Pleasure and a Calling Page 9

  ABIGAIL, OH, ABIGAIL. I waited and watched her now in the mornings on her early run, huffing down the steps to the river path, crossing the bridge and on to the Common and making a circuit of the town centre – alternating her choice of streets, as if to keep me on my toes – before coming back up via the newsagent and bakery at the top of Fount Hill. By now she was pink-cheeked, sipping from her water bottle, her lovely wiry hair held back in a red elastic hairband. The air had cleared, the clouds swept from my mind. It seemed more likely than not that she had been alone the night I watched the pizza delivery man arrive. And the Friday I’d bumped into Sharp coming out of the library? He hadn’t been returning books at all but picking up the key to her house. Her house.

  What wouldn’t I have given for that key now.

  But I hadn’t been idle. It had taken a while to find her mother’s name in the Death notices of a year-old copy of the Sentinel in the library (Abigail herself was only feet away when I uttered a silent ‘Eureka!’), confirming that she was an orphan like myself. Still in mourning, what a vulnerable lamb she would have presented to a sly fox like Sharp, a performer with a microphone, plausible and charming, wheedling his way into her life as he had with his wife, Judith. He couldn’t love Abigail. Not as I could (my scurrying, worrying heart told me that much).

  I visited the house, approaching it methodically as I distributed a handful of our leaflets along that stretch of Raistrick Road. It was a big house. Too big for her mother (who, according to the notice, had died after a short illness), and now too big for Abigail. She must surely sell it in favour of a cosier place (I could picture her in one of the Victorian cottages on the hill opposite St Theobald’s, stooping in the small back garden among rows of peas or snipping at some unruly floral abundance that matched her hair in its beauty and abandon). Pushing a leaflet through the letterbox of her blue door in the afternoon chill, I allowed my fingertips to linger in the warm interior – a taste of things to come.

  I loitered then, hoping to catch a neighbour who might tell me something about Abigail or her mother, but saw no one. And then I reached – of course! – the newsagent’s. I made a show of bumbling amid the stationery until I had the attentions of the owner and his wife, to whom I found myself explaining how I had foolishly fled the office without so much as a pen, and with clients to see! After some deliberation I chose the most expensive brand they had, alongside good envelopes and a book of standard sales forms. ‘Ready for business!’ I laughed.

  ‘Business is important,’ grinned the man with a faint bow of the head. ‘We must all do business. Otherwise … poof!’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said, taking this opportunity to stress the importance of quality service and the building of trust if local business people are to retain the continuing confidence of the community.

  The couple agreed wholeheartedly. ‘We too must do this,’ said the man. ‘Every day we work. It is hard, but …’ He smiled.

  ‘But we must show people that we are always here, ready to serve? Everyone needs us sometimes. If not today, then tomorrow. Or, in my business, sometimes even the following year. But it becomes personal, don’t you think? Each customer is important.’

  They both smiled, though less certain of my meaning this time. The man once again gave a slight bow. ‘Thirty-two years we are here now.’

  ‘And that tells its own story. I mean, especially in your line of business, you know your customers. You take a pride in knowing what they want.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the woman. ‘We know, we know.’

  ‘For me, for example, in my replacement-window business, I have a note in my diary to see a certain customer. A courtesy call, you understand. But there is no answer. I come twice, still no answer. Should I call again? I don’t know. Perhaps I should cross this lady off my list. But perhaps she is ill?’

  The woman looked worried. ‘She is your customer?’

  ‘Not exactly. I spoke to her last year. Mrs Rice, at number eighty-four? Perhaps you know her. Please come back in the spring, she said. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but her windows are in a worse condition than ever.’

  The woman looked grave. ‘The lady at number eighty-four?’ She conferred briefly with her husband in another language.

  ‘The lady passed away,’ said the man, shaking his head. ‘Many months ago. Her daughter, she came home to look after her, but the lady passed away. And now she lives here. We see her.’

  ‘Her daughter?’

  ‘A lovely girl,’ said the woman. ‘She came from London. At first she cancelled the papers, but now every day she comes and buys!’

  I added a chocolate bar and a drink to my purchases. ‘Keep my strength up,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man.

