Final Demand

  Why doesn’t she make an effort? he asked his wife. Why doesn’t she do something about her hair? It just sort of hangs.

  Natalie came out, carrying a plastic bag. Colin was right; she was very pretty. Even at this distance he could see that. She stopped outside a halal butcher. Carcasses hung in its window. David could tell, however, by the way she stood that she wasn’t looking at the meat. She was checking her reflection in the glass. Men – a Rastafarian, another black guy in a tracksuit – looked at her.

  She could be pretty if she lost some weight.

  Wisps of hair were visible under her beret. It looked blonder than in the photo. She hurried over to her car; a traffic warden stood there, opening his notebook. She said something to him; he laughed. David watched her smiling at him, flirting with him. He felt a pain beneath his ribcage. Get a life, he’d said to Chloe. This young woman, she went shopping, she charmed traffic wardens. No doubt she had a job and a boyfriend.

  She got into her car. He drove behind her as she turned left at the tube station and speeded up a one-way street. He had to accelerate, to keep up. It was ten thirty. He was due at the pub at eleven but that was irrelevant now. He would never go back. Pubs were used to unreliable bar staff, here today, gone tomorrow. She turned right, again without indicating, and drove along a street of shuttered-up shops. The sun shone on the grimy brickwork of the houses.

  She stopped again, suddenly. He nearly crashed into her car. He braked, reversed and drove around her, keeping his head averted. Further up the street he pulled in and looked into his rear-view mirror. She was backing her car into a parking space.

  David switched off the engine and sat there. His heart raced; he longed for a smoke. In the mirror he saw her taking out her bags and dry cleaning. She slammed the door shut and pressed a remote; the car lights flashed as she immobilized it.

  She walked up to a side door, next to a restaurant, and rummaged for her keys. Her dry cleaning slid on to the pavement; she picked it up. Then she let herself in through the door, awkwardly, sideways, the stuff over her arm, and went into the house.

  He had her. David sat in his car, unable to move. His triumph exhausted him. Like a murderer, he had tracked down his victim. He could kill her now.

  For that was how he felt. He had a strong desire to kill her – not for what she had done, which was bad enough, but for what she was: alive, and beautiful, and living the life his daughter should have been living, had she shown any inclination to do so.

  He felt terribly tired. It took a superhuman effort just to start the engine. He drove back to the Elephant and Castle, back to his room. Fully clothed, he lay down on his bed and slept like the dead.

  Chapter Five

  SUNDAY DAWNED WITH a cold, hard light. David didn’t return to Finsbury Park. Instead he drove to Greenwich, through canyon-streets that blinded him with their glare and then plunged him into shadow. They flickered in his eyes like a black-and-white film. Church bells rang. He felt alert, the blood singing in his veins.

  He walked on to the top of Greenwich Park and sat there, gazing over the city. Now London had delivered Natalie up to him he felt released; he knew what he had to do and there was a certain luxury in delaying it. Natalie was his, and her ignorance of this made him, just for a moment, feel protective towards her. And then the anger surged up again.

  How fair was the city, spread out in the sunshine! It looked so blameless. Distance had dissolved the banal acts of evil that must be taking place even as he looked. David sat on a bench, the winter sunshine warming his face. He had stepped from one part of his life into another; the excitement quickened his heart.

  He got up and walked through the park. The air cut into his lungs. His senses were so sharp that he could feel each blade of grass, crushed by his shoes. The bare tree trunks caught the sun. He suddenly remembered a poem written by a long-ago girlfriend, Bea.

  The tall trees, through understanding grieving

  Their long black branches weaving

  A dream, across the lonely sky

  Dreamt in the substance of the wind’s soft sigh . . .

  What had either of them known of grief, then?

  This dream is the web of God, and I, the fly.

  Sometimes words chased ahead of you; they waited, patiently, for you to catch up with them.

