The Hunger Trace (21 page)

He swung his basket down the frozen foods aisle, trying to guess which ice cream Louisa would like. Plain, she would claim, but he already knew her better than that. A woman in a trouser suit sailed towards him with a deep trolley, holding the hand of a little boy. It was too late for Adam to turn around, and he knew what was coming. The woman raised her eyebrows in recognition, her lips parting with good humour as she prepared to greet him. Adam waited for the circumstances of their meeting to dawn on her. The woman’s face froze, her eyes a little wider. She coloured, averted her eyes, and pushed the trolley on. ‘Thomas, get here. Now,’ she said to the little boy, who had disengaged to look at the desserts.

Adam stood still and waited for the woman and her son to pass. Last Christmas, that same woman, who had claimed to be called Collette (though Adam had seen household bills addressed to Linda) had pleaded to be allowed to suck his cock. He loitered by the bags of ice for the short time he knew it would take her to curtail her shopping trip, before making his own way to the check-out.

The machine at the till rejected his debit card. It had been a bad month, with the car repair and his moonlight sabbatical. He emptied his pockets onto the conveyor belt: a wallet with no money in it, £9.20 in change, his keys, half a blister pack of painkillers and a condom which he quickly shifted to his other hand.

The checkout girl sighed loudly and began to sort through his coins and goods, trying to work out what he could afford. Adam had already done the maths. ‘Can I leave these vegetables here, duck?’ he said.

‘No law against it,’ she said.

‘I was probably getting ahead of myself, anyway, buying asparagus,’ he said. The girl didn’t even look up.

As he drove home he thought of Louisa. The previous night he had been to her house. She was always nervous when arranging a meeting, and she’d told him to park in the village and walk up through the pines. Her anxiety soon wore off, and she had reluctantly agreed to play the guitar. He loved the way her face stayed almost still while she played, just the odd raise of the eyebrows, a tightening of the mouth, her scarred fingers sliding smoothly down the neck.

When he left the cottage, she had walked with him. ‘I’ll just go to the end of the path,’ she had said. And then she had continued all the way down to the village with him, looking away with a little smile, daring him to mention it.

When he drove away from their early meetings, the purity of his feelings were contaminated by the pull of wherever he was heading next. So he had begun to cancel his appointments.

In the mornings, the reality of the situation was clear: his choices had been made many years ago; there was no room for the feelings he had now; the whole thing with Louisa was impossible. But throughout the day she would just fill him up. The thought of her enlivened him, gave him an oblivious sense of hope. He’d never asked himself if he could live without his night-job. His feelings of anxiety – the need to please a stranger every day – Louisa was smashing all that to pieces.

The clouds above his road were blue and yellow. He caught himself checking his mirrors as he passed the take-away, to see if she was following. He smiled.

Louisa knocked and waited, holding the gift in her fist. She had treated the mouse skull he had picked up that first night at her house and attached an old falcon bell and a chain to make a key-ring. She thrust it at him as he opened the door.

‘A say, look at that! Is that the mouse from—’

‘The very same.’

He smiled broadly, revealing the gap in his teeth, and attached the charm to his bunch of keys. ‘That’s mint, that. Eh up, isn’t this what you use to find your hawks?’

‘Well, we use transmitters now, but yes. Same principle.’

‘So it’s another way of you stalking me.’

‘That’s the idea,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he said.

Louisa laughed and scratched her neck. Reciprocation was a novelty, and sometimes a frightening one. She could smell meat in the kitchen, and the wild boozy stench of mushrooms cooking in sherry. It smelled like a home.

‘I’m a bit worried about my hawks, actually,’ she said above the noise of the extractor fan as he poured her a Guinness. ‘It’s difficult to get them out, what with the weather.’

‘And the sex,’ he said.

Louisa ignored him, trying not to grin. ‘It’s important that they get exercise. There’s a few of them that I’m trying to cut down.’

‘Cut down?’ Adam said.

‘Reduce their weight.’

