What You Make It (30 page)

‘Oh yes,’ she chirped, leading me up the couple of steps which led to the kitchen. Then: ‘We've got a visitor.’

Steve had come to our flat. He'd thought better of his outburst, realized I was telling the truth, and had come to talk it out. It wouldn't be ideal with Monica around, but I felt so anxious that any resolution was welcome, even if it meant a tense hour or so with her. It felt as if the last few days were drawing to a point, a moment when, finally, the world was going to start making sense again.

That's what I thought as I strode across the kitchen towards the living room, feeling nervous but glad of something concrete to say and do. That's what I was expecting as I walked into the living room and looked across at the sofa, ready to be hearty and businesslike and to talk to Steve like we always used to.

I wasn't expecting to see Tamsin.

I stopped a yard or so into the room. I'd been so convinced it would be Steve that I'd almost been able to see him sitting
tensely on the edge of the sofa, feeling a bit of an idiot. But it wasn't him. It was her.

This can't be happening, I thought. This is
Fatal Attraction
and it isn't happening to me.

‘Hello David,’ she said, looking up bright-eyed over the cup she was sipping from. She was holding it a little strangely, but I was too stunned to work out in what way.

‘Tamsin was nearby and stopped in to say hello,’ Monica said, unnecessarily. I stared at her while she was saying this, but there appeared to be no subtext to the announcement. ‘Isn't Steve with you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. He went home.’

‘Oh,’ Monica said, puzzled. ‘Why?’

As I struggled to come up with an answer, I glanced at Tamsin. She was smiling, a little cat smile that curled up at the corners into a mind whose strange angles I was still struggling to comprehend. ‘Ask her’, I wanted to say. Why don't you ask her what happened this evening, and why?

In the end I just shrugged, said that the pool hadn't been happening, and that Steve was tired and called it a day. I sat down on the sofa next to Monica, making it as clear as I could without recourse to speech that I felt there was one too many people in the flat. No one appeared to be listening on the body language wavelength.

‘We were just talking about holidays,’ Monica said, and for the first time ever I felt a twist of irritation for her. I can't do that kind of conversation, as she fully well knows, can't sit and swop sentences on subjects which are of no interest to me. What is the point? I don't give a shit what other people are going to do for their holidays. Why should I? It's just white noise, information which has no impact on me. Sitting and listening to it very rapidly drives me into a state of cold and furious boredom. I don't ask for in-depth discussions of weighty issues – I hate those too, as it happens – but I can't sit and listen to people reading out the ingredient list of their lives.

‘Oh yes?’ I said, hoping to kill the conversation stone dead.

‘Tamsin's hoping to go to New Orleans,’ Monica continued with, as far as I was concerned, a surreal level of enthusiasm.

‘Why?’ I said. I knew I was behaving badly.

‘Oh, just everything,’ Tamsin said, and Monica nodded at me, as if this explained something. ‘French toast, the old town, jazz. I've always wanted to go. It sounds wonderful.’

‘Holidays are always wonderful,’ Monica chipped in, tellingly. ‘They take you out of yourself, don't they?’

‘That's it,’ Tamsin agreed. ‘That's exactly it. Sometimes when I'm sitting at my desk, doing something boring, I wish it could happen right there and then. I wish I could just be airlifted straight to Bourbon Street and sit on the pavement drinking cold beer and listening to Dixieland. Don't you feel like that sometimes, David?’

As I stared horrified into her eyes, a half-image passed through the back of my mind. A picture, combined with a fragment of sound, a wisp of scent, a beat of atmosphere. A glimpse of the side of someone's face, the sound of a tenth of a word being spoken. The noise of a pub, the smell of beer on a warm evening. Like a memory it was there, a half second of the past, and then it was gone, unrecoverable.

From that moment, I knew I couldn't try to explain away what was happening. It must have been me who was there, in that pub. That moment was part of me. Something had been forgotten, and I had to find out what it was. I must have been there, doing that, at that time, with someone.

‘David doesn't dream about things like that,’ Monica said suddenly, covering what must have been a very pregnant pause. ‘He's happy.’

