Think Yourself Lucky (22 page)

Those were only David's most coherent thoughts. He was distracted not just by spillage from his seatmate's headphones but by a sense of being watched. He couldn't see anyone doing so, and whenever he looked for the culprit he simply grew more aware of the underground darkness into which the train was bearing him. The impression of a watcher followed him off the train and up the escalators into the street, where the crowds under the introverted pallid sky might have been helping an observer to stay unseen. Even once he'd shut the door of the agency behind him David felt spied upon, but now Andrea was gazing at him across the counter. "You haven't brought anything, then," she said.

"I thought Steph emailed you."

"She has and I've told her what I think." After a pause that he could easily have taken as some kind of accusation Andrea said "The arrangements won't be satisfactory as they stand."

David would have responded more immediately if he hadn't been aware how Bill and Helen weren't looking at him. Neither was Emily, who wasn't with them behind the counter, nor at the currency desk. "And what does Steph say about that?" he retorted.

"She hasn't yet. I'm giving her the chance."

This angered him as much as his workmates' pretence of not listening. He wasn't far from saying so, but he only said "So what were you expecting me to bring?"

"The same as everybody else." With a pause that he suspected was meant to seem official Andrea said "Your photographs."

"I'll try and remember tonight. I've quite a lot else on my mind," David said and made for the staffroom. It was deserted, and the corridor between it and the shop was hollow with silence.

David dragged at his cuff, catching a nail on the segmented metal strap of his watch. He was only just in time for work, and Emily was always several minutes earlier. He fumbled to unzip his coat and felt as if he was struggling with a captor as he flung it off. The scrawny hanger clanged against the walls of his locker in the corridor before he managed to capture it and hang up the coat. He slammed the lid of the upright man-sized box and hurried out to the counter. "Where's Emily?" he said, to get it over with.

Bill and Helen glanced up, but it was Andrea who said "She won't be with us."

All three of them were looking at him now. Even if he saw no condemnation in their eyes, he felt arrested by it, afraid to open his mouth again for fear of contradicting himself. He felt his tongue poke his lips apart and lick them before he could say "Why, what..."

His three judges seemed to be waiting for him to own up to more than that. Eventually Helen took some sort of pity on him. "Somebody else was here with us," she said, "and we didn't notice."

"Maybe she didn't," Bill said.

Andrea gave her head a curt shake, which didn't help David ask "Who?"

The word was scarcely audible, which might have been one reason why Andrea looked impatient. "She's found she's going to have a baby," she said not entirely unlike a complaint. "She'll be the one I'm letting go."

As soon as Andrea went for her break David made to ask the question. He waited until he heard the staffroom door shut and her cough beyond it, reassuring him that she wouldn't be back for at least a quarter of an hour. When he cleared his throat Helen leaned her head in his direction while Bill responded with the slightest heightening of his vague smile. David did his best not to let these traits distract him, however acutely aware of them the Newless blog had left him. "What were you—" he began just as somebody entered the shop.

He was an unhurried shambling man with a wide flat face and a profusion of windblown greyish hair, some of which spilled over the half of his coat collar he'd turned up. He gazed at the racks of brochures and then quite as indecisively at the staff behind the counter, and then emitted a sniff sharp enough for a question. "Can I help?" David said in the hope of dealing swiftly with him.

The man wandered none too directly over to him and sprawled in the chair opposite him. "Wife wants somewhere Italian," he complained. "Don't ask me why."

"I think I'll have to if we're going to fix you up."

"You tell me." The man paused long enough to seem to mean exactly that, and then he uttered another sniff. "She can get lots of it here," he said. "Prosecco and pasta and blahdiblahdiblah."

"Have you thought about Pompeii?" David said pretty well at random.

"Seen pictures," the man said with a fierce dismissive sniff. "Looked like a lot of walking and not much to see."

"You can take the same train from Naples to Herculaneum, and that's smaller."

"Even less to see, then. Anyway," the man said, which sounded like a farewell until he added "What else have you got?"

"I think your wife might like Rome."

