A Ghost in the Machine (3 page)

“Not at all. Business meetings often take place at hotels.”

Just then the fax began chattering in Judith's office, a tiny, dark place next to the stairs. “The visitors' parlour,” they had larkily christened it when first moving into their Victorian villa. Where the gentry would have presented their cards and been offered a dry sherry and a caraway biscuit before moving into the larger sitting room to exchange discreet gossip. They had seen themselves entertaining too in a modest way but somehow it had never come about. And now, with every spare penny going on Ashley's health, they couldn't afford it.

“I know who it is.” She moved away from the window, widening the space between herself and her husband. Giving Ashley what he called “room to breathe.” “It's slimy Alec.”

“Is that any way to speak of a client?”

“Faxing his phoney expenses. He's claiming for a new Alfa Romeo, which was stolen almost as soon as it was delivered. Alas—”

“The paperwork was still in the glove compartment.”

“You're way ahead of me.”

“Tell him to chuck it.”

Judith made her way reluctantly into the hall, marvelling at the casual ease with which the solution had been offered. It wasn't Ashley's fault. He had no idea how difficult, desperate even, their plight had become. He thought his wife had given up her Aylesbury office and laid off her clerk purely so she could work from home and look after him. But that was only part of it.

The heart of the problem was that, until Ashley's illness had been properly diagnosed, his insurance would not pay out and the disability allowance people had also dug their heels in. And Judith could not afford to keep them both and also pay rent for an office and wages.

An unforeseen by-product of the decision to work from home had been a suggestion from one high-profile customer that, as her overheads would now be so much lower, his fees should be reduced. Instead of explaining the circumstances behind her decision, worry and nervous strain provoked a quick, sharply worded refusal. He transferred his account elsewhere.

The foot-and-mouth crisis in British farming took its toll and several of her agricultural clients chose this year to give up. Then there was the young couple with a thriving specialist food business who decided, with advice and support from the Internet, to go it alone.

So there was no question, thought Judith, watching the neatly perforated pages of immaculately printed lies falling softly into her in-tray, of telling slimy Alec to chuck it.

 

Meanwhile, at a much more glamorous residence just a few miles south in the village of Bunting St. Clare, the Lathams had arrived back from Carey Lawson's interment.

Gilda began to undo a glittery black lace coat, which was practically splitting apart under the strain of trying to decently constrain her massive bust. You could almost hear it sighing with relief as the buttons popped. Underneath lay several acres of taffeta, ruched rather in the manner of an Austrian blind: a dress as wide as it was short. Flesh coloured, it appeared briefly, to her husband's startled gaze, horribly like a crumpled version of the real thing. She pirouetted slowly.

“How do I look?”

“A credit to your mortician, my love.”

“Don't mumble. I've told you before.” She pulled down the hem of her dress. It sprang up again. She sighed. “If that wasn't a waste of a beautiful afternoon perhaps you'd tell me what is?”

Recognising his wife's remark as an opening salvo rather than a serious question Andrew did not immediately reply. He was a man with a headful of turbulent thoughts – gross, violent, implacable – and a mouthful of ever-ready platitudes – polite, conciliatory, gutless. Sometimes these two achievements coincided, as they did now.

“I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, sweetheart.”

Define the waste of a beautiful afternoon. Well, there was dragging the Mountfield over the bloody lawn while the trouble and strife lay in an overstuffed hammock crushing chocolate brazils between her fearsome mandibles and telling you your stripes weren't straight. Or there was having a highly expensive lunch out with a partner very much not of your choice, who masticated with her mouth open, gobbling three-quarters of every course before complaining that it tasted peculiar and sending it back to the kitchen. But actually the worst, the very, very worst waste of a beautiful afternoon Andrew Latham dare not entertain in his mind even for a second for fear the thought might be catching.

“And what did I say before we left?” asked Gilda.

“Does my bum look big in this?”

“There you go again. Mumbling.” She was removing a hatpin as long as a skewer with a lump of amber stuck on the end. “I said, they won't want any of your pathetic, quote, jokes, unquote.”