  What had happened to Bea, with her hippy plaits? When they broke up she disappeared to Ireland. He had thought at the time: no sorrow can be worse than this.

  When darkness fell he went back to his digs and packed his bag. The shower, down the corridor, was broken. He shaved at his basin and changed into fresh clothes. As he picked up his car keys he looked around the room for the last time. It was seven o’clock. In the flats opposite, the lights were lit. It was Sunday evening, the slackest night of the week in the pub trade. Despite the lure of pub quizzes and karaoke nights, people stayed in, closed off from the world; families drew together in front of the telly. He looked up at the sixth-floor window, where the unknown person had kept vigil with him, through so many nights. For once, the window was dark.

  David parked, switched off the engine and sat there for a while. The terrace glowed dully in the sodium light. The Blue Elephant restaurant was closed. There were three floors above it, but only one set of windows was illuminated. He willed them to be hers.

  He got out of the car and walked across the street. There were two names beside the doorbells: Brandon and T. Ongali. The third was a blank. He pressed that one.

  Nothing happened. He waited a while and pressed the bell again. Upstairs, he heard a window slide open.

  ‘Yes? Who is it?’ A head looked down; it was her.

  He looked up. ‘Natalie Taylor?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘David Milner.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I just want to talk.’

  ‘Sorry, she’s not here.’

  The window slid down. He rang again; no reply.

  Down the street, diagonally opposite, stood a pub. David decided to wait it out; he couldn’t think what else to do. He crossed the road and went inside. A few old boozers sat around, their faces lifted to the TV that hung from the ceiling. They might be old lags, but they’re our old lags. He suddenly missed Sheila with such force that it took his breath away. The place was barely ticking over; the moment he stepped through a door he could sense a failing pub. Behind the bar stood the landlord: blazer, tie, inflamed complexion. He stood ramrod-straight; there was an ex-army look to him.

  David ordered a double Bell’s and sat beside the window. He lit a cigarette and waited.

  Time passed. An old girl came in and ordered a Guinness. ‘Went to Epsom,’ she said. ‘Nana took me.’

  The publican muttered something. He was older than David and had lost even more hair; the shape of his skull was visible under his skin.

  David kept his eyes on the street. An hour had passed. He thought: I’ve waited all these months, I’m not going to give up now. Three youths danced sideways along the pavement, kicking a can.

  He remembered another old girlfriend, Leah. She had a twelve-string guitar; they used to play bottleneck blues together . . . Been down so long, got nowhere to go but up, they sang in Mississippi Delta voices. She had got pregnant. If she had gone through with it, how old would his child have been? David worked it out: thirty-three. An almost middle-aged person, walking the earth.

  ‘How’s the leg bearing up?’ asked the landlord.

  The old woman told him. David’s mind wandered. Where was Leah now, the girl with whom he had, briefly, created a child? He hadn’t thought about her for years. How strange it was, how girls surfaced in one’s life. For weeks or months their daily life was as familiar as his own – doctor’s appointments, quarrels with their parents. And then they submerged, back into the place from where they came, Morecambe or Southport, back into their former lives, never to be seen again.

  Out in the street the door opened. Natalie came out. David had imagine
d this happening so many times that for a moment he thought it was an illusion. He drained his drink and stood up. Through the window he saw her walk down the street and disappear into the one shop that was open, an off-licence.

  He left the pub and crossed the road. A white van, Self-Drive Rental, was parked near her front door. He hid behind it.

  Carrying a plastic bag, she emerged from the shop. When she reached her doorway David stepped out.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Go away, whoever you are,’ she said, and tried to put her key into the lock.

  ‘I’m not from the police, I’m not anything to do with your husband.’

  ‘Fuck off—’ Her hand was shaking; she couldn’t get the key in.

  ‘But I did see Colin.’

  She swung round. ‘Does he know where I live?’

  David shook his head. ‘He was really upset, though.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s David Milner. Do you recognize it?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘It was written on a cheque.’