"That's the colossal thingyo, isn't it? Where the lions ate all the Christians. We saw it in a show with Nero in. Don't need to see what's left of it now."

In some desperation, not least at how time was trundling onwards, David said "What about Pisa?"

"That's where the tower's tipped over. Don't see the point of it myself. Anyway," the man said but, despite a pause that he filled with a sniff, not as a goodbye. "She likes galleries as well. Pictures and sculptures and blahdiblahdiblah."

David felt his toes clench. "Rome has those, and Venice does."

"That's all the water, isn't it? Not my style. I get sick watching shows with the sea in," the man said, adding a sniff sufficiently liquid to represent sickness.

David's toenails had begun to scrape the insides of his shoes. "How about Florence, then?"

"That's the Romeo and Juliet place. Wherefore art thou Romeo and blahdi—"

"You'll be reminded of Shakespeare all over Italy." David managed to unclench his toes, having felt the nails start to bend away from them. "The world's his stage," he said like the writer he wasn't, only to recall Frank Cubbins' novel on the Newless blog.

"He's just old stuff even she's not got much time for. Anyway," the man said but didn't move. "She's into churches too. Not for all the blahdiblahdiblah and thingyo, just walking around for a look. Maybe she'd like Spain."

David lurched to his feet, wincing as his nails twinged. "Would you like some brochures to show her?"

"Might be a good plan at that. Should have said in the first place."

Surely he was blaming himself, not David. He took the Spanish Splendours brochure David handed him, and Eternal Italy too. When David retreated behind the counter the man stayed at the racks, and David felt another minute shrinking. Eventually the man selected a Mediterranean Magnificence brochure and mumbled "Anyway" before ambling to the door. David wasn't sure if he should take the fellow's parting sniff as a comment on the service, and he hadn't time to wonder. "Well," Helen said, tilting her head in the direction of the door and raising an eyebrow towards it, "I won't mind if we've seen the last of him."

"He did seem a bit of a joke," Bill said without varying his smile.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one he bothered," David said as he glanced at his watch. He should have about five minutes, and he made haste to ask "Just while I think, what was someone saying about me yesterday?"

While Bill and Helen didn't look at each other, he was sure they wanted to. Each seemed to be waiting for the other one to speak, but at last Helen said "Who was that, David?"

"Whoever was. Somebody here."

"When are we meant to be talking about?" Bill said.

"When I wasn't here."

"You don't think we'd talk about you behind your back," Helen said more like an accuser than someone accused.

"She didn't put it like that." Having grown desperate enough to say that, David could only add "Emily said."

Surely they wouldn't check. He couldn't think of any other way to make them own up. At the end of another silence that felt like mute communication Helen glanced towards the staff quarters. "We were saying we thought Andrea wasn't being fair."

"What about?"

Bill twisted his smile wry, "About you, old chap."

"What was she saying?"

"Why, you know, David." When her gaze failed to convince him that he did Helen said "Making you take messages to your girlfriend. We wondered if she's jealous."

"Andrea, that is," Bill said, "but you mustn't let on we were saying."

"Weren't you all discussing who would have to leave?"

David saw guilt flickering in Helen's eyes as Bill said "It's not our fault you weren't here."

"Maybe it was Andrea's, but didn't you go along with it?"

"It wasn't like that, David." Defensively enough to sound resentful Helen said "We didn't realise it would mean that much to you."

"You didn't."

"She was going to tell you." Bill appeared to think this was some form of reassurance. "She just didn't get the chance."

"So you all left it to her even though you knew what was supposed to happen."

"I don't understand why you're so peeved," Helen objected. "You know about it now."

"I wonder when I would have if she hadn't had to change her mind."

Both of them looked bewildered, which infected David too. "Who did?" Bill said with an uncertain grin.

"Who else have we been talking about? The boss."

"Andrea?" Bill said while his grin grew surer of itself. "We meant Emily, old chap."

"We thought you were miffed because she didn't tell you her good news herself," Helen said, but then she gazed harder at David. "What were you really thinking? That we'd all decided you ought to be the one to go?"

