He heard the doorbell ring and went through the house. Two men stood in the porch.
‘Delivery for Mr Taylor. One flat-pack garden shed.’
Colin stared. Behind him he heard footsteps on the stairs; Natalie appeared, tousled from sleep, in her T-shirt and knickers. ‘It’s for you.’
‘But love, I’m building them myself.’
‘It’s a present.’ She kissed him on the cheek. He could see the men eyeing her up and down. ‘They’ve been taking you ages. I took pity on you. And this one’s much better.’
‘But we don’t have the money.’
She nuzzled him. ‘We do.’ She smelt of sleep, of their secret nights together. Her face, bare of make-up, looked scrubbed and vulnerable. He loved her like this – the private Natalie that was his alone. ‘I know you want to move the rest of your pets here, your mum’s getting fed up with them. This way you can bring them here quicker.’
She still called them pets but he didn’t like to correct her. She wasn’t interested in the scientific side of it, his breeding programme and rehabilitation unit. He said: ‘The boy next door, he thought I was a murderer.’
She laughed. ‘Just what I said when I saw you first – Christ, it’s the psychopathic gas fitter!’
He suddenly thought: It’s true. I could kill someone. If a bloke harmed my wife I would bludgeon him to death. Since meeting Natalie he had had so many surprising thoughts, so many new sensations, that this one hardly gave him a shock. Given the circumstance, who could predict their reactions anyway? Most people never had to find out.
‘I don’t want you slogging your guts out to buy me things,’ he said.
‘I don’t slog my guts out.’ She tickled his chin. ‘Trust me.’
By Sunday he had lined the pond and edged it with stones. He only had to install the pump, fill it up and pour in the anti-chlorine solution and it would be ready for its occupants. It was another blazing day – too hot for April, unnaturally so; the weather was weird nowadays.
Colin looked at the shed panels, stacked on the lawn. To be frank, he would have preferred to build his own. Those ready-to-assemble jobs were so flimsy that they fell to bits after a year or so. But he could hardly tell Natalie that.
At noon she appeared in a bikini and lay down on a blanket.
‘You got suntan lotion on?’ he asked. ‘Don’t get burnt.’
She lowered her sunglasses and grinned. ‘Just carry on with your erection.’
He blushed and turned up the radio. The news came on. He pulled open a plastic bag of screws – totally inadequate, a quarter-inch – and gazed at Natalie as she lay there sunbathing. She looked white and defenceless, like a hatched grub.
‘. . . The young woman found murdered in Manchester this morning has been identified as—’
‘Ugh!’ said Natalie. ‘Turn it off.’ She rolled on to her stomach.
After work on Monday, Natalie found a bunch of flowers stuck behind her windscreen wipers. No note, but she could guess. Stupid bastard, she thought. Anyone could have seen him doing it. It was a miracle he hadn’t set off the alarm.
Phillip had been appearing in the office more often during the past few weeks. Ostensibly talking to Mrs Coles, his eyes had been fixed on Natalie. Her ex-lover looked gaunt – thinner and somehow diminished. Somebody – guess who? – had cut his hair too short. It didn’t suit him. Natalie ignored him. From time to time, however, she had discovered gifts on her desk; the previous Thursday she had found a box of Terry’s All Gold, wrapped in ribbon.
She dropped the flowers on to the floor of her car where they remained, withering in their wrapper. She had no time for Phillip; she was surprised she had even fancied him. Her life was far too engrossing.
The evenings were lighter now. Colin had erected his final shed, the one she had bought him, and was going to fetch his last load of tortoises. They had recently emerged from hibernation. ‘Like me,’ he had said. ‘I was hibernating too.’
He spoke like this nowadays. The tongue-tied Colin was developing into a talkative young man; love had loosened the words from him.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘You haven’t seen me mam for weeks.’
Natalie shook her head. His mother made her uneasy. Those narrowed eyes seemed to bore into her soul. Mrs Taylor – she couldn’t bring herself to call her Peggy – was the only person whom Natalie feared.
