She drove down the dark street, so dark it could have been a hundred years ago, and turned right past a warehouse into an unlit parking lot. She smelled the oily, salty tang of the Thames as she climbed out, hitched her briefcase from the passenger seat and locked the door carefully. She hurried across the lot through the driving rain, glancing warily at the shadows, and flinched at the sudden rattle of a hoarding in the freshening wind.
She climbed the steps into the porch and the automatic light came on with a crisp, metallic click. She punched in the code on the lock, then went inside, closing the door behind her. Her footsteps echoed as she walked in the dim light across the stone floor of the lobby, past the exposed steel girders that were painted bright red, and the two huge oak casks that were recessed into the wall. Warehouse. You could never forget it had once been a warehouse, a huge grimy Victorian Gothic warehouse.
She went into the lift that you had to go into in darkness, because the light only came on when the doors shut. Creepy. Creepy and slow. She leaned against the wall of the lift as it slowly shuffled up the four floors.
Lucky there weren’t any more, she thought, or you could eat your dinner going up in it. Then it stopped with a jerk that always unbalanced her, and she walked down the corridor to her front door, unlocked it and went into their huge flat. Nicky came racing down the hallway towards her, his shirt hanging over the top of his trousers, his blond hair flopping over his face.
‘Mummy! Yippee!’
She bent down and hugged him and he put his arms around her and kissed her firmly on each cheek, then he looked up at her solemnly. ‘I’m a ’vestor now.’
‘A vestor, Tiger?’
‘’Vestor! I got a porthole.’
‘Porthole?’ she asked, baffled.
‘Yeah! I made three pounds today.’
‘Three pounds? That’s clever. How did you make three pounds?’
‘From my porthole. Daddy showed me how.’
‘What’s your porthole?’
He took her hand. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ He looked up at her, triumph in his wide blue eyes. ‘We’re going for it.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yeah!’
‘“Yes”, darling, not “yeah”.’
‘Yeah!’ he teased, tugging his hand free and running down the corridor, turning his head back fleetingly. ‘Yeah!’
She put down her briefcase, took off her coat, and followed him across the huge hallway and down the corridor to his bedroom.
‘Daddy! Daddy! Show Mummy how much money we’ve made.’ Nicky stood beside his father, who was kneeling on the red carpet in front of his little computer, a cigarette smouldering in the ashtray beside him, holding
his whisky tumbler in one hand and tapping the keyboard with his other. A tall, powerfully built man, even kneeling he dwarfed the cluttered room. He turned and looked at her and smiled his nothing-has-changed-has-it? smile. ‘Hi, Bugs.’
She stared at him for a moment, at his handsome, almost old-fashioned face, the sort of face that belonged more to Forties Hollywood than Eighties London, his slicked-back blond hair, his pink shirt opened at the collar, his checked braces and pin-striped trousers. Stared at the man she used to love so much, who now felt almost like a stranger.
‘Good day?’ he said.
‘Fine.’ She leaned down, more for Nicky’s benefit than for anything else, brushed her cheek cursorily against his, feeling his evening stubble, and mouthed a blank kiss, like a goldfish. ‘You?’
‘Bit slow. Market’s a bit cautious.’
‘Show her, Daddy.’ Nicky put his arm around his father’s back, and patted him excitedly.
‘We’ve made him a little portfolio. Put a few shares in and I’ll update them each day from the Market.’
‘Great,’ she said flatly. ‘What are we going to have? The world’s youngest Yuppie?’
‘Yippie!’ said Nicky, jumping up and down. ‘We got bats.’
‘BAT, Tiger, British American Tobacco.’
The floor, shelves and windowsill were strewn with toys, mostly cars and lorries. He was nuts about cars. A monkey holding a pair of cymbals was lying across the forecourt of a Lego garage, and a robot looked as if it was about to leap off the windowsill. Her husband tapped some more figures out on the keyboard, and Nicky watched intently.
Nicky.
Nicky sensed that something had gone bad between his Mummy and his Daddy, and with a child’s intuition knew his Daddy was in some way responsible. It had seemed to make him even closer to Richard. If that was possible.
His father’s son. He’d nearly killed her when he was born, but he’d never really be her son. Always his father’s. They were close, so close. Cars. Planes. Lego. Games. Boating. Fishing. Guns. And now the computer they’d given him for Christmas. It was always Richard who taught him, Richard who understood his toys, Richard who knew how to play with them. Richard was his mate.
