Shadow Play (16 page)

‘Clever you,' he said admiringly. ‘You should be on duty when they start.' He could not resist a little boasting. ‘Go mad they do. The noise! We need earplugs, but then we wouldn't hear them thumping one another. Actually,' he added, honesty prevailing, ‘it's not usually that bad. I don't really mind football duty.' She was silent: it was his turn to chatter. And the Greek place was dark and cheerful, half full, swagged with rich and tired velour which did not bear close examination, but half covered the windows from prying eyes and gave it a look of expense even before the waiters prostrated themselves for each visitor. Rose was nicely flustered. They sat after the table was adjusted three times, the candle and the flowers slammed back with the efficiency which gave the lie to the humility of the service. Michael held her hand over the darned, pink cloth.

‘It's one of my locals,' he said simply, not quite explaining the explosion of attention. ‘And I usually come in here by myself or with one of the lads. I just wanted to show you off.'

Her cup ran over. The waiter cantered across with another flower and a complimentary drink, but all she could do was look at the man who held her small hand in his big, warm one. If this was love, no wonder she had never known. It was almost too much to bear.

I don't know what's happened to me, Michael wanted to say. I just don't know, but I want it to last.

‘Here, this is expensive,' Rose muttered, looking at the menu. ‘Well quite expensive. You've got to let me pay some.' The challenge was back in her voice.

‘No,' he laughed. ‘When I take you out, I take you out, right?' She opened her mouth to protest. Years of fighting for survival had not bred a person of graceful acceptance.

‘No, love,' he warned. ‘Another time. When you haven't been out buying new gear for six hours at a time. Come on, I know you get paid fuck all.'

‘Do you call everyone love?' she asked pertly.

‘No,' he said. ‘Only little old ladies. And you. 'Cos I mean it.'

‘Why?' she said seriously, looking down and playing with her flower. ‘Why ever would you mean it?'

‘I don't know why,' he said simply. ‘I don't know if anyone ever does know why. I dunno why my mum loves my dad, but she does. You can't pick and choose. Leastways, I can't. I feel stuck with it, but it's a nice way of being stuck.'

Was it his imagination, or did her eyes fill with tears, either of petulance or sadness? Then she blew her nose, having fumbled in her handbag to look for an over-used scrap of tissue. Sophistication did not spread as far as her handbag. She was not a person to tease, he decided; she was as raw as a peeled onion and not like anyone else. Not at all like anyone else.

‘So,' he said, returning to the topics which had been the staple and ever-effective subjects of their conversations. ‘Tell me about work. When did I see you last? Day before yesterday? Seems ages. Let's have the
meze
, shall we, a bit of everything?'

Rose liked talking about work. He liked a girl who took work seriously and also knew a little about his own, that was a bonus.

‘Well, there's something worrying me there. Can I tell you? Promise you won't tell anyone else? I wanted to tell Miss W. today, but it sort of never came up. Everything else did though.'

‘Go on then,' he made a face at her. ‘I'm all ears.'

‘We've got someone fiddling the books, is what. Only I don't know who. Oh, not fiddling books for money or anything, just playing around with the computer, wiping off cases. So people don't know to go to court, and the magistrate chucks it out. We've had about ten, only no-one's said anything yet and no-one listens to me, I'm the only one who seems to have noticed—'

Michael snorted. ‘You know what?' he said. ‘Like I told you before, we got jokes on our relief about why bother going to court at all any more. Just wait for the CPS to lose the papers.'

‘All right, all right,' she said defensively, her hand still in his. The waiter hovered but Michael dealt with him quickly, the boss without arrogance, smiles exchanged all round. How easy it was to unburden when your hand was held. Perhaps all burdens could be shed this way; she felt the beckoning of freedom. ‘That's the whole point, don't you see? You just have to make a mess up with the papers and everyone thinks it
is
just careless, short staff, whatever …'

‘While someone's taking advantage, and doing it deliberately?'

