He squeezed Sara’s hand. ‘No, she hasn’t sold her cello,’ he conceded, silently adding ‘yet’. ‘Of course we’ll help her. I’m sorry. I’m just disappointed. We were going to have the day together on our own, that’s all, and instead we’ve been clothes shopping for’—he substituted
a fucking hopeless, drunk down-and-out
for—‘a long-lost cello teacher who’s down on her luck. But it’s fine,’ he added hastily. ‘She’s not just your problem, don’t forget.’
But it was Sara’s house where Joyce was now staying, not
theirs
. He tried to think this without bitterness, but the fact that they still lived much of the time in separate houses reared up in his mind daily as an obstacle to complete happiness with Sara. He had bought a crummy little flat after his divorce from Valerie, which he was meant to be doing up (he had not lifted a paintbrush) while Sara still had Medlar Cottage, which was easily big enough for them both, as she pointed out, and utterly beautiful, which she
didn’t have to. But he had found he could not quite move in. Sara had bought the place with Matteo, and although he had died before he had spent any amount of time in it, it felt like someone else’s territory.
‘I know, but we could tackle the problem better if you moved in properly. Sell the flat,’ Sara said.
They had had this conversation many times. Andrew paused, trying to find a variation in the script.
‘Darling, I don’t think Medlar Cottage would be right. Matteo—’
‘Why do you have to be such a tomcat about it? Matteo didn’t
spray
the place, you know.’
‘It’s not just that. I think I’d feel—well, swamped. After all it’s not my house, it’s
yours
. I can’t explain it very well—’
‘Oh? Swamped? By me, I suppose? Well, thank you. I’m not a black widow, you know. Do you have to be such a gorilla about territory? I don’t see—’
‘Darling—’ Andrew cupped his hands round Sara’s face and kissed her to shut her up. ‘Cut the zoology. It isn’t helping.’
They walked on, knowing they would return to the subject. They caught up with Joyce at the Fish Market stall. A family of Japanese was crowding round, amused by the sight of sushi in an English food market.
‘Awful lot of tourists, aren’t there?’ Joyce said loudly, exempting herself from the category. ‘They’re everywhere.’ As Sara and Andrew exchanged a look of longsuffering over her head, the family moved on.
‘See that? What a price for kippers!’ she cried, embarrassing Andrew into buying some. ‘A kipper gives me awful heartburn,’ Joyce confided in her loud voice as Andrew
took his change, ‘but the dog likes a head. Don’t you, Pretzel?’
Sara smiled appeasingly at the stallholder and led Joyce gently by the elbow towards a table in front of the pub across the street, a suspiciously refurbished place now called the Snake and Ladder.
‘Now—lunch. Are you hungry, Joyce?’ Andrew asked, without a trace in his voice of anything other than generous good humour. He helped her into her chair and sat next to her. Sara, having wound Pretzel’s lead round the table leg and encouraged him to lie in the shade underneath, took the other seat, kissing Andrew lightly on the head as she sat down, not just for his kindness but for concealing the effort of it. She took up the menu, whimsically decorated with snakes and ladders.
‘There’s grilled tuna or curried prawns on ciabatta, or gazpacho,’ she told them, translating the witless themed offerings of python steaks, hot little vipers, and chilled snake soup. ‘Or lasagne and chips.’ Joyce’s lips had almost disappeared in a grimace of uncertainty.
‘I expect they could do something plainer for you,’ Andrew ventured. ‘An omelette, maybe, or soup?’
‘To tell you the truth, I’m not a big eater.’ Joyce managed a brave smile of apology, as if her wrecked stomach lining, still stinging after the ten-day vodka binge, were a mark of gentility. She leaned closer. ‘But I’ve a sweet tooth. Would they have ice cream? Pretzel likes a wafer.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ Andrew said, beckoning the waitress. ‘And what to drink? Mineral water, in this weather, yes?’ Everyone seemed to understand that it was a rhetorical question.
After they had ordered, an atmosphere of waiting for
something settled a little sadly over them. Joyce peered round as if in search of something to talk about and took in the covered alley that ran down one side of the pub and connected Green Street and New Bond Street. Halfway down the alley was a side entrance to the pub, with a sign reading Lounge & Toilets. She rose from her seat, whispering to Sara, ‘Just away to spend a penny, dear,’ and had disappeared before Sara could reply.
