Watching You (8 page)

M
arnie walks through the arched portico into the College Building at City University. As she passes the reception desk, she flashes Daniel’s employee lanyard, giving the security guard no chance to study the photograph. Instead, she pretends to be chatting on her mobile, too busy to stop.

She’s almost at the stairs.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She turns. The security guard approaches. Tall. Black. “You dropped this,” he says, handing her Daniel’s office key.

Marnie accepts it, still holding the lanyard tightly in her fist.

“You’re new around here.”

“Just started,” she says. “Library services.”

“You’ve come through the wrong door.”

“I have to see Professor Bradshaw.”

“Second floor. Have a good day.”

She wants to say, “You, too,” but can’t get the words out.

Climbing the stairs, she steps aside for students who are too busy typing text messages or dialing up music to watch where they’re going. One boy bumps into her and reacts as though he’s been infected.

The last time Marnie visited the university she had argued with the vice-chancellor, who threatened to have her arrested for trespassing. Her request for Daniel’s personal effects had been passed between various departments, up the chain of command, until it reached the vice-chancellor. She waited four hours. The message came back. The locker was her husband’s private property and couldn’t be opened without a warrant or approval from the University Executive Team.

“You could make a written application,” she was told. “Provide us with evidence.”

“What sort of evidence?”

“A letter from your husband.”

“My
missing
husband?”

“I can see that might be a problem,” said the vice-chancellor, who refused to give way.

Now she’s back again, without a warrant or a letter, taking matters into her own hands. On reaching the third floor, she stops outside an office door, unsure if she’s in the right place. She only visited Daniel once after he took a job at the university. She and Elijah decided to surprise him, bringing him his favorite iced coffee. They spied him on the stairs, surrounded by bright young things, girls with wedged haircuts, skinny-legged jeans, and tight tops who talked in breathless sentences, using the word “like” as a punctuation point. Daniel was telling them newspaper stories, colorful, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and untold truths that couldn’t be written because of libel laws or public sensibilities.

He looked so relaxed. Happy. Handsome. And these young wannabes were hanging on his every word. Marnie could picture them, flirting with Daniel, leaning over his desk. He had such an easy smile, which is why he was so successful as a journalist. People opened their doors, invited him inside, and poured out their hearts.

Marnie had felt a pang of jealousy. These girls would make him happy. They would laugh at his jokes and give him sex when he wanted. They would straddle him on the sofa at halftime during the football and fetch him beers from the fridge and blow him when it was their time of the month. They wouldn’t have two children or stretch marks or gray roots poking through their fringe.

She remembered how he used to be; how he’d come home after the Saturday-night deadline, hyped about an exclusive story, beer-loose and horny. He’d squeeze her in his strong arms. Fondle her breasts.

“God, I love you,” he’d say.

“We have to wait until Zoe is asleep.”

“She won’t hear us.”

Marnie would let him kiss her. Feel his hands slide lower, his fingers searching. His hardness.

She tries to remember the last time something like that happened—spontaneous, sweaty, passionate sex—but can’t fix it in her mind. So much about their lives had become routine. Days rolled into weeks and months and then blended to form one amorphous mass that felt like existence rather than living.

All of these things ran through her mind as she watched the girls flirting with her husband, but she forced the images away and scolded herself for being stupid. Guiding the pushchair along the corridor, she called Daniel’s name and waved.

Instead of being pleased to see her and Elijah, he reacted strangely, as though embarrassed about having a wife and a child. Marnie felt a pang of hurt.

The office door is locked. Trying the key, the handle turns and she peers inside. There are two desks. Daniel used to share the office with another part-time lecturer. Boxes of books and papers are stacked like bricks to form a precarious wall between two filing cabinets and matching lockers. Old newspapers have been collected in the corner, yellowing at the edges, rising toward the windowsill as though searching for the light.

Daniel’s desk is nearest the window. Marnie notices the dirty coffee cup and a photograph of a different family. Someone else has been using it.

“Can I help you?”

A man is standing in the doorway. Marnie vaguely recognizes him from somewhere. Perhaps Daniel introduced them.

“I’m Marnie Logan,” she says. “Daniel’s wife.”

“Of course you are,” he replies, not giving his name. “I didn’t realize you were coming.” He is still in the doorway. “Is everything all right? Have you heard any news?”

“No news.”

“Oh.”

“I’m here to pick up Daniel’s things.”

“Right. Well. Don’t let me stop you.”

He has a narrow face and thick eyebrows that look glued on rather than natural. He’s holding his cigarettes and is redolent with the after-effects of a visit to the pavement or the roof.

