Fade to Black (6 page)

The three friends hugged. Phoebe offered her heartfelt congratulations and Greg, in gestures Allie and Phoebe knew well, adjusted his tie probably for the twentieth time that day and tried in vain to smooth down his little spike of errant black hair in the front. Also, as expected, he quickly turned the conversation to the serious matter of beer.

“Err… I can’t do that, matey,” Allie said, touching his arm.

Not missing a beat, he laughed and called for three orange juices, specifying they be doubles.

They spent the next forty minutes chatting about her promotion, their own respective hopes and the disappointments they had endured thus far, all the while demolishing a classy, platter-style lunch.

Greg left to answer a call of nature and Phoebe, in typical style, leaned over and nudged Allie.

“Check out the hottie in the corner.” She nodded to Allie’s left. Allie thought everyone in the room would have noticed Phoebe’s theatrical, eye-rolling performance. Subtlety was not her strong suit. Allie paused for a moment, coolly sipping again at her orange juice, then followed Phoebe’s gaze. She saw a guy, maybe late thirties, with longish, thick dark hair and a shadow of stubble gracing a firm jaw line. He wore a tan jacket, blue open-neck shirt and darker blue jeans. He was absorbed in stirring sugar into his coffee.

She turned back to the enthusiastic Phoebe. “Bit eighties isn’t he?”

“
Jesus
, you’re hard to please, aren’t you?” Phoebe shook her shrubbery in feigned disgust. “I don’t know, Allie. If George-effing-Clooney walked through the door, you’d say he was too short or too tall or too old.”

Allie laughed and looked over again at Phoebe’s fancy. He glanced up at that moment, meeting her gaze. She lost her grip on her orange juice, but somehow managed to guide it down to the table, not without a thump. An electric current vibrated to her bones.

She had grunted involuntarily and Phoebe had not missed it. “Well now, was that a reaction or
what?”

Allie had flushed bright red and she knew it. She deliberately dropped her napkin, pausing a moment under the table to regain her composure.
Whoa!

Phoebe was still smiling when Allie finally resurfaced. Greg rejoined them and Phoebe grabbed his arm and started to blab, but stopped abruptly when she caught Allie’s gigantic warning look. Phoebe got it—a blind beggar would have gotten it—and she adroitly, albeit reluctantly, changed the subject.

The conversation relaxed and ranged through the usual topics, but Allie noticed Phoebe’s regular, knowing looks. She wasn’t going to let this go without a fight. Allie was on her hook.

They ordered coffees and Allie, rocking back in her chair, announced that she really liked the Feathers Inn.

“Can’t imagine why I suddenly thought of it,” Allie said, taking the opportunity to glance over again towards eighties man. He had gone.
Funny
, she thought with more than a tinge of disappointment,
I hadn’t noticed him leave
.

The memory of the white feather in the storm and her nightmare about drowning in feathers flooded back… and now she was in the Feathers Inn.
Feathers! How could I not have connected them?
She must have worn a strange expression because Phoebe leaned over and asked if she was ok.

Allie laughed and said she was fine—going completely bonkers, of course—but other than that, ‘all good’. They agreed the Feathers Inn would make a great local for them.

Allie realized she had also not yet mentioned the freaky text messages she was getting. Maybe it was because there was the off chance one of them was behind some sort of joke. After all, they’d all played silly pranks on each other over the many years they’d been friends. In truth, however, the messages were now really playing on her mind. She decided to fess up.

Even as she told them, she could see they genuinely had no knowledge of the messages. In fact, Greg and Phoebe expressed great concern–these things could be nasty, they said. Once the conversation about the texts had run its course, the mood lightened again and Allie raved about the fabulous bird sculpture above the Feathers’ verandah.

“I must have walked past this place a hundred times, but never noticed it before.”

Laughing, her friends exchanged puzzled looks.

“Sculpture?”

“See, you haven’t noticed it either! I’ll show you on the way out—it’s gorgeous!”

They paid their respective bills and, weaving through the still well-populated Inn, emerged under the verandah by the road. They stepped out during a break in the traffic so Allie could point out the sculpture.