‘She’d rather see you on her own,’ Natalie said. ‘She sees precious little enough of you as it is.’
Afterwards she thought: Don’t be stupid. I’ve got nothing to worry about.
Still, the next day her heart jumped when Sioban whispered: ‘There’s a thief in our midst.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Natalie.
‘Someone’s been nicking things. The Walrus found out.’
‘Ah.’ Natalie paused. ‘You mean, stationery and stuff.’
‘He’s beadier than he looks, the old sod.’
Sioban ground out her cigarette. Since Farida had gone matronly and given up the fags, Sioban had become Natalie’s smoking companion.
‘NuLine’s such shit,’ said Sioban. ‘Who do they think they are, Big Brother? If I could think of a way of fucking them up, big-time, I would. What’s a few paperclips, for Christ’s sake?’ Her cheeks reddened with irritation. ‘We all do it. It’s not stealing.’
‘No,’ said Natalie. ‘It’s a redistribution of wealth.’
At five thirty, however, she had another unwelcome shock. When she went down to the lobby, two policemen stood there. They were stationed in the doorway, stopping staff and searching their bags.
Natalie registered this at a glance. She turned round and ran back up the stairs. At the first-floor landing she paused, thinking fast. She had two cheques in her wallet, the day’s hits. If her bag was searched, they might be found.
She hurried into the toilets. Nobody was there. She went into a cubicle and shot the bolt. Rummaging in her wallet, she took out the cheques. Where could she hide them? It was a warm day; she wore just a skimpy top and skirt. She thought for a moment, then she stuffed the cheques into her knickers.
She stood there, breathing heavily, and gazed at the toilet-paper dispenser. Calm down, she told herself. They won’t be looking for cheques anyway. The paper felt awkward between her legs. She imagined hobbling downstairs, her legs bowed like a Greek granny, and burst into giggles. She made a swift calculation: £226.40 plus £212.25 equals . . . £438.65. All that money, nestling against her pubic hair. She thought: Nobody can call me a cheap date.
The main door opened; she heard its sigh and click. No footsteps, however, no cubicle door opening. Whoever it was must be standing at the mirror, silently applying their lipstick.
Natalie waited for them to leave. She remembered past moments in toilets – snorting cocaine when she was temping at a firm of accountants; trying to insert her diaphragm, in her pre-pill days, in a Greek karzey with flies buzzing around and a German called Hans waiting to take her down to the beach. Several shags, including the one with Phillip. Toilets held fond, illicit memories for her. And now, wedged in her knickers, she had funds for a weekend for two in Paris, all-inclusive, plus that pair of fake snakeskin shoes she had seen in Pied a Terre. Real snakeskin would be better, she thought, thinking of Colin’s python. What a creepy animal it was, wrapping itself around his body. It kills by squeezing its prey, he said. Suffocates it to death. All his reptiles were creepy, either sitting there motionless, eyes bulging, throats throbbing; or else suddenly, horribly quick.
Whoever it was, the person must have gone. Natalie pushed back the bolt and stepped out.
Phillip stood there.
‘Go away,’ she said.
‘I’ve got to see you—’
‘This is the ladies’.’
Lunging towards her, he gripped her shoulders. ‘You’re driving me mad.’
‘Piss off, Phillip.’ She tried to disentangle herself.
‘I love you, I can’t bear it any more—’
br />
‘You’re bloody married.’
‘I told you, me and Melanie—’
‘I’m married too. Fuck off!’
He held her tight. She smelt the familiar scent of his skin.
‘It’s been hell, I can’t bear it—’
‘And stop leaving me bloody flowers.’
‘I’ve got to see you again.’
He held her so tightly she couldn’t move. She felt his erection pressing against her stomach.
‘Somebody’ll come in!’ she hissed.
‘I love you.’ He pushed her against the washbasin. ‘I love you, Natalie – I’m crazy for you.’ His hand pulled up her skirt.
‘Fuck off!’ she shouted, panicking.
‘You’re driving me mad.’ He started to pull down her knickers.
