Secret Smile (15 page)

'Oh,' said my mother. It sounded like a
moan.

'If you want to be treated like an adult,
you've got to behave like one,' said my father. He rubbed his forehead, then
added, 'It's because we love you, Troy.'

My father never says things like that.

'I'll make us those sandwiches,' I said, backing
into the windy, half-wrecked kitchen.

When I came back in, carrying a tray
loaded with toasted sandwiches oozing melted cheese, and four mugs of tea, my
mother had red eyes and had clearly been crying. She said, 'Troy says he'd like
to stay with you for a while.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Well, I'd love that, Troy.
It'd be great. The snag is, I'm not living there at the moment, Brendan and
Kerry are.'

'Not for long, though,' said Troy. 'I can
stay there with them for a couple of weeks or so, and then you'll be back.
Right?'

'You know how much I want you to stay,' I
said, 'but can't you wait just for a week or so?'

'Why?'

I stared at him helplessly. 'Are you sure
you'll be all right with Kerry and Brendan?'

He shrugged. 'They'll fuss too much as
well. It'll be better with you.'

'So wait.'

'I need to move now.'

'I'll be around,' I said. 'Just call me
when you need me, OK?'

'OK.'

The following day I took time off work and
went with Troy to the Aquarium. We spent two hours there, noses pressed against
the glass. Troy loved the tropical fish, glinting like shards of coloured
glass, but my favourite were the great flat fish with their stitched
upside-down faces. They looked friendly and puzzled as they floated through the
water with their bodies waving. Afterwards I drove him to my parents' house to
pack his stuff. Brendan and Kerry were going to collect him in a few hours'
time. I hugged him hard.

'I'll come and see you there very soon,' I
said. 'A day or two.'

In fact, hardly an hour passed without me
discovering something that I'd forgotten. I actually had to carry a piece of
paper and a pen around with me so that I could keep a list. I could buy more
knickers, but I couldn't buy everything. Three more T-shirts. Nail clippers.
Conditioner. Woolly hat. Chequebook. Street map. It was just ridiculous, so
after work the next day I went to my flat with the shopping list. Inside, I
found Brendan and Troy playing cards in the main room. They looked over at me
in some surprise. Brendan said something, but I couldn't hear him over the
music. I marched across the room and turned it down.

'I can hardly hear it,' said Troy. 'You'd
have to put a stethoscope against the speaker to hear that.'

'I just popped in to collect some stuff,'
I said.

'That's fine,' said Brendan. 'Go ahead.'

The very idea of Brendan airily telling me
to go ahead in my own flat made me want to boil a kettle of water and pour it
over his head. I couldn't speak. But then I did speak.

'How are you doing, Troy?'

'Pretty well, aren't we?' said Brendan.
Troy smiled at me and raised his eyebrows.

I went into my bedroom. Unsurprisingly,
this was where Troy was sleeping, and in only a day my room had started to look
the way that his bedroom always looked. The bed was unmade, there were clothes
on the floor, books lying open, a funny sweaty smell. I was as quick as I could
possibly be. I threw some things into a carrier bag I'd brought with me. I
pushed the door gently to and climbed up and reached for the book where I had
hidden the money. I counted it and felt my skin crawl as I did so. Sixty
pounds. I counted it again. Sixty. Couldn't he just have taken it all? What was
he doing with me? I put the rest of the money in my purse. I went back out into
the main room.

'I had some money in my bedroom,' I said.

Brendan looked round cheerfully.

'Yes?'

'Some of it's gone. I wondered if anybody
had borrowed it.'

Brendan shrugged.

'Not guilty,' he said. 'Where was it?'

'What does that matter?'

'It might have got lost or fallen down the
back of something.'

'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'Also, I
can't find my Tampax.'

'Kerry may have borrowed it,' Brendan
said. 'She's having her period.'

'Borrowed it?'

'Yes,' said Brendan. 'It's anal sex only
at the moment.'

I couldn't quite believe what I'd heard. I
felt bile rise, sour and sharp, in the back of my throat.

'Sorry?' I said.

'Only joking,' said Brendan, grinning at
Troy, whose face had gone as blank as a stone. 'Miranda likes it when I tease
her. At least I think she does. It's your deal.'

I started going over it all in my head,
and I tried to explain it to Nick. I told him how I'd put the slip of paper in
the door and how it had been in a different place when I checked it. I took a
sip of wine. We were sitting in a wine bar on Tottenham Court Road, just round
the corner from his flat.

'I'm finding it rather complicated,' I
said. 'You know in films where they leave a slip of paper and then they see it
lying on the floor and they know someone's been there?'

'Yes,' said Nick. 'It happened in
The
Sting.
Robert Redford did it because these gangsters were after him.'

'Really?' I said. 'I think I saw it on TV
years ago. I can't remember that bit. I'm terrible about films. I forget them
completely.' I took another gulp of wine. It felt like I was drinking more than
Nick was. He was sitting there, being all calm and sober, and I was talking and
drinking. 'The difficult thing for me was the slip of paper being back but in
an obviously different place. Do you see what I mean?'

'No,' said Nick.

I found it hard to work out myself. I
really had to stop to think about it. It hurt my brain.

'The thing is,' I said, 'most people
wouldn't notice the piece of paper at all. And maybe, like five per cent of
people would spot the paper and they would make a huge effort to put it back
exactly where it had been left in order to disguise that they'd opened the
door. But of that five per cent about five per cent — do you see that? Five per
cent of the five per cent — a tiny Machiavellian group — would deliberately put
the piece of paper in an obviously
different
place. They're calling your
bluff, do you see?'