It was no surprise to Greg and Phoebe that there wasn’t one.

*****

After the goodbyes with Greg and Phoebe and vague promises of catching up early the following week, Allie walked quickly back to her office, scanning left and right just in case she could spot her phantom text buddy. She was worried. The episode with the sculpture was just too much. She’d laughed it off at the time, but this was serious. Her heart had pounded like a hammer when she looked up to discover she’d merely imagined the sculpture. It had seemed so real to her, yet it didn’t exist—c
ouldn’t
have existed
.

She hurried through the Met offices and closed her office door behind her. She wondered again about what the hell her subconscious preoccupation with feathers, and now birds, was all about. Her phone bleeped again—another text message. She stared at the phone like it was a bomb and then decided to take it to the IT guys downstairs and see what they could make of the crazy messages—
if they
really were there
, she caught herself thinking. Finally, she weakened and read the message. It was from her sister, Jo. Thank God!

Jo asked,
'What time is dinner at home tonight? Need a lift?'
The girls always called their parents' house ‘home’, even though they were both well settled in their own apartments. Jo and her husband, Marcus, owned a place in Clapham, not that far from Allie. They had been furiously renovating, so any meal they didn’t have to prepare would be welcome. Allie confirmed the 7:30 p.m. kick-off for the dinner and accepted their offer of a ride to the St. Clair house in upscale Belgravia. She suggested a pickup at 7:00 p.m.

*****

Arthur Wendell clicked the lock on his brown leather satchel and closed the door to his Earl’s Court taxation consultancy and accountancy practice. He had but four clients, one large organization and a few private clients—those, he personally liked. He was financially comfortable, as a result.

It was 5:00 p.m. precisely. And it was Wednesday, his personal ‘treat’ night. Walking for exactly seven and a half minutes, he arrived at the heavy wooden door of the Black Crow Hotel, which had perched menacingly on the corner of Earl’s Court Road and Frankston Gardens in Chelsea for a hundred years. He saw barmaid Sarah Blascombe glance up from the job he knew she hated most, cleaning beer glasses, and acknowledge his arrival with the usual nod. Arthur Wendell sat at his regular, little round table, set for one, beside the staircase, and awaited the arrival of his Young’s Ramrod Special Bitter. He knew that Sarah would abide by the Wednesday night ritual and would already be pouring his beer for him. Once more he allowed himself the thought that she would one day make someone a nice wife. She knew men and understood the value of anticipation and ritual. His eyes wandered to her neckline as she momentarily bent low over the counter. He averted his eyes – she would think he was some sort of pervert if she caught him staring at her milky cleavage. He pushed the troublesome thoughts from his head and checked his watch. He was pleased to note all was progressing according to his treat-night timetable.

Sarah put a nice frothy head on the Young’s, looked over at Arthur and smiled.
There he is
, she thought,
regular as clockwork
.
Dressed, as always, in the same black trousers, a brown vest over a white buttoned-to-the-neck shirt, no tie, and fawn coat.
Funny little beige man
, she thought. He’d order the cod and chips and then, as an afterthought, politely ask whether he might trouble her for some extra tartar sauce, no matter how much had already been supplied.

It was always
exactly
the same routine. She’d worked at the ‘Crow since leaving secondary school after the accident. She loved it there. Its warm atmosphere and generally nice, chatty clientele suited her, and best of all, her father managed the pub— for nearly seven years. Arthur was the most regular of regulars in a pub that had built a profitable family of customers.

The ‘Crow had saved Sarah from seriously having to look for work when she left school–a task she’d found terrifying in prospect. Her father had come to the rescue and she hadn’t yet found a reason to leave. She’d ‘inherited’ Arthur when she started waitressing, serving him very nearly every Wednesday evening since, absences through her holidays and illnesses excepted. He was, in her view, a nice, middle-aged, slightly lonely man—although, she had once caught him furtively eyeing her blond hair and fuller figure. But that was ok; it went with job and the uniforms
were
stupidly tight.