  The doorbell tinged, heralding two new customers and bringing an end to our friendly babble. The couple wished me a good day.

  It was a common enough story. The child who moves away – to university, to work, to establish herself in a new place – and then has to return to her home town to nurse an ailing parent. Would Abigail stay now? She had a job. Perhaps she had hopes of Sharp.

  My heart sank at the thought. Was it possible to drive them apart without driving her away again? What else would keep her here in this town? The leaflet I posted would remind her of her choices – the opportunity to cash in her inheritance and return to her life in London. She’d be able to buy a smart flat in a good area. It was likely that she already had a flat in London she was renting out. And yet my hope had to be that she might sell. That her key would one day fall into my hands. There seemed no other way. Though of course there was, and always had been.

  AS I SAID, I FEEL LUCKY at this moment just to hear myself breathe. The air is thin, and I ally myself once again with the spirit of those who dare themselves into hazard, who scale those heights where oxygen is shortest in supply – though this story would be best told from a higher prospect still. I’m never quite far enough up the hill to discern a safe ending. I see the broadness and detail below, but what lies in the misty above? Perhaps oblivion. One slip! It seems there’s always one more twisting path, narrowing upwards and slippery underfoot, with some horned beast barring the way, giving me the eye. It’s always the story so far.

  Hearing this, you might assume my worst dreams are about falling. In fact they are about disclosure and pursuit and swift extermination. A less attractive metaphor altogether. They are about having my roof ripped off. And in this hour before dawn, that fate has never felt more real and threatening. I feel my pursuers upon me. I lie in dread awaiting their loud cries and horrified triumph. Here! Here! The pest beneath the floorboards!

  It was probably true what Aunt Lillian said about the day my mother died. I do love an enclosed space. A small stairs cupboard is ideal. Surrounded on all sides. The muffled quietness. In my aunt’s barely used back room I made a den under the oak dining table, draped in the big Christmas tablecloth out of the drawer and heaped inside with cushions. It was here, in the green shade, that cousin Isobel once discovered me with the fashion dolls she no longer played with – Sindy, plus Sindy’s boyfriend Paul, plus two larger pink babies in nappies. I had swapped their clothes round so that Paul was wearing Sindy’s short gingham nightie and carrying water skis, while Sindy wore Paul’s sheepskin coat, her white nurse’s mask and nothing else. Together they took care of the children, though of course really it was me who decided who was punished and who had jelly and ice-cream. It was a game I could have played all day, had Isobel not arrived, screaming and punching and bringing the adults running.

  ‘You’re too sensitive,’ Aunt Lillian said to Isobel at tea.

  ‘But you …’ she said, glaring at me. She didn’t finish her sentence; just laid down her butter knife, thin-lipped, and wiped her mouth.

  Was it the troubles with Isobel long ago that pulled the final lever that sent me on this track rather than that? Or was it little Anthony Damato? Or something entirely lost to memory? I don’t blame you for wondering. What is s
trange, thinking about the time around my aunt’s death, was how attending two funerals in quick succession didn’t seem peculiar, even though I’d never attended one before – not even those of my parents. (I might add that I haven’t attended one since, though that will soon change.) Strange too that Mr Mower was also present at both. But in fact – outside of my mind, which understandably always wants things to make sense – the two events are entirely unconnected. After all, things don’t actually conspire to give you this life or that. Life may look like a pattern from the inside (no doubt a rat will think it wondrous that Nature has gone to the trouble of building it a maze of underground pipes to live in) but no one is really pulling levers. I prefer to see myself as author of my own fate. I am looking for no one to blame. Or indeed thank.

  And even as I work here, the clock ticking, blood pumping wildly through my veins – and the situation far from ideal – I cannot in my heart wish things otherwise. The truth is that death is never far away. It cannot be helped. I have learned that much.

  One of the troubles was how much Isobel adored that new baby, and bound him instantly to her dreams when we came to live at Aunt Lillian’s. How she would love and care for him, with his mother dead and buried! I knew nothing, but watched in vague wonder as she cradled him and whispered to him, overseen by my aunt or distant father.

