Golden Hour (15 page)

“Goodness!” says Gloria. “What's all that?”

“You've been creating copy versions of your files.”

“Have I? I didn't mean to.”

Andrew runs his eye over the clutter.

“You put the dogs' names in your diary, right?”

“Yes. All of them.”

“Give me a name.”

“A dog's name?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there's the Hammonds' dog, Posy.”

“Posy.”

He opens Spotlight, keys in “Posy.” A list drops down, offering locations. He selects the first. A window opens, headed “Monday.” It's a homemade calendar complete with times and names.

“That's it!” cries Gloria, her little voice shrill with astonishment. “Where did you find it?”

“On your computer,” says Andrew. “All you need to know is the name of the file. It's called Monday.”

“Why's it called Monday?”

“If you don't give a file a name the system automatically uses the first word or words you save.”

Gloria looks baffled, but also intensely relieved.

“You found it!” she says. “I was sure I'd lost it forever. I'm so hopeless with these things.”

“Would you like me to show you how to find it if you ever lose it again?”

He talks her through Spotlight, but he can see as he demonstrates the simple process that her brain is resisting the information. This no longer surprises him. He's met it too often. In fact, he's learned a reluctant sympathy for the condition. It's not a kind of stupidity, it's a kind of panic. Gloria would like to understand her computer and knows it would be helpful to her if she did, but she believes at a profound unconscious level that she never will. Even as he repeats the sequence of mouse-strokes Andrew can see her eyes not seeing and her ears not hearing. Like an illiterate child faced with a page of print, the mind, overwhelmed by complexity, retreats.

“You know what?” he says. “Just as a back-up, why don't you print out your walks diary? You could even make changes on it with a pencil.”

“But I spent so much,” wails Gloria.

“Just as a back-up. While you're getting used to it.”

Gloria sits staring at her lost file, breathing rapidly.

“Do you think so?” she says. “I was so worried. I thought I was going to lose my whole business. It's taken me a year to build that up. Look, tomorrow's Lulu's big walk. If I'd not taken Lulu out, Mrs. Garcia would have killed me.” She looks up at Andrew with wondering eyes. “You're so wonderful.”

“Let's print a copy.”

He coaxes her old ink-jet printer into juddering out a copy on paper. Then, to be sure, he prints a second copy.

“There. Pin it on the wall. That way you'll never lose it again.”

“Oh, you are wonderful.”

He's giving her permission to walk away from the machine that so frightens her. This too is part of his job.

It embarrasses him to charge money for performing so trivial a task, but the company that employs him, through whose advertising Gloria found him, needs and deserves the revenue. Andrew has a highly developed sense of what is due.

“I'm afraid I'll have to charge you the call-out fee.”

“Oh my goodness, I should think so. You're a miracle worker. You've saved my life.”

She writes him a check. The company name on the checkbook is Glorious Walkies. His own employers go by the name of MacRescue. So many people offering so many services, the whole great city a web of intersecting needs being satisfied, every city dweller both a consumer and a producer. He'll go home on the Tube tonight, employing as he does so a host of drivers, maintenance men, supervisory staff. He'll send out for a pizza for his supper, so bringing work to fast-order cooks and delivery riders on Vespas. In this way the sixty-pound check from Gloria will spread its value ever outward, playing its tiny part in the economy of London.

She shakes his hand as he leaves. Her grip is sincere, heartfelt, her gaze moist with gratitude. He's a doctor, he's a therapist, he's a priest. Of course, this is why he's come out in the evening when he'd rather be at home. He's a bringer of joy, a saver of lives. But even as he steps back out onto the street the beneficial effect is fading. While in front of a screen, wrangling problems that he can solve, he can believe that he's still in control. Away from the screen his life looms up before him, incomprehensible, unmanageable, and full of pain.