  ‘A cheque?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs D. Milner.’

  She gazed at him, puzzled. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘One of those cheques you stole, it was mine.’

  She stared at him, her face blanched in the sodium light.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m not asking for my money back.’ He smiled at her. It was so long since he had smiled that his skin felt stretched.

  ‘What do you want, then?’

  ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he said.

  With some reluctance, she followed him across the road and into the pub. He sat her down at the table by the window and fetched them drinks: a gin and tonic for her and a ginger ale for himself; he had to keep his mind clear.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ she said. A roar of laughter came from the TV.

  ‘It was a final demand, I remember paying it. I know I paid it. My wife said I didn’t, but I remember posting it. I’m not barking mad.’ He smiled again. He tried to keep his tone light. ‘And you stole it.’

  ‘But how did you know?’ She stopped; her eyes narrowed. ‘Anyway, I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Oh come on, Natalie. Of course you did. See, my phone was cut off.’

  ‘But nobody knew—’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The payments went through, that’s what was so clever—’ She stopped.

  ‘It’s OK, I won’t tell anybody. That’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘Why are you here, then? You want your money back?’

  ‘Last orders!’ called the landlord, and rang a bell.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about the money,’ David said.

  ‘Because nobody lost out, not the way I did it, only the big outfits, and who gives a fuck about them?’

  ‘It’s not the money.’

  ‘Last orders, ladies and gentlemen, please!’

  David said: ‘My daughter died.’

  ‘It’s Chilean Merlot.’ Natalie took a bottle out of her plastic bag. ‘That OK?’

  She uncorked the wine and fetched two glasses. She wore a fluffy jumper and black leggings; he hadn’t really looked at her until now. They were up in her flat. There was a temporary feel to the place – mismatched furniture, marks on the walls where other people’s pictures had hung. It looked as if she were just passing through, as he had done.

  ‘So, what happened?’ she asked, passing him a glass of wine.

  He told her about the club, how Chloe went there for a party.

  ‘I know Pixies,’ Natalie said. ‘I’ve been there.’

  ‘I’d promised to collect her, whatever the time. That was our deal. But when she phoned, she couldn’t get through. The line was dead.’ He gazed out of the window; one by one, the lights in the pub were extinguished. ‘She couldn’t get a minicab, they were all booked up, so she decided to walk.’ Speaking it aloud, after the months of silence, was not the relief he had thought it would be. He stopped.

  ‘She was that girl . . .’ Natalie looked at him wonderingly. ‘I read about it in the papers.’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘She died because of your greed. How much was it – a hundred pounds? A hundred and fifty? I can’t remember. She died because of your pissy little fraud.’

  ‘Don’t blame me—’

  ‘It was all your fault.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ Her eyes blazed. ‘Look, I’m sorry for what happened, it must be terrible, but why blame me? Why don’t you blame the person who took the minicab your daughter could’ve taken? Or the person who maybe was in the loo, so your daughter had to wait, so she was five minutes later and that meant she was walking down the wrong street at the wrong time, just when a car—’

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Blame the buses for not running all night, blame Manchester bloody public transport. Blame your daughter for not asking someone there for a lift, oh I don’t know!’ Natalie stopped, breathing heavily. ‘You’re just trying to make sense of it but there isn’t any sense, it’s all a bloody lottery, haven’t you realized that yet? It’s like, you put a pin in a map. That’s all it is, no more and no less. Don’t you understand?’ She stubbed out her cigarette in a saucer. ‘Just because you’ve got to dump it somewhere, don’t dump it all on me. You don’t even know me.’

  There was a silence. David suddenly felt weary.

  She drained her glass. ‘Blame the man who murdered her.’

  Down in the street a car hooted. A door slammed; somebody roared with laughter. Then the car drove away and there was silence.

  David got to his feet. ‘Can I have a bath?’

