Lonely Hearts (30 page)

“Like Sharon Taylor’s father getting three years?”

“That’s easier to take than most.”

“Not for him.”

“Christ!” exclaimed Resnick. “Don’t expect me to feel sympathy for him.”

Heads were angled towards them, conversations lowered. “Everything all right, sir?” The waiter bowed to one table. “Everything satisfactory, madam?” to another.

“I don’t.”

“He’ll be out and on parole in two, less.”

“You know what they’ll do to him inside, as soon as they know what he’s in for.”

“Yes.”

“You make it sound as if that’s what he deserves.”

“It’s hard not to think it.”

Rachel slowly shook her head. “I don’t understand how…Charlie, I may not know you very well, but I don’t think you’re that kind of man.”

“What kind of man is he, for Christ’s sake?”

“Charlie, don’t…”

“All I know, if that had been my child…”

“Oh, Charlie.” She took his hand which had closed into a fist between hers and held it for a moment against her cheek. “Don’t punish yourself more than you have to.”

What am I doing? Rachel Chaplin thought when he was away from the table. On my own for what, a week, and I’m calling up this nice, shambling man and dangling things before his eyes I know he can’t have. And why? Because I’ve been in too many nights in a row? Because I needed something other than Carole’s too-sensible chatter to wind down with after work? Because I always did like to do the things I know are courting danger?

She turned her head as she heard him coming back towards the table, a big man with broad shoulders who moved a little like a dancer. Was it then just because she found herself fancying him, this Charlie Resnick? No more nor less than that? The muscles of her stomach wall tightened, knowing that she could go to bed with him now, that evening as soon as the meal was over, and knowing that she wouldn’t.

Reaching out with her chopsticks to take the last prawn, Rachel realized there were goose-pimples along her arm. Who are you not being fair to? she asked herself, dipping the prawn in the remainder of the plum sauce before putting it in her mouth.

Neither of them had driven. Walking down the hill back into the center of the city, they hailed an empty cab almost opposite the pub where they had first gone for a drink. Resnick suggested that they drop Rachel off first and, although it was furthest away, she agreed.

They leaned back against the seat, one of Resnick’s arms across her shoulders, the back of her left hand resting against his leg. After all the talk during the meal, neither spoke until the driver turned into the street where Carole lived.

“Charlie,” Rachel said, turning to face him, “I’m really pleased you were in when I called, pleased you came. I’ve had a good time tonight.”

Resnick tensed, waiting for the
but
.

“I like you, Charlie Resnick, at least I think I do, I enjoy being with you, but nothing more.”

“What more is there?”

Rachel laughed and threw back her head. “You’re impossible!”

Resnick leaned forward and kissed the stretch of muscle of her neck. She twisted slowly against him, moving her head until he was kissing her mouth. As the cab slowed to a halt, Resnick’s lips parted and her tongue slid over his.

“Time to go, Charlie.”

Resnick sighed, “Sure.”

Rachel opened the door, reaching for her purse with the other hand.

“On me,” Resnick said. “You paid for the meal.”

“Okay,” she said, getting out.

“Next time we’ll swop around,” Resnick called.

Rachel raised a hand. “Next time you phone me.”

“Right.” Resnick closed the door and the driver swung the cab into a U-turn. He looked through the side window, but she had already turned away and was walking slowly up the path towards the front door. A few seconds and she was almost lost to shadow.

Rachel shook her bag, patted her pocket, where had she put the key? There were no lights showing in the house which meant either that Carole was out or had already gone to bed, tired out. She didn’t want to stand around in the cold and damp and neither did she want to ring the bell and risk waking Carole. The sound of the cab taking Resnick away had already faded.

“Never do it, can you?”

Harsh, the words broke the darkness for a moment that for her was timeless, Rachel’s heart stopped. The bag slithered between her fingers towards the path. At first she could not place even the voice, much less where it came from.

“Always amazed me, someone as organized as you, half an hour to find a front-door key.”

Rachel’s fear became anger as Chris Phillips stepped from the shadows towards her. She wanted to hurt him for frightening her, but he caught the swing of her arm easily and held it above the wrist.