He takes the Northern Line south, taking care not to get onto the Bank branch, waiting patiently for the Charing Cross branch, which stops at Tottenham Court Road. Others may find themselves on the wrong train, but Andrew is not prone to mistakes of this sort. He has a methodical mind, and he likes to minimize errors where possible. His strategies include informing himself properly in advance (he always read manuals), setting himself attainable goals, and learning from his mistakes. None of this is of any avail in his present crisis.

He chooses to stand on the train, even though there are seats available. He plays a game that has almost become a habit. He lets go of the overhead handrail and maintains his balance by sensing and responding to the train's motion. Feet placed at a diagonal to the direction of travel, knees slightly bent, he rocks and sways like a surfer riding a wave. Just another exercise in control.

And now he's falling apart.

It came out of nowhere. As far as he's concerned, Maggie has been the one for him from the first time he met her. He's not been unduly demanding. He's not tried to rush things. She's known from the start that he's been looking for work in Lewes so that they can be together. So what's the problem now? What has he done wrong? Why has this, whatever it is, not come up
before? What can he do to make everything be all right again?

The first and simplest step is of course to talk to her, but he keeps putting off making the phone call. He's frightened of making real something that may not yet be real. He dreads calling her and saying, “What's the problem?,” only to hear her faraway voice reply, “What problem?” After all, he might have imagined it all. She might just have been tired on Sunday. It may all mean nothing.

Then why do I hurt so much?

The body feels the pain before the mind has traced the wound. This alone tells him the problem is real. As soon as she blanked him, walking to the village fête, the pain settled in his stomach, and it's never left. His usual strategies are rendered powerless. He would love to reboot himself, but he has no off switch. This is a glitch that can't be fixed. All that he can think—no, not think—all that he can feel is how much he loves her, how gorgeous she is, how happy she makes him, how empty his life would be without her.

He stares at the prospect the way Gloria stared at the screen, in bewilderment and panic.

Have I done something wrong? Has she met someone else? Has she grown bored with me? And if the answer is yes to any or all of these questions, what can I do about it? I can't be a different person. If I'm not enough as I am, it's over. There isn't any more.

At Tottenham Court Road he changes to the Central Line, making his way down long tunnels past the endless new works thrown up by the Crossrail project. The Central Line is his home line, its color on the map and the metalwork in its carriages a cheerful red. The various colors of the tube lines carry emotions. The black of the Northern Line is the soot and coal of the north. The green of the District Line is leafy suburban
spaces. The dark blue of the Piccadilly Line is the color of the jetset, with its airports and its members-only clubs. But at the heart of the metropolis lies the main artery, the scarlet blood of the Central Line, that carries him home to Shepherds Bush.

All this is supposed to be about to change. Already, some weeks ago, he began to cut his ties to his present familiar territory, closing his eyes to the bright and tacky convenience shops in the Uxbridge Road, closing his ears to the roar of the QPR stadium. In their place he has begun to relocate his heart in the little Downland town of Lewes. Gavin, his flatmate in Ingersoll Road, has long known he plans to move out, and has arranged a replacement. Harvey at MacRescue has done the same. All this has taken place with Maggie's full knowledge. How is it possible for her to back out now?

Maybe he's imagining it. Maybe he's over-reacting. Maybe it's a wobble, nothing more. If so, why doesn't he phone?

He makes a decision as he comes out into the night air of Shepherds Bush Green: once he's home he'll call Maggie and find out what's going on. He has reached this decision before and has backed away, secretly hoping she'll call him first. The truth is he feels badly treated, and not a little resentful. He has done nothing to deserve this sudden change of heart. His own heart has not changed. This is Maggie's problem, and she should solve it. But he doesn't want any of these thoughts to be present in his voice when he calls her.

Just don't leave me, Maggie. Please.

As he crosses the bottom of Wood Lane his phone rings. His heart jumps. One glance tells him it's not Maggie. It's Jo, a mutual friend. Her voice on the phone sounds breathless.

“What's going on with you and Maggie?” she says. “I talked to her today and she sounded all confused.”

“I'm the one who's confused,” says Andrew.

“So nothing's happened?”

“I took this job in Lewes. That's what's happened. But for some reason it's freaking her out, and I don't know why. Do you know why?”

