Secret Smile (12 page)

'And that's nothing compared to
downstairs,' said my neighbour grimly.

'Miranda,' said Kerry, 'I'm sure...'

'Whoa!' said Brendan, holding up his
hands. 'Calm down, Mirrie.'

'Miranda,' I said. 'Miranda. There's no
such name as "Mirrie".'

'Don't get all hysterical.'

'I'm not hysterical. I'm angry.'

'I haven't been here today.'

'What?'

'I haven't been here.'

'You must have been.'

'No. Now sit down, why don't you, and I'll
make us all some tea. Or maybe a drink would be better.' He turned to my
neighbour. 'What about for you, Mr, er...?'

'Lockley. Ken.'

'Ken. Whisky? I think we've got whisky.'

'All right, then,' he said grudgingly.

'Good.'

He pulled the whisky bottle out of the
cupboard, and four tumblers.

'You must have been here,' I said to his
back. 'You must.'

'I went to look at the house with Kerry,
then I went shopping. Then I met Kerry for lunch.' Kerry nodded. She still
looked shaken by my outburst. 'Then I went to Derek and Marcia's to see Troy.'
He put his hand on my shoulder. 'No midday baths, Mirrie.'

'But...'

'Did you have a bath before you left,
maybe?'

'There's no way I left the plug in and the
tap running. I don't do things like that.'

'It's so easy to do. We've all done
something like that at one time or another.' He turned to Ken. 'Haven't we, eh?
I'm sure Miranda will make sure everything's dealt with. And she's in the
building and decorating trade, so maybe she can help you with the painting and
stuff. Mmm?'

'I didn't do it,' I said hopelessly.

'Miranda,' said Kerry. 'No one's blaming
you. But you were the last to leave. And you had a bath, didn't you?'

'But I...' I stopped. A tremendous
weariness came over me. 'I remember cleaning out the bath.'

'Don't worry,' he said gently. 'We'll help
you sort this mess out.'

'I don't understand.' To my horror, I felt
tears sliding down my cheeks.

'Miranda! Listen...' Kerry's voice was
sharp.

'Ssssh,' said Brendan. He actually took
her by the forearm and pulled her aside. I saw her flinch. Her mouth hardened
for an instant.

'There, there,' he cooed into my ear.
'There, there, Mirrie. I'm here. I'm here.'

I closed the bedroom door and picked up
the phone.

'Laura!' I said. I kept my voice low, so
they couldn't hear me. 'Listen, Laura, this thing's happened. I need to speak
to someone about it...'

'Are you telling me,' said Laura when I'd
finished. 'Are you seriously saying that Brendan crept back into your flat and
on
purpose
flooded your flat?'

'Yes.'

'Why on earth?'

'Because he's weird; he's got this thing
about me.'

'Oh, come on. I've let the bath run over
loads of times,' she said. 'It's really easy to just forget about it.'

'But I don't do things like that.'

'There's a first time for everything. It's
a more likely explanation than yours, isn't it?'

'I remember cleaning out the bath.
Vividly.'

'There you are, then. You put the plug
back in, hosed down the tub, then left the water running a bit.'

I gave up trying to persuade her. It was
starting to seem possible even to me, and I'd been there and knew it hadn't
happened. And anyway, it was just too tiring.

CHAPTER 13

The couple who lived in the house in
Ealing had hired two skips, and they were already almost full. When I left, I
peered into them. Among the jumble of old rugs, chipped plates, broken
furniture, I saw a computer that looked quite new, a laser printer, two
telephones, a large oil painting of a greyhound, several cookery books, a
standard lamp, a wicker basket. I should be used to it by now. I often see
people throw away TVs still under guarantee, year-old cookers and perfectly
functioning fridges. In my job, we're always ripping out new things and
substituting the even newer. Last year's fashions are replaced with this
year's. Whole kitchens disappear into skips, bathtubs and beds and cupboards,
garden sheds and miles of shelving. Recycling centres are mountains of
obsolescence. It gives us extra work, I suppose. The people we do jobs for are
always talking about beginning again, as if the stainless steel and glass that
we're installing everywhere at the moment won't soon be replaced by
old-fashioned, newly trendy wood. Everything comes round again. Every decade
falls out of favour and then re-emerges in a slightly different form, like the
flares on my trousers, which Bill is always laughing about because they remind
him of when he was young in the Seventies.

