Significance (13 page)

‘I'll give it another six months, then I'll tell him that I want a promotion. I won't insist on a pay rise, that's not the point, but I just don't think he is getting the best from me. He's overlooking the fact that I have ideas and talent and, oh, just so much more to give.'

Scott had responded soothingly, although for himself he could not understand why anyone would ask for more responsibility without the reward of higher wages. Especially when her sub
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editor's salary was not much more than that of a hat
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check girl or waitress. Less if you figured in tips.

But then Marilyn was different. She wrote poetry and strange little stories, some of which had been published here and there in what to him were obscure magazines that you never saw on sale anywhere. Except at those quirky independent bookshops she loved so much. Ramshackle places on beaten
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down streets that usually sold dream
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catchers and elaborate handcrafted jewellery and pottery alongside the books, and which had bulletin boards advertising book groups and classes in creative writing and shamanism, and had an in
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house tarot reader.

Every time one of these independents went under Marilyn was as upset as if a beloved and eccentric aunt had died.

He did not understand that part of her life, but loved her for it all the same, and listened thoughtfully when she read one of her new poems to him and always tried to latch onto some particular phrase or description in order to make a positive comment about it.

She could trace almost every part of her life through her writing. It was all there, her childhood; memories of kindergarten, breaking her arm when she was seven and fell off her bike, falling in love the first time with a boy named Simon, her underage drinking, the way a black squirrel looked when she watched it fly and scamper through a leafless tree and how that had frightened her. The fright, she explained when he asked about it, was existentialist, she compared it to Munch's painting of ‘The Scream'. The analogy didn't help him much and some people might have found it inflated, pretentious, but he loved her so he put his cynicism aside. And he and his love for her and hers for him, their words, their lovemaking, all of it entered the pantheon of her life and experiences, was memorialised and fixed, and given a permanence in her writing that he sometimes found unnerving.

Perhaps, were it not for this confessional habit of hers, he might have confessed to her that strange dream or memory that persistently haunted him. The one that would not leave him, and found him forever standing malevolently and guiltily over his younger brother's cot, his boyhood pillow in his hands, the Lone Ranger on his prancing horse about to gallop off to right wrongs and undo evil. What kind of story or poem would Marilyn have created out of that?

It was just as well he'd never told her. Just as he would not mention his bitter exchange with the strange young English woman.

Sleeping dogs are best left sleeping.

But sooner or later he would have to discuss what had been said about Aaron. About his future, their future.

As he neared the house, he saw that a light was still on in the front room though the hall was in darkness. He entered quietly, closing the front door carefully behind him and calling out in a soft voice, ‘Mar? Mar. It's me.'

She did not answer. He could hear the sound of the TV and see a slit of pale yellow light under the door to the living room. He walked softly over and opened it. The TV screen glowed bright green and men raced over it like so many ants. A football match. He knew immediately that she must have fallen asleep on the couch, and sure enough, when he peered over its back, there she was curled up with the woollen throw half covering her body. Her lips were partly opened, and the sound of her breathing barely perceptible. She never snored, though at times she spoke in her sleep, giving vent to strange phrases and anxieties. Once he had heard her say in a dismayed voice ‘but the fish won't drink lemonade'. In the morning he'd told her about it and recently, just a few days before they'd left for France, she'd heard that her poem, ‘The Fish Won't Drink Lemonade', had been accepted for publication in an anthology of poems for children.

He gazed at her, wondering whether to wake her so that she could get to bed and go to sleep again, or whether to leave her in peace. Gently he rearranged the throw so that it covered her shoulders, then he switched off the TV but even the sudden silence didn't cause her to stir. He was not yet ready for bed himself and so he went through to the kitchen, poured himself a whisky, then sat drinking it at the table while he idly flicked through a collection of leaflets about places of interest in the region that the Clement family had left for them.

And while he did not think that Aaron would tolerate, let alone appreciate the medieval architecture and elaborate stone carvings on the many cathedrals, nor the war cemeteries, nor the interesting history o
f
Joan of Arc and her battles with the English, he none the less read about them and imagined that at some future time he and Marilyn would come here again, unencumbered by duty and able to just be regular tourists. Unnoticed, ordinary, free.

He did not see what time it was and when Marilyn appeared blinking groggily at the doorway to the kitchen, with her hair awry and the throw over her shoulders, neither did she.

‘Come on,' he said, and rose from his chair leaving the half
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full glass on the table, and with his arms around her, the two of them went upstairs to bed.

Like Alice

Lucy was feeling angry at her lack of ability to handle even the simplest of situations. No wonder during the first few days of the holiday she had stuck to the safe routine of a day exploring followed by dinner at La Coquille Bleue under the watchful gaze of Madame Gallo and the beautiful blue
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eyed dog.

She did not fully understand why she had followed the Canadian man. It had been stupid and embarrassing, but thank God, she would never, with luck, see him again.

And the old guy in the bar? Why had she flinched so obviously when he touched her arm? He had only meant to be kind. And the young African who had tried to strike up a conversation? She had a sense that she'd had an unpleasant expression on her face when he addressed her, that she had gaped at him, bug
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eyed. But then what was she meant to do with all that information about cousins in Paris and aunts who were doctors in Camden Town. What was she meant to say, I went to Camden Lock market once? I have a doctor?

Her reaction to these men was to some extent due to her years in London. People there do not make contact with strangers so readily. Everyone has their guard up, a cold eye waiting for the fool who tries to chat on the bus. It was not like Glasgow, or the small town where she grew up.

