Текст книги "Forty 2 Days"

Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre

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Three

I watch his toned, powerful frame slide smoothly into the black swivel chair and open the file in front of him.

‘So, you’re setting up a business?’  The sudden professionalism in his voice is like a bucket of cold water in my face.  I take a shocked backward step.  We were somewhere totally different a moment ago.  Awareness of his potent masculinity in that small utilitarian room is still prickling across my skin.  So, he wants to play.  Cat and mouse.  First the cheese and then the claw and teeth.

I go forward.  Position myself in front of one of the chairs facing the desk.  When I feel the edge of a chair against the backs of my knees I sink into it.  ‘Yes, Bill… Billie and I are.’

‘Ah, the inimitable Bill,’ he says, looking up, the hot gaze completely replaced by a remorseless mask.  ‘Why didn’t she come with you?’

‘She thought her tattoos might put the loan officer off.’

He smiles lopsidedly.  ‘You girls have it all covered, don’t you?’ he says, but I can tell straight away, he has a soft spot for Billie.  It twists my heart.  I wish my name would soften his face like that.

‘That reminds me.  How is your mother?’

The breath gets sucked out of me.  ‘She passed away.’

He stills, his eyes narrowing.  ‘I thought the treatment was working.’

I swallow the stone lodged in my throat.  ‘The treatment worked.’  The words catch in my throat.  ‘A car.  Hit and run.’

His eyes flash.  For an instant I am looking back into the past.  We are all sitting around my mother’s dinner table.  There are fresh flowers on the table and our plates are full of Persian food.  Chicken with fruit and rice.  My mouth is full of the smoky flavor of dried chilies.  Blake is being charming and my mother is laughing.  Her laughter fills the room and my heart.  Hardly I heard her laugh in my life.  I did not realize how happy I was then.

‘I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry to hear that, Lana.’

His pity is my undoing.  The scene before me blurs.  I blink furiously.  I am not going to crumble in front of him.  I can feel the waves of grief beginning in my body.  I have not yet cried.  Oh shit.  Not now…please.  I stand suddenly.  So does he.  I put out a hand, a warning—do not come any closer—and I run to the door.  I need to get outside.  My only thought is to escape.  Not let him see me break down, but he is already at my side.  He grabs my arm.  I twist away from him, but his grip is too firm.  He doesn’t know it, but he is part of the great pattern of my terrible grief.

‘This way.  There is a staff restroom,’ he says quietly, and opening the door leads me down the corridor.  He does not look at me, and I am grateful for that.  Hot, uncontrollable tears are streaming down my cheeks.  I did not cry when my mother died.  For three whole months I could not cry.  There was so much to do, but now the silent tears are flowing unchecked, and the huge sobs are on the way.  I can feel them shaking my innards, threatening to burst out.

He holds open the toilet door and I rush in.  The door closes behind me.  Inside are white tiled walls and cubicles made of plywood.  An ugly place.  Perfect for what I have to do.  I grip the ceramic basin, stuff my fist into my mouth and, doubling up, wait for the screaming sobs.  They don’t disappoint in their ferocity.  They are long and hard and ugly.  Full of regret and recrimination and blame. For so long I believed that my mother would die of cancer.  Year after year of watching her suffer and still not being able to let her go in peace, and then when she is bright and full of life again, and, when I am least expecting it, she is gone.  Just like that.  Without warning.  I never even had a chance to say goodbye.  In the end she was cruelly snatched away from me.  I don’t know how long I was in there, but I buried my mother there.

Alone, in a toilet reeking of industrial bleach.

Finally, I lean against the sink exhausted.  I look in the mirror.  What a right mess.  I look horrible.  I blow my nose, wash my puffy face.  My eyes and lips are red and swollen.  I straighten.  I button my blouse to my neck.  I know it is cowardly, but I decide at that moment to scuttle away.  Just walk down the corridor and leave.  The bank has my address and he will find me, but by then I will be different.  I will have repaired the walls of my fortress.  I will be strong.  He cannot hurt me.  But then I remember Billie waiting at home.

