Rubbernecker (25 page)

‘Really?’ She sighed.

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘Really.’

‘In that case,’ said Meg with a wry little smile, ‘tomorrow night we par-
tay
.’

It was the second Thursday. Sarah hadn’t even noticed the first one after she’d received Professor Madoc’s letter; that week had passed in a liquid blur of calling in sick to the card shop, and the smell of her own unwashed sheets.

But this was the second Thursday, and now she sat by the phone all evening, with the cat on her lap, watching the local news. Every bulletin that passed without word of a young man hanged or drowned or found on the railway tracks allowed her to uncap the Vladivar and drink to the fact that Patrick was probably still alive.

Or that he hadn’t come home yet; she wasn’t sure which.

The thought of his return filled her with a slow panic. So much so that she had not called Professor Madoc or the Cardiff police to enquire as to where Patrick might be now that he’d been expelled. Nor had she driven the forty-odd miles to Cardiff and knocked on the door of the little terraced house where she had left him last September.

Not even when she was sober.

There was no reason for her to worry. She had paid Patrick’s rent until the end of the spring term, and he had twenty pounds a week to live on. It wasn’t much, but it was all she’d been able to afford without making applications and supplications, and coming to the attention of who knew what authorities? Easier just to tighten their belts. Luckily Patrick didn’t really care about clothing or food – or how little there was of either.

Sarah Fort eyed the phone warily. It was already gone eleven. It was unlikely to ring now.

The relief was immense and she celebrated by finishing the bottle.

If Patrick came back, he came back, and she would deal with it then. If he did not – then it would release her in more ways than one.

44

TRACY EVANS WAS
fat.

Fat, fat,
fat
.

She glared at herself in the mirror at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t just her tummy; fat seemed to be laying itself down in rude slabs on her cheeks, her neck, her upper arms.

She’d looked forward to pregnancy. Gone were the days when a pregnant woman had to waddle around wearing a pup tent to cover her bulge. Nowadays young women flaunted their bumps in little black dresses and posed naked in magazines cradling their perfect, smooth bellies.

Nowhere in the celebrity gossip columns did she remember seeing anyone who looked the way
she
did after a mere five months – like a pumped-up version of herself, with trucker’s arms and increasingly piggy eyes. She’d
bought
a little black maternity dress, but she’d blown up so fast that she’d never had a chance to show it off, and now it mocked her every time she opened the wardrobe, where Mr Deal –
Raymond
– had cleared a space at the end of his rail for her. The dress was so narrow she couldn’t imagine getting a
leg
into it, let alone her entire bulk.

Mr Deal said she looked fine, but he’d stopped touching her in bed. She had failed to interest him even by expanding her range of sexual positions – like unlocking another level in Mario Kart. She still stayed over three nights a week, but now he only kissed her goodnight on the cheek, with his hand on her beefy shoulder.

Tracy watched the corners of her mouth suddenly tug downwards, as if operated by strings. She loved him. She
loved
him! Shouldn’t that have made it easier to eat for one and a tiny weeny foetus, instead of for six men and a boy?

Apparently not.

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and looked at the ceiling, to avoid smudging her mascara. She didn’t have time to fix it; they were going for a Valentine’s Day dinner at the Thai House. Just the name of the restaurant made Tracy’s burgeoning tummy rumble and she was seized by a sudden hostility for the child within her. She imagined a troll: a rubber-faced, sharp-toothed predator, selfish and demanding and always ravenous. Of course, she knew that everything would be different four months from now when she held her in her arms and fell in love for the second time, but until then, her daughter (Jordan or Jamelia, she couldn’t decide) felt like an enemy to be routed from her body at the first possible opportunity.

In the meantime, outside the bedroom Mr Deal was displaying surprising enthusiasm. He had painted the fifth bedroom a happy yellow and she’d come round one day to find all kinds of baby stuff – clothes and toys, and a new crib. Not just new to
them
, but new to
anyone
. It wasn’t the crib with the white fairy-tale canopy that
she
would have chosen, but, whatever, the ticket said it had cost £895 from Mothercare, and Tracy had never spent that much on a
car
!

Raymond’s choice of baby clothes left a lot to be desired, too – all neutrals and whites and yellows, when everyone knew a little girl needed to be smothered in pink.

She thought it a bit strange that they hadn’t gone shopping together but she hid her disappointment. At least he was
involved
, which was more than she could have expected from most men of her own age, and she told him it was
all wonderful
.

And Tracy was sure it would be.

Sure because the nursery was her insurance. Where else would the baby live but that bright, sunshiny room? And where else would
she
live, if not with her baby? Raymond just did things
differently
from other men, that was all – and it was part of the reason she loved him.

She smiled bravely at herself in the mirror and poked her hair into perfect place.

Not long now. And once Jordan or Jamelia (or possibly Jaden?) came along, she’d lose the weight, and she’d start going to clubs again, and they would take long, exotic foreign holidays – the kind spent on a fancy lilo, while cute, tanned waiters swam out to serve them cocktails stuffed with pineapple slices and umbrellas.

Her mother had already agreed to have the baby.

45

PATRICK HADN’T BEEN
to a party since he was five years old, when the clamour of twenty over-sugared children in such disorganized proximity had led to a meltdown on a scale rarely witnessed during musical chairs. The very word ‘party’ had the power to trigger in him flashbacks of wailing classmates, overturned furniture, and a big brown dog gulping down spilled jelly.

It all hit him with fresh clarity when Dr Spicer opened the door of his flat. The music alone made him take a nervous step backwards across the corridor.

‘Hi,’ said Spicer. ‘Come in!’