Andrew and Sara sat on in silence for a few moments. ‘Well, she did at least go to where the loos are. Not straight through the front entrance to the bar. Should I go after her?’ Sara asked eventually.
‘And do what? Stand over her while she pees to make sure she doesn’t slip off to buy a drink? And suppose you stop her this time?’
‘She does
want
to stop, though. She’s as good as said so.’
‘Ah yes, so she has. After she’s swallowed so much booze she doesn’t know what to do first—throw up or pass out.’
Sara gave an exasperated sigh. ‘She needs help. And she didn’t sell her cello.’
Andrew took her hand. ‘We’ll try to help. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work.’
‘All right. But she still hasn’t really explained why. I mean, if we knew why. Why would she suddenly start—’
She was interrupted by sudden high-pitched screaming from inside the pub. All movement in the street, except for heads turning in the direction of the noise, ceased for a moment. Andrew had already jumped up and was making straight for the side entrance. As she followed him Sara was aware of others behind her, also running.
The darkness in the narrow alley after the bright sunshine
stopped her dead. Just inside the entrance of the pub Andrew turned to face her, blocking her way, talking over her head and demanding that the alley be cleared. Already people were backing up behind Sara; she could feel their breath, sweat and warmth as she was jostled forward. Beyond Andrew, Sara could see a young waitress, standing distraught but holding on, absurdly, to a tall glass of ice cream in one hand and a bowl of chips in the other, her deafening screams reverberating off the walls of the small space. Andrew turned back and stepped forward towards the girl. Sara followed. Deftly he relieved her of the ice cream and chips, turned back and handed them to Sara. One look from his eyes prevented her from demanding what the hell she was supposed to do with them. Andrew now had the girl by the wrists and he pulled her gently towards the entrance, turning once more to insist that the way be cleared. Her screams subsided as Andrew’s voice, steady and gentle, told her she was coming outside and that everything would be fine in a minute. As they edged past, Sara stood transfixed, staring from them to the chips and to the ice cream in her hands, while the knot of people crowding the passage behind her melted out back in to the alley. Andrew turned to her and demanded, over his shoulder, ‘Get her out. She’s down there at the end.’
Sara made her way down the corridor. A door on the right led to the bar and lounge. An arrow on the wall above the word TOILETS directed her further down. At the end of the corridor was a door, facing back down to the entrance and marked PRIVATE. It was open, and a group of apron-clad young men stood some distance back in the kitchen, looking too stunned to venture into the
doorway. Along with the smell of frying wafting from the kitchen came the thump of an inane and very loud radio.
‘Christ! Turn that
off
, please!’ Sara hissed.
A youth in the doorway straightened. ‘Wha’, the radio? Aw right. Don’t notice it, ‘s always on.’ He disappeared and the noise stopped.
In the blessed silence Sara looked further. On either side of the kitchen door another corridor, at right angles to the one Sara had just walked down and lined with tall cupboard doors, led off, left and right, to Ladies and Gents. Turning left, Sara came upon Joyce standing in front of the door marked Ladies. She had the knuckles of both hands in her mouth. She peered at Sara out of the gloom.
‘Joyce?’
‘I … I … was just … you know … kind of thing … ’ Her voice tailed away. The double doors of one of the built-in cupboards lining the passage were open. ‘Just got lost. A …a … tourist. I suppose.’
Sara looked down. Lying half in and half out of the cupboard, with her face on the carpet right at Joyce’s feet, was a small, dark-haired woman dressed in a denim skirt and polo shirt, with a cardigan round her shoulders.
Sara was still holding the bloody ice cream and chips. Resisting the urge to fling them as far up the passage as she could, she deposited them on the carpet behind her, trying to recall what to do when someone fainted. She crouched down to turn the woman over and undo a neck button. But on closer inspection, even in the gloom of the passage, Sara was at once struck by two things: the woman was dead, and she had been strangled with her camera strap.
Behind her, Joyce whimpered, ‘Dear me, yes. An awful lot of tourists. They’re everywhere, aren’t they?’