‘Well, did you get it?’ she will ask.

I close my eyes.  I’m not going to let her down.  I’m going to say, ‘Yes, I got it.’

I pull open the door and he is standing in the corridor outside, staring at the floor, his hands rammed deep into his trouser pockets.

It is the oddest thing.  It reminds me of the first time we met.  When I had bawled my eyes out in a toilet and come out to find him waiting for me.  He looks up, still frowning.  The door shuts behind me as he strides towards me.  The last time I had six inch heels that lifted me to almost his eye level.  Now I am left staring at his brown throat.

‘Are you okay?’

I nod.

‘Tom will take you home.’

I lift my eyes up to his.  They are strange, liquid with some emotion I cannot comprehend.  ‘No,’ I say.  My voice comes out oddly terse.  I had not meant for it to be like that.  ‘Let’s get this loan business out of the way.’

A shutter comes over his face.  I realize then I have just confirmed his thoughts about me.  I am the gold digger who will do anything for money.  Anybody else would have exploited this opportunity for softness.  I am filled with regret, but it is too late.  He is the tide that is going out and cannot be recalled.  His eyes return to cold and distant.

He nods and we go back to the clinical office.  I sit opposite him and he takes the swivel chair.  It is a parody.  He knows it and so do I.

He looks down again at my loan application form.  ‘Baby Sorab?’

Oh. My. God.  What the hell am I doing?  I am playing with fire.  I feel my heart thump so loudly in my chest he must surely hear it.  The fog in my brain clears.  It is no longer just me.  Cat and mouse?  I can play this game.  He has nothing to lose.  I have everything to lose.  So I will be the winner.  He will not beat me.  I school my features, shrug carelessly.  And then the lies begin to drop from my mouth so smoothly even I am surprised.  Until today I never realized what an accomplished liar I am.

‘Yes.  We thought it was a good name for our business.’

‘Why baby clothes?’

‘Billie has always been good with colors.  She can put red and pink together and make it look divine, and since, Billie had her baby this year we decided to make baby clothes?’

‘Billie had a baby?’ he asks, obviously surprised.

I look him in the eye.  ‘Yeah, a beautiful boy,’ I lie straight-faced.

His lips twist derisively.  ‘You girls sure have it figured out.  I suppose she is now being housed courtesy of the British taxpayer?’

I say a silent apology to Billie.  ‘I believe we have had this conversation before.’

‘OK,’ he says.

‘OK, what?’

‘OK you got the loan.’

‘Just like that?’

‘There is one condition.’

I hold my breath.

‘You do not get the money for the next 42 days.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he says softly, ‘for the next 42 days you will exist only for my pleasure.  I plan to gorge on your body until I am sick to my stomach.’

I swallow hard.  ‘Are you going to house me in some apartment again?’

‘Not some apartment, but the same one as before.’

I lick my lips and surprise myself.  I never knew I could think so fast.  That lies would come so easily to me.  ‘There is one small complication.  Billie goes to see her girlfriend three, no actually, four nights a week and I take care of her son.’

He doesn’t miss a beat.  ‘Tell Laura what you need for the baby—cot, pram, bottle warmers whatever.  The baby can stay at the apartment.’

I stare at him.  ‘Are you serious?’

‘Do you have a better plan?’

I pause.  My mind racing.  ‘One more thing.  Billie must be able to come to the apartment.’

‘Done.’

‘And Jack.  He is the baby’s godfather.’

He looks bored.  ‘Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Fine.  Have you anything planned for tomorrow?’

I shake my head.

‘Good.  Keep tomorrow free.  Laura will call you to go through the necessary arrangements with you.’

‘OK, if there is nothing else…’

‘I’ll walk you out.’

