That’s for nothing, George—now start something. A slight sway of the hip.
But she bought some for herself too—for “reception” (a smaller vase)—and I saw she’d put it down in the books she was starting to set straight: “Office Flowers.” A weekly item. Not for nothing: I was paying.
One of her many introductions—along with sorting out those books, along with her whole “refurbishment plan.”
“Presentation, George. It makes sense. If they see a vase of flowers, it’s reassuring. It’s good for business.”
True. And no nasty smells. And no bad jokes. You’re my presentation, Rita. When they see you … I didn’t say it. All the same, it was true.
And why hadn’t I thought of it myself? A simple touch. A vase of flowers. From Jackson’s here, only just across the street. Not to mention the personal factor. Be kind to yourself. Eat well. Go easy. Buy yourself some flowers.
I used to be a cop. The police don’t go in for flowers. But I had the example from long ago: my dad’s shop, with the studio above. Right next door to a florist’s. And Dad was always buying flowers.
The girl wipes her hands on her apron. The buckets are packed tight. Everything has the feeling of being just picked—as if there’s a magic garden, just out the back, defying the November frost. A cold sweat on the grey metal.
All the little daily mysteries. How do flowers—lilies in midwinter—arrive in town? And the bigger mystery, which isn’t such a mystery: how come flower shops still exist? In this day and age. This place, Jackson’s, I’m always expecting it to go, the way shops suddenly vanish, but it hasn’t. Whole shops full of flowers. How come it hasn’t been scrapped long ago, this daft soft urge to go and buy flowers?
And he was actually called Rose—the florist next to my dad’s. Charlie Rose. As if he’d never had a choice: a whole life in a name. But no choice in any case, according to him: “You think of all the reasons why people buy flowers, and you tell me if there’s a better thing to sell.” Charlie and Kate Rose (her name should have been Daisy or Violet at least).
“And shall I tell you the biggest reason? What they’re really for. Conscience. That’s what they’re for.”
Why haven’t we all become florists? And, yes, if I could arrange it, this place wouldn’t even be here, on this side of the street, it would be below my office. What presentation, what planning. They’d have to come up almost right through a florist’s.
Though what I have is special enough: a tanning studio, a “Tanning Centre.” Under my office—but I don’t think about it much—naked women stretch themselves out. I’ve said to Rita, “Why don’t you give it a go? You could pop down for an hour, pop back up. My treat.” But she never has. It’s full of young girls. I think she thinks at her age it only shows up the lines.
“Why don’t you?”
A tanning studio. Flowers, suntans in winter. We have it easy, a place for every need.
The girl steps through the light again as if she’s passing through some screen. She’s wearing one of those puffy sleeveless jackets, over an apron, a polo neck sweater. A loose strand of hair. You can picture her breath steaming not so long ago as she unloaded a van.
I don’t have to dither. I go for the tried and true. Anyway, I have my commission. I point to the red roses, the flowers still thick half-buds, the outer petals, in the shadows of the shop, sooty-dark.
“A dozen, please.”
The girl counts out the stems, holds them up for me to approve. I nod. She smiles. You can’t help the obvious thought: a flower as well. I smile back. She turns into a silhouette again, then goes to the table in the corner and spreads out a sheet of wrapping-paper.
There’s a cold draught from the back and a woman bustles in: the owner. She’s wearing a thick coat, undone, the collar turned up, and boots that show an edge of fleecy lining. I know her, she knows me. She knows what I do. Could she even know what day it is today? Put two and two together?
A quick nodding smile. She’s thinking of other things. A pair of scissors in her hands. Perhaps all she’ll say to the girl, after I’m gone, is: “He’s a private detective, and he buys flowers.”
Roses, blood-red roses. The same as last year. What else could it be?
The girl hands me the bunch and I reach for my wallet. Half-past ten. It’s a short drive. I get a sudden black bitter taste.
In my father’s studio there’d always be—easily restocked—a big vase of flowers. A prop, if required, or just an encouragement, a prod. I can hear his routine (one of many):
“Look at the flowers … now look at the camera … but think of the flowers. Smile!”
4
Two years ago and a little more. October still, but a day like today, blue and clear and crisp. Rita opened my door and said, “Mrs. Nash.”
I was already on my feet, buttoning my jacket. Most of them have no comparisons to go on—it’s their first time. It must feel like coming to a doctor. They expected something shabbier, seedier, more shaming. The tidy atmosphere, Rita’s doing, surprises and reassures them. And the vase of flowers.
White chrysanthemums, I recall.
“Mrs. Nash, please have a seat.”
I could be some high-street solicitor. A fountain-pen in my fingers. Doctor, solicitor—marriage guidance counsellor. You have to be a bit of all three.
The usual look of plucked-up courage, swallowed-back hesitation, of being somewhere they’d rather not be.
“My husband is seeing another woman.”
There aren’t so many ways of saying it—but you have to look as if you haven’t heard it said in every possible way. They’re all unique: the only one to have to come to the doctor with this rare complaint.
“I see. I’m sorry. Can I offer you some coffee—tea?”