‘American Express down two and a half.’
‘Does that mean we’ve lost money?’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Aww.’
‘Bathtime, Nicky.’
‘Aww – just a few minutes more.’
‘No, come on, you’re late already. Start running it. Mummy’s going to change.’ Sam went out of the room and saw Nicky’s nanny coming out of the kitchen. ‘Hello Helen.’
‘Good evening, Mrs Curtis,’ Helen smiled nervously, unsure of herself as always.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Fine, thank you. He’s had a nice day. He did well at school. They’re very pleased with his arithmetic.’
‘Good. Must have got that from his father – I’m hopeless at it.’
Sam went into their bedroom and felt the same coldness she had felt in the office; it seemed to be following her around. She stared at the bright, warm colours of the painting of the reclining nude on the wall, with her massive breasts and earthy clump of pubes and sly grin
that she woke up and stared at every morning. Richard liked her. Insisted on having her there. She sat down on the four-postered bed, tugged off her shoes and leaned back for a moment. Her face stared back down from the mirrored panel on the top of the bed, her hair plastered down by the rain, her face white, much too white. Mirrors. Richard had a thing about mirrors.
She stared back at the painting of the nude. Was that what the tart in the office looked like? She wondered. The tart Richard had disappeared with off to a hotel in Torquay? Did she have big tits and a sly grin?
Bitch, she thought, anger and sadness mixing around inside her. It had all been all right. Fine. Great. A neat, ordered world. Happy times. Everything going well. Everything had been just fine.
Until she found out about that. It felt as if a plug had been pulled out from inside her and everything had drained away.
She sat on the edge of Nicky’s tiny bed and flicked over the pages of
Fungus the Bogeyman
on his bedside table. ‘Shall I read?’
‘No.’ He looked quite hurt. ‘Tell me a story. You tell the best stories.’
She glanced around the room. ‘You promised me you were going to tidy up. All those new things you got for Christmas are going to get broken.’ She stood up and walked over to a cupboard door which was ajar and opened it further. A plastic airliner fell out, and the tail section snapped off and cartwheeled along the carpet. Nicky looked as if he was about to cry.
‘That was silly. Who put that in there like that?’ She knelt down.
Nicky said nothing.
‘Was it you?’
Slowly, he pursed his lips.
‘Maybe Daddy’ll be able to fix it for you tomorrow.’ She lifted the pieces off the floor and put them on a chair, then sat back beside him.
‘It’s my birthday on Sunday, isn’t it, Mummy?’
‘Yes, Tiger.’
‘Am I going to get more presents?’
‘Not if you don’t tidy these up.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘Anyway, you had lots of presents for Christmas.’
‘Christmas was ages ago!’
‘Four weeks, Tiger.’
His face fell. ‘That’s not fair.’
She was taken aback at how sad he looked, and stroked his cheek lightly with her hand. ‘Yes, you’re going to have more presents.’
Bribes. I’m buying his love. Buying my own child’s love.
Shit.
‘Yippee!’ He pummelled the sides of his bed excitedly.
‘Come on now, calm down. It’s Wednesday. You’ve got four more days.’
‘Three more.’
She laughed. ‘OK. Three and a half.’ Her headache was feeling a bit better.
Nicky puffed out his cheeks and contorted his face, deep in thought, counting on his fingers. ‘Three and a quarter. Tell me a story now. Tell me a story about dragons.’
‘You’ve had one about dragons. I told you last night.’
He sat back expectantly, blinking his large blue eyes. ‘Go on, Mummy. Pretend it isn’t finished. Pretend the dragon comes back to life and chases the man that killed him.’
‘OK. Once upon a time in a land called Nicky-Not-Here-Land, there lived a horrible man.’
‘Why was he horrible?’
‘Because he was.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Horrible.’
He lay back, and was asleep before she had finished. She stood up and he opened his eyes. She bent down and kissed him.
‘Night, Tiger.’
‘You didn’t finish the story!’
Caught, she realised. Sharp. Kids were razor sharp. ‘I’ll finish tomorrow. All right?’
‘All right,’ he said sleepily.
‘Night night.’
‘Night night, Mummy.’
‘Do you want the light on or off?’
He hesitated. ‘On please.’
She blew him a kiss and closed the door quietly behind her.
Sam watched Harrison Ford dancing with Kelly Mc-Gillis in the headlights of his beat-up station waggon on the television screen. Her eyes smarted and she felt a surge of sadness for all that she – or they – had lost. For all that could never be the same again.