She could see that the upper sections of his raincoat were close to sodden; he was bareheaded and his hair stuck close to his scalp.

“How long have you been spying on me?” Rachel asked, shaking herself free.

“For about as long as you’ve been lying to me.”

“I haven’t lied.”

“No?” Chris angled his head slowly back towards the road, looking in the direction that Resnick’s departing cab had taken.

“You said there wasn’t anybody.”

“There isn’t.”

“What was that then? Some fucking apparition?”

“That was a friend.”

“I’ll bet!”

Rachel turned away and walked to the front door; a light had gone on in the hall, Carole alerted by their raised voices. Her finger was almost upon the bell when an open hand smacked past her, shaking the door on its hinges.

“Don’t you turn your back on me!”

“It’s too late for that, Chris,” Rachel said, facing him once again. “I already did.”

“Oh, you’re so clever, aren’t you?”

“I’m not trying to be clever…”

“Comes natural, does it?”

“Chris…”

“Like lying!”

“How many times, I have not been lying. Why should I? What would be the point?”

“And whoring!”

Carole was standing behind the door, her silhouette fractured by the glass. “Let me in,” Rachel called and before she had finished speaking the door was open on to the hall.

“Hello, Chris,” Carole said in a neutral tone. He ignored her, staring at Rachel with the same mixture of hatred and desperation she recognized from so many of her clients. He made as if to follow her and smartly Carole pushed Rachel inside and leaned against the door. Phillips was trapped with one side of his body jammed up against the wall.

“Carole, you’d better let me in!”

“I don’t think so, Chris.”

“Rachel and I have got things to talk about.”

“No, we haven’t,” called Rachel.

“You heard her, Chris,” said Carole.

He leaned his weight against the door and forced her back some way but not far enough for him to squeeze inside.

“You shouldn’t be doing this, Chris,” Carole said. “Go home.”

“Not until that lying bitch comes back out here to talk to me.”

“I’ve nothing left to say to you,” said Rachel, back at Carole’s shoulder, “and if I ever did, this has made me see the pointlessness of it. Just go.”

“Go, Chris,” echoed Carole.

“And if I don’t?”

“Don’t be even stupider than you have already,” said Rachel.

“Send for the police, why don’t you? Your friend the fascist can come roaring up on his charger and practice a bit of that well-known police brutality. That’s what turns you on these days, is it? Handcuffs and truncheons in the back of a blue van.”

Rachel wrenched the door back from Carole’s hands and slammed it forward again with all her weight and anger behind it. If Chris Phillips hadn’t jumped back in time, he would have lost a couple of fingers at least. As it was, one of the panels of glass splintered across from corner to corner and the whole door reverberated in its frame for several seconds.

Deftly, Carole slipped the bolt into place, followed by the chain; lastly, she turned the key in the second, mortice, lock.

“Leave him,” she said.

They sat in the kitchen at the back of the house, Carole drinking tea, Rachel gin. Each time there was an unexplained sound they thought it was Chris, moving around outside the house, but neither of them referred to it. Rachel told her friend about the Chinese meal in specific detail, not missing a flavor or a dish. On several occasions during her narrative she considered going to the phone and calling Resnick, but she always stopped herself.

At half-past midnight, Carole went upstairs and, without switching on any of the lights, looked out. Chris Phillips was standing much where he had been the best part of an hour before, hunched in the middle of the path. She went quietly back down and poured Rachel another drink.

When next she went to look it was a few minutes short of one o’clock and both the path and the street were empty.

Twenty-Nine

If there was one thing worse to read than computer print-out, it was microfiche. Patel had been moving between the two for hours already, alternating between the main catalogs on the ground floor and the more specialized information that was kept up on the second floor. Annotations spiraled over his notebook: publications, articles, conferences, papers. All against the constant hum of the central heating and, below, the criss-cross of students between the issue counter and short loan, the photocopying machines and the coffee bar.

