sound had been compressed down into one short, omnipotent blast.

The passengers sat in the carriage, frozen with doubt. Nobody met anybody else’s gaze, although they all glanced around. Annette fought a battle of logic with herself. It was a bomb. A
bomb had gone off inside the station. It could not be a bomb. This was a Wednesday morning and she was on her way to work. She was a secretary for the Capital Transport Authority: slogan,
Organising Transport All Over The Capital
. It could not have been a bomb.

The door to their carriage opened and the man who had just left got back in. His wife looked up at him. He sat down next to her. Then he said simply, ‘I think there’s been a
bomb.’ They took each other’s hand and sat as they had before, staring straight ahead.

Now that the knowledge of what they had heard had been articulated, the passengers started to shift in their seats, look at each other, shrug. Outside the train, Annette could see other
passengers standing on the platform, bemused.

Then a voice came over the tannoy, speaking in the same flat nasal tones that habitually announced a platform alteration or a delay in the Maidstone service. ‘This is a message to all
passengers. We are evacuating this station. Please leave in an orderly fashion by your nearest exit. We are evacuating this station.’

The familiarity of the announcer’s voice seemed reassuring to some of the passengers. They got to their feet, picking up cases and coats, muttering. The
Living God
woman, who had
sat frozen up until then, closed her book and rolled her eyes.

The announcement was continuing as Annette stepped down from the train. ‘We are evacuating this station . . .’ She looked around. She was at the far end of the platform, furthest
from the exit. To leave, she would have to walk towards the blast. She joined the crowd of commuters making its way slowly down the platform. Nobody spoke; all were orderly and silent. Then the
tone of the announcer’s voice altered to something slightly more imperious. ‘Please leave by the nearest exit. Do not cross over to platforms 3 and 4. Repeat, do not go near Platforms 3
and 4. Leave by the nearest exit.’

We
are
on Platform 4, Annette thought, as she continued to walk. This is really happening, and we are walking towards whatever it is that has really happened. She glanced around. If any
of the other passengers shared her thoughts they showed no sign. Instead, they all continued their ghost-like, silent walk. The bodies around her seemed to be moving slightly up and down with each
step. After the density of the blast, the collective clatter of their footsteps sounded muted. Already Annette was thinking, this is what will haunt me, this walk. We are all so slow and steady and
quiet. Our pace is regular. We do not speak. Nobody is crying. We are walking towards what has happened. The air in her throat felt trapped. ‘We are evacuating this station. Do not cross over
to Platforms 3 or 4. Please leave by the nearest exit.’ We are walking towards what has happened.