Authors: Colum Sanson-Regan
Chapter Two
When Alison first joined the company, she attended a rooftop meet and greet. The autumn day was bright and cold, and she could almost taste the vivid blue of the sky. Way up high the crisscross of contrails was like floating ribbons cut free from a bridal veil.
She smiled through the introductions to her new bosses’ partners and colleagues, and their partners, and their friends and partners, and their business associates. She wished she had brought a shawl to put around her shoulders, she felt exposed. As she listened, she drank and soon the glass in her hand was empty. She had to stop herself bringing it to her lips as the conversations moved around her.
Relax, relax, relax
, she said to herself as she nodded and smiled. Her face was beginning to ache.
The group drifted to the edge of the roof. Various properties and planning proposals in the city were pointed out and discussed. A forest of rooftops and buildings stretched out beneath them. Alison felt queasy as more and more of the city came in to view. She stayed still until she was at the edge of the group and then went back to the drinks table.
“More champagne?” the man behind the table asked.
“Yes, please,” and she held out her glass.
He poured slowly. His hands were elegant and slim. He was clean but frayed. He was younger than her, in his mid-twenties she guessed. His hair seemed a bit too long, there were bits at his fringe and behind his ears which were breaking free, as if it wanted to be curly, and couldn’t wait till his shift was over.
He finished pouring and handed her the glass. His eyes took her by surprise. They were grey, with tiny flecks of black and green, like a sheer cliff face. Suddenly she knew she had been looking too long, and looked away. Her glass was full but she didn’t move away from the table. She took a little sip.
After a while he said, “It really is quiet up here considering we’re right in the middle of the city.” And for the first time she listened beyond the voices of the people around her talking about acquisitions and interest peaks and equity rates, and listened to the stillness of the high air. Somewhere in the distance was the hum of traffic. Beneath them were stories and stories of people talking, explaining, negotiating, selling, buying, discussing. It was odd to think that so many people could be so close and yet unheard. None of what was going on below could disturb them up here.
The more she listened the quieter it became. Even the talk from the rooftop fell into the background and started to disappear, as if they were all extras on a movie set whose noise would be dubbed in later. The camera was trained on her and this handsome stranger now, the rest of the set had to act in silence.
She stood for a moment and a smile came to her face, her sweet natural smile, before she said, “Yes, actually it is.” She still didn’t move away from the table. She forgot about feeling cold.
That was the first time Alison met Martin.
Every time she went back for another glass she found out a little more about him. He bartended and wrote articles for online publications. He never shopped at the big stores because rows and rows of clothes made him feel uncomfortable. He preferred spring to summer. Brandy was his favourite drink, and the bigger the glass the better. Heights didn’t bother him but speed did.
He asked about her. She told him she had just started with the firm and had been introduced at a level she hadn’t been expecting, and was still finding her feet.
He said, “You should be busy hobnobbing with the suits then.”
“I don’t know them. I’ve never been in a group like this before. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just compliment them, then ask them about themselves and let them do the talking,” he said. “They’ll access parts of you that you hadn’t considered talking about.”
“I’m just not that interesting.” As she said it she held out her glass and slightly turned her head away, keeping her eyes fixed on him and pushing her lips into a pout.
“I bet you are,” he said with a smile and poured. “Anyway, don’t worry about being interesting, be interested.”
She wanted him to walk with her, to stand with her while she joined in the conversations about market expectations and whether Julie’s nanny was making the right choice by moving to Chorleywood. She asked him where else he worked. ICE 49 on the weekends. ICE 49 was near her apartment.
The champagne worked, and soon there were voices raised in good humour rising into the afternoon air, explosions of laughter resounding around the rooftop. Alison was welcomed by everyone, and she moved easily through the back slapping and promises of goodwill and lasting business bonds. She couldn’t help but glance over at the drinks table. If he wasn’t pouring he would catch her eye and a quick smile would flash between them, like a brief electric signal. It felt good. Alison felt an excitement run from her legs up her back every time it happened. ICE 49. She repeated it, keeping it for later.