Richard slouched on the sofa in front of the television, whisky tumbler filled to its invariable four-finger measure beside him, and the bottle of Teacher’s a few inches further away, almost empty. The gas log fire flickered in the grate the far side of him, and Sam shivered in the draught that blew in from the Thames through the plate-glass windows that stretched the entire width of the flat’s living area.
The lighting in the room was low: just two table lamps were on, and there was a soft orange glow from the streetlighting across the river in Bermondsey. Sam turned her gaze away from the television and continued on around the oak refectory table, setting a red wine goblet at each place. ‘How many glasses do you want out, Richard?’
‘Uh?’
‘Glasses. How many do you want out? I’m laying the table for tomorrow.’
‘There’s going to be eleven of us.’
‘How many glasses each?’ she said, slightly irritated.
‘Three. We’re having Chablis and claret. Folatières ’83, Philippe Leclerc, then Calon Ségur ’62. That’s the last of my ’62s. And a Sauternes – really good one – Coutet de Barsac, ’71.’ He picked up the tumbler and drained half of it, then lit a cigarette. ‘Harrison Ford,’ he said, blinking at the screen. ‘Bloody good movie this.’ He drained the glass, placed his four fingers carefully around the base, and poured the remainder of the whisky from the bottle. ‘You’ll like the Chablis.’
‘Good,’ she said.
‘Archie’s a real wine man, know what I mean? First growth, no shit. Three hundred quid a bottle touch for lunch – Lafites and all that stuff. Style! You’ll like Archie. He’s a good boy.’
‘I think we should put one for Perrier as well. Everyone always wants it.’ She looked at him, but he was engrossed again in the television. ‘Are you serving port?’
‘Yah.’
‘I’ll put port glasses out as well.’
‘He’s a big player, Archie.’
‘Then you should have a nice game with him.’
‘City, Sam. He’s a big player in the City.’
‘Perhaps he can teach Nicky something, too,’ She
went over to the cabinet in the corner, and pulled out more glasses. The wind was howling outside, slapping the black water of the Thames against the piers below and shaking the rigging of the yachts. She could see the glints of light on the waves, the dark hulls of the lighters moored midstream. Bleak, she thought, turning away and carrying the tray to the table. ‘Is this famous Andreas definitely coming?’
‘Oh – er – yah.’ Richard shifted about on the sofa and took a gulp of his whisky.
‘So I’m finally going to meet him. What’s his surname again?’
‘Berensen.’
‘Does he have a place in London?’
‘No, he’s just over on business.’
‘From Switzerland? What exactly does he do? He’s some sort of a banker, isn’t he?’
Richard scratched the back of his head. ‘Ah – yah – a banker.’
‘A real gnome?’
‘Yah.’ Richard laughed, slightly uncomfortably. ‘Actually he’s quite tall.’
‘Is he your biggest client now?’
‘Yah. Sort of, I suppose.’ He was sounding evasive, Sam thought, frowning. ‘How’s work?’ he asked.
‘Hectic. I should still be there now.’
‘That guy Ken’s making you work too hard. All this travelling you’re doing is crazy. You’re travelling too much, you know, Bugs.’ He turned round.
His face, which had always looked fit and lean, had been sallow and lined lately, much older than his thirty-three years, and in the flickering light from the screen and the fire she suddenly caught a glimpse of what he would look like when he was old, when he no longer had the strength and energy that animated him and he
started to shrivel and cave in, like a ghoul from a horror movie. It frightened her. Ageing frightened her.
‘I have to travel.’
He drained two fingers of whisky and dragged hard on his cigarette again. The smell tantalised her, tempted her, and her refusal to weaken was making her irritated.
‘I don’t think you’re spending enough time with Nicky,’ he said.
‘I spent three years with him, Richard. I quit my career for him.’
He leaned over and crushed his cigarette out. ‘Dealer’s choice, darling.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was your choice.’
‘Our choice,’ she said. ‘I gave up three years. What did you give up? Why don’t you give up three years?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous.’
‘Bugs, I don’t mind you working, but what you’re doing is crazy. You’re working all hours of the day and night, you bring your work home, half the time you spend roaring around Europe, jumping on and off aeroplanes. You’re always off somewhere. France. Holland. Germany. Spain. Bulgaria. You went to Bulgaria about six times last year. I think you’re ignoring Nicky. You’re not being a good mother to him.’