“Did you?” Andrew couldn't take his eyes off the pin. The lump looked to him like the glossy turd of a small mammal fed entirely on butterscotch.

“When that poor old man told us he'd recently lost his wife and you offered to help him look I didn't know where to put myself.”

“I misunderstood—”

“Rubbish. I know you think you've got to be the life and soul of every party but this was a funeral, for heaven's sake.”

“A
funeral
!!?”

“Don't start.” She took the hat off. It was a black, gauzy affair, built rather like a flying saucer with a riot of strangely coloured vegetation dangling from the rim. “I don't see why we had to drag ourselves there in the first place. She was Dennis's client, not yours.” She laid the hat carefully on a gold Dralon sofa the size of a barge. “He won't think any more of you.”

For a fraction of a second Andrew lost it. “I don't give a monkey's arse what he thinks of me.”

“Language,” cried Gilda, delighted.

“Yes, well – that's what I use when I wish to communicate. Call me old-fashioned—”

“It's not as if you need to tout for business.”

Tout? Ah well, common is as common does.

“And who do you have to thank for that, Andrew?”

“You, my little bonbon.”

“And what do I get in return?”

Automaton man, that's what you get. A smiling skull. A mind full of loathing that's always somewhere else. Mechanical sex. If you were a human being you'd know the difference.

He murmured, “Gilly…” Her bottom lip pushed forward, full and shiny like a scarlet sausage. “Gill
eee
…” He crossed the room, bent down and kissed her cheek. The skin was dry and slightly pitted. Her hair smelled of dead flowers. “Why don't you go and put those tooties up? And Drew will bring you a nice G and T.”

“You think that's the answer to everything.”

To her husband it was the answer to everything. Without it he certainly could not have got up in the morning, forced down his greasy breakfast, transported himself to the office and sat there most of the day, let alone dragged himself home. He said: “What would you like then, angel?”

Without a trace of affection or even interest Gilda told him what she would like.

“And a good one this time. For once.”

She walked off, holding her glittery lace coat between two fingers, trailing it across the carpet like someone on a catwalk. All sorts of people had seemingly once told her she should be a model. She had even done a course but then Daddy put his foot down. Andrew had sympathised, shaking his head. It seemed to him Gilda would have made an excellent model. Twelve stone lighter, thirty years younger plus a million quids' worth of plastic surgery and Kate Moss would have been throwing herself off Beachy Head.

He selected a tumbler, iced it, gurgled in the gin. Then took a long swallow and waited, gauging the effect. Balance was all. Happiness on the head of a pin. He was aiming for the point at which faith arose. That exquisite, almost mystical moment offering a powerful convincement that only good times were round the corner and the future was shiny with hope. Another swig. And a third. Why not? Why fucking not? One thing was certain – he could never give her a good one sober.

And yet, and yet…

 

Once upon a time, and that barely a decade ago, Andrew Latham had imagined, in marrying Gilda Berryman, he had landed himself the bargain of the century.

Starving people are prepared to cope with anything as long as food is part of the deal. Andrew had never been starving, of course – he'd never even been really hungry – but he had been minus all the things that, to him, made life worth living. His own home, a decent car, really good clothes, travel, money – not just in your pocket but in your life. Fine wine, eating in swanky places, flagging down a taxi to travel spitting distance.

To hear Andrew talk it wasn't really his fault he lacked all these things. He hadn't had the luck, that was the truth of it. He'd had energy, enthusiasm, ideas – gosh, the ideas he'd had. The businesses he'd started, the dreams. To meet him you'd swear here was a man born for success. And nearly always you'd be right, for success attended most of Andrew's ventures. The trouble was, after a while it became clear that the price of this success was the loss of everything that made existence fun. No time for a drink with the lads or a bet on the gee-gees. When the sun did come out no chance to lie in it. Up every morning at some ungodly hour, which meant no all-night casinos. Then there were women – more time-consuming than anything else in the world, but oh, how very much more worthwhile. Problem being, you had to be there for them. Take them out, talk to them, listen to them, go to the movies and for walks and drives and picnics. Dance them, schmooze them, kiss them a lot. How was a man supposed to do all this and run a business?