‘Oh, I wouldn't like to think that,' she said hurriedly. ‘I don't like to think that anyone in our office would do that. It's only cases about driving—'

‘Why not?' he interrupted. ‘Look, what's a licence worth? Hundreds? Thousands if you could get prison. Thousands? And the rest. Depends who you are.'

‘I wasn't thinking it was for money,' she repeated stubbornly. ‘I was thinking it was maybe for spite. But what I was really thinking, was that when they notice, they're going to think it's me.'

‘Why?' he asked, surprised, although he half knew the answer.

‘Because I keep the back-up records and they've gone too. And because I'm awkward, can't help it.' He nodded. Food arrived in quantity, dish after little dish, some of the plates cracked, but the contents delectable. They abandoned any other dilemma except which dish to attack first, but not before Michael had the last word.

‘Well, if they blame you, they'll find out otherwise. Now you've got me, we'll sort it out. Listen,' handing her the hot pitta bread, ‘I'm boxing next week. Want to come and see me?'

She had a mouthful, shook her head. ‘Only if you win. I don't want to see you being punched.'

‘Promise,' he said. ‘I don't want to be punched, either.'

 

I
t was then that the face pressed itself against the window. A bloated red face with one eye half closed and the colours of tropical sunset beneath nasty, dirty, thinning hair. The figure beneath wore indecipherable clothes, brown, black, damp, funeral clothes and a grubby shirt collar, streaked with blood. A hand sheltered the eyes the better to peer inwards at the diners and their food. The face adjusted itself further to avoid the curtains, then flattened one cheek against the pane, making the expression of it lugubrious and exaggerating the swelling of the skin. Rose and Michael were in the corner window-seat, she had her back to the wall. Michael looked up, his eyes suddenly level with the eyes outside, inches from that terrible face, ghostly in the light from the framed menu outside. The eyes moved sideways, gazed at Rose, and Michael was uncomfortably alarmed, then violently angry. His first reaction was to stand up and bang on the windows, but it was tempered by the desire for peace.

‘Here, Rose, love,' he said equably. ‘You seem to have got a fan out there. Friend of yours?'

She looked up, he waited for the laugh, watched as the colour of her skin drained to a dull white. Michael had seen the same in people about to faint, but all she did was drop her fork and choke on what she ate. He leapt from his seat, round to her side, patted her back and waited for the coughing to subside. The man outside did not move. For a moment, the two inside stared at him and then, most hideous of all, the face broke into a great, flattened grin, a hand appeared clawing at the glass beside the smile, then sketched a wave as the glass was misted by breath. Michael went outside.

He pulled the man by the shoulder, feeling the loose fabric slip over a knob of fleshless bone. A ghost. The man was still grinning.

‘What's your game, mister? What's your bloody game?' Michael shouted. ‘Fuck off out of it! Go home!'

Logo appeared to consider. In height, he reached somewhere about the middle of Michael's chest and he would have known a policeman at fifty yards, even in the fog. Restlessness had driven him back outdoors, but he was in no condition to run, fight, beg or face another arrest. Michael, too, remembered to conciliate.

‘You should be at home, old man, not out on a night like this, frightening people. Go on, go home.' But he could not resist a rough push which sent the other reeling back a few steps, wiping away that smile for three seconds until it reappeared with his balance.

‘All right, all right,' in a wheedling tone which irritated more than any sign of aggression. ‘I was going anyway.' He turned with dignity and his voice came floating back. ‘Tell her I'll find her. Tell her I'll go on looking.'

‘Fuck off,' Michael muttered, watching until the man was out of sight. Logo, that's who it was, seen him before, poor old loony. That was all right: anyone recognised was all right. He shook himself like a dog, tried to get rid of the anger and returned inside.

The corner-seat where Rose had sat was empty. The waiter hovered, anxiously, with the next course on a large dish.

‘Keep it warm a minute, will you? Where'd she go?'

The waiter shrugged and pointed to the back. He was used to alarms and squabbles and ladies hiding in the lav after too much retsina. Michael forced his way to the back behind the bar. She was standing against the lavatory door, holding the same piece of tissue she had produced before to press against her mouth, as if that talisman alone could stop the trembling.

