Dead of Light (5 page)

Fate and chance are flexible concepts, and I manipulated them as much as I dared. Walked past her flat twice before I even looked up at the windows; saw that the curtains were pulled and loitered instead for ten or fifteen minutes at the corner, hoping she'd come palely out for paracetamol or else robustly in search of bacon and sausages for a serious breakfast. Some people eat and eat after a rage, some simply repine. It epitomised my life and the waste of it, that I didn't know which school Laura followed. Never had the chance to observe, and I didn't ask questions, not about the ordinary things. There was too much I didn't know; once get started and the questions would never stop. I'd want it all and that was the trap again, the temptation to do the forbidden, to raise her out of the ordinary.

She didn't come, nor any flatmates I could interrogate; so I thought maybe she had hero blood in her veins, maybe she'd gone in to college. I bought a couple of cheese pasties to munch on the way — I'm an eater and I hadn't had the chance yet, my body was howling empty — and hustled down to the campus. I had Laura's timetable fixed firm in my head, knew it better than my own; if she was there, if she wasn't just sleeping and sleeping because there are a few lucky souls who can do that too, who don't need to be conscious until all the damage is fixed, she'd be scalpel in hand among the cold cadavers, learning what made the human body cease to tick.

No question of interrupting her there. There are ways to suicide and ways not; and sauntering into the dissection labs with a smile for Professor Duncan and a glance around, “Hi, is Laura here, sorry but I need her, she's the only thing that counts” — no. That numbered not. He would have peeled me in that palace of peeled flesh, she would have dismembered my joints.

Eventually he'd have to let them go, though,
class dismissed and don't forget your homework.
It was coming up lunchtime, and even medics have to eat. And let them scatter where they would, left and right, upstairs and down, to the med school cafeteria or the union bars; let them flock and chatter, I knew what Laura would do. This once, at least, I could get ahead of her.

It was Friday; and Friday lunch was ritual, Friday lunch was sacred. If she was in school —
if
she was, if she wasn't sleeping and sleeping — her sweet size nines (Bigfoot the other girls called her, if they were talking shoes) had a predestined path to follow.

It was Friday; and Friday was kosher day,
last chance before Shabbat
and not to be missed. Five minutes from campus, in an alley off a side street, area steps led down to a plain cream-and-green eatery, bench seats and communal formica-topped tables and an ugly white counter, no food in sight and no style at all. One sign on the wall outside,
Morry's Deli
, otherwise you might have thought yourself in Orwell territory, 1984 a decade on.

And oh, how wrong you would have been.

Morry Green and his family — and it was, it was all family again, another family business: from the accountant to the washer-uppers, everyone was blood — they served their God and their community, devout hearts and a strong sense of duty. Just so happened they also served the best classic Jewish food north of Primrose Hill.

They didn't give a toss for the décor, and quite right too. Mostly they catered for us, the student body in its separate hungry cells; we'd squash up happily, six to a bench and tuck your elbows in, for good cheap food and plenty of it. Keeping the place ugly kept the prices down and it kept the business community out, which suited Morry and it suited us.

Four days a week, Morry's was open early till late. But they closed at three on a Friday, to be at home and bathed and properly ready by sunset; and of course they didn't open again until Monday, so everything had to be used up or thrown away, and they really didn't like throwing anything away.

Fridays in town, we wouldn't have lunch anywhere else.

o0o

It was Friday, and it was early yet, good children were still in school. If Laura was being good today, a medic she and no sweetly slumbrous girl, I had maybe an hour to kill.

Not a problem. I'd wasted more, far more time than that in places where I was far less likely to find Laura.

So I went inside. The place was near enough empty, just a few scattered skivers like myself sipping coffee and waiting to be hungry, no one serving. I swung the door to and fro a few times before I closed it, making the bell jangle, letting them know there was another customer in. Old habit, Morry appreciated it.