A doctor—a specialist. You’re already gauging the symptoms. At any moment now there could be tears, curses, fireworks, waterworks. They all come with a script, fully rehearsed, and at some point it all gets abandoned.
Something I never expected: that this would be the most demanding, the most absorbing, the most rewarding part of the job. Things you weren’t taught in the Force.
She didn’t want coffee or tea. But Rita, I knew, was outside, like a trained nurse with the emergency trolley, ears pricked, kettle primed, ready to rush in with the tray at a moment’s notice.
And, as an extra fall-back, the bottle of Scotch in the little cabinet in the corner. Strictly for client use only. Though it’s surprising how often they’ll say, “Aren’t you going to have one too?”
“You know, or you think?”
“I know.”
No hesitation there. She had eyes that seemed to shift—under a slight frost—from black to brown, to ripple. Tortoiseshell. The hair was the same. Black, you’d say, but when the sunlight from the window caught it you saw it was deep brown.
Another thing I never expected—though it’s obvious, you only have to think. Mostly women. Or say sixty per cent.
I said to Helen, my daughter, “They’re mostly women, Helen.”
She said, “Is that a complaint?”
And some of them don’t just come in with their lines rehearsed, they come in as if for a full-blown audition, as if they’ve spent the last two hours in front of a mirror. (Rita, for example.) Dressed to kill. Clouds of scent. They don’t want you to think it’s for that reason, that it’s out of neglect. They’ve made the decision, but they’ve got their pride.
Doctor, solicitor, casting director …
But she wasn’t one of the star turns—if she wasn’t cheaply dressed. The black coat: pure cashmere. She’d done her face, I guessed, in the hasty, automatic way of women who don’t need to slap it on like war paint. She didn’t need to—though she might be going to war.
You think, of course, of the husband. You think: What could be going on here? You put yourself in the husband’s shoes (that’s what they know you’ll do).
Early forties—forty-two, forty-three—and in good shape.
The eyes with just their touch of frost. Clever quick eyes—the frost making them look stern. But you could imagine them melting.
A teacher, it turned out, a college lecturer. Used to running the show.
Teachers—even on day-release in the Force—always used to give me the willies.
Clever, and comfortably off: the coat. An easy ride through life, probably, till now. So the sternness was thin. One of those women who come with a little professional crispness and firmness, but you can still see in them the woman of half their age, the girl.
“I see. So you know who the woman is?”
She’d undone her coat but hadn’t taken it off, and she was carrying a bag, a plain black soft-leather bag which she’d unhooked from her shoulder and let slip to the floor. The flaps of her coat fell open. A black skirt of some velvety material, a sandy-coloured top over a white blouse. The bar of sunshine between us caught her knees and gave them an almost tinselly sheen. They didn’t seem like the usual knees of women that can project from a skirt with all kinds of angles and meaning. They were just knees caught in the light.
It was her knees, maybe.
“Yes. Her name is Kristina Lazic.”
“That sounds foreign.”
“She’s from Croatia.”
“Could you spell—?”
I’d pulled my notebook towards me. There’s a point where it helps to get brisk.
“And do you know where your husband and Miss Lazic—is it Miss?—meet?”
“It’s Miss. Yes, I can give you the address. It’s a flat in Fulham. A first-floor flat. We rent it for her—I mean, my husband rents it for her.”
“I see.”
“Before this—I mean before she lived in the flat—she used to live under our roof.”
“I see.”
I sensed her watching my pen move over my pad, as if I was being slow. It was Rita who bought me the pen (when she found out my birthday). “It looks posh, George, it’s got class. A fountain-pen, not these crappy old biros.”
A fountain-pen. Tortoiseshell. It was Rita who’d used the word.
“I see. And you’d like me to—keep your husband and Miss Lazic under observation? You’d like me to establish evidence?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. You see, it’s all over. It’s all over. Kristina is going back to Croatia—in maybe three, four weeks. Do you follow the news? It’s agreed. She’s getting a plane. What I want you to do is follow them to the airport. Watch them. That’s all.”
“Let me get this clear. It’s ‘all over’—you mean it’s all over between Miss Lazic and your husband?”
“Yes.”
“But you said ‘them’—‘follow them.’ You mean your husband is going to take Miss Lazic to the airport?”
“Yes. To see her off. It’s—a last concession. It’s his last three weeks.”
“But—if it’s all over, if she’s leaving, why do you want me to follow them?”
The first real pause. The first slight quiver of the lips. She looked like someone owning up to something.
“To see if she really goes. To see if they really go to the airport. And, if they do, to see if she really gets the plane—I mean, by herself. If they don’t just fly off together, somewhere. Any plane, anywhere. Will you do this for me? Will you follow them and watch them and tell me what happens?”
As if she was suddenly begging some friend.
“Of course.”
And I was thinking: jobs don’t come easier. Money for old rope. I might have handed it over to Rita.
But I saw the glitter in her eyes. Melting frost. Sometimes they gush or explode. Sometimes there’s just a wetness in the eyes. It can lead on to other things, but if it doesn’t you have to pretend it isn’t there.
All the time she’d been holding on to the strap of her shoulder-bag, twisted round her fingers, like a pet on a lead.