It seemed to her that over the years, he had changed very little—maybe a little thicker around the middle, but his thin hair had never really lightened and his bespectacled face looked pretty much the same as time had worn on. If pressed, she’d put him at about fifty, but she’d have said that seven years ago as well. Above all, he was unfailingly courteous and seemed appreciative of her bouncy, friendly service. She could ask for no more.

Arthur enjoyed his fish and chips with extra sauce, paid the bill in cash, neatly folded his napkin, gathered his satchel and smiled his thanks at Sarah. He left the hotel and turned right onto Earl’s Court Road towards Watson’s Newsagency, where he would buy a copy of the latest Electronics Monthly. Before settling on accountancy as a career and discovering the brilliant symmetry of numbers, he had been mad keen as a kid to work in electronics. He loved the gadgetry and the magic of electricity. It illuminated the world, but there was an ever-present danger you ignored at your peril. It was misunderstood. But his father had been adamant—accountancy and a life in business it would be. That was when his father was home. Most of the time he was left with his mother and her… games. In a fit of pique, because he wouldn’t come back into bed with her, she’d smashed his major electronics project that would have shown the other kids at school he was somebody with
talent
.

He shrugged off the memory and wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead with his immaculately ironed handkerchief. He had to catch the 179 Bus to Notting Hill Gate at 6:20 p.m. Tonight he would also indulge his other passion. He would clean the upholstery again on his light-blue classic 1965 Mercedes 230s saloon—the one with the fin tail. He loved it when the rich upholstery shone. There wasn’t a mark on it or the body and he’d owned it for nearly twenty years. He drove it once a month from Notting Hill to Richmond Park and back. He always made himself a picnic lunch of home-baked bread, Dutch cheeses, pickles and a thermos of instant coffee. He hated that stuff they made in cafés.

He greeted the girl behind the shop counter with a warm ‘hello’. She returned his smile as he moved to the magazine racks. He hadn’t seen the girl before—he’d have to ask her name. It was nice to know the people with whom you regularly dealt. Arthur thought it just made life... nicer. He rifled through the magazines as if he might buy something other than the electronics magazine, but of course, he bought it again. Turning from the racks, he walked slightly to his left to check his hair before leaving the shop. That troublesome little cowlick might need some plastering down. He knew it would be the only mirror he’d have a chance to look into before boarding the bus. He harbored a more-than-slight hope that Francine Higgins, a recently widowed, forty-something woman who lived on his street, might just be catching the 179 home tonight as well. He fronted the mirror and stared into the black, dead eyes of a winged monster.

Arthur Wendell regained consciousness at the third stinging slap. He looked around wide-eyed before focusing on an earnest young face framed by black, curly hair no more than a foot from his own.

“Are you ok?” the young man enquired. “You’ve been out for about a minute—we were about to call an ambulance!”

Arthur looked again at him, then
through
him. He jerked involuntarily and tried to scramble to his feet.

“Take it easy, my man,” another, deeper voice said. “We have work to do.”

Arthur turned to see who had spoken, but there was only the young man and an elderly woman crouching unsteadily beside him. With their help, he struggled to his feet. He heard his glasses break under foot. Groaning, he bent down to pick up the shattered remnants. He realized with another jolt that he could see perfectly well without them. He turned the broken frame over in his hand and peered at it. Every minute detail was revealed to him—the tiny screws, the etching on the side ‘made in China’, even a tiny initial ‘H’ on the screw heads
.

“Yes, thank you,” he finally replied to the helpful young man. “I’m…
we’re fine
.”

Arthur Wendell didn’t catch the 179 bus to Notting Hill. He lingered at the bus stop and disinterestedly watched as Francine Higgins boarded. Her tight skirt and furtive look over her shoulder should have had his adrenaline pulsing. But not now. Francine might have been made of cardboard, for all he cared. Another filled his brain.
Consumed him
. He had to have her—that was what she was there for. He knew it. He now understood what she’d been thinking; it was so clear now! She had been put there for him—
a gift
—and he’d nearly missed it! She was
the one
! He almost physically cringed as he thought how utterly stupid and insensitive it was of him not to have sensed her feelings!