* * *
The following Saturday she was at ICE 49 with two of her friends. She hoped she sounded natural when she suggested it. It was quiet when they got there, only a few groups drinking quietly in the booths. At the long bar they were greeted by a tall, lean barman who put both hands on the counter and said, “Before I get anything for you lovely ladies, can I see some ID?”
There was an outburst of giggles and a flurry of bag rummaging as the barman leaned on one elbow and smiled. Alison scanned the bar for Martin, and there he was, right down at the end, loading bottles into a fridge. As she produced her ID she kept an eye on him. She ordered her drink, and as the barman walked away, Martin looked up and she smiled at him. He smiled back and went to the other barman who was preparing the drinks.
“Ozzy, man, let me get these.” Ozzy stopped.
“Really? Why? Do you fancy your chances?”
“I know one of them.”
“Which one?”
“The blonde with the green top.”
“Right.” Ozzy looked over his shoulder. “The plain one. When you say you know her…?”
“I’ve met her once.”
Ozzy poured crushed ice into the glasses. He put mint leaves in front of Martin. “Well, whatever you do, don’t bring her back to your place, man. Unless you’ve got a new bolt on the door.”
“Ozzy, come on, what are the drinks? I got this.”
“Well, at least you are playing within your league. If there’s any movement, get me over, her two friends are hot.”
As soon as Martin brought the drinks Alison’s friends knew there was something up. They watched as Martin and Alison smiled at each other for a bit too long, and Martin asked, “How did the rest of the day go?”
“I was pretty drunk. Was I embarrassing?”
“Not at all, you were fine, really.”
Alison paid and she and her friends turned away from the bar. They immediately teased her about him being too young for her, and she felt butterflies in the stomach, like a schoolgirl with a crush.
By the time they left the bar, she and Martin had agreed to meet up the next day to go and see an exhibition. When her friends quizzed her what it was an exhibition of, she squirmed.
Something to do with cultural art?
They all laughed and she flushed.
Alison and Martin never got to the exhibition. At seven o’clock they were still in the bar they had met in at three, still talking. By then Alison knew that she would never meet anyone like Martin again.
* * *
As Martin walked back to his apartment that night, the rain started. He hunched his shoulders and looked at the ground as he walked, running through the evening with Alison. She hadn’t asked him anything about his past. He didn’t have to avoid any questions.
They talked and laughed and drank, and when she said she had to go, Martin put his hand on hers. In that moment something within him moved, as if shocked to life, and he could still feel it twitching inside. He straightened up and saw the rain make halos around the streetlights as he turned the corner of his street.
Sitting on the wall in front of his room there were the usual thin shapes of hooded youths, smoking and pushing each other, and jeering passers-by. He saw the legs of the Carson girl amongst them. The closer he got, the more he saw of her. She was twisting her wet bleached hair and thumbing her phone as the boys sold a plastic baggie of weed to a dark shape in a car that had pulled up, engine still running. He walked past her. She ignored him and he caught a glance at how the rain hit her long pale legs ending in tatty worn sneakers before he turned and disappeared into the dark alley behind her. He stepped through the puddles and empty beer cans and piss pools, and up the steel staircase to his door.
The air in the small, dark one room apartment was stagnant and cold and chilled his lungs as the door clicked closed. He heard the rain falling on the pools of water on the flat roof. The streetlight outside shone brightly through the thin curtains, showing the creases and thread marks like veins on a bat’s wing.
Through the window he saw the Carson girl was still there getting more and more wet, and there was no sign of the boys. Maybe they had gone with the guy in the car. He took a blanket from the bed and hung it over the rail to block out the streetlight. From the window the walls of the room angled in on each other, narrowing like a coffin to the head of the single bed. He took his jacket off and lay down. He wanted peace to cover him like a soft cloud, but instead a vibration of anxiety welled inside him. The cracks on the ceiling made him wonder how long he had left before this vibration grew strong enough to collapse everything.