“I never got a chance to say how much we miss Daniel,” he says. “I wanted to call. I didn’t know what to say.”

“That’s OK.”

“Must be hard—not knowing.”

“Yes.”

“Am I talking too much? You’re probably sick of people asking you questions.”

“You’re fine. About Daniel’s things…?”

“They’ve been moved.”

“His locker?”

“I cleared that out too,” he says. “The department needed the space. I put them in a box. They’re in the storeroom.”

Typical, thought Marnie. The university had refused her access on privacy grounds and then dumped her husband’s things in a storeroom.

“I was wondering when someone would call you,” he says, opening his desk drawer and rummaging inside. “You have children, don’t you?”

“A boy and a girl.”

Another nod.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name,” says Marnie.

The man blinks at her and frowns as though searching for his name. “Jeremy,” he says eventually, adding his surname as an afterthought. “Holland.”

He holds the set of keys aloft, surprised at having found them.

“The storeroom is just down the corridor.”

Marnie follows him, answering his questions with nods and murmurs rather than risk telling an outright lie. He unlocks the door. Triggers the light. There are metal shelves on three walls rising to the ceiling. A cleaner’s trolley is parked in the center, sprouting brooms and mops.

“I’m sure I put it somewhere back here.”

Squeezing between the shelves and the trolley, he begins moving cartons and equipment aside.

“Ah, here it is.”

He lifts a box free and carries it into the corridor.

“Do you have a car?”

“I came by train.”

“How are you going to get this home?”

“I’ll manage.”

Marnie holds out her arms and takes the box, staggering slightly under the weight.

“Maybe I’ll sort through it here,” she says.

“Of course, you can use the office.”

Back at Daniel’s old desk, she slices open the packing tape and folds back the cardboard flaps. Jeremy sits at his desk, pretending to mark papers, but sneaking glances at Marnie, looking at her legs. He mumbles something that Marnie can’t quite hear.

“Pardon?” she asks.

“What?”

“You said something.”

“No, I mean, I don’t think I did. I’m sorry.” Jeremy fumbles in his drawer for his cigarettes. “I’m just going to pop outside. Won’t be long.”

Marnie continues sorting through the contents, putting the personal items into a pile, including a framed photograph of the children that Zoe gave Daniel for Father’s Day. There is a desk calendar, a diary and notebooks. A piece of fabric is tucked into the corner of the box. She pulls it free—a pair of women’s underwear. Lacy. Black. Not hers. Marnie feels her throat constrict.

There are innocent explanations: a joke, a secret admirer, a souvenir confiscated from a male student, but Marnie has been here before. Zoe’s father was a serial offender. Unfaithful. Unreliable. Dishonest. Daniel was different, she tells herself, holding the panties between her thumb and forefinger. She wants to drop them in the nearest wastepaper bin, but instead she puts them back in the box.

She finds Daniel’s diary and address book. Flicking through the pages, she scans the names, numbers, notes, and dates. Setting the diary aside, she lifts several magazines from the box. It takes her a moment to realize what they are—her old school yearbooks as well as copies of a campus newspaper she edited in her last year before graduating.

At the bottom of the box is a cloth-covered album, once white, now a faded yellow. It’s Marnie’s baby book. Her birth certificate is glued to the first page, along with the hospital bracelet she wore when she was born. Weight charts. Vaccination certificates. Hearing tests. The rest of the book is taken up by dozens of photographs. Holidays. Picnics. Birthdays. Easter egg hunts. Her mother has written captions beneath the earliest images. Her stepmother was less diligent later.

Marnie’s entire childhood is documented, every accomplishment noted. Report cards. Concert programs. Diplomas. A Red Cross resuscitation course. Her bronze medallion. There are shots of Marnie in drama performances, playing hockey, and dressed up for her graduation dance. The final two items in the box are a large red photo album and a compact digital recorder. The cover of the album is embossed in swirling gold letters, saying: “This Is Your Life.”

Marnie remembers the TV show when Michael Aspel would surprise celebrities with the “Big Red Book,” gathering old friends and colleagues to tell stories. Opening the front page, Marnie sees her name and a photograph of her as a baby. Daniel’s handwriting is underneath.

There are more words and photographs. Chapter headings. Quotes. One picture shows Marnie in a pink tutu and ballet tights, aged six. In another she’s playing Snow White in a school play. Daniel put this book together. This must have been why he had been so secretive, staying late at work and taking phone calls in other rooms. He was calling her old friends, tracking people from her past, and collecting photographs. Jeremy has arrived back. He stands silently at the door.