  I step now into the wondering mind of my six-year-old self who knew nothing, open my eyes on his vague world. Everything has changed. Riley isn’t allowed in the baby’s room, my father says. We must let him sleep. The baby is always asleep, or crying for our mother, who is gone, everyone says – my father, Aunt Lillian, Mrs Holt from next door.

  Mrs Holt looked after me and gave me a biscuit when the cars came, and let me play. The curtains are always closed now, even in the daytime.

  I stand behind the curtains while Isobel is out at Sunday Club and Aunt Lillian feeds the baby with a bottle. He doesn’t have a name yet. We will choose one soon. The baby is wrapped in white and blue and has the tiniest red hands. Later, when he is fast asleep in his room with the pink pigs, I stand next to his basket. His tummy goes in and out. He has his new soft yellow kangaroo beside him. I go to ask Aunt Lillian what is the kangaroo’s name. ‘Kanga,’ says Aunt Lillian. When he is older the baby will love Riley and his soft orange fur.

  Later, I see Aunt Lillian washing her hair without her blouse on. She pushes the door closed so that I cannot see. My father is digging. I watch him from behind the shed. I can smell the mud on his spade.

  Riley is asleep on the warm blue metal of Aunt Lillian’s car. ‘Riley!’ I call. I make a ‘ch-ch-ch’ sound like Aunt Lillian does when she wants Riley to come for his tea in the kitchen. Riley moves his ear but keeps his eyes closed. There is a wasp. I am afraid of wasps and wait for it to buzz off as my father has told me. In the kitchen I rattle Riley’s empty bowl on the hard floor. In he comes quickly now with his tail in the air. He sniffs at the bowl and looks up at me with a wondering face. I pick him up. He is big and heavy but I can carry him. His fur is soft and warm. I climb the stairs with him to see the baby. Just one look. When I hear Aunt Lillian, I drop Riley on to the carpet and he runs away. In the room I sit quietly behind the door. The baby is dreaming, hidden deep in his basket. And now Riley is here again. He looks at me and then at the baby’s basket. He waits, then springs up. I can’t see him. But we are all quiet, the three of us, breathing together in the room. I close my eyes. Then I hear Aunt Lillian call once and then again sharply. Quickly I am out on the landing, closing the door. I feel my face is hot.

  ‘What are you up to?’ asks Aunt Lillian, and takes me downstairs. Her hair is bundled in a towel and there is the smell of the bathroom.

  Afterwards there is hell to pay, as my father sometimes says. Aunt Lillian is screaming, which makes me cry. My father now is shaking me. The television is on behind me, showing the programme with monsters. Later Mrs Holt takes me to her house for a biscuit and some milk. Later the baby is gone, and Riley too. My father’s face, which is nearly always red, is as white as my mother’s when she was lying still on the bed.

  Riley has mothered the baby, I hear someone say. Because the baby has no mother. That is why they have both gone.

  A DAY PASSED. AT THE LIBRARY, Abigail and Margaret – or, occasionally, their younger temporary colleagues – came back and forth. My eye was drawn to the room marked ‘Private’. I knew the security number, but of course it was mad to imagine I could get in and out without being seen. It would be mad to try. The door was adjacent to the desk but faced the public part of the library that housed the computer terminals. But there it was, daring me. The urge was great. The thought of it triggered memories of my schooldays – the frisson of expectation that preceded that deeper thrill and pleasure of occupation, transgression, possession and, yes, love of a sort.

  Once or twice I have walked that line between foolishness and valour, knowing that the secret to taking on risk and beating it is nothing more complicated than a raw willingness to act, to seize the opportunity, without hesitation, the instant it presents itself. I gave myself the best shot I could. I waited for a day when Margaret was away and Abigail was holding the fort, aided by one of their students, and walked into the library wearing a tweed jacket from a charity shop and glasses. To the library staff, I was an anonymous browser. But to the distracted visitor – especially those using the computers, and these were mostly students – my aim was to look at least not unlike a librarian. From my belt I hung an ID card (based on Abigail’s and mocked up on the office laminator) that would pass muster from a distance. Thus armed, I entered the field. I took off my jacket and hung it on the back of a chair as far from the front desk as possible. Whenever the staff were safely behind it, I stayed out of their line of vision and busied myself in a low-level way: walking with purpose in my shirt sleeves, opening and closing microfiche drawers or tidying the newspapers and magazine area; I even helped someone operate the photocopier. When Abigail or her assistant were out on the floor, I melted into the depths of the reference section.

