Untouchable Things (29 page)

“Right.” Seth removed two of the candles and took out a silver lighter. “Sit there.”

Jake half protested as Seth picked up the cake and rounded everyone else out of the room. They filed back in, singing as Seth led the way. Jake’s hands looked huge and helpless and his face was a child’s, lit by candle flame and wonder.

* * * * *

It won’t come as a surprise to you that I didn’t exactly have a silver spoon childhood. Bit of a correlation in your line of work, I would have thought.

Quite right, Mr Etheridge. It almost sounds like you’re incriminating yourself.

I wouldn’t go to the trouble when there are so many people happy to do it for me.

The other group members?

You’re the expert, you tell me.

Let’s go back to this particular Friday Folly. The childhood theme. What do you think Mr Gardner was doing?

Well, I’m no psychologist but I get the feeling that Seth didn’t have a great time as a child either. Despite the fact that he did have a silver spoon. Shoved out to boarding school, then losing his folks so young. Maybe he wanted to hear about other people’s childhoods because his was pretty shit. And maybe he just wanted a laugh, have you thought of that? Why are you lot always looking for ulterior motives?

* * * * *

They were ending with party games. Rebecca voted for Murder in the Dark. She’d always loved it as a child; that frisson you get somewhere between fun and real fear. Seth took them all into the spare room and made them stare at the light before plunging it into darkness. She’d had a D on her card, a dancer, not that she was doing much of that. She hugged the wall, giggling like others around her. Anna swore at someone across the room. It really was pitch black. Shadows and jostling noises. The murderer was biding their time. A movement to her left sent her creeping in the other direction along the wall, heart racing. Suddenly a squeeze on the bum, causing her to whirl.

“Oi!”

“Shhhh”

Silence again. She tiptoed towards the door and didn’t see the large body next to her until she’d bumped into it. She was screaming already before the hands went to her throat.

I was pretty freaked. But that’s the idea, isn’t it?

I wouldn’t know, Miss Laurence. Not something I play for fun, really.

No, I suppose not.

It was Jake Etheridge, the murderer?

I think so.

You think so?

He admitted to it. When the lights came on there were a few people close enough to me to have done it. He said it was him.

Was that it, then? You all went home?

A few more games first. Blind man’s buff. Seth said it was his favourite but he was so good at finding us that we all decided he must be able to see under his blindfold. Things probably broke up soon after that. Oh…

Yes?

He gave me something. As I was leaving.

Another present.

Yes… a vintage brooch. Gold, an ornate rose design. It was his mother’s. He said she was an elegant woman. He said… that I’d wear it well.

May I see it, Miss Laurence?

Well, that’s the problem. I didn’t wear it well at all. In fact, I lost it almost as soon as he gave it to me. Now it seems like a sign of what was to come.

Scene 21

José propped himself up with one arm and pulled the covers over both of them. The figure beside him stirred and snuggled and slept on. It was like a miracle to see him there, his beautiful face naked with sleep. He wanted to lace his fingers into the thick, black hair but made do with running his palm over it as lightly as he could. Why now, after so long?

He brushed the sleeping head with his lips. Feelings so long dammed began to burst and trickle out as tears, one plopping onto the shoulder below, making it twitch. He lay back and wiped them away with his wrists, then burrowed into the warm body next to him. He would have to stay awake to savour every heartbeat.

But he must have slept because he was awoken by kicking feet and pummelling arms. As he tried to sit up a piercing scream sliced through him and he turned to see Seth sitting bolt upright, eyes snapped open like a doll.

He wouldn’t talk about it. He didn’t touch the tea José made and sat blowing out smoke in silence. José’s hand felt sweaty and unwanted sitting on his thigh, trying to make a connection. He drew it back and curled it round his cup.

“Do you often get nightmares?”

Seth continued to smoke, staring ahead. He looked cool and aloof but his hand trembled slightly.

“Oh, you know. Now and then.” He flicked ash onto a coaster.

“Is it always the same one?”

“Usually.”

José touched his shoulder. “Do you think it would help if you told me about it?”

For a long time they said nothing.

“She’s stretching out her arms and slipping away into the water and I can’t move, don’t move.”

José felt himself unable to move in case he snapped the moment. “Who is?”

“My mother.” And then José remembered.

“The poem you read at the group…”

Seth stubbed out his cigarette and leant back, closed his eyes. José swallowed. “I guess it’s not hard to understand the dream.”

Seth looked at him. “No?”

“Well, losing your parents as you did. It must have been terrible.”

Seth leaned back again. “Yes.”

That was the extent of the conversation. A peephole into the inner world of the man he loved. José ran it through several times at home. Late at night he allowed himself to imagine Seth opening up properly, making himself vulnerable. Falling in love with him. And then there was the other possibility: that Seth might regret his moment of weakness and shut him out altogether.

Do you know why Mr Gardner let you get closer to him now?

No. It’s funny…

Funny?

Well, I think some of the others felt they were getting close to him too.

Such as?

“I know shit about the acting world but it sounds to me like she’s turning down an amazing opportunity.”

José stirred his tea, puzzling over Rebecca’s decision. From what he could tell, she’d been offered a fantastic part in some new play that would mean her being away from London for a few months. She’d decided not to take it because there was another part coming up in London that she really wanted.

Anna shrugged. “I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. Becs is pretty career minded.”

“Don’t you think there’s more to it?”

Anna frowned. “Like what?”

José paused. “I don’t know. She and Seth have been spending a lot of time together. I just wondered if…”

“If she’s got caught into his web?”

“Something like that.”