I surreptitiously reached in and pulled
out a cookery book. I'd rescue that at least. Recipes from Spain. I put it in
my hold-all, along with my paintbrushes.

At home, Brendan was making a great fuss
about washing up a few bowls and Kerry was standing over the stove, stirring
something. She looked sticky and irritable.

'We're cooking for you tonight,' she said.

'Thanks.'

I took a beer from the fridge and retreated
to the bathroom. What I needed was hot water on the outside of my body and cold
alcohol on the inside of my body. I was lying in the bath feeling pleasantly
woozy when the door opened and Brendan came in. I sat up abruptly and hunched
my knees against my body. As if he were alone, he took a piss into the lavatory
which was next to the bath. He zipped himself up, rinsed his hands and turned
to me with a smile.

'Excuse me,' I said sharply.

'Yes?' He stood over me.

'Get out.'

'Sorry?'

'Get the fuck out of here. I'm in the
bath.'

'You should have locked the door,' he
said.

'You know there isn't a lock,' I said.

'There you are, then.'

'And you haven't flushed it. Oh, for God's
sake.'

I stood up and reached for a towel.
Brendan took it from the rail and held it just out of reach. He was looking at
my body. He had a strange expression, a triumphant smirk. He was like a little
boy who had never seen a naked woman before.

'Give me the fucking towel, Brendan.'

'It's not as if I haven't seen your naked
body before.'

He gave me the towel and I wrapped it
around me.

The door opened and Kerry came in. She
looked at Brendan and then she looked at me. Her face sharpened with
disapproval.

'What's going on?' she asked.

'Miranda didn't lock the door,' Brendan
said. 'I didn't know she was in here so I barged in.'

'Oh,' said Kerry, 'I see.' She stared at
me and I felt a flush rising up my face. I pulled the towel tighter around me.

'There isn't a lock,' I said, but she
didn't seem to take any notice.

'Supper will be ready soon,' she said
after a pause. 'Brendan? Can I have a word with you?'

'Ooops,' said Brendan, and gave a wink in
my direction. 'Trouble from the missus, eh?'

As I got dressed I told myself that this
wouldn't go on for long. I just had to get through it, then I could get on with
my life.

Kerry had done all the cooking and Kerry
isn't really someone who has ever bothered about food. She had made macaroni
cheese with peas and bits of mince added. It was stodgy and too salty. Brendan
opened a bottle of red wine with a flourish. Kerry loaded much too much on to
my plate. Brendan poured too much wine into my glass. Maybe getting drunk was a
good idea. Brendan lifted his glass.

'To the cook,' he said.

'To the cook,' I said, and took a very
small sip.

'And to you,' said Kerry, looking at me.
'Our host.'

They both clinked their glasses on mine.

'It's a pleasure,' I said because they
seemed to expect me to say something.

'That's good, in the circumstances,' said
Brendan.

'What do you mean?'

'There's something we've got to ask you,'
said Kerry.

'What?'

'Well, our flat has fallen through.'

Suddenly my face felt like a mask made out
of hardened clay.

'What happened? You were about to
exchange, for God's sake. You said it would be a matter of days before you
could move in.'

'They were pissing us around,' said
Brendan.

'In what way?'

'You don't want to hear the details,' he
said.

'I do.'

'The main point is that we walked away.'

'You walked away,' said Kerry with sudden
sharpness.

'Whatever.' He waved his hand in the air
as though that were a trifle. 'I'm afraid that we'll have to trespass on your
hospitality for a little more.'