L
EECH’S STOMACH WAS
sending him the usual message about its being about time to stop for a bite to eat, but what was not usual was that Ivan had left him some lunch today. Ivan and Hilary didn’t give him food regularly, he didn’t think. Hilary called up the garden sometimes to say there was hot water if he wanted a bath, and sometimes there was something to eat on the kitchen table afterwards, sometimes not. Sometimes she washed clothes for him. It wasn’t regular, or perhaps he was just bad at remembering. But it seemed that sometimes Ivan was chatty and worked with him in the garden, other times he was silent, at others just not there. What he was pretty clear about was that he, Leech, slept in the shed on the allotment, a big place full of seeds and plants and tools that he had found one day (when, no idea) on a day, anyway, on which he had wandered a long way along the canal path out of the town. They had put a folding bed in there after a while so that meant, he supposed, that they didn’t mind. So, as far as his life had any pattern or content that Leech could point to and say yes, that is my life, he knew that he owned a sleeping bag and some clothes, he slept in the shed and worked in the garden, went with Ivan in the van sometimes, got his money from the post
office. The shed had acquired a kettle and a mug and plates and he bought tea and UHT milk. He walked to Limpley Stoke in one direction and Bath in the other, along the tow-path, when he needed bits and pieces, tobacco or food, a bottle of Coke. Not that he reflected on any of this, but he thought that Ivan did not usually leave him lunch.
Today, when Ivan had brought the food down for him, he had told him to work on the beans and lettuces until he got back. Stay here and do the beans and lettuces till I get back, all right? I’ll be cutting the rye later today. Don’t you touch it, I don’t want you using the scythe. I’ll do it later when the sun’s been on it all day. Wear this, he had said, smiling and holding out the shirt, it’s a nice shirt for you. And don’t forget your hat. There were two white cotton hats on a nail on the back of the shed door and they each wore one on sunny days. Give me that T-shirt, it needs a wash.
It was so long since Leech had reflected on anyone’s reasons for things that it did not occur to him now to wonder why Ivan had placed the plastic-wrapped sandwich, banana and bottle of Coke at the end of the patch where he was to work that day and told him it was his lunch. It had felt good to be given a gardening shirt to wear, though as far as he could remember (not far, he knew that much) Ivan had not done that before, either. As Leech weeded and hoed, he managed to sustain a mood of self-scrutiny long enough to realise that in his mind ‘before’ was, like all concepts relating to time, vague and amorphic, a word he had not realised he knew. ‘Before’ demanded the ‘what’ or it made no sense. Before what? ‘Before’ required a firm grasp of some notion of time previous and a recognisable period since, a then and a now between events, a space of time segregating all the sometimeses—the sometimes this, the sometimes
something else—into recognisable memories that would sit obediently in their places in Leech’s past and present, allowing themselves to be joined up into a continuum that would be his life so far. And Leech did not have any such firm grasp. On a good day he knew this, on better days he forgot he knew, as he forgot words such as amorphic. So those things that Ivan had not done ‘before’ might have been not done before yesterday, last week, last year or, for all Leech knew, the dawn of time. Meanwhile, his stomach was still telling him it was time to eat.
Settling himself on the ground at the end of the bean rows Leech pursued his mental exercise as he bit into the sandwich. He found to his pleasure that he had what felt like a clear recall of the morning. He had got up in a way that was familiar (encouraging him in the belief that he had done it that way many, many times now) and gone to watch the train. The train came every day, early, and he had got up and watched it pass—this, too, he felt with certainty, was something he often did. Then he thought he had walked down to wait behind the hedge at the house until Ivan came out. Today it had been different, because it was Hilary who had come out. She had come out to piss in the garden, which he did not think she had done before. No, that was wrong. That was yesterday. Or possibly not. Another day, anyway, if not today.
The sandwich, at least the wholemeal bread it was made with, was not good. Leech pulled out the white cheese and ate that, buried the remaining bread in the soil beside him, and ate the banana. He stood up to drink the Coke and walked along with it into the shed, wondering about the rest of the morning. He was wearing the blue shirt and white hat so yes, it must have been today when Ivan had told him to wear them, but that now seemed a
long time ago. And he remembered, or his stomach did, that he had been hoeing a bean row when lunchtime came. Memory of anything between those two points had already slipped away like the dreams he sometimes woke up knowing he had been having, knowing too that they were already gone even as his brain clutched for recollection.