‘Why?’

Louisa rolled her eyes. He was evidently interested by what she did, but he was not as intuitive as Maggie. ‘To get them keen and sharp. You feed up a captive hawk and it won’t do the business. It’s not so easy to get a fat bird to do what you want in
my
game.’

‘I’m shocked and appalled.’

‘No you’re not,’ Louisa said.

The food was sticky and good, and she told him that a simple salad was just as tasty as any fancy-dan asparagus when he apologised for the lack of it. They were in bed before seven.

Adam’s bedroom was quite bare, with white linen and soft lamps with papery shades in the corners. Louisa would have sneered at such décor a month ago. Now, she held his hands beneath the sheets.

‘I’m not the first, am I?’ she said.

Adam frowned. ‘What do you mean? I’m not a virgin.’

‘This must be something that happens. A fling. You have this kind of thing with clients all the time, right?’

‘I don’t have this kind of thing with anybody,’ he said. It was difficult to distrust him.

‘Are you going out tomorrow night?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Is business usually so slow?’

‘I’m taking a little break from that side of things,’ he said.

Louisa paused. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

She disliked herself the moment she said it, and saw the glimmer of hurt in Adam’s face. He looked at her sincerely. ‘Look. As for Detton, I won’t go—’

She shushed him with a finger over her lips.

For the moment, this was how she dealt with the feelings his job aroused in her: the odd joke, avoidance, and a little snipe now and again. She was always aware of his mobile phone in the room, set to silent vibrate. To her surprise, she found herself wondering about the women in the village – women she had thought boring before. Tim Nettles’ sister, a divorcee, often wore leggings, and her thighs were toned and firm for a woman of her age. When Rosie Wicks served her a pint in the Hart, Louisa tried to imagine the older woman’s desires. Her husband was fat, and often drank ale well into the night with the regulars. Did Rosie ever become lonely or frustrated? And of course there was always Maggie, lean and supple, across the way. Don’t think of it, Louisa told herself. Just don’t. It was easy, at that time, to avoid the issue, because they were together all the time.

At a corporate hawking display, Louisa addressed a group of account executives on the lawn of a country club. ‘Take a look at the size of Fred’s eyes,’ she said, holding the Harris hawk on her fist. ‘Proportionally, they are much bigger than those of a human.’ She went into her usual rant. As she spoke, she flashed back to her nights with Adam, the roughness of his fingers on her shoulder, the surge of feelings through her skin. ‘The hawk has a sensual world which is far superior to ours,’ she said. She smiled, because, at last, she realised she was wrong.

Maggie walked the hardcore paths of the park, early one morning in December, wondering about the lone ibex and where he might be. Could an animal like that survive in the semi-urban wilderness of Derbyshire? There had been no news since the false alarm at the building site.

From a distance, she saw Button, one of the otters, rise to the surface of the dark pond, sniffing the air for the scent of the little boy who stood by the barrier. Maggie watched their stand-off through the mist, the boy sucking on the end of a Mars bar while Button ducked in and out of the reeds for a better view. The boy bent down, picked up a stone and hurled it at Button, who was quick enough to dodge, but the boy threw another, which hit the surface just as Button disappeared beneath it.

Maggie raced over to the boy. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she said, taking him by the arm, which had the effect of raising him on to one foot. She had not realised how small he was. He did not seem perturbed.

His mother caught up with Maggie. She was dressed in tight jeans and an expensive-looking raincoat. ‘Get your hands off him,’ she said.

‘He threw a stone at one of the animals,’ Maggie said.

The woman shook her head, almost wearily. ‘If you don’t let go of his arm, I’ll call the police,’ she said.

‘What?’ Maggie said, relinquishing her grip on the boy. She had pulled his coat out of shape. ‘It’s me who should be calling the police,’ Maggie said.

‘Go ahead. Call the police on a six-year-old boy for throwing a stone at a . . .’ The boy’s mother gestured to the pond, which contained only the noises of Button’s underwater lightning switches.

