Authors: Jonathan Coe
‘Did you and Verity have children?’
‘We
were
children: we didn’t need to have any. What about you?’
‘
He
had children. He had three daughters, from his first marriage, but he wasn’t allowed access to them. Understandably, I suppose. He was a manic-depressive and a born-again Christian.’
I didn’t know quite how to react to this. A large chunk of beef covered in oyster sauce fell from my chopsticks and landed on my shirt, and that distracted us for a while. Then I said: ‘Of course, I don’t know you very well, but somehow he doesn’t sound like your type.’
‘True: you don’t know me very well. Oh, he was my type all right. You see, unfortunately I’m one of those people … I have a giving nature.’
‘I’d noticed.’
‘The way I showered you with pot plants, for instance.’
‘The way you give money to beggars – even when they don’t really want it.’
This was a reference to an old man who had approached Fiona as we were walking to the restaurant. Although he had merely asked her for the time, immediately she had taken twenty pence out from her purse and pressed it into his palm. He seemed more taken aback than pleased, and it was left to me to tell him that it was actually a quarter to nine – for which he thanked me as he went on his way.
‘Quite,’ she said. ‘I take pity on people.’
‘Even when they don’t really want it?’
‘But nobody really wants it, do they? However desperate their case is. That’s what you find out, in the end.’ She sighed and stroked her wineglass pensively. ‘I won’t be marrying out of pity again, that’s for sure.’
‘His case sounds pretty desperate, anyway.’
‘Well, he and his wife had both been devout evangelicals for a while. They had these two kids and then she had an incredible job giving birth to the next one. The upshot was that she lost her religion – with a vengeance – and walked out on him, taking these three daughters with her. Faith, Hope and Brenda.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘What, him and me? Five years, nearly.’
‘Quite a while.’
‘Quite a while.’ She took the last shred of green pepper from her bowl and popped it in her mouth. ‘There are even moments – moments of great weakness, I have to say – when I miss him a little bit.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, it’s nice just to have somebody there, sometimes, isn’t it. He was quite helpful when my mother died, for instance. Quite kind.’
‘What about your father: is he … still …?’
‘Alive? I’ve no idea. He ran off when I was ten.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m an only child. Just like you.’
After that we found ourselves staring in silence at the debris of our meal. Fiona had replaced her chopsticks tidily on their cradle and, apart from a few stray grains of rice, her half of the tablecloth remained spotless. Mine looked as though it had recently been used by Jackson Pollock to form the basis of a particularly brutal composition fashioned entirely out of authentic Chinese foodstuffs. We ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of lychees.
‘Well,’ said Fiona. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that you’d opened up to me this evening, after all those promises. I wouldn’t say that your soul had been laid naked before me across the dinner table. All I’ve found out is that you got married at a ridiculously young age and that most of the time you’d rather watch films than talk to people.’
‘I don’t just watch films,’ I said, after a short pause during which I had the sensation of standing poised to dive into uncertain waters. ‘I obsess over them.’
She waited for me to clarify this.
‘Well, just one film, actually. And you’ve probably never heard of it.’
I told her the title and she shook her head.
‘I was taken to see it by my parents when I was only small. We left the cinema in the middle and ever since then I’ve had this strange feeling that it’s – that it’s never really finished, I suppose. That I’ve been … inhabiting it.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Oh, it’s a silly film. All about this wealthy family who turn up at a big country house for the reading of a will, and get bumped off one by one. It’s meant to be funny, of course, but I didn’t see it like that at the time. It scared me to death, and I fell wildly in love with the heroine, who was played by Shirley Eaton – do you remember her?’
‘Vaguely. Didn’t she come to a nasty end in a James Bond film, once?’
‘In
Goldfinger,
yes. She gets covered in gold paint and suffocates. But in this other film she has a scene with Kenneth Connor, where she invites him to stay the night in her room, and he’s very attracted to her and she’s obviously very kind and sensible as well as being beautiful, so it would be the best thing from every point of view, but he can’t bring himself to do it. There are all these terrible things going on in the house, this homicidal maniac wandering around the place, and yet he finds all of that less frightening than the thought of being alone with this wonderful woman for a whole night. And I’ve never forgotten that scene: it’s been with me for the last thirty years. For some reason.’