Natalie broke away. ‘You want to bloody rape me?’
There was a silence. Phillip started sobbing. ‘I’m sorry, darling . . . I’m sorry.’ Tears ran down his cheeks.
She pulled down her skirt. Her heart was hammering. ‘It’s over, Phillip. Remember, you cheated on me? Remember that? Go home to your family, you snivelling little prick.’ She picked up her bag and swung it over her shoulder. ‘And if you try it on again I’ll report you for sexual harassment.’
She walked out.
Blimey, she thought. That was a near thing.
A few moments later she was down in the lobby, smiling at the police officer as he opened her bag.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said.
‘That’s OK. You’re only doing your job.’
He gave her back her bag and she skipped through the door, to freedom.
Chapter Two
DAVID SLEPT HEAVILY, those first weeks; he slept like the dead. It awed Sheila, that he could sink into oblivion, that the blackness could close him away from her as she lay beside him, waiting for dawn to lighten the curtains. Her pills were no use. They didn’t send her to sleep; nor did they quell the panic.
For she was terrified. She lay there, very still, trying to control it. To hold her body together needed every ounce of energy she possessed; she had to concentrate on it. But the panic made her bowels churn and she would have to rise from bed, very slowly, and make her way to the bathroom. Like an elderly person, she gripped the doorknob for support. Once seated on the toilet, it seemed impossible to think of getting up again. If she moved, the chaos would open up. It would claim her, pulling her down into nothingness.
Besides, why move? What was the point of being in one place rather than another? This thought alarmed her; she needed to shake herself out of it. So she would heave herself to her feet in preparation for the long journey back to the bedroom. Outside Chloe’s bedroom door she sometimes lost the will to move at all. When Chloe was small, Sheila would tiptoe in to check that she was still breathing. The miracle that she did.
Hours later Sheila would find herself sitting outside the bedroom door, chilled in her nightie. Dawn would arrive, eventually. Those early days in May, the dawns were beautiful. A detached part of her recognized this. There was one tree she could see, rising up behind the yard wall; it was misted with the tenderest green. Traffic was already building up, she heard the hum of it, but it seemed to be taking place a long way away, in another world entirely. It seemed extraordinary that they carried on driving, that people went on with their lives, getting in and out of cars, fuming in traffic jams, as if nothing had happened. People worried about things, about whether the plumber would turn up, wasn’t that strange? And stranger still that the days passed, one remorselessly following another. Did nobody realize?
She would climb back into bed carefully, like an invalid. She lay apart from David, for fear of touching him; she felt his skin would bruise. Her body gave off a sour smell. It was too much of an effort to wash. This alarmed her, but in a sluggish way. Besides, it hurt to move. Her bones ached; her guts felt corroded with acid. The sheer physical pain sometimes made it hard to breathe. David smelt too, of all the cigarettes he had smoked since Chloe’s death, thousands of them, and the whisky he was drinking at night.
So Sheila lay there, for what else could she do? She lay there, willing herself to stay sane. Ah, but the effort of it! Sometimes it didn’t seem worth the bother. She would just surrender herself up and free-fall, into the pit. Meanwhile she willed David to stay asleep a little longer, in sweet oblivion. She dreaded the moment he woke, for when he opened his eyes, just for a moment, he was a normal, groggy person facing a normal day. Then, a moment later, he remembered.
And then the letters of condolence would thud through the door, still several each day, some from strangers. Mr Hassan opposite opened up his shop as if all that mattered was setting out his goods and putting them away again, that was the point of it all. He had slipped a note through their door. She supposed a lot of people knew; after all, it had been all over the papers. For several days reporters had pestered them, that had been hellish, but David had told them to fuck off.
Certainly their customers knew, the regular ones anyway. David had insisted on reopening the pub after three days. ‘We’ll lose business otherwise,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to come down; Lennox and I will manage.’ David was a man of routine. She knew he clung to it, now more than ever, that he too was fighting the chaos in his own private way. He showered in the morning, he ate two slices of toast, as he always did, and stood outside for a few minutes until eleven sharp when he opened up. Archie, however, had stopped coming.