'Not really,' said Nick.

I could see that Nick's attention was
wandering, that he was becoming impatient, but I couldn't stop myself. I didn't
want to stop myself. In a way I wanted to test him. If you like someone — or
love them — you don't mind them being obsessed with something. You don't even
mind them being boring. Perhaps I wanted to see how tolerant he could be
towards me.

'Brendan is playing with me. He put that
piece of paper there deliberately so that I knew that it had been put back. But
also so that I knew that he had put it back so that I would know that he had
not tried to conceal that he had been in my room.' I took another sip of wine.
'He was sending me a message. He was saying: "You were suspecting that I
was looking in your room; I know that you were suspecting me; I want to show
you that I know; I also want to show you that I don't care that you know; also,
I have been in your room and you don't know what I've actually been up
to." That's another thing. I left seventy-five pounds hidden in a book.
It's my secret stash.'

'Can't you just go to the bank machine
like other people?' Nick asked.

'That's no good,' I said. 'Sometimes the
bank machines run out of money. You should always have some cash hidden
somewhere. Now, any normal thief would have taken all the money. But Brendan
just took fifteen pounds. He was teasing me. He's trying to get into my head.'

'Into your head?'

'And now here I am. He's living in my
fucking flat and I'm sitting here pissed in this bar.'

There was quite a long silence now. I felt
like a comedian who was doing his act and nobody was laughing. There was just
silence out there in the audience.

'I can't do this,' Nick said, finally.

'What do you mean?' I said, except I knew.

'Do you mind if I'm honest?'

'No,' I said, knowing that when someone
said they were going to be honest they never meant they were going to be extra
specially nice.

'Do you know what I think?'

'No, I don't.'

'I don't think,' said Nick. 'I know.
You're still in love with Brendan.'

'What?' I said. This I really hadn't
expected.

'You're obsessed with him. He's all you
talk about.'

'Of course I'm obsessed with him,' I said.
'He's like a worm that's infesting me. He's tormenting me.'

'Exactly. It was lovely, Miranda.'

'Was,' I said dully.

Now, finally, he took a sip of wine.

I'm sorry,' he said.

I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to hit
him. And then suddenly I didn't. I fumbled in my purse and found a twenty-pound
note and put it by my empty glass. I leaned over, a bit unsteadily, and kissed
him.

'Bye-bye, Nick,' I said. 'It was really
the wrong time.'

I walked out of the bar. Another of these
sudden exits. I was meant to be staying the night with Nick. That was what I
had promised Laura. Another broken promise.

CHAPTER 17

The next day, I lay for a while on Laura's
sofa before making myself get up and face the morning. Outside, it was windy
and still half-dark. I was cold, I was tired, my hair needed washing. My tongue
felt too thick in my mouth. I hadn't run for days now and my limbs felt stiff
with disuse. I shut my eyes and listened to the companionable murmurs coming
from Laura's bedroom and felt as if I were on a slope, and sliding down it,
unable to stop myself. Anything I grabbed hold of came away in my hands. I
thought about the day ahead. I had to go to the bloody house in Hampstead again
and paint a red wall green. In my lunch hour I had to collect Kerry from her
work and look at yet another overpriced flat. And I'd come back here as late as
possible, so Laura and Tony didn't start getting irritated by my presence. I
sighed and with an immense effort threw off the duvet.

I got to Journey's End, the travel agent's
where Kerry worked, a bit early and shouldered the door open, grateful to be
out of the blustery weather. Kerry's boss, Malcolm, was at the nearest desk,
trying to persuade an overweight man in a loud suit that it was safe to travel
to Egypt, and a couple of other customers milled around by the brochure stand,
looking at pictures of sun and sea and laughing young people with white teeth
and blond hair. Kerry was at the far end of the room talking to another man in
a long overcoat, and although he had his back turned to me I saw it was Brendan
and stopped in my tracks, a few feet from them.
                                                            
                              

'I'm overdrawn already,' Kerry was saying,
pleadingly.

'Forty quid should see me through.'

'But...'

'Kerry.' His voice was soft and heavy. It
made me shudder just to hear it. 'Do you begrudge me? After everything I've
done.'

'You know it's not that, Bren.' And she
started fishing around in her purse for money.

'No? I'm surprised, Kerry. Disappointed.'

'Don't say that. Here. This is all I've
got.'

'How can I, now?'

'Please, Bren. Take it.' Kerry held out a
handful of notes and at the same time looked up and saw I was there. Her cheeks
flushed and she looked away, back at Brendan.

'I must say, you look a bit washed out
today,' he said as he took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. 'Mmm?'

I saw Kerry flinch as if he'd slapped her.
She put a hand half across her face, wanting to hide.

'You look lovely in that coat,' I said.

Forty-five minutes later, and Kerry and I
were drinking coffee in a shabby little cafe in Finsbury Park.

'Do I?' She fiddled with the collar
self-consciously. 'You don't think it makes me look pasty?'

'It's November. We're all a bit pale. You
look great.' I spoke cheerily, as if she were a convalescent in a hospital
ward.

'Thanks,' she said with a humility that
made me want to shake her.

'Anyway, you'll soon be on your honeymoon,
soaking up the sun — where is it? Fiji?'

'Yes.' She made herself smile with an
effort.

'Fabulous.'

There was a pause and I picked up my empty
coffee cup and pretended to drink the dregs.