“I don't know anything. But I'm having lunch with her tomorrow, so I thought I should check in with you first, in case there's something I'm missing.”

“If there is, I'm missing it too. Do me a favor, Jo. Tell me what she says. I know I should ask her myself, but I'm scared. I mean, it may just all be nothing. I don't want to over-react.”

“Of course it's all nothing.” Jo's warm voice brings the reassurance for which Andrew hungers. “You two are so great together.”

“Tell her that, Jo. Tell her.”

“You bet I will.”

“And call me afterward. Any time.”

“I'll do that. And you know what, Andrew? She's lucky to have you.”

“You don't think she wants to break up?”

“Are you nuts? No way! You're the best thing's ever happened to her.”

“Don't tell me. Tell her.”

But he likes it that she tells him. Jo is Maggie's closest friend and he wants her on his side.

By the time he's letting himself into his flat he's feeling far more hopeful about life. Jo's breezy certainty has put it all back into perspective. Maybe he should call Maggie after all. But then he thinks he'll wait for Jo's report after their lunch tomorrow. Just to be safe.

Gavin is stretched out on the couch watching an episode from the first series of
Entourage
.

“Sorted?” he says.

For a second Andrew thinks this question is about him and Maggie. Then he realizes Gavin is asking about his call-out.

“In about one nanosecond. The so-called lost file was on her desktop.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

Gavin's attention is on the screen. Andrew goes into his bedroom to dump his bag. There's Maggie's picture by his bed. There's the card she gave him for his last birthday on his chest of drawers. There's the bathrobe they bought for him together, because she said his old one was too drab, and worse, too short. That was only six weeks ago. He remembers exactly how they stood by the rack in John Lewis and Maggie pulled out bathrobe after bathrobe and held them against him and studied the effect with a frown on her lovely face. He remembers how he felt owned by her, and how he liked that.

It strikes him now, gazing at the blue-and-white-striped bathrobe, that he offered no preferences of his own. He wanted for himself whatever she wanted for him. You could call that selfless, or you could call it spineless. It just happens to be one of those areas where he doesn't have any strong opinions. You can't go fabricating preferences just to make yourself appear more manly.

So is that it? Am I not manly enough?

On Tuesday morning Toby wakes late and gets up slowly, dressing himself in Jack's clothes. Jack's jeans, a little loose on him, hitched round his waist with Jack's khaki webbing belt. Jack's blue polo shirt. Entering the kitchen where Laura is sitting at the table surrounded by recipe books making a shopping list, he announces, “I am Jack.”

Before Laura can respond, Carrie, who has been waiting for him, comes in through the side door from the garden.

“Oh, hello,” she says. “You up?”

“I'm up.” He looks out of the window at the bright sun on the lawn. “And the sun is up. Another perfect day in Paradise.”

Carrie fills the coffee pot to brew the strong coffee she has already learned he likes. Laura makes a token gesture of drawing the open recipe books closer to create space for his breakfast.

“It's okay,” he says. “I'm far too late. And anyway, I want to take my toast and coffee out into the sunshine.”

Actually what he needs is a smoke.

Toby understands that Laura doesn't approve of him, and he accepts it. She's right not to approve of him. She thinks he'll be a bad influence on Carrie, and the demon thinks he will too. But the demon does as it pleases.

He watches Carrie as she moves about the kitchen putting bread in the toaster, taking butter from the fridge, marmalade
from the cupboard, her lanky body making awkward movements, and he feels her awareness of his gaze like his arms round her body.

I could ask her for anything and she'd give it.

This is not a new phenomenon in Toby's life. Wherever he has found himself there is someone, usually but not always female, who takes on a role that is more than friend, less than lover: a follower, perhaps. The follower responds to his particular brand of indifference to the good opinion of others, which you might call arrogance, or callousness, by subordinating herself to his will. And it is after all a kind of trade. The follower offers submission and service. In return, he gives his time, his attention, and what they most hunger for, which is direction.