Meg did just that, but Patrick stayed where he was. Meg turned and pointed at the bottle of wine she’d insisted that they buy at the corner shop. Apparently it was their entrance ticket. He’d bought a bottle of Coke for himself. It was plastic, not glass, but it was better than nothing.

Patrick handed the wine to Spicer and said, ‘Where’s Scott?’

Spicer laughed and said thank you, and Meg smiled and let their tutor kiss her cheek.

Spicer looked at him. ‘Come on in, Patrick. It’s nice to see you.’

He looked very different without his white coat and blue gloves, and Patrick didn’t like it. He hadn’t been prepared for Spicer in jeans and a Cardiff rugby shirt. It made him feel as if he had already lost control of the situation.

‘Is Scott here?’ he said, without moving.

‘Yeah, he found out about it somehow,’ said Spicer with a wink that made Meg giggle.

Still Patrick stood rooted to the deep-green carpet of the hallway. ‘Can you get him for me?’

Spicer smiled and beckoned with the wine. ‘Why don’t you come in and find him?’

Patrick folded his arms across his chest and took a step backwards. ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said to Meg. ‘You go and get him.’

‘Don’t be daft, Patrick,’ she said. ‘No one’s going to bite you.’

Patrick looked past her to the people and the lights and the bass that made his stomach vibrate unpleasantly, even from here. He licked his lips, which were suddenly dry.

‘C’
mon
,’ said Meg, and took a step towards him. For an awful moment Patrick thought she was going to take his hand. Instead she said quietly, ‘If you don’t, you might never know.’

Then she turned and walked inside as if she expected him to follow.

Not knowing was not an option. So – after a long, long hesitation – he did.

Everyone was there. What seemed to be dozens of students, all looking impossibly sophisticated, with wine glasses and bottled beer in their hands, without their grubby paper coats. There were also several of the younger tutors – Dr Clarke, Dr Spiller and Dr Tsu – laughing and talking with two women Patrick didn’t recognize, and fitting in with everyone seamlessly. They all seemed to know why they were here. They all looked as if they
belonged
.

Meg said ‘Hi’ and waved to a slim, dark-haired woman whom Patrick didn’t recognize.

‘Hi, Patrick,’ said Rob, and Patrick nodded.

‘Nice party,’ Rob added.

‘Is it?’ said Patrick.

Rob stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and laughed. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh,’ said Patrick. ‘OK.’

‘Want a beer?’ said Rob, and picked one out of a barrel filled to the brim with ice and bottles.

‘No,’ he said, and hurried on.

Meg led him through to the kitchen, which was empty, and furthest from the stereo. Even so, by the time they got there, Patrick wanted to sob or scream with itchy repulsion and the pain in his ears. He sat with his back to the wall, then pulled the kitchen table towards him across the fancy quarry tiles so that no one could pass behind him. There was some small relief in having his back covered, even if his face and chest and hands and legs felt hopelessly vulnerable. There were a dozen bottles on the table and Patrick rearranged them into a glass barrier.

Meg found a tumbler in a cupboard. ‘Do you want a drink?’ she said.

He shook his head. The Coke was cold and tempting in his hands but he didn’t dare open it, because it had become his guardian for the night. Full, it protected him; empty, it lost its power. Opening it would seem like the action of a man who had dropped his guard.

Meg put the tumbler on the table and went over to the counter nearest the sink, where more bottles were waiting for customers.

Patrick noticed that the glass Meg had chosen had a faint smear near the rim. He got up and washed it.

‘Thanks,’ she said, sitting down and pouring herself some wine. She took a long gulp and smiled at him. ‘So, Patrick, how many Valentine’s cards did you get?’

‘One.’

‘Only one? Who was it from?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You said you were going to find Scott.’

Meg stared silently into her wine glass for a while, then said, ‘OK then.’

When she’d gone, Patrick opened the cupboard and examined
all
the glasses. He ran a bowlful of soapy water and washed them and put them on the rack to dry. Then he opened the cutlery drawer. He emptied the whole lot into the hot water.

He flinched as Spicer came in on a wave of noise.

‘I didn’t realize the kitchen was contaminated,’ he said with a wink.

‘That’s OK,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m cleaning it now.’

Spicer laughed, and started to transfer pizzas from the freezer to the eye-level oven. ‘I’m sorry you were asked to leave the course, Patrick.’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘It was inconsistent.’

‘I hear you took it out on the porter.’

Patrick shrugged. Removing all the knives and forks and spoons and bits like tin-openers and broken candles meant he could now see that the tray needed washing too. And the drawer underneath that.

Dr Clarke came in and said, ‘Hello, Slugger.’

Patrick thought he must have confused him with someone else.

Dr Clarke sat on the corner of the table and drank beer from a bottle and made small talk with Spicer that Patrick didn’t listen to. Up to his elbows in warm suds, he felt suddenly more at home. By the time Meg came back with Scott, he was sitting at the table once more, rubbing the clean cutlery to a shine and placing it neatly back in its freshly washed tray.

Scott dragged a chair out with a clatter and flopped down into it. His Mohawk was half up and half down, and his face was shiny.

‘All right, Paddy!’

‘Patrick,’ said Patrick.

‘You’re such a tight-arse, you know?’

‘I know. Did you take the peanut?’

‘What peanut?’

‘The one I found in Number 19.’

‘Hey, I didn’t take your stupid peanut, so just get over it.’

Patrick didn’t stop polishing the knife in his hand, but he did stop
thinking
about polishing it. His heart sank. Scott had not taken the peanut. He believed that, not because Scott was inherently trustworthy, but because Scott was drunk, and drunks told the truth, in his experience. His drunken mother had once told him that she’d almost killed herself because of him – that on the day his father had died, she’d gone up Penyfan and come
this close
to throwing herself off.
Because of you!
she’d shouted.
Because of you!