“Find anything interesting?”

Marnie holds up the album. “Did you know about this?”

“He wanted to surprise you.”

Marnie begins imagining the work involved and how the idea might have formed. She remembers the fight she had with Daniel a month before he went missing. She accused him of gambling away their future, losing the deposit they were saving. She went to bed. Daniel stayed up. Later she felt him come to bed. He pulled aside the strap of her nightdress and kissed her shoulder. He whispered that he was sorry, but Marnie pushed the blankets and sheets between them, not wanting him to touch her.

Later, she heard him get up and go the bathroom. He closed the door. After a long while she got out bed and tiptoed across the bedroom, pressing her ear to the bathroom door. She heard a sound like an animal in pain. Whimpering. Humiliated.

I
t’s five o’clock and the library is almost deserted. Unpacking her schoolbag, Zoe settles at her favorite desk. She likes how the light shines through the large arched windows and throws patterns on the parquet floor. Across the road, she can see some boys from school. They’re sipping on cans of high-energy cola and smoking outside the off-license run by Mr. Patel, a Sikh who sometimes gives out free packets of biscuits that are past their expiry date.

Ryan Coleman is among the boys. He’s seventeen and Zoe is pretty sure that he likes her because he teases her so much and everyone knows that teasing is a form of flirting. She hates being made fun of, but she likes Ryan.

A few weeks ago he stopped Zoe outside the school gates and commented on the punk cover she’d drawn on her music book. He said he liked the Ramones more than The Clash. Zoe told him he was talking out of his arse. Ryan laughed.

After that she burned him a CD of classic punk anthems and slipped it into his schoolbag without a note. Since then she’s heard nothing. Maybe he’s avoiding her. Maybe she scared him off. Zoe doesn’t get on with many people at school. The girls in her class don’t like her because she doesn’t watch
X Factor
or
The Voice
and she doesn’t wear make-up or try to sneak alcohol into parties.

Ryan Coleman is with his best mate, Dean Hancock, who has a roll of fat on his neck that is dotted with pimples. Zoe doesn’t like Dean. When he teases her it doesn’t seem like flirting.

Turning away from the window, she sits at a nearby computer, logging into her Facebook account. She reads her latest messages. She has three new “friend” requests—two from people she’s never heard of. She ignores them and updates her status.

Then she logs in to a second Facebook page with a banner photograph and the headline:

Beneath is a short description.

People have left comments. A woman in North Carolina has written that nobody has seen her husband for three years. And another from Belgium writes that her father disappeared in October 1965.

Zoe clicks on the “photo” link where there are more images of Daniel. She has added them over the months, along with descriptions of his clothes, his favorite foods, and his taste in music. Back on the main page, she updates her status, typing the words “Still Missing.”

This is Zoe’s secret project. She hasn’t told Marnie about the webpage because her mum doesn’t
get
social networking and says things like, “In my day we had
real
friends,” not understanding her own lameness. Zoe felt so helpless when Daniel disappeared, but this is how she coped. She set up her own search, creating a Facebook page and joining chatrooms where she could spread the word. If Marnie knew, she would argue it was pointless or warn Zoe about exposing private details to strangers on the Internet, but she has no right to lecture Zoe about Daniel, not after the other night.

Logging off, Zoe moves through the shelves, looking at the titles, imagining other lives. She chooses two textbooks on Shakespeare and goes back to her desk, quickly glancing out the window. The boys have gone.

Opening the first of the books, she runs her finger down the index. A movement distracts her. A man passes her desk and leans toward the window, tilting his head as though checking out the weather.

“What are you studying?” he asks.

“Shakespeare.”

“Which one?”

“
Othello
.”

“Ah, the jealous Moor.”

The man has a narrow face and is over-dressed for the weather in a coat and heavy boots. Zoe isn’t good at estimating ages when people get past forty because they all look old to her. And she doesn’t want to make eye contact in case it encourages him. The library seems to attract weirdos and wackjobs, the homeless, unemployed and unemployable, who use it like a halfway house, particularly in the winter. This one seems to be watching her, glancing in her direction each time she turns a page. Maybe she’s imagining it. A voice interrupts her thoughts.

“Ah, here she is, the punk princess,” says Dean Hancock, talking too loudly. He snatches the book from under Zoe’s hand. “What you reading?”

“Give it back.”

He holds it above his head where she can’t reach it. Ryan Coleman isn’t with him. Instead there are two other boys from school and a girl with ratty hair and a tight skirt that she tugs down over her thighs.