Heads turn to watch us.  Their eyes slide off when they meet mine.  I feel my face flushing.  Hell, I’ll never be able to come back here again.  I see the bank manager hurrying towards us, the material of his trouser legs slapping against his ankles.  Blake raises a finger and he stops abruptly.  Blake pulls open the heavy door and we go into the late summer air.  It is a gray day, though.  Drizzling slightly.

We face each other.

‘Why did Billie call her baby Sorab?’

‘It’s from the great epic Rustam and Sorab.’

‘Yes, I am aware where it is from, but why did she choose it?’

‘It was a tribute to my mother.  It was my mother’s favorite story.’

‘Hmmm… That is the most admirable quality in you.  Your unshakeable loyalty towards your mother.’

For a moment we look at each other.  I realize that I have never seen him in the light of day.  Not even in this dull light.  Strange.  We have always met during the day at the apartment and only ever gone out at dusk or at night.  And in the light of the day his eyes are storm-blue with moody gray and black flecks.  A gust of wind lifts his hair away from his head and deposits it on his forehead.  Unthinkingly, I reach a hand out to touch the unruly skein, but he jerks his head back as if dodging a wasp.

‘This time you won’t fool me,’ he bites out.

We stare at each other.  Me, astonished by how close to the surface his fury lives, and he, contemptuously.  My hand drops.  I feel exhausted.  There is a ton of bricks inside my chest.  Cotton wool inside my head.  I can’t think straight.  I look down the road at the bus stand.  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ I say.

‘Here’s Tom,’ he says, as a Bentley pulls up along the curb.

I shake my head.  ‘Thanks, but I’ll take the bus.’

‘Tom will drop you off,’ he insists, and I have a flashback of him from the first night we met at the restaurant.  That same inbred sense of confidence and superiority.

‘No,’ I snap.  ‘Our contract doesn’t start until tomorrow.  So today I’ll decide my mode of transport,’ and I swing away from him.

His hand shoots out and grasps my wrist.  ‘I will pick you up and put you in the car if necessary.  You decide.’

I feel anger bubbling inside me.  ‘And I’ll call the police.’

He actually laughs.  ‘After everything I have told you about the system—that’s your answer?’

I sag.  ‘Of course, who will believe me if I claim that a Barrington tried to force me to take a lift.’

‘Please, Blake.’

‘Very well.  Tom will go with you on the bus.’

I don’t argue.  I simply turn around, open the car door, get in, slam it shut and stare straight ahead.

‘Good morning, Miss Bloom.  It’s good to see you again,’ Tom greets, pretending not to notice my puffy face.

‘It’s good to see you too, Tom.’

‘How have you been?’ he asks as the car pulls away.

‘Fine,’ I reply, and twist my neck back to look at Blake.  He is standing on the sidewalk where I left him.  His hands are hanging by his sides and he is staring at the moving car.  On the street teeming with some of the most dispossessed people in Britain he stands out.  Tall, impressive, separate from the crowd, a ruler; and yet he looks alone and abandoned.  I remember what he told me a long time ago.

I trust no one.  No one.

Four

The traffic is bad and the car crawls slowly down Kilburn High Street.  I stare blankly out of the window.  I know I’m not dreaming this.  This is actually happening and yet...it has a dreamlike quality.  The street looks the same only there are many people staring at the car and into it, at me.  Their eyes seem unfriendly.  The rich are resented here.  I feel restless and disturbed.  I need a bit of time to think.  Walking always helps. I ask Tom to drop me off by the shops.

‘Are you sure, Miss?  I don’t mind waiting, while you pop in.  I’m free until much later.’

‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine, Tom.  I’ll probably see you tomorrow, anyway.’

Tom nods.  ‘All right then.  Mind how you go.’

I enter the newsagent and buy a bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes for Billie.  Then I walk home slowly, taking the long way home so I pass by my old house.  I stand on the street in the drizzle and look up at it.  At the blue door where we once lived, my mother and I, for so many years.  Some of them happy, but most of them filled with stress and worry and fear.  Now she was gone.