I claimed a table and a bench, settled myself nice and comfy against the wall and closed my eyes, hoping not to open them again till a mocking chuckle and a light-fingered touch told me that Laura had arrived.

Not a chuckle, though, next thing I heard; and not a dreamgirl's hand, next thing to touch me.

o0o

Actually what I heard was a rattle, as of cup in saucer in earthquake, or at any rate in palsy-stricken hand. Behind that I could hear someone breathing, hard and fast and frightened.

That was all so unlikely that I opened my eyes regardless. The service at Morry's might be rough, might even be slapdash if you were a friend and they were busy, but it didn't generate those sorts of noises.

So I looked, and saw Warren. And on one level that was exactly right, exactly what I expected to see this time of day, what I'd been banking on; and on another level it was all very peculiar indeed, because he looked pale and his hands were trembling, and he wasn't at all pleased to see me.

Warren was a fixture, or possibly a fitting: at any rate he belonged there, as much as Morry himself belonged. He was family, naturally, some species of cousin, though no one seemed to know how close. Or more likely they did know, they surely must have known, it was only that they didn't want to say.
Shame on them
, we all thought, where maybe we should have been applauding the fact that they acknowledged him at all, let alone gave him a job out front where he could brandish the relationship as he brandished so much else.

He must have been late forties when we knew him, lean of build with greying, thinning hair close-cropped and a nose to make Corporal Klinger blush; and he was cheerfully and screamingly camp, was Warren. He'd have been a burden to any decent family, let alone a religious one. It needed a liberal despot like Morry to make a place for him; a weaker
paterfamilias
or a more bigoted would have allowed the slow tides of contempt and disgust and what-will-the-rabbi-think? to force Warren out, to drive him into an exile that he would never have chosen, that he didn't have the strength to survive.

I knew all about exile, and survival. I knew what it took, and I had a pretty good idea of what Warren had, and that wasn't enough.

We all knew Warren. He loved us students, loved his job because the customer base was ninety per cent student and he could be a happy man all day, running around at our beck and call and doing more than any man should to please us.

Sometimes, maybe often, a student would make him a happy man all night also. I wasn't sure how many times I'd met him on a Sunday morning (but never on a Saturday, never on
Shabbat
, he owed that to his family) in someone's flat or someone else's house, making breakfast in a borrowed bathrobe: still willing, still serving, totally content. These were only ever one-night stands or brief affairs, nothing serious, nothing for long. The boys used to say they did it for his experience, for his openness, for the laugh: “Well, come on, give us a break, Ben, it's not going to be for his mind, is it? I mean, is it? We're not talking intellectual giant here. We're not talking anything giant, it's just a laugh, that's all.”

How much of a laugh it really was for Warren, I was never certain. But he went on smiling, went on serving, was always happy to see us and the more the merrier.

But not today. Today he wasn't happy at all, and he certainly wasn't happy to see me.

o0o

His hand shook, and the saucer shook in his hand, the cup rattled in the saucer and the coffee slopped. Warren loved to anticipate; he always brought us coffee first thing, we didn't need to order it. Today was no different, except that today it looked like the last thing he wanted to be doing. I'd never seen a man that frightened, never dreamt of seeing anyone that frightened of me.

“Warren? What's up?”

Actually, it was perfectly clear what was up: I was here, and he was having to serve me coffee, and he was trembling with terror as he did it. The true question was
why?
, but I couldn't ask that directly.
Warren, why are you scared of me suddenly, what have I done?
— no, I couldn't do that. Not fair to either one of us. He just might be scared enough to answer me, and I really, really didn't want to know.

He got the cup and saucer down finally, dropping rather than putting it on the table and an awkward stretch away from me, with more coffee in the saucer than the cup.

“Not to worry,” I said, trying a smile to see if it helped. “I can slurp it.”

Didn't help at all, that smile. He seemed to read a threat in it, where there was truly nothing but a promise,
don't panic, Warren, I won't bite, honest.
He scurried back, all but ran through into the kitchen and out of my sight.