And with her stupid bleached blonde hair and cotton dress, she probably looked more like bloody Alice in Wonderland than Catherine Deneuve or Brigit Bardot.

No more adventures. No more chasing after white rabbits, Canadian or otherwise. And no more diving into drink after drink as if they were the secret gateway to the sodding rabbit hole. Things went badly wrong for Alice every time she found something labelled ‘Eat me' or ‘Drink me'. Not that Alice got drunk, but there was certainly a hallucinatory quality to much of Lewis Carroll's famous work. Maybe in the morning everything that happened tonight would seem like a dream.

And Lucy was drunk. Not so drunk as to not even know that she was drunk, but enough to feel disorientated and confused about which way to walk.

She had hurried out of the bar and automatically turned left. She had sensed the men gazing after her, as puzzled by her abrupt departure as they had been by her arrival, and so, because she didn't want to appear lost or confused, she had hurried up the road so that she could no longer be seen from the window.

It was surprisingly dark out on the street, nearly all of the other bars and restaurants had closed for the night, so no light spilled invitingly from their interiors, and where earlier there'd been multi
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coloured fairy lights strung up and lit on the awnings these were now switched off. And the pavements were not thronged with people ambling pleasantly about, and none of the outside tables at any of the cafés were occupied. No hubbub of voices filled the air, no music poured out from open doors. No one flew by on a bike, there were hardly any cars. And no taxis either.

Lucy stopped walking abruptly and thought about going back to the bar to ask for help. Her bag slipped from her shoulder, it wasn't really the sort of bag you put over your shoulder, but swinging it in one hand seemed to risk having it snatched. And she knew that she was the sort of idiot who, in the event some guy on a motorbike grabbed her bag (she'd heard that this had happened in Rome. Or was it Paris?) would hang on instead of letting go, and would thus be dragged along in the bike's wake and end up battered and torn as well as robbed.

She pulled her bag onto her shoulder and kept one hand on it, then realising that the longer she stood still the more she looked like she was either lost or a hooker, she continued on in the same direction and did not notice when her cardigan slipped from her shoulders. She only noticed that she shivered suddenly. ‘Someone walking on your grave' people said if they detected such a shudder. Goosebumps sprang into life on her arms and neck and legs, tingling and unpleasant.

Just walk, she told herself. Nothing is going to happen.

She sensed something behind her. She was suddenly aware of someone running swiftly towards her. She did not so much hear footsteps exactly, but something alerted her, a movement in the air or some sort of sixth sense. It was far off but as it got a little nearer she faintly heard soft, fast footfalls, a swift rhythmic rustle of cloth. She did not turn around to look, but picked up her pace, tightened her grip on her bag and kept her head high, her back straight.

As soon as she reached the next turning she walked briskly up it and once she was certain she was out of sight she took off her shoes and ran before ducking into the shelter of a doorway. She heard a man's voice call out, ‘Hey!' and retreated further into the doorway, her heart pounding, her breath shallow and rasping.

After a few minutes she found the courage to creep forward and peek out from her hiding place. Nothing. No one. No sound.

She lingered a little longer in the doorway. It was a deep concrete
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lined portico with a steel
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shuttered door at the back and a smashed lamp fitting above her head. There was a strong smell of beery urine, and black marker
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penned graffiti on the blistered yellow
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white gloss paint. The stone floor beneath her bare feet was slightly sticky. Why hadn't she brought her mobile? If she had a phone now, she could ring for a cab. Or the hotel? Or the police? Or her dad? Or Mitra, her friend from college who she confided in and was always wise and non
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judgmental but never afraid of the truth? Or Thom?

She almost wept at the thought of
Thom, but bit her lip and fought off the impulse to cry.

Oh, God, Thom, what have I done?

She heard a motorbike buzz by, the noise of its engine rising and falling in pitch and bouncing off the narrow streets so that she wasn't sure where it came from. The sound was sinister. For no other reason than her particular circumstances. She knew that. Even through the booze. Yet she could not help considering how easy it would be to hunt down a lone woman on foot if someone had a fast motorbike. The street she was on had some residential properties on it. She glimpsed them in the distance. Nearly all of them had shutters; either old
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fashioned and made of wood, or modern metal grills, all firmly closed. But beyond the shutters there must be ordinary spaces, untidy kitchens, comfortable dining rooms, bedrooms with soft carpets and warm beds with good, decent kind people lying on them, blissfully unaware of the dark streets beyond. It seemed to Lucy that the houses themselves had closed their eyes to her and would not open them until morning.

Perhaps if she continued up this road it would lead to her hotel. Or to another hotel? Would they let her check in so late at night? She had credit cards with her, though not her passport. The other route, being made up mostly of commercial businesses of one sort or another, was far safer while all of the shops and bars and cafés were open. Once closed, however, the place became entirely lifeless and only served to highlight her vulnerability. To make matters worse, because she had been following the Canadian man, she had paid less attention to the route she had taken. She had not taken mental note of landmarks or street names. And even Alice, as she fell down the rabbit hole, had noticed all the curious objects in the nooks and crannies around her. Not that Alice ever attempted to go back the way she had come. But then hers was a land of wonder, not terror.

Or at least not terror like this. Cold and banal in a grubby doorway with sticky black piss
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grime on the soles of your bare feet and no certainty about the best plan for the next five minutes, no way of knowing the way back to safety.

Dorothy might have said ‘there's no place like home' and clicked her heels; Lucy couldn't even put her shoes back on.