For a moment I stand there, my face upturned, pretending that my mother is still there.  That I could, if I wanted to, simply go up those stairs, put my key in the door, open it, and find her in the kitchen.  Bald and thin to the point of skeletal, but happy to see me.  Then the blue door opens and a child about seven years old comes out.  She has brown hair cut very short.

From the interior a woman’s voice yells, ‘And I want change from the fiver.’

The girl doesn’t answer.  Simply slams shut the door and runs to the top of the stairs.  She is so cocky she reminds me of Billie.  I hear her shoes clattering down the stairs.  She runs past me, dirty stained top, yellow shorts and brown legs.  And suddenly, I am racked by a sense of deep nostalgia for those times when Billie and I ran free.  Summer days.  Fingers sticky with ice lollies.  Not a single responsibility in sight.  I watch the girl turn down the road towards the shops.  Then I slowly begin to walk towards the tower block flats where Billie and I now live.

It is a horrible place, far, far worse than this small, friendly block.  If Blake saw where we live now, he would literally have a heart attack.  All his worst nightmares are realized here.  Prostitutes work the underpass and there are fights and stabbings when the pubs clear at night.  Their drunken shouting and cursing floats up to our flat.  Inside our block it is no better.  The lifts perpetually smell of stale urine and the stairwells are littered with blood-filled hypodermic syringes and used condoms.  Kids play among the needles in the morning.

I live here, but in my heart I am absolutely determined that it will only be temporary.  I intend to work hard, make our business work and, hopefully, by the time Sorab is old enough to walk the three of us will be out of here.  A sign says no ball games and no dumping of rubbish.  In defiance the place is littered with empty cans and someone has simply tipped a badly stained mattress over one of the long balcony walkways of the tower.

I pass the children playing on the concourse.

‘Hey, Lana, we saw you get out of a big car by the shops.  Whose car is it?’

‘Never you mind,’ I tell them tartly.

‘Somebody’s got a sugar daddy,’ they sing, and I am surprised anew by how clued up these kids are.  At their age, my innocence was complete, my childhood totally unsoiled by any adult knowledge.

One of them breaks from the group and sidles up to me.  ‘Go on, give us a pound to buy some sweets,’ she cajoles.  She has a head full of bouncing brown curls.

I look down at her.  ‘Does your mother know you are begging for money?’

‘Yeah,’ she pipes up immediately, standing her ground without the least trace of embarrassment.

I look into her eyes and feel sad.  I know her mother.  A hard-faced woman with six kids.  Each one from a different father, all dirty and unkempt.  For a split second I consider teaching her not to beg, to have pride, and then I give up.  I know in my heart it is pointless. I wish a different future for her, but she is already infected by the generation before her.  In her round, beautiful face walks the shadow of a drop-out, perhaps even an alcoholic.  A blight on society through no fault of her own.  I reach into my purse and give her a pound.  She grasps it in her small, hot palm and runs off in the direction of the shops, calling after her. ‘Thanks, Lana.’

I skirt the weeds and step onto the cracked concrete.  Moodily I kick a Coke can out of my path and round the block.  I look up to the second floor of the ugly gray block and see Billie standing on the long walkway balcony outside our door.  She is smoking a cigarette and leaning against the metal railing.  One of her bare feet is curled around a metal bar.  Her hair is no longer white, but flaming red.  She changed the color and the style last week when she broke up with Leticia.  It is now cut very close to her head on one side and falls longer on the other.  She must have just got out of the bath, for her hair is still wet and slicked to her head. She does not see me.

I run up the smelly stairs and step on to our level.  She looks up from her contemplative stare and watches me.  I step over discarded toys, a tricycle, a plastic bucket and spade, and then I am standing in front of her.

I grin.  She kills her cigarette on the metal railing.  I fish out the vodka.  She grins back.  Hers is real, mine is not.

She takes the bottle from my hand.  ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ I say.

