Untouchable Things (23 page)

“Not going to rise to that one either?”

“Sorry?” She had to get back to bed.

“Oh dear, that bad? I’ll be brief then. I wondered if you wanted to collect it via a modest supper on your way back from Milton Keynes tomorrow. If you’re still planning to go, of course.”

Her stomach lurched – in a good way this time. “Yes please, that sounds great. I may not make it to Milton Keynes today, but – well, I’m sure I’ll get there at some point.” She wasn’t going to turn down the offer of supper at Seth’s.

“Super. Now get yourself in the shower, woman.”

Scene 9

The boy stared at the long, red-gold hair rippling over her shoulders and into the secret coves of her spine. It hovered about her as she moved around the kitchen, damp and shining beneath the overhead lights. It looked as though it had just been combed through, coaxed straight where it was wettest but starting to rebel at the ends into skittish curls. She hadn’t got dressed yet. A rich purple towel skimmed the top of her breasts so that he could just see the gathering of flesh that hinted at unseen depths. She was making coffee, humming under her breath, her soles bare against the burgundy tiled floor. As she bent over to reach for the milk out of the fridge he glimpsed the very whitest, most hidden part of her legs, where the flesh swelled and bumped and changed texture. He felt funny. She turned and saw him sitting at the table.

“Hello, darling, I didn’t see you there.” She came over and swished her fingers along his face then leaned to kiss his cheek. Damp spirals of hair brushed his neck and he smelled her bath oil. His cock stiffened under his dressing gown as he gripped his glass of orange juice. She kissed him again, on the top of his head and tilted his chin up towards her.

“Now, I’ll be out most of today – all sorts of people I need to catch up with, but Lucinda will look after you, of course. This evening we have an important associate of Daddy’s coming over for dinner. I thought you could do your bit from
Hamlet
, like you did for Peter Bainbridge last week. He was most taken by you, you know.”

The boy pulled his chin away and scowled at the table.

“Now, darling, don’t be like that. You know how your father has to keep certain people sweet. And you’re so good at it. Lord Ashburn nearly wet his pants over that Keats number –
Ode to a Skylark
, was it? He said later – ”

“
Nightingale
.”

“Sorry?”

“It was
Ode to a Nightingale
.”

“Of course it was. He said – ”

“Shelley wrote
Skylark
.”

She sighed and reached out a hand. “Come on, darling, don’t be like this about it. You know you love to perform. Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ll just take your father his coffee up and then we can have breakfast together before I go out. How does that sound?”

He swallowed down stupid, pointless tears. “Okay.” He knew what they were going to do upstairs. She’d come down later with flamy patches all over the creamy skin of her neck and shoulders. He looked up as she wafted towards the door. “Mama?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Don’t be too long.”

Scene 10

So you saw your boyfriend the next day?

Yes. Is this relevant? It’s just I’m running a little late.

There’s no quick way to do this, Miss Laurence. I’m sure you appreciate we need to be thorough, given the circumstances.

Yes, of course. I’m afraid I just need to use the toilet first.

Jason was late. Not just a couple of minutes late – half an hour. Rebecca felt the glow of her eleven hours sleep start to flicker. She’d been standing outside the station so long peering into small black cars she probably looked like a prostitute. This was punishment. And, of course, she was really the late one – not just a day late, but two now. The wind whipped her hair across her face and burned the ends of her fingers. He’d made his point. Another five minutes… was that him? She held her hair away from her eyes and saw his face, fixed on the road. With barely a click of eye contact between them she got into the car and slammed the door.

“Where have you been? It’s bloody freezing out there.” She leaned over and cranked the heater up to max, holding her hands over the vent.

Silence. Just the hiss-hushing of the fan. “What’s the matter?” She glanced over at bloodshot eyes and stubble. “Blimey, you look rough.”

He stared ahead. “Thanks. You don’t, though. Feeling better?”

“Yeah, must have been one of those twenty-four-hour things. I was in a right state yesterday.”