Patel realized that when he had gone to university, he had been so overjoyed at simply being there, buoyed up by the pride and enthusiasm of his family, that he had never been able to put the experience into any context. The first to arrive at lectures, one of the few to stay behind for the obligatory and bored, “If there are any questions afterwards, of course I’d be very happy…,” Patel had filled block after block of loose-leaf paper without his imagination ever truly becoming engaged. Revising, panicking, he had been unable to read most of his frantic scrawling, had difficulty in remembering the sense of what he could. Fortunately, for his family the degree was enough—he had needed to bribe no fewer than five fellow graduates to obtain sufficient tickets for the ceremony—the grade immaterial.

The police recruitment officer had paid almost as little attention. “One of them bright little buggers, eh?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, not really, sir.”

Patel still flushed at the memory.

He stood in a short, animated queue and tried not to listen to the argument, detailed and specific, the couple in front were having about the relationship between alcohol and orgasms. Sitting with his styrofoam cup of instant coffee and his Kit-Kat, he hoped for a chance remark about Professor Doria, but was unrewarded. A student with blond hair sleek as a swimming cap took her place in the queue, smack in Patel’s eyeline. A university scarf was wrapped several times around the top of her short blue duffle coat; there appeared to be nothing below the thigh-length hem but long legs and yellow and white running-shoes. Chocolate melted over Patel’s fingers as he hurried away, back to the stacks.

“I was wondering, sir, well, about a transfer…” Naylor stood back from Resnick’s desk, feet together, fingers fidgeting with the notebook held against his stomach.

“Best give Graham Souness a ring,” Resnick said, not looking up. “He’s buying anything that moves for Rangers these days.”

Naylor blinked. The last thing he’d expected or wanted had been a joke—that had been a joke, hadn’t it?

“It’s Debbie, sir. You see, now that she’s…now that the baby’s…well, it’s a matter of where’s the best place for it to grow up and…”

Resnick contained a sigh and set aside his pen. Sleep was something he hadn’t had a lot of, his working hours seemed to be yielding less and less time, the superintendent was ever more disinclined to let him go his own way.

“It’s a backwater, Charlie,” Skelton had said. “That’s my worry.”

“Up the creek again without a bloody paddle!” Colin Rich had laughed.

Now this.

“I don’t want you to think I’m not happy here,” Naylor was stumbling on. “I am, and I’ve learnt a lot, from you, I mean, and if it was up to me…”

“Kevin, Kevin,” Resnick waved him into silence. “A minute. All right?”

“Yes, sir.” Naylor was looking at the far wall, the words he hadn’t been able to get out continuing to steeplechase around his head.

“First off, if it’s a matter of loyalties, you owe more to this kid of yours than to me. Clear?”

Naylor nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Second, there’s a specific transfer procedure and, while it’s good manners to inform me, I’m not the person you should be talking to at this stage.”

“Sir.”

“And, thirdly, and for what it’s worth, what you and Debbie might give some thought to is this—maybe the where of bringing kids up is less important than the how.”

“Yes, sir.” Naylor’s toes were wriggling inside his shoes. What had he been doing, coming into the inspector’s office and starting all of this?

“Now,” Resnick said, matter-of-factly, “how’ve you been getting on with that list of Doria’s assignations?”

Lynn Kellogg had found a pair of bottle-green dungarees near the bottom of her wardrobe; a bulky sweater that, when you held it to the face, still carried the smell of poultry; a soft black beret; worn-down ankle boots and a pair of striped leg warmers. All right, it wasn’t what this year’s students were wearing, not exactly, but it had that magpie quality which told of jumble sales and hand-me-downs. After which, the first students she got into conversation with all had hooray voices, sports cars their daddies had bought them as eighteenth-birthday presents, and were actually terribly disappointed not to be at Girton.

A couple of days of drifting along corridors and about the campus, sitting in the canteen over pie, chips and beans, and apricot crumble, browsing the shelves in the bookshop, hadn’t yielded much more than a sense of frustration. She heard Professor Doria’s name directly once, loitering by the Linguistics section. The student, tall with bad breath, responded to the first of her smiled questions, then bolted midway through the second, leaving an unpaid-for pile of books in his wake.

Linguistics and the After-Text
. New York and London. Oxford University Press, 1975.