“Of course I can, Mrs. Nash, no problem. But I’ll need details. The date and time of course, details of the flight—the intended flight. Are we talking about Heathrow? The address you mentioned, is that where they’ll be driving from? In your husband’s car? Will they be going in his car? What does he drive?”
The tears didn’t spill, they didn’t dry up.
“And I’ll need photographs, of each of them, if you can supply them. For recognition purposes, you understand. Can I ask what your husband does?”
5
I cross back over the Broadway and make for the side-alley where I leave the car. If Rita’s watching she’ll have lost me now. Well, if she wanted, she could sneak out and shadow me all day, the office left on hold. If she did it carefully, how would I know? Under surveillance by my own staff—all one of them. It’s what happens. You train them up …
The car, tucked in, by old arrangement (and annual rent) against the side wall of Leigh’s yard, is like an ice-box, though it’s only been standing a couple of hours. There’s still an oval of unmelted frost on the roof.
I put the flowers on the back seat. The wrapping (silver and grey stripes) is almost superfluous, since I mean to take them out and lay them just by themselves and flat. There are those little perforated pots you can get, made for the purpose, I don’t know where from. Florists maybe. And the cemetery must have water taps. But it’s November, a cold snap: they aren’t going to last long, either way. And the flowers themselves are almost superfluous. It’s the thought that counts.
“Will you do it for me, George?”
“Yes, of course.”
I don’t know how she gets through this day. This night. November 20th. Is the second year easier than the first? Is that how it works—it’s time that serves you? Does it get any more possible to say (how can it?): that was someone else, another person, not me?
Like the photo of yourself as a kid, staring at you from another world, another planet. Was that me, really me? And the kid stares back as if he doesn’t know you either, never seen you before in his life.
Time: it’s really on your side?
I switch on the engine. The dark taste again. The old faded sign on the wall says “Leigh’s—Bathroom and Sanitary Ware.” Then I creep out from the shadow of the wall and turn into the glare of the sun in the alley, grabbing my shades from the dash.
“Yes, of course I’ll go. And take flowers.”
And report back.
It’s the first time this has happened (though it’s only the second year)—this day and my visit coinciding. It won’t happen again, maybe. Every two weeks (and it can’t always be Thursdays). Two years now, and—we don’t know—another eight, if we’re lucky, maybe nine. Another five before we’ll even know the chances. By then she’ll be somewhere else, again. She’ll have done the rounds. But now two years have gone, she knows, we know, we don’t have to think about it any more: I’m here for the duration.
And wherever she goes …
The time’s gone when she used to look at me coldly, almost with hate. (She had to do it, I know, turn herself to ice.) You won’t keep this up, George, you’ll stop, just wait, just you see. The time’s long gone when she first let the look change—if she didn’t risk the words. Please come back. Please be here next time.
Now it’s a different look still. It’s just a look that passes between us, a look that could pass through a wall.
Where would I be without you, George?
In prison, I suppose.
Eight more years. Maybe. Five before we’ll even have a clue.
A photo of Sarah when she was five years old. I wanted a picture, I don’t know why it was important, of when she was small. She told me where I could find the albums, the loose photos, a whole collection of stuff, tokens, souvenirs, little things her parents had put away once. (Thank God, she said, they were both dead.) Treasures from another life.
“Burn it all, George. Fucking burn it all.”
But I didn’t. I’m their secret curator now (I think she knows).
And there—would you believe it???
?in a white embossed-card frame, behind a flap of gauze-paper, was a photo of Sarah aged (I’d say) five. And it was taken in my father’s studio—his stamp on the back—in Chislehurst High Street, in nineteen fifty-something (she’d lived in Petts Wood then).
The things that wait and lie in store.
• • •
The sun feels warm through the windscreen, but the street’s full of people hunched in coats, chins buried in scarves. I drive along the Broadway, past the station, towards the Hill. From Wimbledon’s lower end (my end) to the snooty Village on the hill. Past Worple Road. Then at Woodside I turn right, and then left into St. Mary’s Road, and I’m into the leafy, looked-after, quiet zone of houses set back from the street, of lawns and drives and hedges and burglar alarms. Rooftops backed by trees.
I have to do it. I didn’t say—nor did she. But I have to do it, today. Beecham Close. Number fourteen. Someone else lives there now. Another world, another planet. I could find out all about them, check them out. It’s how I make my living, after all.
A zone, as you climb the hill, of verges and double garages and wrought iron and speed bumps and private nursery schools. But don’t knock it. If you make your living how I do, then make it where they’ll pay your fees, and where—with all they’ve got—they can still (you’d be surprised) do the strangest things.
And don’t knock it anyway. This home-and-garden land, this never-never land where nothing much is ever meant to happen. These Wimbledons and Chislehursts. What else is civilization for?
6
Money for old rope. I might have passed the job to Rita.
“These are my terms, Mrs. Nash.” I handed her the slip of paper. “For a job like this I won’t ask you to sign anything—and I won’t assume I’m hired until I get precise instructions. The rule is—for obvious reasons—you contact me, I don’t contact you.”
They blink, a little startled. They’ve already entered a conspiracy, a pact.