‘Is he?’ Tamsin asked. ‘He doesn't sometimes want to call up his clients in the wee small hours and shout abuse?’ I shivered, but Monica didn't notice. I hadn't said anything like that since we'd known each other. But I used to. I used to all the time. ‘Or put razor blades in the parcels he carefully sends to them?’

‘Stop talking about me as if I'm not here,’ I said, mainly to convince myself that I was. ‘No, I don't wish any of those things.
I'm happy now. I've got Monica, for a start.’ I hadn't said this for political reasons, but it went down well with her, and she looped her arm around my back.

Tamsin looked at the two of us with a little smile that made me want to take a hot iron to her face. Somehow this woman was holding everything I had in her hand, and she was ready to clench her fist. I didn't know why, or what she was waiting for, or how much longer she'd hold off.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do, what I should have done half an hour before. Thinking fast, I groaned and went through a great show of irritation at my forgetfulness, tutting and virtually slapping my forehead in order to get the message across. Tamsin and Monica stared at me with bright smiles.

‘What an idiot,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Got to go.’ I stood up, and reached for the car keys.

‘Where?’ Monica asked.

‘To see Steve,’ I said. ‘Completely forgot something.’

‘Can't you call him?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Got to get something from him.’ It was weak, and I knew that Monica wasn't convinced, but by that time I was backing towards the door. Unless one of them was prepared to call my bluff, they couldn't stop me going. ‘Won't be long.’

I turned on my heel and walked rapidly through the kitchen, willing them not to say anything, hoping against hope that Monica wouldn't come up with the bright idea of suggesting that I give Tamsin a lift somewhere. I heard her call out just before I got to the door, but I ignored it, shut the door quietly after me and ran downstairs.

I went through two red lights on the way to Steve's, using all the rat-runs I knew to get me there as quickly as possible. Tamsin was building a trap around me. I didn't know what kind, or why, but she was. The only way to stop the circle from closing was to jam something in the way: to ensure that Steve knew what was going on. I had to speak to him. I had to convince him that he was dealing with someone whose word could not be trusted. Not even on something as basic as her name. How I could do
that without knowing what her real name was remained to be seen. But I had to do it.

When I pulled up outside Steve's flat I was relieved to see that his light was on. I'd spent the last five minutes of the drive convinced that he might have gone to mine, or even that something might have happened to him. There was no reason for the latter suspicion, none at all, but once it had entered my head there seemed no way of dislodging it. But he was obviously home, and would have heard the message I'd left on the answer machine. That was good. I strode up to the door and pressed the entry phone buzzer briefly. It was one of our running gags, seeing how short a buzz we could generate. Partly a joke, partly a subversive dig at all those in the world who leaned on buzzers until the building shook. It was a good buzz, short and probably barely audible. I knew he'd be impressed.

There was no answer. Puzzled, I pressed again, less briefly this time. After a pause a burst of feedback leapt out of the speaker.

‘Steve,’ I said. ‘It's David.’

‘Hello David,’ said Tamsin. ‘Why don't you come up?’

I stared at the speaker, feeling sick, then took a quick step backwards. As a blurred afterthought I moved so that I remained close to the front of the building, so that someone looking out of Steve's window wouldn't be able to see me. Heart pounding, I gazed unseeingly out across the road. There was no way.

No way she could have got here more quickly than me.

No way.

‘What are you doing here?’

At the sound of his voice I refocused suddenly to see Steve walking down the pavement towards me. He was still wearing his coat, and looked cold. Moving quickly and silently, as if in a dream, I raised my hand to my lips and ran towards him. He stared at me as I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the car.

‘Dave …’

‘Steve, get in the car,’ I hissed. ‘Just get in the fucking car. Please.’

He got in.

It took an hour, but in the end I did it.

I didn't say anything as I drove. I glanced across once to see him sitting looking affably out the front, and decided against breaking the silence. I hate talking about important things when I know I'm about to be interrupted by admin such as getting out of cars and buying drinks.