‘Well, that’s not hard to understand either, is it?’ said Fiona. ‘It’s the story of your life, that’s why you’ve never forgotten it.’ She took the last lychee out of the bowl. ‘Do you mind if I have this? They’re so refreshing.’
‘Go ahead. My tastebuds are crying out for some chocolate, anyway.’ I signalled for the bill. ‘Maybe there’ll be a shop open on the way home.’
∗
Outside, it became clear that the heatwave was now on the wane, and I noticed that Fiona was even shivering slightly as we walked back to our mansion block. We stopped at a late-night newsagent’s, where I bought an Aero and a white Toblerone: I offered her half of the Aero and was quite relieved when she didn’t take it. There was a light mist in the air as we turned off Battersea Bridge Road and began cutting up some side streets. This was a quiet, poorly lit area, the houses squat and mournful, the front gardens neglected, with few signs of life at this time of night except for the occasional cat bolting across the road at our approach. No doubt it was the effect of the alcohol and my excitement at the success, as I saw it, of the whole evening, but the atmosphere suddenly felt heady, pregnant with the certainty of similar, even better times to come, and I was filled with a wild optimism which had to be given voice, however obliquely.
‘I hope we can do this again soon,’ I stammered. ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself this much since … well, within living memory, let’s say.’
‘Yes, it’s been nice. Very nice.’ But there was something tentative about Fiona’s agreement, and it didn’t surprise me to hear a qualifying note enter her voice. ‘Only, I don’t want you to think … Look, I don’t really know how to put this.’
‘Go on,’ I said, when she faltered.
‘Well, I’m just not in the business of rescuing people any more. That’s all. I just want you to understand that.’
We walked on in silence. After a while she added: ‘Not that I really think you need rescuing. Maybe shaking up a little.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ I said, and then asked an obvious question: ‘Are you in the business of shaking people up?’
She smiled at that. ‘Possibly. Just possibly.’
I could sense the imminence of one of those critical, life-changing moments: one of those turning points where you must either seize the fleeting opportunity presented to you or watch helplessly as it slips from your grasp and recedes into invisibility. So I knew, apart from anything else, that I had to keep talking, even though I had nothing much left to say.
‘You know, I’ve always thought of luck as a negative thing; I’ve always felt that if luck has any kind of part in shaping our lives then everything must be somehow arbitrary and senseless. It never really occurred to me that luck can also bring happiness. I mean it’s only because of luck that I met you in the first place, it’s only because of luck that we live in the same building, and now here we are, two people —’
Fiona stopped, and brought me to a halt with her arm. Very gently she laid a finger to my lips and said, ‘Ssh.’ I was astonished by the intimacy of the gesture. Then she slid her hand into mine so that our fingers locked, and we walked on. Her body leaned into me. After only a few paces, she leaned even closer, until I could feel the brush of her lips against my ear. I steeled myself deliciously for her words.
‘I think we’re being followed,’ she whispered. ‘Listen.’
Stunned into silence, I let her hand drop and strained to catch a hint of anything untoward above the noise of our own irregular footsteps. And yes, there was something: a pursuing echo, some way behind us. Furthermore, when we stopped, it continued for a second or two and then paused abruptly; when we started again, it followed. Our movements were being shadowed with some accuracy.
‘I think you’re right,’ I said. It was one of my less helpful remarks.
‘Of course I’m right. Women develop a sense for it. You have to.’
‘Keep walking,’ I said. ‘I’m going to turn round and have a look.’
But by now the mist was thickening, and I couldn’t see more than about twenty yards back. It was impossible to be sure whether there was any movement behind the grey curtain of shifting fog. The footsteps were still with us, though, as audible as ever, and I started to propel Fiona forward by the elbow until our pace had almost doubled. We were not far from home, and I hit upon the idea of taking a few sudden detours in order to throw the stalker off our trail.
‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, after I had guided her into an unexpected right turn.
‘Keep walking and stick close to me,’ I said. ‘We’ll soon have him confused.’
I took another right and then a left and then doubled back down a footpath which led between a row of three-storey terraces. Then we crossed the road a couple of times and cut through a small alleyway which brought us out nearly at the edge of Battersea Park. We stopped and listened. There was the usual traffic noise, and the distant sounds of a party just beginning to warm up a few streets away. But no more footsteps. We sighed with relief and Fiona let go of my hand, as if only just realizing that she had been clasping it for the last ten minutes.
‘I think we’ve lost him,’ she said.
‘If there was anyone.’
‘There was. I know there was.’
We walked the rest of the way down the main road, a small unfamiliar distance having opened up between us. There was a short pathway leading up to our entrance porch, lined raggedly with laurel bushes, and it was here, just before unlocking the door, that I had been hoping to offer Fiona a first tentative kiss. But the mood was no longer right. She was still looking tense, her handbag held tightly to her chest within folded arms, and I was so flustered that I worked stupidly at the lock for what seemed like an age before noticing that I had taken out the wrong key. Then, when I had finally got the door open and was about to step inside, Fiona let out a sudden cry – somewhere between a gasp and a scream – and leapt in before me, grabbing my arm so as to drag me with her and slamming the door which she then stood against, breathing heavily.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘He was out there – I could see him. His face in the bushes.’
‘Who?’
‘For God’s sake, I don’t know who. He was crouched there, peering at us.’
I made for the door handle.
‘This is ridiculous. I’m going to take a look.’
‘No – Michael. Please, no.’ She stopped me with a cautioning hand. ‘I saw his face quite clearly, and … and I recognized him.’
‘Recognized him? – Well who is it?’
‘I’m not sure. I didn’t actually recognize him, but … I’ve seen his face before. I’m sure I have. Michael, I don’t think it’s you he’s following. I think it must be me.’
I shook myself free and said, ‘Well, we can soon settle this.’ I opened the door and slipped outside; Fiona followed as far as the step.
It was cold by now and very quiet. Thin lines of mist hung in the air and coiled strangely around the white glow of the street lamps. I walked up and down the pathway, across the lawns, and looked both ways along the street. Nothing. Then I checked the bushes, pushing my face between branches, cracking twigs and making sudden thrusts into every leafy opening. Again, nothing.
Except that …
‘Fiona, come here a minute.’
‘Not on your life.’
‘Look, there’s nobody here. I just want to see if you notice anything.’
She squatted down beside me.
‘Is this the bush where you saw him?’
‘I think so.’
‘Breathe in deeply.’
We inhaled together: two long, exploratory sniffs.
‘That’s odd,’ she said, after a moment’s thought; and I knew what was coming next. ‘There’s no jasmine round here, is there?’
2
Fiona and I watched
Orphée
together one evening, two or three days after our dinner at the Mandarin. She had recovered from her fright soon enough, and now I was the one who was having trouble sleeping. The last few hours before dawn would find me wide awake, listening tiredly to the fitful lull which, in London anyway, is the closest you ever get to silence.
…
La silence va plus vite à reculons. Trots fois …
My thoughts would be dizzy and incoherent, a pointless rehearsal of half-remembered conversations, unpleasant memories and wasteful anxieties. Once your mind is locked into such a pattern, it soon becomes obvious that the only way to break free is by getting out of bed: and yet this is the very last thing you feel capable of doing. It was only when the dry, acid tang in my mouth became too strong to bear that I would find the impetus to go out into the kitchen for a glass of water; after that, I might be assured of some sleep at last, because the circle would have been broken.
…
Un seul verre d’eau éclair le monde. Deux fois …
I had an alarm clock which was set for nine o’clock, but invariably I would wake before then. Struggling for consciousness, the first noise I recognized would not be the rumble of traffic or the passing aeroplanes, but the song of a persevering robin as he greeted the feeble daylight from the treetops beneath my bedroom window.