  He lay submerged in the foam. He had poured in Lime and Geranium Bath Gel. The shelf was crowded with girlie things: perfume, a bottle of cleanser, a pack of Go-Blonde Hair Lightener. There was a grubby make-up bag and a bottle of Pantene Soft’n’Easy Conditioner, the sort Chloe used to buy. Natalie, too, had left the lid off.

  David lay there until the water grew tepid; he might as well do this as anything else.

  Love, oh love oh careless love . . . his daughter used to sing. How did the rest go?

  Taught me to weep, it taught me to moan, it taught me to lose my happy home. Such a pure, true voice she had.

  Through the wall he heard a tuneless singing as Natalie rattled around in the kitchen. Maybe she was fixing herself some dinner, though it must have been way past midnight. He felt the faint stirrings of hunger; he hadn’t eaten all day.

  What was he going to do now? The expected scene – remorse, tears – had failed to materialize. She was too tough for him. She’ll always be one step ahead, will Nat. Know why? Because she looks after number one.

  He picked up a towel from the floor. It was damp; Natalie wasn’t the most diligent hostess. Though it was dark green, there were pale patches on it: peroxide. He recognized the signs from a few years earlier, when Sheila had briefly and disastrously dyed her hair blonde. ‘I look like Barbara Windsor on a bad day,’ she had said.

  What was she doing now? Maybe she had set up a hairdressing salon in Hebden Bridge. Twenty-eight years of marriage and she had submerged too, back into the unknown. When they had first met they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He had recorded compilation tapes for her, three of them, they had taken weeks – stopping and starting the numbers, timing them and re-recording the ones that overran. A labour of love.

  David dressed and went back into the living room. Natalie turned down the sound on the TV and pointed to a plate.

  ‘You like taramasalata?’ She had spread it on crackers.

  David took a bite but the cracker disintegrated, drily, and clogged his throat. Natalie uncorked the second bottle of wine and passed him a glass.

  ‘I know who we can blame,’ she said. ‘The bastard who broke into my car. That’s when I got the idea, when I saw a cheque for the cost of an alarm. Funny, isn’t it, how one idea leads
to another. Let’s say the whole thing’s his fault.’ She laughed briefly. ‘Turned out he committed a bigger crime than he thought.’

  There was a silence. David swallowed a mouthful of wine. Finally he asked: ‘Want to know what it’s like?’

  ‘What what’s like?’

  ‘She’d be going clubbing, like you do. She’d be washing her hair and meeting people and laughing.’

  ‘I don’t go clubbing, not any more.’ Natalie put down her half-eaten cracker. ‘Shall I tell you something? I’m in this great big city and I don’t know anybody. I stay here in this room and watch TV.’

  ‘To tell the truth, she didn’t go out much.’

  ‘I don’t dare talk to anybody in case they find out who I am,’ she said. ‘It’s like I’m in prison already.’

  ‘I wanted her to go out and have a good time. Trouble was, she’d put on weight, she didn’t look like you.’

  ‘Think that makes a difference?’

  ‘She used to be slim and quite pretty really. I was so proud of her – I used to be a good photographer, I used to take her photo—’

  ‘Tell me about it. I knew this photographer once, said he’d get me into modelling—’

  ‘But I stopped. When she was a teenager I stopped because . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Last I heard, he was doing nine years.’

  ‘I do know,’ said David. ‘I stopped and now I’ve got nothing to remember her by.’

  ‘At least she had a father,’ said Natalie. ‘She had you.’

  ‘But I never told her the important things.’ Suddenly the words poured out. ‘I just shouted at her about her room and all the things that irritated me and really it was because I loved her and I couldn’t bear her not to make the best of herself.’

  ‘She had you.’ Natalie glared at him. ‘Aren’t you listening? My dad couldn’t be arsed, he just buggered off, and know what my mum’s like? I bet your wife’s nice.’

  ‘My wife’s left me.’

  ‘She used to leave me alone all night when I was six—’

  ‘She left me because I wouldn’t talk to her.’