I drove to another pub that we sometimes went to and bought a couple of beers. When we were comfortably sat, when he'd been for a piss and I'd lit a cigarette, I began. I told Steve again that I'd never met Tamsin before. He started to shift in his seat, but I kept going. I told him that I'd just got home to find Tamsin in my flat, talking to my girlfriend, and that she'd made a reference to something that had spooked me. I told him that there was no way she could have beaten me to his flat. He nodded at that one: he's been driven by me, and knows the routes I take. I realized suddenly that he had only my word for the fact that she'd been there when he turned up, but he didn't question it.

He believed me, finally. At least, he believed that I'd never gone out with Tamsin. I firmly drummed into Steve the precise number of times I'd seen or spoken to Tamsin, and what the circumstances had been. He seemed willing to disregard anything Tamsin said which contradicted my version, and that was enough to be going on with. In my relief I was willing to back off the weirder stuff. It seemed the right thing to do. I think Steve was inclined to see it as slightly hysterical exaggeration on my part, done for comic effect. I wasn't prepared to sound any stranger than necessary, so I let it go. The sentences concerning it washed down through the conversation and disappeared, leaving us with something more explicable. A mad woman. We both knew about those.

In the end I drove him home, and felt a weight lift from my
shoulders as our familiar banter started up. As he got out of the car he laughed and shook his head.

‘I should have known it was bollocks,’ he said. ‘In all the time I've known you I've not seen you even
look
at a blonde, never mind go out with one.’

I laughed, and waved, and drove away and because I was so relieved that I'd sorted things out with Steve it was only when I'd got about halfway home that I absorbed what he'd said. When I did I steered the car over to the side of the road and just sat for a while, engine idling, staring at the condensation on the window.

Tamsin's hair was brown. A rich, dark brown. Exactly the kind I liked.

When I got home I smoothed over my abrupt departure. Tamsin had stayed another five minutes after I'd left, apparently, and then gone to take the tube. I nodded distantly. It didn't make any difference. If she'd left a second after I had she still couldn't have beaten me. I tuned out while Monica free-associated on the subject of holidays, and worked on a way of asking a question so that it wouldn't cause trouble.

‘Tamsin's hair,’ I said eventually, with the air of someone who thought it looked terrible. ‘Is it natural, do you think?’

‘Oh yes,’ Monica said seriously, giving the subject the full weight of her attention. ‘You can't fake a blonde like that.’ I nodded, dismissing the subject, but Monica held onto it. ‘Do you like it?’

‘Babe, you know I prefer brunettes,’ I said, in a just passable Bogart voice, and Monica laughed. She knew.

So did Tamsin. Perhaps that's why I was seeing someone different. They saw blonde Tamsin. I saw someone with dark hair who didn't have a name. I thought it was more likely that I was the one seeing the truth.

She had power of some kind. That was clear. What was less apparent was what the hell she wanted.

The subject changed and we watched some television and went to bed and I lay all night staring at the ceiling.

The next morning it started in earnest.

I was sitting at my desk, as ever. I felt hollow, too blank to be tired. It was grey outside, and the leaves of the trees which lined the other side of the road were stirring constantly and silently behind the glass of my window. Monica had gone quietly to work at half past eight, and since then it felt as if I hadn't heard a sound.

Until the phone went, and I dropped my cigarette. The ring isn't that loud, but it was much closer than I was expecting. I realized that the phone was lying to one side of the desk. I'd forgotten to put it on the charger overnight. Again.

It rang twice more, and then I picked it up.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hello David,’ said a voice, and in a way it was almost a relief.

‘Tamsin,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You know it's not. You know that's not my name.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘So what is it?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Bullshit. You know. You just don't fucking remember.’ I was startled by the tone of her voice. For the first time it had lost its gloating pseudo-politeness and was on the verge of anger. It raised hairs on the back of my neck, and I didn't want to hear it get any worse. But I didn't know her name. I simply didn't know.

‘What do you want from me?’

‘What do I want?’ she shouted, and I could feel myself shrinking with a familiar fear. ‘What do I want? You're such a shit, David, such an utter, fucking shit. You fuck me up, throw me away, and you want to know what I want from you?’