Amongst the customers there had been a certain amount of shuffling, some muttered words of sympathy and avoidance of her eye. There were fewer of them these days; a lot of familiar faces had melted away. The past week, the takings were down twenty per cent. It was hardly surprising, for who wants to have a drink in a house of death? Hey, let’s go out tonight and get bladdered! How about the Queen’s Head – know the one? Daughter murdered and dumped in Whitworth Street.
Sheila helped him behind the bar. David needed her because that week Lennox was due to leave. ‘May God be with you in your time of trouble,’ Lennox said, for it transpired that he was a born-again Christian, a fact that she and David, in their former life, would have found hilarious. ‘Take one day at a time, and keep our saviour Jesus in your heart.’
Being busy, she thought, might help. The trouble was, it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. She felt ill all the time, on the verge of vomiting. Stupid with grief, she mixed up the orders. David was patient with her. So were the customers. How many of them knew? She hardly had the energy to wonder, but some of them addressed her kindly, repeating their orders as if speaking to the retarded. She stopped the lunches; cooking them was out of the question. Besides, the sight of food made her nauseous.
And she would suddenly find herself standing still, incapable of movement. In Europa Food and Wine, where she had gone to buy some lemons, she came to a standstill in front of the cooking utensils. She looked at a cherry de-pipper. Somebody had bothered to invent that, wasn’t it odd? Chloe was dead and somebody had thought about taking stones out of cherries. Then she thought: Chloe’s birthday is on June the twenty-seventh. She would be twenty-two.
It was hard, being exposed to the world like this, flinching when somebody shouted, feeling as if she had been flayed. Crossing the road frightened her – how huge and unkind were the lorries, thundering past! When a driver shouted at a car, ‘Stupid cunt!’ she jumped as if she had been shot. And every day she had to face the customers, their mouths opening and closing and noise coming out.
The funeral was long over. It had felt like the most terrible day of their lives, her and David’s, but she hadn’t known what lay ahead. For in those early days her family rallied around, her mother and her sisters, her uncle and nephews, the whole clan of Sampsons. They were a demonstrative lot; they wept with her and held her in their arms. Her mother, whose tests had turned out to be negative – at seventy-five, she was given a further lease of life – her mother went into Chloe’s bedroom and
tidied it up. She emerged with scraped-out yoghurt pots, their teaspoons smeary. When Sheila came into the kitchen her mother was throwing a half-finished packet of Jaffa cakes into the bin. She jumped, as if caught in a criminal act. And then, seeing Sheila’s face, she made her a mug of hot chocolate, as she had when her daughter was small. Later Sheila heard the washing-machine rumbling with Chloe’s clothes.
But her family was no longer around, they couldn’t be there for ever. They too had lives. At some point Sheila had to face the long haul alone.
And she was alone. David sometimes put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Are you taking your pills?’ he asked. At the funeral he had cried briefly – loud, racking sobs that had alarmed her. But since then he had closed himself off. His fierce, stony grief was terrible to her.
Sometimes, late at night, he went out in the car. She heard the engine coughing into life, out beyond the yard, and then the whine as he reversed. An hour, two hours, he was gone.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked when he was undressing.
‘Out.’
And then he climbed into bed and slept like the dead. Sometimes she resented this, and sometimes she was glad for him. Sometimes, during the long watches of the night, she slipped her hand into his. He would squeeze it briefly – was he really awake, and faking it? And then his hand lay there, inert, and finally she gave up and slipped hers out.
The next day, if she went out in the car, it stank of cigarettes.
‘We’ll get him, Mr Milner,’ said the detective. ‘It’s only a matter of time.’
‘A matter of time?’ snapped David.
‘We have thirty officers working on the case. Crimewatch created a huge response, we’re following up a number of leads. You’d be amazed what crops up . . . memories jogged, things people have seen but thought nothing of at the time . . .’ He laid two biros side by side. ‘I know nothing I can say will help you, believe me, I do understand that—’