Not that the businesses were always legitimate. Indeed, for a while he sailed very close to the wind. Someone he went to the races with lent him a few hundred quid to put on a dead cert that turned out to be a dead loss. Stony-broke, he was invited to assist this man in whatever way proved necessary for as long as it took to pay it off. The harsh alternative having no appeal – Andrew rather liked his knees – he agreed. It wasn't so bad. Sometimes he drove a van, usually at night, to an appointed spot, waited while boxes of various sizes were loaded, then drove to another address where they would be rapidly unloaded. Several times he took heavy suitcases to a dry-cleaners in Limehouse, where they were received without thanks or comment. From time to time he was a lookout man and it was during one of these occasions that the arrangements between himself and his erstwhile creditor came to sudden grief.

At the time Andrew was in the garden of a large house near Highgate, keeping an eye open for visitors, dogs, roving police cars. The house had been dark when the thief he was covering entered but, after a while, a light came on in an upstairs room. Soon after that there was a lot of shouting and almost simultaneously a siren wailed.

The burglar came racing out of the house, pausing only to stuff something into Andrew's pocket and drop a bag at his feet before vaulting over the shrubbery wall and vanishing into the night. Andrew watched the police car turn into the gates, saw the officers admitted to the house, then ran like the clappers. He left the bag, which contained tools, having no wish to be charged with “going equipped to steal” and, as soon as the first Tube started running, hopped on to the Piccadilly Line and left London as well.

He still had his “souvenir” of that unpleasant experience – the burglar's picks thrust into his pocket. If asked why he'd kept them Andrew couldn't have told you. Certainly he never intended to take up a life of crime. That one close call had completely flaked him out.

Eventually the Tube had fetched up in Uxbridge. With just the clothes he stood up in he registered at an employment agency and the next day started the first of what was to prove a long line of undemanding semi-clerical jobs. He rented a room and then a studio flat, eventually braving a trip back to the Smoke to collect the things he had left behind. But the work was so dreary it drove him half mad with ennui. This naturally led to absenteeism, extended lunch hours and constant sackings. The fact that computers bored him witless didn't help. They were like a foreign landscape without a map, though he could, just about, cope with simple word processing.

What to do? Andrew had often thought that the most pleasant way out of his dilemma was to meet a rich
patronne
– someone who would support him in the manner to which he hoped to become accustomed in exchange for witty conversation, immense respect and a lifetime of devotion and gratitude. Now, instead of just dreaming he decided to do something about it. He began to advertise in the lonely hearts columns, describing himself as a managing director (GSOH, own home and car) so no one would think he was after their money. Naturally he was contacted by lots of women who did not have their own home, had a car that wouldn't start and such a GSOH they laughed like drains when discovering his real circumstances. Apart from the one who threw Baileys Irish Cream all down his tie. He was on the point of jumping off the nearest railway bridge when he met Gilda.

At the time he was working at the extremely upmarket Palm Springs Hotel and had been there nearly two months. The main part of his job was liaising on the telephone between the restaurant chefs and their many suppliers, taking the flak from both sides when something went wrong, which was every day.

Attached to the hotel was a health club and spa. The subscription, ostentatiously costly, kept the numbers down and the riffraff out. Although there were stern rules against any mingling with the guests, when he thought himself unobserved Drew would slip into the changing rooms, disguise himself in expensive goggles and discreet unlogoed trunks, and swim in the pool.

He watched the women while seeming not to. The majority were well preserved rather than young: too thin, baked to a hard caramel under the sun lamps and clanking with money. He caught sight of one doing the crawl, her arm breaking the water and curving upwards, dazzling bracelets falling away from her wrist, then tumbling back as the arm plunged down. She wore rings on every finger, including a wedding ring. They nearly all did.