'Why did you walk away?' I persisted.

'Lots of things,' said Brendan.

'Miranda? Is that all right?' said Kerry.
'We feel terrible. We're desperately looking for somewhere else to move to in
the meantime.'

'Don't worry about it,' I said drearily.

I didn't say much for the rest of the
meal. The food had started to taste like wallpaper paste and it took all my
concentration to eat it without vomiting. Kerry made me have a second helping.
She had bought a frozen lemon meringue pie for pudding, and I ate half of a
small slice and then said I had a headache and I had to go to bed. Was that all
right?

When I got to my room I threw the window
open and took several deep breaths as if the air in my room were contaminated.
I had the most terrible night. I was awake for what seemed like hours making
feverish, deranged plans for the future. I could get married to Nick. At around
three in the morning, I seriously considered emigrating and started to rank
countries according to how far they were from North London. New Zealand seemed
especially tempting. This dissolved into a dream in which I was going away and
had to catch a train. I had so much to pack that I was never able to escape
from my room. Then I was staring into the darkness of my room and wondering if
something had woken me up and then I cried out. I couldn't stop myself. I had
made out a shape in the semi-darkness and befuddled as I was I could recognize
Brendan looking down at me. I fumbled for the light and switched it on.

'What the fuck?' I said.

'Ssshh,' he said.

'Don't "sshh" me,' I hissed,
shocked and angry. 'What are you doing?'

'I, er... I was looking for something to
read.'

'Get the hell out...'

He sat down on the bed and actually put
his hand over my mouth. He leaned down and spoke to me in a whisper.

'Please don't shout,' he said. 'You might
wake Kerry. It might look strange.'

I pushed his hand away.

'That's not my problem.'

He smiled and looked around the room as if
it were all a bit of a game.

'I think it is, really,' he said.

I pulled the duvet up over my shoulders
and forced myself to speak calmly and reasonably.

'Brendan, this is all wrong.'

'You mean about you and me?'

'There is nothing between you and me.'

He shook his head.

'You know, Miranda, I was once looking at
you. It was the second time we slept together. I took my clothes off more
quickly than you did and got into the bed.
This
bed. I lay where you're lying
now and watched you. When you unclipped your bra, you turned away from me, as
if I weren't about to see your naked body, and when you turned round you had a
funny little smile on your face. It was beautiful and I wondered if anybody but
me had ever noticed it before. You see, I notice things like that and I
remember them.'

At that moment in the midst of all the
confusion, all my anger and desperation and frustration, I was able to think
with an absolute cold clarity. If I had been in love with Brendan, this would
have been tender and beautiful. But I wasn't in love with him and I felt
physically repulsed. I felt as if he were a parasite that had crawled into my
flesh and I couldn't rid myself of him.

'This is quite wrong,' I said. 'You've got
to leave.'

'None of this matters,' he said. 'Didn't
you hear what I said? There's this secret smile you have. I've seen it. I know
you in a way that nobody else does. We share that. Good night, Miranda.'

The next morning I woke and it was like an
awful dream I'd emerged from, and then with a lurch I remembered him standing
over me and what he had said and that it hadn't been a dream. My mouth felt as
if it were full of dry fluff. I had a headache and there was a stabbing
sensation behind my eyes. I had a shower, dressed and drank a black coffee.
Nobody else was up. Before I left for work, I returned to my bedroom. I looked
at the bookshelves, trying to determine by sheer force of concentration whether
anything had been moved. I reached for an old novel I had been given as a girl.
It's my special emergency hiding place. Tucked inside the book was some money.
I counted it out. Seventy-five pounds. I replaced it. I tried to think of
something to do. I remembered something I had seen in a film once. I tore a
small strip of paper an inch long and maybe a quarter of an inch wide. When I
closed the door I wedged the piece of paper in the crack, exactly at the height
of the lower hinge. As I left, I asked myself: how can I be living in such a
way that I have to do things like that?