He reached out his left hand and she thought he’d put it on her knee. Instead he turned the fan down and put his hand back on the wheel. Neither of them spoke as he turned the car this way and that. Outside his front door she recoiled from the stale beer breath she would usually have teased him about.

He brought two mugs of coffee to his room. Instant, in another deliberate gesture of neglect. Fuck, she’d even bought him a cafetiere so she didn’t have to suffer Nescafé every weekend. No sign of creepy Carl. For the first time she wished his weirdo housemate was around to puncture the black cloud of silence that hung over them. She spotted the CD she’d left there last time.
Jagged Little Pill
. It would do.

He raised his eyebrows at her choice of music but said nothing. One of them had to bridge the gap. “So, big night last night?”

He shrugged. “Just a few pints with Tony and the boys from work.”

She took a breath. “Are you going to say why you’re pissed off with me?”

He shrank from her directness, looked out of the window.

“Well, this is going to be a fun weekend.”

He swivelled then, turned his eyes like weapons on her. “Weekend? More like a few hours.”

Bugger. She’d walked straight into that one. “Sorry, I meant… come on, it’s hardly my fault. Looks like you’ve been enjoying yourself, anyway.”

He stared at her. “So, how was the audition?”

“Audition? Oh, the meeting with George Harrow.” She wasn’t quick enough. “Yeah, you know, nothing definite but he’ll consider me for future things.” Her excuse for not going over on Friday night sounded dubious enough without the clambering heat working its way up to her face.

“Why was your phone turned off afterwards?”

“Was it? I don’t know – for God’s sake, it’s like the inquisition.” Her voice was climbing higher in pitch to Alanis Morrisette’s.

“That’s because you’re hiding things from me.” Jason’s voice rose too, not higher but louder. He hit the side of the desk with his palm. “Tell me the truth, Becky. And turn that ranting banshee off.”

Rebecca opened her mouth into an outraged O. “That
ranting banshee
is one of the best-selling artists in the world.” She was possibly dealing with things in the wrong order. Jason grabbed the remote control and jabbed the stop button. The room was suddenly quiet.

“I notice you haven’t answered my other question. Tell me what you were doing on Friday night. I’m not stupid, Rebecca.”

“Well, that’s debatable.” She muttered it under her breath but Jason sprang up and grabbed her arm. For a split second she was frightened; then he dropped it scathingly and turned away.

“Just tell me. Is it him? Seth? Are you having an affair?” He faced her again.

“What? Are you mad? Of course I’m not.” She grasped the ammunition he’d just handed her, gratefully hauling herself back to the high ground. “Oh, I see. That’s what you think of me, is it? Thanks a lot.”

“I just needed to know.” Jason’s voice was softer. “I just don’t know where you are and what you’re doing any more.”

“You’re my boyfriend, not my bodyguard. You have to trust me. Which you clearly don’t.”

“Your story about the weekend just didn’t seem to ring true.”

Rebecca sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Look, if you must know I went out after the audition and had a few drinks and then felt really ill yesterday, which was definitely more than just a hangover.”

He was staring at her again. “Why didn’t you tell me you went out on Friday?”

“Because I knew I’d get the bloody inquisition.”

“Who were you out with?”

She laughed humourlessly. “Oh, here we go. Thumbscrew time. I was out with the Friday Group people.”

His turn to laugh. “What a surprise.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She was on her feet, suddenly screaming. “I am absolutely sick of this shit. Either you start trusting me and let me live my life, or…”

“Or what?” They looked at each other from opposite sides of the room.

“Or this just isn’t going to work.” They held eye contact for another second before Rebecca turned away. She was panting, suddenly out of breath.

“Is that what you want? Is this what you’ve been trying to do? Break up with me?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “No, of course not. But it’s not really working right now, is it?” She felt unexpectedly exhilarated, buoyed with adrenaline, hovering on the brink of something momentous. Whether she jumped was up to her.

You broke up, I take it?

She caught a taxi to the station. Jason had his back to her as she left, shoulders hunched as if crying. She wanted to cry too, connect with him for one last time, but there was nothing inside her. On the train she stared out of the window, slumped and vacant as a rag doll. Two and a half years. She tried to summon the appropriate emotion, any emotion. Halfway home her phone buzzed in her pocket and she steeled herself for his pleas or accusations.