‘Come on, love. It's all right. Don't be upset. It's all right. He's only an old no-good, lives the other side of the stadium, harmless old fart.'

She shook her head. He put his arms round her, began to lead her back to their table. She resisted.

‘Come on, no damage. Come on, love, we've hardly started.' She mumbled something into the disgusting rag of tissue.

‘What? Didn't hear you. Tell me what's up. Look, he only likes scaring people, that's all. I can tell you a tale or two about Logo.'

She took the tissue away from her face, heaved a large sigh to control the shaking.

‘Don't bother, will you.'

Michael felt the huge wave of irritation for the wreck of a well-planned evening.

 

B
ailey woke with a crick in his neck. The fire was out and for a long half minute he wondered where he was. In the house of the woman where he had spent part of his afternoon, not innocently, but no actual disloyalty either? In his own home? He looked down at his own long length covered by blanket, tucked firmly if ineffectively round his stiff shoulders, bunched round his middle and kicked away by his feet. A covered corpse which had managed to move.

Now he was in the present he liked the conclusions less than the confusion. He was hot and cold by turns, his hands sweaty, head chilly, and surely, she knew him well enough after three years to rouse him from a stupor and put him to bed. Wincing, he threw off the blanket and surveyed his crumpled suit in the soft light she had left on for his benefit. No doubt to stop him stumbling and waking her up. Then he looked at his watch, although he knew as he always did, roughly what time it was, just this side of midnight. There was no sound anywhere until he heard the faint rumble of the North London Line, vibrating to remind him.

Well he needed a bed and he needed more sleep, so he rose stiffly, took off his clothes and slung them over the chair, padded naked to the bathroom and stood beneath the shower. A warm body is always more easily forgiven than a cold one, he reflected, making as much noise about his scouring as possible. Deliberately noisy, clumsy in any event from fatigue and headache, knocking things over. She had dishes and jars in her bathroom where he had merely closed cupboards and soap, it was easy to make his presence audible. During the teeth-brushing stage, which he did with great vigour, splashing the mirror, he noticed a new brush by the side of the basin, wondered briefly, decided he was too tired to wonder about the significance of anything. Then padded next door. He slipped in beside her and hauled her close without any resistance.

‘We aren't doing very well, are we?' he said. ‘I've missed you. And I'm sorry I didn't say so.'

‘So am I. So did I. Miss you.'

Silence. ‘Tell me,' she said more distinctly, ‘if we split up, do you think we could just be good friends?'

Silence.

‘No,' he said. ‘Couldn't we just be lovers?'

 

M
argaret deliberately recited to herself the events of the last evening as a way of passing time and speeding the progress of the bus which went from the end of the road all the way to Oxford Street. Perhaps Eenie remembered the route, Margaret thought.

The night before, Sylvie's mother and father had come to collect her long after Logo had knocked, it was closer to midnight by the time Margaret offloaded one sleeping child. The mother was tear-stained: Granny in hospital was dying, she said, and Margaret remembered how nothing was ever quite as bad as the death of a parent. Not even a husband. Perhaps the defection or disappearance of a child was something worse than a death. Even with a clear conscience as far as Sylvie's safety was concerned, Margaret could not triumph in her contribution to it. Her sense of guilt was becoming permanent and she worried about shouting at Logo. It did not do to shout: it was not her style. Neither was the habit of hiding things from anyone, although to do so was one of life's clearest duties. So she had lumbered over to call on him after Sylvie went.

His house showed no lights and no sign of life. Margaret knew she could open the door, but ever since she had seen the suitcase, she had not felt the same. It was not Logo who made her frightened, it was the ghosts, so she went home, wondering how she would ever manage to rediscover that love for him which seemed to have fled. She would just have to wait for it to come back.

It wasn't even lonely without him: the day had been too busy, replete with the promise of what she was doing now. Debenhams, Oxford Street. Coffee shop, half-past four, Saturday, just as the crowds were clearing. She had got up last night, one more time, to look at the letter in the knife drawer to make sure she had the time right. If only she had never seen the suitcase, if only there was some way to talk without breaking any promises.