"I thought maybe somebody did," David said and felt compelled to add "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorrier," Bill said as his grin sagged, though it seemed unable to desert him. "I didn't know you had that kind of opinion of us."

"I certainly don't think we've given you any reason," Helen said.

"I'm really sorry. I don't know what I can have been thinking of," David said and saw it fail to reach them. "I'm not saying it's an excuse, but I've got too much on my mind. We don't know whether Steph still has her job, and my mother isn't well because of how one of her cases is behaving."

However Helen might have responded, she looked away from him as they heard Andrea cough outside the staffroom. He was angered to see his colleagues turn to their work like schoolchildren who'd heard a teacher approaching, and even angrier to find himself trying to appear busy at his computer terminal. He was unhappy to have antagonised Bill and Helen but more concerned with the Newless blog. If it had so completely misrepresented the discussion about David, what did that tell him? Might Frank Cubbins be unharmed? The rest of the morning—the fifteen-minute waits for phones to be answered except by a machine, the intermittent stream of customers—felt like a series of cumbersome hindrances. He didn't have time to resent Andrea's briskness when she said "Will you go for lunch now, David."

The hanger clanged like an ominous bell as he grabbed his coat from the locker. He shoved his fists through the cumbersome sleeves on his way past the counter, not looking at Helen and Bill, since he couldn't decide on an expression to present to them. When he reached the street the chill that fitted itself to his face felt capable of turning his features into a mask. He clamped his lips together so as not to mutter to himself while he tried to think what to say to Cubbins—how much, or how little? "You've been reading someone's thoughts, have you? So long as you don't think you can read mine"... "You can see it isn't true. You wouldn't be here if it was"... "Did you have something to say to me, Mr Cubbins?"... "I believe you were looking for me"... Surely David needn't even prompt the man. He'd wait for Cubbins to speak first, he decided as he came in sight of the Chinatown arch.

At first he was thrown by how unstable the tall scaly gateway looked, and then he realised it was flickering with light. He might have imagined someone was using up fireworks left over from last month's new year celebrations, except that the flares were silent. Apprehensiveness let more of the March chill find him as he ventured to the arch. The flashing lights belonged to an ambulance parked outside a tenement block.

Two ambulance attendants were manoeuvring a stretcher laden with a sheeted body down the enclosed steps from the fourth floor. David almost dodged out of sight and fled, but why couldn't he pass for a carelessly interested spectator? As he wavered, wondering how close he dared to go, a woman emerged from a flat on the second level and encountered the attendants on the steps. She spoke to them at length before hurrying ahead of them, and when she made for the arch David accosted her. "What's happened?" he said as casually as he could.

Had his tone offended her? By the time she spoke he'd begun to wonder if he should risk betraying an interest. "Someone's died," she said.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry." Surely most people would say something of the sort—it needn't betray any involvement—and he tried asking "A neighbour of yours?"

"Two floors up. We didn't know him that well."

"That's sad, isn't it; when people die and nobody remembers them."

In attempting to prompt her David seemed to have provoked her to retort "I didn't say we won't remember."

"I'm sure you will." With an effort that he strove to hide David said "What do you know about him, then?"

He almost neglected to add the last word and wasn't sure of its effect once he had. "He was supposed to be some kind of a writer," she said.

David found he'd been hoping not to hear anything of the kind, and couldn't tell how indifferent he managed to sound as he said "How did, do you know how he—"

"Electrocuted himself, they said, trying to plug in his computer. We're always having trouble with the electrics, us as well."

"You want to get that seen to before..." David scarcely knew whether he was trying to advise her or simply clutching at an explanation of the death that he would prefer to believe. The rationalisation trailed off, abandoning him with doubts and worse than doubts, and he was searching for a way to end the conversation when his mobile did it for him.

I go Fru-go-go, I go Fru-go-go
... The attendants had shut their burden in the ambulance and were watching David through the arch. He flourished the phone and gave them an apologetic grimace, only to realise how closely the ringtone might be identifying him. "Excuse me," he told the woman, and was leaving Chinatown behind when a glance at the phone showed him his father's number.