I sighed, shrugged for any curious observers —
just Warren, that's all, nothing to get worked up about
— and went over to the counter for a wad of serviettes, not to drip coffee down my shirtfront.

Too early still to hope for Laura, but I did that anyway, watching the door and listening for footsteps; and was still doing it when spitting fury came at me from the other direction, came from the kitchen, scorching down Warren's wake.

Not Laura's hand that touched me, and not light-fingered as Laura was: this was a man's grip on my shoulder, digging deep, digging to the bones and hurting.

I startled, gasped, tried to pull away and couldn't.

Looked round, and there was Morry. Short and heavy in his whites, shadow on his jowls and dark wiry hair curling even on the backs of his fingers, where they were clamped on me.

Absolute rage in him, making him also tremble even as he held me, this always-courteous man, this friend of mine.

“Out,” he said, lifting me one-handed from the bench, finding that so much easier than talking, his usual fluency down to monosyllables now and those making no sense to me. “You,” he said thickly, “out. Now.”

And pushed me towards the door, force enough to send me staggering into it, hard enough to bruise.

“Morry, what the hell...?” Angry in my turn, I twisted round to face him and never mind the audience now and never mind the dangers of too much truth, this was too much to let by. “What's going on here, what have I done?”

He reached for me again, and that was all his answer; but I lifted a hand to resist him, and saw how he flinched back suddenly, this great squat bull of a man. That was all the answer that I needed.

A family affair, this was: my family and his, and I'd walked into the middle of something, where I clearly wasn't welcome.

Oh, my priceless, Christless family. They could screw my life up without thinking, without realising, even; though if they realised they'd do it all the same. Probably do it with a little more relish, knowing what they did.

Understanding at last, I had nothing to offer Morry, no restitution in my gift. And I was still angry at him for manhandling me in front of witnesses: too angry to explain, even if he'd been calm enough to listen.

So I nodded abruptly, to let him know I had at least caught up with the action here; and then I opened the door and walked out, and thought,
That's another pleasure, another freedom gone. Terrific privilege, being a Macallan...

And I climbed the steps and stood irresolute on the pavement, bewildered and bereft; and that's where Laura found me when she came, when she finally did come. Still there, still dithering, going a little this way and a little that and utterly unmindful of her.

“Uh-huh,” she said, standing too far off and only her eyes touching me, not enough. “What's with this, then?”

“What?”

“This tribal war-dance, this soft-shoe shuffle, whatever you want to call it. This jigging around on the pavement.”

“It's Friday,” I said helplessly.

“It's Friday, right. I
know
it's Friday.” A long-suffering smile, a patient pace forward to pat me on the shoulder, and, “
Think
about it, Ben. Think about bagels, think about smoked salmon and fresh cream cheese. Think about
latkes
, think about
blinis
and fake caviar and sour cream. Lashings and lashings of sour cream, think about that. Then tell me why you're jigging about on the pavement; but tell me
inside
,” taking my arm, steering me, positively pushing me towards the steps when she found me recalcitrant, “don't ask me to jig along with you, right? Morry doesn't serve out here. What was it, were you waiting for me, is that it? Or somebody else, Vanessa and that crowd, anyone?”

“I can't,” I said.

“Can't wait? Me neither.”

“Can't come in. I've been thrown out, Laura. Morry threw me out.”

“Christ on a bicycle.” She gazed at me, horrified, giving due respect to the gravity of the situation. “What on earth did you do? Stupid?”

“I didn't
do
anything. It's who I am, is enough. And don't ask why, I don't know. Just the Macallans up to something, and he won't have me in the place.”

“Oh, Jesus.” All teasing fled now, she held my arm in both of hers, what comfort she could give; and said, “I'll find out, shall I? If he'll talk to me?”

“Please. I'd like to know.”

Laura nodded and ran light-footed down the steps, left me with nothing but a touch-memory of where her hands had been. Better than nothing, I supposed. I reminded myself.