The woman shook her head and took hold of the boy’s hand. She looked back at Maggie as they walked away. ‘Stupid,’ she said, quietly.

After a moment staring at the water, Maggie made her way back towards the house. From the corner of her eye she saw the high vertical jump of the lynx. By the time she turned her head, the lynx was hidden in the foliage on top of his wooden shelter. Maggie recalled the time just after David died, when she had come into the living room to find the lynx lying on the sofa, his paws bandaged, his face swollen with sleep. Philip had told her the lynx was tame, and drowsy from his medication, but Maggie had hardly been sure, listening to his almost human cries through the house that week.

Maggie had been anxious in those days, intimidated by the size of the grounds, but now the park made her feel enclosed. She had a sudden urge to smash the network of rails and barriers, as the intruders had done; to sweep the whole lot off the top of the hill. The place would be better as open grazing and woodland, the animals managing it themselves. Just red deer, horses.

She had to admit that deer were not endangered in the least. She only wanted deer on the park because she loved them. In her mind she heard the warnings of her neighbour and former friend.
‘It’s ignorant and disgusting to invest animals with human characteristics.’

‘Oh leave me alone,’ Maggie mumbled. Then, much quieter, with a brief look to the west, she said, ‘Don’t.’

She walked back to the house, and in the hallway, Philip abruptly curtailed a conversation with the vet and nodded at Maggie.

‘I know what species we need to get rid of, now, Phil,’ she said.

‘Oh aye?’ said Philip.

‘Fucking people,’ she said.

Philip smiled. ‘Got a call from Post Office, Maggie. They’ve got a parcel for you,’ he said.

‘Can’t they bring it up?’

‘Not enough postage.’

Maggie pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and watched the bursts of light.

*    *    *

‘Do you want to eat out tonight? I know somewhere quiet,’ Louisa said, as they made their way through Detton in the Golf.

‘Can’t,’ he said.

They fell silent. Adam was back to his moonlight job, and how could Louisa complain, when she had practically suggested it. They stopped at the lights and Louisa saw Maggie come out of the Post Office with a small box, her shoulders hunched against the cold as she took the pedestrian crossing. Louisa ducked down in the passenger seat, untied and re-tied her boot laces, trying to whistle casually, not realising that she was whistling the theme from
Jaws.

‘She’s gone,’ Adam said.

‘Who?’ Louisa said, rising slowly.

Adam laughed.

‘It’s not because of you,’ Louisa said. ‘The sneaking around.’

‘Oh aye. Turn you on, does it?’ he said.

‘No, actually,’ Louisa said.

‘Me neither. Maybe we need some privacy. Maybe I should take you away.’

‘No. There’s no need.’ She looked at him. ‘Would you? Would you do that?’

‘Aye.’

‘When?’

‘How about today? Just somewhere we could relax a bit.’

‘Where?’

‘Matlock.’

At that time of year, the town had a snow-globe beauty. The steep stretch of the cliffs dwarfed the buildings; motorbike lights and Christmas lights blinked through the grey. Louisa recalled the places she had sometimes eaten with Oggie – her real past, as opposed to the one she had fantasised with David.

They rode a cable car above the town. Louisa remained silent and vertiginous in the swinging booth. As they neared the middle of the line, where the cars stopped for a moment, she saw that Adam’s eyes were closed and his hands gripped a bunch of his jacket. ‘You don’t like heights?’ she said.

‘I’m shitting it,’ he said.

‘Why did you suggest the cable cars, then?’

‘Didn’t want you to think I was a pussy.’

They remained arm-in-arm for the rest of the journey and were so pleased to arrive on firm ground that the rest of the afternoon took on the quality of a second life. Louisa found a good chip-shop and took great pleasure in the meal: the hotness of the tea going down, the radioactive greenness of the mushy peas, the white linen folds of the haddock. She looked across to see if Adam felt the same. He was shovelling it in. ‘This fish is like crack,’ he said.