Are we still on for tonight? Do you like mushrooms?

The smile that spread across her face brought the appropriate emotion at last. Relief.

Scene 11

So, Miss Laurence, you broke up with your boyfriend and ran straight to Mr Gardner?

I didn’t run. Walked briskly, perhaps. Jogged up the odd escalator. He was waiting on the concourse. Of course I was touched. People don’t pick each other up from the station in London.

An hour later she was sitting on Seth’s sofa, legs curled under her, clutching a cup of rum-laced tea (for shock) and once again unable to deliver the tears that the scene might seem to call for. Seth was being a sweetheart, declared himself her agony uncle for the day, and put an eclectic selection of nibbles on the coffee table – Bombay Mix to Belgian truffles – to tempt her into eating. She had a troubling suspicion that she was enjoying herself more than might be appropriate. Conversation looped and glided like a dance, gradually opening out until they were sharing things from long ago. Or, as Rebecca realised later, she was. She hadn’t talked about her first boyfriend, Jack Chisholm, in a long time. It must be the rum.

“I thought I was the bee’s knees, as my mum said. Drainpipe jeans, green eyeshadow and an older boyfriend with a souped-up Ford Capri. God, imagine. Mum and Dad were out of their minds – I’d always been their little princess. And when they found a cigarette in my coat pocket, well Mum definitely cried.”

“So the little princess tumbled off her pedestal?”

“In style. I didn’t even have time to enjoy it before Chis dumped me for Felicity Mitchell, a scrawny cow in the Upper Sixth.” She smiled but Seth was looking at her intently.

“Not funny at the time, I bet. What happened?”

She took a gulp of tea and raised her eyebrows. “I guess I had some sort of nervous breakdown. Went a bit gothy and flunked my O-Levels.”

“Not part of the script.”

“Not exactly.” He took her hand and she was glad to feel tears not far away. It would be odd to look too composed today. “I suppose I
was
used to being treated like a princess, Mum was over forty when she had me and they’d almost given up on having kids. There was another one, another baby at the same time, but it died.”

His eyes widened, drawing her in. “So you should have been one of twins?”

“Yes.”

“Two of you?” He shook his head. “The mind boggles – in a very, very good way. Excuse the cliché of the male libido.”

She laughed, squirmed away from his gaze. He took her hand and it was as if she was looking down on herself, waiting for his next move.

“But seriously.” His voice had changed and she jolted as she found his eyes. “Do you feel it – inside? An emptiness? Something missing?” His eyes tugged on hers, dragging them down, down into their murky green depths.

“Yes.” It came out as a whisper. It was true, she had always known it, but no one had said it to her before. She had never formed those words in her own head.

He put a finger under her chin. “Then that’s another thing we share.” They stared at each other and she waited for him to pull her to him but he spoke again. “I’ve heard that losing a twin can feel like an amputated limb.”

She flinched and pulled back her hand, an instinct to protect herself. His words had triggered vibrations at the edge of her mind, a white noise that muted her thoughts and was somehow familiar. She looked up at him and found his eyes, searching still, and though she opened her mouth she knew no sound would come. A silent appeal… but what was she asking for? Seconds passed. Then, abruptly, he broke eye contact and reached for the cigarette box.

“Better get you some food in a minute.”

For an instant she was in free fall, trying to adjust to the sudden shift in tone. Her fingers twisted at her hair, at the implicit question that still hung between them.

“I don’t know about that – I mean it’s not like I ever knew her. Well, not properly. Consciously.” She wasn’t even sure if he was listening now, intent on lighting a cigarette. She stumbled on. “There is that feeling, though, of something… absent.” But she’d lost his interest, needed to lighten things up. “And I had a certain relationship with my parents that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I wasn’t spoilt but – hey!”

Seth had turned and was grinning mischievously. The sands had shifted again. She smiled too. “I wasn’t. But I guess they gave me whatever they could, and made me believe I could achieve what I wanted.”