Anna gave her friend a steady look. “Not jealous, I hope?”

The tea scalded his tongue as he gulped at it too quickly. “Of course not.”

Anna exhaled. “Thank God for that. You were a pain in the arse when you used to moon round after him.”

“Thanks.” They’d rediscovered their equilibrium after all the heavy stuff a couple of weeks ago.

“He didn’t give much away in that group, did he? While the rest of us were snivelling into tissues. At least in my case.”

José shrugged. “You know what he’s like.”

Anna added two sugars to her cup. “Or maybe he did. Maybe it’s all in that poem. Whatever it means.”

Scene 22

She is asleep on his bed, amber hair rippling across one white pillow case and caressing the other. He sits on a chair with his hands on his knees, stiff as a soldier. He matches his breathing to hers, except when she snuffles like an anxious animal and he holds his breath until she settles again. Sometimes she twists her body and thrashes her head; once she calls out and her voice is hoarse, trapped in her throat. He has never looked at her like this for so long. He sees freckles dancing along her arms and turquoise veins tracing the backs of her hands. He sees a film of powder dipping and hovering over the faint lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. His mouth. She is all his. His right hand clenches and stretches but he does not go to her. He watches her breasts rising and falling under the sheet and concentrates on moving his ribcage with hers.

Some time later, when he is darting across the glass-lined room like a jittery fish, she appears in the doorway swathed in familiar towelling stripes. Sleep has stroked away some of the desperation from her face but her eyes moisten when she sees him and she stretches out a hand. He shakes his head. She starts to plead and he clenches his fists but keeps his voice steady as he tells her no. No. No. No.

When she has gone he collapses and howls like a dying dog.

Scene 23

There is something I didn’t tell the others.

I felt it was private, between Seth and me.

Please go on, Miss Jarret.

It was a couple of months ago. Late April. A Saturday.

Election fever and bird song in the air. Exhaust fumes sweetened with cherry blossom. Sunshine in the breeze. The prospect of a walk with Seth, arm in arm through Hyde Park. She was stopping by his place first to hurry him up so they didn’t miss the best of the day.

A woman was leaving his building when she arrived so she got into the hall without having to buzz. Catherine noticed her hair: flame-coloured tresses poking out of a raincoat hood that circled her face. People in London were so odd.

She took the stairs at a trot so only half heard the noise at first, under the scuffle of her shoes. She stopped. It was coming from Seth’s door, a sort of deep, sustained moan, almost bovine, comical, a noise that didn’t belong in his flat. She stood frozen, the hairs on her arms standing up. Maybe she should leave, phone him from round the corner, say she was running late. She started to back away but she heard a catch and a breath in the moan that sounded like someone in pain. She approached the black door and tapped with her fingernails.

“Seth?” A whisper, as if she was in a library. “It’s Catherine.”

Everything went silent. She cleared her throat, tried to make her voice sound normal. “We’re having a walk, remember?”

Still nothing. Bubbles of panic rising from her belly. “Has something happened? Please let me in.”

Moaning again, softer this time. “Seth?” She pushed against the door with her shoulder, expecting it to resist, but it shot open and she stumbled inside. The dark of the hallway made her blink. Something curled up on the floor like an animal.

“Oh God, what’s wrong?” She pushed the door closed and got down on her haunches, dropping her bag to the floor. It was Seth, but the only part of him that looked familiar was his striped dressing gown. Swollen eyes turned to her with no recognition. “Are you ill? Shall I get an ambulance?” He covered his head with his arms and started to cry. “Seth, you’re scaring me. Here, come here.” She put out her arms and he laid his head on her lap, sobbing, soaking her cotton skirt.

She held him until he started to quieten. Her legs tingled and her back ached but she could have stayed there forever. “Shhh. It’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t leave you.” She was Jane and he was Rochester. She was Cathy and he was Heathcliff. She stroked his hair over and over until he raised his head and sat up. This time his eyes focused.

“Catherine.”

“I’m here. Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable.” She was calm, in control as she helped him to his feet. He let her lead him to the sofa like a cowed animal. She put a throw over him, tucking it down at the edges. “Can I get you something?”

“Water, please.” He sounded parched. She brought two glasses through and sat next to him as he gulped both of them dry. Now that they had broken contact she wasn’t sure how to touch him.

“What’s happened?”

He turned his face to her and she tried not to shrink from the blood-stained eyes. His face looked broken. He searched her eyes as if they held the answer and she turned them over to him, offering them up if they would help. Then he sighed, put his face in his hands.

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything.” The words tripped off her tongue, a line she’d read so many times before. She knew the script. Soon he would open himself to her, reveal the deepest vulnerabilities that would make him hers.

And did he? Did he tell you the reason for

his distress?

No – he, he kissed me.

Kissed her like she’d never been kissed. Grasped her face with both hands, pressing so hard it nearly hurt, running desperate hands through her hair, his tongue silencing anything but a guttural sound from the back of her throat. She yielded as she knew how to yield, let her body dissolve against his, gave herself up to him. He pinned her down on the sofa with his full weight and she felt his need, the hard pressure bruising her thigh, the maleness that her books only hinted at. His eyes were closed but she forced hers open, trying to focus on him, to prove that this was real.

His eyes snapped open and he pushed her away, heaving himself to the other end of the sofa.

“What? What is it?” She struggled to a sitting position. He was facing away, towards the door. The sound of their breathing filled the room.

“It’s okay, you know.” She reached out to touch his arm, which flinched. She knew this scene too, where the man is overwhelmed by his feelings and the vulnerability he’s shown. If she could just pull him towards her and comfort him they could carry on…