  Lunchtime brought a steady trickle of people returning books, which gathered in piles on the desk before being categorized and transferred to the trolley. At last there was a lull. Abigail’s assistant disappeared behind the door marked ‘Private’, reappearing moments later pulling on her coat. She was taking her break. Abigail handed her some money, presumably to bring her back a sandwich from the high street. She’d be gone at least fifteen minutes – substantially longer if she herself was lunching out or had other things to do. The queue at the desk had dwindled to none. Abigail came out and pulled out the loaded trolley. She always started with fiction, which took her furthest from the desk. She would have to work her way down one aisle and up the next before she came within sight of the door marked ‘Private’ again. I had no idea how long that would take. I did know, though, that the moment had come.

  I watched Abigail and the trolley disappear slowly into A–L, then strode casually up to the door, punched 5-1-5-9-4 into the grey metal panel and pushed it open. The door closed behind me. A wave of urgency hit me as my senses took in the scene – a yellow bowl in the sink, tiled counter, kettle, smell of scattered coffee granules, two library chairs around a bandy-legged table. On the table were mugs, teaspoons, a grey scarf, a small pile of books. Two umbrellas stood in a corner, and hanging alone was Abigail’s red cagoule, her backpack on the rack below. My hands went to her pockets, rifling, thrusting – here were tissues, gloves, a red elastic hairband, clip-on cycle lamp, a battery in its packaging. Inner pockets: a glove, another glove. I shook the coat. Nothing.

  I took a breath and the hush of the room was shattered by a piercing ringtone. It was the phone outside. I froze, then went to the door. The desk was feet away. It would only take a few seconds to dart out, unplug the phone and get back. But I didn’t have a few seconds. I opened the door a crack. The trill of the phone now filled the library. People turned their heads. And there she was, walking briskly, wea
ring a professional smile. The phone seemed to be shrieking now. What sort of call might require her to come back here to this room? The pile of books on the table – had they been put aside for some colleague, now calling about them? There was nowhere to hide. But she would have to key in the number to get in. It was a heavy door. I could block entry from my side. She’d be puzzled. Try again. Give up until her assistant returned. She reached the desk, but now the phone abruptly ceased its clamour, its last half-ring echoing out. She paused. Then she turned on her heel, back towards the trolley.

  I clicked the door shut and resumed my search with renewed anxiety. The backpack now – its top pocket containing paperback, earphones, shopping list. Bundled inside, a yellow jumper. Another compartment. I unzipped it. And now, here on its own, wedged into the fold, was a single key with a circular wooden fob painted green. I squeezed it tight then slipped it into my pocket. I didn’t think about it yet. What it meant. My head felt compressed, as if in an aircraft with sound baffled and time suspended. I knew I needed to get out, but some other instinct took over. I opened the fridge, saw milk, yoghurt and most of a large chocolate bar. Dark. I snapped off a generous oblong, freed it from the gold foil, and crammed it in my mouth.

  It seemed to trigger a buzzing noise nearby. I whirled round, ready to flee. The scarf on the table was twitching and then I saw the phone, its screen flashing. I pounced on it. D CALLING. I pressed the reject key. My nerves screamed at me to get out, but I couldn’t. Here was her phone, in my hand. I couldn’t take it, but nor could I just leave it there. An idea came to me. I took out my own phone, switched it to video and began to cycle through the contents on Abigail’s handset – her ‘favourites’, her recent calls and calendar, her reminders and photographs. My heart was thumping – and now the phone thrummed with a text from ‘D’. I carried on. What were the chances of her walking straight in here now, before she’d finished her trolley round, remembering she’d left her phone on the table with her scarf? Sharp probably called or left a message every day at this time, especially days when she was in charge and couldn’t meet him. Or he would try the landline again. She would be listening for it. She would be hurrying through her task to get back to the desk.