He had told Alison that he was a published writer. He had one story with an online magazine. All she had to do was search online and she would see he was a fraud, exaggerating how much he had done. He pulled himself off the bed and turned on his lamp. He opened up his laptop and without thinking started typing.
Henry knew the guy was lying, but wondered which truth he was trying to hide. He could bet it wasn’t the one he was looking for.
Martin continued writing until he felt empty. He stood up. Standing to the side of the window, he moved the blanket aside just enough to see out. The Carson girl was still there, her shoulders hunched over and her head down. She looked like she was crying.
He opened his door and walked down the metal steps and through the alley, through the discarded powder wraps, and cigarette and joint butts; the detritus of the street life of these kids. He thought he was being quiet, he felt taut as a fishing line dragging a prize, but she looked over her shoulder and saw him come from the shadows. She screamed and ran. He stepped back into the darkness and watched her pale legs run down the road before turning and going back to his room.
He sat again and typed. The wallpaper bulged and sagged and slipped from the corners, creating new shadows on the walls, and the green mould continued its slow silent spread around the room.
The squeal of the metal shutters from the mechanics garage below told him it was morning, and soon he heard the clanking and grind of machines as Carson and Son got to work. He pressed Save again and lay down, covering his face with the pillow.
Every time he started drifting off to sleep the muffled monosyllabic shouts of the mechanics or the smell of oil and burnt rubber yanked him awake. He closed his eyes tighter, but couldn’t shut his ears or his nose.
There are too many ways into my head,
he thought. He reopened his laptop to reread what he had done. When he got to the end, he attached it to an email to
Noire
, the online magazine, with the heading “Henry Bloomburg” and pressed send. He sent a text to Alison.
Thanks for last night, I had a great time. Let’s do it again.
He buried himself in his bed and at last sleep overtook him.
* * *
The next time he saw Alison, Martin was able to say that he had submitted another story. It was two days later and he was sitting on the wall waiting for Alison to pick him up. Behind him the Carson girl was arguing with her father in the shadow and grease of the garage. Her shouts rebounded off her oil-stained father and his deep, thick-necked threats rumbled past Martin out onto the street. Alison pulled up.
“Where’s your place, then?” she asked as he got in the car. He pointed to the room on top of the garage, squeezed between two houses like an embarrassed afterthought.
She looked up at the window and said, “You not going to invite me in?”
He smiled, leaned across, and kissed her. She backed away for a second and looked into his eyes before closing them again and pushing her lips to his. She was holding her breath. He put his hand to her cheek and stroked her face gently as they kissed. She felt herself relax. He could still hear shouts from the garage as the mechanic’s voice grew louder, and then they both looked up as the Carson girl ran out past the car and down the street. They smiled at each other before they pulled off.
“What are we going to do? Is there anywhere you really want to go?” Alison asked.
“No, whatever you want.”
“Okay, well I have a plan.”
Martin leaned back and watched the city pass.
That night they were at Alison’s sitting on the sofa. Alison’s holiday video was just finishing. It was footage of her stay at her parent’s new boat-house which was on a lake out in the country. The stillness of the water and the lushness of the trees was beautiful, and the picture faded on Alison’s smiling face, waving into the camera, with the sun set throwing a wash of rich colour onto the lake behind her. Martin sat straight with his arm around Alison, who rested her head on his shoulder.
“That looks fantastic,” he said.
“It’s so special up there. You’d love it.” The screen went blank. “Tell me about your story then. What’s it about?”
“What’s it about? Well, you can read it, I can send it to you.”
“No,” she said, getting closer, “tell me about it. I want you to tell me.”
“Okay. Well, there’s Henry Bloomburg, a detective—”
“Ooh, it’s a mystery.” She traced her finger across his chest.
“—and he is hired to find this kid who has been missing for ages, so long the police have stopped looking. The parents of the kid hire him. And anyway, Henry finds him, he has been kidnapped—”