She puts the bottle on the ground, grabs me around the hips, and sweeps me off my feet, laughing.  Her joy is so infectious I have to laugh.

‘Put me down before you drop me over the balcony!’

Instead of setting me back down she whirls me around a couple of times, carries me over our threshold and kicks the door shut like a man, before setting me down on the dining table.

‘You. Are. A. Fucking. Genius,’ she says.  Then her face undergoes a sudden change.  ‘Oh, shit,’ she cusses and dashes outside.  And she is just in time too.  ‘Oi you,’ I hear her shout.  ‘Touch that bottle and you’re dead.’  There is the sound of little feet scuttling away and Billie comes back into view cradling the vodka bottle.

I slip off the table.  ‘How did it go with Sorab?’

‘The usual, you know, eat, shit, sleep, repeat,’ she says, and thumps the bottle on the table.

‘Let me have a quick peek,’ I say, and go into my bedroom.  I stand in front of his crib, my heart heavy with sadness.  He has no one, but me.  He will never know his father.  I have denied him his father and a life of unimaginable riches.  I push the guilt away.  Not now.  Not yet.  For a moment I think of Blake standing alone in the crowd.  We are all of us alone trapped in our own version of hell.  I gently trace my finger on his sleeping arm and go outside.

Billie is sitting at the table.  The vodka bottle is unopened.

I slip my jacket off.  It is too big for me and swings from my shoulder.  I open the fridge.  ‘I’m going to make some pasta.  Want some?’

‘No, had a couple of Turkish Delights.’

‘Bill, you can’t survive on leftover pizza, jam, and chocolates, you know.’

‘It’s not me who looks like a walking skeleton.’  She stares at me daring me to contradict her.

I close the fridge door and face her.

‘You know, when I saw you walking home with the plastic bag from the newsagent I didn’t dare believe, because I could see that you had been crying.  I’d like to think you cried because you were so happy but that’s not it, is it?  Want to tell me what really happened?’

I sit opposite her.  ‘Blake was there.’

Billie pulls forward with a frown.  ‘There where?’

‘At the bank.  He processed our loan application.’

‘Don’t. You’re going to make me cry.’

‘Can you bite back the sarcastic remarks for one moment?’

She raises her hands, palms facing me.

‘Apparently he has been monitoring my account with the intention of making contact.’

Billie opens her eyes wide.  ‘Wow! That’s tenacious.’

‘He wants me to finish the contract.’

Billie closes her eyes in a gesture of extreme exasperation.  ‘Oh God!  You agreed or we wouldn’t have got the loan, would we?’

‘Yes,’ I say, but before I can tell her more she leans forward, her chin jutting out aggressively.

‘Lana.  Are you completely crazy?  Have you forgotten what that bloodless troll he is engaged to and those reptilian entities masquerading as his family did to you the last time?  They closed ranks and kicked you out of the fucking country.  Anyway, didn’t she make you sign in blood never to go near her man again?’

I flush.  ‘No, simply that I must never make contact with him again.  I didn’t.’

‘Yeah, she’ll appreciate the difference.’

‘As a matter of fact, Blake said that he has told her about me and she is prepared to wait until he is over his infatuation with me.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘Well, it was something like what she told me.’

‘If you believe that then you definitely should stay away from him.  You are not equipped to deal with such lethal cunning.’

‘I won’t come into contact with her.  It’s only 42 days.’

‘We don’t need the money, you know?  We can always start small.  We talked about this.  In fact, it was unlikely that you were ever going to get the money without collateral or business experience.  It was only an off chance.  We’ll do without it.  In fact, that might be more fun.’

‘I didn’t do it for the money,’ I say very quietly.

There is a moment of shocked silence.  Billie looks at me as if I have lost my mind.  And in a way she is right.  I am risking everything.

‘Fuck me, Lana.  Have you forgotten how difficult it was for you to get over him?’

‘I’m not over him.’