Hancock has a nasally voice. “Why are you locked away in here, Princess? We got beer. We got weed. This evening has potential. It’s pregnant with possibilities.”

He produces a can of lager from the inside pocket of his jacket and takes a swig, wiping his mouth. He has an ugly seed wart on the side of his ring finger and a homemade blue tattoo on his right wrist.

“You like Shakespeare? To be or not to be, that is the question. To shag or not to shag, to surf or turf.”

“Give it back.”

“Say please.”

“Please.”

“Maybe you’d prefer to read what’s tattooed on my cock?”

“Only with a magnifying glass,” says Zoe.

The girl laughs. Hancock glares at her.

He’s a foot taller and twice Zoe’s weight. “Give me a kiss and you can have your book back.”

“Fuck off!”

“Oops!” He rips a page out. “Now look what you’ve made me do.”

“Please don’t.”

Another page is torn away and floats to the floor.

Zoe doesn’t see exactly what happens next. Dean Hancock seems to shudder before dropping to his knees. He’s winded, lungs empty, eyes bulging. The girl lets out a high-pitched squeak and his two mates vanish like popped bubbles.

Hunched over, Hancock is breathing in quick gasps, trying to get oxygen.

The man from the window is next to him. He has rescued Hancock’s can of lager, which he hands to Zoe, asking her to hold it. Then he hooks an arm around the teenager’s waist, helping him to walk out of the library, past the information desk.

“I think this lad is going to be sick,” he tells the librarian. “He needs some fresh air.”

Half carrying him through the double doors, he lowers him onto the steps, sitting next to him like they’re old friends. The man takes the cigarette from behind Hancock’s ear and pops it between his lips. The girl has followed them out.

“What did you do to him?” she asks.

“I stopped him being a complete dickhead.”

“Is he going to be OK?”

“Hard to say.”

He helps Hancock to his feet and down the remaining stairs, where he passes him over to the girl, who sags under the teenage boy’s weight.

“He’s all yours,” he says, “but you could do a lot better.” The girl doesn’t answer as she wobbles along the footpath in her high heels.

The man returns to the steps and lights the cigarette, drawing smoke deep into his lungs.

Zoe watches from the doorway. “Where are they?”

“Gone.”

She notices a bead of blood the size of a ladybird on the man’s neck. He must have cut himself shaving without noticing. The man takes another drag, stretching his legs down the steps. He dabs a finger on his neck, smearing the bead of blood. He looks at his fingertip, seemingly puzzled and then sucks on the finger.

“Was he a friend of yours?”

“No.” Zoe sits on the steps next to him and stares at her feet.

“I’m Ruben,” he says, holding out his hand. Zoe stares at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. She shakes his hand. He turns her palm upwards.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I can read palms.”

“Really?”

“Something happened to you when you were seven. You got sick.”

“I had glandular fever—how did you know?”

“I know everything.”

“Really. What’s that like?”

“Not all it’s cracked up to be.”

She smiles wryly. “What else can you tell?”

“You’re worried about someone—a parent maybe. You haven’t seen them for a while.”

Zoe doesn’t react. They sit in silence. The cigarette is finished. He crushes the butt and drops it into the garden.

“You should get back to your homework.
Othello
. The black guy who smothers his wife with a pillow because he thinks she’s having an affair with his best friend, a prize wanker called Iago, who couldn’t lie straight if you ran him over with a steam roller.”

“Is that all you got?”

“That’s all you need.”

Zoe laughs properly this time. “Are you making fun of me?”

“I would never do that. What do you take me for?” He glances at the trees. “So why do you do your homework in the library?”

“I don’t have a computer at home.”

“What sort of person doesn’t have a computer?”

Zoe doesn’t answer.

“So what are you going to do when you finish school?”

“Go to university, I guess. I thought I might study philosophy. When I work out the meaning of life I’m going to tell my mum.”

“Good plan.”

Ruben stands. “Well, I got to be going.” He brushes down the back of his trousers and takes about five paces before turning. “Do you want a laptop?”

“Pardon?”

“I have an old laptop. It still works. I don’t use it anymore. Sits in a cupboard.”

“We don’t have wi-fi at home.”

“Yeah, but you can use it at the library or piggyback off an open network.”

“Mum wouldn’t let me.”

“Suit yourself.”

Ruben turns and continues walking. Zoe watches him, wanting to say something. He turns at the last moment, catching her looking.

“Nice meeting you, Zoe.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Like I said, I know everything.”