‘Exactly.  So why walk into the lion’s den again?  Look at you.  You are already just a shadow of yourself.  Why put yourself through it?  Besides the spectacular sex, that is.’

I try to smile and don’t succeed.  I feel my chin and lower lip begin to tremble.  I press my lips together.  ‘You don’t understand.  I owe him.  He was good to Mum and me, but I didn’t keep my word.  I should never have taken Victoria’s money.  It was wrong.  I knew that the moment I saw it sitting all fat and jolly in that Swiss bank account.  I’m not a Swiss bank account person.  It was only when I gave it all away to that hospice that I felt better.  I will only feel right again when I finish what I started.  Until then I will never be able to close this door.’

‘And Sorab?  Are you going to tell him about him?’

‘Of course not.  They would take my son away and turn him into a cold-eyed predator, like Blake’s father and brother.’

‘So what happens to Sorab then?’

I squirm a little. ‘I told Blake Sorab was yours.’

‘Right,’ she says slowly, obviously unable to get her head around such an idea.

‘He thinks you did it to jump the welfare queue and get a flat.’

Billie grins suddenly.  ‘So you didn’t tell him that as a child I wanted to have my entire reproductive system removed and replaced with an extra set of lungs so I could smoke more.’

I shook my head.

 ‘What does all this translate to then?’

‘You keep Sorab here for three days of the week and I keep him at the apartment for the other four days.’

Billie draws a deep breath.  ‘What does he imagine I am doing for the other four days?’

‘Spending the night at your girlfriend’s place.’

‘Jesus, I’m a shit mother, aren’t I?’

‘Do you mind terribly?’

‘I don’t give a monkey’s what he thinks of me, but are you OK with being apart from Sorab three days a week?’

My little heart is breaking at the thought but I put on a brave face.  ‘Well, it is only for 42 days and I was thinking that three weeks of that time I could say you are on holiday and Sorab is too young to go with you.’

‘And you think he’ll believe that?’

‘Quite frankly, I don’t think he cares enough to ponder the matter too deeply.’

‘I don’t want to take the philosophical upper hand here, but if it’ll all be over in 42 days, isn’t this all a bit…unnecessary?’

I trace my fingernail along the wood grain of our kitchen table.  We bought it in a charity shop for twenty pounds.  It has two cigarette burn marks on the surface, but I rather like it.  It has character, a story to tell.

‘I know you think I am being foolish, but have you never had someone touch you and you go up in flames?  Or that odd sensation as if your bones are melting and your ears ring like bells in your head?’

‘No,’ she says flatly. ‘And judging from what it has reduced you to… No thanks.  I enjoy my self-control.  My ability to say no and walk away from a situation that screams danger or abuse ahead.’

‘Don’t you miss Leticia, Billie?’

‘Yes, I do, but…  ’She looks at me meaningfully…  ‘Unlike you I have never had to crawl around the floor with missing her.’

I lower my eyes.  Once many months ago when I first left the country I was reduced to crawling on the floor, but that intense pain passed.  His reappearance, though, has awakened new realms of need and craving.

‘I can say no, but I still miss him, Bill.  I miss him like crazy.  Even if there is no hope, I still want whatever I can have.  I want him on any terms.  I actually find it impossible to resist him.’

She sighs elaborately.  ‘OK, it is your life.  When does this charade start then?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I guess we won’t need a babysitter for Friday night, will we?’

I make an apologetic face.  ‘Sorry.  Can you babysit tomorrow?’

‘While you bang Banker Boy?  Sure, why not.  I hope that kid remembers what I have done for him when he grows up.’

I smile gratefully.

She fills two glasses with vodka and pushes one towards me.  ‘Here’s to Sorab.’  I don’t want a drink.  I am all churned up, but we clink and down.  The alcohol burns the back of my throat.  This is no celebration.  Not for me and not for Billie.  When our eyes meet again, hers are unsmiling; they warn me I am making a dreadful mistake.